#native Tennessean here

[starrynightsforever]

I’m absolutely NOT tagging this fic or the fandom it’s from, but to the fic author that included a “TW: Nashville” warning on your reader self-insert: how does it feel to have your third eye wide the fuck open???

[rjzimmerman]

These ‘Trash Trees’ Are Actually a Banquet for Wildlife. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times Op-Ed from Margaret Renkl:

Hackberries are native to Alabama, where I grew up, but I was a child born of the piney woods, and I don’t recall ever noticing a single hackberry in my youth. The trees also grow in South Carolina, where I went to graduate school, but they didn’t register with me there, either. I was a newly transplanted Tennessean before I learned about “trash trees,” as people here call them.

The common hackberry is widespread from New England across to the Dakotas and down through the Midwest and Upper South. The Southern hackberry, a species also known as the sugarberry, blankets the Southeast down through Florida and west into Texas and northeastern Mexico. The two species overlap — and sometimes self-hybridize — in Tennessee. The Nashville naturalist Joanna Brichetto, author of the new book “This Is How a Robin Drinks: Essays on Urban Nature,” calls Nashville “the hackberry capital of the world.”

I don’t know if people call them trash trees in other places, but hackberries are widely disdained in the hackberry capital of the world. Their bark is a rough swath of warts. Their pocked, wrinkled, gall-infested leaves always look a little sick. In spring, their flowers drop to the ground and cover the sidewalks, and in fall their berrylike drupes do the same, without any gorgeous fall color to compensate for the mess.

One of the hackberries’ least desirable characteristics is not, strictly speaking, a feature of the trees themselves. Hackberries are targeted by the invasive Asian woolly hackberry aphid, which like all aphids excretes a sticky form of waste called honeydew. In wet summers, rain washes the honeydew away, but in dry years, the honeydew can accumulate and promote the growth of a soot-colored mold on whatever — car, sidewalk, patio furniture — happens to lie beneath the branches of a hackberry tree. “The mold is absolutely harmless,” Ms. Brichetto said when I asked her about it, “but people freak out.”

Unluckiest of all for a tree trying to survive the built human environment, hackberries have a growing habit that also freaks people out. Hackberries can grow giant horizontal branches that sprawl out across great expanses. Left unpruned, those heavy old limbs sometimes drop onto houses during storms.

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By now you’re thinking, “Yeah, that’s totally a trash tree.” I spent my first years here thinking the same thing.

But then, one fall, I started noticing something about those drupes and those gnarly, pitiful-looking leaves: They were feeding a vast array of my wild neighbors at a time when everybody desperately needs to eat. The locals need to fatten up for the cold winter ahead. The migrators need to fatten up for their long journey.

The hackberry is the host plant for dozens of lepidoptera species: 49 here in Middle Tennessee, according to Ms. Brichetto. Butterflies who use hackberries as a nursery include the tawny emperor, the question mark, the mourning cloak and, of course, the beautiful hackberry emperor. It’s impossible not to love a hackberry emperor butterfly. These gentle creatures will land on your skin to partake of the salt and other minerals in your sweat. The behavior is called puddling, and many butterfly species can be found puddling in the mud. Hackberry emperors will puddle right on your hand.

Combine all the juicy caterpillars dining on hackberry leaves and all the tiny, protein-packed bugs inhabiting the galls and all the fruit the hackberry itself produces, and it becomes clear that a hackberry tree is a banquet set with something for everybody. Including us.

[bad-moon--rising]

“What surrounds us we endure better for giving it a name – and moving on.” ~ Emil Cioran

Lucian Robert Doyle

Nicknames: Lucky (absolutely what he always uses because he fully believes his first name is the worst one possible for a werewolf but it's a family name so he's stuck with that)

Magic Status: Werewolf (born and out) & cursed (not public knowledge)

Nationality: American

Ethnicity: White

Accent: Southern, specifically Tennessean inland.

Height: 5′11"

Build: Athletic but pretty average.

Complexion: A bit tanned naturally, gets lighter in the winter when he's not outside all the time.

Eye Color: Hazel

Hair Color/Length/Style: Dark brown/chestnut, wavy and messy, perpetually messy in fact. Stays a little short but is thick so styling is really just a concept rather than accomplished. Annoyingly fluffy after it dries.

Tattoos: Homemade linework bumblebee on his left wrist done by Angel when they were dating and a sparrow skull outline on his right for his ex-fiance back home, West. Black and white stylized mountain tattoo on his right shoulder, with coordinate numbers that match his hometown. Sound wave tattoo on his left forearm from a very important song. Black and white leaves and thorns along the back of his neck- it's a common design with his pack.

Piercings: At one point he had a septum piecing but he hasn't worn that in a few years. Has two cartilage piercings in each ear.

Daily Jewelry: Wears either black or gold studs in his ears, and a gold ring in a woven thorns design on a chain around his neck. (apparently enchanted since he never seems to lose it even during shifts)

What would you find if you Googled them? 

Practically everything. He was backup singer, guitarist, and eventually front man to the now broken band South of Midnight; so his personal info isn't all that personal. You could hit that up on practically a dozen old fan sites or even the band wiki if you wanted.

This also means his outing as a werewolf is public knowledge as well, since it happened at a concert. All of this was roughly around 2017-2021. Since then though the last note of public information online was that he practically disappeared.

He does have a Twitter and Insta account now, but it's separate from his old ones and just something he uses on occasion because he knows a few of his extended family still check on him through it rather than contact him.

