Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson

A dozen times in the past few weeks I have sat down in front of this computer and started to write a column about the damn heat wave and drought enveloping Alabamaland and much of the country.

But each time, I have slunk back to the Stratolounger in front of the TV and said to heck with it. This is the time of year when the best thing to do is catch up on old movies on cable under a strong air conditioner. Simply moving one’s body about the house is hard.

Besides, everybody knows it’s hot, literally, as hell. So where’s the news value in writing about it?

It’s so damn hot and dry that we are beginning to wonder if there is enough rain out there in clouds of the future to ever bring the dead grass back to life again. To keep the tomatoes growing, they have to be watered twice a day.

With water restrictions in place, there is no way to keep the hydrangeas and the dogwoods alive. If we have an ice storm this winter, there will be lots of dead trees falling on houses, because the ground and their root systems are so dry they will snap like dry beans.

It’s been more than 90 degrees in the shade on the screened in porch for so many days in a row that I can’t remember what the count is anymore.

Yet there’s not one peep out of weatherman James Spann on ABC’s 33/40 this entire summer about global warming being a myth. But there’s also not been one single story on any local television news station about global warming, and nothing in the local papers either.

Let’s face facts. We live in a land of denial. That’s why I call it Alabamaland.

Maybe all the criticism of the media from the left is starting to work just a little bit, however.

The Birmingham bureau of the Associated Press managed to produce a story the other day that I missed on the wires at the time, perhaps because the heat has turned me so lazy that I feel some days like I am back in the Big Easy.

Thanks to a couple of Republican Senators, Trent Lott of Mississippi and Dick Shelby of Alabama, developers are using federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding efforts in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Katrina to build condos - complete with Bear Bryant art - near the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny stadium in Tuscaloosa.

Katrina Aid Goes Toward Football Condos

When an alert reader pointed that out to me today in an e-mail message, I could hardly believe my eyes for a split second. Then I said to myself, “Self, that makes perfect sense in Bush’s America, where everybody loves a tax break for the rich, especially when it REALLY screws the poor.”

This is not the land of the free or the brave anymore, folks. We should change our national anthem and motto. How about this: “The good old US of A, the land where everybody looks out for themselves, and the rich get richer and the poor can go to hell after their teeth rot out.”

That government is best which governs least indeed.

It’s gotten so bad that one of the most powerful lawyers and Democrats in Alabama is so afraid of his own shadow that he insists anyone who supports the impeachment of the worst president in American history, that’s right, George W. Bush, is too far to the left to be included in any Democratic Party discussion in Alabama.

I won’t name this attorney just yet, because I have a surprise story in store for the Alabama Democratic Party I am working on to be published in the next few weeks.

But I will say this about that. Anybody who does not support the impeachment of Gonzales, Cheney and Bush should not be calling themselves a Democrat, and will certainly never be elected to any office in this state or any other in the future. So-called mainstream, centrist Democrats are so much road kill in the current political climate. And if you don’t believe me, wait until you see the public opinion data that backs it up.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Alabama author Rick Bragg

Perhaps one of the reasons I got motivated enough to write tonight is because last night, I made my way downtown to the McWayne Science Center to see my old friend Rick Bragg read from his new book The Prince of Frogtown.

Now I know it’s way too hot to be talking about football, but he also has a piece in a new special issue of Sports Illustrated about the upcoming Alabama football season.

The Rising Tide

The last column I wrote in this space was about the end of the era of the written word. I still stand by my conclusions. But that is not to say that some people won’t still write. And some people will still read good writing – when they can find it.

Now if we could just get more people to write about this damn global warming – so we can begin to do some things to reverse it. Time’s a wastin’.

Do you feel it yet? What have you done about it lately?

Me? I just a few days ago bought an insulation blanket for the hot water heater and installed it. We are capturing water in the sink as it heats up for washing dishes to use on the plants. And, we are gradually making the transition all over the house to energy efficient light bulbs. This winter, I plan on installing more insulation in the attic.

Now if we could just stop the tax breaks for condos and oil and coal companies and change the national policy to provide some tax breaks for solar power panels for homeowners, we might make some real progress.

Will it ever happen in Bush’s America or Alabama Powerland?

Not if we keep electing centrist Democrats with no cajónes.

Connecting those dot, dot, dots…

This is hard to explain to someone from New York, or even Washington.

Let’s see if I can take you through it quickly before I fall asleep after spending all day in Montgomery covering the show trial of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and Richard Scrushy.

If you wake up Friday and pick up a newspaper in Alabama, there will be three stories on the front page for sure.

The top story will be written as a historic piece about how a Democrat (Don Siegelman) was found guilty of taking a bribe from a wealthy businessman (Richard Scrushy). What they won’t tell you is that the prosecution was cooked up in Washington by Karl Rove and company to get Siegelman out of the way - to clear the electoral path of Republican up-and-comers Bob Riley and his son Rob.

