Gotta wonder if Tubs is giving Jones his Gadsden Mall.
Archibald: Is Tommy Tuberville drinking rat poison?
This is what they call in the football business “bulletin board material.”
al.com
John Archibald
@johnarchibald.bsky.social
Journalist. Author. Podcaster. Pulitzer x 2. Granddad.
Exactly. It's amazing how efficient we were before everything got "smart."
BitterOldPunk@bitteroldpunk.bsky.social · 4d agoI remember my dad showing me a "secret trick" back in the 1970s -- time the first light correctly coming off the 1st Avenue N viaduct and you could roll all the way through downtown at 29 MPH and never touch your brakes. It felt magical.
John Archibald and Sarah L. Kaufman talk verbs. Or making me practice what I preach.
Live with John Archibald and Sarah L. Kaufman
A recording from John Archibald's live video
open.substack.com
I’ll go live this morning (9 a.m. CT, 10 a.m. ET) with Sarah L. Kaufman, master of verbs, longtime dance critic at The Washington Post, well-deserved Pulitzer winner for criticism, and author of the new book Verb Your Enthusiasm: How to Master the Art of the Verb and Transform Your Writing.
Coming up, a conversation with the queen of verbs and grace
Talking to Pulitzer winner Sarah L. Kaufman
open.substack.com
It is up to Birmingham, as a cradle of the civil rights movement and an example of what happens when injustice is recast as some distorted kind of honor, to tell the stories no one else will tell.
Archibald: Civil rights icon deserves better than this
The markers intended to tell the story of a towering civil rights figure are tattered, peeling, unreadable. Unforgettable, for all the wrong reasons.
al.com
Who doesn’t like a pun? We’ll find out who, and what’s wrong with them. Join me LIVE NOW with NYT best seller James Geary, the master of aphorism, the literal author of Wit. How could that not be fun? open.substack.com/live-stream/...
I'm hosting this thing in Gadsden next week with some pretty smart panelists. So if you want to talk about indiscriminate polluters, gutless regulators, poisoned communities and how we allow this stuff to happen, come on out.
AL.com, FRONTLINE to host free movie night for ‘forever chemicals’ film in Gadsden
The free screening is Tuesday at the historic Pitman Theatre in downtown Gadsden with a panel discussion to follow.
al.com
It is harder to celebrate together because politicians, parties, networks, influencers and family members tell so many they are not American. Because of the way they pursue happiness.
Archibald: Don't let anyone take your Independence Day
It is harder to celebrate together because politicians, parties, influencers and family members tell so many they are unAmerican because of the way they pursue happiness.
al.com
It's crazy out there. Had some things I wanted to say to the grandkids:
Archibald: What to tell your kids (and grandkids) in an AI world
Artificial intelligence can’t make something as beautiful as the drawings you scrawl on scrap paper with purple crayons.
al.com
This is why Alan Lightman is one of my favorite writers of all time.
The Ordinary Miracle of Existing
Being alive at all is the most extraordinary stroke of good luck any of us will ever experience.
theatlantic.com
I can’t defend the way my state seems to revel in the cruelty. Alabama has a long history of botched executions. Hangings. Electrocutions. Lethal injections. And now it champions a controversial, complicated and prolonged manner of killing.
Archibald: Vengeance is mine, sayeth the state of Alabama
Shoot me, he asks, after a quarter century on Alabama’s death row. All it would take is five shooters, five rifles, one of them loaded with blanks.
al.com
Bryan Stevenson lays it out there. “And so I kind of feel like maybe we should have some statues honoring John Lewis and Dr. King and Rosa Parks outside the football stadium in Tuscaloosa and outside the football stadium in Auburn.”
Archibald: Bryan Stevenson thinks football could end the war on diversity
"I kind of feel like maybe we should have some statues honoring John Lewis and Dr. King and Rosa Parks outside the football stadium"
al.com
tl;dr: Alabama's ability to administer a new congressional map disenfranchising Black voters has been complicated by the fact that Alabama is celebrating Jefferson Davis's birthday today.
![Jeff Elrod, the Director of Elections for Alabama’s Secretary of State, testified
at the preliminary injunction hearing on May 22, 2026, that voter reassignments for
the 2023 Plan in Alabama’s voter registration database could not begin until May 27
and must be completed by tomorrow, June 2. App.123, 136–37, 139, 167, 179. In fact,
June 2 itself appears to be too late: Mr. Elrod testified, “The vendor has
communicated to us that once the absentee process begins and absentee ballot is
issued [sic], that is when the records are locked. The first day for absentee voting for
the June 16th runoff is June the 2nd.” App.139. If absentee ballots are issued the
morning of June 2, then all changes must be completed by today, June 1. And state
and county administrative offices are closed today, June 1, to celebrate the birthday
of Jefferson Davis.1 This leaves a few hours on an Alabama holiday to complete voter
reassignment for the 2023 Plan](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:wovz3whdkughp6decczypkqq/bafkreiarblp4swb664h6xqxy3nl55qbdgvf26bhgzipfi6lqasgia7qyre)
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social · 2mo agoJUST IN: Dem AL lawmaker asks #SCOTUS to deny AL's emergency appeal to allow 2023 redistricting map likely to move state from 5-2 to 6-1, R-D. Ds note it's Jeff Davis holiday in AL today, complicating switch & say they proposed race-neutral plan AL snubbed www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...
I sat down with Bryan Stevenson at EJI a couple weeks ago. I'll be posting a few things. But since I'm in Alabama I'll start with this.
Bryan Stevenson on Alabama's college football culture and the Civil Rights Movement
YouTube video by AL.com
youtu.be
Here's the serious bit for anyone who'd rather skip the 4000 words of jokes
Flycatchers and Fireflies Chapter 3 is out today. I am having some fun. I'd love for you to read it.
Flycatchers and Fireflies
Chapter 3
open.substack.com
I can't stop writing about the cultural significance of hot dogs.
This Alabama City Has A Signature Hot Dog With An Unusual But Legendary Topping
The story behind Birmingham's special hot dog–and the people carrying on the legacy.
southernliving.com
The latest from @newsmanbryant.bsky.social, who never stops. Thank God.
‘History is powerful’: Civil rights veterans call Selma key in current voting rights fight
The couple who founded Selma's annual Bloody Sunday commemoration say teaching history is critical as state lawmakers redraw Congressional districts in ways that reduce Black representation.
al.com
I hate to hear AI read my stuff. So hear it how it's supposed to be. And get your ass to Selma.
Inside or outside the Alabama statehouse?
AL.com@al.com · 3mo agoWhat Alabama pest — think bugs or critters — annoys you the most?
Standing in the shadow of the bridge with people who lived the legacy of slavery and lynching and Jim Crow and that bastard sheriff Jim Clark makes them hyper-aware of their whiteness, their otherness, in a way that Alabama has made people of color feel forever. Go to Selma, white people.
Archibald: White people, go to Selma
Sometimes people who look like me feel awkward going to protest in places like Selma.
al.com
Interesting, with a surprising Moon Pie drop reference. I'm going with your winning move.
Robert Frederick@refrederick.bsky.social · 3mo agoWhat if "the only winning move is not to play” with A.I.? "Resistance is[n't] futile." So we don't have to "adapt or die"? A.I. companies are pushing the science/society coproduction out of whack, prompting resistance.
From Alabama I say where is the white outrage? Or shame? Or nagging sense of complicity? I see people counting blue & red districts, but it doesn’t seem enough. Black people are being pushed out of office, denied representation in the cradle of the civil rights movement.