The 111th session in the Tennessee General Assembly saw many protests over statues, vouchers and Rep. Byrd.
Libraries empower and educate our kids, but Australia’s public libraries are under threat and school libraries are in crisis.
Our vendors have written on knowing, landlords, family, faith, illness, and more. Oh, and we brought back Kid's Corner.
Contributor Board
Cathy Jennings, Chair Tom Wills, Bruce Doeg, Demetria Kalodimos, Ann Bourland
Amanda Haggard • Linda Bailey • Tom Wills • Lauren Cierzan • Joe Nolan • Ridley Wills II • Christine Doeg • Cathy Jennings • Jennifer A. • Vicky B. • Anastasia Safioleas • John H. • Cynthia P.
• David "Clinecasso" C. • Julie B. • Loum O. • Brian H. • Harold B. • Victor J. • Mr. Mysterio • Butch Spirydon
Cathy Jennings • Tom Wills • Joe First
• Andy Shapiro • Michael Reilly • Ann Bourland • Patti George • Linda Miller •
Deborah Narrigan • John Jennings • Barbara Womack • Colleen Kelly • Janet Kerwood • Logan Ebel • Christing Doeg • Laura Birdsall
• Nancy Kirkland • Mary Smith • Andrew Smith • Ellen Fletcher • Anna Katherine Hollingsworth • Michael Chavarria
Will Connelly, Tasha F. Lemley, Steven Samra, and Tom WIlls Contributor Co-Founders
Editorials and features in The Contributor are the perspectives of the authors. Submissions of news, opinion, fiction, art and poetry are welcomed. The Contributor reserves the right to edit any submissions. The Contributor cannot and will not endorse any political candidate. Submissions may be emailed to: editorial@thecontributor.org
Requests to volunteer, donate, or purchase subscriptions can be emailed to: info@thecontributor.org Please email advertising requests to: advertising@thecontributor.org
Mailng Address
The Contributor P.O. Box 332023, Nashville, TN 37203
Editor’s Office: 615.499.6826 Vendor Office: 615.829.6829
Proud Member of:
Printed at:
Follow The Contributor:
Copyright © 2018 The Contributor, Inc. All rights reserved.
BY TOM WILLS, CO-FOUNDER
The paper you just paid for was bought by someone else first, otherwise it wouldn’t exist. That’s how The Contributor works. A vendor who experienced homelessness paid 50 cents for this paper and then sold it to you. By buying it and taking it with you, you’ve just encouraged that vendor to buy another. BOOM! That’s the solution. Now keep reading. This paper has something to say to you.
Street papers provide income for the homeless and initiate a conversation about homelessness and poverty. In 2007, The Contributor founders met at the Nashville Public Library downtown to form one. In a strike of lightning we named it The Contributor to infer that our vendors were “contributors to society,” while their customers could contribute to their work. But, thunder from lighting is always delayed …
It took three years, but Nashville embraced us like no other city in the world. The Contributor became the largest selling street paper per-capita on the globe. And today 50 percent of our six months or longer tenured vendors have found housing. BOOM! The thunder has struck.
The Contributor is a different kind of nonprofit social enterprise. We don’t serve meals or provide emergency shelter. We don’t hire people in poverty to create products or provide a service. Rather, we sell newspapers to homeless people who work for themselves. We train them to sell those papers to you, keep the money they earn, and buy more when they need to replace their stock.
Our biggest fans don’t always get this. Like lightning without the thunder, they see the humanity of the vendor but misunderstand the model. Case in point: In 2013 during a funding crunch, a representative of one of Nashville’s biggest foundations exclaimed, “I’m such a big fan that I never take the paper!” We responded, “Well, that’s why we are in a funding crunch.” BOOM! Thunder was heard. Taking the paper makes our model work — not taking it breaks it. And selling the paper twice doesn’t just fund the paper, it funds housing and change. BOOM! Our vendors report their sales to qualify for subsidized housing and even for standard housing deposits and mortgages. They don’t consider your buying the paper a “donation.” It is a sale. When they sell out, they buy more and build the paper trail of a profitable business. Until making these sales, many of our vendors had never experienced the satisfaction of seeing their investment pay off. And when it does, it liberates! They have become “contributors” to their own destiny. And Nashville has become a city of lightning and thunder. BOOM! Now that you are a SUPPORTER , become an ADVOCATE or a MULTIPLIER You are already a SUPPORTER because you know that taking the paper makes the model work. You bought the paper and you are reading it. Now your vendor is one copy closer to selling out, which is exciting! Now you can become an ADVOCATE when you introduce your friends to your favorite vendor, follow us and share our content on social media, contact us when you witness a vendor in distress or acting out of character, or explain why others should pick up a copy and always take the paper when they support a vendor. And, you can become a MULTIPLIER when you advocate for us AND directly donate to us or become an advertiser or sponsor of The Contributor. Our income stream is made of 50-cent- at-a-time purchases made from our vendors, matched by contributions, ad sales and sponsorships from multipliers like you. Because our vendors are business owners, your donations are seed-money investments in their businesses and multiply in their pockets. Every donated dollar multiplies four-to-seven times as profits in the pockets of our vendors. Thanks for contributing.
El periódico que usted acaba de pagar fue primeramente comprado por alguien mas, de otra manera no existiría. Así es como funciona The Contributor. Un vendedor que está sin hogar pagó 50 centavos por este periódico y después se lo vendió a usted. Al comprarlo y llevarlo con usted, usted animo a este vendedor a comprar otro. BOOM! Esa es la solución. Ahora continúe leyendo. Este periódico tiene algo que decirle. Los periódicos vendidos en la calle proveen ingresos para las personas sin hogar e inicia una conversación sobre lo que es la falta de vivienda y la pobreza. En el 2007, los fundadores de The Contributor se reunieron en una librería pública en Nashville para formar uno. Y como golpe de un rayo, le llamamos The Contributor para dar a entender que nuestros vendedores eran “contribuidores para la sociedad,” mientras que los consumidores podrían contribuir a su trabajo. Pero, el trueno siempre tarda más que el rayo. Nos llevó tres años, pero Nashville nos acogió como ninguna otra ciudad en el mundo. The Contributor se volvió uno de los periódicos de calle más vendido en el globo. Y hoy el 50 por ciento de nuestros seis meses o más de nuestros vendedores titulares han encontrado casa. BOOM! Ha llegado el trueno.
JENNINGSThe Contributor es una empresa social sin fines de lucro muy diferente. Nosotros no servimos comida or proveemos alojo de emergencia. No contratamos gente en pobreza para crear productos or proveer un servicio. En vez, nosotros vendemos periódicos a las personas sin hogar para que ellos trabajen por ellos mismos. Nosotros los entrenamos como vendedores, ellos se quedan el dinero que se ganan, y ellos pueden comprar más cuando necesiten reabastecer su inventario.
Nuestros mas grandes aficionados no entienden esto. Como un rayo sin trueno, ellos ven la humanidad de el vendedor pero no comprenden el modelo. Un ejemplo: En el 2013 durante un evento de recaudación de fondos, uno de los representantes de una de las fundaciones más grandes de Nashville, exclamó: “Soy un gran aficionado, y es por eso que nunca me llevo el periódico.” Al cual nosotros respondimos: “Y es por esa razón por la cual estamos recaudando fondos.” BOOM! Y se escuchó el trueno! El pagar por el periódico y llevárselo hace que nuestro sistema funcione, el no llevarse el periódico rompe nuestro sistema. Y el vender el papel dos veces no da fondos para el periódico, pero da fondos para casas y causa cambio. BOOM! Nuestros vendedores reportan sus ventas para calificar para alojamiento subvencionado y hasta para una casa regular, depósitos e hipotecas. Ellos no consideran el que usted compre el periódico como una “contribución” pero más lo consideran como una venta.
Cuando se les acaba, ellos compran mas y asi logran establecer un negocio rentable. Hasta que lograron hacer estas ventas, muchos de nuestros vendedores nunca habían experimentado el placer de ver una inversión generar ganancias. Y cuando logran hacer esto, da un sentido de Liberación! Ellos se han vuelto contribuidores de su propio destino, y Nashville la ciudad de el trueno y el rayo. BOOM!
