Holy Moly!

OK, for someone who does a blog on media and political analysis, I can be pretty oblivious sometimes. Ask my friends, they'll tell you.

So, tonight I noticed that Half-Bakered is ad free! I don't know how long this has been the case, and I suspect it's been a while. If the party responsible would like to identify themselves so I can profusely thank them, please write me at halfbakered -at- myfastmail -dot- com. But then, you haven't identified yourself so far, so please let me give you a public "thank you" right here. I can't tell you how good that makes me feel. I've been in the dumps for a couple of weeks and this has picked me back up.

Thank you, very much.

Until next time,
Your Most Humbled Working Boy

Hiatus

Half-Bakered will be on hiatus until October 7th.

Work has been intense the past few days and the coming week I expect to be much worse. I am coming home without the energy to do anything but surf and read, then go to bed early.

See you then.

Until next time.

Temporary Service Disruption

Posting will be spotty and lighter than normal for the next five days, as I watch the full repeat of PBS's great series, "The Civil War." I missed most of it the first time around, and won't make that mistake this time.

Yes, the series is burdened by the politics of Ken Burns and PBS, but a more absorbing, more comprehensive lesson in this most crucial of American turning points won't be found anywhere else. As George Will puts it, "If a greater use of television has been made, I haven't seen it."

Until next time.

Half-Bakered

What is up with Jackson Baker? He's really getting slack of late, much more so than in the past. He could always be counted on to slide his own politics and propaganda into stories he wrote. Now, he's almost phoning these columns in. It's depressing to pundits like me to be given such limp noodles from which to make entrees.

This week's installment, titled "Parsers' Holiday" doesn't even begin well. The thrust of his two-part column is that you have to dissect what's being said to get the real meaning -- kinda like the Clinton years. He even manages to name-check President Bill and his paramour Monica! So, does he mean "parser's holiday" as in "busman's holiday?" Is he working while taking time off? That would explain a lot....

Read the first paragraph:

If ever there is a tournament for the parsing championship of
the Western world, members of the two local parties will
surely have to be considered as candidates for top honors.

Deflate that into: "Local politicians would be medal winners in a parsing championship." But no, Baker seems to think that the passive voice is to be preferred. Or maybe he is being paid by the word. Besides, I think he has it wrong. Are the pols competing to see who can parse who, or to be parsed? Are they competitors, which I don't think is Baker's meaning, or are they so many weenies to be scarfed by the likes of Baker?

Anyway, there is the usual checking of names, a Baker favorite, as though he has to maximize the number of people he mentions to prove the value of his thoughts regardless of their (both the names and the thoughts) worth. He is still the master of the long, convoluted sentences. Deep breath:

Not to be outspun, incidentally, was Clement, who, in the
face of Herenton's cozying up to Lamar and of polls showing
him as much as 18 percent behind Alexander, successfully
lobbied local and national media to report that, while
President George W. Bush was coming to Nashville
Tuesday on Alexander's behalf (to be followed by his father,
former President George H. W. Bush, due in Memphis on
Wednesday), he, Clement, would be flying back to
Washington with President Bush aboard Air Force One.

Still with me? Good.

Basically, Baker is just as baffled by Herenton's presence at a Lamar! event as the Commercial Appeal's Susan Adler Thorp was. But we covered this already Baker revisits it because it's like an itch he must scratch. He then goes on to a boring Democratic event he tries to enliven thusly:

Herenton conspicuously huddled with both former 9th District
congressman Harold Ford Sr. and current congressman
Harold Ford Jr., in an effort to present the appearance of
unity.

State Rep. Kathryn Bowers, who has an open quarrel with
local party chairperson Gale Jones Carson and other
members of the Herenton camp, observed privately that "a big
shovel" might be needed to clear the crowded, stifling room of
"B.S."

Good job letting someone else's word speak for you there, JB.

In the second part of this flat souffle, he then does some more mangled reportage, this time on the Republican County Republicans' steering committee meeting at which Rout fils was asked to resign from the chairmanship of the Young Republicans. Baker doesn't let such bad news stop his admiration for the Rout family:

Then, on Thursday night, the younger Rout was given
something less than a vote of confidence as his colleagues
on the Shelby County Republican steering committee voted
by an 18 to 8 margin to ask him to resign from the committee....

