So Much for Bank of America Using Those Government Bailout Funds for Loans on Main Street

Not too long ago I mused that Bank of America did not do anything with the $25 billion it received in federal bailout capital to help people get good loans (even though they claimed to). And every once in while I get a comment from some banking apologist who tells me that BoA never asked for the bailout money and it was doing fine on its own.

Well, now BofA is asking for more federal bailout money, not for home loans or local developments but to prop an ill-advised purchase they made of Merrill Lynch (on top of the ill-advised purchase they made of Countrywide last year), which turned out to be in worse shape than BoA anticipated. Go figure. According to some, Bling of America "overreached." You don't say. So much for doing fine on their own. And I come to find out that BoA's stock dropped 27% this morning (it is currently down 15%), because of their mounting credit losses. So, if BoA cannot make a free extra $25 billion work, why should we assume that they are doing fine on their own?

If Congress and the White House do give them any more tax revenues, they should come with strings attached, including stipulations that BofA sell off assets to raise money and devote a specific percentage of revenue to home mortgage loans.  BofA should be made to suffer, executive salaries should drop, and heads should roll for the bank's lack of foresight regarding their purchases in the last six months.

UPDATE: Here are some places to start the budget cutting. Give up the naming rights to "Bank of America Stadium" in Charlotte. BofA paid in excess of $100 million for those naming rights. Give up the naming rights to "Bank of America Arena" in Seattle.  BoA paid $9.1 million for those naming rights. I'm not sure how expensive being the "Official Bank of Major League Baseball" or the "Official Bank of NASCAR" are. Naming sporting venues as a means of advertising expense seems like a luxury when your stocks are dropping and you are having to ask for government handouts.

A New South Rising? Not in Tennessee, Where SCHIP Would Sink

While House Democrats are looking forward to the days when an American President doesn't deny American children health insurance, Tennessee's House Republicans all voted against insuring the kids.  Why do southern Republicans deny care to the most vulnerable in our society? What have Tennessee Republicans got against supporting families?

UPDATE:  R. Neal also has news that Tennessee's Congressional Republicans voted against paying women the money they've earned on their own hard work and initiative. Keep in mind that Republicans tend to prefer "hookers and blow." Meet the new south. Same as the old south.

When it Comes to His Confederates, Eric Crafton Always Has Someone to Hide

Not too much surprise in these quarters after reading that Eric Crafton is not going to file his English Only group's financial disclosure before the election.  The group has inquired into the penalties for failing to disclose on time: a limp slap on the wrist. Last summer Crafton refused to disclose that almost all of his contributions came from a group lead by a Jew-hating racist. We are probably going to find out the same if not worse after this election.

It is interesting that reporter Nate Rau described Crafton and English Only as "accessible," when Crafton has been savvy at playing the City Paper for a publicity instrument. From Rau's perspective Crafton may have been accessible, but by no measure has Crafton ever been transparent. There is a profound difference that seems to elude media grasp. And the City Paper has generally reported what Crafton wanted them to.  Wasn't the Tennessean first to disclose Crafton's direct financial connections to racist John Tanton? And that was August 2008, months after journalists should have been digging around and exhuming the connections.

Some of us had been screaming about the possible ties since early 2007 and it was clear media-wise that Crafton had something to hide by early summer 2008. Apparently, the local media will fail to produce Crafton's latest connections until he hands it to them after the polls close on January 22, when it will be too late to have any effect on this election. And we'll be left to wonder once again: if they aren't exposing any vital information before their subjects choose to release it when it could have the most impact, then what good are journalists to us? There must be better ways to gain employment on politicians' communications staffs than merely covering the local politics beat while performing little public service.

Crafton Loses His "Shrewd" Status at Pith in the Wind

Eric Crafton backing out of Friday's locally televised English Only debate has PiTW blogger Caleb Hannan dropping ridiculous adjectives like "shrewd" to describe CM Crafton's actions. Instead, Hannan turns to CM Mike Jameson for judgment and the latter does not fail to disappoint:

When you sit down in front of a well-informed moderator and a capable opponent [David Briley] that are clearly going to discuss the minutiae of your argument, it's only natural for your blood pressure to spike," he says. "I mean, why does meat fear the meatgrinder?

Jameson speaks from experience. He ground some chuck himself back in 2006 when Crafton first swaggered into council chambers with English Only:

[Jameson] asked for a list of immigrant groups who approached Crafton asking for the very help that Crafton was offering to free them from their supposed crutches. He asked for data to show that non-English speakers were not attempting to learn English because of the bilingual policies of Metro government. He reminded us that there are long lines to get into adult English classes, but that the Metro Council had cut funding for these classes (At this point, I was on the edge of my recliner pumping my fist snarling, "You go, Mike!" I mean, after all, how can you take away something from people with one hand and not offer something else with the other?). He also asked for data to support Crafton's claim that cutting bilingual services actually helps immigrants learn English faster. Jameson not only took Crafton's argument apart block-by-block, but he schooled his fellow council members on the critical questions that they are supposed to be asking.

I have no doubt that Crafton realizes from past experience with Jameson and Briley in Metro Council that he would be in too far over his head by standing toe-to-toe with his opponents.

Vanderbilt Undergrad Fails to Appreciate Crafton's Big-Brother Paternalism

Vandy undergrad Soo Yang properly dresses Vandy alumnus Eric Crafton down from the perspective of the immigrants whom "English Eric" is trying to rescue from the "liberal elite shadow governors":

immigrants know better than anyone else that learning English is critical for attaining their American dream. Thus, many first-generation immigrants who have lived in U.S. for 10 to 20 years still cannot speak English not because of lack of incentive but difficulty of learning. If Crafton were truly concerned with the plight of Nashville immigrants, he should have developed English tutor programs in struggling communities aimed at easing the transition and integration process. The immigrants keenly understand that better English means better life in America and do not need another reminder from a politician who pretends to sympathize with their struggles.

The Metro Council member only offered English "community education" programs in the beginning when he saw he did not have the votes to pass English Only. Once he got the votes by offering other concessions, he never lived up to his promise to include tutoring. He's not exactly the superhero for the downtrodden.

Coal State Democrat Offers First Legislation in Wake of TVA Spill

But does it go far enough?  The Louisville Courier-Journal has better coverage of the details than the "Tennessean Washington Bureau" does:

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., introduced legislation today to regulate coal ash ponds.

Among other things, the “Coal Ash Reclamation, Environment and Safety Act” would:

--Impose federal design, engineering and performance standards on all coal combustion waste impoundments.

--Require the Interior Department to conduct an inventory of all coal combustion waste impoundments in the United States, and assess their design, stability and risk to human health and the environment.

The environmental group EarthJustice said even more is needed, in the aftermath of the 1.1 billion gallon ash spill on Dec. 22 near Knoxville, Tenn.

It said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency needs to outlaw all wet storage of coal ash to avoid toxic heavy metals from getting into ground and surface water.

UPDATE: Charleston (WV) Gazette has more details.

CRIME ALERT: 3rd Salemtown Home Broken Into

According to the Salemtown e-mail list the 3rd home in the span of 10 days has been broken into, and in this case the home was burglarized.  The burglars reportedly broke in through a back door and loaded electronics into a waiting vehicle in the alley behind the house in the 1700 block of 5th Avenue North. The alarm company contacted the owner around 1:30 and the police arrived on the scene about 15 minutes later.  The owner believes that the thieves had cased his house and knew when the occupants were going to be away.

