My Uncle Paul Fox and Bama Senator Shelby

   This morning on NPR a news report said Alcoa Aluminum numbers were coming in today and that should be big indicator of how the government is doing with fiscal cliff negotiations. Then a fellow said governance is the problem. Business doesn't like uncertainty even after a minimal dodge of a disaster New Years eve.
     As anybody who has seen my front yard knows, I'm not much of a businessman. But I have met a few successful people along the way.

   My Grandfather's Brother Paul Fox was a VP of Reynolds Aluminum. Nixon sent him to see the Shah of Iran, Anwar Sadat, and sent him in early 70's to China. He was legendary in Fox Family Circles.
      Roger Milliken, Jr. has been my friend since the summer of 1970 when he came to our home on Sunday lunch break from Sunny Slope Peach Shed. Roger's father was one of the key shapers of the Republican Party in the last half of the 20th Century. See Joe Crespino's strom Thurmond's America if you doubt the weight of that assertion.
    And Bama's Energen Corporation CEO Dudley Reynolds was my classmate at Furman; lived right down the Hall Freshman year. Dudley a native of Anniston was a Rhodes scholar nominee. Senator Shelby and I talked about him with mutual admiration at the Leesburg Town Hall last summer.

     I don't speak for any of these folks and none of them consult me on business matters. But I would be surprised if they are happy with any of the Bama delegation the last couple years save possible Congresswoman Terry Sewell.

     For me EJ Dionne made the most sense in a challenging panel Sunday on Meet the Press that included Carly Fiorina and Newt Gingrich. Gingrich was a wasted panelist, a waste of airtime and panel presence. Next time put Norm Ornstein in there, or maybe Greenville SC mayor Knox White, a Republican.

     Dionne trumps everything Shelby has said to date on the matter. Shelby is not listening to the best and brightest of Bama these days; showing much evidence of a finger in the wind politician. President Obama's direction is not perfect but Ornstein and Jeff Faux join Dionne all say it is about the best realpolitik possible given the recalcitrance and stubborness to put it mildly of the Birch Society inflected Tea Party House.

    And God Help the people of Alabama, National Championship--Does it mean anything really when Kansas Governor Brownback and Kris Kobach jerk the state around--if we reelect Jeff Sessions and Mike Rogers. And if Kentucky Congressman Yeaman can bring himself to do the right thing as he did in Spielberg's Lincoln, maybe Robert Aderholt can become somthing worthy of Bham and Southern and the US House before he hopefully leaves office in a couple years.

   Come on Bama. Do something that would make Judge Frank Johnson proud, worthy of the great football team you worship 17 starters of which are persons of color if you were countin the same team I did. Lets have a fiscal policy that does justice to them and their aspirations as well as all the wealthy who own all the land in South Alabama Wayne Flynt has written so prophetically about.