Terribly sad news… the body of 17 year-old Ben Stanford, grandson of state Sen. Jim Preuitt (D - Talladega), was found in Georgia today. He had been missing since November 5.
I did not expect this outcome. Such a sad day… Please remember this family and Kathy’s family in prayers.
Looks like Steve Carter, a candidate for Lousiana state representative, has found a popular campaign issue. The signs, according to the article, are “wildly popular in Baton Rouge.”
Former Alabama head football coach Mike Dubose is coaching at Millsaps in Mississippi and might should be on a suicide watch after Saturday’s game against Trinity University. I always considered the end of the 1982 Stanford-California game to be an unbelievable finish, but this…
Trinity takes over on its 40 with 2 seconds left…
Picture the ending of the Stanford-California game in 1982, without the band and with three times as many laterals.
Trinity University used 15 laterals after a completed pass on the final play of the game for an unlikely touchdown and 28-24 victory Saturday at stunned Millsaps. Call it the “Mississippi Miracle” for the Tigers, an NCAA Division III team in San Antonio.
Via YouTube:
Hat tip to The Huntsville Times’ Breaking News site.
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The accounting fraud of Healthsouth’s executives involved showing paper profits that were not real to meet Wall Street expectations. Last week, Healthsouth announced that the IRS was refunding $440 million in overpaid taxes.
The company had to borrow money to make the tax payments on the falsified profits.
Borrowing money to pay a debt you don’t owe to keep up appearances… Probably not worth passing along, but it reminds me of a comedian from years ago who said his family was poor but proud. They didn’t have air conditioning in their car but they had to drive around in stifling heat with the windows up because his mama didn’t want anybody to know they didn’t have air conditioning.
If listening to four southern Agriculture Commissioners (including our own Ron Sparks) banter about a milking contest is your thing, then today’s your day.
And fwiw, Ron Sparks came in a respectable second in yesterday’s contest behind Tennessee’s Ken Givens who was raised on a dairy farm.
I have heard some take note of Ron Sparks’ southern accent before, but he sounds like a Midwestern news anchor compared to some of these guys.
The occasion was the Sunbelt Agricultural Expo.
I wonder about the future of newspapers and news reporting.
Here is a weekend article on the St. Petersburg Times (that includes a mention of the Anniston Star). Because the Times is owned by a non-profit organization, it does not have the pressure to maintain profit margins as large as other newspapers. Still, circulation is declining, and it has lost about 8% of its newroom staff since January.
Are newspapers making enough money off their websites to soldier on with declining circulation? What’s the sustainable model of in-depth news reporting?
Looks like folks in Washington suspect that newly-relected Talladega mayor Brian York has a public health concern on his hands:
The House Homeland Security Committee planned a fact-finding trip about public health preparedness at mass gatherings and decided to conduct the research at two of the nation’s most heavily attended sporting events, NASCAR’s Bank of America 500 event this weekend and the UAW-Ford 500 last weekend [in Talladega].
Staff who organized the trips advised the NASCAR-bound aides to get a range of vaccines before attending — hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza.
Talladega fever: Catch it!
Thanks to reader A.
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Or… almost free…
Thanks to The Huntsville Times Breaking News site (though it makes me consider what is meant by “breaking news”) for highlighting this.
Any Alabamian who joins the Arbor Day Foundation during September will be given 10 free trees as part of the Trees for America campaign.
The trees include varieties of maple, pine, oak, redbud, birch, white dogwood and Colorado blue spruce.
Membership is $10. Details here.
Nice.
With the excitement of the first college football weekend, this is as good as a time as any to remind folks that you can find Auburn and Alabama football stories in the Political Parlor’s “newsfeeds.” If you are a fan of one of the teams, the newsfeeds can be fun because you can find stories on your team that you wouldn’t normally run across (for example, from the hometown paper of a given week’s opponent).
The newsfeeds link is in the right sidebar near the top. Newsfeed pages are supposed to update when they are clicked.
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One more enjoyable read on college football…
Wright Thompson of ESPN.com writes “A Love Letter to Southern Football.” If you are a fan of college football in the south, I recommend it.
