Murfreesboro News Press » Murfreesboro Politics

City Council members criticize new photo ID requirement for voting

murfreesboronews — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:35:50 +0000

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Chattanooga City Council members will consider a resolution asking the Tennessee General Assembly to extend the effective date of a new law requiring voters to present picture identification at the ballot box.

“This is one step closer to the poll tax and to the old literacy test another state used to impose upon voters,” Councilman Jack Benson, who proposed the resolution at the Tuesday’s council agenda session, said. “It’s a bad law and it’s our responsibility to protect our citizens’ rights to vote.”

Councilwoman Carol Berz endorsed Benson’s proposal and said the law’s purpose was to frustrate voters.

“There is still no compelling reason (for the law),” she said. “The (U.S.) Justice Department should absolutely look at this. I am glad to hear it is considering (taking) a look at it.”

State Rep. Joanne Favors (D-Chattanooga) told the council that she shares their objections to the law that takes effect Jan. 1, 2012, but her priority is to educate and assist voters to be ready for next year’s elections.

“I’ve gotten numerous calls from people who said they are just not going to vote,” she said. “Voter turnout is already too low. We are forming the Tennessee Voters Assistance Coalition to assist voters.”

Chattanooga resident Dan Hicks, right, renewed his driver’s license at the Cherokee Boulevard Driver Services Center Thursday. A new state law requires residents to show photo ID when voting, starting Jan. 1, 2012. The services center will provide free ID cards to residents. Staff photo.

Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature led the state in passing one of the seventh most stringent voter ID laws in the nation, Favors said. With its passage, the Volunteer State joins six other states to pass a photo ID law this year; 17 states already had the requirement.

Critics of the law said it will impact senior citizens and rural voters who live far from state driver licensing offices, where free photo IDs will be issued.

Supporters said the law protects the integrity of the voting process and point to instances of voter fraud such as the 2006 case reported in Memphis earlier this year as justification.

“I haven’t had any complaints,” Hamilton County Commissioner Joe Graham said. “I think it’s great and I think it needed to be done. It’s very important to vote and important we do it right. You have to have a proper ID to cash a check, to buy alcohol. You should have to have proper ID to vote.”

The new law will impact Tennessee drivers who opted to forgo a photo driver license under a state law passed more than 20 years ago. Safety Department officials said there are about 126,000 people over 60 who exercised that option.

Other people affected by the new law include those without any acceptable photo ID, which in addition to a driver license, includes state and federal identification cards. Critics said people who were born at a time when birth certificates—one of the three documents required to get a free photo ID from the Safety Department—were not required will also be impacted.

Benson also wants the state to consider accepting city and corporate identification for voting.

“My wife and I don’t have photo drivers licenses,” Benson said. “I have a city ID; I’m a city councilman but my ID won’t be accepted. I can’t vote.”

To get a free photo ID from area state driver service centers, applicants must present proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, and two proofs of Tennessee residency, such as a copy of a utility bill, car registration/title or bank statement.

Councilman Russell Gilbert criticized lawmakers for failing to prepare the driver services centers, where residents already must wait hours to obtain, renew or replace drivers licenses.

“Once again the state has passed a law without properly providing services (to implement it),” he said. “Putting the elderly in this position to do something that they have been doing all their lives – it’s ridiculous.”

Gilbert said his wife told him of waiting more than three hours recently to renew her driver’s license. He said she saw many elderly people leave before getting served. This new law will discourage people from voting because of the long wait at the service centers, he said.

Rural residents face the additional challenge of distance, Favors said. With only 42 full service driver services centers statewide, it appears there are too few centers to serve Tennessee’s 95 counties, she said. Locally, of the six counties bordering Hamilton County, only two – Bradley and Marion – have full service driver centers. Hamilton County has two full services centers.

Councilman Andrae McGary said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) notified state Gov. Bill Haslam about his concerns. Durbin, who is holding hearings about the voter ID laws passed in states, called on the governor to take steps to protect people’s voting rights.

Durbin said the people most affected by photo ID laws are those in lower-income groups, minorities and the elderly. In a news conference in Nashville in this week, he said he thinks the new laws will discourage those populations from voting.

State Sen. Bo Watson, R-Chattanooga, said the law’s sponsors weighed those questions while preparing the bill.

“Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro) looked at what other states had done and what had been challenged constitutionally and upheld, and this is the construction of that analysis,” Watson said. “I am aware of concerns but (requiring ID) is not inconsistent with a lot of behaviors used throughout society. Most of the complaints have to do with the hassle factor and not to do with the principal behind the law.”

Graham dismissed the idea that the law will deter people from going to the polls.

“There are so many other things discouraging people,” he said. “Only 16 percent or 17 percent of (registered) voters determine our races. I’ve got around 34,000 people in my district and only 2,200 to 2,500 voted. That’s less than 10 percent. That’s horrible.”

In the last presidential primary, Tennessee voter turnout was below that of the national average, with 26 percent of eligible voters casting ballots, compared to 30 percent nationwide, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Center.

Safety Department spokeswoman Jennifer Donnals said Commissioner Bill Gibbons is studying ways to improve efficiency at the state’s 42 services centers.

“There are some centers that are not busy at all and there are others where lines come out the door,” Donnals said. “There have been no decisions made yet but there is talk about combining some of the centers.”

Favors will host an organizational meeting for the coalition on Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Carver Recreation Center off Highway 58. Because of limited space, Favors asks that people call 423-624-5088 to register.

State Rep. Vince Dean, R-East Ridge, said he hopes to attend. Dean voted for the new state law.

“I would certainly be open to listen to concerns and I know there are some concerns,” Dean said. “I know in other districts they have had (voting) problems. That is the reason we did it. Often times to correct problems in one area of the state, we pass a statewide law that then causes problems in other areas for some people.”

Fox analyst to keynote Carr event

murfreesboronews — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:35:49 +0000

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LASCASSAS — Fox News Political Analyst Dick Morris will be the keynote speaker at Republican state Rep. Joe Carr’s annual T-Bones Politics fundraiser on Sept. 24, Carr announced Tuesday.

“We will conduct the state’s first certified presidential straw poll for the Republican primary,” said Carr, who resides on a farm in the Lascassas community northeast of Murfreesboro.

The event at 4707 Lascassas Pike northeast of Murfreesboro will also provide live musical entertainment. T-Bones Politics will be held for the sixth year in a row in a huge equipment shed that Carr said he’s leasing from property owners Trent and Laura Messick.

Last year’s event drew more than 400 people to see Andrew Card, who served as chief of staff for former President George W. Bush.

Carr expects this year’s event to draw more than 600 at $50 per ticket. Organizers will be setting up tents to handle any crowds that can’t fit into the main equipment shed.

“I am thrilled to have a brilliant political mind in Dick Morris headline this year’s T-Bones Politics,” said Carr, who is paying Morris a speaker’s fee. “Dick has a unique perspective on what we’re seeing happening in Washington right now, and I’m eager to hear his insight.”

Money raised from the event will benefit Tennessee Republican legislative candidates in the 2012 election.

The Tennessee Republican Party will be helping Carr organize the event.

“T-Bones Politics is one of the premier Republican events every year, and this year’s event will be no exception,” state GOP Chairman Chris Devaney said. “Having Dick Morris as the headliner and a presidential straw poll should make this a can’t-miss event for the politically active.”

Carr represents the 48th District, which covers northeast, southeast, south and southwest parts of Rutherford County.

In addition to Morris’ role as political analyst for Fox News, he contributes a weekly column for the New York Post and columns and blogs for The Hill. Morris has also authored several books. His latest, “Revolt! How to Defeat Obama and Repeal His Socialist Programs,” was released in March.

Panel recommends county keep 21 seats

murfreesboronews — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:35:48 +0000

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MURFREESBORO — The Rutherford County Commission Redistricting Committee unanimously recommended a map that retains 21 commission districts Wednesday instead of reducing the number to 14 as Commissioner Robert Stevens proposed.

“Our country was based on democracy,” said committee member Johnny Taylor, who is a Democratic member of the Rutherford County Election Commission. “I have a problem with one man, one plan.”

The 11-member committee voted 6-5 to take no action on Stevens’ proposal but agreed in a 9-2 vote to include his map on the county’s website along with the recommended one, called Map 4.0.

The full 21-member County Commission will consider the redistricting recommendation during a meeting that starts at 6 tonight at the County Courthouse on Murfreesboro’s Public Square.

The redistricting process takes place every 10 years based on final Census counts, in order to even up the number of people inside each commissioner’s district. A final district plan has to be approved by the end of the year.

