The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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The National Cherry Blossom Festival is held annually in Washington D. C. to celebrate the Japanese cherry trees that were given to Washington D.C. by Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo City on March 27th, 1912. The trees were a symbolic gift to enhance the friendship between the United States and Japan. And the festival is held annually to try and coincide with the peak blossom times of the cherry trees. The National Cherry Blossom Festival features a parade, fireworks, concerts, and special exhibits...
This year marks the 70th anniversary of "White Christmas", the movie musical based on Irving Berlin's classic popular Christmas melody of the same name. And in the spirit of the Christmas season, many movie theaters are offering showings of the 1954 film on the big screen on December 15th, 16th, and 17th. Being a post-World War II musical, the plot centers around two soldiers portrayed by Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye who became a song and dance duo after the war's end. After an old army buddy...
Estimates state that there are 546 million listeners to podcasts worldwide. With there being over six million podcasts in the world. And that in the US, 47% of the population twelve and up listen to a podcast at least once a month. In an effort to reach some of the listeners in this popular digital audio file market, the Moody Bible Institute has developed a faith filled audio drama aimed at kids ages 8 to 13 in their podcast, "The Honeycomb Chronicles". With the purpose of "The Honeycomb...
December 18, 2024 - CENTREVILLE, AL - Donning a stylish red velveteen suit jacket, Mayor Mike Oakley of Centreville rushed from his city council meeting on Tuesday, December 17th, 2024 to join The Studio in their annual Christmas piano recital at the Four Points Baptist Church. As Mayor Oakley explained to those in attendance, when he was a young lad, there was a phenomenal piano teacher in the area named Miss Ruby who lived on Antioch Road. She would even go to people's houses to teach piano....
The Twelve Days of Christmas are from Christmas until Epiphany on January 06th. Therefore, we are still in the midst of the Christmas Season. However, for those wanting to celebrate the arrival of the New Year in-between Christmas and Epiphany, The Alabama Symphony Orchestra is holding their annual New Year's Eve concert entitled "A Viennese Celebration!" on December 31st, 2024 at 6PM in the Jemison Concert Hall of the Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham, Alabama. Modeled after the New Year's...
Eating out at restaurants is fun and convenient, but on New Year’s Day, don’t forget to eat your black-eyed peas. As tradition holds, if you eat cornbread on New Year’s Day, the cornbread will bring golden opportunities in the new year. If you eat collard greens on New Year’s Day with your black eyed peas, money will abound. If you eat the black-eyed peas with stewed tomatoes, the tomatoes will grant one good health in the New Year. And the black-eyed peas themselves, signify good luck and goo...
January 3, 2025 - For those who have tired of wading through the endless rows of mindless subpar "B" type movies that flood the streaming opportunities on Netflix, "I Can Only Imagine" is now streaming on Great American Pure Flix. Directed by the Erwin brothers, who are originally from Birmingham, Alabama, "I Can Only Imagine" is a biopic about the relationship between the lead singer of the American contemporary Christian music band, MercyMe, and his abusive father. Although rated PG, "I Can...
Fans of Jane Austen's incredibly insightful novels will readily reread every one of her six famous novels for perpetuity. However, another author who finds favor with many fans of Jane Austen is Elizabeth Gaskell. With Gaskell also being the daughter of a minister like Jane Austen was the daughter of a clergyman. And one of Elizabeth Gaskell's most seminal works is "North and South". While the title of "North and South" may evoke images of Patrick Swayze in the 1980s miniseries set before,...
January 5, 2025 - When Miss Alabama Teen, Ali Mims, was named the first-runner up in Miss Teen America 2025 on Saturday, January 04th, 2025 in Orlando, Florida it seemed like a portend of good things to come for the state known as "Alabama, the Beautiful". And, indeed it was, as the 22-year old Abbie Stockard, the reigning Miss Alabama, was crowned Miss America 2025 the very next day at the Walt Disney Theatre in Orlando, Florida. Making Miss Stockard the fourth Miss Alabama to be crowned the co...
The popular PBS Masterpiece Mystery series, "Miss Scarlet and the Duke" has returned for its fifth season rebranded as "Miss Scarlet". This is due to the exit of the Scottish leading actor, Stuart Martin, who portrayed the title role of Inspector Wellington, known as "the Duke". While Stuart Martin has left open the possibility of his return to the series at a later date, in "Miss Scarlet" a new inspector for Scotland Yard is introduced in the series, Inspector Alexander Blake, who is portrayed...
Absolutism versus relativism is the subject of the 2025 The Great American Think Off 750-words essay contest. As the question posed for this year's contest is "Is there only one truth, or are there many truths?" Those who submit an essay are not allowed to take a middle ground and must take one side or the other. With the deadline for submitting this year's essay being on April 01st, 2025. The Great American Think-Off essay contest is an annual exhibition of civil disagreement between powerful i...
For those who like to combine an interest in history with the theater, the 2025 auditions for the delightful revolutionary war era drama, "Horn In The West", that is held annually in Boone, North Carolina have been announced. The in-person live auditions will be held on January 25th, 2025 at a location to be announced. And aspiring actors can send in their virtual auditions to horninthewesthickoryridge@gmail.com. For the virtual auditions, actors are encouraged to send a recent photo taken in a...
