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.

It's crazy out there. Had some things I wanted to say to the grandkids:

Who is this?

Can you guess who this is about?

This is why Alan Lightman is one of my favorite writers of all time.

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.

It’s amazing just to listen to this man.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

I can't stop writing about the cultural significance of hot dogs.

The latest from @newsmanbryant.bsky.social, who never stops. Thank God.

It didn't come from a politician.

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?

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.

Interesting, with a surprising Moon Pie drop reference. I'm going with your winning move.

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.

Truth. And I’ve had it up to here with racists spewing racist shit as they tell me it’s not about race.

The blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge is hosed off into an Alabama River run red with racist history. A sad day in Alabama.

Have you no shame?

The wait is over. 🏆Congratulations to the 2026 #Pulitzer Prize winners – from scrappy local newsrooms to moving immigration coverage, we’ve put together a full list of the distinguished winners and finalists. Read it now: www.poynter.org/reporting-ed...

Bull Connor would be pleased.

I feel like my wife's gonna hate this one.

"For everybody in the story that made the final cut, there were many more who didn’t get that far, who had other reasons for not wanting to talk, and a good many of them were trauma." @johnarchibald.bsky.social

It's a glorious day in Alabama. The sky is bluer, bird songs sweeter, dolphins gasping in the Gulf of America with just a little more pluck. The state is brimming with the kind of optimism that comes only from knowing the Alabama Legislature is no longer in session. Check out what they did to us.

The book Tom talks about here, AJ Bauer’s “The Making of the Liberal Media,” is a fascinating look at the decades-long effort — going back to the ‘40s — to paint traditional media as liberal. Not partisan, just a look at the strategy. Really eye opening stuff.

Yeah, they did a job on us again.

Amen and amen and amen.

How do we elect these guys? Because we let about a quarter of our voters pick them.

Thank god for Mithithippi.

This column seems like it's about history, but it's not. It's about now, and how the road of moral certainty leads to the palace of "Oh crap look what we've done."

People tell me that former Democrat Steve Marshall has no soul, that he’s a ghoulish weathercock so desperate to prove his tough-on-crime bona fides that he’d fry his grandmama if it’d help him get a few votes. I can’t confirm that. I have no way of knowing if Steve Marshall has a soul or not.

The cynic in me says, 'In Alabama it takes a lame duck to do the right thing.' But perhaps today a simple thank you will do. www.al.com/news/2026/03...

Who's a good boy? The Legislature, with about a month left to go in the session, has superbly done its job. It has rolled over to its big business masters, fetched political sticks and buried the bones. It has fed on so much red meat it will inevitably soil itself.

This is really good stuff by @crowejam.bsky.social, documenting the deportation of Fonzie Andrade in graphic novel form. You won't see this just anywhere.

Alabama has never cared about protecting its air or water. Or its people, for that matter. It’s why the state has a sniveling, equivocating, kowtowing, toothless Alabama Department of Environmental Management instead of an environmental protection agency.

Fonzie thought he was an Alabamian. He lived for football and his fiancee and a little too much fun. I followed him to Mexico when he was deported to a place he did not know or understand. This is his story. As it is with any deportation, it is not his story alone. www.al.com/news/2026/01...

This place is a lot.

With all due respect, Mr. President, you've got a lot of damn nerve. www.al.com/news/2026/01...

You know the answer.

As the threat of AI looms over us all, @johnarchibald.bsky.social's multi-part story for @al.com highlights just how quickly (and quietly) the technology is creeping into the criminal legal system, almost always in ways that will make the lives of incarcerated people and their loved ones worse:

You know Tommy Tuberville is bad. If you want see just how far we have fallen, take a look at the words of this former Alabama GOP governor. Not so long ago. www.al.com/news/2025/12...

Just because

I find myself thinking of water often.

Fascinating book. Come talk about it.