Category: Current Affairs

C’est la vie

Among the immutable facts of life this morning:

  • A new Bama head football coach will be greeted at the airport like a Messiah
  • Relatives will get together over the holidays and pass both the good cheer and the common cold from one person to another
  • No matter how much vacation you take from work, it’s never enough
  • A boss will overlook the 99 things you did right and focus on the one thing you did wrong
  • The new party in power will “usher in a new era” with overdone rhetoric and revelry

Please feel free to pitch in with a few immutable facts of your own.… Read the rest

De Plane, De Plane! No Really, I’m Not Kidding This Time

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(photo by Michael Palmer of TideSports.com)

Update 1/4: Hmmm. Pom poms instead of palm leaves…a Lear jet instead of an ass…

… Read the rest

Blogging the Wonder Years–Weighing In On Watergate, Chapter VI

gerald-ford.jpgWith the recent day of mourning in honor of President Gerald Ford, it seemed fitting to revive my dormant series, Blogging the Wonder Years.

What’s the connection? Well, as you may recall, in my personal journal that I kept for Ms. Fine’s 7th grade class at Burnt Chimney Elementary School in Wirtz, Virginia, I not only dealt with my “touchy-feely” emotional side, adolescent angst and roiling hormones, but I also responded to the issues and events of the day. Previous excerpts included reflections and rants on my personal emotional and psychological growth during my first 6 years of elementary school, guys with long hair, so-called friends who called me “shorty,” cussing and the 70’s music scene (highly recommended since that was my highest comment post ever).… Read the rest

Prohibition of a Different Sort

prohibition_gr2_s.jpegThe year is 2015. A portly, middle-aged man slips quietly through an alley in the early morning darkness, somewhere in midtown Manhattan. He trips over several homeless people and steps on the tail of a cat which emits a loud screech that echoes for several city blocks.

Startled, he now walks more briskly, afraid that the ruckus may have attracted the attention of the local food police. He is risking much. His career as a successful stockbroker and reputation as a solid family man would be ruined should he be discovered.

He comes to a nondescript, dilapidated building with a steel door.… Read the rest

I Like Loretta’s Style. I Heart Huntsville

Three of the four funerals for the victims of last week’s bus crash have taken place.

The Huntsville Times has stories on the funerals of Nicole Ford, Tanesha Hill, and Christine Collier. Crystalle McCrary’s funeral will take place today.

Protesters from “that church” are in Huntsville and are picketing the funerals. The Huntsville Times’ response to their presence was a mere mention in the Nicole Ford story. Huntsville Mayor Loretta Spencer confined the protesters to a small, cordoned-off space 100 yards away from the funerals. She then proceeded to park city buses in front of the self-appointed prophets so that those arriving at the funerals couldn’t see them.… Read the rest

They Doth Protest Too Much

I’ll be leaving in a little while to spend Thanksgiving with my mother and sisters in Virginia, so I wanted to wish all of you a wonderful holiday and Godspeed in your travels.

I’m not sure what my blogging status will be in Virginia, but I will be continuing to track some stories related to the recent tragic school bus crash here in Huntsville. It will be a difficult time for our community over the next few days as we attempt to hold in tension our thankfulness that things weren’t any worse, our grief for the four young girls who lost their lives and our ongoing concern for the injured.… Read the rest

Down Here Hope Remains

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Our city is still reeling from the aftershocks of yesterday’s tragic school bus accident on I-565. A city school bus carrying 43 Lee High School students to a local technical training center plunged off an overpass near downtown after being clipped by another car driven by a Lee High student passing on the right.

The bus skidded along the guardrail and apparently hung there briefly before falling onto the ground below. The bus hit nose first and then rolled, the students in the back of the bus falling forward onto the students in the front. Two students, Christine Collier and Nicole Ford, died at the scene.… Read the rest

Hey Alabama! Back Off Would Ya?

“This lawsuit is the equivalent of the Catholic Church suing Michelangelo for painting the Sistine Chapel.”

–Keith Dunnavant, author Coach: The Life of Paul “Bear” Bryant

The bubbas-turned-pundits have been wracking their Bud-addled brains trying to figure what’s wrong with the Crimson Tide. Presently, Alabama is on the fast track to a less-than-acceptable .500 season unless they can turn things around and knock off archrival Auburn this coming weekend in Tuscaloosa. After Tiger losses to Arkansas and now Georgia, hopes are up a wee bit that Auburn might be beatable. But they might be sky high were it not for that little fact that in order to win football games one must actually score touchdowns when in possession of the ball inside the twenty.… Read the rest

Politically Confused

red-and-blue-america.pngI am not a strong political partisan; I think I’ve made that abundantly clear in a previous post. Yet over the past week, my senses have been assaulted by those who are, people who believe that they alone possess capital “T” Truth and are, without a doubt, politically correct.

I’ve watched a constant stream of venomous TV ads (one Democrat suggested that his Republican opponent’s ineptness resulted in a little girl’s leukemia). I’ve listened to the sound of my phone ringing off the hook, followed by the inevitable voice message promising that if I elect conservative so-and-so, then the “good old days” will return in all their clear-cut, black and white predictability.… Read the rest

Evidence of Humanity on Planet Earth

It’s been quite a week. If you’re like me, you might be feeling a little world-weary.

We’ve had increased violence and more death in Iraq, more nuke aspirations in the Middle East, a ratcheting up of pre-election rhetoric and shenanigans, a “botched joke,” and now a nationally renown evangelical leader who admits that he bought meth but “never used it” and called a gay “escort” for a “massage” but “no sex.” And if all that weren’t enough, we only had 10 trick-or-treaters stop by our house.

Enough quotation marks already! All in all, it’s enough to make you want to crawl back under the covers.… Read the rest