Stevens, who is not a member of the redistricting committee, suggested the county could save $750,000 per decade by cutting the number of seats to 14 and reducing commission committees from seven to five by merging committees.

The savings could be spent on visitor football bleachers at La Vergne or Smyrna high schools or public safety or other needs, Stevens said.

“I think we have more important needs than putting it in politicians’ pockets,” said Stevens, noting that 80 percent of his constituents favor cutting government, including the size of the commission, just as families, businesses and non-profits have learned to cut their budgets.

Taylor said he resents the notion of public servants being called politicians.

“Can you really put a price on Democracy and representation of the people?” Taylor asked.

Stevens’ proposal showed him residing in a district that would not put him up against another commissioner, but it did put other commissioners against each other, including Commissioner Jeff Jordan being in the same district with Commissioner Allen McAdoo. Jordan and McAdoo both serve on the committee.

Let’s Put a Stop to Redistricting Shenanigans

murfreesboronews — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:30:43 +0000

Redistricting is one of the ugliest processes in our democracy. Last month, a leaked map scowled from the back room where Republicans are cooking up new voting districts. It divvied Nashville into thirds, breaking up U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper’s Democratic base and also appeared to favor the Congressional ambitions of state Sen. Bill Ketron (R – Murfreesboro), who sits on a three-member committee charged with drawing up new state Senate and U.S. House districts.

The map was created by an out-of-state fan of Ketron’s Tea Party politics, and Republicans deny it is being considered. Still, it is a reminder of how big a role personal and partisan politics play in redistricting.

The federal Constitution requires reapportionment after each census to assure that each member of Congress represents approximately the same number of citizens. Unfortunately, the Constitution offers little guidance on how to accomplish this task, and the courts have been slow to pick up the slack.

The only firm rules are that communities dominated by racial minorities must be kept intact, and populations of districts cannot vary by more than 10 percent. This void of guidance has given political parties, which the Constitution does not mention nor empower, the chance to seize control of the process.

Whichever party controls the state Legislature after a census controls district boundaries, and partisan motives have yielded absurdly shaped districts such as state Rep. Frank Niceley’s, which contains a chunk of Jefferson County, a long, thin segment of Strawberry Plains Pike, South Knox County and Sequoyah Hills.

State law requires counties to create districts that respect geographical and demographic groupings, and the work of county redistricting committees is subject to the Sunshine Law. As a result, city and county districts have fairly natural shapes that reflect real communities. State lawmakers do not hold themselves to the same standards. They should.

In June, News Sentinel Nashville bureau chief Tom Humphrey outlined the sordid history of redistricting in Tennessee and said, “redistricting is totally based on insider dealing by legislators with zero input from average residents.” Democrats controlled the process for more than a century, and Republicans are now eager for payback.

In the recent past, Tennessee’s federal representatives have redrawn their districts, but this time around state legislators have taken control of the task. Though most states have already proposed or even decided on new district lines, Tennessee has done nothing more than name committee members and will not convene until January.

Republican leader Beth Harwell promised a request for public input would go up on the Legislature’s website “after Labor Day,” but it is not there as of this writing. Ketron and Rep. Steve McDaniel have hinted that they may not unveil proposed maps until the Legislature is in session, and a quick vote could give the public little time to review and react to changes. This delay would also leave little time for courts to resolve legal challenges prior to the April filing deadline for candidates.

Party bigwigs normally attempt to create as many winnable districts as they can, but incumbents also do things like move potential challengers out of their district. Ugliest, however, is the disrespect shown to citizens and communities as they are shuffled around and haggled over in secret dealings.

There is a way to stop the shenanigans. Mathematicians can handle these sorts of issues objectively and transparently, so we could simply impanel professors from around the state to determine optimal districts.

Or we could turn the process on its head. “One man, one vote” is the legal standard, but we only approximate that goal. We could be exact about it. We could weigh each representative’s vote according to how many people he or she represents, 1.05 for someone from a larger district and 0.95 for someone representing a smaller district, for example. Instead of forever redrawing maps in pursuit of an unobtainable ideal, we could hold the maps constant and recalculate the weight of a representative’s vote with each census.

This would eliminate partisan games and give citizens not approximately, but exactly equal representation.

"As The Worm Squirms"

murfreesboronews — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:30:41 +0000

….might be a catchy little title to a soap opera, like the one on the GOP debate on CNN last night.

Rick Perry, who initially looked pretty good a few months ago with his job creation numbers, is finding out that you have to account for EVERYTHING you’ve done, and he got hammered pretty good last night for his Executive Orders to have all of those 12-year old schoolgirls “innoculated” under and “opt-out” program, rather than an “opt-IN”…….smells a bit “HITLER-ish” to me…..

Even the “drag-queens in the service supporter” Ron Paul, got after him for it.

Another point was raised about his tuition support of ILLEGALS, and his lame exceuse was that it only applied to the ones who were already here for a couple of years and were going to try to become citizens…….Nobody in the audience bought that, and neither did I. Santorum showed HIS “pro-immigration” hand too last night. I don’t think he’s gonna be around too much longer either.

I thought Bachmann was BRILLIANT last night, and Cain of course—steady as a piston, plain speaking and right up front. Romney——-ever the politician…….business as usual and not overly convincing of anything (to ME anyway). Huntsman?……wouldn’t surprise me if he and Santorum roomed together at some college.

Gingrich showed his experience and answered with a lot of savvy last night, although I don’t think he’s the one to do the job in the White House. TOO MUCH “experience” is WORSE than no experience at all sometimes…………(we’ve got a lot of 30 40-year representatives in D.C. already……………..everybody happy with the job they’re doing?)

I’m still supporting Herman Cain, because HIS experience is what we need more than ANYTHING right now in this country. HIS financial success never came through taxpayer dollars or government “bailouts.” The man “stiulated” his OWN path.

I would TRUST Cain with the economy before I’d trust anybody else on that stage, or anybody else on the OTHER side (which is a GIVEN, since we’ve already had a pretty good looks at THEIR monetary skills over the past 3 years).

Michelle Bachmann speaks for for the tea party movement and is a devout follower of not only the Constitutuion….but the common sense world of what’s RIGHT and what’s WRONG.

Were it up to me (which, thank God for the liberals it ISN’T), our 2012 GOP ticket would be Cain for President and Bachmann for V.P.).

It would not only be a strong ticket for America, but the “amestream media” would be totally frustrated at the same time:

They couldn’t dig up any “congressional dirt” against Cain, who is a NON-politician…………and they DEFINIELY couldn’t play any “race cards” against Cain, who is blacker than Obama in EVERY respect….

So they’d HAVE to dive into their “anti-conservative-women playbook, (which has gone into its 3rd or 4th printing by now). Maybe if they dug deep enough, they might find that one of the Bachmanns’ foster children was caught cheating on a spelling test or something……and they might even have that same pervert rent a house right behind HER this time.

I think a Cain-Bachmann ticket would be a “Nightmare on Elm Street” for this administration, and the smartest thing we’ve done for our country in 32 years.

But “Flash-in-the-pan” Rick Perry is no better than what we have now, and I hope every Republican who watched that debate last night CAUGHT that little RINO worm “squirming” last night!

ELECTION COMMISSION: Voter ID law draws questions, concerns

murfreesboronews — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:28:06 +0000

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Also, the law currently allows for voters without the proper ID to get a free photo ID from the Tennessee Department of Safety.

If a voter doesn’t bring a photo ID to the polling precinct, and is not exempt, the person still will be able to vote.

The person can vote with a provisional ballot, and then has two business days after the election to return to the county Election Commission office to show a valid photo ID. Provisional ballots then are reviewed by a special board to ensure these voters’ authenticity.

“I am afraid we are going to have so many people voting without IDs that it will delay the election results,” Taylor said.

Here’s what forms of photo ID will be acceptable in the new year:

— Tennessee driver’s license with the voter’s photo

— United States passport

— Department of Safety photo ID

— Photo ID issued by the federal or state government

— U.S. military photo ID

— Gun permit card with photo.

College IDs and those issued by counties will not be accepted.

“We are going to need a lot of public outreach on this,” said Election Commission Chairman Ransom Jones, a Republican. “No matter how much public education we do, there will be some people confused.”

FYI
For information about the voter photo ID requirements, visit your county election commission, or visit www.tn.gov/sos/election/index.htm.

Local Dems to hold primary

murfreesboronews — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:26:24 +0000

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MURFREESBORO — Rutherford County Democratic Party leaders said Sunday they will hold a primary to select candidates in 2012 and criticized the use of caucuses to pick political candidates.

