For three decades, The Front Porch has brightened televisions and radio airwaves each day as people tune in for local stories and community highlights. The feel-good morning show greets each sunrise with an array of special guests, local personalities and familiar faces, giving viewers a rel…
I really remember my 10th birthday. I was turning “double digits,” having a “spend the night” party with friends, and my parents gifted me tickets to my first concert: Hootie and the Blowfish. The concert was actually on my real birthday, Sep…
On a muggy Alabama Saturday night in July, I rode a mechanical bull.
I’m going to write to you one more time about cervical cancer. I promise this is the last time, at least for 2025. But I feel compelled to talk to you about it again, because cervical cancer is a big deal.
A donor-advised fund is a charitable giving vehicle that allows individuals, families or corporations to make charitable contributions, receive an immediate tax deduction, and then recommend grants to charities over time. DAFs are administere…
Have you ever received an urgent text asking for personal information? If so, you’re not alone. In 2024, Alabama residents reported over 7,800 cyber-enabled crime and fraud incidents, resulting in more than $100 million in losses, according t…
I met Joe in the fall of 1982. I had moved to Atlanta to attend seminary and was a bit homesick for Tuscaloosa. Joe was a year ahead of me and was cool, in a Matthew McConaughey, redneck sort of way. Joe grew up in Panama City and played coll…
This year’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting was unlike any other. For the 60th time, Warren Buffett took the stage in Omaha, drawing thousands from all corners of the globe. But this year, there was a bittersweet undertone: Buffett announced it would be his final year as CEO. At 94, he adm…
Doubtless you’ve heard the news by now that computed tomography scans cause cancer. Like other news published in medical journals, then reported by the news media and subsequently going viral on social media, the information is often stripped of all nuances and even some of the truth by the …
Whether you’ve lived in central Alabama for five or 25 years, you likely have a tornado story to tell. Anyone who knows me personally knows how much I respect the weather. Each spring and fall, our community braces for severe weather. While we know storms will come, we never know exactly whe…
I just turned 64 years old. Next year, I’ll have my “Welcome to Medicare” initial wellness examination, complete with an array of preventive testing. I didn’t wait to turn 65 to do my cancer screening tests, and neither should you.
Recently, I wrote an article about having a crystal ball and making accurate market predictions at the beginning of each year. This is a hard thing to do, and my article went on to reference some of Wall Street’s top firms’ forecasts for 2024. The reason this is so tough is because there is …
Two people have died from measles in the United States this year, one in Texas and the other in New Mexico. Both were unvaccinated. As of the end of last month, there were 483 confirmed cases of measles in 2025, surpassing all of 2024’s total of 285 cases in just three months. 97 percent of …
With a couple of months under our belts in 2025, it seems Alabama residents have a more positive outlook for what this year will offer. Economic indicators in our state, such as stable inflation and low unemployment rates, offer reasons for o…
Many of you have been reading my medical news articles. Others of you probably wrap fish with them. Most of you are wondering, who is this enigmatic person, this George Miranda fellow? So this month, I thought I would pull back the curtain to…
Remember COVID-19? I know, you’re trying to forget. But I wonder if you remember the silver lining: almost nobody got the flu because we were all wearing masks, washing our hands and keeping social distance.
January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month. Russell Medical has teamed up with Operation WIPEOUT Cervical Cancer, because with vaccinations and early detection and treatment of precancerous lesions, we can strive to achieve for cervical cance…
The start of a new year brings fresh opportunities and challenges, making it the perfect time to take control of your finances. Managing your money can empower you; it puts you in charge of your future and goals.
The below article was written in December 2020. I thought it was worth republishing. Today, the DJIA is sitting just shy of 45,000. In a short period of time, the rate of change has been 50 percent. Markets are hard to predict, if not impossi…
Alabama is one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid coverage. The other nine are Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Most people know that expanding Medicaid is a controversi…
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and the Great American Smokeout is coming up November 21. That’s the day when we encourage smokers to go a day without smoking. But November is also the month we emphasize another lung disease, chronic…
Twenty-one-year-old Evan Nathan Smith presented to his local emergency room in severe pain. He asked for oxygen directly, but the nurse refused. The little machine she put on the end of his finger to measure the oxygen in his blood said he di…
Since 2024 is an election year and campaigns are ramping up, I thought it would be timely to speak about the intersection of politics and markets. Before I get into past returns under different political parties, I believe it’s important to u…
About 7,500 years ago, in the florid forest of North Africa (now the Sahara Desert), a mosquito landed on a child’s arm and injected its needle-sharp proboscis into his skin. As the mosquito consumed that child’s blood, a deadly gang of singl…
Have you ever considered buying a second home on Lake Martin? As a banker, I see a national demand for the Lake Martin area as property values continue to increase.
