Stressed Out And Grumpy

So, Nashville is in the throes of a 13-year cicada bloom, and normally these weird little critters wouldn’t bother me except my dogs love to eat them, and apparently they are 100% pure protein, which to a dog is like being on a five-day crack binge so I’m going nuts.

Just imagine: an 8-month-old pitbull on a five day crack binge. There simply are no words. Riley has been in timeout three times today.

I mean, Jesus.

I think I know how the parents of two-year-olds feel. Well, no, actually, I don’t. You can’t lock your toddler in a wire crate and grab a glass of wine while he howls in the other room.

Can you?

If Only The Poor Would Just Go Away

The good, white Christian folk of Williamson County are miffed that the wages of our unequal society’s sin are out there for all to see. If only the homeless and poor would just go away, am I right? It’s just so icky that the poor have the nerve to try to earn a living and improve their economic circumstances, where everyone has to see them! Can’t they do that somewhere else, somewhere ... not so visible?

Because when you live in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States (and also one of the most conservative) it’s just too unpleasant to be reminded that the free market fantasy in which you indulge yourself doesn’t work for everyone.

I know I love to pick on Williamson County but in all fairness they aren’t the only ones who have a problem with The Contributor. We’re always hearing about businesses complaining about The Contributor vendors, and it’s true they are everywhere. There are several in my neighborhood hitting up students on their way to Lipscomb and Belmont, and commuters on their way to work. Personally I don’t see what the problem is. Aren’t we always telling these folks to get a job? No, not that job! Get a job where we don’t have to see you! Am I right?

Cut the crap, America. This hypocrisy is getting old.

The Contributor is a damn fine newspaper. It’s actually won some national awards. You can read about the paper here.

Who’s The Asshole Who Destroyed Nashville’s Community Garden?

The Greenhouse Of Death

The Tennessee Dept. of Transportation, aka the “Department of Concrete,” is living up to its nickname by punching local hippies kicking the African American community bulldozing Nashville’s best known community garden:

B.J. Doughty, TDOT spokeswoman, said the group, called EarthMatters Tennessee and led by Sizwe Herring, had basically allowed the site to deteriorate, moving from its originally stated “green” goal of sustainable crop production and composting to a hodge-podge of uses.

“I don’t know of a single vegetable growing there,” Doughty said. “There were a couple of abandoned vehicles on the site.”

What the hell? Have you looked at the calendar, lady? Global warming notwithstanding, Nashville’s last frost date is April 5 -- three days ago. There ain’t gonna be any vegetables growing there for a while. Are you a total moron, or just pretending to be one?

And I’m calling major bullshit on that “allowed the site to deteriorate” stuff. This is my neighborhood. I drive past here every day; I jog past here, I walk my dogs by here. It has not deteriorated. It’s a working garden. I’m sorry it doesn’t look enough like Cheekwood for you. This isn’t for the perfumed set to ooh and aaah over as they drink their sweet tea. This is for people to grow food. It’s an all-volunteer operation and yes, there are people working out here most Saturdays! In season, this is a vibrant community garden with, yes, vegetables and a rose garden honoring Deford Bailey.

Smelling a tremendous waft of bullshit over this story, I headed down to the site this afternoon and witnessed the carnage for myself. There I met and spoke with Sizwe Herring, heard an EarthMatters board member wonder how she could possibly raise the $10,000 TDOT threatened to charge for its “cleanup,” and listened as an elderly African American lady with her hair in curlers laid into the TDOT crew about how humanity was destroying God’s creation and nobody seemed to care. It just about broke my heart to see this rag-tag group of people who had been called to the site on a workday while TDOT supervisors in their starched white shirts put the riff raff in their place.

Near as I could gather, the EarthMatters folks had been given a month to clean up the site, but then for some reason TDOT bulldozers arrived early. I honestly don’t know what happened on that end. What I did hear is that two -- two -- residents across the street from the garden complained about noise and called the garden an eyesore.


Two.

One of the TDOT supervisors told me the garden was not the problem, the greenhouse was. It was filthy. Oh my. A dirty greenhouse, can you imagine? /sarcasm. You can see the picture of it above.

If you’ve been to the site, you know that the greenhouse sits far back from the street, behind a chain-link fence covered with honeysuckle. I can’t imagine how that could possibly be an eyesore to any residents. You have to be inside the garden to even see it!

Someone else said the problem was the composting operation, which according to BJ Doughty in the article above was part of the original deal the state made with EarthMatters. So if the state decided it no longer wanted composting, they surely didn't have to bring bulldozers out to stop it.

The other complaint from these two neighbors was noise, which is the most hilarious complaint of all. Apparently the gardeners had drumming and flutes and other live music on work days -- something I never saw, but of course I’m not out there every weekend. Regardless, the irony of someone complaining about noise when they live in the shade of the Interstate is pretty rich. Plus, Sevier Park backs up to those houses and the city actually hosts live music concerts there every summer. So, I'm calling bullshit on that complaint too.

The TDOT folks were doing a lot of talking and we heard one thing from one person and another thing from someone else. One guy told me the gardens would not be destroyed, but for some reason the hand-painted pavillions were demolished when I got there. I just don't know why a pavillion is a problem. I'm totally not getting it.

I don’t know these folks who complained. Maybe they are extraordinarily sensitive -- in which case, why move next to I-440? I just smell something else going on here, something along the lines of people not liking the poor blacks and dirty fucking hippies working together to plant a garden. That just really chaps some folks in the wrong place. I'm sorry but this just smacks of racism to me. If I'm wrong, well, bygones.

Anyway, I called Sen. Henry's office and his assistant offered to send me photos of the garden before TDOT "cleaned it up" -- which I said was unnecessary since I live near there and see it every day. She then said that there's nothing the Senator could do, the state Senate does not tell the departments how to run their business.

She actually said that. Which makes me think the state legislature is basically useless. I mean, it's good to know if TDOT accidentally bulldozes your house while pushing through a highway that your state Senator can't do a damn thing about it. But I digress.

