Joseph O. Patton: Ethically-speaking…

  What would you buy with $300,000?

  Outgoing Governor Bob Riley and a passel of newly elected Alabama lawmakers are leaping about, tongues wagging and slinging drool like overly excited puppies, aiming to hold a legislative special session and tackle ethics reform. And though the buying, selling and renting of Alabama legislators is a chronic problem facing our great state, it is nonetheless not the most pressing issue facing us. Revenues are down, unemployment rates are up, and yet many new office-holders are more concerned with itemizing and making public gifts to said lawmakers as insignificant as a cup of coffee.