Clearly, Alpha does not understand just how small a dorm room is.

I perused a copy of Metro Pulse while waiting on Alpha and Gamma to seemingly try on every pair of jeans in a store yesterday, and was intrigued by an article that seemed to have been written just for me.

Time ran out before I could finish reading, so I pulled it up online this morning. It feels like it was written just for me. So, if you’ve experienced some discomfort about political parties lately, go read Flanking on the Right.

You remember him, I bet. It seems like he was here just the other day. He usually wore a blue suit and a sensible tie. His main concerns were lower taxes, less government, but still he knew some public works were important and somebody had to pay for them. The Tennessee Republican’s politics were moderate, often progressive, and above all, sensible. To get what he wanted, or a good part of it, he could make you a deal. He knew that making deals was the heart of a successful business, and of successful government. The main thing that separated him from the wild-eyed liberal Democrat was that he was a pragmatic fellow. He liked to keep his politics, like the art on his walls, realistic.

Except for use of the masculine prounoun, this fits me. I came to align myself with the Republican party on the principles articulated in the Republican Philosophy — things like “the government closest to the people is the best,” or “government should do only those things that people cannot do, or cannot do well, for themselves.” It is my belief in a strong national defense, a free-market economy, and limited government interference that has traditionally led me to identify with the Republican party.

If you haven’t done so yet, read the article. Yes, I know what the right-wing bloggers think of Metro Pulse, but if you are at all interested in polical philosophy, this one nails it. A couple more noteworthy clips are:

“I see it as a problem for the country in that the candidates tend to focus on issues that may not have much to do with their constituents’ lives. Flag-burning, gay marriage—I may feel like they do about those issues,” he says, as the conservative he is. But he adds that those emotional flashpoint issues aren’t affecting people’s real lives—“They’re not eating up America like the war, the economy, and gas prices.” True enough, few East Tennesseans have ever witnessed either a flagburning or a gay marriage. [John Schmid]

and

A young Republican businessman attending the Republican rally admits he has nothing against abortion. “I’m not interested in legislating morality,” he says. “To me, it’s a moral issue, not a government issue.” Of the pro-life faction in his party, he says, “It’s a small group, but it’s the loudest. It’s like everybody thinks all Islamic people are terrorists. It’s only a small percentage. But they’re the loudest.”

But there is hope. The closing paragraph comes from Howard Baker, whom many of us would uphold as the Dean of Tennessee Republicans:

Howard Baker, now 80 years old, is still a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell and Berkowitz, which has offices in downtown Knoxville and the former senator’s home town of Huntsville. He is recovering from back surgery and was not available to comment for this article. But at a Memphis Downtown Rotary Club meeting last October, responding to a question about the right-wing tendencies of his party, he answered that he expected the GOP “will right itself” from its ultra-conservative leanings. Concerning the party’s current tilt, he added, “That’s not permanent. The party system’s going to survive it…. Cyclical changes will prevent any permanent pattern of extremism. Change may seem far off, but it’s just around the corner.”

We’ll see. I surely hope he’s right.

Sheesh… is it even possible to have an honest election in Memphis, or should we just sell it off to Arkansas?

WATE reports that

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating a report of a man who posed as a Shelby County precinct official to pick up ballots and voting materials before Thursday’s primary.

On the day before elections, officials from the county’s 279 precincts are expected to report to the county’s election operations center to pick up metal ballot boxes, ballot applications, signs and voter lists.

Election Commissioner O.C. Pleasant, Jr. told The Commercial Appeal a man showed up Wednesday and said he represented Precinct 491 and left with the election materials. The error was discovered when the real official arrived later at the center.

I don’t know exactly where precinct 491 is, but I’d wager a cold one it’s in the district where Ophelia Ford was removed from a State Senate seat because the number of dead people, felons, and non-residents was deemed to exceed her margin of alleged victory.

For all the upheaval that our local elections have wrought, at least I do have significant confidence in the security of our ballots in Anderson County. It wasn’t always so, but the Election Commission is a tightly run ship these days. For this, I am grateful.

This afternoon’s front-page story sheds a bit more light on the infamous TBI investigation of Alan Beauchamp and his repeated threats of a libel suit.

[Oak Ridger, 8/1/06] In 2004, area media reported that the probation director had been cleared.

But TBI spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson sees the outcome differently.

“The TBI doesn’t, quote, clear people,” she said. Anderson County District Attorney General Jim Ramsey agreed.

“We’re not in the business of clearing people,” he said.

I’ve been told that the statute of limitations for possible charges in relation to this investigation has not expired, although I confess that I don’t know enough about criminal law to know exactly what those charges might be, nor how long the statute of limitations is. But if that is true, it does shed some light on why he might be so motivated to help his allies win the District Attorney’s race and a couple of judgeships.

