I entered high school in January of 1948, at A.H. Parker High School. I would have entered in September 1948, but the Principal, Bertrand H. Hudson, felt that I had accomplished all I would during the first semester of the Eighth Grade. Hence, a social promotion, then known as “skipping”. Continue reading 85 year old attorney muses about his youth, slavery, white flight, and Alabama constitution
Today’s guest columnist is J.S. “Chris” Christie, Jr.
Vote for Trump.
Vote for Biden.
You’ve probably already made up your mind.
But pay close attention to the constitutional amendments at the end of the ballot.
Amendment #1 is particularly troubling. Continue reading Vote ‘NO’ Amendment #1 or risk perilous consequences
A good friend came rushing up to me as I entered the Harbert Center for a meeting. He said, “I just found out something I bet you don’t know— “The University of Alabama doesn’t exist.”
Now I’ve heard some farfetched things in my life, but few topped this one.
But before all you anti University of Alabama folks from UAB and UAH get too excited, he explained that you don’t exist either.
The primary objective of ComebackTown is to create a conversation on a “better Birmingham.”
We often talk about what’s great about our metro, but we also want to identify our shortcomings so we can begin to propose solutions.
Many are quick to blame our politicians or corporate leadership, but the root cause of our frailties is poor government structure. Continue reading Why Birmingham’s government is so screwed up
Comebacktown published by David Sher & Phyllis Neill to begin a discussion on better government for our region.
Today’s guest blogger is John Northrop.
If Birmingham is a “comeback town,” what do we want to come back to? Surely not the days and ways of Bull Conner. Nor of chain gang labor in coal mines. Nor as a mere colony in a 19th-century steel empire.
Birmingham’s “good old days” were better for some than others. The same can be said of Alabama as a whole. Continue reading How 155 white guys are ruining Alabama
“We’re going to fix it where they can’t get permission to go to the bathroom.”
This is State Representative John Roger’s warning to Jefferson County Commissioners in retaliation for their decision to discontinue in patient services at Cooper Green.
I’ve published 66 blogs this past year to begin a discussion about our dysfunctional government structure, but this trumps them all. Continue reading Is John Rogers a nut?
(The Jefferson County Commission decided to close in patient services at Cooper Green Hospital . This post is about the awful government structure that created this kind of problem in the first place)
The headlines of the Birmingham New on August 11, 2012 screamed “City sues over Cooper Green.”
But here’s what the headline really says..
City of Birmingham sues Jefferson County
We’re suing ourselves. Continue reading We’re a bunch of goof balls for allowing government like ours
Let’s blame Jim Carns for our occupational tax disaster.
Or how about other local House members who voted to pull the tax bill– Reps. Mary Sue McClurkin, Mary Moore, Arthur Payne, or Elwyn Thomas. Continue reading Let’s blame Jim Carns for our occupational tax disaster
February 19, 2012
Everyone from Birmingham should read this this piece from the New York Times: “In Alabama, a County that fell off the Financial Cliff.”
As the article states, government structure, as usual, created this mess. Continue reading In Alabama, a county that fell off the financial cliff
My good friend, Michael Calvert, likes to remind me the Alabama Constitution is the only one in the world that contains the words “pick up truck.”
And it has a lot more words—340,136 to be exact—12 times longer than the average state constitution, 40 times longer than the U.S. Constitution.
About 90 percent of the document’s length, as of 2011, comes from its 854 amendments. About 70 percent of the amendments cover only a single county or city, and some deal with salaries of specific officials.* Continue reading How can one document create so much havoc?