The University of Alabama Jefferson County Alumni Chapter is screening the film “Red Tails” Friday at 7 p.m. at the Patton Creek Rave Theater, according to a Facebook event invite. It’s the movie Coach Nick Saban showed the Alabama football team the night before the 14th National Championship against LSU.

Watch the first public promotional trailer for the feature film above, and notice the commander says: “We need pilots who will put bombers before themselves.”

Another indication that an individual sacrificing for the team is NOT Socialism, as some Republicans and conservative news outlets would have you believe.

The film is set in 1944. World War II rages and the fate of the free world hangs in the balance.

Meanwhile the black pilots of the experimental Tuskegee training program in Alabama are courageously waging two wars at once — one against enemies overseas, and the other against discrimination within the military and back home. Racial prejudices have long held ace airman Martin “Easy” Julian (Nate Parker) and his black pilots back at base — leaving them with little to do but further hone their flying skills — while their white counterparts are shipped out to combat after a mere three months of training.

Mistakenly deemed inferior and assigned only second-rate planes and missions, the pilots of Tuskegee have mastered the skies with ease but have not been granted the opportunity to truly spread their wings. Until now.

As the war in Europe continues to take its dire toll on Allied forces, Pentagon brass has no recourse but to reconsider these under-utilized pilots for combat duty. Just as the young Tuskegee men are on the brink of being shut down and shipped back home, Col. A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard) awards them the ultimate chance to prove their mettle high above.

Undaunted by the prospect of providing safe escort to bombers in broad daylight — a mission so dangerous that the RAF has refused it and the white fighter groups have sustained substantial losses — Easy’s pilots at last join the fiery aerial fray. Against all the odds, with something to prove and everything to lose, these intrepid young airmen take to the skies in a heroic endeavor to combat the enemy — and the discrimination that has kept them down for so long.

Red Tails is a film directed by Anthony Hemingway, from a script by John Ridley and story by executive producer George Lucas. It is based on the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American combat pilots during World War II, and is the first Lucasfilm Ltd. production since Radioland Murders (1994) not to be associated with the Indiana Jones or Star Wars franchises.

George Lucas began developing Red Tails around 1988. He compared it to Tucker: The Man and His Dream as “a story too good to be true.”

Thomas Carter was his original choice to direct. A number of writers worked on the project until John Ridley was hired in 2007 to write the final screenplay. Lucas held discussions with Samuel L. Jackson regarding Jackson possibly directing and acting in the film. Although Jackson praised the script, he did not commit to either role. Anthony Hemingway was finally chosen to direct in 2008.

In researching the film, Lucasfilm invited some of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen to Skywalker Ranch, where they were interviewed about their experiences during World War II. Lucasfilm was also given access to the original mission logbooks used by some of the pilots.

Production began in March 2009. High-definition Sony F35 cameras were used for principal photography, which took place in the Czech Republic, Italy, Croatia and England. While shooting in the Czech Republic, the actors underwent a “boot camp” program, during which they lived in similar conditions as the actual Tuskegee Airmen.

Editing began while the production was in Prague. Avid editing systems were used simultaneously in a Prague studio and at Lucasfilm. A vehicle was fitted with a “technical center” so that the production could quickly move between locations. In March 2010, Lucas took over direction of reshoots, as Hemingway was busy working on episodes of the HBO series Treme. Hemingway had final approval over the footage.

Alabama Crimson Tide Once Again Invited to the White House

President Barack Obama called University of Alabama football Coach Nick Saban on Thursday to congratulate him and the university on their BCS National Championship and their exceptional 2011-2012 season, according to an e-mail press release from the White House.

The President said that he watched the entire championship game and could not have been more impressed with the Crimson Tide’s performance.

Mr. Obama commended the coach on his outstanding record and said that he looks forward to congratulating the team in person at the White House.

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A pair of Alabama yellow hammers, otherwise known as the Northern Flicker [colaptes auratus], visited the back yard to feed on Sunday. I have been trying to get pictures of this pair for years. They finally cooperated today. Maybe they were so hungry they didn’t pay me much mind.

