Josh Segall for Bama US 3rd

http://www.segall2008.com/view_news.php?id=23

The Anniston Star profile linked above gives you a good introduction to Segall.
I went over to Centre, Alabama last night to see this 29 year old phenom in person. Fellow is smart; got some creative ideas about how to make the water running through Alabama energize and revise the the state's economy.
His family was raised next door to George Wallace in Montgomery; so this young man knows something about the wiles of Alabama politics.
The opening invocation was by my friend Melvin Salter, the Probate Judge for Cherokee County, Alabama; former pastor of the First Baptist Church there. That would be unremarkable but for the fact Segall comes from a Jewish background.
Segall says incumbent Mike Rogers county organizer in Walker and Cleburne county is now in his camp; and a key campaigner in Randolph has jumped from Rogers to Segall.
He was one up on me when I asked if the likes of Burns Strider could help. Segall brought to my attention Strider was key consultant for Joe Turnham's close loss in 2002.
This year is different as the Anniston Star points out. It will be tough but if the people of the Bama 3rd will listen to smart talk about their pocketbook instead of being taken for the fool with the "Northern Liberal" crap Rogers is throwing out, Segall can win it.
Segall makes a strong case about what a lackluster congressman Rogers has been. Face to face with a fair hearing, Segall can win.
Here is a link to a Burns Strider column today that will connect with the folks of the Third.

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=10816

Gladstone among the Whores

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/07/22/james_wood/

James Wood prevails. Read Gladstone in context of the article above.

Every time I read another review of Wood's new book I feel better about myself for having the good sense to make the short trip up to Sewanee about this time last year to hear him in person, and ask him a question about Marshall Frady, with whom he was familiar.

Wood recommends Joe Oneill's Netherland. You should read it too.

Heath Ledger and the Dark Knight

I chime in after Rick, here, if you click on his topic you can see what I think.
Like Billy Sunday Birt, I think Ledger was on pilgrimage to sooner or later in his on way, his on manner, "walk the aisle".
Wish I had had more time to explore it with Billy Bob Thornton, but only had a chance to get in one question in Florence late Feb, earlier this year.


Off topic - "The Dark Knight"
by rickwright01 on Sun Jul 20, 2008 5:19 pm
Saw it yesterday afternoon.Uh... um... wow.Exceptional. Powerful. Phenomenal. And with a lot of serious thought in there - would take some time to parse through the various issues, arguments, points. Social order versus social chaos. Whether and how to fight evil. With violence or not? Playing by the rules or not? The true nature of human beings. The nature of hope versus despair. Power and responsibility. Terrorism and the war thereon.The first extended scene with The Joker... Heath Ledger completely dominated the scene. The instant the Joker walked into the room... all the other characters functionally disappeared or turned into props. There was no Heath Ledger - there was only the Joker (the personification of Chaos) who temporarily borrowed the body of the Human Normally Known as Heath Ledger. (Except possibly for one or two scenes - when the Joker was in jail... the persona may have slipped just a tad.) Only Michael Caine came close (as normally he does). Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the acting but... one actor/character so powerfully stood out.

All Star Game, Bottom of the Eighth

Grady Sizemore at bat to face Billy Wagner. He hits a shot down right field line and gets on first; then steals second.
Longoria at Bat drives him in and Sizemore ties the game.
His Dad, by the same name, was in my trombone section at Gaffney High School 69-71. Of course I was first chair, and there followed Donnell, Pee Wee Mayes, Willie Jam Up Tate, Grady Sizemore, George Smith and his later to be wife Carolyn (I think that was her name.)
We had a strong section.
They used to mock my affection for tiger RAg at the Pep Meetings cause the trombones stood up on the slide part.
bout third pep meetin of fall of 70 they started in on me before we got to the gym. "Fox, we standin up today, we with you man."
So the time comes and I'm up and look down the line and all I see is whole rest of the trombone section laughin, playin a joke on Ole Whitey who loved the spotlight.
School desegregation in Upstate South Carolina, had some rough moments, but had it's sweet carnival as well.
Grady, the Dad, went to Mars Hill from Gaffney and like Joel Vaughn and Rachel Harmon in Ron Rash's latest novel, Serena, on to Seattle.
Well, very proud of Grady, who made the spotlight indeed.

Here is a link to comment line for more baseball in perspective.

http://bteditor.blogspot.com/2008/07/from-biscuit-to-bronx.html

And here is a great story on Sizemore that has to make his parents blushingly proud. Congrats to Grady Sizemore II of Gaffney, South Carolina. My sister and I recently remembered the evening Young Sizemore's Mom and Dad stopped by our house on Dogwood Drive in Gaffney in the late 70's.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/larrystone/2003585070_stone23.html

The Collinsville connection to NY Reading Room?/Bama 3rd

http://readingroom.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/the-moviegoer/


Do you know what it is?

I think I do and the last name is Prose.

And today's political note goes to Josh Segall, of Brown U and UBama Nick Saban Law School in Tide Town.
Young Segall is seeking to unseat Mike Rogers in the Bama 3rd; Barry Bailey and Brandt Ayers US Congressional District.
Google him up.
Rogers shoulda never been the Congressman to begin with. Methodist Sunday School teacher shoulda beat him. But he is.
Rogers is one of 20 US congressman targetted for defeat this year. Let's wish Segall success in this matter.

Randy Owen and the Ft. Payne Cracker Barrel

http://www.yall.com/feature3.shtml

Little did I know about three weeks ago when I promoted good food in DeeKalbCounty, Alabama,.

the sweet waitresses and other famous people at the Ft.Payne Cracker Barrel that Randy Owen would be featured in a regional magazine with a reference to the very establishment in question.

Bad syntax, but you know what I mean.
I got word that there have been no complaints for two years at that restaurant and they are near the top on daily head count patronage.
Will get the official accolade and post it for you soon.
It is true about Owen frequenting the place. I have seen him several times in there myself.
Congrats to him and the band the deal they cut with CB from the 03 Goodbye Fans Tour.
And here on the 4th, God Bless the Meat Loaf and catfish and down home feel CrackerBarrel has done a finejob appropriating.

God Bless America ,Moby Dick and The Great White

Whale

Do you have any great white Whales in your local Baptist Church; or enablers ofGreat White Whales.

And just in time for the Presidency is this new Documentary on Lee Atwater, who some say begat Karl Rove, but latest book on Karl has reservations about the conception.

First the great White

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080714/doctorow

Now the Atwater link

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11316.html


and further discussion about Enabling enablers and what not; Marshall Frady as the prophet of Perlstein's Purity Chapter in Nixonland:

Just click on Jonathan here, a correspondent of "unknown" sources in Collinsville, Alabama



Jonathan and ET's SBC and the Great White Whale
by Stephen Fox
on Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:11 pm
Here is what I have been trying to say for sometime but just couldn't quite put it together.

As the Great American Aretha Franklin said:

Who's Zoomin who

Or in Jonathan language, what are you enabling where you live; could itbelike Lee Atwater, a Great White