Is Governor Bredesen Opening the Door to China Like Opening Pandora's Box?

Here is an example of a high-demand American market in China that meets our indulgence at the expense of Chinese indentured servants. If you knew that the products to come to Tennessee from China were made using 24-hour labor, had surplus values exponentially higher than sweat shops paid workers to produce them, and required punishing workers for not meeting their quotas would you still buy them? Governor Bredesen justified his Nissan deal a couple of years ago and maintained that making deals is better than having ideals. Are you willing to compromise certain ideals in order buy the coming tide of Chinese products produced under conditions that would not satisfy many workers here?

Fred Thompson's Team Includes Auto Scion/Swift Boat Funder/Tygard Campaign Treasurer

Fresh off helping Charlie Tygard raise money to cull enough votes to secure a Metro Council at-Large seat in the September run-off, Lee Beaman is slated to join Republican Fred Thompson's campaign finance team. Back in July, I pointed to the fact that Mr. Beaman was once classified as one of the top auto industry hard money contributors in the nation donating all but $250 of $122,000 to Republican candidates. Mr. Beaman was also donated $2,500 to the Swift Boaters campaign in 2004 in order to help smear Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry's military record.

Blackwater on its Own Initiative Deployed Mercenaries to New Orleans after Katrina

If you were around the local blogosphere back in late 2005 after Katrina hit New Orleans, you'll remember that several on the right called for shooting anyone (even those who were stealing food and clothes on which to live) for pillaging unguarded stores. There was little sympathy expressed from the right for those whom the federal government left to suffer and die for days without having their basic survival needs met. And those of us who urged caution against trigger-happy turkey shoots were ridiculed for sport.

Now we come to find out from Jeremy Scahill that shoot-'em-up mercenary contractor Blackwater was down there even before FEMA (some were even pulled out of their jobs in Iraq, even though President Bush declined to bring National Guard forces home to deal with the problem) with the specific purpose of guarding the property of wealthy people, even if it meant shooting starving poor people for stealing food that probably would have been discarded as a loss anyway. According to Scahill, Blackwater paid the domestic mercenary force $350 per day and Blackwater eventually billed the U.S Government to the tune of $950 per day per mercenary. Your tax dollars at work.

Here is the video of Mr. Scahill's comments from last night's Bill Moyers Journal:

Telecoms Rely on Special Favors and Deception; Dodd to Filibuster Telecom Immunity

There is one question that is dogging me lately. So, why do they need guaranteed immunity from prosecution if none of the telecoms broke the law?

The Democrats--in the majority, mind you--blinked first and then caved to the Republicans' demand that their corporate cronies at big telecom be given immunity from any prosecution. Besides signalling that the Bush Administration fears what could happen to its wiretap program in the judicial branch, it also shows that the Democrats lack the slightest semblance of a set of kahunas.

The Democratic exception is Presidential Candidate, Chris Dodd, who is promising to filibuster the legislation that would cover the telecoms. At least one of the Democratic Candidates cares enough about authoritarian corporatism to fight special legal privileges for the telecoms.

Every once and a while, Chris Dodd does something that just clouds and delays my decision to settle on the Democrat I could support in 2008.

The other lumbering telecom in the fight to control communications, Comcast, has started interfering with internet file-sharing by disguising its company computers as those of its users and blocking file uploads. Comcast defends its practice by arguing that it has to keep file-sharing traffic from chewing up bandwidth and slowing down other customers. But now I'm struck by another question: why do they need to masquerade as a customer themselves in order to do so? What have they got to hide?

The Klein Hypothesis: "Free" Market Not Born in Freedom or Democracy But in Shock

I have not read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, yet; but I intend to.

It is an interesting alternative to the theory that "free" trade and "free" markets are the natural siblings of democracy and our constitutional freedoms.

Of course, when you use qualifiers like "free" in front of a term like "market," you always have to ask, "For whom is it truly free?" The freedom of markets comes with a price tag that few can pay.

That fact that a "free" market is more of an autocracy than a democracy would seem to support Ms. Klein's view that market-friendly policies have to be imposed on softened-up citizenries by those at the top. It also suggests that calling markets "free" is truly an Orwellian twist of words.

The Governor is the One Making More of "Coolies" Than Necessary

You know: I thought that the Governor's splaying open Tennessee consumers to more poisonous Chinese products was a lot more noteworthy than his regressive use of the term "coolies" with respect to Chinese people. So, I was prepared to give Phil Bredesen a pass after arguing that his particular choice of words was ill-advised and unnecessary.

But today he spouted off defensively at the Tennessean and with an attitude that I have always considered one of his greatest weaknesses: landed condescension towards honest criticism. This is not a battle that he needed to fight. It really is something that he could have buried with some kind of formulaic acknowledgement that none of us always chooses the most effective ways to communicate and in this instance it was his turn to choose poorly, given that some in his audience did not catch his drift.

It really does not matter how popular the Governor is or how his popularity might inflate his self-importance or his promise as player on the national stage. He is not above criticism for an unfortunate or undiplomatic choice of words, especially if he wants to be a player on the national stage.

There is one simple two-pronged test here: does calling Asians "coolies" advance general respect and admiration for the Chinese he is courting and does it advance his economic mission in China? In his curt response to the Tennessean he defends his choice of words by appealing to the context of the compliment in which they appeared. But would it have been any less of a compliment to have not referred specifically to "coolies"?

In the end this has nothing to do in my mind with toeing a politically correct line. It has to do with using the shrewd and even-keeled judgment that should be expected of leaders even after the two bone-headed presidential terms of George W. Bush. Governor Bredesen's words do not reflect a wise or careful selection. If they are not discriminatory, then they are at best indiscriminate.

And those of us who dare to demur rather than go along quietly--whether at the Tennessean or elsewhere--deserve none of his scorn nor any other person's minimization of some fair questions.

America's Republicans' Guard Guards Democrats for Lots of Money, Too

Tonight's Bill Moyers' Journal interviewed Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise Of The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, and it is a devastating critique of Democrats:

• who looked unprepared to interrogate Erik Prince in recent Blackwater congressional hearings
• who have a conflict of interest insofar as they rely on Blackwater for security themselves when they visit Iraq
• who have at least one presidential candidate who shares public relations contractors with Blackwater
• who have one former President who started the privatization of our military

Mr. Scahill also explained why we don't have a draft: because 180,000 private security contractors more than double the number of military forces we have on the ground in Iraq. Our tax dollars (Blackwater operatives get paid more than 4 times what many of our soldiers make) are going to pay an elite Republican Guard-type of force--not bound to any laws or military codes of justice--that saves President Bush from starting conscription on our shores and that drains tax dollars from foreign and domestic programs.

One of the definitions of fascism is corporate control of government. The conservatives with the help of a critical mass of otherwise ineffective Democrats have insured the perfect trifecta of discipline and control: privatization of public education, of imprisonment, and now of the military. Let's not get bogged down by analogies to Hitler, since fascism is bigger than the Führer. Let's just call it "FedEx Facism," since Blackwater considers itself the FedEx of the international security apparatus.

News 2 Political Blogger Finds Another City Paper Screw-up

It was just this past July that the Nashville City Paper erroneously stuck a picture of squeaky clean Council Member Mike Jameson next to a story on donations to council candidates by convention center lobbyists. Now comes word from WKRN's Adam Kleinheider that the City Paper plastered a picture of David Briley next to a story on his brother Rob Briley's recent personal problems (photo credit: Adam Kleinheider).

