Magic City Brewfest: Renewed excitement in 7th year with passage of Alabama’s Homebrew Law

Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!
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Moylan’s Kilt Lifter is poured during the 2013 Magic City Brewfest, Friday, May 31, 2013. (Tamika Moore | tmoore@al.com)

Cheers to beers: Alabama raises a glass to home-brew, Brewfest and craft breweries

(Gallery by Tamika Moore | tmoore@al.com)

By Kathryn Tuggle | ktuggle@al.com
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on June 02, 2013 at 8:56 AM, updated June 02, 2013 at 9:39 AM

This weekend Birmingham played host to a sold-out Magic City Brewfest at Sloss Furnace, featuring more than 200 different beers from more than 70 craft brew­eries around the nation. Although 2013 marked the seventh annual Brewfest, it was the first since home­brew became legal in Alabama, thanks to legislation passed in May.

Because home-brewers in Alabama can now share recipes and bond over their successes and struggles, Brewfest has a renewed “electricity” in the air, said Gabe Harris, president of Free the Hops, the grassroots non­profit that worked to help pass the home­brew bill.

“It feels great to have home-brew legal in Alabama,” Harris said. “Every craft brewer at Brewfest started out as a home-brewer, and everyone is really excited to be here this year.”

Because craft brewers across the state feel passionately about spreading the home­brew “gospel,” the Home-brew Association set up a tent at Brewfest specifically to edu­cate people about the brewing process.

“We’ve had tons of peo­ple at the tent asking some really intelligent questions,” Harris said.

Spencer Overton, home­brew manager at Birming­ham brewery and bar Hop City, said Birmingham is now on the “cutting edge” of craft beer.

Former Alabama business owner convicted of defraduing employees & federal government

Greed, avarice, theft… they’re all related to each other.

It begs the question, however, and that question is:

“How much is enough?”

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Former CEO of bankrupt Adams Produce Co. enters plea agreement to fraud and other charges

By Kent Faulk | kfaulk@al.com
on January 29, 2013 at 4:43 PM, updated January 29, 2013 at 5:19 PM

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Scott David Grinstead, former chief executive officer of Adams Produce Company, today was charged with fraud against the now bankrupt company, failure to report a felony against the government, and failure to file federal income tax returns, federal authorities announced.

Grinstead, 45, who also today entered a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, is the second Adams Produce employee to be charged in a criminal probe of the long-time Birmingham-based company, which shut down after declaring bankruptcy last year.

Adams Produce was founded in 1903 by Edwin Calvin Adams. The Adams family sold the company to executives and a private equity firm in 2010.

Grinstead, under the terms of his plea agreement, is to pay $450,000 in restitution to the bankruptcy estate of Adams Produce for the benefit of the company’s employees who were not fully paid because of Adams’ abrupt closing and its filing for bankruptcy last year, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard D. Schwein Jr. and IRS Criminal Investigation Division Acting Special Agent in Charge Veronica Hyman-Pillot.

“This case involves the chief executive officer of a company who

Reasoned Debate: Our Second Amendment Rights & Preventing Firearm Violence

Alabama State House GOP “Dare Defend Our Rights” gun logo, from the FaceBook page of Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn

Recently in another Social Media forum, a long-time friend had posted a link to a site operated for the Alabama State House GOP faction, which is a so-called “supermajority” in that state’s elected legislative body. That site may be found here:
http://ALHouseGOP.com/WeDareDefend/
.

Perceiving that that those political ideologues were very likely drumming up support for their positions based upon pure emotion and fear, rather than reasoned, rational and informed debate, I initially responded by quickly writing a somewhat sarcastic response, precisely worded to give pause for thought. My initial response elicited a query, to which I delightfully replied more eruditely.

The exchange as it exists presently, now follows.

• Me: Yeah. Alabama was wrong on their right to segregation and their right to deny civil rights, too.

• My friend: So, do you support the

The Birmingham News knew of plot to assassinate Fred Shuttlesworth

The things we continue to learn about the explicit wickedness and evil of that era continues to plague the South, and the nation at large… particularly those who pander to it in the Republican party. And GOP party officials wonder why they continue to lose elections. Perhaps they should get a clue.

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Good and Evil in Birmingham

January 20, 2013

By DIANE McWHORTER

FIFTY years ago, Birmingham, Ala., provided the enduring iconography of the civil rights era, testing the mettle of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so dramatically that he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

During his protest there in May 1963, the biblical spectacle of black children facing down Public Safety Commissioner Eugene (Bull) Connor’s fire hoses and police dogs set the stage for King’s Sermon on the Mount some four months later at the Lincoln Memorial. And the civil rights movement’s “Year of Birmingham” passed into history as an epic narrative of good versus evil.