Yeah, that would be "something less" indeed. I won't bore you with the rest of Baker's mighty, windy, labors. His self-appointed job is to keep the lustre on the Rout family name. In the Baker world-view, someone like Rout who can work with Democrats is to be admired, mostly because Republicans must be more like Democrats in order to become good people. His confusion over Herenton's siding with long-time friend Lamar! is yet another sympton of that.

One last bit before we go. Discussing the ouster of Rout and other Republican business, Baker characterizes it as "intraparty revolt." He never fails to miss an opportunity to portray the Republicans as divisive and riven with strife. (Ooh, I sounded like him for a moment.) But his reporting of the Democrats, as seen in the first quote above, is always much less negative. "The appearance of unity" indeed....

Until next time.

The Weirdness That Is The Net

So I'm logging into Blogger to update the site and in the list of "Most Recently Updated Blogs" is The "Real" Nashville Rescue Mission. Too good to pass up, right? Well, it turns out to be one of those repetitious, personal-vendetta, all in caps kind of sites. Can anyone shed light on his assertions and veracity?

Until next time.

The Kind Of Thing I Really Hate

This Memphis Flyer editorial is a good example of the kind of "we have a secret" reporting that's all too common in newspaper reporting. It even infects ex-reporters like talk-show host Mike Fleming.
It's ostensibly a comment on the return of Judge McCalle to the bench, then there's this:

Unfortunately, Judge McCalla's means of keeping the heat on
in the matters before his court ultimately scorched not only
malefactors and laggards but his own reputation and burned
out the patience of others in the judicial system. So we were
told, anyhow, when McCalla was summarily suspended from
his duties more than a year ago and forced to undergo
counseling by federal appellate judges acting on local
complaints. There were star-chamber aspects to McCalla's
temporary cashiering, and we commented upon them at the
time.

It is these hints of things not reported that always irks me. Either put up or shut up.

Until next time.

High Livin' On The Public Dime

This week's Memphis Flyer has a John Branston report-itorial called "cadillac Plan." He rather lightly takes the City to task for spending $750,000 on a consulting contract for Riverfront development.

After first showing how the contract is rather far on the high end of such things, he then quotes from Barry Lendermon of the Riverfront Development Corporation to show that, well...maybe it's not. Branston's main point seems to be that the situation downtown is both good enough and variable enough that the contract appears to be a waste of money. Maybe.

It's weak-as-water complaining. Our city leaders are inordinately fond of boards, commissions, studies and groups. It shields them from anything unpleasant like unpopular decisions or hard choices while offering yet more public money to their friends and buddies and political cronies.

Why not have a central Department of Planning under the City Council, not the Mayor's Office? Their task is to create a large, generalized framework demarcating public areas, mapping out future street needs, labelling older buildings to save and repurpose, and zoning general intentions for various areas. Then stand back and let developers have at. Public monies shield developers from risk, yes, but private vigor and reaction speed will accomplish more, faster.

Until next time.

Tara Sue Reaches Critical Mass

Some weeks back, I wrote about Tara Sue Grubb, a North Carolina woman running a very long-shot campaign for Congress. You can read the weblog of her campaign here. You have to admire her spunk.

Well, her story has been picked up by Slashdot, a website for tech-heads and those interested in computer-related issues. Their concern? Tara Sue is running against Howard Coble, one of the Congressional sponsors of a bill that would grant sweeping powers of control and invasion to software makers and their parent companies.

Tara Sue has suddenly found her constituency going from a small rural district to a virtual one that encompasses some of the most successful and well-connected computer and Internet professionals in America. She's still likely to lose, but she's pointing the way to a new kind of campaign -- a web-driven one.

This is relevant to Tennessee because we are also seeing that revolution happen here. The Income Tax War, had it occured only a few years earlier, would have been lost without two serious advantages: the Internet and talk radio. Talk show hosts like Steve Gill and Phil Valentine took up the podium; Tax Free Tennessee and Tennessee Tax Revolt important information to every corner of the State. They uncovered truths no newspaper would have let you see and pulled it all together in an easy-to-find place. It was these two factors that welded together the force that descended on Capitol Hill, that is shaking up the electoral landscape as we speak.

