Tag Archive for Tennessee

Toxic Coal Ash is Back on the Agenda as an Environmental Issue of Our Time

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Editor’s Note: For the past five years, while the New American Journal has continued to keep up with some major stories related to the natural environment such as the latest news on global warming and climate change, our priorities have tended to focus largely on coverage of national science and public affairs, and some state…

Two Independent Thinking News Writers Pass On in Knoxville

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Editor’s Note: This news comes with no personal regrets, since I didn’t know either of the deceased. But I knew Jack Neely some when writing for Metro Pulse myself, one of the most interesting alternative weeklies in the country in print and online in the late 20th century. It’s a sad day when anyone dies,…

Photo Essay – Cades Cove in Winter: Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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The Big Picture -  By Glynn Wilson -  GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK, Tenn. — Are you suffering from cabin fever from the COVID winter? Take a drive in nature in a park near you. When the forecast showed sunny weather and a high of 54 for Sunday, Feb. 21, I just had to get…

A Fleeting Glimpse of Life Before and After COVID and Trump

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — For a few minutes on Saturday night life in America seemed almost normal. The red, white, blue and yes orange Christmas lights blinked on and off downtown in this World’s Fair university town. The drinks flowed. Gumbo was served. And a live jazz band…

U.S. Senators Doug Jones, Lamar Alexander Push Back on Trump Trade Wars and Tariffs

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By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — You would have to go back to the 1920s and early ’30s to find a President of the United States willing to fight trade wars with other countries and express hostility to international trade agreements as Donald Trump seems intent on doing, it seems for domestic political points…

Sugarcane Jane Plays Windmill Market in Fairhope Alabama

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By Glynn Wilson – FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Upon recently discovering the Windmill Market restaurant and bar in this artsy community on Mobile Bay’s Eastern Shore, I was urged to show up Tuesday night to get a glimpse of and hear the sound of something quite unique: A new dynamic duo out of Alabama by way…

Advice for RV Nomads on Choosing a State of Residence

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By Bob Wells – One of the more confusing parts of being a Nomad is, if you have no permanent home, what state should you live in, what do you use for an address and how do you get mail? That’s always been fairly difficult but after 911 the heightened security around identification has made…

South’s Slavery Legacy in U.S. Future — Church and State Not Separate, Shacked Up

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By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala – “He was his slave.” The man was casually describing the connection between a relative and “an old black man” who worked on an extended-family tract outside the city. They rode around together in the relative’s truck doing chores, he said, and the “slave” was allowed to live in…

The Ten Most Corrupt State Governments in the United States

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Alabama is No. 10 and Louisiana is Not Listed At All? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – A new online celebrity tabloid is getting traffic from Facebook and Twitter for a story making the rounds claiming to rank the 10 most corrupt state governments in the United States based on “a national…

UAW Files Appeal of Volkswagen Union Election Claiming Outside Interference

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Company Officials Now Consider Closing the Chattanooga Plant – By Glynn Wilson – The United Auto Workers union has filed an appeal with the National Labor Relations Board claiming outside political interference by special interest groups in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when Volkswagen workers narrowly voted against union representation by 44 votes. Inside sources say now instead…

Lessons from the VW-UAW Union Defeat in Tennessee

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By Chris Kromm – Facing South – Forty-four votes. If 44 workers at Volkwagen’s factory in Chattanooga, Tenn. — less than 3 percent of the plant’s 1,560 hourly employees — had voted “yes” instead of “no” in last week’s closely-followed union election, the United Auto Workers and labor would be celebrating a “historic” victory in…

How Fear Beat the UAW in Tennessee

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Connecting the Dots – By Joshua Holland – A three-day election process ended on Friday when Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., voted against joining the United Auto Workers union 712 to 626. Coming into the vote, both sides knew what was at stake — the union drive was a direct threat to the low-wage economy…

Wyoming Replaces Alabama as the Most Conservative State in the U.S.

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The Word ‘Liberal’ is Experiencing a Resurgence in American Life – By Glynn Wilson – Could it be that the people of my home state are finally starting to get their news online and waking up to the ravages of run amok corporate capitalism and the do-nothing nature of conservative Republicans who don’t know how…