In case you missed it, Paul McCartney and friends put on a bang up performance at the White House on the occasion of President Obama presenting Sir Paul with the The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The event was taped on July 2nd and broadcast on PBS this past Wednesday.

If you missed it you missed some great performances. Even the Jonas Bros. rocked it out. But fret not. You can watch it online, and local PBS affiliate ETPtv will re-broadcast it on Monday, August 2 at 4:00am, so set your DVR accordingly or check other local listings here.

UPDATE: The listings for future broadcasts linked to above appear suspect. Tivo is not showing this, and TV Guide shows it at a different time according to Lisa in comments.

Knoxville News Sentinel:

"You're trying to sell your program to the young man coming to the university," Myers said. "If you can provide something that maybe another school you're competing with for that athlete doesn't have, then maybe that's better for you."

Maybe they should try providing a quality education.

Books should have a big, circled red Z or V right on the front cover, signifying "zombie" or "vampire" so I don't have to bother looking at the synopsis to find out I'm not interested in reading it.

(Also, have you noticed that book covers with the author's name printed larger than the book title frequently suck?)

Citizens for the Ten Year Plan is a new group formed to support the TYP. From their website:

Who Are We?

We are residents and organizations of Knoxville and Knox County who support the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. Our purpose is to galvanize and organize supporters of the Ten Year Plan so that our voices are heard in the public process. Citizens for the Ten Year Plan will rely on facts, not fear, to build greater support for this much-needed effort to improve services and provide permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals.

We believe in transparency, both in the public process of implementing the Ten Year Plan and in our efforts to support it. The public will know who we are and where we stand on issues related to homelessness in Knoxville and Knox County. We are independent from the Ten Year Plan office and do not receive financial support from any governmental entity. We are an all-volunteer, grass-roots organization.

See also: Committee and supporters...

Lovely.

City of Knoxville press release...

City of Knoxville Public Service crews are working in Parkridge Park today to make amends after city workers dropped part of a dead tree on top of a small community garden there last week. They also cleaned out concrete planters containing vegetable plants.

New statewide poll...

Not sure this helps McWherter in the general election, though. I doubt they will all suddenly become Democrats. On the other hand, maybe it will help June Griffin. Or Basil Marceaux in the primary.

Tom Humphrey:

Republican Zach Wamp said Saturday that he wants to make clear he will not consider leaving the union if he's elected governor.

Tom Humphrey:

"I can promise you that if I'm governor we won't secede from the union. Period," Haslam said.

Guess they both just lost the teabagger vote. But seriously, this is what we've come to as a state - debating whether we should secede? This kind of stuff was funny at first. Then it was embarrassing. Now it's downright depressing. And one of these men will be your next governor.

OK, then.

PREVIOUSLY: Wamp Floats the Secession Balloon

Because there appears to be a great deal of interest in the Knox County Commission 2nd District race with a lot of things being said by supporters of both candidates here, KnoxViews invites Amy Broyles and Don Daugherty to an open, freestyle debate here in comments.

There are no rules, other than the only comments that will be allowed are comments by the candidates using accounts registered under their real names and verified email. Any other comments will be removed.

(Thanks to Bill Young for the suggestion.)

UPDATE: Never mind.

Ran across this link in a recent TFP news article: The Blueprint to End Homelessness in the Chattanooga Region

From the executive summary:

The original Blueprint plan was intended to end long-term, or "chronic", homelessness. This emphasis reflected a body of research demonstrating that members of this group are underserved by existing efforts even as they use a disproportionate share of emergency services and resources. Under the leadership of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, a national consensus emerged that all levels of government must focus on improving efforts to house chronically homeless individuals and families. The Blueprint to End Homelessness in the Chattanooga Region is consistent with and complementary to the federal government’s efforts in this area.

The 2007 revision of The Blueprint has expanded its focus to include an equal emphasis on ending non-chronic homelessness as well, thus resulting in the removal of “Chronic” from The Blueprint title. Recent research on community plans to end homelessness found that “the majority of communities have, in their planning processes, looked beyond the chronically homeless population and created plans to end homelessness for all homeless people”.