His curse is not publicly known.

What natives would know about them?

Not much the general public doesn't know, since he's not been in town long. The Magicks who can sense that sort of thing would know he's a werewolf, even if they didn't have knowledge of his music career.

Works at The Court of Miracles as a bartender, musician and occasionally sings.

Manager at Swynlake Cinema. (Business info here)

Other:

He seems friendly enough, but due to his curse he has a strange air about him, and honestly little things always seem to be going wrong for other people whenever he's around. (Bad luck affliction on other people, his own luck always increasingly better in comparison - this is widely up the other mun the degree of effects but nothing too widespread or destructive.)

His wolf form has a solid grey coat without any markings other than some darker tones at the ends of his limbs and along his shoulder scruff.

[thelensofyashunews]

COREY KENT RAISES A BLACK BANDANA

 Sony Music Nashville artist Corey Kent has spent more than 15 years cutting his own path through a tangled wilderness of stumbles and setbacks … and never once come close to waving a white flag. The result…his sophomore album, Black Bandana, named a “Best Album” by NPR’s All Songs Considered withRolling Stone noting his “charismatic vocals lift every song.” The platinum-selling Kent will kick off his headlining Black Bandana Tour on Sept. 21.

Kent also surprised fans today with the release of a music video for his current single, “Now or Never” featuringLauren Alaina. The Tennessean calls the track a “steel guitar-aided ‘80s-style power ballad” and the video captures that spirit with the duo delivering angst and drama in the clip.

Title track “Black Bandana” helped set the tone for the album Billboard calls, “music for those whose lives have been seasoned by rocky times." Co-written with Rocky Block, Jordan Dozzi, and Brett Tyler, the slow-burning call to stand your ground pairs tender country-rock reverence with a big-picture mindset, helping tie all of Kent’s struggle, success, and plans for the future together. The album was almost finished when he wrote it, Kent says, but he was happy it “derailed” the project.

“It encapsulates the journey. The reason we’re here is because we didn’t give up, and the whole record is a call to action against all odds,” he explains. “When the going gets tough and everybody quits, you be the one that stays the course and never gives up. I think there’s a lot of people that relate with that.”

Co-writing six of Black Bandana’s 10 songs, what Kent ultimately wanted was to mix themes of integrity, resilience and family with a sonic setting befitting the mission. Finding the midway point between cinematic electric guitars and heart-pounding drums meet a warm, gravel-road rasp, as Kent brings classic rock into the present tense. 

Other tracks fuse that “wave of black bandana” call to action with Kent’s let-it-ride mentality. The dark and smoky soul of “Ain’t Gonna Lie” kicks the album off with a rough-edged ‘70s rock spirit for a tune that on the surface, finds a guy fessing up about the damage to his broken heart. But really, it’s another call to be unapologetically honest, in whatever you stand for.

Tunes like “Damn Good Country Song” beg for a chance to get destroyed by love, matching Kent’s tender growl with a bare minimum of back alley R&B production – just enough to make the torchy track strut. And while previously released  “Never Ready” emerges as a fully-realized full-circle ballad, with Kent acknowledging the fleeting nature of our most precious blessings, tracks like current single “Now or Never (feat. Lauren Alaina)” seek to strike while the romantic iron is hot – a seize-the-moment power duet built on orchestral “’80s hair metal ballad vibes.”

“Break Like That” smolders with a singalong promise of fidelity, and while “Rust” tributes a love that will weather the elements, tracks like “Nothing But Neon” and “This Heart” sway with somber classic rock heartache.

A Bixby, Oklahoma native now based in Dallas, the proud husband and father has become a decorated artist on the rise, growing from humble heartland roots into a Platinum certified Number One hit maker with 950 million career streams, and a black bandana on his neck. But today, that Black Bandana is more than an accessory – and not just the title track of his sophomore major-label album, which Music Row calls, “gently but unrelentingly uplifting.” It’s his rally cry.

“It started from riding motorcycles and wanting something over your face so you didn’t swallow a bug,” the singer-songwriter says. “But then it turned into a staple I wear on stage, and then a symbol of the path through my career, and life. Through all the ups and downs, the one constant thing was this relentless hope – this relentless pursuit of believing that if I don’t give up, I can get where I’m going.”

With a self-built story that has seen success and disaster, keeping that belief wasn’t always easy – but it’s been paying off. Rising from the vibrant Red Dirt country scene as the embodiment of authenticity, Kent set his sights on Nashville as a teen, bringing his self-penned catalog of country-rock anthems with him. But after the pandemic coincided with the loss of his first publishing deal, Kent was forced to move to Texas and get a job on a paving crew to pay the bills, yet he stubbornly refused to call music quits. Honky-tonks and dancehalls on both sides of the Red River became his stomping ground, and slowly but surely, the black bandana spirit grew.

Fast forward a few years and the hit single “Wild As Her” proved he was right all along. An untamed tribute to a free-spirited stunner, the track re-invigorated Kent’s career as a now Double-Platinum-certified No. 1 at country radio, and the lead single off his major label album debut, Blacktop. Despite never cracking country radio’s Top 40, Kent’s trust-your-gut second single “Something’s Gonna Kill Me” went Gold (and is now approaching Platinum status), proving his message was connecting. And momentum kept building, with Kent hitting the road alongside Jason Aldean, Ashley McBryde, Parker McCollum and more. Next-big-thing accolades came in from CMT, Opry Next Stage and more, but even as Kent became the most played new artist on country radio for all of 2023, he kept the underdog, who-cares-about-conventional-wisdom mentality. And so did his fans.