NBC has announced that their virtual open call auditions for "The Voice" will be held on Thursday, January 233rd, 2025 and Friday, January 24th, 2025. "The Voice" is NBC's singing reality competition television series that first premiered on April 26th, 2011. Hosted by Carson Daly, "The Voice" aims to find unsigned singing talent drawn from the public with the requirement that singers be at least 13 years of age to enter. For the virtual open call auditions, singers will be granted one-minute...
The Cahaba Theatre Group's second readers theatre play for their 2025 season will feature "Booth" - The Story of the Lincoln Conspiracy which will be performed on Sunday, February 09th, 2025 at the Clubhouse on Highland at 2:30PM. The auditions for the play will be held this Saturday, January 18th, 2025 at the RentMonster located at 1121 18th Street South, Birmingham, AL from one o'clock in the afternoon until four o'clock in the afternoon. Auditionees are encouraged to bring a headshot and...
January 16, 2025 - NORTHPORT, AL - Canadian born actor, Ryan Reynolds, stars in Mint Mobile's "Explicitly Premium Wireless" advertisement. An advertisement that is in many ways simplistic by modern advertising standards. As it basically features Ryan Reynolds doing nothing but standing in place in front of a green background with "Mint mobile" featured behind him in white letters. However, as the title of the advertisement suggests, it is explicit. And the commercial features Ryan Reynolds using...
January 17, 2025 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - The swearing in ceremony for President Trump is set to take place on Monday, January 20th, 2025 at 11:00 AM Central Time. It will be President Trump's second inauguration. And since Monday coincides with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, it will make Trump the third president to take the oath of office on the federal holiday honoring the late civil rights leader. With the other two presidents being Bill Clinton in 1997 and Barack Obama in 2013. Trump's...
January 21, 2025 - If one's pitching arm needs a rest and is feeling sore, one can take up the pen instead and enter The National Baseball Poetry Festival which is now accepting poetry submissions about America's favorite pastime for the 2025 festival which takes place at Polar Park in Worcester, Massachusetts from May 02nd through May 04th. Polar Park is the home of the Worcester Red Sox, an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. And the National Baseball Poetry Festival is a celebration of poetry on...
January 21, 2025 - The star of the movie, "Braveheart" and the director of "The Passion of the Christ" and "Hacksaw Ridge", Mel Gibson is known for not appearing on podcasts. However, when tenaciously approached by the Erwin Brothers, the faith based film producers who are originally from Alabama, Mel Gibson relented and agreed to appear for the finale of Season 2 of "The Storytellers" podcast with Andrew Erwin. A project of the Kingdom Story Company, "The Storytellers" is an ad driven podcast...
While many people are struggling to keep their heads up at work today after staying up late in the evening watching the election returns, due to the demand for tickets, it is not too early to start looking into requesting tickets to attend the second inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of The United States. The swearing-in ceremony will take place on Monday, January 20th, 2025 on the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. at twelve PM Eastern time. The...
November 12, 2024 - The story of George Washington Carver, an inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, is inextricably linked with Alabama. As being one of the most prominent African-American scientists of the early 20th Century, he was invited by Booker T. Washington to be the head of the Agriculture Department of Tuskegee University in 1896. And George Washington Carver taught at Tuskegee University in Alabama for forty-seven years. Known for his innovations in crop rotation and...
Entries are now being accepted for the 19th Annual Vicksburg Christmas Caroling Contest hosted by V105.5FM. While finalists will compete live at the Vicksburg Convention Center on December 12th, the preliminary entries are to be e-mailed via video to Christmas@vicksburgv105.com. There is no charge for the preliminary entries and the deadline to enter the Christmas Caroling Contest is on December 03rd, 2024 by five o'clock in the afternoon. This year, the Christmas Caroling Contest features...
Based on actual historical events, "I Heard The Bells" is an excellent movie about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's inspiration to write the poem that would become the Classic Christmas Carol, "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day". An independent production, the very well done feature film was released in movie theaters across the USA in December of 2022, making it the first ever theatrical release of a feature film production for the "Sight & Sound" ministries. A ministry that focuses on faith...
November 20, 2024 - A Taste of Ireland, the Irish Music and Dance show that has captivated audiences in New York during its Off-Broadway Season is bringing its "A Celtic Christmas" show to Alabama this December as part of its Southern US Tour. Currently, performances of "A Celtic Christmas" are planned for Sunday, December 08th, 2024 in Tuscaloosa at The Historic Bama Theatre at four o'clock in the afternoon, Monday December 09th, 2024 in Birmingham at the Alabama Theatre at seven-thirty in the...
November 22, 2024 - Gore galore is the overriding aspect of "Gladiator II" which is now showing in movie theaters nationwide. A long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" which was released twenty-four years ago, "Gladiator II" makes heavy use of themes typically featured in male-oriented movies such as revenge, filling the little-known late father's shoes, and honor through fighting. While those topics can sound interesting in and of themselves, in "Gladiator II" these themes are...
November 22,2024 - The stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' Christmas classic, "A Christmas Carol" opens this weekend at The Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Based on the novella by Charles Dickens, who had a deep interest in Christmas, "A Christmas Carol" relates the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, who is a penny-pinching miser, yet becomes transformed into a benevolent and friendly man after being visiting by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet To come. Considered an allegory of Christian...