And she then passed the buck to TDOT's Winston Gaffron at (615) 350-4300. So whatever. You know what to do.

ADDING.... The more I think about it, the more this stinks. TDOT folks have been acting so defensive about this whole thing ... from BJ Doughty saying she never saw a vegetable growing there to the starched-shirt crew on site this afternoon telling me the greenhouse was an eyesore.

Someone better dig into this.

Without further ado:

Raised Beds. With Stuff Growing In Them

Pavillion Destroyed By TDOT

I Know Let's Put A Racetrack Here

Here’s a garden tour from two years ago:

Jay Steele & Nashville Chamber: Keep Your Hands Off Our Kids

Metro Nashville Schools have been swept up in yet another contentious battle, this one over the firing of a beloved teacher (technically she is being fired from a program she started and ran for nearly 30 years, not fired from Metro. She’s to be moved to another school). For my non-Nashville readers, go to the link and brush up on the controversy.

The removal of Mary Catherine Bradshaw is a political not performance-based move. She appears to have stood in the way of our corporate overlords a shiny-sparkly new education philosophy:

Her firing from the program comes at a time when new Metro schools associate superintendent Jay Steele is restructuring the district's high schools into a collection of "career academies," a hand-in-glove enterprise with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce to funnel students into high-demand career tracks like information technology.

If the name Jay Steele sounds familiar it’s because I wrote about another of his “pet projects” last April:

Naming rights to academic programs in Metro Nashville's high schools are for sale, and one school has a buyer.

The Tennessee Credit Union now owns the signage to Antioch High School's academy of business and finance for a price of $150,000. The school board approved the two-year contract Tuesday night.

Administrators hope this is the first of many naming deals. It's the brainchild of Metro's new high school czar, Jay Steele, who had success with the idea as an administrator in Florida.

"It's not marketing to kids," Steele told The Tennessean in December. "It's tight guidelines that would align a targeted industry with a theme."

Tight guidelines that align a targeted industry with a theme! Just what Nashville’s schools need!

WTF does that even mean? It sounds like business school clap-trap to me. It seems Jay Steele is hell bent on turning our city’s youth into fodder for the jaws of commerce, and I guess we’re supposed to cheer along and marvel at what a great start in life our youth are getting, what great business skills they’re learning and how they will be wonderful worker bees for the corporatocracy. Is that it? Forgive me if I’m wrong here, but was there a problem of some kind I’m unaware of? Were businesses not choosing to locate in Nashville because our kids are dumb?

Look, I get that we need to educate our kids so they can go to college and get jobs; I get that we need to start them off in life on the right foot. I even applaud the idea of offering classes that educate kids for high-demand fields. But for crying out loud this Chamber of Commerce crap has got to stop. Y’all can just wait in line before you get your greedy paws on ‘em, okay? Let them be kids for a little while.

This is dehumanization, plain and simple. It’s telling our kids their value is only in their earning power. They aren’t human beings, they’re human doings. The message is: You’re not valuable to our community because you’re alive, because you’re a child of God and a member of the human family, because when we see you and your friends we’re reminded that there’s another generation coming behind us. You’re valuable because you have potential earning power, someday you too can fight and claw your way up to being an independent contractor with no benefits and a crappy credit score. And someday you can look forward to an exciting retirement, maybe when you’re 75, whereafter you can spend your days on your feet as a WalMart greeter.

This is a really hard concept to articulate and so many others have done it so much better. I just think commerce is a corrupting influence that does not belong in our schools. Anywhere. So to the Nashville Chamber of Commerce: wait your fucking turn. You can have our kids when we’re ready to give them to you. Right now, they belong to us.

And to Jay Steele, look: I know this is a radical idea for some of you young whippersnappers raised in a post-Reagan age, but I don’t happen to think that capitalism is the cure for every problem.

There’s an intellectual debate going on right now, and I’m going to refer folks back to my October 2009 post on the business of dehumanization. It's the one where I linked to Mark Slouka’s article in the September issue of Harper’s (“Dehumanized: When Math & Science Rule The School," and a subscription is required).

Slouka wrote:

Like a single species taking over an ecosystem, like an elephant on a see-saw, the problem today is disequilibrium. Why is every Crisis in American Education cast as an economic threat and never a civic one? In part, because we don’t have the language for it. Our focus is on the usual economic indicators. There are no corresponding “civic indicators,” no generally agreed-upon warning signs of political vulnerability, even though the inability of more than two thirds of our college graduates to read a text and draw rational inferences could be seen as the political equivalent of runaway inflation or soaring unemployment.

Of course, as I wrote at the time we do have those civic indicators: low voter turnout being a major one.

Slouka’s point was that an emphasis on math and science education at the expense of the humanities is a great way to create worker bees to feed the machinery of capitalism, and also a great way to starve the nation of critical thinking skills and knowledge which breeds dissent. It also devalues art, music, literature and the entire cultural spectrum of things which make life worth living.

It’s hard not to see capitalism’s creep into our schools, and watch as teachers are being devalued at every step, and then read about efforts to roll back child labor laws around the country and not wonder if there’s a connection.

The Incredible, InEVitable Leaf

Today Mr. Beale and I went down to Nissan headquarters in Cool Springs to test out the new Leaf as part of their “drive electric tour.” It was quite an amazing experience. If you get a chance to check one of these out, I recommend it.

There were about 25 or so people in our group, from all walks of life: engineers, car enthusiasts, DFH-types, you name it. I was impressed with the intelligent questions people asked; these were clearly enthusiasts. Well, except for the lone asshole in our group who arrived having decided he didn’t like EVs for some reason. Dude, why’d you sign up for the tour, then? He snorted at the battery's 100,000 mile warranty (“What happens if there’s a problem at 400,000 miles? Huh? HUH?!”) Let me add, I heard that same comment when I bought my hybrid. The batteries were only gonna last a year and cost thousands of dollars to replace! Well, wrong.

