asfoxseesit

Reading list for 2012

2012-02-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

Looks like it could be another tough year, but with what remains as reminder to myself and suggestion to you who read this.

Art of Fielding by Hornback

Charles Marsh new Bio of Bonhoeffer, publised by Knopf

Ron Rash new novel. His Serena is set to start shooting in Czech Republic in March starring Ree Dolly of Winter's Bone Fame.

Maybe the Orphan Master's Son

That one on the Girl Scout Manual I heard on NPR yesterday

Have finished The Anointed by Stephens and Giberson and recommend to all.

Will think of others as I go along

And this one, I got to read this one. As Frank Booth says in Blue Velvet: Got Ta Got Ta Got Ta:.....From the NPR review of Feb 10 Quoting:

Tupelo Hassman writes with such an eye for rough-and-tough detail, she obviously knows something about kids who have been given the dubious gift of premature autonomy. The narrator of her curious debut novel, Girlchild, is a trailer trash tyke named Rory Dawn Hendrix. Rory tells us her alcoholic mom, whom she idolizes, had four children by the time she was 19; Rory is her fifth. The pair live outside Reno, Nev., in a trailer paid for by Mom's jobs as a bartender, keno runner, and change girl at the casinos. Rory is left home alone a lot and, when she's not watching reruns of M*A*S*H or Family Ties or hiding from the boogeymen, real or imagined, banging on the trailer door, she's reading.

Like many a wise child before her, Rory finds consolation in books: her Bible of choice is a tattered old copy of The Girl Scout Handbook. The trailer park doesn't have a troop, but Rory constitutes a fearsome pack of one; she even awards herself her own homemade badges. Here, for instance, is one in a long list of Rory's requirements for the "proficiency badge [in] puberty":

TRANSCRIPT:

Casey Mattox, Kris Kobach and the Lesser Vision

2012-01-30T11:46:00.000-08:00

Lot of stuff for Casey to navigate in regard his hometown and the Alliance Defense Fund's vision for America.
Take a look at the public policy forum of Baptistlife.com where this will be up for wider discussion; and SBC Trends at that site as well.
Jill Lepore's article in the New Yorker, the Christine Stansell Holy Way review in the New Republic, my friend Brent Walker's essay in January report from the Capitol, and Amy Sullivan's feature today MOn. Jan 30 in USA Today indicts Chuck Pickering for emphasizing abortion to the detriment of my pressing matters in this election cycle.
Biggest indictment was this weekend's 45 minute spotlight on This American Life's NPR program on the Bama Immigration law. Kris Kobach toured S.C. with Mitt Romney during the primary there.
Listen to the program. Eunie Smith introduced Scott Beason to Kris Kobach.
Where is Casey on all this? Out to lunch while NE Bama is trying to navigate through the fog.

I'm going to Selma

2012-01-25T10:34:00.000-08:00

I had hoped to go First Sunday in March 2007 to walk across with Hillary and President to Be Obama, but I didn't make it. But I have a friend inspired by the Arab Spring and James Dickey's son Christopher's reporting on the Mideast and he wants to go and I'm gon be dere. I think my sister may make the trip and some others with Connections to Collinsville, but I don't expect the three women who precipitated the events of May 28 2006 to be there.
God is bigger than them.
I'm going. I have txted a woman of influence hoping to bring this Woman to Selma this year. Would be grand if she can make it

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/01/25/egypt-revolution-women

Heard a few minutes ago on NPR and it fired my resolve. Read by happenstance, reread Marshall Frady's intro to his Penguin bio of King. That got me fired up too, and Taylor Branch's parable about the anonymous fellow in 65: "We won when we started walking. Gonna do it for T.C. Smith and Herbert Gezork and Bonhoeffer and Willie Dean Tate and Esther Dawkings and my Mother and Grandfather Jordan.
Gonna be a righteous stroll.
S.C. went a little too red for Gingrich and that gives me some concern and Richard Land's segment on NPR Saturday afternoon before the results were in.
But My walk is not for spite.

Love to see you there weather permitting and the Lord Tarries.

Upstate S.C. Republicans Embrace Casey Mattox

2012-01-18T12:25:00.000-08:00

At least Santorum and Gingrich and Perry do as they have a conference tonight in Hyatt Regency in Greenville ralleying around Mississippi's failed Personhood Amendment which Casey's leader with the Allied Defense Fund, Charles Pickering advocated. At least all indicators are to that effect.
Over the weekend, leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention met at Paul Pressler's ranch outside Houston according to a Brian Kaylor report of Jan 16 at ethicsdaily.com. It was Pressler who assaulted Three former Furman religion professors book on the Old Testament, People of the Covenant in the 60's and used it as a ralleying point to demagogue Baptists into the right wing of the Republican party. See Dan Williams, God's Own Party.
So Casey Mattox is in the driver's seat and it doesn't look like his colleagues from Collinsville who went on the sterling higher educations at Duke, UVA, Yale and some to UBama and Auburn and Habitat for Humanity are gonna say anything to contest Casey's view of the world.
If they decide to say something, Bishop Willimon's peculiar prophet blog would be a good place to start; and or Giberson and Stephens book the Anointed; one supportive jacket blurb being that of Matthew's visitting proff at Yale, and my good friend, Randall Balmer, twice Dotson Nelson lecturer at Samford.
But right now Casey and his misguided religious politics are on a roll

20th Anniversary Blessings of Liberty, Collinsville

2012-01-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

It was January 1992 when Brett Morgen, Jessica Kane and the Public Roads Production Company came to Collinsville to shoot the documentary that was year later shown on Bama Public TV.
Google Brett Morgen, Oscar Nominee who married into Sweet n Low; major profile in NY Times not long ago if you can google it up. Saw him in FlatRock about Four years ago.
Here are excerpts of the May 31, 1993 BHam Post Herald Feature by Elaine Witt on the screening of the effort at Collinsville, Baptist Church after Bob Dylan's son, Sam, helped edit it in L.A.

It's not everyday a small town gets to see itself Warts and All on the Silver Screen; a big lettered Sidebar Headline said on the back page of the A-section of that Monday issue.
From the article

It wasn't Cannes, but to Brett Morgen it might as well have been.
The 26 year pony tailed Californian lay awake the long night before he showed the Town of Collinsville, population 1500, the 68 minute documentary he'd made about it.
"I was so nervous about how they're going to receive the film," he said a few minutes before Wedsnesday nights screening of the film Blessings of Liberty," at the Collinsville Baptist Church (my Mother was baptized there and on May 28 2006 they had a significant conversation and set new direction for the church)

In the end there was a little tension over the disparity of views Morgen captured--particularly about race, class and economic opportunity in the Dekalb County village known best for its weekly Trade Day. (google Rick Bragg in Southern Magazine)
More prevalent were hugs and acclamations for the young outsider who came 17 months ago to find small town America, and managed to tell a twon a little bit about itself in the process......

And in a few places the Audience seemed to hold its breath. There was the scene of a fight that erupted between teenagers while the crew was filming a HS basketball game.
Casey Mattox, an 18 year old recent HS grad heading for U Virginia, said he and his friends had hoped the fracas wouldn't make it to the final cut.
"But when you saw it, it seemed like if he didn't use it, it would have been an injustice. It didn't start our racial, even though it was a black guy and a white guy fighting. But then when people came in to separate them, the whites were pushing the blacks away and the blacks were pushing the whites away."
......(later in the film) A member of a prominent local family seated on an immaculate white couch, offers a homily to the camera.
"If I could say one thing, I would say we all need to think positive, for this little town of Collinsville, Alabama and the USA. Positive thinking is the most important thing we have left in this country.
For the most part the film cast a golden light on the church and community life of Collinsville, a town where a red, white and blue barber pole still spins, and where you can still get a haircut for $3.00.
(Some) predictably thought the movie had overplayed the racial problems, though many thought the depictions were accurate.
Enough people liked the film for Morgen to leave with a list of people who want to order their own copies on video. And one woman asked in the film would ever show up at the movie theatre.
Morgen said the film has been accepted for screening at an international film festival. And He hopes to have it aired on Bama PBS (which it was, couple times)
"Here I am this Yankee coming here telling them how their town is, but the point of the film is, this could be Anytown, USA. My major concern was getting out of town alive, but I think I will be okay," he quipped.

Since, Morgen was nominated for Oscar for On the Ropes, and his Chicago Ten and the Kid Stays in the Picture got kudos from Robert Redford Himself. In fact I think you can google a conversation between Brett and Bob.

Top Ten events in the World of the Magnificent Stevie 2011

2011-12-29T15:33:00.000-08:00

Come back to this list as it is a work in progress, will be refined a little and amplified and explained where necessary

10. Bill Glenn's reopenen on 68 top of Lookout near the Leesburg brow. They lost some fine help in the transition but the new digs are fabulous and the sign is good and the potato soup good as ever and real good kind price on chili in the Fall

9.Subway and Don Chico's opened downtown Collinsville and I can see where Momma got baptized from there, and after negotiations got soft shelled chicken taco con queso with pico de gallo at the right price and Subway pnut butter cookies two for a buck is good and my new friend Tamara from Washington State has refreshing sense of humor and it ain't far to walk around the corner and check on Cookie and Roger Dutton on a Saturday. And my friends at China House and Jack's are hospitable as ever

8.I may come back to Number 8 later, drawing a blank; 8B I started a facebook page so I could segue into the Gaffneyite Page, but don't try to friend me cause I spend too much time on internet as it is and before long distractions add up and as they say in Tree Of Life, It's Over

7.My friend the Mow has some new yard ornaments for Christmas and nabors and it picked up a little in the fall....7B I crashed Newt Gingrich Town Hall Nov 30 at Tommy's Ham House and talked to everybody in the room including Newt and Sean Hannity and got on WYFF My Friend Four and people all over the Upstate saw me in contradistinction to Newt's plan for America and some on the internet too.

6.Pretty snow in January and I took some pictures and the well was generous and the hot water heater got me through

5. I had some chic fil a Coupons one or two in April, and got a new batch around October, about four

5B.Rode over to Rome Ga couple times, saw Cousin Neil in April and had some Chicken NoKey soup at Olive Garden

4. Read some good books, History of Christianity, Leftovers, Holy Ghost Girl, some James Wood articles in New Yorker, and saw Higher Ground and some stuff once or twice after Noodles and Such in Huntsville, always a pleasant ride.
In the world of Oratorio and authentic American Musical Art Forms I participated in three memorable events. The July 4 Sacred Harp Singing in Henegar, Alabama which I blogged about at this site, and the 4th Sunday singing and Saturday before, both days,at Pine Grove Baptist Church outside Collinsvillle, Al on Lookout Mtn about a mile from where my Grandfather Jordan was born in 1881. For the first time I joined the Basses in the Square.
On Dec 25 at the close of the Christmas Service at FBC Easley, S.C. at the church's open invitation choir loft I joined about 120 singers in the Hallelujah Chorus and my five month stint in the Furman Singers 40 years ago kicked right in and I did a marvelous job.
Thank-you FBC Easley for the opportunity and Blessing.
On a somber note the April 27 tornadoes that came through Alabama took 33 lives in Dekalb County

3.Late September, 30th I think it was, met Todd of Hoover in Bham had a good lunch and caught the end of the annual Const Reform meeting nearby. There in rapid succesion had good chats with Governor Brewer, Samford Provost, Wayne Flynt whose Keeping the Faith I reviewed in a Guest Column in the FPayne T-J Nov 16, and my friend Sam Hodges of FU '77. Had good chat with Sam and Todd and set the world straight for about 90 minutes. Earlier, bout June 27 went to Southside UMC at Five Points Bham to stand in solidarity with Bishop Willimon, R.G. Lyons and his associate against Deacon Gov Bentley and his ill conceived Immigration Law.
On Dec 30 ethicsdaily.com named Flynt Baptist of the year. I hope many of you who see my top ten list here will google that report.

2.Went to my 40th GHS '71 Reunion October 21 and got my picture taken with Chief Tom Tom and had wonderful lunch with Classmates at Olive Garden in Gaffney--who woulda ever thought Gaffney would have an OGar but they do--after the Grand Assembly and then rode up on a beautiful day to Shelby for Bridges Barbeque and thought about the Meaning of Life

1.My Niece Katie got married in June and my brother Put On the Dawg for his daughter, and My Bro in law performed the ceremony and my sister read a poem. Neal Rabon was at the Reception, Ben Leaphart almost stole the show, but the Bride held on as the Star Attraction and about 9:30 the Motown Band kicked in with Respect Yourself and I lead the Snake dance around the Room and it was super. And the food was good and my brother didn't try to concoct his dbl fudge Bundt cake pie till after Thanksgiving

Augustine Memory, Memorials and Gaffney, S.C.

2011-12-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

I've been posting at my hometown Facebook Group blog and this morning woke up about 6 am thinking about Memory and people who passed away this year. In the room was a May 17, 2011 Christian Century with a eulogy for Harvard Chaplain Peter Gomes.
I met Gomes once at Furman Pastors School in early 90's. It was an honor. He sermon had an anecdote about Montgomery, Alabama and the art of generous receiving based on the text of the woman, Mary Magdalene who gave Jesus ointment and washed his feet with her hair.
May 17 is a day shy of me and Pope John's birthday

I will add more to this blog in a few days so if you see it early, come back to it.
From Stephanie Paulsell and the Century:

The great African theologian Augustine of Hippo spent a lot of time pondering the mysteries of memory--the way some memories stick and others don't, the way some disappear and then return, the way others are lost irrevocably. He felt frustrated that some memories remained forever inaccessible to him, lost in the "vast and boundless subterranean shrine" that he imagined memory to be, "I dive down deep as I can," he wrote in his Confessions, "and I can find no end, nor can I myself grasp all that I am". Only in you, he says to God, can I recover the memories that I have lost.
We cannot know ourselves fully, Augustine says, because we cannot remember every moment of our lives, no one can. Only God remembers everything that has happendd to us, all that we have thought and felt and done. If we are to know ourselves, Augustine insists, we have to search for ourselves in God.

End Quote

It was a sermon of Gomes I read one time that Hebrews 11:13 fully registered with me. I committed the verse to Memory

Some folks with whom I was acquainted in varying degrees who passed in 2011

From Gaffney
Pete Wright, about a year older than me who went to my Dad's church in Gaffney, Bethany. Pete had jet black hair like Elvis Pressley and Sang O Holy Night as a 7th grader Christmas about 65 or so. He went with a bunch of kids between ages 8-14 bout the second year we were in Gaffney back to the Truett Camp in N.C. I think he jammed some with Toy Caldwell of the Marshall Tucker band. My Father preached his Dad's funeral and now Pete is gone, raised in the community of McCarthurville where a man later to be President of the American Manufacturer's Inst came in 56 or so to start a mission of the First Baptist Church

Ramona Ross
My High school chorus teacher. In the third year of full integration of Gaffney High School, Ms Ross took our Ensemble, about 40 of us, the Columbia to sing for Gov McNair, who just three years earlier had been embroiled in the Orangeburg Massacre

Jack Crocker. Was one of my classmates, Died inOctober after bout with cancer. Our paths kind separated after jr high, but I remember him being around; drove a bus, solid citizen, active in his Baptist church, raised good children

Nearby Spartanburg late December of 2010, Roger Milliken; a force in the Republican South, and nationally. Gave more money to Nixon in 72 than any other man in America. His Son Roger Jr and I were good friends the summer of 1970

From Furman: T.C. Smith, in November. I talked to him on phone five days before he died and blogged about it here on this site.

From the same religion department, with T.C. the last of an era. RobertW.Crapps. With David Smith and Jack Flanders wrote People of the Covenant which caused Paul Pressler much distress. I saw his sons in November at Furman Homecoming. Chic Fil A to be CEO Dan Cathy sat near me in Dr. Crapps Religion class fall of 1971 at Furman

From Harvard. Peter Gomes. I met him once at Furman. Google several tributes to this great mind and American force post ML King.

David Currie's Mother. David Came to Collinsville Feb 24 2002 with several other CBF friends to challenge my Mother's home church to a better way. So far they have taken a pass. Curries grandfather was WA Criswell's mother's brother.

Collinsville. Ronny Brown. Good fellow a year or two younger than me. Friendly family, outgoing family never boring. Active in his Baptist church,loving husband and father

Mike Mattox, Collinsville Mayor in early 80's. Had two sons and a daughter, one of which,Casey, now works for the conservative Church state group in D.C. The Allied Defense Fund. Mike was a gracious fellow. I talked to him near Thanksgiving last year before he passed early this one

Unfolding by Carl Dennis, oct 24 New Yorker

2011-12-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

Came across this great poem compliments of the Attalla Public Library which subscribes to the New Yorker. It is interesting to compare their Magazine offering to those of Collinsville Library and Gadsden Public. Oxford American Would be grand addition to Collinsville Library.
Many friends have passed in this last year, including a woman who worked in the Ft Payne Library and was killed in the April 27 F-5 tornado that came through Rainsville. I may name some more week after Christmas; and note to myself got to get the May 31 Bham Post Herald Story up about the night Brett Morgen came to Collinsville Baptist Church to show his documentary later to be shown on statewide tv. Eventually I think Martha may want it for her files in the Collinsville History Museum as this is the 20th anniversary.
Meanwhile this poem resonated with me, in this year and fall of my 40th High School Reunion:

Unfolding

If there is no spirit unfolding itself in history,
No gradual growth of consciousness
Beneath the land grabs and forced migrations,
The bought elections, the betrayal of trust
By party factioin in the name of progress--
What about spirit in the personal realm
Unfolding slowly inside us, so slowly
That our best days seem like a holding action?
Seasons repeat themselves, but the tree
Shading the yard keeps growing.
Don't be chagrined that the sadness you felt
This evening beside the bed of a friend
Who's growing weaker wasn't more profound
Than the sadness of yesterday, that you still
Cam't imagine a fraction of what he's feeling
As the world he loves slips from his grasp.
No progress from your perspective,
But who's to say what you might notice
If the scroll of the last few months were unrolled
On the table before you, how clear it might be
That your understanding of all your're losing
In losing him has been slowly deepening?
Another day, you say to yourself, at dusk
As you climb your porch steps, which you notice
Could use some scraping and painting this weekend,
A Fresh coat that with luck will last a year.

