The only country
they’ve ever known is sending
them far, far away.

• • •

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Their plans were simply
to hang out and see where the
day and night take them.

• • •

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A look at Birmingham in videos …

Memphis rappers La Chat and Project Pat perform in August at the Birmingham Entertainment Center in the ACIPCO-Finley neighborhood (our vertical video of the week). From Certy Mac.

•

Dance battle featuring the Dancing Dolls of Birmingham. From William Mcintyre.

•

Driving on I-65 near West Valley Avenue (our other vertical video of the week). From Sam Aden.

•

Highlight reel for Wenonah High junior pitcher Gregory Wright at July’s Baseball America Camp held at Birmingham-Southern College. From Katressa Wright-Cooper.

More Wright highlights of fielding and hitting. From Katressa Wright-Cooper.

•

Orange County hip-hop violinist Josh Vietti performs at Jazz in the Park in August at Arlington Antebellum Home and Gardens in Arlington-West End. From Ron P.

•

Los Angeles drummer Glen Sobel performs at the Nick on Southside. From Birmingham Bandstand Open Mic.

Birmingham musician Rebecca Egeland performs at the Nick. From Birmingham Bandstand Open Mic.

Birmingham musician Chris Seifert performs at the Nick (our other other vertical video of the week). From Birmingham Bandstand Open Mic.

Birmingham’s People of the Internal Sunshine Band performs at the Nick (our other other other vertical video of the week). From Birmingham Bandstand Open Mic.

CJ GetLive performs at the Nick. From Birmingham Bandstand Open Mic.

Dr. D and Saylor perform at the Nick. From Birmingham Bandstand Open Mic.

•

An old-fashioned tent meeting (our other other other other vertical video of the week). From Joey Sammons.

•

The Velocity Accelerator program’s Demo Day and graduation in August at Covalence downtown. From Covalence.

•

Jamie White, owner of Brown Heating and Cooling in Hueytown, shows off a Bryant air conditioner. From Brown Heating and Cooling.

•

Is that Baphomet at the Storyteller fountain? From Mysteries of the Kingdom.

•

An 11th grade lesson on “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” from the Dr. Nermien Ismail Schools. From NIS 5PRO.

•

Austin country singer Tyler Dial performs at Uptown in August. From Deirien Howard.

•

Red Diamond’s role in Birmingham Restaurant Week. From Alabama NewsCenter.

Meeting restaurateurs at the Birmingham Restaurant Week Preview Party in August at the Upside-Down Plaza in Five Points South. From Lorenzo March.

•

Mobile’s Allante Jowers talks about the Innovate Birmingham Workforce program. From UAB News.

•

A look at the Flats on 4th apartments near Region Field. From Urban Spaces.

•

“CBS This Morning” interviews Birmingham mayor William Bell on the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Linn Park downtown. From CBS This Morning.

More on the Confederate memorial. From DeffMind Film Production.

•

Atlanta rapper J.I.D performs “Ed, Edd and Eddy” in June at Avondale Brewing Company (our other other other other other vertical video of the week). From J1 TG.

•

A trip to 2017 National Speech and Debate Tournament in June in Birmingham. From Brann Done.

•

“Lunch with Mee Mee: When Daddy was a Barber,” part of the series “Great Depression Stories” featuring a 90-year-old resident of Birmingham. From Genesis Media Solutions.

•

Driving north on I-65 from Montgomery to Birmingham. From Big Rig Travels.

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Landing at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. From Ph80sy.

•

James Harden of the Houston Rockets visits Parker High School in Smithfield as part of promoting the team’s 2018 pre-season game in Birmingham. From Alabama NewsCenter.

•

Historical footage of Birmingham in 1963 around the civil rights movement. From Professor Creviston History Channel.

•

Hanging out at the Birmingham Zoo. From Playing with Z Play.

•

A Vietnamese Catholic church procession at Our Lady of La Vang, St. John Bosco Church in Woodlawn. From Lymvideolth.

• • •

Send us links to your videos. | More videos on the Birmingham channel.

Video: John Oliver with some tips
for Labor Day (and other holidays)

Happy Labor Day!

