Sorry Barack Obama. But no person or persons were more affected and made more news than the American family in 2008, rocked by the worst recession since the Great Depression and probably the worst of all time when it comes to the loss of wealth.
Layoffs, home foreclosures, plummeting home values and the loss of wealth in 401ks and other investments in the stock market made the U.S. family most at risk and most at the top of newscasts and on front pages for the massive amount of hurt being endured.
These people will continue to be the major news makers well into the new year as Obama will be unable to really affect this economic downturn. At best, most stock analysts do not see the stock market improving until past the middle of 2009 at the earliest. Some see 2010 as a lost year, too. The same can be said for home valuee. Real estate is the centerpiece of most families' assets.
While it has suffered most, the American household has been the foundation for any real hope for the future -- as families cut back on spending, parents search for new and additional jobs and home mortgage holders seek to hold the sheriff at bay.
So here's to the American family on this New Year's Even. I offer admiration and prayers for patience, as this economy refuses to improve for a long time to come.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Protest brings out 100 people in Nashville in call for Israel, Hamas to lay down their arms
Despite a cold day and uncertainty of how Nashvillians would react to a visible Arab presence, 100 people gathered early this afternoon at the foot of the hill upon which the state Capitol building sits to call for Israel and Hamas to lay down their weapons.
The peaceful gathering drew many honking horns of approval from drivers.
Why Nashville?
Why not.
The message was clear. Both sides need to seek peace and send no more rockets, jets or a ground offensive into each other's territory. And the large turnout came after only two days of advertising the event.
A Jewish, Metro Nashville resident stopped to show support for the cause of peace and a call for both sides to lay down their arms. A local rabbi and some members of his congregation stopped by early in the protest for peace, WSMV Channel 4 reported.
Jews and Arabs can agree and find common ground.
The world believes the same. And from the unlikeliest place of Nashville, just hours before New Year's Eve, a strong statement went out for peace on Earth, goodwill to all.
That provides hope for a better 2009.
Saturday, Sunday: Rise and fall of Tennessean
To kick off the New Year with a bang, the final two installments of my series on the rise and fall of The Tennessean will run this weekend.
I realize everyone is busy with partying tonight and watching bowl games tomorrow to read about how Nashville's largest newspaper fell from credibility and as a source of community leadership.
So the surprising last two installments of The Tennessean series will run Saturday and Sunday along with reader comments.
See you then. And thanks to the many readers who have followed it so far. The series is for you. You deserve to know the full story of one of Nashville's prominent institutions ... at least it once was prominent.
I realize everyone is busy with partying tonight and watching bowl games tomorrow to read about how Nashville's largest newspaper fell from credibility and as a source of community leadership.
So the surprising last two installments of The Tennessean series will run Saturday and Sunday along with reader comments.
See you then. And thanks to the many readers who have followed it so far. The series is for you. You deserve to know the full story of one of Nashville's prominent institutions ... at least it once was prominent.
Tennesean of the Year: The Rev. Enoch Fuzz
If you think the Rev. Enoch Fuzz is simply organizing a one-time, inaugural charity ball for Nashville to recognize the inauguration of President Barack Obama, then you don't know the most courageous voice in Tennessee.
Rev. Fuzz is re-creating the Tennessee political landscape -- and perhaps even the national one -- with his four prominent organizers of different ideologies and 44 community hosts for the event Jan. 20 at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel. This desperately needed effort is not being crafted toward any ideology or party, but a unified agenda of action across racial, political, ethnic, religious and class lines.
The Ball is just the beginning for the brave, new coalition to make a statement and difference for the voiceless in our land.
It is ironic in the shadow of this new group's creation that several events locally and nationally have emerged at the same time to show the great need for a unified coalition of the willing.
* Tennessee Republican leader Chip Saltsman shocked the nation and Tennesseans with his "Barack the Magic Negro" CD sent to members of the Republican National Committee as a Christmas gift. Saltsman thought it would help his campaign to be elected chairman of the RNC. Instead, it has again revealed the GOP's Achilles heel among minority voters and the cause of tolerance.
* Early voting begins Friday on a Nashville referndum to make English the only language for government operations. The ballot is a direct slap to the faces of immigrants here, legal or not. And nationally, Nashville could become the only major city to adopt such a backward step. Such a law would devastate the city's image.
Fuzz on a personal basis is preparing to come out against the referendum and encourage other African-American pastors and church goers to do the same. African-Americans make up a quarter of Nashville's population. And their relations with Hispanics in particular here have been mostly negative. Hispanics are seen as taking jobs from blacks and not deserving of the fruits from the Civil Rights Movement. Hate and fear for any reason is wrong.
* Budget cuts begin here in January and in other statehouses across the country that will target the most vulnerable, beginning with the working poor state workers and the barely surviving recipients of TennCare.
* In Illinois, corrupt Chicago politics have resulted in Obama's Senate seat being put up for sale by the governor, who now has chosen despite the scandal to appoint a person to fill the vacancy.
* In Washington, Wall Street fat cats and the Big 3 automakers have been rescued ahead of any help yet for middle class and lower income families beset by layoffs and home foreclosures.
How do all these things tie back to Fuzz? They connect with a hunger for hope in every household, that business and politics as usual will no longer triumph. People are hurting more than in their lifetimes. They are losing jobs of 15 years or more. They are losing their homes and their dignity. They are tired of being fed hate that all the bad and ills are someone else's fault.
The wrong lies with our leaders.
Fuzz's coalition of the willing is gathering for its first effort -- to hold the biggest inaugural ball outside of Washington, D.C. After that historic event, however, its work will not be over. It will only have begun.
Thank God for hearing our prayers and people such as Enoch Fuzz.
To meet and talk with Rev. Fuzz and other members of the coalition of the willing, go to www.volunteernashville.com for ticket information. All purchases are tax deductible.
Inaction and politics as usual amid a crisis across several fronts are not.
Rev. Fuzz is re-creating the Tennessee political landscape -- and perhaps even the national one -- with his four prominent organizers of different ideologies and 44 community hosts for the event Jan. 20 at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel. This desperately needed effort is not being crafted toward any ideology or party, but a unified agenda of action across racial, political, ethnic, religious and class lines.
The Ball is just the beginning for the brave, new coalition to make a statement and difference for the voiceless in our land.
It is ironic in the shadow of this new group's creation that several events locally and nationally have emerged at the same time to show the great need for a unified coalition of the willing.
* Tennessee Republican leader Chip Saltsman shocked the nation and Tennesseans with his "Barack the Magic Negro" CD sent to members of the Republican National Committee as a Christmas gift. Saltsman thought it would help his campaign to be elected chairman of the RNC. Instead, it has again revealed the GOP's Achilles heel among minority voters and the cause of tolerance.
* Early voting begins Friday on a Nashville referndum to make English the only language for government operations. The ballot is a direct slap to the faces of immigrants here, legal or not. And nationally, Nashville could become the only major city to adopt such a backward step. Such a law would devastate the city's image.
Fuzz on a personal basis is preparing to come out against the referendum and encourage other African-American pastors and church goers to do the same. African-Americans make up a quarter of Nashville's population. And their relations with Hispanics in particular here have been mostly negative. Hispanics are seen as taking jobs from blacks and not deserving of the fruits from the Civil Rights Movement. Hate and fear for any reason is wrong.
* Budget cuts begin here in January and in other statehouses across the country that will target the most vulnerable, beginning with the working poor state workers and the barely surviving recipients of TennCare.
* In Illinois, corrupt Chicago politics have resulted in Obama's Senate seat being put up for sale by the governor, who now has chosen despite the scandal to appoint a person to fill the vacancy.
* In Washington, Wall Street fat cats and the Big 3 automakers have been rescued ahead of any help yet for middle class and lower income families beset by layoffs and home foreclosures.
How do all these things tie back to Fuzz? They connect with a hunger for hope in every household, that business and politics as usual will no longer triumph. People are hurting more than in their lifetimes. They are losing jobs of 15 years or more. They are losing their homes and their dignity. They are tired of being fed hate that all the bad and ills are someone else's fault.
The wrong lies with our leaders.
Fuzz's coalition of the willing is gathering for its first effort -- to hold the biggest inaugural ball outside of Washington, D.C. After that historic event, however, its work will not be over. It will only have begun.
Thank God for hearing our prayers and people such as Enoch Fuzz.
To meet and talk with Rev. Fuzz and other members of the coalition of the willing, go to www.volunteernashville.com for ticket information. All purchases are tax deductible.
Inaction and politics as usual amid a crisis across several fronts are not.
Nashvillian of the Year -- Father Joe Pat Breen
Singlehandedly during an economic downturn, the Rev. Joe Pat Breen raised $2 million to open and maintain a church dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe on Nolensville Road.
He pulled of this miracle while still shepherding nearby St. Edward Catholic Church. He could not speak but a few words of Spanish, but he was dedicated to the Hispanic people in Tennessee as if he were an anchor on Univision.
In a concluding feat earlier this month, he beat the bishop of the diocese to a donation of $221,000 to pay off the final debt on the church, which now belongs to the Hispanic people and Our Lady's pastor, Father Fernando Garcia, and its administrator, John Martinez.
Despite no media coverage, that miracle earlier this month was most newsworthy. Somewhere and some time, the supposed mainstream media decided readers and viewers no longer wanted to read and see stories of hope amid a troubled world. Thank God literally for the Internet.
The church already is the largest by congregants in the state of Tennessee. There is nothing else like it in the South, where feelings are hard toward Hispanics.
Most of all, the church belongs to Our Lady and her power and the people she appeared to north of Mexico almost five centuries ago.
He pulled of this miracle while still shepherding nearby St. Edward Catholic Church. He could not speak but a few words of Spanish, but he was dedicated to the Hispanic people in Tennessee as if he were an anchor on Univision.
In a concluding feat earlier this month, he beat the bishop of the diocese to a donation of $221,000 to pay off the final debt on the church, which now belongs to the Hispanic people and Our Lady's pastor, Father Fernando Garcia, and its administrator, John Martinez.
Despite no media coverage, that miracle earlier this month was most newsworthy. Somewhere and some time, the supposed mainstream media decided readers and viewers no longer wanted to read and see stories of hope amid a troubled world. Thank God literally for the Internet.
The church already is the largest by congregants in the state of Tennessee. There is nothing else like it in the South, where feelings are hard toward Hispanics.
Most of all, the church belongs to Our Lady and her power and the people she appeared to north of Mexico almost five centuries ago.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tennesseans and Americans of the Year -- 2008
I've always found the choices by the supposed mainstream news media of the people who are the models of news makers and heroes for society to be a tad bizarre and narrow.
The real news makers and heroes that should be recognized are those often without titles. They're simply armed with the willingness to make a difference. As Nelson Mandela has said, "Our greatest fear is that we are not powerful. Our greatest fear is that we are more powerful than we believe.
So with apologies to President-elect Obama, celebrities and university presidents, the real heroes in 2008 are the real people among us. So as we approach this last day of 2008, I'll recognize these people locally and nationally in the following posts for us to point out to our children as those human beings most worth emulating.
The real news makers and heroes that should be recognized are those often without titles. They're simply armed with the willingness to make a difference. As Nelson Mandela has said, "Our greatest fear is that we are not powerful. Our greatest fear is that we are more powerful than we believe.
So with apologies to President-elect Obama, celebrities and university presidents, the real heroes in 2008 are the real people among us. So as we approach this last day of 2008, I'll recognize these people locally and nationally in the following posts for us to point out to our children as those human beings most worth emulating.
New York's fat tax is way for states, communities to help balance budgets in tough economy
When I was a political columnist for The Tennessean, which seems to be a phrase I use much too often in my posts, I won first place for humorous commentary from the Society of Professional Journalists (Southeastern states) for a column about Tennessee's need to enact a "fat tax" to balance its budget.
I used myself as an example, pointing out that I was carrying the equivalent of a five-year-old child underneath my chin and down to my feet. Interstate highway weigh stations for trucks could be used for people, with a tax beginning at 20 pounds overweight and working its way up to jumbo size and the cost of small home mortgage.
The same reason is embraced with cigarette or sin taxes. We hope the levy will discourage damaging activity of nicotine or alcohol. The fat tax would work the same.
Well, lo and behold, New York State is proposing my idea, this time on sugared sodas. The reasoning is that discouraging soda use will help reduce obesity, particularly among children. And of course, government gets another foothold into our lives and habits with this new revenue source.
Here is how The Daily News describes the controversy:
State Health Commissioner Richard Daines has become the point man for one of the more controversial of Gov. David Paterson's revenue-generating budget proposals: The so-called "fat tax" - an 18 percent levy on sugary drinks like non-diet soda.
Daines, a Spitzer administration holdover who generally keeps a fairly low profile, has recorded a YouTube manifesto in defense of the tax, which the administration insists is really more about health care policy than making money off soda-drinking New Yorkers.
The point, according to Daines, is to disincentivize sugary drinks, which research shows are the top culprit in the childhood obesity epidemic, and encourage people to return to 1970s-era levels of consumption of other, less fattening beverages like milk and water.
The side benefits, according to Daines, include the fact that cutting down on soda saves money for consumers and whittling the state's collective waistline could save money for taxpayers in the form of fewer obesity-related health problems that need to be treated - particularly for Medicaid recipients.
I like the fat tax since I now weigh more than 80 pounds less than when I wrote the fat tax column. That's because of the fabulous yet dangerous chemo diet, which I've been on for more than three years because of leukemia.
Obesity is a growing problem across this nation. Buffets and the still low prices for food encourage over indulging. Lifestyle choices by children to sit on the sofa after school instead of going outside to exercise has made obesity an epidemic and even diabetes more common.
The problem with such taxes is that they're not applied to the resulting health problems that government budgets must pay for. Instead, all the revenue is dumped in the general fund, paying for pork barrel projects that help only a few at the expense of the many. The size of government simply grows, instead of growing more effective.
Take for instance in Tennessee. The state, along with all the others in the Union, receives a big check of more than $150 million each year from a gigantic tobacco industry settlement. The money should go to the state's Medicaid program, TennCare, and the resulting health problems it must cover for program recipients. Instead, the settlement money goes into the general fund, to be spent on nothing associated with the ills of smoking.
Can lawamkers be trusted in New York and elsewhere to use fat tax revenue correctly. No. Obviously. Will people still spend on sugared sodas. Of course.
Still, any kind of deterrent to obesity is a plus in our society. I'd put locks on Big Macs if possible, until a person weighs themselves at the front counter. If he or she is more than 20 pounds overweight, then they have to pay a fee for the key to the lock.
That may sound ridiculous. But it is even more insane for America to eat itself out of health simply because it can. Tax, baby, tax.
I used myself as an example, pointing out that I was carrying the equivalent of a five-year-old child underneath my chin and down to my feet. Interstate highway weigh stations for trucks could be used for people, with a tax beginning at 20 pounds overweight and working its way up to jumbo size and the cost of small home mortgage.
The same reason is embraced with cigarette or sin taxes. We hope the levy will discourage damaging activity of nicotine or alcohol. The fat tax would work the same.
Well, lo and behold, New York State is proposing my idea, this time on sugared sodas. The reasoning is that discouraging soda use will help reduce obesity, particularly among children. And of course, government gets another foothold into our lives and habits with this new revenue source.
Here is how The Daily News describes the controversy:
State Health Commissioner Richard Daines has become the point man for one of the more controversial of Gov. David Paterson's revenue-generating budget proposals: The so-called "fat tax" - an 18 percent levy on sugary drinks like non-diet soda.
Daines, a Spitzer administration holdover who generally keeps a fairly low profile, has recorded a YouTube manifesto in defense of the tax, which the administration insists is really more about health care policy than making money off soda-drinking New Yorkers.
The point, according to Daines, is to disincentivize sugary drinks, which research shows are the top culprit in the childhood obesity epidemic, and encourage people to return to 1970s-era levels of consumption of other, less fattening beverages like milk and water.
The side benefits, according to Daines, include the fact that cutting down on soda saves money for consumers and whittling the state's collective waistline could save money for taxpayers in the form of fewer obesity-related health problems that need to be treated - particularly for Medicaid recipients.
I like the fat tax since I now weigh more than 80 pounds less than when I wrote the fat tax column. That's because of the fabulous yet dangerous chemo diet, which I've been on for more than three years because of leukemia.
Obesity is a growing problem across this nation. Buffets and the still low prices for food encourage over indulging. Lifestyle choices by children to sit on the sofa after school instead of going outside to exercise has made obesity an epidemic and even diabetes more common.
