The League of Conservation Voters has published a scorecard rating members of Congress on how they voted on such issues as offshore oil drilling, protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, permitting logging in old-growth forests and other environmental issues.

Here’s how some of the potential presidential candidates rank according to the percentage of time they voted in Congress for the position favored by the League of Conservation Voters. Only those candidates who have compiled a congressional voting record are included. Candidates with higher scores are the ones who most favor measures to protect the environment and bird habitat.

Is it any wonder people who favor pro-environmental policies in Washington tend to vote for Democrats?

For more information on the records of presidential candidates of both parties on issues relating to birds and their habitats, see the Birders United 2008 Election page.

One of our favorite independent investigative and analytical reporters has been busy the past few days, covering topics like the mainstream media can’t seem to figure out.

Robert Parry has been writing about how Washington politicians are dealing with the debacle in Iraq and how disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is trying to spin his way back into the race for the White House.

“One mother sits on her son’s grave at Arlington Cemetery and reads from Corduroy, his favorite baby book. Another mom spent cold winter afternoons in a sleeping bag stretched across her son’s grave,” he writes. “Meanwhile, George W. Bush reportedly plots a new combat escalation in Iraq and some members of Congress look to give the President another blank check so they can head home for the Memorial Day recess and say they’re supporting the troops.”

Then, he writes about the Chatham House, a well-respected British think tank, which has thrown down a challenge to leaders in Washington and London to begin “accepting realities in Iraq.” The new report paints a grim picture of an Iraqi society coming apart and warns that George W. Bush’s military “surge” will fail to achieve any lasting security improvements.

“But the idea that Bush must accept reality goes against his longstanding confidence that he and his friends can shape how many Americans perceive reality,” he writes.

And, he says, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was known as a worldly and even hedonistic guy.

“But he appears to have spotted a political opening for his planned comeback, convincing right-wing Christians that they are being persecuted by ‘radical secularists.’

In what sounds like a year-round version of the “war on Christmas” complaint, Gingrich wants the fundamentalist Christian base of the Republican Party to view themselves as the victims and him as their defender.

How utterly ridiculous, right?

For the full story of the contrasting interests of grieving moms and Washington pols, the real story of how Bush’s cult-like followers reject reality in Iraq and for the full story of Gingrich’s up-is-down world, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.

When Your Nuthatch Mama Needs Something Different to Eat

There is something that happens to nuthatch mamas at certain points in life. Something that has everything to do with food, that most basic of all life needs.

How many times have you had to listen to some version of: “I want something different to eat!”

It must happen at least 295 million times a day in the U.S. - probably more.

Come on now. Be honest. You’ve heard it…

So let me ask you.

What do you do if you are stuck in the exurbs surrounded by Arby’s and Applebee’s, Bubba’s Barbecue and Hooters, and the growing number of strip mall versions of Ranchero’s Mexicano and China Garden?

In many Southern cities, when you get tired of cooking it right yourself, you have to go looking for it, but - a sleeper restaurant occasionally sneaks through the Kudzu and surprises you, and it’s just down the street from Everytown’s version of Velma’s red neck beer joint.

John’s City Diner is such a place near here, on old Highway 11, where you can almost taste New Orleans in the Fried Green Tomatoes, the Southern Greens and Cornbread, and the Homestyle Meatloaf topped with mushroom demi glaze and served over smashed potatoes.

The roasted red pepper drizzle on the Fried Green Tomatoes reminded me of the mushroom sauce at the Orange Fest in Plaquemine Parish, Louisiana, although not quite as scrumptious.

At one point with my eyes closed, I could visualize the scene and taste the Mustard Greens already cooked in andouille sausage and pepper sauce, no need to ask the waitress for a bottle on the table, at Dunbar’s soul food restaurant on Freret Street. A certain famous writer friend of mine liked the Fried Chicken there.

While the old John’s Restaurant is still famous in downtown Birmingham, the new outlet in Trussville is suffering from an almost disserted bar, perhaps because the food comes out so fast…

Locally stylish retirees seem to have found the place, but rest assured you can please any nuthatch mama of any age with a trip down this memory lane - with a nod to 1950s Americana Art Deco.

If only the place was built in an old house with some old trees for shade along the old highway, the experience would be better. There is an attractive patio of outdoor seating. Unfortunately, it is built in a concrete jungle and by this time in May, maybe through September, it is too hot to handle by day…

Someone should try the Martinis on Friday and Saturday night. I suspect they might be worth the risk - of DUI that is. It’s kind of hard to find a designated driver when you’re single - in a land bereft of taxi cabs.

With any luck, you could get picked up by a teetoteller.

If you don’t make it home, at least your last meal would have been the best you could get anywhere around here…

by Glynn Wilson

Blues harp player and singer Topper Price, one of Alabama’s more interesting musicians and characters, died Wednesday night at his apartment on the Southside of Birmingham. He was 54 and was about to release his third solo album.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Topper Price, R.I.P.