The next story down the page will feature a Republican Senator, Jeff Sessions, leading the fight to kill an immigration bill, supposedly backed by President George W. Bush himself. What they won’t tell you is that the bill was sent up to Capitol Hill by Karl Rove so that Sessions could publicly kill it - to prove he’s no rubber stamp vote for Bush in Washington.

Keep looking down the page, and you will see another curious story, a story taken right out of the political playbook of George C. Wallace. As Siegelman was being sentenced and Sessions was killing the immigration bill, our esteemed governor Bob Riley was all over the TV news asking the good and religious people of Alabama, I’m not making this up, to “pray for rain.” He even issued a proclamation declaring June 30 through July 7 as “Days of Prayer for Rain.”

OK, maybe ole Karl didn’t have time to craft the proclamation himself. It would have come out with a little more panache, like “liberal, activist judges.”

If you haven’t read the Atlantic magazine piece about this, now might be a good time to go back and do it.

But you see, Alabama is in the midst of a severe drought right now, and Lord knows we could use the rain. What no one around here remembers, however, is that Wallace used to appeal to the masses to pray for rain - everytime he found himself in hot water with the state legislature in Montgomery.

We are just wondering: Considering all the reports in the New York Times, Time magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Florence Times Daily and the Locust Fork Journal about Riley’s connections to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the plot to take down Siegelman in the courts, why is it that no news reporter at any Alabama news organization bothered to call the governor and get his reaction to the Siegelman, Scrushy verdict?

Even if it had occurred to them, the governor would not have been around to give his reaction. Because right after he asked the people to pray for rain, he was whisked off to Washington to have some kind of high level meeting with somebody about something. Could it be that Karl Rove is seriously considering getting Senator Fred Thompson in Tennessee to draft Bob Riley to run as his running mate in the presidential race in 2008?

Nah, that must be a conspiracy theory. Right? How about it right-wing bloggers? Did you figure that one out yet?

You can read all these stories today on the Locust Fork News page. None of them are worth reading by themselves. But when you put them all together, now that makes an interesting read, don’t you think?

If I had the power of subpeona on my side, or if I was a really good hacker, I would like to see the phone records for Thursday from the White House, a certain Senate office, the governor’s office - and the federal courthouse in Montgomery. It would also be interesting to know who actually wrote that sentence for Judge Fuller - while he was in the courtroom rubbing his nose.

Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson

As I woke up and smelled the coffee this morning and consulted the wires, the polls and Krystal Ball, it became obvious already what’s going to happen in the Presidential election of 2008.

So you may as well go ahead and place your bets now at PaddyPower.Com, or take us up on the Yuengling odds.

Krystall Ball has been a tad fuzzy on ‘08 so far, since it’s WAY too early to be talking about a presidential election that is more than a year and a half in the future.

But now, with Tennessee actor Fred Thompson’s announcement that he is “testing the waters” and will jump into the race by July 4, it is fairly obvious how this whole thing is going to play out.

Thompson Moves To White House Run

It’s Sen. Fred Thompson vs. Oscar winner Al Gore in ‘08.

What’s Krystall Ball’s reasoning?

Up to now, the Christian Right really hasn’t had anyone in the race to vote for.

Rudy Giuliani of New York, with his pro-abortion and gay rights record, would never have cut it in the conservative Republican primary.

And Sen. John McCain’s numbers have been way down in part due to his push for more troops in Iraq and in spite of his foray to the Falwell mountaintop.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney could never carry the day, because the polls show the Christian Right will never vote for a Mormon. Sad but true. That’s the problem with this religious voting issue in the U.S.

Watch for the Karl Rove political machine, with the Bushes out of the way, to start painting Thompson as the next Ronald Reagan. He is a well-known Southerner from his days of playing the president in movies and a lawyer on TV and he has amassed a solidly conservative voting record in the U.S. Senate.

Hillary might have been able to beat Giuliani or even John McCain. But she hasn’t a prayer against Thompson. Sorry Bill.

As for why Al Gore will run, Krystal Ball says she doesn’t believe Gore when he says he is not running. He may not be in the race yet.

But when it becomes obvious from the polls that Hillary or Obama or even Edwards won’t be able to out-celebrity Thompson, the liberal bloggers will draft Gore and the Democratic Party hierarchy will have to go along or face losing in ‘08 - which could bring back talk of the party’s demise at the hands of Karl Rove.

Another interesting question is: Who will get the nod for Veep on the Democratic side?

Krystal Ball says it will most likely be Barack Obama, the popular black senator for Illinois, since chances are, Hillary would not be interested in being the first woman vice president without having Bill living in the White House as first hubby. Obama is young enough and new enough in American politics to take the Veep slot to position himself to run for president in the future.

But don’t place your Yuengling bet or Irish political bet on this one just yet. Krystall Ball needs to wait and see how everyone reacts to Thompson’s announcement around Independence Day.

The one other calculation is: Who will win in ‘08? Krystall Ball says the Democrats will still pull it out in a squeaker. It won’t come down to hanging chads in Florida this time or a few thousand stolen votes in Ohio. It will all come down to Louisiana, which will go Democrat no matter what due to the Bush administration’s handling of Katrina.