The problem with such taxes is that they're not applied to the resulting health problems that government budgets must pay for. Instead, all the revenue is dumped in the general fund, paying for pork barrel projects that help only a few at the expense of the many. The size of government simply grows, instead of growing more effective.
Take for instance in Tennessee. The state, along with all the others in the Union, receives a big check of more than $150 million each year from a gigantic tobacco industry settlement. The money should go to the state's Medicaid program, TennCare, and the resulting health problems it must cover for program recipients. Instead, the settlement money goes into the general fund, to be spent on nothing associated with the ills of smoking.
Can lawamkers be trusted in New York and elsewhere to use fat tax revenue correctly. No. Obviously. Will people still spend on sugared sodas. Of course.
Still, any kind of deterrent to obesity is a plus in our society. I'd put locks on Big Macs if possible, until a person weighs themselves at the front counter. If he or she is more than 20 pounds overweight, then they have to pay a fee for the key to the lock.
That may sound ridiculous. But it is even more insane for America to eat itself out of health simply because it can. Tax, baby, tax.
For tickets to Inaugural Charity Ball, go to www,volunteernashville.com; change allows for immediate updating to meet growing demand
Please go to www.volunteernashville.com for ticket information and ordering for the Music City Inaugural Charity Ball Jan. 20 at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel.
We had to change to this website because it can be updated more readily.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
See you at the Ball. It will be a night you won't forget.
We had to change to this website because it can be updated more readily.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
See you at the Ball. It will be a night you won't forget.
Part III: The rise and fall of The Tennessean
The greatest loss for The Tennessean has not been in circulation numbers, lower than required profits or even credibility in various communities.
The one factor that has hurt the quality of the product the most has been the loss of experience and institutional knowledge among its staff -- sliced and diced to the bottom line first by layoffs, buyouts and just plain frustration by good journalists who chose to leave for greener and much less stressful pastures.
The list is quite long and sadly impressive, and I sure don't include myself on it. Columnists are always replaceable like the sanitizer in the toilet bowl:
* Shelia Wissner, investigative reporter, who quit out of frustration with management. She crunched the numbers on then Mayor Bredesen's foolheaded Dell deal and still The Tennessean editorially endorsed this real loser for taxpayers. Then Dell took all the manufacturing jobs in Nashville and moved them. Now workers here just pack boxes and there has been little high-tech ripple effect as promised.
* Neal Scarborough, sports editor, who left for greener pastures after not being allowed to hire his own NFL writer. The African-American journalist has risen meteorically professionally since then. So there is justice in the world.
* Mike Sherman, my immediate editor and friend, who left to become sports editor at The Daily Oklahoman newspaper, family owned. He manages a staff of more than 40 people with a budget of $1 million. He has taken his department to new heights with convergence with the local CBS affiliate and the creation of a video element to all the sports coverage. I am most proud of him, as are his bosses. The Tennessean still refuses to embrace convergence with NewsChannel 5 in Nashville. It's The Tennessean's loss.
* Jeff Legwold and Laura Frank: She was named one of the top Gannett employees of the quarter century for her investigative reporting work. She is a fine person, too. She and Legwold, the paper's NFL reporter, married and had children. They decided to go to the Rocky Mountain News, where he got a job covering the Broncos. She works there, too. Now the fate the newspaper there rests with local efforts to rescue it. Say a prayer for these two good people and the the other good journalists at The News.
* Shelia Burke: She rose up the reporting ranks from being a clerk to become an excellent and compassionate journalist in covering social issues and those touching law enforcement. She also left out of frustration with management.
* Ray Waddle, religion writer extraordinaire, who left with his wife, a former Tennessean reporter, to concentrate on book writing. The couple since moved to Ivy League country, where Waddle has gotten a job with an institution there. His desk area was legendary in the newsroom. It had more paper and books strewn about it as if a hurricane had just hit. Tour guides always avoided our pod of reporters. Ray always ate one can of tuna for lunch and adored his late, great father, mailing him a postcard every day. He was a Sooner fan and graduate of OU but got his divinity degree from Vandy. His column still appears each week in The Tennessean.
* Wendi Thomas: Another African-American manager with promise and talent left for Memphis Commercial-Appeal where she continues as a very popular columnist. She turned down the Baltimore Sun for a columnist job there.
* Corwin Thomas: Another African-American journalist with talent and promise, left for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I tried to get him into column writing at his request but was blocked by a managing editor at the newspaper after she reviewed our prototypes. He was a great guy besides a good journalist in his 20s.
* Brian Lewis: Another African-American journalist with talent, promise and brains. He was a graduate of the Notre Dame University. His parents are college professors. He wanted to make the jump to editorial and column writing, goals I encouraged him to pursue. He was that good and in his late 20s. He was told by the editor whoshallgonameless that he first had to serve a stint on the copy desk. So Lewis left to become assistant editorial page editor in Springfield, Mo.
* Denise Williams: Another African-American journalist with talent, brains and experience. She was a copy editor, but her way to advancement was blocked because she was most honest in the wrong she saw in the newsroom. She left for the Virginian-Pilot, which grabbed up Bill Choyke, who was the best line editor I've ever had to make my copy better. I miss you Bill and Denise.
* A host of former Nashville Banner reporters : They regularly beat The Tennessean in scoops and writing quality. That's what underdogs do. Passion drives them. About a dozen came to The Tennessean after the Banner closed. Boy, these folks knew hot to hustle and give a damn. The only prominent ones remaining are Leon Alligood, Ms. Cheap and Larry McCormack. The three are all good people and journalists.
* Lynette Pillow: Another African-American journalist of talent, brains and devotion who could never seem to get advanced from clerk duties to reporting, for which she had the college degree. Even the availability of a diversity reporter training program at the Freedom Forum in Nashville was not used by management. I actively tried to help her advance, which did not help her cause due to my unpopularity. She was one of the 23 laid-off recently by The Tennessean.
* Two journalists of Hispanic descent: Bill Bradley was a talented sports editor who left for Sacramento. He is a bigwig in the organization representing sports editors around the country. He is an innovator and a joy to work with and for. Fernando Pizzaro, city editor, married Diane Notthingham, the night editor, and they left to have a family and live happily ever after at the Gannett newspaper in Hawaii. It's great when good people find each other.
* Terry Quillen: Op-Ed page editor and passionate advocate for her beliefs, she remains a giant fan of the great John Seigenthaler. She took a buyout. And with her went at least 25 years of professional experience and institutional knowledge. I always like Terry even though my arrogance had to be tough for her and others to take.
* Sandra Roberts: Long-time editorial page editor, who I did not appreciate enough working for, when I was a political columnist. But a lot of others did. A good person and boss and a fighter for TennCare and choice. She had to hold her nose in being forced to endorse some Bredesen deals she knew were wrong. But she left with head unbowed and a readership and TennCare recipients who now miss her skills and passion for justice. Sure, we disagreed on some things, and I proceeded wrongly around her at times. But she supported me with great passion when I came down with leukemia. Place her up there with Ida B. Wells when it comes to Tennessee's great journalists. And like Ashley Judd,, she is a Kentucky Wildcat fan. Only the best when it came to Sandra.
* Ellen Dahnke: Cancer claimed her life while I was sick with leukemia. We reconciled around our illnesses, and I came to appreciate her passion -- for education and choice. She was with The Tennessean for three decades. Even though she did not leave on her own, her loss still is felt the same. I pray for her soul every day. God must have a hell of an editorial page staff in heaven.
* Frank Ritter: Former Tennessean city editor in the Seigenthaler heyday was a columnist and keeper of institutional knowledge during my time at the newspaper. He gave conservative readers some outlet, but his column was not as regular as others. He still believed in social progress but told me that liberals had abandoned too many of the principles that brought a better day. He said some of them then degraded him for speaking that truth and other facts. This great man of faith also overcame personal challenges. I miss him and his wisdom.
* Jon Yates and Trine Tsouderos: Jon was the Rick Bragg of the newspaper. He now is with The Chicago Tribune. He once offered to go to the Iowa Caucuses for free for The Tennessean, because he went to school there and Al Gore was running for president in 2000. The same managing editor who blocked Corwin Thomas' advancement laughed at Jon's request. Then she came out of a news meeting in which everyone thought Jon's suggestion was great. So she asked him to go to Iowa. He rightly refused. Trine was a most beautiful person inside and out. And a helluva writer and dogged questioner. She married Jon and they now have one child with another on the way.
She wrote for People magazine out of Chicago. Her low point was when the editorwhoseshallbenameless mispronounced her last name before the whole newsroom in a meeting. He did the same with a very talented page designer and artist with the surname of Phonetip. If you don't even know how to pronounce the last names of your staff, how are you supposed to have the credibility to lead them?
* Emily Hefner: One of many talented interns turned reporter who left The Tennessean. She grew frustrated and went to a larger newspaper to pursue her career. She would have stayed here, but she could see that too many good people and editors were leaving, and the bad ones remained in control.
* Larry Woody/Chris Low: This racing columnist and NASCAR expert for The Tennessean is sorely missed. Chris Low, who covered UT, has gone on to a bigger audience in covering the Southeast Conference, the best collection of football teams in the nation.
* Cathy Straight: Another African-American journalist of brains and skills who had a strong sense of integrity about her as a managing editor. She was being groomed by Gannett for advancement but then jumped to Knight-Ridder and its editor program. Last I heard, she was with one of the two big newspapers in Minnesota, still leading with integrity and honesty.
* Anita Wadwhani/Bill Synder: They were the last of the very dedicated writers covering TennCare. Bill Snyder was the best and very detail oriented. And the suffering people of this state sure needed him. Anita left for another job to spend more time with her family and also earn more money with more respect. She once was denied a promotion because the editorwhoshallbenameless considered her to be too young, although she was in her 30s with a proven track record of journalistic excellence. She was very serious in how she approached her craft, and it showed in her copy.
* Dave Green: Some people may object fiercely to his inclusion on this list. But the second in command was a great journalist who knew how to write and prosecute a story. He was very skeptical of then Mayor Bredesen's big deals. Once when Mark Ippolito -- the city hall reporter who went on to the AJC -- wrote a critical story about one aspect of the Titans' deal, the editorwhosahallgonameless brought Bredesen into the newsroom and into his office on deadline to spin the story to the staff assembled. It was a disgrace, and Dave had to sit there and take it, as he did many other times with other issues. Still, Dave had his faults.
One time, I wrote a column that teased Bredesen and his family. One bit of the satire dealt with Andrea Conte, who called and complained to the editorwhoshallbenameless about what I wrote. He stormed out of his office to my desk and we had it out quite loudly in front of the newsroom. It all ended with the instigator telling me and my immediate boss that he and Green should always read my column if Conte and Bredesen are mentioned, or their son who had reached adult age. My immediate boss and I did not give Dave up. He had actually read and approved the column before publication. So he still owes us for the crap we took.
* Ted Power/Craig Moon: Ted should be the top editor or publisher of The Tennessean now if there was a concern for readers and the treatment of employees. Ted was one of the originators of the successful Williamson A.M. edition of The Tennessean, which was purposely separated from any control of the downtown newsroom to prevent this new form of reader-friendly journalism from being corrupted. That was the decision of Craig Moon, the great publisher of The Tennessean back in 1996.
That's also when I met Ted, who was the night editor responsible for reconciling the miscommunication between editors during the day. Ted also was a sort of Pygmalion project professionally and personally. Moon groomed him for advancement in Gannett, where now he is publisher in Reno and raking in a 35 percent profit. His wife, Kathy, was a marketing executive at the newspaper. And she saw Ted as a potential catch, if she could teach him to wear socks with shoes and improve his wardrobe. He did, and they are married with three fabulous children. All three of these folks are really good people who bring credit and hope to our profession.
You may not remember all these names, but I sure do as do the colleagues they touched with their excellence, passion and goodness in their hearts and actions. Yes, there are journalists who needed to go. They were dead wood and not carrying their weight. Certainly, columnists such as myself are an extra compared to the need for simple, good reporting. Opinion can come later.
This list is not meant to be conclusive. There are some names I have forgotten. Please send their names in and I'll include them in this post and in a separate post.
Good luck and God's prayers to all of them for their distinguished service to our craft and most of all to readers.
The one factor that has hurt the quality of the product the most has been the loss of experience and institutional knowledge among its staff -- sliced and diced to the bottom line first by layoffs, buyouts and just plain frustration by good journalists who chose to leave for greener and much less stressful pastures.
The list is quite long and sadly impressive, and I sure don't include myself on it. Columnists are always replaceable like the sanitizer in the toilet bowl:
* Shelia Wissner, investigative reporter, who quit out of frustration with management. She crunched the numbers on then Mayor Bredesen's foolheaded Dell deal and still The Tennessean editorially endorsed this real loser for taxpayers. Then Dell took all the manufacturing jobs in Nashville and moved them. Now workers here just pack boxes and there has been little high-tech ripple effect as promised.
* Neal Scarborough, sports editor, who left for greener pastures after not being allowed to hire his own NFL writer. The African-American journalist has risen meteorically professionally since then. So there is justice in the world.
* Mike Sherman, my immediate editor and friend, who left to become sports editor at The Daily Oklahoman newspaper, family owned. He manages a staff of more than 40 people with a budget of $1 million. He has taken his department to new heights with convergence with the local CBS affiliate and the creation of a video element to all the sports coverage. I am most proud of him, as are his bosses. The Tennessean still refuses to embrace convergence with NewsChannel 5 in Nashville. It's The Tennessean's loss.
* Jeff Legwold and Laura Frank: She was named one of the top Gannett employees of the quarter century for her investigative reporting work. She is a fine person, too. She and Legwold, the paper's NFL reporter, married and had children. They decided to go to the Rocky Mountain News, where he got a job covering the Broncos. She works there, too. Now the fate the newspaper there rests with local efforts to rescue it. Say a prayer for these two good people and the the other good journalists at The News.
* Shelia Burke: She rose up the reporting ranks from being a clerk to become an excellent and compassionate journalist in covering social issues and those touching law enforcement. She also left out of frustration with management.
* Ray Waddle, religion writer extraordinaire, who left with his wife, a former Tennessean reporter, to concentrate on book writing. The couple since moved to Ivy League country, where Waddle has gotten a job with an institution there. His desk area was legendary in the newsroom. It had more paper and books strewn about it as if a hurricane had just hit. Tour guides always avoided our pod of reporters. Ray always ate one can of tuna for lunch and adored his late, great father, mailing him a postcard every day. He was a Sooner fan and graduate of OU but got his divinity degree from Vandy. His column still appears each week in The Tennessean.
* Wendi Thomas: Another African-American manager with promise and talent left for Memphis Commercial-Appeal where she continues as a very popular columnist. She turned down the Baltimore Sun for a columnist job there.
* Corwin Thomas: Another African-American journalist with talent and promise, left for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I tried to get him into column writing at his request but was blocked by a managing editor at the newspaper after she reviewed our prototypes. He was a great guy besides a good journalist in his 20s.
* Brian Lewis: Another African-American journalist with talent, promise and brains. He was a graduate of the Notre Dame University. His parents are college professors. He wanted to make the jump to editorial and column writing, goals I encouraged him to pursue. He was that good and in his late 20s. He was told by the editor whoshallgonameless that he first had to serve a stint on the copy desk. So Lewis left to become assistant editorial page editor in Springfield, Mo.
* Denise Williams: Another African-American journalist with talent, brains and experience. She was a copy editor, but her way to advancement was blocked because she was most honest in the wrong she saw in the newsroom. She left for the Virginian-Pilot, which grabbed up Bill Choyke, who was the best line editor I've ever had to make my copy better. I miss you Bill and Denise.
* A host of former Nashville Banner reporters : They regularly beat The Tennessean in scoops and writing quality. That's what underdogs do. Passion drives them. About a dozen came to The Tennessean after the Banner closed. Boy, these folks knew hot to hustle and give a damn. The only prominent ones remaining are Leon Alligood, Ms. Cheap and Larry McCormack. The three are all good people and journalists.
* Lynette Pillow: Another African-American journalist of talent, brains and devotion who could never seem to get advanced from clerk duties to reporting, for which she had the college degree. Even the availability of a diversity reporter training program at the Freedom Forum in Nashville was not used by management. I actively tried to help her advance, which did not help her cause due to my unpopularity. She was one of the 23 laid-off recently by The Tennessean.