Ahora que te has vuelto nuestro SEGUIDOR, vuelve te en un ABOGADO o un MULTIPLICADOR. Ya eres nuestro SEGUIDOR, porque sabes que al llevarte este periódico sabes que esto hace que nuestro modelo funcione. Compraste el papel y lo estas leyendo. Ahora nuestro vendedor está a una copia más cerca de venderlos todos. Que emoción!
Ahora que te has vuelto nuestro ABOGADO cuando presentes a tus amigos a tu vendedor favorito, siguenos y comparte nuestro contenido en social media, contactanos cuando seas testigo de un vendedor actuando de manera extraña o fuera de carácter. O explicale a tus amigos porque ellos deben de llevarse el periódico cuando ayuden a un vendedor.
Te puedes volver un MULTIPLICADOR cuando abogues por nosotros, Y directamente dones a nosotros o te vuelvas un anunciador o patrocinador de The Contributor. Nuestra fuente de ingresos consiste en ventas de 50 centavos hechas por nuestros vendedores, igualadas por contribuciones, venta de anuncios, y patrocinios de multiplicadores como usted. Porque nuestros vendedores son dueños de negocios, las donaciones que den son dinero que es invertido y multiplicado en sus bolsas. Cada dólar donado se multiplica de cuatro a siete veces en la bolsa de nuestros vendedores. Gracias por Contribuir.
The 111th session in the Tennessee General Assembly saw many protests. Activists were attempting to get the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust removed. People were fighting against the school voucher bill. And women fought hard to try and remove Rep. David Byrd, who was accused of sexually abusing students when he was a basketball coach — among many other things.
In February, two young, black activists were arrested and banned from the Capitol while protesting the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general with ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Justin Jones, a Vanderbilt divinty student who’s been protesting at the Capitol for six years, and Jeneisha Harris, a Tennessee State University student and activist, were both handcuffed on their wrists and ankles. The Tennessee Highway Patrol says Jones threw a paper cup of coffee at Speaker of the House Glen Casada and charged Harris “for attempting to push past troopers, yelling, and threatening.”
Harris and Jones have both continued their activism in other ways — Jones ran into several legislators at a restaurant and grilled them on whether they felt their actions in the Capitol met their Christian identities.
“They can kick me out of the Capitol, but they can’t necessarily stop me from talking to them outside in the real world,” Jones says.
In April, five women with Enough Is Enough, a group of women who protested Byrd throughout the session, were arrested after camping out in front of Gov. Bill Lee’s office while attempting to get a statement from him about Byrd. The women, who were all
white, were not banned from the Capitol. They had also been kicked out of a subcommittee in February for sitting and quietly holding signs.
“And we recognized the privilege there,” says Aftyn Behn, one of the women who was arrested with other Byrd protesters. “But we wanted people to know that if they actually let us stay in the Capitol overnight, that we’re here for everyone — for everyone trying to fight against what’s happening in this state.”
Journalists reported a lack of transparency throughout the session — on one occasion after a reporter walked into a budget committee meeting, members left the room and held their meeting off site.
The session wrapped up the evening of May 2 — on that day Casada attempted to keep House Democrats from leaving the chamber. He had state troopers lock the door to keep them in. Casada told legislators that he was well within his bounds to keep them in the chamber until a vote happened. Behn was forcibly removed during the last minutes of the session for screaming at Casada that he should resign.
Democratic leaders called this session, “the worst session in recent state history.”
Th is year, a voucher bill passed after Casada convinced legislators to vote yes in exchange for taking their county off of the bill, and the body of elected officials also failed to expand Medicaid.
“The two biggest functions of Tennessee’s state government are health care and education,” Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro said. “On both fronts, this legislature moved backward, not forward.”
WE’RE HONORED TO SUPPORT THE CONTRIBUTOR AND TO CHAMPION GOOD NEWS IN NASHVILLE.
In the early 1864, Confederate sympathizers living in West Tennessee complained to General Nathan Bedford Forrest about deprivations made by Major Bradford’s 13th Tennessee Cavalry operating out of Fort Pillow in Lauderdale County, Tenn., 40 miles north of Memphis. His were Union soldiers, both black and white, with many of the whites from the West Tennessee counties immediately west of the Tennessee River, where the land was poor and the small farmers had no slaves. Forrest assembled his troops in Brownsville on April 11 and undertook a forced march that covered the 38 miles to Fort Pillow, putting his men there by daylight the next morning. Early on the April 12, the advance guard surprised the pickets at Fort Pillow and captured all but two or three who gave the alarm to Col. Booth, the fort commander.
The fort, which 550 Union troops occupied, had been built by the Confederates in 1961, primarily to command the Mississippi River, whose channel came near the fort, and to be the last in a chain of defenses protecting Memphis. The inner works had parapets eight feet high and a ditch six feet deep and 12 feet wide. It was defective, however, because it was easily approachable from the south by a ravine that ran close to the fort.
Also, less than 60 yards from the redoubt there were huts occupied “as quarters by the garrison.” Confederates could take shelter behind them. From the southeast and east, there were steep-sided ravines that gave assailants shelter from view. Booth’s armament consisted of two 10-pounder Parrott rifled guns, two twelve-pound howitzers, and two six-pounder rifled-bore field pieces. His garrison consisted of 295 white troops and 262 black troops, not nearly enough to properly man the outer works so they were concentrated within the redoubt.
Early on April 12, Col. McCullough’s Confederates seized a position about half mile south of the fort close to the river. Wilson’s regiment deployed directly in front of the fort while Bell’s Brigade deployed to the north along Coal Creek. About 9 a.m. Forrest arrived. He immediately went forward to reconnoitre. While doing so, he had two horses killed under him and a third wounded, badly bruising him. He quickly saw the ravine leading up to the southern face of the fort that provided cover as the Federal artillery could not depress sufficiently to command it. He ordered it occupied. Two ridges four to five hundred feet to the east and northeast of the fort gave excellent cover to Confederate sharpshooters who could from there completely command the fort’s interior. Confederate General James Chalmers, who had arrived earlier, had already chased Union pickets from the outer works back to their main work, giving up their rifle pits in its front. The rifle pits were immediately occupied by Confederates. Now, the line of involvement was complete from a swollen Coal Creek north of the fort to the river bank south of the fort. Forrest had about 1,500 men. He and Chalmers realized that, with their overwhelming force, they could easily carry the inner works.
To avoid having to storm the fort, Forrest called for a cessation of fire and deputized Capt. Walter Goodman to bear a flag of truce to Major L. F. Booth, whom Forrest assumed was still in command. Actually, Booth had been killed about the time Forrest arrived. The terms of surrender were that the entire garrison, black and white, would be treated as prisoners-of-war. Earlier in the war, Black Federal soldiers had not been so treated, instead being considered slaves. Goodman and his small party discussed this point among themselves and asked Forrest for a clarification. Forrest and Chalmers both said that the black troops would be considered prisoners-of-war. The parlay took place just outside the fort. Forrest gave instructions that he was to receive an answer within 20 minutes.
The Union commander, Major William F. Bradford asked, in
the name of Booth, if the Federal gunboats were included in the surrender. The answer was no. Forrest added that, if the Federals didn’t surrender, he could not be held responsible for any atrocities because of the great animosity between the Tennesseans of the two commands. Booth consulted with the commanders of two gunboats, the New Era and Olive Branch, who agreed to provide cover and take on fort defenders if it were overrun.
To prevent the two Federal gunboats from doing that, Forrest dispatched a squadron of McCullough’s Brigade to occupy old Confederate trenches under the river bluff just below the southern face of the fort. They effectively kept the gunboats away. Nevertheless, the presence of the gunboats gave Booth the courage to decline to surrender. He was sufficiently worried about his troops’ ability to resist that he asked Goodman to prove that Forrest was actually there. He also authorized giving whiskey to his defenders, who were rightfully afraid of Robert E. Lee’s most aggressive and best
others fired over their shoulders at the pursuing Confederates. Suddenly, they realized that the gunboats were not there, having been intimidated by McCullough’s men. Some jumped in the river and tried to swim away only to either drown or be picked off by Confederate rifleman. Others veered south where McCullough’s men awaited them. Still others tried to flee north to the mouth of swollen Coal Creek, where they were gunned down by Barteau’s men.