Most hilariously though was his issue with the “e" logo on the home charging station, which really seemed to tick this guy off. “Will all chargers have that? Even the public ones?” Answer: No. “Well that’s gonna be confusing!” Dude, how do you ever negotiate the plethora of gas station logos? BP, Shell, MapCo, Exxon -- you must be completely flummoxed, you poor dear.

Give me a break.

Anyway, fortunately he was pretty much the only asshole -- though one person snorted derisively on hearing there were just 250 Nissan Leafs on the road right now, as if that somehow implies nobody wants one. Of course, I’ve already addressed that here. But everyone else just seemed interested in learning what the Leaf is all about. And I learned a lot. For instance, I didn’t know Nissan has been making electric cars since the 1940s. The current disaster in Japan has temporarily shut down all of Nissan’s manufacturing but we were told the plant is expected to reopen in a week (though who knows). But the Leaf will be made in Tennessee’s Smyrna plant in 2012 and I think that’s going to be super exciting for Tennessee.

But you know, the car is pretty ordinary. It drives like any other car. It’s quieter, but if you already have a hyrbid you’re used to that. It’s a lot larger than I expected, the same as any other car. Mr. Beale drives an Altima and I’d say they’re about comparable. It drives pretty much the same as any other car, save some interesting electronic shifting and a push-button start.

The strangest thing about the Leaf is that it’s so quiet, they’ve actually had to add a speaker that emits engine noise at speeds lower than 18 mph to alert pedestrians a car is coming. I find that odd, and hope some day in the future pedestrians will have been conditioned to watch out for automobiles, not just listen for them.

But at the same time, the car is rather extraordinary. No tail pipe. No oil changes. No gas stations. This is quite revolutionary and I can see why Koch-types are scared. But it’s also the wave of the future. In 20 years every car will be an EV, it’s inevitable. Mark my words.

The Belly Of The Beast

Best Reason Yet To Buy A Leaf

The Famous Lithium Ion Battery

The Home Charging Station (With Totally "Confusing" Logo)

Note: I'm not on Nissan's payroll, do not own stock in Nissan, and in no way do I have any financial or other connection to Nissan. I'm just a big believer in the EV revolution. Thought I should make that clear.

Reality Bites NASCAR

If you’re not up to speed (ha ha, get it? Up to speed, oh I crack myself up) on Nashville’s racetrack controversy, temporarily kicked down the road by the Metro Council, read my previous posts here and here.

And now we have this piece of news involving one of the Nashville racetrack’s biggest boosters:

Baker Curb Racing, Middle Tennessee’s only full-time NASCAR team, has suspended operations indefinitely due to lack of funding.

Gary Baker, who co-owns the Nashville-based team with Mike Curb, said Saturday the team has not officially folded. He said it would reopen its doors if and when a sponsor is found.

But with the season less than a month away and no driver, crew or mechanics on board, Baker admitted the outlook is dismal.

“As it stands right now, we won’t be racing,” he said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Baker, a veteran of four decades in the sport as a driver, marketing official, track owner and team owner. “Corporate America is scared to invest in the future.”

Umm, no. They just aren’t investing in NASCAR racing. They’re still spending $3 million for a 30-second Super Bowl spot. With NASCAR dying a slow death for a variety of reasons can you blame them? Apparently the free market fairies have spoken.

And then there’s this:

Baker said that if he could secure $1 million in sponsorship funds — considered a bare minimum for a team in NASCAR’s second-tier series — Baker Curb Racing could win this year’s Nationwide Series championship.

Yes and if only I would secure the winning Powerball numbers I would finally have my villa in Tuscany. Dangit, there is clearly something wrong with the world that this hasn’t happened yet!

I have to wonder if things might not have gone a little differently at Metro Council had this news hit the papers two weeks ago, before the “master plan” compromise. I wonder why it didn’t. Oh well, that’s all water under the bridge. Probably the Council would have acted the same way. But as I’ve said from day one, if you want to save the slab of concrete that you keep telling us is hallowed ground because someone famous once slept there (or raced there), then you have to show us it can make money. And right now it’s just not looking good for you guys.

We aren’t a historic town. Never have been. We routinely bulldoze historic buildings with impunity. All anyone cares about is progress and profits. That’s reality. Every year Nashville’s preservationists are told to step aside because we stand in the way of progress -- often by some of the same people who have been trying to save the Nashville racetrack. So now that the shoe is on the other foot it's been interesting, to say the least.

Fairgrounds redevelopment isn't dead; the issue will be back. And I suspect the mayor will ultimately get what he wants because the economics are on his side. Just a thought.

Hope For Those Latte-Drinking NASCAR Fans

Regarding Nashville’s “future of our fairgrounds” controversy, which I wrote about here, I thought this was really funny:

The proposal detailed Thursday calls for replacing the swath of asphalt parking lots with trees and grass to retain rain and help drainage, a wind farm to take advantage of the hilly location, solar panels and bike paths and walking trails for neighbors. Charging stations for electric cars also are on tap with sound barrier walls to dampen track noise to keep neighbors happier.

Guffaw. This would be the proposal by Sterling Marlin and Chad Chaffin. It sounds just peachy. Why heck, just add a Starbucks, Volvo dealership and a wine store selling the best chardonnays and those snooty liberal elites who want to rip the “historic” slab of concrete out will be right on board. Why I’m sure the neighborhood will completely withdraw all opposition now that “sweeteners” like solar panels and EV charging stations are in play.

Again: guffaw. Y’all don’t seem to know much about the neighborhood do you? I'd say the only thing on that list anyone gives a damn about are the sound barrier walls.

Oh, and:

Darden Copeland said the group has serious investors ready, though no estimate is available yet for the cost for all those renovations. They want at least a 15-year lease from the city.

Right. By the way, Mr. Copeland, you wouldn’t happen to have a bridge in New York to sell folks too, would you? Just wondering.

I’m sure this will go the way of the Music City Center’s green roof, which they keep hacking away at to save money as the project’s budget balloons.

