Nashville News Blog

Two weeks ago, we wrote about the growing number of Chicken Little premonitions pointing towards the imminent departure (or demise) of the Nashville Sounds: a frosty relationship between ownership and the Mayor's office, local investors flirting with relocating a Jackson Double-A team, and a missed deadline to renew the lease at Greer Stadium.

Not surprisingly, the Sounds said don't believe the hype.

This morning, however, we got an email from a Sounds fan who was at last night's home finale. According to her, Greer was abuzz with news that the general manager was leaving and most of the staff was being laid off.

So we were curious: Was this more hot air, or an honest-to-God sign of the coming minor league baseball apocalypse in Nashville?

When you gotta’ go, you gotta’ go. Just ask George Banks, who simply couldn’t hold it until he got to the public toilets inside the Justice Birch courthouse downtown. Instead, Banks elected to drain-the-main-vein right in the front entrance of our brand new $49 million courthouse last Wednesday afternoon.

He was charged with indecent exposure and (surprise!) public intoxication. We thought about penning some snarky commentary about this, but instead elected to just post the full affidavits from both charges after the jump.

Happy Labor Day!

P.S.: We left the affidavits in their original, all-cap glory.

It's truly bizarrely absurd to hear McCainsters saturating the airwaves with praise for Sarah Palin as an "inspired choice" two days after the McCain campaign produced an ad calling Obama "dangerously unprepared." (Some bearded dude on Fox just called her "a perfect, perfect pick.") The hypocrisy here is breathtaking.

But lost in the understandable attention to the surprise Palin pick is the fact that this effectively nails the coffin of Mitt Romney's presidential hopes. His feckless high-cost low-yield primary campaign made it clear that the only path that will take him to the Oval Office runs through the vice presidency. With McCain now giving Romney an ignominious brush-off in favor of someone whose public service has mostly involved elective office in a town with a population one-tenth the size of Passaic, New Jersey, it's time for the Mittman to face reality and move on to his next ideologically vacant ambition.

They're just as likely to take flight as whitey is.

In his cover story this week, Scene’s Jeff Woods makes a rather damning argument against Nashville’s return to neighborhood school zoning – or as opponents like to call it, the resegregation plan. Writes Woods:

“Forty years of studies, beginning with the famous Coleman Report in 1966, have shown that sending a lot of poor kids to school in the same place is a really bad idea. It's a central issue in education—how to teach poor urban children—and in all the research there's no more consistent conclusion than this: In schools where poverty is concentrated, students learn less. All the problems these children face—poor health, hunger, drugs, gangs and violence, and a culture that scorns education—it's all just too overwhelming for schools.”

But that’s exactly what our district is planning to do.

School board members have yet to come up with a sound rationale. Their financial explanation – we’ll save money on busing, but we’ll kick an extra $6 mil a year to black schools, even though we don’t actually have that loot – comes straight from the Enron accounting department. And they don’t seem to have an academic argument for the plan.

In a way, the emptiness of their rhetoric is striking. Perhaps because their real thoughts can’t be spoken out loud.

The Sankari family just can’t seem to avoid trouble. The Syrian clan appeared in the pages of Scene (and here on Pith) a few weeks back for administering a group beatdown to 18-year-old family member Yaman Sankari. After Yaman admitted to having sex with her 28-year-old boyfriend, her father, grandmother, grandfather, two uncles and an aunt kicked and punched her about the face and body, according to police reports.

Now the family business, Fast Service Market on 175 Lafayette Street, has become the target of a police sting. According to affidavits and a press release from Metro cops, police have been staking out three convenience stores—including Fast Service Market—near the crime ridden projects on Lafayette Street.

The stores sell glass tubes, sometimes advertised as flower holders or other innocuous gewgaws that ingenious junkie craftsmen turn into crack pipes. It’s legal to sell these things -- only if the seller knows they won't be used to wolf crack.

