MOBILE, Ala. — Swimming advisories were issued today in Baldwin County for the waters of Perdido Bay at Spanish Cove in Lillian, Arnica Bay at Pirate’s Cove in Josephine, as well as in Mobile County in the Dog River at the Alba Club.

According to news releases from state and county health departments, two recent successive tests revealed enterococcus bacteria levels exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency’s threshold of 104 organisms per 100 milliliters for marine water.

We know the University of South Alabama is a fine medical teaching hospital, but to be ranked nationally for patent scientific medical research along with New York University, Wake Forest and Stanford really says something is going on that is why the Mitchell Cancer Research Center is so promising. A cure for cancer from Mobile Alabama could be the world’s future.

     They both were Cat 3 direct hits, and neither disrupted world events. But for Gulf coast residents from Apalachicola to Pensacola Beach to Gulf Shores to Biloxi to Waveland to New Orleans, we know the hell you are in. Mobile remembers Frederic like Galveston is living through Ike. Two weeks with no electricity, no airconditioning, no cooking, no hot water, no bathing or laundry. Lines of cars for lines of ice, water, gas, supplies, food, survival. Two weeks turns into 2 months of chaos with repair, insurance, no school, some work, some rip offs, much anger and frustration. Hurricanes destroy communities, but most survive and return. Gulf Shores is a boom town, like Galveston was. They will come back, but the road to hell, through purgatory, tells the story of real life. Few things matter in life like health, hot showers, air conditioning and clean clothes, and oh yes, food. The Red Cross is there cooking meals, but still other sources of food borne illness have hit the rescuers and first responders and home owners and construction workers already. Sanitation is a problem. From the upper Gulf from coastal Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, we feel your pain. Hang in there coastal Texas, it will get worse, and then it will get better.

NPR reports Walmart and Ace Hardware have sold children soccer goals with 5 inch net openings that have killed one child in the US and the Consumer Protection Agency says the goals with these nets should be REMOVED IMMEDIATELY because the opening should be 4 inches to prevent under age children from accidental strangulation. The nets are made in China under several brands so go to Consumer Alerts for Soccer Goals to get model numbers.

The Mobile Chamber developed Dauphin Island as a well planned community on par with the vision that built Fairhope. During the 1970’s the Isle Dauphine Club and Golf Course was an architectural beauty and economic success that was the focus of the island community. It inspired growth that made the island prosperous for everyone. When that generation of citizens passed away the next generation of leaders led to a strange group of infighters that set the town against the property owners against the park and beach board. Thier failure has left the club in disgrace, the community and economy in ruin, and the natural environment an embarrassment of failure. Few coastal communities look like Dauphin Island in disrepair. The club, on the list of historic places in America, is a leaking eyesore of failure. And with this disgrace has come the collapse of the entire community existence. This was not an easy task. The leaders have now for 30 years (since the new bridge in 1979) destroyed and kept in ruin the entire community. The pinnacle of stupidity was when the Dauphin Island Property Owners Association turned down David Bronner and the RSA investment fund, the same fund that built the RSA Tower, built Magnolia Grove and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, the Alabama Cruise Terminal and the Carnival Cruise industry, protected the Grand Hotel and has invested in Mobile like no investor in the 300 year history of our county. It is a small story that Dauphin Island was ruined by a small handful of petty indecision makers. But it is a large story that such a crime began and continues for over 3 decades.

The Press Register says officials are tracking down young women and mothers addicted to meth. If they follow their troubles back far enough they will find prostituion, including advertising in the newspaper’s now faltering classfieds section.

60 miles south of Dauphin Island is where snapper sea turtles blue marlin and tuna thrive and that is where the open loop system where hot waters are dumped that kill fish–mosy systems are closed loop but industry historically always comes to Alabama to find the cheaper more damaging alternatives… another important story by Ben Raines in today’s al.com and Press Register (photo)

Cars have seatbelts, planes have seat belts, tractors have seatbelts, but why not buses? This seems very strange to the casual observer that buses are more safe without seatbelts. Stay tuned to the study in process as reported in todays Press Register.

Monday school starts and teenagers will dart in front of of trucks every morning and almost crash as they try to turn left. A year ago we asked SF Police to place a patrolman there. Instead they have two cars many days at the school. Now they propose a $100,000 light. Will it be too late to save a life? We pray not. Please place a police officer there at school rush (twenty minutes) until the light is there and save a life!http://www.baldwincountynow.com/articles/2008/08/07/local_news/doc4899c2e311edb986211053.txt

Readers are invited to send in their one page essays on any subject on interest @ REPORT or @ CONTACT.
Here is the first in the series:

WHAT IS NORMAL IN AMERICA?