Look, as I said in the beginning, I really don’t care one way or the other about saving the fairgrounds or getting rid of it. Seems like the space could be put to better use, but if someone can prove me wrong then have at it. But as I said last week, money is what talks in this town: not saving history, not green roofs, not EV charging stations or solar panels or wind farms. Show us the money.

The fact that they’re already talking about closing the 10-year-old built-for-NASCAR superspeedway in Lebanon is rather ominous. These events either make money or they don’t. Saving something simply because Richard Petty once raced there ain’t gonna cut it. That’s what historic markers are for.

Solar panels and wind farms aren’t going to change that.

Sociopaths

If you have a few minutes today, you absolutely must read Ken Whitehouse’s story on fraudster/Ponzi schemer/aspiring Tennessee Republican politician Jeff Cassman. Cassman's fraud is considered "small potatoes" compared to, say, Bernie Madoff: he defrauded far fewer people and took much less money. But his victims were not nameless, faceless people. They were his friends and family, members of his church congregation and the like. In short: the people who trusted him the most. There surely has to be a special place in hell for people who will abuse someone's trust this way.

The article is called Banana Republican because as the law began closing in on Cassman and his web of lies (including the fib that he holds a Master’s in Theology from a Connecticut seminary), he and his family of 10 children skedaddled to Antigua, Guatemala. There Cassman lived under various assumed names and set up shop seeking out investors for his various schemes.

Guatemalan authorities arrested Cassman in October and he was brought home to face the music. He's since pled guilty and now awaits sentencing. It’s an absolutely unbelievable story, in part because I don’t remember a ton of coverage in the local media about the case and also because it's an absolute freaking miracle the guy was apprehended to begin with.

Writes Whitehouse:

How could a family that large disappear? The answer is simple: It’s easy to hide when no one is looking for you.

In 2008, when the Cassman family went missing, there was only one federal agent on the case. It wasn’t an agent from the FBI, SEC or treasury department. It was a member of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and he was about to be transferred out of the region. Over the past few years, postal agents have been integral parts of the teams that apprehended Ponzi schemers like Park, Grigg and Stokes, to name a few.

Well, good on the U.S. Postal Service! I can't believe this snake almost slithered away.

The guy is obviously a sociopath. And while he ran for Tennessee’s State House, twice, as a “family values” conservative, his actions show him to be anything but. Above and beyond the illegal activity, look how he treated his family while they were in Guatemala:

While Cassman was cataloguing his adventures online, his wife and kids were living in a squalid home where the children slept on tile floors. In 2009, his wife gave birth to their 10th child (she is currently expecting their 11th). In a letter to his in-laws, which they shared with The City Paper, Cassman’s children wrote that his then-14-year-old son delivered the baby and that Cassman couldn’t be reached because he was in church.

Cassman was actually at a bar smoking cigars, drinking and playing chess, his main activities most days. Writing about his children on GUateliving.com: “Our kids go outside only under our supervision, during the morning hours when local kids are most likely to be in school, with a guard dog we don’t feed until after play time, and we always have one person scanning the surrounding area for threats.”


While Cassman tried to put on the front that he was a devoted father, others have a different opinion. NashvillePost.com first reported in February 2010 that a friend of the family had witnessed Cassman punishing his son by pouring hot sauce down his throat after a disagreement. The person who saw that incident confirmed it to The City Paper, calling Cassman a “psychopath.”

This is a story that deserves to get some attention on 60 Minutes or Dateline NBC. Aboslutely amazing.

Don’t Know Nothing ‘bout History

Here in Nashville we’re in the middle of a messy battle over the future of our state fairgrounds and Nashville Speedway, which is located just south of downtown. One faction, which includes our mayor, wants to redevelop the 117-acre site. It’s crumbling and is barely used save for monthly flea markets and a few special events; the state fair, never a showpiece event, has already been shuttered.

Another faction wants to save the site and in particular, the Nashville Speedway located there. This group, which seems to be primarily racing fans, claims it’s the “finest short track in the world.” Despite the fact that speedway events have been losing money for years, this group has been making a lot of noise and brought in racing celebrities like Sterling Marlin and Darrell Waltrip to plead their case.

I really don’t care one way or the other. I do think the property could be put to better use, and it's exciting to think about what might be done with a chunk of land that size. Mr. Beale and I attend a handful events at the fairgrounds every year, but those could easily be located elsewhere. I'll say right now: We aren’t racing fans, and I do think the roar of the motor speedway (which we can hear all the way out at our house, though we live several miles away) is obnoxious. But, I figure that’s what comes with living in a city, and it’s only a few nights out of the year. So if some people are really fired up about saving it, knock yourselves out.

But here’s the thing. Nashville is not a preservationist town. Never has been, never will be. So it really annoys me that our local fishwrap has taken a side on the issue and is now referring to the speedway as “historic.” Give me a break! The racetrack was built in 1958! We’ve been tearing down buildings two, three, even four times older in the name of progress; I don't ever remember The Tennessean taking a side before. None of these folks making such a fuss about the speedway seemed to mind the loss of Nashville's history before, either. So calling what is basically a slab of concrete built in 1958 “historic” is just lame.

The site of the speedway has had races for over a hundred years. Well, fine then: slap a historic marker by the side of the road like we’ve done with every other significant piece of Nashville architecture that stood in the way of a fast food restaurant or Walgreen’s. I mean really: where were you people when they tore down Evergreen Place, built in 1785, and replaced it with a Home Depot? What about the Jacksonian, built in 1917, now a Walgreen’s? What about when developers demolished the historic church on South Douglas to make way for condos? Everyone was all like, “oh it’s the free hand of the market and all in the name of progress,” and yada yada. So don’t tell me this circle of concrete is hallowed ground when actual buildings are routinely bulldozed to stoke the engine of progress.

