Pushing "White Privilege" Ensures Its Survival

Well, once again an innocent black man has been shot down by whites. The Ahmaud Arbery killing video seems like something from a screenplay based on a John Grisham novel, or from a movie version of true events of the 1960's. How can this be 2020 and we still have whites driving around in pickup trucks looking for black men to lynch? The truth may be the unintended consequences of attitudes of well meaning people. Many people do not realize that the modern concept of "white privilege" has a lot to do with a narrative that was pushed in the post-Reconstruction South after the War Between the States. That is not to say that racism and white supremacy were not preexistent, but our discussion is of the concept of "white privilege", not the former prejudices that probably go back centuries. After the Civil War, the South's agronomic system was forever changed. Slavery gave way to a new model for the landholders. The euphemism for it was "tenant farming", but all of us who had ancestors who lived in the South during the period know it by its better name--sharecropping. The tenant farming system was, as many scholars have described it, "slavery by another name". Sharecropping, however, had one very salient component which would be quite significant in our history--tenant farming was a type of existence from which the white man's skin color did not protect him. The Southern way of life at the time, at least to the landholders, depended on a continuation of the ways of the Old South as much as possible, but with slavery abolished and the great exodus of blacks from the South, whites would have to supply a great percentage of the tenant farming labor. How would white tenant farmers ever put up with the abysmal conditions of sharecropping without rising up against the system? Now that you had whites falling into the system and experiencing its burdens the same as black sharecroppers, how could the landholders prevent the population of tenant farmers black and white from using the power of the vote to legislate better working conditions? The history shows a two fold approach. One strategy was the myth of the "Lost Cause". The Confederacy and "old South" way of life were glorified, and the Union was lampooned. No opportunity was missed in pointing out the failures and corruption of Reconstruction governments. The Union victory in the Civil War was blamed for all of the South's postwar problems, and a narrative that "if the South would have won, we'd have had it made" began to be formed. As Reconstruction lost ground and waned, culminating in the Compromise of 1877, white landowners were then poised to take control of the State legislatures once again. A one party region emerged. The mighty Democratic Party instituted a whole host of measures meant to keep tenant farmers from voting, including poll taxes and literacy tests. We think of these today sometimes as one and the same with the Jim Crow laws meant to oppress blacks, but the truth is that nearly all of those measures were also used liberally against poor whites to keep them from voting as well, since white sharecroppers were out in the fields all day with black sharecroppers, being ripped off by landowners and retailers step for step. Remember the movie Places in the Heart? Yes, the KKK attack on Danny Glover's character was difficult to watch, but the movie also portrays Sally Field's character as being pushed around by the bank on several fronts and nearly ripped off by the cotton gin operator, and her character was actually a white landowner, though her acreage was small and financially in distress. White privilege was the notion pushed, that no matter how bad your life was, at least you were white, and that was better than being black. Thus even though whites were effectively being victimized the same as blacks, the white sharecroppers were fed a steady diet of constructs from the white gentry. In the movie Mudbound, you see that there's not a whole lot of difference in the way the black sharecropper family was treated from the white sharecropping family, but just enough that white tenant farmers may have found their plight more palatable. Fast forward to modern times. Agriculture is highly mechanized, and for better or worse there are very few farms of any kind left in the South today that are worked by lots of native born laborers. The use of migrant workers from Mexico replaced the tenant farming system, and their treatment in many cases still amounts to "slavery by another name". In fact the administration recently was quoted as needing to find a way to LOWER migrant wages so that farmers can survive the pandemic. What do the landowners want, to bring back slavery so they can make more money off their crops? Notice how things change in the South, yet still stay the same. During the 1960's, black activists took offense at the way that black lynchings were not looked upon in the same light as when white civil rights workers were killed. Instead of recognizing that that was simply a byproduct of decades of the "white privilege" narrative being pushed in the country, they began to distance themselves from whites. For many, all whites became the enemy, and their help was not wanted. Remember the much criticized scene in Malcolm X where a white student was told in no uncertain terms that her help was not wanted? Whether or not that actually played out as it was in the film in real life, it is a true attitude that many had at the time. Fast forward to today. Anytime a white person tries to sympathize with the plight of blacks, they are immediately eviscerated by left wing activists who lampoon them. It is now preached with a loud and unmitigated voice that whites can NEVER understand or sympathize with the black experience, and they shouldn't even try--that there is a privilege of being white that will always be there, and whites will always be treated better than blacks, no matter how poor or downtrodden they are. Well, isn't that what the aristocrats and those modern "haves" want the "have nots" to think? The right wing and left wing lobby groups, the Democrats and Republicans, all are perfectly fine with that way of thinking, because it preserves the status quo. Nothing changes because of it. No good can come from it. Thus we still have blacks being shot down by whites who act with impunity, and half the whites read stories like Arbery's and subconsciously what runs through their mind is "Man, I'm glad I'm white." Wouldn't it be far more effective at engendering change if we flipped this "white privilege" narrative on its head, and all of us were shocked and horrified no matter what our color is, because we realize that actually what happened to Mr. Arbery can happen to a white man--nay, likely has happened to whites countless times but we never heard about it because the media also helps to push the modern "white privilege" narrative? They only show up when there are racial tensions to be exacerbated. This is not to say that "white privilege" doesn't exist, but rather that it continues to persist because the very people who lament it are unwittingly aiding and abetting its survival. How many whites tried to comment sympathetically this week about the death of Mr. Arbery, and were told by some well meaning but misguided poster (or worse, an Internet activist troll),"What do you know? You're white. You don't understand. You voted for Trump."? In fact, Trump himself called the video "disturbing" and "heartbreaking". How did the far left respond to Trump's comments, which were rather sane for him? Until we stop looking at these crimes through racial lenses and start looking at them together from a united front, I don't think much will be done. Police brutality and overreach will continue. Corporations will continue to rip off small businesses. The haves will continue to perpetrate terrible injustices upon the less fortunate, because they've used "white privilege" for so long to keep the races divided that they've actually perfected a system in which the "have nots" keep themselves in bondage by believing the narratives that were force fed to them for decades. The "haves" just sit back and watch while the "have nots" chain themselves with division and lack of unity. Imagine if. Imagine if George Wallace had not been a segregationist when he ran for President, shocking both parties by winning five States? What if he'd gone on, with black support around the country, to show that a person does not need the Republicans or Democrats to win? What if the Bernie bros complaining about their student loan debt and lack of jobs united with the blue collar, gun totin' Southerners complaining about the lack of jobs and opportunities in rural areas? Well, those that benefit from the status quo ensured that those "ifs" never became a reality, didn't they?