At its quarterly meeting Saturday, the party and executive committee members voted unanimously to use a primary rather than caucuses to determine whose names will go on the county election ballot next fall for county road superintendent and assessor of property, according to a statement released Sunday.

“It does not surprise me that our Democrats prefer a primary. Our candidates will be selected in the light of day at the polls, not behind closed doors,” said Justin St. Clair, party chairman.

The decision comes after the Rutherford County Republican Party opted to choose candidates for the 2012 election by caucusing. Its executive committee voted 11-4 this summer to go with the caucuses, reflecting a trend that started last year.

The local GOP did the same in 2010 when party members nominated delegates in a series of precinct meetings and then those delegates voted on candidates for office at a party convention at the Rutherford County Courthouse.

The local Democratic Party followed suit, and both parties presented their decisions as a way to save the county $100,000 by not having to hold a standalone primary election.

In 2012, though, a presidential preference primary required by federal law is to be held. The local Democratic Party pointed out Sunday that its primary will be held in March in conjunction with the presidential primary — at no cost to the county.

“The caucus system in this county mainly benefits status quo candidates, robbing the average citizen of their voice in the process,” St. Clair said. “This system allows a small group of people to determine who everyone else gets to vote for in the general election.”

By giving all voters the opportunity to participate at the ballot box in the primary, St. Clair said the Democratic Party believes it ensures “a more open and honest election.”

Chris Peck: Worry, paranoia are new hijackers

murfreesboronews — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:24:19 +0000

No, Osama bin Laden didn’t win. But the SOB inflicted wounds on this country — and to all of us.

And they aren’t healed yet. Scarred over, perhaps, but still causing pains large and small. You will sense that today while you read The Commercial Appeal’s expanded coverage on the impact of 9/11 now 10 years later.

Full coverage of the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

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Think back 10 years ago, before the twin towers fell.

You could just walk onto an airplane. No search. No shoes off. No TSA uniforms, or sniffers, or metal detectors at the gates.

Ten years ago, the Republican president of the United States, George W. Bush, went on TV to say America is not at war with the Muslim world.

But this summer, more than one presidential hopeful has hinted at a far different message — that a war of the worlds indeed rages between competing cultures and religions.

Remember a decade ago when this country enthusiastically debated what to do with its federal budget surpluses?

In 1998, 1999 and 2000, the federal government took in $500 billion more than it spent. Back then, we asked ourselves: Should we fix the highways? Go to Mars? Invest in cures for cancer?

By 2002, as the “war on terror” ramped up, and every year since, the federal budget deficit has gone south.

This year, the deficit spending at the national level, meaning the amount of money the government spends beyond what it takes in, will hit $1.6 trillion.

There are other factors, like tax cuts and modest increases in social program spending, that have added to this ballooning deficit. But a big chunk can be linked most directly to the $5 trillion we have paid out in the last decade fighting terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.

That $5 trillion has taken a bite out of Memphis. The National Priorities Project, a group whose sole mission is to help Americans understand the federal budget, estimates the war on terror has cost taxpayers in Memphis about $2.2 billion over the last decade.

Enough to pay for another 4,000 police officers on Memphis streets over the last 10 years.

Enough to pay for 28,000 Memphis kids to get preschool education each year for the last decade.

Enough to fix every pothole and sidewalk and trim every weed.

Has the $5 trillion spent fighting terrorism been worth it? Few would argue that defending the nation against another terrorist attack is worth almost any price. But it hasn’t been cheap. And the dollars spent warring against terrorism have surely taken money and attention away from many other things that we once thought were important but now can’t afford.

Yet an even bigger price has been extracted from America these last few years. As a nation we have grown more fearful and less trusting since 9/11.

You see it everywhere.

More guns sold. More hate crimes committed. Less reaching across political aisles and church pews to accept those who think or worship differently.

I saw this fear and distrust boiling over just a few days ago at a seminar in Nashville called ”Covering Islam in the Bible Belt.”

Reporters and editors from across Tennessee gathered at the First Amendment Center to examine how Islam and Muslims are viewed in Tennessee and across the country. The seminar, organized by Middle Tennessee State University, seemed most timely.

Only days before, Memphis native Herman Cain, a Republican candidate for president, had declared that he felt the citizens of Murfreesboro, Tenn., had every right to ban construction of a local mosque. And, Cain added, if elected president he wouldn’t have any Muslims in his Cabinet, a statement he subsequently modified.

Just weeks before, the Tennessee legislature passed a law designed to make sure the Islamic code of personal behavior, known as Shariah, would never be allowed in Tennessee courts to supersede laws of the land or the U.S. Constitution.

The journalists at the seminar learned what is obvious 10 years after 9/11. America now has developed a gnawing fear about Islam, Shariah and Muslims.

This fear burst out one evening at the seminar when a screaming, threatening crowd of Shariah law antagonists showed up to confront a handful of Tennessee Muslims who had been invited to discuss their lives and beliefs.

What seemed lost that evening were some of the most cherished American ideals. The crowd who came to confront the journalists and Muslim panelists no longer seemed to embrace the notion of religious freedom. There was no room that night to agree on the virtues of our constitutionally protected religious rights, or freedom of speech, or separation of church and state.

That night, and on many days since 9/11, America seems a worried, even paranoid nation that has turned against a tiny minority of Muslims who we fear will hijack American values.

That very worry and paranoia, of course, are teaming up to do the hijacking.

Bin Laden didn’t win.

But his mission to destroy American wealth and undermine American values continues even with the mastermind in his grave on this, the 10th anniversary of his evil deeds.

Chris Peck is editor of The Commercial Appeal. Contact him at 529-2390 or at peck@commercialappeal.com.

Tennesseans consider what matters a decade after 9/11

murfreesboronews — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:24:15 +0000

It’s impossible for them to forget where they were on Sept. 11, 2001.

One had just an hour earlier kissed her husband goodbye as he boarded an American Airlines flight bound for New York. Another found her eighth-grade Latin teacher standing horrified in front of a television when class was supposed to start. A young man watched the carnage wreaked by Islamic extremists unfold and shuddered at what it meant for his religion’s future in America.

As the nation stood transfixed, watching first as American Airlines Flight 11 smashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, then, about 17 minutes later, as United Airlines Flight 175 tore through the South Tower, few knew the profound changes those events would cause. Those changes have touched nearly every aspect of life: the way we view country and patriotism; our thoughts on security, rights and privacy; our attitudes toward people who are different from us; and even the language we use today.

Elizabeth Helen Waynick was a child when the Twin Towers collapsed and another hijacked airliner smashed into the Pentagon that same day. Her young mind could not comprehend the courage of passengers on Flight 93 willing to risk their lives by challenging the hijackers over a Pennsylvania field and driving the plane into the ground. On that day, 19 al Qaida terrorists under the direction of Osama bin Laden hijacked four planes and extinguished nearly 3,000 lives.

Waynick turned to her grandparents, who had seen similar loss in World War II, for perspective.

“They assured us that the world would continue, even though it didn’t feel like it at the time,” said Waynick, now 23 and teaching preschool. “But it was obvious that this was something that would change our lives forever.”

We are now on the cusp of an entire generation that has grown up not knowing what life was like before 9/11. These people will never experience the hubris, the way Americans were once able to take security and privacy for granted, a life largely uncomplicated by bloody international conflict in faraway lands.

We are changed. And those changes, even for those who never knew life before, will always loom large.

“The event itself is a forceful living presence and not just a historical fact to be consigned to a museum. The subsequent transformation of American civic life domestically and internationally, this in essence forcibly reminds us every day,” said W. James Booth, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. “We have daily reminders of the consequences of those events. I’d imagine even those people too young to have a first-person recollection of 9/11 live very consciously in a milieu defined by those events.”

What is patriotism?

What does patriotism mean today? What does it mean to be an American?

Those questions rarely crossed the popular conscience in the years preceding the Sept. 11 attacks. But on that Tuesday morning, they held a new significance.

Suddenly, as volunteers from all over the nation poured into New York, donated money and goods by the truckload, and stood in public displays of solidarity, we were all New Yorkers. We were all Virginians and Pennsylvanians. We were all Americans.

Ten years later, it’s important for Americans to remember that oneness that we all felt in the months after 9/11, Booth said.

