• Friedmann (left) addresses the faithful

Outside Corrections Corporation of America's Green Hills headquarters, a group of predominantly Christian activists gathered to protest the private prison's raison d'etre (to incarcerate human beings for profit) and to support a shareholder resolution that would force the company to publicly release information regarding instances of rape and sexual abuse at CCA facilities.

That resolution was proposed by Alex Friedmann, a former CCA inmate turned associate editor of Prison Legal News and anti-prison-privatization activist on behalf of the Human Rights Defense Center. It would mandate that the company report transparently on its efforts to crack down on instances of sexual abuse and rape at its facilities, which CCA claims it is already doing, as well as provide statistics of sexual crimes across its 67 prisons nationwide.

The shareholders and board of directors voted down Friedmann's measure, and broke with tradition by not releasing the vote tallies. But according to Friedmann, they did approve a $4.1 million annual salary for CCA's chief executive officer.

Read Friedmann's remarks to the board after the jump:

In a morning conference call with company executives and investors, Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America announced that it is considering a potential conversion into a real estate investment trust (REIT), a move intended to reap higher quarterly dividends for shareholders and raise capital amid stagnant stock prices and a barren outlook for state-level private prison appropriations.

CCA CEO Damon Hininger said the company plans to partner with JP Morgan-Chase bank and other legal, financial and business companies to explore the company's possible transition into a taxable real estate holding subsidiary (aka a "TRS"). This new and improved CCA would essentially have two branches: One that purchases and leases private prison properties to itself, and a managerial arm that oversees the operations and maintenance of its facilities.

In a press release sent out today, the company listed the benefits of such a conversion.

"The Company initiated the REIT Project to evaluate the potential benefits the TRS Structure could provide, including an increase in long-term shareholder value, a more tax-efficient corporate structure with higher cash flow, and a lower cost of capital, while maintaining access to ample capital to fund future growth," the release read.

But CCA experimented with REITs over a decade ago, with disastrous results.

After flirting with the idea of allowing an African-American into their tony enclave, the historically white, rich and male Belle Meade Country Club has reportedly admitted its first female resident member.

According to club documentation reviewed by Pith, the BMCC has granted full membership to Adelaide D. Stevens, the apparent owner of Duly Noted, a Nashville-based greeting card, stationery and imprinting business. She was sponsored by member James W. Spradley Jr., CEO of Functional Foods Group, maker of the GooGoo Cluster. She was sponsored by D. Mark Wright, president of Show Dog-Universal Music.

Calls placed to Stevens and BMCC manager Michael Seabrook were not returned as of posting time.

Prior to Stevens' admittance, the club drew sustained fire for its exclusionary membership policies.

The times, they are a changin'.

From today's Tennessean:

Flying through rain in the dark before midnight on Friday, a 75-year-old pilot used the lights of Opryland to guide his vintage airplane to a smooth belly landing on a grass strip at a shuttered airport in East Nashville.

Even without landing gear, Russell Brothers, Jr., came down so gently in his 1961 twin-engine Beechcraft Model 18 that he didn’t trigger the crash locator that would have given authorities his location at Cornelia Fort Airpark.

He was alone and uninjured at an airstrip he’d flown to for more than 50 years before it closed. He called his wife to pick him up and they rode back to Burns, Tennessee, leaving the airplane behind as a mystery for police.

“We were just both thankful that I wasn’t hurt and that was all we talked about,” Brothers said by phone this morning. ...

Interesting human-interest story. Oh, wait. From today's City Paper online:

Police say they have identified the man who crash-landed a vintage airplane at the closed Cornelia Fort Airpark — and the name given is the same as that of a pilot once convicted of smuggling drugs.

Sometime late Friday or early Saturday, Russell Brothers, 74, glided a 1961 Beechcraft twin-engine to a belly landing on the grass after its landing gear failed, according to police. On Monday, a police spokesman said that detectives had spoken with Brothers and he acknowledged flying the plane from Miami, Fla., to the closed East Nashville airpark. ...

Brothers, according to past media reports, was convicted of money laundering and drug smuggling some 20 years ago. His name resurfaced in headlines two years ago when police charged him with stealing another man’s airplane from John C. Tune airport, flying it to Dickson and attempting to extort $12,000 from the man in exchange for returning the plane. ...

UPDATE 3:48 p.m.: Tennessean story since updated with info about Brothers' record.

In a statement, Gov. Bill Haslam says he will not sign a controversial bill ensuring that teachers are permitted to teach "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of theories such as evolution and climate change. Instead, citing the large margin by which the bill passed both chambers, he said he will allow the bill to become law without his signature.