The official cause of his death has not been released by the Jefferson County Coroner, but sources close to Mr. Price say he had a seizure after eating dinner Wednesday night with his fiancée, Kelly Casey. The seizure could have been caused by a drug overdose. Paramedics tried and failed to revive him.

No funeral or official memorial service is planned for the next week, Ms. Casey said in an interview. But Topper, whose real name was Terry O’Neil Price, wanted to be cremated, she said, so the plans for that were in the works Friday.

“He didn’t really want a funeral, just for some friends to get together,” Ms. Casey said, so plans for a memorial service will be announced sometime next week.

“I’m supposed to be planning a wedding, not a funeral,” Ms. Casey told a reporter for the Birmingham News and the Locust Fork News and Journal. “He was an incredible guy. He had one of the kindest hearts I’ve ever met in my life.”

Paul “Sleepy Gumbo Bailey” Walters said the Magic City Blues Society was dedicating a blues jam to Topper Friday night at Burly Earl and taking donations to help pay his burial expenses.

“He was one of the premier harmonica players in Alabama,” Mr. Walters said as he announced the untimely death to the Blue Mail list Thursday with “a heavy heart.”

Mr. Price was born in the Plateau community near Mobile and had no close relatives in Birmingham, according to Ms. Casey, although he did have a father and a daughter living in the Mobile area.

I first saw Topper play myself in Mobile back in the 1980s, then got to know him in Birmingham while operating the NewsBreak newsstand, bookstore and coffee bar from 1986 to 1989.

Topper performed all over the Southeast over the past 30 years and played with some of the music greats in blues and Southern Rock, including Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers Band, Scott Boyer and Cowboy, The Convertables, The Band and The Radiators, along with Albert Collins, Johnny Shines, Wayne Perkins and Brother Cane.

“Topper gave a lot of joy to people in this town,” Walters said. “There was something magnetic about him. He was the top harmonica player in the state, with a unique and powerful style. When you’re talking about blues in Birmingham, you’re talking about Topper Price.”

Mr. Price recorded two CDs during his career, according to the News, including “Long Way From Home” and “Nature (Part 1).” Casey said he had recently completed his third CD, tentatively called “Nature (Part 2),” in a home studio and was looking forward to its release.

He played me a cut from the CD a few weeks ago outside The Nick, and we talked about plans to promote it.

“It was an extremely long time in the making,” Casey confirmed. “But it was the most important thing he had going on. He was very, very proud of it.”

Topper had a lot of loyal fans across the state, not just in Birmingham. He played regularly in Tuscaloosa and Montgomery as well.

“I loved this guy,” said Cheryl Sabel, a fan from Montgomery. “I went to hear him every time he was in town.”

Mr. Price wasn’t a music teacher, but he did have an influence on other musicians, including soul singer, harmonica player and “American Idol” finalist Taylor Hicks, according to the News.

Hicks said he would sneak into nightclubs as a teenager to hear Mr. Price perform, and was influenced by his showmanship. Mr. Price would drop to his knees during solos and moved on stage with flamboyant passion.

“He was not only a harmonica player, he was an entertainer,” Hicks said. “He taught me the difference. I remember when he was playing at The Mill; there was a banister on stage and he used to wrap his leg around it. That really struck me. He was one of the finest harmonica players that I’ve heard. He had a great voice. He was the real deal - a bluesman.”

Guitar player Jeff Adkins, who has played with Topper Price and the Upsetters on and off for the past 10 years, said Topper was “the single greatest, well-rounded musician I’ve ever played with, and by far the best band director, conductor.”

I asked Topper one day outside the old Highland Music store at 30th and Highland where he learned to sing and play the blues. He told me an elaborate story about once going looking for the “Blues School” on a certain street corner on the Southside of Chicago. I think they made a movie about that.

As Tuscaloosa News columnist Tommy Stevenson said about Topper, “Like Rhett Maddox, he was a mess. A talented mess, but a mess nonetheless.”

Another blues harp player, Jock Webb, said in addition to being a great player and a funny character, Topper was an incredibly generous guy who didn’t hesitate to help other people, either by covering a gig when someone else couldn’t make it or helping inspire kids in the Blues in Schools program.

“He was always there, man,” Webb said. “I could call him up from Boston or Atlanta, and he would answer the call to help, no matter what.”

John McClusky, a Tuscaloosa lawyer who was handling Mr. Price’s affairs, said the one thing just about everyone who knew him says about Topper, “He was a true gentleman.”

Matt Kimbrell, a percussionist from a talented musical family from Birmingham who knew Topper for many years, upon learning the news of Topper’s death, said what a lot of people feel.

“It just breaks my heart, man.”

Monday Update

On Tuesday, May 29, The Nick will host a Topper Price open mic memorial with no cover charge, although donations are welcome. Then on Wednesday, June 27, The Nick will also host a Topper Price fundraiser to help cover cremation expenses, according to the Magic City Blues Society.

Also, the Jefferson County Coroner’s office is saying it will be next week at least before a final cause of death will be determined and released.