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.