American Institute of Architects Turns 150: Homeless Center Design Is Birthday Gift to Chattanooga

The American Institute of Architects turned 150 years old this year and they decided to throw themselves a birthday party. From more than 150 communities across the country member architects are bestowing a "Blueprint for America" on the nation. Hardly an original name for ambitious national agendas, this plan promises that AIA members will share their architectural ideas for creating livable communities.

In Chattanooga the gift has been focused on mayor Ron Littlefield's proposal to establish a services center for homeless people at the former Farmers Market on 11th Street, the so-called Chattanooga Community Resource Center (CCRC). Begun over a year ago, the gift has become a pinata with every party guest taking a whack.

Here is a summary of some of the stakeholders.

City Hall
The mayor got the party started when he had the city purchase the old Farmers Market site consisting of nine acres and several buildings for three-quarters of a million dollars. Littlefield has supported the city's purchase of this property since long before his election to mayor, when he was a city councilman during the Corker administration, and long before it was suggested as a location for a center for homeless services.

Now that this use of the site is being promoted, it has come out that Littlefield's own father was one of thousands who found themselves homeless during the Great Depression of the 1930's. Certainly people who lived through that experience bore the scars for the balance of their lives. Reportedly those scars made a lasting impression on Littlefield who has made ending homelessness in Chattanooga a major agenda of his administration.

The mayor's intentions for the Farmers Market property may well be good, but his methods for implementing them have raised many concerns. Tom Griscom, editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, has voiced concerns over the secrecy of the charrette process where only certain parties were invited and the press was barred. Businessperson and M.L. King neighborhood resident Merri Mai Williamson reported to the City Council how the city had preceded her investigative visit to Joy Junction in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with disinformation. "Dr. Reynalds had been contacted by our city and led to believe that my intentions were ill-founded."

The Homeless
Often the primary stakeholders have gone without a voice. Homeless person Russell Smith, brought in for the AIA charrette, said that Chattanooga has a reputation among the homeless for being very inviting. He urged providers to make the facilities available only to people actively enrolled in programs that give them an incentive to turn their lives around. "If it's open to everybody, it'll just enable people to do nothing," he said. "What's the point of straightening up if everything's going to be provided for you?

Times Free Press reporter Herman Wang has thoroughly covered the controversy for the past several months. He quoted Smith saying, "I came here from Houston... Chattanooga makes it easy to be homeless. You can sit here and make money every day, use crack cocaine and alcohol and still have a place to stay, a place to eat."

M.L. King Neighborhood
Williamson has been an outspoken opponent of the mayor's plan, going so far as to "embark on an eight-day journey, visiting homeless complexes and the surrounding communities in Austin, Texas, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Phoenix, Arizona." What she found was a shared pattern of prosperity, decline, revitalization and "struggle to maintain any momentum while fighting the daily challenges presented by having a concentration of homeless so nearby." Problems included drug abuse, hygiene problems associated with vagrancy, littering and lack of personal and property security.

The M.L. King Neighborhood Association and other local residents and business owners fear that the proposed homeless center will similarly degrade their revitalizing neighborhood while failing to address homelessness issues adequately.

Resident Anita Polk-Conley said shelters should be held accountable for the public behavior of their clients. "If any other businesses had people laying around outside, we'd shut them down. That affects businesses and tourism. A day center can help them get off the street, but it doesn't stop homelessness."

The Homeless Coalition
According to the Chattanooga Homeless Coalition Web site, "In May 1987, the Metropolitan Council for Community Services (now known as the Community Research Council) completed a Chattanooga Survey of the Homeless... In 1994, a second survey of the homeless in Chattanooga was conducted under the auspice of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, School of Social and Community Services. Through 1996-97, this study was 'updated' annually by the Metropolitan Council for Community Services. In 1995, the Coalition was incorporated as a non-profit corporation."

A group of 14 "service providers, government administrators, housing developers, community leaders, and homeless individuals" met in 2003 to formulate a comprehensive plan to end homelessness in Chattanooga. From that seven-month process came the "Blueprint to End Chronic Homelessness in the Chattanooga Region in Ten Years" and formation of the Chattanooga Regional Interagency Council on Homelessness according to the now-dismantled followtheblueprint.com.

Services Providers
Perhaps most outspoken among providers has been Charlie Hughes, director of the Community Kitchen. "We spend a lot of time talking about how to get people out of Miller Park," says Hughes. "Are we just going to create another public park for the homeless to hang out?"

Some service providers would prefer the Farmers Market site to be more of an extension of what they're already doing. They suggested adding parking to ease traffic on 11th Street.

Hughes has said the Community Kitchen could use more space. He would like to shift their thrift store to the Farmers Market facility across the street. That would free space for a day center, respite care facility and 24-hour shelter. He would then relocate and expand their health care center to a building currently planned for the day center behind the Community Kitchen.

Hughes has stated that the Community Kitchen's needs cannot wait. Littlefield has promised $250,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds toward the day shelter. The Community Kitchen's own fundraising program will finance the respite care facility and 24-hour shelter according to Hughes.

Public-private planning and development company River City Co. has purchased the Union Gospel Mission at the corner of Main and Market streets. Though Union Gospel Mission has a year to vacate its current location, delays on the Farmers Market project jeopardize a smooth transition for one of the organizations discussed as a possible tenant at the 11th Street location.

