Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Crazy Crap / Hargrove Witch Hunt or Woman Scorned at the Eco-Minded Green Train?
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 4:58 PM
Local Wiccan after running into the Green Train
Nashville’s Green Train, an eco-educational non-profit run by Merle Haggard and restaurateur Bob Wolf, had a witch in its ranks until recently. Or, to be more precise, a pagan. Not the kind historically drawn and quartered or burned at the stake, but rather the contemporary tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, vegan variety.
That was until Wolf charged this Wiccan ordained minister, Susan Hunter, with creating Green Train’s MySpace page. The personal networking catastrophe that followed-- replete with online earthy salutations and pentagrams--saw Hunter canned in spectacular fashion back in mid-September. She’s crying discriminatory foul. He’s got his hands up, as if to say, “Hey, read our mission: We’re a-political, a-religious, a-everything except the environment.”
Hunter created Green Train’s MySpace page to get the word out about a train laden with musical greats like Vince Gill, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard set to hit the rails in 2009. Their glowing celebrity will, Wolf hopes, attract crowds at whistle-stops across the country, who could then be proselytized on the greener side of life.
Any MySpace neophyte knows that a personal page is pretty lonely without a bunch of friends to festoon it. To address this dearth, Hunter sent out “friend invitations” to 40 of her friends who also happened to be earth-loving hippies and pagans of various stripes. When the messages started flowing in—“Blessed be” or “Faerie blessings,” usually accompanied by a pentagram and pictures of ivory-skinned ladies identifying themselves exotically as Asterope Morgaine and Feryia—Hunter says Wolf blew a gasket, ordering that all pentagrams be deleted. She says she deleted the Christian symbols too, out of spite before being summarily dismissed.
Barry / Politics The Marsha Chronicles
Posted by Bruce Barry on Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 11:26 AM
On the matter of U.S. House Republicans turning on the Wall Street bailout bill Monday, we get our daily dose of analytical sophistry from Tennessee’s own economic scholar-in-residence Marsha Blackburn, who buys into the dubious notion that we can solve the credit crisis by suspending part of the tax code. In a radio interview on WTN this morning, Blackburn pointed to taxpayer alarm over the prospect of a bailout that raises the federal debt limit to $11.3 trillion. I’m as alarmed as the next person, but Blackburn is delusional if she thinks we can solve a liquidity problem in credit markets in the short run by cutting taxes, spending and debt. But that’s her plan:
“Why don’t you reduce that debt limit and require every department to go in and make a 5-percent across-the-board cut. That’s 100 billion dollars…just by cutting out the waste. And then you come in and you say all right, cap gains suspension. We’ve got a liquidity issue. Suspending cap gains for a two-year period of time. Every economist that we have talked to, every small business owner that we have talked to, thinks that that deserves attention.”Shock of shocks—business owners think eliminating the capital gains tax would be swell! Economist Michael Ettlinger offers up several reasons why this is a loopy idea. It’s also a silly one politically: With quick action needed to restore market confidence, it makes minimal sense to suggest measures that have zero chance of passage during a campaign season. The plucky Blackburn sums it up: “We just gotta buckle down and get this taken care of.” (How hard is it to conjure up Tina Fey saying that?)
Politics / Woods Why Bredesen's Poll Numbers Are High
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 9:45 AM
OK, excuse the rant, but this is exactly what's wrong with Tennessee politics today. The governor, who has accomplished very little in six years except the dismantling of TennCare, enjoys a sky-high approval rating, according to this Chattanooga Times Free Press poll.
State GOP chair Robin Smith credits Bredesen's "well-oiled communications machine." That's laughable. Bredesen's so-called communications machine doesn't do much communicating. It takes reporters days, sometimes weeks, to persuade his press secretary, Lydia Lenker, to phone back. Then when she finally does, she won't say anything that isn't obvious. Bredesen has a "communications director," Michael Drescher, but he doesn't communicate either. I've never been able to figure out exactly what he does.
