Have a happy and safe holiday weekend, everyone! If you are doing a road trip somewhere this weekend, remember that other person is Chevy Chase, and you’re not. You need to avoid becoming the inspiration for a new Grizwold National Lampoon movie, if at all possible.

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This was excellent thinking on the part of who ever set this up…

A special blog set up for you. We invite you to share your condolences here.

The Chapman family is so grateful for the incredible outpouring of love and support at this difficult time.

From The Tennessean:

One of contemporary Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman’s six children was killed this afternoon when she was struck by a car said to be driven by her teenage brother in the driveway of the family’s Williamson County home.

The child, Maria, age 5, was taken by LifeFlight to Vanderbilt Hospital, which confirmed the death, according to Laura McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

She was hit by an SUV driven by her teenage brother, she said. Police did not give the driver’s name.

The teen was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser down the driveway of the rural home at about 5:30 p.m. and several children were playing in the area, McPherson said. He did not see the 5-year-old in the driveway before the vehicle struck her, she said.

Our thoughts are with the Chapman family tonight.

Nationwide Insurance is, despite the ads, probably not on your side all the time. Like when you’re driving and talking on your cell phone the way that 80% of us seem to do. They’ve done a survey. In a study published last year by Harris Interactive, 92 percent of Americans said driving while talking on the phone was as bad as getting behind the wheel of a car after having a few drinks.

Hang up and drive, people. And, since you can’t text without looking at the keyboard, don’t even try it.

Last week a Middle Tennessee business silently disappeared from the scene. It was almost a one-of-a-kind business, the Harpeth Clock Company of Pegram. There aren’t many companies that repair quality clocks left in the area. (Although, there is one in the Madison area, where we learned of the demise of Harpeth Clock. That does make this second-hand knowledge on my part so please correct me if I’m wrong.) The owner apparently, at 90 years old, was convinced by her children that it was time for her to stop working and start acting her age.

They’d been there a long time. Harpeth Clock was probably Pegram’s biggest draw. And if you have a clock that might need repairing, don’t put it off too long. The guy in Madison told my wife that he’s closing in the next 5 years so they can go be near their grandkids. Clock repairing seems to be dying out as an occupation, probably as an unintended result of the digital age where all you have to do is replace a battery.

It’s the TN Tax Free Weekend! Let’s all get out there and shop till you drop. Clothing, school and art supplies and computers are covered. Now if I’d only won the lottery on Wednesday… (sigh)

Details on what you can buy.

The Country Music Marathon is this weekend too. The bad news is that traffic might be an issue, the good news is that there will be lots of porta-potties available at Centennial Park.

From SouthComm’s press release at The City Paper:

Local publishing company SouthComm Communications announced today it has signed a letter of intent to purchase The City Paper and its companion Web site nashvillecitypaper.com.

Company executives said the move will mean an increased focus on delivering news on the Web site and a reduction in the number of days the paper is published each week.

SouthComm is a relatively new start-up led by former Nashville Scene publisher Chris Ferrell, who serves as the company’s chief executive officer. SouthComm is the parent company of online news site nashvillepost.com and music business publication Music Row.

Albie Del Favero, publisher of The City Paper, announced the planned sale today to the paper’s staff and said the SouthComm purchase from the Thompson family allows the company to invest further in digital content and delivery. Terms were not disclosed, but the Thompson family will retain a significant minority interest in the new company.

There’s more and Rex Hammock has some thoughts on this as well.

SouthComm has been busy this month:

Earlier this week SouthComm announced its purchase of monthly BusinessTN and intentions to start a new women’s magazine, Her Nashville. “SouthComm is acquiring and creating a suite of niche publications that we hope will be interesting and informative to Nashville-area readers,” said Ferrell. “With our announcements this week, we are beginning to realize our vision of the next-generation publishing company.”

Break out the tiaras, high heels, and red lipstick. This Saturday, April 12th, Cross (dressing) the Bridge Ride will commence at 12:00 noon.

The ride is to celebrate Nashville’s bicycle lane and greenway system, as well as bring attention to cycling in the city and the use of bicycles as viable forms of transportation, as well as bring attention to more opportunities for road and mountain biking.

That sounds just wonderful, but when those panty hose wedge up… well… NO.  I’ll be at the Youth Incorporated Ranch in LaVergne on a clean-up day with Girl Scouts, followed by sitting in my front lawn watching the Blue Angels scream overhead for the Smyrna Air Show.

