Come hear a presentation on the still-burning three-month fire in West Knoxville tomorrow (Monday) at the West Knoxville (Bee De Selm) Library (on Golfclub Rd) at 6:00 pm.

(link...)

Here is a disheartening story describing how many road blocks have been erected to prevent endangered species from needed protections.

"Pearl Has Converted The Faithful in Tennessee"

Link...

Tells the story we're all familiar w/ and brings in a couple of quotes that are smile worthy, plus something to think about regarding a Jew among Christians.

"He's just so dynamic, so engaged," she says. "It's fun being around him, fun to be around someone who always sees the good in everything."

"He jumped on the Tennessee bandwagon," Summitt says. "If there was an event, he was at it. He could be elected mayor in a heartbeat."

So maybe we won't have to look far to replace Ragsdale.

If there is a subject on which Pearl is most passionate, it's his Judaism, about which he talks so feelingly that his eyes well up. When he first arrived in Knoxville, some local Christian worshipers invited him to church and told him they wished he would make Jesus his personal savior, so he could get to heaven. It wasn't enough for Pearl to politely inform them he was Jewish and attended synagogue. He described the role of God in his life, how he worshiped, lit candles, believed in mitzvahs. (Some of the local Christians still invite him to church.)

I was taken aback by this. I am preparing to go to church this morning, and am unsettled that people would not respect his religion.

But the players do, there's a passage about when they went to Europe last summer, and he took them to the concentration camps. And then there's the story of Pearl watching as the players attended his daughter's bat mitzvah between that trip and the beginning of fall semester.

"Here came these talk, dark, handsome men, all wearing yarmulkes," Pearl says delightedly. Then he adds his favorite detail: how he heard some of the players greeting the other well-wishers.

"They were going, 'Shalom, y'all.' "

Oh boy.

I can see few good things happening if this primary fight drags on for several more months.