My first thought about the recent spike in the crime rate in Salemtown is to ask what happened to Mayor Karl Dean's campaign promise to deal with crime? It seems like our crime has been getting worse here since 2007. And I have seen Salemtown crawling with police cruisers in the past week day and night even as criminals seem to be more brazen (the 15 minute response time above, however, seems awfully long). Can anyone refer me to an objective measure that indicates that Mayor Dean is making Nashville neighborhoods safer, more secure places to live than his predecessor?

Tennessean Story on Salemtown and Blighted Volcano Discount Tobacco Market Coming in Davidson AM Section

Or so the Salemtown email list says. Reporter Andy Humbles is said to be doing this one. Last week Michael Cass had a story on Erica Gilmore's single serve beer bill and he touched on some of Salemtown's ongoing problems with the market.

Speaking of Merkle, Let's Talk about Metro Public Works

The slang terms "bonehead" and "boner" are said to date back to 1908 and were specifically applied to Fred Merkle's infamous baserunning error.  The OED has 1912 as the earliest reference to a "boner" and quotes its use: "a blunder in the science of the game."

A group of us here in Salemtown found out last night that Metro Public Works pulled a boner in 2008 when someone there put our architects' streetscape design plans in "the wrong pile," thus causing months of delay in the already arduous MPW approval process. Thanks to some bureaucratic blockhead, our block grant moneys did not get spent as they were supposed to last fall, and the improvements that our community recommended last winter probably will not start until this spring.

I once believed that Metro Park's continued delays to a Morgan Park playground were the greatest Metro disservice to Salemtown. The latest boneheaded blunder of Public Works is pretty fracking close to that distinction in my mind now.

Terri Lynn Weaver Defined

See Fred Merkle.

But a cautionary note to Democrats:  while Merkle's mistake is reputed to have cost the Giants the 1908 pennant to the Cubs, Chicago has not won a World Series since (they went on to beat the Tigers in the '08 WS). Weaver's error could curse TNDems to a similar long-term exile from big wins and a future of futility in the General Assembly.

Crafton Calls English Only Opponents "Elites" with Vision of "Shadow Government"

Perhaps I've been deceiving myself. I've been opposing Eric Crafton's English Only since 2006 and I had no idea that all this time I have been advocating a conspiracy for Nashville's "liberal elites" to enact their vision of "a shadow government and a shadow community" to keep immigrants from having a voice. That is how Eric Crafton described his opponents of this month's English Only referendum to Lou Dobbs and a national audience yesterday. He claims guys like me are not among the regular folks who are more likely to support him.

I've documented how Eric Crafton's justifications for English Only have changed over and over again to suit the tactical goals he has at any particular time. His latest reasoning is a twisted embrace of democracy as an advocate to help immigrants protect themselves against a tiered system where people are kept from having tools of their own uplift. He's fashioned himself lately into some sort of weird caricature of a progressive. He argued in the past that English Only is not about illegal immigration, but he did not object one bit when Lou Dobbs tied the two issues together even as he posed as a champion of democracy.

After watching Eric Crafton manuever English Only around Metro Council in 2006-07, abandoning some promises (language education programs) and adding others (exceptions for emergent conditions), I do not believe that he is honest in claiming to be interested in immigrant uplift. It appeared to me that his shift from "English Only" to "English First" (he has used both labels to describe his interests) was motivated purely by his self-interest in getting enough votes to pass legislation to crack down on immigrants (and he did motivate 23 other council members to follow him). Very little about that vote suggested democracy to me.

There is no anti-democratic conspiracy to kill English Only from my perspective; there is suspicion of Eric Crafton's true motives. An appearance in Lou Dobb's national vacuum will not change my mind about that.

Accounting for Future Sludge Clean-up Costs Levied on Consumers

On our latest Nashville Electric Service bill a note was added that reads:

THE TVA FUEL COST ADJUSTMENT THIS MONTH HAS INCREASED YOUR BILL BY $30.87.

Someone either outside or inside of Metro Government or NES should make sure that we get the same kind of messages when the costs of the Kingston fly ash spill clean-up come due:

THE COST OF TVA'S ASH POND FAILURE HAS INCREASED YOUR BILL BY $130.87.

State of Separation

All of the sudden, the State of Tennessee is reacting all regulatory toward TVA and simulateously appearing like it is distancing itself from culpability for past failures to lean on the mega-utility to clean up its act. Even the Governor is swearing that Tennessee taxpayers will not be burdened by the cost of clean-up. Bredesen may be technically correct but he is also being disingenuous since the Tennessee taxpayers who also pay TVA for electricity will be burdened with the cost of clean-up.

Anything that pisses off TNGOP will have to be good enough

"Moderate Republican" in Tennessee is a relative term.  He or she is not going to be anywhere close to the centerlines of a Chuck Hagel or a Olympia Snowe, but when a GOP-controlled General Assembly decision makes TNGOP leaders apoplectic, it is about as good as progressives can expect in this state.

Further evidence that Eric Crafton demands equal billing with Mayors

CM Eric Crafton will appear opposite Mayor Karl Dean (non-debate style) on Lou Dobbs' radio show today after wimping out of a debate with local English Only opponent David Briley (who would have kicked some Crafton butt) on local public TV.

Viral Video

The dishonesty graphically portrayed via Newscoma:

For the sake of displaced Tennesseans, pass it on, as if the disaster had visited your neighborhood.

Is Volkswagen the Nashville Housing Market of Automakers?

Senator Bob Corker's favorite automaker, Volkswagen, is getting a slice of the positive press in today's Tennessean that it has been enjoying in the Chattanooga Times Free Press for months. Supporters of non-union automaking shops argue that their favorite manufacturers make a product substantially better than that which comes from Detroit's "Big 3," even as foreign car makers increasingly fall on hard times. Someone has to be the last to fall, the last to die for a mistake. Just like the Nashville housing market has been slow to follow the trend of depressed real estate elsewhere, maybe Volkswagen is among the last to fall or maybe they just did not go on the obscene spending sprees of other manufacturers. But arguing that their product is profoundly different than that of other manufacturers is like arguing that there is a drastic difference between Democrats and Republicans in red-state Tennessee.

Full disclosure: I've been the satisfied owner of three Volkswagens in the past.

Brass Tacks

Instead of giving prospective high density developers of Bells Bend everything thing they want (tall buildings, bridges, mixed use) and getting organic carrots in return, proponents of the Bells Bend/Scottsboro neighborhood plan might consider giving their support for May Town Center in exchange for two concessions: that Metro and State government only approve a light rail public transportation line in and out of the Bend (no more automobile roads beyond the tiny one that currently exists) and that for each square foot of urbanized developed property developers agree to buy and devote a square foot of land to green space somewhere else in the Bells Bend/Scottsboro area.

Serious negotiators accept the proposition that negotiating requires giving something up to get something else. I've yet to see developers get serious.

Tennessee Election Results and Native Southern Whites a Topic in the Monkey Cage

Phil Klinkner compares and contrasts the southern counties where McCain '08 did better than Bush '04 with the southern counties where native southern whites make up 65+% of the population and illustrates a rough match, with Tennessee at the red centers of both maps.

