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In This Issue

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Fresh off the Farm If you want to eat local and organic, now's the time to sign up with an area CSA

Hanging by Cable Comcast makes a lousy boyfriend, er, Internet provider

In Their Right Minds Even if Hearts & Minds didn't change public opinion about Vietnam, it remains an outspoken document of a troubling time

Insane Incarceration Tennessee juries don't buy the insanity defense, so the mentally ill are often imprisoned—housed but not necessarily helped

Inside the Outlaw A spate of recent DVDs from America and abroad spotlight the gangster

Love And Hate Mail Yeah, we reported that

Manitoba Swing Canadian string band The Duhks fuse diverse sounds to make bracing new music

Not Your Father's Opry Star The irrepressible Jeannie Seely takes on a role in Eve Ensler's play about all things female

 

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Gov. Phil Bredesen has announced a plan that would replace most front-level prison guards in state prisons with "volunteer people of faith."

"We will keep a backbone staff of supervisors in our prisons, but we are working with religious leaders to find volunteers who will bring meals to prisoners, oversee exercise and do other routine tasks that the state just can't afford to do anymore," Bredesen said.

The announcement came just weeks after the governor called on Tennessee religious congregations to come to the aid of people who would be denied health coverage under his proposed stripped-down TennCare plan.

"He's putting 300,000 people out of health insurance and he wants us to pay for their care," fumes one Nashville pastor. "Now he wants us to guard all the prisoners too. What's next? Church buses patrolling the interstates, pulling over speeders?"

Bredesen, who has been mentioned as a possible 2008 presidential candidate, apparently is serious about taking what were once regarded as governmental responsibilities and shifting them onto the faithful.

"Churches and other religious organizations have a long history of taking care of the sick and visiting people in prison," Bredesen said. "The Bible says to take care of the poor, the imprisoned and the sick. All I'm asking is for people of faith to live the values they preach. By doing this, we can be an example to other states in compassionate treatment of the most vulnerable members of society."

Bredesen pulls no punches about what may happen if his policies aren't adopted.

"The alternative is something none of us want to contemplate—a tax increase to fund adequate services for our citizens. I want to take the money we save and spend it on education. So when a group of church ladies are guarding hardened criminals, they can know that they are doing it for the children."

(The Fabricator is satire. Don't believe everything you read.)