So police wired-up informants and sent them into the store to ask for “crack pipes” and chore boys—steel wool used as filters. Mohamed Y. Sankari, Mohamed N. Sankari and Ahmed Sankari—Yaman’s uncle, father and uncle, respectively—didn't seem to sense the sting and were arrested. Bond is set at $5,000.

Phil Bredesen is at it again in Denver, helpfully supplying quotes to reporters looking for Democrats dumb enough to openly bad-mouth Barack Obama. The governor's become the go-to guy for Politico. They ought to put him on the payroll.

Bredesen's latest insights? Instead of speaking at a football stadium tonight about "hope and change and stuff," Obama ought to go to the Waffle House to communicate with the commoners. Bredesen knows what he's talking about because, as we all are aware, his own electoral success is attributable to his common touch, not his big pile of money. Of course, Obama should keep it simple, "just one or two things" that'll improve the lives of the Waffle House slubs. (That's not condescending, is it?) More from the governor:

“We already know he is a rock star, we already know he can bring 85,000 people together in a stadium. He has done it multiple times. He needs to talk to people who haven’t made up their minds yet."

“I would love to see him out showing a certain kind of humility, being in touch with people who go to breakfast at the Waffle House, sending a message.”

“What he’s got to do is get more specific — not so much in terms of putting out white papers — but really explaining to some of these undecided voters why is your life going to be better if you elect me. I’m not talking about hope and change and stuff.”

“It’s a different message for them." The Obama campaign should reach out to them by emphasizing “just one or two things” he’ll do to improve the plight of people who shop at Wal-Mart.

Want to be as popular as this guy? Read on.

This week’s College Survival Guide covers all the bases on how to get the most out of the Best Four Years Of Your Life. Featuring how to’s on dorm-room decorating, 21st Century rebellion, and bursting the bubble that is university life, there’s almost nothing we didn’t cover. Again, almost nothing.

So listen up Nashville college students, cuz here’s what we left out: The fail-proof way to become the most popular kid on campus…

According to police reports, Leroy Wesley Bullock spent the weekend of July 26 knocking on doors at the Knights Inn motel on Bell Road in Antioch, pretending to be a cop. For three women who had the misfortune of answering, Bullock pushed his way in, pulled a 9mm handgun, zip tied their arms behind their backs, and demanded their cash and cell phones.

He often requested $300 from his victims, which is odd, because if you’ve ever visited the Knights Inn in Antioch, it’s pretty clear that the folks who stay there don’t have $300 just lying around. In one caper Bullock made off with a whopping $23.

During what was probably his last heist, a janitor spotted Bullock fleeing the area, headed for a patch of woods nearby. The cops found his gun there and he was arrested about a month later. He is charged with two counts of aggravated robbery with a weapon and two charges of especially aggravated kidnapping. Were not sure what’s so “especial” about this crime, but maybe the grand jury can figure it out when Bullock goes before them in a few months.

Black leaders have been counting on the new school board to overturn the controversial student rezoning plan. The key vote? Alan Coverstone, who replaced board chair Marsha Warden, a strong advocate for the plan.

“I expect Alan to be a rational person without a political agenda,” Metro Council member Jerry Maynard tells Pith. “I supported Alan strong and I expect him to come at this with fresh eyes, not beholden to anyone. My hope is that Alan will put the children first.”

But in our article this week, “Separate. Equal? Nashville school resegregation threatens a new generation,” Coverstone says he’s OK with the rezoning plan.

“I’ve stated pretty clearly that I think the plan is on balance good, and I think the process was on balance fair, and I support it. Labeling it as resegregation or ‘separate but equal’ is overly simplistic and does a disservice to the kind of discussion and dialogue we need to have to work together. I don’t think we gain by going back and reinventing the wheel on that.”