* Two journalists of Hispanic descent: Bill Bradley was a talented sports editor who left for Sacramento. He is a bigwig in the organization representing sports editors around the country. He is an innovator and a joy to work with and for. Fernando Pizzaro, city editor, married Diane Notthingham, the night editor, and they left to have a family and live happily ever after at the Gannett newspaper in Hawaii. It's great when good people find each other.
* Terry Quillen: Op-Ed page editor and passionate advocate for her beliefs, she remains a giant fan of the great John Seigenthaler. She took a buyout. And with her went at least 25 years of professional experience and institutional knowledge. I always like Terry even though my arrogance had to be tough for her and others to take.
* Sandra Roberts: Long-time editorial page editor, who I did not appreciate enough working for, when I was a political columnist. But a lot of others did. A good person and boss and a fighter for TennCare and choice. She had to hold her nose in being forced to endorse some Bredesen deals she knew were wrong. But she left with head unbowed and a readership and TennCare recipients who now miss her skills and passion for justice. Sure, we disagreed on some things, and I proceeded wrongly around her at times. But she supported me with great passion when I came down with leukemia. Place her up there with Ida B. Wells when it comes to Tennessee's great journalists. And like Ashley Judd,, she is a Kentucky Wildcat fan. Only the best when it came to Sandra.
* Ellen Dahnke: Cancer claimed her life while I was sick with leukemia. We reconciled around our illnesses, and I came to appreciate her passion -- for education and choice. She was with The Tennessean for three decades. Even though she did not leave on her own, her loss still is felt the same. I pray for her soul every day. God must have a hell of an editorial page staff in heaven.
* Frank Ritter: Former Tennessean city editor in the Seigenthaler heyday was a columnist and keeper of institutional knowledge during my time at the newspaper. He gave conservative readers some outlet, but his column was not as regular as others. He still believed in social progress but told me that liberals had abandoned too many of the principles that brought a better day. He said some of them then degraded him for speaking that truth and other facts. This great man of faith also overcame personal challenges. I miss him and his wisdom.
* Jon Yates and Trine Tsouderos: Jon was the Rick Bragg of the newspaper. He now is with The Chicago Tribune. He once offered to go to the Iowa Caucuses for free for The Tennessean, because he went to school there and Al Gore was running for president in 2000. The same managing editor who blocked Corwin Thomas' advancement laughed at Jon's request. Then she came out of a news meeting in which everyone thought Jon's suggestion was great. So she asked him to go to Iowa. He rightly refused. Trine was a most beautiful person inside and out. And a helluva writer and dogged questioner. She married Jon and they now have one child with another on the way.
She wrote for People magazine out of Chicago. Her low point was when the editorwhoseshallbenameless mispronounced her last name before the whole newsroom in a meeting. He did the same with a very talented page designer and artist with the surname of Phonetip. If you don't even know how to pronounce the last names of your staff, how are you supposed to have the credibility to lead them?
* Emily Hefner: One of many talented interns turned reporter who left The Tennessean. She grew frustrated and went to a larger newspaper to pursue her career. She would have stayed here, but she could see that too many good people and editors were leaving, and the bad ones remained in control.
* Larry Woody/Chris Low: This racing columnist and NASCAR expert for The Tennessean is sorely missed. Chris Low, who covered UT, has gone on to a bigger audience in covering the Southeast Conference, the best collection of football teams in the nation.
* Cathy Straight: Another African-American journalist of brains and skills who had a strong sense of integrity about her as a managing editor. She was being groomed by Gannett for advancement but then jumped to Knight-Ridder and its editor program. Last I heard, she was with one of the two big newspapers in Minnesota, still leading with integrity and honesty.
* Anita Wadwhani/Bill Synder: They were the last of the very dedicated writers covering TennCare. Bill Snyder was the best and very detail oriented. And the suffering people of this state sure needed him. Anita left for another job to spend more time with her family and also earn more money with more respect. She once was denied a promotion because the editorwhoshallbenameless considered her to be too young, although she was in her 30s with a proven track record of journalistic excellence. She was very serious in how she approached her craft, and it showed in her copy.
* Dave Green: Some people may object fiercely to his inclusion on this list. But the second in command was a great journalist who knew how to write and prosecute a story. He was very skeptical of then Mayor Bredesen's big deals. Once when Mark Ippolito -- the city hall reporter who went on to the AJC -- wrote a critical story about one aspect of the Titans' deal, the editorwhosahallgonameless brought Bredesen into the newsroom and into his office on deadline to spin the story to the staff assembled. It was a disgrace, and Dave had to sit there and take it, as he did many other times with other issues. Still, Dave had his faults.
One time, I wrote a column that teased Bredesen and his family. One bit of the satire dealt with Andrea Conte, who called and complained to the editorwhoshallbenameless about what I wrote. He stormed out of his office to my desk and we had it out quite loudly in front of the newsroom. It all ended with the instigator telling me and my immediate boss that he and Green should always read my column if Conte and Bredesen are mentioned, or their son who had reached adult age. My immediate boss and I did not give Dave up. He had actually read and approved the column before publication. So he still owes us for the crap we took.
* Ted Power/Craig Moon: Ted should be the top editor or publisher of The Tennessean now if there was a concern for readers and the treatment of employees. Ted was one of the originators of the successful Williamson A.M. edition of The Tennessean, which was purposely separated from any control of the downtown newsroom to prevent this new form of reader-friendly journalism from being corrupted. That was the decision of Craig Moon, the great publisher of The Tennessean back in 1996.
That's also when I met Ted, who was the night editor responsible for reconciling the miscommunication between editors during the day. Ted also was a sort of Pygmalion project professionally and personally. Moon groomed him for advancement in Gannett, where now he is publisher in Reno and raking in a 35 percent profit. His wife, Kathy, was a marketing executive at the newspaper. And she saw Ted as a potential catch, if she could teach him to wear socks with shoes and improve his wardrobe. He did, and they are married with three fabulous children. All three of these folks are really good people who bring credit and hope to our profession.
You may not remember all these names, but I sure do as do the colleagues they touched with their excellence, passion and goodness in their hearts and actions. Yes, there are journalists who needed to go. They were dead wood and not carrying their weight. Certainly, columnists such as myself are an extra compared to the need for simple, good reporting. Opinion can come later.
This list is not meant to be conclusive. There are some names I have forgotten. Please send their names in and I'll include them in this post and in a separate post.
Good luck and God's prayers to all of them for their distinguished service to our craft and most of all to readers.
New highs in reader numbers
For Monday, Dec. 29, 2008, from Feedburner, here are the reader stats:
166 views
8 clicks
39 Subscribers
17 Reach
All these numbers represent new highs. Thank you again, readers.
166 views
8 clicks
39 Subscribers
17 Reach
All these numbers represent new highs. Thank you again, readers.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Addendum to Tennessean series: Biitersweet to miss the business and people but not treatment
Here is another poignant comment from a former Gannett colleague well aware of conditions at The Tennessean with its employees:
Tim,
I'm a former "Gannetteer" and worked for the Clarksville, TN Leaf-Chronicle as a reporter for 10 years. I used to read your column often and I am sorry about your situation. I'm glad you're making the most of it.
I've heard the horror stories at the Tennessean and worked with some of the staff editors, writers and photographers on special projects. It's a bitter sweet fate that I'm not in the newspaper business anymore.
I do miss the people and heartbeat of the newsroom. but I do not miss the hours, low pay and ridiculous demands placed on those who have remained. Then there's the massive layoffs.
I knew it was getting bad but I had no idea it would go this far.
I hate to see my comrades be raked over the coals, especially those who love the newspaper business, but it is a sign of the times.
Gannett stock was at $7.50 a share today (it was about $85 a share in Dec. 2005). I'll be lucky if I still have my contributed funds in my 401K after Gannett stock runs dry.
Take Care,
CE
Tim,
I'm a former "Gannetteer" and worked for the Clarksville, TN Leaf-Chronicle as a reporter for 10 years. I used to read your column often and I am sorry about your situation. I'm glad you're making the most of it.
I've heard the horror stories at the Tennessean and worked with some of the staff editors, writers and photographers on special projects. It's a bitter sweet fate that I'm not in the newspaper business anymore.
I do miss the people and heartbeat of the newsroom. but I do not miss the hours, low pay and ridiculous demands placed on those who have remained. Then there's the massive layoffs.
I knew it was getting bad but I had no idea it would go this far.
I hate to see my comrades be raked over the coals, especially those who love the newspaper business, but it is a sign of the times.
Gannett stock was at $7.50 a share today (it was about $85 a share in Dec. 2005). I'll be lucky if I still have my contributed funds in my 401K after Gannett stock runs dry.
Take Care,
CE
News of Music City Inaugural Ball spreading
ABC News and its Memphis affiliate are spreading the word to the nation about the Music City Inaugural Charity Ball slated for Jan. 20 to set an example to America about how to come together behind Barack Obama's presidency and the crisis of these economic times.
Organizer, the Rev. Enoch Fuzz, has set the theme for the event as one of unity and self-empowerment, quoting the inaugural speech of President John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
Here is what the Memphis ABC-TV affiliate ran:
Nashville, TN - For the first time in history, Music City will host it's own Presidential Inaugural Ball.
Set for the night of January 20 at the Maxwell House Hotel, organizers said Music City's version will be the largest inaugural ball outside Washington DC.
The Reverend Enoch Fuzz came up with the idea and quickly sought the help of other religious leaders in the Nashville community, including Dr. Charles McGowan.
A broad array of musicians and celebrities will be in attendance including Gospel music legend Dr. Bobby Jones and bluegrass/country singers Sharon and Ricky Skaggs.
The ball will be held at the Maxwell House Hotel, beginning at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, January 20.
Tickets are available online at www.wecannashville.com.
Reverend Fuzz said the ball is intended to bring people of Nashville together, regardless of race, religion or politics.
Organizer, the Rev. Enoch Fuzz, has set the theme for the event as one of unity and self-empowerment, quoting the inaugural speech of President John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
Here is what the Memphis ABC-TV affiliate ran:
Nashville, TN - For the first time in history, Music City will host it's own Presidential Inaugural Ball.
Set for the night of January 20 at the Maxwell House Hotel, organizers said Music City's version will be the largest inaugural ball outside Washington DC.
The Reverend Enoch Fuzz came up with the idea and quickly sought the help of other religious leaders in the Nashville community, including Dr. Charles McGowan.
A broad array of musicians and celebrities will be in attendance including Gospel music legend Dr. Bobby Jones and bluegrass/country singers Sharon and Ricky Skaggs.
The ball will be held at the Maxwell House Hotel, beginning at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, January 20.
Tickets are available online at www.wecannashville.com.
Reverend Fuzz said the ball is intended to bring people of Nashville together, regardless of race, religion or politics.
Addendum to Tennessean series: Lesson learned from the good fight and passed on to daughter
I got the following e-mail comment from a former colleague, who like many of us have used the difficult lessons learned at The Tennessean to make our lives more meaningful:
Al Cleveland has left a new comment on your post "'We few, we happy few' grew to too many at gathering...":
My apologies for the lateness of this comment. I have been out of town and did not hear of the events at The Tennessean until tonight.
I was asked recently by my in-laws if I missed the hectic life that I left upon retirement from the newspaper in October of 2007.
I answered honestly. Yes, I miss it every day. It had been the best vocation I had ever been associated with and I miss it dearly. These were the best people I ever worked with in my life. I only regret I could not go full-time into the profession.
Ms. Sandra Roberts gave me the best advice when I told her of my retirement plans: There is life outside the newsroom. Go make something of it.
It's a challenge, but that is good advice for all of us. I still miss the smell of ink and the rumble of the presses at 10 p.m. But I confess that I have mostly moved on. Time does heal wounds.
Good luck to all of you out there. You are always in my thoughts and prayers.
One of the worst/best moments of my post-Tennessean career came quite recently during a employee evaluation.
I was downgraded a number of points for "asking too many questions."
I wear that charge with pride...and I used it as a lesson for my young daughter.
She will not be a sheep...thanks to my Tennessean family (and that includes Duzak!)
Into the breech...
Al Cleveland has left a new comment on your post "'We few, we happy few' grew to too many at gathering...":
My apologies for the lateness of this comment. I have been out of town and did not hear of the events at The Tennessean until tonight.
I was asked recently by my in-laws if I missed the hectic life that I left upon retirement from the newspaper in October of 2007.
I answered honestly. Yes, I miss it every day. It had been the best vocation I had ever been associated with and I miss it dearly. These were the best people I ever worked with in my life. I only regret I could not go full-time into the profession.
Ms. Sandra Roberts gave me the best advice when I told her of my retirement plans: There is life outside the newsroom. Go make something of it.
It's a challenge, but that is good advice for all of us. I still miss the smell of ink and the rumble of the presses at 10 p.m. But I confess that I have mostly moved on. Time does heal wounds.
Good luck to all of you out there. You are always in my thoughts and prayers.
One of the worst/best moments of my post-Tennessean career came quite recently during a employee evaluation.
I was downgraded a number of points for "asking too many questions."
I wear that charge with pride...and I used it as a lesson for my young daughter.
She will not be a sheep...thanks to my Tennessean family (and that includes Duzak!)
Into the breech...
FYI on reader numbers
Feedburner reports the following numbers for www.politicalsalsa.com for Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008:
110 views
11 clicks
Thank you to all of you who took time to read my stuff. It is very appreciated and humbling. Your patronage will make me work harder.
110 views
11 clicks
Thank you to all of you who took time to read my stuff. It is very appreciated and humbling. Your patronage will make me work harder.
America to distintegrate into civil war by 2010
A Russian economist predicts that the United States ultimately will be split into five different countries, and controlled by foreign powers that own all of its debt.
That news from CNBC on the surface is very laughable. But once you consider how much debt this nation is going to have to create to pay for an economic stimulus plan for you and me, besides bail out states and municipalities, then the prediction may not be that far fetched.
How large of deficits can this nation run up until someone calls our bills due? China already owns more than $1 trillion in U.S. debt. China may buy up a mega billions of dollars of MUNI bonds that some cities default upon in the new year.
Tennessee will be in a Northeast country of what used to be the United States, according to the economist. That should be interesting collection considering that Tennessee voted overwhelmingly for McCain, while the rest of the state voted for Obama. There may be a civil war within a civil war.
Old times may not be so forgotten after all.
That news from CNBC on the surface is very laughable. But once you consider how much debt this nation is going to have to create to pay for an economic stimulus plan for you and me, besides bail out states and municipalities, then the prediction may not be that far fetched.
How large of deficits can this nation run up until someone calls our bills due? China already owns more than $1 trillion in U.S. debt. China may buy up a mega billions of dollars of MUNI bonds that some cities default upon in the new year.
Tennessee will be in a Northeast country of what used to be the United States, according to the economist. That should be interesting collection considering that Tennessee voted overwhelmingly for McCain, while the rest of the state voted for Obama. There may be a civil war within a civil war.
Old times may not be so forgotten after all.
Consenus on Wall Street: No one knows what the hell is going to happen to financial markets in '09
The consensus on Wall Street on this first full day back from the Christmas holidays is that no one really knows when and if the stock market is going to recover in the new year.
But if forced to make a guess, most analysts are Bears at least through the first half of 2009 or longer.
The only way to make money in the stock market in the new year will be to invest in a select group of individual stocks that you are not going to find in any mutual fund or from any stock broker or financial planner. And don't listen to crazy man Jim Cramer, who still should not be forgiven or listened to after his whopping mistake last September.
If you are going to make money for sure in the markets in 2009, then you will have to watch CNBC 12 hours a day and get a rabbit's foot the size of a Volkswagen.
So that's why you should get your money in cash or keep it there. Keep earning a little in return instead of losing a lot more in the market.
But if forced to make a guess, most analysts are Bears at least through the first half of 2009 or longer.
The only way to make money in the stock market in the new year will be to invest in a select group of individual stocks that you are not going to find in any mutual fund or from any stock broker or financial planner. And don't listen to crazy man Jim Cramer, who still should not be forgiven or listened to after his whopping mistake last September.
If you are going to make money for sure in the markets in 2009, then you will have to watch CNBC 12 hours a day and get a rabbit's foot the size of a Volkswagen.
So that's why you should get your money in cash or keep it there. Keep earning a little in return instead of losing a lot more in the market.
Far fewer members of the GOP are like Chip the Stupid Republican with his racist, Obama CD
The most compassionate and effective advocate for children most at risk -- and already in very serious trouble with the law -- was chairman of the Warren County(TN) Republican Party.