Now, if only the article had noted that the documents posted on LetsTalkFrank.com did not come from the TBI file, but from Anderson County records, I would feel fully vindicated.

It is unfortunate that the local papers are compelled to note in every article my status as a school board member, because the creation of that website had nothing whatsoever to do with the school board. It was the act of a private citizen on a Saturday morning. Of course, I do understand that it is news only because I hold elective office.

If I were just another mom sitting at the keyboard, it’s unlikely that the papers would have covered it at all, and that would have been too bad.

Hits to the site skyrocketed after last week’s story. It’s now up to 5,213.

I’ve neglected you lately, and it wears on my conscience. But I really have been overwhelmed.

First, the prom dress: 21 total yards of fabric (heavy satin, very light and silky lining, and some kind of filmy over-drape with all the manageability of a spiderweb) have occupied most of my kitchen table for the last couple of weeks, until I procured a dressmaker’s dummy to be sure that I got the fit right during the times that my daughter was not available — mostly middle-of-the-night sewing sessions.

Although it doesn’t show in this small picture, there are dozens of tiny crystals decorating the sides of the split in the spiderweb-stuff, which have to be ironed on one-by-one, as the spiderweb stuff melts at the temperature required for the crystals to stick.

The next time-killer has been the school budget: starting out roughly $1.1 million more than the City had planned to allocate, even with a generous 4.5% increase over last year’s funding, we’ve spent a painful couple of weeks trying to find any area of possible savings or downsizing that won’t lower the quality of our children’s education. There were cuts made that are actual cuts — but the burden will fall primarily on the administrators in increased workload and less travel.

We haven’t made final approval yet, but after last night’s meeting, I don’t anticipate many changes before submitting the request to City Council. We were down to cutting items that saved as little as $600, in an overall $47.8 million dollar budget.

Three of my kids have been on out-of-town school trips: to Chattanooga for the TSA State Conference, Orlando with the ORHS Band, and Williamsburg for the ORHS Orchestra.
Daughter #2 surprised us all by bringing home a first-place trophy in Engineering Design at the TSA Conference, so she’s headed for Dallas in July for Nationals.

Look at the kids in this picture — they’re mostly ordinary kids, not the National Merit Scholars Oak Ridge is so well known for — but they achieve incredible things on their own time through a club that simply provides them with the avenue to explore their own potential, and teachers who stay late in the afternoon and on weekends to answer questions and teach incidental things (like physics, as applied in calculating wind resistance for the Engineering Design award).

And, there’s been a little bit of distraction this week due to staff shuffling… contrary to rumor and the media’s supposition, the reassignment of the ORHS Principal had nothing whatsoever to do with the school newspaper controversy last Fall.

Off to dabble in one of the many County races for a bit, but I’ll expand on some of these topics later. I promise not to leave you waiting for so long this time.

When former Centertown teacher Pamela Rogers, 28, got out of jail for molesting a 13-year old student, it took less than a month for her to violate the terms of her 7-year probation… contacting the victim, establishing a website where she posted pictures of herself in a bikini, linked to the victim’s sister’s website, and posted messages to the victim by cryptically addressing him via the number of his basketball jersey. [see the News-Sentinel story]

Anyone — man or woman — who could claim to “fall in love with” (initiate sex with) a child of 13 needs to be put away in a very safe place for a very long time.

Granted, she doesn’t look 28, and it’s easy to see why young boys would be beside themselves for her attention.

If anything, that places so much more responsibility upon her as a teacher to conduct herself as a professional — to be sensitive to the influence she holds, and to be an advocate and protector for her students as they struggle toward developmental and emotional maturity.

Evidently, an extraordinarily light sentence was imposed because the victim’s family did not wish for him to testify.

Sometimes, the law just doesn’t make sense.

Memphis has taken the first steps toward correcting the voter fraud problem from last Fall’s special election, as the Commercial Appeal reports:

The infamous North Memphis precinct where ballots were cast in the names of dead voters no longer exists.

The Shelby County Election Commission has dissolved Precinct 27-1, consolidating it with an adjoining precinct.

And all the 27-1 poll workers are barred from working future elections.

“On its face, someone committed an illegal voting act,” said commission Chairman Greg Duckett. “Until it’s resolved … we as a body felt it was important that no one affiliated with that ward and precinct works for the organization.”

Efforts continue in the State Senate to determine whether a 13th illegal ballot can be documented, which would give them grounds under a federal judge’s very specific guidelines to oust Ford’s sister, Ophelia Ford, from the seat.

In any case, the 104th General Assembly is nearing its close, and Memphians have the opportunity to choose again in November.