No, what makes Bredesen popular is the very fact that he doesn't try to do much of anything. That's what Tennesseans want: a do-nothing government. A potted plant as governor would score record high poll numbers. In many ways, it's understandable, since our legislature is filled with rubes. But the state also faces mounting unmet needs in health care and education. Our tax system is inadequate and unfair. Our acceptance of the status quo should be a source of shame. As long as the public rewards governors for acquiescing, nothing will change.
Media Raise Your Voice to the President: Join Sheryl Oring Tomorrow at Belmont
Posted by Jim Ridley on Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 8:41 AM
One of the most remarkable art projects of recent years makes a stop tomorrow, Oct. 1, in Nashville on the campus of Belmont University—and anyone can participate.
You may have seen Sheryl Oring on the ABC News (where she was a "Person of the Week"), Countdown with Keith Olbermann or in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. In 2004 she began a project called "I Wish to Say," for which she toured the country in a sort of ’50s secretarial ensemble. Stationing herself in public at a manual typewriter, she invited passers-by to dictate postcards to the president, which she gathered and sent to the White House.
Samples can be found at her website, and while dissatisfaction typifies a great many of them, others are shows of support, or simply warm greetings. (That does not include the one which begins, "Here are our terms for your surrender.") But the entire process restores some of the personality to written communication: you're not just sitting at a keyboard firing off a disembodied missive into the void. It turns a private act of communication into a public address, holding up a bullhorn to each participant's single voice—an engaging demonstration of free speech.
Oring's current project is called "I wish to say to the future president," and she sets up tomorrow from noon to 2:30 p.m. in the gazebo next to Belmont's School of Music. Anyone can come by and dictate a message to whoever's in the White House come January. She gives a talk at 10 a.m. in Belmont's Massey Performing Arts Center, then after her session with the public she will attend an exhibition opening in Gallery 121 in the Leu Center for the Visual Arts at 4:30 p.m. All events are free and open to the public, and people are encouraged to park on the side residential streets near Belmont.
And please, spread the word to as many people as you can.
(UPDATE: I initially had the event listed as today; that has been corrected. My apologies.)
Monday, September 29, 2008
Politics / Woods Taking Tuke's Pulse
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 3:42 PM
If you believe Bob Tuke's latest poll, he's catching up to Lamar Alexander. (And the Easter Bunny lives!)
In an earlier Tuke poll, respondents were told that Alexander’s in Big Oil’s back pocket, that he voted for “unfair trade deals” that cost 43,000 jobs in Tennessee, that he voted against Medicare and updating G.I. Bill benefits for veterans and—after all that—Tuke still trailed by 10 points.
In the second poll, which Tuke released last week, he claims to have cut Alexander’s lead to 12 points even before he tells respondents bad things about the senator. A 12-point deficit a month before the election—that’s what passes for good news for Tuke.
Even that doesn’t accurately portray just how badly he's going to lose. In two independent polls released at the same time, he's twice as far behind. In one, more than half the respondents never heard of Tuke.
Alexander is so worried that, when you ask his flacks to comment on Tuke's polling, they don't even take the opportunity to criticize the Democrat or call him a liar or anything. Instead, here's Alexander campaign spokeswoman Jill Bader:
“The people of Tennessee know and trust Lamar Alexander, and he is thankful for the overwhelming support he continues to receive from Democrats and Independents, as well as Republicans, from across our state.”
Hannan / Sports Gameday Offers Vandy Fans Their One Shining Moment
Posted by Caleb Hannan on Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 3:32 PM
Look ma, I made a funny!
Big news for Commodore fans: ESPN's College Gameday is coming to Nashville for the first time in the show's history. For those unfamiliar with Gameday, think of it as college football's version of the Today Show and adulthood's answer to Saturday morning cartoons rolled into one.