Linda Gilbert worked among and championed children who had committed the worst criminal offenses and were incarcerated at the state's most secure detention facility north of Chattanooga. I visited her there earlier this decade, and she moved about the boys who had committed adult crimes without fear.
Her husband was a member of the professional staff. But she blazed her own path. She got the boys to write essays for the late Sir John Templeton's "Essays of Life" competition. And one boy, Terrence McLaurine, won the entire national contest and had his essay published. He wrote of what he had learned since being a murderer at 12 years of age in a Nashville drug deal gone bad.
McLaurine -- shockingly tried as an adult in Nashville -- reconciled with the family of his victim, all thanks to Gilbert and his transformation. The family pleaded with the state parole board for the youngster not to be sent on to adult prison after he turned 18. The board turned them down.
That did not deter Gilbert. She got uniforms so they boys could learn team and unity skills on the football field. And she raised money for a scoreboard so these youngsters could finally play at a place called "Home". For some of them, that was the first decent. disciplined home they ever had.
I lost track of Terrence because of my leukemia. He even had cooperated with a meeting I arranged with children at risk to gangs at a Metro school. I thought he could lend credibility to the message of just say "no" to organized criminal activity.
Unfortunately, I was not notified of Terrence's scheduled appearance so I could moderate the session. And Terrence said some things that detention center staff at a Nashville facility saw as negative about the center and purported gang activity there. So Terrence's effectiveness as a speaker to young people could not be used to influence the parole board.
I still feel bad about that. And I've lost track of Gilbert's heroics also. But no matter when or where, they still deserve to be recognized as inspiration to the rest of us to get involved.
And when someone as prominent as Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman casts all the GOP under a racist pall, light must be sought. And it is there you'll find a lot of Republicans such as Linda Gilbert.
Linda Gilbert worked among and championed children who had committed the worst criminal offenses and were incarcerated at the state's most secure detention facility north of Chattanooga. I visited her there earlier this decade, and she moved about the boys who had committed adult crimes without fear.
Her husband was a member of the professional staff. But she blazed her own path. She got the boys to write essays for the late Sir John Templeton's "Essays of Life" competition. And one boy, Terrence McLaurine, won the entire national contest and had his essay published. He wrote of what he had learned since being a murderer at 12 years of age in a Nashville drug deal gone bad.
McLaurine -- shockingly tried as an adult in Nashville -- reconciled with the family of his victim, all thanks to Gilbert and his transformation. The family pleaded with the state parole board for the youngster not to be sent on to adult prison after he turned 18. The board turned them down.
That did not deter Gilbert. She got uniforms so they boys could learn team and unity skills on the football field. And she raised money for a scoreboard so these youngsters could finally play at a place called "Home". For some of them, that was the first decent. disciplined home they ever had.
I lost track of Terrence because of my leukemia. He even had cooperated with a meeting I arranged with children at risk to gangs at a Metro school. I thought he could lend credibility to the message of just say "no" to organized criminal activity.
Unfortunately, I was not notified of Terrence's scheduled appearance so I could moderate the session. And Terrence said some things that detention center staff at a Nashville facility saw as negative about the center and purported gang activity there. So Terrence's effectiveness as a speaker to young people could not be used to influence the parole board.
I still feel bad about that. And I've lost track of Gilbert's heroics also. But no matter when or where, they still deserve to be recognized as inspiration to the rest of us to get involved.
And when someone as prominent as Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman casts all the GOP under a racist pall, light must be sought. And it is there you'll find a lot of Republicans such as Linda Gilbert.
PART II: The Rise and Fall of The Tennessean
The following name and number explain why The Tennessean will never rise to the status it once held in credibility and community leadership.
Kate Marymount. She is the new head of the news side at corporate Gannett. She replaced Phil Currie this past month.
Twenty-one percent. That is the profit margin for The Tennessean, reported at the end of September last year and revealed this fall by the powerful web site, www.gannettblog.blogspot.com. That figure is kind of low for Metros, considering that Ted Power's Reno Gazette makes a more respectable 35 percent profit.
Ted used to be general manager of Williamson A.M. in Franklin, TN, and along with then Tennessean publisher Craig Moon, turned it into a journalism and advertising powerhouse. The bureau now is only a shadow of what it once was.
Ted was long hoped to be the successor to the editor who shall go nameless at 1100 Broadway. Instead he was shipped out to Lousiana as a publisher before taking the big step to Reno and greener pastures. He is a very good man and journalist, just like Moon.
PROTECTING THE POWERFUL. INCOMPETENT
Marymount -- now in charge of "information center content" -- comes from the Phil Currie School of News, which means people such as Mark Silverman, Ellen Leifeld and the former Tennessean who shall go nameless get promoted and feted and never are turned out of their jobs without golden parachutes, no matter how big of a mess they make or how poorly they treat their employees.
I have to give Currie some credit, though. He helped get me out of Utica, N.Y., at my request. And he got me into The Tennessean as a columnist. I just was too stupid to know about the mess I was getting into, even though a friend tried to warn me.
Currie loved Silverman -- who used to be at Corporate where I met him twice -- and Leifeld and the editor who shall go nameless. He propped them up. He got them annual President's rings, until they performed so badly that such a feat was no longer possible. And he kept the business side at Corporate and people such as Moon at bay from making any real and needed change in the news product. The business side sure knew what needed to be changed, beginning with personnel.
Silverman at Corporate was known as the "Evil Twin". That meant that there could be a gracious Silverman on ocassion. More often, the evil one reigned, and he had his boot on the neck of his subordinate editors and some employees and did some editors at other newspapers dirty in grading their Generation X, News 2000 or other reader-oriented projects.
I met Silverman at Corporate once when I was one of 12 supervisors of the year in Gannett as an editorial page editor at the Observer-Dispatch. I was my boss' right hand man, his eye in the newsroom and his compiler of contest entries for Corporate. I also was his crusader in the community. Rick Jensen is the best journalist I ever worked for. But he could never get promoted as an editor beyond an 81,000 circulation publication. What an injustice!
We the supervisors of the year in 1995 were feted at the big house of Neuharth, and then schooled on busting unions and employee morale. My first time there was as part of middle management training. It meant we were being groomed to rise further up the ladder in Gannett and further away from addressing reader needs. I attended as an editorial page editor.
AWARDS REALLY MEAN LITTLE
I've won most of Gannett's big awards. My project on race relations at the Observer-Dispatch snatched the coveted $4,000 public service award. The project was featured on the back cover of E&P magazine. I was hot.
Then I came to The Tennessean, where I decided not to play ball with the newsroom establishment when it came to conservative readers, kissing Phil Bredesen's ass and not kissing the ass of the editor who shall go nameless. But I also learned that The Tennessean was not representing the interests of liberal readers well, either. Actually, readers of all persuasions were of little interest at all.
That was all right, at least for me personally, although I protested the above wrongs in the newsroom -- to Moon, to Power and in my column.
My writing still won top awards from non-Gannett competitions -- three consecutive national education reporting citations from the Education Writers Association(large newspaper competition). Pitiful me beat out writers for The New York Times and Washington Post in covering the fates of minority and poor children.
I won two consecutive awards for commentary at large newspapers from the Casey Journalism Center at the University of Maryland. Again, I beat out the big time writers.
I won two awards for columns from the Religion Communicators Council in New York City. Faith has always been a big topic in my commentary.
The biggest one for me was being selected for the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Publisher Craig Moon nominated me, which made the award that much sweeter. It was his way of thumbing his nose at the newsroom and my way of showing that a column was not supposed to be used for celebrity but for public service and getting off your ass and into the community to the people.
So I did well for myself, even getting into the White House twice to interview George W. Bush. I was considered a turncoat for doing that. But Bush helped me get a civil rights order against Metro Nashville public schools for the unfair and inadequate education of immigrant children. Al Gore's staff wouldn't lift a finger, even though his campaign office was located right in Nashville.
So I didn't cheer like too many staffers did in the newsroom on election night 2000 when it was prematurely announced that Gore had won Florida.
And I did myself well until I contracted leukemia. Even though I wrote from my hospital bed, my job would ultimately be eliminated by Silverman and Leifeld in August 2007.
Que sera sera.
FACTORS FOR FAILURE
It can be said that readers really lost little with my fall. There was no flurry of protests or submission of petitions demanding me back. The Women in Black did not take to the bridge over the railroad tracks next to Union Station. In fact, the paper hired a good entertainment columnist to replace Brad Schmitt. Journalists always magnify their importance beyond reality. I am no different.
Still, the newspaper has continued to decline. It's not because of my absence. It's because of the failures of the editor who shall go nameless, Silverman and Leifeld. Despite protest to the contrary from some readers of this blog, I still believe E.J. Mitchell put out a compelling front page and distinguished himself by taking on Bredesen.
One problem was the newspaper's incredibly poor penetration rate in a growing market. Another was how its politics got into news coverage and in the decisions on the play of stories. Readers are not stupid. And ad rates stayed too damn high. Alernatives through the Internet besides print competition locally ate into Tennessean profits and circulation.
But the profit still is large enough that Gannett will never sell this paper to local investors who actually might care about Middle Tennessee. And that's the only way the newspaper can improve.
Marymount's succession to higher office protects Silverman and Leifeld. Moon does what he can as a member of the Gannett operating committee. But corporate politics still rule, until things get so bad for the company that it has change on the fly. That won't happen soon. It has too much cash on hand and too many smaller newspapers it can sell to stave off a day of reckoning any time soon.
So I wish The Tennessean well for the sake of my friends and colleagues still there, who labor on bravely and dilligently despite the management that leads them. The Photo Department is a notable, positive exception in peformance and management. I want my colleagues to keep their jobs. A lot of other employees at a lot of non-media companies face the same challenge and fates, too. May God help them all.
DESERTING THE FIRST AMENDMENT
It's just that newspapers have always told the public that they're better than your usual capitalistic enterprise. They defend the First Amendment, although it is actually our men and women in uniform who lay down their lives for that amendment and the others in the Constitution. They take an oath to do so. I've never met a journalist who did the same.
There are more specific things I could write about Leifeld's and Silverman's wrongs as managers. But what's the point. Their jobs are safe. They're not going anywhere. Liz Murray Garrigan when she was with the Nashville Scene did a great job of chronicling the wrongs. I can do no better than she.
So, Nashville, middle Tennessee and the journalism world, what you've got at The Tennessean is not going to change.
That's too bad for the employees whose jobs will continue to be at risk, readers wanting a good and interesting product and communities needing leadership from the kind of institution Jefferson promised would keep us free -- by keeping us fully informed.
Kate Marymount. She is the new head of the news side at corporate Gannett. She replaced Phil Currie this past month.
Twenty-one percent. That is the profit margin for The Tennessean, reported at the end of September last year and revealed this fall by the powerful web site, www.gannettblog.blogspot.com. That figure is kind of low for Metros, considering that Ted Power's Reno Gazette makes a more respectable 35 percent profit.
Ted used to be general manager of Williamson A.M. in Franklin, TN, and along with then Tennessean publisher Craig Moon, turned it into a journalism and advertising powerhouse. The bureau now is only a shadow of what it once was.
Ted was long hoped to be the successor to the editor who shall go nameless at 1100 Broadway. Instead he was shipped out to Lousiana as a publisher before taking the big step to Reno and greener pastures. He is a very good man and journalist, just like Moon.
PROTECTING THE POWERFUL. INCOMPETENT
Marymount -- now in charge of "information center content" -- comes from the Phil Currie School of News, which means people such as Mark Silverman, Ellen Leifeld and the former Tennessean who shall go nameless get promoted and feted and never are turned out of their jobs without golden parachutes, no matter how big of a mess they make or how poorly they treat their employees.
I have to give Currie some credit, though. He helped get me out of Utica, N.Y., at my request. And he got me into The Tennessean as a columnist. I just was too stupid to know about the mess I was getting into, even though a friend tried to warn me.
Currie loved Silverman -- who used to be at Corporate where I met him twice -- and Leifeld and the editor who shall go nameless. He propped them up. He got them annual President's rings, until they performed so badly that such a feat was no longer possible. And he kept the business side at Corporate and people such as Moon at bay from making any real and needed change in the news product. The business side sure knew what needed to be changed, beginning with personnel.
Silverman at Corporate was known as the "Evil Twin". That meant that there could be a gracious Silverman on ocassion. More often, the evil one reigned, and he had his boot on the neck of his subordinate editors and some employees and did some editors at other newspapers dirty in grading their Generation X, News 2000 or other reader-oriented projects.
I met Silverman at Corporate once when I was one of 12 supervisors of the year in Gannett as an editorial page editor at the Observer-Dispatch. I was my boss' right hand man, his eye in the newsroom and his compiler of contest entries for Corporate. I also was his crusader in the community. Rick Jensen is the best journalist I ever worked for. But he could never get promoted as an editor beyond an 81,000 circulation publication. What an injustice!
We the supervisors of the year in 1995 were feted at the big house of Neuharth, and then schooled on busting unions and employee morale. My first time there was as part of middle management training. It meant we were being groomed to rise further up the ladder in Gannett and further away from addressing reader needs. I attended as an editorial page editor.
AWARDS REALLY MEAN LITTLE
I've won most of Gannett's big awards. My project on race relations at the Observer-Dispatch snatched the coveted $4,000 public service award. The project was featured on the back cover of E&P magazine. I was hot.
Then I came to The Tennessean, where I decided not to play ball with the newsroom establishment when it came to conservative readers, kissing Phil Bredesen's ass and not kissing the ass of the editor who shall go nameless. But I also learned that The Tennessean was not representing the interests of liberal readers well, either. Actually, readers of all persuasions were of little interest at all.
That was all right, at least for me personally, although I protested the above wrongs in the newsroom -- to Moon, to Power and in my column.
My writing still won top awards from non-Gannett competitions -- three consecutive national education reporting citations from the Education Writers Association(large newspaper competition). Pitiful me beat out writers for The New York Times and Washington Post in covering the fates of minority and poor children.
I won two consecutive awards for commentary at large newspapers from the Casey Journalism Center at the University of Maryland. Again, I beat out the big time writers.
I won two awards for columns from the Religion Communicators Council in New York City. Faith has always been a big topic in my commentary.
The biggest one for me was being selected for the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Publisher Craig Moon nominated me, which made the award that much sweeter. It was his way of thumbing his nose at the newsroom and my way of showing that a column was not supposed to be used for celebrity but for public service and getting off your ass and into the community to the people.
So I did well for myself, even getting into the White House twice to interview George W. Bush. I was considered a turncoat for doing that. But Bush helped me get a civil rights order against Metro Nashville public schools for the unfair and inadequate education of immigrant children. Al Gore's staff wouldn't lift a finger, even though his campaign office was located right in Nashville.
So I didn't cheer like too many staffers did in the newsroom on election night 2000 when it was prematurely announced that Gore had won Florida.
And I did myself well until I contracted leukemia. Even though I wrote from my hospital bed, my job would ultimately be eliminated by Silverman and Leifeld in August 2007.
Que sera sera.
FACTORS FOR FAILURE
It can be said that readers really lost little with my fall. There was no flurry of protests or submission of petitions demanding me back. The Women in Black did not take to the bridge over the railroad tracks next to Union Station. In fact, the paper hired a good entertainment columnist to replace Brad Schmitt. Journalists always magnify their importance beyond reality. I am no different.
Still, the newspaper has continued to decline. It's not because of my absence. It's because of the failures of the editor who shall go nameless, Silverman and Leifeld. Despite protest to the contrary from some readers of this blog, I still believe E.J. Mitchell put out a compelling front page and distinguished himself by taking on Bredesen.
One problem was the newspaper's incredibly poor penetration rate in a growing market. Another was how its politics got into news coverage and in the decisions on the play of stories. Readers are not stupid. And ad rates stayed too damn high. Alernatives through the Internet besides print competition locally ate into Tennessean profits and circulation.
But the profit still is large enough that Gannett will never sell this paper to local investors who actually might care about Middle Tennessee. And that's the only way the newspaper can improve.
Marymount's succession to higher office protects Silverman and Leifeld. Moon does what he can as a member of the Gannett operating committee. But corporate politics still rule, until things get so bad for the company that it has change on the fly. That won't happen soon. It has too much cash on hand and too many smaller newspapers it can sell to stave off a day of reckoning any time soon.