Richard Nixon and Me

2011-11-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

Couple days ago I heard about the new work by Ann Beattie on Pat Nixon. Then couple days later I read some of it. I think I will read it all soon.
I remember Ann from 77 and her novel Falling into Place. She had some short jeans on, was leggy and I remembered that was the kinda woman I wanted to find. Found couple resemblances, not quite as urbane as Beattie, but even they were out of my price range--not a pickup mind you but holy relationship of some sort where I was part of the funding--so never quite happenned.
But that doesn't mean i couldn't read her work over the years, or keep up with her evolution.
I think Ann confesses she never met Pat Nixon. Likewise I never met Richard but feel like I knew him in some way, was close on several occasions.
In 62 Nixon spent the night in the Daniel Mansion, what is now the President's mansion right outside the back gate of Furman where I was to matriculate in 71.
My Great Uncle Paul Fox, a Reynolds Aluminum VP was sent by Nixon to China and Iraq where he met the Shah.
Furman friend Dick Doody's sister dated Nixon's good friend in Lauderdale, key Biscayne, John J. Alpanalp's son. And at Furman Dolly Dent, the daughter of Nixon's Southern strategist Harry Dent was a coed for a couple years. And over the last couple years I've had correspondence with her sister, Ginny Brant, who memoir of their father's faith pilgrimage has a charming story about Pat Nixon on a Saturday morning in the White House.
May try to bring that one to Beattie's attention after I complete the book.
Then my good friend Jim Pitts, longtime Chaplain at Furman, is the son of Nixon's barber. And the summer of 1970 I was good friends of Roger Milliken, Jr. whose Dad gave more money to CREEP in 72 than any other man in America.
I visitted the home in Spartanburg that summer and remember seeing pictures of Mr. Milliken on the wall as advisor in Cabinet meetings with President Nixon.
So I feel like I know him. Read a couple of the biographies, seen The Watchmen, seen the PBS Frontline Documentaries, and know something about what it is like to have a righteous Mother.
And the Billy Graham connection especially through the eyes of Marshall Frady is a lifelong consideration for me, almost like Knoxville Tn is for Cormac McCarthy.
Oh, I do know Alabama Gov Brewer whose intrigue with Wallace and Nixon is the stuff of political fable.
Then bout two months ago I'm talking to this fellow who is independent Baptist preacher and sales videos at a kind price on Saturday at Collinsville Trade Day--see Rick Bragg in Southern Living.
I'm talking the Nixon/Frost movie and he says he met Nixon at Key Biscayne and swam in his pool.
I called him a liar, playfully. Turns out he was tellin the truth. His dad worked security for Nixon.
Said Nixon on meeting my friend as a child came over to him and in Classic Nixon style shook the then 8 year old's hand and said Son I want you to do one thing for me.
When you grow up I want you to become a Damn Democrat. And then Nixon started laughing.

Me and Nixon and JFK

2011-11-24T05:13:00.000-08:00

I never saw Nixon or JFK in person though I have seen four other Presidents: Ford, Carter, Bush 41 and REagan. Saw Reagan in Knoxville Tn in the fall of 80 when he was runnin for President on a street Cormac McCarthy made famous in Suttree.
But I have already Digressed. Been musing a blog about Nixon and will do that soon, but two days past Nov 22 came across some other folks memories of the day Kennedy was assassinated.
I was in fifth grade at Central Elementary in Gaffney, S.C. I was in Ms. Goforth's class. Miss Littlejohn was the other 5th grade teacher and she came to our class to tell us something bad for the country had happenned.
When school was out heard a few racial epithets which was not uncommon in those days across the South just a couple months after MLKing Jr had his Dream on the Washington Mall.
My Dad was a Baptist preacher and like many white Baptist preachers in the south his conscience was stirring and days were to become difficult. He was an emotional fellow, wore his heart on his sleeve. I remember him crying a little that Friday afternoon on Anthony Street, 139, best I remember.
I am seeing where some folks in 11th grade that day couldn't remember if there was a football game that night, but others remembered clearly the game was played. I think Joe Wren mighta been in that game; and across town my friend Johnny Dawkins woulda been in the 6th grade on the road with all of us to integration, and he later to star Kareem Abdul Jabbar in the ABC Afterschool special the Hero who Couln;t Read.
And Tim Tyson was stirring in North Carolina later to write about Gaffney in Jumpn Jim Crow.
But in 5th grade things were beginning to register with me about power and justice as it was across the world. And our Dark Prince, the handsome gifted Lothario Catholic President who gave W.A. Criswell something to think about was killed.
I think I may be the only person in NE Alabama or graduate of Gaffney High School who has a note from someone on the plane bearing JFK's body back to D.C. that day from Dallas.
Bill Moyers once sent me a note that said people like me make a differcnce. On some days I have but on too many I was pretty damn mediocre. To my Mom and Dad and others on the face of the earth on Nov 22, 1963, for the less than days, the mediocre ones I apologize.
But I be damned if that is gonna stop me from enjoying every bite of turkey and dressin and giblet gravy I can in good conscience ingest on this day.
Momma and Daddy, and Nanny and Papa and Grandpa Atticus Finch Jordan and Arrie Lula who put a strong dose of what little intelligence I have in the mix; from up in heaven would have it no other way.

My Column in the Ft. Payne Times Journal

2011-11-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

In the Hometown where SBC President Bobby Welch was Baptized.
Got published as a guest column in the Tuesday, Nov. 15 issue, complete with picture of front cover of Flynt's new book.
Who knows, maybe Randy Owen himself read this and Donnie and Jackie Myers and Martha Barksdale and various librarians across the county, most friendly and some not:

Proud of this one; and I'm satisfied Momma is too:

Letters for Publication
Ft. Payne Times-Journal

The Editors:

I found Henegar's Regina Baker's recent letter to the TJ on Steve Flowers column about Alabama Democrats most interesting. As I remember Flower's piece, he praised the legacy of LBJ for getting things done in the Senate of the United States.
I too read Robert Caro's work on LBJ several years ago but found the upshot of Sidney Blumenthal easily googled piece of 1991 on the 48 Senate Race between LBJ and Coke Stevenson the definitive writing for what is arry in Alabama today. God knows LBJ had his faults but between Coke and LBJ in that race; well as Johnson lore goes, I join the chorus and I'm glad Johnson stole Ballot box 13 in Duval County.
For you see that lives on here in Alabama. Wayne Flynt's new memoir Keeping the Faith champions the legacy of that race as he tells times and again how the Eagle Forum of Eunie Smith and the Baptist activism of her late Bircher husband Albert Lee Smith have thwarted Alabama's chances for progress from Constitutional and Tax Reform to School Reform. At every point the religious right activism of these folks and their kind have distracted and dumbed down the best this state has to offer; at every point frustrating folks from the late Samford President Tom Corts, to the best initiatives of former Governor Brewer, to Auburn Presidents Muse and Philpott to the legacy of former Alabama Baptist Executive Director Earl Potts and his son David.
Now the Eagle Forum as revealed by the Birmingham News was the Jezebel whispering in the ear of Governor Bentley and Scott Beason doing the devil's work on the immigration reform bill. Their affiliation with the Tea Party should be of concern to every New Testament Christian in the state.
Recent works by Darren Dochuk and and Dan Williams shine the light on the legacy of Coke Stephenson and his Texas Regulars to the work of the Smiths in the 60's as they fought the best of the Baptist tradition of Hugo Black on church state issues. And you can see the Eagle Forum DNA now in the Allied Defense Fund of the religious right, dim bulbing the grand work of the Baptist Joint Committee in D.C. which Ft. Payne native daughter Cherilyn Crowe staffs nobly.
Flynt's book should be must reading for Administrative staffs of Ft. Payne and Dekalb County Schools, NACC, and the social studies teachers and promising humanities high school students. Don't take my word for it. I am in grand company with Harper Lee, Rick Bragg, Governor Brewer, Howell Raines and the brightest lights of the last 30 years in Alabama calling on all of you to look in the mirror with me as you read this book.

Furman and Selma; 1963

2011-11-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

The first Sunday in March, 2007 my heart was in Selma, Alabama but the car wouldn't start. One of my big regrets was not gettin down there for maybe the Second biggest crossing of the bridge in History, on that day with Barack Obama, John Lewis, Bill and Hillary Clinton.
As Furman History proff John Shelley told the story in a 2002 Alumni Magazine, Herbert Gezork was there for the Selma Bridge Crossing in 1963
Furman has a strong story in former Religion proff Herbert Gezork.
Cut and paste this link
http://library.furman.edu/specialcollections/HST21/ReligiousContro/gezork.htm

Furman didn't come out very well in that story but Gezork's narrative arc is strong. He left Furman to become President of Andover Newton.
I am still trying to find out if Gezork met Bonhoeffer before Gezork left Germany in 36 or so. He was a youth pastor in Berlin.
Last night I called T.C. Smith a Furman proff in the 60's and 70's, a legend there, who met Gezork at Ridgecrest in 1937. I think Smith was 17 yrs old that year. Smith was a student then at Louisiana College, and Gezork was nearby, his one year at Furman.
Smith was teaching in Berkely in 63, an American Baptist, and with a colleague and a student flew to Alabama to cross the Selma Bridge with Martin King, John Lewis and others when Judge Frank Johnson placed the Federal Courts on their side.
Smith told me he remembers talking to Martin England that day, but not Gezork who another Furman proff, John Shelley, places in Selma for one of the attempts to cross the bridge.
Lot of people that day, and the whole world was watching, so not unusual for Smith to not have seen Gezork.
Retired Furman religion proff Albert Blackwell eulogized Martin England when he passed. Said Martin had "an appetite for justice"; Martin's story told well in a chapter in Stricklin's Geneaology of Dissent, a tribute to dissenting Baptists of the 60's and before in the progressive Deep stream of Baptists who made a difference.
Smith yesterday reminded me Viola Liuzzo was killed that night. Smith says he took and his Berkely companions took the train from Montgomery to Atlanta to fly back to California. On the train they were told to hit the deck; glad they did cause the Klan shot out the windows on their unit. Apparently word got around several people who came from out of state to bear witness on the march were on the train and the Klan reacted.
Today in Ft. Payne, Alabama had a conversation with a woman whose family is well known to have been active with the Klan in those days.
Her Daughter and Son in Law are pursuing Ministry with the Methodist Church. Her grandchildren were with her.
Things change. People like Martin King, T.C. Smith, Martin England and Herbert Gezork; Dietrich Bonhoeffer who in 31 rode in front of my Mother's house on HWY 11 with the then son of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Bham; Make a difference.

Letters, Shorter, LBJ and Wayne Flynt

2011-11-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

Submitted a letter to Rome News Tribune today in wake of turmoil fundamentalists have created at Shorter College.
Had a Fox Family tennis tourney there in 72, and cousins have been in its employ on different occasions.
Usman Rahim played tennis there and he and I hit downtown Rome in 83 or so.

Also thinking about a letter to Rome News Tribune on LBJ, the Democrat Party in Alabama and Wayne Flynt's new book.
Furman is hosting a panel discussion tonight on the future of the Dems in S.C.
Look at various conversations at Baptistlife.com/forums esp SBC Trends if you want to pursue those matters.

Gaffney Greats: W.J. Cash

2011-11-01T15:19:00.001-07:00

Was having Email exchange with some of my 71 Classmates from Gaffney who set themsevles apart, achieved notoriety or greatness of some fashion.
May share the list later, as it is evolving, but just dawned on me I forgot maybe the most significant.

Wilbur J. Cash, who wrote the Mind of the South; committed suicide in Mexico City in 1941.
Wake Forest had a celebration of his work and legacy in 1999 best my memory serves me.
While basking in things Gaffney in the afterglow of my 40th Reunion, thought I would make notice.

Had dream about Gaffney this morning

2011-10-28T10:49:00.000-07:00

I've been devouring Clyde Bolton's Hadacol Days on Statham, Ga last couple days, and still winding down from renewing visit to my 40th Reunion in Gaffney, S.C. last Friday. Found a Utube easily googled for Gaffney Homecoming 2011.
This morning had a dream that several folks from Gaffney were in the Furman dining hall. Clark Price was explaining the situation to some mutual friends in Greenville. I don't know what the dream meant, wasn't as substantive as the Sheriff's Dream at End of No Country for Old Men, but did cause me in waking to remember the end poem of Cormac McCarthy's Cities on the Plain, the end of his Texas Trilogy.

I will be your Child To Hold
And you be me when I am old

The World Grows Cold
The Heathen Rage
The Story's Told
Turn the page.

Not quite.
Talked to Johnny Dawkins last night. He said he was gonna fly in for Lewis Huskey's BBQ in five years if it takes traction. Maybe Chip Sheffied, Charles Foster and Mike Francis will show up, and Billy Dean Blanton, Ray Mabry and Jack Simmons. I hope to be there.

On Down HWY 29 from Gaffney

2011-10-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

I keep thinking about other stories and conversations I woulda like to have had last week at my 40th HS reunion in Gaffney. An earlier graduate, Cleve Callison has blogged about HWY 29.
Some time ago I was fascinated with a story about Winder Ga, in fact read it in Knoxville Tn in early 80's, the library copy of the Atlanta Constitution.
Just last night picked up a memoir about Statham Ga, 8 miles north of Winder and the home of Richard Russell; Russell for better or worse mentor to LBJ and the man for whom the Senate Office building is named in Washington, D.C.
Long time sports writer for Bham News Clyde Bolton has written charming memoir about his boyhood days there. You can change the names and switch a little around here and there and strong resemblance to stories 30 years later in my times in Gaffney.
Here is a post I left a few minutes ago on blog of a bookstore in Winder:

Up HWY 29 in Gaffney, South Carolina is where I attended my 40th HS Reunion last Friday. And two days ago I laid eyes for first time on Bolton’s memoir about Statham. I am online friends of the pastor of the FBC there and called him this morning.
He was unaware, but I think Bolton has a new reader.
My Dad was born in 1922 and grew up in Rome, Ga. He died in 99. He woulda loved this book. His stories about Rome, are of same cadence and topic of good bit of Bolton; and all the baseball and high school gym chatter I feel like I was sittin on my Grandfather’s front porch all over again.
I was disappointed not to see any mention (unless I missed it) of the Richard Russell home just down 29 from Bolton’s childhood home. But Bolton is transparent; almost like reading Mark Twain goes to Winder or something.
I’m gettin the word out, and hopin to massage myself into Bolton’s graces and have lunch with him, just down the road from my current home in NE Bama, take the 40 minute ride down to Trussville and chat with Bolton.

Gaffney and Furman Homecomings

2011-10-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Oct21 I was in Gaffney, S.C. for my 40th HS Reunion. Quite an experience and grand to be among the living many of whom I have known since 1962
Here is my ending note at our website for the class which will go down in a few days: Want to add this shortnote at end of Homecoming Day. Was good to experience and remember Gaffney again on a beautiful day.

Shakespears said at 16 a boy kisses a girl and at 30 he buries his father. Most of us have buried a father by now.

I went by the Cherokee County history Museum at Central. Talked about one Tim Tyson take on Gaffney and some of the findings of G.C. Wardrep, an academic who studied the world of Gaffney that shapted most of us in some way.

I did make it to Shelby, got the large tray, all meat, and a side of slaw and I ate it all. Not sure it is what Jesus wanted me to do at this moment in my life's journey. but I cut a deal with the Devil. I don't eat that much pork everyday, and it was a Banquet day.

Came back to my sister's. Her family was on a one day church retreat, so I kinda turned up loud the Pearl Jam documentary on PBS and relished, Hearts and Thoughts Fade Away, Better Man and a great anthem for us as we near 60: I'm still Alive.

Saw Bob Dylan on my Birthday in 2003, and GillianWelch.

God Bless Yall. Hope to stay in touch, not every day, but periodically.

Hope we get some photos up here before it ethospheres in a few days and maybe some pix can transition to the Gaffneyite Facebook page; which surely will elevate to a new plateau if we share there for a larger audience and posterity.

Today I was at Furman year after my 35th there. Had a string of interesting conversations including friends in the Religion Department and A.V. Huff retired Furman History Proff and key historian for the History of the State of South Carolina.
My good friend Chaplain Jim Pitts, the son of Nixon's barber, shared with me a remark Strom Thurmond once addressed to him: Thanks for your contributions to the community.
Had the grand fortune to speak to some classmates of my hero Marshall Frady, the grandest social justice journalist of the last half of the 20th century and a 63 Furman grad.
Also spoke to the father of this year's Furman Homecoming Queen; and got an autograph from Katherine Oudin, the great niece of Buckshot Willett; and sister of Melanie Oudin the winner of the mixxed doubles event at US Open this year.
And had great fortune of watching the game with a former flanker for the Carolina Gamecocks,longtime Coach Derrick at Conway High School. His grandson is backup QB for Furman this year, and Coach Derrick was my 6-8th grade friend Tommy Brittain who left Gaffney to go to Conway for HS career, his father a noted S.C. UMC minister.
Coach Derrick and his wife were quite colorful and I shared some entertaining stories with them
Beautiful day; Furman upset Wofford in the kind of football game the sport can provide at its best by actual student athletes.
Food was good as well and none of it cost me very much. Cookie here and some lemonade there, and some great BBQ wings
Talked to Jane Verkouteren and thesons of legend Furman religion proff Robert Crapps; but I missed Gaffney and Furman's Cathy Hill, and her husband Paul Zion of the class of 76.
Talked to T. C. Smith about sawmills and SAm Britt about Dan Campbell and Bonhoeffer.

Collinsville, Perseverance and Apotheosis

2011-10-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

Come back to this blog post as I will be adding a few touches.
I stopped by the Principal's office at Collinsville High School to tell him I was moved by the word of the Month on the Marquee Billboard of the School on US HWY 11, CHS my Momma's alma mater.
Front page story in the Bham News today is about Hispanic Students staying home 200 strong in some places across NE Alabama yesterday.
Perseverance is the word of the Month.
I have gotten word just this morning in person to the Pastor of the FUMC Ft. Payne and staff of FBC Ft. Payne, the county seat; and in email to Bishop Willimon about Perseverance.
Fred Shuttlesworth died last week. Bishop Willimon blogged about his passing with implications for the Immigration struggle here in Bama at this moment.
Coincidentally, serendipitously, I have been reading once again my fellow Baptist preacher's son, Marshall Frady, my Hero; Frady's Chapter on Birmingham and Shuttlesworth moment in the spotlight with King. Frady Titled that chapter: Apotheosis.
Two good words.
More later

Oxford American Magazine of March 2001

2011-10-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

I have a copy laying around the house and picked it up yesterday. What a jewel.
Passing of James Dickey was the cover story. Just this last year had an exchange with his daughter Bronwen about Lake Jocassee in Oconee County, S.C.
And my friend Ron Rash, had a poem in that issue The Request

Charles Marsh's book The Last Days was reviewed in that issue and John Grisham was the publisher. John Grammer did the Marsh review, using the word fretful exquisitely.

The Gifted teacher for Dekalb County and her son and I tried to get a subscription going to the Collinsville Public Library early in that decade. One of my friends at the time had a son who was in English department at Ole Miss and he was a big fan as well. But it didn't work out.

For a while NACC had a subscription and the Gadsden Public Library. I hope those two will renew soon, and Jeff Graves, Jill at the utility board, Martha Barksdale and Danny Barber's wife not to mention whats left in the county of the Gilbreath strain will have access in the renovated G.W. Roberts building downtown near the RR Track.

If we do I'll get word to my friend Ron Rash, and maybe he can get John Grisham to take notice.