An excerpt:
I love “ARE YOU READY?” and all the other SEC football idiosyncrasies, too, because they come from the same kind of passion: Mississippi State’s cowbells, the Vol Navy, an Arkansas fan using the Freedom of Information Act, the way the crowd sings along to “Sweet Home Alabama” on a warm Southern Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium. In Birmingham, they love the gov’nah, indeed. Me, too, even if I don’t know a single thing about him. That’s what football can do. It can even make me love Steve Spurrier. That rat bastard, I love him so.
I love most everything about Southern football, but more than anything else, I love for it to begin.
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Ahh… autumn… deep-throated roars at football stadiums around the state, youngsters in new school clothes with crisp binders behind old desks, marching bands stepping smartly to drum cadences…
And Doc is pleased to announce that political gadfly Peter will be joining the Political Parlor and Home of Lawn Mower Repair in September. We are glad to welcome a new voice to the blog, and we’ll appreciate his help in clearing out the backlog of lawn mowers in the workshop before the leaf blowers start coming in. Plus, he brings his own tools (which means he is already a hit with the boys in the back!).
Looking forward to it…
Rick Bragg’s article in Sports Illustrated on new Alabama football head coach Nick Saban reminds us of why his writing is such a pleasure to read:
But the [Bear] Bryant magic was about more than numbers, more than X’s and O’s and big ol’ boys who would have blocked a pulpwood truck if he’d asked them to. It was about how he could draw every eye in the stadium to him as he leaned against that goalpost during warmups, a growling, mumbling golem glued together out of legend, gristle and a little bit of mean. It was almost cheating, having him on the sideline, like filling your trunk full of cement blocks before a demolition derby.
But the quote that jumped out as pertinent to our interests in Alabama politics and policy: “Never assume that Alabamans give a damn what others think.” Good advice.
I have observed that those working for the good of Alabama find themselves perched between two occasionally conflicting dynamics: Alabamians don’t like the state being near the bottom of so many lists of state rankings, and (related to Bragg’s line) Alabamians don’t like being told what to do.
Relatively unimportant observation: I also note that Bragg (or his editor) uses “Alabaman” instead of “Alabamian.” “Alabaman” makes a lot of sense to me as the name for a resident of the state. If you use “Alabamian,” then you no longer have the state’s name correctly spelled. After stubbornly using “Alabaman” for many years, I have largely given up, as “Alabamian” is far more widely used, at least in my observation and hearing.
How hot is it?
So hot that Birmingham hit 100 degrees Thursday for the 10th day in a row. Tuscaloosa, Anniston, Muscle Shoals, Huntsville and Gadsden were among other Alabama cities that saw thermometers hitting 100 degrees Thursday.
How hot is it?
More than 50 people went to Alabama hospitals Wednesday and Thursday because of the heat.
How hot is it?
Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Limestone County (near Athens) had to shut down a unit because the water from the Tennessee River was too hot for the cooling system. “The water going in was hotter than what the unit was discharging into the river,” said TVA spokesman Jason Huffine.
In less than 15 minutes, the state of Alabama will execute a man, Darrell Grayson, who was convicted of a terrible crime, unless Governor Bob Riley intercedes.
DNA tests were not available when the crime was committed 27 years ago. Tests are available now, and Darrell Grayson has been asking for one since 2002.
For you to delay an execution long enough to have a DNA test conducted, what likelihood would have to exist in your mind that the DNA is not Darrell Grayson’s? One in two? You’d conduct the test if the odds were one in two. One in hundred? One in a million? Why not?
Before the state takes the life of a human being, doesn’t the state want absolute certainty in the matter? If Troy King, Bob Riley, et al, already have absolute certainty that the right man has been convicted, what is the harm of having the test conducted before the state takes a man’s life? What is the downside?
As The Birmingham News pointed out, “Governors in other states have blocked executions for DNA testing - including Jeb Bush in Florida and George W. Bush in Texas.”
The Tuscaloosa News also wants the governor to intervene:
The question involving Grayson has a relatively easy answer, one that common sense should dictate. Yet Alabama does not have a post-conviction DNA law. That means that after a person is convicted, there is no procedure for a DNA test. Grayson has requested a DNA test since 2002 to no avail.
That’s just one of the concerns about the way our state administers the death penalty.
Will Governor Riley intercede to allow for a DNA test? The word heard here is that he won’t. I hope the word is wrong.
Update: Darrell Grayson pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m.
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