This expanded focus highlights the fact that:

- Unless there is an equal effort to assist the non-chronic homeless population today, (comprising approximately 80% of the homeless population) there will be a constant influx of new chronically homeless people tomorrow.

- While the cost savings of helping a chronically homeless person are likely to be greater than the cost savings of helping a non-chronically homeless person, the consequences of not helping are the same: Tragedy and unrealized potential for a member of our community.

Although the above points were implicit in the original Blueprint, they are explicitly stated in the 2007 revision to help promote community awareness that homelessness (its tragedy, costs and challenges) extends well beyond the segment we call "chronically homeless".

It seems to be taking an unusually long time to activate the Big Orange spin cycle on the great U.T. Football Player Bar Brawl incident, but Big Jim must be back from vacation or campaigning or wherever and so it begins with today's front page shocker: people were drinking at a local bar!

Coach Dooley must be frustrated. The cops are slow walking the indictments, if there will even be any, for the felony assault of an off-duty police officer. All of a sudden, nobody knows nuthin'. We all thought Dooley would kick ass and take names if this kind of stuff happened, but it's hard to know whose ass to kick when nobody's taking names.

Now we learn it's the bar's fault! People are drinking in there! Some of them are getting drunk! They give away liquor to get even more people even more drunk! They have videos with naked women!

These poor, innocent unsuspecting U.T. Football Players just accidentally stumbled into this den of iniquity and were in imminent danger of getting corrupted by the Demon Horde lying in wait. They had to fight their way out of there to protect their Purity of Essence and defend the Character and Dignity of The Program. Clearly they are the victims here. Somebody ought to Do Something about that place!

Anyway, it sounds like the happening nitespot. I'm guessing the owners couldn't have bought better publicity at any price, and imagine it will be packed this weekend.

Wow. You'd never know that President Obama signed into law the most sweeping financial reforms since the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act today. Because his administration also stupidly took the race bait from the right-wing axis of weasels, and the resulting fallout has dominated the news all day.

The best thing to come out of all this is that when people see the entire, unedited speech by Shirley Sherrod they will experience one of those "teaching moments" about race. Because her lesson is that it's not just about race. It's about poverty and class struggle. Her message: We're all in this together.

There's an undeniable racial element because of the disproportionate suffering by minorities, but the formerly obscure Shirley Sherrod is now an unintended and unwilling national hero who has worked her whole adult life to overcome it. Her moment in the spotlight gives her the opportunity to share her lessons learned, and she has delivered.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has taken one for the team, at least rhetorically. And it's a shame because the USDA is doing good work.

The question now is what did the White House know and when did they know it? Were they too stupid to at least check in to what they thought they knew v. trusting lame rightwing email forwards? Are they so afraid of the idiot teabaggers and wingnuts that they can't make an informed, rational, low-level personnel decision to support one of their own champions in the fight against poverty and racism?

That's weak, and it gives the morons trying to dumb us all back to the 19th century too much credit.

I was thinking the other day about why the Knoxville area has such a hard time recruiting jobs and industry. It occurred to me that our, shall we say, less than robust airline service might be one problem.

So I did some fare comparisons. These were done this past Monday (7/19) for the lowest price roundtrip fares departing Jul. 26 and returning Jul. 30. Expedia was used for every search except I also checked Allegient for Knoxville and Southwest for Nashville. All fares are exclusive of taxes and fees.

Click image for bigger.

It appears there is a definite "Southwest effect" in Nashville (and an "Allegient effect" in Knoxville if you're going to Orlando), but Southwest wasn't always the cheapest.

Knoxville is overall more expensive and doesn't have as many direct flights. And taking connecting flights out of Knoxville to save money means an ever increasing risk of not getting to your destination on time these days. But in most cases it doesn't seem worth the trouble of driving to Nashville.

