And a child shall lead them, if by "child" you mean WKRN's Jamey Tucker

More than either of the other two local news television stations, News 2 has tended to have a culture war edge to it, especially in the reporting of Jamey Tucker. And we can perennially bet that Tucker will ramp up the theo-con angles (or is than "angels"?) on his reportage the deeper we move into the year-end holiday season.

Tucker is starting early this year with a story on an LED billboard, which is controversial enough with many neighborhoods. However, he is seemingly not interested in the quality-of-life impact of bright, streaming, distracting Vegas-style billboards. Instead he hones in on one particularly innocent message like a duck on a June bug and he wrings his own meaning from it.

As I said, Tucker's biased reporting is typical of his history of covering faith-based issues. His comment that the sign advertises the belief that there is no God seems to be designed to incite drama where there may not be any. His bias is probably going to end up as an unintentional fundraising catalyst for a project that otherwise would have had less.

HT: Jack Silverman

UPDATE: I just found out that Jamey Tucker has a ministry outside of his work at WKRN. There is nothing wrong with having a moonlighting ministry. There is something wrong if Tucker allows that ministry to bias his journalism. And I see strong consistencies between the slant of spin against WKRN report subjects who are not evangelical, and his overtly evangelical ministry reportage like this:

News 2 to Run Story Called "Demonization of Faith"

Originally published at Free Tennessee:

WKRN Religion and Ethics reporter Jamey Tucker says on his blog that he is working on a story to be broadcast on tomorrow night's 10:00 newscast that he is calling the "Demonization of Faith."  The blog post seems to be an introduction to the story and Mr. Tucker seems to allude to the thrust:

Some of my posts, even the more innocuous ones have been criticized from people accusing me of proselytizing, when the post only links to a newspaper article. The comments seem to be not just directed at the post, but at Christianity and maybe the idea that a tv reporter is reporting on religion, faith and Christianity.

But are Christians in America really under attack? Are Christians in America really being persecuted? The thing is, for Christians, being persecuted is a badge of honor. Paul said so, so it must be so. If someone isn't persecuting us for being a Christian, we're not doing something right. So we want to the world to criticize us. No, that desire may not manifest itself in our daily M-F lives, but deep down we know to be living the faith, persecution is to be expected.

If Mr. Tucker is suggesting that he is being persecuted for merely reporting on Christian faith, then I find that alarming.  I perceive a slant in his reporting.  I point that out.  Criticizing a journalist for showing bias or fluff in reporting is hardly persecution.  And so criticizing is hardly an attack on faith.

Christians around the world disappear, get tortured, are murdered, are detained and censored for standing by their principles.  That is real persecution.  For Mr. Tucker to insinuate that he and the Christians who are his subjects are persecuted by simply being criticized cheapens the whole notion of persecution and it hurts those who actually are persecuted.

Even more troubling are Mr. Tucker's strongly-held us-versus-them views of Christians and American culture (which seem to strengthen my perception that he sees himself and his subjects as persecuted):

Christians do have a right to feel like they're being wronged by our culture today. A very large percentage of Christians grew up in an age when school teachers taught the ABCs with Bible verses. We said the pledge of allegiance (the one with "under God" still in it) before the Lord's prayer every morning when the school bell rang. TV shows, while not Christian, certainly displayed many of the Christian values we try to hold ourselves to. Back then, no one ever said anything negative about the church or church people (except those whispers about the preacher's kid).

This would appear to be the crux of what Mr. Tucker calls the "demonization of faith."  And faith here is not Christian faith in general or in its many different forms.  Mr. Tucker is talking about Christians as if there is only one kind:  the evangelical right-wingers who are upset when religion is not established in public schools.

Promoting a certain brand of devotional religion rather than critically and objectively reporting on it is one of the things for which I have criticized Jamey Tucker in the past.  Once again, Mr. Tucker seems headed toward a subject with a mind that will not be opened any farther than his assumptions about religion will allow.  If he cannot get past his preconceived notions about normative Christianity, then News 2 should change his title to "Evangelical Faith and Ethics Public Relations Specialist."  Either way, Tucker should stop speaking and writing about Christians as if we are monolithic.