The new board met for the first time yesterday and acted as if everything is just peaches and cream. Schools are failing, there’s no superintendent, and blacks and whites are at each other’s throats. But board members went home after their shortest meeting in months. They might have spent a little time discussing how to defend themselves against the discrimination lawsuit that the NAACP is almost certainly about to file.

Mayor Karl Dean won his office by promising not to return Nashville to the “old-style politics.” Thankfully, he didn’t mean it when it comes to the English First initiative. If ever there was a old-style political power play, it’s his derailing of English First.

Through his law director, Sue Cain, the mayor has decided that the Metro Charter bars English Only from the November ballot when it says a petition-driven amendment may be submitted to voters only every two years.

The previous amendment, the one that requires voter approval of property tax increases, passed Nov. 7, 2006. This year's election is on Nov. 4. Cain’s ruling says English Only didn’t clear the two-year waiting period by three days.

That Cain’s a real stickler for words, isn’t she? Or is it more likely that the makers of the Metro charter actually only meant to keep petition-driven amendments off the ballot in consecutive years?

Eric Crafton is going to sue, so a judge will decide. Either way, hats off to the mayor for sticking it to these English First clowns and making them spend a little more of their money on a lawsuit.

Isn't indecent exposure a misdemeanor?

If you've always figured Titan's defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch for the kind of guy who'd one day be collared for tax evasion, today is the day to put your money where your mouth is.

Not-at-all-shady-looking site BetVega is now offering odds on the next NFL'er to be arrested. The Bengals, a.k.a. the Cinmates, are favorites at 5-1. Your hometown Titans, a.k.a. the Waltons of the NFL, are 25-1 longshots. Apparently they've never seen how our boy Vince Young gets down at the club.

Just for the record, if Vanden Bosch does cook his books, you're looking at another 25-1 payout. Not bad. But recent history suggests DUI (3-1) is the horse to back. Happy wagering!

This lady would be way gooder if she played in English.

For those of you who believe Nashville isn’t a trendsetting city, take one look at the women’s golf tournament, the LPGA. It’s blatantly stealing our concept of bagging on people who don’t speak English.

Beginning next year, the tour will require that all players be able to speak English. Apparently golf isn’t nearly as good when played in foreigner. Those who can’t pass a test will be suspended for two years. Further violations may include forcing players to dress in earth tones and wear cowboy hats.

Though it seems a weird move for an international sport, the LPGA is worried that foreign players are driving away sponsors, especially during the recession. If you’re a marketing VP for a national insurance advertiser, who would you rather talk to in the VIP tent: Someone named Lon Su? Or a really nice woman named Mary? But we’ll leave the official logic to deputy commissioner Libba Galloway, who had this to say to the Associated Press:

"Why now? Athletes now have more responsibilities and we want to help their professional development. There are more fans, more media and more sponsors. We want to help our athletes as best we can succeed off the golf course as well as on it."

We’re not quite sure how suspending Korean women will help them off the course, but that’s probably why no one’s asking us to run their golf league either.

The Republican senator is now getting blistered from the right.

To break the stalemate over U.S. energy policy, a bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of 10 has put forth a compromise proposal in hopes that the rest of Washington will stop clawing each other like feral cats.

The gang, headed by Democratic Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia -- and including our very own Bob Corker -- has something to appease both left and right.

For conservatives, it wants to allow oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and 50 miles off the shores of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, if those states approve. For the left, it wants to assist U.S. automakers in ensuring that 85 percent of their fleet runs on non-petroleum fuels within two decades. The money would come from killing $30 billion in tax breaks for energy companies, which now have more money than God and Dubai.

But it’s that last point that has the gang running afoul of the special interest right – namely the Americans for Tax Reform.

Needless to say, these guys aren’t big on taxes. So they’re ripping Corker for “siding with tax-and-spend liberals” and making a “backroom deal.”

