The Southerner Journal

A Meet Up With Bill Clinton

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

It should be no secret that I would rather be photographing birds from a canoe than covering politics.

Unfortunately, the state of American politics and the press is in such bad shape that I feel I have no choice. It's that important.

While there are about a zillion places on the planet I would rather be than Highway 280 south of Birmingham, I headed over to the Cahaba Convention Center Friday night to meet former president Bill Clinton.

Now here is where Web coverage gets a little different than the mainstream press. The idea here on a blog journal is to create a more conversational style for readers who are tired of the formalism of balanced journalism.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Former President Bill Clinton campaigns for Hillary in Birmingham, Alabama.

If I had been covering the event for a newspaper such as the New York Times or the Christian Science Monitor, I would have remained at arms length from the politician and written a more formal news feature on the event, complete with background information and political analysis all wrapped up in the pretty language of a literary feature.

Instead, I concentrated mainly on getting some serviceable photographs in the bad light of the big HealthSouth hall, then passing on the key points of what Clinton said.

As it turned out, I was right down front at the end of Clinton's address. He walked right toward me to shake some hands. What was I to do?

Perhaps I should have asked a tough question in that rare moment in today's over-handled PR world when you get to meet an American president up close and personal. But quite frankly, I wasn't in the mood to be a tough reporter in that moment. I'm sure meeting George W. Bush would be different.

So instead, I scanned my brain quickly for something to say during that brief handshake. Here's what I came up with, which I think he will remember.

As I grasped that infamous hand and looked Bill Clinton in the eyes, I said, simply: "You were the best president ever - no matter what they say about you."

He smiled that humble smile of his and said thank you, then turned to state Sen. Roger Bedford, D- Russellville, to shake his hand and continue working the room.

I also had a word with former Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley at the event. She suffered a stroke not long after losing the race for governor last year, but she didn't want to miss the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, which drew about 1800 people this year and raised about $350,000 for the Alabama Democrats.

I also got a hug from my old source and friend Nancy Worley, our former secretary of state who is being legally harassed by certain Republican forces in this oh so conservative state.

When I told some of my Democrat friends in Birmingham about the Clinton meeting, they were very interested, since they consider Clinton not only to be the best president ever.

"He is the only president we've ever had," said one Democrat from Clay, Alabama.

I'm sure all those Republican birders out there would scoff at that statement. But that is what the world looks like from over here whether they like it or not.

Thier man Bush has been the worst president in American history bar none. I would bet the whole Yuengling 12-pack that historians will come to that conclusion when all is said and done.

Except for being defeated by the big, corporate insurance companies on creating a national health care system, cowtowing too much to corporate America by supporting the NAFTA free trade agreement, and that little matter of oral sex with a flirtatious intern, it was great to be alive and covering science with Bill Clinton in the White House.

The federal government actually worked for the first time in my lifetime, and the economy was on such a roll I spent most of the 1990s in grad school studying science and communications.

Unfortunately it all unraveled when the U.S. Supreme Court handed Bush the election of 2000. After the attacks of 9/11, I knew I wanted back in the news business covering politics.

I never imagined I would meet Bill Clinton on Highway 280 in Birmingham, since that's rock solid Republican territory. I think Republicans must like suburban sprawl and driving gas guzzling SUVs in rush hour traffic.

Me? After a fine Sunday breakfast on a beautiful spring day, I'll be putting the canoe in the water this afternoon, searching for some birds to shoot – with a camera of course.

And unlike all of the Republicans and most of the Democrats on the TV talk shows today talking about the shootings in Virginia, I've been in favor of stronger gun control laws for a long time. Give me a camera over a gun any day…

Postscript Note: Notice our lead story on the Locust Fork News page today. The New York Times didn't have it. The Washington Post didn't either, and neither did the Birmingham News.

Al Gore Presidential Campaign Team Assembles in Secret

Just another great reason to check LocustFork.Net every day and make it your home page. Why support the corporate media?

