Start Younger
Thanks so much for your article [May 29] on the lottery and the deletion of early childhood programs from its windfall. While the "other" paper in Knoxville ran a week-long series on early childhood and brain research, the state was busy cutting out the programs that so influence this crucial development! No one in the other media seemed to notice the irony of the timing of these articles!
We in Lenoir City Schools have had pilot classes since Tennessee began offering grants. Last year our program served nearly 80 students in a 5 1/2-hour daily program, including home visits and parent education. These sections were taught by degreed early childhood educators. We know we make a great impact and the state tracking of Tcap scores backs us up.
The effective impact on the attitudes of families toward education is harder to measure but it is the area where we feel we are most powerful.
We do not yet have word from the state on whether we will have funding for next year. There is no alternative in our area for families who have registered their child and are awaiting notification about next year.
Brain research has identified a "window" of opportunity for influencing learning pathways that will determine abilities in later life. Who will qualify for all those scholarships the lottery is doling out if our youngest students and least-able families are not afforded these opportunities for learning? Quality Preschool is the ticket to higher education and quality adult life. College scholarships will supply nothing to those who don't succeed in school in the first place.
Thanks again for pointing out the question of where lottery dollars would do the most good for the state of Tennessee.
Shari Birkholz
Lenoir City
Missed Swimmingly
I am writing in regard to your "swimsuit issue."
As an alternative publication, with (presumably) an enlightened sensibility about discrimination, you could have included a more comprehensive selection of young men in swimsuits, for equal opportunity's sake.
Or, your REAL staff could have posed in swimsuits. Myself, I would have actually paid for that issue.
Going for a derivative frat-boy giggle is unworthy of you, and the use of rather young girls in such tacky poses is certainly in questionable taste. You missed a wonderful opportunity for an edgy and much wittier satire. Surely you can do better work than this.
Mariella Akers
Oak Ridge
'Y'd Out
I must say that when I first saw the May 22 swimsuit layout, I thought it the most ridiculous puerilism I'd ever seen in print! But then it occurred to me that perhaps I am being unfair.
I mean just because the piece lacked any sort of journalistic worth or integrity didn't mean that a statement was not being made. I realize now what it is. You boys have discovered the drawbacks to going through life with that Y chromosome and are trying out these women's bodies to see what will suit you best in your upcoming sex-change operations.
Bravo! and best wishes to you in your future as a member of the Superior Sex!
P.S. If you are already a woman shame on you!
Kathryn L. Grier
Dothan, Alabama
Wear 'em Yourselves
I have been involved in an ongoing discussion about last Thursday's [May 22] MP cover. I see the need for a school's-out, summer issue, and on some level I understand the impulse to do a swimsuit issue. However, I was disappointed that the photo of bikini-clad girls draped over the prize monkey overshadowed the important Empowerment Zone piece. One friend even suggested that it looked as if installing bikini clad women in downtown thoroughfares was meant to be empowering of the zones. If you're going to run fluff on the cover, it might be better to save something like coverage of the Empowerment Zone issues for the next week.
Fluff over substance aside, I also found it predictable and by extension stereotypical. Girls in bikinis for the swimsuit issue. Big surprise. I think MP either needs to have the ogling of half-naked bodies be equal opportunity (one guy isn't exactly equal) or next year if you all are so set on this swimsuit issue idea have the MP staff wear those bikinis and trunks.
Victoria Raschke
Knoxville
Don't Out, Damn Plot
Adrienne Martini, that darling mensch of a clown fish, should refrain from reviewing such "mediocre" films as Finding Nemo if she can't understand one of the foremost tenets of reviewing a film: DON'T GIVE THE DAMN PLOT AWAY!