An impartial survey, conducted by Marsha Blackburn, shows a mass defection of Democratic women from Barack Obama. That’s right, and she dutifully delivered this news to the media today in a conference call from Denver, where she’s doing her best to annoy everyone in sight this week. The congressman (that’s the honorific she prefers; don’t ask me why) also revealed that she actually knows at least a few “Democrat voters.”

“Let me just give you a couple of examples, anecdotes from women I’ve talked to,” Blackburn says. “Some of my friends who are Democrat voters have expressed concern over the experience angle with Obama. You know, when you have a woman who is like me in her 50s and has had a career and maybe got passed over by the person who was supposed to be the next great thing for the company and then 18 months later he’s gone …”

There was some serious static on the line at this point, and we’re not sure exactly what point Blackburn was about to make, but we’re certain it was a good one.

Otherwise, she said the Democrats are screwing up by spending “a lot of time talking about has-been policy rather than looking forward.” Of course, if they ever do look forward, then it will be revealed that they are big spenders. “But then the question with the American public is going to be, ‘How do you pay for this?’ " That Blackburn, nothing gets past her.

“We are just having a great week here,” she gushes. We’re so glad.

Sometimes I wonder if we’re too hard on the The Tennessean--too quick to put the paper and its hard-working staff down for failing to produce the daily newspaper we think Nashville deserves. But then I encounter a story like today’s front pager on safety and uniforms in public schools, which sets a new low for lazy, incompetent local journalism.

Readers this morning were greeted with above-the-fold large bold type announcing that “uniforms may have contributed to safer Metro schools.” But venture inside reporter Jaime Sarrio’s story and you find:

In the year since school uniforms were implemented, simple assaults are up 89 percent across the district and “skyrocketed” over 200 percent in high schools.

Simple and serious assaults are up in some high schools and down in others.

Searches in schools have increased in number by over 600 percent (yes, 600) compared to a few years ago.

The story mentions “a drop in the number of serious assaults” but gives no numbers to show whether the drop is meaningful or trivial. (Does the paper still have any actual editors?)

Suspensions (both in-school and out-of-school) increased dramatically. Early in the piece Sarrio asserts, “The number of suspensions…increased as students were punished for repeatedly not being in uniform.” Several paragraphs later: “District officials…could not say how many students were punished specifically for uniform violations.”

Inferring from this that school attire has a cause-effect relationship with school safety isn’t just appalling journalism; it’s malpractice in the use and interpretation of facts and data. Associate Superintendent Ralph Thompson is said in the story to be confident that the dress code is causally related to safety outcomes, demonstrating that those running the system are no more able than those running the city’s daily newspaper to reason competently with simple data and grasp the significance of research on this subject.

One person who does seem to get it is Connie Smith of the state Department of Education and overseer of the MNPS “restructuring” effort. When a parent emailed Smith last month to mention school uniforms research showing no positive effects on discipline or academic achievement and to observe that arguments to the contrary are delusional, Smith replied, “I certainly agree with you and so does the research.”

What will happen when some nice Unitarians move in?

James Reesor wants to create a Christian nation based in Tennessee to serve as “a sanctuary from political corruption, economic instability and cultural degeneration.” But before you tune up your Nutbag Detector, hear him out. He actually has some interesting ideas.

His motivation, of course, is nothing new. CliffsNotes version: The world is turning to #%&#. We need a place of our own.

So Reesor, by turns cook and fringe gubernatorial candidate, is urging his brethren of faith to move to Tennessee (or the 10 surrounding states) to form Amerijericho.

Congressman David Davis lost his bid for reelection ignominiously in this month's Republican primary, but he can be proud of one thing. He's now become the poster child for the Democratic argument against offshore oil drilling. Who knew?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used Davis' defeat to help make her case against Big Oil yesterday on Meet the Press. She claims the Republicans of Upper East Tennessee were striking a blow against Big Oil when they voted against Davis. Here's what she said:

Do you want to know something? You know when the Republicans were doing their what I call war dance of the handmaidens of the oil companies on the floor of the House a couple of weeks ago? Well, on that--one of those Thursdays was primary day in Tennessee, and one of the Republicans on the floor was up for re-election in Tennessee, and he lost in his primary to a Republican who said that Davis, the incumbent, was the candidate of big oil and offshore drilling. In a Republican primary, he lost. So again, we have to talk to the American people about this. What we have to do is what is right for the consumer, for the taxpayer, and for the environment. And we know how to do that.