Nearly every time I've written about errors in the City Paper someone accuses me of unfairly singling them out. So, I'm glad that a blogger held in higher esteem by the local print media beat me to the catch this time. But I will quite readily pass along news of another botched NCP story.

Let the Flood of Unregulated, Lead-Based Consumer Goods to Tennessee Begin!

Governor Bredesen opens Tennessee China Development Center. The office will be the Tennessee Department of Economic Development's clearinghouse for information it "can provide to Chinese companies interested in expanding into the U.S. market."

More toys coated in toxin-based paint for us; and less for Mississippi.

Former Metro School Board Member Blames Rape Victim for Being Raped

Kay Brooks is pontificating that Tennessee should not being spending any more money to secure its Parks against crime. Instead, we should be looking for ways to blame victims of crime in Parks for the crime that happens to them, according to her own logic. Those men like me who argue the contrary, she calls "cowed."

Allow me to uncow myself for a second. I'll accept Ms. Brooks' premise for the sake of argument and conclude accordingly that homeowners are to blame for home invasions because they own homes. If they weren't so reckless as to own a home, then quite logically criminals would have nothing to invade. Same thing applies to having a car: if you don't have one, you'll never be the victim of grand theft auto.

Now, if we can come back from the land of total delusion and the lack of all reason, I'd have to ask who is really being cowed? Am I cowed because I freely demand that my elected officials accept responsibility for securing our public parks? Or would I be cowed by submitting to Kay Brooks' judgmental world where every bad thing that happens to someone is attributable to little beyond the victims themselves? Thus, the only requirement is a crushing moralistic inventory of the flaws and the errors of the victim: as if we should assume from Ms. Brooks' seat of judgment on high that the victim doesn't already have the capacity to judge herself and feel her own regrets.

But let's carry Kay Brooks' delusional logic to its end: if each of us, like the Bicentennial Mall rape victim, is ultimately responsible for the bad things that happen to us, then there is no good reason to ever pay for park rangers or for police or for security cameras or for armies or for navies or for any other government security measure. Why spend even one cent on any of us who obviously had it coming? I have to hand this to the former School Board filler: it would have saved us billions of dollars if we just would have blamed 9/11 on ourselves and stayed home from Iraq.


UPDATE: Tiny Cat Pants wonders whom Kay Brooks hates more, women or men. But Aunt B. does not care in the comments section for analogies to crimes against property (like the one I made above) as her genitalia should be absolutely governed by her.

Governor Goes Macaca on Us

You know, I didn't place much stock in those "dispatches" that Governor Phil Bredesen has been sending back from his trip to China until the Tennessean's Jennifer Peebles reported earlier this afternoon that he wrote one that referred to Chinese by the archaic and derogatory term of "coolies." "Coolies" is a catch-all term for lower caste and class laborers in Asia, India and South Africa, and it usually had racist connotations. When he was a practicing attorney in South Africa, future Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi was called a "coolie barrister" to distinguish his status as second class because of the color of his skin.

So, without being accused of undue political correctness, I think that I can fairly say that Gov. Bredesen's reference was regressive, ill-advised, and unstatemanlike. No serious leader of diverse peoples in the 21st Century should ever refer to another race of people by old terms that are based on degrading views of race and class. There is no rationalization for the sour taste this might leave with some people. The Governor is not in China as a professor teaching history. So, there is no reason to recall an archaic and controversial classification that has nothing to do with the business of his trip.

Park Safety and Bicentennial Mall Rape on the Tennessean's Editorial Page

Tennessean editors finally speak out about the Bicentennial Mall rape in September and they issue a milquetoast call on the state to find more resources to "maintain security" at the parks. Their most creative idea is to post signs that warn people that the park is considered a "day-use" park only. I would think that emergency kiosks and security cameras would be a better bare minimum if the state does not have the resources to increase ranger presence in the park.

The editors also publish two comments by Park Directors. One is from Metro Director, Roy Wilson, which seems a waste of space since Bicentennial Mall security has nothing to do with Metro Parks.

The other opinion is from State Parks Commissioner, Jim Fyke, who writes in broad generalities and in a promotional style about park security. He never deals specifically with conditions at Bicentennial Mall, choosing instead to trumpet Parks System Awards and park rangers who have first response training. But a thousand gold medals would be little solace to a woman fending off a rapist, and the fact that a park ranger saved a boy from a snake bite somewhere else in Tennessee will not protect the life of pedestrians who might find themselves crossing Bicentennial Mall after midnight or before 7:00 in the morning. His entire response seems like a cavalier exercise in minimizing safety in the North End.

On a related subject, I still have not received a reply from either State House Representative Mary Pruitt or State Senator Thelma Harper on what they plan to do to fund increased park safety. I wrote them a letter a week ago.

ACLU Deserves All Our Love on This One

The ACLU is defending a Pennsylvania woman who was arrested by a cop for disorderly conduct after cussing in her own home after her toilet backed up. Let the partisan attacks on the ACLU begin and look so foolish on this one.

Hyper-local Fallout from Housing Slump Felt in Germantown

Local blogger experiences delay in building his Germantown home because slow area home sales don't yield comparisons for appraisal.

Quote of the Week

The flag [lapel pin] is just a symbol. You're getting pissy about a broach, you drama queens: one that was probably made in China; one that's probably leaking poison lead on you right now.

- - Bill Maher on the controversy--lead by conservative commentator Sean Hannity--over flag lapel pins and the people who don't wear them

Bread for the Preds

CatMac sees a month-by-month pattern of public education sinking in Mayor Karl Dean's short list of priorities with more emphasis placed lately on finding funding for the already well-subsidized private professional hockey team. The seeming shifts in his priorities remind her of a scene from a old Steve Martin movie:

I cannot find much fault with the high priority she places on education and her interest in not letting the new Mayor off the hook in order to rescue the Nashville Predators, who as far as I know have not sold out a match yet to demonstrate the commitment of their fan base. I think it is fair to ask those who support the attempt to subsidize the Preds with public dollars whether they have been showing their support by attending all of the matches or by buying season tickets to help fill the seats. That is a fair expectation with the power to convince some of the rest of us that hockey is indeed wildly popular enough to keep here or that an empty building instead of a partially filled one would indeed be the great tragedy about which they wax ominous.

And I only wish that at-Large Charlie Tygard would get as passionate about attempts to undermine our public schools as he does a perceived threat from other cities luring the Preds away from Nashville. Maybe one day we'll fund our schools and Mr. Tygard will have to have a bake sale to fund a hockey team.

Cavalcade of Capitalists: When the Threat of "Unnecessary Public Concern" Trumps Poisoning and Death

What did a Home Depot business partner do when they found out that their product was poisoning consumers? Tell the truth, accept responsibility, and make amends? I think not. Effective marketing does not require that much. It does not even requiring obeying the law by immediately notifying regulators. The company sold consumers a product that could be considered an improvised chemical weapon (ICW) that aerosols industrial solvent into their lungs.

Then the company and Home Depot kept marketing the product for months after consumer medical reports started coming in. Some of those reports included deaths. Rather than pulling the product, the creators of the ICW did "everything to convince the Home Depot that there is no reason to take these batches off the shelf."

And the government's toothless and mute watchdog, the Consumer Products Safety Commission (an overblown misnomer), did not recall the Home Depot product after it was damaging the lungs of consumers and innocent bystanders; not even after the company merely made the odor of the spray stronger in a feeble attempt to send consumers a hidden message that the spray was unsafe to breathe. But if consumers are smelling the stronger odor, then they have already paid to spray it and to make themselves dizzy and disoriented, which would impair their nasal cipher for subtle scent codes.

