A week of turmoil in Alabama culminated on Friday with the United States ordering the Southern state to grow up. After a week in which Alabama exhibited various displays of childishnessincluding kicking, screaming, stamping its feet, and threatening to hold its breaththe United States decided to take the extraordinary action of telling the hundred-and-ninety-five-year-old state to act its age. But any hopes that the United States order would be heeded were dashed when Alabama put its fingers in its ears and emitted a stream of monosyllabic nonsense sounds, claiming that the order had been rendered inaudible. That action may have only served to provoke the United States, which issued a subsequent statement characterizing the nations twenty-second state as nothing but a big crybaby. While the United States clearly hoped that that final statement would cause Alabama to think long and hard about what it had done, the states official responseI know you are but what am I?was not encouraging, officials said. 