Environmental Agency
Times Free Press reporter Pam Sohn discovered a Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation file that identified the 11th Street acreage as a former 25-foot-deep clay-and-shale quarry. Reportedly the quarry was used as a dumping ground for coal tar and other polluting by-products of manufacturing.

Ashley Holt, manager, TDEC Division of Remediation, says, “The site needs further testing and perhaps cleanup if people will live there. If the homeless shelter is a residential one, they will have to clean up to that standard.”

Community Committee
City councilwoman Linda Bennett chairs the Community Committee on Homelessness launched by councilman Leamon Pierce to investigate the mayor's plan. The committee asserted that 2004's "Blueprint to End Chronic Homelessness in the Chattanooga Region in Ten Years" should be updated by the end of 2007. "There was a dialogue with the blueprint that was lost," said committee member Richard Brown, vice chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

The committee recommended that the city and county establish a single entity to coordinate, direct and sustain the local response to homelessness by September of 2007. They also recommended an education program to discourage members of the public from giving money to panhandlers.

After releasing the report with a passage stating that the homeless committee was "unable to find a rationale to support the idea" for the proposed facility off 11th Street, Bennett said in a statement that there was a "mix-up in the drafts" of the report and that an earlier draft had erroneously been released.

Nonetheless, claiming that the mayor acted on his own to establish a homeless services center at the former Farmers Market, Pierce urged him to slow down and seek input from others. "I feel like from day one, that the community and the public, the downtown, the business sector, did not have any input into the planning of what's getting ready to take place."

The AIA
The AIA plan includes space for the Rescue Mission and Union Gospel Mission, a police precinct, a job training facility and storefronts for businesses. It also includes a building for the Interfaith Hospitality Network, another for the Southeast Tennessee Human Resource Agency, the Community Kitchen's thrift store and recycling center and a restricted-access central courtyard.

David Hudson, CEO of Artech Design, is heading the design of the homeless services center for the American Institute of Architects. "We're looking at the immediate future potential for the site, as well as what this site will look like in 20 years," said Hudson. "The goal is to establish a guide for this site over time."

"As the projects are completed over the course of this year, the AIA will compile case studies from individual Blueprint projects. The case studies, intended for local officials interested in implementing similar programs, will be accessible through the AIA’s Web site, www.aia150.org free of charge. The completed piece, titled 'Blueprint for America Mosaic: A Gift to the Nation,' will be presented by the AIA in 2008," according to an AIA release.

A World of Frustration & Anger:

Are We Creating Our Own Nightmare with Technology?

In the wake of the biggest mass killing on a school campus in history, and with recorded workplace incidents in Atlanta and other cities, the news is that these perpetrators are people who have experienced repeated rejection, are frustrated and angry, and are lashing out in the only way they know how. That news certainly does not condone their actions, but let's ask, "Can we help prevent such destructive retaliation?"

Objects of Aggravation

Communications technology is more advanced than ever:

• Cell phones
• Voice mail
• Email
• Faxing
• Websites
• SMS text messaging
• Blog pages (social networking)
• Linking between all of the above
• Answering and call routing systems

Yet people are using these technologies - not to make themselves more accessible - but to screen all but the very elite of their social networks. And they don't reply to email, voicemail or other messages left for them. This causes enormous frustration among everyone outside that elite circle trying unsuccessfully to reach them.

Of course, part of the reason people are screening incoming messages is that the recipients also are overloaded and frustrated, and so it becomes a vicious cycle of screening and being screened.

Non-technology Social Factors

All of us have experienced some level of frustration and anger resulting from technology. From an unwanted social relationship being screened, to a salesman failing to reach an important unresponsive commercial contact, to a consumer trying to cut through intentional corporate fog masquerading as customer service, we all experience some abuse through technology. The difference is how we choose to deal with the frustration and anger.

Compounding the emotions are people's unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions. This is a no-fault age. Call it the Harris Syndrome, after the author of the book, I'm OK, You're OK. It doesn't matter what you do, you're not responsible. You are what you are because of someone else's action or inaction - usually that of your parents.

And then there are the homicidal thugs acting under the guise of religious or nationalistic ideology. Whatever their misguided course, these criminals are perfectly willing to sacrifice themselves along with their victims.

Dissemination

Perhaps related to the emotions of frustration and anger is the need for glory, for recognition. People are making videos of the most outrageous things so that they can achieve a high viral rating on the social network of choice. It doesn't matter if they go out in a blaze, so long as the video places at the top of the "Featured Videos" list on YouTube. Stupidity previously reserved for over-pampered movie stars and their handlers is now widely evident among the general population.

Perpetuation

The astounding query from the media has been: There were indicators of pending trouble. From acting on those indicators to locking down the campus after reports of the first shootings, why wasn't more done to prevent this from happening? Yet it is the media that knowingly plays right into the criminals' hands.

To whom did Seung-Hui Cho send his self-pardoning video rant? In it he expressed admiration for mutual murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Even while expressing trepidation about airing the video, NBC excused itself by using police and talking heads to state that airing the video wouldn't harm the case and that it would help us "know what was in his head."

Now the next mass murderer will express his or her admiration for Cho along with Harris and Klebold. Thanks to modern communications technology, these two incidents which came packaged with murderous manifestos already have received more attention than all previous school-related manifesto-less incidents combined.

