Monthly Archives: September 2006

Labor Day

Posted on by
1

Labor Day is supposed to be a recognition of the efforts of Samuel Gompers and those who followed in struggling for workplace reforms, but to me, it’s always been more of a last-blowout of Summer. Most years, it’s a celebration of the fruits of my own labor (of the childbearing kind) — enjoying a day off with the kids.

I’ve given some thought to the traditional meaning today, as I passed the striking workers at Boeing. For weeks, I’ve actually waved as I passed, thinking that the reason for their strike was that the company has passed along greater responsibility for rising health insurance premiums to the workers, while their salary increases failed to keep pace with insurance costs. For that, I was sympathetic.

Later, I learned that the chief sticking point was that the union wants non-union subcontractors barred from delivering materials directly to work areas: they want supplies stopped at the gate, with union workers being the only ones allowed to take materials from there to the work area. That’s where my sympathy stops: Tennessee is a right-to-work state, and I hope it stays that way.

Unions can contribute positively, but when their focus shifts from safety, fair working conditions and compensation to dictating whom can and cannot work or perform certain jobs, they’re overstepping the bounds of my support.

So, my efforts quickly returned to our own traditional celebration, which, given the weather, is going to be meat loaf, mashed potatoes, peas, green beans, and apple crisp for dessert. I picked up Alpha, her boyfriend, and her roommate this afternoon to feed them well and enjoy their company for a few hours. Beta saw a movie, Gamma went to the lake with a friend, and Delta is off playing with her friend across the street. We’ll have a big family dinner, and I’ll be thankful for the fact that I have so many kids to enjoy.

Keys to the SAT

Posted on by
6

The number of students hitting the coveted perfect score on the SAT has plummeted (1,000 last year; 238 this year) after the addition of an essay to the college entrance exam, according to the New York Times.

It’s no secret that student writing has declined, although I’m not sure anyone has pinpointed any one major cause. But for students preparing for this test, below are three keys to a better score:

  • Longer essays (two pages is the limit) tend to receive higher scores;
  • Penmanship counts: essays written in cursive received slightly higher scores;
  • Write in third-person: the lowest performing students almost always write in first person, and first person essays score lower.

Speculating on the cause of less-developed writing abilities leads one to wonder about the changes in curriculum: has the material covered in K-12 indeed been added to so often, that it is now “a mile wide and an inch deep?”

Lastly, the essay is only about one-fourth of the writing score; performing well on the 49 grammar and usage questions is critical. For any student preparing for this test, the Harbrace College Handbook is still considered the ultimate authority on mastering the written word.

Small Town News

Posted on by
3

At dinner before the ORHS v. Bradley Central game Friday night, I picked up a copy of the People News, a weekly out of Cleveland, TN. It was a refreshing change from the on-demand syndicated feeds that dominate the larger outlets, and what struck me was that some of our own hot topics locally are also hot topics in other towns scattered about.

In Public Square, JC Bowman writes about the need for change in their local Republican Party: members of the Executive Committee are refusing to step down from their leadership positions when they run for office, or actively support a candidate in a primary election. Sound familiar, Anderson County? The local party Chairman is currently running for State Representative; four years ago, Terry Frank declined to step down as Chairman when her husband challenged State Sen. Randy McNally in the primary.

Bowman: Candidates and elected leaders need to be aware that merely a call to the local Republican Party leadership no longer translates into broad support from Republicans voters. A sign in the yard of certain people does not signal confidence, but rather identification of a person who may be bought and paid for by the oligarchy to increase their power. When that sign is in the yard of an executive committee member during a contested primary it very wrong. This is not directed at one person, but rather all who violated that tenet. If an executive committee member wants to support a candidate or run for office they should just step down
from their position. People are clearly tired of being manipulated, and as evidenced by the heated crowd at the last Republican meeting, people are willing to step up and do something about it.

In Read All About It, Pettus Reed  explores the  debate over  illegal immigration, but introduces some interesting facts worthy of consideration:

One thing we do know at the farm gate is that farm labor is becoming harder to find. The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released its quarterly farm labor report on May 19, 2006. They reported the number of hired farm workers decreased 3.75 percent to an all time low of 718,000 workers nationwide. In the Tennessee region the figure was even higher at 9 percent. Even after adjusting for seasonality, this represents an acceleration of a declining trend dating back to before 2001. The fact that wages increased sharply over the same period indicates that the drop in worker numbers was due to a tight labor supply, rather than any decrease in demand for farm labor. Farm operators have had to pay more to retain a shrinking hired work force.  The April wages quoted in the May NASS report put the national average at an all time high of $9.79 per hour – up almost 5 percent from the year before and up 18 percent from 2001.

The immigration debate has been an active topic on the Oak Ridger’s forum, with many still seeming to believe that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans.  I disagree, and the NASS reports seem to concur.

This morning, I read the Paris Post-Intelligencer from Henry Co., Tennessee, and saw that they publish a list of students absent from the local high schools, in cooperation with the local school board.  Hmmm…. I bet it does cut down on cutting classes when the students know their parents can find out from the newspaper that they were absent!

I was actually reading the Paris PI looking for any mention of Anderson County Probation Director, Alan Beauchamp, following up on PoisonIvy’s post on the Oak Ridger’s message forum.  Apparently, someone heard that he’s been involved in helping set up probation programs there, just as I’d heard he was involved in ex-Judge Thomas Austin’s programs in Roane County.

I didn’t find anything about his involvement in Henry County — yet — but if this sort of thing is going on, the taxpayers of Anderson County certainly deserve to know whose dime he’s traveling on, and whether these jaunts are occurring on time he’s paid to be working for us.

Courthouse: facts, news and whispers

Posted on by
7

I attended the swearing-in ceremonies for the new county officials this morning, and it was interesting to watch.  Even more interesting waiting for the festivities to begin, listening to the courthouse whispers.

Immediately after the ceremony, I moved over to an adjacent courtroom to listen to the first hearing in David Stuart’s suit to void the August election for General Sessions Judge, on the basis that election law was clearly and deliberately violated.  Statutory time limits for voting were deliberately not enforced, voter identification was not checked in at least two polling places, and paper ballots were improperly issued in one precinct, but were not used in others where it might have mitigated the delay that caused some to not be able to wait and vote.
While Judge Blackwood agreed that “certain statutory provisions were violated, and that those violations were deliberate,” he also held that “to void an election, it must also be shown that the violations were in an attempt to affect the outcome.”

The complaint was that the election was procedurally flawed, but not that the election commission had done so in an attempt to commit election fraud.  As a result, Blackwood upheld the defendants’ motion to dismiss.   It’s over, and Don Layton will be General Sessions Judge for eight more years.

* * *

Just a few days ago I wrote about ex-Judge Thomas Austin, now convict Austin awaiting sentencing on corruption charges.  In the courtroom this morning, someone grabbed me and out of the blue asked, “Did you know?  How did you know?”  I was thoroughly confused, and had to ask what they were talking about.

It was the Austin post on this blog that spurred the question, and it seems that this person knew that Judge Layton and Alan Beauchamp had helped Austin figure out how to set up the driving school and probation department, from which he was receiving kickbacks.  Layton had bragged about helping Austin set it up, and the person who approached me had heard it firsthand.

No, I didn’t know.  It just struck me, as I was reading the newspaper last Saturday, that there were some creepy similarities between the fee-for-service offices set up by the court and the potential for malfesance.   It’s just hearsay at this point and does not necessarily mean that there are kickbacks and corruption in our own county, but watch for someone to be looking closely for evidence of wrongdoing.