No. 266: School's In For The Summer
⁂ Nashville's Alt-Daily ⁂ Tennessee · Summer School · Woke-acracy · Good and Bad Graphs · Much More!
Good morning, everyone.
We neglected to mention it, but yesterday was the birthday of Tennessee's founding. It was on June 1st, 1796 that George Washington made Tennessee the 16th state in the union. The first governor was John Sevier whose name now adorns the Sevier Park in the 12th South neighborhood of Nashville.
Originally part of North Carolina, the settlers West of the Appalachian Mountains complained that North Carolina was not doing a good job of protecting them. Thus, they sought statehood, first as the State of Franklin which made up the region directly West of the mountains — Franklin fell apart as North Carolina refused to let go so easily of the region — then eventually as the state of Tennessee.
Many forget that the Cumberland Gap in East Tennessee was the original Gateway to the West.
Onward.
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𖼥 SCHOOL'S IN FOR THE SUMMER
School’s out for summer, but you may have noticed school children crossing the streets in Metro and school buses continuing to drop off and pick up young scholars.
SUMMER SCHOOL’S IN SESSION
Learning loss is one of the residual pains caused by the shutdowns during the pandemic. Many students were left struggling to catch up. According to the Tennessee Department of Education, statistics showed Nashville students experienced obstacles such as a 50% decrease in 3rd grade reading level proficiency and a projected 65% decrease in math proficiency. Making up the difference has become one of the many post pandemic battles.
Over 11,000 Metro students are enrolled in this year’s K-12 summer school program. The programs are designed to help children sharpen their skills and knowledge in a relaxed environment where the pressure is off and work is not graded. Though the numbers have dwindled from the 15,000 pupil enrollment of last summer, the need for extra attention to make up for lost time and ineffective remote learning environments still haunts Nashville’s education system.
INFLATION AND SUMMER MEAL PROGRAMS
While inflation continues to hit the pockets of Americans, summer meal programs continue to be a saving grace for low income families with children who are in need. Second Harvest is a staple in the Middle Tennessee area and continues to provide thousands of meals during the summer break when children are not receiving school lunches.
Though Second Harvest helps fight childhood hunger in low income communities who are working feeling the added pain of inflation this summer, the charitable food distribution service is also facing its own financial difficulties. Gas prices have hit the food bank and has added $90,000 to their operational expenses as they continue to provide for local communities this year.
HOW TO HELP
If you’d like to donate to Second Harvest, care to volunteer, or wish to look up their summer food distribution program, go to secondharvestmidtn.org.
HEADLINES
- 'What happened to the strong accents?' Taking a look at the fading Nashville dialect (Channel 5) If you were to hear someone talking about the old Nashville sound, you'd probably assume they were referring to the roots of country music.
- Hemp industry backs study of plant’s applications in automotive industry (TNJ) The Hemp Alliance of Tennessee and the state Department of Agriculture are partnering on a project to study using fibers derived from the plant in the automotive industry and other sectors of the economy.
- A.I. startup celebrates first anniversary in Nashville (Main Street) A startup that focuses on artificial intelligence applications for health care celebrates a year since it first moved to Nashville today. DARVIS, which is an acronym for Data Analytic Real World Visual Intelligence System, moved its headquarters to Nashville on June 1, 2021.
POLITICS
- Governor Lee Signs Law To Bring Harsher Penalties For Unlicensed Adult Care Facilities (TCN) The bill requires that the executive director of the Tennessee Commission on Aging and Disability create and maintain a public registry of any facility providing care to the elderly or disabled without a license.
DEVELOPMENT
- 🛍 Nashville lands state’s first Saint Laurent (Post)
- Nashville Mayor Cooper Enacts New Initiative to Spur More Affordable Housing Units (Now Next)
- Multi-family tower eyed for Pie Town site (Post)
- ‘Business Made Simple’ Plans For A New Office In The Nations, Nashville (Now Next)
- Midtown mixed-use building sells for $162M (Post)
- Ryman Hospitality finalizes Austin deal for $260M (Post)
𐂅 WOKE-ACRACY
Our semi-regular feature noting some of the more unhinged news and headlines.
- Want to reach skeptics? Researchers suggest leaving the term “climate change” out of some news coverage (Neiman Lab) American media outlets have gotten so arrogant that they now openly discuss how to adjust their propaganda.
- Fish off the coast of Florida are testing positive for Anti-Depressants (Daily Mail) Ok, but how many of them walk their dogs in baby strollers?
- San Francisco proposes to spend $6.5 million to end homelessness for transgender people (Fox News) Cisgender white male homeless need not apply. You'll need to find a different government bureaucrat to put you up in a hotel.
- We’ll have ‘virtual’ babies within 50 years, AI expert predicts (NY Post) Only an expert would know this kind of thing, of course. If you thought Tamagotchis were weird, wait until women start publicly breastfeeding their "AI" babies.