In summation, communication technology is not the cause of the problem. There clearly are non-technological social issues as well. But technology is a source of aggravation, dissemination and perpetuation. So where does the insanity end? In our own Matrix-like self-perpetuated demise?

Private and Public Coordinate for Corporate Recycling

This is not another fluff story about corporations trying to make themselves appear to be good citizens by doing less than they should and bragging about it way too much. It's about corporate responsibility from the inside out and the grassroots up. In most cases, conscientious employees are going out of their way to extend to their workplace what they already do at home.

Take Carolyn Mitchell at the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce for example. A self-described tree hugger, she sends out office-wide emails to remind fellow employees to recycle. "It's not that they don't want to recycle," she observes. "People simply get busy and forget." She thinks she sees a temporary increase in the recycle bins when she sends the emails.

"There is no one telling employees that they must recycle. It's strictly voluntary. Yet I would say that about 90 percent of the employees participate," Mitchell muses. "I think that the Chamber should set a positive example for other businesses."

After a pause, she laughs, "It's nice that even visitors seem to get into the spirit. Of course the bins are right there for everyone to see, but they're pretty good about putting their containers and all in the correct bins." The bins are beside desks and in the copy room for paper, and in the kitchen for plastic, cans and paper. "When I came in 2002, they already had the paper recycling bins. Then they added bins for other recyclables like plastics and cans in 2003," she recalls.

Mayor Ron Littlefield held a press conference at the Waterhouse Pavilion at Miller Plaza in January. The Mayor introduced Rocky the Recycling Raccoon to promote Chattanooga's monthly curbside recycling program. Rocky is the mascot for Team Recycle, a joint effort between the City of Chattanooga and Orange Grove Center. As the Recycle Right website explains, there are three steps in the recycling process. The joint venture completes the first two steps to help direct some 330 tons of waste into recycling for reuse instead of being dumped into landfills. It also provides jobs for Orange Grove Center clients.

But according to John Chamberlain, Recycling Coordinator, Orange Grove Center has additional recycling services targeted specifically at businesses. "Recycle Express provides weekly pickup of cardboard, mixed paper, glass, plastic and aluminum for $20 per month. Well over 100 businesses are currently participating."
He points out that the waste to be recycled varies by type of business. Real estate offices generate large volumes of paper to be recycled. Liquor stores generate cardboard boxes. Small bars and restaurants generate cardboard and beverage containers. By paying a small amount for the service, the businesses enjoy weekly frequency of pickups rather than just the monthly curbside pickup.

Recycle Express has been operating for about three years. "BlueCross BlueShield (of Tennessee) has been recycling for a long time. They even recycle computer stuff like printer cartridges," Chamberlain recalls. "They plan to incorporate recycling into their new (headquarters office) complex on Cameron Hill."

He also noted that businesses like BCBS, doctors offices and others that process security sensitive documents first shred the paper before recycling it. "The tiny pieces of paper make our job harder, but we still handle it. (They refuse shredded paper in the curbside program and at the convenience centers.)

"Another department of Orange Grove Center provides document destruction services and we recycle their paper too," says Chamberlain.

The cooperative arrangement between Orange Grove Center and the City of Chattanooga extends to four recycling drop-off convenience centers as well. The convenience centers accept glass bottles (brown, green and clear), computers and small electronics (no TVs or microwaves), wet cell batteries, motor oil, shredded paper, as well as all paper except shredded, cardboard, plastic #1 and #2 (bottles with a neck), aluminum cans, and steel cans that are recyclable through the curbside program.

________________

The portable recycling trailer sits on the City of Chattanooga's future second permanent collection site located on Access Rd. at DuPont Pkwy., beside the Refuse Collection Center. The facility is accepting recyclables even as a permanent office is under construction in the background.
________________

A permanent facility is located at Warner Park Recycle Center, 1250 East Third St. A second permanent facility will be complete in about 30 days at Access Road at DuPont Parkway, with the Refuse Collection Center. That facility is already accepting recyclables with a portable facility, as are two additional locations at John A. Patten Recreation Center, 3202 Kelly’s Ferry Rd., and East Brainerd Baseball Complex, at the end of Batter’s Place Road. All four will eventually be permanent facilities, but Chamberlain wouldn't speculate on a completion date. "Orange Grove Center operates them, but the City owns them and is handling construction."

City convenience center hours are Monday, Tuesday and Friday, 7:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.; closed Wednesday and Thursday; open Saturday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Sunday, 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.

In addition, Hamilton County operates collection facilities at East Ridge Recycling Center, 1001 Yale Street (behind East Ridge Hospital), Tuesday and Thursday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Highway 58 Recycling Center, 5414 Hwy. 58 (corner of Hwy. 58 & Hickory Valley Rd), Monday and Wednesday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Middle Valley Recycling Center, 1600 Crabtree Road (Hixson), Monday and Wednesday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Red Bank Recycling Center, 4851-B Dayton Blvd. (Next to Fire hall #2), Tuesday and Thursday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Standifer Gap Recycling Center, 7625 Standifer Gap Road, Tuesday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Sequoyah Recycling Center, 9525 Lovell Road (Soddy Daisy) Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.

To participate in Recycle Express by Orange Grove Center call 493-2925. For additional information on City recycling programs and centers call 311. Information on Hamilton County recycling is available at 209-6480.