So I wish The Tennessean well for the sake of my friends and colleagues still there, who labor on bravely and dilligently despite the management that leads them. The Photo Department is a notable, positive exception in peformance and management. I want my colleagues to keep their jobs. A lot of other employees at a lot of non-media companies face the same challenge and fates, too. May God help them all.
DESERTING THE FIRST AMENDMENT
It's just that newspapers have always told the public that they're better than your usual capitalistic enterprise. They defend the First Amendment, although it is actually our men and women in uniform who lay down their lives for that amendment and the others in the Constitution. They take an oath to do so. I've never met a journalist who did the same.
There are more specific things I could write about Leifeld's and Silverman's wrongs as managers. But what's the point. Their jobs are safe. They're not going anywhere. Liz Murray Garrigan when she was with the Nashville Scene did a great job of chronicling the wrongs. I can do no better than she.
So, Nashville, middle Tennessee and the journalism world, what you've got at The Tennessean is not going to change.
That's too bad for the employees whose jobs will continue to be at risk, readers wanting a good and interesting product and communities needing leadership from the kind of institution Jefferson promised would keep us free -- by keeping us fully informed.
When Joe speaks up, I listen and research
My good friend Joe -- who is the epitome of a great manager of people and profits in Cool Springs -- told me the other day that he disagreed with the conclusion I had about Habitat for Humanity and its efforts in Davidson County for affordable housing.
When I noted the controversy about Habitat only locating developments in poor neighborhoods in north Nashville, he pointed out what he called a beautiful development in Antioch near Harding Place and I-24. That's south Nashville.
I promised Joe I would get out to the development and backtrack in my conclusion if necessary.
Unfortunately, several of the homes were struck by fire over the weekend, and it breaks your heart. I'm still going to get out there and take some pictures for the blog. Then I'll write about how Habitat fits in what should be an active public policy intiative by Nashville government to address the crushing need for affordable housing.
So stay tuned.
When I noted the controversy about Habitat only locating developments in poor neighborhoods in north Nashville, he pointed out what he called a beautiful development in Antioch near Harding Place and I-24. That's south Nashville.
I promised Joe I would get out to the development and backtrack in my conclusion if necessary.
Unfortunately, several of the homes were struck by fire over the weekend, and it breaks your heart. I'm still going to get out there and take some pictures for the blog. Then I'll write about how Habitat fits in what should be an active public policy intiative by Nashville government to address the crushing need for affordable housing.
So stay tuned.
Homeless will get into heaven ahead of many of us
I came across two homeless men soaking in the sun this morning on the curb of the parking lot for Germantown Cleaners on Jefferson Street in north Nashville.
I always smile and look the homeless in their eyes. And they warm up to me because they see my large wooden Rosary that I pray every day.
So the men felt confident and comfortable enough to speak to me. One asked me if I was a Catholic. I answered "yes". And he made the sign of the cross.
The other fella grudgingly asked me if I could give them something to help. I had only seven dollars in my pocket, but I readily gave it to them and apologized that I did not have more. They were grateful and not one bit threatening. And I apologized to them for Nashville authorities rousting the homeless and driving them like cattle.
They appreciated my recognition of their plight and said they were just trying to survive. I told them to "endure" and then included them in my petitions of my Rosary.
Then one of the men summoned the courage to ask me if he could have the Rosary. He wanted a symbol of Emmanuel, God is with us. I had to tell him "no". The Rosary belonged to my mother. Anything tied to her is an icon to me.
But I am going to start carrying Rosaries with me to hand out if asked in the future. The homeless also need God. And to be honest, they'll get into heaven ahead of all of us, just as Christ said the tax collectors and prostitutes of his day would enter eternal glory ahead of those of us who considered themselves righteous.
Yes, putting Rosaries in the hands of the homeless is a good idea. The advocacy of Our Lady would give them great power, even against a Catholic mayor of Nashville seemingly intent on driving these people out of Music City.
I always smile and look the homeless in their eyes. And they warm up to me because they see my large wooden Rosary that I pray every day.
So the men felt confident and comfortable enough to speak to me. One asked me if I was a Catholic. I answered "yes". And he made the sign of the cross.
The other fella grudgingly asked me if I could give them something to help. I had only seven dollars in my pocket, but I readily gave it to them and apologized that I did not have more. They were grateful and not one bit threatening. And I apologized to them for Nashville authorities rousting the homeless and driving them like cattle.
They appreciated my recognition of their plight and said they were just trying to survive. I told them to "endure" and then included them in my petitions of my Rosary.
Then one of the men summoned the courage to ask me if he could have the Rosary. He wanted a symbol of Emmanuel, God is with us. I had to tell him "no". The Rosary belonged to my mother. Anything tied to her is an icon to me.
But I am going to start carrying Rosaries with me to hand out if asked in the future. The homeless also need God. And to be honest, they'll get into heaven ahead of all of us, just as Christ said the tax collectors and prostitutes of his day would enter eternal glory ahead of those of us who considered themselves righteous.
Yes, putting Rosaries in the hands of the homeless is a good idea. The advocacy of Our Lady would give them great power, even against a Catholic mayor of Nashville seemingly intent on driving these people out of Music City.
God answers prayers; good news from a good man
I got the following e-mail today from a Williamson County friend and reader about his changing fortunes in our difficult economy.
Take hope from what he writes and proof that God indeed does answer prayers.
We must pray hard for each other and offer one another hope. I was at the Election Commission this morning changing my voter registration to Davidson County. I overheard a man on the phone replying with surprise to the news that the person on the other end had just been laid off. Look for a lot of layoffs in the coming days and weeks, particularly in the retail and services sector.
But each single victory must be celebrated in this onoing war. Here is what my friend writes:
Man, you have been busy with the blog.
Christmas Eve was tough for my wife with suddenly too much time to think about things.Christmas Day gives her a brief respite being with her sisters and parents who are all in good health.The drive home brings on more suffering and I don't respond very kindly this time. The unknown of the future creeps back in.
I had been a finalist for a weekend position tracking air freight and mail deliveries for a new logistics company in Nashville.The decision should have been made last Monday but wasn't settled until Friday after Christmas.Yes, I got the job and could start the next day on Saturday!
The pay is not that great but it allows me to keep doing what I do during the week while I wait for business to pick up again. Of course, at 1:30 AM Saturday morning I am stricken with the dreaded stomach virus. Can you believe it? It is brutal. Not wanting to call in sick on my first day, I drag myself into the shower and drive out near the airport to meet the operations manager.
I explain to him how much I was looking forward to starting but I did not want to make him sick. I think it impressed him because we had a really good first day Sunday.
There is hope!
I know I keep saying this, but your blog continues to inspire me. Your picture in front of your paintings is great. There is such life in your eyes.
God Bless.
Take hope from what he writes and proof that God indeed does answer prayers.
We must pray hard for each other and offer one another hope. I was at the Election Commission this morning changing my voter registration to Davidson County. I overheard a man on the phone replying with surprise to the news that the person on the other end had just been laid off. Look for a lot of layoffs in the coming days and weeks, particularly in the retail and services sector.
But each single victory must be celebrated in this onoing war. Here is what my friend writes:
Man, you have been busy with the blog.
Christmas Eve was tough for my wife with suddenly too much time to think about things.Christmas Day gives her a brief respite being with her sisters and parents who are all in good health.The drive home brings on more suffering and I don't respond very kindly this time. The unknown of the future creeps back in.
I had been a finalist for a weekend position tracking air freight and mail deliveries for a new logistics company in Nashville.The decision should have been made last Monday but wasn't settled until Friday after Christmas.Yes, I got the job and could start the next day on Saturday!
The pay is not that great but it allows me to keep doing what I do during the week while I wait for business to pick up again. Of course, at 1:30 AM Saturday morning I am stricken with the dreaded stomach virus. Can you believe it? It is brutal. Not wanting to call in sick on my first day, I drag myself into the shower and drive out near the airport to meet the operations manager.
I explain to him how much I was looking forward to starting but I did not want to make him sick. I think it impressed him because we had a really good first day Sunday.
There is hope!
I know I keep saying this, but your blog continues to inspire me. Your picture in front of your paintings is great. There is such life in your eyes.
God Bless.
A Chicago area school discovers secret to greater participation in parent-teacher conferences
The New York Times reports that a Chicago suburban school district serving working class families has discovered a way to dramatically boost attendance at teacher-parent conferences.
The secret to success is the inclusion of students, even in leading the conference between the adults in their school and home lives. Since there are many immigrants in the school district, the inclusion of students makes good sense. The children are more comfortable with English.
They already help momma and daddy with translation in the community. And if the parents are from Mexico, they are not used to associating with teachers. Mexico is a very class-oriented society. And children there may only go through the 6th grade to school.
To read more, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/education/28conferences.html?_r=1&em
The secret to success is the inclusion of students, even in leading the conference between the adults in their school and home lives. Since there are many immigrants in the school district, the inclusion of students makes good sense. The children are more comfortable with English.
They already help momma and daddy with translation in the community. And if the parents are from Mexico, they are not used to associating with teachers. Mexico is a very class-oriented society. And children there may only go through the 6th grade to school.
To read more, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/education/28conferences.html?_r=1&em
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Part II: The rise and fall of The Tennessean
The following name and number explain why The Tennessean will never rise to the status it once held in credibility and community leadership.
Kate Marymount. She is the new head of the news side at corporate Gannett. She replaced Phil Currie this past month.
Twenty-one percent. That is the profit margin for The Tennessean, reported at the end of September last year and revealed this fall by the powerful web site, www.gannettblog.blogspot.com. That figure is kind of low for Metros, considering that Ted Power's Reno Gazette makes a more respectable 35 percent profit.
Ted used to be general manager of Williamson A.M. in Franklin, TN, and along with then Tennessean publisher Craig Moon, turned it into a journalism and advertising powerhouse. The bureau now is only a shadow of what it once was.
Ted was long hoped to be the successor to the editor who shall go nameless at 1100 Broadway. Instead he was shipped out to Lousiana as a publisher before taking the big step to Reno and greener pastures. He is a very good man and journalist, just like Moon.
Marymount -- now in charge of "information center content" -- comes from the Phil Currie School of News, which means people such as Mark Silverman, Ellen Leifeld and the former Tennessean who shall go nameless get promoted and feted and never are turned out of their jobs without golden parachutes, no matter how big of a mess they make or how poorly they treat their employees.
I have to give Currie some credit, though. He helped get me out of Utica, N.Y., at my request. And he got me into The Tennessean as a columnist. I just was too stupid to know about the mess I was getting into, even though a friend tried to warn me.
Currie loved Silverman -- who used to be at Corporate where I met him twice -- and Leifeld and the editor who shall go nameless. He propped them up. He got them annual President's rings, until they performed so badly that such a feat was no longer possible. And he kept the business side at Corporate and people such as Moon at bay from making any real and needed change in the news product. The business side sure knew what needed to be changed, beginning with personnel.
Silverman at Corporate was known as the "Evil Twin". That meant that there could be a gracious Silverman on ocassion. More often, the evil one reigned, and he had his boot on the neck of his subordinate editors and some employees and did some editors at other newspapers dirty in grading their Generation X, News 2000 or other reader-oriented projects.
I met Silverman at Corporate once when I was one of 12 supervisors of the year in Gannett as an editorial page editor at the Observer-Dispatch. I was my boss' right hand man, his eye in the newsroom and his compiler of contest entries for Corporate. I also was his crusader in the community. Rick Jensen is the best journalist I ever worked for. But he could never get promoted as an editor beyond an 81,000 circulation publication. What an injustice!
We the supervisors of the year in 1995 were feted at the big house of Neuharth, and then schooled on busting unions and employee morale. My first time there was as part of middle management training. It meant we were being groomed to rise further up the ladder in Gannett and further away from addressing reader needs. I attended as an editorial page editor.
I've won most of Gannett's big awards. My project on race relations at the Observer-Dispatch snatched the coveted $4,000 public service award. The project was featured on the back cover of E&P magazine. I was hot.
Then I came to The Tennessean, where I decided not to play ball with the newsroom establishment when it came to conservative readers, kissing Phil Bredesen's ass and not kissing the ass of the editor who shall go nameless. But I also learned that The Tennessean was not representing the interests of liberal readers well, either. Actually, readers of all persuasions were of little interest at all.
That was all right, at least for me personally, although I protested the above wrongs in the newsroom -- to Moon, to Power and in my column.
My writing still won top awards from non-Gannett competitions -- three consecutive national education reporting citations from the Education Writers Association(large newspaper competition). Pitiful me beat out writers for The New York Times and Washington Post in covering the fates of minority and poor children.
I won two consecutive awards for commentary at large newspapers from the Casey Journalism Center at the University of Maryland. Again, I beat out the big time writers.
I won two awards for columns from the Religion Communicators Council in New York City. Faith has always been a big topic in my commentary.
The biggest one for me was being selected for the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Publisher Craig Moon nominated me, which made the award that much sweeter. It was his way of thumbing his nose at the newsroom and my way of showing that a column was not supposed to be used for celebrity but for public service and getting off your ass and into the community to the people.
So I did well for myself, even getting into the White House twice to interview George W. Bush. I was considered a turncoat for doing that. But Bush helped me get a civil rights order against Metro Nashville public schools for the unfair and inadequate education of immigrant children. Al Gore's staff wouldn't lift a finger, even though his campaign office was located right in Nashville.
So I didn't cheer like too many staffers did in the newsroom on election night 2000 when it was prematurely announced that Gore had won Florida.
And I did myself well until I contracted leukemia. Even though I wrote from my hospital bed, my job would ultimately be eliminated by Silverman and Leifeld in August 2007.
Que sera sera.
It can be said that readers really lost little with my fall. There was no flurry of protests or submission of petitions demanding me back. The Women in Black did not take to the bridge over the railroad tracks next to Union Station. In fact, the paper hired a good entertainment columnist to replace Brad Schmitt. Journalists always magnify their importance beyond reality. I am no different.
Still, the newspaper has continued to decline. It's not because of my absence. It's because of the failures of the editor who shall go nameless, Silverman and Leifeld. Despite protest to the contrary from some readers of this blog, I still believe E.J. Mitchell put out a compelling front page and distinguished himself by taking on Bredesen.
One problem was the newspaper's incredibly poor penetration rate in a growing market. Another was how its politics got into news coverage and in the decisions on the play of stories. Readers are not stupid. And ad rates stayed too damn high. Alernatives through the Internet besides print competition locally ate into Tennessean profits and circulation.
But the profit still is large enough that Gannett will never sell this paper to local investors who actually might care about Middle Tennessee. And that's the only way the newspaper can improve.
Marymount's succession to higher office protects Silverman and Leifeld. Moon does what he can as a member of the Gannett operating committee. But corporate politics still rule, until things get so bad for the company that it has change on the fly. That won't happen soon. It has too much cash on hand and too many smaller newspapers it can sell to stave off a day of reckoning any time soon.
So I wish The Tennessean well for the sake of my friends and colleagues still there, who labor on bravely and dilligently despite the management that leads them. The Photo Department is a notable, positive exception in peformance and management. I want my colleagues to keep their jobs. A lot of other employees at a lot of non-media companies face the same challenge and fates, too. May God help them all.
It's just that newspapers have always told the public that they're better than your usual capitalistic enterprise. They defend the First Amendment, although it is actually our men and women in uniform who lay down their lives for that amendment and the others in the Constitution. They take an oath to do so. I've never met a journalist who did the same.
There are more specific things I could write about Leifeld's and Silverman's wrongs as managers. But what's the point. Their jobs are safe. They're not going anywhere. Liz Murray Garrigan when she was with the Nashville Scene did a great job of chronicling the wrongs. I can do no better than she.
So, Nashville, middle Tennessee and the journalism world, what you've got at The Tennessean is not going to change. That's too bad for the employees whose jobs will continue to be at risk, readers wanting a good and interesting product and communities needing leadership from the kind of institution Jefferson promised would keep us free -- by keeping us fully informed.
Kate Marymount. She is the new head of the news side at corporate Gannett. She replaced Phil Currie this past month.
Twenty-one percent. That is the profit margin for The Tennessean, reported at the end of September last year and revealed this fall by the powerful web site, www.gannettblog.blogspot.com. That figure is kind of low for Metros, considering that Ted Power's Reno Gazette makes a more respectable 35 percent profit.
Ted used to be general manager of Williamson A.M. in Franklin, TN, and along with then Tennessean publisher Craig Moon, turned it into a journalism and advertising powerhouse. The bureau now is only a shadow of what it once was.