It just warms my central nervous system to know that such rational industry is the backbone of our country.

Seems Like a Dressed Up Version of Rush's "Phoney Soldiers" Argument

If Fred is referring to the WaPo op-ed by the group of Army captains, it’s worth noting that none of them has served in Iraq in 2007, and all but one or two served pre-2006, so they hardly are in the best position to know what’s really going on there now.

- - Local Republican Strategist Bill Hobbs, responding to Liberadio's Freddy O'Connell's comments on Army officers who counsel either a draft for or a withdrawal from the Iraq War

And Tennessee Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn is in a better position to know?

The conservative lines against soldiers who oppose the Bush policy in Iraq seem to die the death of a thousand qualifications: rather than listening to military men and women first, the Bush-supporters seem to be forever prejudging them as wrong and cutting them out of the herd based their own random prejudice. That may be good campaign strategy, but it is bad foreign policy.

You can bet that if this war were going swimmingly, administration loyalists would be trotting out every kind of soldier--Iraq experience or no--whom they could find to bolster their case. Instead, with the attitudes toward the Iraq War sour, they seem more interested in discrediting--even in ways better mannered than Rush Limbaugh--any opinion on the war that does not interface neatly with the Bellicose Bushies.

In the end, the argument deconstructs itself: if we can only rely on those soldiers who have served in Iraq after 2006 for setting our policy on fighting future battles, then we should not listen to Bill Hobbs--who has no wartime military service that I know of--either.

Mainstream Headline Makes SCHIP Expansion Sound Unnecessary

While a City Paper article concedes that an estimate of uninsured children in Tennessee is in the 100,000's, the thrust of the story, crystalized in its headline, looks like an attempt to convey the idea that SCHIP expansion is unnecessary because Tennessee's SCHIP program ("Cover Kids") cannot find children to cover:


Reporter John Rodgers eventually reports that a primary cause of underenrollment may be the Bredesen Administration's failure to market the program effectively to families who don't know that it exists (a lack of communication would save the state money, after all). But that point has to be exhumed from the insinuation that low enrollment means no demand for children's health insurance coverage.

Are Rodgers and the NCP trying to sway broad public support away from SCHIP?


UPDATE: The Governor seems to be passing the buck for communicating coverage statewide in the CP article, but according to a 2006 CP article (not penned by John Rodgers), Tennessee delayed the start of the Cover Kids program for several months. Phil Bredesen is going to have to do more than just hold press conferences around the state if he wants to communicate this program to busy, working-class families.

Mercenaries, Men with No Country, Soldiers in Search of a War

From Newsweek this week:

Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint .... Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition .... One military contractor, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine officer's order to put his pistol on safety when entering a base post office by saying, "This is my safety," and wiggling his trigger finger in the air. "Their attitude was, 'We're f–––ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody'."

Proponents of this war accuse opponents of demoralizing the troops. Proponents need to stop pointing fingers elsewhere and look within their own ranks: Blackwater seems to be true demoralizer.

Does Private Board Membership Create a Conflict of Interest for Ronnie Steine and Rip Ryman?

Could it be considered a conflict of interest for at-Large Council Member Ronnie Steine to sit on the boards of three non-profits at the same time that he is sponsoring an ordinance that would close non-profit board meetings to the public whenever public contributions were the subject of board consideration? Whether the law that he is intended to prohibit is bad or not, it seems to me to be a fair question.

Fellow bill co-sponsor Rip Ryman sits on at least three private non-profit boards that I could find: Nashville Old Timers Baseball Association, East High Alumni Association, and the Nashville Sports Council. Considering that at least one of these organizations has received thousands in local tax dollars from Metro Council in the recent past, might Mr. Ryman's co-sponsorship be a conflict of interest, too?

Oktoberpeople Watching

CRIME ALERT: Suspicious Truck Connected to Germantown Thefts

From Historic Germantown, Inc.:

There is a Chevy Silverado truck going around the neighborhoods stealing items from new houses under construction or being renovated.
CHEVY Silverado
Late 70's early 80's
light blue or gray
If anyone sees this vehicle please try and get a tag number and call (862-8600) and report a suspicious vehicle in the neighborhood that has been involved in recent thefts from the neighborhood. Also try and get descriptions of suspects and how many there are in the vehicle.

A Bill to Address Foreseeable, Unintended Consequences?

Responding to the skeptics, Craddock pointed out that doing the people's business inevitably brings "unintended consequences," so buck up and get over it. What Craddock seems not to grasp is that when consequences are foreseeable before action is taken, they no longer qualify as "unintended."

- - Bruce Barry on Council Member Michael Craddock's bill that required mobile vendors to sell their wares within "a permanent, enclosed structure"

In what looked like it could be a sequel to "The Merchant of Mayberry" a few months ago, Michael Craddock restricted the "free" in "free market" to only those businesses that had an actual roof over their heads. Tuesday Michael Craddock introduces a bill that would change the term "mobile vendor" to "outdoor vendor," in what reads like an attempt to broaden the scope of the restriction; or is this an attempt to respond to some of those unintended consequence that we were supposed to get over?

New Bill Would Repeal Summers' Measure to Require Non-Profit Open Meetings

Council Members Ronnie Steine and Rip Ryman are co-sponsoring an ordinance Tuesday night to repeal a previous bill sponsored by ex-member John Summers that requires non-profit boards to make their directors' meetings open to the public when deliberating the expenditure of Metro earmarks. The rationale for the repeal: the Summers bill, which was passed unanimously on August 21 and signed by the previous Mayor would duplicate services "since the Metropolitan Government already tracks the expenditure of the funds."

I am interested to hear the arguments in favor of the repeal, although we probably won't hear them on first reading this Tuesday, since most first-reading ordinances are passed on consent without debate. I'm particularly curious as to the reasons why requiring open meetings is considered a "duplication of services."

There also seems to be a companion bill exempting non-profits that receive grants from the Metro Nashville Arts Commission.

The Ancient Art of Tearing the Life of a Child Apart

Ezra Klein's response to the conservative blogosphere, which honed on and harrassed a 12-year-old and his family after the child publicly spoke about how SCHIP has helped his family:

This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to drive to the home of a Republican small business owner to see if he "really" needed that tax cut. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to call his family and demand their personal information. It would never occur to me to interrogate his neighbors. It would never occur to me to his smear his children.

This is not politics. This is, in symbolism and emotion, a violent group ritual. It is savages tearing at the body of a captured enemy. It is the group reminding itself that the Other is always disingenuous, always evil, always lying, always pitiful and pathetic and grotesque. It is a bonding experience -- the collaborative nature of these hateful orgies proves that much -- in which the enemy is exposed as base and vile and then ripped apart by the community. In that way, it sustains itself, each attack preemptively justifying the next vicious assault, justifying the whole hateful edifice on which their politics rest.

Looks like leading Congressional Republicans could be joining in the group ritual, as Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans have posted a little Simpson's satire on the public tab to lampoon what they call "rental children":


The hateful length to which blind and unquestioned loyalty will send people is considerable.

CRIME ALERT: Neighbor Reports Germantown Homicide

I was working out in my yard late this afternoon, when one of my neighbors stopped by and said that there had been a homicide on Rosa Parks Boulevard near Monroe Street in the parking lot of a closed fast food place. He was walking back from Kroger across the street and he saw several police cruisers on the lot behind crime-scene tape. He said that he also saw a car with a door open and a leg dangling out. Maybe we will hear something on the 10:00 news tonight, but I'll pass on more information as I get it.