The premise is simple: Every week, ESPN's traveling circus sets up shop on campus of the week's most important game. A couple thousand college kids show up at an hour normally reserved for sleeping and scream their heads off between commercial breaks. Then Gameday's resident zany Lee Corso dons the mascot head of the team he thinks will win.
Trust us when we say it is never not funny to see a 60-year-old man wearing a furry animal head.
Anyway, part of the Gameday tradition involves the home-team's students waving around a bunch of home-made signs in the hopes that they can impress their friends later when they replay the DVR'ed broadcast. Most signs are dedicated to the opposition and the reasons why they do in fact blow. Some kids take aim at the host's themselves (see above). Either way, the level of discourse is roughly equivalent to a truck-stop bathroom stall.
Which brings us to our point: Vandy kids should raise the bar.
Any state-school slacker can equate a TV host with male genitalia. It takes real wit to try to fit something more subtle, perhaps topical, on to a 24x24 sheet of poster board. How 'bout some commentary on our current fiscal crisis or a jaunty limerick about growing tensions in Pakistan deftly woven into an elaboration on why Auburn sucks? Is that too much to ask from Nashville's best and brightest?
Crazy Crap / Kotz / Media / Politics / Presidential Politics I Think Sarah Palin Just Might Be Stupid
Posted by Pete Kotz on Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 3:03 PM
I can’t recall the year, but it was sometime in the mid-‘90s. Dan Quayle was in Columbus, Ohio as part of a book tour to peddle his autobiography. I was among the media geeks summoned to chronicle this very minor moment in American history.
At the time, Quayle had been cast aside by the Republican Party. Bush I’s attempt to channel John Kennedy by making this Ken doll senator his vice president had failed miserably. The public, quite simply, thought Quayle was a moron -- though in a benign way, like that nice neighbor you tend to avoid for fear that each minute of conversation will cause a corresponding drop in your IQ.
After the book-signing, Quayle hosting a brief Q&A with the media geeks. He answered the initial questions the way many politicians do: You ask question X, and he responds with a prepared monologue, whether it relates to the question or not.
But it wasn’t long before Quayle ran out of pre-fab rhetoric. The questions were still coming, yet he was now forced to page answers from his own mind. His face tensed with visible panic, his truncated sentences spilled out in a random selection of half-thoughts. He had spent a lifetime being coached by expert handlers. Without these people, the man could barely speak.
Up until that moment, I never believed our leaders were as stupid as they seemed on TV. But here was a former vice president, taking softball questions from reporters just going through the motions. We all knew that our “Has-Been Politician Visits Ohio” stories would attract a collective audience of eight readers. It’s not like we came with sharpened spears. We just wanted to get in and get out.
But Quayle could barely keep up with this perfunctory exchange. He literally looked like a deer in the headlights, though the deer would probably fair better on a middle school sociology exam. That’s when I knew: Dan Quayle was truly stupid. I walked away feeling sorry for the guy.
I hadn’t thought of this episode in years until I begin seeing Sarah Palin interviews. I hate to say it, but I think she’s Dan Quayle, The Sequel.
Law and Order 287g Helpless Against Undocumented Murderer; Serpas Blames Feds
Posted by PJ Tobia on Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 12:45 PM
287g was impotent against this alleged killer
On Friday Metro police announced that 19-year-old Edgar Rodriguez is the man who gunned down convenience store owner Vinod Shah on September 19. The arrest comes after a nice piece of police work by Metro detectives, but the murder itself calls into question the efficacy of Sheriff Daron Hall’s 287g program.
That’s because Rodriguez was arrested for driving without a license on August 20, 2007. After a 287g check revealed he was here illegally, he was deported back to his native Mexico last October. But Rodriguez snuck back into the U.S.—cops don’t know exactly when—and would eventually kill a Nashville shop-keep.