It seems that today is the 75th anniversary of the the return of beer. It had been 14 years since prohibitionists had gotten a new amendment and April 7 was the day it became legal to down a pint. Such an important date - why are we all at work? Why aren’t we out drinking? April 6, 1933, was referred to as New Beer’s Eve, proof that people had a sense of humor even then. There was literally dancing in the streets. Technically, what people were able to drink on April 7th wasn’t that great, qualitatively speaking, and the better stuff didn’t come along until the 21st Amendment was repealed, and the repeal ratified, on December 5. Several breweries, however, shipped cases directly to the Capitol and the Whie House. More than 1.5 million barrels of beer were bought in the first 24 hours. CNN has more. 

According to the car blog Jalopnik and the National Motorists Association, Nashville is one of six cities (also including Chattanooga) accused of shorting the amber cycle on certain traffic light intersections in a reported effort to pick the pockets of unsuspecting drivers.

Even without red light cameras, police in Nashville, Tennessee have been earning hundreds of thousands in revenue by trapping motorists in conventional ticket traps at city intersections with the shortest yellow warning time.

In 2006, Nashville resident Joe Savage obtained the data on every red light running ticket issued on Broadway street since 2000. He said that yellow lights are longer at intersections along Broadway until the areas where police are issuing tickets. At those locations, Savage clocked the yellow signal time at less than 3 seconds, in violation of both state law and federal regulations.

For some reason, this is just now making the Internet. Also, according to www.speedtrap.org, Nashville is one of the worst speed trap cities in the country. Have these people ever driven here in rush hour? Or been on the 440 Speedway?

I’ve been working for two months (okay, I took a long break for a while) on updating the blogroll. Check it out. See anything missing? Just let me know. It’s primarily made up of Nashville blogs. But there are some other middle Tennesseans in there. And a few folks from way east and way west Tennessee (honorary Nashvillians). Plus a fair dose of ex-pats. We still love you even though you left us.

I’ve gone through the list several times now and started to see some themes.

1. We’ve got a lot of mommybloggers in these parts. Very popular ones. Who knew that Nashville was such an epicenter of people who like to write about their kids? I’m kidding. You know I love you mommybloggers. And the daddybloggers, too.

2. We sure like to talk about politics around here, don’t we? Then again, we do have good reason to do so, considering our wealth of wacky laws and even greater wealth of wacky politicians.

3. We like to cook and eat, too. I’m just happy that among the food bloggers, there are several veg*n folks, too. And that (most of) the other food bloggers treat me and my diet choice with grace and humor.

4. You know, for a place called “Music City,” you’d think we’d have more music blogs, but I think we have more food blogs. I guess those music people are too busy, um, making and listening to music?

At some point, maybe we’ll categorize them for you. But don’t count on that being any time soon. Because if there’s one thing we all have in common is that we like to write. A lot. So there’s not only a lot of material to go through, we’re too busy writing about other stuff.

A.C. Kleinheider, of Volunteer Voters is leaving WKRN due to budget cutting measures. Having been there twice, I know some of what A.C.’s going through. The political atmosphere of blogging has lost a leader and WKRN has screwed up once again. Having taken a national leadership position in blogging as an addendum to news journalism by bringing on two people who changed the nature of blogging in the country, they have decided that shooting themselves in the foot once wasn’t effective enough at removing them from the future. They have now succeeded in becoming an average run-of-the-mill television station rather than a harbinger of the future. Good bye, A.C. You became very good at what you do while at Volunteer Voters and I sincerely hope there will be another opportunity show up quickly. You deserve it.

What was initially a six month freelance gig to cover among other things a hard fought contested 2006 Senate Race became a full time mission to cover the political blogosphere here in Tennessee. Not only did we see that race to its conclusion we saw a new mayor elected in Nashville and we got darn near through the longest Presidential Primary season in history in here in 2008.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to see that last one to the end with you. Today, March 14, was my last day at WKRN here in Nashville. Like many cherished colleagues before me at the Deuce, I have fallen prey to those unfortunate media budget cuts you hear about all too often these days.

Go by and wish him well. As one commenter put it,

WKRN is making a very foolish and short-sighted decision in my opinion. It HAD the go-to political blog in Tennessee, and the station shut it down. Hell, I read VV a helluva lot more than I visit the WKRN website. Why not shut it down instead?

There are several big consignment sales in the Nashville area this weekend. Consignment sales are a super way of finding clothing and kid gear at fabulous prices. I usually do pretty well getting my kids outfitted for the upcoming seasons at bi-annual consignment sales (it’s fairly standard for them to be run in early Spring and late Summer/early Fall). This year I even scored a gorgeous Easter dress for my daughter for only $5!!! Actually, the best part is that she picked it out herself and said she would definitely wear it. This is a HUGE deal around our house since we have a seven-year-old going on 17 who recently has become rather picky about what she will and will not wear!

