Early in my Roane County existence, I was told by a fairly influential person that the deal is done "before" the Commission meetings, not "during." I've learned that's true but if the Knoxville News Sentinel prevails in its lawsuit against the Knox County commission...Roane County will have to change the way business is done around here.

We should pay close attention.

A blogger friend of mine is covering the trial as a citizen journalist. Russ will have a good outside perspective on what happens, and whatever we read elsewhere, I totally trust what Russ says.

The full-text search here works beautifully!

Here's a link for the Bush administration's own "Literacy in Everyday Life - Results From the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy" publication released this past April. See:
(link...)

The portrait of U.S. education painted by the study is sobering.

The mission of Roane County Schools is to provide an environment supported by rigorous standards that enable our students to have a first class education and become successful, thinking, caring, and productive citizens.

Check the link for Roane Schools over on the right. It's actually a good web site with tons of info.

And frankly, that is the best thing for all in this tragedy.

update: A quote from her lawyer, “If called upon to testify, Ms. Hyatte will testify truthfully in any proceeding.”

Moveon.org has a new paid fellowship program for five-month full-time work-at-home positions in which the successful applicants will be trained in online organizing.

Does our County really need this kind of image loose in the world?

I mean people are going to start thinking that this guy is from Roane County...Oh, wait...Danged if he ain't and he got elected to something!

Looks like we're headed to a showdown of two great legal minds, McFarland and Cawood. Too bad we can't use the old Roane County Courthouse Courtroom for that one. Those boys could strut their oratory to some fine old rafters if we could.

(Hey, maybe they'll give us a tour of the old Courtroom at the Gala Saturday night?)

The County Commission is a picture of cooperation voting unanimously on every resolution last Monday night. Sorry I couldn't be there to see that.

But the discussion on school funding left me confused.

Commissioner Collier said that revenue from a wheel tax would have to be shared with Oak Ridge, which already spends 35% more than we do per student and has a top 100 school system, which is just an odd coincidence I'm sure.

Yesterday several raccoons paraded back and forth on our porch, as they often do. Most had the familiar Common Raccoon look of grey/brown fur with black rings and mask and bits of white. One, however, was different.

One of our area cohorts actually counted the number of conservative, Moderate, and Progressive columns published on the Knoxville News Sentinel's Op-Ed pages. Out of 13 columns it broke down as:

7 Conservative

5 Moderate

1 Progressive

There's more: KnoxViews

With the morning temperature hitting the 50's again (thank you, thank you)and Roane County actually getting some rain, I decided to post a permanent weather link over on the right.

"Today's Local Weather"

It's still your tax dollars at work, by the way, even though republicans tried to privatize the National Weather Service. Can you imagine what conservative weather would look like?

I just noticed an idea at BlountViews.com that I like.

Since we don't get cable in the nether regions of our county and we don't get to all the committee meetings anyway, why don't we have the County Commission and Committee meetings videoed and put on You-Tube?

It would be a pain but certainly no worse than actually attending them...And we would have government in the sunshine here in Roane County.

Local Weather Radar

If you haven't been to the Tamke Allen Observatory you have an empty spot in your life that you don't even know about. This Saturday evening is a chance for you to fix that.

I miss having a Donate button here

I can't be there so you folks better watch them for me. Let us know what happens.

Ask again about the Dark Sky resolution...Why isn't that being worked on?

And Ethics, and a vehicle policy...Yeah!

Monday, 3:30 am

It's this Saturday night, but you wouldn't know it by going to their web site. How about someone on the commission telling us about it?

There is so much wrong with the way this was handled, I don't know where to start.

Somewhere in the budget for a 12 million dollar (if we're lucky) project there has to be a few dollars for taking care of citizens who are displaced for a public works project.

Home torn down to make way for jail

Come on, Roane County! Let's have a little professionalism here. And could you at least ACT like you care?

So who's running as a democrat against Ken Yager? I've been out of the loop lately.

"Eddie Van Halen's single most significant recorded performance: His solo on Michael Jackson's "Beat It," which was uncredited, unpaid, and recorded in two takes. The song turned out to be groundbreaking for both artists, helping Jackson cross over to the rock crowd, and letting Van Halen show off for a broader pop audience, laying the groundwork for the massive success of 1984."

Forgive me

The Ethics Committee is scheduled to issue its report at the Commission meeting Monday night. Think these items will be on it?

Ok, we don't have one...But we could copy Knox County's paper.

At least the parts we like.

(Sorry, Mayor Farmer, but I just can't see allowing the County Mayor to appoint "the trustee, county clerk, register of deeds, property assessor and law director — all now elected positions.")

But reducing the number of county commisioners, and electing two or more at large, seems like a good idea to me.

If Knox County can get by with 11 Commissioners, why can't we get by with ten instead of the 15 we have now?

In the butterfly book, the Diana Butterfly is only found in the four Tennessee counties along the peak of the Smoky Mountains...Don't you believe it!

This striking female got her picture taken yesterday right in Roane County's Whites Creek Gorge.

Walking into the offices of the Roane County Mayor, the first thing one notices is how nice the redecorating looks.

Of course before you can visit the bright and shiny new offices, you have to go through the metal detector and tell the officer why you want to visit the Courthouse.

I wonder if he would let me through if I said I just wanted to walk around and look at things?

These scores look like basketball season has started. Does anybody play defense anymore?

Midway 55 Oakdale 16

Rockwood 30 Sweetwater 23

Kingston 54 Livingston Acad. 14

Harriman had a vacation night

Do we believe this one, now that our traditional local retailers don't exactly exist anymore:

(Zenith Research) did nearly half a million price checks in 300 Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, and national chain grocery and drug stores to find out who really has lower prices.

85% of Wal-Mart's prices are higher than its competitors as a group;

Read the report yourself

Or:

"How the County's business must be conducted in the light of day."

Open Meetings

This information is provided as a public service of RoaneViews.com...Especially since it seems to have been overlooked by some folks.

Roane County is a gorgeous place in and of its own self, but we are also very close to some wonderful hikes and natural areas. The John Muir trail is a jewel that is right up the road from us.

Or when ever I get around to them.

I'll be at the Kingston Girl's Soccer game against Catholic tonight.

If anyone shoots anything from the other games let me know and we can put those up also.

Update: Catholic 1 Kingston 0...Photos