Tune in to News 2 (Nashville area) on Friday night at 10:00 and judge for yourself.  But if his preliminary comments about persecution are any indicator, then we are in for another story biased by a religious right-wing point of view.

Holy Fluff, Devotional Promotion

Last night's story by News 2's "religion and ethics" reporter, Jamey Tucker, on football players who pray only confirms my sense that he is bent on producing stories that make News 2 look more like Pat Robertson's 700 Club. Mr. Tucker seems less interested in reporting objectively and fairly on religious movements in Middle Tennessee; even though there are many opportunities to study religion here and probably more chances to excavate little-known, unpopular religious undercurrents.

Tucker could have done a very interesting story, interviewing individual players and consulting religious leaders from different persuasions on the matter. Instead, his "report" was a pander piece that merely 1) noted that some players pray (not news), 2) asked why they pray (I don't need News 2 in order to ask that), and 3) provided the answer via a single source: conservative Christian sports agent Kyle Rote, Jr., who gave his idea of theologically correct things players should pray for, which sounded like a daily devotional. Smattered throughout Mr. Tucker's report were matter-of-fact references to what "scripture" teaches and to "God" as if those theological terms were transparent to all and not matters of different interpretations.

My guess is that players pray for a lot of different things, and they may not always be consistent with Mr. Rote's or Mr. Tucker's ideas of theological correctness. But Mr. Tucker's rah-rah piece was obviously not meant to educate or inform. It was more like a synoptic infomercial for conservative evangelicalism, which is consistent with other stories he's done for broadcast news (he previously produced subject-promotional stories on a faith-based home schoolers basketball tournament and a conservative Christian book convention). This is exactly why Mr. Tucker's story did not tell us much of anything new about why players pray and the different responses that people have to that. It was just too busy being a promotional ad for conservative groups (like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes?) to be a serious piece of informative journalism.

It has been said that a critical element of ethical journalism is to report the news in such a way that viewers are not able to discern one's ideological positions. From what I have seen of Jamey Tucker's reports, I cannot say that I am unable to discern his theological bias; that bias becomes more apparent to me the more stories I see coming from him. That bias may help News 2 from falling victim to economic threats from conservative cross-sections of their viewing audience, but it does nothing to change the perceptions of Christians like me that New 2 religion reporting generally tells us little or nothing one cannot already learn from surfing evangelical websites and bulletin boards.

Faith and Ethics Reporter Did Not Follow Through As Promised

[A]bout the pagan roots of Christian traditions, I have done this story in every market I've worked. I'll get to it here. It's only November.

- - WKRN Faith and Ethics VJ Jamey Tucker (11/2006)

At the risk of being accused of "shooting the messenger" again, I should point out that News 2 reporter Jamey Tucker did not make good on his word to do a story on the pagan roots of Christmas like the one he did on the pagan roots of Halloween. His failure to do so supports my contention that his reporting is not balanced, but promotional in a conservative evangelical manner. I guess gathering all of those celebrities to read the Christmas Eve bible devotional on air ate up the time that would have allowed Tucker to be fair.

Update: Jamey Tucker is getting started early on slanted stories in 2007. In a separate story, the News 2 VJ reported on local response to U.S. Representative and Muslim Keith Ellison's swearing in. The problem is that Tucker only interviewed a lone Pentecostal pastor, as if Pentecostals themselves did not "raise eyebrows" even among other Christians. More details for Free after the jump.

News 2 Provides No Balance in Story on Muslim Congressman

Originally published at Free Tennessee:

Despite diverse responses to a decision made by Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison--the first Muslim in Congress--to take his ceremonial oath on Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Qu'ran instead of the Bible, WKRN Faith and Ethics reporter Jamey Tucker runs with a report on local reaction to Ellison that exclusively documents the negative response of one conservative Madison pastor.  Pastor Charles Cowen told Tucker:

America, the United States, being founded on the Christian principles, I believe that we should continue to put our hand on that Bible ....  [Tucker interjects that those like Rev. Cowan see Ellison's oath-swearing as "another example" of Christian principles "eroding away"] If we mix all of this together then somewhere with the persecution that's happening in our country today, where God and Jesus and Christianity's concerned, that that would get pushed totally to the background.