UPDATE: According to Metro Police:

Patrol responded to 708 Monroe St today in reference to afemale white being found unconscious inside of a vehicle parked in theparking lot. N.F.D. arrived before P.D. and updated the call statingthis individual was 10-64. It is unknown at this time the cause of deathbut foul play is not suspected.

Al Gore, the "Counter-Factual"

Editorial pages are paying attention to the fits conservatives are having over Al Gore's Nobel Prize. Some are even explaining it accurately:

Gore's triumph is a measure of George W. Bush's disrepute.

Indeed, in the political culture, Gore's role is as a negative indicator of the president's standing. For all the talk of a "new Al Gore," there's nothing new about the man. His public reputation is almost entirely a function of Bush's.

The high point of Bush's prestige came in the months after Sept. 11, 2001. As Bush put it in a year-end interview: "All in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me" .... That was also the moment when it was most fashionable to ridicule Gore .... Gore, the thinking went, was too intellectual and lacked Bush's gut-sense understanding of good and evil.

.... It's not an accident that the current celebrations of Gore come at a time when Bush's popularity has cratered. Once conservatives mocked Gore as the radical tribune of a tiny political fringe; now it is they who represent the fringe.

....The defensiveness of Gore's critics comes because he is the ultimate rebuke to Bush. Gore, obviously, is the great historic counter-factual, the man who would have been president if Florida had a functioning ballot system. More than that, he is the anti-Bush. He is intellectual and introverted, while Bush is simplistic and backslapping.

Insofar as we've seen some fringe-dwelling simplistic critics in Al Gore's home state, he is a counter-factual to that culture, too.

S[hangri-La]-town

I don't know how things are in your neck of the woods, but it is pure Shangri-La here in the North End. Our front yard grass is nicely party-bruised from our Oktoberfest pre-soiree last night. I got started sluggishly this morning, but once I started drawing beer as a volunteer at Germantown's Upper Tent at 9:30 while sucking down a triple breve, I was good to go. Then I had Mad Platter's out-of-this-world reuben for brunch at 11:00 in the cool shade. That hit the spot. I'll spend the rest of the day toting my big stein of Paulaner around the streets of G-town sans live blogging. Hope to see you there.

Petty Patrons, Typical Tygard

Are the Tennessee Titans so petty that they would really withhold a $25,000 donation to Metro Parks on behalf of disabled children if they don't get approval for a sign advertising their donation as "annoyed" at-Large Council Member Charlie Tygard seems to argue?

This Is the Point Where I Would Have Once Replied, "Does Metro Face a Tight Budget? Do All Billy Squier Songs Sound Like 'The Stroke'?"

Except that I just downloaded a recent bluesy accoustic version of 'The Stroke' to my Ipod (I like that Billy Squier), so I can't use that smart-ass rhetorical question anymore. But it is been self-evident for sometime that the budget is tight. Just imagine how many Metro services might have been helped last year if the Council had spent most of the discretionary funds on those services rather than on throwing money at non-profits.

Last Week They Piled on the SCHIP Kid; This Week They'll Try to Bury Nobel

Now that Al Gore has joined Cordell Hull as the only Tennessee sons to win the Nobel Peace Price, look for the conservative fume cycle to start revving more frantically.

A local Republican blogger and perennial candidate for office already calls past Nobel winners Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Theresa "mediocre company" for Gore. He also completely ignores Roosevelt's former Secretary of State Hull in his retrospective of past winners. One is left to wonder whether that omission has to with Hull's status as "Father of the United Nations" (the founder of the League of Nations, Woodrow Wilson, does make his list).

You may remember that the UN is a primary rationalization bolstering zealotry and hubris behind Iraq War boosterism. That may have something to do with the omission. Otherwise it looks like an attempt to avoid tarring one famous Tennessean with the same brush he tars Gore.

My guess is that Hull was likely just as villainized by the pamphleteers of his era. Maybe because they didn't have need of the UN at the time.


UPDATE: Bob replies in defense of his "mediocre" list at Liberadio:

the award has haphazardly been given to the good, along with the bad and the ugly.

Couldn't the same be said of a Purple Heart? In fact, I cannot imagine that any award hasn't gone to the good, the bad, and the ugly, since people are good, bad, and ugly.

Where Is The Report? I Want to Know More.

A report put out by Rutgers estimated that Nashville would save almost a billion dollars a year by managing all its growth so as to minimize the "cost of community services". [Source]

A New Low

Conservatives target and wrongly slander a kid who publicly told people how SCHIP provided the health care that helped him survive a tragic auto accident without saddling his family with the financial burden of his nearly six month hospital stay because of his coma.

These attackers are the same people who appeal to "value voters" and drone on about character and personal responsibility while they act distinctly unprincipled and unscrupulous to even children who disagree with them.

But Who is Going to Watchdog the Metro Council's Non-Profit Patronage?

Today's NashPo has an article behind their firewall (subscription required for reading) on a local website that will eventually provide public information on local non-profits for the benefit of donors and Metro Council (who may approve grants to those non-profits). I would think that GivingMatters.org's new tool should be used to scrutinize and evaluate the the Council's and the Mayor's decisions to fund certain non-profits, too.

"Uninsured Kids Don't Want the Government Telling Them What They Can or Cannot Die From"

"Not if the chronic illness fairy has anything to do with it":

Taking Some Action on the Conditions of a State Park

In the wake of September's Bicentennial Mall rape of a local resident, I sent the following letter to State House Representative Mary Pruitt (Dist. 58) and State Senator Thelma Harper (Dist. 19) encouraging their response on the issue of park security:

I am a resident of your district and a local writer who keeps a weblog on subjects of interest to North Nashville neighborhoods.

I was troubled to read news of the assault and rape of one of my neighbors on state property during the early morning hours of September 18. The entire incident reportedly lasted two hours at the Bicentennial Mall amphitheater. Even more confusing to me was the news reported in the October 5 Tennessean that the State of Tennessee ends patrols of the Mall before midnight and does not begin them again for seven hours, after the sun comes up.

Some argue that the victim should not have been walking in the Capitol Hill/Bicentennial Mall area at 2:00 a.m. because it is not safe. Do you believe that any part of your district, particularly the land owned by the state itself should be assumed to be unsafe at any time of the day or the night? I would argue that it is totally unacceptable to assume that we should stay completely away from accessible state lands at any time simply out of fear.

The state should be providing an adequate police force, surveillance array and emergency kiosks to prevent these crimes from happening. And in no case should victims of crime that occur on public Tennessee property be re-victimized by claims that they should never have been there in the first place.

So, I am asking you to use your leadership and your influence to make Bicentennial Mall a safe place for its neighbors at all times of the day and night. The state should not be ending patrols in the dark or starting those seven hours later after sunrise. The Metro Police Department should not have sole responsibility for patrolling that area. The State needs to pursue every available option with a reasonable amount of speed to secure Bicentennial Mall at night.

I hope that you will take initiative to see that these things happen. I look forward to your reply, which I will publish on my weblog for the community to see.

Thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

Mike Byrd (a.k.a., S-townMike)

I hope that you will take some time to contact your elected officials and prompt them to work harder to mandate safer conditions on Tennessee's public lands.