A discussion about whether Tennessee is swinging more Democrat or Republican ensues in the comments section.

I would argue that, given the dominance of conservative Democrats in Tennessee, the more interesting question than party affiliation is whether Tennessee's native white-dominated population is showing any signs of swinging more progressive than Democrat.

Crafton Supporter Almost Hits English Only Opponent with Her Car

English Only supporter shows her low moral caliber and gives us one more reason to vote AGAINST English Only.

TVA's Toll Visits Child

Blogging Swan Pond resident has heart-breaking photos of her infant grandson enduring testing for heavy metal contamination.

Blogger Beats the Local Media to Expose Eric Crafton's Lie

Blogger Sean Braisted acted on a tip from blogger Southern Beale and called California's Assembly Clerk to debunk Eric Crafton's claim that he observed several Assembly Members who kept interpreters at their desks because they could not speak English.

The New York Times reporter, Robbie Brown, failed to do what it took Sean a few minutes to do: confirm or deny the veracity of Crafton's claim. The media merely published it and left it for readers to interpret it as true. Moreover, no local mainstream media who conveyed Crafton's message followed up with the State of California to verify.

Say what you will about bloggers. Sometimes you need them to do what journalists will not do.

Eric Crafton Exihibits a Knack for Confusing Himself with Mayors

Eric Crafton has consistently shown the ugly habit of trying to behave like an executive rather than a legislator ever since I started analyzing his actions in 2005. After his English Only bill went down to defeat to Mayor Bill Purcell's veto pen in 2007, CM Crafton told the Tennessean that he would "let Mayor Purcell have his way for a short time." It looks like Crafton's insolent airs, his self-important delusions of grandeur are on display again today as he compares himself to Mayor Karl Dean in addressing a Scene reporter (who once called Crafton, "shrewd") on why he chickened out on a previously scheduled televised English Only debate.

If Eric Crafton really thinks of himself as a county executive, then he needs to run for the office and be one rather than strutting around and acting the cheeky devil with Nashvillians.

Red State Tennessee Earns C+ in Education

Grade is based on testing, funding equity, and policy initiatives.

Urban Recreational Capital or Lifestyle Social Darwinism?

Research just out indicates that any urban investment by the Obama Administration should go not to conventional urban areas but only to those already successful "cool" places with sunshine, coastlines and/or fun stuff to do. If places like Austin and Seattle are already financially successful and growing, why would they need federal investments from an Obama "New New Deal"? If it ain't broke, don't earmark to fix it.

I have got nothing against recreational capital, but it sounds like the researchers are advocating a flighty list of priorities in conditions where only the hip survive under the arbitrary shield of government. Federal money should be going to bolster the infrastructure, jobs, and schools of urban areas that are not able to keep up in the race to be stylish.

Second Verse Same as the First

Southcomm's Richard Lawson dusts off last year's public relations effort for developers on Bells Bend.  He seems to be renewing his wish to help integrate a "second Downtown" into Bells Bends' pastoral fabric, whooping cranes be damned:

a proposed development on Bells Bend will rear its head again. Developer Tony Giarratana, who is a consultant to the May family on the proposed mixed-use development, promised as much last year.

Metro Planning received the transportation and financial impact studies staff commissioned several months ago. Giarratana and the May family likely will have new ways to counter the opposition from the (distant) neighbors to the acreage on Bells Bend.

Maybe some organic farming gets under way or those on the Bend who expressed interest in starting such farms on their own property will be shown how their business could actually thrive with captive audience in a nearby dense development.

Perhaps the incentives for a headquarters relocation to the project would include a condition that all the produce its cafeteria uses come from organic farms on the Bend. Or the Mays could ensure that space is set aside for a co-op store for the Bend's organic farmers.

Such talk may not be able to persuade the opponents, however.

I suppose the idea that urban development and rural environment are incommensurate still has not occurred to him.


UPDATE: In his responses to my criticisms over the past couple of years, Lawson has insisted over and over that I misrepresent him as an advocate for developers when he is, he claims, neutral between neighborhoods and development. But his argument today is consistent with what he has opined in the past, and you do not have to read it closely to see plainly that his one incontrovertible, non-negotiable presumption is that a second Downtown should be built on Bells Bend. So, he is really not open to negotiation at all. The suggestion that the developers offer to buy produce from local farmers is a proverbial carrot dangled for a few literal carrots. Once urban development and the inevitable sprawl buy out or drive out the organic farmers, then there is no benefit left and one of America's last urban farmlands will be extinct. There is no neutrality in Richard Lawson's reporting: it indicates that he believes that a second Downtown in place of the rolling agricultural environment of the Bend is best.

English Only Would Jeopardize the Delivery of Non-Profit Services

Local non-profits tell the Tennessean why Eric Crafton's English Only is bad for their clients:

Hal Cato, executive director of the Oasis Center, said the city contracts his agency for counseling services. The center employs a counselor whose entire caseload is composed of Hispanic families, many having trouble adjusting to life in the U.S.

Cato fears the new measure would jeopardize funding for that counselor.

"I do think that people will misunderstand it and that people will be will be negatively impacted by it," he said ....

Lewis Lavine, president of the Center for Nonprofit Management in Nashville, said the amendment could create confusion for groups that get both federal and local dollars because many federal regulations require that information be distributed in other languages.

"We believe it's bad for Nashville," he said. "Even if it were enacted and disavowed by the courts, it would still put Nashville in a bad light."

The Really Scary Part

TVA's undone Kingston coal ash sequestration system was not even the largest in the country according to a McClatchy report from further south:

Georgia Power plants ranked high nationally for the amount of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments, according to information from the 2006 Toxic Release Inventory compiled by the Institute for Southern Studies. The TVA Plant Kingston that recently spilled its coal ash pond is included for context.

Plant Scherer: 4th most in U.S. at 4.1 million pounds.

Plant Wansley: 9th most in U.S. at 2.7 million pounds.

Plant Branch: 12th in U.S. at 2.4 million pounds.

(TVA Plant Kingston: 23rd in U.S. at 1.7 million pounds)

Plant Bowen: 25th in U.S. at 1.7 million pounds

Tennessee Rate Payers Are Corker-Screwed

Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker says that TVA and not the federal government must pay for the December 22 coal ash spill, which means that they will pass on the costs to rate payers like those of us who consume electricity here in Nashville.  There seems to be little disputing the fact that both the federal and state governments failed to regulate TVA properly or the argument that they should share some of the accountability for the disaster.  So, why shouldn't both the federal and the state governments help pay for TVA's failures? Why is Bob Corker so invested in making his utility-paying constituents foot the bill for the clean-up?

UPDATE:  Times Free Press has the math on the costs to us rate payers:

Every $100 million of extra expenses for TVA will cost electric ratepayers an extra 1 percent in higher power bills. In the past year, TVA electric rates already have jumped by more than 25 percent — even after a 6 percent fuel cost reduction last week — primarily because of higher coal and natural gas prices.

Those Who Get Things Wrong in a Socially Acceptable Way are Not Held Accountable

I agree with Paul Krugman's criticism of Barack Obama's Surgeon General nominee and media talking head.