Ted was long hoped to be the successor to the editor who shall go nameless at 1100 Broadway. Instead he was shipped out to Lousiana as a publisher before taking the big step to Reno and greener pastures. He is a very good man and journalist, just like Moon.
Marymount -- now in charge of "information center content" -- comes from the Phil Currie School of News, which means people such as Mark Silverman, Ellen Leifeld and the former Tennessean who shall go nameless get promoted and feted and never are turned out of their jobs without golden parachutes, no matter how big of a mess they make or how poorly they treat their employees.
I have to give Currie some credit, though. He helped get me out of Utica, N.Y., at my request. And he got me into The Tennessean as a columnist. I just was too stupid to know about the mess I was getting into, even though a friend tried to warn me.
Currie loved Silverman -- who used to be at Corporate where I met him twice -- and Leifeld and the editor who shall go nameless. He propped them up. He got them annual President's rings, until they performed so badly that such a feat was no longer possible. And he kept the business side at Corporate and people such as Moon at bay from making any real and needed change in the news product. The business side sure knew what needed to be changed, beginning with personnel.
Silverman at Corporate was known as the "Evil Twin". That meant that there could be a gracious Silverman on ocassion. More often, the evil one reigned, and he had his boot on the neck of his subordinate editors and some employees and did some editors at other newspapers dirty in grading their Generation X, News 2000 or other reader-oriented projects.
I met Silverman at Corporate once when I was one of 12 supervisors of the year in Gannett as an editorial page editor at the Observer-Dispatch. I was my boss' right hand man, his eye in the newsroom and his compiler of contest entries for Corporate. I also was his crusader in the community. Rick Jensen is the best journalist I ever worked for. But he could never get promoted as an editor beyond an 81,000 circulation publication. What an injustice!
We the supervisors of the year in 1995 were feted at the big house of Neuharth, and then schooled on busting unions and employee morale. My first time there was as part of middle management training. It meant we were being groomed to rise further up the ladder in Gannett and further away from addressing reader needs. I attended as an editorial page editor.
I've won most of Gannett's big awards. My project on race relations at the Observer-Dispatch snatched the coveted $4,000 public service award. The project was featured on the back cover of E&P magazine. I was hot.
Then I came to The Tennessean, where I decided not to play ball with the newsroom establishment when it came to conservative readers, kissing Phil Bredesen's ass and not kissing the ass of the editor who shall go nameless. But I also learned that The Tennessean was not representing the interests of liberal readers well, either. Actually, readers of all persuasions were of little interest at all.
That was all right, at least for me personally, although I protested the above wrongs in the newsroom -- to Moon, to Power and in my column.
My writing still won top awards from non-Gannett competitions -- three consecutive national education reporting citations from the Education Writers Association(large newspaper competition). Pitiful me beat out writers for The New York Times and Washington Post in covering the fates of minority and poor children.
I won two consecutive awards for commentary at large newspapers from the Casey Journalism Center at the University of Maryland. Again, I beat out the big time writers.
I won two awards for columns from the Religion Communicators Council in New York City. Faith has always been a big topic in my commentary.
The biggest one for me was being selected for the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Publisher Craig Moon nominated me, which made the award that much sweeter. It was his way of thumbing his nose at the newsroom and my way of showing that a column was not supposed to be used for celebrity but for public service and getting off your ass and into the community to the people.
So I did well for myself, even getting into the White House twice to interview George W. Bush. I was considered a turncoat for doing that. But Bush helped me get a civil rights order against Metro Nashville public schools for the unfair and inadequate education of immigrant children. Al Gore's staff wouldn't lift a finger, even though his campaign office was located right in Nashville.
So I didn't cheer like too many staffers did in the newsroom on election night 2000 when it was prematurely announced that Gore had won Florida.
And I did myself well until I contracted leukemia. Even though I wrote from my hospital bed, my job would ultimately be eliminated by Silverman and Leifeld in August 2007.
Que sera sera.
It can be said that readers really lost little with my fall. There was no flurry of protests or submission of petitions demanding me back. The Women in Black did not take to the bridge over the railroad tracks next to Union Station. In fact, the paper hired a good entertainment columnist to replace Brad Schmitt. Journalists always magnify their importance beyond reality. I am no different.
Still, the newspaper has continued to decline. It's not because of my absence. It's because of the failures of the editor who shall go nameless, Silverman and Leifeld. Despite protest to the contrary from some readers of this blog, I still believe E.J. Mitchell put out a compelling front page and distinguished himself by taking on Bredesen.
One problem was the newspaper's incredibly poor penetration rate in a growing market. Another was how its politics got into news coverage and in the decisions on the play of stories. Readers are not stupid. And ad rates stayed too damn high. Alernatives through the Internet besides print competition locally ate into Tennessean profits and circulation.
But the profit still is large enough that Gannett will never sell this paper to local investors who actually might care about Middle Tennessee. And that's the only way the newspaper can improve.
Marymount's succession to higher office protects Silverman and Leifeld. Moon does what he can as a member of the Gannett operating committee. But corporate politics still rule, until things get so bad for the company that it has change on the fly. That won't happen soon. It has too much cash on hand and too many smaller newspapers it can sell to stave off a day of reckoning any time soon.
So I wish The Tennessean well for the sake of my friends and colleagues still there, who labor on bravely and dilligently despite the management that leads them. The Photo Department is a notable, positive exception in peformance and management. I want my colleagues to keep their jobs. A lot of other employees at a lot of non-media companies face the same challenge and fates, too. May God help them all.
It's just that newspapers have always told the public that they're better than your usual capitalistic enterprise. They defend the First Amendment, although it is actually our men and women in uniform who lay down their lives for that amendment and the others in the Constitution. They take an oath to do so. I've never met a journalist who did the same.
There are more specific things I could write about Leifeld's and Silverman's wrongs as managers. But what's the point. Their jobs are safe. They're not going anywhere. Liz Murray Garrigan when she was with the Nashville Scene did a great job of chronicling the wrongs. I can do no better than she.
So, Nashville, middle Tennessee and the journalism world, what you've got at The Tennessean is not going to change. That's too bad for the employees whose jobs will continue to be at risk, readers wanting a good and interesting product and communities needing leadership from the kind of institution Jefferson promised would keep us free -- by keeping us fully informed.
Yes, I watch 'The Sound of Music'; whadda want to make of it, huh? It's manly and very human, too
Some men may not feel that they can admit to watching The Sound of Music each time it comes on at Christmastime and Eastertide.
By stereotype, we males have to admit to preferring to kill and skin a moose like Sarah Palin than watching a nun and a bunch of children frolic about the Austrian Alps in darling clothes made from old drapes.
But hell, I watch it. And I'm watching it right now as I write this post. It's manly to watch The Sound of Music. More importantly, it is human, even if all the story is not actually true(thank you for spoiling it all, New York Times).
And Julie Andrews has always been a fox, if that word is still used to describe beauty inside and out.
The songs and lyrics are eternal, as is the desire of man and woman to be free of evil like Nazism and Communism. The love is pure, not faked or frantic in gyrated gestures or vulgarity. It makes you feel good and hopeful.
So watch with pride, all ye men of the world. The movie actually is man at his best, because of a great woman.
By stereotype, we males have to admit to preferring to kill and skin a moose like Sarah Palin than watching a nun and a bunch of children frolic about the Austrian Alps in darling clothes made from old drapes.
But hell, I watch it. And I'm watching it right now as I write this post. It's manly to watch The Sound of Music. More importantly, it is human, even if all the story is not actually true(thank you for spoiling it all, New York Times).
And Julie Andrews has always been a fox, if that word is still used to describe beauty inside and out.
The songs and lyrics are eternal, as is the desire of man and woman to be free of evil like Nazism and Communism. The love is pure, not faked or frantic in gyrated gestures or vulgarity. It makes you feel good and hopeful.
So watch with pride, all ye men of the world. The movie actually is man at his best, because of a great woman.
UAW pulls an AIG with its posh golf course
Not to be outdone by bailed-out Wall Street fatcats, the UAW continues to operate a posh golf course and center that has lost mega millions in dollars in union member dues.
The story only reaffirms the outrage among most Americans who demanded that the Big 3 automakers not be bailed out without major concessions from union employees. The Bush administration caved in, however.
The investment house AIG outraged Americans when it continued to grant luxury retreats to sales people as rewards and incentives despite being bailed out by taxpayers. That was another Bush administration cave in to Wall Street and Congressional Democrats.
Here is how FOXNEWS reports it:
The United Auto Workers may be out of the hole now that President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but the union isn't out of the bunker just yet.
Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it's costing them millions each year.
The UAW, known more for its strikes than its slices, hosts seminars and junkets at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., which is nestled on "1,000 heavily forested acres" on Michigan's Black Lake, according to its Web site.
But the Black Lake club and retreat, which are among the union's biggest fixed assets, have lost $23 million in the past five years alone, a heavy albatross around the union's neck as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis.
The story only reaffirms the outrage among most Americans who demanded that the Big 3 automakers not be bailed out without major concessions from union employees. The Bush administration caved in, however.
The investment house AIG outraged Americans when it continued to grant luxury retreats to sales people as rewards and incentives despite being bailed out by taxpayers. That was another Bush administration cave in to Wall Street and Congressional Democrats.
Here is how FOXNEWS reports it:
The United Auto Workers may be out of the hole now that President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but the union isn't out of the bunker just yet.
Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it's costing them millions each year.
The UAW, known more for its strikes than its slices, hosts seminars and junkets at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., which is nestled on "1,000 heavily forested acres" on Michigan's Black Lake, according to its Web site.
But the Black Lake club and retreat, which are among the union's biggest fixed assets, have lost $23 million in the past five years alone, a heavy albatross around the union's neck as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis.
Saltsman hits big time in New York Times; Gingrich says he should be disqualified for top GOP post
Chip the Stupid Republican made the big time yesterday, making it to the pages of The New York Times and drawing the ire of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Worse, Saltsman again uncovered the GOP's Achilles Heel, race. Here is how The New York Times shockingly analyzed it:
The dispute illustrates a larger Republican challenge in the months ahead: how to oppose the first black president without seeming antiblack. There are no black Republicans in Congress, and a party spokesman could name only 2 blacks among the 168 members of the national committee. Katon Dawson, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, resigned from an all-white country club in preparing for his campaign to be party chairman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/us/politics/28rnc.html?_r=1
Gingrich said Salstman should be disqualified from running for chairman of the RNC.
The CD Saltsman sent out to his friends (gee, you gotta fear what he sends to his enemies) included a Rush Limbaugh Show song "Barack the Magic Negro". Even though the song is written and sung by a black man, it still does not excuse the song's incredibly bad taste. Some people will do anything to impress Limbaugh, who is on the political extreme.
Saltsman has decided to join him there. Perhaps he can get a job as a sidekick to Limbaugh, because no major campaign or national party will ever touch him again.
Worse, Saltsman again uncovered the GOP's Achilles Heel, race. Here is how The New York Times shockingly analyzed it:
The dispute illustrates a larger Republican challenge in the months ahead: how to oppose the first black president without seeming antiblack. There are no black Republicans in Congress, and a party spokesman could name only 2 blacks among the 168 members of the national committee. Katon Dawson, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, resigned from an all-white country club in preparing for his campaign to be party chairman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/us/politics/28rnc.html?_r=1
Gingrich said Salstman should be disqualified from running for chairman of the RNC.
The CD Saltsman sent out to his friends (gee, you gotta fear what he sends to his enemies) included a Rush Limbaugh Show song "Barack the Magic Negro". Even though the song is written and sung by a black man, it still does not excuse the song's incredibly bad taste. Some people will do anything to impress Limbaugh, who is on the political extreme.
Saltsman has decided to join him there. Perhaps he can get a job as a sidekick to Limbaugh, because no major campaign or national party will ever touch him again.
The year ahead for Nashville will be a tragic one
Nashville, the Athens of the South, faces the kind of future in 2009 that should result in the change of its nickname to the Rome of the South -- as in Rome is burning.
Here is a list of the problems faced:
SCHOOLS: After already cutting $1 million from the budget of a school district about to be under state control for failing to meet No Child Left Behind Act standards, Metro Nashville/Davidson County Schools now must cut an additional $4 million from the budget. The first round of cuts avoided eliminating jobs. This next one will take away the jobs of the working poor -- from janitors to support staff. Teachers should not be affected because of the No Child problem. The General Assembly returns to session in January and must cut $1 billion from the current budget. That will mean less local aid from the states for schools. So Metro will have to cut more and/or raise property taxes. Then, teachers could be in danger. I sure hope I am wrong about this prediction.
PRO HOCKEY: The NHL Predators have not been able to attract an average game crowd of 14,000 people its owners say they need to make a go of it in Music City. So they can move the team if they want after this season. They may be forced to, because a large share of the team is in a federal bankruptcy court available to the highest bidder to pay off debtors. A man from Canada with a lot of money -- who originally failed to move the team last year -- is in on the bidding. A bad economy locally and the cool and peristent Canadian may well spell doom for the team staying here and will increase the already $6 million annual cost of operating the Sommet Center. By the way, then Mayor Bredesen said the arena would be making a profit after the first year of operation. That was more than 10 years and many millions of dollars ago.
PRO FOOTBALL: The Titans take about $5 million off the top of the annual budget before anything else is funded, including schools and police. And owner Bud Adams has contractural authority to demand $170 million in improvements to aging LP Field, which is a decade old. You can be sure Adams will ask for the money soon because his team just finished with the best record in the AFC. Afterall, they can't be expected to play in a dump and fans will need a better place to watch the team next year, particularly after ticket prices are hiked.
A NEW CONVENTION CENTER: If the city were not facing enough new expenses, the mayor wants to build a convention center costing more than $600 million. He'll have to use some bonds to fund at least part of the construction. And with the MUNI bond market about to collapse, Metro would have to pay an exorbitant interest rate on its notes to investors. We're talking about north of 6 percent. And who knows how tough the rating houses will be on any municipals bonds after the collapse. Metro may be hard pressed to get any rating grade close to an A. And that will raise the interest rate needed to sell the bonds. Taxpayers are required annually to pay that interest rate out of the budget. LP Field bonds require $4 million annually.
ENGLISH ONLY: Nashville faces the inheritance of a very negative national image if voters approve an English Only referendum for all government operations on Jan. 22. With the economy declining, and bigotry against Hispanics at an all-time high in the South, passage of the referendum looks frighteningly good. I'll be voting against it as a Nashville voter and will be speaking to African-American congregations to ask that they work to defeat the referendum. But it probably won't be enough, even with a promised media blitz by anti-English Only forces. I sure hope I am wrong in my prediction. But ignorance is hard to fight over only three weeks.
There are more items I could add to the list. But these are enough to frighten anyone about the kind of future Nashville faces in the new year.
Here is a list of the problems faced:
SCHOOLS: After already cutting $1 million from the budget of a school district about to be under state control for failing to meet No Child Left Behind Act standards, Metro Nashville/Davidson County Schools now must cut an additional $4 million from the budget. The first round of cuts avoided eliminating jobs. This next one will take away the jobs of the working poor -- from janitors to support staff. Teachers should not be affected because of the No Child problem. The General Assembly returns to session in January and must cut $1 billion from the current budget. That will mean less local aid from the states for schools. So Metro will have to cut more and/or raise property taxes. Then, teachers could be in danger. I sure hope I am wrong about this prediction.
PRO HOCKEY: The NHL Predators have not been able to attract an average game crowd of 14,000 people its owners say they need to make a go of it in Music City. So they can move the team if they want after this season. They may be forced to, because a large share of the team is in a federal bankruptcy court available to the highest bidder to pay off debtors. A man from Canada with a lot of money -- who originally failed to move the team last year -- is in on the bidding. A bad economy locally and the cool and peristent Canadian may well spell doom for the team staying here and will increase the already $6 million annual cost of operating the Sommet Center. By the way, then Mayor Bredesen said the arena would be making a profit after the first year of operation. That was more than 10 years and many millions of dollars ago.
PRO FOOTBALL: The Titans take about $5 million off the top of the annual budget before anything else is funded, including schools and police. And owner Bud Adams has contractural authority to demand $170 million in improvements to aging LP Field, which is a decade old. You can be sure Adams will ask for the money soon because his team just finished with the best record in the AFC. Afterall, they can't be expected to play in a dump and fans will need a better place to watch the team next year, particularly after ticket prices are hiked.