The following sales are going on this weekend:

Otter Creek Sale - 409 Franklin Road, Brentwood
March 7: 8am - 6pm, March 8: 8am - 2pm (1/2 price sale)

ABC Kids Consignment - Cool Springs YMCA, 121 Seaboard Lane, Franklin
March 7: 9am - 7:30pm, March 8: 8am - Noon (1/2 price sale)

BUMC kidSale - 309 Franklin Road, Brentwood
March 7: 10am - 5pm, March 8: 9am - Noon (1/2 price sale)

Oak Hill School Sale - Oak Hill School, school gym at the rear of the campus, 4815 Franklin Road, Brentwood
March 7: 8:30am - 5:30pm, March 8: 8am - 1pm (1/2 price sale)

HPC Kids Quest - Highland Park Church, 5710 Knob Rd, Nashville
March 7: 10am - 8pm, March 8: 8am - Noon (1/2 price sale)

Encores & More, North Hendersonville, TN - In Hendersonville Plaza next to Aldi’s Grocery Store, 500 W. Main Street, Hendersonville
March 8: 10am-6pm, March 10: 10am-7pm, March 11-12: 10am-6pm, March 13: (25% off day) 10am-6pm, March 14: (1/2 price day) 10am-6pm, March 15: (1/2 price day) 9am-1pm

Lambs to Lions - 535 Sneed Rd, Franklin, between Hwy 100 & Hillsboro Rd
March 8: 9am - 4pm, March 9: Noon - 2pm (1/2 price sale)

This website gives a very good list of sales going on in Tennessee.

Now get out there and find you some good deals!

Edited to add (from Gavin & Sharon’s comments):

Hendersonville First United Methodist Sale - 17 E. Main St., Hendersonville
March 7: 9am-7pm, March 8: 9am-2pm (1/2 price day)

Just over three weeks ago, a hidden camera recording from a meatpacking plant in California was released showing workers abusing cattle that was not in government-regulated condition to be processed for human consumption (short story: if an animal is too sick to walk into a slaughterhouse, it is deemed unfit for slaughter because it is assumed to have wallowed in waste matter that creates risk of e. Coli and salmonella and that their immune systems are too weak to combat other diseases such as mad cow disease). Nashveggie published a good synopsis of the original CNN story and video here.

Over the last few weeks, the story and the outrage has gotten stronger as it was revealed that a large portion of this meat was going to school districts to be fed to children–including children right here in Tennessee. As a result of the video, the USDA suspended operations at the Westland/Hallmark plant and yesterday issued the largest meat recall ever in the United States.

It’s important to note a couple of things about this recall. First, and most important is that no illnesses have yet been linked to beef processed at this plant and the USDA does not feel that this meat poses a definite health hazard. Second, school districts and fast food chains that are customers of this operation–including Jack in the Box and In-N-Out–put an immediate halt on using the meat in question (as of the recall date). McDonald’s and Burger King reported that they do not source their meat from Westland/Hallmark.

Regardless of that, though, it should also be noted that, in general, beef (and commercial, factory farm-raised beef in particular) is not good for your health and not good for the environment. Bill’s got a good list of reasons not to eat beef, including:

1. Beef products, which are loaded with artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat. Some fats are good, but NOT beef fat. Fat from any land animal is the wrong kind of fat. By contrast, fat from fish is high in Omega-3 fatty acids, recognized as good for vascular health and is recommended by the American Heart Assoc.
2. Virtually all commercial beef has bovine growth hormone in it. Reports have found extremely high levels of estradiol, “a potent cancer-causing and gene-damaging estrogen,” in US meat products (i.e. milk, burgers). For this reason, American milk and beef is banned in Europe.

Visit his place for the rest of his list…

I haven’t eaten beef (or any land animal) since April, 2000 (the last meat I ate was a French Dip at Noshville; the last fish about four years ago), but I cut out most fast food beef long before that as a result of what I learned working in the marketing department of a fast-food franchiser when I was in college. Let’s just say that the “beef” in a McDonald’s hamburger comes from parts of the cow you’d not normally think to eat. I’ll leave it at that.