How Clean Is Green Chattanooga?

_____________

Clean blue skies prevail over Enterprise South today, where the U.S. Army once belched, spilled and dredged pollutants into the environment at the largest TNT manufacturing facility in the world.
_____________

"Deer!" is a common cheer uttered by passengers of cars passing through Enterprise South, along with less frequent cheers of "wild turkey!" "coyote!" and "fox!" Such wildlife sightings underscore a remarkable resiliency of the former Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant and its inhabitants. In spring and summer many sins of the past are completely overgrown by kudzu. Only with the onset of cold weather and resulting loss of foliage are automobile passengers reminded of the area's mysterious industrial past.

Starting in the 1940s, the VAAP became the world's largest manufacturer of TNT explosives. Production declined after World War II and the Korean War until it was finally decommissioned in 1977. It sat like a derelict in its own waste until a decade ago.

Chattanooga has been trying to market the massive acreage since then, first the Army contractor ICI Americas as the Volunteer Site and now Hamilton County and the City of Chattanooga as Enterprise South. The efforts have been largely unsuccessful, but some of that faltering has been deliberate. Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce Director of Marketing J.Ed. Marston has noted, "This is the last large undeveloped piece of land in Hamilton County. We only get one shot at developing it right."

Before the Army could sell the reservation to local governments, the Environmental Protection Agency required significant remediation of the chemical waste that had been carelessly mishandled during production of TNT. As a result, the transfer of ownership was incremental and the Army is still on the hook for remediation until around 2020 according to a 2004 Public Health Assessment.

Chattanooga's Cinderella story from "dirtiest city in America," a dubious honor bestowed by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1969, to one of America's ten greenest according to travel and environmental journalist Brian Goodspeed has been a model of public and private cooperation. Numerous other environmental and travel writers have also noted the remarkable transformation that has taken place in Chattanooga. Governments from American and overseas cities have sent delegations of observers to study progress of the new environmental emerald of the South.

Yet the recent loss of the Toyota assembly plant incited speculation that environmental issues were at least partially responsible. One of the earliest U.S. reports about Toyota's decision to locate in Tupelo, Mississippi, appeared in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Writer Amos Maki asserted that "Air quality problems in and around Marion (AR) and Chattanooga opened the door for Tupelo."

State and local authorities then scrambled to deny that environmental issues factored into the decision to pass over Chattanooga. Bob Colby, Director of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Bureau, addressed air concerns by insisting that "Chattanooga would not have even been considered as a site without a 2003 Early Action Compact that worked to achieve cleaner air by this year."

As a part of its preemptive efforts to meet EPA ground level ozone requirements for 2008, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Bureau enacted a program labeled the Early Action Compact that included mandatory vehicle emissions testing and seasonal burning bans to reduce air pollution. The efforts reportedly put Chattanooga two years ahead of schedule and might forestall mandated draconian measures like industrial development limitations and use of specially blended fuels in cars and trucks.

Hamilton County Commissioner Bill Hullander addressed ground contamination or brown field concerns by stating, "An EPA study gave the site a clean bill of health and only a couple of places needed cleaning up. It wouldn't qualify it as a brown field."

Presumably Hullander's information is from an update of the aforementioned 2004 Public Health Assessment which listed 26 sites of potential locations of contamination ranging from debris, pesticides and acids to far more lethal toxins like vanadium pentoxide, asbestos and "a minor mustard gas release." Though he didn't claim that the cleanup had been completed, the significant progress from 26 sites to "a couple" apparently represents a significant acceleration ahead of the 2020 conclusion projected by that same report.

The most reassuring statement denying the significance of environmental issues, however, came from Toyota itself. Jim Press, President of Toyota North America, Inc., stated that air quality issues did not affect the Tennessee and Arkansas sites. "We were able to clear all of the goals in terms of environmental impact," Press said, as reported by the Associated Press. "The site in Tennessee, environmentally, was fine."

Enjoy the Chattanooga Traditional Jazz Festival May 5-7

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story will be published in the past tense because the publication date is near the event date. I am going ahead and posting it here with apologies and the hope that it will do the event some good.

_____________

The Chattanooga Traditional Jazz Festival is a love story that spans 17 years for promoters Mike and Astrid Griffin shown here in front of the new addition to the Hunter Museum of American Art, site of "Hot Jazz in Stone and Steel."
_____________

May 5 is your opportunity to get something special for nothing. The Buck Creek Jazz Band will perform Dixieland Jazz at the Hunter Museum of American Art at 12:30 p.m. on the first Saturday of May this year. And it's free.


Billed as "Hot Jazz in Stone and Steel," the event combines American visual art and uniquely American early jazz music under the new "wing" of the Hunter Museum. "The expansive views and soaring architecture of our newly expanded Museum will provide a terrific backdrop for the marriage of these two American artforms," director of the Hunter Museum Rob Kret observes. The event is a bonus of the annual Chattanooga Traditional Jazz Festival being held May 5-7 at the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

This event follows on the heels of a Carrie Mae Weems photographic exhibition at the Hunter Museum focusing on the New Orleans area and American social issues. Early jazz is often identified with its origins in New Orleans during the early 1900's.