For now, we have the advantage. We need to press it before the Powers That Be either take control or learn to use it themselves.

Until next time.

Nothing But Colors For Some

A USA Today story Friday, about the reaction of cities to the Homeland Security Department's color-coded warning system is not good news. They quote from a study done by the National League of Cities that produced distressing results.

The study doesn't break results out by city, but does have some interesting news. It's worth a quick read.

Until next time.

Empowerment-speak

This story, in Friday's Commercial Appeal, is about the report of the Memphis Civic Action Now! (Can) on a project led by The Community Forum, and the report they generated. This whole story is full of professional motivational jargon like "civic infrastructure...buy in...civic engagement" and the dreaded "dialog." The city spent an unknown sum of money for stuff like this:

Record said group members want to hold a civic expo next spring,
and to open a center for civic engagement.

The center would be a place "where citizens can come together
and discuss issues. It would be a place for local government
officials and government folks to come to people if they have an
idea and have dialog," she said.

The report, to be discussed at a press conference at 9 this
morning at the Memphis Cook Convention Center, also
recommends:

*Sponsoring regular small group civic discussions in every
neighborhood.

*Holding civic workshops throughout the city and county.

We already have all this. It's getting the political leaders to actually attend 'em that's the problem. Sadly, the study doesn't offer any answers there.

Until next time.

Spinning, Whirling, Twirling

The new "value-added" TCAP scores are in and once again it's bad news for Memphis City Schools. Try as they might, even the ever-resourceful Commercial Appeal can't spin this one into gold. It begins with the headline:

'Value-added' scores gauge student gains

Technically, this is a true statement, but it doesn't apply to MCS! They are still losing ground, as the report clearly shows. After writer Aimee Edmondson labors for eight paragraphs to soften the news and applaud effort we get to the nub:

Memphis's districtwide scores range from a disappointing 77
percent in language to 92 in social studies. The analysis is based
on how students scored on the Tennessee Comprehensive
Assessment Program achievement test. Shelby County's
value-added scores range from 107 percent in math to an
impressive 136 percent in reading.

But wait! It's not over yet. Yes, they know what's responsible:

Because the value-added scores are actually based on a
three-year average of the TCAP, Memphis remains stymied by
scores from 2000.

That was the year the district hit rock bottom on student
achievement tests.

"They were running in the mud in 2000," said education
researcher Steve Ross of the University of Memphis.

Those scores will fall off the radar with next year's three-year
averages.

"It takes a while to completely get out of that and run on hard
surface," Ross said.

That's right, it's the fault of two years ago. Damn that 2000!

Angry with standardized test scores that repeatedly and grimly show that our students are under-educated, year after year, educators devised the "value-added" system, purporting to show that students do learn, while hiding the fact that they don't learn as much as they ought to, that teachers continue to fail in the schools.

Created by then-University of Tennessee professor Bill Sanders,
value-added is meant to measure the "value" a teacher adds to
each student's performance - regardless of where that student's
achievement levels are.

In the ever-growing high-stakes testing world, more states are
following Tennessee's lead by instituting the value-added
system....

"Schools have to take children where they are academically and
move them as far as they can each year," said Education
Commissioner Faye Taylor. "Value-added results give us a
measuring stick for that progress."

And yet again, Memphis City Shcools fall short.

This link will take you directly to the cumulative results. As you'll see, Tennessee is performing above expected norms, and Shelby County Schools are performing very, very well. But Memphis City Schools are embarrassingly poor.

Once again.

Until next time.

Read Past The Headlines And You Find...

A Commercial Appeal story about action by the Tennessee Board of Regents to give raises has a headline that says one thing and a story that's something else altogether!

Regents vote today on proposed 2% raises, merit hikes for faculty

The Tennessee Board of Regents is expected
today to approve 2 percent across-the-board raises for faculty,
staff and administrators at its schools, including the University of
Memphis and Southwest Tennessee Community College.

Sounds good, if a bit meager. But then, money is tight this year, unless you're the Department of Transportation, or those travellin' Administration officials.

Dig a bit deeper into the story, though, and you learn this:

The committee also recommended increases for university
presidents and other administrators to bring their pay up to at
least 90 percent of what their peers receive.

