Nicholas Kristof:

IF you want a case study of everything that is wrong with money politics, this is it.

My community column supports the expanded schools budget.

Debate leads to one conclusion - more school funding

I've added one special feature for Knoxviews readers. Normally reading the online responses can be a dreary exercise in ad hominem, logical fallacies, and half-remembered talking points from talk radio. Let's jazz it up a bit with Bingo.

Here's a Bingo card in anticipation.

4th Sector Solutions Inc is focused on providing administrative and financial support for charter schools (and real estate acquisition, too).

Click on their site's "about us" tab, though, to glimpse the larger coalition of "fourth sector" ideologues, who proclaim that "the boundaries between the public, private, and social sectors are blurring...a Fourth Sector is emerging."

FastCompany explains their shared titillation thusly:

...an investor-like donor isn't an investor, just as venture philanthropy isn't venture capital and recent attempts to create nonprofit "stock markets" aren't actually stock markets...Ultimately, these innovations still rely on tapping the philanthropic urge.

There's far greater upside in the prospect that investors could actually make money from the social sphere.

Like we weren't on to that already.

What was news to me, though, was the legal device they've conceived to effect their goal, namely to co-opt a groundswell of public support--especially among liberals--for B Corporation legislation.

Thomas W. Beasley is best known in Tennessee for having founded Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) (formerly Prison Realty Trust) in Nashville in 1984. His chain of privately owned and operated local, state, and federal prisons today houses 75,000 in 60 facilities and employs 17,000 nationwide.

In 1997, Beasley founded Infrastructure Corporation of America (ICA), also in Nashville. That chain "privatize(d) certain road services traditionally performed by governments."

Beasley also operates at least two for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMOs) in Nashville, a third in Florida, and likely still has an ownership interest in a chain of private colleges.

Just look at this beautiful face!

Yesterday, Susan Campbell with Southern States Rescued Rottweilers put this photo on the organization's Facebook page with a plea for help. This is Faith and she's a one year old Rottweiler whose family took her to the Clarksville, Tennessee animal shelter and just gave her away. Surrenders, as they are called, don't last long in shelters and this one in particular has a reputation for euthanizing Rotties simply because they are Rotties. This is the same shelter that my Lulu escaped.

Susan rescued her this morning and she will be staying here at the Gap with Lulu, Titus, and me until SSRR can find her a forever home. Who knows, that forever home may well be here.

Here's a bigger view.

We seem to be going into a drought, so here's an easy way to keep your gardens watered using a simple DIY irrigation system (in case you haven't already figured out how to do it).

The parts are dirt cheap. Lowes sells the Mister Landscaper micro-irrigation system, which is what we used. They have complete kits, but it's pretty easy to plan out what you need and just get the individual parts.

The following photos show some details of a basic setup along with some notes...

The Smoky Mountain Blues Society has their second of 8 Blues Cruise's this Sunday, May 20th on the Star of Knoxville Riverboat. Join us for three hours of great blues music with Labron Lazenby and LA3.
Tickets are $13 in advance and $18 day of show. Boarding at 2PM, cruise from 3 to 6. Hope to see you there. Call the Riverboat Company at 865-525-7827 | 800-509-2628 for tickets
Check out the SMBS website for more info.
(link...)

...for fear they might negatively affect the regular classroom teachers' student test scores/teacher evaluations.

With teacher tenure and job retention riding on a top score, Williamson County is banning student teachers from working in high school subjects where there are statewide end-of-course exams. The district is also suggesting individual principals not allow them in grades 3-8, or, if they do, not turn over the classroom until after standardized tests.

Now, that's sad.

In yet another example of "journalism from the rear view mirror," this post to explain how it is that a nonprofit charter school sponsor can nevertheless operate that charter in a manner that segregates students, weakens transparency, and funnels taxpayer dollars to for-profit entities--in the following example by funneling those dollars to a for-profit Education Management Organization (EMO):

UPDATE: OK, this is boring. Last update for now unless there's drama. FB IPO story summary as I see it: 1) "yawn," 2) what was the delay in opening?, and 3) traders reporting problems canceling and changing orders before the open. UPDATE: and now reporting problems getting order confirmations after the open. Black eye for NASDAQ.

(OK, an update to the last update. There are reports that underwriters stepped in at $38 to keep it above the IPO price. Sounds like this feverishly hyped highly anticipated IPO is a bust. On the plus side, any "normal" people who wanted in got a chance to buy it at the $38 insider price.)

The owners of Tomato Head had previously given vague reasons for moving their store from Downtown Maryville to West Knoxville. Today they have released a statement on Facebook explaining it in more detail. As suspected, they weren't making money (or at least as much as they thought they should) in Maryville.

A husband and wife moved into the North Knoxville neighorhood near the intersection of Broadway and Central just over a year ago. They are asking for help with the prostitution problem. "The couple took some cell phone video, where they identified one of the women in it as a regular prostitute in their neighborhood."

Mona Nair, WATE reporter, attempts to speak with the lady of the night (or day, as the case may be). The woman says she is a resident of the area and is not too happy to be approached by a reporter.

Knoxville police say they do regular prostitution stings, but arresting the women and men is not a deterrent. "They've been arrested 10-15 times or more," said Knoxville Police Lt. Jim Settlemyer.