Our understanding of the “good” has expanded beyond the lone-dreamer theory to embrace other activists, like King’s partner in Birmingham, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Yet the evil segregationist archetype is fixed in the popular mind as the villainous housewife of “The Help” or the cretinous mob of “Django Unchained” — nobody we’d ever know, or certainly ever be.

But the disquieting reality is that the conflict was between not good and evil, but good and normal. The brute racism that today seems like mass social insanity was a “way of life” practiced by ordinary “good” people.

According to the Southern community’s consensus of “normal,” those fighting for rights now considered mainstream were “extremists,” and public servants could rationalize plans to murder men like Shuttlesworth, confident that they were on the right side of history.

Consider new evidence about a plan by Connor to have Shuttlesworth assassinated. Under Connor’s orders, Detective Tom Cook

Birmingham, Alabama hospital seeks permanent patient relocation

For those unaware, Cooper Green Mercy Hospital is a publicly-run hospital licensed to Jefferson County under the name “Jefferson Health System.” Recently, Jefferson County filed bankruptcy in what would have been very nearly the largest municipal bankruptcy filing, resulting from massive fraud perpetrated by former Mayor Larry Langford (popularly known as “LaLa”), and other members of the Jefferson County Commission, which is the elected ruling board overseeing  governance of county entities, including Cooper Green Mercy Hospital & Jefferson Health Systems.

Since 2005, CGMH has experienced a 27.8% decline in patient discharges, which is a measure of how many people are being admitted to the hospital.

As well, in response to numerous ongoing management problems, in 2012, from January to November, the number of Full Time Employees declined 27.27%. And as the hospital seeks to ameliorate the hemorrhaging, the hospital is moving away from Acute Care, and toward Primary and Urgent Care.

Toward that objective, the hospital voluntarily surrendered Cooper Green Mercy’s acute care hospital license to the state. And, in the course of their operations in the midst of this crisis, CGMH moved toward a system in which fees are based upon family size and income.

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Cooper Green inmate patients now being taken to Brookwood Medical Center, county officials say

By Barnett Wright | bwright@al.com
January 02, 2013 at 4:53 PM, updated January 02, 2013 at 5:05 PM

BIRMINGAM, Alabama — Inmates at the Jefferson County jail who need hospitalization will be taken temporarily to Brookwood Medical Center, now that Cooper Green Mercy Hospital is not accepting patients, county officials said today.

On Tuesday, Cooper Green officially became an urgent care facility, closing its emergency room and shutting down its inpatient care unit. That means patients – including inmates normally were hospitalized at Cooper Green — will be placed at other medical facilities.

“A permanent contract is being negotiated with an area hospital,” said Jefferson County Sheriff‘s Chief Deputy Randy Christian, “in the interim we are using Brookwood hospital for inmate’s requiring a hospital visit. We aren’t anticipating any problems going forward.”

The county does provide some in house medical care at the jail, but on occasion

Huntsville Hospital Kills Child: Permanently Disabled 1y/o Child Later Died

Welcome to Alabama, where the legal concept of respondeat superior apparently does NOT apply.

Some would call this murder.

If a person driving drunk kills someone, nowadays, they’re charged with murder – even though they did not plan, or intend upon killing someone (the element of premeditation, or forethought).

But why isn’t Huntsville Hospital charged with murder? (It’s kinda’ difficult to charge a corporation with murder, but it’s quite possible that the officers can be indicted or charged.)

And why aren’t those directly responsible (those in the Recovery Room who were responsible for Gracie’s care) charged with Murder?

It’s painfully obvious some things MUST change in Alabama regarding healthcare.

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Girl disabled, later dies, after tonsillectomy at Huntsville Hospital; Alabama public hospitals‘ liability capped at $100,000

By Challen Stephens | cstephens@al.com on December 03, 2012 at 1:03 PM, updated December 03, 2012 at 4:18 PM

Randy Smith and Deedee Smith talk about raising a child with disabilities while Gracelynn, 5, sits in her wheelchair during an interview in their home Monday, November 19, 2012 in Athens, Ala. (Eric Schultz / eschultz@al.com)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Four years ago, Gracie knew a few dozen words and had just learned to walk backwards. But Gracie had a little trouble breathing at night. Doctors said it would only get worse, so they decided to remove her tonsils.

