Film-making is not an easy enterprise, and independent film-making harder still. Of all the artistic forms, movies are arguably the most difficult to bring into being. Any independent film of real merit takes teams of people, working unreasonable hours in all manner of environments, often for little or no pay.

Though a massive wave of new beers hit Alabama for the first time last summer after the Gourmet Beer Bill passed, things have slowed down quite a bit over the past few months.

A commemoration of the Rickwood Field centennial will be held on Wednesday, August 18, beginning at 3 p.m. The event will be hosted by the Friends of Rickwood Field.

Beltline proponents claim that it will help relieve traffic congestion on freeways in downtown Birmingham and bring new economic development to northern and western Jefferson County. Opponents believe that the purported benefits of the project, if they come at all, may not outweigh the economic and environmental costs.

Robert Bentley endorsed by the Huckster.

But the idea of walking barefoot through the streets of Birmingham and dodging broken glass and gravel, or hiking unshod around a trail on Ruffner and just hoping to dodge hookworm— these are things that make me feel all icky. Also, subconsciously there might be some play from the barefoot social stigma—that of poverty.

Firefighters may get pay cut because of accounting error: It’s never good news when we have to cut the pay of the people whose job it is to save our lives. But it’s especially bad news when that happens due to an error like this one, revealed by former Birmingham Weekly columnist Kyle Whitmire at his new blog, The Second Front. The Jefferson County Personnel Board requires that firefighters and police be paid the same. In 2008, Birmingham’s then-Mayor Larry Langford had a new time-clock system installed for city workers, causing firefighters and police officers to be switched from salary to an hourly pay system.

THURS JULY 1 [INSERT NAME HERE], COME ON DOWN: You are the next contestant on Game Show Night at Crestwood Tavern. Join host “Barb Barker” for a series of “low tech, social,

Bad news for Sparks, or not? A June 3 poll of 500 likely Alabama voters suggests Democratic nominee for Alabama governor Ron Sparks will face an uphill battle in November. The poll, which was conducted by independent national polling firm Rasmussen Reports and reported on in the Birmingham News, found that 49 percent of respondents would choose Republican Bradley Byrne over Sparks, with only 40 percent choosing Sparks. Robert Bentley would fare even better—he got 56 percent to Spark’s 37 percent.

Few people can imagine the sensation of having what feels like broken glass lowing through their veins, yet the nearly 100,000 Americans who suffer from sickle cell disease—including Birmingham author and entrepreneur Tina Kay Hughes—deal with this pain regularly. Hughes will host a World Sickle Cell Celebration at Omni Photo Studio downtown on June 19 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. to help raise public awareness of this overlooked illness.