“That reminder is a powerful one and not one that is all that common. Perhaps it reinforced, not patriotism in a jingoistic sense, but a patriotism where we realize we do have a connection to New York City or that field in Pennsylvania or Washington, D.C.,” he said. “We look back at the ‘United We Stand’ slogans, the bumper stickers. We say for a time we remember, Democrat or Republican, whoever we voted for, we’re all citizens.”

For Courtenay Rogers, 33, that patriotism was particularly poignant. When the attacks occurred, she was naval Ensign Rogers, stationed at Pearl Harbor on a guided missile destroyer, the USS Hopper.

She rushed to her destroyer that morning to find a plane heading toward Hawaii that had not heeded orders to ground all flights. Her ship was the one that tracked the plane, poised to act if it didn’t respond. The plane did after the pilot realized it was on the wrong channel.

Rogers said the support the military received after 9/11 was unprecedented, as was the unity she felt from her countrymen.

Part of that support came from people like Waynick. Then only 13, she came up with an idea to plaster “I love New York” on bumper stickers, fliers, posters and signs that went viral across the nation.

But 10 years later, as Rogers lives life as a civilian with a 4-year-old daughter in Franklin, that unity isn’t quite the same.

“I have to say it was short-lived,” she said. “Not very long after did it go back to bipartisan arguing.”

For Kim Phillips, who lives in Kingston Springs, today’s ideas of patriotism and country are used less as something to unite, and more as something designed to divide.

“When I was going up, your patriotism was assumed. If you’re a good American, you vote, you work, you pay your taxes, it was assumed you were a good American,” said Phillips, 53. “Now patriotism is being used like a brick to hit people with, people are all the time questioning your patriotism.”

But the return to rancor can also be a good thing, Booth said.

“That sort of solidarity over the course of the last 10 years has also been counterbalanced, you might say, by the normal run of political disputes,” he said. “This is inevitable and probably not an unhealthy part of how everything occurs in a democracy.”

Security and travel

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Katrina Neylon kissed her husband, Jim, as he boarded an American Airlines flight to New York. As she left, she recalled the scent of his skin.

Around the time he was supposed to arrive in New York, a plane smashed into the World Trade Center. She panicked. Her husband’s cellphone dialed her once — right around the time the second plane crashed — but it was silent on the other end.

“I was absolutely in horror,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it, and there was no way to know.”

She waited for several excruciating hours before he finally called from a relative’s home in Long Island.

Today, at age 53, she lives with Jim in Old Hickory. She said the experience and the subsequent years have solidified her views on security and travel. Whatever it takes is fine with her.

“I feel safer flying,” she said. “I think it’s a pain in the butt, and I think people who complain about the body scan have no right to. I think they’ve forgotten.”

But the debate rages, even today. On July 10, Andrea Fornella Abbott, 41, was arrested at Nashville International Airport after authorities said she yelled and swore at them when her 14-year-old daughter was selected for a full-body scan. Abbott denied the charges, saying she didn’t want her daughter exposed to radiation from the scan and didn’t want her inappropriately touched during a pat-down.

The case and subsequent video touched off renewed debate about personal privacy, security and travel restrictions post-9/11.

For Phillips, we have gone too far, not only with travel restrictions, but with the Patriot Act and other homeland security measures. In Tennessee alone, the U.S. government has spent more than $40 million since 2006 — more than $12 million in Middle Tennessee alone — on homeland security technology, equipment, software and training.

“To me our freedoms in this country have been severely curtailed, not protected, by the people who purport to be protecting our freedoms,” she said. “I try never to fly. Honestly. To me that’s a big change because before, I would get on an airplane anyplace, anytime.”

But for a younger generation, these aren’t so much changes as they are a way of life.

“I don’t think that we really care too much,” Waynick said. “It’s always been there for us because we were too young to know any different.’’

Muslims under fire

Rashed Fakhruddin, 42, was working as an engineer on Sept. 11, 2001, when his colleagues began to gather around the television. It was a scene out of hell: fire, smoke, debris, collapsing buildings, a nation that would surely go to war to exact justice.

But against whom?

As the government responded and details of the attack trickled out that day, Fakhruddin felt a dark cloud gathering.

“When they said they were Muslims, I was like, ‘Oh, God,’ ” he said. “They’ll think we’re all responsible for it, and we’re not.”

What followed was fear, uncertainty, even for a 41-year resident like Fakhruddin. There were incidents of hate and intolerance, suspicion in the immediate aftermath. But Fakhruddin, who is past president of the Islamic Center of Nashville, said that he also saw kindness, support and understanding.

“There was a bit of fear, but it subsided very quickly because we saw so much goodness in the community,” he said. “We experienced kindheartedness from the Nashville community.”

The decade that followed has been a mixed bag for Muslims in Nashville and across the country.

Movements fighting against the expansion and building of mosques have gained momentum, legitimizing views that before 9/11 were often not spoken aloud. In Rutherford County, vocal opposition rallied against a new mosque for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. When the rallies failed to stop construction, a group of residents sued, claiming that Islam is not a religion and that the mosque could be a training ground for terrorism and the overthrow of the United States.

Peter McCluskey, professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University, said language has changed when discussing Islam. Notions of threatening “our way of life”, images of consuming by using words such as “hordes” and “swarms,” and associating Shariah law with an alleged philosophy of overthrowing U.S. laws have entered into popular vernacular.

“We are at war with an abstract noun. And we have people who can’t quite grasp that so they need to make it concrete and specific, so that to me is what’s happened with the mosque here,” McCluskey said. “There is the rhetoric of battle, of confrontation, of war coming from both sides.”

Phillips looks at it as a simple matter of xenophobia that has gained a foothold in mainstream political debates.

“I think there’s a general sort of xenophobia that’s going on, and it’s being taken out on, particularly, Hispanics, Muslims, anybody from Arab countries,” she said. “We’re telling people they can’t build a mosque, we’re defacing mosques. There seems to be a general fear going on.”

But Fakhruddin said there also have been new opportunities for Muslims across the country to start dialogues with other faiths, to embrace a more public role in communities and to build understanding.

“Our relationship has just overwhelmingly increased with the community. It’s been a two-way street, and we’d like that to continue,” he said. “9/11 should teach us that we all need to have a common understanding, we need to take a balanced approach, be moderate, be peaceful with each other. We’re all in the same country, we’re all in the same boat and we all have the same feelings about America regardless of faith.”

America at war

Since Oct. 7, 2001, America has been at war. First in Afghanistan. Then, two years later, in Iraq as the United States sought to tamp down terrorism across the globe.

Though much of the country has been divided about that mission, its scope and our place in international politics, war has become a daily part of life since 9/11. Daily reports of casualties are reported by the media.

Some 6,000 military men and women have come home in flag-draped coffins. Almost 46,000 have been wounded.

War has changed us, said Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, professor of history at the University of Tennessee and director of the Center for the Study of War and Society. Not only has it hardened us to the harsh realities of global citizenship, but it also has stirred interest in greater international participation.

“I think people see much more a dynamic world scene where there’s constant change, constant flux, thus there’s always the possibility of competition between states or international entities lapsing into war,” Liulevicius said. “I think that also, how American views of war and of international politics more generally have changed, is that with the end of the Cold War, there was a sense that here is a chance to enjoy the fruits of the end of that big ideological competition. But history doesn’t stop, it doesn’t end and the world doesn’t automatically revert to harmony.”

It’s an uneasy place to be in. Neylon recalled the height of the Cold War, with the constant threat of mutual nuclear annihilation with the former Soviet Union. That threat has simply changed.

“As much as I would love our men to withdraw and all come home safe and sound, I don’t think that’s possible,” she said.

It’s also the war of Waynick’s generation, still young enough to be fighting overseas. Growing up with war has steeled her peers, though she doesn’t sense any joy or comfort with having to wage it. It is simply a fact of life.

“That’s a reality that I think we have grown up with,” she said. “We’re over there, and a lot of people we know are over there.”

Liulevicius said there is hope in events since 9/11 in the form of greater international participation. He said his students are far more interested in global events and politics and eager to engage. Most of all, he said, today’s youths, some of whom have lost friends and relatives overseas, have a great appreciation for what is at stake.

“I wouldn’t say that there’s an increased willingness to go to war today,” he said. “There’s a really sober understanding … on what the costs of war are.”

‘A huge turning point’

The costs weigh heavily on Rogers’ mind.

She was old enough to understand life before and after 9/11. She has seen the country move from peace to war. She has witnessed the difficulties in balancing rights with security and the tensions between our views on people who have different religions or ethnicities.

And some day, soon perhaps, she’ll have to sit down with her daughter, Clair, now 4, and explain it all. It’s important she knows what happened, Rogers said. And it’s important she knows how difficult and complex a world we live in 10 years later.

