Editor’s Note: I apologize in advance for what I’m about to say to my friends who live in the reality-based community in places such as New York, Washington, D.C., on the West Coast and in Europe. I would rather eat nails (which would be hard considering how many teeth I have left) than to have to write this story. But I feel a certain obligation to let people the world over know just how bad things are in a place called Alabamaland.
The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson
It should have come as no great surprise considering where we are, but I must say, I was a bit taken aback when I saw this story hit Pam’s List yesterday and when I got the e-mail message from the Alabama Democratic Party responding to it.
You see, my friends, we have a new Republican state Senator in the Northern part of Alabama who is named after a famous character from the Bible. Although his mommy and daddy couldn’t spell very well, I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. McGill had the best of intentions when they named their son Shadrack.
Surely even my atheist friends will remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were allegedly thrown in a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar II, the King of Judah, but walked out alive thanks to a surprise appearance by someone named “Christ.”
Well, it must seem like a modern-day version of being forced into a fiery furnace for Mr. McGill these days, because every time he opens his mouth, something crazy comes out, and he gets written up in the press somewhere like he is a complete moron.
While the board members of the University of Alabama system were meeting at UAB’s Alumni Hall on Thursday, Feb. 2, a coalition of environmental, civic and student organizations gathered across the street to demonstrate opposition to a proposed coal mine along the Shepherd’s Bend portion of the Black Warrior River.
Here’s how a definition gone wrong can lead to a debilitating public controversy. But hey, controversy drives traffic, so what the heck, right?
The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson
It’s been a long time, but the New York Times is back in the business of pumping up the traffic to its Website with news about itself.
Predictably, once again, it is doing the news organization’s reputation more harm than good in the long run. Will they ever learn from their own history? The documents are right there under their noses.
The problem is, it might cost them a massive amount of corporate advertising to tell the truth, and they would lose a few Republican readers in the process.
An explanation is in order. You came to the right place for this one.
Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum, the former Senator and Fox News contributor who pulled a surprise second in the Iowa Caucus, has emerged as the Christian conservative still standing in the presidential race of 2012. He only lost to Massachusetts Mormon Mitt Romney by 8 votes.
As readers of The Locust Fork News-Journal know by now, we are always on the lookout for writers who can connect the dots to help educate the masses on the contradictions between what politicians say and what they do. We believe if more people understood the difference between rhetoric and policy, we could get people to vote in a way that actually forms a more perfect union.
One writer who has emerged in an American newspaper who seems to get this is Jay Bookman with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I recently added his column link to the news page where you can find the link to check on a regular basis.
In today’s column, Bookman takes on Santorum’s views on privacy.
On the final day of 2011 as I sit here sipping my coffee trying to remember, perusing the other top story lists and trying to figure out a way to sum it all up from here, one thing occurs to me. While the protesters in the Arab world and the Occupy protests are making all the lists, I can’t find one single mention of the protesters in Wisconsin or the reenergized efforts of organized labor across the U.S. on any of the lists.
Could it be that the American news media’s anti-union bias is at work here?
At Occupy protest encampments across the country this week, the controversy that was all the rage had to do with the defense budget bill just passed by Congress. The paranoia was palpable, and for good reason, considering how the issue was covered by the mainstream, corporate news media — and the implications for protesters worried about being arrested and detained indefinitely without due process as they carry their protests into an election year in 2012.
While much of the debate over the policy on detaining suspected terrorists on domestic soil was probably lost on much of the country now in a shopping frenzy with only a week to go before Christmas, even at the Occupy Birmingham encampment downtown activists were not happy with President Barack Obama. One even suggested he was taking a look at voting for Mitt Romney, the Mormon from Massachusetts, “because at least he represents a minority.”
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Someone once said that practicing journalism is like capturing “history on the run.”
Sometimes when you are a fly on the wall at important events you think you are witnessing a historical moment. But it is sometimes hard to tell for sure. Like they say, only time will tell.
Did any of the reporters covering George Wallace’s inaugural address in 1963 have any idea what a seminal moment that would be in American political history?
Could anyone have anticipated that the groundswell of rage embodied in Wallace’s fiery rhetoric would lead to such a transformative movement for full-scale civil rights in the United States? Or that Wallace’s message and style would result in such a rising tide of so-called “conservatism” in American politics, a tide that has not yet fully dissipated over the country — or Wallace’s homeland of Alabama?
Alabama College Democrats President Beth Clayton urges more students and young people to get involved in politics, especially with the Alabama Democratic Party at this critical time in history.
Woke up this mornin’
there was frost on the ground.
Opened up Facebook,
and there was hot air all around.
I’ve got the bad news blues,
the bad news blues, baby.
What you gonna do…
The bad news is, the Republicans are still in charge of all three branches of government in my home state.
The good news is, more and more people are waking up on the Web and finding out that is a bad thing.
In the interest of keeping you abreast of what is in store for you in year-two of the Republican so-called “super majority” in the Alabama legislature, check out this article from the Dekalb County Times-Journal.
Conservative Senator Shadrack McGill, who replaced long-serving Democrat Lowell Barron, gives some indications of what is in store next year. In addition to “tweaking” the much criticized anti-immigration law, getting rid of the state retirement system for public workers and destroying teacher tenure, McGill indicates he will be doing everything he can to get rid of the Forever Wild program for preserving some of the state’s most valuable and environmentally sensitive areas for future generations.
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
