Shelbyville can't have its retail cake and eat it, too (07/31/08)
Some of the story comments on the Times-Gazette web site related to growth and retail development show just how challenging it must be for public officials. We in the media are supposed to be watchdogs, not apologists, but in this case public officials are being blamed for things that they have no control over, or for situations in which, if they did what one group wanted, they would make an equally-large group mad on the other side...

Better names come to mind (05/24/08)
Although I normally cover Bedford County Board of Education, I wasn't at the specific meeting at which the name of Learning Way Elementary School was chosen. Last week, while driving past the construction site, I got to thinking about the issue. It's far too late to change the name of the school -- I'm sure plaques and signage have already been ordered -- and mine is just one opinion out of 40,000. But I have to say, I'm really disappointed in the name...

The "Briefs" column .... isn't (04/26/08)
A few years ago, back when the "Bedford Briefs" / "Around & About" / "Area Briefs" column ran on the front page, we had a rule of thumb that items only appeared in it once, not day after day. In recent years, after moving the column inside, we've loosened up on that rule, and -- for the most part -- have allowed items to stay in the column from the time they're submitted until the event takes place...

Melodies at the horse arena (04/23/08)
Well, it's that time of year again -- time for me to remind you about "Symphony at the Celebration," the Nashville Symphony's annual concert in Shelbyville, which will take place Tuesday at Calsonic Arena. Last year's concert featured the Community High School band, and was a great success. This year's concert will feature the band from my alma mater, Cascade High School, and will therefore be even better. (I could be biased, however.)...

Sorry, no poetry for Mom here (04/19/08)
I had run to the grocery store in the middle of the day and on my way out, a woman who knows me stopped her car in the parking lot, rolled down her window, and pleaded. "Can't you please put the poem about my mother in the newspaper?" she asked. No. No, we can't...

Cable competition may be a good thing (04/09/08)
Well, it now looks as if AT&T will be able to offer its "U-verse" cable television service in Tennessee after all. It's probably much too soon to tell when, or even if, the service will be offered in Bedford County. In case you haven't been following the issue, here's the situation. ...

Fool you three times, shame on me (04/02/08)
It was two years ago that we first started doing an "April Fool" story for the T-G. In 2006, I wrote a story about a Tennessee Walking Gerbil show, and then last year I wrote about celebrities protesting to change the name of Wartrace to "Peacetrace."...

Wear a sweater on March 20 (03/12/08)
I got three different books from family members for Christmas -- all of them about real people, all of them highly recommended, but about as different as three books can be. I'll tell you about all three, but the third one is the one I really want to share today...

Sickness provides a break, and perspective (02/27/08)
Last Wednesday, I'd been suffering through what I thought was just a stubborn cold. It had lasted almost two weeks, and I finally gave up and went to the doctor. The doctor said I had bronchitis; he wrote me prescriptions for an antibiotic and some weapons-grade cough syrup and sent me home from work for the rest of the week...

OPINION: Notes from the school attire conundrum (02/16/08)
Because I've been the primary reporter covering the debate over standardized school attire (SSA) over the past year or so, I've tried not to make any bold pronouncements one way or the other in this opinion forum. But, as we approach the school board's final decision on the matter, I have a few thoughts to offer...

My primary complaint (01/30/08)
Early voting ends tomorrow, and the party primary will take place Tuesday. So you have at least two more chances (maybe three, depending on what time you're reading this on Wednesday) to cast your vote. You may or may not have a favorite candidate. You may be excited, or you may have to cast your vote while holding your nose. But it's important to participate, regardless...

Man of vision? Not so much (01/23/08)
If you find any misspelled words in this column, bear with me; I'm having trouble seeing the screen, because my eyes are dilated. Everything around me is sparkly and brightly colored, but none of it is too clear. It had been a couple of years since my last eye appointment, and I knew I needed new glasses. My no-line bifocals are scratched up, and I was scared that my prescription had changed a little bit. I frequently take my bifocals off when reading or working on the computer...

Free-form late night (01/16/08)
Who knew Conan O'Brien could sing? Probably the highlight of the return of the late-night talk shows this month, after two months of the writers' strike, has been the rockabilly performances by Conan O'Brien the past two Fridays on his NBC show "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." On Jan. 4, he did a rousing rendition of "Blue Moon of Kentucky," and last Friday he did "40 Days," and did a credible, entertaining job on both of them...