School Board Rezoning Plan Would Close Salemtown's Feeder Elementary

Fresh off the press: the School Board rezoning plan slates Brookmeade Elementary for closure due to low numbers of students. I do not know yet what that means for Salemtown's elementary school set. Will they be shipped out some place farther?

Also, MetroCenter's John Early Middle Magnet School would be converted into a regular zoned middle school for grades 5 through 8.

Anybody got any other news on rezoning?


UPDATE: The Tennessean has a practically useless graphic. Good luck deciphering it.

Not Exactly Stretching Out on the Wings of Strong Conviction

John Spragens, representing his boss in the U.S. House, told Mary Mancini and Freddy O'Connell that Jim Cooper voted for the bill to condemn a newspaper ad because it was insensitive to "a soldier fighting for his country." However, Spragens also seemed to suggest that Rep. Cooper was simply voting for it to "make the issue go away," and to evade questioning as to whether he should condemn the authors of the ad.

So, was it a vote of conviction or a vote of expedience? It looks to me like the usual Democratic attempt to nuance and to finesse polarizing issues rather than giving back as good as they got. Kudos to Mary for trying a couple of times to refer to the hypocrisy of targeting Moveon.org but not Rush Limbaugh (who denigrated as "phoney" those soldiers who didn't agree with the Iraq policy) even though Mr. Spragens countered that "everybody's sick of it" and he suggested that fighting Republicans "tit-for-tat" was a distraction when solders are dying in Iraq.

I only wish that Mr. Cooper would have seen beforehand that reaching for expedience in voting to condemn Moveon.org was itself a form of strategic maneuver (or tit-for-tat) against Republicans, and thus, itself a distraction from the reality of soldiers in harm's way in Iraq. By the way, any undefiled conviction to protect a General from a newspaper ad (with no tit to the tat intended) is also a distraction from the Iraq War.

Our Chance to See If the School Board Re-aligns Salemtown into a User-Friendly School Zone

Will the School Board's re-zoning recommendations include a configuration that will allow Salemtown parents to send their children to a quality school closer than the ten-mile-distant West Meade area? According to the City Paper, the recommendations will be announced at tonight's Board meeting. They are said to be partly motivated by desires to send children to schools closer to their homes. I would rather have the option that some nearby Hope Gardens parents do: instead of packing up their kids and sending them halfway across town to a decent school, they send them a quarterway across town to an excellent school. How does Hope Gardens fall in the Eakin zone, but Salemtown does not? This is not a bad idea either.

Salemtown Block Grant Advisory Committee Meets with Design Team

The Salemtown CAC will meet this evening for the first time with the team at Ragan-Smith to start charting a streetscape concept for the neighborhood's federal block grant. The meeting is at 6:30 at 1419 8th Avenue North. I was re-elected to the committee for the last year of the grant, so I will be there.

Will Charlie Tygard's Spot on the Audit Committee Embolden Him to Inflate "Council Authority"?

On the one hand, we have his stance on privatizing government services. On the other hand, there is this mean-spirited glee from Charlie Tygard about what sounds like weaker post-Purcell control over Metro's budget. He is now throwing around terms like "Council authority."

I'm not sure why fellow at-Large Council Member Tim Garrett nominated Mr. Tygard or why the Council unanimously acclaimed him for the Audit Committee, given Mr. Tygard's place already on the powerful Budget and Finance Committee, but his comments to NashPo make those initial Council decisions look like Dr. Frankstein turning on the juice.

Mr. Tygard seems to be hanging on to rather than moving on from his anger at the previous administration, and he seems to be fashioning his role as some kind of council hammer against the Mayor's budget even before Karl Dean introduces his first one next year. But if you look at Mr. Tygard's own 06-07 discretionary fund spending, he's not exactly a judicious model for other Metro employees on distributing funds to projects that have the broadest public impact. He is definitively special-interest, and he seems trained on the food in his own dish. The Audit Committee is supposed to act objectively and free from special interests; so, assigning Mr. Tygard to it seems to be a contradiction of its purpose.

It is nice to hear that Mayor Dean intends to work more closely with Council Members, but will he get tough with the cat herd when a whip and a cage match are called for? With Charlie Tygard in these powerful positions and acting full of stoked heat, I sure do miss Bill Purcell right now.

Your "Deregulation is Total Bunk" Moment

How are things going down in Texas where they opened up the electric utilities to private "competition" (the quotes signify the myth of the word)? According to today's Houston Chronicle:

Texas power rates have increased 56 percent since 2000, and the state’s electricity is among the most expensive in the country despite promises prices would go down when the state opened electric power to competition.

So much for promises that privatization naturally leads to lower prices. They are grand theories without much basis in reality.

Closer to home, we've got some current Council Members who have, in the past, argued for privatizing Nashville's utilities. At-Large Council Member Charlie Tygard once argued:

We need to start looking toward the private utility districts who are able to provide these services at better rates, better services than what Metro is now.

Looks like Mr. Tygard makes promises similar to those Texas Republicans who sold their constituents a bill of goods, if not down the river.

Mr. Tygard was just appointed to the Council's Audit Committee for a couple of years, which means that he can root around Metro Departments for data to justify selling government services to private interests, who in turn fund local political campaigns every 4 years.

What a sweet take, unless you are one of the many who stand to be took.

Nashville Predators Are One of the Most Government-Subsidized Teams

Ben Cunningham is on top of this one, with a quote from Forbes. The name "Predators" seems to fit, because they really do prey on the financial health of our community, and come back later demanding more.

Local Blogger Subpoenaed for Blogging on Blighted Property

And that person is me. On Friday evening, a courier appeared at my door and handed me a subpoena from the Seventh Circuit Court on behalf of Attorney Christina Norris (Norris & Norris PLC) commanding me to appear today at 10:00 as a "Personal Service." Ms. Norris had called me a couple of weeks ago asking me to appear as a witness for her client, Doina Gherghescu, the defendant in a case brought by her father, Iunian Gherghescu, in his attempt to wrest control of the Salemtown property they jointly own from her. Thirty minutes before the start of the trial, Ms. Norris left a message for me saying that I would not have to appear until she called me.

During our first conversation, Ms. Norris told me that she read an article I wrote on the blight at the Gherghescus' apartments and she wanted to use my witness to the deteriorating conditions. She tried to assure me that helping her client win would be a way of improving conditions at the apartments and making the neighborhood better. At that time I told Ms. Norris my reservations with appearing on her clients behalf, so she moved from invitations to a subpoena.

Living in a transitional neighborhood, wisdom requires circumspection about getting tied up in a legal case over blighted property and absentee landlords. But the main reason that I initially balked at jumping into this dispute with both feet is that it has nothing to do with making the neighborhood better. It is a personal family fight for control over a property with no assurances, no written guarantees from either side that, if either wins, the blight will be cleaned up.

Ms. Gherghescu's defense against her father means nothing more to me than protecting her own claim to and her own stakes in the property. How is her possible success in court better for Salemtown? Both father and daughter have let the apartment property run-down, marring the quality of life, generating criminal activity, and maintaining an eyesore. Why should I believe that Ms. Gherghescu would change the way she has managed the property simply because she wins this case?

Neighbors tell me that the bad conditions at the Gherghescu property have been with Salemtown as far back as they can remember. So, the Gherghescus have been imposing on this community for a long time. And this week they are imposing on me personally by taking me away from my responsibilities and entangling me in what looks to me to be nothing more than their own selfish and dysfunctional struggle for control.