Republican Deserts East Tennessee Communities in Their Hour of Need

An Oklahoma Republican thinks so much of the neighborhoods destroyed by TVA's coal ash spill that he walked out on testimony halfway through his committee's TVA coal ash spill hearing:

After listening to about 30 minutes of testimony from TVA CEO Kilgore, Sen. Inhofe then strode out of the committee hearing, before hearing any testimony from the "environmental extremist."

Inhofe, who has claimed that "environmental extremists exploit the [global warming] issue for fundraising purposes, raking in millions of dollars" has taken over $400,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry since 2003, and over $218,000 from electrical utilities since 2003, according to opensecrets.org.

Coal company Murray Energy is listed as Inhofe's second-highest campaign contributor for the years between 2003-2008. Cleveland-based Murray is best known for the 2007 Crandall Canyon mining disaster which resulted in the deaths of six coal miners and three members of an MSHA rescue team. Murray CEO Robert E. "Bob" Murray also made news when he allegedly threatened federal mine inspectors, stating that Kentucky Senator "Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss," a reference to McConnell's wife, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.

I don't care what you think about global warming and energy, it is bad form to desert the important discussion of this coal ash spill. And don't taxpayer dollars pay him to attend these committee meetings?

City Paper Ignores Tygard's Unethical Relationship to Habitat for Humanity

Despite CM Charlie Tygard's disconcerting history of self-serving patronage to Habitat for Humanity, reporter Nate Rau merely describes Tygard as a "longtime supporter" of the charity in a story on an attempt to win favorable zoning for Habitat. As if spinning Tygard the philanthropist could undo a legacy of dubious behavior:

• Sending $50,000 tax dollars to Habitat for a council "bonding" experience while running for Vice Mayor
• Using Habitat for Humanity's brand name as a tacit endorsement for Tygard's campaign for an at-Large Council seat
• Promising during his last campaign to continue to send Metro tax dollars to private non-profits like Habitat for Humanity

It's no wonder that Charlie Tygard continues to fight for Habitat in Metro Council. Their brand name has been working for him for a long time.

Tennessee's Republican Senators Keep Receding into the Background

If the GOP wants to present a clear alternative to the incoming Obama Administration, the Kingston coal ash spill provides them the perfect opportunity, given Obama's stated commitment to "clean coal" and their need to look innovative and reforming rather than stuck in the backwater. But, alas, Tennessee's two U.S. Senators, who can arguably be called party leaders seemed barely to show up to the unfolding tragedy.

And in today's Senate committee hearing on the ash spill Barbara Boxer seemed to be the person stepping up assertively and offering a forward-looking vision for TVA to lead in "green power research." What I heard from Lamar Alexander was mostly a defense of what TVA accomplished, even though its history includes prompting by outside forces toward reform. He failed to come across to me as very bold, and Boxer rocked. I've already alluded to news that help for Tennesseans may have to come from fellow Californian, Rep. Henry Waxman, but if Boxer can help, too, more power to her.

Speaking of Waxman, according to TPM, he will be joined in the Democratic House energy committee leadership by Ed Markey, an advocate of climate change legislation. Let's hope relief and reform are coming for neighbors who currently live in harms way around coal-burning plants (HT: Freddie O).

TVA CEO: Utility Will Clean up the Rivers, but Not the Coves

Under direct questioning from Senator Barbara Boxer in this morning's U.S. Senate hearing on the TVA coal ash spill, TVA CEO Tom Kilgore said that his agency will not be cleaning up the coves along the rivers that were sullied and inundated by his agency's coal ash spill.

That's how much TVA cares about the neighborhoods around the plant. They essentially closed down a public river immediately after the spill under the pretense of it belonging to them. So, it is clear that they only intend to clean up what they see as belonging to them. However, they can pollute and destroy any part of the waterway not belonging to them and refuse any responsibility for it.

And yet, some are trying to dissuade a class action law suit against TVA because it would sacrifice the community's chance to "talk and negotiate" with TVA. I got news for some: while you are looking to sit around talk and negotiate, TVA is taking care of themselves behind the scenes. They have direct access to the muckity mucks at the state and federal levels. How did you expect to talk them into cleaning up what does not belong to them? By charming them?

Such is Mango!

First, they want police to back off enforcement. Next, they want more enforcement. One minute Mango wants cops. The next minute Mango wants to be left alone.

You can't-a-have-a de Mango.

Nonetheless, Mango needs to choose and stop being insufferable.

Print Media Blog Coverage: Charge of the Light(weight) Brigade

Tweeters kicked print media's butts on immediate coverage of the aftermath of the TVA coal ash spill. While it did take the divine NY Times 2 days to show up, Nashville's media print blogs, which theoretically should be a species suited to landing on top of the story, were either on holiday (PiTW), preoccupied with a "magic negro" song (Southcomm I) for a week, or burning up bandwidth with dead space (Southcomm II).

Now that they are all back at work and functioning nominally again and insulting songs about Obama are passe, the local print blogs have discovered the Kingston story, but they have resumed acting like gatekeepers of what should count for news and how it should be pitched as well as watching each others' backs.  Note to their corporate bosses:  local print reporters need better benefits; please give them more vacation time off.

Can rate payers join the class action suit against TVA?

Think you pay too much for utilities already? Get ready to pay more, and TVA is guaranteeing you will pay more for their Kingston mess:

The tab for a toxin-laden ash flood at a coal-fired power plant in Tennessee could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and ratepayers for the nation's largest public utility will probably be stuck with the bill.

The total cost of cleaning up last month's accident isn't yet clear, but the bill will be staggering. Extra workers, overtime, heavy machinery, housing and supplies for families chased from their homes and lawsuits are among the costs that are piling up.

And with few other places for the Tennessee Valley Authority to turn to cover the costs, the utility's 9 million customers in Tennessee and six surrounding states will bear the brunt in higher electricity rate hikes in the future, TVA Chairman Bill Sansom told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Don't even think about demanding anything else. They have a CEO to pay.

And just remember this next June when Metro budget discussions roll around and we start hearing about the necessity to raise revenues to pay for other utilities; like Metro Water's stormwater run-off infrastructure. Once TVA is through forcing us to pay for their mistakes (Nashville "imports" electricity from TVA), where are we going to locate and how will we muster the will to take care of our other aging utilities? TVA's lack of diligence is going to trickle down and probably crush lots of worthwhile and pressing initiatives that we might have been willing to brook. Thanks again, TVA, for nothing.


UPDATE: Tennessean picks up the story.

Speaking of Bob, an automaker more to his liking is in trouble

I will be surprised if Bob Corker doesn't drop the demonizing of Detroit's Big 3 Axis of Evil and instead start calling for a foreign automaker bailout given Toyota's latest reductions. Guess they simply do not make better cars than the Big 3 anymore like they did way back before Christmas.

And reprising the role of George W. Bush post-disaster: Bob P. Corker

Magnanimous Bob "visits" the spill zone via Cravens World.

How much cheaper does the lack of government regulation look now?

Via Knoxviews: Knoxville law firm, which includes a partner who won $2.3 billion for Holocaust survivors years ago, filed a class action lawsuit against TVA today for being a private nuisance under Tennessee common law.