That FastPass thing....

Okay, I'm going to break from politics and give out some tips for Disney trekkers and dispel some myths about their FastPass system. Before going we had heard all sorts of things, from "they don't have Fastpass anymore" to "you can Fastpass everything", and the truth is pretty much somewhere in between. 1. Can I Fastpass everything? No. Some rides do not offer a Fastpass option because they are broken, because they are so popular that the Fastpasses were booked before you tried, or just because that's the way Disney rolls. You will be given a list of rides from which to pick from, and sometimes they are further divided by the park, so that you pick 2 rides from one category and one from another. Some rides you don't want to Fastpass anyway because they are low in popularity or because the Fastpass you are offered doesn't fit with your schedule. Many Fastpass times for rides high in popularity we were given were near closing time, so we opted to just wait in line in stand by rather than have to wait all day to ride the ride. If you are wanting to ride the Seven Dwarves' mine cart on Fastpass, good luck with that. It is the most popular attraction in the park system right now and the Fastpasses fill up, so don't bank on it and rather you should plan to wait for an hour in standby for that one. 2. After I use my first 3 fastpasses, can I load 3 more? No. You get 3 initial fastpasses, and after you've burned them, you can only add them one at a time. You probably wouldn't want it that way anyway, since they all have to be synchronized in time, and you'd be running around like a headless chicken dealing with so many fastpass times. It is best to use the fastpass for those rides that you really want to do as a family, and we found that they worked best on medium popularity rides like Splash Mountain, because the standby lines really got crowded because those are rides that people want to ride, but don't want to burn a fastpass for. 3. If I miss my fastpass time, I can just go to the attraction at any time after my slot, right? No. People were saying that in the park, but it is not true. They give you a window of opportunity, and if you go before or after the slot you will be denied entrance. Nancy missed her slot for Tower of Terror by only a few minutes and only got in because she had a birthday button and the fastpass attendant was being nice. Of course you can always do standby entrance, and we did that for several fastpasses that we missed. 4. Do I need to use the kiosks or can I just use the app on the phone? Probably the kiosks. Nancy has an iPhone 4 and I have a Casio g'Zone running an old Android system, and neither would work the app, so unless you have the latest cell phone technology, you will have to use the kiosks to modify your fastpasses. That's sometimes a good thing, because Disney has special fastpass attendants who know how to manipulate the system better than you do, so it's best to use a kiosk, tell them what you are trying to do, and let them help you rather than spending time trying to make the system do something that it might not do. 5. Does the Fastpass system actually work? Yes. The last time we went to Disney under their old system, we were waiting forever to ride rides and only got to ride a few, and that was in October. Though there are naysayers, our experience is that the fastpass system makes the lines move quicker for everybody, even if you are doing standby. Even in standby for the mine cart ride, people were only waiting about an hour and a half. So everyone benefits from this system, where in the past only a select few did. So all in all, Disney's Fastpass system is a great way to get more rides in, you just have to realize that it does not give you the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want.