Posted by Glynn Wilson at 12:02 PM | Permalink

By Ronald Sitton

MONTICELLO, Ark. - Yesterday I walked around the campus of the University of Arkansas at Monticello with a bit of gallows humor following the Virginia Tech massacre. Monticello lies in forest country and half the student population disappears on the first day of hunting season. Uneasy, I joked with students through the day about not taking their grades too seriously as finals approach.

I couldn't have planned the discussions we had if I had tried. The Intro to Mass Communication course talked about video games, which of course led to discussions about Columbine and Jonesboro, Ark. I asked the students how many had played shooter games and over half the class responded affirmatively. Then I asked how many of them had shot someone; no hands went up, but everyone looked around.

This week I'm also discussing Crisis Communications in Intro to Public Relations. One of my former students, Zac Wright, works as Gov. Mike Beebe's press secretary and will be speaking to the class Thursday. I sent him an e-mail joking that it seems the topic came up at an appropriate time. Little did I know.

Last night at 4:58 p.m., the campus received the following e-mail from the chancellor.

"Based upon threatening remarks concerning campus safety, Mr. Paul Fong, a member of the UAM grounds maintenance staff, has been suspended from all UAM campuses and University controlled facilities. This individual will not be permitted on campus until further assurances of campus safety have been made. Any suspicious behavior by anyone at this time should be immediately reported to Campus Security at 460-1000."

I don't know Fong. There wasn't a picture nor any details that would let us know how to identify this person if he came on the school grounds. I'm also left to wonder, what's suspicious behavior on a college campus? The guy in a long duster smoking a cigarette next to the building? The girl who wears black and shaved her head? The dood with the spiked hair and chains hanging off his leather coat?

Luckily, I didn't get the message last night or I might have felt uncomfortable packing my apartment at married housing, just on the other side of the football field. When I came in this morning, I heard a rumor about yesterday's events, and other faculty called me asking if I knew anything. The only thing I can confirm at the moment is this maintenance guy was a former student who hadn't done so well in class and had decided to work for awhile. My calls to public safety have not been returned. Just as I noticed the campus hadn't received a follow-up e-mail, one appeared from the dean of students.

"The member of the UAM grounds maintenance staff that was suspended from the campus for making threatening remarks concerning campus safety was taken into custody yesterday. This individual will not be permitted on campus until further assurances of campus safety have been made. The individual was taken to Drew Memorial Hospital for medical evaluation before being transferred to the Drew County Detention Facility, where he is currently being held. All other questions concerning the disposition of this incident should be directed to the Drew County Sheriff’s Office or the UAM Office of Public Safety. Please do not hesitate to call 1000 from any campus phone to report any behavior you consider suspicious."

This left me to wonder, if the individual will not be permitted on campus until further assurances of campus safety have been made, will he be permitted on campus once they think it's safe? Another wave of nausea and concern. I replied to the e-mail asking if we'd be given a picture or more information. Haven't heard anything on that yet, but just received this e-mail from the chancellor to the campus:

"To the University of Arkansas at Monticello Family:

I know that we all share sympathy and concern for our fellow students and educators at Virginia Tech. I also know that the incident that occurred on our campus yesterday has created concern for campus safety. The openness of a university campus and the right of individuals to come and go throughout the campus causes us to be ever mindful of unusual behavior on campus. You should never hesitate to call 1000 from any campus phone or 460-1000 or 911 from a cell phone or off campus phone to report any behavior you consider suspicious.

I remind you of several characteristics of campus safety you should keep in mind:

-- Campus Security officers are always on patrol. We have 24/7 coverage and all officers are commissioned law enforcement officers. We also have regular patrols of the campus provided by the City of Monticello Police and the Drew County Sheriff’s Office. Our two College of Technology campuses have the same support from local and county officials.

-- Residence Hall Directors and Resident Assistants, as well as campus security officers, are present in the residence halls every day.

-- There are surveillance cameras and recorders in Bankston, Royer, and Maxwell Halls and in the Gibson University Center.

-- Our resident directors in the residence halls are expertly trained in safety procedures and are well experienced in communicating quickly and effectively with residents in a time of emergency.