And we thought Davis lost because he's a doofus.

This is your chance to enter the glamorous, high-paying world of public radio! Radio Free Nashville (motto: Low power for the people) is launching a local, "bilingual news division” consisting of citizen journalists. It's offering a free, three-day training program next month to teach you how to find stories and go over the seven words you can’t say on the air. Here’s a link to the info.

Hurry! You could be the next Tom Ashbrook!

My God, they’re coming after us now! Trooper-gate just escalated into national crisis status. Code Orange. Highway Patrol Lt. Ronnie Shirley made an unauthorized check into the background of Tennessean reporter Brad Schrade. Who’s next? Ms. Cheap?

The Tennessean is demanding to know the names of all 182 people on Shirley’s “enemy’s list.” Under the alarming headline “THP potential for chilling free press enormous,” the City Paper joined the calls for a special investigation.

OK, let’s not get carried away. Pith in the Wind is here, as usual, as the voice of reason in a troubled time.

Yes, we need to find out whether Shirley was acting merely out of nosiness or as part of some grand dirty tricks campaign. And yes, the governor probably should order an independent investigation to clear the air. Still, the fact that Shirley checked into a journalist doesn’t add to the importance of this so-called scandal.

As a group, journalists do their fair share of embarrassing things. (I won't go into specifics here but, if you're interested, you can see a lot of it on display every night at Brandon's.) There may even be a few criminal offenses in our backgrounds. So what? Nobody ever said we were perfect.

Let's stop all the whining. This is the way the world works: We write stories that people don't like, then those people try to get back at us. Any reporter who feels intimidated by the snooper trooper ought to find a new line of work.

Ron Fournier, the Associated Press’ D.C. bureau chief, has been causing quite a stir for seemingly behaving as a Republican operative disguised as an objective newsman. If he’s not writing fawning letters to Karl Rove, he’s using the power of his post to light up Democratic candidates, like in this piece titled “Obama Walks Arrogance Line.”

Best shot: “Obama and his wife, Michelle, ooze a sense of entitlement.”

It’s not particularly surprising. In the age of squawking cable hosts and the dueling propaganda arms of Fox and MSNBC, you, dear reader, have come to expect tainted news. Whether you’re reading the lefty ramblings of that damned Jeff Woods, or listening to the conspiratorial adventures of Phil Valentine, having a take is part of the game.

But you don’t expect it from the Associated Press, which is to news what beige is to the color spectrum. The agency’s always been known as the dullest outlet on the block. Think of the guy next door who meticulously mows his lawn in black socks, still plays air guitar to Boston, and laughs out loud while watching Full House. He’s probably an AP bureau chief.

I realize this is a little late, but I just got around to watching this report from WKRN on last Friday's hearing in the Juana Villegas case.

I was at the hearing and the best part by far was when Villegas’ attorney Elliot Ozment essentially pantsed the arresting officer—Berry Hill Police Sergeant Tim Coleman—in front of a packed courtroom and TV cameras. Coleman testified that he pulled Villegas over at one address, but the arrest citation stated a different location. Ozment honed in on this, thrashing the cop like pitbull on a T-bone.

“Were you lying when you filled out this form?” Ozment practically yelled. “Or are you lying now in this courtroom?”

As a result of the discrepancy, the reckless driving charge was dropped, though Villegas was found guilty of driving without insurance, a $10 fine.

Back to the WKRN story (click video camera icon on right.) Amy Napier Viteri—who I think is one of the best immigration reporters in town—also got the chance to stump a Berry Hill official, this time Police Chief Robert Bennett.

