Good morning, Nashville. There have been some indisputably great moments in Nashville’s history which have included everything from #TheSituation2010 to last year’s Christmas Tree Fail, but what happened last night may well have topped them all. Reports began to surface yesterday afternoon that a dead human body had turned up in Bellevue. Sad, right? A few hours later, local news stations began to report rather sheepishly that this was no ordinary human body, but rather the body of a “very large beaver.” Obvious questions aside, how does one mistake a beaver for a human? And furthermore, how big does a beaver have to be before it can be mistaken for a human? WKRN reports, “The Nashville Fire Department said a beaver had gotten stuck in an awkward position and had its paw raised in a position that resembled a human’s hand.” The beaver was stuck in an awkward position, you say? Please, tell us more! Because we can’t actually imagine a way in which this story could get better. At any rate, you can become a fan of the Giant Bellevue Beaver on Facebook and help us cement his (awkward) position in a long line of American heroes who will enrich Nashville’s history for many years to come. Or at least until our next Christmas tree tips over or it snows outside or Charlie Neese draws us another NSFW doodle on the weather map by accident.

• Ready for winter. TDOT has beefed up their winter weather budget by 23% this year because they anticipate a challenging winter. They’ve added more salt, salt brine and 10 spankin’ new snow plows to the fleet. Snowpocalypse 2011, here we come.
• Trouble on the home front. Last night, the Belmont Vision broke the story of women’s socceer coach Lisa Howe allegedly being dismissed because she decided to tell the team that she and her same-sex partner were planning to have a child. Though Belmont maintains that she left on her own accord, students say she was given the choice to resign or be fired and that after announcing her departure to the team, she wrote “No regrets” on the chalkboard along with her new email address.
• Bits & pieces. ‘Tis the season for NES tree-trimming scams … The kind folks at Nashville-based Help-Portrait will be taking and gifting portraits to flood victims and other people in need tomorrow afternoon … Tennessee’s foreclosure discount is one of the lowest in the country, which is good news for anyone trying to snag a cheap house … The Southeastern United States are becoming known as the “Cancer Belt” because of the high rate of cancer diagnoses.

Very Accurate Artistic Representation the Giant Bellevue Beaver by us.