We’ve got trouble. Right here in Music City. The rightward creep of the country is hardly news. In times of unrest and destabilization, Americans long for the assurance of traditional values, backed by the might of a strong military and just commanders. It makes sense that the culture wars would finally paratroop into Nashville, the heart of country music and the country’s symbolic center—something Robert Altman pinpointed almost 30 years ago.
But damn, they got nasty fast. The Dixie Chicks speak their minds—and a lot of other folks’—and the right-wing shadow controllers of country radio lower the boom. An anti-bias ordinance in the Metro Council dredges up latent hostility toward gays with unimagined vehemence. The prejudice even surfaces in the area’s churches—one of which blocks out the word “Episcopal” from its sign rather than follow its leaders into the light. Ho freakin’ ho.
So as always at this time of year, we step in as Nashville’s Bad Santa, with a sack full of switches and ashes for the city’s naughtiest children. We see where you’ve been sleeping. We know when you’re a fake. We know when you’ve been bad or good. So be good for goodness’ sake. ’Cause if you don’t, you wind up here.
In the Boner Awards.
And to all, a good night.
Boner country
The year in country music was pretty well summed up by President Bush’s you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us rhetoric—good news for Toby Keith, but bad news for The Dixie Chicks and any listeners who happened to think that maybe the war in Iraq wasn’t such a great idea.
Chick Fil-A.
Who needs artists who sell 10 million copies per album release? Apparently, not country music. When Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines—who has always flexed her American right to say whatever she dang well pleases—dared criticize the president to a London concert crowd, country-radio programmers cracked down with the fury of Zeus. The Cumulus chain ordered all 41 of its country stations to nix the Chicks, and a Cumulus station in Louisiana even made a public event out of crushing their CDs under a 33,000-pound tractor—a spectacle that reminded The New York Times’ Paul Krugman of a Nuremberg rally. And while Clear Channel, the insidious Texas-based octopus that dominates America’s radio airwaves, denied it ever sent a missive ordering the Chicks banned, their music began to disappear mysteriously from Clear Channel playlists. (Of course, there was no connection between any of this and Clear Channel pooh-bah Tom Hicks’ well-documented business history with President Bush, or the radio juggernaut’s shameless pro-war saber-rattling.) Just as right-wingers pounced on the group, the left took up their cause. Even so, Maines apologized publicly, disappointing fans who appreciated the sassy singer’s straight talk even if they didn’t agree. But when contrition failed, the Chicks took the offensive, posing nude on an Entertainment Weekly cover splashed with their critics’ worst taunts. Not only did the move score the Chicks a PR bonanza, rallying fans to their side, it sent a sobering reminder to Music Row that there aren’t many other country artists capable of landing an EW cover.
Why they call it courtship.
The torrid relationship of singers Lorrie Morgan and Sammy Kershaw ended this year as it began—in public rancor. The relationship first came to light in a flurry of divorce-court allegations from Kershaw’s ex, who told colorful tales of illicit tour-bus rendezvous and angry in-person confrontations where the two women debated whom Sammy had loved the most and the longest. Before the divorce papers were even signed, Lorrie and Sammy had pledged their eternal love, saying they’d both made mistakes in the past, but they’d finally found the one. Well, eternity is a long, long time, especially when things break down to nose-biting, window-breaking, double-protection-orders public fighting. The office pool goes to those who gave it two years, tops. But one question remains: How does this affect the hot-chicken franchise?
Queer Eye for the Straight Boner
All it took was a little old anti-discrimination measure coming before the Metro Council, and suddenly all those years of watching Will & Grace went out the window. 2003 saw a backlash against gays ripple throughout the city’s politics, and we’d love to report Nashvillians were too enlightened to rise to the bait. We’d also love to report that Fat Mo’s hamburgers cure heart disease.
That platform could get you elected in Kentucky.
In a year-defining battle that exposed the city’s ugliest elements, a Metro Council measure intended to protect gays and lesbians from employment and housing discrimination wound up pitting well-meaning goo-goos against a coalition of bigots, religious hysterics and cowards. Inside chambers, Council members bickered, delayed, wrung their hands and raised all manner of loony objections. At one point, the Council’s notorious songbird Carolyn Baldwin Tucker even wondered aloud whether the measure would protect public-school workers who practice bestiality.
We might be cursed with public transportation, cute guys and really great wine.