Tucker selected a pastor who clearly leans toward a theocratic view of government, but he never bothered to clarify in the story what Christian principles were being eroded.
Rev. Cowen's church subscribes to the principle of New Testament infallibility.  The Pentecostal Bible School that the pastor graduated from emphasizes its own controversial history of faith healing, speaking in tongues, and what is popularly referred to as the "success gospel" (e.g., the belief that God multiplies blessings on those who give money).  So, it seems that the person at the center of Tucker's interview has himself a rather extreme religious background to which other Christians could object.

As with previous stories, Jamey Tucker's story overloads the picture of local response with one ultra-conservative point of view and without any prevailing alternative.  That leaves the impression that there are no alternative responses to actions that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called "swearing allegiance to a document consistent with [one's] faith."

WKRN Reports Unfounded Allegations of AU Partiality

Originally published at Free Tennessee:

While introducing his coverage of a story that has been in the news for over two weeks now, News 2 Religion and Ethics reporter Jamey Tucker said of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State:

Now a group often accused of being critical only of churches supporting Republican candidates is turning in a church for supporting Harold Ford, Jr.

Those accusations were not the subject matter of the report, so there was no journalistic justification for inserting that pejorative comment.

However, let us assume that the accusations might be germane.  If so, then Mr. Tucker failed to substantiate those accusations with proof that AU is only critical of "churches supporting Republican candidates."  There is no evidence of fact-checking AU's record or the conclusions of any independent study of AU's actions.

More fact-checking would have lead Mr. Tucker to discover that those accusations are unfounded.  According to a November 6, 2006 AU press release four other congregations were reported to the IRS by AU. Two churches were involved in Democratic candidate endorsements; two churches were involved in Republican candidate endorsements.  According to AU's reports, more churches (three) leaning toward Democratic endorsements have been reported to the IRS than have those (two) leaning toward Republican endorsements.


UPDATE: Jamey Tucker has clarified the statement in question at WKRN's website.  He says that he was intending "to inform the viewer that even though the group is often criticized for only going after evangelical churches that support Republican candidates, that criticism is false."

In Rush to Defend "Christmas," Reporter Ignores Pagan Influences That He Focused on at Halloween

Originally published at Free Tennessee:

WRKN reporter Jamey Tucker filed a story on October 30 about the "pagan roots" of Halloween. In and of itself, his story would be a non-starter, except that Mr. Tucker has lately shown a tendency to take up the "Christmas" mantle in the perennial culture war over words used to describe the holiday season. That indicates that the reporter may lack an even hand when dealing with volatile cultural issues involving holiday observances. He is entitled to call the holiday season anything he wants, but one would think that the intellectual honesty of a journalist would require him to file a story on the pagan roots of Christmas just as he has on those of Halloween, if for no other reason that it is conventional to gloss over the pagan roots of a seemingly Christian holiday.

Mr. Tucker has yet to note the probable ties between Christmas and the seasonally-structured practices of gift-giving, role reversals, and feasting of earlier pagan observances in Ancient Greece, Imperial Rome, Indo-Iranian Mithra, and pre-Jewish Canaanite religions. Granted, the possible pagan roots of Christmas do not stir the same negative emotions that Halloween (Christianized as All Hallows Eve, the day before All Saints Day) does among Tucker’s favored target audience of conservative evangelicals in their ironic Holy War against the word "holiday"; but we are bound to point out that there is little difference between the trick-or-treat ritual of keeping food on hand to appease evil spirits and caroling at Christmas to ward off evil spirits.

It is entirely fair to ask that Mr. Tucker bracket his personal concerns about making sure that that "Christmas" does not get called "Holiday," so as to give more journalistic attention, for instance, to the ancient pagan rituals of decking houses with evergreens, which was a magical representation of fertility, and which transferred into the American practice of erecting Christmas Trees, which Mr. Tucker himself now defends against so-called "political correctness." It is one thing to guard Christianized rituals from pagan influences; it is quite another to privilege some Christianized rituals over others under the pretense of journalistic evenhandedness.

