Posted by Liberadio(!) on September 11, 2007 under Uncategorized | Read the First Comment
Summary: Yesterday morning’s Run Off Round Table discussion starring Nashville Scene editor Liz Garrigan, Councilman At-large and attorney, Adam Dread, and WKRN VolunteerVoters.com blog producer, Adam Kleinheider in which we discuss candidate coverage by the Scene, how this mayoral election compares to past elections, tactics used by both campaigns, and blogger influence vs. mainstream media. Hilarity and, finally, election result predictions ensue.
Posted by Mary Mancini on September 10, 2007 under Uncategorized | 6 Comments to Read
Psych! Of course I’m voting. But I bet I can list the punk-ass chump reasons why you’re not.
I don’t care about local politics/elections. True, local elections aren’t as sexy as national elections, but the results can have a much greater impact on our daily lives. Want more recycling in your neighborhood? Want better public schools in your area? Worried about the crime rate in your neighborhood? Care about the homeless? Sports teams? Downtown development? Green spaces? Dog parks? Air quality gettin’ you down? Can’t make it from Hillsboro Village to Green Hills in less than an hour? Want more and smarter public transportation? Are you and your neighbors beings displaced by developers going all gentrification on your ass? These are all issues that are handled by our local elected officials in the Mayor’s office and on the Metro Council.
I’m too busy. You can’t take 30 minutes out of your day today between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm tomorrow, Tuesday, September 11, TODAY to exercise your right to vote? Puh-leze. I think your email can wait for a half hour. Not to mention your boss who, according to Tennessee Code/Title 2 Elections/Chapter 1 General Provisions /2-1-106, is legally obligated to give you at least 3 hours off to vote without penalty or reduction in pay. Do the math. Voting will only take about a half hour but your boss has to give you 3 hours off to vote…I’m just sayin‘…
There isn’t enough difference between the candidates to make it worthwhile. Aw, hell no. You didn’t just say that. Nashville is at a crossroads. Right here, right now. Here’s the question you need to ask yourself - do you want to continue to live in a forward-moving and progressive city or a city that slips back into being the stereotypical southern city the rest of the country believes us to be? The difference can be seen most distinctly in the mayor’s race and the way each candidate has run their campaign. While Bob Clement has been making inane accusations that Karl Dean is soft on crime, impossible promises that he won’t raise property taxes (he can’traiseproperty taxes), and dismissing the United States Constitution, Karl Dean has been having substantive discussions about education, public safety, and a vision for the city’s future.
The outcome is a foregone conclusion/one vote won’t change anything. Um, have you seen the polls lately? The mayoral candidates are running in a statistical dead heat. One vote can make a difference - especially in local elections like tomorrow’s runoff. There’s no electoral college standing in the way of your vote counting towards the official results. And the results in last month’s general election among the top three were extraordinarily close - Dean 24,122, Clement 23,575, and Gentry 23,180. In other words, your vote will most definitely count.
I don’t know enough about the candidates. In case you haven’t noticed, information is all around you. Newspapers, websites, blogs, radio shows. You just have to take the time to look at it. Here, we’ll make it easier for you: Karl Dean’s website is here. Bob Clement’s is here. At-large candidates Megan Barry, Luvenia Butler, Saletta Holloway, JB Loring, Jerry Maynard, Ronnie Steine, and Charlie Tygard all have websites. The Tennessean coverage is here and the Nashville Scene’s coverage is here. The City Paper also has stuff. Kleinheider has links to good info/opinion from all over town over at WKRN’s VolunteerVoters.com blog and WPLN has thorough coverage including transcripts of all their stories. And don’t forget the Liberadio(!) Interviews! BTW, we asked Congressman Clement for an interview several times. He said “no” in that “I’m not actually going to say no but string you along” kind of way.
My parents never voted, why should I? Rebellion can take many forms, Grasshopper.
Yesterday, Mary and I went to an Education Town Hall Meeting hosted by Karl Dean. If this is an indication of things to come, then I’m genuinely excited about the prospect of a Dean administration. The event was held at the Ellington Agricultural Center, which seemed a slightly odd site for a discussion about education, but the auditorium actually worked well. And it was really about drawing on the community of Crieve Hall.
The audience included just about every type of stakeholder imaginable for public education: teachers, parents, grandparents, students, a school board member, a Chamber representative, a principal, several at-large candidates, the district councilman for the area, and concerned citizens like me.