There were several odd sideshows in the debate over the anti-discrimination ordinance. The Bible came under scrutiny: Does Leviticus 18:22 really prohibit anal sex among men? Or is it more of a guideline? California also got pulled into the fray. Opponents of the pro-gay measure said if the bill were passed, we would become the “San Francisco of the Southeast.” To which attorney Abby Rubenfeld, a lesbian activist, replied demurely in the daily newspaper, “It is a lovely city.”
Wrong said Fred.
Regrettably, the freak show spilled out of the Council onto the steps of the Metro Courthouse, where a crackpot Kansas twerp named Fred Phelps brandished signs reading “Faggots rot in hell” and “Thank God for Sept. 11.” (The cops nearby didn’t share his conviction.) The alleged “reverend” was such a noxious presence that area churches didn’t show up to protest, lest people think he was with them. That left Phelps with even fewer supporters than teeth, all but alone against hundreds of gay demonstrators. Luckily, they seemed more amused by him than angered. When Phelps garbled a taunt through a bullhorn, the only response he got was a distant cry of “Enunciate!”
April Fool.
When the vote finally took place—fittingly, on April 1—the resulting tie put the measure’s fate in the hands of Howard Gentry, the city’s vice mayor. Gentry, a black man who, while campaigning, often mentioned the discrimination he felt as a child, didn’t waste time. Without a moment’s hesitation, he hit the red button—thereby dooming the measure to defeat.
Over Dale.
After Gentry’s profile in courage, preying on irrational fear of gays became a popular item in the summer’s Council election playbook. It worked for Tucker, but at least it didn’t work for everyone. Former Council member Roy Dale branded two of his fellow at-large candidates as veritable RuPauls just for supporting the anti-bias measure. “If you want Nashville to be more like California,” read his mailing, “say 'hello San Fran Nashville’ and vote for David Briley and Adam Dread.” By contrast, the mailings trumpeted Dale as someone who “supports traditional family values.” As one opponent couldn’t help but point out, though, Dale is currently married to his fourth wife—who could be heard outside the polls on election day saying, “Vote for Roy Dale, or you’ll go to hell.” Apparently we’re now in hell.
The lesser of two evils.
Curiously, Gentry still won the endorsement of the Nashville gay newspaper Out & About Nashville, which made several unlikely realpolitik endorsements of Council candidates with less-than-stellar track records on tolerance. But the gambit led to the outlandish spectacle of a candidate actually rejecting a newspaper’s support. “I respectfully request that you withdraw your endorsement of my candidacy,” huffed incensed District 12 candidate Jim Gotto, who opposes homosexuality on religious grounds, “and I will treat your failure to do so as untruthful, slanderous and an overt attempt on your part to misrepresent my position....” The endorsement made little sense anyway—until Gotto’s opponent, Ron Hickman, piped up. “Homosexuality is a perversion of what God intended for human sexuality,” Hickman told the Scene. “There’s no way I would approve an ordinance protecting such a lifestyle choice.” Lucky District 12.
Boners at Large
An election year always provides grist for the Boner mill, especially one that involves the contentious fiefdoms of the Metro Council. But this year the Council’s bozos outdid themselves, whether impeding civic progress, initiating meaningless squabbles or waging hilariously petty or bizarre campaigns. For your added pleasure: a few electoral Boners that extend beyond the city limits.
In a related story, business was down at area Burger Kings.
Local reporters don’t have former Metro Council member Tony Derryberry to kick around anymore. It’s their loss, since the Murfreesboro Road councilman racked up an impressive array of blunders in just one term. Last summer The Tennessean named Derryberry among the Council’s most prolific spenders, with nearly $20,000 in expenses that even included fast-food receipts. Then, in a Channel 5 exposé about abuses of handicapped parking, who else should come jogging across the street on camera to his handicapped-plated car. Trying to demonstrate his infirmity, the red-faced Council member rolled up his pants legs and showed viewers his weak knees. Then there was the time two years ago when he tried to rename a road in his district “Derryberry Boulevard.” Alas, voters in District 13 resoundingly rejected Derryberry last summer in favor of a little-known challenger.
Of ballots and bullets.
Here’s a once-in-a-lifetime campaign slogan: “I’m the only candidate in this race who hasn’t killed anyone.” It would have worked for Council District 30 incumbent Michael Kerstetter, whose two rivals each had deadly shootings on their résumés. One opponent, B.J. Brown, who campaigned to bring more film-production work to Nashville, shot a carjacker dead. The other, Mark Woodside, whose platform stressed constituent service, shot and killed a man in self-defense while working as a bail bondsman. Kerstetter wound up winning reelection handily. Wonder why he didn’t go around bragging.