While you can see the yellow tail feather in the shot up in the tree, where you would expect to find a woodpecker, see the shot on the ground below. According to scientists, flickers eat mainly ants and beetles, digging for them with their unusual, slightly curved bill. These seemed to be interested in the nuts all over the ground. There are so many this year the squirrels have not been able to bury them all to store up for the winter.

Out West, these woodpeckers tend to have a few partially hidden red tail feathers, thus the name red-shafted flicker. In the South, they have yellow tail feathers, which you can only see from certain angles, so they are often called yellow-shafted flickers.

These birds have a special place in state lore going all the way back to the Civil War, and it is the state bird of Alabama.

More below…

Glynn Wilson

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Alabama has been known as the “Yellowhammer State” since the Civil War. The yellowhammer nickname was given to the Confederate soldiers from Alabama when a company of young cavalry soldiers from Huntsville, under the command of Rev. D.C. Kelly, arrived at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where Gen. Forrest’s troops were stationed. The officers and men of the Huntsville company wore fine, new uniforms, whereas the soldiers who had long been on the battlefields were dressed in faded, worn uniforms.

On the sleeves, collars and coattails of the new calvary troops were bits of brilliant yellow cloth. As the company rode past Company A, Will Arnett cried out in greeting “Yellowhammer, Yellowhammer, flicker, flicker!” The greeting brought a roar of laughter from the men and from that moment the Huntsville soldiers were spoken of as the “yellowhammer company.” The term quickly spread throughout the Confederate Army and all Alabama troops were referred to unofficially as the “Yellowhammers.”

When the Confederate Veterans in Alabama were organized they took pride in being referred to as the “Yellowhammers” and wore a yellowhammer feather in their caps or lapels during reunions. A bill introduced in the 1927 legislature by Representative Thomas E. Martin, Montgomery County, was passed and approved by Governor Bibb Graves on September 6, 1927, making it the state bird.

The tradition extends to the University of Alabama, where the famous Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer cheer has been around for decades. It bas banned in 2003, but students voted overwhelmingly at Homecoming 2005 to bring it back.

The “Rammer Jammer” was an old campus magazine at Alabama, and the yellowhammer is the state bird.

It is sort of appropriate this year, don’t you think?

Hey Auburn!
Hey Auburn!
Hey Auburn!
We just beat the hell out of you!
Rammer Jammer, Yellowhammer, gave ‘em hell, Alabama!

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

So much for the “game of the century.”

Maybe if the LSU-Alabama game had gone into four or five more excruciating overtimes it might deserve that distinction. No game without a single touchdown deserves the label, however, although it was an epic battle of two great defenses.

Alabama should have won the game. The Tide offense got into a position to score points far more times than the Tigers. But with two missed touchdown passes in the end zone and four missed field goals, and that one bad call on the goal line, Alabama did not deserve to win.

But hey, it’s not the end of the world. At least not yet.

The silver lining? With Alabama’s national title talk and Heisman Trophy speculation out of the way for this year in my home state, is it possible that we can talk about the connection between politics and economics for a change?

After all, run amok corporate capitalism and anti-tax, anti-government sentiment has ruined the city of Tuscaloosa, along with one great big tornado that knocked down all the trees. Traffic is out of control. There’s no place to park. The rural campus I came to know and love as an undergrad in the early 1980s is no longer there. It is now just another example of suburban sprawl hell.

Frustrated by many years of lackadaisical state funding for the University of Alabama, the Board of Trustees caved into the money pressure a few years back and just decided to explode the student population and triple tuition, and to get into the real estate business in a big way. Greed has ruined a lot of things in this country. Now it has ruined my alma mater too.

I hope parents and students are happy with the price of college tuition and student housing these days. Some of that expense could have been prevented with a little tax money, or maybe a state lottery.

But NO! The Baptists would have none of that, so now their kids have to borrow to the hilt to get a student ticket to a Nick Saban Alabama game.

Then, forget it if you are of Latin descent. Alabama would not allow black students in the 1960s until the feds stepped in. Now the leadership in this state is blaming all our problems on the Mexicans, when they should be looking at the corporations that pay not one penny of taxes.