Gilmore's Deferral Surprises Germantown Leaders

According to the Historic Germantown, Inc. President, Stacy Mosley, newly elected Council Member Erica Gilmore never divulged to them word that she was going to defer the bill that could provide a historic overlay for the North End neighborhood. On the contrary, Ms. Gilmore went to the effort to file the bill for consideration last Monday before Tuesday's Council Meeting after accepting it late from Germantown leaders without any indication that she would defer it indefinitely the next day.

President Mosley told me that she was surprised at the deferral and that she is confused about CM Gilmore's intention to hold a community meeting on the bill, because Ms. Gilmore had attended several community meetings in the past year in which the overlay was the exclusive focus of debate and discussion among G-towners. Ms. Gilmore never told anyone before her Tuesday meeting announcement that she would be having her own community meeting on the overlay.

We are approaching a week since the Ms. Gilmore told the Metro Council (and seemed to surprise at least Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors, who wasn't expecting the deferral) that she would be holding a community meeting on the overlay. Yet, no public announcement has been made regarding a time and date of the meeting.

That does not look like a good sign to me, given that Ms. Gilmore's predecessor, Ludye Wallace, made such announcements and he failed to communicate or to facilitate meetings. Ms. Gilmore told Salemtown leaders during her campaign that she intended to do things differently than her predecessor. In my opinion, CM Gilmore needs to reach out to the community sooner rather than later lest the impression be generated that she strung G-town overlay proponents along before the election merely to get their votes. If she has reservations about sponsoring the overlay, then she should take them to the community directly and face those who have worked for this concept for so many months.

But I've got one other question preying on my mind: why even file this bill on Monday before the Tuesday meeting if she had decided to meet with the community? That seems like the perfect time to work with G-town leaders and tell them that she felt a delay was appropriate. If she had not decided to sponsor a meeting at that point, then Erica Gilmore seems to have changed her mind on the overlay overnight. That is rather curious.

The Journey to the Dark Side is Complete

AT&T has put its mark on the Batman Building.

In news unrelated to building itself, another corporate media giant at NBC is asking AT&T to "filter the internet," which is exactly what each of the telecoms are striving to do. As Terry Heaton points out:

Technology is blowing the whole entertainment world apart, and rather than seek creative — and profitable — solutions, the people who run the giants of the copyright cartel keep trying to pull the whole thing back under their control. They are joined by the giant Telcos, who are their allies in the command-and-control battle in Congress. If the Telcos can create a tiered Web, where only those with deep pockets get the quality bandwidth, then Zucker will have his wish. Bring on those “unclogged” pipes that are filled only with pirated property. While I’m sure he doesn’t think so, Zucker is actually a puppet in the hands of AT&T.

If a tiered Web happens, it will stymie innovation, but it won’t stop the personal media revolution. And this is the real problem that the studios don’t want to consider, because, well, anybody can produce crap.

NBC is pillow-talking AT&T into filtering the internet because the news media now has little to do with reporting the news and much to do with making and hoarding money. And AT&T certainly wants its cut of the massive profits of a tiered web.

HT: Brittney

Urban Rock Climbing Expedition

Today we went out to try out the ramp travel index of the Rubicon by visiting a small rock quarry not far from Downtown. There were scores of scalable rocks to explore our own trail rating. We disconnected the sway bar (not the first time I could be accused of driving with my sway bar disconnected) and hopped around while the 3-year-old just kept right on coloring undaunted in the back seat.

Jeep Rubicon. There is no other.

The Princess Has No Clothes on SCHIP

Casting aside any concern for how carrying the Bush Administration's water might marr her attention-grabbing coutour (does being conservative ever mean prêt-à-porter?), U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) perpetuated myths to discard a SCHIP increase, even dragging in some immigration red meat to make partisans gnaw on children's health care:

I am not supportive of taking the SCHIP program, which is a good program, expanding it, having it available to illegal immigrants, having it available to adults, having it available to those that are not underprivileged American children

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee has their own bone to pick with her:

According to a Finance Committee news release, the bill does not raise the income eligibility level to qualify for SCHIP. If states go above three times the poverty level, or $61,950 for a family of four, the state gets a reduced match from the federal government. “It’s all there in black and white,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member on the Finance Committee, in prepared remarks made on the Senate floor. “Anyone who suggests this bill is an expansion to higher income kids or other populations is simply not reading the bill.”

Of course, Ms. Blackburn does not prefer black and white in her fall ensemble. She likes to mix and match.

Paying Tax Dollars Through the Nose to Keep Hockey in Nashville Is Like Horking Up a Puck

I’m hoping we’ll build a venue so the Highland Games can have a permanent home in Nashville. If our city is committed to pouring cash into losing sports franchises, at least can we have one with a caber toss?

- -CatMac

She also has a great post on priorities over at her place where she replies to blogging Council Member Emily Evans' point about an empty arena losing money:

But IT STILL LOSES MONEY [with the Predators]. If we're sitting on an empty thermal lot because ... we don't think the offer is strong enough, why in the world are we negotiating for the benefit of a different sports team? Is there something magical about the Predators [rather than the Sounds]?

Nashville needs to hang just as tough against the Predators as it did against the Sounds.

I part ways with Catherine insofar as I believe that reasonable deals at minimal cost may be pursued with sports teams, but it will not be any major loss if the Predators move to KC. Los Angeles did not fall apart when the Rams moved to St. Louis and the Raiders went back to Oakland, and the NFL is more lucrative than the NHL. If one of the most major sports markets can make it without a particular professional sport, second-tiered Nashville can too, especially in the tight Metro budget crunch times.

Sometimes we get more by saying "no" than by saying "yes."


UPDATE: Ms. Evans replies. NashPo says Deans tells Council a deal is close. Let's hope the fiscal damage is minimal.

How Can the State Maintain an Urban Park with No Overnight Security?

In the wake of the Bicentennial Mall rape, we find out that the State Park is unguarded (except for Metro patrols) for over 7 hours in the dark. Tennessee can't spare even one Park Ranger to patrol overnight? What about some surveillance cameras or emergency kiosks?

Defying the Immigration Stereotypes

So, if so many illegally immigrating Mexicans fit an American stereotype of being dissatisfied with Mexico and of being lured by the United States itself, then how is it that "Mexicans emerge as the most personally satisfied public [76%] in the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey"? Perhaps we think a lot of ourselves and not a lot about the real reasons why Mexicans might leave a country with which they are for the most part content for one in which they are consistently exploited, stalked, and reviled.

Veto of Children's Healthcare Costs Hospitals that Treat the Poor $150 Million

The tsunami-like problems emanating from President Bush's veto roll over the Tennessee hospitals that provide indigent care for a disproportionate share of uninsured children. This morning's Tennessean reports that the Bush veto of Congress' SCHIP could cost those hospitals $30 million a year for 5 years in their efforts to deliver adequate health care whenever the state's 127,000 uninsured kids need it.

This veto really was unconscionable and reprehensible. We're only going to see more tragedy and distress resulting from it. Congress needs to find its heart, claim its responsibility to be the funder of government programs (regardless of what "the decider" does), and override the veto of SCHIP.

Council Members Get Shout Outs

The Nashville Scene on its "Best Political Newcomer," at-Large Member Megan Barry:

As a corporate ethics officer, Barry is especially strong on good behavior in government. “I believe that for local government to be effective, citizens must have confidence that their lawmakers are acting in the best interest of the community, serving community needs and not those of special interest groups,” she says. What a novel idea.

Yes, and I wish she would have been in the Committee Chair mix.