Ron Rash Interview

2011-09-22T13:14:00.001-07:00

I have linked my blog at the site for my 40th Reunion of the Class of 1971, Gaffney High School, Number Three in the Nation says Rivals.com

If any of my classmates stray over here; I do wish they would read my interview of Ron Rash.
Just look to the left column of my homepage here, and go to archives for 2010. Click on September 2010 and there it is.
Lot of my musings here are superflouous; but that is worth your read. And as I say at the GHS site where I try to explain myself a little since 71, I think Miss Chadwick and Miss Jones would be proud of me for that one.
Thanks

REM, Brad Pitt and the Devil All The Time

2011-09-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

Lot of things happened today. I've had memorable dreams three days in a row; a wooden tennis racket with broke strings, and a fellow from Gaffney I was trying to have a conversation with and a fat woman sat down between us.
But this morning I woke up to hear NPR announcing the end of REM. First I heard of them, I think Debbie Medaris mentioned Howard Finster from north of Rome in Penland had done artwork for their first album cover. Then I saw them on MTV and heard they or Finster maybe it was, was on Johnny Carson. Never figured something about to be that famous would come out of Athens, Ga.
Then later I learned their manager Bertis Downs, a Presbyterian minister's son active with People for the American Way had some of the same opinions as I did about the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Plus with his Davidson connection was big fan of Furman President Shi; which of course made it a small world indeed.
Man on the Moon, Losing my Religion and the soundtrack for MOMoon Movie were grand lyrics to think about.
And I read Mark Kemp's homage to them, Dixie Lullaby and they mused a script a friend and I wrote, coming of age in NE Georgia in the 70's. It still has merit.
All this on the day Brad Pitt was on NPR Fresh Air talking about how the SBC of his raisin in Springfield turned out to be inadequate.
I may see Governor Brewer tomorrow, Maybe he will find some of it interesting.
REM and I have a mutual friend in Katie Ford. I hope she tells them my shared grief of this end of the era.
Stipe had a great line about one of the savvier points of going to a party is when to take the exit.
Classy gifted people.
Pearl Jam documentary on PBS October 21
Collinsville, Quiltwalk this weekend.
Donald Ray Pollock, Chapter 32
Oh and Al Mohler on NPR Talk of the Nation. Sometime everything happens on the same day.

My Pawpaw and President James A. Garfield

2011-09-19T16:06:00.001-07:00

Here is a comment I left at the site of NPR's Diane Rehm show today. Come back, may add to the legend of W.D. Shorty Fox, Shortly as it were

Delightful Show. I thought about calling in, but the ballad singer near the end of the callins was my talking point.
I remember my Grandfather of East Tenn, Born in 1895 singing the Ballad of Charlie Guitau to me when I was a boy. His tune was a little different than today's caller, but the words were about the same. East Tennessee inflected accent would lay down on the I sound of My Name is Charlie Guitau, My Name I'll never deny.
Imagine High Lonesome sound of the Appalachian Hollers.

Found out today my Grandfather stomped some of the same ground as President Garfield. One of his great stories was as young fellow recently married to my Grandmother wearing John B. Stetson Hat to Chicamauga Park; where I learned today Garfield was key player in that battle.
Great Program. Hope the author sees these comments as I hope to read her book soon.

What is The Soul of a Man/GHS Class of 1971

2011-09-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

One of Scorcese's Blues Singers, Maybe Blind Willie, asks the question in the PBS series few years ago. Great Series. Here is Pulitzer Marilynne Robinson stab at it on page 197 of Gilead.
My 40th High School Reunion coming up in Gaffney, S.C. I'm from Gaffney
Couldn't be Prouder
And if you can't hear me
I'll say it a little louder.

Our Class President Tom Jones has set up a website and were at about 30 per cent participation now. Here is my thought for us and you as well

From Gilead:

..." For Who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which is within him."? In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable--which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblance among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that realy just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us.

The Tea Party and Titanic Struggle for the Soul of Alabama

2011-09-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

One of my Mother's first cousins was the President of the Student Body at Huntingdon College in Montgomery in 1949. In late September Wayne Flynt will deliver the President's lectures there with the endorsement of the UMC Bishop of Alabama, Will Willimon, the former Chaplain of Duke.
I have Willimon's collection of sermons from the Duke Chapel, grand ones indeed including efforts by Will Campbell, Fleming Rutledge and Barbara Brown Taylor among others.
Flynt has a memoir coming out soon to be celebrated Homecoming Weekend at Samford, where Flynt graduated in early 60's. See Willimon's Peculiar Prophet blog endorsing Flynt.
Flynt has been speaking long time about The Titanic Struggle for the Soul of Alabama.
One of the nits, the distractions to Flynt's aspirations for the character of the state is the Tea Party Movement. The late Bircher Albert Lee Smith's widow Eunie is key leader in that mess. Sad to say a lifelong friend of the Fox Family, Mary Anne Cole, a niece of former JSU president Houston Cole is caught up in the gunk.
See the recent Boston Globe story about the Tea Party Express. Also google NYbooks.com story about how nihilistic the tea party footprints are in Ohio.
Mary Anne Cole is a gracious woman. She has always been kind to me and I enjoyed singing Stamps Baxter Songs with her brother Fowler at my Grandmother's family Reunion in East Tenn in 86. Mary Anne two years ago was present for the graveside service of my Dad's sister Katherine, in Rome Ga.
But for the future of Alabama I'll go with Flynt and Bishop Willimon, Cherilynne Crowe and her associate at the Baptist Joint Committee Brent Walker and Holly Hollman of Jackson, Mississippi, the latter.
Google the above references. Have conversations in your church. Talk to products of DekalbCounty who have gone on to Vanderbilt and Yale, UVA and Baylor; even heard of Stephen Black's ethics classes at UBama.
But Run from the Tea Party. It is a soul molester and God is Not in it; no more than he was with the Nativists against Lincoln in 1850's.

Roseanne Cash and the New Jerusalem

2011-08-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

Conflating a few recent experiences and muses here, but I hope this free association exercise is worth your while.
A few blogposts back I talked about Rick Bragg column on Collinsville's Trade Day in Southern Living. The essay is easily googled up as well as my comment there.
Since then My Knife salesman friend at Trade Day who moonlights as a Physics proff and biographer of Hitler Youth who have become American Citizens is developing his thoughts on Trade Day as a Saturday Educational enterprise.
I think he's on to something. He may share in Bragg's comment stream; or he has open invitation here.
One new friend at Trade Day is the wife of the man building the log cabins. We're trying to figure a way to get a picture up of the new work in progress.
They have roots in Blairsville and Pickens County Georgia. I spent three early years in nearby Hayesville and Momma had a cousin settle in Jasper where she saw John Jeffers and his wife at a funeral in 83 or so.
The lady said the F5 tornado that took out Piedmont, Alabama (Furman grad Kelly Clem was pastor of the Goshen UMC Church that got national attention) in 94 also destroyed her home in Pickens County, and killed 8 of her neighbors. I thought she said the little community outside Jasper was New Jerusalem but it's Jerusalem.
A friend of mine saw Johnny Cash daughter Roseanne in Arkansas couple weeks ago eating breakfast. He's just seen the work Roseanne and friends are doing to make historical site of Cash's homeplace. Roseanne Told Todd it needs some work and he agreed.
Roseanne was on NPR Fresh Air, repeat Friday talking about the list. I heard it the first time in 2009 but forgot she was a fan of Arvo Part, as is Michael Stipe and myself.
My Dad preached from the book of Revelation about the New Jerusalem. There is a tie in somewhere but I haven't perfected it in this post.
I'll keep working on it.

My Mother, Mary Katherine Reed, and Lottie Moon

2011-08-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

A few years ago a vote came up in the Collinsville Baptist Church whether to stay with the SBC or fly solo.
One of my Mother's best friends from High School said no organization was perfect and she spoke to stay with the group that brought her to the dance.
Ms. Reed was the first woman in Dekalb County, Alabama to earn a doctorate. Hers was from Penn State and she was long time home economics teacher at University of Alabama.
My Mother received no formal education after High School, but the two were great friends in High School and held lifelong mutual respect.
I am convinced that both of them were they still with us upon reading Regina Sullivan's new book would break with the Southern Baptist Convention. My Mom broke long time ago; but I am convinced this would be the final straw for Mary Catherine.
Whether the Collinsville Study Clubs or WMU's of small town SBC America will read this book and act on their good sense and Baptist conviction who's to say. One has to hope they are having serious doubts about Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin's America and what it is doing to a once vibrant middle class.
If Lottie Moon were alive today who is she?
I nominate three women for starters.
Molly Marshall now at Central Seminary
Melissa Rogers of Wake Forest University
Hollyn Hollman of Jackson, Mississippi and the Baptist Joint Committee in D.C.
If you are a Baptist, get to know these women.
If you claim the Republican party of Abraham Lincoln, Judge Frank Johnson, even Eisenhower, get to know the great Baptist woman Lottie Moon as revealed by Regina Sullivan's new LSU published book on her.
Have your local library fast order a copy today as this is a strong compelling book about a woman who shaped her times beyond Baptist life and the regional South for the good.

Richard Shelby, Morning Joe and UMC Bishop Willimon

2011-08-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

I called Senator Shelby's office in D.C. this morning and left a message that I would be blogging later on today so I don't want to disappoint them in case they take a look at my infamous blog.
I've asked the Senator Three of four Questions at Town Hall meetings over the last 20 odd years here in Alabama and early on wrote a letter that got published in the Bham News that I think caught the attention of his staff.
His staffer in D.C. was quite hospitable to me when I called last Thursday and I appreciate that.
The Senator spoke at Sylvania High School several years ago and there I asked him if he considered himself more a Bob Dole/Nancy Kassebaum kind of Republican or Jerry Falwell stripe. He went with Dole Kassebauam.
Now the question is framed well by Religion Dispatches in an easily googled piece about difference between Eisenhower and Demint Republicans.
I commend that piece to any U Bama Poli Sci student as they consider one of their most famous and powerful grads.
In Mentone Alabama two years ago the Senator made reference to his wife and how proud he was of her doctorate in History (I think). But he also said they trusted Fox News for their bearings.
I'm a little disturbed by that as well as the recent James Fallows Atlantic piece I'll link in a comment.
Would also direct the Senator's staff to UMC North Bama Bishop Willimon's peculiar prophet blog on Huntingdon College upcoming lectures by Wayne Flynt. And of course the Senator and the campus for which fellow alum Joe Scarborough recently praised the Senator for the money he has brought there will want to assess the Senator's news gathering favorite by the current cover story in Rolling Stone Magazine on Fox News.
I would also bring the Senator's audience attention to a piece by Howell Raines of December 1983 on Bear Bryant and George Wallace. Senator Shelby and Coach Saban may want to discuss that piece with Mrs. Dr. Shelby and some folks from History and Poli Sci departments at U Bama as they grapple with how to virtuosly with integrity be honest about how they position themselves in regard the Tea Party, if it is fair to say the Tea Party now has a lot in common with George Wallace of the sixties.
For more on that consider my friend Colin Harris recent piece easily googled at Ethics Daily.com on immigration reform.
Frank Johnson was an Alabama Republican. Many consider him the 2nd greatest man to breathe the Air of Alabama in the 20th Century. I hope Shelby will use Johnson as the plumbline as he tacks and spins and governs with much influence in these delicate days in our Great Country.
Again, Senator Shelby has been gracious toward me in the past. Would be honored if someone from his staff actually reads this blog and takes a look at the references herein and makes a comment.
Hope things otherwise are well with all.

Stephen, From Collinsville on NPR Diane Rehm Show

2011-07-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

REHM11:33:19And you're listening to the Diane Rehm show. Sorry, I'm having a little trouble this morning. Let's go to the phones to Collinsville, Ala. Good morning, Steven. STEVEN11:33:36Yes, looking forward to read the book. I saw the Jill Lapore article on Clarence Darrow in the May 23 New Yorker Magazine, and about the McNamara case. She says that Darrow always maintained his innocence or more shiftily, his blamelessness in quoting Darrow, he was -- according to her, she said at the time, my conscious refuses to approach me. A couple other comments and then I'll just listen to your response. STEVEN11:34:04I live about an hour and a half below Dayton, Tenn. And on the bright side, there's a young woman, conservative Christian, Rachel Held Evans, has written a book, "Evolving in Monkey Town." She lives in Dayton and she kind of comes around to evolution. So I find that fascinating. One other quick thing. It's interesting, I just thought about it as you were talking about the independent mind streak of Darrow's father. STEVEN11:34:30That also seems to be the case of Hugo Black's father, wrote a biography of blacks early years in Alabama. And his father was voted out of his local Baptist church down in Clay County and refused to -- and -- but did work out where he held his funeral in the church. So I just found that kind of interesting, kind of a parallel independent mind streak in the judiciary, over time. And thank you and thanks a lot. REHM11:34:57Thanks for calling, Steven. FARRELL11:34:59You know, I have that biography of Hugo Black on my bookshelf and I haven't gotten to it yet. And now you've made me want to pick it up. I'll probably dive into it this weekend. One thing that Darrow said about the McNamara case and himself, but also about the people that he defended, was that a crime was a crime because of motive, not because you committed an offense.

Collinsville Gets Pulitzer Treatment

2011-07-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

Pulitzer Prize Winner Rick Bragg has been visitting Collinsville Trade Day since he was six years old.
Has a great essay in current Southern Living Magazine, as good as George Singleton's celebration of Dozo's in Easley, South Carolina last Summer in Oxford American. (see my blog on Bronwen Dickey; and see the blu ray feature of Tru Grit on their celebration of Charles Portis, the author.

Bragg is a fan of Ron Rash. With Pat Conroy and Padgett Powell he endorses Mark Richard's House of Prayer, No. 2, a memoir that along with the writings of Bragg, every public library in the Southeast ought to shelve a copy.

Enough intro; copy and paste this sterling link

My comment is number 18, the entry of July 7; about 11 after Michelle McPherson whose boy Jack is getting proper timing of things.

http://www.southernliving.com/community/rick-bragg-southern-journal-trade-day-00417000073961/

America and the True Religion

2011-06-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Diane Rehm show of Weds June 29 was stellar, a three person panel on Marilyn Robinson's Gilead. The evening before I attended an Immigration panel discussion at Highlands UMC in Bham and was considering the True Religion in the context of Mark Noll's June 6 New Republic Review of Dochuk's From Bible Belt to Sunbelt; and Dan Williams God's Own Party.
If you take Jesus and America serious you will search out the Noll Review.
In the discussion on NPR the pastor of the 19th Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and a Right Reverend of the National Cathedral discussed the Civil War, Pentecost, an Abolitionist with One Eye, and a prodigal son who fathered a Mixxed race child before the Civil Rights movement.
Every human being is an aesthetic unto himself and his own civilization, and when embers catch fame, there is the Kingdom of God; but who has the courage to see it.
Read the book. Listen to the easily googled discussion at Diane Rehm show. Listen to Weds week ago when I called in on Clarence Darrow.

Copy and paste:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-06-29/readers-review-gilead-marilynne-robinson/transcript

My nephew Andrew sang at the University Baptist Church near UVA yesterday. I txted my sister to take him to meet Bonhoeffer Biographer and my friend Charles Marsh; and to get a picture of themselves on the John Grisham pew at UBC. They visited Monticello today.
Momma never made it to Maine. But I think she woulda been proud of her patriot children; Jim Willie, Katie and Chad included. She was born on July 6, 1923
God Bless America.
P.S Where I bought gas today a young woman said True Religion Jeans will cost you about 253 bucks but she can ebay you a pair for around 60.

The Trial of Joseph Brodsky

2011-06-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

May 23 issue of New Yorker Magazine was a great one. Great story on Clarence Darrow that provoked my interest in last Thursday's NPR Diane Rehm show to which I called in. Found out Friday at least one person in Collinsville heard me on air.
Also short story The Trusty by my friend Ron Rash.
Couple days ago this part of the profile of Nobel Poet Joseph Brodsky registered with me. I hope some readers of my blog appreciate it and read the whole thing online, simple google search
Quoting New Yorker at some length:

mong the intelligentsia, it later be came a point of faith, if not exactly of pride, that the Soviet regime had intuited Brodsky’s greatness earlier than just about anyone. Loseff deflates this notion; in fact, he explains, the initiative for the arrest came from the head of a community-watch group; he had heard of Brodsky’s local fame and Brodsky happened to live within his jurisdiction in Leningrad. That was all. The Soviet regime stumbled onto one of the great prodigies in the history of the Russian language pretty much by accident.

Brodsky’s trial took place in two sessions, several weeks apart, in February and March of 1964; in between, Brodsky was confined to a mental hospital, where it was determined that he was psychologically fit to work. The trial was a farce, its outcome predetermined. “Trial of the freeloader Brodsky,” a sign outside the courtroom read, a little prejudicially. Inside, neither the judge nor the people testifying against Brodsky had any interest in his poetry. Brodsky, who remained unpublished, made what money he could doing translations, sometimes working from literal translations when he didn’t know the source language; his accusers wanted to know, among other things, how this was possible, and whether Brodsky wasn’t exploiting his collaborators on such projects. Much of the case turned on whether writing was a real job if it brought little or no income:

CITIZEN ACCUSER: We checked. Brodsky says he got 150 rubles from a job, but actually it was 37.
BRODSKY: That’s the advance! That’s just the advance! It’s only part of what I’ll get later.

Brodsky at the time was not yet twenty-four. His friend Rein recalls how the second session of the trial fell on Maslenitsa, or Butter Week, the traditional pancake-eating holiday in advance of Lent. Consequently, on the day of the trial, Rein and some other friends went to the restaurant at the Hotel European to eat pancakes. Then, at four o’clock, they went to the courthouse. Not everyone, in other words, had a sense of the gravity of the occasion.

Brodsky did. Throughout the short trial, he appears to have been serious, quiet, respectful, and firm in his conviction about what he was put on earth to do:

JUDGE: Tell the court why in between jobs you didn’t work and led a parasitic life style?
BRODSKY: I worked in between jobs. I did what I do now: I wrote poems.
JUDGE: You wrote your so-called poems? And what was useful about your frequent job changes?
BRODSKY: I began working when I was 15 years old. Everything was interesting to me. I changed jobs because I wanted to learn more about life, about people.
JUDGE: What did you do for your motherland?
BRODSKY: I wrote poems. That is my work. I am convinced. . . . I believe that what I wrote will be useful to people not only now but in future generations.
JUDGE: So you think your so-called poems are good for people?
BRODSKY: Why do you say of the poems that they are “so-called”?
JUDGE: We say that because we don’t have any other idea about them.

In the end, the judge sentenced the so-called poet to five years of exile and labor up north, to straighten him out.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/05/23/110523crat_atlarge_gessen#ixzz1Pr2GiPAE

Bronwen Dickey and Lake Jocassee

2011-06-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

On Monday I had several email exchanges with Deliverance James Dickey's daughter, Bronwen, about her fascinating piece in current Oxford American Magazine about the communites at the bottom of Lake Jocassee in Oconee County, Upstate South Carolina.
It is the same territory Ron Rash write about in his grand novel One Foot in Eden, now in 6th or 7th printing in French.
I told Bronwen about grand time my Dad and I had watching the Bill Moyers interview of her Dad in late 70's. I was still in Gaffney, South Carolina at the time. Dickey told great story about fellow in Ball Ground, Georgia who had problems gettin his suit to fit him for the Easter Sunday parade.
Great story. I couldn't remember the fellow's name, but Bronwen emailed me back:

"Oh yes, I remember the "Robert Hall" suit story quite well. It closely mimics the process of revising stories, actually! "

Wish Gaffney's Willmon Wright were still with us so I could tell him. I emailed Bronwen back Dad worked for a Mr. Deedaubalier in Rome Georgia in the 40's in a clothing store, so story resonated with him.