No vacations, no
rest. In this country, every
day is Labor Day.

• • •

Read more haiku.

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My picks for #sundayread for September 3, 2017:

• Please follow these women for amazing #sundayread picks and so much more!
  • Akinyi @kikiochieng
  • Evelyne @EvyCoul
  • Victoria @vsisson13
• Soccer and the pursuit of meaning inside Kakuma, by @LouisBien (via @edsbs)
• Boomtown, Flood Town: Climate, flooding and Houston by Neena Satija @neenareports, @KiahCollier
• Y’all Connect: Our annual 10-day video sale … 2017 sessions nearly half off!
• Driverless Ed-Tech: History of Future of Automation in Education by @AudreyWatters /RT @PPTAWeb
• How Tesla changed the auto industry forever, by @AndyJayHawk (via @pizzaphants)
• Tweet tweet! Live-tweeting with style and substance
• The big bike helmet debate, by @PeterWalker99 (via @JakesBikesUK)
• Great chef takes on fast food. It’s harder than he imagined. By @DanielDuane /RT @401Erin
• Wade’s 101: #Haiku retrospective 43
• Homewood Library @WeKnowBooksETC has $50 prize for its adult reading program in Sept. #bham
• The Desperate Journey of a Trafficked Girl, by @BenTaub91 (via @kikiochieng)
• Meet Man Who Living Alone on Island for 28 Years by @GulnazKhan (RT @MARTIN_CASAS)
• Home Is a Cup of Tea, by @CandaceRardon (via @Melaniegouby)

More posts from Wade this week:

• The Birmingham channel: Say so long to summer

The latest #sundayread tweets:

#sundayread Tweets

• More #sundayread recommendations from me

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1. garden buffet
   The leaves have little
   bite marks where wild visitors
   stop for healthy snacks.
2. a trip to the beach
   Find the perfect spot
   for catching rays, reading trash,
   making sand castles.
3. kiss track
   When artists feud, let
   them make up with lip-locks set
   to a funky beat.
4. canning fodder
   The fight for freedom
   never ends. Must we always
   send them in harm’s way?
5. eternal summer
   Rising seas, flooded
   coasts, ancient viruses, wide-
   spread decimation.
6. stirrings
   A gentle breeze lifts
   my aching heart to new heights.
   Love is in the air.
7. frustration without representation
   No one else was in
   the room where it happened, the
   room where it happened.
8. a mom’s poetry journal
   First words, first steps, first
   day of school. Write it all down,
   even when it hurts.
9. a sorta fairytale 2.0
   Once upon a time.
   Boy swipes girl. Boy loses girl.
   Boy friends girl. The end.
10. logged out
    They dismantled the
    giant oak, its wooden bones
    left out on the curb.
11. the path once taken
    Ugly gardens, mean
    mutts, a falling piano
    and a touch of puke.
12. we take it for granted
    The long forgetting
    of little niceties done
    without need of praise.
13. alternative fiction
    The edges of the
    reality distortion
    field grow unbounded.
14. the patriarch, the baby and the father
    The specter of death
    came calling and never left
    our once happy home.
15. james and the giant (im)peach
    The corridors of
    power echo with the words
    of the lone top cop.
16. restless heart syndrome
    Insecurity,
    a faithful companion to
    keep me uneasy.
17. as goes flint
    Water comes in both
    leaded, unleaded. Make sure
    yours is the right one.
18. cardiac conditioning
    Love, however brief,
    strengthens a heart against the
    loss that often comes.
19. keys to resiliency
    Be realistic.
    Believe life is meaningful.
    Wing it when needed.
20. a time of renewal
    Withered vines and dead
    leaves cleared for a row of new
    seeds and some sunshine.
21. the monster at the end of this preview
    All movie trailers
    end the same way: with shameless
    pleas to buy tickets.
22. curse of the attentive
    Staring at the back
    of everyone else’s phones,
    waiting to converse.
23. what i call my junk
    The exclamation
    point delivers excitement
    in a slim package.
24. you do you
    Her tirades against
    the universe came from her
    weird Twitter outbursts.
25. all sweat, all the time
    After a shower,
    waking up, getting something
    from the car, breathing.
26. then ludicrous plan it is
    A reasonable
    course of action is seldom
    called upon to try.
27. vox unpopuli
    The most persuasive
    voice is the one nagging deep
    from inside the head.
28. the wake of cindy
    Rain nourished the land
    in a reassuring caress
    on a darkened day.
29. woes before doze
    Night becomes prison
    for insomniacs who want
    parole to dreamland.
30. a greedy cancer
    Corruption poisons
    the powerful, infecting
    people with mistrust.
31. rip megan rondini
    She was raped. She cried
    for help. They shunned her, blamed her.
    Then she killed herself.
32. sitcom scrum
    The idiot ball
    bounces from character to
    character for laughs.
33. bles this mess
    It’s easy to write
    haiku when you don’t have to
    count out the sylla—
34. post-lunch lull
    The afternoon is
    for wrapping napkins, flirting
    with fellow servers.
35. creative input
    Knowing trivia
    answers: good. Making up the
    answers: much better.
36. the finicky gourmand
    She would eat only
    chicken fingers, potatoes
    (mashed) and M&Ms.
37. every day’s a vacation in the ocean
    Even the sharks are
    headed to the beach for some
    swimming and nibbling.
38. salt water tally
    Waves write their names in
    lattice letters of foam with
    disappearing ink.
39. certain unalienable rights
    That among these are
    Life, Liberty and the pur-
    suit of Happiness.
40. declare and conquer
    The Founding Fathers
    understood all too well the
    power-mad tyrant.
41. the zen of baking
    The pan holds batter.
    The oven radiates. The
    cake rises or falls.
42. two out of three on the grateful list
    Being in great health.
    Having great abdominals.
    Great at telling lies.
43. grateful on the go
    Discount muffins and
    cheap gas and a car that lasts
    for some 20 years.
44. grateful on the net
    The fellowship, the
    friendship and the endless wealth
    of cute videos.
45. body positivity gratitude
    Grateful for teeth that
    chew (but not great at tearing),
    soft lips and soft hands.
46. are you not grateful to be entertained?
    Peak television.
    Audiobooks on demand.
    Superhero flicks.
47. a grateful spirit embiggens the smallest soul
    Grateful for things that
    last, relationships that grow,
    a heart that accepts.
48. on the road to gratitude
    Hospitality
    in strange places, a kind heart,
    inviting cuisine.
49. the good place
    The friend zone is where
    I want to be, gossiping
    laughing and scheming.
50. the blogging fairy
    The blogging fairy
    brings good ideas and lots
    of site visitors.
51. an introvert in hell
    Just need that one lone
    hour away from people
    and charts and mingling.
52. finite jest
    Considering how
    stupid life is, it’s better
    that we are mortal.
53. winky face heart eyes
    The journey of a
    thousand texts begins with a
    single emoji.