WKRN Reporter Editorializes That AU Intends to Separate Christians from "Government and Culture"

Originally published at Free Tennessee:

In a post on his News 2 website, WKRN Reporter Jamey Tucker referred to an impending announcement from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to sue Veterans Affairs in order to force them to recognize the Wiccan faith symbol on soldiers' headstones.

Tucker also editorialized:

I submit that this group [AU] is not specifically "for the separation of church and state" but rather their true intentions are to separate Christians from the United States government and culture. Why else would they sue the government to INCLUDE RELIGION?

Might Jamey Tucker's personal beliefs about AU (and the Christians whom he sees as victimized by AU) bias his reporting?  We shall see.

News 2 Starting Its Own "Christmas Tradition": Bible Devotionals as News

Originally published at Free Tennessee:

The parting shot in this season's local media Christmas Wars--in which the season of peace and good will is turned into a cultural battlefield--was WKRN Reporter Jamey Tucker's "new tradition" of music, coaching, and cartoon celebrities reading from the Christian New Testament during a December 24 evening news broadcast.  The News 2 anchors introduced Tucker's story by calling it a special Christmas message "for all."
Despite the idea that journalists should be balanced on public airwaves, Tucker has not had Charlie Daniels or the Veggie Tales reading from other sacred scriptures during the holy seasons of other religions.  For example, Tucker did not file a story of celebrities reading from the Qu'ran during the Islamic observance of Ramadan earlier in the fall, in spite of the facts that Nashville has the largest Kurdish population in the country (among other observants of Islam) and that Muslims are encouraged to read the entire Qu'ran during Ramadan.
Lastly, it is wonderously ironic that News 2 can run Tucker's virtual Sunday School devotional (in his words, "what Christmas is all about") on the heels of predominating stories of holiday commercialism and retail sales rates.  Claiming that Christmas means one thing to all people--let alone all Christians--is intellectually dishonest and journalistically biased.  What works in the fantasy world of Charlie Brown and Snoopy (a beagle who shoots invisible bullets at imaginary flying barons from atop his dog house, after all) does not always sync with the actual lives that we live or with the ways that news should be reported.

News 2 on Religion: Meet the New Political Correctness; Same as the Old Political Correctness

Originally published at Free Tennessee:

In a broadcast story of Wal-Mart's decision to allow its employees in 2006 to wish shoppers "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays," WKRN reporter Jamey Tucker used the terms "PC" and "politically correct" in his own description of Wal-Mart's 2005 policy of requiring the expression "Happy Holidays."  However, Mr. Tucker failed to note that any attempt to change language that offends someone is considered "PC," and thus, he also neglected to point out that the change to promoting the supposedly less offensive word "Christmas" over the word "Holiday" itself is a form of political correctness.

Only one person of the four interviewed in the broadcast actually use the term "PC," and that person's point was reported as "everyone needs to lighten up."  None of the interviewees were shown as saying that they personally stopped coming to Wal-Mart because they were not wished a Merry Christmas.  Despite the fact that Wal-Mart did not give Mr. Tucker their reasons for changing their policy, the reporter concluded that Wal-Mart "was once again celebrating Christmas" because they were sending customers the message, "We messed up last year."

Particularly puzzling about Mr. Tucker's assumptions is his omission of the fact that the word "Holiday" is as historically rooted in Christianity as is the word "Christmas."  In fact, "Christmas," literally deriving from "The Mass of Christ," is a term rooted in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy rather than emerging from the Protestant Tradition (which does not have the Mass).  That point was also left out of the report.

Narrowness Damns Conservative Evangelicals

When you stretch out your hands,

I will hide my eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers,

I will not listen;

your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;

remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;

cease to do evil,

learn to do good;

seek justice,

rescue the oppressed,

defend the orphan,

plead for the widow.