-- The living areas of our residence halls are secure 24 hours a day and students who live in each hall gain access using only university issued keys.

-- Ten Emergency Blue Light Phones are placed at strategic locations throughout the campus. These phones are direct lines to the Public Safety Department.

-- Our Public Safety Department regularly reviews and practices scenarios involving armed subjects and they are fully supported by city, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

-- We have the support of a full time University Nurse and Counseling Center that provides services to students, faculty and staff.

In response to some questions I have received, let me assure you that UAM has the capacity of sending emergency mass e-mails to all faculty, staff and students. We also have mass telephone messaging for all campus phones. Our Director of Media Services works closely with local media to announce all campus emergency information.

Please feel free to contact my office or any member of the Executive Council if you should have any questions about emergency procedures."

Now that helps. It still doesn't tell me what this guy looks like or provide a picture, but at least I know more about what can be done if something crazy happens. Like the Internet, the great thing about college campus is the openness to thoughts, ideas, experiences, life; the worst thing about college campus is the openness to thoughts, ideas, experiences, life.

But isn't life that way anyway?

Posted by Ron Sitton at 09:28 AM | Permalink

Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson

TUSCALOOSA, Ala., April 14 - The streets of downtown Tuscaloosa were practically deserted late Saturday afternoon when we rolled into town for the Third Annual Crawfish and Blues Festival, a testament to two facts. The rain kept most people away and the blues alone just doesn't have the drawing power it used to have in the South.

Maybe people have forgotten what B.B. King always said about the blues. It's not about being sad all the time. Its about celebrating the roots of American music that spawned jazz, soul, funk and rock 'n' roll.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Josh Shurley, Hayes Dobbins and Amy Williams put down about 11 pounds of crawfish at the Third Annual Crawfish and Blues Festival Saturday in downtown Tuscaloosa.

Or maybe it's just that certain segments of the U.S. population are isolated from the blues, living in an organized religious cocoon. I suspect a Christian rock revival would draw more people in the South these days, and so would a country music festival or a hip hop convention.

But if the American public doesn't start reading between the news lines about global warming, there may be a major resurgence of the blues dead ahead.

There is some good news on the subject of climate change and pollution, however. You just have to dig for it.

In case you missed it, the U.S. Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration last week for it's inaction on global warming, in a decision that the Associated Press reports could lead to more fuel-efficient cars as early as next year.

That may be a tad ambitious, but the court, in a 5-4 ruling in its first case on climate change, declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Duh!

The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate those emissions from new cars and trucks under the landmark environment law, the court said, and the "laundry list" of reasons given by the Bush administration for declining to do so are "insufficient."

The reasoning in the court's ruling also appears to apply to EPA's decision not to impose controls on global warming pollution from power plants, a decision that has been challenged separately and will have a major impact on the future air quality in places such as Alabama.

High Court Rebukes Bush on Car Pollution

The ruling should influence a lower-court fight over pollution from four Alabama Power plants.

In a unanimous decision with industry wide implications, according to the AP, the Supreme Court ruled against Duke Energy Corp. in interpreting how emissions increases should be measured when utilities upgrade power plants.

Utilities, including Alabama Power, had argued for an approach allowing them to expand capacity annually without triggering requirements for expensive new pollution controls. But environmental experts say the decision will trickle down to pending cases across the country, including the EPA's case against Alabama Power for problems at its plants in Shelby, Walker, Greene and Mobile counties

Supreme Court Ruling Could Sway Alabama Power Pollution Case

For those of you who take the position that unfettered corporate capitalism is a better governing model than a strong regulatory federal government, how do you respond to this fact?

Just days after the high court's ruling - and this is a Supreme Court with a majority of members appointed by Republican presidents - Alabama Power issued a press release saying the company decided to take a step toward improving air quality in the Birmingham area by adding one of the world's largest scrubbers to its Walker County plant. While the company has had the technology and the money to make this change for years, only in the wake of the ruling did it announce the spending of $261 million for a scrubber to be installed next year on its coal-burning power plant near the Jefferson County-Walker County line.