Alexander Received $51,500 from Electric Utilities in 2007-2008

Facing South shows the influence that the electric utilities special interests have through dollars donated to members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which is holding hearings into the Christmas TVA ash spill beginning tomorrow. While Lamar Alexander is not in the upper echelon of recipients, $51,500 is remarkably close to what the average Republican on the committee receives from big utilities.  Plus, Alexander's take is also sweetened by several thousand more in campaign financing from TVA's current individual board members over the years.

To the Barricades

Ashed Harriman/Kingston neighbors had their chance to "bombard" TVA and government bureaucrats at two meetings last night and they didn't go quietly:

“I don’t like to be handled,” Delano Williams, of Kingston, told his city’s leaders and Tennessee Valley Authority officials present at a emergency council meeting there. “I want to know what the bean-counters say is an acceptable loss of life (from long-term health impacts). “I know time is expiring on my life, but I don’t want to gamble on my children’s or grandchildren’s lives.”

Another Kingston man, Jim Winters, chastised the mayor for drinking water on camera and assuring residents it is safe after reports of water samples showing high arsenic and lead levels in raw river water.

“Residents want to know the truth — the short-term truth and the long-term truth,” Mr. Winters said.

About 75 to 100 people in the room applauded.

Also, residents at a separate community meeting confronted the TVA CEO and the Harriman Mayor:

John Hoag, of Harriman, took Mr. Kilgore to task for being too concerned about money to take the safest possible fix years ago for previous dam leaks on the earthen landfill berm that gave way just before Christmas. The collapse dumped 1.1 billion gallons of wet fly ash sludge from 50 years of waste on more than 300 acres around the Kingston plant.

Mr. Kilgore told him he had seen nothing in those previous problems that made him think spending $25 million to line the landfill — one of the options TVA considered — was the right option.

“I did not find anything I thought was not an abnormal tradeoff,” Mr. Kilgore said.

“What you call ‘not an abnormal tradeoff’ we call a disaster,” Mr. Hoag shot back ....

Harriman Mayor Chris Mason told the group at the church that cooperation with TVA is important because “when this is all over it will be us and TVA still standing.”

Harriman resident Randy Ellis countered: “And every one of us will remember who caused this.”

The Common Denominator Between North End Crime and the Harriman Coal Ash Spill

Jim Fyke was the state Park Commissioner who initially resisted requests for crime prevention measures at Bicentennial Mall in 2007.  Jim Fyke is the Park Commissioner at TDEC, whose oversight and regulation of TVA coal ash dumps did not exactly prevent environmental and neighborhood disasters in 2008.

Scene Blogger Exercises His Preferential Option for the Quik-Sack Lobby

Jeff Woods assumes the role of quasi-liberationist and oddly complements the City Paper's pseudo-libertarian "editorial voice." Communo-utopian praxis and class struggle should open up a whole new niche for beer sales, as long as nobody expropriates a blighted cinder-block market.

Deep Thought

Lamar Alexander once said:

TVA is our secret weapon in our energy crisis.

Well, we're in an energy crisis and on December 22 TVA became a lethal weapon.

CRIME ALERT: Burglars Kick in Locked Back Door of Salemtown Home

BREAKING:  home on 5th Avenue was broken into between 8:00 and 8:30 around 7:30 tonight when burglars kicked in door and fled after they set the house alarm off.  The owners were away at the time.  The home is near a townhouse that was broken into on Sunday night at 8:30.

Alexander's Loyalty to TVA Bought and Paid For by Campaign Contributions

A nice catch by News 2's Christian Grantham, who shows that the common denominator in the records of campaign donations made by Tennessee Valley Authority Board members is the name of "Lamar Alexander," one Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee.  Alexander received tens of thousands of dollars from the Board members, including a nice donation from the William Graves.  The Senator brought the Senate nomination process to a halt for the sake of reappointing Graves to the TVA instead of a Democrat.  Looks like Alexander and Graves take care of each other.

And Alexander's sluggish and nonchalant response to the coal ash spill across the neighborhoods of Harriman, TN looks consistent with the unethical influence the TVA Board has with the Senator.

How do you say, "Pride goeth before the fall," in Japanese?

Regardless of what happens in this special election, it's nice to see that sometimes hubris gets its deserved blowback:

Councilman Crafton repeatedly bragged that he had once started a Metro Council meeting in Japanese. He is the only councilman to use a foreign language in Metro business, he told us again and again. He wanted to prove the point that such a scary situation could someday be reality in Nashville. DCRP Chair Tom Lawless then called him out and said, “So, you admit before this entire group that you broke state law and your oath by conducting business in a foreign language.”

This is the sort of critical questioning local reporters should have been hitting Eric Crafton with for months. Instead, they've helped create a smug monster who is able to grab a media megaphone at his whim.

Framing Tennessee: More Coal Ash Covered Chickens Home to Roost

"Tennessee-style" and "Tennessee-like" are becoming standard in nomenclature that outsiders use to judge their risk of disaster. "Tennessee" and "disaster" consistently used in the same breath. Ouch. Maybe a public relations disaster is what this state needs to rouse it from inbred conservativism. Humiliation can be a powerful motivator toward progress. Is Tennessee clued in enough to be motivated away from future disasters?

Your Chance to See Nashville's Whooping Cranes

The good folks at the Bells Bend Nature Center sent out the following announcement:

This Saturday, Jan. 10, the staff of Bells Bend Outdoor Center will be set up on Cleeces Ferry Rd. (off of Old Hickory Blvd) from 2-3pm with a spotting scope to look at the whooping cranes and answer any questions. So if you haven't seen the whooping cranes yet or you have but would like to see them again, stop by and maybe you'll learn something new about these endangered birds.

What a rare opportunity rural Bells Bend provides city-dwellers to see an endangered species less than a half-an-hour's drive from Downtown Nashville.

West Tennessee Saved

The Trans-Texas Corridor plan is dead. Memphis is spared a 1,200-foot-wide gash of toll roads, railways, and utility lines. Of course, TDOT is probably moving forward with other plans to build its own Tennessee toll roads. But at least west Tennessee won't have to sweat the most massive privatized public transportation project ever, the "NAFTA" Corridor.

S-town Freddie Takes on the Volcano

I gave you a lot of the details about lingering problems at Volcano Discount Tobacco Market in Salemtown yesterday. This morning the Tennessean merely touched on them by referring to public health and safety, and it quoted the tired refrain by a grocery and convenience store lobbyist to "Enforce!" It's obvious where the mainstream editorials pick up their "Enforcement!" meme in spite of the lack of a shred of evidence that the laws are not being enforced.

And as long as we're on the subject of enforcing laws, how would the media and store supporters suggest police enforce littering laws any more than they already are? What do they want Nashville to do? Put up surveillance cameras and raise taxes to hire more cops to sit at every beer-selling market in order to catch litterers in the act? You want to talk about impractical? Let's talk about trying catch litterers in the act and punish them to the degree that they never litter again. The impractically of banning single-serving beer pales in comparison to big-taloned, micro-obsessed litter law enforcement. And how come litter laws (along with every other law) don't constitute a "nanny state instinct" for the impossible task of "legislating good behavior"?

City Paper Should Make Citizen's Arrests

Why do the editorial voices of the mainstream press shout "Enforcement!" just when council members begin to deal with the crime problems that gravitate toward high-volume sales of beer? A while back the press had issues with CM Anna Page's successful attempt to stop BYOB at crime-magnet after-hours clubs. Today the anonymous "editorial voice" (which is pretty much just another name for "blogger-in-hard-copy") ruled from on high that CM Erica Gilmore's bid to prohibit the sale of single cans or bottles of beer by off-sale permit holders in certain urban neighborhoods is "silly."