Great exchange and an honor. She has great piece at her site on Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution, piece formerly published in Oxford American if you want to do some further reading.

Clarence Darrow, Bishop Willimon and KT Windham

2011-06-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

My Conscience does not reproach me. Clarence Darrow's response to allegations he attempted to buy off the jury in the McNamara case at the turn of the Century.
I read the story first in the May 23 New Yorker article by Jill Lepore--incidentally same issue as great short story by my friend Ron Rash, The Trusty. Today I got on air nationally with a comment on NPR Diane Rehm show interviewing the author of new bio on Darrow by Farrell. My comment is in about the 25th minute if you want to google and listen.
I spoke of the similarity of Darrow's Father to the father of Hugo Black. Black's father was voted out of his Baptist church in Clay County, Alabama; obviously having an independent streak like the father of Darrow, an Abolitionist as Farrell reveals him in this new bio.
Also made brief comment about Rachel Held Evans of Dayton, Tn and her book Evolving in Monkeytown and the New Yorker story.

Catch all blog here with couple other items briefly noted.
Proud of UMC Bishop and Duke Chaplain Will Willimon for his grand statement on Alabama's Immigration Law. The SBC meeting in Phoenix last couple days had an interesting discussion as well.

And finally Two great folks in the Furman community died in the last few days. Former Presidnet Plyler's Wife, Bea; and Holocaust Survivor and great friend of several Furman presidents of the last 50 years, former Greenville Mayor Max Heller.
Great fellow who held no grudges, though Lee Atwater caught him in his sights in 78 US Congressional Race when Heller was backed by Furman President Blackwell.

Here in Alabama Kathryn Tucker Windham. Several great stories about her in NY Times and Anniston Star's Hardy Jackson.
Some of good friends were big fans, one who knew her well and was known to her.
I heard her talk once on a Sunday Afternoon in Bham about this time of the year on Shiftlessness.

May 21, End of the World

2011-05-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

Where were you when the world ended?

I was at Bill Glenn's Mtn Top Grill in a room full of celebrities, including Miss Alabama Basketball 94 or so, and a fellow who was one of Famed NCAA Football Coach Bobby Bowden's early students. I was sitting at a table with an up and coming screenwriter, a friend who escorted six years in a row for his Homeooming--he had a lot of pretty cousins--and of course myself, the once promising young man of the 80's; the decade in which I became no longer.
Little intrigue there as I was coming in....the short story writer Edna something on Dianne Rehm characterized it well about the 45 minute this morning.
Of course the world is gonna end for all of us sooner or later, on this earth. Fellow from no less than Notre Dame was talking about it Saturday on NPR.
Our new friend Sara was txting in kinda ready it seemed but not sure. Bo was just across the way if we needed him; and we past him on the billboard to get to the food--ribs, best potato soup in North Alabama, and a salad bar that got kudos from a former North Alabama Girl Scout Woman of the year. I saw her at the bar with my own eyes; a Witness.
One Revenant and I thought it was gonna be a rolling lift off with folks in New Zealand elevating and then around the world where folks in Rome Georgia woulda started up an hour earlier than us here in Alabama. The restaurant was on top of a mtn and we look over toward Georgia but didn't see any evidence of Folks in the Air.
On Friday I had read a great story by my friend Ron Rash in the May 23 New Yorker. Very Proud of him. Same day got good note from Tommy Jones of Gaffney; we have the same Birthday, and in 1967 spent two weeks in Camp Ney A Ti down from Scottsboro, little up from where Raymond Weaver now resides. Mike Francis and Cleve Hamrick went with us by Jeff Pettit was left Behind.
Mike Worked on Star Wars out in Houston before long career with Civil Service in Upper Virginia. I think Cleve is still around Gaffney; Far as I know all still in this world.
Jerry Vines said Jesus is coming again in a literal body descending in a literal sky, literal all the way.
Who's to day Vines is wrong.
In the meantime I lean toward Fleming Rutledge understanding of it, and what Notre Dame's Mark Noll said about the fundamentalist juggernaut that ABraham Lincoln, Whitman and Emily Dickinson stood against during the Civil War.

P.S. On Saturday night in the grace time Jesus had given us remaining on the earth caught the DVD Feature of Screenwriter C. Gaby Mitchell of Alabama Roots on Get Low. I commend it to you, and Dianne Rehm's hour with Edna Obrien today on NPR.

Random Thoughts on my 58th

2011-05-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

As of 11:55 am EST, born in Newport Tennessee, 1953 not long after the fictional Rudy Newton talked about Charles Darwin in Ironweed.
Chuck Warnock has fine piece about Gerald Ford on my birthday at ethicsdaily.com. I have recommended it to a friend who often goes to President Carter's SS Class in Plains, and may send the link to a daughter of Watergate, as well as the author Linda Grant whose novel of our time I hope to read later in the summer. I've had an email exchange with her.
My friend Ron Rash is published in current issue of New Yorker. Hope some of you will see that.
At age 58 it doesn't look like I will get to take the train ride out west I always hoped for, nor see the US Open Tennis Championship Round of 16 in NYC. But Rahul went to Wimbledon and Cousin Neil saw the Australian Open so I just missed both by a friend and a cousin if you want to calculus it that way.
Momma never got to Maine, but she did have some great friends in Baltimore and Euharlee; and some grand children's musical productions at Alice Bell and Providence. And she played the Alabama Jubilee to ecstasy several Saturday afternoons. You could hear her three miles away at Sadie Kiser's house on the Union Hwy if you listened close enough.
Daddy never met Yaz in person, but I did send word through the PR fellow for Vanderbilt Baseball to tell his Grandson my Dad was a fan; and also got word to David Halberstam.
Had a good start out of the blocks at Gaffney High. Last week had some disappointments, but along the way I read Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Fleming Rutledge and some others to make sense of it; and Alice McDermott and Charming Billy.
Asked Billy Bob a question in person couple years ago, and found the poet mary Oliver; couple whose poems are on this blog.
Dee Edwards, the Methodist Preacher was great friend in 92 and there have been many others.
Feb 24, 2006 was a disaster and I may write about it yet.
So to Tommy Jones, and Reggie Jackson and Pope John Paul the Beatified, and Jane Esselmeyer of Gaffney, even a lyberry trustee who voted wrong: Happy Birthday.

Mattie Ross, Duke and World's Olasky

2011-05-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

Marvin Olasky interviews Stanley Fish, the NY Times columnist and former Duke English Proff, in current issue of World Magazine. Interesting interview. Sooner or later Olaskly must explain himself in regard Charles Pickering, Alliance Defense Fund, the Tea Parties, SBC and Cleon Skousen.
But until then most fascinating interview.
Fish said two of the best sentences he had come across in book and film in the last few years were from True Grit.
In the book Mattie Says: "I love the Presbyterian Church and my bank." In the movie she writes her Mother before embarking on the adventure to avenge the murder of her Father: "I'm in the hands of The Author of All things, and I have a fine horse."

I commend the delightful interview to you, but not the ideology of World Magazine.

George Wallace and the Alabama Tornadoes

2011-05-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Just a few random thoughts before time passes too quickly on the devastating tornadoes of April 27 in Aalbama

I was sitting in Jacks in Collinsville Alabama watchin reports of the Birther announcement talking to a local edcuator and pol about memories of George Wallace; good anecdote from Crossville, alabama re the 66 gube race when the power went out. Had no idea at the moment how things were develooping about that time for Rainsville, 15 miles to the north.
Was just feeling stupid for not having charged my cell phone for the day.
Two days later had conversation in Attalla_-Etowah Co had power throughout--with writer for Washington Post who had stellar story in that Sunday's paper.
Lost a friend from the Dekalb County library, Marcella.

Heard lots of stories from Rainsville and Guntersville. Looks like the showcase Lodge of the State Park System in Marshall County is out for two years.

Lots more but wanted to share these to make a marker, a memorial.

Collinsville Historical Marker and Rufus Jordan

2011-04-22T13:01:00.001-07:00

Collinsville has unveiled two new Historical markers. One names my Grandfather's brother, H.R. Jordan and his building downtown. I am 90 percent certain it was Uncle Roof who is the great grandfather of Cousin Freida McNair, the international Opera Singer.
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Brett Morgen, Billy Graham and the Mississippi Counterevolution

2011-04-14T19:04:00.000-07:00
As you see in some recent blogs I finally got my hands on Steven Miller's excellent work on Billy Graham and the Southern GOP. Birddogging the footnotes in the first chapter I came across this provocative title

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8411.html; In Search of Another Country, White Mississippians and the Counterevolution. I'm hoping it picks up where Miller left off and helps explain how SBC's Paul Pressler and the Texas Regulars were ablt to jackleg Baptists in the South. Miller takes a pass on that one, let's Billy Graham off the hook.

And the book should help me understand Charles Pickering a little better and his larger universe.

Brett Morgen gave an interview last year in wake of his ESPN 30/30 effort June 17th. Today I found the May 31, 1993 Birmingham Post Herald article about the premiere of his Blessings of Liberty at the Collinsville Baptist church.

The 20th Anniversary of the filming is coming up.
More on all this as I attempt to weave it together in the coming weeks.

Billy Graham and Southern GOP Redux

2011-04-11T14:13:00.000-07:00
I finally got my hands on Steven Miller's book on Billy Graham and Nixon, Race and the Southern GOP.
See the post I made at baptistlife.com/forums Baptist History and Heritage for my Initial Review. I bring the book to the attention of Mercer President Underwood, and President Carter among others as they lead the Baptist Covenant Movement.
If Billy Graham and Nixon fascinate you, then this is a must read.
Thanks to the Dekalb County Library in Ft. Payne for bringing it near at hand.

Ron Rash Interview September 2010

2011-03-31T14:53:00.000-07:00
My interview with Rash is most likely the most meritorious of my offerings on this blog. Easiest way to find it is to click on the monthly options in the left column here on the homepage for September 2010

Philadephia, Duncan Gray and Barbara B Taylor

2011-03-14T17:45:00.000-07:00
One of the more remarkable series of conversations, of historic proportions at Collinsville Trade Day, Saturday.
Nothing like this since Oscar Nominee Brett Morgen was in town in winter of 92.

Stumbled into a conversation with a fellow from Rome Georgia who knew Norfleets in Pascagoula, Mississippi; not only that but cooks tuna for Ed Taylor, B. B. Taylor's husband.

I was checkin his story and he said he knew one of the top two Episcopalian preachers in America and in fact he did.

Was exploring the notion of And Also with you, Duncan Gray and the American Dilemma. Had that morning just reread Fleming Rutledge great sermon on Will Campbell and Virgina Durr.

From there had conversation with a fellow from Philadelphia, Miss whose grandfather's place was not far from the "pond" where Goodman Schwerner and Cheney were buried.

He said the Civil War was fought over State's rights, and I said the major factor was slavery. Had bried aside about Jones County, Mississippi, in the presence of a fellow who has recently written a book about one of Hitler's youth.

All that right in Momma's Hometown; so stop in some time for informed conversation where the Lion Lays down with the Lamb.

Hoping to see Lowell Barron there soon. Got word he was there early about a month ago.

Watergate, Harry Dent, Race and the SBC

2011-03-08T13:01:00.001-08:00
A few blogs down I mention Harry Dent's appearance on the Furman campus shortly after Nixon was reelected in 1972.

I did not mention that by happenstance, my Dad was to preach to Nixon's opponent, George McGovern, when McGovern showed up at the Church where my Paternal Grandmother's family held the Helton Reunion 4th Sunday in August 1983 in East Tennessee. McGovern had found great fly fishin in Wears Valley out from Gatlinburg and had a cabin there for a while. As the good son of a Methodist minister he joined us for worship and Dinner that Sunday morning.

Here is a recent exchange with Adrian Rogers son David about some of the esoterics of Ginny's book; Ginny Brant, Dent's third child, and younger sister of my Furman acquaintance, Dolly.

Quoting exchange of March 8 at sbcimpact.net:

David Rogers says:
March 8, 2011 at 7:24 pm
James,

Also, in relation to Stephen’s comment, if Dave has not read Ginny Brant’s book, or is not familiar with the political pilgrimage of her father, Harry Dent, it would be easy for him to see it as off-topic. I have read Ginny’s book, and wrote a short endorsement for it. Though, from Ginny’s testimony, Harry Dent was never, at heart, a racist, early in his political career he found himself aligning with politicians and positions that were considered by many to be racist. However, his own convictions, especially as renewed and transformed by his conversion to a personal faith in Christ, helped him to eventually see the problems in some of his earlier positions and to be a strong voice against racism within the Republican Party.
The most important aspect of Ginny’s book, however, from my point of view, in addition to the powerful testimony of the grace of God to change hearts, is the change of emphasis in Harry Dent’s later life from a priority involvement in politics to a priority involvement in the Great Commission as a means to make a positive impact in the world.

Reply
Stephen Fox says:
March 8, 2011 at 8:55 pm
David Rogers:

Thanks for these thoughts on Ginny Brant’s book. I am toying with doing a review of the book; will kind of take up where you leave off with the statement above and cover some territory Marty Duren stops shy of covering. His blog review is linked at her website ginnybrant.com

I don’t find anything I disagree with you about in your thoughts above; I do find it interesting she doesn’t say much if anything at all about what was happening in the SBC that got to the place she and her Dad were in positions of influence in the 90′s; he as a Southern Sem Trutee and with the Executive Committee; and she an IMB trustee.
Though minor it is also interesting that as late as 1975 Ed Young found no fault with Baylor, as Ginny mentions in the book over Supper one night Ed and her Dad both tried to convince her to give Baylor consideration.
While there is much to admire in her version about racial transition in the South, there are other lense to view the era through. One I have brought to her attention is a George Packer article in New Yorker last year, that talks about a Nixon event in 1966 at the Wade Hampton Hotel in Columbia, S.C. about Dent’s 2nd year into the Southern Strategy.
My larger point is any honest look at the SBC and race would include an unflinching look at Duke’s Curtis Freeman’s report on Criswell and the 56 SC SBC Pastor’s Conference; the role of Jesse Helms and his extended network in the Conservative Resurgence; and a thorough look at Steven Miller’s book Billy Graham, Race, Nixon and the Rise of the Southern GOP.
Ginny like yourself, has been most gracious in her exchanges with me to date, and I look forward to continuing the conversation

House of Prayer No. 2 by Mark Richard

2011-02-10T18:34:00.000-08:00
I heard Mark Richard on the Dianne Rehm show Weds, I think it was. I was spellbound by what was coming over the radio. Richard's Franklin, Va was a lot like Gaffney, South Carolina and the more stories he told the more my imagination could tie it to a similar character in Gaffney or a similar story.
Cut and paste this link or just google some aspect of it.
Get the book. Read it.

And keep an eye out for HBO's Sunset Limited too.

House of Prayer.

http://gswebb.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/house-of-prayer-no-2-mark-richard-testifies/

Google Mark Richard testifies gswebb wordpress.

I almost forgot. He talks about the Baptist preacher's house being a refuge, unknowingly paying tribute to my Mother who did similar Jesus work in Gaffney.

Bama Gov Bentley's Gaffe a Distraction/Ginny Dent's book

2011-01-21T13:11:00.001-08:00
See my comment in my friend John Pierce's blog. Cut and paste this url:

http://www.baptiststoday.org/johndpierce-blog/2011/1/21/how-to-offer-an-apology.html

And follow the discussion in the faith and practice forum of baptistlife.com

And Nixon Southern Strategist and Billy Graham Crusade chair Harry Dent's daughter has written a book about her father's religious pilgrimage.
You can read reviews and see online video and hear audio interviews at www.ginnybrant.com

Ginny's older sister Dolly was at Furman for two years while I was there; herself a beautiful young woman like her one time model sister, Ginny. Class year 72-73 right after Nixon landslide defeated McGovern, not long before Watergate hit stride, Dent spoke on campus, the yearbook calling Furman that year in Nixonland, Furman somewhere between Bob Jones and Woodstock.
I remember the packed room Q and A session follwing Dent's speech; and Dolly's humanity; her hurt on the strong questions her father was getting from students that day.
I have emailed Ginny that I voted for Clinton, Gore, Kerry and Obama; but looking forward to reading her book; framing my thinking in Marshall Frady's bio of Graham, and Steven Miller's work on Graham and Nixon.

"Aunt Jemima is My Grandmother"

2011-01-01T14:45:00.002-08:00
This first day of 2011 twice I have heard the Booktv.org segment with Michele Norris and Isabel Wilkerson on their experience as black women in America. It is remarkable.
I had read portions of Ms. Norris book and took notice she had roots in Birmingham, Alabama, a city with which I have come to have some familiarity during my last 20 years in Collinsville, where my Mother was baptized. I have written about it often on this blog.
Michelle is also a great fan of my friend Ron Rash, whose interview with me you see in left hand column of this blog.
Turns out Isabel Wilkerson has roots in Rome, Georgia where my Dad spent his formative years. So me and these accomplished black women have something to talk about.
Here is the link to Ms. Norris Aunt Jemima Story

http://michele-norris.com/tag/aunt-jemima/

And go to book TV to find the links for the conversation twice aired this first day of 2011.
Two fascinating tales Exquisitely told

Steve Martin's One Gospel Song for Atheists

2010-12-21T14:06:00.000-08:00
Great Stuff: I passed it around to friends and loved ones. Has given great delight to my fitful Holiday Spirit.

Would love to have all the ones gone on to Glory back at Nanny and Papa's in the dining room cause the fireplace room was too small to sing.

Tim Wood and my brother could do the Bass and we'd work something out with the rest of the voices. Of course Uncle Free would shine on this one as he kept a place in his heart for things like this even as a Nominal Lutheran.

then on to the Jordans to Sing with Uncle Bill and Scott Reed; two heavenly choirs indeed; and of course Momma. She'd love this one:

Google it up or cut and paste:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/08/steve-martins-gospel.html

Pulitzer and Pentecost

2010-11-30T08:37:00.000-08:00
I just blogged few minutes ago a comment at johndpierce.com so take a look at that as setup for this blog. Kind of in a rush now so will get to the main point which is this quote from page 245 of M Robinson's Putlitzer: Gilead.

It seemed to me somtimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance--for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light. That is what I said in the Pentecost sermon. I have reflected on that sermon and there is some truth in it. But the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like Transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?