It's ironic that people who are using a historic preservation argument to save their racetrack seem completely unaware of this city's truly atrocious historic preservation record. This is how Nashville rolls, people! We are Nashville and we don't give a crap about our history! We’re a city that tore down our original governor’s mansion back in the ‘70s to make way for a Popeye’s chicken franchise, for crying out loud. When I moved here nearly 30 years ago West End Avenue was lined with graceful mansions. They’re almost all gone now, replaced with strip shopping centers and fast food joints. That’s how Nashville treats its historic structures.

I can appreciate that people want to save something they feel is important but I just have to say: if history is any judge, you’re wasting your time. In fact, you're better off making some kind of economic argument. Come up with a business plan, and ask Sterling Marlin and Darrell Waltrip to donate some money to upgrade the facility. Talk is cheap, fellas. Put some skin in the game! Show that the Nashville Speedway can be profitable (which may be difficult, considering the problems the Nashville Superspeedway faces).

Take it from someone who has seen the wrecking ball demolish a disheartening array of actual historic structures in this city: money talks in this town. Those of us who care about real historic buildings have been told to suck it up time and time again, so you racetrack fans might want to be prepared to kiss your 52-year-old circle of concrete goodbye.

Just a little tip.

Dignity For The Trashman

This, from yesterday’s fishwrap, really shows how disconnected people are from how city services are provided:

QUESTION: Becky Becker got a surprise a week ago when she brought up her trash cart. Tucked under the lid was an envelope with a holiday greeting from her trash collector that included his name and address.

Becker wonders if this was a hint to send him a holiday tip. She did not plan to send a check to someone whom she did not know — or even know whether he was really her trash collector.

More important, Becker questions whether to tip someone for doing a tax-supported job.

She wrote to me: "They are paid a salary by me and the other citizens of the city. It's not so much that I am a Grinch as I am just tired of everyone having their hand out for a tip, especially when they are already receiving a salary."

Oh my God. Yeah, you are Grinch. Get over yourself. If you don’t want to send a tip, then don’t. Jeebus. And here I thought I was the biggest Grinch in the county.

It’s the whole “These are MY TAX DOLLARS and how dare you not bow down and kiss my feet for every penny I begrudgingly pull out of my ass despite all the bitching and moaning I do at every opportunity.” Listen, Becky Becker (can you even believe that name is for real? I can’t): the reason you got a little Christmas card is because Metro has privatized its trash collection. It’s that whole “private companies can do everything better/cheaper/shinier/prettier” mindset that people like you espouse at every Tea Party rally and Ayn Rand reading group. So yeah, it’s a private company doing your trash collection, and that means you have to take it up with them. You ceded your right to bitch about this stuff when you decided you no longer liked the idea of public employees doing public services. I’ve got a steaming cup of STFU with Becky Becker’s name on it.

Or, as The Tennessean more politely put it:

ANSWER: Some Davidson County residents get trash collection that is paid for through property taxes. Private companies under contract with Metro handle some of those routes.

That is the case at Becker's residence.

I alerted Metro Public Works to the card that Becker received.

Her trash route is handled by Red River Service Corp. Metro Public Works spokeswoman Gwen Hopkins-Glascock said the manager at Red River would speak to employees about this sort of solicitation.

This is what happens when you contract out city services to private, for-profit companies. They pay their employees like shit, and people who have to do a sucky job like collecting your garbage every week look to other ways to make ends meet. Instead of being grateful that she doesn’t have to haul her stinking garbage to a landfill herself in the August heat (or January ice) she begrudges some guy his Christmas card. If you’re offended by a Christmas card and perceived request for a holiday tip (which you are under zero obligation to acknowledge), then imagine how offended you will be when some private company decides to hire illegal immigrants to save a buck. Hey, could happen.

The Beale household has been getting these Christmas cards every year, by the way. Here it is (Note the guy even said MERRY CHRISTMAS, not the offending “Happy Holidays.” There’s just no pleasing some people):



We also get these from the newspaper delivery guys. If I think of it, and I don’t always do so every year, I pop $10 or $20 in a Christmas card and send it back to them. I figure it’s the least I can do for someone who has a sucky job I would never want to do myself.

I hate to break it you, Becky Becker, but the real reason you got that Christmas card is that it's really, really hard for working people in this state. We've privatized everything to save a buck, we refuse to raise taxes on corporations or rich people here because ZOMFG that would kill our "robust" economy, we deny people the right to organize into unions so they can collectively bargain for fair wages, we scream and bitch and moan about the very idea of raising the minimum wage let alone providing people a living wage, we force people to accept crappy pay for crappy work and so yeah, it's no surprise they’re gonna have their hands out. It's not because they’re greedy grabbers, but because they’re trying to pay their bills and send their kids to school and basically attain the American Dream which is increasingly out of reach for working folks because the people who got there ahead of them are pulling the ladders up.

I can’t link to this Financial Times article from August often enough, especially this part:

Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the ­multiple is above 300.

People are working two and three times harder to stay in the same place. A lot of people are falling behind. And I think it’s this inconvenient fact which has the Becky Beckers of the country upset. It’s like they’re offended at being reminded that a lot of people are struggling. They want to stick their head in a hole and sing their happy songs. “America is the greatest country in the world EVAH! Everything is awesome!”

It’s like those folks who get ticked off at the vendors selling copies of The Contributor all over town. You’ve seen them with their yellow placards: it’s the alternative to panhandling. The paper is produced by homeless and formerly homeless folks through the Downtown Presbyterian Church. Vendors sell the papers for $1. The paper is actually quite good, - it’s won several national awards - and Mr. Beale and I always buy one.

Yet people bitch and moan about the vendors selling these papers in front of their businesses and on street corners. I’m like, WTF do you people want? First you put up “Please Help, Don’t Give” signs in your store windows. Then a local church devises a way for people to earn some money -- all of that pulling-up-by-the-bootstraps stuff you’re always harping on about -- and you begrudge folks that. You like to shout “Get a job!" but when someone actually does get a job, you're like "Well, not that job!" Jesus.

What you guys really want is for these folks to just go away, am I right? You want them to be invisible. You don’t like to see the wages of our national sin out there on display for all to see. Well sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You espouse the creed of greed and this is the result.