As soon as it was apparent that the assault was successful, Forrest rode into the fort with Col. John Overton, had the Union flag taken down and ordered that firing cease. Within 15 minutes firing ceased and soon details of captured Union soldiers were were ordered to bury their own dead. Among those captured were Major Bradford. He was paroled to bury his brother and then placed in custody of Colonel McCullough, who shared his supper with him and gave him a bed in his own quarters. Bradford pledged not to escape. The result of the capture of the hapless fort was that of Bradford’s 550 or so men, some 150 had surrendered, about 100 were wounded in and around the fort, and were later handed over to a Federal gunboat under a flag of truce. The remaining 300 were either killed or drowned. Forrest reported that “the river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for 200 yards.”
The Confederate victory was not without loss as 14 soldiers and officers were killed, and 68 were wounded. With a truce inforce, the Federal steamer Platte Valley came up and took aboard at least 70 officers and men who had been paroled. Few escaped. After the fight, General Chalmers put his main force in motion toward Brownsville and a little later he withdrew with his staff and escort, leaving at Fort Pillow only the Federal dead.
The terrible fate of Fort Pillow led to a “furious storm of invective against Forrest throughout the North.” He was accused of refusing to take prisoners, of having shot down “helpless and disarmed men,” and having butchered “whole batches” of captives, primarily black men. A subcommittee of Congress was quickly assembled to investigate. They issued a report on “the Fort Pillow Massacre” undoubtedly to damage the Confederate cause in the eyes of the civilized world. The report said (1) that Forrest took advantage of the truce to advance his men forward, (2) that, after the capture of the fort, an indiscriminate slaughter took place, (3) that wounded men were burned to death in their barracks or tents, and (4) that others were buried alive.
general. To prove that he was there, Forrest moved to a position, where he could be easily seen from the fort. Booth made two poor decisions, one was to give whiskey to his enlisted men and the other was to not accept a surrender that would enable his men, black and white, to be considered prisoners of war and paroled aboard a steamer also in the vicinity.
The inexperienced Booth gave Goodman a note declining to surrender. Surprised, Forrest immediately ordered an assault by his Mississippians, Tennesseans and Texans, who were already close to the fort. The assault took only a few minutes. It was less difficult that it would have been because a number of the Union soldiers were intoxicated. Whiskey may bolster your courage, but it certainly does not steady your aim. The surviving Union soldiers all tried to flee from the back of the fort down the riverbank to be protected by the covering fire of the two gunboats and to escape on those boats. In this wild scramble, some of the Union soldiers had thrown their rifles away while
Forrest and his biographers refuted the claims, pointing out that the Federal commanders never surrendered. The Confederate position was that it was a legitimate act of war to fire on those attempting to escape whether they were armed or not. One problem the black men had was that most of their officers were killed in the assault and they had no one to guide them. There were wild stories of a wounded 13th Battalion quartermaster being nailed to a wall after he was wounded and burned alive. Forrest, who had long since left, and his subordinates did not, I think, order the murder of captives. They did not do enough, however, to stop individual soldiers from taking out their vengeance by murdering helpless prisoners. That night, Major Bradford violated his pledge not to escape and headed to Memphis. In Brownsville, the citizens of all classes welcomed the Confederates at the courthouse as heroes, having delivered them from the insults, harassments, and annoyances of the Union garrison at Fort Pillow.
The controversy continues to this day. I personally feel that Major Booth is as much to blame as Forrest by refusing to surrender to an overwhelming force led by a legendary general, who promised to take black soldiers as prisoners-of-war, and by giving whiskey to his frightened enlisted men to boost their courage before the assault.
"Out of six years I’ve been at the Capitol, I’ve never seen a session like this. I’ve talked to elders, I just did a training with [leader of the Nashville sit-ins] Diane Nash and I’ve talked with Kwame Lillard, who was one of the students arrested in 1978 protesting the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue. He says what he’s seeing happen up at the Capitol in the past couple years is reminiscent of what was happening then — that was 40 years ago. You have these predominantly white and rural men who are so drunk with power that they’re arrogant. They feel validated by each other and they’re so unchecked that they don’t think the public has any power at all." — Justin Jones
The Big Payback’s annual 24-hour online giving event on May 2 helped raise a record $4.1 for local organizations.
According to the Community Foundation, a record 964 Middle Tennessee nonprofits — including schools and religious institutions — from 35 counties signed up to participate in this year’s The Big Payback, an initiative of The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
“Not since the flood of 2010 has Middle Tennessee come together to make so many good things happen,” said Ellen Lehman, president of The Community Foundation. “And isn’t it funny that it all happened in the hours of May 2 — virtually the same day as our flood rains kept coming years ago.”
“The fact is, all of us owe a debt of gratitude to our nonprofits serving Middle Tennessee,” Lehman continued. “We at The Community Foundation are honored to play a part in this vital and critical work. If you live here, you should give here.”
People's Alliance for Transit, Housing & Employment (PATHE) to host People’s State of Metro press conference
On May 8 at 6:30 p.m., members of PATHE will gather to host their own version of State of Metro address — the same day Metro Council will begin budget hearings.
According to a release from PATHE, the event “will include bus riders, bus drivers, unhoused people, tenants and concerned community members speaking about the urgent gentrification and displacement crisis affecting our city’s families.”
“Speakers will highlight steps our city leadership must take to fight alongside working-class residents to create truly affordable housing for all, a transportation plan that centers working people and transit-dependent riders, and a budget that funds living wages jobs for our teachers and city employees,” the release says.
Study: Residents need $80K to live comfortably in Nashville
According to a study from Go Banking Rates — a personal finance company — residents in Nashville need to make $80, 548 a year to live comfortably.
Go Banking Rate’s analysis used the 50/30/20 rule, which says 50 percent of income should go to necessities, 30 percent for miscellaneous expenses and 20 percent to savings and investments.
The study looked at the cost of housing, food and healthcare and compared them within America's 50 largest cities. According to the report: “The $80,548 Nashville income needed to live comfortably is a far cry from the $49,891 median household income in the city according to the report.”
"What are you going to do about that homeless guy?" It’s a question sometimes posed to an officer of The Salvation Army. The only proper response is, "What homeless guy?"
The conversation usually continues with a descriptor, "the one on the corner," to which I reply, "What is his name?" This often ends the conversation. What is his name? What is her name? Where are they from? What is it that they want to experience? Who is their community?
It's interesting that many see these questions as unreasonable or unnecessary. Yet these were the questions recognized as important even at the 1818 Society on Pauperism in New York City.
The Society recognized that pauperism, begging, is a contagious ill. That if people make more money begging than they do working, than it is economically rationale for people to beg more and work less. Indeed, economics is solid that those without housing may have more flexible money than those who are housed. The cost, years of life.
Back to the Society on Pauperism. The Society created a plan of action. Divide the city into sections and send out teams to meet the paupers to determine their names, their goals, and a path to employment and housing. This is one reason I support The Contributor. People are known by name, supported in micro-enterprise, and work for a legitimate income. Their lives are changed through the reward of community, purpose, work. The solution to begging is one of the most challenging questions of classism: What is your name?
Only the courageous continue the conversation with: "How is your day?" or "What is your hope?" In fact, is that we now pay professionals to ask these questions and a few more that were in the action plan of 1818 in New York. We know how to reduce despair and personal destruction. Most of us hope that someone else will do it.
When people get frustrated by this creative abrasion they then ask, "What about that guy who chooses to be homeless?" You see people usually use the stereotype guy question because we like women and families more. So when we are frustrated, it is always, "that guy."
"Oh…. That guy who chose to be homeless," I respond. "I haven't met him yet."
Now I have met people who have chosen not to leave the communities of social displacement, and that may be the root of the question. First the "choice" issue. Again, economics can show that short-term sheltering can be an economically rational choice. You have a loss of job, increased rent, new to the city, a health crisis, a life event and you need a place to stay for a few days, then sheltering service is a rational economic choice. Most people who experience social, economic, or environmental displacement never stay in a shelter. They stay with family and friends. When this is no longer an option, then they enter a shelter, and the majority use the public investment of their shelter experience to save and restart out in the community, quickly once again recognized as my neighbors and yours.
