No, no, no. Not him.

We should all be afraid.

No, I'm not referring to the situation on Bessemer's south side, which has only been reported in The Western Tribune. All of the television stations and the other newspapers have received the same information that The Western Tribune has, but none think it important enough to warn the residents of the area.

No, I'm referring to this headline in the Birmingham News:

Sen. Erwin opens campaign for lieutenant governor.


Why does that strike fear in our hearts?

Because he's a nut.

Remember, he said that God sent Hurricane Katrina to the Gulf coast because of sin and wickedness.

Of course, some with a little more theological training than Erwin interpret things differently:

"I have no idea what sort of senator or politician Mr. Erwin is, but he's sure no theologian," William Willimon, bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church, told the News. "I'm certainly against gambling and its hold on state government in Mississippi, but I expect there is as much sin, of possibly a different order, in Montevallo as on the Gulf Coast. If God punished all of us for our sin, who could stand?"

Oh, and I wonder if Erwin will handle his campaign contributions any differently than he did in 2002 and 2003. "The basic arc of the story is this: Erwin used money from his campaign account for obviously personal expenditures." Maybe, maybe not, but it seems fishy anyway.

Of course nothing ever came of this, not because what he did was right, but because ethics violations in Alabama are generally ignored (unless the charges are just made up, but that's a different story).

Anyway, Erwin told a crowd (I'm paraphrasing) he wants to "remove women's rights, promote bigotry and hatefulness against homos, and preserve the rights of criminals to possess assault weapons." Or something like that.

Referring to the Katrina question, the News reports "he said it was a difficult theological question as to when storms are God's wrath or just storms."

His theology has already been questioned, but still, I wonder about those storms yesterday? I mean, was it the wrath of God that made two of our TV's pictures get all fuzzy for about 15 minutes, or made one TV go out when the others remained on. It was storm related, I'm sure, but I thought it was just something to do with the cable lines.

And that Gravity Wave the other night. Is that why it was so hard to explain scientifically, and why there is so little information out there?

A Gravity Wrath from God?

In the prayer at the end of the rally yesterday, Johnny Rutledge "said he believed it was God's will Erwin would lead the state to be 'a more Christian and holy Alabama.'"

Seems to me a more Christian Alabama would mean removing the sales tax on groceries to help the poor and passing a hate crimes law to protect minorities and make crime fighting easier and restricting gun rights so that criminals would have a more difficult time obtaining them. Things like that.