It took several attempts and seven years later for me to ban dead critters from my diet altogether. I’ve also cut out milk and have slowly, but surely reduced the amount of cheese and butter in my diet as well. And the dairy products I do purchase are organic (not only are they healthier–they taste better)–I recommend Cabot, Tillamook, and the cheeses and other products available from Family Farm Defenders in Wisconsin. A nice side effect of my non-dependence on cow’s milk is that I always have a stash of soy milk in the pantry when that all-too-infrequent snowstorm blows through the city! If you’re ever curious about what I eat (and I assure you, I eat well), just pop on over to Lesley Eats and check out what’s been on the menu. A meat-free diet can be thoroughly enjoyable.

Busy Mom’s got a public service announcement for those of you who actually answer your phones.

Might I recommend registering on the Do Not Call list? If you registered when it first became available (some five years ago), you may no longer be on the list and need to renew.  (updated)

Dr. Robert Fisher said the following about the situation with their fellow Tennessee university…

As I’m sure you all know, our friends at Union University were hit by a devastating tornado last evening that has destroyed much of the campus housing and damaged several academic buildings. Thankfully, no lives were lost and injuries appear to not be life-threatening.

[…]

We envision that the recovery needs will be both immediate and long-term.

[…]

We often feel helpless when confronted with such devastation and feel as if there is nothing we can do. I hope we will push past that response to realize that there is always some helpful action that we can take if we are willing. Please pray for the people of Union University along with all the others that were impacted by these storms.

I have been pondering the idea of having some kind of blogger volunteer drive in which we could collect donations of items or money to benefit those in need when disasters like this come up.

I’d love to hear your input on if you think this is feasible or not…

Gavin found a map. Not your normal map, but a map about the average age of young people when they lose their virginity.

interesting.. a map showing the average ages people are loosing their virginity via furfy. tip ypulse. i found it somewhat interesting to see the youngest and oldest regions. my explanations circled around cultural norms of marriage to life stage milestones, like driving ages.. hmmm

Read the rest of it at Hit the Back Button to Move Forward

Credit: MondoTees.com

Here’s some quick hits from bloggers around the state.

Jeff at The Pesky Fly plays Mr. Conspiracy in regards to the death of Belazir Bhutto:

So, if former Pakistani prime minster Benazir Bhutto was killed by a suicide bomber working for current PM Musharraf, as seems likely (considering the previous failed suicide bombing attempt on her life), can someone please explain how it is that a secular military leader is able to inspire someone to blow himself up?

I mean, there’s no promise of heaven in dying for the beloved general. No seventy doe-eyed virgins. No automatic entry into paradise for giving your life to advance the agenda of a secular politician. So what kind of person (or people) would give their lives for the sake of Beloved Leader?

Jack Lail, and recent news, will make Rachel H. happy.

When people need answers, most turn to the Internet, but don’t turn out the lights at the public library. Eighteen to 29-year-olds, known of Gen Y’ers, are the heaviest users of libraries for problem solving information, says a new Pew Internet and American Life study released Sunday.

I hadn’t really thought of the library as a youth haunt, but Gen Y respondents were startlingly far more likely to go to a library to solve a problem than the next group up, Gen Xers, those who are 31 to 41 years old.

Wanna win something from Home Ec 101?

So, to win the Shrek 3 DVD so you can sit your kids down for 2 glorious hassle-free, clean-up free hours of uninterrupted silence, or if you just want to see one of the two movies I saw in a theater this year, here’s what you have to do:

You have to go over there to figure out what to do.

And finally, Les Jones educates with a year-end list:

6. Don’t take parenting advice from Britney Spears.

7. Don’t take marriage advice from Pamela Anderson.

8. Don’t take real estate investment advice from these people, at least not any more.

Southern Beale is drowning…

We’re drowning in catalogs at the Beale household. There’s a whiff of panic in this daily retail blitzkrieg: where in the past I may have received two or three catalogs from a particular retailer, now we’re getting dozens from each one.

But she’s not gonna take it them anymore. See what she’s planning to do to reduce the number of dead trees that show up in her mailbox.

I send direct mail for a living and lemme tell ya, we really don’t want to send anything to people that don’t want it…for the most part. Because it reduces our ROI (return on investment), which is a key measurement of success (and job performance). The good ones among us track every piece we send to see if one cover or image or type of correspondence worked better than another and overall, we want to get the highest response rate we can from every postcard/letter/catalog. And if it’s going directly in the recycle bin, it’s not doing anyone any good. If there’s a particular mailer out there that’s been sending you unwanted dead trees, in addition to what Southern Beale is doing, I suggest simply calling them and asking to be removed from the mailing list. Most of them are more than willing (and even happy) to oblige.* It saves money and hassle.

 Which reminds me…I really need to call L.L. Bean and ask them to stop sending catalogs…

*Financial institutions notwithstanding. They don’t care and will send you junk all the live-long day.