Then there are those with more significant needs. I contend that most often long-term displaced neighbors have experienced a breakdown of family, community, and too often self. That is
because I believe that family and community are the proper response to life events. For those who may not have those options, then there is too often an experience of social displacement.
When people lose one community, they naturally search until they find another. Most cities have many strong communities of people who love each other and do not live in housing. These communities can be located under bridges, in tent encampments, on corners on Friday afternoons celebrating a hard work week, and other places that most don't like to see them.
These are communities of care, compassion, and friendship, family. While I haven't met the guy who "chose" to be homeless, I have met many people who choose to find their home in an outcast community.
Then they continue to live in the "where" they can. Amazingly in Nashville, we then discuss how we displaced the "homeless" from an encampment. This confounds my mind.
While short-term experiences of staying on couches, in shelters, in supported housing can be economically rational, the community that people meet in these compassion centers can be attractive and can actually increase the days of homelessness experienced. Increased days increase years. Simply, the longer someone is displaced, the longer they will be displaced. This is especially true when the person decides and is essentially paid to create a home outside of society's housing structure. Days… Years… Death.
Yes, death. It is a quality of life problem. On average those who experience long term living outside of housing suffer from decreased health and well-being. (Now some of you will want to talk about mental health and addiction. First please remember
that most people with mental health and addiction issues live in your neighborhood, in housing.) So then that "guy" we are talking about is likely to die before 50 years old. Every city has one long night a year to remember "him" and those who died without housing. Imagine, people, die 25 years earlier because of social displacement. Sorry, don't imagine, know this truth.
When the community outside of the housing, health, and hope find a more welcoming home outside our social norms, then they perish. While we mourn this truth, we have to determine if it is problematic enough to change the community to welcome people home as neighbors. Not because we do not want to see them on the streets, but because we see them. They are our neighbors. The question then is not about "that guy who chooses to be homeless" that stays nowhere, anywhere. The problem is more about that guy, that gal, that neighborhood, that either chooses to extend community by welcoming people in or by pushing people out. This is Tennessee. We love our neighbors here. Might we be home for each other, together?
Major Ethan Frizzell serves as the Area Commander of The Salvation Army. The Salvation Army has been serving in Middle TN since 1899. A graduate of Harvard Kennedy School, his focus is the syzygy of the community culture, the systems of service, and the lived experience of our neighbors. He uses creative abrasion to rub people just the wrong way so that an offense may cause interaction and then together we can create behaviorally designed solutions to nudge progress. Simply, negotiating the future for progress that he defines as Quality of Life in Jesus!
Here are The Contributor’s top choices for books that focus on homelessness, poverty and social justice.
Classic children’s book authors choose their subjects, words and imagery with deep care, and Maurice Sendak is one of the masters of the genre. Sendak's choice to take on childhood homelessness with We’re All in The Dumps With Jack and Guy (1993) was no exception. It masterfully blends two Mother Goose nursery rhymes, “In the Dumps” and “Jack and Gye” and creates a depression era world of poverty with hope that is both practical and magical. TOM WILLS
A boy and a girl become pen pals. She’s an Indian immigrant living in NYC's Chinatown, as her family struggles for citizenship and the hope of a better life. He’s an Appalachian coal miner's son, facing the shrinking opportunities for work and the environmental/economic destruction that comes with coal top removal. Written in letters, two children on the verge of adulthood recognize what makes us more alike than different, as both fathers work well beyond reasonable expectations (far from home) to take care of their family. HOLLY
Cells are taken from a poor woman without her knowledge or permission that transformed the science of medicine forever. Those HELA cells created an industry worth millions to the hospital and doctor who treated her before her death. Rebecca Skloot's true story has all the elements of a riveting detective novel as she sets out to discover who Henrietta Lacks was and to reunite what lives on of her with her family.
JENNIFER ALEXANDER GLEASONAn evangelical preacher grapples with "church prejudice" when two gay men need help and his wife makes him turn them away, then they come to his church and his congregation turns on them. What Would Jesus Do? in a realm of small-minded pettiness becomes a literal grapple for the preacher, who turned on his own brother after he came out -- and now sets him on his own path of spiritual reclamation. It includes small town divorce, kidnapping his own child, hiding out in Key West and coming to terms with what faith means, as well as the consequences that come with living by one's convictions.
HOLLY GLEASONThe Round House by Louise Erdrich takes place on an Ojibwe reservation in the late ’80s and follows the coming of age story of a 13-year-old boy the summer after his mother is assaulted by a white man. It reads as half legal thriller-half bildungsroman and is very consumable, but deals with intricate and difficult ideas about justice and revenge.
LAURA BIRDSALL
Written as a letter to his adolescent son, Ta-Nehisi Coates describes what it is like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live in it. Through a personal narrative of his experience, he examines historic topics of slavery and segregation and the present threat of brutality and prison. At a short 147 pages, just read it. You won’t regret it.
March is a trilogy of graphic novels outlining Civil Rights activist and U.S. Congressman John Lewis’ life. The illustrations are striking and beautiful — they depict Lewis and his colleagues as they cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they show Lewis’ arrest in Selma as well as some of the more quiet moments in his life.
AMANDA HAGGARD
CATHY JENNINGS
Charles Dickens was a master of fictions depicting conflicts that exist between different social sets and I highly recommend all of his titles. But his A Tale of Two Cities, a vivid chronicle of events from the French Revolution, stands out in 2019. It is a cautionary tale of the destruction that can occur when hate and thoughtlessness between divided social classes are allowed to spiral out of control. Unfortunately, it is as relevant today as it was when it was written in 1859.
JENNIFER ALEXANDERI was drawn to this book because I believe that we rise as a community or we fail as a community — communities that splinter eventually cave. Putnam gives real examples of communities that have formed between unlikely alliances, connecting very diverse populations and turning it into “social capital,” which has extraordinary power to enable people to improve their quality of lives and those around them.
CATHY JENNINGS
With her straight-forward autobiography, Walls breaks the stereotypes that surround family, love, poverty and addiction as we gaze with her into a dysfunctional childhood that somehow functions. Wall’s family of origin is essentially homeless as they travel from city to city and live in houses almost uninhabitable. Her father is a alcoholic, yet he encourages her to think and is full of adventure. Her mother suffers from mental illness, yet teaches her children to read and think for themselves at a young age. Her life portrays the difficulty many children face in dysfunctional families: wanting to reconcile their love for their parents while their parents do not act for their benefit; wanting to leave but feeling compelled to stay and help the family. CATHY
JENNINGS
Thompson's book offers a detailed autopsy of an American tragedy cloaked by cover-ups, prejudice and misunderstandings. Through her deep documenting of this impenetrable place during those combustible times, Thompson shows us the injustice of the criminal justice system, the hopeless brutality of life behind bars, and the senseless massacre that made the name Attica infamous. JOE NOLAN
Educated is coming-of-age memoir about a young girl who escapes her survivalist family and earns a pHD from Cambridge University despite never having stepped foot inside a classroom until the age of 17. It is a beautiful testament to the power of education to change lives, but also an eye-opening examination of the education we all receive within our own particular families and upbringings, and how education can divide us from others even as it saves us.
CHRISTINE DOEG
Larry James is the founder of City Square in Dallas, where their mission focuses on hunger, health, housing and hope. James uses personal stories to share his journey of how he went from talking about the phrase, “love your neighbor as yourself” to his work now, where he truly believes that only when we value every neighbor can we restore hope in our cities. While the book is philosophical, it is also very practical with concrete examples of how to get involved.
CATHY JENNINGSAs a privileged white woman raised in the North, this book shook me like none other. This book is a compilation of stories told by the ordinary people who became extraordinary in the face of the turmoil and violence of the Civil Rights Movement. Told as times in the matter-of-fact way of the accidental hero, these personal recollections of unfathomable courage and enduring faith brings to life the real story of the movement in a way that no history book ever could.