For Kent, the point was that his fans have the same independent spirit he does, and he took that lesson into his next chapter. Settled into his ranch in Texas and intent on being fully present as husband and father, while also achieving his dreams, his second album is all about finding balance, keeping clear eyes on what’s important – and waving that Black Bandana for all to see.

“We all face our own demons. We all face our own setbacks, and I hope this record serves as encouragement,” he says. “It would be really easy to lean on the past and go ‘Look at what I’ve done,’ but I’m still excited about the records I’ve yet to create. I’m excited about the shows I haven’t played yet. I’m excited about unlocking new levels of my craft, and writing more songs that people connect with deeply. …I still live for those moments.”

[smarticleparticlesblog]

What in the Hell is Happening in the Tennessee General Assembly?

What a title.

But I think it's necessary--the state of affairs that is currently going down in the Tennessee General Assembly encapsulates some of the most bigotry-motivated, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, and misogynistic nonsense the state has seen in recent years. It's a significant enough problem currently that protests happen nearly once a week across the state, email and phone campaigns against legislation take place every single day, our state's transgender and LGBTQ+ residents are fleeing for their own safety, national organizations are attempting to offer aid where applicable, and it's serious enough that I (someone who passes as straight and who will remain here for as long as I can to continue the fight for those who cannot justify staying) decided off the cuff to make a blog post about it for the first time in two years.

Welcome, if you're new. Welcome back if you've read my thoughts before... but mostly, I'm sorry if you're here because you belong to one of the marginalized and targeted groups being persecuted by the Tennessee GOP. I wish more than anything that I could stop what was happening, but unfortunately it appears that the members of the General Assembly will stop at nothing to drive out every single Tennessean, whether native or transplanted from elsewhere, out of the state permanently. Please know that you matter, that your life matters, that you deserve a life without someone questioning its validity, and you belong wherever you call home.

So, you've read this far. What in the hell is happening in the Tennessee General Assembly? Since the beginning of this legislative session (marking the convening of the two-part 113th General Assembly, which started on January 10, 2023 and will last until May of 2024) a slew of bills and resolutions have been introduced to the respective legislative calendars in both the Tennessee State House of Representatives and the Tennessee State Senate that attack civil rights on a grand scale. These bills range from book censorship in classrooms (a continuation of policy that passed last legislative session requiring public school teachers to seek approval from their respective county school boards for every single book in their classroom libraries, and was copied in several other states, though most notably in Florida), to forcing transgender children to medically de-transition and stop gender affirming care and punish and prohibit doctors from administering gender affirming care to any Tennessee resident under the age of 18 by both traditional and tele-health means (by March of 2024, and was actually marked as the very first bill introduced in the House for this legislative session), to requiring a license to perform in drag (which promises to punish those who perform for tips with a Class A misdemeanor, which receives a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail for those who fail to be granted a license), to a bill that allows county commissioners to refuse the certification or issuance of a marriage license based on differences of ideological or religious beliefs (quoted from the bill as, "a person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage if the person has an objection to solemnizing the marriage based on the person’s conscience or religious beliefs"). The latter bill has the ability to completely gut marriage equality, not even just between non-straight couples, but also between interracial (and, technically, any orientation that could be objected to by the commissioner refusing the marriage certificate).

Was the trigger law that outlawed abortion--with no exceptions--after the overturn of Roe versus Wade back in July not enough of an attack on the rights of Tennesseans? They had to be sure to infringe on the rights of all marginalized demographics across the state... what equality.

That’s a very big, very scary block of text that does not entirely cover everything that the Tennessee GOP is currently attempting to push through the legislature. This legislation comes after a long fight during last session in which the GOP-drawn maps gerrymandered Nashville, which has historically been blue, into three different districts and splitting the vote in favor of a three-way rural Republican win. It worked. It was challenged in our Supreme Court, which sided with the GOP. Similarly drawn maps were struck down by federal courts, stating that the lines were drawn to intentionally exclude specific demographics. Our state's drawn lines remain. Just this morning, the ability and power of Nashville was swindled from under us: the House and Senate voted to decrease the number of people sitting on Metro Council, which serves all of metropolitan Davidson County, to only 20 people. This comes after Metro Council voted against sponsoring the Republican National Convention back in August of 2022.

Also happening today, and in a very odd turnabout of events, is chatter among various news outlets, members of the General Assembly, and citizens of the state regarding uncovered comments made by Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally, a Republican from Oak Ridge, Tennessee who serves Anderson, Knox and Loudon Counties (and has since 1979), on a the public Instagram of a young gay constituent, which included heart and fire emojis alongside general words of encouragement. Not only does the content of the comments cause speculation, but the constituent’s account of the actions included insight that McNally started following him and commenting on his content three years ago, meaning the interaction began while the constituent was still a minor— McNally’s office maintains the interactions were all meant to be innocent. EDIT 3/10/2023: new evidence has also been found that points to McNally having similar interactions with the public pages of locally known drag performers. While many liberal-leaning sources are using the news story as figurative gasoline on a controversial fire regarding hypocrisy, the mostly-silent conservative majority has remained just that... eerily silent on the topic.

