News Sentinel

Knox County Schools finance director Ron McPherson is leaving his job to join the Emerald Youth Foundation as chief financial officer, he confirmed.

From Cameron Brooks:

The Knox County Democratic Party will be having its convention on Saturday, March 28th at the CWA Union Hall, located at 1415 Elm Street, Knoxville, TN 37921. Doors open at 9 for registration and the convention starts at 11. Delegate meetings will happen throughout the 9 districts prior to the 28th. Those dates and times will be finalized today.

Cameron also announced his candidacy for KCDP chair, along with other officer candiates making up the "Knox County 2015 Democratic Unity Team Platform." Announcement after the break...

Yesteray's Knoxville News Sentinel had a couple of articles about the growing demand for senior services, particularly housing, transportation and health care.

Knox Co. Mayor Burchett is quoted:

Asked about the growing needs of the senior population, Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett said government should stand back and let the free market meet the demands of seniors.

The only government role should be in providing infrastructure for business and transportation. "To say ‘we need to build more senior centers now, and get ahead of that,'— that's not the reality of where we're at," Burchett said. "I do think the market will decide."

I guess I can see where a county government can't be expected to provide services on the scale of Social Security and Medicare, but they can coordinate and provide services such as Knox County CAC Transit, Mobile Meals and adult day care.

According to their website, the public non-profit Knoxville-Knox County CAC was founded by the Knoxville and Knox Co. governments. Its annual funding of more than $29 million comes from "federal, state, and local governments, as well as private foundations, businesses, churches, individual donors and contributions from individuals receiving services."

I'm not clear on how free markets will meet these needs. At any rate, wouldn't most of the funding for "free market" senior services will come directly or indirectly from Social Security and Medicare, i.e the government?

Top 25

Tenure and post-tenure review process: To be conducted by UT System Administration and with involvement by the Faculty Council, to look at awarding of tenure, post-tenure compensation and enacting of a de-tenure process.

No, pretty sure they won't be playing at Bonnaroo.

But, I've pretty much completed my collection of the 2014/15 Jimmy Page remaster CDs with today's arrival of Physical Graffiti, rounding out previous acquisitions of I, II, III, IV, and Houses of the Holy. I'll probably stop here. Not sure how anything later can top this run of albums.

Earlier this month, Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) released its 2015 Organizational and Performance Audit performed by local firm McConnell, Jones, Lanier and Murphy, LLC.

The lengthy (12 chapter) review covers a number of topics and includes a 43-page chapter, Impact of Charter Schools, that confirms recent complaints from the school system's Board of Education about costs associated with its charter schools eroding the MNPS operating budget.

Some highlights from the chapter are as follows:

Leonard Nimoy, Spock of ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 83

from NBC News …

NASA scientists are showing off some of the first results from a fresh crop of satellites and space station sensors designed to track the factors behind climate change and extreme weather on a near-real-time basis.

NASA Satellites Start Tracking Down the Sources of Climate Change

Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

FCC votes for net neutrality, a ban on paid fast lanes, and Title II

Government shutdown, UN takeover of internets imminent...

Is there one place that keeps an exhaustive, up to date, list of Knoxville breweries. If they serve on premises, serve food, etc?

Interesting use of parking garage.

Vertical Harvest — a multi-story greenhouse built on the side of a parking lot

Vertical farm can make 44,000 pounds of tomatoes on the side of a parking lot

Vertical Harvest

Didn't get my paper today, understandably, so I called circulation to request an adjustment. While I was doing that, I recalled that I had two other missed deliveries that I had reported via their automated system (since they were missed on the weekend), so I thought I would log into my account and see if the credits had been reflected.

Nope. Nada.

It being a weekday today, I was able to reach a human being who agreed that the credits didn't get applied by the automated system, but who was happy to add them. "Thanks," I said, "but it shouldn't be my job to log in every month, check my account, and bird-dog your failing automated system."

Then I noticed that my subscription period had strangely been reduced by 5 days. I asked her about that. She said it was because there is an extra $2 charge for the extra advertisements in the Thanksgiving paper.

