Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Do As I Say...
Posted by PJ Tobia on Wed, Dec 19, 2007 at 10:23 AM
Now that her youngest daughter Jamie Lynn has turned up pregnant at the age of 16, Lynne Spears, mother of Britney, has had the release of her upcoming book on parenting—yes parenting—delayed by the Nashville-based Christian publishing mega-house Thomas Nelson.
The manuscript was due this month and supposed to hit stores on Mother’s Day ’08 with the title, Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World.
It could have just as easily been Do as I Say Not as I Do.
In the past few years alone, Britney has gotten married, pregnant, divorced, repeatedly checked in and out of rehab, shaved her head, showed her hoo-hoo to paparazzi (also shaved), disobeyed a court order, and showed up appearing possibly stoned and definitely overweight for a live MTV music awards performance. Now that her youngest is about to be an unmarried teen mom, readers may be persuaded to look elsewhere for parenting advice. Thomas Nelson probably would suggest these titles.
Politics That Old Rugged Cross
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Dec 19, 2007 at 9:32 AM
Another politician has been caught sneaking a subliminal message into a campaign ad and, in a response that's becoming entirely too predictable, he's trying to laugh it off as a big joke. "I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, 'Paul is dead. Paul is dead,' " Mike Huckabee says of his Merry Christmas ad in which a white cross appears over his shoulder.
How gullible do they think we are? Remember when George Bush insisted that showing the word "RATS" in an ad about Al Gore's prescription drug proposal wasn't meant to be a subliminal message?
There's an interesting book out now, The Political Brain by psychologist Drew Westen, about how political ad makers—and Republicans are much better at it than Democrats—have learned to use emotional cues to activate neural networks in people's minds and influence what they believe and feel and how they vote.
An infamous case in point: the Republic National Committee ad against Harold Ford Jr. in his 2006 Senate race against Bob Corker. "In that campaign," Westen writes, "an ad showing a scantily clad (or unclad—you couldn't tell because of the way the image was—accidentally?—cropped) blonde sex kitten crowed, 'I met Harold at the Playboy party!' All the while, Corker was on the stump, asking which of the two men was the 'real Tennessean.' The answer, by the way, was that they were both 'real Tennesseans,' one from Memphis and the other from Chattanooga. The goal, of course, was to get white voters to think about which of them was really 'one of us.' And funny how that ad just happened to activate latent networks about predatory, hypersexual black men who want our white women."
In Huckabee's ad, which his campaign manager Chip Saltsman discusses here, the appearance of the white cross is no accident. It reinforces Huckabee's open appeal to conservative Christians subliminally and makes it more powerful emotionally for the evangelical zombies who are about to make him the Iowa caucus winner. It's a little scary, isn't it? Ron Paul doesn't often make very much sense, but he got it right on Fox News: "It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.' "
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Railroaded Revisited
Posted by PJ Tobia on Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 11:13 AM
A few weeks ago, we reported about a South Nashville neighborhood that’s
getting railroaded by the CSX train company. The only way into or out of the small Sadler enclave is to cross a set of CSX-owned train tracks. Problem is, the company often will use the tracks as a parking lot for mile-long freight trains, effectively trapping Sadlerites in the neighborhood or preventing them from getting home for hours at a time. In addition to the inconvenience, one elderly resident almost died when he couldn't get home in time to take his heart medication.
CSX has since met with neighborhood residents and promised change. But according to an email the Scene received from the neighborhood committee today, it isn’t coming fast enough.
Check it out after the jump:
By the Way Breaking Burger News
Posted by Liz Garrigan on Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 10:16 AM
Trolling for ways—any way at all—to erode productivity on a production day has its bizarre rewards. In this morning's case, we ran across the musical stylings of Fairview's Aaron Maccaro, who won the grand prize in the rock category of Wendy’s Baconator Sound Bites contest by "mixing sounds recorded in a Wendy’s test kitchen into beautiful burger music."
According to a missive sent here, burger music is "a hot, original tune made of sounds like sizzling beef, popping bacon and freshly chopped tomatoes."
The 19-year-old won a $5,000 prize and will get to hear his song on the radio in Nashville. To download the song, listen online or hear just exactly how indie tomatoes sound, go here.
Meanwhile, if anybody has other ideas for work avoidance, please email us.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Media Ninth
Posted by Steve Haruch on Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 10:48 AM
According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Nashville is the ninth-most bloggingest city in the U.S., by percentage of adults "going on the Web to read or contribute to a blog in the past 30 days." Let's hope all those bloggers in Honolulu and San Diego (ranked fourth and fifth, respectively) are at the beach using a laptop or something. Meanwhile, Nashville, what makes you so blog-friendly? Is it the lack of sidewalks? Be honest.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Politics Fred Kerry?