- Tesla Owner Breaks Window to Escape Before Vehicle Catches Fire in Vancouver Still confused why the 'smartest man in the world' thinks it's a good idea to only allow drivers to unlock the car through a giant screen that relies on the car functioning properly.
- Urgent warning to women under 40 after sharp rise in sudden killer (NY Post) What could ever explain this sudden rise?
♨︎ GRAPH OF THE DAY: WEALTH INVERSION
✺ DUMB GRAPH OF THE DAY: ELECTRIC FUTURE
⚔ MISSIVES ⚔
- 🇬🇧 Boris Johnson has suggested it would be "irresponsible" for him to resign as Prime Minister over the partygate scandal while the UK faces major challenges like the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine.
- 💸 The Federal Reserve is about to start shrinking its $8.9 trillion balance sheet, deploying a second tool alongside higher interest rates to curb inflation, though officials don’t know just how effective it will be.
- 🗳 Newly uncovered records documenting the Maricopa County 2020 general election show that more than 19,000 late, invalid ballots should have been rejected. Joe Biden won the state with 10,457 more votes than Donald Trump.
- 💻 Meta Platforms Inc.’s Sheryl Sandberg is stepping down as chief operating officer. Sandberg, 52, has been with the company since 2008 and will remain on the board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
- 🚔 John Hinckley Jr., the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan over 41 years ago in 1981, will be fully and unconditionally released from a federal mental-health facility.
- 🇨🇳 At midnight local time in Shanghai, restrictions were relaxed to allow most people to move freely around the city of some 25 million people.
- 🎓 Hundreds of thousands of students who attended the for-profit Corinthian Colleges chain will automatically get their federal student loans canceled, the Biden administration announced Wednesday.
THINGS TO DO
View our full event calendar here.
🍺 The Pamphleteer hosts Bar Hours on the last Thursday of every month at Lucky's 3 Star Bar from 6-8 PM. The first ten guests get drinks on the company tab.
🎪 Check out our favorite driving distance festivals this summer. Chattanooga's Riverbend Festival is June 3-5.
👨🏻🌾 The Pamphleteer farmer's market guide.
👂 Listen to The Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of the bands featured in this week's calendar.
TONIGHT
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
🎻 Town Mountain @ 3rd & Lindsley, 8p, $20, Info
👁 Beethoven's 9th @ Schermerhorn, 8p, $25+, Info
🎙 The Swayzees @ The 5 Spot, 9p, Free, Info
ON THE RADAR
🚨 Eprom @ Eastside Bowl, (6/25), $25.50, Info
🏎 Nascar Ally 400 @ Nashville Superspeedway, (6/24-26) $11+, Info
🏜 Hiatus Kaiyote @ Marathon Music Works, (8/14), $35+, Info
🐂 Professional Bull Riding @ Bridgestone, (8/19-21), $20+ Info
🐖 Roger Waters @ Bridgestone, (8/27), $39, Info
🎹 Stereolab @ Marathon Music Works, (9/6), $35, Info
🎸 My Morning Jacket (9/23) @ Ascend Amphitheater, 7p, $22.88, Info
🎸 Smashing Pumpkins (10/10) @ Bridgestone Arena, 6:30p, $133+, Info
⏚ TRANSMISSION FROM THE GROUND: EAT A PEACH AT THE BROOKLYN BOWL
Round up the bros and dust off the ole tie-dye mushroom shirts, someone's covering Eat a Peach! To be fair, I wore one of my three mushroom shirts.
Eat a peach is an awfully difficult album to take on. Though the band came together nicely on some grooves, the extended guitar solos — true to live Allman Brothers style — made me bored enough to walk around bothering strangers in the crowd with mostly bad reception.
I noticed several guys wearing flip-flops. If I were a less rational man, I'd take em and sling em onto the VIP balcony. Instead, I poked my elbow at this odd fellow next to me — he looked like someone had washed and dressed an old homeless man in a tie-dye shirt and khaki shorts — and said "I'm seeing a lot of flip flops around here," to which he responded "crazy people man." After pointing out a few pairs he let out a "what tha f***!" When the music picked up again, his arms shot into the air and he wandered off towards the stage. Best moment of the night.
Listen to Eat a Peach on Spotify and Apple Music
FROM THE ARCHIVE
The Pamphleteer
John Arra
Jerod Ra’Del Hollyfield
Davis Hunt
Valerie Malfy
Around the Web
● Big Shots Modern school shootings are an exceptionally abhorrent phenomenon that we got along just fine without for the first couple of centuries of U.S. history
↬ Elon Musk’s 420-Degree Edgelord Pivot Is Getting Stale The CEO’s incessant posting may do wonders for his ego and currency in right-wing circles, but it has destroyed value pretty much everywhere else.
♰ What Comes After the Religious Right? Observations on the new political realignment.
Political Theater Highlight Reel
- Democrat Beto O’Rourke admits he wants to confiscate guns from law-abiding Americans
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Words of Wisdom
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
Heraclitus
Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Edward Landstreet (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).