Karl tried to get the party started by inviting discussion on truancy and drop-out rates, but people seemed keen to talk about a number of issues affecting (and often afflicting) MNPS. I had come in with a head full of questions, but I found myself responding ad lib to the discussions of middle school difficulties that arose early and asking about the historical reasons for creating aggregate schools. As an alumnus of Eakin, I remember watching many of my peers get chewed up by the transition to Moore, where kids came from all over the place, and many of them were bigger and intimidating, and whole social dynamics changed dramatically in the then 2-year boiler room. Meanwhile, I had become relatively safely ensconced at MBA, where my mom, a career language teacher, had just rejoined the faculty. Based on several instances of apparent success in our local private schools, I asked whether it would be possible to consider K-12 options in Metro. But the discussion moved on from there.
Karl eventually got some discussion about drop-out rates, although I didn’t get to raise publicly an important issue raised frequently by a good friend of mine who teaches at Stratford. A common lament he hears from his students is, “This is Stratford.” Which is basically a way of lamenting the stark inequalities that exist in our public school system. E.g., “Nothing positive will happen here; this is Stratford.” My friend is very aware that as a Title I school, Stratford does not have as many educational options as the system’s magnets (including the number of AP courses offered), and he’s correct to observe that the students are very aware of these issues, too.
One striking problem with the event was the lack of media attention. Stage a provocative event at an asphalt wasteland named for your opponent, and the media trip over themselves to show up. Host a substantive discussion relatively free of campaign rhetoric that involves ordinary citizens, and the media stay in bed. I’d rather spend my money on a paper that covered the latter, but maybe I’m in the minority. Or at least they think I am.
Overall, the town hall was a great give and take. It’s difficult to extract concrete public policy measures from such a petri dish, but the discussion was valuable. Passionate people dispassionately discussed a very important issue and seemed willing to work together toward improvement. I know that J.T. Moore’s principal got a new volunteer out of the deal. The event gave me confidence that there’s community support for public education. At least in Crieve Hall. I’d love to have a similar meeting in my neighborhood.
Posted by Mary Mancini on September 7, 2007 under Uncategorized | 3 Comments to Read
This is for those of you who don’t own a TV, only watch PBS, or use a TIVO - because no one should miss Karl Dean laying down the smack on Bob Clement.
Saving the best for the last few days of his campaign, mayoral candidate Karl Dean stood in front of that pesky Clement Landport this afternoon highlighting it as “a great example of an idea with no forethought and no follow through. Bob Clement is genuinely concerned about transportation and I am too. But to spend $4.6 million to build what has become a vacant lot is not a wise use of taxpayers’ money.”
Amen, brother. As we’ve stated before, Congressman Clement never fails to remind us of his connections to Washington implying that with the help of his beltway buddies he can get things done in Nashville. And while it’s true that his connections helped get the federal funding to build the Clement Landport, what good is that now? The deserted and unused “vacant lot”, with its crickets chirping and tumbleweeds blowing, is a constant reminder of Clement’s ability to get the job only half done.
Long before the events of September 11, Gore Vidal cemented his place as a harbinger of the negative effects of America’s aggressive foreign policies. So it’s only fitting that on Tuesday, September 11, at 8 p.m. in Benton Chapel, Vanderbilt University host a “A Conversation with Gore Vidal” as part of its Project Dialogue series. On Monday morning prior to the event, Liberadio(!) will interview Vidal during their live show on WRVU 91.1 FM.
Frank Wcislo, Vanderbilt dean and associate professor of history, will have a conversation with Vidal during which the author will be asked to reflect on “why we hate” – the theme of this year’s Project Dialogue series. Project Dialogue is a yearlong, university-wide program that seeks to involve the entire Vanderbilt community in public discourse and reflection and connect classroom learning with larger societal issues. A question and answer session with the audience will follow Vidal’s remarks.
Vidal’s career spans six decades – from shortly after World War II to the early 21st century. He has written seven novels on American history, including Lincoln, memoirs such as Point to Point Navigation, and many essays - some of which are collected in the National Book Award winning, United States, 1952-1992. His satirical novels include Myra Breckinridge, Duluth, Live From Golgotha and The Smithsonian Institution.
In 1960, Vidal ran for Congress as a liberal Democrat in New York’s Republican 29th District. Given the conservative bent of the area, he was defeated. However, he won more votes in his district than John F. Kennedy, who headed the Democratic ticket. He tried politics again in 1982 running in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in California. He finished second on a crowded ballot behind well-known California politician Jerry Brown.