CHRISTINE DOEGA photographic (and often written or even ranting) essay of impoverished farmers during the Great Depression. It’s an up-close, personal, raw American classic and a mustread. CATHY JENNINGS
This is the story of the author (a graduate of Yale Law School), his family and their struggles to cope with the social, emotional, and economic challenges of the upwardly mobile as his family tries to escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma characteristic of their Appalachian roots. It opens up in the most personal way, the crises of white middle-class americans for whom dysfunction is woven into their family histories and passed down like a precious family heirloom. CHRISTINE DOEG
This novel is reminiscent of Beloved by Toni Morrison (also a must read), which examines the hopelessness of poverty and the ugly truths of America’s racial past and present through the thoughts of a clairvoyant boy and his sisters on the archetypal road trip. The book is literally haunting and painful in its honesty, it is a strangely beautiful read. CATHY JENNINGS
Hannah Arendt provides an historical perspective for the horrific events that took place during WWII. In her preface she says, "It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives." This dense, wordy book reads at times like a bad sunburn with occasional dips in a cool, refreshing pool. JENNIFER ALEXANDER
Like many, I had the experience of reading Hillbilly Elegy and relating to the first half-or-so of the book. I’d come from poverty and could recognize my life in J.D. Vance’s. But also, like many, I found his bootstrap conclusions and terminology about white welfare queens lacking in empathy and not representative of the life I’d lived and understood.
Appalachian Reckoning takes Vance to task by allowing several writers from Appalachia to tell their own stories.
AMANDA HAGGARD
Set in the 1940’s, a young black man unwittingly a part of a liquor store shootout is convicted and sentenced to death. A white man who has just returned from university to teach at his small hometown is encouraged by his mother to go meet with the young man and teach him. It is powerful in its insight into the power of language and the connections between race and poverty that too often are indistinguishable.
CATHY JENNINGSOne of the best things about streaming services is that their offerings are generally refreshed every month. May brings a number of movies and series that will be of interest to The Contributor’s readers. Here’s our guide to the best social interest documentaries and narrative films coming to your favorite platforms this month.
Knock Down the House — Netflix, May 1
If you’ve felt the need to tune out political media noise, we get it. But you might want to plug back in and watch Knock Down the House on Netflix. This immersive campaign doc follows Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, Paula Jean Swearengin and Amy Vilela on their bids for Congressional seats in last year’s mid-term elections. Surprise, surprise — Ocasio-Cortez steals the show. But the best thing about director Rachel Lears’ film is how it illuminates both the entrenched, elitist Democratic Party establishment and the energetic insurgency that’s using progressive policy and grassroots organizing to bring the party back to the people.
Boris Gardiner, and it speaks to this movie’s twin preoccupations: race and film itself. This dramatic epic sprawls across three decades to tell the story of a black man named Chiron who grows up in Miami before later settling in Atlanta. Of course, the real stuff of any life is found in the details, and the lives in Moonlight are complicated by skin color, poverty, drugs, crime and sexuality. Moonlight won three Oscars in 2016 including Best Picture.
contemporary art, and the fact that Lee came out of the gate with the passionate and powerful Nola about three decades ago only proves that the auteur is as prescient as he is passionate.
When They See Us — Netflix, May 31
Moonlight
“Every n***** is a star,” are the first words you hear in Moonlight. It’s the title of a song by
Weed the People — Netflix, May 14 Weed the People ’s stoner-bro titling might put you in mind of a Vice-style cannabis tour of the country’s greenest grows and dankest dabs. But Weed the People is a movie about medicine and about sick people, and about the backward War on Drugs that’s keeping them apart. Sorry to harsh your buzz. In this precarious age of recreational cannabis legalization, this film by
She’s Gotta Have It — Netflix, May 24 Spike Lee got 2019 off to a great start when he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKKKlansman back in February. In May, Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It series returns to Netflix for a second season. This show is based on Lee’s debut feature, which was a small-budget independent hit back in 1986. This series follows an independent artist named Nola Darling (DeWanda Wise) who juggles life and love in gentrifying Brooklyn. In this second season Nola copes with her newly minted success and begins to weigh new choices between her creative ideals and the comforting cash of the corporate world. And, of course, Nola always has another man trying to tie her down. This sexy, funny series also offers a unique window into
This Netflix original series debuts on the last day of the month, but you might want to put it at the top of your to-view list. Written and directed by Ava DuVernay this true crime drama recreates the breakdown of the justice system in the infamous Central Park Five case. When They See Us tells a heartbreaking story about the systemic racism that destroyed the lives of five black and brown New York teenagers in connection with the most widely-publicized — and politicized — crime in the 1980s.
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/ songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.
As a young girl growing up on the outskirts of Brisbane, children’s book author Jackie French didn’t have a lot of luck when it came to libraries. Her first school burned down, taking with it the one shelf of books that constituted its entire collection. Her new school fared a little better. At least it had a library, but French soon read everything and ran out of books to borrow. So she headed to her local library, only to be told she wasn’t allowed to borrow the books she wanted because she was too young.
“One very nice librarian pretended not to see me so I could actually sit in the aisles and read the things I wanted to read,” French says.
This small gesture — a librarian clearing the way for a young child to satisfy her thirst for books — proved decisive for French. Today, she is the author of more than 200 books (including the muchloved Diary of a Wombat and Pete the Sheep), and a tireless advocate for children’s literacy.
“There is an epidemic of library closures and it is hidden,” says French, “often because the principals don’t acknowledge themselves that they have destroyed the library by getting rid of the qualified staff or by locking the door.”
Across Australia, the number of teacher-librarians — a qualified teacher who also holds a librarianship qualification — in primary schools has dropped significantly. Regular surveys conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research across government, independent and Catholic schools have found while there were 5600 librarians teaching in primary schools in 2010, by 2013 there were just 1300. Comparatively, the decrease in music teachers (another specialist area) has been less pronounced, from 5200 teachers in 2010 to 4000 in 2013.
Talk to the parent of a school-aged child and you’ll discover that teacher-librarians in public schools are a rarity. School libraries are being downsized, or are under-resourced, or are run by unqualified staff. And this is fast becoming a problem. It’s long been established that a healthy school library directly contributes to higher literacy rates among children. For many, the library is their only gateway to a digital world. For others, it’s a refuge from the schoolyard bullies, a welcoming safe space.
According to teacher-librarian and Students Need School Libraries campaign coordinator Holly Godfree, library professionals in schools have recognized for many years that their numbers are declining and are increasingly alarmed about what this means for students. Their campaign’s aim is simple: for all children to have access to quality school libraries run by qualified librarians.
“When I read about how Australia’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results are in decline; about the future workforce and what skills will be required; misinformation in the news and how that affects
democracy; teacher workload and current debates in education about the need to improve how we assess learning and the need to individualise student learning — all of these things are deeply embedded in school library services. So, the fact that they’ve generally been in decline around the country is cause for alarm,” says Godfree.
Strong evidence-based research has shown that if your child’s school has a great library staffed by a qualified teacher-librarian who collaborates with the teaching staff, this will have a positive impact on student literacy. A direct link between library budgets and NAPLAN (National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy) results was reported by a 2016 Softlink study — as library funding increases, so do NAPLAN results. Why? Libraries and teacher-librarians develop a healthy reading culture within schools, and when students read, their vocabulary, grammar and general knowledge expand. And the very nature of a library’s common space means collaboration, creativity and knowledge creation flourish among students and teaching staff.
Good early literacy development is vital to later academic success, but literacy is also an important life skill beyond the classroom. Being literate doesn’t just mean the ability to read a book; literacy skills give people the ability to manage everyday tasks, to access information and to communicate ideas. Alarmingly, 44 percent of Australians aged 15 to 74 have low literacy skills, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and OECD data. This means 7.5 million Australians are much more vulnerable to social and economic disadvantage.
Nowhere is Australia’s poor literacy rate more stark than when it comes to the Indigenous student population. According to PISA’s 2012 results, Indigenous students are at least two-and-a-half years behind their non-Indigenous peers. The 2017 NAPLAN results paint
an even grimmer picture, with only 34 percent of Indigenous Year 5 students in very remote areas at or above national minimum reading standards, compared to 95 percent for non-Indigenous students in major cities. According to a House of Representatives education committee report from 2011, there are no teacher-librarians in community schools in the Northern Territory.