Knoxville police say they are working on their next "sting" operation. However, "some of these prostitutes have been doing this so long they're able to identify an undercover cop car. They know immediately when they need to move out of an area."

As reported in January, 2012, North Knox residents are "tired of the loitering, spent condoms, old needles and other problems linked to vagrants in the area."

As I said back in January, this problem is not new. Is it possible to fix? Has any city of this size been able to correct this type of problem? Should KPD assign someone full-time to address the issues?

This is being forwarded:

The Fourth District Democratic Club invites you to hear presentations from Democratic Candidates for the following State offices:

Gloria Johnson (TN House 13 District)
Jerome Q Miller (TN House 14 District)
Anthony D.Hancock (TN House 18 District)
Shelley S. Breeding (TN House 89 District)
Evelyn Gill (TN Senate 6 District)

The candidates will speak about their campaigns for election this fall.

The meeting will take place Tuesday, May 22, at 6:00 PM at the Knox County Branch (Bearden) Library (100 Golf Club Rd.)

The U.S. Postal Service announced today they are closing up to 229 facilities and reducing their workforce by 28,000 employees. The first phase of 140 consolidations is underway and will be completed by February 2013. Another 89 facilities will be affected "unless circumstances change." They are also scaling back overnight delivery of first-class mail.

Here's the announcement...

List of first 140 facilities...

(The three Tennessee facilities on the list are in Clinton, Jackson and Memphis.)

The League of Women Voters of Knoxville/Knox County released a statement endorsing the Knox County Schools budget increase. Their statement lists the reasons for their support based on facts sourced from Knox Co. Schools, Metro Pulse, and the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce. Press release after the jump...

Josh Stearns: Hindsight Journalism

Some of the blame for the rise in hindsight journalism can be laid at the feet of journalists who have gotten too cozy with the the powerful, or too embedded within the industries they are supposed to be covering. In these cases, the hard questions aren't being asked ahead of time because doing so would risk a journalist’s access or imperil some sense of false objectivity.

In reality though, we should look at the overall culture of newsrooms, not at individual journalists. A key factor in the rise of hindsight journalism is structural, rooted in job cuts and budget cuts. ... It is risky for a newsroom to invest in a story that might go nowhere. There are no page views in the hypothetical. The FCC Information Needs of Communities report touches on how this has "shifted power away from citizens to government and other powerful institutions, which can more often set the news agenda." Instead of breaking news, our newsrooms are too often waiting for news to happen and then trying to explain it.

Or worse, waiting for the perpetrators to issue an easily copied and pasted press release that explains it. Thousands of lonely voices in the dark around the internet aren't going to be of much help either, when the perpetrators also own the front page and the airwaves.

There's a lot of proactive journalism that could be happening but isn't. Corporate special interests and their corrupt government enablers are making social and economic justice, environmental protection and basic fair dealing in business and government quaint notions of the past. Where are the watchdogs to sound the alarm?

(By way of @bobstep)

You know we can see you, right?

Sanctioning Corruption in the US Senate
Lisa Rosenberg, Sunlight Foundation

Turning logic on its head, the Keeping Politics Out of Federal Contracting Act of 2011 embodies the theory that maintaining the secrecy of dark money political contributions made by those seeking huge federal contracts somehow protects the integrity of the contracting process.

Too add to the absurdity of the vote, the bill is a response to a phantom. The bill blocks disclosure that would result from an Executive Order mandating transparency by federal contractors. An Executive Order that was never issued. Ever fearful of disclosure, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Independent Business and their ilk flexed their muscles to preempt any transparency of dark money that has resulted from the Citizens United case.

Gartner reports that while first quarter worldwide mobile device sales declined by 2% as compared to a year ago, sales topped a whopping 419 million units.

Samsung (86.5 million units sold) claimed the top manufacturer spot from Nokia (83.1 million units), which had held the lead since 1998. Apple (33.1 million) rounded out the top three. Motorola came in 8th at only 8.3 million units, behind RIM with 9.9 million.

Android dominated mobile OS sales with 81 million units, or 56% of the market. iOS was a distant second at 33.1 million, and increased its market share from 17% to 22%. Microsoft is a footnote.

Click here for the report with tables and some interesting analysis...

Tom Humphrey reports that Haslam has declined to sign the anti-Agenda 21 resolution.

According to his staff, "The governor doesn't support Agenda 21, but he didn't feel compelled to and isn't required to take any action on the resolution."

So I guess it isn't really a meaningless gesture. It's hypocritical.

Facebook is expected to make their IPO debut on NASDAQ tomorrow (symbol FB) at a price of up to $38. Depending on the final price (and how they cook their books), their P/E will be somewhere in the range of 80 to 100. They hope to raise $15 billion on a float of approx. 400 million shares.

This puts Facebook's market cap at approx. $100 billion or more. To put that in perspective, Facebook is:

• Bigger than McDonald's
• Two and a half times bigger than Ford
• Bigger than FedEx and UPS combined
• Bigger than Kraft Foods and General Mills combined
• Bigger than Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined

This is insanity. Bonus: Zuckerberg will control 57.3% of shareholder votes, meaning he's answerable to nobody.