Today a man hunt is at Bel Air Mall. A man robbed a bank. Why? Is he poor, black, sick, evil, a drug addict, a thief, homeless, hispanic, illegal immigrant? These are normal stereotypes. What if he was a white female Mobilian that had three children at home sick and starving. What if her husband was a doctor that left her with no money and a lot of debt. What if the pressure and stress made her suddenly emotionally distraught where she could not get help. What if she was your sister?

A recent Harvard medical study showed that the range of nornal behavior is not black and white but grey. On one side of a genius leader with fame and success is an average person working minimum wage, on the other side is a bi-polar manic depressive individual requiring hospitalization. One side of a star athlete is a thrid string bench warmer playing weekend spots in a park. The other side is a former athlete crippled by arthritis and bed ridden for life.

We are all somewhere in between. As JFK said, everyman puts their pants on one leg at a time. We all are at times gifted with mental or physical brillance, and at times broken by our own mistakes and inabilities. The more we understand this, the more understanding, and intelligent we become. The medical community knows this more than the average citizen. Teachers see this in students. But can we normal average citizens see it in our neighbors, in strangers, in citizens against whom we  wage war?

The brilliance of the lessons of Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ and former Presidents is to believe in ideals, one ideal being that forgiveness allows us to accept our fellow man in their fullness as a human, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes normal, sometimes not. This is not relativism, it is love, the most common universal action naturally accepted by the human race. Even in the animal kingdon basic survival is based on the ability to care for or work together in a unit that fuctions in creating existence. And yes even in physics we find a unity of cause and effect.

Normal is what we know, believe or understand to be normal. Normal gives life and form to existence. Robbing a bank does not contribute to a normal existence. But it could be the act of a normal person trying to just feed her child, as any normal person would do.

Once the Holiday Inn on the Causeway, Phillip Drane found the location became well known quickly as the Shoulder, and for many life saving. He lead the Christain facility as a last stop for men in need of help with alcohol and drug problems. The free clinic has now moved to Daphne and plans to celebrate 20 years with a new building fundraiser Aug 7 noon at the Riverview. A nice article in today’s paper and congratulations to Phillip Drane!

A new Harvard study acknowledged the range of symptoms in some mental illnesses can put genius and illness nearby in the same spectrum of function. In one observation a doctor noted that an average functioning person as a base can be compared to an outgoing person as stage one, a creative person as stage two, an intellectual genius as stage three (the top of the function parabola), a distracted less functional creative type as stage four, a soft hypomania bi polar type two functioning person (referenced in the Harvard study) as stage 5, a type 1 bi-polar case of mental illness bi polar as stage 6. This pendulum of behavior changes over time with a normal individual as well as in studies of patients, and treatment is based on the swing of behavior as referenced by different patient types, and different treatment parameters. The summary of the study is a fascinating discussion of how treatment pushed by pharamacology companies may narrow the range of acceptable normal behavior.

Again our black water cold creek streams are showing high mercury levels in bass. These streams like Bay Minette Creek are clear and clean but the toxic mercury is there unseen–according to EPA.

Spanish Fort man played with Wilt Chamberlin. When asked who was better Michael Jordan or Wilt he says Wilt was the better athlete. But he says it is hard to compare generations when so much has changed, like comparing Tiger to Ben Hogan. The rules change and the talent changes like apples and oranges. He says the change the NBA missed was raising the basket from 10 foot to 12 foot to reduce the dunk mania.

The Spanish Fort condos on Shell Bank at the Causeway were stopped after the developers cut down 12 oak trees despite saying they would not in the commission meeting agreement. Their attorney had a list of lame excuses about disease, but the truth is these developers have been unprofessional since they began and the city has foolishly permitted so many buildings they ruin the community. Both made mistakes that are unforgivable and the community is the one that suffers the loss. Even neighbors were ignored and now sadly, the neighbors were right, again, all along. Sounds just like the fake promises made by Cypress Pojnt developers and accepted by the Baldwin County planning commission, again ignoring the neighbors. This is representation by smoke and mirrors. This is why some developers and politicians give a bad name to the good ones doing honest work.

Back in the days when the Sand Island Light had a house, a boat landing dock and access, we would secretly visit on rare occasions when sea conditions allowed. We inspected for trash, vandalism and damage as unofficials gaurdians when the magic prism lens was still in place. The famous lighthouse off Dauphin Island was and remains a treasure of maritime history and engineering. It marked a sweeping current and shoal channel at the mouth of Mobile Bay known for Dr. Brown’s secret monster bull redfish spot, miles of sand island sanctuary that included a real ship wreck, giant sand and tiger sharks, and damn the torpedos full steam ahead. Every fishing family has a story of jumping sailfish and tarpon off the rocks, goats on the rocks or the memory of the light when it shone in the night. We still have the Formwalt lighthouse painting. Today Capt. Hal Pierce and Jim Hall and Thompson Engineering are trying to save it. But one day our visit became a story of survival at sea.