This move is unprecedented for Haslam. In the last week, Haslam has received pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and a petition bearing the signature of 3,200 Tennesseeans urging him to veto the bill.

The governor's statement in full, after the jump:

Among reporters at the Capitol, he was known as the Mighty Naifeh in his heyday when he reigned like a mob boss as House speaker. He terrorized Republicans then, routinely dispatching their bills to die in three-member subcommittees of Democrats. Heads bowed, Republicans were forced to go into Naifeh's office to plead for the smallest favors.

Oddly, after Republicans took control of the House and rendered Democrats irrelevant, Naifeh became lovable in his impotence. He was content to rail against GOP bills in committee meetings. Republicans listened politely, treating Naifeh like some eccentric uncle, then passed the bills anyway. This morning after Naifeh made his announcement, Republicans rose to applaud his 38 years of service and even let him preside over the House for a few minutes for a little nostalgic fun.

"Mr. Speaker, I went to the restroom and came back. Did something happen? Something that I need to know about?" Rep. Phillip Johnson asked. Naifeh banged the gavel.

"Mr. Sergeant at Arms, have that man removed!" he barked as the House laughed.

Here's reaction to Naifeh's announcement from House Democratic leaders:

With news of Gannett's decision to implement a paywall for its 80 regional newspapers by year's end still fresh, Pith has learned details of the media conglomerate's decision to offer buyouts to hundreds of employees.

Bob Faricy, vice president of marketing development for Tennessean Media Group, responded via email that of the 40 buyouts Gannett is rumored to have offered The Tennessean, 32 employees are eligible for the "early retirement" option.

Faricy says The Tennessean, which experienced a brutal round of layoffs less than a year ago, will accept 25 buyouts in the latest round of blood-letting at 1100 Broadway.

"Other information about the makeup by department and specific package details is not being released on a local level," writes Faricy.

Faricy also shed some light on the proposed paywall.

"As for the new subscription model, it's important to note that it is a metered model rather than a hard wall. Additionally a number of areas, including classifieds like Cars.com and CareerBuilder, will remain accessible to all consumers," Faricy wrote. "It is my understanding it will be rolled out across the entire US Community Publishing Division. Pricing is yet to be determined, along with other details of how it will be implemented locally."

A new report issued by the Annie E. Casey Foundation has found that the number of children living in "high-poverty communities" in the state of Tennessee has grown by nearly 100 percent over the last decade.

According to the latest Kids Count survey, the number of children living in high-poverty areas in the United States is 8 million — a nationwide surge of roughly 1.6 million kids under the age of 18 "living in areas with 30% of residents or more living below the poverty threshold" since 2000. In Tennessee, that number increased by 91 percent over the same time period, with 26 percent of children in the Volunteer State now living in poverty.

The foundation describes "high-poverty areas" thusly:

Research indicates that as neighborhood poverty rates increase, undesirable outcomes rise and opportunities for success are less likely. The effects of concentrated poverty begin to appear once neighborhood poverty rates rise above 20 percent and continue to grow as the concentration of poverty increases up to the 40 percent threshold. This report defines areas of concentrated poverty as those census tracts with poverty rates of 30 percent or more because it is a commonly used threshold that lies between the starting point and leveling off point for negative neighborhood effects. The 2010 federal poverty threshold is $22,314 per year for a family of four.

The 20-10 vote was a foregone conclusion, but spectators still were forced to endure a farcical debate in which the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dolores Gresham, pretended this was not about quashing free speech. No, the legislature is merely acting as good stewards of public property, she said. To hear Gresham talk, you’d think we were designating a new wilderness area somewhere.

Republicans obviously read their talking points from legal counsel. It’s fun to slap down protesters like some two-bit dictator, but it looks bad in federal court. Better to avoid the usual ranting and raving against long-haired hippie types and to claim instead that you’re passing an innocuous land management law.

“The bill is designed to create order in the use and management of public lands so that these properties are available and accessible to all the people of Tennessee,” Gresham said, somehow keeping a straight face.

Republicans denied they were restricting First Amendment rights and claimed they merely were enacting a No Camping law to preserve state property for use by all the public.

“This has nothing to do with protesting,” said the sponsor, House Judiciary Committee chairman Eric Watson, R-Cleveland. “People need to read the bill. This just prohibits camping on state property. This property belongs to all Tennesseans. This bill restores the entire public’s right to utilize property here at the state Capitol.”

Rep. Barrett Rich, R-Somerville, called it “ridiculous to think otherwise.”

“You have the First Amendment right to come to this plaza to redress your grievances. But you don’t have the First Amendment right to sleep. Your tent has absolutely no First Amendment rights. At what point is protesting just taking a nap?”