asfoxseesit

My Photo
Name:

Born May 18, 1953; got saved at Truett Memorial BC in Hayesville, NC 1959. On rigged ballot which I did not rig got Most Intellectual class of 71, Gaffney High School. Furman Grad, Sociology major but it was little tougher than Auburn football players had Had three dates with beautiful women the summer of 1978. Did not marry any of em. Never married anybody cause what was available was undesirable and what was desirable was unaffordable. Unlucky in love as they say and even still it is sometimes heartbreaking. Had a Pakistani Jr. Davis Cupper on the Ropes the summer of 84, City Courts, Rome Georgia I've a baby sitter, watched peoples homes while they were away on Vacation. Freelance writer, local consultant, screenwriter, and the best damn substitute teacher of Floyd County Georgia in mid 80's according to an anonymous kid passed me on main street a few years later when I went back to get a sandwich at Schroeders. Had some good moments in Collinsville as well. Ask Casey Mattox at www.clsnet.org if he will be honest about it. I try my best to make it to Bridges BBQ in Shelby NC at least four times a year.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Truett, Truett, Graham, Dobson and Huckabee

This is an open letter to Mike Huckabee in regard the recent brouhaha over Chic Fil A. I plan to email this link to Huckabee at Fox News as he tours the state August 3rd two days after his and Billy Graham's national ChicFilA Day August One.
   I plan to eat some Waffle Fries that day in support of Chic Fil A. I sat beside CFA CEO Dan Cathy in religion class at Furman the fall of 71; and I think they do a tremendous amount of good work. Their Character education, Win Shape Scholarship programs. And Marilynne Robinson the Pulitzer prize winner endorses their idea of respecting the Sabbath.
    Truett Cathy; CFA founder and Dan's father, was named for George W. Truett, the greatest Baptist of the first half of the 20th Century. I accepted Jesus as my Saviour at the church in Hayesville, N.C., Truett's birthplace, named for him.
    But Cathy, father and son, have strayed from the legacy of George Truett on church state matters. They are major supporters of James Dobson, according to Aaron Weaver, a Georgia native and PHD candidate at Baylor. As such they fall in the camp of David Barton and the Alliance Defending Freedom--see other blogs at this site. They are outside the best of the Baptist tradition and respect for liberal arts education.
    Jeff Rogers in a collection What Really Matters--Smyth and Helwys-- has spoken eloquently to that legacy. And Truett Cathy should know better from his tenure as a trustee of Mercer University, where on occasion he demonstrated some statesmanship standing against the fundamentalists assault on former Mercer President  Kirby Godsey.
  
     And Graham family friend Ginny Brant, daughter of Nixon's southern strategist Harry Dent--has spoken of her family's adoration of Buck Hatch. Surely the Graham and Cathy and Dent family's could spend a weekend with Buck's son Nathan, the president of Wake Forest University to talk about George Truett, James Dobson and David Barton.
     Sexual politics aside, Truett and Dan are giving too many mixxed signals. They could use a long remedial weekend with Mercer President Underwood, Giberson and Stephens of the book The Anointed; even Rachel Held Evans of Dayton Tn--home of the Scopes Monkey Trial--to discuss her work Evolving in Monkeytown.
     In Many areas CFA has a good track record. But their fog in regard Barton and Dobson needs some defogging. Where do they stand, for instance, in the chaos that is now Shorter College in Rome Georgia--see Save Our Shorter.
   And in Alabama, where Dan and I think his brother Bubba are Samford grads, how do they come down on the debacle Deacon Gov Bentley has created with his dimbulb APTV board appointees.
   Will also be interesting to see how current Samford President Westmoreland, longtime friend of Huckabee navigates the questions raised by Giberson and Stephen, and Evans. Mercer President Underwood's testimony is a matter of record in a 2004 Mother Jones article when Baylor was underfire from outliers of Dobson and Barton, and the likes of Shorter's Nelson Price and the dimbulbs Bama Gov Bentley has placed on the Bama PBS board.
    Chic Fil A has done some great work. But the ghost of George W. Truett is calling on them to do better.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Casey Mattox and Judge Frank Johnson on APTV