“A Conversation with Gore Vidal,” Tuesday, September 11, 8 pm, Benton Chapel.
Interview with Gore Vidal, Monday, September 10, 8:30 am, 91.1 FM or Live Internet Stream
Last night I went to my first Nashville Green Drinks event. I learned about the group from a friend. Carl found out about it indirectly via GoLoco, a Facebook application built around the concept of sharing rides. Carl used to work for Zipcar, which was founded by the same team.
The movie was laden with interesting commentators and was a pretty straightforward documentary. To me, it didn’t present a doomsday scenario quite as effectively as An Inconvenient Truth, and it didn’t provide basic action steps available to concerned viewers (even over the credits). It included URLs, but that’s not really an action in my book. Overall, I think the film is an acceptable introduction to problems caused by systemic complexities and the need for systemic solutions.
Regardless of my criticisms of the movie, though, I thought the whole experience was worthwhile. It brought together people working actively on green projects with people (like myself) merely keenly interested in them. I’ve only attended once, but I feel like future attendance will bring new opportunities to explore the ways in which this movement can have positive educational and economic impacts.
One interesting footnote from the pre-movie drinking session. One attendee remarked that he had returned to Nashville not to long ago after 15 years in New York City. On the spot, he swore that he loved his car and that he would never use mass transit again. I thought this was an interesting comment to make at an event of this nature, but I can understand it. In fact, it highlights the importance of transportation options in urban areas. Because I’m in exactly the opposite situation: I haven’t ever owned a car, and I haven’t driven regularly for the past three years. I use mass transit all the time, and I expect to continue doing so, at least until car manufacturers make a car that meets my exacting environmental standards. Just driving around last weekend helping my dad get an old 1981 Plymouth Champ road ready reinforced just how awful almost every part of a car is. Anyway, this is a digression, but my new acquaintance’s remarks didn’t dissuade me from my pet project of trying to get full funding for MTA.
Heck, maybe at the next Nashville Green Drinks, I can encourage some attendees to ride the bus. Or maybe carpool.
While the Republican Party makes a point of welcoming and nurturing the young people within their organization, the Democrats continue to alienate theirs. I saw it first hand during the last Tennessee Young Democrats convention held in Nashville this spring. The Tennessee Democratic Party held a reception for the young Dems (eager and wide-eyed kids from points all over the state) at their headquarters. In attendance were the young Dems, exactly one state Party official, and zero elected officials. Zero. And now this from Sean Braisted, one of the DCYD Executive Committee members:
Recently, the Davidson County Young Democrats attempted to do some phone-banking, using the County Party’s office as a base of operations, in order to get younger voters out to the polls. One would assume this would be universally seen by those in the party as a good thing. After all, in previous elections, Democrats have tried extremely hard to get the youth vote out, as it tends to sway heavily Democratic. But apparently not all Democrats in the County Party were on board. One Committee Member, Alma Sanford, was upset that we would use party resources to increase youth turnout, because she believed it would hurt her favorite candidate.
Paul Waldman, in Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success, insists that progressives need to start planning for long-term successes - including falling over backwards to keep the kids interested in being part of the machine. This is even more important in states like Tennessee. I mean, seriously, if you find a kid from West Tennessee who self-identifies as a Democrat or a progressive then we need to grab her and never let her go.
So Fred Thompson’s video announcement makes me hope that he’ll pick up Sam Waterson as a running mate. They’re both so good at first making me afraid but then quickly comforted by their warmth and wisdom.
Summary: Our guest is Metro Nashville Council At-large candidate, Luvenia Harrison Butler. Butler has served for the past five years as Director of Title VI Compliance with the Tennessee Department of Health and for the past eleven years as Director of Special Projects for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (including as Project Coordinator for the $10 million dollar National Civil Rights Museum, built at the Lorraine Motel site in Memphis, Tennessee). She is also a commissioner on the Metro Homeless Commission. Don’t forget to vote in the Sept. 11th run-off election!
Assistant District Attorney Sarah Davis, Gregg Ramos, Deputy Research Director for the Center for American Progress Amanda Terkel, Elbert Ventura of Media Matters for America.
Monday, December 15, 2008
TNDP Chariman candidates Charles Robert Bone, Chip Forrester, Metro Nashville Public School Board Chairman David FoxTim Karr of Free Press, Elbert Ventura of Media Matters for America.
Read the First Comment 