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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.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Talked to Kaitlyn and an Australian Woman today

  Called the staff of Bama Congressman Mike Rogers and S.C. US Senator Tim Scott. I told Kaitlyn I had difficulty gettin in touch with Mike Hubbard's office since last October but I thought there was something shallow about the Bama Tea Party politics of playing the religion card and that only being abortion which New Republic to my satisfaction has named the politics of mendacity. Talked about voter suppression and the Jane Mayer piece in the New Yorker the Voter Fraud Myth. Said I was convinced two United Methodist Bishops, Deb Wallace Padgett and Will Willimon would find Hubbard blaspheming the Gospel with his insidious politics in Alabama.
     Got a Surprise at Sen Tim Scott's office. Talked to an intern who is visitting American from a University in Australia. She had a good take on the irony of an African American tea Party Senator from S.C. with President Obama in office. We talked about the movie 12 years a slave and Walter Johnson's River of Dark Dreams. We are both fans of the Australian movie Rabbit Proof Fence. Delightful conversation; and Kaitlyn was pleasant as well.


    Little tension on the phone when I talked to Marianna in Trey Gowdy's office. I think either Gowdy is dimwitted or faking. Fox News Darling, Marianna and the Gowdy office are out to lunch on the new bio of Roger Ailes, and they don't seem to be eager to read Molly Worthen's Apostles of Reason. Disappointing for a US Congressman with ties to Baylor and Billy Graham's FBC Spartanburg. I got Baptized in Truett Memorial Baptist Church. Trey Gowdy is no George W. Truett nor his friend Woodrow Wilson.


    Where is Don Wilton on all this. Surely he can read Molly Worthen's book with its chapter on the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/books/review/the-anointed-evangelical-truth-in-a-secular-age-by-randall-j-stephens-and-karl-w-giberson-book-review.html?_r=0

Friday, January 17, 2014

Pretense Balancing

   This last week when my sister turned 58; well it was Alabama week on NPR. On Wednesday the Diane Rehm show had an hour long conversation with the NY Times journalist who had the front page story in the Sunday Jan 11 issue on Bama House Speaker and member in good standing of FUMC Auburn, Mike Hubbard on how he "flipped" the State legislature here. Great piece Jan 1 in the Bham Weld on how that exacerbates income disparity in the state.

   Collinsville product Joseph Morgan most likely was in the inner workings of Hubbard's design as political director of the state GOP. So much for the Morgan legacy in Collinsville and all that Duke, UVA and Yale educations of the three brothers. Looks like prayer time aint what it used to be in the Morgan house, or Francis Schaefer has indeed prevailed.
    Thursday, 45 minute conversation with the author of the new bio of Roger Ailes, the news director for Fox News which is pretty popular with the Tea Party. Talks about the belly dancer Little Egypt, the Mike Douglas Show and Richard Nixon historically.
     But then gets to the bona fides of Hubbard and Jo Jo Morgan's Mah Fybah--see Oh Brother Where art Thou--with the "Christian" cable news practice of "pretense balancing. Google and listen to Fresh Air online.
    I've gotten word to UMC Bishop Deb Wallace Padgett about it, and Tripp Martin of FBC Auburn. Maybe Jennifer Wilkins will get word to the Auburn University Living Democracy Project and some of you will discuss it in Sunday School Sunday.
     As Eddie Murphy said: "It aint Nuthn but a Short Walk!"
  

Monday, January 06, 2014

Molly Worthen no excuse for Huckabee, Hubbard and Trey Gowdy shenanigans

   Molly Worthen is getting good chat at baptistlife.com/forums SBC Trends. Her chapter on the Southern Baptist Convention, excerpt from her Apostles of Reason (easy google) has garnered a good stir.

    I've that excerpt, her book flap and last chapter. Hoping to get my hands on the book from a local library so I can read the rest soon. She also has an article in Christian Century on Billy Graham's 92nd Birthday. I think Billy and Elvis Pressley were born the same year, contemporaries of my Uncle Prentice.

     This coming year bodes well for some refinement of her pivotal thoughts on the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC. That's just part of her book, but unless the likes of Notre Dame's Mark Noll and his friend Darren Dochuk aren't a little more definitive on the legacy of the fundy takeover, the glowing comments they make on the book's cover are open for misinterpretation. The parts of her book I've read so far allows that demagogues have taken advantage in the political arena of folks of conviction on the matter of Biblical authority, but seems to give Birchers like Paul Pressler, Jesse Helms and the unnamed Albert Lee Smith a pass for their role in the SBC Fundy Takeover. And she lacks for my taste Randall Balmer, Marshall Frady and Steven Miller's insights into the duplicity of Billy Graham, if not outright deceit, in the SBC Takeover.
   
     Balmer's upcoming bio of Jimmy Carter hopefully will take some of the bad taste out of my mouth on Ms. Worthen's oversight there. Balmer consistently uses the word "cagey" in describing how Graham has played Presidential politics from Kennedy/Nixon through President Carter where he slighted SBC's Jimmy in Reagan's favor, to George W. Bush even Obama.

     Still she puts lot on the table, new insight with eloquence. On that I agree with Dochuk and Noll and with them look forward to the coming conversations.

      I am hoping her book will engage the likes of rascals (mild words, bastards in the Will Campbell sense may be more spot on) like the Tea Party's Mike Hubbard of Alabama, Billy Graham's fellow parishioner Trey Gowdy at FBC Spartanburg, S.C.; and the slippery Mike Huckabee who is now doing ads for Senator Lindsey Graham in Upstate S.C.

    I'm doing my part to stoke further conversation. I called Bama SBC Deacon Gov Bentley's office this morning, David Wilkins of S.C., the D.C. staff of Trey Gowdy, N.C. Ellmer's of Dunn/Fayetteville US House District, and the Chic Fil A Cares line to get word to Dan CAthy himself about the significance of this book; not to mention Huckabee's good friend, Andy Westmoreland, President of Samford University.

    Keep following the conversation at Bl.com. It could get interesting.

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

2013 was rough year

  Short version as I intended to make this a Dec 31 post but bad luck for the year sabotaged my year end postings here in the blog world.

     Started out with new hopes and energy last year but was sick within the first week with the Bama Crud. Off and on semi misery till first of April when I came down with pneumonia. Kicked in about the time of the bad wind shear of mid march that blew down a big oak tree in my front yard. Tried to medicate myself with tomato soup but the phlegm kept on comin and I was cold feet all the time. Woman died down in Attalla. My sister had mercy and got me to S.C. where I stayed for three weeks and watch the Tsarnaev drama unfold on Cable TV.

     Back in Bama early May I did get enough spirits to celebrate my 60th birthday though the logistics were foreboding for a while. I still appreciate the folks that helped me pull it off.

    Still had snot up until bout the middle of August.

   Breathed well and life was okay through Thanksgiving though I was hoping to make it to S.C. Survived that disappointment only to be miseried again with periodic allergies and the Bama Crud again.

    Christmas has been good to me. Eating some BBQ and catching up on my ping pong game.

    I guess I should be grateful for September, October and November, and I am. Hope to get a few more months in the plus column this coming year.