Chet Edwards, Tea Parties and George Truett

2010-11-03T14:32:00.000-07:00
Jerry Vines, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention has a legacy with the Tea Parties. His church in West Rome, Georgia, in the 60's in particular was well known cauldron of Birch Society members and sympathizers.
From that stew came my friend Mary Anne Cole, a leader in the Tea Party movement in NE Alabama. Her activity among other things unseated a State Alabama Senator who at one time was widely considered the 2nd Most Powerful man in the state; also an Auburn Trustee involved in the intrigue of the resignation of former Auburn President Muse, Wayne Flynt has written about.
Sean Wilentz, author of the grand Book God in America, has provocative article on The Birch Society influence on the Tea Party through Glenn BEck and his mentor Glen Skousen in recent New Yorker Magazine. Let me know if you hear that Jerry Vines has read the article; and or Jill Lepore's The Whites of Their Eyes.
But I digressed. The Tea Party took out Chet Edwards the US Congressman from Texas, a champion of the Baptist Joint Committee. Edwards represented Waco and Baylor University and through current Mercer President Underwood--former staffer at Baylor--learned about the grand tradition of Baptist church state separation
Mary Anne Cole is the niece of a former President of Jacksonville St. University; Houston Cole I think was his name. Mary Anne goes to church where Bobby Welch was baptized and on occasion shares a pew with her friends who have a Vanderbilt educated Daughter who now works in DC with the BJC.
But somewhere along the way, Mary Anne never learned about George Truett, James Dunn, Oliver Buzz Thomas, and the best of the Baptist legacy on church state, and now Becky Kennedy is minus a grand champion in the United States House.
I know there are other aspects of the Tea Party Movement beside the culture baggage. But I don't see My friend Ms. Cole doing anything to educate folks about those matters.
Folks in the area know personalities in the recent PBS Series God in America. The whole six hours are online. Maybe Ms. Cole can have Cherilyn Crowe in to lead a discussion about the final segment, God and Caesar. Have Randy Owen in for the discussion with his fellow JSU trustee Red Etheredge, and History Proff Hardy Jackson. Would be interesting to see who knows what, and maybe what we can all learn together past the soundbytes.
Please follow the comments as they develop here; and or conflate them with discussions at baptistlife.com; SBC Voices and SBC Impact.

A Footnote. Recently Jerry Vines blogged about Carlyle Marney lecturing at NOBTS in the 60's. Marney a former pastor at FBC Austin Texas woulda been appalled at Edwards defeat yesterday and Ms. Morgan and Ms Cole's complicity in it.
Let us continue a Civil Discussion on these matters.
I don't speak for them but I imagine it wouldn't take much to have Jim Evans and or Wayne Flynt come up from Montgomery with Annie Lucas Brown to have a seminar for the likes of Cole, Owen, and new State Senator Shadrack McGill in this teachable moment in the wake of a travesty of an election yesterday.
That's how it is playing in my Momma's hometown. How did it strike you where you are?

Evolving in Monkey Town

2010-10-06T07:04:00.000-07:00
I would imagine Annie Lucas Brown would join me in recommending this book to every village and hamlet library in Alabama as Rachel Feld Evans lives not far away in Dayton.
Would be grand for the folks at NACC.edu bring Rachel Down as part of the 50th Anniversary of Inherit the Wind; what a year, To Kill a Mockingbird Published and Inherit the Wind on the Screen.
Great story on Rachel at ABPnews.com and Emerging Women has an interview at their site.
Bring Rachel to Dekalb County Alabama and let the Light Shine

My January interview with Ron Rash

2010-09-10T12:29:00.000-07:00
It was published, good bit of it, in the June issue of Baptists Today

From the LA and NY Times to the Shelby Star Ron Rash is making his mark in American Letters. Of his first novel One Foot in Eden the LA Times wrote in 2002: "Equal parts vintage crime novel and Southern Gothic, full of aching ambivalence and hard compromises, and rounded off by bad faith and bad choices, One Foot in Eden is a veritable garden of earthly disquiet".
Janet Maslin in the NY Times March 7,2010 praises Rash's latest collection of short stories, Burning Bright, reminding readers of the "piercing language, bleak and beautiful details" of his 2009 Pen/Faulkner nominated novel, Serena, whose title character is "cooly ferocious".
Longtime fan Pat Conroy blurbs Serena "catapults Rash into the front ranks of American novelists." Both One Foot in Eden and Serena have been adapted for the screen and are in develoment. In March and April of this year, Rash was invited to give readings in the Netherlands and France; France where his One Foot in Eden is in its third printing in the native language.
All this has caused his hometown paper the Shelby (NC) Star to recently announce Rash as the Cleveland County Man of the Year. This fall his alma mater, the Baptist affiliated Gardner-Webb, will hold a literary festival in his honor.
Raised Baptist often thee times a week attendance growing up in Boiling Springs, deeply influenced by the hymns, sermons Sunday school Bible verse memory work, Rash has created a world of fiction and poetry that profoundly depicts the Appalachian Mountains and Foothills including its preoccupation with religious faith.
Rash was born in Chester, South Carolina in 1953 where his father worked in the Eureka Textile Mill. Moonlight educating himself out of the Mills, Rash's father moved the family to Boiling Springs when Ron was eight; his father becoming long time arts educator at Gardner Webb, and his mother an elementary school teacher. Ron Rash is now the James Parris Chair of Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina University in Cullowee.
Rash's novels and works of poetry are chock full of religious imagery and Biblical names allegorizing many of the Old Testament stories. One Foot in Eden has motifs of the Garden of Eden, the Great Flood of Noah, as well as as a son named Isaac. Isaac's story is a dark twist on the Biblical tale of a child longed for. Isaac's parents Billy and Amy Holcombe lack the virtue of Abraham and Sara, but their wish for a child is just as strong. Isaac has to lose one family to gain another one, more resembling Abraham and Sara; but once his Eden has been flooded, we are left to wonder if Isaac will in the new land where his home once was.
While Rash concedes Appalachian spirituality often is enchanted by pagan themes of witchery, magic and soothsaying, at the heart of his work is a testament to belief. And even though his literary and intellectual curiousities have led him among other places to explore doubt in James Wood's Broken Estate, Essays on Literature and Belief, Rash's calling to honor the sacrifice of those who shaped him brings him back to faith. Like Baptist pastor Jim Dant raised in a mill village, Rash is drawn to themes of suffering saints whose simple resurrection faith helps them persevere in the face of overwhelming obstacles and opportunities for despair.
The great Eudora Welty in her time was troubled by critics by who wanted to catalogue writers who dug deep into one location in the world as regional. Like Faulkner, Welty, O'Connor, Marilynne Robinson and others Rash long ago broke into the ranks of the chosen of whom Welty said: "The art that speaks most clearly...and passionately from its place of origin will remain the longest understood."
In February I had the honor and good fortune to have a 90 minute conversation with Rash. What follows are explorations I think will be of most interest to the Baptist Today audience.

Fox:
The Title story for your first collection of short stories is The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth. A used car salesman is Jesus for the Christmas Pageant and even advertises his business on the church marquee announcing his starring role.
What kind of fun were you having there?

Rash: It's true I was goin for some humor; but it's a look at human foilbles, not necessarily mean spiritted in its satire.
We all fall short of our ideals. Growing up in a religious household most often going to church the local Baptist church three times a week, at a certain age you begin to recognize the difference between what people espouse and what they do. For a while it can turn you off from religion, but then comes a period when you get beyond that, and come around.
Jesus "Fell" to earth in my story; it's that Baptist imprint that we are fallen.

Fox: The summer of 1970 I became good friends with Roger Milliken, Jr.; the son of the most powerful textile magnate in the country; legendary in Upstate South Carolina, the biggest single donor to Nixon in 1972,and the man who many say drove Goldwater to run in 64.
So of course I was captivated by your stark and unflinching Poem in the Hub City writers Project, Eureka Mill; the Poem, the Last Interview.
Your Hub City colleague GC Waldrep, now a professor at Bucknell, has said your poem is "eerily accurate" account of some real life interviews he had with mill owners.

Rash: The poem comes from my imagination from stories of my mother and father and maternal grandparents at the Eureka Mill in Chester, but I hope I captured the sensibility.
It does not come from resentment or any revenge motive at all. In fact, I know from my Grandmother who worked in Eureka, her gratitude in the 30's to the mill owner who kept the mill running at his own costs so his workers could eat.
I think it was Francis Bacon who talked about deepening the mystery; we always want things to be black and white. But it is the role of the artist to deepen the mystery, to explore the lack of certainties in character no matter the station, high or low. I hope I did that in my collection of poems Eureka Mill.

Fox: Roger, Jr. is head of the family's timber interests in Maine, and in the fall of 2008 became chair of the Evironmental group, The Nature Conservancy. How ironic that two sons of Upstate South Carolina textiles would coincide in national acclaim with influential efforts (the publication of Serena) in the Environmental conversation.

Rash: I commend him for that endeavour with the Nature Conservancy. His circumstances are such, he didn't have to do that; indeed a noble choice.

Fox: You have written how the Shelton Laurel Massacre is not only the key component of The World Made Straight but how it compelled you to write the novel. You've said: "One of the most troubling aspects of history is how some of the worst atrocities have occurred among people who have coexisted for generations, as in Nazi Germany and more recently Rwanda and Bosnia. Such was the case in the county known as "Bloody Madison" during the Civil War."
It occurred January 18, 1863 at the height of the Civil War and you've found your ancestry in those parts on both sides of the tragedy and invoked Bonhoeffer's name.

Rash: That's true. The title comes from Handel's Messiah. Lot of folks say when they think about the Holocaust; how could anybody stand by and let that happen.
The truth is you don't know. You don't know what you would do until you are in that situation. People in my own family just a few generations took different sides in the Massacre.
It is in these moments of hopelessness that a Bonhoeffer comes to mind. He had to make a decision of courage for decency. In the midst of a great darkness he stands as a powerful light.

Fox: Instead of an idea provoking a novel as in World Made Straight, most often you say it is an image that starts the process for you.

Rash: With an image you enter the mystery from the beginning. Where does this image come from; from that you have something like two wires crossing and a sparking.
Joyce used the term epiphany,; sudden illumination, a moment of grace. Suddenly this thing happens you don't understand.
Frost called it a momentary state of mystery; in a way its an illusion because a work of art is nothing but a moment of clarity, insight.

Fox: My Dad was a Baptist preacher. Growing up I was fascinated with all the characters that came through, for two week revivals, January Bible Studies and varieties of fellowship. Lots of colorful stories about the human condition.
Your preacher McIntyre in Serena, is not the only preacher in your novels, but maybe the most memorable. An end timer who first time we meet him "looks up at the gray-slate sky as if it were some Gnostic text only he was capable of deciphering. He tipped his black preacher's hat heavenward, seemingly satisfied at what he had seen."
You're gallery of misfits make a lot of sport of him during the course of the novel. What's he about.

Rash: McIntyre kinda represents a fellow, a type of character or preacher we don't often like; kinda self righteous.
But look what happens to him in the novel. The comic characters kinda don't like him, but after he's struck mute, he develops this humility that gives him substance; he becomes true. He has this moment of where he has the spiritual insight he's just been prattlin about. Last thing he says, he looks at the devastated land (where the timber has been clear cut); says I think I'm lookin at the end of the world.
Doesn't volunteer that, he's asked what he thinks.
It's McIntyre's moment of truth as a backwoods prophet; and in that moment of humility that hasn't been recognized before, the most cynical of his detractors, Ross, is amazed and gives him respect.

Fox: The Pulitzer Prize winner Marilyn Robinson has written of the horror that often comes with the darker reach for a Utopian vision; a vision that carries the baggage of total control. Cheryl Miller says her adherence to the"harsh doctrine" of original sin has proven far kindlier than the belief that we can "reason our way to a code of behavior that is consistent with our survival, not to mention our dignity or our self-love."
Serena in some ways seems an exploration of that notion.

Rash:
My title character Serena has no accountability; she is outside the pale of humanity. A lot of people who read the novel miss the point that after she exploits Western North Carolina and leaves it barren, she ends up in Sao Paolo, Brazil, as a business partner of the Nazi Joseph Mengele and his West German Tractor Company. My clear implication is Serena has found her own kind is in a community of like minded vision.
So yes I think Robinson is right.
The exploitation of a region has its after effects. I was in Eastern Kentucky a few years ago and struck by the number of military recruitment posters at every corner; this is where the foot soldiers for our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming from. I'm working on a short story about that now.

Fox: There is a lot of violence in your novels. You led a workshop last summer at Appalachian State on violence and beauty....

Rash: It's not about violence to titillate. It's comparable to Flannery Oconnor's world-- a Good Man is Hard to Find in particular-- where an extreme situation, often the moment of violence reveals the essence of character.
A good story is like an iceberg, it is the tip of the story that reveals all that's underneath, gets to the core of character. I was telling my students last week the key moment of a good short story is when we learn about the world in a way not imagined before; haunting because everything else is stripped away.
In One Foot in Eden when Billy Holcombe shoots Holland Winchester, it sets up repercussions that direct the rest of the novel.
In Serena, it's not the knife fight that starts on the first page, its the first murder. Rachel for me is more interesting than Serena, in the way her character develops after that. Rachel goes on the trip with the child when she's sick, several mile walk to the Doctor; a woman with a great capacity for love; as she's not sure she loves the child before then.
The Biblical names are intentional, Rachel as an character in exile, as her namesake in the Old Testament. And her son, Jacob. You know, Jacob and Esau in the Bible.
Serena is very much a story about who has the birthright.
Rachel's story in Serena brings up a good point about being raised Southern Baptist. Again, it was the Catholic Flannery O'Connor who realized all those Southern Baptists around her in Central Georgia knew the Bible, knew these stories; and also the beauty beneath that, the beauty of the King James Bible.
And me, growing up Southern Baptist, memorizing all those verses, having contests....I remember it was really interesting in grad school. We had some students from outside the South reading OConnor, Milton and Faulkner and they would say how do you know all this and I'd say: Mrs. Parker, my third grade Sunday School teacher in Boiling Springs, North Carolina made me memorize these verses.
Growing up every Sunday, hearing those stories, the richness of the language; such a great thing for a writer.

Fox: The Catholic Belgian born essayist Luc Sante is fascinated by Hard scrabble religion, the tent revival era of Billy Sunday and River Baptism. There is a similar strong vein in your work.

Rash: I would not be the writer I am today had I not been raised Southern Baptist. I'm immersed in it. One friend has said every time one of my characters gets near the water,he's a goner.
In Saints at the River you have an actual Resurrection of a Body from a Stream, an answer to prayer. Water is a potent symbol of Death and Resurrection. In the Celtic tradition water is a conduit between the Living and the Dead.

Fox: Your poem Sunday Morning 1959 is one of my favorites. I'm convinced any regular churchgoer who at one time worshipped in a country church can identify with it. Was Randy Ford a real person and how about the cows?

Rash: There is a real Randy Ford and sitting in my maternal grandmother's Friendship UMC in Wautauga County,North Carolina you could hear the cow bells in the pasture just outside the church. I was six years old that Sunday Morning, daydreaming; first moment in my recognition of timelessness, transcendence.
What's that Robert Penn Warren poem about the geese: I "could not know what was happening in my heart"?
In the poem The Smithsonian tapes my aunt's voice; Not about a dying culture but more about the dead in the cemetery resurrected with us in the Spirit; Sense of being overwhelmed, what Wordsworth called spots of time, living in the eternal.

(end of conversation/interview but the following is part of submission for conclusion of the effort/article)

There is a wealth of material on Rash online including video of interview on UNCTV.org about twenty minutes long. And a simple google search for Shelton Laurel Massacre and World Made Straight will take you into the heart of several great links and profiles of Rash's work at the Russoff agency, including a stellar profile in the 2006 Columbia, SC State.
Searches for the reviews of Serena and World Made Straight in the Appalachian Heritage magazine are worthwhile as well.

Ron Rash's Sunday Morning 1959
August, 1959: Morning Service
Ron Rash
Beside the open window
on the cemetery side,
I drowsed as Preacher Lusk gripped
his Bible like a bat snagged
from the pentecostal gloom.
In that room where heat clabbered
like churned butter, my eyes closed,
freed my mind into the light
on the window's other side,
followed the dreamy bell-ring
of Randy Ford's cows across
Licklog Creek to a spring pool
where orange salamanders swirled
and scuttled like flames. It was
not muttered words that urged me

back to that church, nor was it
the hard comfort of pews rowed
like the gravestones of my kin,
but the a cappelia hymn
sung by my great-aunt, this years
before the Smithsonian
taped her voice as if the song
of some vanishing species,
which it was, which all songs are
years before the stroke wrenched her
face into a gnarled silence,
this morning before all that
she led us across Jordan,
and the gravestones leaned
as if even the dead were listening

Time for Me To Get Low

2010-08-20T08:00:00.000-07:00
Great movie, great cast; take the Family to see it

Lot of folks in Collinville,should see it; and folks in Conasauga, Tn as well.

Here is the official link. If you live in North Alabama,keep an eye out for it at the Rave in Huntsville and ask them to bring Winter's Bone around

http://www.sonyclassics.com/getlow/site/index.html

Couple other items. SBCVoices discussion is strong about Ed Setzer's SBC; and Mosque discussion is strong at baplife.com

The cornbread is good at Smoke on the Water just up from the Bridge.

Doris Betts has great essay on how she learned to Write in Sunday School. You may want to google that.

Mary Oliver's Great Poem

2010-08-09T12:29:00.000-07:00
Rather, one of her Great poems. You may want to google her Poem Maybe, the one that first brought her to my attention.
But here is the most recent that has come my way:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life.

Mary Oliver

Harper Lee, Annie Lucas Brown and Mary Murphy

2010-08-03T13:03:00.000-07:00
Mary Murphy is the author of great new book on Too Kill a Mockingbird. I just left this note at her blog so maybe she can come to Collinsville and the Library Board and former Mayor can explain some of their actions to her:

Mary:
I testified about what TKAM meant to me and got published in the online version of the Anniston Star. You may want to check that site for the several statements that made the Print issue about a couple months ago.
I may put my offering up at my blog and or here in short time.
Friend of mine who was former book page editor of the Charlotte Observer, a great fan of TKAM himself thought I did an "outstanding job."
I am about to blog and reference you site about one of many Atticus Finches I have come across; Earl Stalling of the FBC Birmingham, Al in 1963. He was there when Dianne McWhorter plans were frustrated trying to get down town to the Alabama Theatre to see the movie.
I'm reading your book and getting the word out.
Great service you have done to our country; no kidding.
Do check out my blog on Stallings

While I have it near at hand, check this great lecture about Civil Rights and Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Berlin, March of this Year.

http://tinyurl.com/3xgcv7n

And Google Jonahtan Bass book Blessed Are the Peacemakers and read the story there about Stallings; Great Stuff

Stephen Fox

Collinsville, Al where my Grandfather Jordan ran for School board in the nineteen teens as a Lincoln Republican as was soundly defeated.

End Quote from submission to her site:

Several great testimonies there from Scott Turow--Mark Morgan may like that one--Dianne McWhorter and Piedmont, Alabama's Rick Bragg; Tom Brokaw, Oprah, and a Black woman from Selma, Alabama who teaches English there.
Quite frankly I always thought Paul Hemphill's Leaving Birmingham was a better take on the city than McWhorter's; but I have to give it to Dianne, her story on going to school with Scout, Mary Oldham, in Mtn Brook and going downtown to see TKAM at the Alabama Theatre when King's Children were marching and President Kennedy was watching on the Huntley Brinkley Newshour, and Earl Stallings was preaching to Albert Lee Smiths wider network, the folks Hugo Black left behind in Bham; that's a great story as are they all.
Must read for any of you who care about Alabama and want to witness to our friends Lowell Barron and Rick Lance and Bob Terry and various Baptist Deacons across the state.

