Tennessee
Mind Field
In Brownsville, Tennessee there’s an enormous monument of structural steel teetering out up of the earth. It’s called the Mind Field, and it’s the life’s work of an artist named Billy Tripp. Producer Hal Humphreys visited the site with Tripp and learned about the man who inspired it: Tripp’s father.
Trespassing, Vandalism, and Peace Activism in Oak Ridge
This week, three peace activists go on trial. They’re accused of breaking into one of the country’s most secure nuclear-weapons facilities. The trio — a 57-year-old house-painter, a 64-year-old drifter, and an 83-year-old nun — managed to defy the multi-million dollar security apparatus of the Y-12 nuclear-weapons facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Sneaking inside, they […]
Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?
With the presidential race as tight as it is, it could turn out that the winner of the popular vote will still lose the election. And it’s all because of an old American tradition: the Electoral College. We’ve seen this fuzzy math before. In the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, […]
The Scopes Trial Redux
In Tennessee a new law goes into effect today that will allow public school teachers to teach alternatives to such scientific topics as evolution and climate change. The bill is being called the “monkey bill,” a reference to the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. In the original trial a teacher named John Scopes was prosecuted […]
New Budget Plan May Mean Memphis Schools Open On Time
[waitingforcorrection: no audio attached, invalid GUID] After weeks of gridlock, there’s new hope today that Memphis public schools will open on time for the 2011-2012 school year. The City Council has put together a new payment plan that, if approved, will mean school doors will open on August 8, as originally planned. The Memphis School […]