The fact of the matter is, McNally has historically spoken out against (a very small handful of) bills that diminish the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, despite voting in favor of similar bills throughout his long tenure in office. He claims to have “friends and family” who belong to the LGBTQ+ community and that he “holds no animosity” toward the community. What's currently happening with the situation is certainly sensationalized (and I do not envy the poor intern who is likely answering phones in a corner of an office that they've been assigned to without any say in the matter), but the larger topic that's been overlooked is the actual impact of this social media discovery: if McNally was a voice of reason as an alleged pseudo-ally, the stakes will only get higher from here. McNally now not only has a party to answer to (one which will likely try to alienate him for his activity or stance on topics concerning LGBTQ+ rights), but also may politically skew his sincerely-held opinions in order to remain in the good graces of the Tennessee GOP. Should he not remain in the good graces of the GOP, they could elect to remove him from his role as Lieutenant Governor of the Senate and replace him with someone who may not reserve the LGBTQ+ community as the sole soft spot in their iron-clad conservative fortress. EDIT 3/13/2023: the Tennessee Star, a (far) right-wing conservative news source has publicly called for McNally’s resignation.

So. What's happening in the Tennessee General Assembly? Other than the complete and intentional assault on civil and human rights that the Tennessee GOP have been waging against nearly two hundred and fifty thousand LGBTQ+ citizens and one and a half million people of color in the state of Tennessee... utter tomfoolery.

Statistics found from the US Census Bureau. Bills referenced found from the Tennessee State Capitol website legislation search function at https://capitol.tn.gov. Sign up for bill calendar updates to keep track of legislation being considered in the Tennessee General Assembly at https://www.capitol.tn.gov/lyris/sclerk.html and https://www.capitol.tn.gov/lyris/hclerk.html. Please consider donating or organizations fighting the good fight against bigotry across the state, including the Tennessee Equality Project (https://www.tnep.org/), the Tennessee chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ALCU) (https://www.aclu-tn.org/), and the Tennessee chapter of the Human Rights Campaign (https://www.hrc.org/in-your-area/tennessee).

Thank you for reading.

[jujuistrulyoutrageous]

in which I am a tennessean ...

Although I haven’t lived in Tennessee my entire life, but for many people here at least, I am considered a native Tennessean. My family moved here in 1992, and other than a 5-year span of living in other states (SC and KY), I’ve been here ever since. It’s absolutely beautiful here with rolling hills of greenery and fields covered in flowers of every color you can think of. My happy place is the…

[creepyscritches]

Flipping thru Netflix and watching trailers when I saw an alt right documentary and watched the first 30 sec of the preview of the conference (bc how bad is the train wreck?) and the VOLUME of my embarrassed groan when the guy says it's in Nashville was only surpassed by the sheer force of my body yeeting out my skeleton to truly sink into my couch w eyes to God asking "Why the fuck is Tennessee consistently so fucking embarrassing and shitty"

[liz-alfos]

Fun fact!! This is not the first time this has happened! The first time we have on record, to my knowledge, there was an earthquake along the New Madrid fault line in the winter of 1811 that caused the river to flow backward! The water flowed into a depression formed when the land subsided after the quakes and created Reelfoot Lake! Hurricane Katrina also reversed the flow for a few hours, but the most impressive instance recently was in 2012, when it ran backwards for a solid 2r hours after hurricane Isaac! Isn't that Neat???

hahahaha STAY SAFE.

[supermodelcats]

Tony Boloney definitely qualifies to be in here. Hes a 1 year old native Tennessean. He is one cool customer

[bluebrine]

ask meme time

tagged in by @a-humble-goblin​! C:

name: i go by Blue here!

nickname: ..... well, Blue again! (or whatever shorthand of my URLs ppl have used in the past... i never was enough of an active poster anywhere to get real nicknames given to me lol)

zodiac: as piscean as a pisces could be! 🐟

height: 5′8 (the shorty of the family.... curse you, 6′5 brother!!)

languages: monolingual english speaker here. shoulda kept up with spanish from high school, but alas :( looking to learn latin for taxonomic purposes someday though!

nationality: american- but more specifically, tennessean! ⛰️ ~good ol’ rocky top...

favorite season: the cool seasons! ^^ fall and winter are the best. the rain and wind of spring is also nice though! (basically anything except the sweaty-ass days of southern summers are alright with me lol)

favorite flower: oh boy. uh. i like a lot of plants... this one’s a toughie! it changes depending on what’s in season tbh. right now its the sweet little things we call ‘field pansies’ around here. they’re one of the first things to catch my attention on these early, sunny spring days

proper name is Veronica peduncularis, or ‘creeping speedwell’. sadly its not native to my area though :(

favorite scent: literally nothing on earth smells better than onions & garlic frying on the stovetop. full-stop. a fool-proof way to lure me into any trap, would 100% work in any situation

favorite fictional character: this changes depending on what i’m fixating on atm, but i’m on a dishonored kick rn, so it’s my girl lizzie stride! B) i’m always a sucker for mean-ass, violent gang ladies and she checks every box on my list tbh (and those TEETH. woof)

coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: hot chocolate babey!! B) i’m just here for tasty sweet drinks- i don’t care for tea or coffee at all. i have to add an ungodly amount of cream & sugar anyway to make ‘em drinkable. (also, caffeine literally does nothing to wake me up. its a cruel fate for my eternally tired self)

average sleep: i’m on a senior citizen’s sleep schedule... usually in bed by 9:30-11:00, & up at 5:00-6:00. a big leap from my early days of bed at 4 am, and pulling all-nighters..... i don’t think i could physically do that nowadays lmao

dogs or cats: hmm, cats slightly more probably? they’re more relaxing to be around, which is nice. love both though! (i have no pets atm, but looking to adopt some pigeons in the future! 🕊)

my old cat louie was my baby though. not sure any other cat can one-up his grumpy ass, but one day i’d like to have another cat with me. (he looks polite here but he was a total butthole, don’t be fooled!!)