TDOT held a public meeting to solicit public comment on the Pellissippi Parkway Extension Draft Environmental Impact Statement. This $100 million, five mile highway project has been in the works for years, and the subject of at least one lawsuit. Judging from the public response last night, there will likely be more.

Yesterday, a local PR firm has sent out a notice saying "A Knoxville-based company will make an expansion announcement [Tuesday] afternoon that will result in hundreds of new jobs here in the Knoxville area." No location (other than "West Knoxville") or other info was given. It is supposed to be forthcoming this AM.

Wonder what it is?

UPDATE: As per comments and KNS, Cellular Sales Verizon Wireless adding 250 Knoxville jobs

The University of Tennessee has established a new Department of Public Health within the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences.

The program will offer "a doctoral program in health behavior and health education; a master of public health degree with concentrations in community health education, veterinary public health and health planning and administration; and a dual-degree program in which students earn master’s degrees in nutrition and public health. The department will maintain a single undergraduate course (Introduction to Public Health), but will otherwise have no undergraduate programs."

The new department, headed by Dr. Paul Erwin, is the next step towards the university's goal of someday establishing a School of Public Health.

Read more in the press release...

Hornback responds to latest shot across the bow.

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce development has received notification of the following job reduction:

Hearthside Food Group, DBA Consolidated Biscuit Co. in Chattanooga is eliminating 104 jobs on 8/31/2010. Previous news reports said the company that owned the maker of ice cream cones was purchased by another company who is not in that business. The new owner had been looking for a buyer and said at the time that the plant would be closed down if a buyer could not be found.

In a little over two weeks from now, Republicans will pick their candidate and the race will be on.

While presumptive GOP nominee Bill Haslam has been neglecting his duties as Mayor of Knoxville and flitting around the state on private jets, Mike McWherter has been out working hard, literally, shoveling mulch, busing tables, and installing HVAC equipment to get to know Tennessee's small business owners and listening to their concerns.

McWherter has kept his media powder dry, while Haslam has spent over $7 million trying to convince Republicans and teabaggers that he's just as crazy as Wamp or Ramsey. That's more than Gov. Bredesen spent on his primary and general election campaigns combined in 2006. And Haslam's only just getting warmed up.

McWherter has a head start and is using it to his advantage. The more I learn about him the more I like him. (See Tom Humphrey's "day on the campaign trail" article from yesterday.) Sure, he's said some things that don't sit well with progressives. Just like Harold Ford Jr. But our advice to Democrats is to put away the knives and get behind our guy. Unless you want a less qualified, less accomplished Bob Corker clone running the state.

At the end of the day, Mike McWherter will work for the working people of Tennessee, not big corporations and special interests.

As Tamara noted in comments yesterday, the Knoxville News Sentinel's voter guide published in Sunday's paper included profiles of the three Republican candidates for governor but failed to include a profile of Democratic candidate Mike McWherter.

They also didn't mention Senate 7th district candidate Randy Walker, House 8th district Democrat Marvin Pratt, House 11th district Democrat Eddie Yokley, House 18th Democrat Sam Alexander, House 33rd Democrat Jim Hackworth, U.S. House 1st district Democrat Mike Clark, and U.S. House 4th Democrat and incumbent Lincoln Davis.

As Tamara notes, we're sure their reasoning is that McWherter is unopposed in the Democratic primary. And they were consistent on that in all the races.

The problem is that folks wanting to vote in the Democratic primary might actually want to know a) that there is a candidate to vote for, and b) a little something about the candidate.

This could, in effect, suppress voter turnout among Democrats, who will see no reason to bother going to the polls. The winners in the contested GOP primaries will then point to the results as indicating some sort of "strength" or "momentum" for the general.

And as Tamara notes, with "open" primaries some folks might like to know their options in case they are thinking of crossing over.

It's also part of a pattern. Democrats have trouble recruiting good candidates because the message from local media is "don't bother." Then the local media characterizes the party as "weak" because they have trouble recruiting good candidates.