“I feel very strongly about always telling her the truth behind events and behind life in general. It was a huge turning point for us as a country, good and bad,” she said. “In a way it feels like yesterday, but so much has happened since then.”

Fla. Congressman Stands Against Ground Zero Mosque in 9/11-Theme Conference

murfreesboronews — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:11:01 +0000

WASHINGTON – While religious leaders are urging Christians to love their Muslim neighbors as the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks draw near, Florida Congressman Allen West (R) and the Christian Action Network reminded the public that there is still continued opposition to the New York City Islamic center being built near ground zero.

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Surrounded by the families of seven 9/11 victims, West spoke against the mosque and Islamic center being erected near the site of the fallen twin towers in a Wednesday press conference.

Comparing the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon to the Pearl Harbor bombing, West said no one who attacked the United States should be allowed to put a victory monument to their people at an attack site.

“If 10 years or nine years after Pearl Harbor, if the country of Japan had come to the United States of America and said ‘we wanted (sic) to erect a memorial to Japanese naval seamanship at Pearl Harbor,’ what would have we said?” he stated. “I think that along that same parallel, that’s what we see here.”

The $100 million mosque and Islamic center called the Park51 project will be located two blocks away from the sight where the twin towers formally stood, now called ground zero.

Plans reveal that the 13-story center would include a mosque, daycare, preschool, gym and 9/11 Memorial.

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Park51 developer Sharif el-Gamal previously said that he did not intend for the project to cause controversy. However, there have been several protests, public rebukes and a legal challenge against the planned New York City mosque and center.

Mosques that have been proposed in areas such as Murfreesboro, Tenn., have garnered similar protest aimed at the centers and the religion they represent.

Many Christian leaders such as megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton are now instructing their mainly white evangelical congregants, who are often seen as the face of mosque protests, to show Muslims some compassion.

Hamilton states that there are many things upon which Christians and Muslims agree and he urges Christians to show love rather than fear or hatred toward Muslims.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics Religious Liberty Commission, has chided public figures for trying to ban mosques from various neighborhoods, saying that he would “fight to the death” to protect the religious rights of all Americans including Muslims.

However, Land also has expressed concern that Park51′s placement is too close to ground zero.

“It still remains a fact that the people who perpetrated the 9/11 attack were Muslims and proclaimed they were doing what they were doing in the name of Islam,” Land, also executive editor of The Christian Post, wrote in a Washington Post commentary.

Many victims’ family members too have expressed opposition to the project since it was approved. Christian Action Network (CAN) President Martin Mawyer screened the film “Sacrificed Survivor” at the Wednesday event to broadcast the victims, family members and first responders’ words of disapproval for the project.

Surviving parents present at the event also voiced their opposition.

Jack McDermott, father of slain Wall Street trader Matt McDermott, said, “As to the situation with downtown Manhattan and the mosque, I think it’s a tragedy that people are attempting to do something which is very distasteful to me.”

Some of the victims and the groups present placed blame on the Muslim faith and Islamic culture for the attacks. A distressed Bruce DeCell, father-in-law to fallen commodities broker Mark Petrocelli, said, “We are war with the Islamic culture.” Additionally, West commented that the Islamic faith has taken a violent turn and needs to undergo a reformation much like Christianity has.

However, West agreed with Alice Hogland, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat and a mother of slain United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Mark Bingham, who said the mosque is not a question of religious freedom, but of morality.

Hogland noted, “I urge the developer and all the folks behind the Park51 project … to reconsider this ill-conceived project. This is not a legal question. There is no question that anyone in the United States has the right to express his religious beliefs. There is no question that they have the legal right to build within two blocks of the site where 2,977 or so people died at the hands of Islamist terrorists. The question, it seems to me, is the moral right, is the moral issue.”

“Is it appropriate,” she questioned, “to build an Islamic center if you find yourself so opposed by people who were so touched by the tragedy [and] who are still are nursing sick hearts and open wounds from the loss of loved ones.”

West spoke words of tribute to the 9/11 victims. West noted that his wife, Angela, is from Brooklyn, N.Y., and once had dealings in the World Trade Center’s towers.

“I stand here today with these survivors to make sure of one simple thing: that their story, that their loved ones will never be forgotten,” said West.

Zelenik: Aegis suit still alive, has merit

murfreesboronews — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:05:53 +0000

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MURFREESBORO — Contrary to a related legal settlement, former Republican congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik is still waging a court battle with U.S. Rep. Diane Black over a campaign ad that aired 2010 during their 2010 primary race.

“Some in the news media have been erroneously reporting that a settlement has been reached in the lawsuit that Aegis Sciences Corporation filed against me in an attempt to stifle the free speech rights of my campaign to point out the egregious ethics violations by Diane Black while a state senator benefiting her and her husband’s company,” Zelenik stated in a written release late Tuesday night. “Nothing could be further from the truth. There has not been a settlement by me or my campaign.”

Aegis Sciences Corp., which is owned by Black’s husband, Dr. David Black, reached an out-of-court agreement this week for an undisclosed amount with Bright Media Inc., which created an ad last year showing Black voted to give Aegis $1 million worth of government contracts when she was a Tennessee senator.

The Virginia advertising company agreed to settle a separate suit brought against it two days prior to the statute of limitations, making a decision that was in its best business interests, Zelenik stated.

“This has nothing to do with the merits of Diane Black’s behavior as a state senator, nor does it address the alleged damages that Aegis has claimed to have suffered,” Zelenik said.

In addition to Bright Media, Aegis last summer sued Zelenik and her campaign manager, Jay Heine, claiming their ad defamed the company and violated the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act dealing with campaign ads.

An initial ruling favored Zelenik, saying her commercial was protected political speech. Aegis and Black refused to dismiss the lawsuit and Zelenik filed a counterclaim against them both.

Black, a Gallatin Republican, narrowly defeated Zelenik in the GOP primary and went on to win the general election with ease against Democrat Brett Carter. Following the election, a mediator failed to resolve the matter, and Zelenik then called for dismissal.

Corker, Black out-raise lawmakers

murfreesboronews — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:05:46 +0000

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Corker spent $266,473 between January and June, leaving him with $5.3 million, more than all but four other senators.

Two Republicans have signed up to challenge the senator in next year’s primary.

James Patrick Durkan has raised $7,670, mostly his own money. The other candidate, Zachary Scott Poskevich, has contributed $5,000 to his own campaign.

Black, of Gallatin, who represents Tennessee’s Sixth District, which includes Rutherford County, ranked 29th in the House for contributions received from PACs — $331,837 since January. PACs associated with financial organizations, insurance companies and medical groups account for some of Black’s largest donations since the last election.

Black is a former nurse and a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, which deals with health care reform, tax and trade, among other issues.

The American Bankers Association’s PAC has given Black $9,000, while PACS linked to Bank of America, the Credit Union National Association and Pricewaterhouse Coopers have donated $5,000 each, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Black also has received $6,000 from the American College of Radiology, $5,000 from U.S. Oncology, and smaller sums from dozens of medical organizations and insurance companies. Real-estate PACs have donated $17,000.

No other Tennessee lawmakers ranked among the top 50 fundraisers in either chamber, although Republican Rep. John Duncan of Knoxville ranked 23rd in the House for available cash. He had more than $1.5 million in the bank as of June 30.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Brentwood also has more than $1 million in her campaign account.

Rep. Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump has raised more than any other member of the state’s delegation except Black, bringing in $521,874 since January.

Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of Nashville was second with $400,621, followed by Blackburn with $369,264.

Marine to meet father of his son’s killer

murfreesboronews — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:04:07 +0000

9/11: A DECADE LATER

FRANKLIN — Daris Long, the man whose son was killed by Abdulhakim Muhammad, an Islamic extremist raised in Memphis as Carlos Bledsoe before legally changing his name, will join Muhammad’s father at a Cool Springs hotel as part of a service marking the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

The event on Sunday marks the first time the two men will appear together in public.

“The Bledsoe family is as much a victim as anybody else,” Long said from his home in Arkansas. “We feel bad for them. They’re hell is going to continue. They’ve been in our thoughts and our prayers. I don’t have any animosity toward them.”

Long is a retired Marine officer who lived in Afghanistan for nine years until the early 1970s. He graduated from high school in Kabul, the country’s captial city, and remembers it as a fairly nice place to live. But an extremist element within the Muslim community should not be denied, said Long, and he’s bothered by what he said is a pervasive willingness in the U.S. to ignore the problem.