Harry Potter and the Council of Morons.
Even on the most innocuous matter—like a harmless resolution introduced by a local magician—the Council still managed to pull rabbits out of its ass. In October, Nelson Griswold asked the Council to declare a “Nashville Magic Week,” the sort of feel-good resolution routinely passed without a thought—especially when, like this one, it contains provisions for entertaining sick children. Presto! Seven Council nits, including the reliably nutty Tucker, actually voted against it, presumably on grounds that constituents might think they were tools of Satan. Constituents know better: Satan has competency standards.
Lloyd Bentsen is sitting by the phone.
In the spirit of fans who still write NBC demanding the return of Manimal, a group of die-hard Al Gore supporters made a quixotic bid to draft their hero and retake the presidency—even though the former Veep had quashed their hopes. Despite attempts to muster that elusive “mo,” the feeble Draft Gore “movement” failed to stir the imagination of the press, the people or even the candidate himself. Only last week did it dawn on the faithful that the cause was lost. The killing blow came when Gore told the world to vote for somebody else. “In response to Vice President Al Gore’s decision to endorse Howard Dean for president,” the group’s Web site message read, “Draft Gore has decided to bring this year-long campaign for a Gore candidacy and draft to a close.” Ya think?
The unofficial tally was Machine 1, Dumbass 0.
While demonstrating how to use one of the county’s new electronic voting machines, Smyrna poll worker Bob Swanner pushed a button and accidentally cast a vote. City officials were even more flummoxed when the election ended in a tie between two candidates vying for the second spot on the Town Council—and Swanner could not remember which one he inadvertently had voted for.
The school of hard Boners
Welcome to the fraternity of academic Boners, where the highest-paid university official and the lowliest frat rat meet on a field of equally matched idiocy. As Tennessee’s institutions of higher education reeled from controversies in 2003, this year’s graduating class of Boners was separated only by a matter of degrees.
Boner cum laude.
If Vanderbilt’s E. Gordon Gee is the Teflon Chancellor—a shiny surface to which nothing will stick—UT President John Shumaker proved himself a human strip of Velcro. In a year when the heads of several Tennessee state universities faced scandal, Shumaker’s painful public plummet from grace, combined with his Wile E. Coyote arrogance (and his replacement of equally scandal-plagued predecessor E. Wade Gilley), made him this year’s Boner valedictorian. Day after day brought more bad news about Shumaker’s astonishingly poor judgment and chronically unethical behavior: regularly flying on a state plane to visit his girlfriend, using a state credit card to buy a $6,000 ticket to Greece, even outfitting his university-provided home with furniture and accoutrements that Scarface would envy. To make matters worse, Shumaker prevaricated ad nauseam—and unconvincingly—about all the unseemly purchases. In August, a month after WTVF-Channel 5’s Phil Williams first reported about his financial indiscretions, Gov. Phil Bredesen finally asked him to resign. In a final display of watermelon-sized cojones, Shumaker recently asked a judge to reduce the alimony payments he’s required to pay his ex-wife. “I have no prospects for employment in the next year, at a minimum,” he told the court. “I have exhausted every avenue at my disposal to earn money.” So much for the value of a college education.
All that Hefner allows.
All universities generate their share of ill press, but whenever TSU makes the news for the wrong reasons, James Hefner’s name can usually be found in the first 30 words. The university’s alleged president is being investigated for foolishly accepting tickets to the 2000 and 2001 Super Bowls from a company that does a helluva lot of business with TSU. Hefner soft-pedaled this latest imbroglio in a statement, saying that “in retrospect [accepting the tickets] may have been poor judgment.” Actually, in retrospect Hefner may have violated state law, which restricts heads of state departments and agencies from receiving gifts from suppliers.
John Blutarski rides again.
On the morning a front-page story in Sidelines, MTSU’s student-run newspaper, charged that two fraternities owed $93,000 in debt to the university, all but 600 of the student newspaper’s 8,000 distributed copies mysteriously disappeared from racks around campus. School officials strongly suspected that members of the delinquent frats, Kappa Sigma and Pi Kappa Alpha, were behind the theft. But if the thieves hoped the story would vanish along with the papers, their ploy backfired: The theft catapulted the story onto every local TV newscast and into papers across the state. “Obviously, it was somebody who’s not real bright,” said Bob Glenn, vice president for Student Affairs.