Three of use wound up the amazing wrought iron spiral staircase inside the cool airconditioned feeling brick cocoon. Bricks stacked tiny in the hundreds of thousands. Bricks like inlaid marble square designs in Government Street mansions. Confederate bricks and wrought iron rusty spiral stairs miles up toward the light, the sparkling jewel, the prisim, the sky, the sun.

The breathtaking view and wind is next to spiritual, the rush of a fast beating heart from the exhausting climb, the sun burn, the excitement, the secret… Tiny below was our small boat, anchored off the rocks where we swam in. As soon as we looked down our tiny boat began skipping its anchors over the rocks on the bottom as the rapid swift outgoing current sent the boat out to sea!

Like the teenage kids we were we went screaming down the spiral, like down a spiraling drain, down the stairs, before the boat vanished and we were trapped. Stay here! we bravely told the girl in the bathing suit, as we dove in the water to swin after the boat with the current and easily within reach of our experienced fit swimmer bodies. In the two boys dove, with nothing but our bathing suits.  We started swimming and quickly were catching up with the boat, until the anchor caught bottom again. Suddenly, 5 seconds later, we were swept wide past the boat, looked at each other, and whispered, oh shit. I looked back at the boat, now anchored, leaving us behind, as we were swept out to sea. Stay here, I’ll swim back to the boat, the star athlete of the two said and he bolted toward the boat. Swimming like on a treadmill against the current, after 10 seconds he looked up, further from the boat despite the effort. He stopped and in seconds was back on the rushing train track, with me, out to sea. Further back was the girl, tan and still, holding just our last three beers, still in the plastic 6 pack. What do I do she screamed! Just stay there we motioned. No sense in you drowning too.

We now call the story bouy swimming, sort of an unofficial title and joke at how stupid young brave men can be. We were headed due South out into the vast Gulf of Mexico. The ship channel bouys became distant one by one. We surveyed the horizon 360 degrees and on the summer weekday late afternoon there were no boats. Zero. No gas wells. No life jackets. Nothing. How do you spell tread water. How long can you three beers down, tread water?

We were good swimmers so treading water 15 minutes was no problem. Our highschool math began to kick in with clarity that far surpassed our grades. The current was the vortex headed this way with us, the lighthouse became a cigar on the horizon. The clock and miles were ticking a consistent beat that matched our swift heart beat. We were leaving and losing fast. Time was not on our science. Math, geometry, algebra was not on our side. Nor was science, biology, or chemistry. All we could do was point at the next bouy near us and start swimming. After less than 60 seconds, our direction or vortex toward the bouy against the vortex against the current at an angle defeated us, the bouy was behing us, fast as in a blink. We had missed that instant course calculation by a mile. I should have paid attention in class.

So we got together and dreaded water to save our last bit of strength. We had a calm frank short discussion. F**k. What the f**k are we going to do now. The last bouy off in the distant was a half mile away. We looked again 360 degrees, swimming straight up in the air briefly like trick porpise rasing our head to see above the waves. No boats. No nothing. A lighthouse now the size of a used pencil, a sea bouy, called farewell bouy by the merchant ship captains, the size of a toy, and a sun, a golden ball, thinking of setting into the water. Ok the mind calculates with clear, calm and quick precision, our last hope is to swim away from the last bouy in a direction that may land us on a collion course with the future patch of the current. One vortex, the sea moving south 2.5 miles per hour. Two very sober boys swimming at 3 miles per hour away from the bouy but in line where their course, at an angle against the sea current vortex, could somehow collide the two vortex courses in a rae moment of getting the math right. We agreed, the athlete took off, with the little brother following behind.

After swimming for several minutes fatigue began to set in. The sun began to bounce unsteady back and forth a top the horizon like a bouncing ball. The surreal bobbing ball like our two bobbing heads was not comforting. Were we dreaming? I looked after my brother and he is swimming out to sea, alone, lost, ahead of me, but in ther wrong direction. I saw in the newspaper a tiny article on page 3 metro “two boys drown in gulf”, we couldnt even rate a big headline. Stop, I awoke and yelled to him, you are going the wrong way. He looked back, a little confused, and very concerned. We were facing death, up close and personal.

(to be continued)

Time Magazine cover story says thousands of soldiers are on prozac, an anti-depressant. Is it a secret weapon chill pill to make soldiers not have fear, or is it normal treatment for depression for those in a very depressing situation, a war for life and death.