A NEW CONVENTION CENTER: If the city were not facing enough new expenses, the mayor wants to build a convention center costing more than $600 million. He'll have to use some bonds to fund at least part of the construction. And with the MUNI bond market about to collapse, Metro would have to pay an exorbitant interest rate on its notes to investors. We're talking about north of 6 percent. And who knows how tough the rating houses will be on any municipals bonds after the collapse. Metro may be hard pressed to get any rating grade close to an A. And that will raise the interest rate needed to sell the bonds. Taxpayers are required annually to pay that interest rate out of the budget. LP Field bonds require $4 million annually.
ENGLISH ONLY: Nashville faces the inheritance of a very negative national image if voters approve an English Only referendum for all government operations on Jan. 22. With the economy declining, and bigotry against Hispanics at an all-time high in the South, passage of the referendum looks frighteningly good. I'll be voting against it as a Nashville voter and will be speaking to African-American congregations to ask that they work to defeat the referendum. But it probably won't be enough, even with a promised media blitz by anti-English Only forces. I sure hope I am wrong in my prediction. But ignorance is hard to fight over only three weeks.
There are more items I could add to the list. But these are enough to frighten anyone about the kind of future Nashville faces in the new year.
Why blog? Because it's there, and I love to write
A reader responding to the first part of my series on the fall of The Tennessean as an institution of credibility and community leadership asks why there are no responses to my blog posts. And thus, why continue doing the blog?
Good question.
I love to write. I do the blog for the love of writing and the people I write about. Plus, I am committed to neither political extreme. I find good in Republicans and Democrats. I don't believe in the increase in bias appearing in news reporting and the punditry and cable networks.
Of any success with the blog, the only thing I can really point out is the case of the torture of Juana Villegas DeLaPaz by Nashville authorities for illegally passing a vehicle under the heinous 287g deportation program.
She was shackled by wrist and ankle before and after delivering her fourth American child and not allowed to express her milk for the child. She instead was sent in intense pain back to her jail cell and was released at 2 a.m. in the morning.
The New York Times did a sizable Sunday piece with picture about the story I broke in July 2008. The Boston Globe editorialized about it. The Daily Kos picked it up. A Google search will show a lot of websites recognized the brutality in the case and published my series of accounts.
So other than that, I can't really point to anything the blog has done to make a difference.
But I still continue it, for the 37 subscribers and 12 reach(whatever that means) that are daily registered on Feedburner. The site only gets 25 hits each two and a half hours from across the nation, Canada and Sweden. That's not a lot.
Yes, my efforts probably are futile. I'm certainly no Jim Hopkins and www.gannettblog.blogspot.com. But I'm wasting no one's time or money except my own.
So pray for me or pity me. Either will do fine.
Good question.
I love to write. I do the blog for the love of writing and the people I write about. Plus, I am committed to neither political extreme. I find good in Republicans and Democrats. I don't believe in the increase in bias appearing in news reporting and the punditry and cable networks.
Of any success with the blog, the only thing I can really point out is the case of the torture of Juana Villegas DeLaPaz by Nashville authorities for illegally passing a vehicle under the heinous 287g deportation program.
She was shackled by wrist and ankle before and after delivering her fourth American child and not allowed to express her milk for the child. She instead was sent in intense pain back to her jail cell and was released at 2 a.m. in the morning.
The New York Times did a sizable Sunday piece with picture about the story I broke in July 2008. The Boston Globe editorialized about it. The Daily Kos picked it up. A Google search will show a lot of websites recognized the brutality in the case and published my series of accounts.
So other than that, I can't really point to anything the blog has done to make a difference.
But I still continue it, for the 37 subscribers and 12 reach(whatever that means) that are daily registered on Feedburner. The site only gets 25 hits each two and a half hours from across the nation, Canada and Sweden. That's not a lot.
Yes, my efforts probably are futile. I'm certainly no Jim Hopkins and www.gannettblog.blogspot.com. But I'm wasting no one's time or money except my own.
So pray for me or pity me. Either will do fine.
Hatin' on E.J: Is there another reason for all the negativity aimed at former Tennessean editor?
The first part of my series on The Tennessean's fall as an institution of credibility and community leadership has elicited some heat against E.J. Mitchell, who led the newsroom before the current officeholder.
As I answered in the comment section, Mitchell never treated me ill, nor did any of his decisions affect me negatively. It was to the contrary. After I contracted leukemia, Mitchell was most supportive, and even read the riot act to the human resources department for me. I'll take that kind of leader any day. And it gives him distinction in my career experiences of three decades at six different newspapers.
So I've got to wonder if all these long-time Gannett employees who are responding have something else against Mitchell than beyond his leadership skills. I can take any leader as long as they produce a better product, which Mitchell did on the front page. And then he was going to let Brad Schmitt go. Gee, two out of two ain't bad.
So what did this African-American editor do that was so wrong?
Can you think of anything that a strong-willed, very vocal, non-Obama like editor who has dark black skin might do to piss off members of newsrooms that are mostly white with long-term employees who are part of the entrenchment that plagues modern-day newspaper journalism?
Can you think of why the same journalists would not complain about the lack of a black journalism legacy at The Tennessean, despite Nashville having a 25% African-American population and two historic black universities?
Gee, I can't think of a thing.
As I answered in the comment section, Mitchell never treated me ill, nor did any of his decisions affect me negatively. It was to the contrary. After I contracted leukemia, Mitchell was most supportive, and even read the riot act to the human resources department for me. I'll take that kind of leader any day. And it gives him distinction in my career experiences of three decades at six different newspapers.
So I've got to wonder if all these long-time Gannett employees who are responding have something else against Mitchell than beyond his leadership skills. I can take any leader as long as they produce a better product, which Mitchell did on the front page. And then he was going to let Brad Schmitt go. Gee, two out of two ain't bad.
So what did this African-American editor do that was so wrong?
Can you think of anything that a strong-willed, very vocal, non-Obama like editor who has dark black skin might do to piss off members of newsrooms that are mostly white with long-term employees who are part of the entrenchment that plagues modern-day newspaper journalism?
Can you think of why the same journalists would not complain about the lack of a black journalism legacy at The Tennessean, despite Nashville having a 25% African-American population and two historic black universities?
Gee, I can't think of a thing.
Who I am in pictures -- good, bad and ugly
The one thing I have hated about being a print columnist is that a picture often is demanded with one's writing. I've made it a point NOT to add a picture to this blog. What I look like should not matter. What I write and who I write about should.
But at the reunion of Tennessean ex-patriates and some current employees who were nice enough to show up and lend their support to those recently laid off, one colleague did not even recognize me.
The problem is the diet I've been on the past three years. Now the chemo diet beats the hell out of SouthBeach. The only drawback is that you can die from it. Still, I've lost about 100 pounds on chemo and have kept it off while exercising almost three hours a day.
So I've decided to provide, this one time, a photo montage of before and after.
In order of appearance:
* Me, today, in front of one of my passions, painting.
* My hero and best friend -- my mother. She got me into political writing. We talked every day, no matter where my career took me. Momma decided to break my heart and go to heaven in June.
I was going to bring her to Tennessee to live and had purchased her a condo. She was going to go out with me on tour as a columnist for the many speeches I gave to civic and political groups. I would speak, then turn the floor over to her and let her tell everyone how full of shit I was. Then I had to get that damn leuekmia. My guilt over this is unrelenting.
Mom hated Bush, and I told Alberto Gonzales as much during our one-one-one interview on Oct. 14, 2005. But I told the AG that she really liked him. He roared in laughter and sent her an autographed picture. She liked that. And I loved that about her.
* My first trip to the White House, May 2001, with education writers from across the country. That ocassion was four months before 9/11 and four years before my leukemia. The president was plagued by his allergies that day. But he made an effective case for the best thing he ever did in office: passage of the No Child Left Behind Act.
* My favorite task as a columnist, speaking to students and taking them on tour of the newspaper. These young people visited in 2005 from SantaFe School in Fayette County. Their teacher, Tim Morrison, became a good friend besides a reader. That happened a lot with me and readers, and I was a better journalist for it.
* Making presentation to students in south Ohio and Houston on immigration as an issue in the 2008 presidential race for the sensational Vanderbilt Virtual School.
* An appearance on NewsChannel 5's Inside Politics.
* Interview in Oval Office with President Bush on his birthday, July 8, 2004, for Hispanic magazine, circulation 280,000 nationally. I also interviewed John Kerry one-on-one in Los Angeles for the same issue. Not in the picture are adviser Karen Hughes and Barney the dog. Both also were sitting on one of the sofas. I was 100 pounds heavier back then and Bush was 80 points higher in the polls.
How to tell who is homeless on warm winter day
I've been fortunate to be around the homeless in downtown Nashville and north Nashville for a month now, and it has been a real learning and spiritual experience.
Take for instance the past several warm winter days.
It's easy to tell the homeless person in Bicentennial Mall compared to the visitor or tourist.
The tourist or local visitor is in short sleeves and even shorts.
The homeless person still has his or her coat on, along with layers of clothing.
Aren't they hot? I don't think so. I believe there is a chill to the bones that never leaves, no matter the shift in temperature. And there also is a chill in how you are treated as a pariah, particularly in Nashville by its authorities. Finally, there is no safe place you could leave your extra clothing or any other possession.
So that's how you tell who is homeless on a warm, winter day.
Take for instance the past several warm winter days.
It's easy to tell the homeless person in Bicentennial Mall compared to the visitor or tourist.
The tourist or local visitor is in short sleeves and even shorts.
The homeless person still has his or her coat on, along with layers of clothing.
Aren't they hot? I don't think so. I believe there is a chill to the bones that never leaves, no matter the shift in temperature. And there also is a chill in how you are treated as a pariah, particularly in Nashville by its authorities. Finally, there is no safe place you could leave your extra clothing or any other possession.
So that's how you tell who is homeless on a warm, winter day.
Here is why this downturn will be worst ever
The 86-year-old aunt of a friend of mine spoke of the Great Depression this way: "We had nothing going into it and we had nothing coming out it."
And based on that truth for many Americans back then, the current economic downturn will easily surpass the Great Depression when it comes to the loss of wealth among Americans and loss of confidence in the future.
A lot of Americans who now are losing their jobs, houses and hopes have a lot of things. They were successful economically and initially. Now they're not, because of cruel greed on Wall Street and sometimes in their personal lack of action to save more than spend.
During the Great Depression, many Americans still lived on farms and were able to support and survive off the land. Farmers in Indiana were dumping milk instead if selling it because the price was so poor at the market. It didn't pay to transport it there.
Now, the coming collapse of some MUNIs will be wipe out a new segment of wealth in the United States, this time mostly with the elderly depending on tax free income. Cities and all levels of government are operating under massive deficits and must cut spending somewhere. Debt payments to faceless investors instead of vocal constituents is the easier choice.
The value of homes will continue to decline for another two years. These homes often are the primary asset in many households.
More money of regular households is dangerously in the stock market, where these folks have little experience and too much dependence on brokers and financial analysts who make their money first in getting regular people to invest and then stay in the market.
Then there is the presence of a 24-hour media, which can go anywhere and anytime to show the human misery of this Depression. The psychological impact is devastating.
So the Great Depression of 2008-2011 will be the worst in American history, for these factors and more.
And based on that truth for many Americans back then, the current economic downturn will easily surpass the Great Depression when it comes to the loss of wealth among Americans and loss of confidence in the future.
A lot of Americans who now are losing their jobs, houses and hopes have a lot of things. They were successful economically and initially. Now they're not, because of cruel greed on Wall Street and sometimes in their personal lack of action to save more than spend.
During the Great Depression, many Americans still lived on farms and were able to support and survive off the land. Farmers in Indiana were dumping milk instead if selling it because the price was so poor at the market. It didn't pay to transport it there.
Now, the coming collapse of some MUNIs will be wipe out a new segment of wealth in the United States, this time mostly with the elderly depending on tax free income. Cities and all levels of government are operating under massive deficits and must cut spending somewhere. Debt payments to faceless investors instead of vocal constituents is the easier choice.
The value of homes will continue to decline for another two years. These homes often are the primary asset in many households.
More money of regular households is dangerously in the stock market, where these folks have little experience and too much dependence on brokers and financial analysts who make their money first in getting regular people to invest and then stay in the market.
Then there is the presence of a 24-hour media, which can go anywhere and anytime to show the human misery of this Depression. The psychological impact is devastating.
So the Great Depression of 2008-2011 will be the worst in American history, for these factors and more.
Part I: The Rise and the Fall of The Tennessean
When I was hired from the Observer-Dispatch newspaper in upstate New York to be a columnist for The Tennessean, it was seen by my colleagues as a step up to a major daily, Metro newspaper.
Except one.
Bobbi Bowman, now with an executive with the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and formerly Corporate Gannett (owner of The Tennessean), took me aside. She was managing editor of the Observer-Dispatch after former gigs at The Washington Post and other big newspapers.
And she shocked me by telling me I might want to rethink my decisions about going from a 52,000 Sunday circulation newspaper to one with five times the readership.
She told me that things were not as rosy on the outside as they appeared at The Tennessean, most specifically with the man who was the top editor of the place in 1996.
I listened politely. I told her I had thought out the decision and liked from an outsider's view what I saw at The Tennessean during my interview. And so we parted as friends.
And over the next 10 years at The Tennessean, I learned how sound of advice my friend and colleague gave me, particularly with the person in charge.
I won't name the editor. He doesn't deserve his name used in my blog. I'll just say he was the person who followed John Seigenthaler and preceded E.J. Mitchell, both editors of distinction and real leaders who produced a solid, interesting product.
For this series, I'll call the editor TEASBBEJM, pronounced (TEA-A-SHA-BEE-GEM).
From talking with friends and colleagues on the Tennessean operating committee and the newsroom, it is agreed TEASBBEJM is the person who ruined The Tennessean, which once had 214 employees in its newsroom after the folding of the Nashville Banner. Now those numbers have fallen below 100 and will continue to decline in 2009. (One reader has written in to say the newsroom has more than 100 employees. But since it was an anonymous contribution, I did not post it. I can't post comments that state purported facts without identity and thus credibility. Gotta abide by journalism rules.)
But TEASBBEJM frittered away that advantage with a leadership of serving his faults firsts. His strengths disappeared. And so did The Tennessean's distinction as a leader and a quality product for both conservative and liberal readers.
TEASBBEJM and I constantly clashed, even publicly in the newsroom. He was a bully. But worse, he did not care about readers, nor was he interested in meeting and talking with them. He governed from an Ivory Tower and an office that had an automatic closing mechanism he could engage by simply hitting a button on his desk.
One of the funniest stories about that kind of mental deficiency was when famed exercise-iologist Richard Simmons came the newsroom. In vain, he knocked on TEASSBEJM's door to try and get him to come out and get a hug and encouragement to lose some of his substantial girth.
But the editor would not open his door. And neither would he open that door to readers or even some staff members who desperately wanted the newspaper to change for the better. To anyone who disagreed with him, he'd pull marketing survey results out of his mental holster like Matt Dillon did with a gun on Gunsmoke. Marketing surveys are the weakness of Gannett, done for every newspaper to tell editors what readers should want, not what they really need.
Gannett could have saved many millions of dollars by simply having its editors go out into their community and simply asking real people. They're not stupid. But editors believe they are. And now they are rightly harvesting a bitter fruit of declining circulation and ad sales. But the people being hurt at the newspapers are the rank and file, not the editors and publishers who continue to make the wrong decisions.
There certainly are exceptions to this generalization. Craig Moon was an outstanding publisher of The Tennessean. He allowed me to be a political writer when TEASSABEJM refused. Sadly for us, Moon left for greener and less frustrating pastures of Corporate and now USA Today, which still flourishes despite the downturn nationally for all newspapers.
Moon was treated with incredible disrespect by TEASBBEJM. I witnessed it first hand. And TEASBBEJM was able to get away with it and stymie change because of his buddies on the newsside at Corporate. Moon in turn was supported by the business side.
One would have thought such a setup would protect the journalistic side from abuse from the business side. But it was the exact opposite at The Tennessean. It was the executives on the business side on the operating committee who had spoken to readers and knew that change was needed in the product, desperately so. They were better journalists on the whole than those in the newsroom.
A former operating committee member told me the story of a golf tournament hosted for advertisers and other dignitaries by the newspaper. He was part of the group that included TEASBBEJM. The advertisers took him aside and asked him a question: "Why do they let the guy who writes the newspaper's wine column be the Editor?" The operating committee member had no answer.
