David Cook is the metro columnist for the Times Free Press, working in the same building where he began his post-college career as a sportswriter for the Chattanooga Free Press. A graduate of Red Bank High, Cook holds a Master's Degree in Peace and Justice Studies from Prescott College and an English literature degree from University of Tennessee-Knoxville. For the last twelve years, Cook has been a teacher at the middle, high school and university level. Most days, his students taught him more than he taught them.
A Marshall Memorial Fellow, Cook has published in magazines (The Sun, Utne Reader, Geez), academic journals and an upcoming anthology on homelessness. Best of all, he goes home each day to his wife and two kids.
Recent Stories »
Finally, PK Management, which owns the currently uninhabitable Patten Towers, dusted off the corporate checkbook last week and wrote five checks to local aid agencies that have been caring for displaced towers residents after the May 28 basement fire.
The last time Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson was arrested, the 28-year-old mother was handcuffed and carried off the ground by police — one held her arms, the other her legs — out of a Nashville legislative committee room, where she and six others had come to do all they could to block passage of laws that would weaken labor unions in Tennessee.
Do not bomb Syria. Do not send weapons to Syria. Do not interfere with Syria.
Before the basement fire that scattered them across the city, folks at Patten Towers did a lot of sitting. An awful, awful lot of sitting.
For stealing the time, personnel and already-thin budgets of our area's most important aid agencies, the owners of Patten Towers ought to be charged with theft.
This whole freedom thing? No one ever said it would be easy. You want easy, move to North Korea.
"There is no plan. If you want to save your children, you're going to have to do it yourself." — Educator and social activist Geoffrey Canada, speaking in 2011 to a Chattanooga audience