Billy Marshall: The One Nashville Resident Who Benefits From Higher Fuel Costs

Last night, NPR’s All Things Considered focused a large portion of its one-hour broadcast on the side effects of pricy crude. Mixed in among features on the shrinking margins for airlines and cruiseships was a minute-and-a-half long segment about a business dear to our hearts: Scene newsstand delivery.

Getting 80 pages of “Men Seeking Men” ads to far flung corners of Nashville takes a lot of driving. And that takes a lot of gas. So Scene deliverymen like Frank Saracino have been forced to adapt.

With his fuel costs at $300 per week and rising, Saracino has switched his schedule, delivering on Sundays and evenings to avoid traffic. And he’s consolidated with other deliverers to cut down on miles. Meaning there’s a good chance our babies are snuggling up against week-old copies of Auto Trader before reaching news stands, by far the greatest tragedy this global crisis has borne to date.

(To hear the NPR segment, just click here.)

Last week, the Mayor’s Advisory Council on Special Education released the results of a six-month study of Metro’s SpEd programs. It recommended greater inclusion of children with disabilities into regular-ed classrooms. Apparently the mayor is willing to back the recommendations with cash and reforms.

This is a huge deal for parents of children with disabilities.

While reporting this story, I was told again and again how our schools have failed to integrate these students into regular classrooms. The practice is called “mainstreaming.” Many parents and SpEd advocates say that children with disabilities actually regress when they only see other children with disabilities all day. When they are able to watch other kids model typical behavior—speech, peer interaction, etc.—they at least have a template of normative behavior. Metro schools have done a terrible job at mainstreaming, according to advocates, parents and even a state audit.

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn is back from her fact-finding mission to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Here's her report. Marsha stepped out of the plane, looked around and didn't see much. That convinced her that we ought to drill for oil there. Her logic is overwhelming.

“When I went to ANWR I expected to see a pristine wilderness teeming with wildlife who knew that this tiny refuge was their only safe haven. What I discovered was a broad area just a little bit smaller than the state of Tennessee. The nearest mountain is 30 miles away and the closest tree is 70 miles past that. In this vast and desolate landscape, we only need to drill in an area roughly 10% the size of Franklin and 20% of Germantown, TN. That operation would mean as many as 750,000 new American jobs. These are jobs that would otherwise go to oil producing countries like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, or Russia. I return to Tennessee even more convinced that we need to drill here and drill now.”

Actually, Marsha, there's stuff there in the wildlife refuge. Lots and lots of birds, caribou, polar bears and grizzlies too, wolves, foxes, wolverines, even these bizarre ancient looking creatures called muskoxen. Trust me, Marsha. Wildlife is there. You just didn't happen to see any, but other people have. The Arctic isn't like Brentwood, where the Starbucks and the nail salon and everything is right there within easy driving distance in your SUV. Wildlife is sometimes hard to find. Somebody probably should have explained that to you. But that's OK, you'll know better next time.

It took two hours, a Metro lawyer and a unanimous vote of the Board of Zoning Appeals to deny the Iglesia de Cristo Su Gran Alabanza Assembleos de Dios its request to build a church on Haywood Lane in Antioch.

The congregation—which we wrote about last month—recently purchased a lot on Haywood without doing due diligence to see whether they could build a church there. As it turns out, the community long ago enacted regulations to prevent commercial building of any kind, including churches, on the street.

Earlier in the summer the Iglesia de Cristo applied for an exemption to the zoning and neighbors showed up in force before the BZA to protest, led by their Metro council member Jim Hodge.

This time around wasn’t much different...

Nashville, circa 2010?

Twice in my first month in Nashville, I’ve heard the city referred to as a place “where no one goes hungry.” The reason? The Music City’s abundance of soup kitchens.