Big Blunder is watching you.
A peaceful “Books Not Bombs” protest rally at MTSU last March drew an unexpected visitor: a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent who identified himself to several of the speakers and asked pro-peace activists for their names. Understandably, the protesters wondered why a government agent was collecting their names on a list. When the gaffe made headlines, the TBI later announced that it would change its policy on sending agents to monitor peace rallies. But the embarrassing flap handed plenty of ammo to activists who accuse the Bush administration of clamping down on dissent.
I’m so gald I went to TUS.
TSU’s new home white basketball jerseys did the university proud, with one tiny problem: They misspelled the school’s home state. The jerseys, which announced that the wearers represented “Tennesse State,” were used for four home games before the error was corrected. “We caught it after the first game,” said coach Cy Alexander. “But we didn’t get [the jerseys] until the day of that game, so we had to wear them.”
America’s Funniest Homeland Security Threats.
Vanderbilt freshman Jared Whaley was jailed in February after security guards caught him allegedly trying to break into the Federal Building downtown. Whaley, who was carrying a large U.S. Postal Service mailbag, admitted to officers that he had drunk a large quantity of alcohol and had no idea how he ended up on the building’s loading dock.
Clenched Fisk.
Carolynn Reid-Wallace was, by almost everyone’s estimation, one of the finest presidents to grace the campus of Fisk University in some time. Students loved her. Alumnae loved her. Staffers loved her. But the university’s board of trustees couldn’t help but mess up a good thing. Several meddlesome trustees micromanaged her every move so severely that she couldn’t even issue a press release without going through the trustees’ rewrite committee. One day at lunch with the board’s chairman, Reid-Wallace simply announced she’d had enough in trying to turn around the financially beleaguered institution amidst all the second-guessing. And she quit. It was a tragedy for the campus, for the neighborhood and for the city.
The Boner, mightier than the sword
Whether simply bringing the bad news, or actually providing it, print and TV media had a hand in this year’s harvest of ignoble behavior and civic blunders. Read and weep.
News you can lose.
Michael Jackson had a better 2003 than WSMV-Channel 4. After a protracted ratings slide, the station canned its news director, Mark Shafer. His replacement, Andrew Finlayson, flogged lame exposés on wild dogs, Tennessee moonshine and (wake up, America!) dirty school bathrooms. Despite these surefire shots of ratings Viagra, Channel 4 stayed limp, losing viewers in nearly every newscast during last month’s sweeps compared to the year before. As added humiliation, there was general manager Steve Ramsey’s crass decision to let sports anchor Rudy Kalis shill for the ubiquitous Dr. Ming Wang in return for free eye surgery. As for bright spots, Nancy Amons is a fine reporter, and Larry Brinton and Dennis Ferrier bring some personality to Channel 4’s newscast. But take away them and WSMV’s assured anchors, and you have generic mid-market news-related Cheez Whiz.
Bring me the head of Pedro Garcia.
A head-butting contest between veteran newshound Larry Brinton and Metro Schools director Pedro Garcia produced one of 2003’s liveliest showdowns. Last March, Garcia discovered that an upper-level employee, Gene Hughes, had fibbed not only about his credentials but also about being a Navy SEAL and a former Pittsburgh Steeler. Instead of canning the yarn-spinner, Garcia let Hughes off with a demotion, then inexplicably let his salary creep up to $80,000—close to what it was before Brinton fingered his fishy résumé. That caught the attention of old-school WSMV muckraker Brinton, who broke the story (and caught Tennessean education reporter Diane Long napping). As the story deepened and Garcia dug in his heels, the 72-year-old reporter refused to back off, upping the pressure with confrontational relish. Eventually, Garcia relented and Hughes was fired. The normally brash Garcia apologized to his school board and rightly—if painfully—called Brinton’s work “a great service.”
Everyone knows you shouldn’t make stuff up about lawyers.
When Tennessean reporter Margo Rivers wrote that a falsely convicted man was betrayed by his incompetent defense attorney, she got just about everything right—except for the small matter of the lawyer’s identity. Thus attorney Gregory Reed, who in fact helped overturn the defendant’s conviction on appeal, was named as the negligent barrister who failed his client and landed him in prison. The egregious error confounded many of her colleagues, who speculated Rivers didn’t understand that defendants don’t always keep their trial lawyer in the appeals process. Whatever the case, when the paper realized the bungle—which went out to more than 100,000 readers—it was forced to issue a groveling 600-word front-page retraction to ward off a lawsuit. Not only did it set the record straight, it made Reed out to be the spiritual and intellectual offspring of Clarence Darrow and Mother Theresa.
