The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Five years ago, hunkered down for the winter north of Pensacola, Florida in Donald Trump’s mostly disastrous first term as president and keeping up with the news as Covid-19 spread over the world and across the United States, I embarked on a special research…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – You know it’s the end of an era when a giant passes from the Earth. Bill Moyers, who made it to the Big Time from small town Baptist roots in Texas in the 1950s to the White House in the time of President John…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein believed in the benefits of racial diversity on human evolution and society, fought for sexual freedom in his life in the great 20th century, and worried about the threat posed by corrupt politicians and governments to individual liberty.…
Can factual reporting diligently investigated and brilliantly written still make a difference? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – A new Red Scare threatens American democracy. This time, it’s not a deranged Senator from Wisconsin making all the noise and ruining lives. It’s the president himself, seemingly serving the interests of the new…
ON THE RADIO – APR, NPR – “Bloody Sunday” through the lens of Spider Martin By Glynn Wilson – MONTGOMERY, Ala. – As people get ready to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the Selma to Montgomery March and passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts just…
“Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers And they’ve been known to pick a song or two (yes, they do) Lord, they get me off so much They pick me up when I’m feelin’ blue, now how ’bout you? “Sweet home Alabama (oh) Where the skies are so blue Sweet home Alabama Lord, I’m comin’…
There for the Birth of Southern Rock in 1969, he took the Muscle Shoals swampy sound to London and blended it with the Rasta island beat, creating a new sound that transformed Reggae for mainstream audiences in Europe and America. He then added this flavor to The Rolling Stones sound, after helping to create it…
Outline of an Idea Emerges With First Snow of 2025 – “All of a sudden, there was Southern Rock.” – Jimmy Johnson, about the day Wilson Pickett covered the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” with Duane Allman on guitar, 1969. Tales from the MoJo Road – By Glynn “Cowboy” Wilson – ARGO, Ala. – A rare blanket…
Tales From the MoJo Road – By Glynn Wilson – ARGO, Ala. – Well, I’ve been out walking some, since I don’t do that much talking or partying anymore, these days. Out back there’s an old native trail through the woods they say was the original road from Trussville to Springville. I don’t know about…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – News photography is a dying field just like news itself. That started with the invention and release of the iPhone by Apple in 2006. But at least the New York Times still keeps the tradition alive with news pictures from all over the world. The Year in…
By Glynn “Cowboy” Wilson – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Close to 300 friends and followers of Birmingham musician Wayne Perkins, many from the east side of town who came of age in the 1970s listening to the Alabama Power Band play at The Crossroads in Roebuck, nearly filled the Steiner Auditorium at the Birmingham Museum of…
Editor’s Note – Samuel Langhorne Clemens was once so down and out, broke and desperate in San Francisco that he took a loaded pistol and aimed it at his head. He couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger, maybe out of sheer cowardice. He picked up a pen instead and wrote The Celebrated Jumping Frog…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Have you ever thought you lost something and then discovered it wasn’t lost after all? That’s how I felt Wednesday night winding down for sleep after watching a show on Netflix. Checking the calendar on the iPhone, it occurred to me it’s coming up on 10 years…
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT – CNN’s Dana Bash speaks with Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Part 1 of Dana Bash’s interview with 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz, their first since the Democratic National Convention. In part 2 of the interview with CNN’s…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – To be brutally honest? Or to project an image of success at all times? Are you interested in pretense? Or the unabashed truth? Shakespeare never had any of his characters ask these questions. At least not to the best of my recollection. Of course the very idea…
Connecting the Dots – By Glynn Wilson – Computer hacker-programmers have been creating bots to do various things since the 1990s. Bot is short for robot, although these bots don’t look like the robots from science fiction going back to the 1950s. If you use any search engine to ask “what is a bot?” you…
“A story told is a life lived.” – Unknown The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – CATOCTIN MOUNTAINS, Md. – If the story of the 21st century is just going to end up being one hellscape disaster after another, until most of the countries of the world live under tyrannical dictators who ignore all…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — You don’t have to travel to some high mountain pass to find insight in this mixed up world. But maybe it helps. It seemed to help Moses, George Mallory and Elisha Mitchell, as I’ve written in the past. Climbing Mountains For Inspiration: What’s…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Another American media outlet is rocked by a self-inflicted scandal. It’s not clear what National Public Radio’s business editor Uri Berliner was thinking when he decided to bash his employer as “liberal” on a Substack newsletter run by a known conservative flame thrower, Bari…
Staff Report – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown joined a bipartisan coalition of 41 Attorneys General around the country to demand that Meta address the recent increase in Facebook and Instagram platform account takeovers by scammers. Account takeovers happen when bad actors break into a user’s account and change passwords, effectively…