54. the mask of zero
    Sometimes, character
    is revealed under the most
    mundane conditions.
55. flash film binge
    They watched a bunch of
    nobodies bring everything
    to life in 2 days.
56. a soul so light
    Unburdened with lies
    and mistakes, grasping for love
    and understanding.
57. battle of the networker stars
    He passed out business
    cards like candy, the kind that
    rots your will to live.
58. heads, we’re good
    The choice to be nice.
    The choice to be kind. The choice
    to be fair. Take it.
59. perhaps a second intermission
    The tenor declares
    mild weather in a 20-
    minute aria.
60. kids’ matinee
    They marched into the
    theater single file and
    watched without a peep.
61. home remedies
    Take a bee’s stinger,
    mix it with ointment and brine,
    inject rectally.
62. a minor legal matter
    A Boy Scout is blah,
    blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
    blah, blah, blah and blah.
63. after employee chip insertion
    Make them dance like the
    puppets they are, then charge them
    double for vending.
64. a type of food group
    His idea of
    cooking was to open a
    bag of chips, served fresh.
65. at the reunion of former classmates
    Everyone’s bigger,
    balder, gauntier, louder
    and mostly sadder.
66. imposters
    They share our first and
    last names, but their faces and
    minds are different.
67. it’s been a privilege
    We do the same things
    but get different outcomes. It’s
    like the system’s rigged.
68. not quite hitchcockian
    The audience seemed
    dazed once the lights came up and
    the credits rolled by.
69. party hats optional
    She spent her birthday
    under the knife and fed by
    an array of tubes.
70. high praise from the orchestra
    The brass bumped fists, the
    strings tapped bows, and the woodwinds
    trilled for no reason.
71. guess who’s coming to instagram?
    The pork was simply
    photogenic, while the beets
    blushed under the lights.
72. a mind left to its own devices
    Boredom should be a
    crime when imagination
    can sustain us all
73. surrounded by greatness
    He was last in the
    batting order and worked to
    play better with less.
74. the invisible woman
    No eyes were on her.
    No greetings to welcome her.
    A soul in shadows.
75. flash flood flash
    A harmless creek swells
    into a tsunami of
    tumbling cars set free.
76. just another day during world war 3
    Leaders trade barbs while
    missiles strike their objectives.
    Let’s watch it all die.
77. a slight tenor
    His voice was his meal
    ticket, one that fed him with
    ramen and bean soup.
78. a cooked book
    The recipe called
    for 2 cups of plot and a
    dash of character.
79. love the brazilian way
    A sultry fling with
    heat, passion and some sandy
    settings at sunset.
80. the sold-out talent show
    Little performers
    rehearsed their modest acts to
    torture their parents.
81. educators when time permits
    Teachers are half moms,
    half counselors, half wardens
    and all underpaid.
82. fighting the nazis
    Yell at them. Insult
    them. Spit on them. Drive them off.
    Punch them in the nose.
83. but what about
    Stop defending the
    evil forces. Start taking
    care of each other.
84. expressway to far away
    The highway will be
    rebuilt, but without all those
    cumbersome exits.
85. floral camouflage
    Snapdragons lined the
    forest floor, giving cover
    to the wee creatures.
86. newton’s lol
    Quietly the kids
    texted absurd nicknames for
    the science teacher.
87. molecular attraction
    Oxygen had a
    three-way with some hydrogen
    and made a big splash.
88. letters in a time of unrest
    He sent handwritten
    missives to his beloved
    while fighting back tears.
89. reflect to deflect
    A chunk of rock casts
    a mighty shadow with help
    from a nearby star.
90. the knight at the end of this book
    Each new page brought her
    closer to the past, finding
    love in the castle.
91. conversational flow
    I like how she pelts
    me with questions, plus answers
    all the ones I ask.
92. accounting migraine
    Cash flow barely a
    trickle, struggling to make the
    figures keep in shape.
93. harvey, wallbanger
    The hurricane tore
    through the gulf to pummel the
    coast and its neighbors.
94. normalizing the new normal
    The new normal is
    not new nor normal. It is
    fascism renewed.
95. a city underwater
    The rain would not stop.
    Streets, homes, cars flooded, buried.
    The rain would not stop.
96. the innings that pass
    They paid almost no
    attention to the game while
    lost in tender gaze.
97. 11 trillion gallons
    Noah looked at the
    flood, gasped and swam for safety
    away from Houston.
98. nursing home rescue
    The residents are
    evacuated safely,
    but what of the cats?
99. the home of the future today
    The kitchen doesn’t
    clean itself, nor the bathroom.
    The maid goes to work.
100. will of the triumph
     Our sorrows consume
     our thoughts, but our blessings need
     guided remembrance.
101. the signal
     Her lips said nothing
     but kiss me again and a-
     gain and again and …

• • •

Read more Wade’s 101.

Read more haiku.

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Our sorrows consume
our thoughts, but our blessings need
guided remembrance.

• • •

Read more haiku.

Subscribe via RSS to Wade’s Daily Haiku. Or have it delivered daily by e-mail.

The kitchen doesn’t
clean itself, nor the bathroom.
The maid goes to work.

• • •

Read more haiku.

Subscribe via RSS to Wade’s Daily Haiku. Or have it delivered daily by e-mail.