This is a call for donations to make possible what may turn out to be one of the best board games ever made.  The game is called Cthulhu Wars.  Just in case you didn't already know, I am a huge fan of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.  I <3 anything Cthulhu, and that is why I want to see this game become everything it has the potential to be.

If you donate money toward its production, you will not only be helping the game's makers to reach their goals, you will also be getting rewards in return based on the size of your donation.  The rewards include the game itself, expansions, dice, figurines, t-shirts, and signed art prints. Think of it more like a pre-order for all of these goodies!  Here's a little video to give you the gist of what you would be supporting.  Also, you can read the rules here.



Donations are accepted through a Kickstarter fund created by Sandy Peterson, the mastermind behind Chaosium's original Call of Cthulhu game.  He has already raised enough money not only to produce the game but to offer several expansions and present a higher quality product.  There are currently 3,288 backers who have together given a total of $837,942.  That's amazing, right?!

HOWEVER.

There are several stretch goals that have yet to be met, and I know that I and the people generously backing this game would love to see even more figurines and expansions.  Plus, if you make a donation of $200 or higher, you'll receive all the free prizes associated with the stretch goals, and there are A LOT of them.  Do not fret if you aren't Daddy Warbucks; you can pledge as little or as much as you like, and prizes start at just $10.

Donations/pre-orders will no longer be accepted after Sunday, July 7, 2013.  So please, for the love of all things in R'lyeh, click on the widget below and give what you can to make this game epic.

Portrait of Juana Mariataken after rescue

Many of us encountered Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell in elementary and middle school, but I honestly never knew before today that it was based on a true story.  Apparently, the Newbery Medal winning book that tells the story of Karana, a Native American girl who survives for years stranded on the island formerly inhabited by her people, is based on the real-life survival story of a woman named Juana Maria, better known as the "Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island."  I was especially fond of survival stories and stories about befriending animals when I was a kid, so I absolutely ate this book up.  I even remember playing pretend with my friends that we were stranded on the same island as Karana.  To find out that the events depicted in the children's novel actually took place (more or less) just gets me over the top giddy!

Juana Maria's story and its popularity with young readers in the form of O'Dell's novel made San Nicolas Island and the Channel Islands off the coast of California famous.  It also inspired Navy archaeologist, Steven Schwartz, to search the island, which is now a Navy base designed to track missiles.  After investigating the island for more than 20 years, Schwartz and his team believe that they have found the very cave in which the Lone Woman lived!

Archaeology student inside the cave, courtesy of LA Times

According to the Los Angeles Times article on the find, because there was no known cave on the tiny island in which the Lone Woman might have stayed, Schwartz concluded that the cave must have collapsed and been buried.  When he acquired a government survey map dated 1879 that pinpoints the location of an "Indian Cave," he knew that this was the place to dig.  When more than 40,000 buckets of sand were removed from the cave, relics from the Juana Maria's time were discovered.  There was also a separate discovery of two redwood boxes held together with tar at some nearby cliffs.  The two boxes hold more than 200 stone blades, harpoon points, bone fishhooks and other tools, and Schwartz speculates that they may have been placed there by the Lone Woman, who was known to stash useful things all around the island.

In light of this awesome discovery, I'm definitely going to have to do a reread of Island.  It's been a very long time since I've read it, and I can't wait!  I'll be sure to post on here about my reread, just as soon as I plow through this very bleh John Grisham book I'm reading.  If you'd like to join me in reading Island of the Blue Dolphins, you can buy yourself a copy, new or used, by clicking here or by going to the Shop tab at the top of the page.  Also, here's a link to the Wikipedia article on Juana Maria for anyone interested in the story of the actual woman who inspired the book.

Yesterday, June 12th, marked what would have been Anne Frank's 84th birthday.  It was also on this day in 1942 that Anne Frank received a diary for her 13th birthday and wrote the very first entry in it.  The life she wrote within those pages has touched millions of people across the globe, not just as a chronicle of the terror of the Holocaust but as a candid look into the life of a teenage girl trying to understand herself. 