Jesus Is Coming, Look Busy

I Didn’t Even Know He Was On Tour

I spied this billboard in Nashville’s upscale Green Hills shopping area. Ironically, it’s half a block from this billboard which caused such an outrage last year.

There is a time-honored tradition of predicting Jesus' return. Since they’ve all been spectacular, embarrassing fails, most of these apocalyptic nutters have stepped away from endorsing a specific date in recent years. So I give the folks at Family Radio Inc. props for putting their butts on the line. That doesn’t mean I don’t also reserve the right to point fingers and laugh when the sun inevitably rises on May 22, however.

Mr. Beale loves to tell the story about the prank some Southern Baptist church staffers played on their church secretary the last time a notable Rapture date was in the news. When the poor woman was due back from lunch, everyone in the church office draped clothing and shoes at their workspace, then hid. I doubt she actually thought everyone in the church office had been raptured when she returned from lunch, but everyone did get a good laugh. See, even church people can have fun with this stuff.

The Rapture is just one of many things that are not in the Bible. It is a 19th century myth peddled by a bunch of hucksters and charlatans. Which is too bad, because sometimes I think the world would be better off if they’d go along their merry way, already.

Anyway, here’s a parting message:

This Week In Greenwashing

One thing we’re always told to do is shop at farmer’s markets, which supposedly support local growers and give consumers a sustainable option when grocery shopping. I’ve been to plenty which are fabulous (my hands-down favorite is the one in downtown Santa Monica, California. The vegetables they sell there are quite literally works of art.) But I also know that not all farmer’s markets are created equal.

And now we learn that supermarket chains are trying to profit from the local food movement by setting up fake farmer’s markets to hawk their non-local produce. Another issue is vendors selling produce which they purchased at wholesale produce warehouses.

I caught wind of this practice right here in Nashville when I went to one of Johnny Howell’s red and white tents and saw the exact same packages of Chilean-grown red grapes, complete with UPC code, that I had seen at Kroger. And a lot of that is the same as what I see at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. So I knew right then that at least some of their produce comes from a wholesaler like Angelo Formosa.

This doesn’t necessarily mean they are a “fake” farmer’s market but it does mean that just because produce is merchandised in a rustic basket and sold out of a red tent by the side of the road we should assume it’s somehow better or different from the stuff you get at the grocery store. I mean, last I checked we don't grow avocados around here, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anything labeled "organic" at one of Howell's red tents.

And here’s another pet peeve: when I go to Whole Foods, why do I have to choose between organic or local/regional? Seems like most of the produce they label local or regional is never organic; the stuff that is organic is shipped up from South America. I’d rather have organic and I’d rather it hadn’t spent a week in transit from Peru.

Anyway, the point is: buyer beware. Consumers have increasingly been sending the message that they want "green" and sustainable options in everything from their household cleaning products to what they put on the dinner table. Instead of listening to consumers and adjusting their behavior accordingly, some factions of corporate America are cravenly trying to exploit consumers' green instincts to make a buck by selling the same ol' shit as something it's not.

Petulant Pastors Seeking Headlines

This Sunday seven Tennessee pastors will take their marching orders from the Alliance Defense Fund--a Fundiegelical answer to the ACLU based in Scottsdale, AZ--and “bait” the IRS with pulpit politicking:

"For governor, I'm going to encourage people to vote for Bill Haslam," said David Shelley, pastor of Smith Springs Baptist, one of seven Tennessee religious leaders who plan to take part in the pulpit protest. He also will throw his support behind Republican congressional candidate David Hall and Republican statehouse candidate Jim Gotto and urge his congregation to skip the spot on the ballot where state Sen. Thelma Harper, a Democrat, is running unopposed.

"My support for these candidates has nothing to do with their party or their skin color or any other non-biblically related issue," he said.

This is absolutely hilarious, since Shelley is perfectly free to tell everyone who to vote for any time he wishes, save the one hour Sunday morning that he’s speaking from the pulpit in his capacity as pastor of a tax-exempt religious organization.

So you know, fine. More power to you. And be prepared to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s for your trouble. Hey Pastor Shelley: I just quoted the Bible at you. You do know that, right?

Idiots.

This is all about meaningless grandstanding and nothing about religion. Let's face it, pretty much anyone who attends Smith Springs Baptist Church is probably planning to vote Republican. So basically you’re hoping to open a legal can of worms just because some out of state right wingers are trying to make a name for themselves by keeping the culture wars alive.

Sadly, no one appears to be paying attention. Whaah! Yes, it appears Shelley and the rest of these Petulant Pastors pulled this stunt last year too. The IRS still hasn’t taken the bait:

Participants in the ADF's pulpit protest send audio or videotape of their sermons to the IRS, but so far the agency has ignored them. The agency declined to comment on the issue, other than to share a copy of its regulations for tax-exempt religious organizations.

I’m torn between gloating over the fact that their pathetic screaming for attention has been ignored and wishing they did get their tax-exempt status yanked just because they are violating law and I thought we had these laws for a reason. Someone point me to that place in the Bible where Jesus says to give your money to lawyers to fight a battle over the First Amendment instead of caring for the poor? Must be in the Gospel According To Wingnuts.

Anyway, I’ve written about this before (notably here) but what idiots like David Shelley don’t get is that separation of church and state protects the church from state interference, not the other way around. And as I’ve written before, one needs look no further than those evul abortion-loving homosexual-embracing morally bankrupt socialisticky Scandinavian countries, which until very recently (2008 in Norway’s case) had state religions. As I wrote in 2009:

Yes, that’s right, up until last year, every person born in “secular, liberal” Norway was automatically born a Lutheran. If you wanted to raise your kids Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Baptist or atheist, you had to petition the government. Can you believe that?



The Norwegian government still finances the Lutheran Church, and until last year appointed church bishops. In other words, the government had authority over the church. Can you imagine? Can you imagine your tax dollars funding church salaries?

