News Briefly
Imagine a Visigoth plundering a village
The state’s rainy day fund—which was created to fund state government in the event of financial underperformance—is being raided. Phil Bredesen, our ax-wielding governor, says he needs to exhaust the $178 million fund to balance this year’s budget. Most would agree that the situation is critical enough to allow the fund to be sacked. He has already asked most state departments to reduce their expenditures by 9 percent.
You can rewrite the law, but don’t operate heavy machinery
Two Metro Council members are proposing, quite rightly, that the city’s beer laws be redrawn. The problem is that at some Nashville restaurants, a drinker can order wine or a mixed drink, but not a beer. That’s because city laws govern the consumption of beer, while state laws govern the consumption of wine and alcohol. And the two are different. Metro Council members Adam Dread and David Briley have proposed that anywhere you can buy the harder stuff you should be able to buy beer. Makes perfect sense to us.
How ’bout those Predators?
After what began as another lackluster season, the city’s hockey team has been on a tear in recent weeks and now has a solid chance of making the playoffs. One huge setback came last weekend when the high-scoring David Legwand snapped his collarbone, meaning he would be gone from action for at least a month. But the team is already trading for new offensive threats. Amid the euphoria, the arena is apparently jumping.
Plaster back
The city’s own little sports soap opera proceeded to a new chapter this week after sports talk show host George Plaster returned to the radio waves after being grounded for a while. The program, which airs on WTN 99.7-FM, is basically three guys sitting around a table talking about sports. But for some yet-to-be-fully-articulated reason, Plaster was placed on paid leave for two weeks. Speculation was that he wasn’t working or playing well with others. Mediation between Plaster and station management is said to be helping.
The sun has shone
After an astonishingly long and ugly period in which the sun did not shine on the city and its residents, the sun came back in force early this week. Spirits soared, if only temporarily. The forecast calls for more gray skies later in the week.
