Subject: Phil Valentine

• Q: Why do scumbags rip-off immigrants? A: Because they can.

  August 5, 2008

• A Sign of the Apocalypse? Phil Valentine and Nashville Scene Agree on Something

  Has the world turned upside down? And if so, do we now live in South America?The world's turned upside down, Prince's Hot Chicken was dead on a Friday night, and Pacman Jones has just been voted Humanitarian of the Year. Not really, but those events would have been no less shocking than the realization that dawned on us after reading yesterday's Tennessean. Mark your calendars, because years from now, you'll be telling your grandkids about May 31, 2009: the day Phil Valentine and the Nashville S

  June 1, 2009

• Honk Your Horn If You Love America! Phil Valentine's The Conservative's Handbook Hits the Streets

  September 15, 2008

• Phil Valentine on English Only: Wacky, Even by Phil Valentine Standards

  Phil Valentine op-eds really should come with a warning label. Like cigarettes and heavy machinery, the right-wing talk show host's musings demand a preamble. "Suspended Logic - Next 800 words" sounds about right.Take Valentine's epithet on the English Only vote. In Sunday's Tennessean, he argued that the vote against the xenophobic legislation is a harbinger of rising property taxes. At least, we think that's what we think he meant to say. We read it twice and we're still not sure, and that's a

  January 26, 2009

• What Does an Op-Ed Columnist Have to Do to Get Fired Around Here?

  I realize that calling out Phil Valentine for his rhetorical hallucinations is old hat, but he outdid himself in his latest Sunday assault on reality. Yesterday Phil used his Tennessean column to showcase his abject ignorance about constitutional law, rehashing a simplistic and misinformed argument that no legal basis for disentangling government and religion exists since the phrase "separation of church and state" doesn't appear in the U.S. Constitution. Wrapping his rant around the latest reli

  March 9, 2009

• Phil Valentine Cares Not For Your Hate-Speech Label

  Eat it, haters. Phil's back.Phil Valentine's normal column didn't run in last Sunday's Tennessean. In related news, the weather was unseasonably warm and the world continued to turn. The end.Thankfully for Phil fans everywhere, the man himself has returned. And he's ready to tackle another pressing issue of national import with the kind of vague, detail and logic-free reasoning we've all come to expect and perversely crave. Take it away, Valentino!I have detected a disturbing trend in the tenor

  March 30, 2009

• Phil Valentine: Swimming in Drool

  Not pictured: all the drool.C'mon liberals. Let's give Phil Valentine a break. He spends upwards of 10 to 15 minutes every Friday afternoon texting his column 160 characters at a time to a harried Tennessean editor. The least you can do is stop drooling.Oh sure, we know that in the wake of GM CEO Rick Wagoner's forced dismissal you're all "salivating to take over everything." But let's at least try to remain civil. All that mouth juice rolling off your chin makes the keys on Phil's Blackberry st

  April 6, 2009

• Afflict the Afflicted

  When a columnist returns from a cancer fight, what does The Tennessean do?

  September 27, 2007

• Public Art

  July 19, 2007

• Power to the People

  Liberadio(!) brings liberal talk radio to Nashville’s commercial airwaves

  April 5, 2007

• White Noise

  When it comes to right-wing talk radio, we have officially reached critical mass

  June 24, 2004

• Angry Protesters Brew Tax Revolt at Tea Party

  Here's the crowd just before today's rally started.Organizers are claiming a crowd of more than 10,000, but we're guessing there were about 1,000 noisy white people at the Tax Day Tea Party at Legislative Plaza. We're not going to engage in a lot of mockery here because it's mean to make fun of crazy people. They honked their horns and circled the Capitol and heard the usual spiels from local right-wing radio blowhards. They had a little fun shouting down a lonely protester who was immediately b

  April 15, 2009

• 2004 Best of Nashville Readers' Poll Winners

  October 7, 2004

• The Nativists Are Restless

  The backlash against immigrants is at full boil in Tennessee

  November 30, 2006

• Presents of Mind

  Scene writers dream up a holiday wish list for Nashville

  November 16, 2006

• Local Liberals Declare War on New Year’s

  Stay-at-home plans damage economy, talk show host declares

  December 29, 2005

• The crazies come out on Legislative Plaza

  April 23, 2009

• We Hear...