Jim Ritter, cornetist and co-leader of Buck Creek Jazz Band, will narrate a history of jazz as the band plays and various works of art reminiscent of that period are displayed from the Hunter Museum's private collection. Seven musicians, including two drummers, who have been playing together for 19 years generate a rich, highly refined sound that is sought after by traditional jazz aficionados. They reportedly have served up their unique brand of New Orleans style jazz to every major traditional jazz festival in the United States, and some elsewhere as well.

The Buck Creek Jazz Band aspires to represent the playing of the early jazz pioneers without copying them. Music by Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver and cornetist Bix Beiderbecke often are associated with the genesis of jazz. With their talent, jazz fever spread from New Orleans to Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, and then to Europe and the rest of the world during World War I. Ritter will interpret Beiderbecke's arrangements along with that of other memorable jazz artists.

In commenting about this extension of the larger 3-day event, promoters Mike and Astrid Griffin noted, "We have always had wonderful cooperation from Allied Arts, the Hunter Museum and Bluff View Art District publicizing our Festival. Until now the Museum hadn't had the facility to host this type of event. We think 'Hot Jazz in Stone and Steel' marks the beginning of a new level of cooperation. We would like to see the Chattanooga Traditional Jazz Festival become more of a community event like Riverbend rather than simply focusing on visitors," and he sees the Bluff View Art District as an ideal venue. Griffin confirmed that some of the most memorable jazz shows at Riverbend are held on the stage near the Hunter Museum.

The Chattanooga Traditional Jazz Festival has successfully enhanced traditional jazz appreciation and awareness of Chattanooga for 17 years, and payed its own way in doing so. Formerly known as the Bessie Smith Traditional Jazz Festival, it brings enthusiasts from around the world to patronize Chattanooga lodging, restaurants and tourist attractions. "There is a huge number of people who will travel across the country to attend a festival of this caliber," Mike Griffin notes. "Americans recognize the value, but the Europeans and Japanese recognize it even more." Approximately 450 people willingly ante up $125 to $175 for a weekend of quality traditional jazz. "Many of the reservations are made a year in advance," according to Griffin. The rest trickle in throughout the year. "We are very fortunate. Often events in Chattanooga don't sell out until the day of the event."

"Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong recorded together," Griffin remarks, so the Chattanooga jazz and blues native's name was an obvious choice to be associated with the Festival. However, the Festival was often confused with the popular Riverbend night known as the Bessie Smith Strut so the Festival's name was changed. Though the Festival originally helped raise money for the Bessie Smith Hall, there is no current relationship. "Unfortunately, the Bessie Smith Hall is not recognized in the industry as a jazz venue," says Griffin sadly, "and I don't know why that is."

This year the Festival is hosting four noted traditional jazz bands, all of which are sought after throughout the world of traditional jazz. In addition to the Buck Creek Jazz Band, the Cakewalkin' Jass (sic) Band, Grand Dominion Jazz Band and High Sierra Jazz Band will take turns cabaret style in the Chattanooga Choo Choo's Imperial Ballroom. "There are over 100 jazz festivals throughout the United States," Griffin noted. "Some festivals bus guests to multiple venues. Ours is a boutique jazz festival where the jazz comes to you. When our guests leave they are happy."

"Three of these bands played in the Bessie Smith Jazz Festival," according to Griffin. "In fact, trumpeter Duke Heitger played with his sister, Nicole Heitger, for jazz great Banu Gibson here in a swing feature as a part of the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra's pops series five years ago. He is returning from touring in Europe just for his performance at the Chattanooga Traditional Jazz Festival with the Cakewalkin' Jass Band led by his father, clarinetist Ray Heitger." Cakewalkin' Jass Band is eight musicians from Toledo, Ohio, playing banjo, string bass, piano, cornet, clarinet, drums, trombone and vocals. Duke, when not traveling in Europe and elsewhere, now hails from New Orleans where he leads his own Steamboat Stompers aboard the Natchez paddlewheeler daily, makes a weekly appearance at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe and recorded with the Squirrel Nut Zippers on their million-selling disc "Hot."

Grand Dominion Jazz Band is from Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Washington. Bandmember Jim Marsh recalled in an article he wrote for Just Jazz magazine, October 2006, and reproduced on the band's website: "My own 'personal best' recollection was in Chattanooga in 1996, when Adolphus 'Doc' Cheatham joined us onstage for a few tunes. What an experience it was to share the stage with a legend. At the age of ninety-one, he required a stool to support him, but his trumpet still rang out sweetly, and he sang 'Sweethearts On Parade,' with no hesitation whatsoever. At one point, Bob Jackson was looking closely at the rusty and battered old tin mute that Doc was using, so Doc handed it to him, saying as he did so, 'King Oliver gave me that mute.' Bob snatched his hand back as though he was being offered the crown jewels, which, in a sense I suppose, he was." Marsh goes on to add, "The Chattanooga Festival has become an annual event for us, and we are referred to as 'the house band' by organizers Mike and Astrid Griffin."

The High Sierra Jazz Band is seven musicians from Central California and the tiny town of Three Rivers located at the entrance to Sequoia National Park. According to their website, an American Rag readers poll pronounced the High Sierra Jazz Band the second most popular traditional jazz band ever, just behind the Turk Murphy Band and ahead of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Instrumentation for High Sierra includes reeds, trombone, cornet, sousaphone, piano, banjo, drums and vocals.