Posted by PJ Tobia on Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 1:54 PM
Is Fred Thompson the new John Kerry? Slate seems to think so, but only if you think that Huckabee is the new Howard Dean.
Slate’s take on the matter:
[Thompson’s] got a lot of Kerry in him, if Kerry were a Republican: a solid conservative record, strong electability prospects, a dull campaign. He trails in Iowa and nationally, just like Kerry. He's great on paper, just like Kerry. But in practice he would probably fail to inspire people to show up to the polls—just like Kerry. So, I take it back: If Republicans want a safe, ultimately uninspiring nominee, they need look no further than Thompson.
Politics Wilder Running Again
Posted by Jeff Woods on Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 1:53 PM
The Tennessee Journal's Ed Cromer is reporting that John Wilder has decided to seek reelection next year and points out that he'll be 87 when the election takes place, which means of course that he'll be 91 when he runs for reelection again in 2012.
His decision was warmly received by leaders of the Senate Democratic Caucus, which will have to defend at least three seats from serious challenge by Republicans, who are aiming for firm control of the Senate. Wilder, who will be 87 when the election takes place, serves a district that has grown increasingly Republican in recent years and could well be captured by a GOP candidate in an open race. Even with Wilder running, Republicans have an eye on the seat, both because of its composition and the incumbent's age. Rep. Delores Gresham (R-Somerville) intends to run, as does Dr. Tim Linder, a Selmer physician. Wilder informed Democratic Caucus leaders of his decision as mid-week and began notifying local officials in the eight-county district 26.
More Tales of Abuse at Hermitage Hall
Posted by Elizabeth Ulrich on Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 11:42 AM
This week, we reported on Hermitage Hall, a Nashville treatment facility for male sex offenders ages 9 to 17. Current and former employees came forward with reports that Hermitage's young residents were being roughed up and put in “chemical straitjackets” via heavy sedation—even forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor or locked in a room for punishment for days, weeks and even months on end.
The Department of Children's Services and Department of Mental Health, both of which have licensed the facility at some point, have stacks of complaints and investigative documents that tell similar tales. We couldn't include all of them in this week's story, but here's a more detailed glimpse into the DCS files, which, as one staffer puts it, makes you wonder: “How do they get away with this stuff all the time?”
More after the jump...
Education Vandy Student Paper Reports Zeppos Will Be Chancellor
Posted by Liz Garrigan on Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Here it is.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Education / Politics Form a Committee
Posted by Bruce Barry on Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 3:45 PM
So what can we say about the mayor’s “Project for Student Success” task force announced yesterday to “develop action steps to reduce the dropout rate of students in Nashville public schools”? Herewith four observations.
[1] A group with 40 members is not so much a task force as a legislature. Legislatures require significant staff and financial support, and it’s hard to see how the mayor will get the substantive report he wants in just six months without a non-trivial investment of resources. Janel Lacy in the mayor’s office tells Pith that Vanderbilt and Belmont have pledged staff support although specifics on a budget for the panel aren’t yet available. She adds that support will also come from the Mayor’s Office of Children and Youth.
[2] Many of the people on this list are busy, overcommitted humans who might appropriately be consulted for their insights on this subject, but you have to wonder how likely it is that they will put in the time necessary to analyze and study a complex social problem in depth. Lacy tells us the mayor wants recommendations by June. Is that enough time to develop expertise in relevant areas to enable a sophisticated analysis of problems and opportunities?
[3] There are more CEO’s than public school teachers on this panel. What’s up with that? And some Metro public school parents are noticing that the task force includes the head of an expensive, academically prestigious private school but not a single teacher or administrator from any of the city’s academic magnet schools.
[4] Do MNPS director Pedro Garcia and Board of Education Chair Marsha Warden really belong on this panel? If the point of the exercise is to stimulate new thinking about a stubborn problem, why should those who are having difficulty making progress on the issue (and one of whom is shopping for new employment) be involved as insiders?
The range of groups, talents, and interests representated on the panel is notable, but it feels more like a way to manage impressions of gravity and buy-in than to create a group that can actually work in-depth on a difficult problem. Participation from a broad spectrum of talented people is a good thing, and it works at the outset as a calculated effort to make a splash. But will we see a working group that achieves something real, deep, novel, and consequential?