  May 13, 2004

• A List

  February 6, 2003

• On the Radio

  A few years ago, WWTN was near bankruptcy. Now it’s arguably the most influential radio station in the market. What the heck happened?

  December 12, 2002

• A List

  December 5, 2002

• Tax and Budget

  July 25, 2002

• A List

  July 11, 2002

• Business Mag Gets Makeover

  Business Nashville, and in with the city's newest editorial player

  April 4, 2002

• A List

  February 21, 2002

• Talking Heads

  Two of Nashville’s most outspoken radio pundits face off

  December 27, 2001

• Half-Baked

  NashvillePost.com debunks Gore restaurant story

  December 6, 2001

• Giving Thanks

  Some Tennessee politicians and agencies should count their blessings

  November 22, 2001

• Yabba Dabba Doo

  Republicans will get a choice in the gubernatorial primary after all

  September 6, 2001

• The Blame Game

  Talk radio personalities played second fiddle to a TV reporter

  July 19, 2001

• One of the Crowd

  The idea that we protesters represented a “mob” is riotous

  July 19, 2001

• The Boner Awards 2000

  Another year of questionable achievements

  December 14, 2000

• A Test Case

  Presenting the definitive local media quiz

  November 16, 2000

• Radio Fires Back

  Phil Valentine ably defends all that hot air

  December 9, 1999

• Taxing Times

  How talk radio hijacked state government

  November 25, 1999

• Circus at the Capitol

  November 25, 1999

• Desperately Seeking the News

  September 26, 1996

• Cell Division

  November 2, 1995

• Phil Valentine Victim of Pre-Emptive Pwnage

  You, sir, have just been served.Trying to find cohesive nuggets in the dung pile that is Phil Valentine's writing is a thankless job. Fortunately for Pith, this week Southern Beale did the dirty work for us a full two days before Valentine's usual Sunday editorial even ran.Predictably, Valentine's 800 words focused mainly on the Tea Parties, last week's national orgy of vacuous dissent. But he also took time to touch on a controversial report from the Department of Homeland Security, documenting

  April 20, 2009

• Phil Valentine: Earth Day Boogeymen Depantsing Nation's Schoolchildren

  You'll never see this guy sweat. That's cuz Phil Valentine knows global warming ain't real.Earth Day is a sham. There, we said it. Maybe some of you think it's cool to celebrate a bunch of dirt and lava and tectonic plates. But last time we checked, false idols were still a smiteworthy offense. And there's nothing "cool" about a slow indoctrination into the neopagan cult that is Wicca. Unless you count the flowing robes. We've got nothing against those. But as we've said before, that's strictl

  April 27, 2009

• A Conservative Testifies for NPR

  From correspondent Mark Breton: I'm a conservative. I listen to talk radio. Now before you get your shorts in a knot, listen. The talk radio station I listen to the most is NPR. I am all kinds of broke and the sounds and stories combined, especially with the local-flavor interviews, leave me feeling like I have actually been somewhere. Of course, am always traveling to empoverished/victimized/war-torn/third-world (insert adjective here) countries through NPR, but it beats being ignorant. I t

  April 30, 2009

• Pirate Phil Valentine Says: Arr-len Specter Be Nothin' More Than a Traitorous Scallywag

  For approximately four paragraphs in this week's editorial, Phil Valentine made Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter's recent jump to the Democratic party sound like a thrilling high seas defection. Then he dropped the metaphor in favor of his usual steaming hot paella of contrived analogies and tone-deaf similes. It was sad. Thus the following parody is short, both in homage to Phil's own commitment and the knowledge that fake pirate accents aren't funny in the least. Pirate Phil: Ahoy matey! A

