The 4th of July (so often just an occasion to get drunk and shoot fireworks) has put me in an unusually reflective mood. I wondered all weekend the question of “What is Freedom?” and “Do we have more or less of it than previous generations?” It’s a question I try to answer during my debate…
Category: Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News Covers Illegal Immigrants
If you’re talking about hardships in rural areas, you’d be wrong not to mention illegal immigrants. You could safely say almost no one has it tougher in Bumblefuck as there’s new laws that make it extremely clear that Alabama doesn’t “take too kindly to foreigners” as if there was any doubt before they weren’t thrilled…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: Bumblefuck Goes to Broadway
So recently I watched no less than three Broadway shows–breaking my yearly record of Broadway shows by two–and since there’s really no good place to put reviews of Broadway shows, why not use this perpetual dark house column? 1. The Motherfucker with the Hat: I saw this show only two days ago, so it’s the…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: Tornadoes, or I Explain Why I Was Out Last Week
As most of you probably know Alabama was wrecked by a record number of tornadoes two weeks ago. The last new items to go up were on that Wednesday, and that was it until yesterday’s movie reviews. For about a week I didn’t have internet so I couldn’t have posted new stuff even I wanted…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News Covers Obesity
A new obesity statistic says Alabama might be closing in on Mississippi for the illustrious title of “Fattest State in the Nation.” Except for alphabetical order, obese adults would be the only thing Alabama would rank first in. Book after book has been written about America’s obesity epidemic (anything by Michael Pollen is a personal…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: Defending Obama Week
Not so much an actual item that relates to rural people (this is tornado season so in an attempt to keep this from turning into the weather channel, this feature might be kind of scarce in coming weeks), as it is an announcement about this week’s features. Sunday officially kicked off “Defending Obama Week,” in response…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Merits of Gambling
Last week the site was on a bit of a hiatus as I went to Las Vegas. So I’d like to take this item to announce a couple of features this week will reflect that and cover Vegas, but really there is no better place than right here to talk about if states can fix…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News
Today I’d like to talk about Charlie Sheen. I’m just fucking with you, I’d like to talk about poor people in third world countries…ha, and you thought today was going to be fun! No, I’d like to speak of the real Bumblefucks out there: third world nations and the news media that doesn’t care about…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News
Today is about crime and poverty. I’ll keep it short because nobody ever reads about it anyway. Recently US News published a list of the 11 most crime infested cities in the country and although you might expect to find perennial blue state hellholes like Baltimore and Detroit on the list, and even though they…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News
This week on Alabama Liberal is all about religion, so I thought I’d recommend some great Netflix films I’d stumbled across that talk about just that. There isn’t going to be a whole lot I can add to the topic—one of America’s favorites—but these films just might: Waiting for Armageddon: A great, brisk film detailing…
Down & Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News
It’s no big news to anyone that U.S. soldiers are disproportionately from rural areas, and more are from the Southeast than any other region of the country. What isn’t widely known is that 2010 had the highest suicide rate of returning veterans in U.S. history. This Friday I’ll hope to ask an Afghanistan veteran why…
Down and Out in Bumblefuck: The Rural News Covers Natural Gas Drilling
Today I want to talk about natural gas drilling. Most people think of domestic, natural gas drilling as a positive step towards energy independence and ditching America’s foreign oil addiction. Most people would be wrong. I could write a book about how natural gas drilling is bad for people—from poisoning the ground with hexa-chromium 3,…