Good morning, Nashville. Belmont is slated to resume its Neverending Expansion today after an explosion for the new underground parking garage went rogue on the afternoon of December 19th. This was an unfortunate day for Belmont since their graduation was also that afternoon and some of the rogue rocks happened to hit one graduate’s parent, among some other folks. Debris from the blasting also broke a few windows in the Massey Building and took out an original 1853 glass pane in the Belmont Mansion. We’re starting to think we were lucky to make it out of Belmont alive.

• Calorie counters. The Metro Board of Health has gotten an endorsement from Metro’s Legal Department to go forward with the approval process for requiring restaurants to display calorie information. They’ll be meeting next week to review public comments and then voting on the regulation in February. If it goes through, it won’t take effect until December 31, 2009.
• Working the system. The Spring Hill GM plant is temporarily shut down until February 9th to save money now that car sales are down. They say it shouldn’t affect workers too much financially since they’re guaranteed 80% of their normal salary during the closure. The problem is that part of that 80% comes from state unemployment benefits which are already strained because Tennessee is broke.
• Bits & pieces. The Music City Bowl usually gives our local economy a bit of a boost, but it’s only expected to bring in half the usual revenue this year … Extra playoff tickets went on sale this morning! Get ’em while they’re hot … Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley (the hot one) went off and got engaged over Christmas … We’ve been doing our best to ignore the story about the whole Barack The Magic Negro controversy that confirmed everyone’s worst suspicions about Tennessee, but for posterity’s sake, here it is.

Photo by Paul Chenoweth.