Alex Headley
News Editor
news@insideuab.com

A mayoral election will be held to replace former mayor Larry Langford in the next 30 to 45 days. In the meantime Council President Carole Smitherman is the acting mayor. She began her first day in office with a thorough examination of the financial books.

In a unanimous decision by the jury, Larry Langford was found guilty Oct. 28. The verdict brought an immediate end to his reign as the mayor of Birmingham. Langford was convicted of conspiracy, bribery, fraud and money laundering by a court jury in Tuscaloosa. The trial lasted only eight days.

Langford plans to appeal the verdict before his sentencing in the next 120 days. James Slack, UAB government professor, said the best thing we can hope for from this conviction is that it will have a “chilling effect” on the behavior of elected officials.

“If Langford is sentenced to many years, then the chilling effect might be substantial. If he is out in less than five years, then I fear it will be business as usual,” said Slack.

“I don’t want the city of Birmingham to be attached in any kind of way to Jefferson County and their financial struggles,” she said.

Smitherman has run for the office of mayor three times.

“I suspect that, for better or worse, Birmingham will not change much. The county will suffer bankruptcy, a situation not changed by the conviction of former Mayor Langford,” said Slack. “The political leadership of the city and region will continue to be, at best, overly cautious and, at worst, secretly corrupt.

“Until Jefferson County and the City of Birmingham embrace professional governance and embrace a new constitution, not much will change in the region.”

It is unclear if the conviction of Larry Langford will have any effect at all on the relationship between UAB and the city of Birmingham.

“It is my understanding that the relationship between the former mayor and UAB was at best strained. In retrospect, perhaps such a strained relationship was a good thing,” said Slack.

Fans packed the Birmingham Jefferson County Concert Hall Saturday night to hear comedian Robin Williams take on subjects ranging from Larry Langford and Bear Bryant to Twitter and his recent heart operation.

Williams appeared at the BJCC Saturday.

His rescheduled “Weapons of Self Destruction” performance opened like a hail of machine gun fire into a thundering wall of laughter.

Williams is a comedian who clearly keeps up with the news, or at least has someone to do it for him, spending over 10 minutes on freshly funny material about the Magic City.
“I saw your mayor wants to host the 2020 Olympics. Never mind that Chicago just lost the bid, but it’ll be 2020 so he just might get out of prison by then,” Williams said.
At no point did the crowd stop laughing during the two gut busting hours including asking the audience if Bear Bryant would be made a saint if a section of the Vatican was dedicated to football and leaving the field wide open to make a few passes at Catholics.
“The cardinals go into a small, dark room to pick the next Pope and smoke comes out the top. I want in on that! And you know they were in there saying ‘Oh this will be good…so the last Pope was Polish so let’s make this one a Nazi,’” Williams said.
The man delivered all the goods with his ideas of methane powered cars (“give me a bean burrito and stick a tube in me”) and Scottish-accented GPS devices (“you f***ing missed the turn you idiot”).
He opened up about his new found emotional side after his recent heart surgery and how strong the drugs were remarking “my doctor is my dealer.”
Using the age card may seem cliche, but Williams plays it with such panache the audience nearly died laughing as he described trying to coax his three kids to stop Twittering long enough to talk to him.
It goes without saying Williams presented a fair share of sex jokes including human reproductive organs designed by committee leaving the wholesome family comedy at the door.
While watching Williams in action on the silver screen may be pure unadulterated fun it is better to see him spring across the stage live like a hyperactive six-year-old on a sugar high.
The physical routines hearken back to his days in San Francisco when he worked as a mime and later as the out-of-this-world Mork from Ork.

Williams closed the show with a tribute to famed anchorman Walter Cronkite saying that the CBS broadcaster always appreciated a good dirty joke.
Williams appeared at the BJCC as part of the rescheduled 2009 tour due to cancellations for open heart surgery.
He receives 4.5 out of five stars for the ceaseless creative bombardment that explodes like unholy hand grenades.
Not bad for a guy who was voted “Least Like to Succeed.”

Alyssa Mitchell
Editor in Chief
editor@insideuab.com

Former Jefferson County Commissioner John Katopodis (Cat-o-po-dis) has been found guilty of all 97 mail and wire fraud charges brought against him.

Katopodis

The verdict release closes the criminal trial that began last Wednesday over the Computer Help for Kids charity. Katopodis, Current Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford and HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy started the  charity in 2000 as a public service to provide unused and refurbished computers to underpriviledged children. Continue Reading