Clashes erupted between rival Shiite groups across the Shiite-dominated south Wednesday, threatening Iraq with yet another crisis at a time when politicians are struggling to end a stalemate with Sunni Arabs over the nation's draft constitution. The confrontation in the south "? involving a radical Shiite leader who led two uprisings against U.S. forces last year "? followed the boldest assault by Sunni insurgents in weeks in the capital. Two of the car bombs piloted by suicide drivers exploded near the western neighborhood of Khadra, police Capt. Taleb Thamer said.
A fallen soldier's mother who started an anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch returned Wednesday after a weeklong absence for a family emergency. About a dozen protesters who have continued the peace vigil picked up Cindy Sheehan at the Waco airport Wednesday afternoon, six days after she flew to Los Angeles when her 74-year-old mother suffered a stroke.
Sullivan County and Kingsport officials sat down together Monday to talk about possibilities of merging city schools with county schools.
One idea on the table: Creation of a "special school district" that could include what is now Kingsport City Schools and parts - or all - of what is now the Sullivan County school system.
The special district's governing board of education would have the power to tax - shifting school funding from the County Commission and the city's Board of Mayor and Aldermen to that BOE.
Such districts already exist elsewhere in the state, but their creation is not now permitted under Tennessee law.
Some of those included in talks Monday described the likelihood of getting the law changed as "remote" and "iffy."
Another option proffered for future study: Outright consolidation of city and county schools.
Kingsport Mayor Dennis Phillips initiated Monday's meeting. He was joined at the Kingsport City Schools Central Office by: County Mayor Richard Venable; Director of Sullivan County Schools Glenn Arwood; Superintendent of Kingsport City Schools Richard Kitzmiller; Sullivan County Board of Education President Larry Harris; Kingsport Board of Education President Pat Turner; Alan Hubbard; and Jim Welch.
Phillips also asked Lynn Johnson and Paul Montgomery to serve as members of the group, but neither was able to attend Monday's meeting.
They'll get a second chance to attend soon, Phillips said Tuesday.
"We'll probably get together again as soon as it's possible according to everybody's schedules - and whenever Bristol can be there," Phillips said.
The mayor's formation of the committee is a result of growing concerns that shifts in state school funding will eventually force cities to abandon operation of their own school systems, in favor of only one system per county, Phillips said.
Monday's meeting was mainly the first step of a fact-finding mission, he said.
"Knowing how people feel about education in Kingsport, I put together a group of people with expertise on the issue to say "?If this happens, what are our options?'" Phillips said. "You need enough facts to make decisions, and the question is where do we go to get the facts? That's what's got to be determined."
At the end of the hour-long meeting, Phillips said "one thing was evident. All of us have more questions than answers. The bottom line is it's a very complex thing."
Phillips said he sees three basic options at this point, but that may change as the group gathers more information.
"The way I see it the options are: Do nothing and hope the state does nothing; or establish a special school district, if you can get state legislators to support that - which is extremely iffy; and the third choice is consolidation."
Change of some kind is likely, he said.
"If we think the state is going to force us into a single school system, and we want to have a school system anything like we know it now within the city limits, then we're going to have to do something different," Phillips said. "You need to work on it before it happens so you don't have to do it in a panic. And hopefully that preparation is countywide, including the cities and the county."
No one from Bristol was asked to attend Monday's meeting, but it wasn't an intentional oversight, Phillips said.
"We agreed to meet again in a roundtable deal and invite Bristol to try and determine the direction we want to go," Phillips said.
Venable described the meeting as "excellent" and said he agrees that under current conditions three options exist.
"Anytime you can have people in those positions get together and talk ... it's beneficial," Venable said. "We really tried to think of different things, not just what can be done as things are now. And that's probably where we'll really make some progress - what could be, not what can be under the current situation, but what could be five years from now. I think there are some definite possibilities of things that could be that are so much better than we are now. And that could include special school districts or total metro government."
Harris said the county school system welcomes the opportunity to sit down and talk about long-range plans for education.