The surgery lasted less than 15 minutes.

In the recovery room at Huntsville Hospital, Gracie was standing on her bed calling for her mother. “We were told she was having difficulty coming out of anesthesia,” said her father Randy Smith. Nurses said the girl needed to rest to recover. In the recovery room, the family says, she was allowed to stop breathing for more than 10 minutes.

Dan Aldridge, attorney for the Smiths, said Gracie “was not connected to the customary monitoring equipment that sounds an alarm if vital signs reach a dangerous zone.” He said the nurses, three of them, were in the recovery room. At one point, her mother voiced concern. “I was told, ‘Mom, now don’t wake her up, if we get her up, we will never calm her down,” said Dee Dee Smith. “My response was she was not breathing.”

Dee Dee said one of the nurses touched the girl’s foot. It was cold. Aldridge said “code” was called. Medical staff poured into the room. Gracie would spend the next 18 hours in a coma. When Dee Dee finally got to hold her girl again, the girl’s eyes were open but

Late… again.

This is gonna’ get real old, real quick.

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Sent from my typewriter.

Late… again.

The Huntsville Times is owned by the same company that owns the Times Picayune, Sports Illustrated & Condé Nast – Newhouse News.

Alabama‘s three most populous cities – Birmingham, Huntsville, and Mobile – all have a newspaper which is owned by Newhouse. And, like the Times Picayune, they are laying off staff & reducing coverage, which includes reducing publication to 3 days/week.

Further, those three papers – The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times & The Mobile Press-Register – are all now being printed in Birmingham, even though Mobile is on the Gulf Coast, Huntsville borders Tennessee, and Birmingham is in the middle. So, as you might imagine, it’s a logistical nightmare.

If you’re interested in knowing how many papers & publications they do own (which would astound you), see the entry “Advance Publications,” and the entry “Condé Nast Publications” on Wikipedia for a detailed & lengthy list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cond%C3%A9_Nast_Publications

Alabama Man Tweets Jokes about Killing the POTUS, finds out it’s NOT a joke. What an idiot.

From our “Yes, Some Folks are Really that Stupid” files comes this recent item.

Oh well… folks in Alabama aren’t known for being the sharpest knives in the block, anyway.

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Birmingham man charged after tweeting threats to kill President Barack Obama

Published: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 3:57 PM     Updated: Monday, September 24, 2012, 10:06 AM

By Kent Faulk — The Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — A Birmingham man was arrested and charged with posting messages on Twitter threatening the life of President Barack Obama.

Jarvis M. Britton, 25, of Birmingham, was charged late Friday with making a threat against the president, according to court documents. The complaint against Britton was filed by the U.S. Secret Service in U.S. District Court in Birmingham.

Britton was arrested after having made three threatening comments aimed at the president in June and then again on Thursday, according to an affidavit filed by Phillip G. Holley, special agent with the U.S. Secret Service in Birmingham.

Holley stated he had received a report from an anonymous citizen on June 30 that Britton was using his computer to make threats against the president.

The agent stated he interviewed Britton on July 2 and determined that Britton had tweeted two messages on June 28 and one on June 29 that talked about killing the president.

According to Holley’s affidavit, Britton’s June 28 tweet stated

Feds OK $55M for Alabama tornado recovery

Feds give go-ahead for $55 million to help with tornado recovery in Alabama

Published: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 12:15 PM     Updated: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 2:47 PM

By Robin DeMonia — The Birmingham News

U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (The Birmingham News / Beverly Taylor)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — More than $55 million in federal community development money will be available to help Alabama communities rebuild from a string of tornadoes that hit the state on April 27, 2011.

U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, said

It’s still true: Alabamians are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

One must understand the audience to whom Mr. Archibald writes his Birmingham News OpEds.

They’re the same ones who found hometown favorite criminal Richard Scrushy – monikered as “America’s First Oblivious CEO” – “Not Guilty” of violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, who to date, remains the solitary individual ever charged with its violation. Alice Martin, then Federal Prosecutor for the Northern District of Alabama, who failed to obtain a guilty verdict in the case, could have moved the trial to New York City – home of Wall Street – or “in Washington, D.C., or in New York City where pecuniary intricacies are understood,” but rather chose Birmingham, Alabama as the trial venue. John C. Coffee, professor of securities law at Columbia Law School, accurately said of the case, that “much of the information was over their heads” and jurors were “sick of trying to understand evidence that was beyond them.”

