Now, I have Upside Down dog turned right-side up, and comfortably resting in my lap, and I have a few minutes to do the promised recap of my week, too much of which was spent away from blogging.

I've spent the week off work. My reading list for this week is Shōgun, by James Clavell, filled with romantic hyperbole about feudal Japan, and Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller, self-consciously subtitled "Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality", perhaps an oxymoron.

Tuesday night, I attended a panel discussion hosted by Tennesseans for Fair Taxation, including speakers Joy Day of the Green Party, Johnny Holloway of the Rainbow/PUSH coalition, and Samevelyn Rock, of the Hamilton County Educators Association. Also in attendance were representatives from Stand for Children, a children's advocacy group that is new to Chattanooga.

One interesting factoid that I picked up there is that planners use third grade reading scores to estimate how many new prison beds they will be needing over the coming years when deciding how many new jails to build in a region. I haven't confirmed it, and we all know that correlation doesn't always entail causation, but it is an attention getter, and it does serve to remind us that our communities do well to put extra time and effort into educating and empowering children.

I also looked over the literature from TFT fairly closely. It's no wonder, really, that TennCare is having to be scrapped. Have a look at the left hand side of this chart:

That's what we call a regressive tax structure. Spend a few hours at the TFT web-site. There is quite a bit of important stuff to know, and to get out into the public consciousness. Movement conservativism, using a deceptive appeal to the appearance of "fairness" is dominating the tax structure debate. It's time to turn that around.

I also attended a dinner with my wife with our local chapter of the Epilepsy Foundation. Unfortunately, the Southeast Tennessee Chapter is no longer accessible through the internet (thought that may be remedied soon), but this is a very important service in our community, and worth any support Chattanoogans can find to give them.

Sunday, I will be officially joining the Unitarian Universalist church along with approximately 20 other people.

The remainder of the week is and will continue to be, filled with errands, including a couple of wrestling tournaments for one of the smijerlings. So, I'll be at the table in spirit only. Monday, I return to the grind of every day work, and I intend to return to my before-work tradition of a few minutes writing and reading on the blogs. Until then...