U of M president Shirley Raines's proposed salary would go up 4
percent to $203,429, bringing her up to that 90 percent level.
Southwest president Nate Essex's salary would go up 2 percent
to $164,315, bringing him to 99 percent of his peers'.

The committee recommended approval of the salary hikes in a
continued effort to stop the exodus of faculty and staff from
Tennessee schools, where faculty salaries have been as much as
13 percent lower than at comparable schools in the region.

Wait. Faculty is 13% lower, but the top administrators are within 10%? Doesn't sound fair, does it?

At the U of M, the 2 percent raises and $1.2 million in merit raises
that would be doled out to some faculty would bring the average
faculty salary up to only 86 percent of their peers' salaries....

Raines said despite the school's "disappointing" salaries
compared to other schools, the university is seeing improvements
in faculty morale.

Not with actions like this they won't.

In all, more than $2.2 million in merit raises will be given to U of M
administrators, faculty and staff. Faculty members receive 55.4
percent of that money.

More than half? Sounds good, right? Well, with CA stories, it's always what's not said that carries the day. I suspect that faculty makes up more than 55% of the staff at the U of M, and with pay disparities (Custodians and service staff make less than professors, right?), it makes you ask "How's that kitty being divvied up?"

But don't look here for answers.

While we're on the subject of Tennessee higher education, I'll also direct you to South Knox Bubba's excellent post on UT President John Shumacher. I'm with him on this guy. I think he's gonna be great. But I'm still waiting to see how the folks around him act, especially with the intrusion of the private sector into the hallowed halls of academe. And will legislators see his initiatives as a good excuse to cut more UT money if they succeed? (SKB wants Schumacher to run for governor next time. I'd like to see Marsha Blackburn run. What a match-up, huh?)

Until next time.

Fords, Sopranos, Whatever

I'm not going to get into the Ford family's sprawling, lucrative stake on the public trough. It's just too much. Why someone hasn't optioned them for a miniseries, I don't know.

But today's Commercial Appeal has this story about State efforts to reclaim some of the money from the estate of James Ford that they claim was stolen from child-care center payments. It comes with the jaw-dropping headline:

State denied Ford's millions

Not "Judge blocks state money grab" or "Ford estate off limits, judge rules." No, the headline used says the paper has already found Ford guilty.

I'm no fan of the Fords, as you might guess. My belief is that James likely does have a lot of State money and deliberately kept sloppy books just to prevent -- or delay or obscure -- what's happening now. But still, the CA is unrelenting and bitter in their vendetta against this family.

Give the selective partisanship a rest sometime.

Until next time.

Hobbs On The Job

The latest Bill Hobbs post is about a Cato Institute report (requires Acrobat PDF reader) giving out-going governor Don Sundquist a failing grade for his term. It's very good reading and so's Hobb's commentary.

Until next time.

OK, Enough Already!

In the big feature on Page One of the Friday Commercial Appeal's Appeal section, about pianist/singer Barbara Bennet, the caption writer tells us four times in three photo captions and the sub-headline, that Barbara works for Pat O'Brien's in New Orleans/Beale Street. And it's in the first paragraph of the story.

Enough already!

Until next time.

Two Quickies Before He Goes

* Both Bill Hobbs and South Knox Bubba are on a blogging roll (a blogroll?) the past couple of days. Mucho good reading at both spots. Check the links at left.

By the way, if you know of any Memphis or Tennessee bloggers who cover area politics or events, please let me know of them so I can investigate. My new email (see post below for explanation) is halfbakeredATmyfastmail.com. Change the AT for the symbol to email.

* Our civic and political leaders, abetted by the newspapers, have been trying for years to make Memphis into a "world class city." What's going on downtown is an effort, funded by you the taxpayer, to turn it into a Manhattan on the Mississippi. The rest of the County can rot in sprawl and highways, but the downtown by gum is going to be something that will make everyone else think better of us than we do. Yes sirree.

Unfortunately, these clowns are running counter to most of the will of the people. I've always maintained that Memphis is a collection of strong neighborhoods that makes up a large town. Not a city and certainly not an Atlanta or New York. Go here for proof. Amazing.

Until next time.