This remark – right, or wrong (but mostly right) – remains true for Alabama:
Citizens in the state are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.“

In context of course, historically, one should recognize

Alabama Public Television Executive Director Allan Pizzato & CFO Fired, Frog-Marched & Escorted Out Of Building

There’s no love lost for Pizzato’s firing. I’m glad he’s gone.

He’s been nothing but a hindrance to progress and albatross about the neck of Alabama Public Television (APTV) from the time of his hiring. He cut Alabama‘s ONLY STATEWIDE NEWS program “For the Record,” and turned it into a puff piece for politicians and their ilk, then watching it flicker like a candle in the wind, morphed it into some other idiotic nonsense piece of garbage called “Capitol Journal,” which flame eventually burned out.

But hard-hitting interviews had long been gone when long-time news anchor Tim Lennox received a phone call that informed him – while he was out of state on bereavement leave – that he was fired. Yeah… fired over the telephone. No letter, no face-to-face, man-to-man talk. Cowards. When APTV fired Lennox, that was the end of FTR. No more tough questions… softball puff pieces only.

Now perhaps the network can begin to reclaim some of their glory. APTV was the nation’s FIRST public television network. Now, it’s a shadow of a shell of it’s former self. How tragic that Alabama starts with greatness, and ends in a sewer… like the incompetent thieves governing Jefferson County.

My estimation is this entire ordeal is a ruse and a fine excuse to fire Pizzato for his active destruction of APTV.

Regarding Barton’s myopic organization Wall Builders, they’re freaks of nature, as well, who have an unfeigned agenda that has nothing to do with history. They want their brand of Christianity put into every classroom in America. In essence, they want state-supported religion.

Here’s hoping the Alabama Educational Television Commission will hire someone worth their salt who can actually PROMOTE, MANAGE and OPERATE the APTV network as it should be – a cutting-edge, profitable, award-winning, nationally & internationally respected state-run television network, because…

It once was.

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Exclusive: Dismissals at Alabama PTV linked to concerns over proposed broadcast of videos from religious right

http://currentpublicmedia.blogspot.com/2012/06/exclusive-two-alabama-ptv-firings.html

Jun 13, 2012

Two top managers at Alabama Public Televisionwere fired from their jobs June 12 with no explanation of the cause for the immediate dismissals.

The Alabama Educational Television Commission came out of an executive session Tuesday afternoon and ordered veteran pubcaster Allan Pizzato and his deputy Pauline Howland to clean out their desks and leave APT’s headquarters in Birmingham.

“All I can say is that it was

Cheap Labor: Alabama legislature to consider bill allowing prisoners to be hired

In Alabama, it’s “Deja Vu all over again,” or “Back to the Future” again, and again, all over again…

Some folks say they want to “take America back.”

The only problem I have with that, is that they never say where, or how far back they want to take America.

Do they want to take it back to the Jim Crow law era, before the time of Civil Rights?

Or, do they want to take it back to before suffrage (the right of women to vote)?

Or, God forbid, dare they take it back even further? Surely not to King George!

Where ARE our “leaders’” sense of ethics, righteousness and justice?

I remain convinced, they are

Alabama’s inept governor & legislature are clueless on how to remedy problems. And in other news…

Face it folks, Alabama MUST change its tax policy and law – something about which Alabamians have been warned for quite some time. It’s not as if we’ve never heard the idea or notion, for indeed, Alabama’s income tax assesses a heavier levy upon the poor than the wealthy, and many large corporate timberland-owners (Georgia Pacific, Weyerhauser, International Paper, Gulf States Paper, et al) pay little or nothing on their vast holdings by comparison to others.

As the issue of a potential shut-down of state services (the forensics lab in Huntsville) relates to criminal prosecution, I could imagine that a sharp attorney could move for dismissal of charges based upon delay of prosecution – which is a federal Constitutional issue – because the Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused the right to a speedy trial, among other aspects of prosecution.

And that issue – a violation of the Sixth Amendment – is one reason why I can imagine former UAH professor Amy Bishop – accused of murdering her colleagues – may have a federal case on her side, because the state of Alabama has virtually shut down all funding of public defense and defenders.

Just to remind the readers, the Sixth Amendment reads: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.“

And for those readers whom, for one reason or another, are not up to speed on the wranglings of Alabama politics, India Lynch vs. State of Alabama – the federal case in which Alabama’s tax policies were on trial – ended in October 2011, with a 854-page ruling in the state’s favor by His Honor, Judge Lynwood Smith in which existing tax structures & organization were found not to be unconstitutional. That story may be found here.

