Deep in the back country of Alabama (perhaps that's too general, as it pretty much comprises the whole state) lurk a scheming pair of swindlers that put Professor Harold Hill to shame. The duo, who pulled the veil of quick tax relief and easy money over an entire county, have only recently been implicated in the colossal fallout of the scheme that brought them to riches and reduced Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham, to financial rubble. Charles E. LeCrow, a sly-talking Wall Street businessman, and William Blount, a speculating local banker, conned the good people of Jefferson County into pouring money into complex NYSE trades, totalling (US)$5.8 billion. The fact that, without heavy government loans (which looks likely, given that this is an isolated incident) the County will crumble, Birmingham with it, I have to laugh. Some things really don't change. Frankly, it's a modern day Duke and Dauphin. One can only hope this news will be soon followed by a car chase, complete with the crazed Stars 'n Bars waving yokels that would make Hazard County blush with pride. I can almost imagine Mr. LeCrow as the slick carpetbagger, complete with his stovepipe hat and dastardly, curled mustache, twirling a silver-topped cain and Mr. Blount as the white-suited, bolo-tied, red-faced financial cornerstone, perhaps reverentially referred to as "the general" or some other imagined military position. I'm sure the lovable, but foolish mayor, in a sash wrapped around a suit that itself could barely fit around his gravitous potbelly, is in there somewhere too. And the graceful, but bookish Southern belle who falls for the smooth Northerner, only to discover his dastardliness and grapple with the decision to reveal it to the townspeople. Yes, the thick Southern air is rife for a just such an occasion.
