Turning back the hands of time
As the Rolling Stones sing it: Time, time, time is on our side. Yes it is.
Or at least it will be come 2 a.m. on Sunday morning when we can officially say we're gaining another hour's sleep by setting back our clocks to 1 a.m and ending daylight saving time for another year and beginning local standard time.
You could say the times they are a-changing (thanks, Bob Dylan), since there will be more light when you wake up. But the down side - it's crying time, again (Buck Owens) - it will be dark earlier. Most of us will drive home from work with our lights on.
Messing with time is not a feels-the-the-first-time (Foreigner) thing for us. We do, after all, live on the border of the Eastern Time Zone and Central Time Zone. Does anybody really know what time it is (Chicago)?
You might recall that Tennessee lawmakers last spring wasted some time - it's Howdy Doody time (TV theme show) debating a notion to do away altogether with daylight saving time in the Volunteer State. We do have this long state that stretches across two time zones from as far east as Cleveland, Ohio, to as far west as St. Louis. In December, the sun does not rise in Knoxville until nearly 8 a.m. In Nashville, it sets just after 4:30 p.m. on those same days.
But even the lawmakers who wanted to control time couldn't make that time add up for everyone, and they ran out of time to reach consensus. They do that time after time (Cindy Lauper).
And that, you can set your clock by. I guess there's EST time, CDT time, standard time and TGA time, also known as Tennessee General Assembly time.
Ain't it funny, how time slips away (Willie Nelson)?
Stepping up to end gang shootings
Eight months after Chattanooga city officials and police rolled out a violence reduction program aimed at a combination of law enforcement and social assistance to end gang shootings, the community most affected is finally beginning to step up.
First it was protesters taking to the streets and being what often are described as the "the mouths." Four who were marching with Concerned Citizens for Justice were arrested recently while protesting street violence and police brutality at the intersection of Main and Market streets in Chattanooga. Ash-Lee Henderson, 29, Janelle Jackson, 34, Michael Heath, 22, and Madison Dillard, 20, were charged with inciting to riot and obstructing a highway after they declined to clear the road when police asked them to, according of officers. Police said the arrests transpired "without major incident."
It's easy to write them off as trouble-makers, but that's far from true. "The mouths" got attention to begin conversation just as the city did when it unveiled its violence reduction initiative. It's just a shame that it's taken eight months to get from one to the other and finally begin conversation Thursday. That was when some self-described gang members met with Pastor Kevin Adams at Olivet Baptist Church's Kingdom Center for a stop-the-violence brainstorming session - just days after three people were killed and seven were injured in a spate of gun violence here.
"They came to me as guys who are familiar with the gangs and from their perspective they want to see a stop to the killing and I thought that was admirable," Adams told Times Free Press reporter Shelly Bradbury. "For these guys to rise up as citizens and take leadership and say it has to stop, that was heavy for me."
It should be. Perhaps it marks the turning point. Eight months into the city's effort, a program that has shown violence reductions in other cities didn't mirror that success here. Perhaps that was because community input into this effort wasn't present. Until now.
There's still much work to do, certainly. The community needs jobs, because in their absence crime buys groceries.
So let's be pleased, hopeful, responsive. And by all means, let's keep the dialogue going.