The daily news update "Down in Alabama" is available for your Alexa flash briefing or as a downloadable podcast on iTunes and other platforms (see the bottom of this post). Much of the following is excerpted from that show, and short episodes are embedded throughout this post.
A breath of fresh air:
All that New Yorker crap -- which does stink, by the way, even if some of them think it doesn't -- is no longer stinking up an Alabama neighborhood.
The poop train pulled out of Parrish, Ala., this week after the containers full of biosolids of treated human excrement had sat on the tracks since February, waiting to be taken to the Big Sky Environmental landfill in Adamsville.
Heather Hall, the Parrish mayor, announced that the last of the sludge had been taken to the landfill. "I have wonderful news," Hall wrote on Facebook. "Big Sky has ended their operation in Parrish."
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection, realizing New York couldn't just send a load, strike a match and walk away, said last month that it wouldn't send any more of the biosolids down here after area residents had raised such a stink about the stink.
Living long enough to die:
It takes so long to execute someone that a decent number of death-row inmates die before they face justice. That wasn't the case for Walter Leroy Moody, who was 83 years old when he was executed this week.
It's believed Moody was the oldest person to be executed since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in the 1970s.
Way, way beyond this week:
The Alabama-Notre Dame football rivalry is back for a pair of home-and-home dates, and if you're no spring chicken you'd better take care of yourself so that you'll be around to see them.
The two storied programs will meet in 2028 in South Bend, Ind., and then in 2029 in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
I dare somebody to ask Nick Saban whether he's heard an early line on those games.
Word that sounds like a made-up word of the week:
There were no confirmed tornadoes during last weekend's severe-weather worries, although there was damage up on Lake Guntersville.
The National Weather Service determined that it wasn't a tornado that did the damage. Nor was it a microburst, or straight-line winds.
It was a GUSTNADO.
I swear that isn't fake news.
Gustnadoes can spin up in gust fronts ahead of a storm. They may make a spinning dust cloud, but they don't have a funnel that goes up and attaches to a thunderstorm.
The most PETA thing that PETA did this week:
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals isn't crazy about a company bringing horse-drawn carriages to Birmingham.
The group is crying horse exploitation.
"Birmingham's city council should never allow any business that would force skittish horses to haul heavy carriages on chaotic city streets day in and day out," a statement from PETA said.
The city council has already approved permits for the business. Mayor Randall Woofin has yet to say yea or neigh.
The lonely lectern:
All but one of the Republican candidates for governor met in Birmingham Wednesday night for a debate sponsored by Reckon by AL.com.
The missing candidate, Gov. Kay Ivey, was at a dinner for the Alabama Gulf Coast Recovery Council in Mobile and now has missed both primary debates.
But she was there in name -- on a fourth, darkened lectern on stage that some debate planner put there in case she showed up (or maybe just for effect?).
The shame was that nobody came in and talked to it, like Clint Eastwood did with that empty Obama chair.
If curling is too mainstream for you:
The World Games are coming to Birmingham in the year 2021, and organizers released their list of events this week.
If you have any idea what these sports are, then you are way ahead of us:
- DanceSport
- Canoe polo
- Korfball
- Finswimming
Quote of the week:
"I told Jalen, you (expletive)ed up, you opened the door and put yourself in this situation."
-- Averion Hurts, father of Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts, to Bleacher Report during an interview in which he said that if his son doesn't keep his starting job he would "be the biggest free agent in college football history."
This week's excuse to feel superior to Mississippi:
The National Institute for Early Education Research released its annual report on the quality of state-funded early childhood education programs around the country.
Alabama was named the state that provided the highest quality state-funded pre-kindergarten program in the entire United States of America.
As they like to say in Lanett this year, we beat 'em all.
For the 12th year in a row.
Best call of the week
Of course it's the decision by the committee that awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary to AL.com columnist John Archibald.
That accomplishment is so huge that just being in the vicinity of such a thing has had John's coworkers buzzing all week.
Everyone genuinely shared in the joy not only because they admire and respect John's work (they do) and that it brings positive attention to the company (it does), but also because he's just a decent, likable dude.
To quote a staffer: "This is awesome. Wouldn't it have been awful if some bastard had won it and we had to pretend to be happy?"
Down in Alabama
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