And District 6 (Downtown/East Nashville) Council Member Mike Jameson gets some "Best of" love from CatMac:

[Before getting distracted by an unrelated website,] I was going to write a post about how Mike Jameson really is the very best Councilman in Nashville. I had already drafted a list of hints to the new council about how to return phone calls like Mike does, about how to linger when you're on the neighborhood association agenda like Mike does (instead of bailing after you've said your 90 words), about how to be both reflective of and a little bit nobler than most of the people in your neighborhood like Mike does. It was really good. Articulate and stuff and a little sentimental about having a councilman who is vaguely reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart. I liked it. Mike's a good guy and a good councilman and he deserves some blogbased shout-outs.

Consider this an echo for "Kid Jamo."

Bleeding Hearts of the World Unite!

Blackwater Chairman Erik Prince "cast his company as a scapegoat for broader problems associated with the government’s reliance on security contractors." Is he seriously claiming to have been victimized when it was his decision to accept high-risk/high-pay-off contracts? Was he not aware of the potential for public blow-back on a company that basically has a competitive advantage over the U.S. Military in a grisly war theater? How is it that these Republican supporters (Prince has given hundreds of thousands of his own dollars to Republicans) can jump on anybody else for playing the victim when they act so preyed upon themselves and with so little justification?

How to Make a Conservative Fall on Their Own Bible Sword Drill

What the people who dismiss religion and invoke the Spaghetti Monster (which I admit provides a good laugh) don't get is that Leviticus, and scripture as a whole, is a Pandora's Box that when opened can expose a whole lot of self-contradiction and hypocritical cherry-picking on the part of religious conservatives. When right-wingers use religion as a weapon, return the favor.

A Little Rain on Their Parade

Both Sean Braisted and Adam Kleinheider deserve the kudos they got from the Nashville Scene for "Best Political Blogger," and I cannot add anything more profound to the tribute that Scene Writer Roger Abramson did. Their efforts are those of yeomen.

However, I was disappointed that each of them in run-ups to the first significant Metro Council Meeting wrote last night's agenda off as nothing "too exciting" (Sean offered the opinion and Adam noted that Sean's opinion was "saying something"). On the one hand, not every meeting is going to be extraordinary; that would pretty much destroy the concept of extraordinary meetings. On the other hand, I thought that Sean's conclusions were unwittingly encouraging constituents not to watch. My view is that the last thing we want to do is discourage people from watching just because the agenda looks ordinary (or less than) to some who lack the interest.

I watched the 40 minute meeting, and I was able to find several noteworthy moments of which to write. But Sean and I have always disagreed about what is important about council meetings. Sean doesn't seem to like zoning issues, and yet, that is the overwhelming bulk of items on any council agenda.

Rarely do we see issues cross council's docket that look sexy from a state or a federal or a party perspective (like English Only or immigration or benefits for gays and lesbians). There is a good reason: the main focus of the council is less on social issues, which they can do little to solve, and more on neighborhood issues to which the council is bound to respond. There is nothing sexy or remotely stimulating about the latter issues until your eyes are opened to their impact on the life you live in this community.

And that "glut" of zoning issues is important to the everyday lives of the constituents affected by zoning, which is most of us in Davidson County. You can bet that the people with the money, the influence, and the land--the developers, the brokers, the investors, the Realtors, the builders--are keeping tabs on most of these zoning issues that seem to bore Sean and that fail to attract Adam's passing glance.

And if we simply lull ourselves into the preconceived idea that these zoning decisions don't affect us directly because we cannot out-shout or out-blog somebody else like we do on social issues, then we are going to find ourselves at a political disadvantage in the Metro Council, especially when the time rolls around to speak our minds about a zoning issue in Public Hearing. If you don't listen to the council now, you won't be heard by them later.

That is why, at the very least, last night's meeting should have been characterized as our first chance to see how the new Council would be starting to pay back their campaign financiers and to get a feel for any sense of balance in their deliberations. If some don't see that possibility, then--and I don't care if the Nashville Scene ensconces them in velvet and christens them alt-weekly-laureates--they should not be heeded. Planning and zoning issues are important, even and especially when we don't think they are.

Such issues have effects:

• on family issues like affordable housing
• on quality of life issues like whether a market will be built or traffic calming measures will be enacted to serve and to protect a community
• on the environment and water conservation, like whether Franklin will have to restrict water use
• on diversity issues like accommodating our elders with housing and community services
• on so many other issues that ripple out to other people's pet projects

The zoning issues that Sean and Adam may not see as important to them now are still important and someday they may see their importance.

Until that point the boys deserve the accolades they get with limits: those of us who occupy what Roger Abramson oversimplified and lampooned as "the vast wasteland of the local political blogosphere" will continue to consider the low-hanging and mundane details, because those are the very issues that the mainstream press largely ignores, like they ignore most council meeting proceedings.

Is Metro Water Privileging the Suburban Parts of the County with New Sewers?

According to a local environmentalist in this morning's Tennessean:

"You've got this suburb [near Old Hickory Lake] … that's going to get new sewers [due to a Metro agreement to comply with the U.S. Department of Justice order to stop raw sewerage overflows in the Cumberland] ....

That will upgrade their real estate.

People in the inner city have suffered from the overflow."

If nothing is being done to stop leaks and overflows of raw sewerage into near-Downtown storm sewers, I would like to know how this decision got made without any feedback from those of us around the central business district.

Mellencamp's "Jena" Released Early

This might set off a Music City Blogger or two:

Bush's Veto of SCHIP Could Cost Southern Children Dearly

The "Compassionate Conservative" rejected expansion of health insurance to more working class children and indicated that he is willing to "negotiate" for some coverage of fewer kids. Get that? President Bush is willing to use adequate health care for working-class children as a bargaining chip with Congressional Democrats.

Meanwhile, a large number of children who would suffer from this veto are southern children.

TexObBlog shows us that the Iraq War sucks the necessary funding away from worthwhile conservative programs like SCHIP:

[T]he proposed CHIP expansion of $35 billion (over five years) is about three months’ worth of spending in Iraq. The total allocated funds for the war in Iraq is surging past $600 billion, which would have paid for CHIP expansion 20 times over.

Yet, the "Compassionate Conservative" is using the veto to pose as spending restraint, while working-class children go without adequate health coverage.

Salemtown Shortie

Salemtown's famous Jeff and Morgan set their house-buying experience to a digital format and to Old Blue Eyes for public consumption:

Jim Cooper Questions State Department, Gets Targeted on Blackwater Astroturf

U.S. Representative Jim Cooper asks Bush Administration officials for reports of Blackwater investigations requested 6 months ago (the audio and video are annoyingly out of sync):

What stands out to me beyond the stonewalling and excuse-making of Assistant Sec'y of State Richard Griffin is the fact that he justifies the hiring of Blackwater based on the concept that we would be out of Iraq in 2 years in contrast to using military personnel who would be enlisted for 20 years. Mr. Cooper's follow-up about staying only 2 years in Iraq was adroit.

Nonetheless, Mr. Cooper is drawing fire over at a Blackwater Notroots Blog for his questioning of Blackwater CEO Erik Prince. A local attempt to be stitched into the astroturf has ensued; I doubt it will be long before the BWBlog links her as "friendly."

Done in Record Time

In a departure from the standards of the past, Metro Council only lasted 40 minutes tonight. But before we leap to the conclusion that a new Vice Mayor is already paying dividends, keep in mind: 1) it's early and we have a lot of new members; 2) there was nothing really controversial or divisive that required long debates or stalling tactics or diversions from the matters at hand.

