I never saw this guy at bankruptcy court

This guy, Young Buck (read more here if you don't know about him -- I personally had no idea who this character was) has just been evicted from his house in Hendersonville, Tennessee, which is outside Nashville.  Apparently, he filed for a chapter 13 bankruptcy back in 2010, which means that he has 3-5 years to pay back his debts.  He owed a lot of money in back taxes, which is a bad thing in bankruptcy, and you can't discharge those.  Young Buck then ended up converting his 13 to a 7 (like most chapter 13 debtors do because it's so hard to meet the requirements of the plan), and liquidation began.  First up, his house.  Let me point out that, in a chapter 7 bankruptcy, you are only permitted up to a certain amount of value of personal items (remember?  you owe people lots of money).  In this picture, you see Young Buck carrying his Louis Vuitton travel bag --- methinks that bag will claim a large chunk of his personal property exemption limit in a 7.  His lawyer might want to have a little chat with Mr. Buck about how-to-look-like-a-pauper.  Poor people don't have bags worth thousands of dollars.

Great news from Nashville -- Adding 2 DV Prosecutors!

The Tennessean reported that Mayor Karl Dean has responded to the city's needs, and he has budgeted for two additional prosecutors to focus solely on domestic violence cases.  Nashville and Tennessee have proven themselves to be somewhat dangerous for women, and the Mayor is trying to change that situation.  This is extremely exciting news, and if I was in Nashville right now, I would likely  be applying for this opportunity.  Hurrah for the Mayor!  Hurrah for Nashville!   Hurrah for the women and children so often neglected!

Read the story here

A good crime spree, if I do say so myself

I love crime stories.  I wikipedia major criminals, I loved criminal law, I loved reading the facts of the cases I worked on  . . . I love crime stories.  Here's a story of a crime spree with a very high "wtf" rating on what the guy was thinking:  Majorly impressive crime spree

We'll probably learn that the guy has some sort of mental disorder, and then the story will be somewhat sad, but for now we can enjoy it and contemplate his in-the-moment decisions like: Man, I want to continue ransacking this office, but I need to poo.  Should I stop and go to the bathroom?  Nah --- I'll poo ON the desks!  Ha!  That'll be good!

Occupy Nashville . . .

The Tennessee legislature has now passed a bill that seeks to block the Occupy Nashville protestors' rights to protest at Capitol Hill.  The bill is headed to the Governor's desk.  At this point, as far as I know, any protestors arrested and put into jail have had the charges dropped against them.  We shall see how this turns out.

See http://www.wkrn.com/story/17030641/occupy-nashville-bill-headed-to-governor

Judicial Ethics

I feel like it's not very often when a judge gets into ethical trouble for social reasons.  Generally, by the time a person has made it to being a judge, especially a federal judge (who must be nominated and vetted by the two other branches of the federal government), that person has learned the general rules of what to do and what not to do.  George C. Paine, a bankruptcy judge in Nashville, Tennessee, has just been reprimanded by the Sixth Circuit for being a member of a country club that does not have any full women or black members who have voting rights.  In fact, women are offered the chance to be a "lady member" for a lower price, but that lower membership carries no voting rights.  A woman raised this issue of Judicial Ethics, and the Sixth Circuit responded.  Now, in Nashville, various members of the bar who have judicial aspirations are dropping their membership to this exclusive club to ensure that they are not branded as racist or misogynistic.  The club refuses to comment, but someone with sufficient power (yes, because that's not vague) has told a judge that the club will be changing and that it has a very promising black candidate.  We're in 2011, and we're still dealing with letting blacks and women into a club . . . perhaps by next year, the Belle Meade Country Club will decide to jump about fifty years and join us in the twenty-first century.

To read more, see http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111221/NEWS03/312210083/Judges-question-Belle-Meade-Country-Club-membership-after-colleague-s-reprimand?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE

Poverty Issues in Nashville

Nashville, the city I love and call home, is having real issues with poverty. In his Tennessean article today, Michael Cass cites that the poverty rate in Nashville rose from 13% in 2000 to 16.9% in 2009. The poverty rate for children under age 5 is 34.4%. That is astounding -- over one-third of the children under age 5 live in poverty in Nashville, Tennessee. Between September 2009 and September 2010, the number of people receiving food stamps increased by 11.25%. In addition, over 13, 000 families in Davidson County live on an income of less than $15,000 a year. The "experts," whoever they may be, are saying this increased poverty rate are due to the economic recession (and the loss of non-knowledge-based jobs) and May's flood. The article also hints that the 33,000 foreign-born residents gained in 10 years may also be contributing to the poverty rate.

When I see these statistics, my heart hurts with the incredible loss of potential I see in Nashville. I think about the children who are waiting lists to get into Preston Taylor Ministries's after-school program. (PTM serves families living in the Preston Taylor public housing neighborhood north of Charlotte Ave.) These children want to succeed, and their parents want them to succeed, but the realistic (and fiscally-responsible) economic limits on programs like PTM leave them without help. I think about my friend who is struggling to find a job teaching English as a second language to adults (she was laid off this month), and how she could be a key to helping some of these families escape the poverty cycle. The people she meets are from Africa's war-torn countries, the Middle East, and Asia -- they have skills, they just need the language. These are courageous people who have left all they've known to come to America, the proverbial land of opportunity, and they are shoehorned into low-paying jobs because they don't know English. I think about the people who criticize TennCare programs as being too generous, and I want to introduce them to these children who literally would never see a doctor without TennCare's benefits.

When the flood hit Nashville in May, the city pulled together to help those in need. The crisis isn't over -- this city needs to continue pulling together to help the increasing number of people in financial peril and create options for success.