Casey Mattox is a 1993 Graduate of Collinsville High School and now works with Charles Pickering anda  Reagan operative for the Alliance Defense of Freedom organization. They recently renamed themselves.
   I called his high school ag teacher this morning and talked to his son James Paul Bailey. Casey was president of the Bama FFA his Senior year in HS and went to Kansas City best I remember.
   Now Casey is on the wrong side of history and with a group foggy at best, threatening at worst to the legacy of Judge Frank Johnson and Hugo Black on Church State issues.
    Johnson was a Lincoln and Eisenhower Republican Howell Raines has named as the 2nd greatest man to breathe the air of Alabama in the 20th Century. Casey and W.Bush Judicial nominee, Mississippi SBC president Pickering are flirting with McCarthyism and the lunacy of Michelle Bachman with the association with David Barton.
    Barton's bogus documentary of America's religious history came into play in the recent firing of the heads of Bama Public Televison. See stories at wbhm.org and elsewhere on the net. For sure google the Paul Harvey piece on Barton at Religion Dispatches.
    Not long after Casey finished CHS, 15 miles up HWY 11 Cherilyn Crowe graduated from Ft. Payne HS. She went to Samford and Vanderbilt and now works for the true vine Baptist group Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in D.C. Cherilyn incarnates the best tradition. Casey has more in common with the Eagle Forum and McCarthyism, Judge Roy Moore and the 60's George Wallace than he does with Lincoln and George W. Truett.
     Moore's communications director Jay Holland is one of SBC Deacon Bama Gov Bentley's appointees to the APTV board creating all this havoc.
    Melissa Rogers, whose Baptist pilgrimage was shaped by her grandfather in Birmingham and the BCOC.net is another antidote to Mattox and Pickering's nonsense.
    Hoping Casey reads Giberson and Stephens The Anointed Soon; and talks with Randall Balmer of Dartmouth; a mentor to Matthew Morgan whose father baptized Casey before he continues with this David Barton circus.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Mississippi and the Muslim Brotherhood

May 31 at the North End of Ft. Payne had great conversation with some young staffers for the camps up on Lookout Mtn. Summer camps. Most of them came from Mississippi, one with Ms ties but went to prep school in Memphis. I think he is going to UTenn this fall.
   He had read his Cormac McCarthy. Delightful conversation. One of them knew the Chuck Pickering family pretty well. And then it seemed at Exit 205 on 59 for a few days every body that stopped in for milk shakes had connection to Laurel Mississippi.
    Point is at some point the Alliance Defense Fund of Pickering is gonna have to define itself in regard David Barton and the chaos in Bama over APTV. Judge Roy Moore's communications director Jay Holland is a board appointee and it is a disaster.
   Word is Wake Forest's Melissa Rogers is on to it; most likely well versed in Paul Harvey's religiondispatches piece on Barton.
     Meanwhile on NPR Fresh Air David Kirkpatrick's chat about the Muslim Brotherhood coulda been a Marshall Frady report in Life Mag 1970 on the Brewer/Wallace race for Bama Governor. Google the piece and see if you don't see revenances for Bama Today, the Tea Party and the disaster at Shorter College, Saveourshorter.com
   Was on hold to get on Laura Ingraham radio show yesterday morn, but she never took my call. May send a note to Mike Huckabee to get some justice as I met Mike in Ftn Inn S.C. 2009. Nice guy, but he hasn't read The Servant Economy and I doubt I will see his reply to Tom Edsall's piece in NY Times on Meritocracy Monday.
    Meanwhile Moonrise Kingdom is in the theatres, and Hope to See Beasts of the Southern Wild. Alice McDermott is Sewanee Writers conference on Monday. Doubt I see Jay Holland there.

Monday, July 02, 2012

July 2 Random thoughts

  Sacred Harp at Liberty Hill Baptist in Henegar Alabama was stellar again this year. Remarkable collection of people from Yale, and Oregon, Ireland and South Georgia descend on hamlet in NE Bama ever year, just a few miles from Flat Rock.
     Had hose water coolin the tin roof of the church; about 250 singers there. Young fellow from California into folk music who may be the second coming of Bob Dylan was in our presence. Enjoyed talking to him at lunch as well as some grad students from U Texas Austin. Some of the best annual conversations to be had in Alabama, 100 degrees or less.

   Oxford American Mag is stellar this issue. Quotes from Marshall Frady and Flannery Oconnor; and excerpt from up and coming writer from Clay County Bama, David Lumpkin. Wedowee is more famous than ever now. I think that is where Dottie lives who was one of Courtney Cox's best friends in High school.

  It has also come to light Jay Holland who was part of the cabal that ousted the top of Bama Public TV over David Barton's bogus religious history of America; Jay the JAX State grad and radio Sean Hannity wannabee was Judge Roy Moore's communication director when the Ten Commandments ran for Gov few years ago backed by the remnants of Albert Lee Smith and what remains of the Birch Society in the state. So Far to my knowledge Bob Terry and Rick Lance are mum.

   Also film comments mag has great review of Beasts of the Southern Wild which just displaced Bernie and Moonrise Kingdom for my must see films this summer.

   Cousin Dixie and her family is featured in current issue of Baptists Today. For that reason alone I should be allowed on the grounds of Collinsville Baptist Church for the 200 anniversary in a few weeks. Dixie and my blood goes back to 1840 in the south end of Dekalb County and every member of the DAR ought to recognize that fact.

Just sayin.

Hope things are cool where you are.

Oh Yeah, God Bless America. I got good poem on this blog somewhere thay Bill Moyers liked and the one about Bully and Hope in current Atlantic is good poem too.