About: Christine Anne Piesyk

With 40 years behind me (Huh? What? How did that happen?) as a journalist, feature writer, investigative reporter, editor, and film/theater/arts critic, I brought my liberal New England activism to Tennessee several years ago. having completed a midlife undergraduate degree in community organizing and women's studies, and an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts. I am currently an MFA student at Goddard College. I served on Future Search Commissions for two colleges and an issue-specific commission for the City of Northampton, MA, and did minor undergraduate work in studies in urban planning and community development. I am a community volunteer and a member of FreeThinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties. I am a certified storm spotter. In my spare time (define spare time please?) I am a voracious reader, obsessive movie buff, classical music junkie; I also and design and make sci-fi/fantasy and renaissance costumes. I have an unquenchable interest in just about everything. I see life as an ongoing opportunity for learning and adventure, with the best things still to come. All posts by Christine Anne Piesyk as presented on Clarksville Online are copyright ©2006, 2007 to the author.


Web Site: http://

Email: womanspeak@yahoo.com

Christine Anne Piesyk's Articles:

Tornado strikes South Clarksville; fairgrounds pavilion demolished

By Christine Anne Piesyk | May 3, 2008 |

 

Power outages, downed power lines, extensive debris, property damage

In the dark of night, lit only by shards of lightning, families in the High Street area surveyed the damage from what at this writing appeared to be a tornado strike just missing downtown Clarksville. Several homes were damaged by trees; power lines, downed signs, blown transformers littered the landscape. Widespread power outages were noted throughout south Clarksville. Initial reports from police and fire crews indicate that at least one twister may have touched down. No injuries were reported at this time.



Along Highway 13/48, the fairgrounds pavilion was demolished and its debris effectively relocated across the street by Mother Nature. At Gary Matthews, transformer poles and power lines were blown down and draped over brand new 2008 SUVs. Police cordoned off the road to all but emergency vehicles as they worked close to the fairgrounds section. Red and blue flashing lights brightened the night sky across the area. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, News | 1 Comment »

 

City fields 14 ‘representatives’ to Vegas for shopping center convention

By Christine Anne Piesyk | May 1, 2008 |

 

Clarksvegas. Clarksville to Vegas. Fourteen people traveling on the city’s dime. Make that dollars. Just how many people does it take to represent Clarksville as Tennessee’s Top Spot? And whose money is it anyway? Oh yes, taxpayer money.

A 14-member city delegation headed by Mayor Johny Piper is heading to Las Vegas May 18-21 to represent the city at RECon, a real estate trade fair (read “convention”) sponsored by the International Council of Shopping Centers that attracts an estimated 50,000 visitors each year. According to the RECon website, the convention “has been renamed and branded as ReCon, emphasizing the R-E-tail, R-eal E-state, Con-gress, Con-vention, Con-ference, aspects of the program.”

The last convention attended by Clarksville officials was in Atlanta, Georgia, which saw the Clarksville delegation ill-prepared (or rather, not prepared at all) to professionally market itself. Things have changed, have run the gamut from no kill to overkill. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, News, Opinion | 1 Comment »

 

Community School for the Arts offers youth concerts and recitals

By Christine Anne Piesyk | May 1, 2008 |

 

The Community School of the Arts at Austin Peay State University will present a day of recitals and concerts involving local youth on Saturday, May 3 in the Music/Mass Communication Building Concert Hall. The student recitals will showcase violinists, pianists, guitarists and other instrumentalists and vocalists of all ages. The recitals are free and open to the public.

The first performance will begin at 9 a.m. and will feature violinists and pianists from the studios of Elizabeth Langford and Carolyn Bunger.

Pianists under the direction of Sylvia Carver will perform at 10:30 a.m. Saxophone and piano students of Chris Gee, Simone Rothemel and Jared Wilson will perform at noon. Seth Gangwer and Phoebe Gelzer-Govatos’s violin students will perform at 1:30 p.m. Piano, cello and guitar students of Stacie Robbins, Ron de la Vega and Jerald Sparks will perform at 3 p.m. Students of Ryan Seay, Mingzhe Wang and Nora Lewis will perform at 4:30 p.m. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News | No Comments

 

Crossing lines between church and state

By Christine Anne Piesyk | April 27, 2008 |

 

Controversy erupted last week in one South Carolina town over the posting of a politically-based query on the Church’s outdoor sign, a sign usually oriented to the more generic posting of denomination-sponsored events or church services.