The first page of Anne's diary, courtesy of AnneFrank.org

Recently, a mother in Northville, Michigan, filed a complaint, demanding that the definitive, unedited version of Anne's diary be banned by the school district for its, well, frank language when talking about sexual matters.  Here is one passage that has her worked up:

"Until I was eleven or twelve, I didn't realize there was a second set of labia on the inside, since you couldn't see them. What's even funnier is that I thought urine came out of the clitoris…When you're standing up, all you see from the front is hair. Between your legs there are two soft, cushiony things, also covered with hair, which press together when you're standing, so you can't see what's inside. They separate when you sit down and they're very red and quite fleshy on the inside. In the upper part, between the outer labia, there's a fold of skin that, on second thought, looks like a kind of blister. That's the clitoris."

Anne's writing desk in the Annex, courtesy of AnneFrank.org

Well, this is quite a description.  When read in this blunt block quote without truly appreciating the context or the young girl who wrote it, it is easy to see why someone might become uncomfortable.  However, I have two points to make about why it would be wrong to remove this passage or any other passage like it.

The sexual content in this book is of the nature of a young person being curious about sex, as every
young person is around this age.  In her diary, Anne is has depicted her own self-discovery, and part of discovering herself is discovering her sexuality and sexual identity.  Everyone goes through this at some point, and to censor Anne is to deprive today's young readers the opportunity to see that being curious about sex and one's anatomy isn't freakish; it is something everyone goes through and is completely normal.  It removes the guilt that might be associated with wondering such things, and it gives young people the opportunity to learn a little of what Anne learned without having to ask an embarrassing question. Anne even describes giving the "sex talk" to her crush, Peter, who has questions himself.

To remove these sorts of things is to also to remove a part of Anne and to make her seem other than she really is, to place her on a pedestal of sainthood.  It removes her humanity and her realness.  Editions leaving out Anne's more racy entries aren't depicting the real Anne but a false version of her altered to conform to society's mores.

Secondly, removal of sexual content from school books in order to "protect" children doesn't actually protect them; it instead makes them more vulnerable.  In places where young teens don't receive proper sexual education that helps them understand the process and the risks and are instead told only to abstain from sex in order to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs, rates of HIV contraction and unplanned pregnancy are higher.  Let me just throw this chart up there for you:

Source

When teens, who are going to probably become sexually active whether adults like it or not, are uniformed about sex, they are unable to make informed decisions regarding it.  Censoring what Anne says about female anatomy amounts to pretending that it doesn't exist and telling children to just stay away from it.  It is overall unwise and unhealthy to suppress what a young girl has to say about her own questions about sex and the answers she found.  Pretending sex, sexuality, and sexual anatomy don't exist doesn't make them go away.

But this story has a happy ending.  I honestly can say I've never been prouder of our education system than at this moment, even if it was only one school district.  Instead of giving in to the pressure of uninformed parents, which has been a regrettable trend among states and school districts over the past several years, Northville Public School officials have stated that they will not remove the book.  Their reasoning?  Taking away the unedited version amounts to censorship.  If only certain portions of a book are banned, it changes the book altogether and presents it as something it's not, like those idiotic editions of Huckleberry Finn that censor the n word.  This is fundamentally wrong, and these school officials see that.

If you've not been fortunate enough to read the unedited version of Anne's diary, it really is an enlightening treat.  Anne becomes almost a whole new girl; she even has a period, talks candidly about the subject of sex, and forms sometimes harsh opinions about the people around her and their choices.  If you'd like to have a copy for yourself, new or used, just click here or look under the Shop tab at the top of the page.  Happy reading, and don't ever let book banning stop you!

Dolora Zajick, mezzo-soprano and former Adler Fellow

Earlier this month, the San Francisco Opera announced its 2013-14 season, which includes the world premiere of an opera based on Stephen King's 1992 book, Dolores Claiborne.  I don't know about all of you, but even though it's not one of Stephen King's scary novels, I'm still very excite! 

Plus, if ever there was a Stephen King book that was suitable for opera adaptation, it's this one.  Instead a horror book full of monsters and ghostly manifestations, Dolores Claiborne is a psychological thriller with murder, repressed memories, and sexual abuse, things that have found themselves at home in operas from The Rape of Lucretia to Tosca.  I actually love the movie version of the book with Kathy Bates, so I can't wait to see how the story manifests itself as an opera. 