number of blankets: 1 (one) big-ass weighted comforter (20 lbs)

dream trip: i would love to see the pacific ocean some day! 🌊

blog established: uh, i know it was the summer before i started high school...? oh god. i was a baby. who let me on here

random fact: the american persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) is a tree with fruit so popular in its native ecosystem, that it also goes by such delightful names as possum apples, deer candy, or sugar plums!

(bonus tmi fact: most of the seeds i’m propagating this year were found as the aftermath to some happy possum or coyote’s fall meal. but hey, according to this paper, the digestive process of these mammals actually boosts germination rates! go nature)

current time: 3:30 pm! a lovely overcast afternoon on this fine weekend of mine

favorite musical artists: Ulvesang, Black Hill, The Crane Wives, The Oh Hellos (... my favs are really just what i’ve been listening to recently lmao)

stuck in my head: gimme gimme gimme! by ABBA :y

last movie i saw: hmm... that would have to be knives out! saw it with em after we were gonna go laugh at cats, but missed it by like 2 days :( knives out was fun tho! hadn’t been to an actual theatre for a while, so the experience was nice. got to split one of those giant buckets of grease-corn, which was amazing

last thing i googled: .... technically, it was ‘fish emoji’ for this post. before that it was ‘american wild persimmon seed germination’ because i just got mine outta the fridge and into the pots for the spring! hope to have an ok amount sprout... i’d like to see these guys fruiting in a few years! (2 seeds per section- assuming a success rate of 25%, i might get 12 trees out of these! we will see)

lucky number: don’t really have one? i like the evenness of 8, but i don’t take any real stock in lucky numbers

currently wearing: the usual- tank top with comfy shorts!

dream job: working on my paleontology degree right now- trying to make this dream real soon! 🦕

favorite foods: pasta with cream sauces. literally anything that fits that definition is my fav. best combo i’ve made so far is something with grilled chicken, sautéed mushrooms + onions + garlic, and a cream sauce with spinach /chef’s kiss/

instruments: none! ain’t got a musical bone in my entire body 

favorite song: i possibly can’t pick this, but i’m listening to Curses by The Crane Wives right now!

[rt8815]

Rant

Virginia, which I consider one of my home states and in which I currently reside, currently has a wave of counties applying to become 2A sanctuary counties.

Yeah, you read that correctly: 2nd Amendment sanctuary counties.

In case you wanted to know just how fucked up it is living here.

Segwaying into another touchy subject...the people pushing for 2A sanctuary status are the same people who squawk about "illegal aliens" and all that nastiness because they legit refuse to see how fucking hypocritical it is to deny refuge to people fleeing for their lives, considering how none of us would be here if not for the forced occupation of Native land, as well as the violence, abuse, and cultural erasure our white ancestors inflicted on Native people.*

So, to recap: guns are more important to some of my neighbors than the health and safety our fellow Americans and that of people adopting this country as their new home. It's easier to do since they've been brainwashed not to consider black and brown people as human.

*Many if not most "native" Virginians (and Carolinians, Tennesseans, Kentuckians, etc.), myself included, exist as a direct albeit distant result of the systematic and deliberate breeding out of entire Native tribes. Like I said, America is a fucked up place to live.

[sensitivesiren]

native tennessean here can confirm

are you from heaven because tennessee

[tndda]

New Director of Provider Supports and Services

Please join us in welcoming our new team member, Scott Mullins, to the Program Operations Division in the Central Office here at DIDD.  Scott will serve in the role of Director of Provider Supports and Services.  In this role, Scott will be generally responsible for ensuring the provider network has the tools and resources to be successful. Scott will be the Central Office liaison to the regional Provider Support teams as they work to provide support and technical assistance to the provider network.  There will be a focus on systemic remediation as it relates to performance measures,  HCBS Settings Rule, etc. Scott will also be working with stakeholders as it relates to provider roles and responsibilities in Therap.  Scott is a native Tennessean from Greeneville, TN.  He first attended East Tennessee State University, where he received a Bachelor’s degree, before moving to Nashville in order to pursue a Master’s degree at Vanderbilt University.  While attending ETSU, Scott began working as a DSP with Dawn of Hope.  After graduating from Vanderbilt, Scott continued working with people with IDD at Community Connections, where he served as an ISC, and then later as the Nashville Area Director.  During his free time, Scott enjoys being with his wife, two children, two cats, and dog.  He also likes cooking, hiking at parks, and practicing software development. 

[greatdarkwonder]

Review: Brittany Kennell, “I Ain’t A Saint”

Martin reviews the latest album from Brittany Kennell, "I Ain't a Saint" - check it out here.