The End of Fox News?

2010-07-26T07:25:00.001-07:00
EJ Dionne thinks it's about time; they Have no Shame to put it in Eisenhower and Joe McCarthy Terms

See www.tnr.com The New Republic and the transcript, the Roundtable of yesterday's Meet the Press

Daniel Carro, Collinsville,and The Baptist World Alliance

2010-07-25T19:26:00.000-07:00
Carro is with the Leland Center of Washington, DC. The President of this Progressive Baptist Concern is the former pastor of one of my Relatives.
Carro is also networked to folks in the wider world of Collinsville Baptist Pastor John Morgan's sons Matthew with the UMC in NYC, and John Elliot's Habitat for Humanity in Americus Georgia.
FBC FT Payne pastor Pat McFAdden attended the BWA gathering in London about five years ago and was on the cover of Baptists Today; a publication several influential folks in Collinsville Baptist have had contact with as recently as June 2006.
It seems that some Baptist deacons in NE Alabama have strayed off the reservation of Hospitality motifs and Sensible Immigration Reform Maxine Waters and the SBC's ERLC Richard Land Were discussing last week on a House Panel in DC.
With the coordination of UMC Bishop Willimon and folks in FBC Ft. Payne who have connections to Carro's circles it is very possible to have Carro come to the area and lead some right minded discussions on immigration Reform.
Would be grand to have this Baptist STatesman at the Center of International Baptist Work come to Collinsville. I have to Believe John Jeffers,CBC Founding Pastor Appleton, Wilmer Fields who now has connections to Collinsville would be proud.

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=16415

Talking Just causes Witnesses

2010-07-16T12:56:00.000-07:00
Somebody in the room there on HWY 11 shoulda said something like that May 28,2006.
But I digress

This is a great American movie. Kate Campbell talked about my family last week in Birmingham and I'm glad she did. I want her and Suzanne Martin and everybody they know to see this movie. Drive to Chattanooga or Huntsville or Rome, Ga if you have to. It opens week--that would be 23rd if you need help with the math-- from Friday in these environs and I'm gonna be on the front row.
Cut and paste the link into the URL space and if you don't know how to, just ask somebody in the Collinsville Public Library or wherever you are and they will help you while I work on a live link here. Be sure you watch the trailer and get the sound so you can hear the words while you read this review at the NY Times.

God Bless and go without the popcorn if you have to. Don't let it hold you back

The link

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/movies/11winter.html?8dpc

"You wuz warned and you didn't listen; why didn't you listen?

From the grand trailer.
Go see this movie:

Collinsville Votes Wet

2010-07-14T06:09:00.000-07:00
http://tinyurl.com/29grdvx

136 people signed a petition that got it on the ballot, a lot of them Methodists I imagine.
The petition should be a matter of public record in case Bishop Willimon wants somebody from Duke to come in after the fact and do a case study on Religion in Public Life in NE Alabama.

Two documentaries on Collinsville have been shown on statewide Public Television and this vote may call for a Third.

I'm not trying to start anymore imbroglios here, as I have friends who voted on both sides of the roughly 70/30 split.

The pastor of the Collinsville Baptist church stated his opinions in the Negative in the July issue of the church newsletter at www.collinsvillebaptist.com

I think he was fairly articulate on the matter.
I wish he could find it within himself to be as explicit on the matter of Immigration Reform; and ask himself what would Bonhoeffer Do; then again I don't envy the kickback he is certain to get were he to go DB on Immigration Reform; or for that matter preach on the first chapter of David Remnick's The Bridge.

My Dad preached some sermons in that fashion in Gaffney in the mid 70's. He lasted about three more years.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Collinsville Alabama?

2010-07-08T13:04:00.000-07:00
About the 40 minute mark of this lecture Marsh suggests Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian theologian who was to later be a part of the plot to assassinate Hitler may have traveled through Alabama on HWY 11. He says for certain Bonhoeffer was going through Alabama the night of the alleged assault that became the internationally famous case of the Scottsboro boys

http://tinyurl.com/3xgcv7n

Ringo Starr is 70

2010-07-06T09:34:00.000-07:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/arts/music/06ringo.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Ringo Starr

Liberty and July 4th

2010-07-04T12:26:00.000-07:00
Want to get something going here on the Fourth and come back to it later with an exploration of Liberty.
If I post today then forevermore this blog will carry the date of July 4, 2010.

A Good Baptist Message for July 4th

2010-07-03T06:57:00.001-07:00
Holly Hollman grew up in Jackson Mississippi best I understand. I Met her Mom couple years ago at the Baptist Covenant meeting in Atlanta after a workshop with the former Atty General of New Jersey and a an ethicist from Austin, Texas where George W. Bush used to be the Governor.
It was pretty interesting.

Collinsville, Alabama and Dekalb County are a vortex of church state matters as Casey Mattox is from Collinsville and has lined up Charles Pickering of the Alliance Defense Fund and Laurel, Mississippi. Pickering was on the SBC Peace Committee in 87 with Jim Henry. Henry's Daughter Kate sang at the Field of Dreams outdoor concert arena about 7 miles out of Collinsville a few years ago.
Up the road Ft. Payne is the home of Cherilyn Crowe, who now works with Holly in DC at the www.bjconline.org

And a few years ago just a few miles south in Gadsden, Judge Roy Moore made a big splash.
But here is what Holly has to say for the Fourth. It would be good if Donnie and Jackie Myers and my Republican friend Thomas Barksdale next time they say Mattox were to say: Casey, we're proud of you, but I think Holly and Cherilyn and right.

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5307/9/#jc_allComments

What's the Frequency Kenneth?

2010-06-30T14:00:00.001-07:00
Last night about 11pm after a day of despond I was overwhelmed with choices on the Big Screen.
Would it be Charlie Rose on Afghanistan, PBS Nova on the NSA, the final innings of the College World Series and Jackie Bradley Jr; or 30 minutes of great REM concert at Oxegen.
I parked mostly on REM. Michael Stipe was preaching the Gospel in Song and Frequency Kenneth spoke to my condition, even this late at 57 and two months.
I remembered some email exchanges I'd had with his manager Bertis Downs in 04 and the promise of those days; great panels and hope that all day long had seemed so distant and impossible now.
And they may be; but for an hour Hope lived again.
Had a sleepless night, didn't conk out till 4 am.

Sunday is July 4th.
On July 5th 1969 Janis Joplin sang at the Atlanta Pop Festival.

So Long Ago. The Corpse Bird Waits for me.

But America will struggle on.

God Bless America and its Promise; and God Bless Rock N Roll.

Isner's Top Ten

2010-06-29T16:12:00.000-07:00
I can't get these links to jazz, but I tried. Maybe you can cut and paste, the first one here from Isner's hometown paper.

www.news-record.com/content/2010/06/28/article/isner_to_present_top_10_list_on_letterman

can't make it work

www.news-record.com/content/2010/06/28/article/isner_to_present_top_10_list_on_letterman

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/29/john-isner-visits-letterm_n_629136.html

Collinsville Baptist 200 Anniversary

2010-06-25T08:39:00.000-07:00
This blog is work in Progress; but core question is how will Collinsville Baptist erase the legacy of Jon Appleton and John Jeffers in its 200 Anniversary. Will statements made have any integrity inlight of what Bill Leonard said last night in Charlotte?

Here is a note I submitted this morning to George Truett's Hometown Paper, the Clay County (NC) progress:

Please indulge another Baptist note as Hayesville with Truett's Birthplace does carry a lot of History that inflects the national character. Last night in Charlotte, at national gathering of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Wake Forest Div Dean Bill Leonard gave the remarks you'll see at the end of this note. When my Dad was in Hayesville in early 60's, his seminary teacher Stewart Newman came to visit him and after a good lunch prepared by my Mother, told his illustrious travelingfriends; yall go on to Nashville, I think I'll just stay here with Billy. Google up the Curtis Freeman essay on Stewart Newman and Truett's successor at FBC Dallas WA Criswell. History reported from Duke. So an Atticus Finch analogous character once came through Hayesville, the birthplace of Truett. It all sets up nicely Bill Leonard's prophetic remarks last night in Charlotte: Leonard said he thinks often of Ann Hasseltine Judson, a Congregationalist missionary who, along with her newlywed husband, Adoniram, converted to the Baptist faith while reading the Greek New Testament after setting sail for India in 1812. She wrote a friend apologetically describing the couple as “confirmed Baptists, not because we wished to be, but because truth compelled us to be.” Leonard said many non-fundamentalist Baptists today find themselves in a similar predicament. “If conscience dictates, I suppose we can rip the word 'Baptist' out of our literature, paint over it on our church signs or delete it from our Web page, Facebook, Twitter and podcast Internet connections,” Leonard said. “But before we do, let’s admit that there is no generic Christianity divorced from community or without an identity that centers us in the world or the Kingdom of God.” “Tonight, let’s stop worrying about our name and start reclaiming our witness,” Leonard advised. “Let’s quit fretting over the loss of cultural dominance and turn loose our consciences. Let’s go out as children of God, born again, and again, and again, and again in one of the church’s dysfunctional but gladly grace-filled families; children of God in the water and at the table, in the Word and in the world, children of God knit together by grace.”

Stephen Fox
Friday, Jun 25, 2010 (10:06:40 am CDT

My Dad and Atticus Finch

2010-06-20T18:17:00.000-07:00
I wasn't gonna put anything up on Father's Day but late in the afternoon it came to my attention some acquaintances were making public statements about their Fathers; Wade Burleson in Particular.
Some family I hear are watching to Kill a Mockingbird tonight.
Malcolm Gladwell took some exception to Atticus notlong ago in the New Yorker, but Julie Lynn among others took exception to him
I almost met Harper Lee's roommate at Auburn once, but she passed away. She was from Gadsden and I'm pretty sure Kathryn Tucker Windham knew her pretty well. Lee's father had an interesting career in the Methodist church I read somewhere.
And my friend Sam Hodges, former book page editor of the Charlotte Observer differs with Gladwell aswell.
Tim Tyson may have legitimacy to differ with Harper Lee or the legend of To Kill a Mockingbirg, but Gladwell didn't know what he was talking about,nor did he understand the milieu.

But it was 1976 when the lesson of Atticus Finch first registered with me. I remember it plainly, my Brother coming home from church and my Dad asking the blessing at the table.
My Brother is goingto Philadelphia tomorrow.

I'm not quite ready to tellmy story just now. I can say physically my Grandfather Jordan had more resemblance to Gregory Peck, as my Dad was kinda rotund; more of the appearance of some character out of a Randy Newman album.
But my Dad was Atticus, Father's Day, 76 and the younger brother was the elder brother but it's all right now; Jesus gonnabe here soonand cover us allwith a blanket; and or we'll be some version of the last scene of The White Ribbon.

I was talkin to a man last night who is takin a group on a civil rights tour through Selma; and four days ago talked to a woman from Poland who was goin to Alabama to see the country side. I gave her David Remnick's book,the Bridge togive her some understanding of Selma.
I was gonna be there with Hillary and Bill and Barack and John Lewis in 2007, but the car wouldn't start.
A Major regret; one that mattered.

Morgen's ESPN 30/30 effort a "Triumph"

2010-06-17T10:00:00.000-07:00
Brett Morgen on the Way of the World
by Stephen Fox » Thu Jun 17, 2010 11:51 am

Click on title above and several reviews linked.

Furman has two players in World Cup

2010-06-11T11:19:00.000-07:00
That's pretty impressive nobody how you gauge it. Especially for a school of an enrollment of 2500 students.

Furman says Clint Dempsey is the first grad to make the cover of Sports Illustrated. I guess they would know, but I thought Betsy King or Frank Selvy, the man who scored 100 in an NCAA Basketball game woulda made it.

Congrats to soccer players Ernie Robbins and Ed Bonn, two futbollers I knew when the program was kicking in in the early 70's. And Stuart, whose last name I can't recall at the moment. I think he was from Georgia.

I'm learning things like Uruguay has a population about the same as the state of Iowa and has won two World Cups.

http://www2.furman.edu/Lists/Press%20Releases/DispForm-PressReleases.aspx?List=f3a3efbf%2Df75d%2D4e3d%2D8191%2Df3599d9900fa&ID=274

And Dempsey on the Cover:

http://www2.furman.edu/Lists/Press%20Releases/DispForm-PressReleases.aspx?List=f3a3efbf%2Df75d%2D4e3d%2D8191%2Df3599d9900fa&ID=276

Profile of Dempsey from NY Times, via Columbia State:

http://www.thestate.com/2010/06/06/1318956/time-to-shine-for-ex-furman-soccer.html

ABC announcer for Dempsey's World Cup Goal against England today called it: "one of the softest goals you'll ever see at this level of futbol."

I'd say it was some Paladin cunning.

Congrats to Furman and the USA and getting through to the next round.

If Collinsville will work with me, maybe we can get Dempsey there for Inspiration for Collinsville's Soccer Program which has strong resonances to Paul Cuadros a Home on the Field.

5:18 pm June 12
The Clint Dempsey story it turns out has aspects of a Cormac McCarthy novel.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/soccer/world-cup-2010/writers/melissa_segura/06/09/dempsey/1.html

And this sublime memoir from Daniel Alarcon, with whom I had several email exchanges a few years ago.

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/75256/my-fathers-game

If not Furman why not bring Alarcon to Collinsville as well.

Or great Furman panel would include Clint Dempsey; Alarcon, Paul Cuadros and Steve Roberts; Cokie's Husband who has recently written great book about the immigrant experience in America.
Roberts has Furman connection through the Haynsworths, his neighbors on the SC Coast.
It can happen; it should happen and looking for two of the four to filter on down to Collinsville for an inspirational day.

Beth Templeton, point guard, of the Ruhama Community, the class of 1997 Collinsville High School, is at the World Cup FIFA games in South Africa. I last saw Beth late evening of circa March 10,2007 in Ft. Payne near the Cracker Barrel.

Collinsville's Brett Morgen and OJ Siimpson

2010-06-08T19:39:00.000-07:00
I Say Collinsville's because I was local consultant for Morgen's first film, Blessings of Liberty, shown on Statewide Public Television.
I could easily say Robert Redford's or Oscar's Brett Morgen because he later became big at Sundance and was nominated for an Oscar.
June 17th, 1994 will be shown Weds, 16 June at 10 pm on Espn's 30 for Thirty. It will be shown again three days later at Noon, Saturday on ESPN

http://30for30.espn.com/film/june-17-1994.html
Be sure and tune in.

From what I can gather at the ESPN site, the film is more about how that day imprinted itself on the nation's public memory; an exercise in the exploration of iconography more than an attempt to redo the trial or to exonerate Simpson.

Will be interesting to see the film, and with everyone else review the public discussion of the film.

"As the Axe came into the Woods, Many of the trees said, At least the Handle is One of Us."
Turkish Proverb

Baseball and the June Issue of Baps Today

2010-06-03T12:57:00.000-07:00
Get your hands on a copy of the June issue of Baptists Today, page 23 and 24 I think it is, and spread the news around.

In the meantime, my friend John Pierce has great blog today about Perfect Games and Baseball and Justice and Umpires.

I made a comment there.

Pierce is from Ringgold,Georgia and a big fan of the Rome and Atlanta Braves; a graduate of Berry College.

He and my Dad woulda been great friends, and through his in laws he is acquainted with Bonson Barnes of Kings, Mtn North Carolina.

Pierce practicing his craft in fine form today:

http://www.johndpierce.com/2010/06/there-can-be-perfect-games-but-never.html

Federer has fallen

2010-06-01T10:46:00.000-07:00
The Mighty Soderling with the Big Swing has felled him.

Federer is the better tennis player; more finesse, better stylist, plays the game the way it is supposed to be played.
McEnroe mighta been better at the net in his time; then he again he was left handed.
Best match ever woulda been to see those two on equal terms; Fed and Johnny Mac.

But today June 1, 2010 Soderling had the Big SWAT.

He goes on to the next round and Federer exhibits signs of mortality.

Dennis Hopper is Dead

2010-05-29T10:52:00.000-07:00
Stop all the Clocks

Hopper was a grand fellow and had stark contribution to American Film.

He played some Dark Roles that are imprinted in my consciousness, as Paris Trout and as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet.

Time Magazine said Paris Trout was one of the Top Ten Films of 1990. He created an archetype that rang true for darker aspects of a certain kind of small town Southern character of the mid 20th Century from the 40's through the 60's.

Christian Century applauded his work in Blue Velvet as did Al Gore's classmate at Vanderbilt, Roy Blount,from Decatur Georgia.
2002 or so I talked to Blount in Atlanta about Blount's charmed memory of a Christmas gift his children gave him, a scene with cutouts inserted from Blue Velvet; a family member dancin on the roof of the car to Orbison.
Was cosmic relief for Blount.

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/37301/Paris-Trout/trailers

"I'd Do the Same Thing Again."

Twenty two fifty, that's a real Number."

"I'm not responsible for the circumstances of her birth".

And the colored girl's Mother Said: "Don't Worry Child, Jesus will be here soon and cover us both with a blanket."

And From the NY Times Obit: "Everyone here that I've invited--and Obviously some I did not invite--have enriched my life tremendously."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/movies/30hopper.html

And the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-et-0530-hopper-appreciation-20100530,0,1590124,full.story

STuff of legends; iconic and now that gift for Darkness is gone.

Hopper is dead. The Corspe Bird waits for us all.

Collinsville Baptist and May 28, 2006: Lest We Forget

2010-05-26T05:33:00.000-07:00
Memorial Day will always have a Double Ring to it for Me.
Recently I noticed where Collinsville Baptist Pastor John Morgan has brought to the folks attention the 200 year Anniversary Upcoming of the Founding of the Church. My Mom and Dad were in the Picture for the 175th Anniversary near the front row.
John Jeffers was in that picture as well.

Come back to this blog in a couple weeks as I develop some thoughts but have two links in mind for a group of phone treers there as Collinsville is historic church for sure; not only for the scenes in two documentaries shown on statewide Public television in the last 20 years.

Here are two links to consider as this blogpost takes shape

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=16128

http://www.tonycartledge.com/2010/04/church-hurts.html

And in this Review of the First Decade of the 21st Century I conflate Collinsville with Newsweek Magazine's Jon Meacham, raised up the road in Chattanooga, and others. See the comment line of my friend John Pierce Review of the Decade.

http://www.johndpierce.com/2009/12/year-of-what.html

Joe Gould's Secret Redux

2010-05-21T11:30:00.000-07:00
I'm conflating my original blog for today with this link just came about to Joe Gould's Secret.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-17-2000/stanley-tucci?videoId=129019

I saw the film several years ago and was thinking about it today 2 days into my 57th year.
I was sharing the link with friends in Gaffney.
Below are some thoughts from this morning.
For most of the day I have been thinking about Debra Ganik and Billy Graham. Tomorrow I hope to think about something else.