In a related story, French radio listeners were invited to paddle an ass.
Ever the bon vivant, talk-radio anus Steve Gill hosted a Peugeot-bashing “Stand Up for America Rally” on Feb. 28 to help launch a call for boycotting French products. Participants paid $10 a pop to whack the French-made automobile with a sledgehammer, while World War II veterans were allowed to get in their licks for free. Sadly, Jacques Chirac made no counteroffer for clobbering Gill.
Physician, steal thyself.
In September, the City Paper published a damaging story about St. Thomas Hospital’s struggle to properly document medical records. By a strange coincidence, the free daily vanished early that morning from the racks at both St. Thomas and its nearby sister facility, Baptist Hospital. The brass at St. Thomas offered the unconvincing explanation that eager readers grabbed up every paper just minutes after dawn. Other employees told the Scene, however, that the hospital’s touchy bigwigs simply confiscated them. Too bad they didn’t actually read the papers and take notes, instead of bullying the messenger and dropping their advertising with the City Paper.
Sex and Boners
Now that we have your attention....
With headlights like these, who needs a car show?
The Slammin & Jammin Car Show last May drew somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people to Lebanon last May, but the souped-up autos weren’t the hottest attraction in town. That would have been the impromptu mock-Mardi Gras being enacted on the town square, where hundreds of cruisers wandered the streets with open beers and girls flashed their breasts for beads. When the night ended, 31 arrests had been made, and many more could have been. Asked why the night became such a madhouse, a sanguine city official speculated that “all these young women taking their tops off is an attraction to men.”
As if that made it OK somehow.
The 12 former Nashville Kats cheerleaders who sued the Nashville Predators and the team’s sister company, Powers Management, for $13 million over cameras hidden in their locker room may have thought the invasion of their privacy was over. If so, they didn’t count on an aggressive defense strategy that seemed bent on depicting the women as shameless exhibitionists. Defense lawyers grilled the women during discovery with intrusive—and irrelevant—questions about whether they’d ever worked in strip clubs or posed nude. One cheerleader was even asked if she’d contracted a venereal disease. (The answer was no.) Observers reasoned that the questions were meant to limit possible punitive damages farther down the line. In which case the strategy may come back to haunt the defendants: Judge Hamilton Gayden ruled that the questions themselves could be taken into account as mistreatment if damages are assessed.
No, that’s what drive-ins are for.
State Rep. Bubba Pleasant, R-Arlington, proposed a bill that would ban showing dirty movies in vehicles such as limousines and minivans where they could be seen by outside passengers. The bill seemed doomed from the start on constitutional grounds over what constitutes obscenity, but the lawmaker fought the good fight against smut undeterred. “You can have your rights,” Pleasant argued, “and me and my family and our friends don’t have to sit at a red light and watch somebody have intercourse right in front of our children.”
They were booked on conspiracy to commit afternoon delight.
In September, a Maury County man dialed 911—this was definitely not an 862-8600 matter—to report that his neighbors were having sex in their front yard in broad mid-afternoon daylight, not far from a school bus stop. “They’re, they’re fucking out there in the yard!” the caller cried. Seven minutes later, still glued to the window, he added, “They’re standing up now, and she’s giving him...I mean, it’s awful.” When deputies arrived, they said they found Dan Gilchrist, 45, on the ground in his underwear, and Paula Parris, 44, allegedly naked from the waist down. An open bottle of vodka was found nearby. For his part, Gilchrist told a WKRN reporter the witnesses were mistaken. “My goodness,” Gilchrist said, in what sounds like the start of a classic defense, “even I have a little sense.”
Random acts of Bonerdom
Whole Lotto shakin’ goin’ on.
Say, wasn’t that new state lottery supposed to generate money for scholarships, not soak it up? Sucker! So far, the coming scratch-ticket bonanza has been nothing but a kick in the Powerballs for cash-strapped Tennessee. First Gov. Phil Bredesen drew out a public squabble with state Sen. Steve Cohen over who should appoint the lottery board—Phil or the legislature. No sooner had that controversy ended than Bredesen’s handpicked board hand-delivered a humongous salary package to former Georgia lottery director Rebecca Paul. The result: Paul stands to collect upwards of $750,000, so that low-income Tennesseans can squander their rent money on scratch-off games. We have a winner!