Secular, liberal, socialisticky Sweden had a state religion until 2009. The constitution of Denmark still lists the Evangelical Lutheran Church as the country’s official state religion and they receive government subsidies.

I wonder if David Shelley really understands what this means. I’m thinking not. Let’s have President Obama pick the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention and appoint the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. How would you like that? That is what it means to have a state religion, assholes.

The wall of separation you try so hard to pretend does not exist protects the church from government influence. It’s what allows the Southern Baptists to discriminate against gays in their hiring -- except in those programs they take government money to perform. Because then you are acting on behalf of all of us, not just Southern Baptists, and we don't all believe what you believe. I know you think you are right but some of us disagree. I really don't get why this is so hard for some people to understand.

This wall of separation is also what allows Pastor Shelley to opt out of paying Social Security tax on his personal salary. It allows Smith Springs Baptist to not pay property tax on its rather substantial acreage off of Nolensville Road. It allows the church to not be taxed on its income. You enjoy these benefits because We The People have decided you benefit the community in other ways, such as caring for the poor and elderly and the sick.

So look, people. This stuff isn’t hard. There is a huge benefit to being a religious institution in this country. You are free to preach that “Negroes are not equal with other races” (actual 1966 LDS doctrine!) and the government will not interfere. You can be as mean and hateful towards gays, Muslims, or anyone else you want and call it God's Word, no matter how abominable some folks may find it. That is your right. You get a free ride and the government can't say squat to you. You can even host candidates' forums like the one Church of Christ-affiliated David Lipscomb University just held here in Nashville. Or the Southern Baptist-affiliated Belmont University's presidential debate in 2008. Heck, my own church had the candidates for Nashville Mayor appear in our Fellowship Hall every Sunday to speak to us about their vision for the city. It was very informative.

But autonomy from the government is a two-way street. If you want the government to leave you alone no matter how heinous you want to be, even if your beliefs are far outside the mainstream, then you have to stay out of politics. You can talk morals and beliefs and current events and issues all you want but you can't tell people who to vote for in your sermon. That's the one line you can't cross, and it's the line that allows you to enjoy all of those other benefits.

But people like David Shelley don't get that. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

Mixed Message

Bless their hearts, the Ron Paul Sign Brigade is back in business. However, just a tip: you guys might want to consider your message placement a little more carefully. I'm confused: are you for Ron Paul in 2012, or trying to stop him?

Creating A Bike Friendly City

Copenhagen figured out how to do it. Watch, from Current TV:



Copenhagen is renowned for being a bike-friendly city. This is a new thing; when I lived in Copenhagen back in the 1980s, bicycles were rarely used for commuting. People might ride their bikes to the train station, but you didn't see bicycles in the city center like you do now and you most certainly would not have biked from the suburbs into the city. It just wasn't done. Copenhagen created this bike culture in the past 25 years. It did so by creating a bicycle infrastructure: dedicated bike lanes and bike bridges, timed traffic lights, etc.

Here in Nashville traffic is one of our most serious issues. The interstates are jammed at rush hour and inside the city our neighborhoods are darned near impossible to navigate. Just try getting through Green Hills at lunchtime, I dare you. The solution our brilliant nincompoops at TDOT have come up with? Widening roads, adding a center turn lane on Hillsboro Pike, and making it completely impossible for a bike lane ever to be added to what is a major thoroughfare. Thanks a lot, idiots.

I own a bicycle but it gets precious little use, despite the fact that we live easy biking distance to grocery stores and other services. The reason is that you are literally putting your life in your hands to ride a bike in this city. I've been run off the road more than once, and I know people who have been seriously injured by careless drivers. Two months ago driving down Blakemore I saw an SUV crush a bicycle on purpose, then speed away as the rider (who had been knocked down but was OK) was left screaming blooding murder at the top of his lungs.

It's a damn shame that we have this backwards attitude because honestly, you cannot pave enough roadway to hold all the cars. That's like bailing the Queen Mary with a thimble. The only solution is to reduce the number of cars on the road. One way to do that is to encourage pedestrian and bike traffic, and the only way that will work is by making it safer for people to get around town in ways that don't involve a car.

Irony Alert, Tea Bag Edition

Updating yesterday’s story about Nashville’s temporary Tent City arousing the ire of a local Tea Party group, it seems Metro Codes has come to the rescue:

Tuesday, Metro officials sent a letter ordering businessman Lee Beaman to clear out the homeless camp on property he owns in Antioch. Beaman donated the use of two acres as a temporary space for the tent city.

"We put them on notice, for 30 days, if it takes the owner a little longer than that, we're certainly going to work with all parties concerned," said Bill Penn of Metro Codes.

The original homeless camp in downtown Nashville washed away in the flood.

So just to re-cap, for those of you keeping score: a local Tea Party affiliated group objected to what a private property owner did on his own land, and got Metro Codes to enforce zoning and land use regulations to put a stop to it. How absolutely ironic.

Here’s the best part:

The homeless have to move by July 5. The Metro Homelessness Commission has so far found permanent housing for 8 tent city residents and has issued vouchers to 16 others who are looking for apartments, according to director Clifton Harris.

Wonder if these Tea Baggers would support allocating sufficient tax money for things like housing for the homeless so they don’t have a Tent City in their backyard?

Nah.

The Unbearable Intellectual Lightness Of Being A Tea Bagger

Via a Nashville City Paper commentary by Stephen George, I learn that Nashville car dealer Lee Beaman has donated land he owns out by Hickory Hollow Mall to serve as a temporary “Tent City” for the homeless. It replaces the one down by the river that got washed away in the flood.

Lee Beaman is someone I’ve picked on a lot here, so this is probably the only time you will ever see me write something nice about him, but props to Beaman for at least giving the homeless a place to live. I don’t know for how long, and I don’t know why: maybe it’s a fuck you to the Chevrolet dealer across the street from the site . Maybe it’s because he really cares. Who knows. It’s only temporary, and the location is not ideal because it’s so very far away from downtown services, but at least it’s something.