The Elephant, the Donkey, and the Tired Horse

Once a horse was trying to pull a cart through a muddy road. The cart was very heavy, as too much had been heaped upon the cart for the horse to pull. Perhaps those that loaded the cart assumed the horse could pull it. You see, they had been gradually putting more and more weight on the horse, and he had always been able to somehow find the strength. On this occasion, however, the horse found they had finally loaded it past his ability, and he could not pull the cart, and was thus stuck in the road. Along came an elephant down the road. Maybe he would help the horse pull the cart. Absolutely not. The elephant scolded the horse for not being strong enough to pull the cart himself. Of course, it was easy for the elephant to say that since, being an elephant, he had never been in the horse's position. So the elephant continued down the road. Then a donkey came down the road. Perhaps he would help the horse pull the cart. After all, donkeys look a lot like horses and have a lot in common with them, so they ought to know how hard it is to pull an overloaded cart. Indeed the donkey did want to help, but weirdly he did not want the horse to help pull his own weight. He insisted that the horse be unhitched from the cart while he, the donkey, pulled it for him. But the load was too heavy for the donkey. He pulled and pulled but could not budge the cart an inch. The donkey was genuinely puzzled, but still refused to let the horse do some of the pulling and said, "I know. We will find some way to MAKE the elephant pull it for us!" So the donkey went off to fight with the elephant, leaving the horse still stuck in the road, wondering why neither the elephant nor the donkey would give him a little help. The elephant wished to give no help to the horse, and the donkey was determined that someone other than the horse should do the job entirely.

Crematorium Controversy Burns Up City's Credibility

In yet another interesting turn of events for Spring Hill, the Board of Zoning Appeals has done a 180 and given a green light to a crematorium that no one in the town except for the prospective proprietor wants. We live in a "me" society where every individual seems to think the world revolves around him, and if I want to open a crematorium, dog gone it I'm going to do it, and if some kids get sick from inhaling ash, so be it. Not my fault. If the property values of the homes near my crematorium go to pot, so be it. Not my fault. The good of the one outweighs the good of the many. That's democracy right?

States Should Stand Ground on "Stand Your Ground"

The left, through Bill Clinton and other voices, is using the Trayvon Martin tragedy to attack the "Stand Your Ground" rule of States like Florida. What many have failed to point out, though, is the fact that neither account of what happened has anything to do with "Stand Your Ground". According to the family of Mr. Martin, Mr. Zimmerman shot him down in cold blood when there was no imminent threat to Zimmerman's life, and experts who have reviewed the tapes indicate that Mr. Martin may have been on the ground screaming before he was shot. If this is what happened, Mr. Zimmerman is culpable for homicide, and "Stand Your Ground" is no defense. On the other hand, Mr. Zimmerman's story is that he did NOT "stand his ground" but in fact was retreating back to his car when Mr. Martin attacked him, forcing him to use force. This terrible situation should not be used by the left as an opportunity to attack gun rights, and the fact that this young man died changes nothing about the dangers to law abiding citizens posed by criminals in this country daily or citizens' natural rights of self defense. If Mr. Zimmerman did something wrong, he should be punished. If Mr. Martin did something wrong, then unfortunately he paid the ultimate price for it. While we wait for the judicial branch of Florida to work, we don't need anti-gunners like Clinton blaming gun owners other than Zimmerman. And while I believe Mr. Zimmerman is culpable based on the evidence, who knows what the evidence will show or what a grand jury would do? I do know this. If I were Mr. Zimmerman, I would call Jose Baez, because he has already got one Florida client off for murder when the evidence showed she was guilty as sin.

Romney-the Face of the GOP or Independent Party Raiders?