- - Isaiah 1:15-16

Unfortunate events of the past week show that conservative evangelicals are just too narrow to take the prophet Isaiah seriously on the good things that divinity requires. Democratic Senator Barack Obama learned the hard way this week that the purity streak among conservative evangelicals runs so strong that they prohibit themselves from reaching out to anyone else with different views merely to aid the sick and the needy. A Florida pastor who opposed the death penalty and who, as president, wanted to move the Christian Coalition toward caring for the poor and the environment learned the same thing and then resigned from the ultraconservative group.

Aiding the sick and needy, caring for the poor and the outcast, regardless of who does it, is what the Christian scriptures require. Yet, in spite of hundreds of scripture passages that address concern for the least of these, conservative evangelicals selectively quote scriptures while broadly applying their selections to everyone else. WKRN's Jamey Tucker is a case in point. In a blog entry on inter-faith dialogue, Tucker opines:

For Christians, they believe Jesus is not only the Son of God but He is also the only way to heaven. And if that is not enough, they also believe Jesus (who is also God) instructs them to go tell others about the one true way to eternal life.

Tucker presumes to speak "for Christians" without regard to the fidelity of some Christians not like him to Jesus' teachings against war and other state-sponsored violence, against wealth, and on behalf of the poor and the oppressed (that is a lot of mainline Protestants, Catholics, and liberal Christians). He sets up the narrowest definition of what it means to be Christian, and with that a significant number of Christians are left out (I also skewer Tucker today at Free Tennessee for his holiday-double-standards).

The lesson for community leaders is that conservative evangelical Protestants are too narrow to consider even their own biblical mandates, if following such mandates transgresses extra-biblical boundaries that they themselves construct. Catholics find a way to work against capital punishment and war alongside those with whom they disagree on abortion. They teach us that in an imperfect world one never neglects an opportunity to redeem life where one can. All we learn from white evangelicals is how not to behave toward one another.

News 2 Reporter Starts Holiday Christmas Weihnachts Season Early

Remember last year's big much-ado-about-nothing involving the two words: "Holiday" vs. "Christmas?" Well, WKRN Reporter Jamey Tucker, whom I've never accused of having too much objectivity in his reporting, is not waiting until after Thanksgiving to stir that pot once again by bringing us a story of tree-naming all of the way from the land of beer and cheese. (Heck; he didn't even wait until after Halloween).

Why are culture warriors and these supposedly "mainstream" media reporters so opposed to the term "Holiday," which has a thoroughly Christian etymology dating back to very Christian 14th Century England (halig "holy" + dæg "day")? Given the Christian freight of both words, there is no theological difference between "Holiday" or "Christmas," regardless of the threat that Tucker imagines to his faith.

The irony in Tucker's rather glib response to the Milwaukee story is that the etymology of the word "Christmas" itself is not Protestant: the word derives from "the Mass of Christ." Since Protestants do not have "Mass," then calling the tree a Christmas Tree would exclude a major cross-section of the denominational spectrum outside of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. (And I don't even favor extending Tucker's flawed logic of semantic purity to the word "Christmas" itself. I like and I use the word. I'm just not obsessed with it).

And what of the etymology of the term "Christmas Tree"? That term first appeared in America in the early 19th Century as a translation of the German Weihnachtsbaum, which literally means "Sanctified or Consecrated Night Tree." So, why not choose "Weihnachtsbaum" or "Consecrated Night Tree" over "Christmas Tree"? We already have purity-run-wild in the culture war over "Holiday" vs. "Christmas," so why stop with a term, like "Christmas," which does not precisely fit the way that Protestants actually worship Christ?

The culture warriors really can ruin the spirit of Christmas with a lot of posturing that eventually has little to do with how people actually celebrate the season in their homes. I personally hope that Metro does not put up a tree at all in Riverfront Park this year. It will save us from listening to axes ground by the more strident among us. Do away with Metro's tree and we do away with the whole debate. I wouldn't miss it for a single minute.

"Christmas" is the Latest in PC Jargon

News 2's Jamey Tucker is at it again. He must get his news feeds from here.

I should renew my vow made last year to overtip each "Happy Holiday" I get; and this year, if I ever find myself in Wal-Mart (odds aren't good) and an employee wishes me a "Happy Holiday," they may find a five-spot tucked in their palm as I pass by.