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation is working to improve resources. “Apart from the historical, health, social, and educational disadvantage issues, many remote communities don’t have many, if any, books,” it says on their website. “The situation is improving but there is still a long way to go and the challenges are immense.”
For Northern Territory-based teacher-librarian John Chisholm, while the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is pronounced, the bigger picture is slightly more complicated.
“Being remote makes things harder, being ESL [English as a Second Language] makes things harder, living in poverty makes things harder…” explains Chisholm. “These kids aren’t failing because they are Indigenous, although the system may be failing them because they are Indigenous. In Australia it is probably only our remote Indigenous communities where this intersection of problems occurs, and our education systems are ill equipped to manage that.”
The digital revolution and libraries might seem like polar opposites, but librarians are information specialists. In a time when information and knowledge have moved online and become increasingly difficult to navigate, we need school librarians now more than ever.
“The internet has changed how we access information and it’s also changed the kinds of information that we access,” Holly Godfree says. “For a lot of schools, if they don’t have a strong school library all they are giving students is Wi-Fi. [The students] are going to have to deal with the
flood of rubbish and good things mixed in. In the past we’ve had the publishers as the gatekeepers… If it was published in a book you know you could trust it. Now we don’t have that gatekeeper anymore. Adults are struggling with that, too. It’s a really challenging area for everyone.”
French describes this as being “cast adrift in a sea of data.” The modern-day librarian can not only wade through this tsunami of information, but also collaborate with the teachers to personalise learning for every student. Librarians know what books are being published, and which search engines are most reliable. The modern-day library should be able to suggest a podcast as much as the latest published book on a given subject. And as they provide this world of resources, librarians can also cater for varied abilities and cultural differences — not to mention foster reading for the sheer pleasure of it.
The downsizing has also impacted schoolbook suppliers. Australian company The Booklegger closed its print distribution business in 2017, after its sales of non-fiction books to schools fell from $1.25 million to $100,000 in six years. Its managing director Rick Sussman told Books & Publishing it was “due to a monumental decline in school library purchasing.”
Crucially, the loss of libraries and librarians from our schools also means the disappearance of one of the few communal spaces available to children. Just like the public library is a democratic, socially inclusive space, the school library is a haven of sorts, available to all members of the school community.
“The library is a safe place,” says Godfree. “We offer that safety net and [the librarian is] a different type of adult that the children can relate to. One of the first things I noticed when I went from being a classroom teacher to being in the library is that the students interacted with me completely differently. It was a much more personal, warm kind of connection. Whatever their passions were, I was part of that link.”
Jackie French is unequivocal about the library being a refuge for kids. “As an abused child myself, the library and books were an escape. Mrs. Gillian Pauli, at the worst period in my life, gave me books every morning. Books are always with you. You have got the friends of twoand-a-half-thousand years of written wisdom.”
Morris Gleitzman, current Australian Children’s Laureate and author of Once and Toad Rage, perhaps best sums up the impact libraries can have on our school children: “Libraries are collections of books, and also collections of people. When the two work together, kids’ lives are transformed.”
See The Contributor ’s Summer Reading list of Pg. 10 for a few selections to kick back and read this summer.
Courtesy of The Big Issue Australia / INSP.ngo
JENNIFER A.
Tell me what you know, or think you know. They don’t tell us everything. Very little really. When we ask, they send us to their websites where there’s a scant collection of stock answers to what they say are commonly asked questions. There’s no real information there. They manage everything very cleverly, like magicians with sleight of hand, misdirection, outright lies, as we stand awestruck and Mesmerized wondering, “How’d they do that?”
They shoot back, “Magicians never reveal their secrets.” Their shills shout, “ Bravo!” Then they’re off to Argentina to improve global relations while we’re left foundering, idly, under water, because the dam collapsed. Freedom, is knowing. Tell me what you know, or think you know.
BY DAVID "CLINECASSO" C ,FORMERLY HOMELESS VENDOR
JOHN H.
Many Christians don’t serve God as they ought Maybe Christmas, Thanksgiving or maybe it becomes just a thought In everything I do, I give God the praise It’s from the heart, and NOT just a phrase
Every paper that’s sold, to Him I thank For nine years, the ship never sank Maybe people in our country take God’s love for granted On that day of judgment, many will be panic’d
BY CYNTHIA P., HOMELESS VENDOR
Landlord kicks cancer patient out on the street and could care less what happens to her. Landlord cares about only one thing, and that would be money. Landlords don’t care about the people that live in the apartments or what happens to them. Money is the only thing the landlord cares about. The landlord likes to hire sex offenders for his staff. The manager is a sex offender. All the landlord wants in his apartment are sex offender and drug dealers because management does it and the landlord does it too. One Thursday, I ran into the landlord and he was drunk. He was so drunk that he told me that he wouldn’t remember the conversation tomorrow. Anyway, there are people that haven’t paid their rent for years and the landlord keeps them but kicks out a cancer
patient that has paid the rent every month. And the landlord charges disabled people for their service dogs, which is against the ADA law and the Fair Housing law. I could have the landlord’s renter's license pulled for good.
My landord kicked me out of my home and out on the street today. I will be homeless on May 8. Calling all people to help me find a place to live. You need to see the pictures to see the apartment in question. Where I live is not all it’s cracked up to be. There are so many code violations that this place should be shut down permanently. There are drugs in here. There are street walkers in here that have sex for money. And there are rapists in here that will rape you. I wouldn’t move in here at all. If you can find another place do so.
BRIAN H.
Deep within my mind IS WAR! an everlasting battle where an end needs not be far.
Deep inside lays just two sides both my joy and the somber I incessantly hide
I wish that I could willingly find that peace that lays dormant inside inching out of my soul
Since I registered into this nonprofit organization
The Contributor, first I was scared because many people who know me gave me wrong advice that I will go nowhere with this business. So why shouldn’t I go somewhere?
But to my own concern since I have been in this nonprofit organization, God is directing me in a way that is unbelievable. Though 10 percent of people turn away their faces from seeing me as a fool, I keep pushing on with this busi -
ness because 90 percent of my customers are excited to receive weekly Nashville newspapers.
At this point, even though some drivers show me disgusting attitudes because I am poor on the street, the Lord will pull me out and one day and we may meet in an amazing way at the same level or I may be better because the world is circular not in one position. Today is yours, tomorrow might be mine. So to my fellow Contributors, thumbs up!
HAROLD B.
Every morning the same thing to do let me hurry and put on my shoe
my first thought is you and a way to grow here comes the bus we're on the go.
VICTOR J. Thank you is the most powerful words that you have it can make you. God help us so we can help people
Wait a minute, are you supposed to say “shrimps” or is it just “shrimp”? Like, if you were going to say “Phil took one of my shrimps and now I’ve got one less,” is that right? No, I think it’s like “All my shrimp were here until Phil took one.” That sounds better. But you would use the “s” if it were a verb. Like, “Phil is such a shrimpy guy. See how he shrimps around the room.” I’m pretty sure that would be correct. I just need to clarify this with you before I offer any predictions for phrases you might need this week, Taurus. Also, The Stars indicate you probably ought to keep Phil away from your shrimp.
They say, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” It’s also just a pretty lousy trade. I mean, you could never run an economy just swapping eyes for eyes. If everybody’s already got an eye, why would they want to trade it for a different one? Now maybe if one eye gets you two teeth and an earlobe, that might be something. I bet an eye might even be worth a couple of toes. Toes would be worth spending your hardearned eyes on. How many eyes for a brain, I wonder? Now, this is all amusing and kind of weird, but it does make you think about what you’ve got. You’re probably equipped with something like two eyes, two ears, a brain, a mouth, maybe a couple of hands. That’s all yours. How are you going to spend it?
For every two hours of being awake, human beings need about one hour of sleep. Despite being awake for two-thirds of their lives, sleep-scientists still haven’t figured out why we have to sleep at all. Of course, there are lots of good things that happen to the body while we’re sleeping. Muscles get repaired. The brain gets cleaned by spinal fluid. Children produce growth hormone. But why can’t we just do all that stuff while we stand in line at the bank? Why do we have to totally zonk-out for hours at a time? I think it’s about rhythm. Without sleep how would we separate our days? It would all just run together. And if we didn’t divide up our days, how would we see our own progress? You’ve come along way since yesterday, Cancer. Who knows what you’ll learn tomorrow. Get a good night’s rest and find out.
