Crazier in Alabama

I  had writer’s block yesterday.   I also had blocked sinus cavities and a sinus headache all day so maybe the two are related, although the thought of a muse being imprisoned and unable to escape from a sinus cavity is a little unsettling.Thankfully, there are a  lot of very talented bloggers who didn't have writers block, so I’ll share a post from one of them.  

 We have some strange happenings here in Alabama. Many of them, like this one, are so bizarre  they make it into the national press. We do  bizarre, strange,  amusing  and disturbing really well down here.  This is  just the latest happening in the life of Mayor Larry Barton,  mayor of Talladega, Alabama, a town  fifty miles  east of Birmingham with a population of about 16,000. The mayor is up for reelection this year and blames his most recent  troubles on politics, but you can make your own mind up on that.

Back in 1995, Barton was serving his third term as mayor when he was convicted on federal charges of money laundering and defrauding the city of Talladega.  He served  three years in prison, then ran for mayor  again in 1999 and 2003.  Barton  lost the runoff elections both times.  Undeterred,  he ran again, and was returned to office in 2011 after winning a runoff  with   fifty-three percent of the vote.

His fraud and money laundering activities pale, though, in comparison with his latest escapade involving a   beating, a baseball bat, a bicycle and some reportedly seamy sex tapes that purportedly  show the participants, both of whom are  well past  sixty, getting it on in the  back room of a liquor store. But I’ll direct you to Marianne Arensmeyer’s blog.  She tells it much better than I can:

Sex and Politics, Southern Style