Long said he intends to deliver a warning that America needs to wake up to the very real threat posed by radical Muslims.

“I think we just need to be honest,” Long said. “We were attacked.”

That message is one that will be repeated by the 17 sponsoring organizations, said Lee Douglas, leader of 912 Project Tennessee, one of the groups behind the event, but the audience that will hear it is being tightly controlled. Attendees must register ahead of time and be prepared to present identification at the door. Members of the media are banned altogether, and no one is allowed to take pictures or record anything that is said.

The restrictions are needed for two reasons, said Douglas. One is to protect against the possibility of a terrorist attack, the other is media bias.

“You must know there have been threats … worldwide of groups that have attempted to do something on 9/11 (anniversaries),” Douglas said. No threats have been made against this particular event being held in an affluent, suburban community, but Douglas referenced a deadly car-bombing in the Middle East as an example of what’s possible. “We want to protect ourselves.”

As for the media blackout, Douglas said it is necessary to “preserve a memorial attitude” during what could be a very emotional meeting between Long and Melvin Bledsoe, the man whose son was convicted earlier this year of murdering Pvt. William Long outside of a military recruiting office in Arkansas in 2009. Muhammad told authorities he was an al-Qaida operative.

Douglas also said he does not believe that media outlets would portray the remembrance fairly, and that he has observed a “favoritism” toward the Muslim community that is unfair to Christians who voice concerns over extremist violence.

Long and Bledsoe are not the only speakers scheduled to participate in the program, which is called Remembering 911. A movie, Losing Our Sons, focuses on the events leading up to the shooting in Arkansas and will debut at the event. That film was produced by Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a Boston, Mass., non-profit led by Charles Jacobs who will also be in attendance. Jacobs made headlines in Boston when he opposed the construction of a mosque there.

Sen. Bill Ketron, of Murfreesboro, and Rep. Judd Matheny, of Tullahoma, are also expected to attend.

Pastor Paul Bane, from New Hope Community Church in Brentwood, and Rabbi Jonathan Hausman, of Massachusetts, are listed on promotional material for the event, as well. Hausman hosted Dutch politician Geert Wilders at his congregation in 2009. Wilders, who made a brief appearance in Franklin earlier this summer, was acquitted by an Amsterdam court in June on charges of hate speech related to his views on Muslims.

In May, Wilders visited the offices of the Williamson County Republican Party, located in Franklin. The county GOP organization is a co-sponsor of Remembering 911.

Other sponsors of the event include the mid-state chapter of ACT! for America, the Tennessee Republican Assembly, Linchpins of Liberty — which was founded by the county GOP president, Kevin Kookogey — the Black Robe Project and the Family Action Council of Tennessee.

Franklin Alderman Beverly Burger said she and her husband plan to attend, and they understand it to be a memorial service for 9/11 victims. Any presentations on extremist and violent behavior may be appropriate, said Burger, so long as no generalizations are made about the entire Muslim community. That said, the alderman was forceful in advocating against religious practices that support violence.

“Well, all I know, all religions that I know of preach love. As a Christian, my god preaches love and forgiveness,” said Burger. “Radical Islam preaches jihad … they’ve said it in their own words that is their goal.

“Freedom loving people have to stand up and say, ‘You can’t practice religion that usurps our Constitution.”

FSU’s Spurlock returns after career-threatening concussions

murfreesboronews — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:04:06 +0000

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As well as a refreshing spirit.

After everything he has endured during this past year, Spurlock is enjoying every moment like it could be his last. The practices. The relationships. And certainly the games.

“He’s been super every day,” FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said. “You see a smile on his face every day. He’s just having fun.”

“It feels great getting out there with everybody,” Spurlock said. “Playing next to Zebrie (Sanders), being with (Jacob) Fahrenkrug, (Bryan) Stork, (Andrew) Datko, even the young guys. It’s fun just seeing how I used to be freshman year and seeing them coming in and succeeding and doing really good. It’s just good to see.”

No one appreciates how far Spurlock has come more than his father.

During those awful months of waiting and worrying, it pained David Sr. to hear the sorrow in his son’s voice. He knew how badly David Jr. wanted to return to the game; how badly he wanted to line up with his teammates.

It wasn’t until Spurlock made it through several full-contact practices in late August that the father could sense that his only son was happy again.

“I wake up in the afternoon and I’ll call him right away,” said David Sr., who works the night shift in a Nissan plant. “Before he says anything, I can hear it in his voice. When he says, ‘Yeah,’ I can tell. He had a great day. Everything’s fine.

“It’s like daylight and dark from what he was before.”

Despite all of the progress, David Sr. admits he still worries what the future might hold: “With me, it’s a roller-coaster ride. It’s a day-to-day thing. I come home in the morning and I think, ‘I hope he has a good day (at practice), but I hope nothing happens.’”

His son sounds more at peace.

David Jr. doesn’t dismiss the concerns, but he isn’t about to let them engulf him either.

Coming into Saturday’s game, he had started 27 games as a Seminole. At most, he has only a dozen or so left.

He wants to enjoy them all.

“I think the only person that knows really what’s going to happen is the man upstairs,” Spurlock said. “But everything’s been fine.”

And that’s something to smile about.

Making US Muslim, Sikh Voices Heard

murfreesboronews — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:57:16 +0000

WASHINGTON – Giving Muslims and Sikhs their voice back, a new website has been launched to document hate crimes, physical threats and profiling against their minorities in post 9/11 America.

“We were all affected by 9/11, but the mainstream media has not always covered our stories,” Sapreet Kaur, executive director of The Sikh Coalition, one of the groups spearheading the effort, told CNN.

The new website, titled “Unheard Voices of 9/11,” was officially launched online last Friday.

It sent a call for people to share their experiences about being discriminated, targeted and demoralized because of their spiritual and cultural beliefs.

“This website is our chance to tell our stories, so that our voices are no longer unheard,” Kaur said.

Finding their voices, Muslims and Sikhs rushed to share their sad stories on the website unheardvoicesof911.org, including stories from the days immediately after the attacks.

Within six days of the attacks, the FBI reported that it initiated 40 hate crime investigations into alleged murders, attacks and arson directed at Americans who are Muslims, South Asians and Arabs.

Banjot Sing, a Sikh, posted a video recalling how a police officer questioned him and a friend aboard a train out of Manhattan because a fellow passenger “thought we were dangerous.”

Rabia Sajid, a Muslim victim of bigotry, described a man pulling up in a car in New York and yelling, “Go back to your country, otherwise I’m going to kill you.”

The New York resident, who is affiliated with the South Asian Youth Action group, said the pastor of a church where she was being tutored, and later police, suggested that she should take off her hijab so she wouldn’t be targeted.

The hard decision was one of her biggest regrets, being forced to take off hijab, a part of her Muslim beliefs, to avoid discrimination.

“We didn’t face the problem, but we were running away from it by trying to change our identity and who we are,” Sajid said at an August hearing in New York City, portions of which are now on the “Unheard Voices” website.

“We don’t know how to face the problem … I don’t know what we can do.”

Decade of Fear

Stories told on the website summarized a decade of discrimination and bigotry against religious minorities in the post-9/11 era.

“These 10 years have been pure fear, being scared of the next step, being scared of the next place we’re going to go … what my brother might face, what my dad might face, what I might face,” said Manpreet Kaur, 21, from Oak Brook, Illinois.

“It’s that fear that, everywhere we go, something might happen because we are Sikh – because our men wear turbans, because we look different, because our names are different.”

Since 9/11, US Muslims, estimated between 6-8 million, have become sensitized to an erosion of their civil rights, with a prevailing belief that America was stigmatizing their faith.

Bigotry was not on the personal level only.

Several high-profile cases of hate crimes and cases in which Muslims and Sikhs faced opposition to projects due to their religion and heritage also reflected the rising discrimination.

Anti-Muslim frenzy has grown sharply in the US in recent months over plans to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York, resulting in attacks on Muslims and their property.

Moreover, US Muslims have been sensing a growing hostility following a hearing presented by representative Peter King on what he described as “radicalization” of US Muslims.

More recently, the leaders of a growing Muslim community in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, proposed building a new 52,000-square-foot structure with a mosque, gym, playground and cemetery.

The Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission approved plans in May to build a community center and mosque in southeast of Murfreesboro.

However, the plans have met a fierce opposition from locals.

Last month, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said communities should be able to prevent such mosques from being built. He later apologized.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center has showed that the majority of Americans know very little about Islam.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll has also found that more than half Americans already hold negative views about the faith.