On the surface, this album has all the hallmarks of being just another run-of-the-mill Nashville pop-country affair, but dig a little deeper and take some time to listen, and you’ll find it to be quite the contrary.  “I Ain’t A Saint” is undeniably a new-country album, and for the uninitiated, could easily be perceived as the work of an up-and-coming native Tennessean – thanks in part to the…

[your-dietician]

IndyCar driver Josef Newgarden to speak to Nashville Sports Council

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/nascar/indycar-driver-josef-newgarden-to-speak-to-nashville-sports-council/

IndyCar driver Josef Newgarden to speak to Nashville Sports Council

Nashville IndyCar driver Josef Newgarden, coming off his first win of the season and headed into the inaugural Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, will be the featured guest speaker July 13 at the Nashville Sports Council’s monthly luncheon.

Tickets for the 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. event at Nissan Stadium are available at bit.ly/3ywDjbd. Doors open at 11 a.m.

Newgarden picked up his 19th career win July 4 at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. It snapped a nine-race losing streak for Newgarden and Team Penske, the winningest team in IndyCar series history.

Because the next race — Honda Indy Toronto — on the schedule was canceled for the second straight year due to COVID-19, the Aug. 8 Music City Grand Prix on the streets of downtown is next on the calendar.

“We’ve got some confidence with this win so I feel like we can make it all happen,” Newgarden told Autoweek. “I always believe, I’ve told these guys, I believe we can win any race we go into. Nashville would be a dream to have a great result.”

Chase McCabe of The Game 102.5-FM will moderate the discussion.

“The timing couldn’t be better for Josef to speak in his hometown coming off such a dominant win at Mid-Ohio,” McCabe said. “You can tell the team has confidence right now. I can already tell you that they’ll use that momentum from the win on top of the fact that Josef is looking for a win at his home track.” 

Music City Grand Prix:IndyCar Music City Grand Prix pole trophy will honor late driver Bryan Clauson

Nashville sports:Nashville is only U.S. city on SportsPro’s ‘Seven sports event destinations to watch’

Newgarden was tabbed by Music City Grand Prix officials as brand ambassador and spokesperson for the race.

“Anytime you have an inaugural event and you have someone of Josef’s stature and prominence in the sport from here, I certainly think that adds a great piece to the event,” Nashville Sports Council president and CEO Scott Ramsey said. “I think for all the fans that are going to attend the event, especially those from Middle Tennessee, it would be great to see the hometown guy come out in front.”

Those who have signed up to volunteer for the Music City Grand Prix will receive free admission to the luncheon.

Music City Grand Prix single-day tickets on sale

Speaking of the Music City Grand Prix, single-day tickets for the three-day event (Aug. 6-8) went on sale to the general public Tuesday. 

Tickets are available by visiting musiccitygp.com/tickets, ticketmaster.com or by calling the Tennessee Titans ticket office at 615-565-4650. Prices are $35 Aug. 6, $65 Aug. 7 and $85 Aug. 8.

With a majority of the reserved grandstands sold out (including grandstands 1, 2, 3, 4, 9 and 10), a limited amount of single-day reserved grandstand and general admission tickets will be available in grandstands 7 and 8 and the recently-added grandstand 11.

Sterling Marlin writing book

Two-time Daytona 500 champion Sterling Marlin is writing an autobiography.

It will go back to his time growing up on a farm in Columbia, being a star quarterback on the Spring Hill football team and how he got into racing at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.

Marlin, who celebrated his 64th birthday June 30, said he should be finished with the book in a few months.

In 1995 retired Tennessean columnist Larry Woody wrote “Pure Sterling: The Sterling Marlin Story,” which focused on Marlin’s racing career.

Marlin retired from the NASCAR Cup Series in 2009 and returned to Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway where he raced in the Pro Late Model series through 2019.

Belmont’s Egekeze signs another pro deal

Former Belmont basketball star Amanze Egekeze signed a pro contract recently with Donar Groningen in Holland.

The 6-foot-8 forward from Lake in the Hills, Illinois, averaged 10.8 points and 4.1 rebounds per game for Gries Oberhoffen in France this past season.

Egekeze was a 2018 All-Ohio Valley Conference selection at Belmont. He helped lead the Bruins to a total of 89 victories and three conference championships.

Former Tennessean sports editor Larry Taft, five others going into sports writers hall of fame

Six individuals will be inducted into the Tennessee Sports Writers Association on Thursday. 

Three are from the 2021 class — Maurice Patton, Larry Taft and George Starr — and three are from the 2020 class — Tommy Bryan, Teresa Walker and Mark Wiedmer.

The 2020 induction was canceled due to COVID-19.

Patton worked at the Review Appeal in Franklin, The Tennessean and the Columbia Daily Herald before launching his own web site.

Taft worked at the Knoxville News-Sentinel and the Democrat-Union in Lawrenceburg before joining The Tennessean. He became the sports editor at The Tennessean in 2007. He also served as director of media relations for the TSSAA.

Bryan started as a sports writer for the Lebanon Democrat in 1977 and from1981-2003 was owner and publisher of the Wilson World.

Walker began her career in 1987 and has been the Associated Press sports editor based in Nashville since 1992.

Ex-TSU star Devin Wilson named arena league player of the week

Former Pope John Paul II and Tennessee State receiver Devin Wilson was named the National Arena League offensive player of the week Tuesday.

Wilson, who plays for the Jacksonville Sharks, had nine catches for 138 yards and four touchdowns in a 52-41 loss to the Orlando Predators.

Wilson is Jacksonville’s leading receiver on the season with 27 catches for 254 yards and five touchdowns.

DuPont names 2021 hall of fame class

Former DuPont track and field star John Flatt and his daughter Traci, a three-sport star, are in the 2021 DuPont All-Sports Hall of Fame class along with former basketball star James Ray Pugh and former football star Pete Bush, who went on to coach at the school.