The brand new opera's music will be composed by Tobias Picker, with its libretto by J.D. McClatchy.  A favorite in San Francisco, Dolora Zajick, will be playing the title role, soprano Elizabeth Futral will sing the part of Vera Donovan, and Sarah Biller will play Dolores' daughter, Selena.  McClatchy has stated that the opera will be sung in "American verissimo style," and the words will be basic American vernacular without any "pretty English."  I'll admit that I know very little about opera, but the idea of an opera in everyday language seems unusual and intriguing to me.   Also, just looking at pictures of Dolora Zajick makes me feel like she'll do well with the role; she sort of manifests the mental image I had of Dolores while reading the book.

The opera is set to open September 18th and run through October 4th.  For those of you who would like to read the book before experiencing the opera, you can purchase a copy of Dolores Claiborne here.  Happy reading, and happy listening!

Image courtesy of the European Pressphoto Agency

That's right, people, J.K. Rowling's first "adult" novel has been picked up by the BBC to be turned into a miniseries to be aired in 2014.

When The Casual Vacancy was announced earlier this year, it was clear to Harry Potter fans and Muggles what Rowling was attempting to do: break away from the cult phenomenon and be "taken seriously" by the rest of the literary world.  But the realm of science fiction and fantasy is fraught with such attempts, and like so many others who have tried before (Leonard Nimoy springs to mind) would tell her, it's an extremely difficult undertaking.

When the book was actually released during late September, reception was as is to be expected.  No one could remove themselves from the Potter-verse far enough to read it frankly, and many people were disturbed by her shift from imaginative fantasy to harsh, sometimes disgusting realism.  The book was trampled by comparisons to Harry Potter and relegated to the parallel universe where overshadowed books are doomed to dwell forever alongside George Orwell's Down And Out In Paris And London and Joseph Heller's Something Happened.

However, despite the fact that The Casual Vacancy was met with skepticism and was manhandled by critics, the novel has still become a bestseller (probably due to interest from curious Harry Potter fans), and the BBC seems to think that its gritty drama will fit nicely alongside its other programs.  Rowling herself also said, "I always felt, if it were adapted, this novel was best suited to television, and I think the BBC is the perfect home." 

Rowling plans to work closely with the BBC and with her agent, Neil Blair, who is producing the series through his own independent production company.

Also, I fully intend to read this book ASAP, so anyone who would like to follow along with me, you can purchase the book here.  Happy reading!

Unveiling of Wilde's newly renovated tomb

On November 30th, Oscar Wilde's renovated tomb was unveiled by his grandson, Merlin Holland, and British actor Rupert Everett. All graffiti has been scrubbed away, and there is a new glass barrier to shield this iconic author's tomb from kisses.  Yes, kisses.

Why does Wilde need to protected from the kisses of his adoring fans?  According to the Vancouver Sun, even his grandson admitted that Wilde "would have loved the attention."

Well, it seems that the kisses are eating away at the tomb, a statue of an Assyrian-style flying angel designed by modernist sculptor Jacob Epstein.  While it remained relatively safe and unscathed for many, many years (aside from the hacking off of the angel's giant wing-wang), tourists began writing notes on the tomb in 1985.  His grandson fought to and succeeded at having the tomb declared a historic monument, hoping that the fines of thousands of euros that come from defacing it would deter vandals.

However, in 1999, one inspired person decided to plant a big, red, lipsticked kiss on the tomb.  This sparked a new tradition, with people from all over the world coming to kiss the author's tomb and wish him their love.

While this might sound romantic, the kisses were actually damaging the tomb.  Where each person kissed the tomb, the oils and grease from the lipstick sank into the stone and began to wear down the tomb.  That means that long after the kisses may have been washed away, the oils remained, slowly destroying Wilde's monument.

Therefore, after the latest expensive renovation to the tomb, which was funded by Irish Cultural Centre, a glass shield was placed around the monument in hopes of deterring would-be smoochers.

"Inevitably people will try to climb over the glass, but glass is fragile and people will perceive it as such.  Maybe one day we can take it down when the memory of kissing Oscar is gone," said Holland.

Everett, who came out as gay in the 1980s and starred in the 2002 film version of "The Importance of Being Earnest", described the dandy Irishman as his "patron saint" and "one of the last great vagabonds" of the 19th century.

Oscar Wilde

"I find him very inspiring and touching, not just for his genius, also for his stupidity, in a way. He was a human being, and made mistakes like everyone else," Everett said.

He related Wilde's trial and how he was caught out trying to explain his attitude to the lips of boys and men before being convicted of homosexuality in 1895 and sentenced to two years prison with hard labor.

