June 19, 2011  Truth isn’t just stranger than fiction — it’s faster. In an espionage novel I wrote in 2007, I created what was then a futuristic million-volt stun gun disguised as an iPhone. Today, you can buy an even more potent stun gun online, albeit tricked out as a BlackBerry. [more]


How Gamblers—History’s Most Accurate Election Forecasters—are Betting on 2012

10/24/2012  I don't like uncertainty. The current presidential polls -- Gallup with Romney leading by three percent, CBS with Obama up by two percent, aggregators split on whose nose is ahead -- are a hotbed of uncertainty. Fortunately there are veritable election oracles I can turn to instead: gamblers. [more]

The story of a man who bought 200 classic cars, mostly on eBay.

September 2008  When you enter Stewart Dudley’s dimly lit warehouse in Birmingham, Alabama, you breathe in a bouquet of steel, leather, motor oil, and antiquity. As your eyes acclimate, you’re dazzled by chrome and more fins than there are at SeaWorld. Classic American car junkies: This is your Willy Wonka factory. Those of you who don’t know a Corvette from a Chevette: You’ll still be transfixed by the details, like the phonograph in the magenta, metallic, and lilac convertible. Who knew record players were a factory option in ’56 Plymouths?

 

The Spy Gadget Vendor Who Loved Me

September 28, 2010  In the last two years, my work as a national security reporter brought me into contact with an array of bright and gallant intelligence community personnel ranging from a temp at the National Security Agency to the director of the CIA. As it happens, the source who had the greatest influence on my latest espionage novel was a civilian who distributes cheap spy gadgets from his father’s basement.


August 28, 1953: The Biggest Day in Alabama Baseball History

August 26, 2013  Sixty summers ago, long before the advent of pre-K soccer leagues, before there were rock-climbing camps, and before elementary schoolers began flying cross-country to compete in video game tournaments, there was baseball and only baseball. And kids couldn’t get enough of it. [more]

Dick Scruggs is shown at Birmingham's Rickwood Field. (Brian Williams | For AL.com)

Dick Scruggs is shown at Birmingham's Rickwood Field. (Brian Williams | For AL.com)

Why did Negro Leagues star Dick Scruggs walk away from baseball at age 21?

The Birmingham News

July 12, 2018 It was troubling when Eugene "Dick" Scruggs didn't show up at Kansas City Monarchs' spring training camp in 1960.

The team's owner/manager, Ted Rasberry, suspected that… [more]

John Hall | AL.com

John Hall | AL.com

How racism killed Ernest Fann’s baseball dream

The Birmingham News

July 25, 2018 True or false: In 1945, did Jackie Robinson’s signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers open the doors of Major League Baseball to black players.

False, argues Birmingham resident Ernest Fann, and he cites his abbreviated career as evidence. [more]