Diane Neighbors really faced no challenges compared to some of these hell-holes that the Council dug for Howard Gentry. She deftly deflected Vivian Wilhoite's question about why some school grants were given to urban rather than suburban schools by ruling that Ms. Wilhoite should have asked it in the Budget and Finance Committee Meeting. But VM Neighbors had to face no stern tests tonight. It seems she is still in her honeymoon.

STDs Prompt Eric Crafton Yet Again

It really doesn't matter that someone else is giving Metro money that Nashville won't have to spend to fund an AIDS program. It really doesn't matter that his question should have been asked in committee meeting that preceded tonight's council meeting. It really doesn't matter that he wastes council time.

Eric Crafton will not let any resolution on a grant that gives Nashville hundreds of thousands of dollars for programming stand in the way of expressing his socially conservative mantra about sexually transmitted diseases and teaching abstinence. Last January, Mr. Crafton stood on his righteous indignation to interrogate Brenda Gilmore on abstinence in a bill that she brought merely to put Metro into compliance with state ethics laws regarding a grant already approved.

Tonight, Eric Crafton once again rose to proclaim abstinence on a bill that would accept a federal grant for Minority AIDS Initiative programs. When bill co-sponsor Jerry Maynard introduced the bill, Mr. Crafton parroted the same question he asked Ms. Gilmore last winter: does the program teach abstinence? The Council Advisor stated that the grant was intended to assist HIV patients and their families.

I guess we should conclude that if Mr. Crafton were arbitrator of these grants, Nashville would be receiving no outside money unless the granted program taught abstinence. In tight budget times, that's no way to lead a city.

2,500 + This One

And they ain't mostly just stripped-down summaries with a couple of links, either. If only Blogger could do a word count or an average-number-of-words-per-post count.

Erica Gilmore Defers Germantown's Historic Overlay Bill Indefinitely

Ms. Gilmore pulled the bill off of the consent agenda and received the Council's approval to defer it indefinitely. She told them that she wants to have a community meeting before she brings it back. Does this signal trouble for or substantial opposition to Germantown's overlay concept?

Charlie Tygard Appointed to Metro Council's Audit Committee by Acclamation

He will join fellow member Walter Hunt.

Jim Gotto Appointed to Planning, Zoning, and Historic Committee Chair by Acclamation

No opponents stepped up to run for this important position. We'll have to keep an eye on the Planning Commission's deliberations to see Mr. Gotto's inclinations.

Stormwater Community Meeting Announced for Monday, October 8

Before the start of tonight's meeting, Council Member Emily Evans announced the following meeting for neighborhoods including those in the North End (District 19). If you have issues or concerns with the ways Metro Water attends to stormwater run-off issues in your neighborhood (like I have), you might want to save the date:

Council's Planning Committee Chair Election Scheduled for Just After 6:30

According to tonight's Council Agenda, the significant election of the chair to the Planning, Zoning and Historical Committee occurs as one of the first business items. It will be interesting to see whether rumors are true that Megan Barry will run for this position against Jim Gotto, one of the council conservatives. The Charter requires that the member in that position automatically sits on the very important Planning Commission. Since that is the requirement, I would rather see a reformer like Megan occupying the chair.

Gilmore Brings Germantown Historic Overlay Bill to First Reading

Historic Germantown spent practically the past year mulling and refining their historic overlay concept, and that work culminates tonight when District 19's Council Member Erica Gilmore brings the proposal in the form of a bill for First Reading at Metro Council. The bill would apply the overlay to around 500 properties in Germantown in order to protect the facades from demolition.

The overlay also includes Morgan Park, which actually sits outside of Germantown. That extension originally caused a mixed reaction in Salemtown, but since leaders of the two communities met to discuss the overlay, S-town concerns quickly died down. Germantown has not sought our support in the interim, but they probably don't need it, because there seems to be a general weariness at dealing with opportunistic developers on a property-by-property basis.

A historic overlay ordinance is quite an undertaking for any council member, let alone a new one. We'll see if Ms. Gilmore handles the proposal better than Sylvan Park's John Summers handled his last term (she could hardly do worse) and whether Germantown might teach other neighborhoods a thing or two about how to do historic overlays the right way.

Thompson Sees WMD

Further confirming recent perceptions that he hasn't a clue about what is actually happening around him in the world. Method acting a Dick Cheney persona won't get him to the White House in 2008.

Double Booking the North End

Scheduling the Tennessee History Festival on Bicentennial Mall for the same day as Germantown's Oktoberfest: do they conflict or compliment? Do they mutually draw or drain? Do revellers and historians cross-pollinate back and forth across Jeff Street? Will polka dancers participate in the World War II mock battle? Will young men carrying the ubiquitous Paulaner steins harass the guy playing Hernando De Soto? Will there be any parking to be had anywhere between Downtown and MetroCenter?

Radioactive Material Could Travel Through the Middle of Nashville's Urban Neighborhoods

Sue Sturgis imparts news from the Knoxville News Sentinel that the U.S. Department of Energy is going to start as early as this week transporting "strategic nuclear material" from several sites around the country through Tennessee to a South Carolina facility.

According to reports, the weapons-grade plutonium could be shipped from Washington State, California, and New Mexico along the I-40 corridor, which would take it straight through Nashville's inner core neighborhoods. The map above pin-points neighborhoods along the plutonium's possible transit line through Nashville.

According to the News Sentinel:

DOE has evaluated the potential impact of a severe accident while transporting plutonium in certified containers with high-security trucks, known as Safe Secure Transports or SSTs. In the worst-case hypothetical scenario, involving crushing force, long-term fire and release of 10 percent of the radioactive material, DOE estimated that an accident in an urban area could cause as many as 114 cancer fatalities.

The transit project is scheduled to run through 2010, which seems like a long time to risk a DOE nuclear accident and possibly endanger the lives of Nashvillians.


CORRECTION: I located Hadley Park blocks too far to the West on the map above. It should be closer to TSU. Apologies both to my Hadley Park friends and those who live around West Park, over which I superimposed "Hadley Park."

How's Privatizing Our Military Working Out for You?

Blackwater is proving to be pretty damned expensive; a much more lucrative fencing operation than bottled water.

According to Muckracker:

A single Blackwater security contractor costs the government $1,222 every day to guard U.S. civilian personnel, or $445,000 per year. That's six times the cost of getting a U.S. Army soldier to perform the same function.

What's that you say about running government like a business? It sounds like a business is running government into the ground.

And look at these numbers:

Blackwater's initial contract to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, in 2003, was a no-bid contract. So was its 2004 successor. On that one, Blackwater stood to earn a maximum of $338 million, but actually received $488 million from State between June 2004 and June 2006. In total, Blackwater has earned upwards of $1 billion in government contracts since 2001.

Our tax dollars are drowning in Blackwater. Had enough corporate cronyism and government corruption, yet?

Police Apprehend Bicentennial Mall Rape Suspect

From Metro Police:

September 30, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rape suspect Ricky Lee Morgan has been arrested and is being held in the Metro Jail in lieu of $100,000 bond.

Morgan, 49, who is homeless, is charged with aggravated rape for the September 18th attack on a 22-year-old woman in the amphitheatre area of Bicentennial Mall.

Central Precinct Officer Barbara Stewart alertly spotted Morgan walking on 5th Avenue South near Mulberry Street at 7:25 this morning and took him into custody.