John Flatt, who died in 1997, set the Midstate record in the pole vault with a mark of 11-foot-5½-inches. He broke the record the following spring at 12-1.

Traci Flatt was a volleyball, basketball and softball standout (1983-85).

Pugh was a starter on the 1953 state championship basketball team. He had 23 points and 13 rebounds in the title game and went on to star at Belmont.

Bush was one of the top tight ends in Nashville (1957-59). After an outstanding career at Austin Peay Bush began his coaching career at Goodlettsville before returning to DuPont in 1974 where he remained until the school closed in 1986.

Margie Stoll inducted into Senior Olympics Hall of Fame

Margie Stoll of Nashville was inducted into the Tennessee State Senior Olympics Hall of Fame on June 29.

Stoll has spent the last 20 years competing in the annual event. This year she set an 80-85 age group record for the Tennessee Senior Olympics in each of the six events she entered. 

Stoll also is in the USATF Masters Hall of Fame.

Others in the 2021 Tennessee Senior Olympics Hall of Fame class: Joe Sykes (Clarksville), Wayne Matthews (Crossville) and Joyce Manis (Kingsport).

Nashville’s parks and recreation receive low ranking

July is National Parks and Recreation Month and Nashville did not fare well in Wallethub’s “2021’s Best & Worst Cities for Recreation.”

The Music City was 81st out of the 100 cities in the ranking, which was based on 48 metrics connected to the benefits of recreational activities.

Living costs, the quality of parks, the accessibility of entertainment and recreational facilities and the weather were taken into account.

Memphis was 90th. 

The top five cities: Orlando, Florida; Las Vegas; San Diego; Cincinnati; Tampa, Florida.

The bottom five: Fort Wayne, Indiana; Chula Vista, California; Garland, Texas; Durham, North Carolina; Oakland, California.

Crigger promoted to fulltime role at Austin Peay

Austin Peay graduate Casey Crigger was recently named assistant director of athletics communications.

The Johnson City native started out as manager on the baseball team and spent the last four years as a member of the athletics communications staff as a student and graduate student.

He will remain the department’s primary athletics communications contact for women’s soccer and women’s basketball and will move into a secondary role for the Austin Peay football program.

Harold Eller Pro-Am registration deadline approaching

The deadline to register for the Tennessee Golf Association Harold Eller Pro-Am Tournament is July 21 at 5 p.m..

The tournament is July 26-27 at Old Hickory Country Club. Register at bit.ly/3wqKHn3.

Pro Tracy Wilkins along with armatures Gary Slayden, Kenny Wilson and Eric Emery tied pro Chase Harris and armatures Buzz Fly, Scotty Hudson and Matt Cooper for the 2020 championship at  26-under.

Registration opens July 14 for Bass Pro Shops U.S. Qualifier

Registration for the biggest amateur fishing tournament ever on Old Hickory Lake opens July 14 for 24 hours only.

Registration for the Sept. 11 Bass Pro Shops U.S. Open Qualifier will be available at basspro.com/usopen.

The tournament with a guaranteed purse of $4.3 million is one of eight national qualifying events.

The top 40 finishers at the Old Hickory qualifier will be eligible to fish the National Championship in November at Big Cedar Lodge on Table Rock Lake in Missouri.

If you have an item for Midstate Chatter contact Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter.

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The Blount Conspiracy

Did former President Trump’s remarks to the crowd that subsequently stormed the Capitol in January cross the legal boundary that separates speaking intemperately and unwisely from actually fomenting insurrection?  I myself am not a lawyer, but fifty-four out of our hundred senators actually do have law degrees and should therefore be more than qualified to answer that question…and especially since they were all present to witness the events under consideration! So, assuming the senators vote honestly and without allowing political affiliation to cloud their vision, we should have the answer soon enough.

In an obvious way, the President’s trial begs to be compared with the three previous presidential impeachment trials our country has seen: the trials in the Senate of Andrew Johnson in 1868, of Bill Clinton in 1999, and of President Trump himself in 2020. But less well known is that the House has in the course of our nation’s history voted, not four times, but twenty-one times, to impeach individuals and thus to send them over to be tried in the Senate for “treason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” They were a varied lot, the accused: three presidents, fifteen federal judges (of whom, one Supreme Court justice), one cabinet official, and one senator. That’s twenty…and President Trump’s trial this week makes twenty-one. And these trials, which ended up with eight guilty verdicts and eight acquittals, together constitute the real precedent for this week’s proceedings. (Those verdicts add up to sixteen because in one instance—see below—the charges were dismissed and in three cases the accused individuals chose to resign from office before they could be tried.)

Given the degree to which impeachment has been a topic for discussion in our nation for the last two years, it’s amazing to me how rarely anyone mentions the impeachments not involving presidents. (The only exception would be the 1876 impeachment of William W. Belknap, the Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant who was charged with accepting payments in exchange for official appointments and whose case was actually mentioned several times this week on the floor of the Senate.) This week, I would like to write about the first of them all, however, and in my usual way to invite readers to look into the future by looking into the past and considering the strange case of Senator William Blount of Tennessee (1749–1800).

