Bright & Early: Rumor Mill Edition

August 12, 2009 9:45 AM 4 comments

Good morning, Nashville. Thanks to some confused protesters, Rep. Jim Cooper has canceled Friday’s public appearance at West End Middle School where he was supposed to welcome students back to school. Town hall meetings about healthcare reform have been happening all across the country, and somehow word hit the street that Rep. Cooper would be conducting a town hall of his own. Protests were planned, and in an effort to keep the first day of school disaster-free, he decided to ditch the event altogether.

Silver Alert adopted. Tennessee became the 8th state to adopt a Silver Alert program to help locate elderly folks with Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia who might have wandered off. It works a lot like the Amber Alert system, with alerts being displayed on interstate signs.
Debate ’08. Belmont is seeing some significant enrollment increases as a result of the infamous Debate ’08 that was held in the Curb Event Center last year. School officials say that enrollment exceeds 5,000 this year and many of the students first heard about the school on the teevee (thanks, SNL!)
Bits & pieces. A local entertainment company will be producing a Hank Williams biopic to be filmed in Nashville … Nashville State Community College is seeing a record enrollment of over 8,000 students this year … News Channel 5 follows up on their investigative piece about the Music City Center.

http://www.thomasaka.com Thomas

On the serious side: I had a grandmother who had Alzheimer's and while she never wandered off, I'm glad to see the Silver Alert being adopted. I'm also glad to see our state government doing something worthwhile for a change!

On the not-so-serious side: The subject of the Silver Alert in the picture on WKRN's site is driving a car with Florida tags.. why am I not surprised? Maybe this should have been called an Orange Alert since most people retire to Florida anyways.
http://www.jeremyhoward.com jermscentral

Woohoo! First picture! I'll have to contribute to the pool more often now. :)

And I have to give my wife credit; it was her idea to take this shot. I just happened to get it on the computer and uploaded before she did.
http://nashvillest.com Christy Frink

Agreed- I've had a great-grandmother and now a grandmother with Alzheimer's and both have wandered off on more than one occasion. I also work in an area with several retirement homes and actually had to call Metro about one older woman who was lost near my office. So it's definitely an issue and I'm glad there's a recourse for that kind of thing now.

Totally didn't notice the Florida plates. Pretty hilarious.
http://nashvillest.com Christy Frink

Yes! Sending us photos is always a good thing. ;) I've seen a few of those shots come through the pool but they're usually blurry cell phone pictures. So props to you and your wife for getting that one!