John Archibald

Oh, Tommy T. We don't deserve you.

People keep asking if Doug Jones has a chance in Alabama...

I hereby decree, as president and commander in chief of this space, that the University of Alabama at Birmingham henceforth be referred to as Bootlicker U.

In case you need a palate cleanser this morning. Which of course you do.

We were both born in that pivotal year of 1963, lived in the same place, graduated together from the Banks High School, lived life in the complicated city of Birmingham. We saw the same things. But did we? Jerri "Peaches" Haslem has never had a problem speaking the truth.

We grew up the same age, the same city, many of the same friends and foundations. But do we really know each other? I can’t wait for this conversation.

I hope you guys will read and maybe share this. It was important to me to say. I am fortunate to get to say it.

When the crazies come for Elmo it'll be too late.

The AI bots, billionaires and bought politicians will of course beg to differ:

I'm playing around with fiction for fun, trying to write a chapter a week in the wee hours until it's done. Here are the first 13 chapters. Would love to hear your thoughts before I decide who lives or dies.

I set out for Lake Mitchell last week stewing over the Flock cameras that watch us and the data centers that will soon surround us and the artificial brand of intelligence that already tells us how to write and work and think. And this is what happened.

Gotta wonder if Tubs is giving Jones his Gadsden Mall.

Exactly. It's amazing how efficient we were before everything got "smart."

John Archibald and Sarah L. Kaufman talk verbs. Or making me practice what I preach.

It’s traffic anarchy out there.

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.

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.

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.

I'm not saying we always agreed, but...

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:

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.