During the Depression there was no more feared or hated band of criminals than the Barker Gang. They robbed banks and stole cars and held the wealthy for ransom. So, naturally there was no mother more feared or hated than Ma Barker. After a tough day of robbing trains and running from the law, Ma Barker’s boys knew they could always come back home for a hot meal, a hug and a place to hide out. Those Barkers were tough, but they appreciated their mother. Maybe your mom could use a little appreciation this week, too.
Some days it feels like you can accomplish anything. The world is bursting with great ideas and endless possibilities and they’re all yours for the taking! Then you sit down to do the work, you realize within about five minutes that the world of possibilities is entirely overwhelming and you don’t stand a chance. Hang on a second, Virgo. Let’s break this thing down. Of course you can’t do everything today. But you can do part of it. What’s the smallest unit of endless possibility that you could actually finish in one sitting? Do that. Just get something done today and then do it again tomorrow. Bit by bit and brick by brick. That’s how the work gets done.
You said you wanted the good news first? Well, the good news is that the venom of the Southeast Asian flying-snake isn’t toxic to humans. Oh, the bad news is there are at least five species of venomous flying snake in Southeast Asia. They’re out there right now. Gliding from tree to tree and devouring birds, bats and lizards. I doubt you’ll ever meet one, Libra, but if you do, know that sometimes the most unsettling things are the ones you should spend the least time worrying about. Pay attention to the problems that are right in front of you. The flying snakes may not ever even make an appearance.
You know that machine that comes down and resets the bowling pins after they get knocked over? I wonder if that machine likes its job. Maybe it grew up hoping to be a forklift or a cotton-candy maker. Maybe its name is Sheldon. Maybe Sheldon gets tired of resetting all those bowling pins all the time. Whenever my ball rolls into the gutter, I like to think that I’ve done Sheldon a little favor. When I leave all the pins standing, I think of it as a more humane kind of bowling. (I’m not a very good bowler.) The point is, Scorpio, that I know you get tired of your job sometimes. Some days it just feels like you’re picking up pins just so they can get knocked down again. But, like Sheldon, you do have a purpose. Keep up the good work. You’re more appreciated than you know.
History has come to remember Carl Linnaeus as the guy who came up with the always-handy “genus” and “species” method of identifying plants and animals. But in his own time, Linnaeus was known as an all around wise guy and a bit of a myth buster. For instance, when a wealthy man in Hamburg was showing off his prized possession — a taxidermied nine-headed hydra — it was Linnaeus who pointed out that the stuffed beast was really just some snakes stitched together with weasel claws and animal fur. These kind of
observations didn’t make Carl very many friends in the fantastical creature community, but at least he was honest. This week, Sagittarius, it’s in your best interest to point out the truth even when the lie is more interesting.
Most of us don’t remember Mnemosyne. Perhaps because she is an ancient Greek goddess with a very difficult name to spell or pronounce. But Mnemosyne remembers you. In fact, she was known as the goddess of memory. Most people also don’t remember that Mnemosyne was the mother of The Nine Muses — the goddesses of inspiration. Imagine that bunch on Mothers Day all trying to outdo each other with creative ways to show their divine mom-appreciation. And they certainly know better than to forget — what with her being the personification of memory and all. Don’t wait for the muse to strike this week. Whatever you come up with as a way to say “thanks” to mom will show that you care. Just make sure you don’t forget altogether.
Can’t sleep, Aquarius? Try cloning sheep. You may remember that a team of Scottish scientists in the mid-’90s successfully cloned a sheep named “Dolly.” As if you didn’t already think all sheep were just alike — Dolly was even more alike. What you may not know is that the team that cloned dolly made 276 attempts at the project before they succeeded. So as you’re lying there trying to doze off, just try thinking of all the different variables that must be involved in mammalian cloning. You’ll probably nod off well before you get to 276.
Recently a German fisherman found a note that had been sealed in a bottle for more than 100 years. It was the oldest known message in a bottle ever recovered. There was a time when writing a note and setting it afloat in the ocean was a fairly common practice among sailors and coastal folk. Sometimes it was a call for help, but most often it was just a way of saying hello to whomever would find it — a way of leaving one’s mark on the world. This might be a good week for you to throw something out there. Just send out a few general hellos and/or helps and see what comes back.
Wow, it’s been a hard handful of days, Aries. It seems like every time you look at the horizon there’s an army of problems headed your way. There’s not much you can do about those distant warriors as they slowly approach, so maybe you’d be better off not looking so far into the distance and instead just deal with the things that are right in front of you. Try to take on today first. Maybe by the time that army makes it all the way here from the edge of the horizon, they’ll be too tired to fight.
We would like to address what we see as inaccuracies in recent opinion pieces in The Contributor regarding the relocation of cherry blossom trees and other infrastructure during the recent NFL Draft event. In the previous issue, there were two articles regarding these issues, one referencing that the cherry blossom trees were destroyed, and another inaccurately stating that the Tara Cole Memorial Bench had been relocated. Neither is accurate.
The NFL Draft event was the largest event hosted in the city to date, and required an extensive plan for the building the structures that served as the NFL Draft campus on First Avenue. These plans
were thoroughly vetted with the production and city teams for months in advance, with the shared goal to build the campus with minimal effects and a commitment to leave the footprint as it was originally.
The plan called for several cherry blossom trees to be removed and replaced after the event. After hearing from the community, the event producers and city department officials worked to restructure the plan, lessening the amount of trees affected to only 10. These 10 were located behind the train station and were to be replanted in open spots along First Ave. Those original 10 trees were carefully replanted by horticultural specialists and
continue to do well. Once the NFL Draft construction is removed, 10 new cherry blossom trees will be planted in the original locations behind the train station. Also, the NFL and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp will gift 200 additional trees to the Metro Parks Department to be planted throughout the city. None of the original trees were destroyed.
The second article references that the Tara Cole Memorial Bench was relocated during the event and that is inaccurate. The plan never called for any removal of the bench. During site preparation for the build, a well-intentioned production crew member took it upon himself to temporarily move the bench as to
avoid any receive damage from railing, light pole and tree removal. He was never asked to do so, but took action for all of the right reasons. Within an hour the production team was notified of the mistaken relocation and quickly rectified the situation, placing the memorial bench carefully back in its original location and remained there throughout the Draft. The bench did not receive any damage.
The issue of the cherry blossom trees in particular has spurred an important conversation in our community about direction of our city's growth. While that conversation is fair and valid, it is important that the facts of the original situation be portrayed accurately.
When news broke that Nashville was planning to relocate the cherry trees downtown to make room for the NFL Draft mainstage, 50,000 signatures in less than 48 hours were sent to Mayor David Briley encouraging him to find an alternative plan which he did. The entire time I’m reading the posts and hearing the uproar over trees, I’m thinking, really people? They are trees.
Never in my 20 years of being in Nashville have I heard even close to such an uproar over human life, especially the lives of those living on the streets of our fair city. No, instead the uproar is over trees. Don’t get me wrong I love trees and appreciate their beauty and what they do for everyone, but trees over human life? Trees over human suffering? It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around that thinking. Since when have we cared so little
about human life over a tree. Imagine what Nashville would be like if that much outrage over trees were put to saving the homeless people on the streets. I think what life would be like for homeless people if this kind of energy was put into getting them into housing not just a shelter. A solution not just a band aid.
A very large and visible homeless encampment under Ellington Parkway was torn down and everyone was told to leave only months before Nashville welcomed the NFL people into our city. We hide what’s going on in our “beautiful” city. Just like when my parents would have company over for dinner and my mom would say, “Vicky go dress in your best for company.” Did we dress in our best for the NFL people? The only thing we did just like the cherry trees was move them out of public view.
Is that what we’ve been doing with our homeless people? Moving them out of public view? Showing our shame and embarrassment that we haven’t done more? The recent eviction from the Ellington Parkway homeless encampment is a clear sign that we want to hide the problem.
