The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

Keep telling yourself: “The rain is my friend. The rain is my friend. The rain is…”

I used to like the rain. Really I did.

Lots of it sure beats a drought.

But according to the National Weather Service, we are almost five inches above the 30-year average here this year. We could use a break.

I never minded the rain so much as long as I was working from home in a big old wooden house in New Orleans, as long as I didn’t have to get out in it too much to chase a nasty hurricane or something and as long as the sun broke out on Mardi Gras Day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Politicians Deserve More Pay, Teachers Less

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Get Up Off Your Couch and Protest Immediately

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

There’s a conspiracy afoot, and the good tea party folks and great commentators at Fox News are not going to like it.

No one in the Obama administration will send out a press release to announce it either. Oh, they are such behind the scenes manipulators like the American people have never seen before.

Yes, it is such a dramatic and diabolical conspiracy that if he were alive today, Mark Twain would break out the aged whiskey and the good cigars and call a conference in Concord to discuss it at great length.

It is not such a quick and easy point that you can bring it down on people like an anvil shot from a cannon onto their heads. It is not something you can get across in a Facebook comment or a Twitter tweet. No, this is such an awful and compelling tale that you have to spend the time to construct an entire blog post to get the point across.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Column
Al Franken

As you may know, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided not to bring the PROTECT IP Act (the Senate’s version of SOPA) up for a vote next week. And since I’ve heard from many of you about this issue, I wanted to take a moment to share why I support copyright protection legislation – as well as why I believe holding off on this bill is the right thing to do.

As someone who has worked hard to protect net neutrality, I understand as well as anyone the importance of keeping the Internet free from undue corporate influence. There are millions of Americans who rely on a free and open Internet to learn, communicate with friends and family, and do business.

At the same time, there are millions of Americans whose livelihoods rely on strong protections for intellectual property: middle-class workers – most of them union workers – in all 50 states, thousands of them here in Minnesota, working in a variety of industries from film production to publishing to software development.

If we don’t protect our intellectual property, international criminals – as well as legitimate businesses like payment processors and ad networks – will continue to profit dishonestly from the work these Americans are doing every day. And that puts these millions of jobs at serious risk.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nah! That’s Not in Their Job Description

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Combating Online Piracy while Protecting an Open, Innovative Internet

Guest Column
by Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra, and Howard Schmidt

Thanks for taking the time to sign this petition. Both your words and actions illustrate the importance of maintaining an open and democratic Internet.

Right now, Congress is debating a few pieces of legislation concerning the very real issue of online piracy, including the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the PROTECT IP Act and the Online Protection and Digital ENforcement Act (OPEN). We want to take this opportunity to tell you what the Administration will support—and what we will not support. Any effective legislation should reflect a wide range of stakeholders, including everyone from content creators to the engineers that build and maintain the infrastructure of the Internet.

While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

You’ve got to admit, this country has gone weird. Maybe it’s always been so, but if a Massachusetts Mormon wins South Carolina, the state that started the Civil War, you know something is not right with the world.

Most of the pundits are predicting that an uber-rich Mormon from Massachusetts is about to be the Republican nominee for president. According to the Irish odds-maker Paddy Power, the largest bookmakers in Europe, Mitt Romney is the odds on favorite to win the South Carolina Primary at 2-5. Newt Gingrich should take second at 7-2, while the odds on Rick Santorum stand at 11-2. It’s 25-1 for Ron Paul, 33-1 for Rick Perry and 100-1 for John Huntsman.

If Romney wins there, experts say it is going to be hard for his rivals to continue their presidential campaigns, to raise the money to go on and build a national infrastructure to take him on.

The same press release from the Paddy Power press office has Romney the 1-8 favorite to become the Republican nominee, but he only has a 6-4 chance of becoming president. The black guy from Hawaii, President Barack Obama, is favored 8-11. I’ll take that bet and throw in a 12-pack of Sweetwater Georgia Brown.

According to Gallup, Romney has finally broken the 30 percent barrier among Republicans. In the latest poll on the subject, Gallup reported that Romney has “finally surpassed 30 percent support among Republicans nationwide and is now their majority pick for the GOP candidate most likely to win the party’s 2012 presidential nomination.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Secret Vistas
by Glynn Wilson

ATLANTA, Ga. — Got a good reason, for taking the easy way out now?

Tired of the scene your in and want to get out of town and be a Day Tripper?

There’s no big teaser like a great big city in the Southeastern United States, a place crammed with folks making a living on the promise of fun — and maybe a little sin.

Not unlike New Orleans, the city that got the attention of the world for being a capital of sin yet makes it hard to find when you get there, Atlanta too is such a place. But it is only a two-and-a-half to three hour drive from Birmingham, if you just need to get out of the sticks and into the trippy fray of things for a night or two.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »