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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, about the era of the French Revolution
Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson
It was the worst of times, the best of times, but now it's over. Thank dog for the passing of August, 2007 - the hottest month on record in much of the United States and Alabamaland.
The dead leaves from the drought-ravaged trees in the area are already falling and the fall bird migration has officially begun.
But while August was a rough month to take in many ways, let's not forget some of the best political news of the past seven years. President Bush's amoral political aide Karl Rove and his incompetent but loyal Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have left the building – the White House that is – and slunk back to Texas in disgrace.
Senator Larry "I am not gay" Craig announced his resignation yesterday, helping to bring the Log Cabin Republican story out of the closet before the masses and the mass media.
Not since Monica Lewinsky's stained blue dress have so many media organizations struggled with where to draw the line in talking about sex and politics in the same breathless sentence.
It just makes my heart sing when truth and justice are actually in evidence in the good old US of A.
But there's more work to do to right the ship of state that has been careening toward the abyss of history since the Bush gang decided to invade Iraq in the wake of 9/11.
If things go as planned, North Alabama lawyer Jill Simpson of Siegelman affidavit fame will be heading up to Washington in mid-September to brief the House Judiciary Committee staff on what she still sees as an injustice directed from the White House in that political prosecution.
While the Alabama Democratic Party and even Siegelman's own lawyers still don't seem to get this story, it is one of the most important narratives going in the drive to set the ship of America back on an upright course.
There are no guarantees yet that the Democrats in Washington will be able to grasp this information and seize the day to turn this ship around. But at least it's worth a try.
On September 15, we are told, there will be a large mass anti-war march in Washington on the same day Bush's general in Iraq is supposed to report back on the progress of the troop surge. We will be there to cover it.
According to several early stories about that report leaked to national newspapers, the news will not all be good. But since those stories have been out there, the report seems to be changing, at the direction - surprise, surprise - of the Bush White House.
According to all the TV punditry on the Sunday morning talk shows today, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus may now have more so-called "good news" to report, although it will still set off a contentious debate in Washington over what to do about the debacle over there.
Reports Add Fuel to Iraq Debate
If the talking heads are to be believed on "Meet the Press" and the newer Chris Matthews show on NBC, Bush is so politically savvy that he will turn the political debate over the war around and the Republicans will stand by their man and not help the Democrats do anything to de-fund the war or force the beginning of troop withdrawals from Iraq.
I think they are totally wrong from a political point of view and certainly in terms of what is right for the country. Apparently, however, establishment Democrats are still such a part of the Washington taint that they do not have the guts to take the fight to Bush all the way to ending the war and impeaching Bush.
Sources tell us that the Republicans have the dirt on every Democrat in Washington, including Rep. John Conyers of Detroit, Michigan, who was seen in Africa with Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana - the guy who got caught with a bunch of tainted cash in his refrigerator.
Before the 2006 mid-term election, Conyers was holding hearings in the Capitol basement and pounding the minority gavel saying if the Democrats regained control of Congress, he would move to impeach Bush, one of the worst presidents in American history and whose administration has been riddled with one scandal after another from Katrina to torture to spying on Americans.
Since the Democrats took back Congress, however, there has been very little talk of that, except from Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who is running for president but does not have an angel's chance in hell.
A few weeks ago, there was a lot of talk about impeaching Gonzales. But he did the Washington two-step and got out of town while Congress was on vacation in August, right after Rove announced his resignation and just before Larry Craig announced his. The result? A buried story.
And now it's football season, so the masses are paying even less attention, especially in Alabamaland.
Nick Saban seems to be on the right track with the Alabama Crimson Tide's 52-6 season opening victory over Western Carolina, but let's face facts. The Hoover High School football team could have beaten Western Carolina. It was no true test.
Let's just hope the worst of times are over and that the best of times are still ahead. I don't have much faith. But you've got to hold out some hope in life.
At least we're all not dead yet. And as I often like to say, "you can't win if you don't play."
So let's take the fight to them! What do you say?
Not Black and White
Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., June 10 - There is a famous story about editors at the New York Times I learned while working with the elite of the elite a few years back.
Reporters who make the big leagues of American journalism hear this story and learn to deal with it in their own way.
As the story goes, when an editor calls a reporter in the field in a place like Birmingham, Alabama, and asks: "Is the community torn asunder down there?" The reporter, if he wants to keep his job, is supposed to not only answer, "yes." You are supposed to provide direct quotations from people in the community who will corroborate the premise of the story, to back up the lede, so to speak.
There have been many situations when my own instincts and the facts on the ground did not support the premise, and in fact, the opposite, counterintuitive truth is often the case.
And since I am in the business of calling it like I see it and telling it like it is, I often reported the truth on the ground and to hell with what a bunch of editors in New York think.
But today, in the story I am about to report, I think it is safe to say that this community is torn asunder. It's just that in this case, the editors in New York could care less. Why? Because the story does not involve Paris Hilton or the Red State-Blue State, Conservative-Liberal, Democrat-Republican divide.
The story involves a little old man named Clay Blake, 78, who lives right down the street from here.
This past Tuesday afternoon around 1 p.m., in what we like to call "broad daylight," Mr. Blake was unloading some groceries from his pickup truck. And up walked a mixed up young man - who should never have been in the possession of a hand gun – and held up Mr. Blake. He forced this little old man who never hurt anyone in his life into the house he has lived in for the past 40 years.
Once inside, this young man, of the African-American persuasion, tied little old Mr. Blake up with the power cord from a vacuum cleaner. He then kicked Mr. Blake in the face, rendering him unconscious.
When Mr. Blake came to, he discovered his wallet and a couple of pistols missing, and then made a phone call and had himself checked into the hospital at Medical Center East.
The neighborhood was all abuzz about this dastardly dead after the crime brief hit the Birmingham News on Saturday.
What this mixed up young man who committed this crime does not understand is that his already sad and pathetic life is about to take a drastic turn for the worse. Maybe the money he stole went to purchase some food and bought him another day of life on this planet. Or maybe it just went for some crack cocaine to make him fell better about himself for a few measly minutes.
Either way, this young man is about to be found out and turned in to authorities in ways he will never comprehend. And he will either end up in prison or dead.
Maybe he would be better off dead. Or maybe he should never have been born in the first place, if his mixed up single mama had been told by someone cool that there is a such thing as a condom - and that there is no shame in using one.
Now here is where the politics and sociology of the situation get interesting beyond the basic facts about the crime. If only she had been told that this is a black and tan world, not a black and white world, maybe none of this would ever have happened.
What do I mean by that?
It's like this. There are some racist, conservative members of this community who would like to hang this little shit up by his toes and torture him to death for his crime. But these are the same Republican voters who oppose birth control - and taxes for prisons. It is just bad public policy to think you can have it both ways.
When the church and the state both advocate unworkable policies and try to tell teenagers to "abstain" from sex, and deny them a real education about sex and intelligent alternatives to unwanted pregnancies and the spiraling down nature of poverty, what kinds of bad decisions can we expect in our communities?
And this is particularly acute in a town like Birmingham, where both races still suffer from the sting and distrust of segregation.
At least in a place like New Orleans, the races lived in relative proximity of one another and in relative harmony for 300 hundred years. It is different in Birmingham, where the clash of the races in the newer, sprawling suburbs comes into specific relief every time an incident like this one is reported.
The African-American community in and around Birmingham will never trust white people, and the whites will keep trying to escape these kinds of crimes by moving further and further out into the country toward Blount and St. Clair Counties.
Meanwhile, nothing is done to try and bring people together and get them to understand the larger facts on the ground. And this serves only the politicians on the right and the left who get themselves elected by using the great divide to scare people and keep them down.
If only people could understand that there is no such thing as a simple, black and white world. There are an abundance of shades of gray out there.
What we need is a government that tackles practical solutions to real problems. One real problem that is leading to the current crime wave is the growing divide between the rich and the poor, fed by a mostly Republican effort to keep wages down so large corporations can make more and higher profits for mostly white stockholders.
This is an unsustainable world where all the problems in society are going to get worse, not better. And for every conservative who listens to talk radio and Fox News who likes to say, "that's the American way," here's a fact for you.
The founding fathers of this democratic republic had in mind an egalitarian society with a large middle class with equal opportunities for all. They DID NOT envision a so-called "Christian" nation modeled after the Monarchies of Europe.
You can say it all day long every day. But that does not make it true.
And what is so Christian anyway about a society that discriminates on the basis of race and class? Nothing.
So show me a Democrat or a Republican politician who understands these things, and he or she will get my vote, black or white.
Now call me a liberal and dismiss what I have to say - you idiot so-called conservative lurkers.
We say there is a two-word phrase for anyone who plays that game. In the perfect, fictional world of Locustforkland, 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), we like to call you "Alabama dumbasses."
And of course we are right.
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 to 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.
Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson
The spring bird migration seems to be over now, the grosbeaks have moved on north and the mosquitoes have finally arrived, along with the dreaded need for air conditioning - a great invention that allows us in the South to live in these climes year around but fuck up the planet at the same time.
The news is not so interesting these days, although the scandals still pile up in Washington. It's not a bad time to reflect on another Monarchical time - thanks to Showtime.
If you have not been watching the new series on the young Henry VIII, you may want to catch up with the action as young Henry is about to figure out a way to marry the vivacious Anne Boleyn and split from the Catholic Church to form the Church of England, an event that led to the beginning of a great flight of Europeans to what became the United States of America.
The Tudors Official Website
The series shows just how corrupt and sick ruling elites can be in a Monarchy. It's something Americans should beware of considering our current political predicaments. If the Bush's had their way, we would be headed - or beheaded - in that general direction politically.
One point you should understand right away. The cardinal is the king's pimp.
That is more or less an accurate depiction of what the mix of religion and state can produce when the leader of a people is said to get his power from a divine source. They called it the "divine right of kings."
We did away with that shit in the American and French revolutions, and it would be a shame to see something similar return to public favor on Earth.
One of the more important and interesting characters being depicted is Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), also known as Saint Thomas More, an English lawyer, author, and statesman. During his lifetime he earned a reputation as a leading humanist scholar. He was a man of great honesty and character, apparently, which makes him rare in this tale.
More coined the word "utopia," a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in an influential book called Utopia published in 1516.
I red this book a long time ago, but lost my Book Club hard bound copy along with all my Aristotle, Plato and Socrates on my move from Gulf Shores back to the Southside of Birmingham in 1992.
Utopianism or "no place" refers to an imaginary island depicted by Sir Thomas More as a perfect social, legal, and political system. Various social and political movements, and a significant body of religious and secular literature, are based upon the idea of a Utopia on earth.
Utopia is largely based on Plato's Republic. It is a perfect version of Republic where equalism (egalitarianism) and pacifism flourish throughout human society and where poverty and misery are eliminated. It is a place where private property does not exist and religious toleration is practiced. It has few laws, no lawyers and rarely sends its citizens to war.
Utopia is often seen as the forerunner of the Utopian genre of literature, in which different ideas of the "ideal society" or perfect cities are described in varying amounts of detail. It is a typical Renaissance movement, based on the rebirth of classical concepts of perfect societies as set out by Plato and Aristotle, combined with the Roman rhetorical finesse of Cicero. Utopianism continued well into the Enlightenment Age.
Many commentators have pointed out that Karl Marx's later vision of the ideal communist state strongly resembles More's Utopia, especially on the issue of individual property, although Utopia is without Marx's atheism.
Apparently Henry VIII employed More's exceptional intelligence and grasp of the law and religion to write several treatises in defense of the Catholic faith against European reformers, notably Martin Luther.
But after young King Henry split from the Catholic Church, which would not grant him a divorce, and after he formed the Church of England, More came to believe that the rise of Protestantism represented a grave threat to social and political order in Christian Europe. As with many of Henry's enemies, he was charged with high treason for denying the validity of the Act of Succession and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered - the usual punishment for traitors. But the king commuted his sentence to execution by beheading.
We suspect if Bush had his way, he would be allowed to do that to his enemies. Instead, these fuckers just set out to ruin people who criticize them via rumor, innuendo and secret dossiers passed around over the "Internets." Sometimes the bastards employ a car crash that looks like an accident. Yes, we could cite specific examples and document them.
But it's late. And afterall, how many scandals does it freaking take to get rid of these corrupt swine?
I'm far more interested in getting past these royal assholes and getting onto more productive pursuits, such as later versions and theories of Utopia. Maybe a scientific approach, something like the one founded by the Global scenario group, an international group of scientists led by Paul Raskin, which uses scenario analysis and backcasting to map out a path to an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable future. Its findings suggest that a global citizens movement is necessary to steer political, economic and corporate entities toward this new sustainability paradigm.
But apparently we're going to have to re-fight the American and French Revolutions, at least in the political realm, before we can get on with that paradigm shift. We always seem to repeat the mistakes of the past, perhaps because people don't remember the past in an educated way.
Did you hear the socialists are rioting as the Conservative Sarkozy won the French presidency?
Bummer man...
Get on top of things people. Don't just watch The Tudors.
Learn more about it.
And let's stop it from happening all over again...
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?
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. |
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
- Albert Einstein
Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson
My favorite answer to just about any political, social or technological question these days is: "It's a mystery."
When it concerns the workings of computers and the Internet, it's "a dang old dot dot dot mystery."
Life is full of mysteries. Love them or hate them, you can't avoid them.
There are things we can know; things we can't.
For a journalist or a scientist, even a social scientist, this can be infuriating.
But you learn to live with it.
One of the things we humans do to deal with all the mysteries of life is to turn for answers to literature, movies or music. Some people turn to tabloids and soap operas. But they are not worth considering in this discussion.
Continue reading "Under the Microscope: It's A Mystery" »
Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson
"Let the waters teem with fish and other life, and let the skies be filled with birds of every kind."
- Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 20, (Living Bible translation, 1977).
In response to: Creation: An Appeal To Save Life on Earth, by E.O. Wilson.
A letter to the church:
Dear Church Member,
You and I are cut from the same cloth, so to speak. We are descended from the same cultural roots and the same genetic code, although I may have more Native American genes than your average member. We share a common culture and common interests in ethics, community and a value for life.
Yet if you read some of the things I've said about you in the past, you may not like it very much. You may believe that we profoundly disagree on just about everything, especially on some basic issues like the origin of life and the role of the church in shaping the policies of state.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | A white-throated sparrow just trying to survive... |
Due to a recent letter to your preacher by someone I deeply respect, however, I am willing to reconsider my position on organized religion's role in a dangerous quest to lead the world to the abyss of an Armageddon that does not necessarily have to come about to fulfill Biblical prophecy. Or at least I am willing to objectively suspend judgment for a time, in the larger interest of making a last ditch effort to see if E.O. Wilson's appeal to your heart might change your collective minds.
You see like E.O. Wilson, I too can be called a "secular humanist," or according to the political-religious fanaticism of the day, "The devil."
I believe that the world evolved basically like Darwin said it did in On the Origin of Species: "...this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
Like Darwin and Wilson, I believe there is no guarantee of life after death and that "heaven and hell are what we create for ourselves, on this planet. There is no other home. Humanity originated here by evolution from lower forms over millions of years."
"Humanity doesn't need a moon base or a manned trip to Mars. We need an expedition to planet Earth," Wilson writes, and I agree, since it seems to me neither a philosophy of a Rapture or an escape to space are viable options for humanity. Both are fantasies born of human fear and creativity based on myths passed down through the generations - dreams that have influenced us genetically and culturally.
I also believe that ethics is the code of behavior we share on the basis of reason, law, honor, and an inborn sense of decency, "even as some ascribe it to God's will."
When I first heard about Wilson's latest work and his appeal to put aside our metaphysical disagreements in the interest of saving life on earth, I was skeptical. I am still skeptical.
I'm afraid Wilson's argument and book are way over the heads of most evangelical Christians. Rare is the Baptist preacher who would risk his own religious-political hide to join the enemy of corporate Christianity in an endeavor to fight global warming and the mass extinction of species Wilson predicts will happen over the course of the next century.
I am not even sure I agree with Wilson's argument that religion and science are the two most powerful forces in the world today.
But let's say for the sake of argument he is right. And in the interest of approaching the politics of sustainability like Karl Rove approaches the politics of unbridled corporate capitalism, let's say this tactic has a chance of success. Let's say an appeal to Baptist preachers can sway a certain segment of the religious community over to our side in the fight to transform the planet and set it off in a better direction.
Wilson suggests setting aside all the differences between science and religion "in order to save Creation." For, he says: "The defense of Nature is a universal value."
What Wilson may not realize, or if he does he fails to make it clear in any of his work, is that to accomplish what he sets out to do, it will take a massive reversal of public political momentum away from the Republicanization of the entire church community in the United States. The Conservative Movement pushed by Televangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson - capitalized on by politicians like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush - has already caused so much destruction both to the natural environment and to human understanding that the cause may already be lost.
It will take an unprecedented change of course in human affairs and a smashing defeat of the most powerful forces on Earth - the large corporations that have amassed so much wealth that chances are they will be able to defeat any movement in the direction Wilson envisions.
Unless the multi-national energy companies and insurance companies and auto makers and related industries get fully onboard, I'm afraid there is not much the churches - or the scientists - will be able to accomplish.
Perhaps Wilson's thinking is that if all the devout professionals would pressure their bosses at the Southern Company and Exxon Mobile and the like, they would change course. At the very least, a political strategy of dividing corporate conservatives and religious conservatives is worth a try.
I am skeptical that this can happen because the American worker doesn't even seem capable anymore of organizing around the most basic issues related to his pocketbook, both salaries and health benefits.
If we cannot agree to fight agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA that drive down wages, or fund a health care system for the almost 50 million Americans not covered, how are we going to save the whooping cranes?
We can't even get enough people interested in saving Homo sapiens or the Holy Grail of ornithology, the ivory-billed woodpecker, the "Lawd God" bird.
How are we going to convince Baptist preachers, whose contributions come in large measure from people who work at companies such as Alabama Power, to reverse their exemptionalism and organize to save obscure frogs in Hawaii or a host of unnamed bugs, weeds and fungi?
Wilson is right that people in most countries today have lost touch with their natural sense of biophilia - or connection to nature.
"They have pushed the rest of life to the margin, and rank its decline well down in the order of their personal concerns," Wilson admits.
Yet he is still somehow an optimist, dear church member, and he has more hope for you than I do.
"I believe that as the scientific study of human nature and living Nature grows," Wilson says, the two great forces of science and religion will unite mankind in time to save life on Earth.
"The central ethic will shift, and we will come full circle to cherish all of life not just our own," Wilson says.
Is there hope? Or is it too late? Is the glass half-full or half-empty?
Wilson may be right to think that appealing to the religious community may be the only hope left. We will see if he is right.
His formula misses one other aspect that will be important in saving the planet. And here's where the church may actually be able to help.
I can understand why Wilson wouldn't bring it up. He's leaving out politics and war altogether.
But here it is: Mankind needs a different kind of leadership to come to terms with the futility and destructiveness of war.
It's up to you, church member.
So, what do you say?
Will you change course and switch sides in this fight?
Or will Armageddon become a self-fulfilling prophesy?
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day."
- Alfred E. Neuman
Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson
If life imitates art far more than art imitates life, as Andy Warhol and Oscar Wilde both contended, then what are we to make of Alfred W. Bush?
What, me worry?
Blah, blah. Jibber, jabber.
I am just a humble reporter, right? So what do I know about art - or running a country?
Nothing.
But I do know something about doing nothing and doing the impossible.
I do nothing almost every day.
Every once in a great while, I will gear myself up and do the impossible, like stopping a river from being dammed or a road from being built.
I once wrote a story with the zany, sensational headline: "Endangered Sea Turtles Killed by City Street Lights."
The result was a new policy in the city of Gulf Shores, Alabama, to turn off the streetlights for two weeks every year - while the loggerhead sea turtles hatch on the Gulf Coast. You see, when the hatchlings come out of their holes in the sand, they are driven genetically to the moon shining off the ocean water. It's natures of way of telling them what direction to crawl to survive.
When they crawl out and see the street lights, well, they head for the road - and a bad fate.
So what if we as a country decided to just turn out the lights for a day?
I'm not kidding.
What I am proposing is a bona fide national strike to protest all that is wrong in the world.
To all my activist friends, what about it?
What we need is not a national day of protest. What we need is a national day of rest.
Wouldn't it be grand to see the media jump all over themselves covering a story about a country completely shutting down because no one shows up for work?
We'll let the media off the hook on this one. They have to work even on Christmas and the Fourth of July.
When the power shuts down and the phones don't work and the Internet crashes, someone in Washington will freak out and wonder where all the people have gone.
Look at it this way. Consider how much energy we could save in one work day just by staying home and doing nothing.
According to the federal government, every day America burns 1 million Btus of energy for every man, woman and child in the U.S. The average single-family household in the U.S. consumes a little more than 100 million Btus every year.
A national day of rest would save enough energy to keep us out of any more wars in the Middle East, and we would not have to consider drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska or within 100 miles of the Florida coast.
We would not have to consider chopping down entire forests and turning all the trees into wood chips to make a new and strange form of biofuel.
So what about it? If you are pissed off about anything, anything at all, won't you join me in this strike? This national day of rest?
Don't call in sick. Just don't show up.
And turn off your lights. You might find that you have a strange new peace of mind that you have never experienced before. You might experience some peace and quiet for a change. And we might all be the better for it.
Alfred W. Bush could spend the day on his Crawford, Texas, ranch, and think about life, art - or his legacy.
Who knows? We could come out of it a better country. Maybe the world would join us and we could have a worldwide day of rest.
Talk about saving the world, and savoring life
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.
Continue reading "On Technological Ch-Che-Change..." »
Connecting the Dots
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. And as we reported this week before the Saban press conference, there is an empty spot on the "walk of champions" in front of the newly expanded Bryant-Denny Stadium for a new statue for the next coach who wins a national championship.
And just about everyone around here, including virtually every sports writer at every local newspaper, thinks 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 here will be tested on the football fields of the Southeastern Conference and beyond.
What I want to know is: 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 are 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 we will start caring about that issue when the beaches of Gulf Shores erode north to Bay Minette.
Related stories:
Alabama Fans: Meet Nick Saban
Tide Faithful Goes Nuts Over Saban's Arrival
Presidential Tip Sheet: Early Bet on Edwards
Looking under the hood of the muscle car in the Krystal parking lot, it looks like John Edwards could be the next president of the United States.
Here's why.
In this early week in the race for president in 2008, rendered important due to new Democratic Party rock star Barack Obama's early hints he may run and the resulting step up of Hillary Clinton's reelection schedule, Edwards also stepped up in the public eye. Edwards the trial lawyer and vice presidential candidate and his smart yet southern wife Elizabeth out hardballed Chris Mathews of MSNBC on Tuesday.
For reasons I'll explain later, he already has a head start in the early primary and caucus races in Iowa and New Hampshire, and will emerge from the pack as the electable moderate southerner with the strength of character to pull off being president. When you think about it, he even looks a bit like Tony Blair - but without the penchent for supporting George W. Bush.
Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, who has been traveling the world since focusing on his major populist theme of solving the poverty problem here and abroad, was the recent top choice among likely Iowa caucus-goers asked to say who they would support in the 2008 caucuses. Edwards, who has traveled to the state extensively since the 2004 campaign when he was the Democrats' vice presidential nominee, won the support of 36 percent of those polled. U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., finished second at 16 percent. Obama got 13 percent.
Edwards has been working on an upgrade to his profile as the son of a mill worker, the story he used to get the Veep nod after strong early primary showings in 2004.
Trust us when we say this will become even more important as the 2008 approaches and economists officially announce the economic recession. Yes, it will be out of the bag by then.
Edwards has not declared his candidacy yet, so to learn about his recent activities you have to go to his One America Website.
Edwards may also be in a good position from a horse racing point of view. He can refine what his plan is riding loosely in third or fourth and wait for the next turn, while most of the media spotlight shines on the two early leaders on the rail, Hillary Clinton and Obama.
A Cook/ RT Strategies poll looking at the Democratic Party's crowded field of contenders shows Clinton leading public opinion with 34 percent. Obama is a distant second with 20 percent, even though he may not even run.
Former Vice President Gore, who has been testing the track's surface of late while fishing for an Oscar for his Global Warming film, still gets the support of 11 percent of the people, while Edwards gets 9 percent.
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts tied with 4 percent. Everyone else - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio - scored 2 percent or less in the survey of Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independents.
Taking Gore out of the race, Clinton rises 5 points to 39 percent, Obama gains 1 point to 21, Edwards goes up 2 points to 11 percent. Kerry picks up 2 points to 6 percent.
Without Gore or Obama in the race, Clinton goes to 51 percent and Edwards grabs second place with 13 percent. Without Gore, Obama, and Kerry, Clinton gets 52 percent and Edwards 14 percent.
But that is before the race has even officially begun.
We still like Al Gore and think he should have won in 2000, and he would prove to be a much more loose and effecitve campaigner now, we suspect. So if he runs, he will be a major contender and may even get our votes.
But then, why would he want to go through it all again - when he can have far more fun and potentially be even more effective on the outside?
Gore on the Web
Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland, Ohio, who ran as the Ralph Nader of Democrats in 2004 and didn't get very far, made an impasshioned speech for peace this week in making his announcement that he would run again.
His key point: "What kind of credibility will our Party have if we say we are opposed to the war, but continue to fund it?"
He says the Congress has already set aside the $70 billion it would take to get American troops out of Iraq and home, and he is suggesting we face facts and do that - rather than give President Bush another $160 billion supplimental appropriation to continue the war for another year?
Dennis Kucinish on the Web
Which brings up another reason Edwards could emerge as the front runner during the primary process.
Expect to hear Bush take John McCain's advice, not Jim Baker's. Watch this.
In a month, Bush will go on national television and ask Congress for even more money to send another 40,000 to 50,000 MORE troops to "win" a "victory" - "Over there." He still doesn't get it.
Coupled with the inevitable recession, if this war is still dragging out that will make it very hard for any Repubican to "win" in 2008.
The obvious leader will be Sen. John McCain of Arizona. A few months ago he looked like the only hope the country had. But since his foray to the major-domo of the Christian Right, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and his recommendation for more troops, McCaiin is likely to sink like a horse with a stone embedded in his hoof before this is all over.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will pursue the GOP nomination (ho, hum) and may well be joined by Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas (yech!), Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (yawn), Rep. Hunter of California (who?), and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado (give us a break).
The question marks in the Republican race are former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (har, har).
Although national polls of Republican voters often show Giuliani at the front of the GOP's 2008 pack, most observers with a real grasp of the Republican nominating process think Giuliani's support for abortion rights, gay rights, and gun control knock him out of any real chance of winning the nomination.
Cook Political Report/RT Strategies polled Republicans and Republican-leaning independents about the 2008 contest. When Giuliani was included in the list of candidates, he ran first with 27 percent, followed by McCain at 25 percent and Gingrich at 10 percent. Romney ran fourth with 9 percent. Everyone else was in the low single digits.
Taking Giuliani out of the mix, McCain's support rose from 25 percent to 34 percent and Gingrich's climbed from 10 percent to 16 percent. Romney edged up to 10 percent. No one else drew more than 5 percent, according to the Cook Political Report.
Then there's today's front runner on both sides, Hillary Clinton. But does anyone really think she can really win the presidency? Her negatives with men are way to high for her to have a chance, unfortunately.
If the Democrats really choose 2008 to be the year of the woman in American politics, then McCain could very well be the next president.
You will recall that one of the early front runners in the 2004 presidential race, now Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean, said that to win, the Democrats need to appeal to the NASCAR vote.
If John Edwards is listening, here's a tip on how he can win this thing. Get yourself a muscle car, go to Nashville and make some CMT-style music videos. In essence, start hanging out in the Krystal parking lot and talking it up. Get yourself a cowboy hat. Go country.
The liberals in New York, D.C., California and the other cities, can't win this thing without some working class votes in the South. And they will never, not in a million years, vote for Hillary.
Edwards has the union bona fides to talk the talk and walk the walk. He may even be able to carry Alabama in two years - once the economy goes in the tank and the war gets even worse.
How about Obama for Veep and president in 2016?
by Glynn Wilson
The newspaper industry is in trouble, and in no measure, it's because of out of touch people like William Bunch, a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News who also publishes a blog.
His latest misinformed missive was the lead story today on the Poynter Institute's media blog put together by a little guy named Jim Romenesko.
Romenesko: Your daily fix of media industry news, commentary, and memos.
First, here's some of what he had to say, followed by my response.
I'm a fan of some conspiracy theories. And so really, what could be a more compelling conspiracy theory than the plot to destroy the American newspaper, hatched - in our imagination anyway - by a secret cabal of bloggers and Web gurus meeting in a diner off Calle Ocho in Miami, then launching their assault on circulation from a Grassy Knoll somewhere in cyberspace?
Except this is one conspiracy that can be easily debunked. The American newspaper is being assassinated by "a lone nut." And we're going to tell you the name of that lone nut:
Craig Newmark of Craigslist . . . a man whose altruistic vision of running a business to NOT maximize profits is now threatening the livelyhood of thousands of working men and women across this country, your neighbors who work at and publish your local newspaper, jobs that were once supported by the classified ads that have migrated to the most free . . . Craigslist (sic: dot org).
Last week, Newmark's co-conspirator (OK, he's not a totally "lone" nut) - his CEO Jim Buckmaster - told stunned Wall Street analysts how they're happy to forego profits to save you a couple of bucks on a classified ad, and put some of my best friends on the unemployment line in the process. They even leave on the table money in ways that wouldn't come directly from their customers:
If you won't charge customers for ads, and apparently you won't, then at least start accepting those text ads, and funnel those millions of dollars into the newly formed Craig's Foundation. And what will be the main benefactor of this new foundation? A scholarship fund, to pay for the college education of the dozens of displaced journalists across America losing their jobs everyday. . . . And if there's any cash left, how about building a retirement home for any newspaper folks who might somehow see a diminished pension down the road?
The "lone nut" theory of the American newspaper assassination
Since no one else will ever set the record straight on this, apparently, perhaps because they have not studied the issue enough to be in command of the facts, let me have a go.
It's not that much of a mystery to me why newspaper reporters do not understand what's going on here. Most of them got into newspapering in the first place because they could not do math. And from their early days in the business, they shunned any knowledge of the business side of newspapering, believing that to know the facts about business would jeopardize their objectivity.
But anyone who has ever worked as an academic, teaching journalism, should be familiar with the literature on how newspapers make money to pay reporters. And its not from classified ads or the price of a subscription.
Admittedly, a lot of academics don't have those facts at their disposal for a variety of reasons. I once got into a heated argument with a faculty member at a reputable regional university who insisted out of ignorance that the Washington Post was a national newspaper, for example. But anyone who knows the facts here, including the publisher and the circulation manager at the Post, knows this to be true: The Post made a conscious decision not to invest in regional printing plants and daily distribution across the country like USA Today, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It is a metropolitan newspaper with distribution in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
They now have an opportunity with the Web Press to reach out to a national and international audience, however, and so far they seem to be capitalizing on it - without charging for access to their Web edition.
So let's be clear. Craigslist.Org is not putting any newspaper reporters out of work because the revenue from classified advertising never, ever went for paying the salaries of reporters in the first place. Nor did the price of a mail subscription or the price of the paper in the newsstand or box on the corner.
The price of the paper itself has always been earmarked primarily for the cost of distributing the newspaper. If anything was left over from that, it went for the cost of printing the newspaper.
Fact: It costs nothing to print or distribute a newspaper on a Web Press. It does cost a little to put it online, but nothing compared to the millions of dollars of paying for and maintaining an offset press, not to mention the rising cost of paper and ink.
Classified ads in newspapers has been a source of revenue for paying staff at newspapers, but mostly for the production and circulation staff. News staffs and most of the employees of newspapers have always been paid from general advertising revenue.
So perhaps Mr. Bunch should redirect his ire at Craigslist toward building a retirement home for newspaper delivery boys and pressmen.
But guess what? There's an antidote to Craigslist and the newspapers have it in their power to overcome the threat from the competition. If they would just stop bashing the online revolution and join it, they are in a powerful position to take advantage of it. If newspapers would just invest in original journalism and put it online for free, thereby putting themselves in a position of generating a massive amount of traffic AND online advertising revenue, they could survive.
They could even start their own free online classifieds to compete with Craigslit. They could sell Google text ads and pocket all the money and brag at the end of the year to their stockholders.
But apparently, newspaper managers (and columnists) are so out of touch with the reality available right in front of them that they will go on bashing the Web until they are out of business.
When that day comes, us former newspaper reporters who understand the Web Press will be right here to take over where they left off - if there is a First Amendment left after Bush's appointments to the federal bench get done with sending it to the trash heap of history.
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 earshot of 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.
Continue reading "Connecting The Dots: Writing, Art and Freedom..." »
Rumsfeld Ousted As Secretary of Defense
by Glynn Wilson
The sweep is final and complete. The Democrats will now control a majority in both the Senate and the House for the first time since 1994 as the two close races still in play on Wednesday in Montana and Virginia ended up going to the Democrats, according to the Associated Press and other news organizations.
Jim Webb's close victory over incumbent Sen. George Allen gave Democrats their 51st seat in the Senate, an astonishing turnabout at the hands of voters unhappy with Republican scandal and unabated violence in Iraq, according to the AP, which called the race first this evening.
The Senate teetered at 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans and one independent for most of Wednesday, with Virginia hanging in the balance. Webb's victory ended Republican hopes of eking out a 50-50 split, with Vice President Dick Cheney wielding tie-breaking authority.
The AP contacted election officials in all 134 localities where voting occurred, obtaining updated numbers Wednesday. About half the localities said they had completed their postelection canvassing and nearly all had counted outstanding absentees. Most were expected to be finished by Friday.
The new AP count showed Webb with 1,172,538 votes and Allen with 1,165,302, a difference of 7,236.
An adviser to Allen, speaking on condition of anonymity because his boss had not formally decided to end the campaign, told the AP the senator wanted to wait until most of canvassing was completed before announcing his decision, possibly as early as Thursday evening. The adviser said that Allen was disinclined to request a recount if the final vote spread was similar to that of election night.
The victory puts Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in line to become Senate majority leader.
Combined with the major victory in taking over the House of Representatives on Tuesday by re-capturing at least 27 seats and leading in four other races, Election Day 2006 was a repudiation of the failed policies of President George W. Bush.
In an acknowledgement of that defeat and the failed war strategy in Iraq, the president handed the Democrats the head of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in a last gasp attempt to appear willing to acknowledge mistakes and avoid total lame duck status by appearing to be willing to work in a non-partison fashion for his last two years in office.
Rumsfeld resigned with a short statement in which he quoted the great British war strategist of World War II Winston Churchill.
To paraphrase Richard Nixon, let's make one thing perfectly clear. Mr. Rumsfeld, you are no Winston Churchill.
Bush replaced Rumsfeld with Robert Gates, who may come under close scrutiny during his Senate confirmation hearings, which will now be led by Democrats, for his controversial role in the Iran-Contra scandal when he worked for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in the late 1980s.
by Glynn Wilson
Turning to the polls online to look for hope or impending disaster on election day 2006, it is surprising to find the online pollsters more optimistic for the Democratic Party than even the national corporate broadcast media at this point.
It's a balanced picture on TV, of course, with the Republicans coming back in the end.
But the best pollsters seem to think it's over and the Democrats will take back both houses of Congress.
We are not so sure, due to the "too close to call" nature of many races - and our fear that the Republicans will likely do their best to disengranchise voters where they can and "steal" any close election.
Let's hope the pollsters are right.
According to the Cook Political Report, the Democratic Party should pick up 20 to 35 seats in the House, four to six seats in the Senate and a six to eight more governor's races than the GOP.
"All Monday there was considerable talk that the national picture had suddenly changed and that there was a significant tightening in the election," Cook says, but it's not true.
"This was based in part on two national polls that showed the generic congressional ballot test having tightened to four (Pew) and six (ABC/Wash Post) points," he says.
But seven national polls have been conducted since Wednesday, November 1 and give Democrats an average lead of 11.6 percentage points, "larger than any party has had going into an Election Day in memory."
Even if you knock five points off of it for the margin of error, it's 6.6 percentage points, he says, "bigger than the advantage that Republicans had going into 1994."
"Furthermore, there is no evidence of a trend in the generic ballot test," he argues.
In chronological order of interviewing (using the midpoint of field dates), the margins were: 15 points (Time 11/1-3), 6 points (ABC/Wash Post), 4 points (Pew), 7 points (Gallup), 16 points (Newsweek), 20 points (CNN) and 13 points (Fox).
In individual races, some Republican pollsters see some movement, voters "coming home," in their direction, and/or some increase in intensity among GOP voters," he says. But "all seem to think that it was too little, too late to significantly change the outcome."
It might be enough to save a few candidates, but no one thinks it is a major change in the dynamics of races.
For all the details on each individual race, go to the Cook Political Report.
Sabato's Crystal Ball is predicting about the same result, 4, 5 or 6 seats going to the Democrats, "resting party control of the Senate squarely on the edge of the butter knife," according to Larry J. Sabato and David Wasserman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
"We think the Democrats may replicate their feat from 1986 (the sixth year election of Ronald Reagan's Presidency) and capture just enough seats to take over," they said. When they add together all their predictions, Democrats pick up six seats, "sufficient to wrest control from the GOP."
For all the details on each individual race, go to Sabato's Crystal Ball.
So, it looks good tonight, but don't count on it. Go to the polls yourself and make it happen. Your future freedom depends on it.
If the power does change hands, it means above all, that Rep. John Conyers will become chair of the House Judiciary Committee. No one is campaigning on the issue, but he will no doubt launch a major investigation into President George W. Bush's war crimes and bring articles of impeachment against the dicktater in chief.
He's already drawn up the articles and held hearings in the Capitol basement, since the Republicans would not use their Constitutional oversight responsibilities to do the right thing for their country. They won't even give him a room or put his hearings on the agenda.
It's at least worth an investigation, some hearings, a national discussion and a damn vote. Otherwise, we are a democratic republic no more and the world will never believe us or look up to us again...
by Glynn Wilson
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Oct. 30 - For the better part of the past month, it's been a blast on the road "cowboying" in the Chevy van enjoying the fall weather and taking a break from television and politics out in nature - twelve days on the Gulf Coast and then four days taking in the peak color in North Carolina.
 | Photo by Don Markum | | That's me, in the Pelican Navigator on Lake James near Marion, N.C. |
The elections coming up next Tuesday, Nov. 7, however, are too important to ignore for any serious newsman.
Alas, I almost fell asleep trying to concentrate on the televised political debates tonight on Alabama Public Television.
Governor's Debate Episode 2006
Gubernatorial candidates Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley and Gov. Bob Riley exchanged viewpoints in this live one-hour event presented by Leadership Alabama, the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, Alabama Public Television and the Alabama Press Association.
Unfortunately, according to APT's Website, the show is also sponsored by a few of the most corrupt corporate polluters in the state, including Alabama Power, Vulcan Materials and Entergen. It is also sponsored by one of the worst corporate spies in the country, BellSouth, which is about to merge with AT&T, now owned and operated out of George W. Bush's Texas by Southwest Bell.
Oh, you didn't even know about the debates? Why would you, since none of the corporate television news stations or newspapers in this state did much to promote public involvement in the show.
And let's face it, the race may already be a done deal anyway. The latest polls show Riley leading the governor's race by a margin of 57 percent to 32 percent.
According to an article out today in StateLine.Org:
Republican Bob Riley is vying to become the first Alabama governor to be re-elected and to serve two full terms since George Wallace in the 1970s. Incumbents have lost the last three gubernatorial elections in Alabama, and Gov. Guy Hunt (R) won re-election in 1990 only to be removed in 1993 for an ethics violation.
In a state where voters have demonstrated their willingness to split tickets, Riley appears headed for a second term with a strong lead in the polls over Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley, the Democratic nominee. In an Oct. 8 poll by the Press-Register/University of South Alabama, Riley led with 57 percent of voters, compared with 32 percent for Baxley.
Baxley, elected lieutenant governor four years ago after two terms as state treasurer, is trying to become the states first female governor in four decades. Wallaces wife, Lurleen, was elected in 1966 when state law barred her husband from succeeding himself.
Riley, a former three-term congressman, has benefited from little scandal, a strong economy and the states efficient reaction to several hurricanes that hit Alabama and neighboring states in 2004 and 2005. Top issues in the race include property appraisals, minimum wage levels and tax cuts.
With the state now enjoying a budget surplus, Riley is pushing for more than $300 million in personal income and business tax cuts to be phased in over five years. Early in his administration, when state revenues were down, Riley had proposed a $1 billion tax plan that would have been the largest tax increase in state history. But voters defeated the proposed increase 2-1 in a special election.
Baxley said she opposes Rileys proposed income tax cuts and prefers that extra state funds go towards education and other government services.
But both candidates favor abolishing annual property appraisals in favor of appraisals every four years. During his tenure, Riley instructed his revenue commissioner to order annual appraisals, a move he said state law required. Baxley has criticized the Riley administration for this, noting that her first business as governor would be to do away with annual appraisals, which she describes as a de facto tax increase on Alabamians.
Baxley is pushing for the state to set a minimum wage of at least a dollar more than the federally mandated rate, now $5.15 an hour. Riley is opposed to a state-mandated increase.
Historic Election Year For Governor's Races
According to an early AP story out on the main debate:
Baxley, Riley Debate Differances On Tax Cuts, Credibility
And of course the Alabama bureau of AP put out this story a couple of days ago, which just struck me as funny.
Washington Scandals Don't Touch Alabama's GOP Governor?
So why have the Washington scandals not touched Bob Riley? Because the pathetically weak Alabama press corps did nothing to investigate the stories. Riley's connections to Bush and his lobbyist cronies have been on public display for any reporter willing to look and connect the dots. Unfortunately, since Sen. John McCain is now courting the conservative base in his obvious run for president in 2008, his staff would not cooperate with our own attempt to investigate all the connections.
So the best we can hope for is a change in the power balance in the U.S. House and Senate.
Also according to the latest polls:
Democrats Hold Double-Digit Lead in Competitive Districts; GOP Troubles Extend into Home Territory
With less than two weeks to go before the midterm elections, the Democrats not only continue to maintain a double-digit advantage nationally, but also lead by the same margin in the competitive districts that will determine which party controls the House of Representatives, according to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Nationally, the Democrats hold a 49 percent-38 percent lead among registered voters, and a nearly identical 50 percent-39 percent lead among those voters most likely to cast ballots on Nov. 7.
An oversample of voters in 40 competitive districts - identified by a consensus of political analysts-shows that voting intentions in the battleground districts are about the same as they are in the "safe" House districts. Among registered voters, the Democrats lead by 11 points in competitive districts (50 percent-39 percent) and by the same margin in safe districts (49 percent-38 percent).
So even though none of the Alabama races will make a big difference in the Congressional elections, we can watch from here and have some hope that there is a good chance the power balance will change in D.C.
Sources in Washington indicate to us that the Senate could end up in a 50/50 split, putting the tying vote on many issues into the hands of Vice President Dick "Shooter" Cheney. What a wonderful prospect.
We will leave you with this final point. It is a point which we tried to get Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley to embrace in the last three weeks of the governor's race, but she was obviously too afraid of being labeled a liberal to reach out to the most intelligent and progressive voters in this state who see no candidates with any creativity at all in their political platforms.
 | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | A ruby-crowned kinglet (regulus calendula) caught in the net during the annual migration bird count across from Fort Morgan, Alabama. |
To demonstrate this point, just turn to the group Birders United.
According to estimates from the National Geographic Society, there are 15 million or more voting age Americans who have a serious interest in the welfare of birds. Huge numbers of adults in our country watch birds, feed birds, keep lists of birds, and give large sums of money to organizations that protect bird habitats.
In the United Kingdom the formidable political force of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is frequently compared to the powers of the Teamsters Union in the United States. But most of the millions of bird people in America do not realize that they have the potential voting power to control the outcome of many elections in our country.
This is not just a utopian dream. In recent presidential contests, a swing of just a few thousand votes would have changed the outcome in a number of key states.
For example, if only 270 Republican bird watchers in Florida had shifted their votes in the 2000 presidential election, President Bush would not have won the election. In many states the number of adult bird enthusiasts is so large that an organized bird watcher vote could control the outcome of almost any election.
It is a big mystery to me, and a number of my closest friends, why some people who support conservation efforts continue, for other reasons, to vote Republican.
Hey, if you really think it is more important for a president to bash gays openly than to support sensible public policies on environmental issues, by all means vote Republican. But now that you know there is a such thing as a gay Republican (thanks to the Foley page scandal), maybe it would be worth reconsidering which party you vote for - or if not, why not just consider staying home on election day?
Better yet, go bird watching. Let the rest of us decide...
I will not be happy voting in a church thanks to the Bush Justice Department's policy tearing down the wall between church and state. But I will be voting there anyway. And I will be voting for Ms. Baxley and any other Democrat worth checking on the electronic ballot.
Let's just hope Diebold doesn't steal the elections for all these so-called Christian Republicans. It's not really all that funny what corruption and hypocrisy is supported by some people in the name of Jesus Christ.
You can't fake it. If you're gonna make it you've gotta live it.
- Hank Williams Jr.
by Glynn Wilson
There is no way to escape it. It is too late. America is a car country, especially in the American South.
This fact hit me in a traffic jam at the Alabama-Georgia line the other day while I was driving the Chevy van from Birmingham to Atlanta to buy a used Macintosh laptop computer from a woman in Buckhead.
I wrote a cover story for The Southerner magazine about this during the summer of 1999 after researching the issue for a chapter in a Sociology textbook: The War on Sprawl.
I have made a point of living in places where you can walk to a neighborhood store and ride a bike along the water, including Gulf Shores, Alabama, where I used to ride every day along the Gulf of Mexico. In Knoxville, Tennessee, I used to ride along the Tennessee River. In New Orleans, for almost four years I rode along the great Mississippi every day and even shopped at a Whole Foods store on Magazine Street, using a backpack for a grocery bag.
But for most people in this country, walking or biking is just not an option. Our living spaces are organized into sprawling suburbs with no significant mass transit. So the only way to get around is in a car.
Not surprisingly, people come to love their machines like they do their pets. They name them, and who can blame them?
I love my Chevy van, especially when I can get the canoe on top and the Cannondale in the back and head off for some adventure without having to fly commercial.
The Eisenhower administration first started building the Interstate highway system for defense purposes in the 1950s. Now it has become the primary travel route for moving people around the country for work and play.
So it was inevitable that "the road" made its way into the American arts, literature and folklore.
Willie Nelson is perhaps most famous for the song "On The Road Again." He was recently arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for smoking pot on the road in his tour bus. The fact that a musician can get away with that in Bush's America of 2006 is cool for us Baby Boomers who came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the coolness of classic rock and pot were at their zenith.
It is also inevitable that Americans love older cars. The antique car movement in America is almost as big as religion itself.
America is also a country of technology, where Apple computers and the Internet were invented. Americans tend to love their computers. I'm no different. I love my Mac. And I am not enamored of new computers any more than I am drawn to new SUVs.
The best era for the American automobile came in the late 1950s and lasted until the early '70s, when rising gas prices and technology began to favor the smaller cars made by the Japanese.
The best era for personal computing occurred from about 1996 to 2006. It is going to be downhill from here, because the corporate bastards are taking over the business and making it harder for the little guy to break through.
So it should come as no surprise that I tend to use a car metaphor to describe why I just bought a seven year old Mac G3 Powerbook instead of something newer. I love the way it drives, like car aficionados may swoon for the 1973 Mustang.
When I talk to computer geeks about this, I have to preface my remarks with the statement: "I know I'm driving a '73 Mustang. But hey, I like driving a G3 and building Web pages with the fat version of Simpletext that holds a bold command and allows me to see what I'm doing amongst all the gibberish computer code."
They understand exactly what I'm saying, if the average non-computer geek doesn't.
It may not be possible to continue driving a computer of this era much longer, although seeing all the '73 Mustangs still on the road gives me some hope. Where do they find parts for their old machines? Someone's making them.
The thing about this machine business is that we use the best machines to do something, either for work or entertainment or both. You have to have tools in this world to do what you are meant to do. A crappy car or a shitty computer just doesn't get it.
Back in The Bunker Saturday night, I ran across a special on the Country Music channel with Kid Rock playing alongside Hank Williams Jr. They sang a song about the road called Hamburger Steak Holiday Inn. It is a song about the road, and has a message for would be musicians who buy cheap guitars and play all by themselves on the side of the road and never learn to finish a song.
I take this message to be just as true in journalism or politics. Some people think they can fake it and make it. George Bush comes to mind, along with most of the corporate PR press.
If you are reading this far you must understand it. You are looking for alternatives to the fake journalism and fake politics that passes for understanding in Bush's America.
We are doing our best to put together the tools we need to provide that alternative and gear it up even more in the coming months.
Like Hank sings, "You can't fake it. If you're gonna make it you've gotta live it."
We ain't faking it folks. It may not be making us rich, but the way we live and work is rich in experience. We are determined to live it - and make it. So come on along for the ride...
Maybe Condi Can Explain It To Him
by Glynn Wilson
Do you ever wake up in the morning with a start from a dream and find yourself calling the president a dumbass?
Oh, I suppose not. That's my curse.
I only wish I could get into the press room with George W. Bush and try to question some sense into him. I wish his handlers would get him to read this column, because it contains a lesson in the difference between myth and reality and how Americans should treat the people of other countries.
As I wound down Sunday night, flipping around the cable TV channels to find something worth stopping on as I often do, I ran across a movie loosely based on a true story called "Hidalgo."
It is a 2004 film based on the life and tales of the famous American horseman Frank Hopkins and his amazing Spanish-American mustang Hidalgo.
While working for Wild Bill Cody's traveling show in 1890 in the last days of American cowboys and Indians, a wealthy Arab sheikh invites Hopkins and his horse to enter the "Ocean of Fire" horse race, a 3,000 mile survival ordeal across the Arabian desert.
Up until that year, the race was restricted to the finest Arabian horses ever bred, the purest and noblest lines owned by the greatest royal families. But the sheikh was a fan of tales from the American West, and Hopkins was billed as the greatest rider the West had ever known and his horse the greatest horse that ever lived to run.
So the Sheikh wants to puts his claim to the test, pitting the American cowboy and his mustang against the world's greatest Arabian horses and Bedouin riders, some of whom are determined to prevent a foreigner - and especially an "impure" horse and rider - from finishing the race. Hopkins is presented as half Caucasian and half Native American, born of a marriage between a European father and a Native American mother. His Indian name is "Blue Child" or "Far Rider."
In spite of the seemingly overwhelming obstacles, Hollywood predictably has Hopkins win the race by a nose in the end. But the sheikh's nephew the prince, who Hopkins saves from quicksand during the race, lives to come in second on the top Arabian horse. The horse of a British woman, who the Arabs in the film call "the Christian woman," comes in third, in spite of all her plots to have Hidalgo killed. Some Christian.
I would like to imagine George W. Bush watching this movie in the White House screening room along with Secretary of State Condi Rice, who explains its meaning to him.
"Don't you see, Mr. President, how this cowboy showed class and humility after he won the race?"
Hopkins befriends the sheikh and his daughter throughout the race and makes a gift of his Colt pistol after it's over. A hundred years of peace ensues between the two countries as a result, even though the myth of the pure bred horse and rider are blown.
The victory by Hopkins and Hidalgo shows that free will matters more than breeding.
To show he's truly a class act, the directors have Hopkins travel home to America after the race and use the $100,000 in prize money to buy hundreds of mustangs the U.S. Government planned to shoot. He releases them into the wild and sets Hidalgo free along with them.
Now isn't there a lesson in this movie about how America should deal with the rest of the world and nature? Isn't that why they used to love us?
For more information about the film, consult the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. And watch for it on a cable channel near you.
by Glynn Wilson
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 10 - On the eve of the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America, you have to read between the headlines in the Washington Post to get the point.
Osama bin Laden's Trail Is 'Stone Cold,' according to a detailed analysis by the new national newspaper of record online.
Osama Bin Laden's Trail Is 'Stone Cold'
The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world - no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image - has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
The objective news story doesn't draw the logical conclusion, letting intelligent readers decide for themselves what the point should be. Here it is:
… and President George W. Bush should be held accountable for that.
Continue reading "Hold Bush Accountable For Osama's Stone Cold Trail" »
by Glynn Wilson
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 4, 2006 - Waking up early to a cooler morning on Labor Day 2006, and with some important labor tasks out of the way that have kept me busy and distracted from the journal in recent days, I decided to entertain you, dear intelligent readers, by finding some idiocy in some anti-labor Southern newspapers to make fun of this morning.
It didn't take long.
Turning to the Montgomery Advertiser editorial page from the Alabama news links page, in a matter of seconds I was laughing at the ignorance that passes for understanding. Is it any wonder newspapers are having such a hard time keeping enough readers interested in their clap trap these days?
Get this for a lede.
Reflecting on the ancient words of Sophocles may not be the way you'd planned to spend your Labor Day holiday, but the old fellow did have a way with words and some serious insights to offer. As the nation celebrates Labor Day, it's worth noting a pithy observation of his:
"Without labor nothing prospers."
The point of the editorial came down to this: Celebrate (the) Value of Work Today
A quick search online for quotations from Sophocles turned up that misused jewel, but also this one:
"Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away."
For a history on this famous Greek philosopher who knew absolutely nothing about modern labor, you could turn to the online encyclopedia the business editor of the New York Times has declared off limits for that newspaper's reporters to quote, Wikipedia.Org.
For a better search to understand the U.S. Labor Day holiday, try this in Google: "History of Labor Day."
Right away you can read a page that somehow survives on the Bush Labor Department's Web site: The History of Labor Day.
Skipping down to one important part on the first Labor Day, you learn that it was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, planned by the Central Labor Union. In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, first named "workingmen's holiday."
"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers, according to the site. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country.
As it was first proposed, Labor Day involved a street parade to exhibit "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families.
Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.
The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades are not as common as the labor movement has shrunk significantly and lost much of its political clout. Newspapers, radio and television news stations inevitably cover the speeches and the barbecues, although quite obviously, the anti-union newspapers of the American South only misguide their readers on what the holiday is supposed to be all about.
"The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy," the labor site claims. "It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership - the American worker."
So the holiday is not a celebration of work. Nothing much is made in the U.S. today anyway, since most of the jobs have been "outsourced" oversees to places such as China and Central America.
But the holiday is a tribute to the workers themselves, who in 1882 did not have the benefit of a Fair Labor Standards Act which said they only had to work 40 hours a week. There was nothing to prevent factory owners from working women and children six days a week, 12 hours a day, and paying them a nickel a day.
That changed in the late 1930s, when Sen. Hugo Black of Alabama, a Democrat, teamed up with President Franklin Roosevelt, also a Democrat, to try and save America from the Great Depression by forcing business owners to pay a living wage to American workers. They passed the first minimum wage law, which of course hasn't been raised in a decade.
Since at least one politician in Alabama seems to have a sense of what this holiday is about, I will show up at Birmingham's Sloss Furnace today to see what Lucy Baxley has to say about raising the minimum wage in Alabama, a plan to go around the do-nothing Republican Congress and do the right thing at the state and local level.
We may not make much of anything in America, although we do make a few cars in Alabama and we raise chickens and grow pine trees. Most people here work to keep those cars running, maintain the roads they run on, and count the money of those who control all the capital. Many work in the hospitals to keep those workers alive, if not healthy.
One of the quotes used in the Advertiser editorial did make some sense and it is worth remembering.
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital," Abraham Lincoln said in his first message to Congress in 1861. "Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
Of course that rarely happens in Bush's America. So let's pay tribute to that - at least for this one day of the year.
And while we think about it, we could quote another philosopher who knew far more about capitalism and the industrial worker. Remember what Karl Marx said? "Workers of the world unite."
Unfortunately, the undereducated American worker has been brain-washed into thinking that Marx was a bad old Socialist-Communist. So his dream of seeing an egalitarian world rise from the ashes of run amok corporate capitalism has yet to be achieved.
If Bush and company continue to have their way, all aspects of government will be privatized and handed over to the Haliburton's of the world. And we may yet see wages go back to the inflationary equivalent of a nickle a day.
Originally published in The Locust Fork Journal.
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