The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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With it being a presidential election year and an election for one of our United States Senate Seats and all of the interest that goes along with those high-profile contests, it has gone under the radar that most of our cities in the state had elections for mayor and city council last month. Mayors serve four-year terms and to most Alabamians they are the most important vote they will cast this year. The job of mayor of a city is a difficult and intricate fulltime, 24 hours a day dedication to...
Political discord. Civil unrest. Violence in the streets. Toxic division. Ugly accusations. Harmful words. In the minds of many, these words define the state of our wonderful country right now! The lack of respect and civility in our country in recent months and years is very alarming and downright scary to me! It is a red flag waving in the wind for us as Americans, and we should tread very carefully in determining how we as a people in these great United States Of America will personally...
Labor Day is upcoming on Monday. In bygone days it was the benchmark day for campaign season to start. Historically, Labor Day barbeques were events where political campaigns had their roots. Camp stew and barbequed pork were devoured while folks listened to politicians promise how they were going to bring home the pork. The most legendary political Labor Day Barbeques have been held in the Northwest corner of the state. There were two monumental, legendary, barbeque events in that neck of the w...
This COVID-19 crisis has revealed a great many things about us. You have probably learned a lot about yourself in the last six months, right? Crisis does that to you. Crisis isn’t just an accelerator, it’s a revealer showing you some surprising things about yourself - some good,some not so good. Since COVID struck in mid-March, many of us have seen more than a few habits, wants and preferences revealed. It may be wise to take stock in what we have learned so far. You never know how much you lov...
How Has Coronavirus Affected Alabama Politics? As we end the first half of 2020, there is no doubt that the Coronavirus is the story of the year. The Coronavirus saga of 2020 and its devastation of the nation’s and state’s economic well-being may be the story of the decade. How has the Coronavirus affected Alabama politics? The answer is negligibly, if at all. The Republican Primary runoff to hold the Junior U.S. Senate seat was postponed by the virus epidemic. It is set for July 14, which is ri...
Mastering our mouths, taming our tongues, watching our words is one of the toughest things to do! We use words all the time, not only in our conversations but also in our emails, texts, social media, blogs, posts and tweets. We are a nation of talkers! “Self-control means controlling the tongue!” – Proverbs 13:3 Another way to put it: He who guards his mouth controls himself. The Book of James has this to say about the tongue: “...but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, f...
As we end the first half of 2020, there is no doubt that the Coronavirus is the story of the year. The Coronavirus saga of 2020 and its devastation of the nation’s and state’s economic well-being may be the story of the decade. How has the Coronavirus affected Alabama politics? The answer is negligibly, if at all. The Republican Primary runoff to hold the Junior U.S. Senate seat was postponed by the virus epidemic. It is set for July 14, which is right around the corner. The race between Tommy T...
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated the following truth: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter most.” In the midst of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, my family lived in Mobile, Ala. where my Dad was serving as the Senior Pastor at St. Marks United Methodist Church. The black leaders of the Civil Rights movement in Mobile requested to hold a peaceful rally and a march in support of voting rights and other issues of equality. The Mayor of Mobile, Geo...
Another legislation session has passed, and Alabama still has no lottery. Actually, the legislature does not in itself have the authority to pass a state lottery, they can only authorize a ballot initiative to let you vote on a lottery. It takes a constitutional amendment. The lottery would pass in a vote in Alabama simply because Alabamians are tired of their money going out of state to Georgia, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee. All our surrounding Southern sister states have lotteries and...
The Secret 4 C’s of Success Three military recruiters accepted an invitation to speak to the Senior Class of a local high school. It was agreed that each recruiter would take fifteen minutes to make his pitch. The army recruiter went first, but he spoke for more than twenty minutes. The navy recruiter also spoke for twenty minutes. The Marine Corps recruiter, realizing that his fifteen-minute speech had now been cut to about two minutes, walked to the podium and spent the first sixty seconds in...
Budget is Priority Number One for Legislative Session. The Governor Proposes and the Legislature Disposes – However, Kay Ivey has Input The 2020 Regular Legislative Session has resumed after a six-week hiatus due to the Coronavirus shutdown of the state and nation. The session must end by May 18, 2020. The only thing they will do is pass barebones budgets. The most important and actually the only constitutionally mandated act that must be accomplished is the passage of the state budgets. In our...
In 1988, Bobby McFerrin released this famous song, which is still enjoyed by millions around the world as a light hearted, fun, happy song! In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, maybe some would think it a bit shallow. But I would say there is some great truth backing up the song. In fact, Jesus had some very pointed things to say about worry and teaches us that worry is a waste of time. Every time that song, Don’t Worry Be Happy, comes to my mind, I think of what Jesus had to say about w...