The Alabama Strategy

The State is having money problems, especially in funding education to the satisfaction of the citizenry. A lottery is proposed as a solution. The supporters tout the Georgia HOPE program as a model. Religious folks express concern about the moral decline accompanying a lottery. "Everyone" says the lottery is a sure winner and that the religious concerns are just another gasp of the country-bumpkin Religious Right.

But come Election Day, the votes are counted and the lottery lost!

Is this a story and prediction for Tennessee? No, it's what happened it Alabama, back in 1999. To quote from this story:

...Alabama polls showed that 65 percent of the voters
supported a lottery referendum. But after an intense campaign
by anti-lottery forces, voters defeated it 54 to 46 percent.

Does that support number sound familiar? It's also interesting to note that the story mentions a lottery vote in North Carolina, where supporters are saying that a lottery will bring in -- are you ready? -- $300 million. Seems they have the same advisers that Sen. Steve Cohen does, although Cohen has taken to inflating his numbers of late.

There's another story, this one from the Knoxville News- Sentinel, about a visit from a leader of the Alabama fight.

Still only seeing sparse reporting from the Commercial Appeal on this potent, and divisive, story.

Until next time.

Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad

Earlier this week, I covered the two Commercial Appeal stories (here and here) about the Tennessee Poll. The TP was commissioned by the Knoxville News-Sentinel and conducted by the Social Sciences Institute at UT-K. It touted an 8 point Bredesen lead and an 18 point Alexander lead. Noting the nature of the stories (they were reprints of KNS stories by Tom Humphrey), I went to the source and found that there was a third story! One that the CA neglected to highlight.

You can read that third KNS story here. The CA only ran an uncredited Associated Press story deep in the back of the Metro section -- not Page One, top-of-the-fold as the first two were. The AP story covers almost all the poll points in the KNS story: lottery, church attendance. Almost.

What the AP, and so the CA, failed to tell you was this:

On another question, 63 percent of those surveyed said a firearm is
present in their home and a similar 62 percent said that a member of
their family was a hunter and/or fisherman.

Gant said the percentage of homes with a gun was somewhat higher
than he would have anticipated.

As previously reported, the poll found Democrat Phil Bredesen held a
lead in the gubernatorial race while Republican Lamar Alexander led in
the Senate contest.

Gant said that those with guns were more likely to favor a Republican
candidate in a congressional race when a specific candidate was not
named.

A rather startling omission, wouldn't you say?

Now you see why the CA failed to run it. Shame on them.

Until next time.

The Thorp Test

Today's Commercial Appeal has the standard political-season story about how much the two major party gubernatorial candidates have raised so far this election cycle. I don't know why they run these things, as it's generally meaningful only to political junkies, but there you go.

Anyway, browsing the numbers (because, yes, I am a political junkie) it occured to me that I should apply Susan Adler Thorp's thinking to them! During the County Mayoral election she repeatedly and humorlessly pounded on George Flinn for funding his campaign with his own money. She claimed he was "buying" votes, although she could never quite explain the mechanism by which the votes were bought. I know I never received my check! And she also rakes him over the coals for the amount of money he spent. It's all very dire for her, but she assumes you know why and never bothers to outright explain things. Ah well....

So, looking at the Bredesen and Hilleary numbers, I have concluded that, by the SAT test, Bredesen is attempting to buy the election. He has raised $6.4 million and spent about $5.1 million so far. Hilleary has raised $4.7 million and spent about $4 million. Bredesen is outspending Hilleary by 25% -- nearly twice the Flinn-Wharton ratio! Not only that, but Hilleary has received contribututions from about 14,000 folks; Bredesen from only 11,000. So, Bredesen has the better-heeled contributors.

Clearly, he's the candidate of Big Money.

I look forward to the properly chastising column from Thorp soon.

Until next time.

I Hear Your Troubles

Here at Half-Bakered, I listen to your concerns and, eventually, address them. The email address at Crosswinds apparently isn't working for some, so I've gotten a new address for email.

If you have ideas, suggestions, links, comments, observations, critiques or good recipes for BBQ sauce you can now send them to: halfbakeredATmyfastmail.com. Just convert the AT to the symbol and you're off! I'll change the link on the left soon.

Until next time.