My heart is in troubled Kenya (01/09/08)
Several people have asked me about the recent turmoil in Kenya, and it indeed is in some of the very areas where I worked on short-term mission trips in 2004, 2005 and 2006. There has been violence in the Kibera slums outside Nairobi, which is where I was in 2004, and in the western part of Kenya, which is where I was the other two years. ...

What we expect from schools (12/19/07)
You wouldn't believe the volume of material that comes in to a newsroom every day, both from local and out-of-town sources. A couple of weeks ago, a gentleman sent in a copy of some academic test that had been given to eighth graders in decades past. ...

Metro isn't a cure-all (12/12/07)
I read in the Elk Valley Times that Fayetteville and Lincoln County will have a referendum on consolidated city-county "metro" government Feb. 5. Metro is an issue that pops up from time to time here in Bedford County, and if our neighboring county passes it, no doubt it will be discussed again. Another of our neighbors, Moore County, is already metro...

Missing my fictional world (12/04/07)
I'm very glad it's over. But I also miss it terribly. Back in October, I wrote a column about "National Novel Writing Month," a writing exercise in which participants try to put out a 50,000-word novella entirely during the month of November. It's a crazy, breakneck kind of event, more about word count than quality. ...

Polls provoke discussion but aren't the last word (11/28/07)
The Times-Gazette web site has a poll feature; in our current layout, there is a poll on the bottom left hand corner of the front page of our web site. A smaller version of the poll, without the option of leaving a comment, appears on the news headline page...

The right to know why, not just what (11/24/07)
The public has a right to know, not only what its elected officials are doing, but why. That's the key point to the arguments betwen open government advocates (including many of us here in the media) and public officials about what should be covered by the Tennessee Open Meetings Act, also called the Sunshine Law...

You'll get a kick out of this holiday classic (11/17/07)
In 2002, as a result of a last-minute call from a Gaylord Entertainment press representative, I ended up going to the "Radio City Christmas Spectacular Starring The Rockettes" at the Grand Ole Opry House. I don't know what I was expecting -- it was nothing I had any interest in buying tickets for -- but I accepted the comp tickets, thinking I could take my niece. ...

Late night comedy withdrawal (11/10/07)
I am clearly in withdrawal. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the late night talk and comedy shows -- especially "Late Show with David Letterman" and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," but including Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brien. (Jay Leno bores me to tears, and I've always resented him for the way his management railroaded Letterman in the "Tonight Show" succession debacle.)...

Don't pass along e-mails to me (11/03/07)
I have often repeated my disdain for pass-along e-mails. I'm not talking about situations where you see an individual news story or funny cartoon and decide to send it to a specific person who might appreciate it. I'm talking about the things that you send to everyone in your address book -- sappy stories, or chain letters, or self-righteous compliants about the state of society, or dire warnings of impending doom...

I jinxed the Champions (10/31/07)
Random notes on the way to here and there: --- I am proud to be an alumnus of Cascade High School, but I'm afraid I haven't been a very active alumnus over the years. It had been a few years since I'd been to a high school football game -- I can't remember exactly when...

Televangelism leads to insularity (10/24/07)
During the time that I was a student at Oral Roberts University, the Oral Roberts TV ministry offered a leather-bound Bible as a premium for people who donated a particular amount to the ministry. The Bible included a section with photos of various ministry activities. I guess it takes a peculiar kind of hubris to think that your own activities are worthy of being bound into, and distributed with, the words of holy scripture, but let’s put that aside for a second...

OPINION: Don't do more than is needed (10/13/07)
After traveling with local school board members to the Chattanooga area last spring and to Nashville this week, I feel sure that they will adopt Standardized School Attire (SSA), which is usually described as being more than a dress code but less than a uniform...

NaNoWriMo: A fun way to spend November (10/06/07)
Have you ever wanted to write a novel? Next month is your chance. In 2004, I first heard about -- and participated in -- National Novel Writing Month. This is a creative exercise in which participants try to write a 50,000-word novel (which is actually a novella, but who's counting?) during the month of November. ...

Based on sworn testimony! (09/26/07)
I had a blast Sunday afternoon watching a bad movie. Not just any bad movie, mind you; the worst movie ever made. "Plan 9 From Outer Space." A reporter and blogger from West Tennessee whose blog I follow regularly posted an online message that she was about to start watching the movie and planned to post her reactions to it in real time on her blog. I immediately turned on the TV and switched it to (irony of ironies!) Turner Classic Movies...