The aging plant is required by the U.S. Clean Air Act to install the scrubber to remove pollution from three of its stacks to decrease sulfur dioxide emissions by 98 percent and also reduce the emissions of mercury and fine particles. Power plants are the largest source of soot and ozone in the area, the most significant corporate, point source of pollution that keeps Birmingham out of compliance with federal rules every summer. The other big sources are old cars and trucks and the absence of an auto inspection program with teeth.

Studies show that particulate pollution can reach the lungs and the blood stream and cause lung cancer and heart disease.

A subsidiary of Southern Company, Alabama Power has a virtual monopoly on power generation in the state, serving 1.4 million homes and businesses. Most of the power comes from aging coal plants, and estimates show it would take an expenditure of $3 billion to bring those plants into compliance just with current environmental standards - by 2012.

Alabama Power Installing Big Scrubber in Walker County Plant

Meanwhile, the power company spends millions of dollars influencing the mainstream, corporate media in Alabama by advertising itself as an environmentally friendly company. In academic circles, we call that "green washing."

Watch the news this week for another local example of green washing.

Samford University's Center for Environmental Stewardship and Education will host a symposium April 21 where nationally renowned leaders in science, religion and the environment will come together to discuss "saving life on earth."

E. O. Wilson Coming to Birmingham April 21

The problem with the conference is that the big name sponsor is Vulcan Materials, one of the worst corporate polluters on the planet.

We will be there to cover the event - and raise a little hell while we're at it. Isn't that what the alternative Web Press is about?

Who knows? If something major is not done to reverse climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels for energy, the blues may make a major comeback.

Personally, I would rather see a sea change in attitudes and a new economy emerging from new technologies.

I would rather start with the blues as a base and concentrate on creating new forms of music by combining the best influences of jazz, blue grass, rock and folk.

Dog knows America could use a new round of protest songs. Maybe we will live to see a cleaner day when the wind actually blows in March, the showers come in April - not winter storms - and the spring bird migration starts on time...

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Topper Price wails the blues in the background at the Third Annual Crawfish and Blues Festival Saturday in downtown Tuscaloosa.

Posted by Glynn Wilson at 02:26 PM | Permalink

By Ronald Sitton

Victim - Who'd want to shoot a black cat as cute as this?

I noticed Kilroy limping about two week’s ago, though he didn’t seem too put out about it. However, it got where he couldn’t jump. Last week, I took him to the doctor, who gave him as thorough an examination as I’d given him previously. The cat was not happy when the doctor put a thermometer up his butt.

The doc thought Kilroy might have arthritis, so he gave me pills to give to him. The cat does not like pills, so we had to roll him in a towel, pull his jowl back, pop in the pill with a pill popper, blow in his face to make him swallow, then watch as he foamed at the mouth like a rabid animal. All of that drama for naught. I honestly hope I don’t find the loser who shot him because I don’t know what would happen, though I do know it wouldn’t end pretty.

Sadness continues

Sitting in bed yesterday due to the flu, I watched the news, i.e. what little “news” I could find flipping between the three local channels more focused on extolling the virtues of the opening of Dickey-Stephens ball park than telling the news. At least on the national news I got an idea of what had been happening while I slept the majority of the day away.

At the end of the national news, my heart sank when I heard Kurt Vonnegut died. Just a year before, he told a reporter that he planned to sue the tobacco companies because cigarettes hadn’t killed him yet, though it promised to on the side of the package. A year later he died of a head injury.

I almost didn’t read Vonnegut, i.e. if I had been normal, I probably would have quit reading for fun after being forced to read to get through high school and college English courses.

As a teen going through the advanced placement English classes to prepare for college, I read “the list” for each semester. I found it odd that books on my list could not be found on the lists read by smart friends taking advanced courses one step below the honor’s AP course.

I told myself I had to read important books instead of cool books like Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and Hegel’s “Catch 22;” hell, those names sounded cool to a prepubescent teen. Instead, I was forced to read sappy shit like Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” – definitely not his best book – Hardy’s “Far From the Madding Crowd” and “Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” and Brontë's “Wuthering Heights.” I must admit, the latter turned out to be a decent book.

