Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

TUSCALOOSA, Ala., Jan. 7 - It is 72 degrees in mid-January and still drizzling rain in T-Town. It looks like global warming is taking a toll after six years of being denied and ignored by the Bush administration.

All the national news organizations are focusing on what Bush will say in an address to the nation this week about the quagmire in Iraq.

Trial balloons are being floated over the airwaves saying he will propose sending anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 more troops to face the growing insurgency there. Not many Republicans or Democrats think that will be enough troops to do much good, and most of the Democrats think it will just do more harm than good.

The notable exception is Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, who wants to run for president in 2008 and thinks the only path to that success will be some sort of “victory” in Iraq.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

“Bear” Bryant’s image casts a shadow over Tuscaloosa.

Meanwhile back at the Christian-Republican ranch in Alabamaland, all the buzz is about the University of Alabama’s success in recruiting Nick Saban to take over the UA football program.

The only war that really matters here is the one between the Crimson Tide and a smattering of orange-clad opponents on the gridiron, most notably the Auburn tigers and the Tennessee volunteers.

As usual I am torn between the glaring contradictions.

While the people of Alabama claim to be deeply Christian, their Bible clearly says in the venerated Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me … Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…”

Yet towering over the psyche of this place is a granite statue of the winning football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, who in life was compared to Jesus Christ himself for his mythical ability to “walk on water.”

As we reported this week before the Saban press conference, there is an empty spot on the “walk of champions” in front of the expanded Bryant-Denny Stadium for a new statue for the next coach who wins a national championship. Just about everyone around here, including virtually every sports writer at every local newspaper and all the local sports broadcasters, think Saban has what it takes to capture that spot in college football history - even if the national sports press corps thinks Saban is a liar.

The opinion and theory that Saban will be a winner will be tested on the football fields of the Southeastern Conference and beyond.

What I want to know is this: When will the people of Alabama and the local news media start caring as much about good government as they do about a winning football program? When will they get as tough on politicians as they are on football coaches?

If a football program is a business and the coach should be treated as a CEO, then shouldn’t we think of government in the same way? If George W. Bush was the CEO of a corporation - or a football coach - he would have been fired in 2004.

But the people elected him again for another four years and the mainstream press for the most part went along with it and even endorsed him.

So much for the theory of the “liberal media.”

Now that the Democrats have taken back control of both houses of Congress, there are many of us out here wondering if they will play the role of a national board of directors - and fire Bush by impeaching him and removing him from office.

The people and the press in Alabama so wanted former Gov. Don Siegelman and HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy to go to jail for their alleged crimes. Where is the outrage over Bush’s crimes against nature and humanity?

If we had elected Al Gore in 2000, we would live in a different world today - a world with no quagmire in Iraq and perhaps some progress by now in dealing with global warming.

But no, the oil companies and corporate CEOs have gotten richer under Bush’s watch - and we’ve done absolutely nothing to deal with the growing threat to the planet from climate change and the greenhouse effect due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Maybe someone will start caring about that issue here when the sea levels rise and the beaches of Gulf Shores erode north to Bay Minette.

by Glynn Wilson

It’s 25 degrees here tonight and there’s nothing worth watching on TV and the news is ho hum, and I’ve already had two naps today in my attempt to turn into a bear.

It didn’t work, so maybe this is a good time to take on a subject I’ve been thinking about for awhile but have avoided dealing with in writing: The definition of success.

How would you define success?

Having spent most of my life in the camp of those who define success basically as a fun life, you know, the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence and all that, I don’t think it ever occurred to me to consider the deeper meaning of the term until maybe toward the end of my tenure as an Instructor at the University of Alabama in 1995 while pursuing a masters degree in communications research.

I distinctly remember it striking me as odd when I heard professors using the word “success” in an academic sense, which basically meant successfully completing an educational program.

Having started down a professional road in the newspaper business with a BA in journalism back in the early 1980s, the only feel I had for the term meant something in the nature of “a successful career.”

Prior to that, since I spent my high school years as a drummer in rock ‘n’ roll bands, success simply meant a paying job for the night or the week and getting laid on a regular basis.
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by Glynn Wilson

The leaves are falling from the trees in heaps now.

The sun shining through the trees in the backyard still glistens off of a few splotches of burnt red, auburn and rusty gold on the hickories, maples and dogwoods.

A few robins are still coming around to take a bath in the backyard every day.

But the Thanksgiving Holiday signals a transition to one of my least favorite times of the year.

It’s not just the shorter days, or the growing cold, especially at night.

It’s not just the blatant materialistic focus of the entire American society this time of year, when the singing Santas go up in the grocery stores and the local television media folks start pumping Christmas shopping as news.

As much as anything else, it’s the bad TV programming.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Thanksgiving leaves…

Baseball season is over. The college football season is pretty much over, except for the bowl games. And the basic cable networks start running every bad Christmas movie ever made.

