We just don’t get up to Muscle Shoals often enough. Florence, Sheffield or Tuscumbia either; in fact, you and I have been remiss in visiting our Quad Cities lately.

At the pool the other day, I heard a George Michael song. That sentence alone raises too many questions to answer in the small space available here. (Why was he listening to a radio station, let alone one that plays George Michael songs?

The TimeLess TimeLiness of marvin gaye’s masTerpiece Sometimes I feel myself turning into one of those guys who says too frequently, “Can you believe it’s been [insert mindboggling lapse of time] since [insert pop culture event of epochal significance]?”

I was suffused by a transcendent insight of cosmic proportions awhile back and it was hard to stop laughing. Surprisingly, not when I saw Glenn Beck’s last show on Fox or Keith Olbermann’s first on Current.

That Michelle Bachmann considers herself a viable candidate for the Presidency is one thing. In the curious world between her ears, anything is plausible. She thinks AmeriCorps brainwashes kids, she believes financial regulation reform smacks of Mussolini-style fascism and she has stated that the Revolutionary War started in New Hampshire. Why shouldn’t she assume she’s Oval Office material?

As Kathryn Tucker Windham knew too well, the hardest part of a story is having to conclude it. Alabama’s doyenne of disquisition quietly wrapped up her saga at home Sunday, in her unpretentious digs on Royal Street in Selma.

I’m sure you were shocked by the wanton display by a politician last week, a man who surely knows better but was so blinded by his ego and insulated by his base that he felt he could get away with anything.

Springtime is a season of metamorphosis. Some might remark on how quickly it seems to change to summer, but that is not my intention here.

Honored graduates of this institution of higher learning; underpaid instructors and counselors willing to grade on a curve; and parents and relatives frankly surprised to be appearing at the ceremony this year instead of next—welcome.

We’re having a party for Bob Dylan’s birthday Tuesday night. You ought to come.