With the mainstream media pot-stirrers like Tucker in full and rapid rotation, I expect the conservatives on the Metro Council will be saucing themselves up. Before they do, I hope that they reconsider my suggestion that they find a truly yuletide name, instead of the rather PC "Metro Council." (BTW, is it okay for me to use the word "yuletide"? Or is it just too far from the term "Christ" to qualify as a Christmas term?)

Prince's Performative Enhancement

Failing to see behind Prince's veiled reference:

This Super Bowl was the most kid friendly Super Bowl in years. If there were any advertisements for male sexual enhancement, I didn't notice them. Even Prince's halftime show was family friendly.

- -Jamey Tucker, News 2 Reporter

I believe that kids old enough to follow football would comprehend phallic symbolism in action a lot quicker than they would verbalized technical jargon like "erectile dysfunction."

Compare and Contrast

[Local Christian] Pastor Charles Cowan believes if someone is going to serve the United States of America, they should make their promise the way it's always been done on the United States of America .... "America being founded on the Christian principles, I believe that we should continue to put our hand on the Bible [when swearing an oath]."

- - News 2 Reporter Jamey Tucker's report on one conservative evangelical's response to a Muslim Congressman taking the oath on the Qu'ran

Swear not at all; neither by heaven ... nor by earth .... But let your "yea" be "yea," and let your "nay" be "nay."

- - Jesus in that Christian Bible that conservative Christians want elected officials to swear on

With such hypocrisy in the recent oath-taking tempest, it is no wonder that evangelicals are buckling under a bad name. They've earned it.

Convoluted Reporter Logic

[T]here's nothing Christian or even religious about the Christmas tree. Is there? Its roots are in paganism. A tree is nothing more than a traditional Christmas symbol.

- - Jamey Tucker

Where did WKRN's Faith and Ethics Reporter ever get the notion that evergreen-decking pagans were not religious? And what kind of convoluted logic is it for the same reporter to say that a Christmas Tree is devoid of Christian reference, when a whole culture war is being waged around him over calling it a Christmas Tree?

It would be one thing if any old garden-variety reporter had these lapses in logic about the admittedly difficult subject of religion, but this is WKRN's "Religion" Reporter: the guy who is supposed to have a firm handle on this subject.

Is WKRN Going Fox On Us?

With the hiring of partisan schlock jock Steve Gill, WKRN seems to be headed toward becoming another rightward-slanted news outfit. The station already fields a "faith and ethics" reporter who often does stories with a clipped, evangelical bias and without attention to Nashville's mainline-to-progressive religious community (have you ever seen Jamey Tucker do a story on Unitarian-Universalists or on Metropolitan Interdenomination Church? All I've seen is stuff like touchdown prayers and Belmont Church). Now they are handing their audience Middle Tennessee's greatest grifter, sophist, and shill in the person of Gill. That will no doubt appeal to a certain segment of the viewing audience. For guys like me it is repellent. If I want partisan applesauce to go with my news, I can already tune in to Mark Hyman over on Fox News 17 for grins. If WKRN is not going to simply report the news in unbiased fashion, I hope the station will find ways to give the other side of the partisan divide equal time, otherwise I will be spending less time watching Channel 2 News.

Keeping Tabs on the Council's On-Going Conversion of Tax Dollars to Charitable Donations

With another Metro Council Meeting upon us on Tuesday night, it is time for the third Enclave report on how this council is electing to spend a $1.95 million windfall from uncollected property taxes this year that they earmarked for their own discretionary spending. And by "discretionary spending" they don't seem to mean adding funds to government services to address public need. So far, 100% of those tax dollars have gone to subsidize private charities close to council members' hearts.

This week's council agenda extends the conversion of property tax dollars to charitable donations with 5 "Reserve Council Infrastructure Program" resolutions up for council vote:

• $1,500 for Watkins Institute of Art (Jamey Isabel--holdover from last month)
• $20,000 for Community ALERT (Brenda Gilmore, Ronnie Greer, Edward Whitmore, Carolyn Baldwin Tucker)
• $10,000 for Cumberland Region Tomorrow (Gilmore, Buck Dozier)
• $7,000 for Metrocenter Teachers' Apartments, Inc. (Tucker, Gilmore)
• $5,000 for Nashville Inner City Ministry, Inc. (Greer)

Our watch to see if any of the $1.95 million actually goes to public programs continues.