In his series on The Tennessean, Scene writer Wily Stern tried to pin The Tennessean's problems on then managing editor Dave Green. He had Sonny Rawls, a former Tennessean writer and Pulitzer Prize winner in Philadelphia, call me and set up a get together lunch and interview. I agreed, even though Rawls had never contacted me once in years of my writing a column.
At O'Charley's in Brentwood, the guy tried to get me to answer that Green was the problem. Green had turned down Rawls' request to be sports editor at the newspaper. I refused. I put the blame on TEASBBJEM, which was the truth that Stern still missed in his series.
Finally, Rawls acknowledged that TEASBBJEM had been the newsroom tattle tell for Seigenthaler. And they all laughed at him.
But the bigger joke was that Seigenthaler choice him to be editor. No one is laughing now.
Now journalists I've spoke with acknowledge that TEASBBEJM was a good editor in the beginning. But he lost interest and tried to be a Seigenthaler by supporting anything and anyone who would make Nashville into a major league sports city while he lived out of the county in affluent Brentwood. That's why his lips were always puckered for then mayor and now Gov. Phil Bredesen's ass.
And so the newspaper suffered in quality and in serving the readers. You've seen the rest. TEASBBEJM's buddy is editor of the newspaper and another is the publisher. And they are driving the newspaper into the ground just as he did.
I feel really bad for my friends and colleagues who still remain at the newspaper. They are suffering greatly in trying to pursue their profession with excellence while paying bills at home. Yet they constantly work under the fear of losing their jobs.
My friend and colleague in New York tried to warn me. But I had to learn the hard way, as have the good readers of what now is a most unworthy publication that allowed TEASBBEJM to literally destroy its future.
Except one.
Bobbi Bowman, now with an executive with the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and formerly Corporate Gannett (owner of The Tennessean), took me aside. She was managing editor of the Observer-Dispatch after former gigs at The Washington Post and other big newspapers.
And she shocked me by telling me I might want to rethink my decisions about going from a 52,000 Sunday circulation newspaper to one with five times the readership.
She told me that things were not as rosy on the outside as they appeared at The Tennessean, most specifically with the man who was the top editor of the place in 1996.
I listened politely. I told her I had thought out the decision and liked from an outsider's view what I saw at The Tennessean during my interview. And so we parted as friends.
And over the next 10 years at The Tennessean, I learned how sound of advice my friend and colleague gave me, particularly with the person in charge.
I won't name the editor. He doesn't deserve his name used in my blog. I'll just say he was the person who followed John Seigenthaler and preceded E.J. Mitchell, both editors of distinction and real leaders who produced a solid, interesting product.
For this series, I'll call the editor TEASBBEJM, pronounced (TEA-A-SHA-BEE-GEM).
From talking with friends and colleagues on the Tennessean operating committee and the newsroom, it is agreed TEASBBEJM is the person who ruined The Tennessean, which once had 214 employees in its newsroom after the folding of the Nashville Banner. Now those numbers have fallen below 100 and will continue to decline in 2009. (One reader has written in to say the newsroom has more than 100 employees. But since it was an anonymous contribution, I did not post it. I can't post comments that state purported facts without identity and thus credibility. Gotta abide by journalism rules.)
But TEASBBEJM frittered away that advantage with a leadership of serving his faults firsts. His strengths disappeared. And so did The Tennessean's distinction as a leader and a quality product for both conservative and liberal readers.
TEASBBEJM and I constantly clashed, even publicly in the newsroom. He was a bully. But worse, he did not care about readers, nor was he interested in meeting and talking with them. He governed from an Ivory Tower and an office that had an automatic closing mechanism he could engage by simply hitting a button on his desk.
One of the funniest stories about that kind of mental deficiency was when famed exercise-iologist Richard Simmons came the newsroom. In vain, he knocked on TEASSBEJM's door to try and get him to come out and get a hug and encouragement to lose some of his substantial girth.
But the editor would not open his door. And neither would he open that door to readers or even some staff members who desperately wanted the newspaper to change for the better. To anyone who disagreed with him, he'd pull marketing survey results out of his mental holster like Matt Dillon did with a gun on Gunsmoke. Marketing surveys are the weakness of Gannett, done for every newspaper to tell editors what readers should want, not what they really need.
Gannett could have saved many millions of dollars by simply having its editors go out into their community and simply asking real people. They're not stupid. But editors believe they are. And now they are rightly harvesting a bitter fruit of declining circulation and ad sales. But the people being hurt at the newspapers are the rank and file, not the editors and publishers who continue to make the wrong decisions.
There certainly are exceptions to this generalization. Craig Moon was an outstanding publisher of The Tennessean. He allowed me to be a political writer when TEASSABEJM refused. Sadly for us, Moon left for greener and less frustrating pastures of Corporate and now USA Today, which still flourishes despite the downturn nationally for all newspapers.
Moon was treated with incredible disrespect by TEASBBEJM. I witnessed it first hand. And TEASBBEJM was able to get away with it and stymie change because of his buddies on the newsside at Corporate. Moon in turn was supported by the business side.
One would have thought such a setup would protect the journalistic side from abuse from the business side. But it was the exact opposite at The Tennessean. It was the executives on the business side on the operating committee who had spoken to readers and knew that change was needed in the product, desperately so. They were better journalists on the whole than those in the newsroom.
A former operating committee member told me the story of a golf tournament hosted for advertisers and other dignitaries by the newspaper. He was part of the group that included TEASBBEJM. The advertisers took him aside and asked him a question: "Why do they let the guy who writes the newspaper's wine column be the Editor?" The operating committee member had no answer.
In his series on The Tennessean, Scene writer Wily Stern tried to pin The Tennessean's problems on then managing editor Dave Green. He had Sonny Rawls, a former Tennessean writer and Pulitzer Prize winner in Philadelphia, call me and set up a get together lunch and interview. I agreed, even though Rawls had never contacted me once in years of my writing a column.
At O'Charley's in Brentwood, the guy tried to get me to answer that Green was the problem. Green had turned down Rawls' request to be sports editor at the newspaper. I refused. I put the blame on TEASBBJEM, which was the truth that Stern still missed in his series.
Finally, Rawls acknowledged that TEASBBJEM had been the newsroom tattle tell for Seigenthaler. And they all laughed at him.
But the bigger joke was that Seigenthaler choice him to be editor. No one is laughing now.
Now journalists I've spoke with acknowledge that TEASBBEJM was a good editor in the beginning. But he lost interest and tried to be a Seigenthaler by supporting anything and anyone who would make Nashville into a major league sports city while he lived out of the county in affluent Brentwood. That's why his lips were always puckered for then mayor and now Gov. Phil Bredesen's ass.
And so the newspaper suffered in quality and in serving the readers. You've seen the rest. TEASBBEJM's buddy is editor of the newspaper and another is the publisher. And they are driving the newspaper into the ground just as he did.
I feel really bad for my friends and colleagues who still remain at the newspaper. They are suffering greatly in trying to pursue their profession with excellence while paying bills at home. Yet they constantly work under the fear of losing their jobs.
My friend and colleague in New York tried to warn me. But I had to learn the hard way, as have the good readers of what now is a most unworthy publication that allowed TEASBBEJM to literally destroy its future.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Here's advice on ordering inaugural ball tickets
A caller today rightly needed some help in ordering tickets for the Music City Charity Inaugural Ball slated Jan. 20 at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel.
First, go to www.newhope-foundation.org
You'll see a yellow oval inviting you to order tickets.
PayPal will be the organization that takes your order.
Make the $100 tax deductible payment per ticket cost to the New Hope Foundation.
Your order will be recorded by the website and listed when updated.
Your ticket will be waiting for you at the Ball.
Good luck and see you there.
First, go to www.newhope-foundation.org
You'll see a yellow oval inviting you to order tickets.
PayPal will be the organization that takes your order.
Make the $100 tax deductible payment per ticket cost to the New Hope Foundation.
Your order will be recorded by the website and listed when updated.
Your ticket will be waiting for you at the Ball.
Good luck and see you there.
Unofficial Nashville Cricket Club provides glimpse into all the good diversity brings to America
I am privileged to be neighbors with some good men and their families from India.
They're living and working in Nashville as computer software professionals on a project for a local company, maintaining the pulse measuring America's economic strength. That's because while our children love video games, they're not all that interested in the engineering and mathematics behind the technology.
So this nation needs these men and my neighbors, who spend some of their free time playing Cricket at the Bicentennial Mall amphitheater. Back at their apartment units, the smells emanating on each floor are tantalizing. The kindness and intellect from these good people is inspiring, as is their nation which rightly has become an economic superpower.
British rule brutalized India's citizens. Poverty associated with such a large population following independence sobered India's citizens, including Mother Teresa. An unstable Pakistan, which continues to hide Osama bin Laden, still threatens India's citizens.
But the new millennium has delivered a rising standard of living built upon the brain power of India's citizens.
Meanwhile, Nashville and America continue to be the beneficiaries of the world's diversity, just as we are in each Olympics. And these men are keeping this nation in the economic superpower game while lifting their own into it.
Chip the Magic Republican may have lost his big chance at RNC's top post with racist CD mailing
NewsChannel 5 reports tonight that Tennessee Republican notable Chip Saltsman is losing favor and face with GOP leaders across the country and regular Tennesseans for his Christmas gift CD of a racist song about President-elect Barack Obama.
Saltsman wants to be chairman of the Republican National Committee and thought the CD that contained the Rush Limbaugh song "Barack the Magic Negro" would impress fellow GOP operatives and make them laugh as well.
The joke has ended up on him.
Chip the Stupid Republican is backed by Tennessee GOP giant Dr. Bill Frist. The former Senate Majority Leader has not commented about the foolish act on the part of his protege. But others are. And Saltsman appears sacked in his quest to lead the GOP nationally and further into oblivion.
Saltsman wants to be chairman of the Republican National Committee and thought the CD that contained the Rush Limbaugh song "Barack the Magic Negro" would impress fellow GOP operatives and make them laugh as well.
The joke has ended up on him.
Chip the Stupid Republican is backed by Tennessee GOP giant Dr. Bill Frist. The former Senate Majority Leader has not commented about the foolish act on the part of his protege. But others are. And Saltsman appears sacked in his quest to lead the GOP nationally and further into oblivion.
Peace on Earth ends quickly after Christmas
Israeli jets killed at least 155 people in retaliation for rocketing by Hamas, a car bombing killed 28 in Baghdad, Pakistani troops have mobilized in rising tensions with India and more worries emerged here as senior citizen bond holders realized their savings are in jeopardy.
Peace on Earth is so fleeting after Christmas. The world just seems to grow more dangerous. Perhaps it is a reminder that there really is not supposed to any heaven on Earth, no matter how much we try to make it so with all the things we buy ourselves and each other.
The terrible events also remind us that Peace on Earth should be our prayer every day, not just on Christmas. As the late Pope Paul VI always reminded us, if you want peace, work for justice. That the responsibility of our leaders nationally and globally, and ours in our communities and neighborhoods and households.
For all the souls touched negatively today, let us offer our prayers and support. While we may never reach it, Peace on Earth must always be our goal.
Peace on Earth is so fleeting after Christmas. The world just seems to grow more dangerous. Perhaps it is a reminder that there really is not supposed to any heaven on Earth, no matter how much we try to make it so with all the things we buy ourselves and each other.
The terrible events also remind us that Peace on Earth should be our prayer every day, not just on Christmas. As the late Pope Paul VI always reminded us, if you want peace, work for justice. That the responsibility of our leaders nationally and globally, and ours in our communities and neighborhoods and households.
For all the souls touched negatively today, let us offer our prayers and support. While we may never reach it, Peace on Earth must always be our goal.
Postal service, workers need some competition
Nothing angers me more than poor service to the customer, particularly the taxpayer.
And the U.S. Postal Service in the past several days has shown itself to be an institution -- like The Tennessean -- to be more interested in serving itself first.
I tried to mail some important legal papers on Christmas Eve here in downtown Nashville. I walked about a mile to the post office, and it had closed at noon. It had only been open for three and a half hours. Yet I'm sure employees got paid for a full day.
Now I'm not a Scrooge, and so I forgave that. Yet the day after Christmas, I returned to the same post office and it had closed at noon again, for another three and a half hour day. Now that went too far.
If you are branch of the federal government supported by the taxpayers, then you stay open a full day and work a full day. If you don't want to, then take a holiday or sick day. The Postal Service sure doesn't hesitate to raise stamp prices. The place pays well and workers get a lot of holidays. Good for them and their union.
But for goodness sakes, please put in a full day when you're supposed to, just like the people who are paying your salaries.
Now I know this post -- just like what I write about The Tennessean -- won't change these entrenched institutions dedicated to first serving self. That's why new and aggressive competition is needed. Surely there is some entity that could make things run for less than the current stamp price and fewer holidays and a tad lower wages.
Competition is the only thing that ensures the people are served first and best, as it should be.
And the U.S. Postal Service in the past several days has shown itself to be an institution -- like The Tennessean -- to be more interested in serving itself first.
I tried to mail some important legal papers on Christmas Eve here in downtown Nashville. I walked about a mile to the post office, and it had closed at noon. It had only been open for three and a half hours. Yet I'm sure employees got paid for a full day.
Now I'm not a Scrooge, and so I forgave that. Yet the day after Christmas, I returned to the same post office and it had closed at noon again, for another three and a half hour day. Now that went too far.
If you are branch of the federal government supported by the taxpayers, then you stay open a full day and work a full day. If you don't want to, then take a holiday or sick day. The Postal Service sure doesn't hesitate to raise stamp prices. The place pays well and workers get a lot of holidays. Good for them and their union.
But for goodness sakes, please put in a full day when you're supposed to, just like the people who are paying your salaries.
Now I know this post -- just like what I write about The Tennessean -- won't change these entrenched institutions dedicated to first serving self. That's why new and aggressive competition is needed. Surely there is some entity that could make things run for less than the current stamp price and fewer holidays and a tad lower wages.
Competition is the only thing that ensures the people are served first and best, as it should be.
Don't take off from exercise for a head cold
That's the surprising conclusion from a story in today's New York Times for all you exercise enthusiasts out there like me.
In fact, two studies when colds were at the worst for subjects intentionally infected with the rhino virus versus those who were not showed both groups exercised at the same capacity. And the symptoms of the colds did not worsen in those infected.
Wow. And that's good news. I hate to take a day off from exercise. But if you have a fever and muscle aches, you might want to take the day off.
Here is the fascinating story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/health/nutrition/25best.html?_r=1&em
In fact, two studies when colds were at the worst for subjects intentionally infected with the rhino virus versus those who were not showed both groups exercised at the same capacity. And the symptoms of the colds did not worsen in those infected.
Wow. And that's good news. I hate to take a day off from exercise. But if you have a fever and muscle aches, you might want to take the day off.
Here is the fascinating story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/health/nutrition/25best.html?_r=1&em
'Where was The Tennessean?' I'll answer tomorrow
After yesterday's press conference unveiling an exciting new coalition of the willing in Nashville, Dr. Charles McGowan -- one of the movers behind the effort -- asked "where was The Tennessean?"
A lot of people have asked that question over the years -- be they conservatives, liberal or of no ideology at all.
The Tennessean -- primarily in its newsroom -- has operated as an institution to be served first, not to serve. And its interest in any cause that rises from the people is quite limited. It sees the world from its ivory tower and has little interest to mix with the people below, no matter how much good they are doing or innocent of wrongdoing.
So the absence of The Tennessean yesterday at the press conference about the Music City Charity Inaugural Ball was to be expected, and I told Dr. McGowan so.
How and why The Tennessean got that way will be among the matters I'll cover in my series of posts, "The Rise and the Fall of The Tennessean".
Look for the first entry tomorrow.
A lot of people have asked that question over the years -- be they conservatives, liberal or of no ideology at all.
The Tennessean -- primarily in its newsroom -- has operated as an institution to be served first, not to serve. And its interest in any cause that rises from the people is quite limited. It sees the world from its ivory tower and has little interest to mix with the people below, no matter how much good they are doing or innocent of wrongdoing.
So the absence of The Tennessean yesterday at the press conference about the Music City Charity Inaugural Ball was to be expected, and I told Dr. McGowan so.
How and why The Tennessean got that way will be among the matters I'll cover in my series of posts, "The Rise and the Fall of The Tennessean".
Look for the first entry tomorrow.
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