TweetHere’s what we have for you at the end of the week: Stocks End Week With New Losses Worldwide (NYT) — In New York, the losses were related to the decision by HP to get out of the PC business, leaving Dell as the only U.S. maker, according to “cousin” Ben Worthen. Deadly raid on […]
TweetWhen we worked together at The State, Chris Roberts used to bring me a jelly doughnut every Aug. 16 in honor of the King. He’s not in a position to do that now — he’s in Alabama — but he did show he was thinking of me by sending this: He went on to say […]
Tweet I’m going through some old boxes of stuff, and ran across a wallet I carried in my college days. I scanned for you three of the items I found in it. The first, above, shows what I paid for a semester at Memphis State University on Jan. 14, 1974. As you can see, the […]
TweetI’m at Barnes & Noble, engaged in my favorite leisure activity of getting a cup of coffee and wandering among the books and maybe blogging a bit. And moments ago I got a text from my wife. She is out of town, has been for several days. She’s somewhere in the Ozarks having a reunion […]
TweetThe last couple of days, I’ve been getting compliments about my performance on Michael Feldman’s “Whad’Ya Know?” over the weekend — two or three people at Rotary yesterday mentioned it, and I just got a Facebook message from Bill Day in Memphis. Thing is, that was a rerun — from April 2009. This is the […]
Tweet Boyd Summers, chairman of Richland County’s Democrats, got even with me for posting his picture Tuesday by sending this one out via Twitter yesterday. In the pic, taken at the “Reinstate Darla Moore” rally at the State House, I’m going, “Where are all the protesters?” Maybe there will be a bigger crowd when Darla […]
Tweet All right, so it wasn’t properly a leader, but a column. I just wanted to add some British idiom to my allusion… Thought y’all might be interested in this item in The Guardian today (over breakfast at our B&B in Oxford, my wife was reading The Times and I had The Guardian — which […]
TweetToday, my friend Kevin Dietrich brought this obit to my attention: Mr. John M. Parish, age 87, retired newsman and former press secretary to Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, died December 10, 2010…. I had not read it, but I must have received a telepathic message of some sort. Because one day this past week, for […]
Tweet A piece I read in the WSJ this morning reminded me of a picture I shot with my phone while at a stoplight in Birmingham Friday. The story was about candidates with unusual names, such as Young Boozer, Krystal Ball and Isaac Hayes: It might come as no surprise in these tumultuous times that […]
Tweet Once the clan had wandered back, in our several vehicles (12 of us, 3 vehicles), from Memphis after the big wedding weekend was over, my eldest texted me to ask: Know anything about that sign in my yard? To which I replied, in all innocence: No, not that I recall. Note that I did […]
TweetYesterday, driving back from Memphis where we had gone for a wedding, I came close to throwing the Blackberry out the window somewhere near Birmingham. When I get an e-mail on the Blackberry, it buzzes twice. When I get a phone call, it also buzzes twice, before ringing. So whenever I get two vibrations, I […]
TweetFolks, I’m a bit out of pocket — I’m in Memphis for a wedding, and my Internet access where I’m staying is limited (I may stop by a Starbucks later) — but to give y’all a little something to chew on, I share this email from a reader: What did you think about Juan Williams […]
Tweet I’m posting this especially for my cartoonist friends, especially Robert Ariail and Richard Crowson — both laid off from their newspapers. Like me. And like Bill Day. As you know, since being laid off, Robert Ariail has been judged (again) the best cartoonist in the world. Several years after winning the Overseas Press Club […]
TweetYou know that press conference that they had at the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce Thursday to support the sales tax referendum for transportation Thursday? I was there, and not as a blogger. I mean, I’m always a blogger — here I am writing about it — but that’s not why I was there. I […]
TweetJust to remind you that all the cool kids are following me on Twitter, just in case you still are not. I mentioned last week that I thought I’d reach the goal of 700 followers by the end of the week, and I did. I’m now at 711, which of course puts me in mind […]
TweetDoug T., back on this thread, kindly brings our attention to a piece by Walter Shapiro on Politics Daily headlined “Nikki Haley and Rand Paul Races: Where Have All the Reporters Gone?” An excerpt: On the cusp of her historic landslide victory in the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary, Nikki Haley swooped into Hartsville last Saturday […]
TweetThat’s my latest theory to explain the victory of Alvin Greene in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. They thought he was Al Green. (Never mind that this is South Carolina and Al’s from Memphis; just indulge me for a moment — I’m on a roll here.) And if that’s what those voters were thinking, […]
TweetRemember when I told you about Bill Day in Memphis, the cartoonist who was laid off (by The Commercial Appeal) the same week that Robert Ariail and I were? And remember how Robert, after being laid off, became the first American to win a major international award for his cartoons? Well, now Bill’s added further […]
Tweet As I’ve mentioned before (in a fairly well-written if I do say so, but little engaged, post), “Hoosiers” resides at the very top of my Top Five Best Sports Movies Ever. And tonight, we get to watch a real-life evocation of that epic: INDIANAPOLIS — You can’t get away from “Hoosiers” out here. If […]
Tweet “Change is good,” says Kevin Fisher, and he says it consistently. It was the theme of his run for mayor four years ago, and he says it with greater enthusiasm now that Columbia is on the verge of historic turnover on city council. With the incumbent mayor leaving after 20 years, the forced retirement […]