"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

George Washington

Nearly every company is updating their privacy policies and terms of use because it is now a global economy and the European Union has introduced the GDPR. Congrats to them. However, for the most part the privacy policies and terms of use are changing to the benefit of Europeans but we in the U.S. are put on notice that nothing changes for us.

The EU's General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, went into effect on Friday. The regulations were written to benefit European citizens by giving them more control over the data that's collected by online services.

The new policies for European citizens,

• require companies to be explicit in their efforts to seek consent from consumers before collecting their personal information.
• Companies also have to give consumers easy access to their own data, and to delete that data if the customer requests it.
• companies have to notify users quickly of data breaches when they occur - under the new rules, they have 72 hours to inform the public after a breach is discovered.

As I mentioned earlier, for the most part the privacy policies and terms of use are changing to the benefit of Europeans but we in the U.S. are put on notice that nothing changes for us.

We're getting emails nearly every day announcing the changes to a company's privacy policies and terms of use. We can only hope we are not giving away too much by not reading these updates. Anyone reading these updates?

This is an interesting, creative idea for a city festival ...

Vivid Sydney: World's most incredible light festival turns 10

TEA endorses Harwell for GOP gubernatorial nomination, Fitzhugh for Democratic nomination

Those would be my choices, too. But, is Harwell even campaigning? Does anyone know who Fitzhugh is?

I'm starting to think this will not end well.

Tune in to the Community TV channel on Friday, May 25th at 7:30 PM for a DTV film and hear from our local Democratic Candidates in the upcoming elections and from current and previous political office holders from the KCDP Truman Day event on Friday, May 4th.

DTV streams live on Community TV on Friday, May 25th at 7:30 PM (here!)

Or watch on your cable channels @

Comcast Channel 12
Charter Channel 193
Wow! Channel 6
ATT U-verse Channel 99

Good stuff ...

The City of Knoxville celebrated a completed overhaul of a stretch of Jackson Avenue Thursday.

It's the part of the street between Broadway and Central.

Knoxville celebrates completion of streetscape projects

Surprise, surprise!

Guess he finally figured out he was getting played.

Technology gets more invasive with facial recognition software used by police. Amazon has sold their facial Rekognition product to the police department for Orlando, Florida, and the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Oregon. As with most of their products, Amazon is starting out selling facial recognition very cheap. With the Orlando Police Department, "for 30,989 images processed, the department only had to pay $30.99, according to a document obtained by the ACLU."

The American Civil Liberties Union and and thirty other organizations demanded "that Amazon stop powering a government surveillance infrastructure that poses a grave threat to customers and communities across the country."

Amazon is not the first company to actively use facial recognition. "Over the last five years a secretive surveillance company founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer has been quietly building a massive facial recognition database consisting of faces acquired from Facebook, YouTube and countless other websites."

How is it that so many are willing to give up their right to privacy these days?

Looking to replace my aging desktop and notebook computers, I thought I'd look at the Microsoft Surface to see what the deal is and whether it could replace both. I found out that Dell and Lenovo make similar form factor PCs with newer/better specs.

I was zeroing in on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet 3rd Generation. Then one day the model I was looking at popped up with a larger hard drive and 10% off, so I went for it. (The next day they were sold out and are still out of stock.)

Diane Black is making immigration her top issue in the Governor's race. I didn't realize there was a huge problem in Tennessee, or anywhere else for that matter, but maybe I haven't been paying attention.

Anyway, Black has an ad referring to our "catch and release" immigration policy. Catch and release is what you do to bears and rainbow trout. Not people. But, just like her hero Trump, she apparently doesn't view immigrant families and children as people.

This is racist and dehumanizing. Is that what she thinks Tennessee voters will respond to? Maybe she needs to get out more.

SEE ALSO: Diane Black Introduces Bill to Crowdfund Trump's Wall

Gov. Haslam has signed a bill aimed to limit local options for removing Confederate statues. He also let another bill become law without his signature that prohibits "sanctuary cities" and requires local law enforcement cooperation with ICE to deport undocumented residents. (Haslam said the bill didn't do anything except create "unnecessary fear," so why didn't he just veto it?).

