The Brushy Mountain Correctional Complex is closing, err, I guess they are unlocking all the doors. I have only been inside Brushy Mountain once. I took off my shoes and jacket, walked through a metal detector and had all my belongings x-rayed and snooped through. No. That was the last time I got on an […]
Sometimes, I wonder if our School Board and/or Superintendent suggest changes like school uniforms, the start date of school and the start time of school, just to distract everyone. Maybe they do these things to give the illusion that parents’ input is considered in our school system. Maybe it’s the only way they can get […]
stimulus: something that rouses or incites to activity: as a: incentive b: stimulant 1 c: an agent (as an environmental change) that directly influences the activity of a living organism or one of its parts (as by exciting a sensory organ or evoking muscular contraction or glandular secretion) Children’s Services -16.40% Division of Mental Retardation […]
I am not an accountant. Reading the TN budget for 2009-2010 is about as pleasant as watching for the return of a swallowed Playmobile toy. I understand clearly that we are cutting or eliminating: family resource centers, school safety grants, school health positions and funding, the child health and development (CHAD) program, the healthy start […]
Several times a year and in multiple environments, I have to pull out the tired, old dinosaur statistic that murder rates go up when ice cream sales go up. Eventually, everyone will recognize that statistics are not enough. The “most single parents live in poverty” statistic ignores the fact that people with severe mental or […]
Knox County NEEDS to have someone or a group of someones attending the Coalition for Community Schools Learning Lab. IF that person could be me, the event would be live blogged. IF an agency or group sponsored me, I would wear a t-shirt with their logo to the event. I am an education and mental […]
I love this drive. The drive up the Interstate is hectic and the journey through the small town is painfully slow, but from that moment on, the drive just makes me happy. It is calm, quiet and beautiful. I drive past pastures filled with cows, horses, donkeys, sheep, goats, buffalo and camels. Based on the […]
I don’t smoke, so I don’t feel the personal assault that the many, many smokers in Tennessee are going to feel about the proposal to make it illegal to smoke in a car if children are in the car with you. It seems like a basic common sense choice not to smoke around children and […]