Tag Archive for Alabama

A Prayer for Alabama Legislature: Bless Us With Disaster, Sweet Jesus

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By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – A prayer for the Alabama legislature as it reconvenes in a special session, following another special session that failed to find funding enough to allow the state’s Medicaid services to function at a level keeping the needy alive. Schemes to finance the services with a lottery, or with…

Demonstrations Planned Against Offshore Oil Leases in New Orleans

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EDITOR’S NOTE – For info about a free roundtrip bus on Saturday from Mobile to this demonstration go to the Facebook event page for Gulf Coast Interdependence Day. You can sign up as a volunteer and RSVP to attend and find out details about the bus and other matters. The free bus will leave from…

Sugarcane Jane Plays Windmill Market in Fairhope Alabama

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By Glynn Wilson – FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Upon recently discovering the Windmill Market restaurant and bar in this artsy community on Mobile Bay’s Eastern Shore, I was urged to show up Tuesday night to get a glimpse of and hear the sound of something quite unique: A new dynamic duo out of Alabama by way…

What’s at Stake in the August Special Session?

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By Hank Sanders – MONTGOMERY, Ala. — What will this looming special legislative session bring? Will it bring fiscal solutions for Medicaid? Will it bring solutions for the hemorrhaging General Fund? Will it bring expansion of Medicaid? Will it bring long lurking gambling efforts to a head? Will it bring better or worse public education?…

Black in America: I Am Afraid, but I Summon My Courage

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By Hank Sanders – SELMA, Ala. – Every time I am stopped by law enforcement, I’m afraid. I recently shared this fear with a friend who is White. He said he understood, but it is very hard for most Whites to understand what it is like to be stopped by law enforcement when you are…

A Killing by Police Leaves Mobile on the Brink

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By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Mobile may soon appear on the list that already includes Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and less famous places lately in the news, because their people were slain in the streets by police sworn to serve and protect the community. Or Mobile may miss the list.…

Tropical Storm Colin Soaks Gulf Coast

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A tropical depression forming in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekened has been upgraded to Tropical Storm Colin by the National Hurricane Center, and the National Weather Service has issued a tropical storm warning for Florida’s Gulf Coast. Expected to hit the coast by Monday afternoon, Colin’s outer bands are already drenching parts of…

Eight 100 Million Dollar Ideas for Prison Reform in Alabama

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By Stephen Cooper – Guest Column – Instead of wrapping an $800 million dollar ($1.5 billion over 30 years) albatross around the necks of Alabamians to build four new super-prisons, here are eight $100 million dollar ideas, each of which, I respectfully submit, are more efficient and morally sound ways to tackle Alabama’s prison problems:…

Ashamed to Be From Alabama

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Alabama and the great Paul “Bear” Bryant led the football team to one championship after another, one of the cheers that always made the rounds at games went like this: “It’s great to be…

Everything’s Connected: Alabama Medicaid and You

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Back bone connected to the shoulder bone, 
Shoulder bone connected to the neck bone, 
Neck bone connected to the head bone
, And that’s the way it goes — Dem Bones – By Pippa Abston, MD – You probably recognize that verse — you may have sung this more recent secular version or the original by…

Former Alabama Chief Justice Perry Hooper Dies in Montgomery at 91

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By Glynn Wilson – Perry Oliver Hooper Sr., the “baby daddy” of Nixon’s racist “Dixie Strategy” in Alabama, died Sunday at his home in Montgomery. He was 91. While he is being honored by Republicans all over the state this week, it might also be a time to remember the damage he caused. Hooper is…