HUH? Subscribers have to pay for the extra printing? Why aren't the advertisers footing that with their $500 per page ads? (you can opt out of this, but you have to call in.. they should ask you when you subscribe to agree to the extra charge, since the subscription rate info doesn't show this). In fact a Google Search found nothing on the knoxnews web site about it .

Even so, the math doesn't work out: $2 charge / $17 per month x 30 days = 3.5 day adjustment. Even if you round up, that's 4 days, not 5 days. Fuzzy math. She said she had no explanation. I had one, but it wasn't her job to listen to my accusation of fraud.

So, I just told her to cancel the entire account, explaining again that my life is sufficiently busy that I don't have time to audit my account every month.

Lesson#1: don't screw your customers on billing.
Lesson#2: If you find out your system is screwing customers by accident, FIX IT immediately.
Lesson#3: Thank the customer who pointed this out by, say, offering a free month as an apology, and you might actually keep them.
Lesson#4: Empower your employees to do #3.

Pith in the Wind

“It’s time for a Council of Christian Relations and a NAAWP in this Country,” reads a comment posted by House Majority Floor Leader Sheila Butt on Facebook last month.

OK, then.

The latest round of snow showers has arrived over here. It just started coming down. The NWS predictions as to when and how much have varied throughout the day. They have dialed it in to a 100% chance of snow tonight. Up to 2" to 4" they are saying now.

Hazardous Weather Outlook

For the children

In case this is behind the subscription wall, a quote:

"It is likely new schools will spring up to siphon off the best and brightest students, leaving the public schools poorer as a result. Rather than spending the money to educate all the students, we propose to put a select group of students in a lifeboat, leaving the mother ship to sink.

If you don’t think a lot of public money will be involved in the future, think about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the voucher proponents spent in the last election to defeat voucher opponents. Do you think they did that just to benefit low-income minority students?

Yeah, right. They’re just doing it for the children."

TEMA reports the death toll from this last storm to be 27. With no disrespect for those who lost loved ones I need to point out the big error in this reporting.

Lloyd, Greg, Ronnie, Randy- all were well loved friends of my dear friends. All unreported in the State's 'official' count because their homes were tents or public shelters. Knowing this year's Winter exposure-related death toll currently stands at 8 in Nashville alone, statewide the storm toll is likely double what you see being reported.

You just have to understand who counts and who does not.

The KNS quotes UTAD Dave Hart from an earlier radio interview:

"Divisiveness brings out the worst in people, especially if you’ve got vindictiveness involved, and that’s present in this."

Say what? Trying to remember, who started all the "divisiveness?"

Allow Betty Bean to retort: ...it is difficult to argue against the proposition that Hart has a problem with women.

Quick! Get inside the gates!

The legislation defines a "no-go zone" as a "a contiguous geographical area consisting of public space or privately owned public space where community organizing efforts systematically intimidate or exclude the general public or public workers from entering or being present within the area."

A bill in response to a non-existent phenomenon (that's an oxymoron) in a foreign country.

Lynn said that state Sen. Bill Ketron, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, "saw it with his own eyes" during a visit to Europe.

Bill Ketron probably saw not much more than the tour bus bathroom during that visit to Europe. I seriously doubt he took the RER out to Saint-Denis when the bus stopped at the Eiffel Tower.

Washington Post: Obama vetoes Keystone XL bill

The House passed a bill authorizing construction of the pipeline earlier this month by a vote of 270-152, mostly along party lines. The Senate passed the measure 62 to 36 in January. The bill was one of the first introduced as the Republican-controlled Congress was being sworn in last month.

A reader sends a link to an Orlando Business Journal article saying that Ruby Tuesday is considering relocating its corporate HQ to Orlando. According to the article, Orlando city council yesterday approved $315,000 in state and local incentives for the move.

The article says they are also looking at Knoxville or Atlanta. Any relocation would be a huge blow to downtown Maryville.

As noted here previously, Ruby Tuesday hired a former Darden exec as their new CEO a few years ago. Darden HQ is located in Orlando.