Despite glaring chances to pave some alleys or to solve a few water runoff problems or to refurbish the worst public parks in Nashville, council members continue to be set on playing philanthropists, pitching public money at private non-profits rather than at actual Metro infrastructure. Metro Water should have a bunker and more than one security guard to protect those dangerous chlorine gas tanker cars currently sitting out in the open on the North End, so why are these leaders not so allocating these tax dollars to protect us from the calamity of a chemical spill? Why can't they pool a couple or three million to build Charlie Tygard the fire station he says he needs (even as he's spending his own allocated funds on private sports groups and on private swimming pool upgrades)?

Why? Because it would probably get called "massive government expansion" by those who seem to fancy a world of declining municipal services as subsidies for private charities increase. Why is it perfectly fine to criticize spending on government programs that pave roads or build fire stations, but not to criticize the frittering away of uncollected property taxes on private charities, based on nothing but councilmanic discretion?

Do Any of the 26 Metro Council Members Voting with Diane Neighbors in Support of Car Wash Exemption Have Conflicts of Interest?

One of the requests made by the Nashville Neighborhood Alliance is that supporters of the controversial Car Wash Exemption Bill recuse themselves from voting on Tuesday if they have ties to campaign contributors like John Hobbs and others with a vested interest in putting car washes in neighborhoods without regard to neighborhood consent. The NNA charges that Diane Neighbors has ties to campaign contributors that influence her stance on the bill.

26 other council members voted with Ms. Neighbors, but it is as yet unclear as to whether they have ties to groups lobbying on behalf of car wash interests. At least one of those voting "aye" is Buck Dozier, who is running for Mayor this year and should immediately disclose whether some of the considerable campaign funds he has received have come from these specific contributors and recuse himself from voting on Tuesday if so.

In the interest of helping constituents find out more details from council members, I have listed the names, e-mail addresses, and links to district maps of members who voted for the bill on second reading and of members who were absent that evening below:

Members Voting In Favor of Exempting Car Wash Developments

Buck Dozier (buck.dozier@nashville.gov) -- at Large
Diane Neighbors (diane.neighbors@nashville.gov) -- at Large
Adam Dread (adam.dread@nashville.gov) -- at Large
Brenda Gilmore (brenda.gilmore@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 1
Jamey Isabel (jamie.isabel@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 2
Walter Hunt (whuntnash@aol.com) -- Dist. 3
Michael Craddock (michael.craddock@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 4
Pam Murray (pam.murray@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 5
Erik Cole (erik.cole@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 7
Jim Forkum (jim.forkum@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 9
Rip Ryman (rip.ryman@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 10
Feller Brown (feller.brown@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 11
Jim Gotto (jim.gotto@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 12
Carl Burch (carl.burch@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 13
Harold White (whw777@comcast.net) -- Dist. 14
J.B. Loring (j.b.loring@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 15
Ronnie Greer (ronnie.greer@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 17
Ludye Wallace (ludye.wallace@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 19
Billy Joe Walls (billyjoe.walls@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 20
Ed Whitmore (edward.whitmore@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 21
Jason Alexander (jason.alexander@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 28
Jim Hodge (jim.hodge@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 30
Parker Toler (parker.toler@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 31
Sam Coleman (sam.coleman@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 32
Robert Duvall (robert.duvall@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 33
Lynn Williams (lynn.williams@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 34
Charlie Tygard (charlie.tygard@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 35

Members Absent on January 2

David Briley (david.briley@nashville.gov) -- at Large (also running for Mayor)
Jason Hart (jason.hart@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 8
Eric Crafton (eric.crafton@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 22
Emily Evans (emily.evans@nashville.gov) -- Dist. 23


(Carolyn Baldwin Tucker and Mike Jameson abstained from voting; Page, Hausser, Summers, Shulman, Adkins, Foster, Wilhoite were the members voting against exempting car washes).