"It's time," Harris said. "Whenever they call me, I'll go. A lot of times, we kind of sit on the outside and don't know what's going on (as far as annexation plans and those type things)."
Harris said there is little doubt that big changes are on the horizon, within the next five or six years, for the three school systems in Sullivan County. The only question is what form it will take.
"Whether it's by annexation or consolidation of the systems by choice or whether the state makes us do it, change is coming," Harris said Tuesday.
A 20-year veteran of the Sullivan County BOE, Harris said he fully expects the state to move toward having just one system per county in the next five years.
"Most of us agree it's coming. We would like to be a little bit ahead of the game," Harris said.
State law requires only that the county operate a school system. But, statewide in Tennessee, there are 136 public school systems in the 95 counties.
"All the planning we can do, the better for everyone," Harris said. "It's just looking at what's coming down the road. It's going to involve all of us."
If the scenario were to work out where it was one special school district, Harris believes it would have to be one that would encompass Sullivan County.
If the state were to move toward a funding formula based on sub-county fiscal capacity, funding each system based on its ability to pay rather than the county's overall ability to pay, city systems in Northeast Tennessee stand to lose considerable money.
"If they go to this funding formula, I don't think (the city systems) could survive," Harris said.
Annexation also takes a financial toll on city and county school systems.
A county's tax revenues set aside for schools are divided between the county and city systems serving its student population based on average daily attendance (ADA). City schools, in this case Bristol and Kingsport, get a portion of the county tax revenues because city residents pay county taxes too and choose to operate their own school systems.
This year alone, the Sullivan County school system lost nearly $300,000 in local funding to the two city systems because of a loss in ADA. As cities slowly expand their boundaries through urban growth, Harris said, that could become a major problem.
For the cities, the financial impact of annexation is also an issue because more students mean a need for more space, more teachers and, ultimately, more funding.
Venable said he believes any consolidation of schools or government - anything where people give up an interest - is driven by economics.
"I believe it will continue to be driven by economics," Venable said. "But it's closing in on us faster than we anticipated."
A Rogersville woman who police say caused a fatal traffic crash in May was using a cell phone when the wreck happened.
Bethany Goodson, 19, of Beaver Lane, Rogersville, turned herself in at the Kingsport Police Department on Monday after a grand jury indicted her on a charge of criminally negligent homicide last week.
Kingsport Police Department Officer Dale Farmer said he notified Goodson about the indictment and gave her the opportunity to turn herself in instead of being brought in by officers.
Farmer said Goodson was cooperative during the investigation, which began May 17. Goodson was traveling westbound on Stone Drive when she ran the red light at Union Street about 1 p.m. that day.
Goodson told police that the sun was in her eyes, and she couldn't see the red light.
Farmer, however, said witnesses reported Goodson was on the phone at the time and that the sun was not a factor in visibility at the intersection.
Farmer said he subpoenaed Goodson's cell phone records, which revealed there was a phone call in progress when the crash occurred.
Goodson's car hit a vehicle driven by Michelle Forbis, 28, of Kingsport. Forbis died from her injuries.
Forbis' husband, 28-year-old Matthew K. Forbis, and the couple's 8-year-old son, Matthew S. Forbis, were both injured in the crash.
Tennessee does not have a cell phone law for adult drivers, but Farmer said that doesn't mean it's safe to drive and talk on the phone.
"The Tennessee cell phone law, passed in July, only applies to juvenile drivers ages 15 to 18," KPD Officer and Traffic Crash Reconstructionist Dale Farmer said.
The law only allows teens to use a cell phone while driving if they are calling 911 or their parents during an emergency.
Even without an official law prohibiting the use of a cell phone while driving, Farmer said a state law prohibiting motorists from distracting behavior - which would include using a cell phone - allowed him to bring the charges.
Farmer said motorists should pull off the roadway and stop their vehicle if they need to use the phone to prevent a traffic hazard.