Mitt Romney will soon ride into South Carolina as the Republican frontrunner, having already won two states. A Massachusetts moderate from a non-evangelical Christian background leading at the polls should cause us all a ponderous pause. Liberals love to bash the GOP as a hard right conservative Bible thumping party, but if that is really the case, why is Mitt doing so well? I am still waiting for the liberal media to answer that question. Of course, a great answer might lie in Obama's failure to deliver on the "hope and change" he promised Democrats, independent voters and Republicans disillusioned after 8 years of George W. Bush. The Obama administration has been, with the exception of bagging Osama, an abject economic and foreign policy disaster. Thus, with Obama unopposed in the Democratic primaries, independents may have gone into the GOP looking for an alternative, and have ended up bolstering Romney against the conservative base. Either way, Obama has a problem. If the GOP with its Tea Party and Ron Paul contingents have succeeded in taking the party back to moderate Rockefeller Republicanism (a process I would say started the second Reagan left office), the Democrats' sad, tired old attacks will be as effective as the GOP's bloody shirt tactics were in the 1932 election. If Romney's rise is coming from independents and Democrats coming into the party for reasons other than "raiding" the primaries, then it shows that the Democrats have sunk back to the Carter years among independents, i.e. a party that can't get anything done and makes bad situations in economics and foreign policy even worse when they win the White House. Independents and disillusioned moderate Republicans were a key part of the Obama coalition. If he's lost them, getting an endorsement from the Band Perry won't be enough.

Perry in a Pickle Over Peculiar Petrograph

Did he paint over it before...he was before...was it before or after the press took a picture of it?

Egyptian Democracy Could Benefit U.S.

Egypt and Tunisia are large tourist attraction states partially dependent on the tourist trade for a large share of the economy. Not many Egyptians would welcome an Islamist regime that would have every tourist and journalist afraid to go to Cairo lest they become another victim of anti-Western terrorism. Yemen, however, also undergoing upheaval, stands as the Arab nation with the most propensity toward switching to radical Islam. With terrorist attacks having already occurred even under the current regime and little Western investment, the radicals there could impose a Taliban-like theocratic regime. Obviously Egypt has been a staunch ally of the US and has respected the sovereignty of Israel. These actions were wise and gave Egypt the opportunity to develop its economy by fostering friendly relations with the West. Unfortunately the fruits of this alliance have been enjoyed by too few Egyptians. I don't know a lot about modern Egypt, but I do know about our own Egyptian namesake--Memphis, Tennessee, where we have an NBA franchise, a shiny new Forum, and are home to the nation's distribution center. Yet Memphis also has the highest car theft rate in the nation, the highest bankruptcy rate, and foreclosures and violent crimes so numerous that it spawned two television shows, one fictional (Memphis Beat) and one based in an all too true reality (Police Women of Memphis). Perhaps the people of our Memphis should go down to our own defunct pyramid and start protesting like the people in Tahrir Square.

Spring Hill Mayor Giving the Town Away, with No Takers.

Having already had one meeting to figure out how to make the town more "builder friendly", the mayor of Williamson County's most densely populated town, full of starter homes on 1/3 acre or less lots and huge apartment complexes, wants to have another meeting. This sadly is like the father of an ugly daughter that can't find a husband for her. As I have stated before, you do not oversupply the market and hope demand increases, you create an atmosphere in Spring Hill that drives demand. If you really want to get business thriving in Spring Hill, the mayor needs to have meetings with residents and homeowners to see how we can make the town "resident friendly", and that is unfortunately many times contrary to the wishes of volume builders who have ALREADY left their indelible mark on the town. It does not take a degree in urban planning to explain what is going on in Spring Hill. The recession has hit this area hard, and all real estate markets were hit hard. Why buy in Spring Hill when you can buy a house 15 to 20 minutes closer to the city in the county at a bargain price. Look at any Sunday paper in the "What you can get for..." feature, and you'll be shocked at where you can live currently for Spring Hill prices....Franklin, Brentwood, Thompsons Station, Nolensville. Many times you get more than the low square footage and sardine can sized lot Spring Hill developers offer. A second problem is the intolerable congestion on 31, an impediment to any business wanting to locate in SH, yet local politicians only want to talk about a new exit on 65. Thirdly, we must realize that until GM increases the utilization of the plant, demand for living in one of Nashville's most distant suburbs will not be what it was a decade ago, no matter how many meetings you have with builders to "give away the store."