  May 4, 2009

• Valentine's View: Americans Too Willing to Bend Over, Take it When it Comes to Big Brother

  We read Phil Valentine so you don't have to... Column: Citizens are all too willing to give up their privacy Topic: Fingerprinting speeders, and other signs of creeping totalitarianism. Phil's Current Sanity Level: An uncomfortably balmy 63 What Your Head Would Feel Like if You Read it Yourself: You're John Malkovich in the movie Being John Malkovich. You've just entered the portal discovered by failed puppeteer John Cusack that literally puts you inside your own head. Everyone in this world

  May 26, 2009

• Valentine's View: Phil Can Balance a Budget, Why Can't Tennessee?

  We read Phil Valentine so you don't have to... Column: State's next governor must be fiscally responsible Topic: The rising cost of government in Tennessee. Phil's Current Sanity Level: 37 What Your Head Would Feel Like if You Read it Yourself: You've just snorted a line of diced habaneros. Your eyes are watering, your nose is running and your brain feels like a buffet for a swarm of fire ants. You reek of peppers and failure, and everybody's laughing at you. Charting Phil's Logic: 1. It's

  June 22, 2009

• Liberty Rally: TN Teabaggers Unite Today at Noon at Legislative Plaza

  If you find yourself oddly aroused by this sign, then today's rally is for you!To paraphrase one of America's great founding terrorists, Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty or give me tea!" In that quintessentially American spirit, today there's another teabagger conclave, "The Middle Tennessee Liberty Rally," brought to you by the Tennessee Tea Party. And what better time to push back against the communist infiltrators than the week of Independence Day. To wit(less):...The Middle Tennessee Liberty

  June 29, 2009

• Teabaggers Unite to Help Promote Talk Radio

  The scene at today's teabaggers rally. Nashville's talk radio stations managed to wheedle maybe a thousand cranks to stand in the broiling heat for another one of their promotional events today. Well, actually they're calling it a Tea Party rally to take back our country from Barack Obama and the socialist Democrats. But the star attractions are the city's right-wing radio hucksters and, while the protesters may think they're making a bold patriotic statement, Pith suspects the radio stations a

  June 29, 2009

• Tennessean's Publisher to Serve as Chairman of Nashville's Convention & Visitor's Bureau

  Tennessean publisher Ellen Leifeld is the new chairman of Nashville's Convention & Visitor's Bureau. Leifeld was one of five new additions to the 18-member board announced Monday, including Regions Bank president Keith Herron and Titans secondary coach Marcus Robertson. Leifeld is the only new board member, however, who also runs a publication responsible for covering the NCVB's biggest project: The selling of the proposed Music City Center. Up to this point, it'd be charitable to say the city'

  July 14, 2009

• Best of Nashville 2009: Readers' Poll

  October 15, 2009

• Morning Roundup: Sahel Kazemi's Life Insurance, Murfreesborean in Space and More

  ​Will the cause of death block Sahel Kazemi's aunt from collecting on her $10,000 group life-insurance policy? ...Just hours after last night's late-night fatality, a second car accident occurs near the same strip of asphalt near Antioch....Why would you pay $1,000 for a copy of Phil Valentine's book you can get online for $13.57? Why, to support the "nonpartisan research organization" Tennessee Center for Policy Research, Rex reports....Bishop David Choby addresses the Franklin congregation w

  October 26, 2009

• Morning Roundup: Nashville Suit Alleges Halliburton 'Burn Pits' and More

  When it wasn't charging the U.S. taxpayer $45 for a case of soda, controversial defense contractor Halliburton found time to shower our troops with potentially toxic ash from "burn pits," incinerating everything from pesticides and hazardous chemicals to human corpses. So alleges a lawsuit filed in Nashville against Halliburton and its former subsidiary KBR.... An ugly racial rift opens over the hotly contested District 5 Metro Council race between incumbent Pam Murray and challenger Jamie Holli

  November 9, 2009