The Tennessee Dude over at True Peace is the Presence of Justice alerts us to an opportunity to give hope to prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders around the world, who need to know that they are not alone:

each year during the winter holidays, amnesty international asks friends and members to send messages of support to prisoners and human rights defenders around the world…holidays can mean little to those who fear they’ve been forgotten by the world…a simple greeting card, however, can bring renewed hope…the prisoners and human rights defenders featured here need your support…please let them know they are not forgotten…

available to download:

2007 holiday card action 1st half and the 2nd half

2006 holiday card action update (pdf)

Just a tech note: I couldn’t get the .pdf pages to open in Firefox, but I could with Internet Explorer.

I read, with interest, this information from the G-Man this morning:

Per my morning routine, I opened up Fox News and saw a disturbing headline that read, “Dixie Chick Natalie Maines starts defense fund for convicted killers”. I was immediately interested in reading the story, fully preparing to be outraged by what I read. The headline turned out to be misleading…..Maines is not setting up a defense fund for any random whacko out there killing people, but for a specific set of convicted killers who were almost certainly wrongly convicted. I agree with what she is doing 100% and this surprised me as I really cannot stand Natalie Maines. I won’t get into that at this time (maybe a rant for a later post) as it will only distract and detract from the real story here…..which is that the convicted killers Natalie Maines is setting up a defense fund for is the West Memphis Three.

Ms. Maines is urging everyone to check out the HBO documentaries Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2, but I also recommend reading the Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt. Seeing the original Paradise Lost in the mid 90s first drew my interest to the case but reading the Devil’s Knot fully educated me on what a travesty of justice this case really is. I’ll leave it to you to see the films, read the book, or visit their site (www.wm3.org, which apparently is down at the time of this writing) to get the whole story, but I will just say that when these murders occurred, the town was in the grip of “devil worship fever” and these boys were arrested and convicted because of the witch hunt that it spawned. They were targeted only because they were outcasts who looked different and enjoyed listening to heavy metal music such as Metallica. The police decided they had their men and refused to look at any evidence that pointed to anyone but them and also badly bungled the investigation and “lost” several articles of evidence. There is just so much here that points to these young men being wrongfully convicted that it just drives me crazy. Please at least read the Wikipedia article about them and I am sure you will begin to see what I mean. It’s a long article, but this is an important case and people need to be aware of it. There is a hearing coming up soon where the defense will present new DNA evidence. Please be sure to watch the headlines to see what happens…..I know I will.

You can’t say the girl isn’t putting her money where her (sometimes big) mouth is…

Michael Silence links to a story about billionaires getting farm subsidies. We are talking millions, campers.

More than 50 American billionaires have received government farm handouts in recent years from a program created to help struggling small farmers survive.

In just two years, between 2003 and 2005, at least 56 of the richest people in the country have pocketed taxpayer-funded federal agriculture subsidies totaling more than $2 million, according to a Scripps Howard News Service analysis of a newly released U.S. Department of Agriculture database.

Included in that roster are banker-philanthropist David Rockefeller Sr.; five members of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s family; hotel czar William Barron Hilton; Microsoft co-creator Paul Allen; and nine members of the Pritzker clan of Hyatt Hotel fame.

He has a complete list over at his place and there are six senators also getting a federal handout. What do you guys think about this?

This is a new billboard campaign from Heather Mills in the UK.

According to Mills, who is a very vocal vegan (nice alliteration, huh?), and the organization, “Viva,” consuming anything from cows is promoting global warming and destroying the environment, because of all the methane they produce.

She actually asks, “Why don’t we drink rat’s milk or cat’s milk or dog’s milk?”   (gah! Sorry if you were eating breakfast!)

I believe we should all do our part to preserve the environment for future generations, and I am also very much of the belief that we consume far too much meat and dairy as opposed to fruits and veggies for the good of our health.

But…isn’t this taking the whole idea a little too far?

What say you?

h/t:  Blowing Smoke

I missed this post last week from Pink Kitty but it’s pretty groovy.

She’s talking about what she would grab from her home if there was a fire. She has a list over there and you need to go see for yourself of what she would get.

For me, it would be:

1. My nieces. I’m figuring my sister will be grabbing them as well but it’s best to have a back-up plan.
2. The dogs, Mabel, Duff and Kirby. As Kirby is blind, this is imperative that I grab her and she just not think it’s dinner cooking (my dinner always smells burned and she knows this scent.)
3. The Squirrel Queen.
4. The MacBook.
5. A picture of my mom.

What would be the top five things you would grab?