Promoting jazz events started early for Mike Griffin. His first were jam sessions in high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during the 1940's. He then graduated to promoting shows featuring local bands and icons such as Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong to the general public. In fact, Griffin promoted two concerts of Louis Armstrong and his band, the Allstars, to crowds of 4500 each. After relocating to Chattanooga years later, his love of jazz and familiarity with events promotion led he and wife Astrid to begin this endeavor that has spanned nearly two decades. "I couldn't do it without Astrid," Griffin says of his wife. "We think the Chattanooga Traditional Jazz Festival helps to present a good image for the community, and we hope to encourage more local people to appreciate music."

Visitors to "Hot Jazz in Stone and Steel" may elect to continue their afternoon at the Hunter Museum with a tour of the permanent art collection for $8. Admission to the rest of the Jazz Festival performances are available by phone at 423-266-0944.

Is the Risk of Radon Real?

If you have ever known of a non-smoker who died of lung cancer, you probably pondered how that could have happened. Considerable media coverage has pointed an accusing finger at second hand smoke, but there may be another culprit. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, "Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in America among non-smokers and claims more than 20,000 lives annually."

"Radon is a naturally occurring environmental carcinogen," according to Amy Fields, spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. "Most radon-induced cases of lung cancer occur in smokers, reflecting synergy between smoking and radon exposure. Quitting smoking is an essential part of prevention, but the estimates of radon-caused lung cancer are also substantial. Radon-induced lung cancer can be prevented by reducing radon levels in homes and other buildings."

____________

Testing is important to determine if your location is at risk. Sometimes radon gateways are easy to spot. Remediation can be as simple and economical as caulking cracks in floors and walls.
____________

You probably briefly studied about radon in high school or college chemistry as an element on the periodic table. It also "is a cancer-causing natural radioactive gas that you can’t see, smell or taste," according to the EPA. Radon is produced by the radioactive decay of uranium, which is present to some degree in all rocks and soils. Concentrated by the movement of ground water, gases like radon release into homes and workplaces through cracks in floors and walls often too small for solids or liquids to penetrate.

In fact, the danger of radon was discovered in 1984 in the case of Stanley Waltras, an employee at the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania. In routine employee testing, alarming levels of radiation were discovered in Waltras. Surprisingly, the source was eventually tracked--not to the power plant--but to radon contaminated air in the basement of the Waltras home. Carcinogenic radiation exposure there was estimated to be equivalent to smoking 135 packs of cigarettes per day!

I asked a random dozen Chattanoogans about what they knew of the risk of radon. Other than some general awareness that radon is not good for you, they did not associate radon with lung cancer. The problem may be the lack of top of mind awareness. Unlike cigarettes, labels about radon are difficult to affix. And unlike smoke detectors, radon detectors are not sold on end caps at local Wal-Marts. Information is readily available if you search on the Internet. But first you must be aware and concerned enough to perform the search.

Calls to regional offices of the EPA in Atlanta and the Tennessee Department of Envrionment and Conservation's Radiological Health unit in Nashville to inquire about specific efforts to promote radon awareness in the Chattanooga area went unreturned.

The EPA has created a public service announcement that compares the Surgeon General's Warning on cigarette packages with a similar Surgeon General's Warning about radon. You can view the ad at http://www.epa.gov/radon/rnpsa.html.

Unfortunately local television stations cannot confirm that they have ever aired the ad. Though she thinks WRCB-TV12 might have aired a radon ad in the past, Doris Ellis, programming director, explained, "We receive hundreds of public service announcements, especially during election time."

According to Ellis, "The way to warn Chattanoogans about the risk of radon is for an authority to be interviewed on one of the news broadcasts." It turns out, however, that there is no local authority promoting radon awareness.

Iowa ranks as the state that leads the nation in naturally occuring radon, so it logically follows that the state has done the most to study the health risks posed by the element. But what about Tennessee and Georgia? How prevalent is it here?

The EPA provides national and state maps showing three levels of radon incidence. However, it warns that the maps are "not intended to be used to determine if a home in a given zone should be tested for radon. Homes with elevated levels of radon have been found in all three zones. All homes should be tested regardless of geographic location."

A study at Oak Ridge National Laboratories revealed that the United States Department of Energy has conducted quarterly ambient air monitoring in the environment surrounding ORNL facilities including in nearby Scarboro since 1986. "The level of radiation received by Scarboro residents is not a health hazard." Note, however, that this is surface "ambient" exposure.

A "Tennessee Agricultural Research and Extension System Report from the University of Tennessee and Tennessee State University to the United States Department of Agriculture" stated that of "463 home radon tests conducted in 2003, 145 (31%) were at or above the level recommended for treatment by the Environmental Protection Agency."

Air Check, a leading radon test kit lab located in Fletcher, North Carolina, reports that average test results for Tennessee are above the 4 pCi/l threshold at which the EPA recommends remediation, while the average for Georgia is well below. However, keep in mind that the EPA insists that all homes should be tested regardless of geographic location.

_______________

Solids and liquids may not be able to pass through, but gases like radon can. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers, equivalent to smoking up to 135 packs of cigarettes per day in some cases.
_______________

Though Wal-Mart doesn't carry radon detectors, Lowe's and Home Depot do sell passive test kits for less than $20 and they are even more affordable online starting at around $10 from sites such as radon.com, testproducts.com and ebay.com.