Remind me again how the TNGOP (and Gov. Gomer) are the party of small government and local control? The same party that rejected federal funding for expanded Medicaid? The same party that proposed to arrest any U.S. Marshals or ATF agents attempting to enforce federal gun laws in our state?

Funny how that same bunch keeps passing laws to take away local government control of everything from guns in parks to teacher evaluations, living wage, same-sex partner benefits, cable franchises, vacation rentals, etc. etc. And now this.

The Environmental Protection Agency is barring The Associated Press, CNN and the environmental-focused news organization E&E from a national summit on harmful water contaminants — and guards forcibly shoved a female reporter out of the building.

Pruitt bars media from EPA summit on contaminants, guards push reporter out of building

In Monday's case, decided by a bitter 5-4 vote, the conservative majority ruled that employers may forbid employees from banding together to fight wage and other workplace issues covered by arbitration agreements. The court said a federal arbitration statute overrides federal labor law intended to protect workers' bargaining power.

Speaking for the four liberal dissenters, Ginsburg said the decision threatens to return the country to a time in the late 19th century and early 20th when workers were forced to take jobs strictly on the boss's terms and "yellow dog" contracts, forbidding employees from joining labor unions, were common.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg takes off the gloves

Hundreds turned out for the South Knoxville Open Streets party yesterday. The weather was a little more accommodating this time. It was hot but at least it didn't rain. There were people of all ages including lots of families with kids. It was dog friendly (except for the heat), and there were about a million bicycles. Alliance Brewing was party central, and there were booths and food trucks all along Sevier Ave. with the party extending down Foggy Bottom to Suttree Landing Park. Click the photo above for a few more cellphone pics.

So, a country that can produce the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin and Monty Python AND put on a wedding like that makes me want to be British, at least for a day.

Open Streets – May 20, 2018 – South Knoxville 2 PM to 6 PM
Enjoy music, activities, food and more.

Open Streets: Free Bike Rodeo, Free Helmet Giveway at South Knox Elementary

According to this story in the Sentinel, Knox County got hacked election night and the distributed-denial-of-service attack that made the election results unavailable was a smokescreen for a more invasive attack. Somebody hacked a county server and had a look around while everyone was distracted by the election website being down. The FBI and Homeland Security is investigating. It's kind of hard to believe that this elaborate attack was just someone deciding to have a quick look around on a county server.

Tune in to your Community TV channel at 7:30 PM on Friday, May 18th for an interesting program with Mike and John Stewart as they discuss the results of the recently concluded 2018 session of the Tennessee General Assembly. Mike Stewart serves as caucus chair of the Democratic Caucus in the Tennessee House of Representatives and has an up close look at the General Assembly throughout the entire session. Tune in for insights not often seen and expressed on the fate of legislation in the TN General Assembly.

Community TV Knoxville streams live (here!)

or on your local cable provider
Comcast Channel 12
Charter Channel 193
Wow! Channel 6
ATT U-verse Channel 99

Sports Illustrated has a funny article about the Celtics.

For the past 15 years or so, Boston has been the sports equivalent of a perfect family. You know the ones I’m talking about—they send out that obnoxious holiday card printed on thick, fancy paper that’s softer than your bed sheets and costs more than your yearly cell phone bill. In the photo, everyone’s outfits are perfectly coordinated (but don’t seem overly match-y), as though they just stepped out of an Instagram ad for How To Be Attractive and Also Successful. They’re laughing and smiling at the camera because everything is perfect and winning is so much fun!
...
If you aren’t a fan, Boston sports makes you seriously consider putting on a Browns jersey and walking slowly out into the ocean.

I haven't watched any NBA games this year. However, I am sort of a LeBron fan. After reading this article and remembering some of the great Celtics teams, I may have to watch the Celtics play Cleveland.