Cost Cutting Measures cost 30 dollars
That's been my experience in the last 24 hours and reeking havoc with my personal finances.
If I were transparent I'm afraid I may say too much.
I guess proper analogy would be the wife in The Man Who Wasn't There with Billy Bob Thornton after the family picnic. Her solilquy there is blindingly, unflinchingly True.
Some fellow on Charlie Rose, maybe Katzenberg drove the point home couple days ago on my Birthday; and Scott Turow wasn't bad either the next day.
One of my friends has been invited and present at Charlie Rose Table, but I haven't been seated yet. Waitin on the call.

On a lighter note, Collinsville is hosting its first annual Rubber Duck river race tomorrow. Grand event, though I think they may need to refine the course; Reconsider start and finish Line. But they are in right direction with this one, I feel.

Call Roger Dutton today at Collinsville Barber Shop:

Fifty Seven Today

2010-05-18T12:22:00.000-07:00
This morning I woke up thinking about The Corpse Bird, a Short Story by Ron Rash from his collection Burning Bright. I read it for the 2nd time yesterday.
So Two things I know today, I am mortal and Christ Died for the Ungodly.
But I am no more Ungodly than you are. Fleming Rutledge is right about that in her magnificent collection of sermons Help My Unbelief.
I watched Christopher Hitchens and the Muslim novelist discuss matters of Faith on BookTv Monday night. I dismiss them. I'm staying with Abraham, Isaac,Jesus, Stewart Newman and My Dad here in my 57th year.
Yesterday I also read great interview of Debra Granik who talks about the theology of AND in film magazine on bookstands now at Barnes and Noble and Elsewhere. I commend it to you.
Comes from her film Winter's Bone set in Northwest Arkansas and rings true for me.

So now you have an option. You can send me a card--I don't mind late ones--to Collinsville, Alabama. That's Steve Fox, collinsville, Alabama.
I'll get it soon and you are more than welcome to put a dollar or two in it if you like.
And or you can approach your local friends and pool your funds to Netflix or otherwise get a copy of Winter's Bone and the White Ribbon
for your progressive Church group to discuss; and please voice attribution, and thank me by name for the recommendation.

Don't worry about me being too heavy on my birthday though I could lose about 57 pounds.
I do plan to get the free Strawberry Shortcake coming to me by virtue of my presence at a Cracker Barrel before the day is over.
As William Blake Said

.....It is right, it Should be So.....

No Protestant on the Supreme Court

2010-05-16T09:08:00.000-07:00
Robert Parham does an excellent job framing the question at ethicsdaily.com

I don't have a lot to add other than I think that if there is a Protestant in the future the likes of Oliver Buzz Thomas, formerly a school board member in Alcoa, Tennessee, or his colleague Charles Haynsworth, would be much much better than some nominee of Casey Mattox and the Christian Legal Society; though all other things being equal I think I could support Casey for Dekalb County School Board, possibly even someday a successor to Lowell Barron, if Casey were to come out for Constitutional Reform in the State and he were interested in the job.

But I digressed.
So in the meantime here is the matter at hand:

Parham at his Best on the SCOTUS

Kinda what it's like to be a Preacher's Kid

2010-05-12T18:52:00.000-07:00
Split the difference between what Kearse says here and what Marshall Frady said in my comment recommend and you get close to the situation.

Kremer was almost a Rhodes Scholar.

His cousin In laws set the academic standards in Gaffney where I finished High School. It all makes sense in some way.

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5139/9/

Compare this remembrance to Ga Mtns and Beyond thoughts on Belonging; and John Fariss memories of growing up near Talladega, Alabama and you got three good testimonies coinciding in the last ten days.

Fariss is linked in Thornton Blog announcement at www.baptistlife.com/forums if you want to do the detective work on your own.

And while there check out the link to the KJV and American Lit.

May 28, 2006 is part of my Religious History. Maybe more on that later. And Maybe a book after that.

First the June issue of Baptists Today and we all go forward from there.

Nick Saban at Kent State 40 yrs. ago Today

2010-05-04T15:54:00.001-07:00
Four Dead in Ohio.

Neil Young sang about it.

How does that moment or did that moment bend Saban, the National Championship Coach for this Political Moment in Alabama as framed by the Howell Raines piece on Bear Bryant and George Wallace in the 1983 New Republic.

Is Nick any different than the Great Bear in how he can use use his political influence for Progress in Alabama.
Does he have any more savvy, motivation or conviction in that arena than Paul Bryant had?

Or Am I and such notions out to lunch?

Cuomos of Biblical or Shakespearean Proportions?

2010-05-03T10:02:00.000-07:00
In today's NY Times or check the link in the Public Policy forum at

www.baptistlife.com/forums

Best Potato Soup in Alabama is Moving

2010-04-29T15:27:00.000-07:00
Bill Glenn's Mtn Grill is celebrating it's last weekend in Dogtown, Alabama this Friday and Saturday.
Many folks from far and wide have declared the potato soup to be the best they have ever eaten, and it's a big bowl.
One savvy diner says the ribs melt in your mouth, a texture much finer, and taste better than Bear Bryant's Widely acclaimed place in Tuscaloosa.
One fellow from Oklahoma had it twice in one day so you know it is good.
Homemade Sweet pickles on the fabulous salad bar.

Here is the Glenn's statement of Transition. New place will be just 7 minutes off I-59 at Collinsville exit 205, follow 68 East to top of the Mtn just before the Descent into Leesburg, Alabama.

And if you have two meals in Collinsville, check out the great food at China House where my friends Chen and Lupe serve a great meal.
Say Hello to Octavio there; he's goin to Ga Tech some day, you can see it in his eyes.

Bama Baptist Tea Party leader Prefers Artur Davis

2010-04-18T18:06:00.000-07:00
http://johnkillian.blogspot.com/2010/04/artur-davis-ron-sparks-and-black.html

Killian was one of my guests on Tax Reform late August of 2003 in a panel at Collinsville Baptist Church. Five months later I was voted out off the church rolls.
Killian was against it; remarkable evening nonetheless.
Since then I have worshipped at his church in Maytown, in February of 2009 to hear the Larry Nelson Singers of NW Arkansas sing about Jesus. They brought tears to my eyes, singing about Momma, and Climbing Jacob's Ladder.
They come from the heart of Sundance celebrated movie Winter's Bone.
But I digress.
Killian announces preference for Artur Davis.
I'm not sure what to make of it. I hope Kate Campbell heard as she was singing this weekend at East Lake UMC down the street from Bull Connor's Woodlawn where he had his Jabbok's Ford wresting with John Rutland, one of Bama's finest UMC preachers. If you don't believe me, read Paul Hemphill's Leaving Birmingham.

Not sure what to make of my friend Killian. Will have to see what Mike Shaw thinks before I can confirm what looks like a confounded endorsement.
Or another way of saying, Lookout Jesus,it's Paris Trout.

Just maybe this is Change you can believe in, to paraphrase Sarah Palin.
What will Joe Godfrey say??

And or Nick SAban; speaking of which I do hope he saw the Allen Iverson movie on ESPN last week.
Public challenge here to Dr. Killian and Mike Shaw and Joe Godfrey. Don't waste anytime in gettin your hands on a copy of David Remnick's The Bridge.
I'm sure my friend Annie Lucas Brown will help you expedite the Bama Interlibrary loan system if you can'tmake time to go by the Hoover Barnes and Noble and at least read the chapter on the SC Prez Primary 2008; and while you're in there check out Rove's chapter in his Consequences book on SC 2000.
As Jeremiah Wright said: "It's in the Bible."

A Great Baptist has Passed by

2010-04-17T18:46:00.000-07:00
You remember what was said to Jean Louise in to Kill a Mockinbird.

So has Cecil Sherman joined the Great Cloud of Witnesses in the Baptist ranks with Truett, Newman, Marney,King, Judge Frank Johnson and Hugo Black.

In 93 I had brief conversation with Sherman in Greensboro, NC. He got right to the point giving me a quote from the Chancellor of UNC, Bill Friday. Friday had told Sherman the most significant event in North Carolina in the decade of the 80's was the fundamentalist takeover of my Dad's alma mater, Southeastern Seminary. With the firing of Alabama native and Samford grad Randall Lolley, Friday said they were falling into Jesse Helms designs for the character of the state. For Helms and his Texas Regular molded Southern Baptist leaders knew that in SEBTS they could reach into the pulpits of every hamlet and suburb in the state and shift shape its character from a headset like that of Sam Ervin and the progressive Governors of the 60's; a mindset that among others legendary UNC Basketball coach Dean Smith grasped; and give the populace a bent we now see represented in the most reactionary cells of the Tea Party movement.
That otherwise good folks in the South, otherwise good Baptist deacons and school teachers and women in the WMU let that happen is a shame.
Just a few weeks ago in Vineville Ga Sherman led a seminar for Senior Adults titled
What We Did Right

As I have said in other venues, Amen.
Here is avenue to some great links and eloquent blogs that speaks of his witness and character; a man who understood what was at stake in his precinct of the world and did something about it.
Sometimes he grated, but ultimately he was right. He had insight and had wisdom like Abraham and David, even Jonathan Edwards and Lincoln.

"What We Did Right"

Casey Mattox, Adam, Inerrancy, and the Methodists down the Street

2010-04-12T07:03:00.000-07:00
http://biologos.org/resources/nt-wright-on-adam-and-eve/

NT Wright linked above is favorite, great friend of Alabama UMC Bishop Will Willimon, Mattox CHS classmate Mark Morgan's Chaplain at Duke.

What are the ramifications of such discussions for Mattox and Morgan's home church given they hold to the Inerrantists SBC; or are these matters bright kids like the promising group of the 90's in Collinsville can no longer discuss and stay in good fellowship with the church where they were baptized?

And where is Jon Appleton on all this in distinction to say Timothy George, both in the county in the pulpit this year; as was Willimon about 5 years ago.

CBF blogger has taken it up. Interesting Conundrum; and where is CS Lewis on all this.
I think safe to say he is with NT Wright, but I am no authority

http://www.tonycartledge.com/2010/04/honesty-gets-waltke-walking-papers.html

Christ Descended Into Hell

2010-04-03T08:38:00.000-07:00
If the Armenian iconography in the slideshow link embedded in the link below were done in Little Wills Creek, whose neck would Christ have his Heel on in the shadowy recesses of the flowing water?
And what were they teaching John III, Matthew and Casey Mattox at UVA???
Woulda been great to have explored these matters and the Smyth and Helwys Sunday School lessons of last fall on 400 years of Baptist Contribution; if history could be rerun; could've been most enlightening Easter classes of the mid 90's when there was a lot of promise.

Christ Descended Into Hell

Tea Party, Baptist Deacons and Matthew Morgan

2010-03-26T08:22:00.000-07:00
Matthew Morgan is a product of Collinsville Baptist Church and the Collinsville School System.
He is also a graduate of Yale Div School now working with the UMC in NYC.
Mary Anne Cole is the niece of Houston Cole, longtime former President of JSU in NE Alabama.
Mary Anne and the Fox family go back at least two generations in Rome Georgia where her family was great friends of my Dad, Uncles and sisters.
Mary Anne is a GOP Bama Committee Woman and head of the Tea Party Movement in NE Alabama; a member of First Baptist Church, Fort Payne.
Also from NW Georgia is Ed Kilgore, now with http://www.tnr.com/ who had this fascinating conversation with Sarah Posner you can hear here online:

http://tinyurl.com/yg5o9v5

It is a fascinating conversation I hope my friends from Hugo Black's grandson Stephen, to Chic Fil A's Dan Cathy who sat near me in Robert Crapps religion class at Furman fall of 1971 will listen to.

Influential progressive Baptists are taking this up--Kilgore and Posner celebrate Baptist ideas of separation of church and state historically; Kilgore raised a Southern Baptist.
Robert Parham here:
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15826
to the former editor of NC Baps Biblical Recorder http://www.tonycartledge.com/ . I have also brought it to the attention of Adrian Rogers son David in the Christ and Culture Blog at http://www.sbcimpact.net/

I think all of us are concerned about the rhetoric of some fundamentalist baptists from Harry Dent's great friend, Ed Young, who Parham spotlights, to some Baptist Deacon bloggers who are preparing for the Apocalypse.
Parham calls on discussions of these matters. I hope Collinsville Baptists wider network of John III, Matthew andSusan W. Morgan; Becky Kennedy; FBC Ft. Payne's Vandy Educated Cherilyn Crowe and their visitting preacher Jon Appleton whose great grandfather is large frame picture in the Overstreet Room of theCollinsville Baptist Church where my Mother was baptized; who they take up Parham's call to engage the discussion.
Matthew in NYC is just a short walk away from our friend Randall Balmer who has written about counterfeit Baptists and other matters.
Appleton will be preaching in the Sunday Morning service in May at FBC Ft Payne as part of their year long anniversary 125 year celebration.

Do read Parham, Cartledge; and listen to Posner and Kilgore.
I am having some conversations with Kilgore. I will link this in an email to Mary Anne and after she has time to listen to P and K, will be more than happy to share her comment in the response line here if she would like to offer a response.

Thank-you

Finally sing along with me and Annie Lucas Brown, Oscar Romero, Martin and Jesus who Rises Again Week from this Coming Sunday.

As many notorious and some not so have said: "It's in the Bible."

Hades Yes We Can:

Utube Countdown with John Boehner:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/hell-no-you-can-t-yes-we-can-countdown/0111066e6b6dfb67b7ba0111066e6b6dfb67b7ba-1761138507832

Obama, Mormons, Baptists, Schlaffly and the Tea Parties

2010-03-22T07:57:00.000-07:00
This will be kind of a catch all blog as I have been thinking about these disparate matters for some time.
I think you will like the links.
First, Matthew Morgan, Russ Beene, myself and residents and former residents of DeKalb County Alabama voted for Barack Obama and today we have right to be proud of him.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/obamas-place-history

I cannot say it any better than Mr. Chait at TNR.

A good Mormon died a few days ago. As you see in the following obit, it was Lady Bird Johnson who had some good Alabama Baptist preachers in her ancestry who saw the worth in this Grand Mormon as others did as well. He was the Great Grandson of John Doyle Lee, key figure in the Mtn Meadows Massacre as you see in this obit at the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/nyregion/21udall.html?pagewanted=1&hpw

Here at Easter Udall strikes me as a better Mormon than some of the Baptists I talk about in the comment line from this blog:

http://www.tonycartledge.com/2010/03/stop-thinking-of-church-as-family.html

Church as Family, or Families who rule Churches. There are a lot of good extended families in local Baptist churches, but some times they get off the track into resentments and struggles for status that in some communities quickly break down into conflicts that warp what Jesus had in mind.

At Same time Jefferson is getting diminished so Phyliss Schlafly can rise. And this country,Baptists in particular are in trouble when they elevate Schlalfly passed Jefferson's letter to Danbury Baptists. On that I think even Casey Mattox would agree.

And finally Tea Parties and epithets hailed at John Lewis. Those two links to follow:

Schlafly or Jefferson

Re: Tea Party Ugliness: John Lewis Called N-Word

Two Great Poems

2010-03-13T10:09:00.000-08:00
I got to thinkin about poems in last 24 hours after I heard some good ones.

Hans Ostrom has visitted my blog here; that's the way he got in touch with Kate Campbell who reads his poem on occasion when she sings her song about Jesus and Elvis.
Kate openned for Emmy Lou in Europe in 2002 and a friend of hers and mine has gotten to know Ronnie Cox, who was the first to fall out of the boat in Deliverance.

Laurie Corzett's Gospel reminded me ofHans Ostrom's poem on Emily Dickinson and ElvisI hope she likes this one as much as I liked hers:

Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley in Heaven
By Hans Ostrom

They call each other “E”. Elvis pickswildflowers near the river and bringsthem to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him.
In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sportsLevis and western blouses with rhinestones.Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers
and T-shirts, a letterman’s jacket from Tupelo High.They take long walks and often hold hands.She prefers they remain just friends. Forever.
Emily’s poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs,Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and RichardNixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile.
Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoonhe will play guitar and sing “I Taste a LiquorNever Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.”

Emily will clap and harmonize.
Alonein their cabins later,
they’ll listen to the riverand nap.
They will not think of Amherst
or Las Vegas.
They know why God made themroommates.
It’s because Americawas their hometown.
It’s because
God is a thing withoutfeathers.
It’s becauseGod wears blue suede shoes.

And here is Laurie Corzett speaking about the Gospel

Pardon the limning of things, it's the set up, not the rhythm of the Poem.

Gospel
by Laurie Corzett

Sally, won't you go downtown
Pick up some teabag partyclowns
We'll teach 'em tricks of trade
from streets walled in by degradation
Ain't this nation grand
for glad hands raised in celebration
of shames we dare not name.

Hallelujah Hallelucinations
Hallowed ground baptized in blood
Saved from the cleansing Flood
by sticking to our kind
however we're defining us today
If we were meant to live a different way
wouldn't He have told us?
October 28, 2009

Ron Rash's star rises even Further

2010-03-08T11:50:00.000-08:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/books/08book.html?hpw

Rash was the feature in the book pages of the NY Times yesterday, day of the Oscars.
I have talked to him on several occasions; and it's the closest I'll get to talkin to Abraham Lincoln.
Rash is a supernal one. I wish my Grandmother Fox coulda stayed with us long enough to read his stories.
Woulda been grand to share and discuss his tales with Uncle Edgar and Uncle Fremont and Papa as they ring true from their stories in Conasauga Tn and Walden's Creek; which for Rash is Wautauga and Madison County NC and surroundings, his Yoknatawpha (sp) County.
He is in the Netherlands in the next few days; and in April he goes to France where his One Foot in Eden is in third printing in French.
They love him there, like they loved Faulkner and justifiably so.
I hope GMM who checks my blog often makes sure the library system in North Georgia and Clay County just across the line is flooded with his work, just as it should NE, Alabama.
In one of his novels a character says to another: Smarts like yours just didn't spring up like a Daisy in a bunch of hogweed. And the more you know about Rash and where he came from, the molding of his character and literary gifts you'll see the same is true of him.
I am proud of http://www.nacc.edu/ in Dekalb County, Alabama for having him read for a day couple years ago as now the whole world is taking notice.
And it should.

PS. Be sure you see what gets said about Wesley Davidson. I know what he is talking about and some of you do too.

A Book for Collinsville,Alabama

2010-03-02T12:49:00.000-08:00
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1364206,00.html

Paul Cuadros, a Home on the Field.

I hope there are several copies in the school and public libraries in the area.