Bet against us if you dare. But the Thompson v. Gore match-up is a one Yuengling bet right now. It should be up to a six pack by the Fourth of July, when Thompson formally makes his announcement.

And that’s the word from Locust Forkland, where the river runs cold and true, the great blue herons dance like Elvis and the people like to shoot the breeze (and they are usually right).

Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson

TUSCALOOSA, Ala., May 27 - If it is too hot to paint here on the verge of what promises to be a classic global warming summer of heat waves, droughts and forest fires, imagine how it must feel in the deserts of Iraq trying to fight an unpopular, unwinnable war.

And think of how hot it must feel in Washington, D.C. for those trying to find a way out of the war and get Americans to pay attention to the news on global warming and stop driving gas guzzling SUVs everywhere they go.

A recent study showed that only when gas prices reach $4.48 a gallon will a change take place in the U.S. car culture.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans do not pay much attention to politicians or the media. And you almost can’t blame them, considering the double-sided bullshit that passes for knowledgeable information pumped out by PR men everyday.

Rather than paying attention to serious news, many Americans do seem to pay attention to TV shows like “Family Guy” on Fox, a show that makes fun of their nuclear family lives.

“Family Guy” is an Emmy award winning animated television series about a family in the suburbs of Quahog, Rhode Island, created by Seth MacFarlane in 1999.

It holds the distinction of being the first cancelled show to be resurrected based on DVD sales in 2005 after it was canceled in 2002.

Most episode titles of the show are parodies of movies, popular slogans and television shows, and for the first half of the first season, the writers tried to work the words “murder” or “death” into the title of every episode to make the titles resemble those of old-fashioned radio mystery shows. They quit when it became too hard to keep up with the limited range of titles.

TV critics panned the show, and for good reasons, Not the usual family-values based reasons of too much gratuitous violence, sex or profanity.

Entertainment Weekly seems to have an ongoing war with the show, leading to an episode in which the main character and dysfunctional dad Peter wiped his ass with a copy of the magazine when he ran out of toilet paper.

In another recent episode, a big, fat woman flirts with Peter at a party and says, I kid you not, “Do you like my ass? Would you eat cake off my ass?”

We know President George W. Bush doesn’t watch TV news, but if he had time to watch TV at all, I bet he would laugh at that joke and maybe think to himself or tell Condi, “Hey, that’s a great line. Think I’ll use it. Let them eat cake off my ass. Ha. Ha.”

The show has also been panned using premises and humor very similar to “The Simpsons,” where the writers have taken their own jabs at “Family Guy” on the same network. The show was mocked in a two-part episode of South Park. The cast called “Family Guy’s” jokes interchangeable and said their frequent “cutaway gags” had no place in the storyline.

The show is at its best when it makes fun of politicians, the media and even the Fox network.

In a recent show, a character resembling George Bush falls off the wagon, gets drunk and runs around naked on a putt putt golf course. In the season finale, the character Death tells Peter he has had a busy day: “Dick Cheney, the president of Haliburton, shot Justice Scalia in a hunting accident and the bullet went through him and killed Scooter Libby and Tucker Carlson.”

In the 400th episode of “The Simpsons,” little Lisa tried to get people to understand the contradiction between the conservative Fox News and the often irreverent Fox TV.

“They just don’t match,” she said.

Which is much like a lot of real family life in the U.S. It is sometimes hard to understand the disconnect between people’s “beliefs” and “actions.”

But maybe that’s why it seems too easy for the mass public to be manipulated by lying politicians, who toy with the line between belief and action all the time, and crass commercial capitalists, who make billions fooling some of the people enough of the time.

Beliefs don’t mean shit. It’s what we know that matters.

It’s just that you can’t get away with saying it on the stump or in the news. Sometimes you can only find the truth in satirical animated TV shows - or maybe on blogs these days.

But there are some things you can’t even get away with on a blog. Does anyone doubt that the Bush-Gonzales Justice Department would spring into action if one were to suggest that Cheney AND Scalia should be shot?

Just kidding Alice. When I say shot, I mean with a camera, not a gun.

Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson

There is no accounting for taste, or for how people learn and use new technology.

While I am an avid student of how people use the Internet, especially, I hate to be called a preacher or even a teacher. Although I’ve been called both - sometimes as a compliment; sometimes not.

But I’ve been thinking lately that it would not be a bad idea to start one’s own church in the good old US of A, considering the penchant on the part of the masses to search out someone else with the aura of authority to tell them what to think and how to live - and considering the tax laws.

Present company excluded, of course, since I suspect most of the readers lurking here are more likely to search out a great watering hole than a church. But there are several points worth considering for even the most intelligent audience in what I am about to say.

One of the smartest guys to ever walk the earth, Albert Einstein, once said: “Technological change is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”

There is a lot of technological change going on. Some for good; some for bad. And there are some attempts being made to explain it, but you have to search them out - or find a journalist or blogger to find them for you and provide a free and easy summary you can get to on your computer screen.

That is my job, in a way. So here goes.
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