Bah humbug.

If you have followed this site for any length of time, you must know by now that I am something of a crotchety old news guy who thumbs his nose at sentimentality.

The only thing I am sentimental about is freedom.

My favorite holiday of the year is the Fourth of July. Independence and liberty are worth celebrating.

Which is why I will still catch parts of Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart” even though I’ve seen it way too many times now. I will also catch “The Partriot” when it makes the late night cable schedule.

I would like to say I am not a Mel Gibson fan since he made the politically incorrect “The Passion of the Christ” a couple of years ago. But thinking back on it now, I would like to think he made that movie for the money and not to push his radical religious views on us all.

I could be wrong about that. But the point, at least for me, is that I can take greed more than I can take hypocrisy or the promotion of unreality.

So let’s just tell the truth. The Christmas holiday season is all about propping up the consumer spending segment of the economy. It’s not about Jesus.

That at least would be honest.

I don’t like the so-called “crass commercialism” either, but I can take it to some extent - even though I won’t participate in it any more than I would go out and play a character in a church Christmas show featuring a manger scene.

There are a few things I like about winter more than summer. For one, you don’t have to worry too much about being bitten by mosquitoes in the wintertime. And in the American South, there are a few decent golfing days in winter, days when you can get outside and hike.

But the best thing about winter in the South is that it only lasts a couple of months.

If I were a bear, I would sleep through winter too and look forward to waking up when the spring breaks out, when the bees and the flowers come out again.

If you are anything like me in these regards, take heart. If we can just get through the Christmas season without throwing up, and hunker down through January and February, before we know it March will be here in all its spring glory.

The birds will return from South and Central America, and we can break out the digital camera again and get some great shots.

It will warm up enough to put the canoe on top of the van again and put it in the water somewhere and run the rapids.

That is what I live for these days.

What is your favorite time of year?

What is your favorite holiday?

Why?

Photo by Glynn Wilson

The leaves in the trees go red and gold this time of year…

Good writing is good writing … it sets you free, if you are an artist.
- Anonymous

by Glynn Wilson

TUSCALOOSA, Ala., Nov. 11 - It is an almost surreal feeling to be standing in the cold fog within stumbling distance to Bryant-Denny stadium during an Alabama football game - and there’s not a person in sight. Not a soul yelling “Roll Tide.”

At this moment Alabama is hanging in there with LSU and only trailing by a touchdown in the first half. But there is not a sound around the campus in the dark.

Except for the voices coming from the TV.

Half of the inhabitants from here are on the road too, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Sipping on just enough Jamaican rum to keep the bones warm, I am watching the game and at the same time trying to think some more about what I might say to journalism students at the university about the state of writing for the Web.
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by Glynn Wilson

GATOR LAKE, GULF STATE PARK, Ala., Oct. 15 - It is not always easy to find the right first word to begin any composition. When you are hammering out words like nails as a daily newspaper reporter, it sometimes hardly matters. You can start with “The…” and go from there.

The mayor was convicted of taking bribes to allow a developer to flip land and build over some wetlands, you might say, and then go on to give out his name and party affiliation, maybe take the trouble to list his campaign contributions. There’s one in Orange Beach worth checking right now, even since the mayor and the city attorney there went down. Too bad it wouldn’t matter that much to the faithful in the Bible Belt, or the one’s sporting W’s on the rear window of their SUVs along the Redneck Riviera.

That’s actually pretty easy to do, starting with “the” and just going with it - when you can find a publisher willing to print it who is not in on the deal himself.

Sitting here on the other side of Gator Lake by the public picnic area across from the state-owned hotel and convention center due soon to be torn down - two years after Ivan crashed through most of it, making it uninhabitable - perhaps the first word should take the name of a house on a suspect sliver of terrain known as West Beach in Gulf Shores. To wit: “Wits End.”

Photo by Glynn Wilson

My old house at 1109 Lagoon Avenue is now painted pink and is called “Dog Heaven.” Many wonderful trips had there, in the hammock listening to the waves crash relentlessly on the sand…

Revisiting the beach I used to call home 15 years ago, the precariousness of the place is so obvious it is still a mystery to me why every time I’ve ever ridden down this seven-mile long spit of land there is at least one pair of snow birds stopping in the bike lane to write down the phone number of another beach house for sale or rent. That is, the few houses with the guts still in them and the decks and stairs obviously rebuilt just recently.

They come with names like “Wits End” or “Satisfaction,” “Labor of Love” or “Sand Trap” or “Come Lucky.” But the beach sand pumped artificially on the beach side travels steadily, surely north across the road like snow blowing over a mountain trail. You can build all the dune fences and save all the beach mice from extinction, maybe, but the sand will still travel north, like the never ending march of time itself, even faster in between houses close together and faster still in between condo high rises stacked side by side.