Maury County Mayhem

Schools are now back in session after a two week fall break and a power struggle between the Maury County Commission and the Maury County School Board. Ostensibly to show their disapproval at poor performance, the commission seemed to cater to the constituents with kids in Columbia Academy and those older residents without students currently enrolled who wanted to reduce funding. The current budget requires no tax increase and was simply increased by using the schools' own rainy day funds. The county commissioners failed to realize that there is a major cost associated with new growth. You can not approve any and every residential development without thought to how much it will cost the county to educate the students that move in. Both the planning commission and the county commission are charmed by the short term cash that developers throw in their face to gain approval, but then balk when that doesn't come close to covering the burdens to local government of the development. I wonder how many members of the county commission that voted against the school budget were also in favor of some of the poorly planned, poorly built and very densely populated projects that have gone up around the county.

Spring Hill Buys GM regardless of Mexican Investment

Spring Hill recently agreed to purchase Chevrolet vehicles after the local GM dealer agreed to match the price offered by Dodge. While it seems important that Spring Hill should support GM, I would say that goes only so far as GM is willing to support Spring Hill. The automaker's recent announcement that it would continue to invest and create jobs at a Mexican plant to the detriment of the Spring Hill plant is frustrating to say the least. Spring Hill indeed could have retaliated by buying the Dodge vehicles. At this point I'm not sure if the town's recent display of loyalty is likely to be reciprocated by GM, a company that borrowed millions from taxpayers, and is now shipping more of its operations to Mexico. Does it make sense that Nissan and Volkswagen are making big investments in Tennessee that are considered to be profitable while GM turns its back on the State that along with the rest of the country bailed the company out?

Mayor Dimwit Pushes to Make Town Sprawl Hill

After controversial comments made earlier that the town needs to become "builder friendly", Dinwiddie is continuing his push to sell out Spring Hill's rural charm to volume builders by having a luncheon for developers at city hall on Monday. Giving developers a free hand at ruining Spring Hill is not the answer to the GM closure. In fact, the oversupply of housing statewide only hurt GM employees more since some that were returning to Michigan could not sell their homes. And now Dinwiddie wants to add more cheap housing to the city? Larger family homes on large lots might be a help to the city, but I don't think that's what Dinwiddie means by being "builder friendly". Thus, I think we can expect more low square footage starter homes and huge overpriced apartment complexes in the near future, developments by the way that have proven consistently deficient in paying for the government burdens that they create with their own property tax revenue. Now just why is it that the mayor wants developers to build more in a market that is already bulging with supply?

Amid Recession, Obama Socializes Medicine

With home sales stagnant and unemployment rates in double digits, Obama helps ram through an expensive health care bill that offers nothing that will reduce health care costs. Only time will tell how much damage Obamacare will do to the best health care system in the world. Although we possibly could see a drastic decline in quality of care and longer lines and waiting lists for access to care, what we will probably see is that the bill arrived with a lot of fanfare and bragging rights for both sides, but in reality the bill will be little more than a political "flash in the pan". Obama had no choice but to push the bill through, but either way it is a lose-lose situation for Democrats. If the bill had failed, the Obama administration would go into the next election with absolutely NO accomplishments to its credit, but with the bill's approval, voters are blowing the doors off the GOP to get back into the Republican Party, as the Democrats have with the passage of the bill given us their most overt assertion of an agenda of socialism to date. Indubitably the GOP will retake Congress in 1994 fashion this November. If the economy rebounds, Obama perhaps can limp into the 2012 Presidential election on even footing, but if Obamacare inflicts even more financial uncertainty, he himself may have sacrificed his second term on a useless health care bill that is merely symbolic of the leftist leanings of his party.

Lame Duck Bredesen Clueless About Education

Bredesen's insistence on competing for Obama's "Race to the Top" funds and his desire to change higher education funding from enrollment numbers to graduation rates will do nothing more than take the "Dumbing Down of America" trend to a whole new level. Folks, we don't need to "race to the top" to find out that our public high schools are teenage wastelands of zero student and parent accountability coupled with unrealistic expectations of overworked and underpaid teachers so stressed out it is no wonder things like what happened in Knox County and Huntsville occur. Now we are going to pressure colleges to pass through apathetic, irresponsible, partying college students whom professors ought to fail but will now pass in the name of improving graduation rates and increasing the college's budget. Teachers at any level, especially the collegiate level, should NOT have to choose between their professional integrity and their paycheck. I sincerely hope that Bredesen's replacement has more realistic and credible options on how to improve education in the state. Businesses indeed will not locate in a state that just gives away diplomas and degrees to people that don't deserve them. They won't be worth the paper they're printed on.

Where do Both Parties Go From Here?

