By John Archibald and Kyle Whitmire

Thesis Media & Consulting LLC is a ghost on the internet. It is an upstart media company without a working website. It is a consulting company in which no incorporators are listed on the Alabama Secretary of State's office.

Where it is listed, though, is on the expenditures list at UAB.

UAB has paid Thesis Media more than $723,000 since October for media surrounding The Campaign for UAB. And here's where things get tricky.

While Thesis has no website, it does have an internet domain registered to one Theresa Bruno.

One Theresa Harper Bruno Inc., by the way, has been paid more than $28,000 a month -- $172,500 since October -- by UAB to help in the public relations effort that has scrambled since UAB President Ray Watts chose last fall to end the football, bowling and rifle squads.

Those close to the UAB situation say she was brought in as a consultant by UAB Senior Vice President Shirley Salloway Kahn - who is over development and external relations -- to help improve Watts' image. Kahn, who has made $188,950 since October (more money than Provost Linda Lucas), is considered one of the most powerful voices in the administration and one of few who has Watts' ear.

If you've learned anything from all of this, you've guessed there's a deeper connection somewhere. Not to disappoint, Kahn also has a business relationship with Bruno. The two together several years ago opened Jordan Alexander, a jewelry store in Mountain Brook that leased space from Kahn Properties.

But where the plot really thickens for UAB loyalists is with Thesis Media.

While no incorporators are listed in the public filings of that company, the attorney who set up the corporation is W. Todd Carlisle, of Sirote and Permutt, who also happens to be - wait for it -- a member of the Alabama State Delegation for SACS, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

UAB Spokesman Jim Bakken was quick to point out that Carlisle sits on the national executive board for the accrediting agency, but is "screened off from any SACS involvement with UAB or any other Alabama State School."

Bakken said Carlisle's connection to Thesis is merely as a lawyer, and that he is not a partner or employee and "does not stand to benefit from the creative, media buys, production, etc., Thesis does for UAB."

Theresa Bruno and Shirley Salloway Kahn

Kahn has no financial interest in Thesis Media either, he said.

Asked if the business relationship between Bruno and Kahn created a conflict of interest, Kahn responded with this statement.

"Theresa and I met through civic involvement and my work at UAB, and I got to know her and her love for UAB well when she served as chair of the Alys Stephens Center Gala and the UAB Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center Gala years ago. Our business relationship and friendship do not affect her ability or mine to conduct our professional responsibilities appropriately and with UAB's best interest at heart."

She said Bruno has been "a tremendous asset for UAB" and is a "specialist in the areas in which she has consulted with UAB, both in the arts and marketing, and has been used in those areas of expertise."

But the links are too convoluted. The connections are too strong. UAB employees say they have received emails at work promoting Jordan Alexander. They argue that a connection to SACS - at a time governance at the school is an issue and faculty and students have voted no confidence in Watts - is an ominous connection.

And they are right.

What we have seen so far from top to bottom in this UAB nightmare - from the UA System Trustees all the way through UAB itself -- is a series of webs and connections.

The UA System Board of Trustees is filled by people connected to Bryant Bank and to Protective Life. Protective Life CEO Johnny Johns is a co-chair with Theresa Bruno on The Campaign for UAB and everybody is linked to everybody.

UAB may have cut football, and bowling, and rifle. But what it really cut was trust.

If there was any left.