For my friends Phil, Sol, Rigoberto, Jorge, and others

David Gushee is fighting the good fight. I have left a reply there:

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/4892/9/

Nick Saban, Lowell Barron, Jeb Stuart and Tom Corts

2010-02-22T08:13:00.000-08:00
The Eye Sees More than the Heart Can Know

I've been thinking about that phrase some lately. Friday I saw the Movie Blood Done Sign My Name from the book by Tim Tyson.
I have an autographed copy; saw Tim at Furman in fall of 2005 I think it was which woulda been about 7 months before May 28, 2006, a memorable day for me.
Jeb Stuart, a Prez minister's son from Gastonia, NC directs the movie.
In the movie and the book, Tyson wakes up one night in 1970 when he was 8 years old and sees the downtown of Oxford, NC burning to the Ground.
His Daddy was the UMC mininster there. My Daddy was a Baptist preacher in Gaffney, SC at the time. Tim told me at Furman he had written about an incident in Gaffney in 1956 and his essay is in Jumpn Jim Crow.
I've read it since. It is pretty strong.

In May of that year, a couple months earlier Nick Saban was at Kent State and witnessed the chaos there in the shootings and deaths of four students.
To paraphrase a line from No Country for Old Men, the Tommy Lee Jones sheriff tells his deputy that Anton Chigurh had just seen the things that they had seen and he imagines he'd be a little spooked too.
You don't see what Tim Tyson saw and Nick Saban saw without it staying with you.

About the time Alabama was to win the national championship this year Bham native Howell Raines got his 1983 piece on the Death of Bear Bryant and Bryant's opportunity to move George Wallace to better place for the sake of Alabma; got a revised link in the New Republic.
Here is that link.

The Conscience of the STate of Alabama, Wayne Flynt, and his Pastor, Jim Evans are offering Nick SAban to make a difference where Bear Bryant might have failed.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said,and I imagine the Heisman Trophy winner has heard: "Now is the Time".

Samuel Proctor, a noted Black Minister, friend of MartinKing is part of Tim Tyson's book and movie. Proctor preaches before all Hell breaks loose in Oxford and he talks about football.
I'm not threatening All Hell Breaking Loose; I'm just trying to prick Saban and Lowell Barron's conscience, cause the movie says it is wicked if you are silent when you know to do a good thing.
This blog is my good thing; maybe it will help my case when I stand before Sweet Jesus with the multitude of sins in my backpack.
Lowell Barron has told me he has had conversations with the late Tom Corts on several occasions about Constitutional Reform. If Barron has a better argument that Corts, Flynt and Evans, we need to hear it transparent and strong.
We also need to hear a word from Nick Saban about it. I'm sure Stephen Black is available to give him all the information he needs.
Here are several links for Barron and Saban.
It's another Kent State, Oxford NC moment.

Jim Evans Parable about Alabama and the Old House

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15662

The witness of Evans parishioner, Wayne Flynt

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15649

Howell Raines on Bear Bryant and George Wallace; as text for Nick Saban and his conscience.

Does Saban owe his Heisman trophy winner any more than the opportunity he has given him?

http://www.tnr.com/article/goodbye-the-bear?page=0,0

Baylor's New President and Newark, New Jersey

2010-02-17T09:47:00.000-08:00
Last night I heard a fellow raised in Newark who finished High School a year after I did; me 71 and him 72. He said the riots that started in his high school would start a chain throughout all the districts.
Coincides with a NY Times story about Tim Tyson's Blood DoneSign my Name, the Movie, to be intheatres this weekend.

Will have links for trailer and the piece here shortly.

Click on title here:

Blood Done Sign My Name Opens Friday

Ken Starr of the Clinton Presidency fame is the new President of Baylor. Starr is something of a mentor to the Christian Legal Society with whom Collinsville native Casey Mattox is a staffer in Washington DC.
It is an interesting selection, has me stunnfed, bewildered and flummoxxed if I could learn to spell it.
See my comment on the blog here; comment I made at an opinion piece site this morning at http://www.abpnews.com/

On another matter FBC Ft. Payne is having year long celebration in conjunction with it's 125th anniversary. Jon Appleton will be preaching there in May, Appleton with Collinsville connections as well.
Check the church website for events.

Collinsville Baptist, Founding Fathers and High School

2010-02-12T13:39:00.000-08:00
In addition to hearing a marvelous presentation from the nephew of Lester Maddox this week have come across a couple other fascinating articles I want to memo to myself and maybe provoke some others to work on the pieces of the puzzle.
Maddox, you know, watched Bobby Kennedy, lead the funeral procession of MLKing in front of the Ga State House in 68, not long after he was sworn in as Governor. To hear a nephew work his way out of that family matrix while still maintaining an abiding love for his flesh and blood was an extraordinary event for me.
Especially so as growing up Randy Newman's song about Maddox, Rednecks, made an indelible impression.
I heard Newman at City Stages in Bham few years back and called out Rednecks as a request; a voice in the crowd. Newman heard me and sang every word about half mile from the 16th Street Baptist Church.

Collinsville Baptist in the 90's had a phenomenal group of promising young folks come through the doors. There are still lot of good promising kids there now though the character of the congregation has changed considerably.
Maybe it's not in the cards for them now, but wonder how the several kids of the 90's youth ministry would work their way through this challenge from a Baptist youth Minister just outside Atlanta

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em

Oops wrong link

Here the challenge for 90's Collinsville Youth Products:

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/4825/9/

NY Times link above poses a question for a Baptist Deacon blogger now at Collinsville, a persistent detractor of President Obama, at odds with a lot of the products of the 90's.
Would love to have them engage the blogger, but that is doubtful, wistful given the allegiance to the "Harmony of the local church"; which in some burgs trumps all.

And finally my blogger friend in North Georgia has an exquisite take on High School I want to recommend here.
I agree with him overall, but would like to have substantive conversation with many folks there; cause every life has value, deserves to tell its own story.

http://georgiamountainsandbeyond.blogspot.com/2010/02/ten-questions-from-rainlille-at-great.html

Greensboro Lunchcounters, Bama Baptist Jihadist, and JD Salinger

2010-02-01T09:04:00.000-08:00
Today is historic day in Civil Rights History, when the Greensboro Four sat down at Woolworth's Lunch Counter and did their chapter that would 10 years later place me on the Bi-Racial Committee at Gaffney Senior High School, paving the way for Sidney Rice.
It made a front page story in NY Times yesterday from which I will link and quote later so come back to this catch all blog.
Excellent documentary last night on same onPBS.org Independent lens for the few of you out there who weren't texting or watching the Lifetime Channel

Also in NY Times story yesterday was link to their rivetting magazine story about a gifted small Town Alabama boy raised and Baptized Southern Baptist; but now one of the most threatening members of Al Qaeda in Somalia.
As David Byrne would ask: "How did he get there?"
Link to follow on that as well.

And JD Salinger died Friday. I had heard about Catcher in the Rye growing up and Miss Chadwick had me read some Kafka and Conrad at Gaffney Senior High School. I grew up thinking there was something little shady about it, it would make me have bad thoughts about girls so as preacher's son tried to keep my eyes on Heaven.
At Furman I got hints of Marshall Frady and learned some other stuff even made a B- in the course on Human Sexuality, but ironically enough Catcher in the Rye didn't register with me till I heard a Baptist Preacher Carlyle Marney talk about what it meant in Gaffney in the Spring of 78, the year Marney died.
I made reference to that meeting and exchange with Marney in my eulogy for my Father in Collinsville in August 1999.

Four page eulogy for Salinger in NY Times, and a great line in there I will share soon here as well.

Salinger Quote:
“Salinger had remarked that he was in this world but not of it,” the statement said. “His body is gone but the family hopes that he is still with those he loves, whether they are religious or historical figures, personal friends or fictional characters.”

Statement from the children of Salinger in the Friday story announcing Salinger's passing.
I read one time he went to a lot of his small adopted hometown HS Basketball games; and later read he was a regular at the Weds evening Pot luck suppers at the local Congregational Church. I think the story was he was particularly fond of the roast beef.

Sidney Rice and MLKing, Jr.

2010-01-25T06:58:00.000-08:00
I think the Vikings/Saints game yesterday mighta been hexxed by the Greenville News. On Sunday of the game they're above the fold top headline was a story on Sidney Rice and Pickens County, SC which the day of the game claimed him cause he was born there.
Sidney Rice ain't from Pickens, he's from Gaffney as everybody, even Brett Favre knows.
I don't know what was in Favre's mind on that last play; I guess it had worked so many times before and he gets a glimpse of Gaffney's Sidney Rice and it is the promised Land; except this time it was not.
The Greenville News set the tone with a bad headline.

I have been thinking lot about some aspects of Civil Rights era. I have not parked my life on that time, but incidents and insights keep poppin up. Have had recent conversations with a white man who was in Selma on Bloddy Sunday, but was not aware anything of signficance was going on.

And then got word from some friends in Gaffney, it was some of my information that propelled a series of conversations that has the Great Marian Wright Edelman coming to Gaffney next year for the MLKing Weekend Celebration.
It is a great honor for me to have been a part of that process. I hope it registers with some folks in Collinsville who were present for the disaster of January 24 or 26, 2006, whatever the date of that infamous Tuesday was.

I find it fascinating and look forward to the conversation that has come to light recently about a goodfellow a key force for good in South Carolina being the nephew of Lester Maddox.
Baxter Wynn, longtime staffer at FBC Greenville, is brother of former chair of SC GOP.
Given the history of Harry Dent, Lee Atwater, and Karl Rove in SC, Wynn's pilgrimage when it comes to the legacy of Civil Rights should as a White Baptist be up there with Charles Marsh; maybe even rank with the Methodist Tim Tyson.

Here is my friend John Pierce's latest blog. See my comment there, on one my best days in 20 years and counting in Alabama.
I will go on record to say if by chance you are reading this and claim to be a Baptist, you aren't much of one if you don't subscribe to Baptists Today.

I hope to have the link to the Gville News awful hexxed headline story on Sidney Rice soon.

http://bteditor.blogspot.com/2010/01/living-legacy.html

A Twofer: Parham and the book of Eli; Obama One Year In

2010-01-19T09:15:00.000-08:00
Couple links here on the Tuesday after the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Holiday

First my friend Robert Parham has gotten great endorsement from The Book of Eli's Denzel Washington.
I feel like I know Denzel, having a lifelong friend who has known Denzel since early 80's. And that preacher's kid stuff gives you a way of looking at the world, allthem Stories from the Bible growing up never leave you.
Here is a great tribute to not only to Denzel but to Robert Parham and his effort on www.differentbookscommonword.com

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15479

And Religion dispatches has great piece up today, strong piece on the Obama Presidency One Year End in the framework of the Mass Senate Race between Coakley and Scott

Takes strong measure of the United States at this point as well.
We are all in this thing together, and I hope that registers with Mary Anne Cole, Lowell Barron, the Morgan family and other forces in Northeast Alabama and your region as well.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/2200/coakley_v._brown%3A_democrats_search_%28for%29_their_souls/

Mark Morgan, Casey Mattox, Mart Gray, Annie Lucas Brown and others may want to read the latest David Maraniss collection of essays on Roberto Clemente, Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi and the relationship between MLKing, Jr., and Jesse Jackson.

Gaffney's Sidney Rice has glorious Day

2010-01-17T14:35:00.000-08:00
Dallas Who???

Gaffney is the Center of the NFL on this day.
And don't miss Gaffney's Donald Simms, now at Appy State having a 40 point game against Davidson last weekend.
Number two in the nation in free throw percentages.

Three TD Receptions

For the record

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=300117016

Heisman, Tide Glory and What it Really Means to be a Christian in Alabama

2010-01-13T14:00:00.000-08:00
How do you reconcile the genuine nobility of the LA Times piece on Mark Ingram with Robert Parham's reservations about what it is to be a Christian in Alabama and how that falls short for some of the best reformists in the state including the folks at www.alarise.org, FBC Auburn Pastor Jim Evans and the late Tom Corts, President at Samford.
When and how do their ideals filter down to the deacon board at Collinsville Baptist Church; or First Fort Payne and Guntersville or Dawson Memorial for that matter; not to mention their sister social and civic club friends among the Methodists, Presbyterians and Catholics.

Here is the great opinion piece my friend Robert Parham has written.
Study on it. What is wrong with the Tea Parties; and what role can Mark Ingram and Nick Sabah play in showing them the error of their ways?
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15452

Here is the great and deserving story from the LA Times; link with excerpt to follow.
There is truth in the movie the Blind Side; but Parham may speak a bigger truth.

http://xml.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-plaschke5-2010jan05,0,4363215.column
The wrong guy won the Heisman.That's what I thought. That's what I screamed. The bronze man had been mugged by Good Ol' Boy bias, leaving reality rolling in a gravy-lined gutter.
It should have been Toby Gerhart.. The Stanford running back was the best college football player in the country. He was the most dominating running back, the most compelling offensive presence, the biggest creator of moments.

The Heisman went to the wrong man.Then, on Monday morning, I met that man - stocky running back from Alabama. Decent stats, lots of wins, familiar football name, Mark Ingram.During his acceptance speech last month, he was so genuinely surprised and touched, he wept, reportedly the first time in history that a college student has wept in appreciation of anything that wasn't gas money.During later interviews, he openly, painfully talked about his jailed father and, again, when is the last time your college-age son revealed anything that couldn't be explained in a grunt, a sigh or a syllable?He is only a sophomore, but his honesty and grace outstretched that, so I schlepped down to Newport Beach on Monday morning to meet him."I've learned just to be a good man," he said, looking small and thick in a dark, tight-fitting sweat suit. "Treat people like you want to be treated. Be the best man you can be. Better yourself as a person."

He was doing a group interview in advance of Thursday's Bowl Championship Series title game at the Rose Bowl between Alabama and Texas. The questions stalked. But the answers sang.He was asked about his father, former NFL star Mark Ingram, who is in jail for money laundering, bank fraud and failure to surrender."Just the fact I can bring that joy to him is real important to me," he said. He was asked what he misses about his dad, a former wide receiver who played 10 years for four pro teams and won a Super Bowl ring with the New York Giants. He said he talks to his father several times a week on the phone, when his father calls him collect, but it is obviously not the same.

"Him just not being there," Ingram said softy. "Not playing around. Not joking around. Him just not being there." He was asked about the failure-to-surrender charge, which resulted from his father's refusal to report to jail last year so he could watch Mark play in the Sugar Bowl against Utah. Just minutes before that game, his father had been arrested in a hotel room in his hometown of Flint,Mich. "It just shows what type of relationship we have, what type of bond we have, that he sacrificed so much for me," he said. "You've got to appreciate that."Ingram answered the tough questions, he answered the silly questions, and he even explained the important questions, such as how he deals with everyone who now greets him in the famous Heisman Trophy pose.

"With older guys, it's kind of funny seeing them do it," he said. "I've seen girls do it, little kids do it, grown men do it, some people put up the wrong leg . . . people put up two wrong legs, the wrong arm."He smiled. "I help them out," he said with a laugh.
I could imagine him doing that in some airport lounge or mall breezeway, showing somebody how Heisman hangs, this unassuming sophomore with the easy grin and humble embrace of the moment. And it was then I realized, you know, it was the closest vote ever, and Gerhart was still deserving, but, hey, the Heisman is in good hands. Or, at least,on a good table.That's the last place Mark Ingram saw his.

"At my mom's house, it was on the kitchen table, on the middle of the kitchen table," he said, smiling. "She said she was going to buy something for it. . . ."So much for the laugh. Now, about those acceptance-speech tears. . . . Ingram said he couldn't remember the last time he cried."Probably, like, when I got a whupping," he said. He said he barely remembers this time, even when he watches video clips of his emotional speech."I just remember [the presenter] reading the card and my heart beating out of my chest," he said. "I'm looking at [the video], I can't believe that happened, I can't believe I was crying. I don't remember it, I was in the moment. It's a feeling you can't really explain."You know what's really cool? His teammates felt it with him.
Nick Saban can preach all he wants about coaching his guys to be robots, but when it comes to supporting Ingram, the Alabama players seem wonderfully human, all of them celebrating the school's first Heisman winner -- amazing, huh? -- as if it were their own."When he won it, my mom and dad were breaking out crying, and I'm not much of a crier, but I was holding my bottom lip," quarterback Greg McElroy said. "To see a guy that grateful, how can you not admire it?" Colin Peek, the Crimson Tide's tight end, couldn't help himself either. "I actually sent him a text message and I was like, 'I don't want to admit this, but I actually shed some tears with you up on that stage,' " Peek said, later adding, "It was almost a shock. It was someone showingsuch raw, genuine emotion that you almost loved the presentation even more because of that feature.

Click on link for rest of Ingram piece

Bama GOP Gube Candidate does Not Believe the WordaGod

2010-01-10T14:00:00.000-08:00
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/01/08/the-bible-and-the-alabama-race-for-governor/

What this means for Nick Saban and the Tide in re Howell Raines easily googled piece on Bear and Wallace at http://www.tnr.com/article/goodbye-the-bear; I'm not sure yet.

What's your preacher's view of the Bible; is it Up to Snuff????

This story with more links is even better. Seems the Piggly Wiggly has endorsed Byrne which may mean the eggs and bananas and milk and blue berry muffins I buy there are not God Fearing food, I don't know.

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/01/gop_gubernatorial_candidate_br_2.html

Will Anybody in Collinsville, Al watch this documentary

2010-01-08T13:23:00.000-08:00
Comes on early in the morning 5 Am Sunday on WAAY out of Huntsville, ABC.

Lot of excuses to forget it can be made, lot of excuses not to tape it.

Good folks there, lot of em who even appreciate the thought of a Pulitzer like Marilyn Robinson

http://www.one-eternal-day.com/2009/12/are-never-at-home.html

But point is my friend Matthew when at UVA once brought a Muslim to Sunday School, woulda been about the year 2000 or so.

Will he and his brothers risk coming in sometime and leading a discussion of this remarkable video.

www.differentbookscommonword.com

And who will watch in Ft. Payne, Fyffe, Guntersville, Bucks Pocket, Dogtown, even Speake where my friend Lucas Black was raised.

Later we can discuss his Film Get Low--see the Trailer--whose concerns I have also entertained as of late.
Kinda similar to that of Preacher McIntyre of Ron Rash's Serena which I have blogged about here if you want to look it up.

Hope all yall are otherwise well and Two Ten is going good for you to date.

It is cold, I give you that; Real Cold

Suttree as Jesus in Barefoot

2010-01-04T13:26:00.000-08:00
Maybe it's the cold weather or hard times or what not but this morning one of my first waking thoughts was about Emil Acuff, my Dad's friend in Knoxville 78-81 and my friend too.
Emil was Roy Acuff's first cousin so heard a lot of East Tennessee stories there; kinda sat me up for what I was to come to know of Knoxville's most famous son, Cormac McCarthy of the Oscars and the Road and No Country for Old Men and you can google the rest.
I was born in Newport. so I knew some of the territory before then, and my Grandfather said he put the first water spigot in Gatlinburg in 1905.
That and a glossy mag story in Blue Ridge about the renovation of the S and W Cafeteria in Knoxville got me thinking about Sutree again and I came across this grand review

http://tomconoboy.blogspot.com/2009/03/suttree-by-cormac-mccarthy.html

I can't add much to it

And if I can find it will link the S and W renovation

I liked the Blue Ridge Story better but couldn't find it. This one is pretty thorough however:

http://www.knoxville.com/news/2009/dec/17/knoxville-one-few-cities-saved-and-restored-their-/