The Mayor stated in an interview with WKRN, “We are deeply concerned about the safety of those living in this encampment. This is also a busy traffic area, and it’s not safe for people to be living outdoors at this location.” My question to you Mr. Mayor is any outdoor location really safe to be living in? Is that the goal to have a safe place for the homeless to be living outdoors?
Mayor Briley also added, “We worked closely with Metro Social Services and service providers to ensure that every person in
the encampment was connected to services.” Is that our hope and our goal for the time being to make sure that they know about the services? I’m sure many homeless people can tell you about the services that work and those that don’t. Let’s face it, if the services worked, you wouldn’t have to worry about clearing homeless encampments, now would you? I applaud your aggressive approach to affordable housing over the next 10 years, but there still remains the crisis of homelessness today. How will this work into your 10 year plan? How can we impact the lives of homeless people today? How can we make the choice of people over trees?
Mayor Briley listened to “we the people” with the cherry trees. Will he now listen to “we the people” with homelessness?
The night was short, and the morning came fast. I really wanted to go back to sleep, but I had appointments for PT, OT, and speech therapy. All for evaluations that needed to be done. The bus was late so I missed the PT evaluation but made the OT and speech. I’d been doing them all through YouTube videos and thought I’d made excellent progress on my own only to find out that I needed more. Twelve weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays of all three to help me get back to where I was or at least some part of it.
Talking with the OT specialist made me realize how much I’ve adapted my life to this stroke, like I had a choice. Take for instance my fur baby, Faith. The specialist recommended that I get rid of Faith because of her power and strength. With tears in my eyes I replied, “Over my dead body.” We went on to discuss this and she quickly realized how important Faith is to my well being, how important she is to my overall health and what she means to me. While talking with
the Occupational Therapist I soon began to realize that I was adapting my life around my circumstances just like being homeless. People experiencing homelessness find places to call home, ways to keep warm in winter and cool in summer without the use of electricity or conventional sources. I’ve found a way to be productive with the current abilities I have. We as humans adapt and evolve with the changing conditions or we die. Man and women have been evolving for years whether
we want to or not, but there comes a time when we aren’t able to make those changes and that’s when homelessness begins.
I’ve discovered that while I resist change on a very high level it’s something that has to be done in order for my survival. I can do this and will do what needs to be done in order to keep moving forward. Forward to new surroundings, forward to new experiences and forward to a new way of life. Moving backwards just isn’t an option.
When I was granted temporary custody of my granddaughter Olivia*, her sister Stacy* was placed in the temporary custody of her great-aunt Beth*. (Names have been changed in this story to protect people’s privacy.)
I love Olivia, and most of my readers know that I do just about everything I can to make sure she has everything she needs. For about the last three years, I’ve been jumping through a lot of hoops to try and continue the relationship between her and her sister Stacy, but it’s been frustrating and exhausting.
Initially we were allowed to visit once a week for approximately two hours at the daycare at Grace Baptist Church (because it was handicap accessible), which was fine since Stacy was very young.
Things gradually began to change when Beth’s husband was diagnosed with a tumor, which required immediate surgery.
Since that time visits have become less and less frequent. There were at least two times when we arrived at the daycare for our visit and Stacy was not there. Beth said she forgot we were coming and sent her home with her daughter (who Stacy calls mom), even though this was a regular day and time that we’d both agreed to.
On another occasion, we were about to board the Accessride van to go for our visit when we were notified by my daughter that Stacy was sick and was not at the daycare that day. I contacted Beth and thankfully she confirmed it before we made the trip.
Although this was both irritating and upsetting, I tried to be understanding given the circumstances in hopes that once the heath situation was resolved that our visitation schedule would resume as before, but that was not the case.
Beth and her husband were granted full custody of Stacy in August of 2016. Beth stated in a post on Facebook that “she belongs to [us] now, [my husband] and I were granted full cus-
tody.” It seems as though since that time that her biological family has been pushed aside.
Sadly, Beth’s husband died of brain cancer in October of 2016 and the number of visits and the length of time of our visits have continued to decrease. Now instead of once a week for two hours, we’re lucky to see her once or twice a month for less than two hours. Sometimes we go as much as five to six weeks between visits, and only at Beth’s convenience.
Adding insult to injury, there have been many times when we arrive for the visit and Stacy is not there yet, or she is taking a nap, or she has just woken up from a nap and is in no mood to play or visit with Olivia.
Again, the times for these visits are times only selected by Beth. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Stacy would at the very least be there on time since we’re only allowed two hours with her? On one such occasion, when Stacy was in a particularly fussy mood, I asked if in the future they could have her there ready to play and be more social and I was told I, “should just get used to it.” After that visit Olivia said, “I don’t think Beth wants us to come and visit.” I told her she was probably right, but that we had to take what we could get at least for now.
Things have also become increasingly difficult since Beth is also taking care of another young child, her great-granddaughter Melanie*.
Melanie is close in age to Stacy and during a recent visit while watching Frozen, Beth made the comment, “she acts [the movie] out with Melanie because they’re like sisters.” That was particularly hurtful to Olivia. You’d think a “child care expert” would be more careful and avoid saying things like that given the situation.
When I first got custody of Olivia, I considered having her enrolled in Beth’s daycare so Olivia and Stacy could spend some quality time together on a regular basis and really get to know each oth-
er. Beth quickly responded with, “well, you know they wouldn’t be in the same class.” My thinking was if you run the daycare, you could make sure they spend some time together each day if you wanted to. Needless to say, that never happened.
I had to ask repeatedly for them to work with Stacy to say Olivia’s name correctly. From a very early age she could clearly say the names of the other girls in her family who she’s around all the time. Once again, this hurt Olivia.
As Stacy has gotten older, I have repeatedly asked for additional time with her and/or additional visits during school breaks, around the holidays, or in the summer, but all such requests have fallen on deaf ears. I even reached out to Beth about going to mediation so we could set a reasonable and binding schedule for visitation, but I’ve never heard back from her on that.
When I got custody of Olivia I was residing in an extended stay hotel. There really wasn’t much room for a baby, although I would’ve tried to make it work if I had been given me the chance to do so, but I was never given that option.
In January of this year I was finally able to get a decent two-bedroom apartment. After taking some time to get settled in, I asked again for the opportunity to have Stacy come for an extended visit at my home and I was told, “Well, I doubt [Stacy] would want to stay.”
I’m sure she might be resistant to the idea at first. Children often don’t want to go to daycare, but they adjust relatively quickly. Children often don’t want to go to school, but it’s the law so they learn to adapt.
Olivia and I have been as much a part of Stacy’s life as Beth has allowed up to this point. I feel, however, that if left up to Beth, Olivia and I will never have any kind of real relationship with Stacy. If left up to Beth I feel that our visitation will continue to decrease until it is eliminated entirely when it is no longer convenient for her.
That’s why I’m asking the court to intervene on our behalf. I feel it is the only way we will ever get any significant visitation with Stacy.
I fear a failure to develop a relationship will ultimately be detrimental to both Olivia and Stacy in the long-term. During our most recent visit in March, Beth informed me that she wouldn’t be able to schedule a visit in two weeks due to prior commitments. I said, “Since you won’t be able to schedule a visit in two weeks what about next week?” She replied, “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see what comes up.” Something almost always comes up, and when I texted her later in March about a possible visit the following day she simply replied, “I can’t this weekend” without giving any real reason.
After that, I called the Juvenile Court of Davidson County and was told that in order to file a petition for visitation I would need to have $166. I went down the following day with money in hand to file the petition only to be told that the only paperwork they had for visitation was for parents and that I would need to contact an attorney to have them specifically draw up a petition for grandparents, which has led to even more delays. I feel that anything worth having is worth waiting for. This is no different.
Perhaps the saddest part of all of this is when I explained to Olivia that we may not be able to see Stacy until this is resolved in the courts and that may take some time and she said, “Nana you can’t always listen to me I’m just a kid, I’m only 10 years old!”
I did what I could to reassure her that while we may not always agree on things like the fact that she can’t eat Nutrigrain bars and fruit snacks for dinner, or how often her mom or dad can visit or how long they can stay, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her wanting a relationship with her sister and I will do everything in my power to make that happen — eventually.