Who’s the real victim here?
Williamson County resident Deirdre Russell has an innovative approach to tort law: sue the injured. On July 31, an airport officer wrote Russell a ticket after she refused to move her idled Mercedes from a loading area. As the officer stepped in front of the car, she tried to drive away and struck him on the knee, sending him to the hospital. When other officers arrived at the scene, Russell lobbied them to “blame this on PMS and be done with this incident.” In a tactical masterstroke, she also threatened litigation—making her perhaps the first motorist in automotive history to consider suing the person she’d just hit with her car.
He’s been driving a Ford lately.
Earlier this year, white-collar defense lawyer Aubrey Harwell corralled some of the city’s richest pigs and lavished a new Jeep Cherokee on outgoing Police Chief Emmett Turner. It was an antiquated and grandiose gesture, especially considering Turner’s controversial tenure—but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the former police chief had accepted a new job as the state fire marshal, just after Gov. Bredesen unveiled a new ethics policy that restricts high-level state employees from receiving gifts like—well, brand-new SUVs. As soon as the Scene broke the story about Turner’s good fortune, his gift went back in the garage.
At least one mad dog was off the streets.
In his tenure as Hendersonville dogcatcher, overzealous pooch patrolman Matt Slone managed to make citizens long for the company of a snarling rottweiler. In one incident, Slone threatened to seize the dog of a man who didn’t even live in Hendersonville, then allegedly called him a “stupid foreigner” and threatened arrest. In another, a woman told the Scene that Slone said he’d take away her dog because she wasn’t feeding him the best dog food. When Slone felt a local alderman had slighted the importance of his job, he reportedly called the man and said, “I will bring you great pain.” Last June, he demanded to enter Troy Meeks’ home to chase Barkley, a Lab mutt Slone had seen off his leash. Meeks’ daughter reluctantly let Slone in, but even then the clever pup outwitted his hapless pursuer. Then there was the time Slone reportedly blocked the path of a county animal-control van, saying he was going to demonstrate how to clean a truck. After his epic misadventures drew unwelcome media attention, Slone quit his job.
Napoleon Bonehead.
When the Tennessee Performing Arts Center hosted a grand opening to showcase its $7.9 million renovation project, the occasion was meant to boost a shared sense of pride in the arts. Instead, it provided a moment to reflect on the importance of a decent education. Shortly after the unveiling, patrons noticed that TPAC’s costly 40-foot-wide floor mural contained several badly misspelled words—unless Napoleon’s last name really was “Boneparte.” It also managed to spell “conscious” as “concious” and flubbed the Latin phrase “Ars gratia artis.” In a statement that made us glad he’s not a surgeon, TPAC honcho Steven Greil smoothly noted that “there were several hundred letters; we missed four or five.” Buy a vowel, Steve.
If there’s a naked man in duct tape, this must be Dickerson Road.
Early on July 9, Gregory Leon Bell allegedly approached a Dollar General store on Dickerson Road, pulled his shirt over his face and told loading-dock employees that he had a gun. When one of the brawny workers thought that Bell looked unarmed, he and a colleague quickly swarmed the hapless crook. Police found Bell naked and bound with duct tape on a street corner, where the dock workers left him to wait for the cops.
If your nickname is Stinky, you’re probably the one.
In August, Murfreesboro’s City Council took the unusual measure of requiring that no city employee “shall have an odor generally offensive to others.” Odder still, the policy was apparently adopted with regard to one unnamed individual whose stench is notorious. City Attorney Susan McGannon said the policy was a last resort after years of complaints and repeated efforts to coax the odorous offender to come clean. “When you have someone come to you and say that they were becoming nauseated,” said McGannon, “you have a problem.”
In court, every dog-killer has his day.
Cookeville police officer Eric Hall, who made national headlines in 2002 for shooting a North Carolina family’s dog during a mistaken traffic stop, put the blame for the well-publicized fiasco squarely where it belonged—on the city of Cookeville. Hall filed suit against the city, claiming that officials had wrongly released information from his personnel file. As a result, alleged Hall, he had been exposed to harassment. Too bad the defense couldn’t call the dog.
Seven hours of passion for learning, five days a week.
Bill Boner was hired by Franklin High School to teach government classes.