What a predictable review from such a predictable and self-absorbed writer. Blow the movie for Knoxville moviegoers by giving most of the plot away, including the first and most important scene. Forget that Nemo broke the opening weekend record for an animated picture. I guess that such a cerebral ironist like Martini can't get that some parents and their kids enjoy convention. And a certain homage to prior films like Dumbo or Bambi, for that matter, is something that a child might always remember and cherish, and may have even been the intention of the writers.
Metro Pulse, get over yourself. Sometimes, a kid's movie is just a great, adventurous kid's movie enjoyable by parents and kids alike.
Doug McDaniel
Knoxville
Leave the Park Alone
As a neighbor to Lakeshore Park and a regular walker there, I'm suddenly surprised to learn that Mayor Ashe wants to section off some of it and start charging people to enjoy the view from the "top of the hill" which we all enjoy for free all the time.
I have walked at Lakeshore for years, spent many an afternoon at soccer games there with my daughter, even enjoy taking a breather and watching a Little League team play while passing by.
We do not need any gardens there. It's one of the most beautiful places Knoxville has to offer as it is. Mayor Ashe should be proud of creating the park in the first place...why do we have to section off parts of it so the "fancy folk" have one more place to come visit? One of the "fancy folk" who loves Lakeshore Park the way it is....
Susan Watson
Knoxville
Tax Idea a Gagger
I just read my last Metro Pulse. After gagging through Barry Henderson's [May 29] editorial I'll have to get my fix of "News of the Weird" online. It's too obvious Metro Pulse has been corrupted and is being used as a platform by someone.
Barry, your editorial seems to have been written on another planet. "The current fee is absurdly low"? So what? Are you forgetting we're being taxed to the hilt in every other area? "Many states have ad valorem or personal property taxes" Again, so what? They don't have a sales tax of almost 10%. "Income tax of some kind"? Ah-ha, the reason for this twisted logic suddenly jumps out. Someone wants a state income tax so bad they're willing to crush us with add-on taxes (like the recent doubling of the professional tax) until we cave. "Those who can least afford it." So low-income families should be hammered with a hundred bucks or so each year to keep their car licensed so they can get to work?
On top of that, you have the gall to say "it is not a tax that should be rolled back in the process of tax reform." Wait, didn't you just say "Until we get a genuine statewide tax reform" in the same paragraph? Sounds to me like someone has noticed an area where the state can squeeze its citizens for another drop of blood, and you were hired to make it sound palatable. Sorry, I don't buy it.
How about this: Instead of squeezing us even more, how about some "genuine" budgeting in this state. The waste and corruption in Tennessee is breathtaking. Give me a call, Barry, as a health-care professional I can save you that $3 million "chewing gum" money in Tenncare abuse every single week with a few simple changes.
Or this: Instead of spending millions trying to deal with the pollution generated by all those cars you want to tax, get the junkers off the road. It's been documented that less than 10% of the cars on the road contribute over 90% of the pollution. Clean up that 10% and your problem is reduced 90% and the state saves a bundle and increases tourism dollars since the mountains will actually be visible.
Or this: Halt the mindless proliferation of road-building that threatens to pave the entire state and halt the bogus "roadwork" that fattens contractor's wallets with tax dollars as they endlessly repave the same sections of road over and over.
Or this: Increase property taxes on homes valued at over, say, $300,000. Anyone living in a $300,000 home can surely afford a few hundred bucks a year much easier than the Tennesseans who "can least afford it," right?
Or this: Add the tax to new car purchases. That way it becomes a choice for Tennesseans. If you don't like it, don't buy that new car.
This seems a transparent attempt to bleed us further. I can think of a dozen ways Tennessee could either save or generate the money you think we need so badly. When I run out of money, I budget, I don't rob someone. The state of Tennessee should do no less. The logic in this editorial stinks.
Butch Evans
Knoxville
Grass Dream
In response to Scott McNutt's May 22 column on home ownership: I know Scott. As a matter of fact, I live across the street from him, and I can tell you that he has never mowed his lawn twice in one week.
Eric Ohlgren
Knoxville
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