Passive testing involves hanging the self-mailer envelope at the normal breathing level in a room. After two to three days it is sealed air tight while in the testing room. Then it is mailed to the lab for measurement. The results are provided by return mail or email.

Extensive radon information can be found at http://www.epa.gov/radon/ and at http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_1_3x_Radon.asp?sitearea=PED as well as other Internet sites.

What You Don’t Know About Your Cell Phone Could Help You

• The Worldwide Emergency Number for cellular phones is 112 (not 911). If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your cellular network and there is an emergency, try 911 first. Often that is sufficient. If it doesn’t work, dial 112 and the phone will search any existing network to establish the emergency number. Interestingly 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked.

• If your car has remote keyless entry and you’ve locked your keys in the car use your cell phone to call someone who has a spare key. Hold your phone about a foot from the car door and as the person with the other key presses the unlock button near their phone. Your car door or trunk will unlock.

• Activate reserve battery power by pressing *3370#. Your cell phone will restart with reserve power and the indicator will show a 50% battery charge. This reserve will be renewed the next time you charge your cell phone battery. To help you remember the number, write it on the battery now.

• Discover your cell phone’s serial number by dialing *#06#. A 15-digit code will appear on the screen. This is the serial number. Copy it now and keep it in a safe but accessible location. If your phone is stolen, call your service provider, give the serial number and they can block use of the stolen phone. Even if the thief changes the SIM card your phone will be rendered useless. You probably won't get the phone back, but at least you’ll know that whoever stole it can't use or sell it either. If everybody did this there would be no point in stealing cell phones.

• Cell phone service providers needlessly charge $1.00 or more per 411 information call. When you need to call information simply dial 800-FREE-411 (800-373-3411) without incurring any charge at all. Program it into your cell phone now.

Good Green News!

Enrons and Exxons of the World, It's Time to Worry!

Cheap solar electricity within the decade! Maybe sooner. Check it out.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml

So What Is the United States Postal Service’s Excuse?

Or Do They Bother?

Do they even make an excuse for their policy of returning mail, and thus wasting the postage you spent, when they have all the information needed to correctly deliver the mail. Even postal workers can readily see that it simply has a wrong number in the zip (The zip code is only supposed to ASSIST correct delivery, not be the sole means for correct distribution.) or a closed postal box number on the same line as a valid street address for the Convention & Visitors Bureau, with which they certainly are familiar.

Returning mail on such lame pretenses is nothing short of larceny. What’s new? It’s part of the government.

Well, What Would YOU Do?

Correct Verbal Etiquette

Occasionally I wind up in a conversation with someone who pronounces a word wrong, or at least differently from me. What is the proper etiquette for continuing the conversation? It is very disruptive to correct the person, requiring an extended explanation such as the one in the next paragraph. If the correction doesn't ignite an argument, it will at least embarrass the other party. Either way the conversation usually terminates prematurely. Should I intentionally mispronounce the word to subjugate myself to the error? Am I being honest when I do that? Ultimately, am I hurting my professional image? Or should I carry on the conversation with the correct pronunciation in each of my references as though we were speaking the same language? Certainly that behavior becomes quite noticeable and can negatively affect the conversation as well.

Often I encounter this problem in reference to the file extension GIF. Many geek-types want to pronounce it with the j-sound at the beginning. First, that's a peanut butter brand spelled Jif. Second, I encountered the JIFF file extension many years ago when I used a little image-viewing program called JPEGView. That freeware program produced an alternate image file with the JIFF extension. Though I know few people are even aware of that program and its extension, using that pronunciation creates confusion for me in conversation. Third, these same geek-types don't have any difficulty at all correctly pronouncing the GI letter combination with other words. To give would render a very different message than to jive. A gift is not a jift. Unless you are Riverdance a gig does not include a jig. And, though there is considerable discussion about bits versus bytes, there is no debate on how the prefix giga is pronounced. And, yes I acknowledge that there are absolutely legitimate soft pronunciations of the combination, but this is not one of them.

This challenge to verbal etiquette happened again recently. Meeting with a prospective customer, he pronounced a word incorrectly. Hoping to maintain my professional integrity without making an issue of the error, I opted to pronounce it correctly without correcting him. I found the experience to be quite awkward. Though nothing was ever said about it, and the meeting went well enough to last for a couple hours, I can’t help wonder how much effect the conversation will have on our business relationship in the future. If you have any light to shed on the subject, please feel free to comment.

Check Out ORIGINS

New IssuesWriter Google Search

Have you ever noticed the colloquialisms - slang, idioms or folk words and phrases - you hear and use every day? Oh sure, you know what you mean by them. But does everyone else? Are you sure that the words or phrases really mean what you think they do? You probably will be surprised if you bother to investigate their ORIGINS.

On Getting Scammed

I Got Snagged By a Phishing or Spoof Fraud

Last evening, I read an article from the Times Free Press on “phishing” fraud on the Internet. This wasn’t news to me. I had read about it before and thought I was aware enough so that I would readily spot it if I encountered it, just as I daily recognize “419 scams.” Dutifully, I warned my wife to be alert to such scams because I always am concerned about her fiscal irresponsibility (Though, in truth, she stays on top of a lot more financial detail than I do. I marvel that she keeps sane as she juggles so many creditors with so little money.). She reassured me that she was always careful to not give out any account numbers or passwords online.