That fear was still apparent in the repeated visits by FBI agents which many victims regard as sowing widespread distrust against authorities among Muslims and others.

“In my community, people are very afraid – that’s the reality,” Anoop Prasad, a northern California resident who works for the Asian Law Caucus, said.

Don’t take hatchet to Fifth District

murfreesboronews — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:52:55 +0000

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean had a very important message for Tennessee’s Republican legislators last week: When drawing up congressional districts, keep Nashville intact.

In the next few months, Republicans will redraw Tennessee congressional districts, as required after the 2010 Census, which recorded significant population growth in Middle Tennessee surburbs.

In a meeting with The Tennessean editorial board on Monday, Dean and U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, told of a plan they had been given that would split Nashville’s across three congressional districts. Currently, nearly all of Davidson County, plus portions of Cheatham and Wilson, are in Cooper’s Fifth Congressional District. A sliver of Davidson is in the Seventh Congressional District.

But Nashville has been predominantly in one district since the time of Andrew Jackson, with the idea of preserving the state capital’s representation in Washington. Based on the map obtained by Cooper and Dean, Davidson County voters would be split roughly into thirds, with two-thirds of the voters in each of those districts residing in mostly Republican suburbs outside Davidson.

“This could essentially de-metro Metro,” Cooper said, noting the unique nature of Davidson’s consolidated government. “… If you represent an outlying town like Murfreesboro and just have a little bit of Nashville, then most of your votes come from Murfreesboro and Rutherford County. If you represent Franklin and just have a little bit of Nashville, most of your votes come from Franklin.”

Certainly, when Democrats have controlled the legislature in the past, they have redrawn districts to benefit their party. But there is much more at stake with this plan for Nashville, Cooper and Dean pointed out. Putting urban voters in the minority of suburban districts would be very damaging to the Nashville business community, which already has to compete with surrounding counties for employers. And the plan would dilute the voting power of African-Americans, a group who has been disenfranchised too often in the past and who make up a greater percentage of Middle Tennessee’s urban population.

State Republican leaders told The Tennessean last week that they have not even begun to decide on congressional lines, but did not rule out the possibility of dividing the Fifth.

The plan obtained by Cooper and Dean was drawn up by a Louisiana financial adviser who shared the proposal with Bill Ketron, state senator from Murfreesboro. As drawn by this out-of-state individual, a Republican such as Ketron could run for Congress without competing against fellow Republican Diane Black, in whose district Ketron resides.

Tennessee Democrats such as Cooper and Dean clearly are concerned about the possibility of losing a seat in Congress, after losing two last year. But the extent to which Nashville would be gutted is unprecedented and carries real economic and social concerns beyond party politics. In the past, Republicans as well as Democrats saw the wisdom in keeping the state capital intact. Why tamper with that?

Finally, it is important that Republican lawmakers keep the public informed about their intentions. While they are in charge of redrawing the districts, their constituents have a right to know their plans so that they can have input in the process.

Many voters across Tennessee expressed surprise earlier this year to find that, after voting Republican legislators into office to address the state’s compelling economic problems, the legislators instead devoted their time to bills about abortion, guns, teachers’ bargaining rights, sexual orientation and religion. This time, legislators should let the people who voted for them, and the rest of the citizens of this state, know what they are up to.

Some states, fed up with such partisan splintering every 10 years, have put reapportionment under the supervision of a bipartisan panel. There may not be time to do that in Tennessee before the next election, but there is plenty of time to allow the public to have its say.

Weekend Planner: Sept. 1-4

murfreesboronews — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:40:44 +0000

Friday Night Live
The final installment of MainStreet Murfreesboro’s Friday Night Live concert series is set for Friday, Sept. 2 with the father and son duo of The O’Donnells.

Influenced by classic country artists such as Merle Haggard and Ronnie Milsap among others, Darryl O’Donnell’s blood has been pumping with music as long as he can remember.

Friday’s concert will make the group’s second appearance at Main Street Live. To find more information on The O’Donnels and their current single “She Leaves The Light On” along with their latest gospel album God Said Make Music, visit www.theodonnels.com.
The concert begins at 6:30 p.m. and is held on the Square.

ENCORE!
The Center for the Arts presents “ENCORE!,” a night of dinner and music in downtown Murfreesboro.

This fundraising red carpet event will take place at 6:30 Friday and Saturday nights, Aug. 26 and 27. These two evenings will begin with dinner at B. McNeel’s Restaurant, and following at 8 p.m., the evening will end with a concert review of songs from past musicals at the Center for the Arts.

Bring your date for an evening to remember to “ENCORE!,” a formal evening, complete with a red carpet and the lights of downtown Murfreesboro, makes for the perfect way to celebrate past performances at the Center for the Arts.

“The songs that will be highlighted during “ENCORE!” have inspired and uplifted the spirits of our beloved audiences, and we are ecstatic to bring them back to the Center of the Arts stage,” Center for the Arts Director Tony Cimino said in a press release.

The purpose for this night of music also involves a great need for improvements toward maintaining this beautiful historic building. All of the ticket sales for “ENCORE!” will go toward a new air-conditioning unit for the Center for the Arts.

Tickets for “ENCORE!” are $60 a person. This price includes dinner, dessert and a concert.

Tickets for this fundraiser may be purchased online at www.boroarts.org, by phone at 615-904-2787, or in person at the Center for the Arts, 110 W. College St., one block off the historic Murfreesboro Square.

Jeffery

Out Front on Main continues it’s run of Paul Rudnick’s JEFFREY, directed by Buddy R. Jones, at 7:30 Thursday-Sunday nights through Aug. 28.

In 1993, playwright Paul Rudnick’s Off-Broadway hit, Jeffrey, took a decidedly different approach towards depicting gay men and AIDS; it was written as a comedy.

Keeping this a period piece, Out Front on Main proposes to show how little has changed in so much time-the only difference is that it is now spoken in whispers, if at all.

While this might sound tasteless, Jeffrey was a much-needed antidote at the time to the climate of death that had permeated gay culture for most of the previous decade. The play resonated with audiences.

A portion of every ticket sold goes to benefit Nashville Cares.

Out Front on Main, Inc. is located at 1511 E. Main St. in historic downtown Murfreesboro, beside MTSU. For more information and reservations, call 615-516-6279 or visit www.OutFrontOnMain.com.

Thursday
4 p.m. - Chamber of Commerce Show Biz. Mid TN Expo Center, 1209 Park Ave. 893-6565

7 p.m. - Standards. Tickets: $10 from 205-BUY-TICS or thestandards.com. Patterson Community Center, 521 Mercury Blvd.

Friday
All day - National Folk Festival. Continues through Sunday. Bicentennial Capitol Mall in Nashville. nationalfolkfestival.com

6-11 a.m. - Rutherford County Farmer’s Market. Lane Agri-Park, 315 John Rice Blvd.

8:30 p.m. - Growing and Cooking with Herbs. Presented by RC Master Gardeners. Lane Agri-Park, 315 John Rice Blvd. Janie Becker, 898-7710

5-9 p.m. - Murfreesboro Hot Rod Club Cruise-In. The Avenue in the Belk parking lot. 4mhrc.net

6:30 p.m. – ENCORE! Continues at 6:30 Saturday night. Center for the Arts, 110 W. College St. 904-ARTS (2787) or BoroArts.org

6:30 p.m. – Friday Night Live. The O’Donnells perform. Historic Murfreesboro Square.

7 p.m. - Senior Citizen Dance. Admission: $5. Country Dance Night at the St. Clair Street Senior Center. 325 St. Clair St. 848-2550.

7:30 p.m. – I’m Believin’. Arts Center of Cannon County, 1424 John Bragg Hwy. in Woodbury. 563-ARTS (2787) or artscenterofcc.com

Saturday
All day – Fighting for Hearth and Home. Cannon and musket demonstrations. Continues through Sunday. Stones River National Battlefield. nps.gov/stri

8 a.m. – Main Street Saturday Market. Historic Public Square. 895-1887

9-10 a.m. - Bike the Battlefield. Stones River National Battlefield on the Old Nashville Highway. 893-9501 or nps.gov/stri

9 a.m. - Carroll Uselton Memorial Golf Tournament. Benefits Republican Party of Rutherford County. Indian Hills Golf Club, 405 Calumet Trace. 893-7219

2-4 p.m. - Welcome to Medicare Presentation. Linebaugh Library, 105 W. Vine St. Carol Ghattas, 893-4131, ext. 119

US Rep. Black’s husband’s firm reaches settlement

murfreesboronews — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:40:41 +0000

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) — A forensic sciences company owned by U.S. Rep. Diane Black’s husband has reached a settlement with the firm that created campaign ads at the center of a defamation lawsuit.