Alabama State Capitol Building, Montgomery, AL

The background: Alabama’s state income tax kicks in for families that earn as little a $4,600. Mississippi starts at over $19,000. Alabamians with incomes under $13,000 pay 10.9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, while those who make over $229,000 pay just 4.1 percent. Alabama relies heavily on state sales tax, which runs as high as 11 percent and applies even to groceries and infant formula.

A primary reason Alabama’s poor pay so much is that large timber companies and megafarms pay so little. The state allows big landowners to value their land using ”current use” rules, which significantly underestimate its value. Then individuals are allowed to fully deduct the federal income taxes they pay from their state taxes, something few states allow, which is a boon for those in the top income brackets.

So yeah.

We’re very fouled up here in the heart of Dixie.

And while the GOP controls the Governor’s Office, State House & Senate and most all high-level state offices, there are no signs of progress toward equity or justice.

But read on to learn why…

Potential cuts for state forensics: ‘It’s going to impact everybody’s lives’

Published: Saturday, March 10, 2012, 10:55 AM

By Paul Gattis, The Huntsville Times

Marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines.

The evidence spans 18,000 different cases. And maybe by 2013, Lonnie Ginsberg hopes, the state will process most everything on those 12 shelves.

Maybe.

This is the uncertain world Ginsberg oversees in cash-strapped Alabama. The director of the Huntsville lab on Arcadia Circle, Ginsberg manages a complex he describes as overworked and understaffed – which is why some drugs confiscated by law enforcement may sit on a shelf for a year before being analyzed.

Given that scenario, Ginsberg is

iPhone Screenshots – Excessive Temperature Warning

How do you know if your iPhone is too hot?

If you can’t hold it in your hand?

No.

Developers obviously considered that issue, and created a screenshot just to let users know if the phone overheated.

Undoubtedly, there are numerous other iPhone screenshots about which many – save developers – are unaware.

Here is another.

After the Tornadoes: Toward Understanding

Simply type the words “Alabama tornado” into any search engine and there’ll be hundreds, if not thousands of entries returned. Add to those words “April 27, 2011″ and not only will your search be further refined, but you may gain a whole new perspective on the destructive forces of nature.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave in Tora Bora for the last several years, or were recently buried at sea, you’ve probably read or heard about the hundreds of tornadoes that struck throughout North and Central Alabama, bringing  with them resultant death, and widespread destruction.

Sure, we’ve all heard jokes about Alabama,

Goodness and Light

Hey Betty.

Yeah, babe… I’m talkin’ to YOU!

Betty… not Black Betty, blam-de-lam, she’s from Birmingham. Blam-de-lam, way down in Alabam…

Butchu!

Betty Crocker!

Yeah, hon… I’m talkin’ to YOU!

Registered Nursing jobs in Alabama, staff

I received this message in e-mail and wanted to pass it along to others whom may be interested.

Wishing you all the best!

“I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima.”

“The Dirty South” by the Drive-By Truckers was written from a recollection of band member Patterson Hood.

The title of this entry is a line from the 2003 song, “The Sands of Iwo Jima” on the album “The Dirty South” by the Drive-By Truckers was written from a recollection of band member Patterson Hood.

In his album commentary about this song, Patterson said: “As a kid, I spent every weekend at my Great-Uncle’s farm (my family’s old homestead) where I rode go-carts and acted out my favorite movie scenes in the woods. George A. is an amazing man (still kicking hard at 84) and I have long tried to capture a glimpse of those times in a song.“

“During World War II he was drafted and ended up on the island Iwo Jima in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. As a curious child, I’d often innocently ask him about all that. One night while watching the old John Wayne movie (The Sands Of Iwo Jima) on TV, he simply said that he “never saw John Wayne over there”.

“So many of the folks I’ve written about in this album feel forced into doing terrible things. George A. was no doubt, changed by his experience, but I know him to be easily one of the greatest men I have ever met, thus, making it a much trickier subject to write about.”

Patterson’s observations are about truth and reality, honor, dignity and service.. the giving of oneself for others esteeming them, their needs and wants greater than yours. Doubtless, we all, at one time or another, have met these unassuming quiet heroes, men whom are the backbone of our communities.

In his 1909 book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”

Following are the lyrics to the song…

The Sands of Iwo Jima

Free the Free Press? Feds chase newspaper thief: Your tax dollars at work

The  Federal Fugitive Task Force of the U.S. Marshal Service, and law enforcement authorities from six jurisdictions in the Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area of