The Republicans now control all three branches of government. They can’t blame the Democrats anymore for record high unemployment and our crumbling roads and bridges. President Barack Obama has offered a jobs bill in Congress that would have put a lot of people to work fixing our roads and spurred the economy too.

But NO! Neither one of Alabama’s Senators and only one House member voted with the president on that, so I hope you like all the traffic delays in every direction out of the state. Every time I travel around Alabama I wish I had picked up Richard Scrushy’s helicopter at auction. I remember a time when Alabama was known for its good roads. Not anymore.

Now that the tea party Republicans are patting themselves in the back for running all the Mexicans out of the state with the controversial immigration law, pundits are wondering what the Super Majority will go after next year when the legislature gets back together in February?

Our new goober for a governor has already tried to put the Alabama Education Association out of business. It didn’t exactly work, but could it be the other unions will be in the crosshairs of this administration next year? Will we see another Wisconsin right here in the old Heart of Dixie?

Stay tuned. The Locust Fork News-Journal is about to open a Montgomery bureau so we can pull up the Chevy van with the canoe on top in front of that historic capitol in Montgomery and scare the powers that be. Just the knowledge that a real reporter is in town with a big Web spotlight to shine on them might prevent some of the worst abuses from happening in Montgomery Town. We will see.

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

SOUTHSIDE BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — They say it is a small world, but what do “they” know? I say the cliche is even more true today with modern social networking technology like Facebook.

I was just chatting with a blonde from Germany over my second cup of coffee in the Hippie Tree House, upstairs in the Hippie House on Birmingham’s Southside.

I crashed last night on the new couch in Hippie Stew’s place, and felt right at home. Maybe that’s because I was born five blocks from here in the old South Highlands Hospital, the first hospital Richard Scrushy purchased to create the outpatient and sports medicine empire known as HealthSouth.

Of course the place got famous after it was revealed that Scrushy and his team of financial officers cooked the books and over inflated the stock value and then crashed it, right after cashing in, of course.

Now Mr. Scrushy is in federal prison, while former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is still out on appeal bond.

One can’t help but wonder how many millions in cash Scrushy stashed in a Cayman bank account on that infamous boat ride from Florida the feds used in court to deny him release on bond, saying he was a flight risk.

Scrushy is now scheduled to reappear in federal court in Montgomery on Jan. 25, where he faces a resentencing hearing that will result in a reduction in the time he has to serve, since the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta knocked off a couple of the counts against him.

Siegelman was just back in court in Montgomery, still making the argument that the case against him and Mr. Scrushy was political from the start. He is right about that, as I have reported more times than I can count.

The feds failed to convict Scrushy in Birmingham, in part because the Bush appointed prosecutor in the case, Alice Martin, was more credentialed to be a Sunday School teacher than a U.S. Attorney. That’s the way things worked back in the Bush Years, when all a lawyer needed to get a job in the Justice Department was a Federalist Society membership card, a copy of their campaign contributions to Bush — and a letter of recommendation from a conservative preacher.

Now that Barack Obama is president, attorneys actually have to be qualified to get appointed to the federal bench and the U.S. attorneys office. Unfortunately, in Obama’s first term, not enough Bush-Cheney-Karl Rove hires have been run off fast enough, so the federal bureaucracy is still polluted with the presence of pro-big business conservatives. No wonder people don’t like guv’mn’t.

You can’t elect people who hate government and then expect it to work for people. When will my Southern brethren realize that? Maybe when they say it on Fox News, I guess, or when the bloggers at al.com write about it in the Birmingham News or “Birmingham Ruse,” as we like to call it in blogland.

Or, perhaps when we get more people reading The Locust Fork News-Journal, the world will become a smarter, more educated place.

Until then, Roll Tide Roll.

The number one and number two teams in the country are facing off today down in Tuscaloosa. You couldn’t get me anywhere near that crowd, but you know where my sympathies lie.

I was a junior and senior in Paul “Bear” Bryant’s last two years as head coach at Alabama, his last two years on Earth. Us liberal intellectuals don’t go hog wild for football, but if Alabama wins, perhaps it will be the game of the century. We will see.