The planet is warming and the sea levels are rising and all the millions wasted on “beach replenishment” will only stem the tide for a little while, long enough for the developers to cash in until the next big hurricane hits dead on. Then they will go in and build it again, and again, and someone will get rich every time, especially the friends of the governor and the titans of big oil and construction and automobile sales.

That is the American way, after all, since Manifest Destiney drove these crazy escapees from Europe across the plains and the mountains to California and Oregon. They will plow any forest and build anywhere the pathetically weak governments will let them . . .

Excuse me for a minute. I need to shift gears. A great blue heron just flew across the lake in front of me. Not close enough for a photograph. As I was driving over here a few minutes ago, I stopped the van on the side of the road myself. Not to look at a beach house.

Two hawks, followed by two great egrets, flew right in front of me. I got a few shots as they flew away.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. Even the Bible says only a fool builds his house on shifting sand. Find rock, like the houses of Roebuck east of Birmingham where they build their houses not only on rock, but out of rocks.

No, counting on a house staying in the family for generations on this beach is not sensible gambling, unless you just love to lose.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

No, that’s not a garage under an apartment. There were rooms on the bottom floor, beach level at the Gulf State Park Hotel and Convention Center. First Ivan’s wind swept them clean, then the water surge finished them off…

Hang on. Time for a shot of inspiration . . . I’m going to walk over here among the live oaks and see if I can find some birds to shoot. Back in a few . . .

Now, no, not now. Not with this wind whipping in here like it starts to do this time of year, when the skies go grey and the bars get lonely and the only thing there is to do is read, write or drink.

Today is the turning of the tide from the immaculate fall to the not too dreaded winter, where you don’t have to worry about the Gulf freezing over - except maybe every 100 years or so. I saw ice in the Gulf in 1990, when that 100-year storm came down from Canada into Dallas and then turned left and froze the Gulf Coast all the way to Panama City for seven solid days.

Three years later, back in Birmingham hanging out on the Southside, I went through the 100-year snow in those hills. Those were the last of the cool years, my friends. They are gone now, unless the Yellow Stone volcano comes to life and spews a dark cloud around the planet and cools things down a bit.

The mercury is rising, they used to say. Now they mean it when they say it, even on the rocking chairs in front of the Cracker Barrel.

It is about time to head north again, since the skies are turning grey and the money’s running low. Time to get ready for another winter in Birmingham. There will still be a few late migrant birds coming through there. Maybe the dry summer didn’t kill all the fall color and it will be something of a show in Blount and St. Clair counties.

Hang on. It’s that great blue again, coming back to the edge of the point. . .

Got a few shots of him flying off, nothing worth printing.

Wits end. That’s what I was saying. Homo sapiens are capable of finding that outer limit, that “Island Escape” house or the one called “SOS.”

It is a cry for help. A cry for someone to cancel the insurance and raise the interest rates and make it unaffordable, like gasoline will be soon. Then Bush and Riley’s economy will be revealed as the frauds they are, fudged numbers as cooked as Health South’s books under the now Reverand Scrushy.

But no sir, I am not at wit’s end. Not altogether at satisfaction either, if you know what I mean. You know what Mick said about that. You get what you need.

Some people just don’t believe that. They like to step over the rest of us and get more than their fair share. Not sure why they think they deserve it, but like the commissioner said in All The King’s Men, they get in the courthouse and “gets biggity.”

Anyone who thinks they can live on this land forever is “getting’ biggity” on the planet. What they may not realize is, the planet will get them, sooner or later, and there ain’t no angel from heaven going to come down to earth to save them.

We are all doomed anyway, ultimately, no doubt about it. Dust to dust and all that. So why not live a little? Get out in nature and do something, anything, while there is some nature to get out into. The planet is not at wits end just yet…

End Note: There is high speed wireless on West Beach, at the Gulf Shores Surf and Racket Club. But the yankee bitch there said it was for registered guests only. The old codgers I saw sitting in the lobby would not know how to turn on a computer, and would benefit from the conversation like the Morgan City crowd did in All The King’s Men. But no! I missed the closing time at the Dizzy Bean by 11 minutes, so I’m filing from the Gulf Shores McDonald’s. Talk about rednecks. The manager did manage to get the connection working, after moving it out from under the food wrappers on his desk : )

Photo by Glynn Wilson

We are not sure if this is an egret and a heron or what fishing along the road in Gulf State Park between the main office and the picnic area on the beachside of the lake. All we know is they were both very large and white and hanging out with what appeared to be two Cooper’s hawks. I couldn’t get close enough for a picture. Could it be great white herons? Bob Sargent thinks it might be a cattle egret and a great blue heron, but you can’t really tell from the photograph.