At least the teachers found some intrigue for a teen-age boy forced to slog through AP literature. I’ll never forget Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” due to Tommy Dungan’s depictions of the boar’s head on the stake, covered in hundreds of flies. I peered into humanity’s dark side in Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and “Lord Jim.” I read Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” at 18; ten years later, I read it again to find life-experience MAKES that book a can’t-miss.

Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” made me consider the fantastic and to an extent, the afterlife – what if we all ended up as bugs? Stewart’s “The Crystal Cave,” Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” and Homer’s “The Odyssey” made me question if history might best be described as just someone’s take on the situation, while Rand’s “The Fountainhead” took me a step further to question who determines what’s good and what motives they might have to do so.

OK, maybe I did enjoy reading a little more than the average high school kid. Maybe we had a better “list” than the students not lucky enough to be in the AP class. But Vonnegut wasn’t on that list.

I made my own lists – I’m OCD like that – a few years after my undergraduate education of things I never read or heard in hopes of finding things I might enjoy more than those I’d already experienced. When I’d meet interesting people, I’d ask them what music they listened to or what books they’d read.

Sure, I encountered a few duds here and there, but without those lists I might never have been exposed to musicians – Skip James, Professor Longhair, Hollywood Fats, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Eric Dolphy – I adore; let alone, the books that undoubtedly influenced my life: Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge,” Penn’s “All the King’s Men,” Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” Kerouac’s “On the Road,” Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Maybe you had the opportunity to read those as a kid; I never did. And as I’ve noted before, I almost didn’t read Vonnegut, which would have been a tragedy. You see, Vonnegut wrote the book at the top of my initial after-college reading list. Though I didn't pick up "Slaughterhouse-Five" (or "The Children's Crusade") until 1997, I was hooked on Vonnegut after reading it. I also recommend "Cats Cradle" and "The Sirens of Titan."

I cannot remember who told me to read “Slaughterhouse-Five.” I do remember I paid full-price instead of searching the used bookstores; I don’t know why. I didn’t know the book was about his fictionalized memoirs of the Dresden bombings. I didn’t know that, much like Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” 41 years earlier, “Slaughterhouse-Five” seems to accurately depict the atrocities and absurdities of war.

I had no idea that book would haunt me.

I went to cover a war protest march in October 2002, the first recorded pre-war protest in American history. That march against the Iraq war indirectly led to my leaving Ohio and returning to Arkansas. The only place you could find information about that war protest was in the Washington Post.

I never wrote the article I planned because of events on and following that trip, documented in part here and here. You'd have a hard time actually finding those articles since the index page that can be found is not the correct one. In fact, most of that issue no longer exists except in my files.

I’ve always felt guilty since. I rationalized that since I didn't write my article within the weekend after it happened, the story didn't meet the timeliness criteria required for news. Maybe if I’d written the story … maybe if I’d shown the photos … maybe it could have convinced somebody that the war cries of the chicken hawks were absurd. But maybe it’s best I did not write that article because I am biased against war, and that surely would have come out in the article. Isn’t that objectivity?

When I went on the trip, I told myself I was a journalist; after the fallout, I told myself I was an instructor, not a journalist. A freelancer perhaps. I knew the war could not be stopped; though it sickened me, I just accepted it. But I found out this week that my best friend will return to Iraq after originally fighting in Desert Storm as a military policeman in the Air Force, a good deal away from the front. Today he's a 38-year-old National Guardsman with two of my god-daughters, both of whom are under 5. If I had published then, would he be going now?

When Vonnegut died yesterday, I remembered how sick his book made me feel about war. That reminded me what a shit I’ve been for not stepping up to show the truth because it was easier to worry about my career instead of the truth. So I present to you, dear reader, a photo recollection of that under-covered event. Crucify me if you will for not showing this sooner. It will be no worse than my self-inflicted loathing; I’m no better than the bastard who shot my cat.

Posted by Ron Sitton at 03:40 PM | Permalink