Assuming there’s truth entwined in that statement, lefty-leaning webzine Salon has some bad news for us…

The troopergate scandal just gets better and better. The entertainment value is high, with politicians and their minions hurling high-minded accusations at each other. An entire website has popped up devoted to this ruckus.

Especially amusing are the antics of House Majority Leader Gary Odom. He's demanding an independent investigation and grandstanding for the cameras as a paragon of virtue. Of course, everyone knows he's just messing with his nemesis, Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, whose job Odom wants. Naifeh and Lt. Ronnie Shirley are friends.

As much fun as we're having watching the show, though, we have to admit it's a little light in the news department. What we've learned so far is that there are a lot of scumbags hanging around at the Capitol. And the sun rises in the east.

The latest revelation? A political op would actually go to a courthouse, obtain public records of a rival candidate's arrest for drunken driving, and then surreptitiously place those records in the office of the leader of the opposition party and mail them to the candidate's wife. Rather than scandalous, that's commendable behavior on the Hill, and commonplace too. Hardly a morning goes by that reporters don't find an envelope of dirt on their chairs when they come to work. It's democracy in action.

As for the allegations at the heart of troopergate, is it really shocking that one of our fine highway patrolmen, not exactly the brightest bulbs in the law enforcement community, would snoop around in people's criminal records and get caught doing it? He probably just got tired of looking at porn.

Update: Turns out, GOP House candidate A.J. McCall was arrested in 1990 after a woman told police he tried to make her get into his van. There was another arrest in 1996. Democrats are demanding that he explain his behavior. This troopergate scandal isn't working out too well for the Republicans so far.

So this is hilarious. Corrections Corporation of America, the widely condemned prison company in Green Hills, has launched a Pravda-styled website aimed at providing “factual information” about its operations.

The site makes out CCA to be as sweet and innocent a business as your daughter's lemonade stand. Sadly, as the company's PR push notes, a "local daily paper" has willfully mischaracterized the outfit's open and efficient approach to doing business.

That’s right: Only The Tennessean has raised pertinent questions about CCA. No one else has said a word, correct?

Well, actually there was The New Yorker, arguably the most respected magazine in the country, which reported that CCA dressed the young children of detainees at its immigration farm in Texas in prison garb. At that same facility, the magazine continued, CCA stored women and children in the same cell, where they would sleep on bunk beds next to an open toilet. Nice to see how the company (which maintains strong Republican ties) practices its family values.

A Quick Addition: Let me also link to this incisive report from the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children about CCA's immigration internment camp in Taylor, TX. The link will take you to the non-profit's resource page. Scroll down to the report "Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families."

It's a very well-researched study. And yet it dovetails with what reporters around the country have written about CCA: That we all should be paying attention to how our Green Hills prison operator runs its business.

What evangelicals would look like if they had better access to weaponry, says reader.

A note from a reader:

Re: Obama’s religious beliefs. The two dumbest mistakes evangelical Christians ever made was allowing themselves to become the official congregation of the Republican Party, and allowing the Republican Party to become the party of the Christian. GOP now stands for “God’s Only People”.

For this historical error in judgment, Christians generally are now ridiculed, hated and feared as much as Muslims, and for good reason. Christianity and Islamic fascism are equally fanatical, intolerant, belligerent and apocalyptic warmongers. The only difference between Islamic terrorists and evangelical Christians is access to weapons and a willingness to use them. If evangelicals ever arm themselves with AK-47s, God help us!

Rhio Hirsch
Whites Creek

It's the hot list! Everybody wants to be one of the 182 people whose backgrounds were checked by state highway patrol Lt. Ronnie Shirley.

Republicans hope they're on the list because that'll mean Democrats were behind the trooper's snooping. And vice versa. Bredesen's aides hope they're on it because it'll deflect blame from the administration. And journalists hope they're one of the lucky two reporters on the list because it'll mean somebody hates them enough to dig up dirt on them. Any reporter would wear it as a badge of honor. Proof of badassery.