Movies, morals and marketing (09/08/07)
Following the success of "The Passion of the Christ," which was driven in large part by church group sales, Hollywood decided to market more aggressively to the Christian moviegoing public. But, according to a recent article on the Christianity Today web site, that effort hasn't been as successful as hoped and may have even backfired in some cases by scaring the secular public away from movies...

You can't argue with the figures (08/22/07)
Comedy Central's hilarious TV program "The Colbert Report" stars Stephen Colbert in a parody of some well-known political pundits. On his very first night on the air, Colbert coined a word that has since entered the lexicon: "truthiness." It's a word referring to the type of statement that seems true to the person saying it, regardless of the facts, and usually implies that the writer or speaker doesn't particularly want to be disturbed by the facts, just like the character Colbert portrays so brilliantly on his show.. ...

Mountain T.O.P. continues to meet needs (08/11/07)
Last Saturday, I attended the end-of-summer closing celebration for Mountain T.O.P. (Tennessee Outreach Project), a ministry with which I've been associated since 1993. The closing is really a tribute to the college-age men and women who run our camps during the summer season (and who leave for home the next day). It was a wonderful evening -- a terrific meal in the dining hall at Camp Cumberland Pines, followed by a slide show and worship service at a nearby church...

County still needs space planning help (08/08/07)
Last December, in this space, I wrote that our county officials needed to solicit professional help in connection with the county's space needs and surplus property. Here's what I wrote: I think that this problem has simply gotten too big to be handled the way it's currently being handled. ...

You can't break the laws of physics (07/21/07)
A newsroom is often a place of diverse opinions and lively discussion. We try to support our co-workers, but that hardly means we're always in agreement on things. Several months back, I got a call from two gentlemen who claimed to have invented a new type of automotive engine. ...

Traveling light to Bolivia (06/27/07)
Some years ago, when I attended a United Methodist singles retreat at Beersheba Springs, the Rev. Jim Hughes delivered a moving sermon with the theme "traveling light." Jesus urged his disciples to travel light when he sent them out to minister as recorded in Luke 10...

Looking toward Bolivia and the Internet (06/16/07)
A few brief notes on the road to nowhere .... Thanks to all of you who have offered good wishes for my upcoming mission trip to Bolivia. It's only about a week and a half away, and I don't know how I'm going to accomplish everything I need to get done between now and then...

City didn't cause Main Street congestion (06/13/07)
Make no mistake -- traffic on Main Street can be a problem. But I had to laugh at some of the comments I heard and read during the recent city election campaign. Apparently, some people think the city government has some sort of secret subterranean lair, deep underground, that tells businesses where they need to locate. Some people seem to think that the city is telling businesses to open on North Main Street rather than the other way around...

Empty three: player stolen from rec center (06/06/07)
I've lost several things at the rec center: (almost) 25 pounds, a padlock, and an MP3 player. When my rec center membership was set up last December, and I was looking forward to starting after the first of the year, I bought an MP3 player so that I could listen to music while working out. ...

'Fair-on-the-square' bears repeating (05/30/07)
The response to this month's "Bicentennial Fair on the Square" was overwhelmingly positive. The attendance wasn't overwhelming, but it was respectable, and the people who attended all had a great time. Johnny Reed and Dawn Holley, who are the activity co-chairs for Bedford County Bicentennial Organizing Committee, worked countless hours, as did many, many others in organizing the event...

Books, Bolivia and baggage (05/23/07)
The books are piling up for my Bolivia mission trip, which begins June 28: We will be in a rural area near Cochabamba, at an altitude of more than 8,000 feet. The air will be thin; we will get winded easily, and there's a little risk of altitude sickness (not nearly as much as in La Paz, which is at 11,000 feet). ...

The words you say can change a life (05/21/07)
It's amazing how a few little words can have an impact on your life decades later. In the fall of 1980, I was a freshman at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla. I was still wide-eyed, and naive, and I was still trying to process some worship styles and beliefs that were quite different from what I'd experienced in little country United Methodist churches back here in Bedford County...

I can cook! I really can! (05/05/07)
Some years ago, Mary Jane Miller had a potluck at her home. I seem to recall that this was just before she left for the mission field. I was invited, but Mary Jane said that if I wanted to, I could just bring some chips or a two-liter bottle of soft drink...