The whole matter had to do with something now called the Blount Conspiracy, a huge to-do in the last decade of the eighteenth century and now yet another important event in American history more or less completely forgotten by almost all. It was, however, a very big deal in its day. When Abigail Adams, our nation’s second First Lady, suggested in public that she regretted that Congress lacked the ability to resolve the matter with a guillotine, she clearly had Senator Blount’s neck in mind as she spoke.

William Blount was not a nobody. He signed the Constitution. He was the sole governor of the “Southwest Territory” that later joined the union as the State of Tennessee. He was one of Tennessee’s first two senators, coming to the Senate in 1796. He was also heavily into real estate, eventually owning about 2.5 million acres in his home state and in the adjoining territory then known as Trans-Appalachia and today covering parts of Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. (That there were native Americans on the scene to whom the land belonged in every sense except the strictly legal one invented by the Colonials themselves seems to have occurred to no one at all.) The problem—for Blount and his brothers—was that much of the land had been purchased on credit. That, in and of itself, wouldn’t have been a problem if the price of land hadn’t collapsed when war broke out between Great Britain and Spain the same year that Blount entered the Senate. The crucial detail here is that the Treaty of 1783 that ended the American Revolution guaranteed that Americans would henceforth be able to navigate the Mississippi freely, a commercial boon that was obviously going to collapse if Britain was defeated by Spain, which eventuality would have made the Blounts’ real estate dramatically less valuable. And so Blount, eager to avoid bankruptcy, chose to act daringly and wholly extra-legally by conspiring on his own with the British to assist the latter in defeating Spain. Part of the plan involved invading Spanish Louisiana. And another part involved abetting British plans to invade Spanish Florida.

There is a lot here to digest. For one thing, who ever heard of Spanish Louisiana? Didn’t our nation acquire Louisiana (along with another 750,000 square miles of what today is most of the American Midwest) as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, one of President Thomas Jefferson’s greatest accomplishments while in office? So the answer is that, yes, that is what happened. But Louisiana itself went through different colonialist phases  and was indeed part of the Spanish Empire after Spain acquired it from France in 1762 as part of the Treaty of Fontainebleau that was signed towards the end of the Seven Year’s War (another conflict remembered today by none). But Spain didn’t hold onto Louisiana for long, ceding it back to France in 1802, just in time for the United States to purchase it—and another roughly half billion acres—for all of fifteen million dollars. But when Senator Blount was trying to keep the price of land from collapsing even further, Spain was in control of present-day Louisiana.

Blount’s extra-legal negotiations with the British came out in in July of 1797 when a letter written by Blount was discovered and read aloud in the Senate. When Thomas Jefferson, then the nation’s Vice President under John Adams, asked for an explanation, Blount asked for some time to consult his papers. The Senate gave him twenty-four hours. That happened on July 3. On July 4, the twenty-first anniversary of American independence, Blount failed to appear and it became known that he had fled Washington. On July 8, the Senate voted 25 to 1 to expel him from the Senate for acting contrary to the nation’s best interests by secretly negotiating with a foreign power. Later that month, a federal district court judge issued a warrant for Blount’s arrest.

And then, on January 28, 1798, the House approved five articles of impeachment against Blount, including conspiracy to violate both the Neutrality Act of 1794 (that made it illegal for an American citizen to wage war against a country at peace with the United States) and the Treaty of San Lorenzo, also called Pinckney’s Treaty, that defined the border between the United States and Spanish Florida. (The plan Blount hatched with his British handlers involved, among other things, invading Pensacola.) Seven “managers” were duly chosen to argue the case in the Senate. Almost a year of in-house wrangling followed, during the course of which Blount steadfastly refused to return to Washington. And then, finally, the Senate convened as a Court of Impeachment on December 17, 1798. (In the meantime, Blount, clearly taking his expulsion from the Senate as a done deal, ran for and was duly elected to the Tennessee Legislature.) For its part, the Senate debated whether it could proceed in the absence of the accused, then decided that it could.

And now we get to the interesting part. Blount’s lawyers argued on two different grounds that the Senate lacked the jurisdiction to try Blount: one, because the phrase in the Constitution allowing for the impeachment of the “President, the Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States” did not mean to include senators (and, indeed, Blount was and is the only member of either the Senate or the House ever to be impeached); and, two, because even if it did have the theoretical right to try a senator, Blount, by virtue of having been expelled from the Senate, was specifically no longer a “civil Officer” of the United States government and was therefore no longer under their jurisdiction.

They apparently made their case effectively. On January 10, the Senate failed to approve a resolution declaring that Blount’s prosecution fell within the Senate’s jurisdiction. Then, on January 11, the Senate voted formally to dismiss Senator Blount’s impeachment, whereupon Vice President Jefferson formally dismissed the case against him.

Blount died a hero to his fellow Tennesseans, but the precise reason his impeachment was dismissed remains a matter of debate. Did the Senate feel that having made him a hero was enough, that they hardly needed to go all the way to making him a martyr? Or was the sense of the Senate simply that the impeachment process exists to remove criminals from positions of authority in the government and that there cannot be any real reason to undertake proceedings against someone no longer holding office? Both arguments are cogent. And both are highly relevant in that both could easily be applied to President Trump. How it can be that William Blount’s name is not on the nation’s tongue these days as the very same issues are debated in the very same Senate—now that, at least to me, is even more of a mystery than the “real” reason, whatever it was, that James Blount was able to break the law with impunity without suffering any consequences at all!

( The portrait reproduced above of Senator Blount is by Washington Bogard Cooper, one of the greatest American portrait painters of the nineteenth century and also a son of Tennessee.)