Of Southcomm's gatekeepers, I say, "Consider the source." As far as I know, the City Paper has never made any attempt to look into the problems the single-serve-selling market that occupies the corner of 7th and Garfield in Salemtown, even though they write like their grasp on the problems is firm. If a CP reporter had ever bothered to cover our neighborhood watch he or she would understand that we have been reporting our crime problems consistently to police for the last 4 years, and they responded as they could to activity at the Volcano Discount Tobacco Market (a.k.a. "K&M Market," a.k.a., "Norman's Market," named after the property owner, well-placed Nashvillian Kenny Norman). After some persistent work, the police convinced the store manager to sign a trespass waiver two years ago. Until that point, they could do nothing to keep people from loitering on the property after hours.

However, the police are not omnipotent, and as easy as the CP wants to make it sound, enforcement is not simple. Whenever we call in observed crime (I've seen drug deals and indecent exposure occur in front of the market; some neighbors after experienced verbal and sexual harassment by men standing outside drinking; we've had one report of prostitution in a near-by alley, which was officially investigated), the cops tell us that unless they catch someone in the act or witnesses take out a warrant and make a citizen's arrest, then there is not much that they can do beyond turning in a report and upping patrols. Increased patrols are a catch-22, because as soon as perpetrators see Metro's blues, they straighten up or disappear only to return when the coast is clear.

Last year the manager was wounded by a thief's gun-fire and had to close down the store for a couple of weeks. During that time the corner was quiet and trouble-free. It was the same thing for two weeks this past December when Metro closed Volcano down for allowing consumption on its property. I was actually chagrined by the drop in suspicious activity, because I kept watching for an opening to document violations that could have lead to permanent beer license revocation. So, if keeping the corner of 7th and Garfield crime free and Salemtown a safer place were just a matter of better enforcement and not ending the sale of single-serve beer, then why on occasions when beer sales were shut-down did the naughtiness decrease and safety increase?

The editorial voice at the CP has no clue what happens in urban neighborhoods like Salemtown. If they did, they wouldn't shout "Enforcement!" as if it weren't happening. If the editors and reporters think enforcement is such a problem, then let them drag their butts out to 7th and Garfield and start making citizen's arrests; let them start documenting suspicious behavior and signing warrants against law breakers. They should be willing to back up their cheap editorial bravado with some street tough risk-taking. Better yet, why don't they investigate why property owner Kenny Norman harbors a property that invites shady dealings? Why choose the easy route of scapegoating police instead of investigating absentee landlords (other than blaming the cops is the path of least resistance for lazy analysis)?

Erica Gilmore is only trying to represent her constituents' concerns. Urban neighborhoods have this kind of blight. There is no contradiction--as the anonymous media hacks argue--in her support for Yazoo Brewery in Marathon Village, unless neighbors who live around the Village identify the same sort of problems that occur in places like Salemtown. Our neighborhood association endorsed her first deferred attempt to prohibit single serve sales because we see firsthand the problems that high-volume, off-sale beer creates, and those are the very same reasons our president Freddie O'Connell is announcing our support for her new effort, which will be introduced in Metro Council tomorrow night.

The mainstream media doesn't have to support the bill, but if they want more enforcement, either they should produce evidence that demonstrates that the police have not been enforcing (instead of stoking an unsubstantiated perception that enforcement is lacking) or they should set up a stake out at Volcano Discount Tobacco Market, make like Gomer Pyle, and engage the enemy in a few citizen's arrests themselves.

CRIME ALERT: Burglars Use Police Scanner During Attempted Heist

According to the Salemtown e-mail list, there was an attempted break-in of a townhouse at 1600 6th Ave. yesterday (Sunday) at about 8:30 p.m. while owners were away. Residents of a separate townhouse noticed suspicious activity at the back of the shared building and called the police. The perpetrators had a police scanner so they were alerted and fled before officers arrived. Owners had received a call from their security monitoring service that power to the house had been cut off. There are indications that the townhouse has been cased by the burglars and that they tried to enter through a front window before notification of the police arrival drove them off.

While this is, of course, a great concern to neighbors in Salemtown, all neighborhood leaders should be aware that there are burglars out there willing to listen in on the police to cue them as they attempt the crimes. Keep your eyes open for any suspicious activity and err on the side of calling the police whenever you see it.

Exxon Valdez Survivor: TVA survivors MUST get guarantees "in writing in legally-binding agreements"

Alaskan Riki Ott advises Harriman, TN survivors:

put in writing exactly what it will take to make you whole as families and as a community. Use your list as a benchmark so when the media return in one-five-ten and twenty years for "anniversaries," you will have a way to gauge recovery.

Working together on something for the greater good will hasten healing. So pick a focus, whether it's dealing with the mental health and social trauma, environmental trauma, or economic trauma. Form a core working group and figure out what you need to do to short-circuit the harm--or else you'll be wallowing in it for years. Such Peer Listening Circles are tools that shift people from victim mode to survivor mode--a vital change that can literally save lives--and rebuild a sense of community. Take it from a sibling injured community: this works.

And heed our warning--lawsuits do not work to recover losses! The legal system is currently broken. Better to invest your time in mediation. Calculate your short- and long-term economic harm and the harm to quality of life. Balance these against spending the next twenty years in litigation. Make demands and make concessions, but be sure to do both as a community. Insist on a process where the people represent themselves and the lawyers take a back seat. Process is important to healing.

Remember how Republicans made fun of community organizing last year? Community organizing is exactly what Harriman residents and property owners need right now, especially with two Republican U.S. Senators who are have their hands in the TVA cookie jar and who may not act in the community's highest interest.

Also, go read Ott's open letter to see how even the oil industry's claims that no long-term damage to the wildlife were betrayed by long-term reality.

HT: @daveburdick

Might Tennesseans Get an Assist from a California Congressman?

Hugh Bartling asserts that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) can take a transforming initiative on the nation's energy future and industry compliance reform by immediately launching hearings into the TVA ash spill as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. While the LAist sees that as more influence for California in Washington and good over all for the country, it wouldn't hurt average Tennesseans to have some elected official represent their concerns about a safe environment over and above coal industry and TVA interests. Perhaps Tennessee's elected officials are just too enmeshed in local corporate interests to be of immediate help.  We may have to find our advocates elsewhere, and even if ours come around at least Waxman may keep the spill on a front burner in the national consciousness.

Your Chance to Send Free-Spending Eric Crafton a Message

Early voting on English Only continues today as the polls open in less than an hour. Council Member Eric Crafton, who has complained over and over again about Metro's spending on everything from paper to sidewalks, has decided that we can afford to throw away $300,000 to $500,000 on this special election that would serve no purpose other than to divide Nashvillians. And has anyone bothered to ask how much more money in the future will be wasted on investigating and prosecuting Metro workers suspected of using any language but English?

Aren't you tired of Eric Crafton holding Metro government hostage for his own selfish purposes? Aren't you tired of Eric Crafton wasting our money? Have you had enough of Eric Crafton, yet, Nashville?