I'm not sure how you and Marie labeled any carryovers to other pages/sections ... ------------------------- A message of encouragement from Lester and Janeese Spencer As Christians, because of Easter and the Resurrection, we are people of faith! Through the resurrected Christ, God has given us His Spirit of power, love and self-discipline! “God has not given us a spirit of fear or timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline.” Paul, 2 Timothy 1:7 With the onslaught of information being rel...
The GOP contest for who sits in our number two U.S. Senate seat has been delayed until July 14, 2020 due to the coronavirus. The winner of the battle between Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville will more than likely be our junior US. Senator for six years. Neither are spring chickens. Sessions will be 74 and Tuberville will be 66, when the winner takes office. This is not the optimum age to be a freshman U.S. Senator because seniority equates to superiority in the U.S. Senate. Given their age of...
Our 1901 Alabama Constitution has been rightfully criticized as being archaic. However, it was simply a reflection of the times. The authors and crafters of our document were well educated gentry. Therefore they appreciated and realized the importance of having a prized capstone university. The University of Alabama was founded in 1831 and had become one of the premier southern universities by the time of the Civil War. It was not by coincidence that one of the primary missions of the northern U...
Alcatraz Island sits in the middle of San Francisco Bay, surrounded by almost two miles of turbulent and treacherous water. For nearly one hundred years, the island housed a prison, and the place earned the nickname “The Rock” because it was inescapable. Constructed as a United States Army fortress in the 1850s, the twenty-two-acre island became an Army prison during the Civil War. In 1933, Alcatraz was turned over to the Department of Justice to be used as a federal penitentiary, and dur...
The 2020 Legislative Session began this week. It will be an interesting three and a-half months. There are a myriad of important issues that legislators have to address this year, as always. However, standing in the way of substantive state issues each year is the necessity to address local bills. Our 1901 Constitution is archaic in many aspects. One of which is that those men who drafted the act were reluctant to give home rule to local counties for various reasons. Therefore, county...
The first district Congressional race is probably the best race in the state in this year’s March 3rd Primary. The winner of the March 31st GOP Primary runoff will go to Congress. The famous first district is a Republican congressional seat and has been since Jack Edwards won the seat in the Southern Goldwater landslide in 1964. The bulk of the district population is in the two county gulf coast counties of Baldwin and Mobile. It being the only gulf coast district in the state, they do have s...
Several years ago, I went scuba diving with my sons. Although it was not the first time we’d dived together, and it certainly would not be the last, this particular trip was special, because it was the trip in which Joshua, my younger son, earned his certification as a scuba diver. His older brother, Harden, and I were already certified, and we accompanied Josh on one of his first open-water dives, which are part of the certification process. On this particular open-water dive, we were in the Ba...
As the new year begins, so does a Presidential election year. For several decades, in fact for most of the twentieth century, Alabamians were more interested in state and local politics than presidential politics. In fact, from 1901 through the 1950’s there were more people voting in a Democratic Primary for Governor than in a presidential General Election. The interest in national politics is a fairly new occurrence for Alabamians, and it seems to have been in correlation to the party change i...
I read about an enlisted soldier who was walking along a Bavarian road. World War I was over. Germany was defeated and devastated. The land around him was scorched by the destruction of war. This little fellow decided to end it all. With the Fatherland finished, what was the point of living? He came to a river, and he looked over a bridge railing to the icy waters down below. He decided to jump. He looked around again, and saw people aimlessly wandering about trying to find what was left of...
We are less than three months away from the election for our number two U.S. Senate Seat. The winner of the Republican Primary on March 3, 2020 will be our next U.S. Senator. Winning the GOP Primary for any statewide office in a presidential year is tantamount to election in the Heart of Dixie. Jeff Sessions is the prohibitive favorite to win back his seat he held for 20 years. He probably regretted from day one leaving a safe U.S. Senate Seat with 20 years of seniority and four-years left on...
By Brian Grossman Food Plots are Typically Small Most deer hunters don’t have the time or resources to plant more than a few acres of food plots every year. And while even a small plot can serve as a place to ambush a deer, it won’t improve the overall health of your deer herd. Even if 10 percent of your overall acreage is planted to food plots, if that’s all you’re focused on, then 90 percent of your property is likely not reaching its full potential. Food Plots are Expensive to Plant and Mai...
I really need Christmas this year! Let’s face it! There is a lot of division and mistrust in our culture, in our communities and in our country right now. On the political front, we are so divided! More divided than I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. We negatively label each other as Democrats, Republicans, Socialists or Libertarians. We are stereotyped as liberals or conservatives or moderates. It seems we have a hard time having civil conversations about things that matter deeply to us. T...
Recently an organization was formed with the name, “Poarch Creek Accountability Now.” This nonprofit group is headed by former 40-year veteran State Senator Gerald Dial, who retired from the Alabama Senate in 2018. The stated goal of this nonprofit group is to spread the true and accurate information about the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and their gaming revenue and expenditures. Dial says it is time to point out the unfairness of their operation. “They make billions upon billions in this...