"Kisses for Oscar Wilde were not just signs of love, he associated them with danger, even death," said Everett, who has written a screenplay about Wilde's final years with which he hopes to make a directorial debut next year.

"He has the perfect blend of brilliance and silliness, of pride and humility ... from the dress circle to the drains, his life was his greatest work of art and an inspiration to anyone who's ever felt outcast."

Jane Austen

So I came across a really interesting article the other day on the Discovery News website; apparently, there's a group of people who believe that Jane Austen didn't die naturally but was POISONED.  DUN DUN DUUUNN.

According to the article, doctors and historians have speculated for years what the mysterious illness that killed the author at the age of 41 might be, but no one has ever been able to match up a symptom described in one of her letters to any suggested disease.  In her letter, she said, "I am considerably better now and recovering my looks a little, which have been bad enough, black and white and every wrong colour."

Mystery writer Lindsay Ashford suggests that this strange discoloration of her skin is a symptom of arsenic poisoning (although I'm not entirely sure I trust the credentials of a random mystery writer).  She wrote in a tidbit in the Daily Mail, a U.K. newspaper/news website, that arsenic "...causes skin spotting if taken in small doses over a long time... Known as the 'raindrop' effect, it causes some patches of skin to go dark brown or black; other areas lose all pigment to go white."

But speculation proves nothing; what's intriguing is that a friend of a couple who once owned a locke of Jane Austen's hair and later donated it to a museum told Ashford that the hair had been tested for arsenic, and it had tested positive.  Keep in mind that this is hearsay twice removed from the source, but still intriguing. 

While the chances are small that someone deliberately poisoned Austen, Ashford speculates that she may have been given medicine containing arsenic to treat a non-fatal illness, which may have ultimately hastened or caused her death.  Austen mentioned rheumatism in her letters, which is a disease for which medicine containing arsenic was prescribed.  "[Arsenic] was present in all manner of goods, from candles and wallpaper to dress fabric and sweets.  There was a jar in most households: used as rat poison, you could buy it loose at any grocer's shop with no questions asked.  A tasteless, odourless white powder, it was often mistaken for flour or baking powder with fatal results."

Ashford is taking the idea of Austen's deliberate poisoning with arsenic and running with it, writing a new novel called The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen.

I always love it when a new Stephen King movie or TV series comes out, and I'm especially excited for this one.  While Bag of Bones is one of his books that I have yet to read, the previews I've seen for the 2-part miniseries a la It are really promising.  Pierce Brosnan is making a television comeback with a cast that includes a few others you might recognize from the most recent Dreamgirls movie and the hit TV shows True Blood and Beverly Hills, 90210.  The first part of the 4-hour movie will be airing on A&E on December 11th at 9 pm Eastern, 8 Central, and you know I'm going to be glued to the TV that night!  I also hope to squeeze in reading the book beforehand, so wish me luck!

Below, I've got a little behind the scenes preview for Bag of Bones, as well as a link to the creepy-as-Hell website right here.  Enjoy, everyone!

As many of you probably already know, production of the new Hobbit movie began earlier this year, and the movie itself is scheduled for release on December 14th, 2012.  The Hobbit Blog, the official blog of the movie, has been steadily providing updates and production videos for rabid fans.  What makes some of those videos so interesting is the fact that they're filming the movie entirely in 3D.  To go hand in hand with the 3D filming, artists Alan Lee and John Howe have drawn up a little 3D concept art for the movie.  This was just sooo cool, I had to share it with all of you!  So just slap on some 3D glasses and let the enjoyment begin!

If you'd like to see more on the 3D filming of the movie and the development of the 3D concept art, check out Production Video #4 below.

Since it was announced that the hit YA lit series, The Hunger Games, would be made into a movie, I'm sure many of you have been on the edge of your seats!  Well, just a few days ago, the official trailer for the movie was released!  Here it is for your enjoyment, as well as this link to the official movie website and a flipping sweet animated poster I snagged from it.  See you all in the theaters on March 23!
 - Miss K

P.S. Don't forget to turn the audio off on the poster to watch the trailer!