Getting to the bottom of an April Fool's joke (04/04/07)
It's probably good for those of us who work at the Times-Gazette to realize that not everyone reads all the way to the bottom of the story. Anyone on Sunday who read to the bottom of my story about celebrities picketing Wartrace would have realized it was an April Fool's joke. ...

Specialty tags have got to go (03/28/07)
The latest brouhaha over a specialty license plate, as reported by the Chattanooga Times Free Press, is about which organizations should receive the proceeds from a Native American-themed plate. There's a dispute between two different groups over the issue, so in the meantime neither of them will get any money, which will go instead to a senior citizens program...

Cochabamba or bust (03/24/07)
Because so many people have been kind enough to ask about my upcoming mission trip, I thought I'd take this chance to give you an update. I will be going to an area near Cochabamba, Bolivia, in late June and early July through LEAMIS International Ministries, the same Sewanee-based non-denominational group with which I've traveled for the past four years...

An unexpected gift from Hollywood (02/28/07)
A few notes from hither and yon: --- Chip Walters, director of public relations for The Celebration, told me on Monday that officials from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus were pleased with the turnout for their Gold Unit production over the weekend. Total attendance was more than 7,000, for the five performances, up several hundred from the circus's first visit here three years ago...

No Craig, no Kimmel (02/21/07)
As you may have noticed from the photo page earlier this week, I went to California to visit my brother and his family in Orange County. The only other time I'd been to visit Mike was six or seven years ago, and on that trip we attended a taping of the sitcom "Norm," starring Norm MacDonald. ...

Have pity on your news staff (02/17/07)
The Times-Gazette newsroom computers are iMacs which were installed in late 1999. They are not up-to-date. That's one of several factors to keep in mind when sending us information to be included in the newspaper. For example: Why not plain text? For some strange reason, people insist on sending press releases as Microsoft Word files. ...

California, cartoons, calories concern columnist (02/03/07)
A few notes from here and there: --- I'll be in sunny Southern California later this week visiting my brother and his family. I'm using up my frequent flyer miles from the last two years of mission trips to Kenya! I'm hoping to do a photo feature when I return...

Laydeeeeeees and gentlemen! Children of all ages! (01/20/07)
When Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey decided to start a single-ring "hometown edition" of its circus in 2004, Shelbyville was only the second stop on the tour. I attended with my family -- parents, two of my siblings, nieces and nephews -- and we had a terrific time. ...

Bolivia or bust ... I hope (12/30/06)
After four years of inflicting my mission trip stories on the readership of the Times-Gazette, I am now asked, pretty much wherever I go, if I have any trips coming up. The answer is yes ... I think. LEAMIS International Ministries, the Sewanee-based, interdenominational group with which I've traveled for several years, is not planning a trip to Kenya in 2007. ...

County needs help with surplus space (12/02/06)
County commissioners have an interesting problem. The county has, at its disposal, the vacant Harris Middle School on Elm Street. In a few years, when a new Bedford County Medical Center is built, the building which now houses BCMC will revert to county control. Once that happens, it's almost a given that tenants will move out of the nearby Medical Arts Building in favor of new digs closer to the new hospital...

Time lords, crazy sports and soup (11/30/06)
Some years back, I tried writing a TV column for the Times-Gazette. It started strongly, but then petered out. I mostly wanted to write about TV shows that I enjoyed, and in order to have done a good job with the column I'd have had to familiarize myself with a broader base of TV shows, including some that don't interest me in the least...

Maybe it's Maybelline (11/16/06)
Following each performance of "My Three Angels," I join my fellow cast members in the corridor to meet and greet the audience. We thank them for attending, and if we're lucky they have kind things to say about the performance. Well, Saturday night, a woman approached me, got a good look at my face, and immediately took on a disappointed look...

Citizen involvement often a matter of time (03/04/05)
Citizens have a duty to be involved in government -- but too many citizens wait until too late to become informed or take action. Here are a couple of examples: -- When a city or county government prepares to raise taxes, opponents of the increase often complain that there's wasteful spending which could be cut instead. ...

Matters of newspaper style (02/16/05)
Most newspapers refer to the Associated Press Stylebook as their guide for determining various questions of word usage and what have you. Newspaper writing style is a complicated issue. In some cases, there are firm right or wrong answers about grammar or spelling. ...