Then my mind wandered to an email that I had received a couple weeks ago from eBay. After a long time wanting to start selling items online through the world’s largest marketplace, I had finally made the leap. I had several auctions going, with a bidder on one, when I received an email alerting me that my selling privileges had been suspended because the credit card account I had registered had been declined.

This played right into the timing and concerns I had about selling online. Though I had sold books through Half.com, eBay’s lesser child, things are done differently on eBay. Plus, I had changed bank and credit card accounts along the way, and wasn’t sure just what information eBay had on file. I had seen some admonition to set up my seller’s account, but hadn’t bothered because of my Half.com experience had been successful and I had been an eBay buyer for some time before and since the changes.

Now I had active auctions with interested bidders, and eBay was suspending my privileges. I panicked and responded immediately to keep my auctions going. Following the link in the email to a page that was clearly in the eBay website, I entered my current credit card information. Quickly, I went to the auctions to make sure they were still active. Relief! They were okay. I relaxed and forgot the incident—until I read the article and noted the similarity in the modus of the scam.
I went to my email to check if it had originated with a legitimate eBay address. It seemed to, except that I had no other email from eBay Billing Department. And the address was a little strange, with numbers in it. In this day of .asp, “This email is an automated response. Do not respond to this address.” and endless, senseless web jargon in url’s, it wasn’t unthinkable that the address would have numbers in it.

I had learned in an earlier complaint to Yahoo! about a “419 scam” that originated from one of their addresses, that I had to use long headers to identify the source of an email. There I noticed that eBay had been misspelled in a reply-to address as “ebey.” Was that a trick of the cons to imitate a legitimate address, or was it simply the careless mis-stroke of an eBay representative?

I followed one of the email’s own links to eBay on how to protect myself from email “spoofs” and researched what eBay had to say about it. “Spoofing” and “phishing” are such innocuous-sounding words that they actually seem relatively harmless. It was significant to me though that eBay stated that any email they sent would be mirrored in My Messages at the eBay website. I didn’t recall having ever seen that message. To be sure, I went to look. But then I realized that I could have deleted it by now though, again, I didn’t recall doing so.

A knot had formed in my stomach by now. I felt pretty sure that I had been conned. I went to my bank website and pulled up the account activity. No sign of fraudulent activity, except for one unknown transaction of just $27. The newspaper article had stated that once the cons had your account information, they usually strike quickly. This was two weeks since the email, and the amount was small. Certainly not a quick strike. Perhaps they had tried large amounts and had been declined since I had almost nothing in the account anyhow. Perhaps now they were just dribbling it out, $27 at a time hoping that nobody would notice. Or perhaps they were just biding their time because they had so many from the scam that they hadn’t even gotten around to mine yet.

It was late Sunday night, so I forwarded the potentially fraudulent email with its long header to eBay asking them to confirm or deny its legitimacy. Then I fired off an email to my bank warning them of the potential for fraudulent activity—and promising that I would be there to talk with them in the morning. I printed out copies of the email and related web pages to document the legitimate appearance of the scam. I showed the pages to my wife and related what I suspected as I turned in for the night.

This morning, I rushed out to take her to work and meet with the bank. Armed with the pages, I explained what had happened. They had never heard of “phishing” or “spoofing.” The $27 charge turned out to be legitimate. They asked what I wanted to do. “Hold off canceling and re-issuing my card until I hear from eBay,” I instructed. The bank worker gave me her card and wished me well.

When I returned to the office, eBay had already investigated and responded. My suspicions were confirmed. The email was indeed fraudulent, and the appropriate authorities had been contacted. No regrets were expressed, only admonition to be careful—and more instructions on spotting fraud. I called the bank and canceled the card.

While I wait the two weeks for a new card, I have plenty of time to reflect on how good criminals have gotten at counterfeiting legitimate commerce. These are not the clumsy letters from Ethiopia that play on people’s greed as in “419 scams.” These are very legitimate-looking communications intelligently timed to coincide with legitimate commerce, even using authentic eBay addresses for email and websites. The graphics are eBay. The links are eBay. Everything looks and feels like the real thing. Only the credit card information is linked to the criminal endeavor. You think that you will spot a fraud when you encounter it. So did I.

Ask the Right Questions

Using the Socratic Method

"Life without examination [dialogue] is not worth living."

Socrates, 469-399 B.C., was a Greek philosopher of Athens, generally regarded as one of the wisest people of all time. Most of our knowledge of him and his teachings comes from the dialogues of his most famous pupil, Plato, and from the memoirs of Xenophon. Using a method now known as the Socratic dialogue, or dialectic, he drew forth knowledge from his students by pursuing a series of questions and examining the implications of their answers.1

1. Concise Columbia Encyclopedia.1991, Columbia University Press
2. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Plato's Socrates. New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1994. ISBN 0-19-508175-7
3. Gerald Nadler, Smart Questions: Learn to Ask the Right Questions for Powerful Results, William Chandon, Jossey-Bass, 2004, ISBN: 0-7879-7137-5
4. Cynthia Richetti and James Sheerin, Helping Students Ask the Right Questions, www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/199911/richetti.html, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1999
5. Phillip E. Johnson, The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning & Public Debate, InterVarsity Press, 2002
6. M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley, Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, Prentice Hall, 2000, ISBN: 0130891347
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method