A little under a week ago, the great Stephen King released his latest work, 11/22/63, a time-travel novel dealing with the delicate subject of the Kennedy assassination.  Resurrecting the seemingly quiet town of Derry, Maine, setting of It, Insomnia, and the short story "The Bird and the Album," he introduces us to Jake Eppling, a man who teaches GED classes at night and just so happens to learn that there's a portal to 1958 in the local diner.  Enlisted by the diner's owner to help stop the Kennedy assassination, Jake travels back and establishes a life for himself as George Amberson in hopes of stopping Oswald's plan.

The excerpts on the book's official (and very interactive) site show a book that appears to be Stephen King in top form, although this is his first venture into the realm of historical novel writing.  The previews don't offer a glimpse into the portions of the book dealing with Oswald himself or give any hints about how it might actually turn out in the end, but it is just enough to get fans excited!

While time travel isn't overtly the subject of the book, merely a device for the doings of the protagonist in the past and the lessons taught about life and love, a review in the New York Times calls it "one of the best time-travel stories since H.G. Wells."  I'm inclined to believe this before having the chance to read it myself simply because its Stephen King.  While there are moments in some of his books, very rare ones, where I felt something may have been missing or been too much altogether, I could certainly say even without having read 100% of his books that the greater portion of his work is outstanding.  He is a master of his craft, weaving a world of life, death, and the bizarre in a way that continually pulls us back for more, despite any very minor transgressions.  He has never betrayed his readers, and there's no way he would let us down now.

I'm looking forward to reading this book for myself and to offering a review to my readers!  I must admit that I haven't been keeping up with Stephen King's very latest work, but this one seems much more can't-miss than some others.  Perhaps this is because I've been reading a lot more literature that hinges on eras of great change, and I'm excited to read more!  If you'd like to pick up your own copy and read it for yourself, you can do so here.

For all of you out there lamenting at the thought of never reading another new Crichton masterpiece, his second posthumous book, Micro, completed by contemporary Richard Preston, is being released on November 22 and is already available for pre-sale.  To celebrate the release of this book, the Michael Crichton facebook fanpage has announced a photo contest presented by Harper Books called Micro Yourself!

The photo I entered in the contest; vote for me!

The rules are simple: Submit a photo of yourself on a micro scale using the Micro facebook app.  This could mean you next to something huge, a photoshopped picture of you doing battle with a bug, or a trick photograph that makes it look like you're lifting the pyramids; get creative!  Then vote for your favorites (you can't vote for yourself), and the top 50 photos will be entered for a chance to win one of the 27 awesome prizes.

What are the prizes, you might ask?  Third prize, which will go to 20 participants, is a limited edition Micro t-shirt and copy of the book.  Second prize, which will go to the next 5 top participants, is the t-shirt, a copy of Micro, and a mass
market paperback edition of each of 10 Crichton classics.  First prize, which goes to the second most popular single photo, is the e-reader of your choice with a $100 gift card to the corresponding retailer, the t-shirt, and a hardback copy of Micro.  And finally... the GRAND PRIZE for the single photo with the most votes is limited edition leather-bound copies of Jurassic Park and The Lost World, the e-reader of your choice with a $100 gift card to the corresponding retailer, the t-shirt, and a hardback copy of Micro!

The Grand Prize!

What else can you do on this neat little contest page?  Well, you can read all about the authors, as well as read the entire prologue to Micro!  From what I've read, it looks like it's going to be another instant Crichton classic.  I really can't wait to read more and see if I can spot the influence of Richard Preston on the ending.

So is everyone excited for the release?  Tell me what you think of the excerpt!  Tell me if you think Crichton is back as a zombie!  I'd love to hear from you!

42% of adults admit to buying a book just to look smart and never reading it.
The average reading level of adults in the U.S. is between 7th and 9th grade. 

Amy Bishop looking fairly normal before all this mess

Tomorrow, for the first time in six years, a vote concerning whether or not Cullman, AL should go wet will be on the midterm ballot.  I've got words about that, but first of all, let me say that this should not be everyone's incentive to vote in the midterms.  It's like I feel good inside that so many people are going to vote, but it's bittersweet in that most of them wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't for this momentous decision our small town faces.

For one, I'd already made my mind up that I would be voting before I knew that the wet/dry vote would even be on the ballot.  I'm a little ashamed of all of you for not making the same kind of commitment to participate in our legislative system without the temptation of booze around the corner.  This is how our government works: we go vote for the people who stand for our causes, they potentially get elected because of the support of voters, and they go on to run portions of our government at various levels.  You have no right to bitch about how the country is going down the crapper or such-and-such politician's suckery if you didn't even vote.