But Beaman’s action, while temporary, has sparked the usual NIMBYism, including this:

But all is not well in Hickory Hollow. As word leaked out early Wednesday that a new Tent City had emerged near the Target on Bell Road, some neighbors took to mass emails with their complaints. A tea party-affiliated group appeared ready to mobilize against the landowner who donated the plot (no word as of press time on the lasting effects of the cognitive dissonance in self-proclaimed libertarians telling a private landowner what to do with his property). Worries of increased crime and concerns about safety swirled.

That’s so priceless. A Tea Party-affiliated group going after Lee Beaman, the Tennessee GOP's big moneybags? Oh, my. And it gets better. From WSMV:

Councilman Sam Coleman said he has gotten so many calls about this issue that he plans to hold a town hall meeting next Thursday.

So just to recap: a Tea Party group objects to what a private property owner is doing on his own property and they are calling on the help of the government? Wait a minute. I thought you people hated the government? I thought you wanted the government off the backs of private property owners?

I am literally rolling on the floor laughing my ass off at this point.

Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On

Jimmy Buffett wrote this song post-Katrina. Seems very appropriate now:



For those interested in helping clean up our country's other huge mess, the Gulf Coast oil spill, here is the organization collecting nylons, human and animal hair to make oil-absorbent booms. It's called Matter Of Trust, and it's an international effort.

After The Deluge

Downtown Nashville, May 2. Photo by Keith Gallagher. See more of Keith's amazing images here.

We awoke to sunshine.

A sight for weary eyes all across Nashville, let me tell you.

This morning Mr. Beale reminded me that when we were house hunting 10 years ago I out-and-out refused to look at any home that had a creek anywhere nearby. Which let me tell you is a helluva lot of houses around here.

I had forgotten that. My old house near Vanderbilt always had water in the basement whenever it rained (indeed there was a drain in the floor for just such occasions), and that always scared the crap out of me. So we ended up buying a house on a hill with a massive storm water sewer drain behind it, something Public Works had installed years before.

Saved our bacon, let me tell you.

Some general thoughts on the Great Nashville Flood of 2010: Nashville really came through. As we’ve seen with ice storms, tornados, and other natural disasters, when the going gets tough Nashville pulls together. People put their differences aside, the petty squabbling that seems to dominate our regular discourse is discarded, and neighbors start helping one another. People with boats, canoes, kayaks--hell, the news even showed one kid on a surfboard--headed out into the rain to rescue stranded people. Okay, not sure what the kid with the surfboard was doing, but you get my drift.

Nashville, I know I’m hard on you, but you really made me proud. This is why I love you.

And Nashville you also did a great job of keeping people informed. Videos like this one helped bring the news of this disaster to people who had no other way of getting information on the severity of the flooding:



Once again I was amazed at the value of online tools like Twitter to keep me informed. Our local news media: not so much.

For most of Saturday we had Doppler radar color blobs dominating the local news. Let me tell you: a Doppler radar color blob and Lisa Spencer yammering on about “rotation” in some far-flung corner of the viewing area is not helpful. I’m glad our news stations have the money to spend on fancy gadgets like this but from a viewer’s perspective it really is not informative to us. It should be a tool you folks use to determine where to dispatch your reporters.

There was news happening on the ground, actual people stranded in buildings and culverts and cars floating away on I-24 and it took a long time for you guys to catch on to the fact that this is what you should be covering. Not a red blob on a map headed to Waverly or wherever.

Nationally, the news media has been a big fail. Aunt B wonders why we’ve been ignored, and I have to say this is yet more evidence that our glorious 24 hour news is incapable of covering more than two stories at once. Between the Gulf Oil spill, the thwarted Times Square car bomb, the Arizona immigration bill, Nerdprom, and Greece going bankrupt, it seems the poor dears in the national news media were just too tapped out to give any attention to a major metropolitan city drowning.

Again, this proves the value of the internet, and why new media is eclipsing old media in terms of actually informing people.

By the way, over in comments at Aunt B’s was this from Mike Turner:

Just got off a 24 hour shift, my crew at station 3 rescued 148 people and 1 dog in the last 24 hours. There were probably well over a thousand rescued city wide and it’s still going on. The TWRA guys were great, I don’t know what we would have done without their boats.

A hearty round of applause, hugs, beers all around, you name it to Nashville’s tremendous firefighters, EMTs, police officers, and every agency that worked their asses off this weekend. You guys are amazing. We are so grateful to have you. Thank you, thank you.

It will be interesting to see what if any changes the city will experience after the storm. I wonder if people will rethink where they live, where we allow development. I wonder if the great hole downtown where the Music City Center will be is now a giant swimming pool?

I wonder if we will still have our county elections tomorrow, since the voting machines are stored at the Fairgrounds and that was basically a river as of last night?

On a larger scale, I wonder if we will see this storm, not as a freak incident, but rather a sign of what’s to come? An acknowledgment that the earth isn’t some static, dead thing but rather a living system. That things like watershed, mountaintops and forests all serve a purpose, part of which is to protect us from floods and winds and lessen the severity of storms?

Nashville is not out of the woods yet. I just heard that we have some neighbors missing, and we are very concerned for news about them. Down the street from us the Red Cross has set up an emergency shelter and there are hundreds of people who have nowhere to go. Nashville still needs to pull together to get through this mess. Prayers and, as Aunt B notes, some national attention are needed.

Water World

In case you haven't heard, Nashville is flooding. Mr. Beale and I are very, very fortunate: we live in the middle of a hill, and most of the water is rushing right on by. There's a major storm sewer right behind our house, which in the past I've disparaged as a mosquito breeding ground. Now I am thanking my lucky stars to have it. A couple of blocks away from us some neighbors tried to rescue an elderly woman by way of a kayak. Yeesh.

In the meantime we are holed up, watching the news, helping out neighbors, and monitoring two very small leaks. Here are a few scenes from our Aquapocalypse:

A brand-new waterfall has appeared where water pours off our driveway

Another lovely waterfall on my patio

A new stream in my neighbor's backyard