After the Brown victory in Massachusetts and the President's SOtU address, both parties are scrambling to figure out where they should go from here. Democrats, especially in the House, had been retreating from health care reform, fearful for their jobs with their evaluations coming up in November (i.e. the 2010 midterm election), until the President took up his role as chief of party and specifically chastized Democrats for doing so. Republicans are enjoying their newfound popularity as the party of opposition and outrage over the administration's intrusive health care plan and anemic attempts to revive the economy, but seem equally as ambivalent as Democrats about the idea of compromise, and what direction to take next. Coming together to restart the economy and create more jobs would be a step in the right direction for both parties. Clinton and the Republicans were able to share credit for such things as ending AFDC and creating government surpluses, but that was only after the 1994 wake up call. The blue collar conservatives are still wondering if they can trust a party that still refuses to embrace the common sense Reagan populism espoused by people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, and Democrats seem unable to break away from their liberal base and reach out to the non-union middle class. President Obama criticized the agenda of the previous 8 years by saying, "Let's try common sense for a change" but so far neither party has embraced the idea.

Pretty Pol Palin Pushes Populist Power

Palin's rogue Republican reputation has become so popular that a military base feared one of her book signings there would become a platform for massive protesting against the administration of the Commander-in-Chief. Like many conservatives, I am somewhat ambivalent in my attitude toward Palin and her version of why the McCain camp fell apart, and why she did not take the press to task while they were trashing her ostensibly for her lack of knowledge on foreign affairs and her affinity for expensive clothes, when in reality the left was destroying her because they were absolutely terrified of her populist appeal. Palin may not be the next Ronald Reagan, but she is the only politician out there right now standing up for the "God and Gun" crowd. Contrary to Newsweek's comment that Palin is "bad for the GOP", I tend to believe that anyone that stands up for our first amendment rights to assemble and worship as we choose, and anyone that stands up for our second amendment right to bear arms, and anyone that stands up for the sanctity of life, is...well, since no one else is doing it...is....Sarah Palin.

Poll Shows Obama Taking Us Down Wrong Track?

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that a majority of Americans think the country is going down the wrong track. The poll is surprising considering other indicators that the economy is pulling out of recession. I believe what the poll is showing is that even though some indicators are slightly improving, they are minuscule in comparison with the massive amounts of government money recently injected into the economy, thus many economists are uncertain about the longevity of the recovery. As taxpayers we don't seem to be getting a lot of bang for the buck. Unemployment remains near 10%, and the health care bill has stalled, endangered not by the minority Republicans as much as by bickering between moderate and liberal Democrats.

9/11 Community Fair Celebrates Local Government

The Rutherford County Sheriff's Department pulled off another great 9/11 festival. Citizens got to check out displays from a variety of government agencies. Lavergne's police department always has the coolest vehicles and equipment, but then again, being right across the state line from the 'hood, they probably need all of it. The US Army National Guard had a fully operational helicopter that took off for the spectators, as well as Vanderbilt's hospital wing chopper. To remember the 9/11 victims, local mayors and state legislators individually rang a bell while a huge contingent of motorcycle riding POW/MIA's looked on. This is one of my favorite community events, where we get to see how our tax dollars are spent and, though opposing the massive expansion of useless federal government, can appreciate the protection of the U.S. military and the practical amenities afforded by local and state government that impact us every day. And while the MPD might have had a problem with one of its canines last week, I must say that the mounted patrol's horses were some of the most docile mounts I've seen. Kids were walking all around them and petting all over them, and they seemed to like all the attention. The county also had some of their search and rescue German Shepherds that were kid-friendly.

Opah Greek Grill

I visited this establishment and freely recommend it to anyone. The sandwiches are huge and delicious. You'll get fat, hot pita bread filled with tasty meat, onions, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, feta cheese, and cucumber or ranch dressing, accompanied by rice, hummus, Greek salad or fries, all for a low combo price. Located near the Old Fort Wal-Mart, try it out. This strip mall is located in a part of town that has been developed for a long time, so it's a smart growth choice for Greek cuisine.

From "White Only" to "No Gun Owners"--Restaurants Poised to Discriminate

The restaurant industry in Tennessee, having lost out after lobbying the legislature not to lift restrictions to the hangun carry permit, now plans to pressure restaurants to post "No legal guns" signs on their doors. Not only does the posting of this sign make permit holders feel like African-Americans walking by a restaurant that has a sign that reads "White Only", but restaurants that follow their lobby organization's desires will stand to lose thousands of dollars in revenue. In this time of economic uncertainty, when so many American families are cutting back on the luxury of eating out, can restaurants really afford to tell a large segment of the population, "You aren't welcome!"?