Here are excerpts from some recent blog postings of interest at the Times-Gazette web site:

Betty H. Brown

http://www.t-g.com/blogs/bettybrown/entry/17477/

This was not our first visit to the Gulf Coast since the infamous Katrina stormed through .... We went down in November of that year to take floor tiles for a church building. That was when we saw utter devastation all along the beaches and several miles inland. Restaurants where we had dined earlier that summer were gone -- flattened or washed away. We also were there in April of 2006, and not a lot of reconstruction had taken place. Mostly they were still clearing the property of debris.

This time we took some tools to be used by workers who come in every few months to help with the building program....

Rebuilding is slow, but it is coming along. Many homes that face the water are being rebuilt. Some could be salvaged and repaired, but not many. Dillard's at the Edgewater Mall reopened a couple of weeks ago. Apartment complexes, condo units, casinos, restaurants, groceries, Wal-Mart, and churches have been rebuilt. We went to my favorite restaurant in the area -- the Blowfly Inn. It was built back in the original location, but 19 steps higher. (I counted.)

David Melson

http://www.t-g.com/blogs/davidmelson/entry/17503/

Should Tennesseans be able to buy wine in grocery stores? Not if the Wine or Spirits Wholesalers of Tennessee -- and, especially their lobbyists, have their way.

They say they're protecting small businesses (liquor stores) against national chain stores .... and claim independent operators can better screen against drunks and underage buyers.

We also hear complaints of how lobbyists for the state's nursing home industry have allegedly been behind laws keeping adequate funding from home health agencies. Supposedly some nursing home patients could still be living semi-independently in their own homes if more state money was allocated in that direction.

Then there's the telephone companies' attempts to bypass state laws requiring local cable TV franchises in every locality, which if successful will allegedly allow "cherry-picking" of wealthier areas for broadband while excluding poorer and rural areas. I tend to side with the cable companies.

Seems like big business has way too much influence on Tennessee legislators. It's time for the people to have the loudest voice, not lobbyists.

Chantal Rich

http://www.t-g.com/blogs/1109/entry/17473/

When we lived in Philadelphia, I took a class called The American Presidency. It was during the 2004 elections. I was really excited because I thought I would better understand how the election process works - super delegates, electoral college, lame duck...all of it. Turns out the guy teaching the class wrote a book on lame duck presidents. The only textbook we had for that class was his lame book. I feel like I didn't really learn that much in the class, it was more about who everyone was going to vote for in the presidential election and then students fighting with the people they didn't agree with. It was weird, and bad....

Brian Mosely

http://www.t-g.com/blogs/brianmosely/entry/17483/

I was just looking over the comments posted on my two stories published ... about the Somali event at MTSU last Thursday ....

After researching and covering this issue over the past few months, I can safely say that the topic of the Somalis in Shelbyville really pushes some buttons with a lot of people. Late yesterday, a lady came to our offices to complain about our front page. She was upset that the photo and story about a civic leader who passed away this weekend was not as large as the photo of the two Somalis right next to it. However, she apparently neglected to take into account the image of the Red Hat lady at the bottom of Monday's edition, which was larger than any of the other photos on the page. Unfortunately, she left the impression with the ladies up front that the true issue was not the size of the photos, but rather the very inclusion of the refugees in the paper.

This is not the first time someone has taken issue with the mere fact we put these refugees on the front page. When the series first ran, we took some grief from several people because the five part series ran during Christmas week. It appears to me that some folks would rather we didn't run anything at all on the Somalis and pretend like they simply don't exist.

Bo Melson

http://www.t-g.com/blogs/bomelson/entry/17459/

It was miserably hot, made even worse because I was working constantly shoveling rocks and other items into a cement mixer.

Yes, I was worn out and on the verge of calling it quits when the man I was working beside, Bus Rippy, an older black man, noticed my condition and gave me some great advice.

He told me, "Don't ever quit no matter how hard it gets. Once you quit it becomes too easy to quit again and you'll never be any good."

Kenneth Parker

http://www.t-g.com/blogs/1108/entry/17447/

Many years ago I went to show a house that was rented. I had a buyer that was looking for a home so we went to see this property. The house was old and needed a little work, but was otherwise ok. As I went to open the door to what appeared to be a bedroom I saw feathers flying all around. I opened the door to a room full of chickens. They were everywhere and completely filled the room. My buyers decided to look at something else after that.

John I. Carney

http://www.t-g.com/blogs/johncarney/entry/17485/

I will never forget some years back when I covered a motivational seminar at what is now the Sommet Center (I forget whether it was Nashville Arena or the GEC at the time). [George] Foreman was one of the speakers, and I got to attend a press conference. I knew that, not long before his storied middle-age comeback, he'd participated in a celebrity-rider class at the Celebration, and I asked him if he still rode Tennessee Walking Horses. His face lit up with that smile that's sold so many grills on television. Yes, he said, he still enjoyed riding, and fondly remembered Shelbyville and the Celebration (I had not mentioned Shelbyville or the Celebration in my question, by the way). I was happy; I had a nice local tie-in for the story.