The Wise County School Board will wait for the results of a fire/building code evaluation by the state fire marshal's office before proceeding with a request for proposals (RFP) for installation of hi-tech fire/smoke detection systems at two to four, possibly more, of the county's schools.
The issue arose this summer when the board considered putting doors on classrooms at Appalachia Elementary School.
Appalachia Elementary and some other schools were built on the "schools without walls" concept of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The open classroom format lasted about as long as it took participating school divisions to install interior walls.
Modern-day building codes frown on anything that may impede children evacuating a school quickly, including classrooms that empty into other classrooms to reach an exterior door, or doors that may swing the wrong way, and that's what school board member Robert Mullins - who is also Wise County's building inspector - discovered when looking into the installation of doors at Appalachia Elementary.
The first result was the removal of doors at J.W. Adams Combined School near Pound last week until the matter is ironed out. The state fire marshal's office will conduct an evaluation of those two schools, as well as L.F. Addington and Coeburn middle schools, but has already posed three options to Wise County: Tear out the interior walls and start over, install sprinkler systems, or install an integrated automated fire/smoke detection system in each school determined to need one.
Only then can the county consider installing doors.
Meeting at Wise Primary School on Tuesday, Mullins and School Superintendent Nolan Kilgore provided a rundown of the situation and their recommendation to take the state's third option of a state-of-the-art detection system. Kilgore said such a system may cost in the neighborhood of $85,000 per school, but that was only a guess and the true cost could be a lot less or some higher.
Before the board authorizes RFPs from contractors, members agreed to wait for the results of the state fire marshal's evaluation of at least four of the schools. Mullins said upgrades to existing code, while fiscally painful, "is a good thing" because installation of integrated detection systems will enhance safety at those schools.
In other matters, the board honored Powell Valley High School football coach Phil Robbins. Earlier this summer, the 23-year PVHS gridiron general received the 2005 National High School Athletic Coaches Association's Football Coach of the Year award.
While he said the board's recognition was an honor, Robbins quipped, "Do you think anybody will care about (this) come kickoff on Friday night?"
Powell Valley entertains the Lee High Generals in the season's kickoff game for both teams Friday night at Bullitt Park.
Robbins has 255 career football victories during his 37-year high school coaching career. During his reign at PVHS, Robbins' teams have won 15 district titles, 10 regional crowns, and seven state championships.
The percentage of Americans with bulging waistlines is growing in just about every state, with residents of Alabama joining the obesity ranks the fastest. Only Oregon failed to fatten, according to a report released Tuesday.
Tennessee ranked 5th in the nation with an adult obesity rate of 25.6 percent and 7th in the nation when the obesity rate was combined with the number of adults who are overweight.
Virginia ranked 22nd in the nation with an obesity rate of 22.9 percent and 30th in the nation when the obesity rate was combined with the adult overweight ranking.
The advocacy group, Trust for America's Health, said data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the percentage of obese adults for 2002-04 stood at 22.7 percent nationally. The percentage for the previous cycle, 2001-03, was 22 percent.
Alabama had the unhealthiest increase. There, the rate increased 1.5 percentage points to 27.7 percent. Oregon's rate held steady at 21 percent.
The report said the states with the highest percentage of obese adults are Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana and Tennessee.
The states with the lowest percentage of obese adults are Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Montana. Hawaii was not included in the report.
While certain regions of the country fared worse than others, particularly the Southeast, the organization said no state meets the federal government's goal of a 15 percent obesity rate for adults by 2010.
"Bulging waistlines are growing, and it's going to cost taxpayers more dollars regardless of where you live," said Shelley Hearne, executive director of the Trust for America's Health.
Hearne said the United States is stuck in a "debate limbo" about how the government should confront obesity. She used the report to call for more government action on several fronts, such as ensuring that land-use plans promote physical activity; that school lunch programs serve healthier meals; and that Medicaid recipients get access to subsidized fitness programs, such as aerobics classes at the local YMCA.
"We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the U.S., and it's time we dealt with it," she said.
Radley Balko, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said he is wary of the call for more government action on obesity. The institute is a think tank that prefers free-market approaches to problems.