The Daily News Journal reports that Aegis Sciences Corp. settled a lawsuit against Bright Media Inc., which it contends falsely asserted that Black as a Tennessee state senator helped the company obtain contracts from the state (http://bit.ly/oal4xo). Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The defamation lawsuit brought by Aegis concerned campaign ads from Black’s Republican primary opponent, Lou Ann Zelenik.

The lawsuit contended Zelenik’s campaign, campaign manager and Bright Media defamed the company and violated the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act dealing with campaign ads.

Black edged out Zelenik in last year’s primary for the 6th District congressional seat. Zelenik filed a countersuit, saying Aegis’ lawsuit was an attempt to silence her. A mediator failed to resolve the matter, and Zelenik then called for dismissal.

Under the settlement announced Tuesday, Bright Media agreed that its ads didn’t intend to accuse Aegis of illegal, unethical or improper behavior and that it had no knowledge of any improper action between Aegis and the state regarding contracts, according to a press release.

“We are happy to have amicably settled this matter with Bright Media and to have the opportunity to set the public record straight,” said David Black, president and CEO of Aegis Sciences.

Aegis is still pursuing claims against the other defendants. Zelenik said in a statement Wednesday that the settlement doesn’t affect the merits of her case.

“The advertising company … made a decision that was in their best business interests,” she said. “This has nothing to do with the merits of Diane Black’s behavior as a state senator, nor does it address the alleged damages that Aegis has claimed to have suffered.”

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Information from: The Daily News Journal, http://www.dnj.com

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Information from: The Daily News Journal, http://www.dnj.com

Voters to get ID lessons

murfreesboronews — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:40:40 +0000

Tom Humphrey’s blog on politics and legislative news in Tennessee

NASHVILLE — State election officials are planning an intensive effort to educate voters about a new law mandating they have a proper photo identification card to cast ballots in next year’s elections.

So is the Tennessee Democratic Party, hoping to counter what state Chairman Chip Forrester says is an effort by the Republican-controlled state Legislature to suppress Democratic turnout in the elections of 2012 and beyond.

The new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, was enacted earlier this year with proponents declaring it is needed to prevent voter fraud. It declares some types of photo IDs valid and some invalid.

But state Election Coordinator Mark Goins says the photo ID requirement also has multiple exemptions, both within the new law and in older laws.

Those exceptions, combined with the voter education campaign, should mitigate the number of people showing up at the polls next year with a voter registration card but without the further identification now required to vote, he said.

“If we do our jobs right, we believe it (the new law) will have limited impact,” said Goins in an interview.

Goins’ office has already conducted telephone conference calls with county election administrators in all 95 counties for an initial briefing on the new law, providing information the administrators will pass on to all election workers.

Coordinated follow-up efforts will aim more directly at voters, including work with citizen and civic organizations such as AARP and the League of Women Voters, public service announcements, and perhaps even direct mailing to targeted groups. An example of the latter would be Tennesseans who have no photo on their driver’s license, as allowed under current law for anyone older than 60.

A driver’s license with no photo will not be accepted for voting under the new law. But another new law allows citizens to get a free photo identification card at driver’s license stations for voting.

Some other legal provisions that come into play, according to Goins, include:

n Any photo driver’s license — even if it has expired or comes from another state — will be considered valid for voting purposes for a registered voter.

n People who are indigent and cannot afford a photo ID can sign an affidavit so stating and be able to vote. Even homeless people can legally vote by following the rules, Goins said.

Critics of the new law have noted that there are indirect costs for obtaining a free identification card, notably transportation to a driver’s license station, which in some rural areas may be 30 or 40 miles away.

n While some types of government-issued identification are invalid for voting, including college ID cards and county-issued cards, many others are valid. For example, Goins said the identification issued to all workers for private contractors at Department of Energy facilities in Oak Ridge will be considered valid.

n People can still vote by absentee ballot without a government-issued ID. Absentee voting is allowed for all people older than 65 and some others as well, specifically including residents of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.

Shelley Courington of the AARP said the organization, which has 648,000 members in Tennessee, plans to partner with state election officials later this fall to provide information on the topic, including a teleconference following alerts by mail and Internet to all members.

Goins said the March presidential preference primary will provide an effective test run for the new requirements, allowing further education before the primary and general elections in August and November.

“I think it’s wonderful that they are planning to educate the public to all the exceptions, exemptions and nuances,” said House Democratic Leader Craig Fitzhugh, who opposed the law in the Legislature. “(But) I still believe it’s going to be a detriment to people voting.”

Forrester said Democrats are already working on their own voter education materials to be distributed by county organizations and “affiliate Democratic groups” that will “explain in simple, straightforward language what steps you can take to get to vote.”

The first pamphlet has already been produced, he said, and was distributed at a Democratic rally last weekend in Northeast Tennessee.

Tennessee is one of six states with Republican-controlled legislatures to pass a photo ID law this year, bringing to 23 the number of states with such a requirement in place.

“The first and overarching concern we have is why was it necessary to create this confused mess of a situation to begin with when they (Republicans) know full well that voter fraud is of almost no magnitude at all in Tennessee?” Forrester said.

The reason, he said, is to suppress turnout among groups prone to support Democrats — the elderly and those “not as well off financially” being examples — as “part of a national agenda that Republicans are attempting to implement all across the country.”

The Tennessee legislation was sponsored by the chairs of the House and Senate Republican Caucuses, Rep. Debra Maggart of Hendersonville and Sen. Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro, who have repeatedly denied that suppression of voter turnout was a motive. The only objective, they said, was to ensure that people appearing at the polls are who they purport to be and entitled to vote.

Fitzhugh said that, if a photo ID is desirable, pictures should be made when a voter registers after furnishing all the appropriate identification necessary for registration. Such a system could be phased in with relatively little expense or inconvenience, he said.

Payday loans rise, cost more

murfreesboronews — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:39:57 +0000

Staff and Wire reports

Tennesseans who use payday loans to get cash quickly now can borrow up to $500 from a single lender, but could pay higher fees under a law passed this year by the General Assembly.

The law increased the limit a person can borrow, but now payday loan businesses can charge up to $75 in fees on the maximum $500 loan. Under legislation sponsored by state Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and signed into law in May, payday lenders can make loans up to two and a half times as great as the previous $200 loan cap.

“The law hadn’t been changed in a decade even though the top reasons for payday loans — unexpected car repairs and medical bills — have gone up significantly,” said Jabo Cobert, vice president of public and government relations for Check Into Cash, based in Cleveland, Tenn., the nation’s third biggest payday lender.

Even with the higher limit, which proponents say should help borrowers from having to go to multiple payday lenders to borrower larger amounts, Cobert said the average loan from Check Into Cash is still $200 to $300.

Kelly Newell, of Joelton, Tenn., said she has used payday loans in the past before the limit went up. She borrowed $200 and ended up repaying the loan six months later along with $360 in fees that had mounted during that period.

While some think increasing the limit can be better, Newell said she believes it will perpetuate the debt cycle.

“I don’t think the limit matters,” Newell says. “Some people are going to borrow what they’ll allow because they think something is going to magically come along, and they won’t get into all that debt.”

Payday loan businesses have boomed all over the country, even outnumbering Starbucks and Burger King outlets. Check into Cash, founded in 1993, operates more than 1,100 locations in 30 states.

Kathleen Calligan, of the Better Business Bureau of Middle Tennessee, says the trend took off in the ’90s all over the country.”

“Unfortunately, so many states have pretty much wrapped their arms around this industry and have given them special privileges and considerations,” Calligan said. “They don’t have to abide by the rules that other financial institutions have to.”

Calligan said the industry thrives during bad economic times and is aimed at those who have no or poor credit, the young and those who live on or near military bases.

But Paige Skiba, an assistant professor of law at Vanderbilt University who has researched payday loan limits, said raising the limit actually may be a good thing for borrowers.

“When people are allowed to borrow larger amounts, it actually helps them to repay the loan rather than renewing it a bunch of times and then eventually defaulting,” Skiba said.

Still, some lawmakers were bothered by the rate of interest some lenders charged. Sen. Douglas Henry, a Nashville Democrat, said he didn’t mind raising the limit that can be borrowed, but said he was concerned about interest rates.

“I don’t mind the raise to $500. It’s the interest rate that worries me,” Henry says. “It’s excessive.”