Green Party of Tennessee

A couple of non-related, but related, stories have come to my attention lately. On the surface, they might seem to have little in common.  One deals with psychiatry, the other with pre-natal medicine, but taken together they raise a red flag for the future of diversity in mainstream culture. The first story came from England’s [...]

By now, Rolling Stone’s article about General McChrystal, and his consequent sacking, is old news.  Michael Hastings has been excoriated by the mainstream media for doing honest reporting, the military has announced that they will be a whole lot more careful about interviews, and the general mood seems to be that “we’re not going to [...]

This month’s “Truth in Strange Places” award goes to Tennessee’s  own Lamar Alexander, for saying, in a speech on the Senate floor: “We use 25 percent of all the energy in the world to produce about 25 percent of all the money in the world—five percent of the people in the world. In order to [...]

In contrast to the cockeyed optimism of Lamar “nuclear option” Alexander and many genuine advocates of sustainable, alternative energy, the sobering truth about our energy future can be found in a short but incisive book by Richard Heinberg, entitled “Searching For A Miracle–’Net Energy’ Limits and the Fate of Industrial Society.”  It’s available for free [...]

Last week I went to an afternoon “event” sponsored by “Nashville Naturally,” which is a partnership between the city, the Land Trust for Tennessee, and The Conservation Fund.  The point of this”event”  was “to help shape the future of Nashville’s natural and cultural resources.” The 3-hour gathering was to begin with an intro from Mayor [...]

I created a bit of a flap a few months back when I referred to Metro Council member Lonnell Matthews, Jr. as “Step n’ Fetchit”  for being so willing to do the bidding of the May family.   I have been doing some research on who financed Matthews’ campaign for Metro Council, and here’s what it [...]

The Gulf Coast oil blowout is a tragedy of epic proportions.  Greed, ignorance, and foolish pride all came together, mounted on the backs of BP executives, government officials, and all us just plain folks who are socked in to our various petroleum habits, and now the ugly reality of our oil addiction is smeared across [...]

This month, instead of a “truth in strange places” award, I’m giving an “inconvenient truth” award, to the once revered but now reviled Helen Thomas, for this exchange, as reported on Democracy Now: RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Yeah, and any comments on Israel? We’re asking everybody today. Any comments on Israel? HELEN THOMAS: Tell them to [...]

There was no earthquake.  There was no tornado.  There was no hurricane boiling up from the Gulf.  And Wolf Creek Dam didn’t even break.  It was just, as the Army Corps of Engineers put it, “a thousand-year flood.” And suddenly, life came to a screeching, splashing halt here in middle Tennessee.  Interstate highways were closed [...]

Our “Truth in Strange Places” award this month is a bit of a golden oldie, as it was uttered as part of a college commencement address in 1969.   According to my source, the speaker repudiated an “acquisitive and competitive corporate life” in her class address at Wellesley College. She called for “a more immediate, ecstatic [...]

I spent quite a bit of time last month doing something unusual for me–following the comment thread on a blog post.  The post was on a site called “Science-Based Medicine,” and its author (whose name I feel no need to repeat, as she is an avid self-promoter) seemed to be an M.D. version of Ann [...]

Back in the early eighties, as we were first becoming aware that an ecological meltdown was at least as likely as a nuclear showdown, a friend of mine used to say,”I think there could come a time when we look back and realize that we have just driven one of the other species necessary for [...]

Some people think I’m racist.  I have called my Metro Council representative “Step n’ Fetchit.” I wrote a Joel Chandler Harris knockoff called “B’rer Obama An’ De Tar Baby,”(since withdrawn pending revision) and I once wondered in print whether TSU president Melvin Johnson “shouted ‘Hosannah!’, “did a buck dance, or “shook his wooly mane in [...]

And, while we’re on the subject of apologies…. Like many people, I spread the IPCC’s claim that the Himalayan ice sheet, which is the third largest on the planet, and the source for every major river in Southeast Asia, was likely to melt by 2035.  Well, the good news is, they now admit they were [...]

When I read about the shenanigans perpetrated by the Republican Party lately, I don’t just wonder “What are they thinking?”  I wonder if they are thinking at all, or if they are merely DNA-powered robots in an extremely reactonary, defensive response to the fact that everything that has ever given them security and a sense [...]

It’s been a while since I made any “Truth in Strange Places” awards, so I’ll make up for that by giving out three of them this month, to Nashville’s Congressman Jim Cooper, former President Bill Clinton, and current “Drug Czar” Gil Kerlikowske. Cooper gets his award for this quote: But when you look at TN [...]