"I think obesity is a very personal issue. What you eat and how often you exercise, if that comes within the government's purview, it's difficult to think of what's left that isn't," Balko said.
Health policy analysts maintain that obesity increases the burden on taxpayers because it requires the Medicare and Medicaid programs to cover the treatment of diseases caused by obesity. The report issued Tuesday said taxpayers spent $39 billion in 2003 for the treatment of conditions attributable to obesity.
The Trust for America's Health recommended mandatory screening for obesity among Medicaid recipients, as well as nutritional counseling.
"Better prevention and disease management programs will result in cost savings to the system as a whole," the report stated.
Balko said it's not clear the government really knows how to persuade people to make better decisions. He said open-ended entitlement programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, don't provide much of a financial incentive for people to watch their weight. The government just picks up the cost of treating diseases for those patients, regardless of the amounts, he said.
He prefers that the government give Medicaid and Medicare recipients an incentive to open medical savings accounts, which would allow them to save money when they did not access the health care system.
"If they knew they only had so much to spend, or what they did not spend could be saved, then maybe you could instill a certain sense of responsibility and ownership," Balko said.
Adults with a body mass index of 30 or more are considered obese. The equation used to figure body mass index is body weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. The measurement is not a good indicator of obesity for muscular people who exercise a lot.
Attention Wal-Mart shoppers in Norton and Wise County: Beginning about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, the new supercenter in Norton will open its doors for business for the first time.
Grand opening ceremonies for the new Wal-Mart Supercenter begin at 7 a.m. for a facility that at 203,569 square feet is nearly 79,000 square feet larger than the 1989 store the supercenter replaces.
The store will employ approximately 450 associates, about 200 more than at the old Norton store. More than 1,700 people applied for jobs at the new supercenter, said Manager Marlene McGee.
The new facility features 36 general merchandise departments as well as a bakery and delicatessen, frozen foods and meats, dairy and fresh produce, a tire and lube center, McDonald's, one-hour photo, vision center and pharmacy, portrait studio, family fun center, and a hair salon.
Wednesday's ceremonies will begin with an invocation by Pastor Garrett Lee. Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4301 will present the colors, and the J.I. Burton High School Band will perform the national anthem. Store associates present at the original store's grand opening in 1989 will cut the ribbon to the new supercenter.
Other activities planned during the grand opening include numerous product samples, character appearances and giveaways.
Wal-Mart on Monday presented $15,750 in donations to a variety of local organizations as part of its Good Works community involvement program.
Recipients of the corporation's donations range from the Food Bank of Wise County to the high school band to the county school system's Alternative Education Center. The checks were presented during a special invitation-only open house for associates and their families and others on Monday.
recently saw a poignant sign on the lawn of a church in Boone, N.C. It stated: "You can safely assume that you have created God in your own image if he hates all the same people you do.'' That seems to point out quite succinctly the true nature of much of what ails our world today.
The self-righteousness and bigotry that drive religious extremists of any faith seem deeply rooted in that statement. Such views are not particular to the Middle East, where religious and sectarian strife has turned that corner of the world into a wasteland. It applies in America as well.
Here in our country, religious zealots like Eric Rudolph have used bombings and other terrorist tactics to make their point. Rudolph, who recently was convicted of bombing a Birmingham family planning clinic and the Atlanta Olympics, allegedly had adopted the beliefs of the "Christian Identity'' sect, an extremist sect whose primary belief is that white people are God's chosen people.
Likewise, Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, sounded like the Islamist clerics who issue "fatwas'' (religious edicts) as the Iranian ayatollahs did against author Salman Rushdie, recently when he advocated the assassination of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. On another occasion, he has critiqued feminism as a movement that encourages women "to kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.'' Only a fanatic would vilify those with whom they disagree or consider it their holy duty to call for the death of people they dislike.
Such malevolence has not passed over our community. Recently, a local Muslim family, whose father is in government service to protect our society, has been the target of what appears to be religious intolerance. Not only has the father faced prejudice because of his background, but their son was apparently confronted in school because he is a non-Christian. Sadly the discrimination of which I am aware emanated not from the poorly educated, but from professional families.