This election gives you the chance to defeat Eric Crafton's bid to become the mean-spirited, free-spending face of our city. Davidson County was one of the few Tennessee counties to come out blue for Obama in the last election. It needs to come out just as strongly against English Only in this one.

Go vote AGAINST ratification of the English Eric Only agenda!

Commercial Real Estate Hankers for Bailout Capital

Putting out a full court press on Congress and the President Elect, and yet, they have weathered the economic crisis relatively well.  Now, when is this capital supposed to help out Main Street again?

Should we trust that Howie did what he was supposed to?

The displaced Swan Pond journaler is livid that Roane County EMA Director "Howie" Rose admonished Tennesseans to trust TVA and local, state, and federal officials about their reports on ash containment and the disaster fallout, given that a 2006 emergency preparedness checklist for which Mr. Rose was responsible looks incomplete.

She highlights the tasks for which there is no record of completion.  Among them:

• site hazard analysis
• identification of at risk population and infrastructure
• lead response agencies for each hazard (Red Cross? Health?)
• public protection recommendations
• evacuation plans, including routes and shelters
• dates, times, places of advertised public education meetings
• community meetings to record public input on emergency plans

There are some glaring holes in this checklist, especially if the public meetings listed on it were never held or were not well advertised. Does an emergency management official who may not have followed through on preparedness plans in 2006 have any room to lecture Swan Pond residents and other affected Tennesseans (which will probably include all of us when the bills come due on this mess) about trusting emergency management officials in the government or with TVA?

Denial is a river in east Tennessee, not New Jersey

Sympathy for the duress that Harriman, TN residents are under with the TVA ash spill is called for, but red state denial is too ugly to let pass without comment. It seems that this fellow is misplacing his anger at the industrial northeast:

This wasn't what Thomas had in mind when he bought his retirement home nine years ago.

"It's like something you'd see in Cleveland or damned Newark, New Jersey," said Thomas, a 62-year-old Georgia native. "Not east Tennessee."

The fact is that Tennessee's free market/anti-regulation climate in tandem with the federal government's apathy toward compliance created the conditions for what is known now as a Tennessee-style disaster. That insult belongs to us.

I googled "Cleveland and Coal Ash" and could find no evidence of any kind of fly ash accident there. What I did find out is that hundreds of tons of coal ash went into the cement structure of Cleveland's Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

As long as TVA can pitch fly ash as a viable building material, they can justify storing it in large, hazardous quantities. As long as the building and coal industries can make money and donate to political campaigns, elected leaders are not bound to regulate fly ash until a disaster shatters innocent people's lives.

TVA Inspector: Mega-Utility Put Profits above Ethics and Compliance

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

Swan Pond Resident Dares Intelligent Questions of TVA

Someone directly affected by TVA's ash spill is obviously not listening to that Roane County emergency management officer who admonished us for daring to question TVA and government regulators. Good for her:

Well, finally around 4pm they showed.  Ok... they were nice people.  Again, I was treated with respect.  I was given more information on water samples and air quality testing.  I did ask questions.  I wanted to know about all those little dots on the air quality testing that showed all particulates were within EPA guidelines.... what monitors were used?  Hand held.  OK.  So that meant they were not 12 hour samples, but those air samples were taken at various locations by holding up the monitor for a short period of time... and taking the reading.  hmmmmmmmmm.  I didn't see any data regarding wind speed, was it raining, was it sunny, was it early morning or was it late evening.  So, as for those tests... believe what you want to believe.  I'm still waiting for something a little more concrete.... maybe I shouldn't hold my breath (well... considering where I live, I think I should!)

Those are dangerous questions that deserve answers.

Deal with it, gatekeepers

Glenn Reynolds appreciates KnoxNews for information symbiosis:

I’VE OFTEN ARGUED that the relationship between blogs and Big Media should be thought of as symbiotic rather than competitive, and here’s some more evidence. Jack Lail, managing editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, emails that InstaPundit sent them nearly a million pageviews last year, and holds two spots(for instapundit.com and pajamasmedia.com/instapundit) on their list of top 20 referrers. Smart news people — like Lail — are more interested in getting bloggers to deliver traffic than in complaining about blogger competition. And smart news organizations will take advantage of new technology to facilitate their hard-news reporting ability via the “Army of Davids” approach, rather than complaining that people who post breaking-news reports on blogs or Twitter don’t have journalism degrees.

The complaining amounts to hubris.

Geological Survey Fishery Specialist Laughs at TVA's Claims about Cause of Fish Kill

The Free Times Press via MSNBC has a story on the threat that the spilled TVA ash could have to an ancient species of fish that the Tennessee Aquarium has been attempting to integrate back into the wild. In that story TVA's explanation for the initial fish kill when their pond dike broke is questioned by a guy probably has more knowledge of fish than the TVA CEO has of the impact of ash spills:

"There's nothing stopping [the sturgeon] from deciding they want to go downriver [to the ash spill site]," said Dr. Phil Bettoli, assistant unit leader at the Tennessee Cooperative Fishery Research Unit of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Dr. Bettoli is in the midst of a routine evaluation of the sturgeon population and said it will take time to know how many of the fish were downstream of the spill and how they might be affected.

Near the spill site, several pockets of dead fish have been reported, but the TVA said the fish kills occurred when the fish were stranded on land and not because of toxic elements in the stream.

"The force of the water during the initial event stranded some fish out of the water and they subsequently died. That was not related to water quality," a TVA statement said.

"Oh really?" asked Dr. Bettoli, laughing when he heard the statement. "That's interesting."

The article also refers to views of the head researcher of the Tennessee Aquarium, who challenges TVA's claim that the amount of toxin spilled would not be toxic to fish.

"You believe what these people down here are telling you" unless they're telling you what TVA doesn't want to hear

TVA spokesperson calls Feb. 2008 inspection report of pond wall failures "misleading." He doesn't cotton to the descriptive term "blowout," and he insists that engineers (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) know the term is not that big of a deal. I guess it wouldn't be that big of a deal for those who are not at the business end of failing pond walls.

Wake Up and Go Vote AGAINST English Only!

Did you know that you can early vote today from 9 AM to Noon? If you are an early Saturday riser and you oppose Eric Crafton's attempts to force Metro workers to speak in a language other than English even if they're just trying to help someone else along life's way, then grab the opportunity and head Downtown to the Howard School Building polls. I've early voted on Saturday before and found shorter lines than on weekdays. Don't put it off! And please offer to take a friend who you believe will vote against English Only, too!


UPDATE: The Tennessean confirms a point I made yesterday about a high first-day turnout at the polls:

With Nashville still largely in holiday mode on Friday, election officials said turnout was surprisingly good on the first day of early voting for the English-only ballot initiative.

The measure, which would limit virtually all government communications and publications in Metro Nashville to English, helped draw 1,161 people to the polls on Friday.

River Spill Site Arsenic Levels 100 to 300 Times Acceptable Amount

EPA says they found 149 times the regulatory limit of arsenic at the Kingston coal ash spill site.

Environmentalist groups show Appalachian State report from water they collected on December 27 containing 300 times the allowable limits of arsenic. The professor who conducted the tests warned:

"The ecosystems around Kingston and Harriman are going to be in trouble, the aquatic ones for some time, until nature is able to bury these compounds in the environment," Tuberty said. "I don't how long that will take, maybe generations."