Alright, on to the main issue.  I just want to throw a few facts out there about the history of this sort of vote in the city of Cullman.  The entire population of Cullman is 81,778, according to the 2009 census results posted on the official Cullman website.  From what I can gather elsewhere on the internet, in 2004, we had 49,000 registered voters.  Now, I am absolutely positive that that number has gone up due to the last presidential election.  The first time Cullman voted about whether or not to go wet was in 1984, at which time it was voted down by a measly 159 votes.  In the most recent vote in 2004, the legal sale of alcohol was voted down by a majority vote of 54%, which was only 573 votes!  Those numbers are so minuscule it hurts.  I know that if people get off their duffs and vote this time, it will most definitely pass.

Well, wait... do we want it to pass?  I know everyone who knows me probably would guess that I was prepared to vote yes right away, but believe it or not, I thought long and hard about my decision.  While I decided in the affirmative, it is always good to consider what might be at stake instead of blindly charging in with torches when we hear something that rallies us (i.e. "The War on Terror").

There are a lot of reasons one might want to vote no, a lot of perfectly logical reasons, and if anyone chooses to vote no for these reasons, I do not blame them.  After all, I had a hard time deciding too.  Alcohol is inherently dangerous.  It has its benefits to communities, and it can be just fine for people who have a handle on themselves and their vices.  However, Cullman, like it or not, has a large portion of rednecks living right outside the city limits.  It's like a time machine back to domestic-violence-on-the-cow-farm-land to go past that little sign with the mansion and the German welcome.  It's spit-in-a-cup, beat-your-wife-tastic.  I know that plenty of you will agree that rednecks and uneducated hicks don't have the good common sense it takes to exercise self-control, let alone anger management.  Add bars to the mix, and all that crawls out of that human cesspool to start a bar brawl and piss on your stoop.

Yes, I've no doubt the crime rate would increase, but I must say that only the number of reported crimes would increase (resulting in a "crime rate increase").  This is a backwoods, hicksy place, and I know everyone that lives here knows that there are copious amounts of unreported violences perpetrated upon unlucky housewives and children by raging drunkards every day.  The only change would be that this comes out of the home a little, steps out of the kitchen and the back bedroom, if you will.

As it stands, those backwoods drunks are going to get their alcohol somewhere, and that somewhere will be either Arab or Warrior.  This forces them to drive a longer distance, potentially drinking on the way back, and to give all the cash they earned as chicken-catchers and asbestos-installers to another community.  Those kinds of people are going to drink no matter what we do.  Granted, they might not commit their crimes where we can see at the moment, but maybe this is a blessing in disguise.  Maybe if all that mess spills onto our streets something will be done, because frankly, this feigned ignorance business makes me sick.

Since we've moved toward the benefits, let's take a look at those.  Right now, a developer has approached Cullman with a proposal that will not go through until after this vote.  We're going to get a new development project with new businesses that will bring new jobs.  I've noticed that some people have seen signs that mention the businesses that hinge on this vote and said, "What in the world does Old Navy have to do with liquor?"  I wondered this myself.  Apparently, if Cullman goes wet, this development project will give us a 500,000 square foot shopping center full of businesses like Red Lobster and Old Navy.  However, if Cullman stays dry, the size of this development will be halved to 250,000 square feet.  Also, no restaurants have agreed to sign on with the development plan at all until this vote is through.  Why?  Because restaurants and grocery stores get over 20% of their profits from alcohol sales.

Also, one must think of the taxes coming from this, taxes that will help our schools and fix our crappy roads (ex. the right lane of 31 South going past Regions and Sticks n' Stuff).  Not only will we be receiving the regular 8.5% tax on alcohol sales but sin tax, or fat tax, as well.  It is estimated that in the first year alone, we would earn $4 million in additional revenue from taxes to help keep our aging infrastructure up and running and give children in Cullman county schools all the advantages.

At first, I didn't think that the county schools would benefit from any of this tax, but as it turns out, that additional $4 million would be divided evenly among all the municipalities in the county.  This means that disadvantaged county schools would get a much-needed boost from all this.

Again I say, no matter how you vote, get out and vote tomorrow.  Even though the rest of the world may not care, the future of one small town hinges on this decision.