This incident led to a serious discussion within my own family. Certainly we are free to like or dislike whom we wish. However, I told my children they should measure the worth of people based on what they do, how they act and what they stand for, not for the color of their skin, their place of birth or their chosen god.
Islam, once the world's most tolerant religion is now infected with radical fundamentalism that identifies people of other religions as the enemy. I fear that the perceived success of Western economic and political systems is the root cause of this feeling. Moreover, it is the fear of societal change inherent in our systems that foments such religious hatred and xenophobia.
In that respect, the greater our physical involvement in the Middle East, the greater the violent backlash will be. Rather than creating a sea of democracy and stability in Iraq, our actions may be propagating the very terrorist threat to our country which prompted our incursion in the first place.
It is frustrating to see that at the start of the 21st century, we are still saddled with the narrow-minded bigotry that brought the world such events as the Inquisition and Hitler's Final Solution. As the sign said, there is too much interpretation of God's will to suit our own views. And, it is not just "those people'' overseas that are the source of the problem.
If we, with all of our freedoms and supposed tolerance can create such animosity, how do we ever think other, less tolerant cultures will feel less like hating us? As much as I love this area, I am often disappointed with the frequently expressed parochial views and lack of understanding of ideas and cultures that lie beyond the mountains that delineate our region and the oceans that define America.
Modern day America is slowly becoming a misanthrope's paradise. If you hate dealing with people, then you're in high cotton these days.
Need stamps? Run down to the post office, drop a few coins in a vending machine, and you're ready to mail without having to acknowledge the employees behind the counter.
Pantry getting bare? Motor over to the grocery store, fill a cart with Chef Boyardee, bread and potato chips, then make your way solo through the self-service checkout line. No cashier, no bag boy, no "paper or plastic?'' No "have a nice day" either.
Need an update about your checking account, loan or credit card balances? You don't even have to leave the house for those. Call up your bank's automated system or go online. It's quick, easy, accurate and people-free.
Need a prescription refilled? Heck, you can do that over the phone without having to speak to a pharmacist. Punch in the pertinent information, and your meds will be waiting for you.
Want to continue your education without the annoyance of other students and the aggravations of a public classroom environment? Sign up for online courses. No unwelcome interaction with fellow pupils or tedious small talk before class.
Shopping for clothes, books, shoes, music, gifts? Who needs the mall? No one does in the cyber age. The mall is so 20th century. Shop until you drop through your computer. You'll find a selection that no mall can possibly match, but even better, no lines, no salespeople, no mallrats.
Feel like worshiping, but don't want the social interaction that's sure to happen if you darken the church door? Check out the religious services on television or radio. Better yet, make worship portable through a "Godcast." Hit the Net, download podcast sermons from the priest, parson, minister or other cleric of your choice into your MP3 player, and go about your solitary spiritual journey while jogging, biking, paddling, driving, etc. Get all the glory of God without having to rub elbows with his tiresome creatures.
For all I know, in another hundred years it might be possible for the typical American to spend an entire lifetime at home.
Although I am certainly not your typical people person, I would hardly describe myself as misanthropic. I will, however, plead guilty to the charge of being curmudgeonly. Nevertheless, I'm wondering if perhaps all these marvelous technological advances that we keep making ostensibly to give us more convenience, more choices, more freedom and more leisure time aren't slowly exacting a toll on us. It seems to me that if anything we are becoming even more self-absorbed, self-centered and cocooned than ever before, which is really saying something. To be sure, technology makes possible many wonderful things, but it also gives to many of us the ability to perform everything from mundane tasks to our actual jobs in virtual isolation. If you're a hermit or a foul-tempered misanthrope, that's good news, but not so good news for the rest of us.
Human beings are, after all, a social species. Isolation, in small doses, can be a blessing. But as a way of life or the normal state of affairs, it is a curse. Just ask Robinson Crusoe.
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