More trip planning, thing doing, list checking, check making.
As in the writing of checkmarks next to things on the list. If you’re looking for money, this is not your site. So sorry about that, too.
Received a visit from a former editor of the Crimson today. Nice to see Drew drop by, giving me grief about the state of the Auburn-Florida sporting rivalry and inspiring me about his plans. He’s a sharp guy ready to go out and conquer his corner of the world. (If you need a sports writer, this is the right blog. You should look up Drew.)
We do have the good fortune to enjoy a fine caliber of students in our program, to be sure. They keep us young.
My class today visited the Alabama Media Group, as I might have mentioned elsewhere. It was a chance to seeold friends in a new place, the first time I’ve visited with my former coworkers at al.com since they made the AMG shift last fall. This was the first time I’ve seen them anywhere besides the Martin Biscuit Building in Lakeview.
They are on the north side now, in the Birmingham News building — which is now for sale.
If you’re on the market for a lot of open floorspace in that is less than 10 years old, I know of a deal for you!
Anyway, lovely and talented folks. I always enjoy visiting them. I didn’t get to see everyone today, but I’ll be back for lunch tomorrow. Of course we heard from AMG’s director of community news, Bob Sims:
At one point a student asked him a question and Bob used, almost word-for-word, the same answer I’d offered to this class on Monday about where they should be focusing right now. I love it when a plan comes together.
Anyway the sun was coming in through that light, over the church across the street and stretching out across this open work area and the AMG folks talked about their numbers and marketing and coverage and where they are planning to go in the future. Students asked good questions. It all came off famously. I was happy to see old friends and to see them looking well.
I did get to visit with Brian and Justin — guys I’ve known for almost a decade now — and some of my newer online friends today. We sat in a corner, the three of us, for a time and we made random references to pranks we once pulled one another and talked almost exclusively about how old we are. So it begins.
Things to read: Jeremy Gray, a local crime writer whom I admire, is doing a little bit of historist work. Journalism-history, that’s not a bad way to spend a slow night on the beat. This story reaches all the way back to the 1920s, involves ax murders, assaults on immigrants and interracial couples, truth serums, three death sentences, reprieves, new trials and several enduring mysteries, all nearly vanished from the modern collective memory. The story is a great read, which defies a brief and cogent excerpt, but do give it a look. I’ll just leave you with this from The trials of ‘The Axemen of Birmingham’: Drug-induced confessions lead to winding courtroom drama:
Descendants of some victims still live in the Birmingham area and at least one, Butch Baldone, a downtown tailor for 53 years, said black people were unfairly targeted in the investigation.
Baldone’s grandparents, Charles and Mary Baldone and their daughter, Virginia, then 14, were assaulted in their 10th Avenue North shop on July 13, 1921. All three survived, but refused to identify their attackers.
While the five black people injected with scopolamine reportedly confessed to the crime, Baldone said he believes the attack and “at least 90 percent” of the others were the work of an Italian mafia that was trying to plant roots in Birmingham.
“Black people got along with Italians because they were the only ones who would give them credit. The white man didn’t want their business,” Baldone said.
[…]
“The Baldones found the people who really did it and, to put it simply, they don’t exist anymore,” Butch Baldone said. “That was the closest the mafia ever came to Birmingham.”
Just so pat and perfect.
From Reuters, “Keep your so-called workers,” U.S. boss tells France:
The CEO of a U.S. tire company has delivered a crushing summary of how some outsiders view France’s work ethic in a letter saying he would have to be stupid to take over a factory whose staff only put in three hours work a day.
Titan International’s Maurice “Morry” Taylor, who goes by “The Grizz” for his bear-like no-nonsense style, told France’s left-wing industry minister in a letter published by Paris media that he had no interest in buying a doomed plant.
“The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three,” Taylor wrote on February 8 in the letter in English addressed to the minister, Arnaud Montebourg.
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S- … what’s that?
“Titan is going to buy a Chinese tire company or an Indian one, pay less than one Euro per hour wage and ship all the tires France needs,” he said. “You can keep the so-called workers.”
Oh, right, the American way.
Finally, some people in higher education have been writing about social media, lately, if you’re interested.
Tomorrow: Road trip.