“Despite the Sheriff’s 287(g) work in this case, the federal government still can’t secure our nation’s borders,” says police chief Ronal Serpas. “Unfortunately, the cold blooded murder of a Nashville market owner is intertwined with the federal government’s inability to deal with a broken immigration system and border security.”
I agree with the chief. The fact of our nation’s porous southern border led directly to the murder of an innocent Nashvillian and 287g was helpless to stop it. In the meantime many, many, peaceful, law abiding, economy boosting immigrants where forcibly removed from this city, never to return. What was the point of this policy again?
Daily Diversion / Silverman Mindy McCready: Music Career Implosion 101
Posted by Jack Silverman on Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 12:08 PM
With Mindy McCready heading to a Tennessee jail tomorrow to serve a 60-day sentence for probation violation, these scenes from Naked Nashville—a terrific 1998 British documentary about Nashville's country music industry—seem particularly prescient. After a brief bout with celebrity in the late '90s, McCready's career took a nosedive as she battled drug problems and other personal demons, including two suicide attempts. Celebrity self-destruction is not uncommon, but seeing its beginnings on video is rare indeed.
The above video from Naked Nashville starts with McCready's tour bus waiting on the bratty then-21-year-old, who's always running late. Things get interesting at about 5:05 into the video. Reba McEntire talks about the political nature of being a woman in country music—"You don't scream, you don't holler, you don't throw tantrums, you don't bitch about stuff.... You've got little eyes watching you all the time"—immediately followed by a scene of McCready in her hotel room throwing a tantrum, bitching and refusing to go to soundcheck. At 7:25, over footage of McCready lying on her hotel bed blowing bubbles and watching TV, Reba says:
"There's one rule: Work hard. Continue to work hard. And keep working hard. If you slough off, if you think, 'Well, I can back off just a little bit,' there's just 8 million people out there that's wantin' to take your place. They're just waiting for you to just kind of slack off just a little bit so they can run past you. And they'll do it."At 7:50 into the segment below, RCA Label Group Chairman Joe Galante, frustrated with McCready's less than stellar work ethic, reads the writing on the wall:
At the moment, we're trying to finish an album. At the moment, Mindy is in L.A. with [actor Dean Cain, then McCready's boyfriend].... There is a Christmas season coming up that Mindy has to understand.... If you miss Christmas, you miss 60 percent of the year in terms of sales. It also means that, once her album doesn't come out, she no longer qualifies for the Grammies, she won't qualify for the American Music Awards because she won't have any new product. [Cue ominous music] And in our business, out of sight, out of mind. So Mindy has to make a choice what she wants to do. And that if she chooses not to do that, she's made a major mistake, because the window is now. It's not a year from now. It's not six months from now. It is now.It's easy to drink in the schadenfreude when a celebrity self-destructs. But coming from a broken family and then obtaining success at such an early age was in this case a recipe for disaster. Maybe 60 days in the hole will give her time to reflect and get her life back on track.
Politics A Rally for Health Care Reform in Downtown Nashville
Posted by Pete Kotz on Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 5:02 AM
Cover America Now will hold a rally next Monday prior to the presidential debate to push for health care reform. The rally -- you'll find the details here -- will take place 4 to 7 p.m. on October 6 on Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville.
Instead of us telling you about it, we'll hand the microphone to Gene TeSelle, a retired professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Tennessee Alliance for Progress board member, who will tell you why raising hell about health insurance might get you a few points with St. Peter:
Illness and medical bills are the No. 1 cause of bankruptcy in Tennessee. Many families will face financial disaster if a major illness or injury occurs. People shopping for coverage run into unaffordable premiums and rising drug costs. And if you have a "pre-existing condition" you will probably have to forget about coverage, even though the purpose of insurance is supposed to help sick people. But the bottom line is the bottom line - corporate profits. An estimated 47 million Americans are uninsured, and many more are "under-insured," facing high co-payments and limits on what will be covered. The housing crisis and the slump in the economy are only making the health care crisis worse.