Tuberty also cautioned the ash might be harmful to people if it dries out and becomes airborne, a concern that's been acknowledged by TVA officials.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, what the Clinton and Bush EPA set for an "acceptable amount" of arsenic is still a carcinogenic amount.

UPDATE: Knoxnews reports that the EPA tests were from river water samples collected on December 23. The higher scoring environmentalist test collections were conducted on December 27. The concentration did not seem to dissipate over time, but doubled.

Fly Ash Casualty

Checking in on the blogging Swan Pond resident, who is also the custodial grandparent of an 18-month-old high risk infant:

My Grandson became sick yesterday... Cough.... stuffy nose.... sneezing..... flushed..... didn't want to eat..... not wanting to nap either....

It was windy yesterday just like the day before... and the ash had to be flying.

I took him to the ER as recommended by his physician.  I took the information that TVA had given me, as well as a MSDS sheet about fly ash.  

He had to endure a nasal wash & suction, x-rays, monitoring of his oxygen levels.  The conclusion?  Irritation from the fly ash, specifically airborne.  

TVA is aware, and we are currently at a local hotel.  The Doctor recommended that he not go home... we not go home....avoid the area altogether.  

I didn't realize how I would feel once someone told me I couldn't go home.  I didn't sink in until this morning.  Due to the stress and the lack of sleep... I began to meltdown.  "don't go home"....  keeps rolling through my head.  

No, we didn't lose our home to visible damage.... but we can't go home.

Being told what to believe is as old south as grits

I have already asserted that Nashville's English Only referendum is a test of wild-eyed post-presidential-election claims that there is a new south rising that defies the conventional ideas of old south as sheltered pro-Republican backwater. Likewise, Tennessee's response to the TVA ash sludge spill may shed light on whether it exhibits a political atmosphere more like that of a decrepit gulag and less like the dynamic hothouse that some who focus on Virginia, North Carolina, or Texas would suggest.

Things do not look hopeful so far. While TVA downplayed the spill and told neighbors to boil their water, Tennessee's elected officials mostly stayed silent and clear the week following in spite of the obvious hardship on both the plant's neighbors and the environment. Tennessee's U.S. Senators didn't bother to rise above mum until their offices were forced to by inquiring media. Phil Bredesen was practically an afterthought, excusing his absence as the desire not to be a hindrance, and then rubber stamping TVA emergency response (which some Swan Pond residents reported as lacking).

And then there is today's paternalistic attitude of Roane County EMA and Homeland Security Director, William H. Rose, Jr., who encouraged Tennesseans to trust their big government brother without questioning or listening to any outside watchdogs (emphasis added by Christian Grantham):

People want to know "are you making sure everybody is doing what they are supposed to over there?" And I tell them, I say, "I don't have to make sure." I say, "They're doing it on their own. OK?" And there's a lot of special interest groups that are out there that want to put out a lot of misinformation, and what people need to understand is that the state of Tennessee is here to help Roane County manage the technical aspects of this and they are doing a fantastic job. And what they put out is the right thing as well as the EPA, and that we're all working together to speak in one voice.

So, that is a resounding question from the people in the county is "all this information that's been put out I don't know what to believe." Well, I'm telling you what to believe. You believe what these people down here are telling you to believe because I'm seeing the data just like everybody else is. I don't understand it all, but they explain it to me, and I got faith in these people down here and what they do.

If this part of the new south, it is just like the old south, where people in power tell everybody else what to believe and put their faith in. That would indicate that big brother, deep red Tennessee is in no danger of drifting progressive any time soon. Perhaps it is still just as backwater as ever, even with a Democratic Governor.

Regarding TVA's Christmas disaster, big media was exactly where it's always been on community casualities: behind the curve

R. Neal wades into a debate between blogger Joe Powell and journalist Michael Silence. He grants Knox News its place as first of the mainstream media to the story, but reminds journalists of the actual social and mainstream media time line. Bloggers were all over the story first and framed it before the state, coal industry, and news corporations could spin it innocuous. As he points out, News 2's Christian Grantham was also exceptional because he was one of the few mainstream media reps who was asking the direct, critical questions early and publicizing the digging that bloggers were doing to get behind TVA CEO's management of perceptions. Generally speaking, journalists owe bloggers a lot more credit than they usually give (exceptions noted).

Response to the Ash Spill Defies the Liberal vs. Pragmatic Logic

It was not too long ago that I bitched about the mainstream media's tendency to assume a false dichotomy between liberalism (which gets automatically conflated with "ideological") and pragmatism (with which conservatism often enjoys the benefit of the doubt in press writing). The emerging crisis of TVA's coal ash spill and the response of liberal bloggers (who as Christian Grantham has pointed out repeatedly are the only bloggers responding to the spill) indicate to me a palpable pragmatic streak among Tennessee progressives.

TVA's legacy with FDR provides a real context for judging the larger point I was making about a month ago. TVA clings to its "New Deal" history and its legacy with FDR:

President Franklin Roosevelt needed innovative solutions if the New Deal was to lift the nation out of the depths of the Great Depression. And TVA was one of his most innovative ideas. Roosevelt envisioned TVA as a totally different kind of agency. He asked Congress to create “a corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise.” 

By and large progressive bloggers do not seem swayed or cowed by TVA's Rooseveltian roots. I haven't sensed any trepidation or equivocation about taking shots at the new-dealistic TVA.

But criticizing TVA doesn't seem to be the ideological thing to do, given all the Depression-era imagery of mobilizing redeeming quasi-government agencies to bring progress to blighted areas. The reason is obvious: an environmental and health disaster vitiated distinctions between progress and blight in East Tennessee. And the fact that the disaster visited mostly red counties in pro-Republican Tennessee did not matter. Progressives are both informed about their ideals about progress and about the best response to conditions on the ground. That defies an unnuanced grasp of liberals; not that I assume media is supposed to be very sophisticated in their grasp of things. Likewise, while I am predisposed to call upon President-Elect Obama to launch a new New Deal in response to our current economic malaise, I am not such a doctrinaire liberal that I assume that all New Deal initiatives are good or need to exist permanently.

There is something profoundly wrong with the Tennessee Valley Authority. I do not know whether it is because it has become something that FDR never intended or it is because it is precisely what he intended. And I do not care. It isn't threatening or contradictory or disloyal to my progressive streak to question TVA's hold on several states, its hold over cities like Nashville, or its very existence. If it's not working for our common good then maybe we should be pragmatic and either reconfigure or dismantle it.

I am a pragmatic progressive: something that the mainstream media obviously fails to grasp. I am not betraying my cultural commitments if I oppose TVA or even if I wonder whether Roosevelt's idea of a hybrid clothed with the power of government but possessing the initiative of private enterprise (which now is a different corporate concept) is an idea that was meant to last 75 years. Even it was, we reserve the right to revise, extend, and retract our nation's old ideas.

I voted AGAINST English Only and Eric Crafton today

Early voting started today. There was line of people when I went to vote this morning and an election commission employee told me that more people than expected turned out to vote so far.

Please take some time to stop at the polls and vote against ratification of English Only. And please offer to take friends who you know will vote against Eric Crafton's attempts to dictate to Metro workers that they cannot assist someone out in a foreign language if they are so able. English Only is an attempt to fix problems that don't exist and have never been named.