Deep South

I am a great fan of your section, but I must admit to being confused by Patrick Goldstein's article, "Steal Magnolias" (Nov. 24). Goldstein writes that the parallels between media events of today and those of the South in the 1950s are "striking," details how George Wallace and Nicholas Katzenbach staged a media event and suggests that Southern politicians inspired Roger Ailes. But then he praises the same period and place for its genuineness and spontaneity and bemoans today's politicians for "contriving" images.

On Tuesday night, a racial barrier could fall in Georgia: If 12 th District Democratic Rep. John Barrow loses to Republican state Rep. Lee Anderson, the Democratic party would lose its last white congressman in the Deep South, where other white Democrats have long fallen far into the rearview of this Republican stronghold. Over in the 10 th Congressional District, Republican Rep. Paul Broun -- who earned widespread scorn after calling evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory “lies from the pit of hell” - is running unopposed; some Georgians have threatened to choose “Charles Darwin” as a write-in candidate in symbolic protest.

On Tuesday night, a racial barrier could fall in Georgia: If 12 th District Democratic Rep. John Barrow loses to Republican state Rep. Lee Anderson, the Democratic party would lose its last white congressman in the Deep South, where other white Democrats have long fallen far into the rearview of this Republican stronghold. Over in the 10 th Congressional District, Republican Rep. Paul Broun -- who earned widespread scorn after calling evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory “lies from the pit of hell” - is running unopposed; some Georgians have threatened to choose “Charles Darwin” as a write-in candidate in symbolic protest.

More than 30 years into the AIDS epidemic, a combination of safe-sex education and a new generation of pharmaceuticals has left many Americans convinced that HIV/AIDS is a problem that has been, if not solved, at least addressed. But that's certainly not true in the American South, which accounts for nearly 50% of all new HIV infections in the United States. The South has the highest rate of AIDS deaths of any U.S. region. It also has the largest numbers of adolescents and adults living with HIV and the fewest resources to fight the epidemic.

With the Alabama and Mississippi primaries two days away, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich tussled Sunday over which Republican presidential hopeful would adhere most faithfully to conservative orthodoxy on fiscal restraint, healthcare and oil drilling. They also took swipes at rival candidate Mitt Romney, whose heavy advertising has made Tuesday's contests in the Deep South fiercely competitive despite the cultural dissonance between the former Massachusetts governor and both states.

Democrat Glen Browder won a solid victory Tuesday in a special congressional election, dashing Republican hopes to use the race as a building block toward GOP gains in the Deep South. With all of the 656 precincts reporting, the unofficial count showed Browder with 53,031 votes, or 65%, to Republican John Rice's 28,787, or 35%. The seat was left vacant in December with the death of Rep.

A mixture of snow, ice and rain disrupted travel, closed schools and threatened to cause flooding across a broad band of the central United States from the northern Plains to the Deep South on Monday. Sheets of ice sent vehicles spinning across roadways and forced pedestrians to adopt an awkward shuffle to keep from falling. Visibility was a half-mile, and thickening snow covered a treacherous layer of ice, blamed for several pileups in eastern Nebraska, an official said.

You sense the breath of originality soon enough: a lascivious saxophone wailing in the sultry air, bluesy yearnings, simmering emotions. Discovering Judi Ann Mason's "Indigo Blues," as staged by Michele Martin for Mojo Ensemble at the American New Theatre, is like walking into a theater for the first time--it's that good. Two black sisters in rural Louisiana have just returned home from their brother's funeral.

Floods that carried six people to their deaths in the rain-swept Deep South ripped open dams and buried towns under as much as 10 feet of water Saturday, forcing hundreds to flee and threatening to chase thousands more from their homes, authorities said. Major flooding was reported in Alabama, inundated by up to 17 inches of rain Thursday and Friday, and in Tennessee, the Carolinas and Georgia, where roads and bridges have been washed out by 7 inches of rain since Friday.

For Tom Mesereau, there hasn't been much middle ground lately: It's been either glitz or grits. Mesereau, a big man whose crown of white, shoulder-length hair is about as commonplace in Alabama courts as a powdered wig, is the lead attorney for pop star Michael Jackson. He usually practices in Century City, roughly a million miles from Bessemer's courthouse and the seafood gumbo at the Bright Star restaurant nearby.

Hours from learning whether Alabama Republicans will reinvigorate his political fortunes, Newt Gingrich made a midday stop to speak to a suburban chamber of commerce, mentioning just a few times that he was running for president and not mentioning his opponents at all. Gingrich, who spoke after an expert on cyber crime, lapsed into a short discourse of the marvels of technology, extolling ATMs and the composite technology in the 787 Dreamliner....

First it was grits. Now it's catfish. On the eve of the Mississippi and Alabama primaries, Mitt Romney showed how far he would go to bond with Southerners who might feel something less than a natural kinship with the famously stiff New England investment titan. “That's a fine Alabama good mornin',” Romney said with a twang to a few dozen supporters who braved a drenching downpour to sing him “Happy Birthday” outside the Whistle Stop diner on the Gulf Coast. The former Massachusetts governor, who turns 65 on Tuesday, could have left it at that.

With the Mississippi and Alabama primaries now two days away, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich tussled on Sunday over which Republican presidential hopeful would adhere most faithfully to conservative orthodoxy on fiscal restraint, healthcare and oil drilling. Both also took swipes at GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney, whose heavy advertising has made the pivotal Deep South contests fiercely competitive despite both states' cultural dissonance with the former Massachusetts governor.

  With his presidential aspirations riding on support in the Deep South, Newt Gingrich opened his final one-week dash to the crucial Georgia primary on Wednesday with a states' rights appeal laden with racial symbolism. His setting was the ornate chamber of Georgia's House of Representatives, where Gingrich told lawmakers that he would fight for a "very strong" states' rights platform at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. "I want to return power back home to an extraordinary degree," said Gingrich, a former U.S. House speaker who represented Georgia in Congress for 20 years.

For Democrats, Ashley Bell was the kind of comer that a party builds a future on: A young African American lawyer, he served as president of the College Democrats of America, advised presidential candidate John Edwards and spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. But after his party's midterm beat-down in November, Bell, a commissioner in northern Georgia's Hall County, jumped ship. He joined the Republicans. Bell, 30, said he had serious issues with the healthcare law and believed that conservative "blue dog" Democrats in Congress who shared his values had been bullied into voting for it. Bell's defection is one of dozens by state and local Democratic officials in the Deep South in recent months that underscore Republicans' continued consolidation of power in the region ?

Bitter cold swept into the Deep South, dropping snow on Dixie and plunging temperatures below freezing as far south as Florida. The National Weather Service said the cold wave stretched from northern Minnesota and New England to central Texas and the Florida Panhandle. Snow fell in northern Florida and a quarter-inch was reported at Demopolis, Ala.

Frigid air poured into the heart of the Deep South on Monday, threatening Florida citrus and vegetable crops with temperatures lower than readings in New England and Montana and icing roads in Alabama and Georgia. At least seven deaths were blamed on the weather from New York to Georgia as hundreds of vehicles slid out of control. Heavy, wet snow and freezing rain snapped power lines and caused blackouts affecting thousands in the Northeast.