Did Pastor Robert Byrd of the Jonesville Church of God step over the line in Jonesville, South Carolina, when he posted the following words outdoors on a church sign for all to see: “Obama, Osama, hmm, are they brothers?” Pastor Byrd maintained it was not intended to be racial or political and claims it was meant to foster thought about having a non-Christian, non-Christ follower, leading the country. Byrd says he doesn’t know if Obama is Muslim or not but wanted to pose the question. Quite frankly, I don’t see what spiritual direction or choice has to do with one’s ability to run the business that is the United States of America. I wasn’t a Romney fan for many reasons, but his Mormon faith was a non-issue. Funny how no one questions religious affiliation to Christian candidates such Mike Huckabee, who is now out of the race too. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion | 1 Comment »

 

“Blight” bill up for 2nd reading & vote; City Council sets Executive & Special Sessions

By Christine Anne Piesyk | April 24, 2008 |

 

UPDATE: Upon receipt of a Special Called Session agenda at 12:30 p.m. today, the vote in question on the adoption of ordinance 96-2007-08 is NOT on the agenda; it was listed as part of the special session agenda previously received by Clarksville Online and discussed on 4/23/08, the agenda upon which this story is based. The ordinance will have its second reading as scheduled.

Ordinance 96-2007-08, a.k.a. “the blight bill,” is coming before the City Council in back-to-back meetings for a second reading AND a vote to adopt the controversial ordinance tonight starting at 4:30 p.m. in the City Hall Conference Room at 1 Public Square in downtown Clarksville. At a recent meeting on this issue on the APSU campus, Mayor Johnny Piper assured concerned residents affected by this ordinance, titled Clarksville Center Redevelopment and Urban Renewal Plan, that it would NOT come up before the Council “until May.” Today is April 24.

The first item under new business for the special session reads as follows:


1. ORDINANCE 96-2007-08 (Second Reading) Adopting the Clarksville Center Redevelopment and Urban Renewal Plan



The ordinance in its original form deemed approximately two square miles of downtown Clarksville as blighted, subject to eminent domain, under a Clarksville Redevelopment Plan. That plan was flawed in content and the process used to present it to the affected residents and business owners. A re-worked version which has some improvements, added the words “urban renewal” to “redevelopment” but still carried many of the same problems including eminent domain and an assemblage clause that Clarksville Property Rights Coalition (CPRC) attorney Attorney John Summers called “audacious.”

Here’s the game plan: The City Council will meet in a non-voting Executive Session first, at 4:30 p.m., in the conference room, with an extensive agenda that includes a second reading of the ordinance as the first item under new business, a move which caught members of the coalition members off-guard, but not for long. That Executive Session agenda lists time for “Public Comment” at the END of each meeting. The Executive Session will be immediately followed by a “Special Called Voting Session” at which a full agenda of items including the Redevelopment Plan will be presented. (See complete Special Session and Executive Session agendas at the end of this article). The Special Called Meeting will also only accept public comment only AFTER the meeting. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News | No Comments

 

Red Cross emergency vehicle torched; volunteers scramble to replace equipment, supplies, and organize transport

By Christine Anne Piesyk | April 18, 2008 |

 

The American Red Cross responds to fires; they are not usually the victim of a fire.

That changed early this morning when the American Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle[ERV] was set afire by an arsonist outside their Riverside Drive office. The vehicle and its contents were destroyed. Just yesterday, the ERV was “packed tight” with emergency supplies and equipment for a first aid station at the Rivers and Spires festival, which begins today.



From left, ARC Executive Director Linda McCoy,Health and safety Director Patricia Brown, and Emergency Services Director Cecil Stout stand before the ERV that was completely destroyed by fire (arson) this morning.

Cecil Stout, Director of Emergency Services, said “our equipment was inside, loaded for [the festival], including a $1500 trauma kit.” Stout said the Red Cross is now seeking a replacement vehicle and has been gathering prices. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News, Technology | No Comments

 

And the war goes on…and the soldiers die

By Christine Anne Piesyk | March 24, 2008 |

 



FreeThinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties will sponsor a candlelight vigil tonight at 7 p.m. at Public Square.  The event will include prayers, readings and a vigil.

Another landmark has passed in the Iraq War: 4000 American soldiers killed. The price tag that is these lives doesn’t show up in the surge numbers or the war planning budget - there is no way it can — other than the price of body bags and the cost of the flight back home. Whatever “victim” benefits may be assigned to their survivors.

I sit here today, submerged in a sadness of deja vu, having done all of this before — nearly 40 years ago — in another time and place, another military town with another military base, when thousands of other soldiers who had a one way trip to war.

It is ironic that this number came on one of the holiest days of the Christian community, and that it has been treated with more silence and resignation than any other numerical landmark of the Iraq conflict. I am an activist opposed to the war, but that does not mean I do not support our troops. Our troops are great; they and their families deserve much more than the shoddy treatment they receive via multiple deployments, and post deployment care (or lack thereof).

This is not a war the American people want; it is (or has devolved into) an administrative war waged by a national leadership — the Bush regime — that is in total disconnect with the people. This is a war for which we are spending not billions but trillions of dollars with little to show for those dollars but bodies — our troops, “enemy” troops, and tens of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire. This a war riddled with underestimations, bad planning, corruption, and disinformation. To say nothing of the erosion of our own civil liberties. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, Opinion, Politics | No Comments

 

NEHS students grapple with loss of a friend; MySpace suicide blog says “goodbye”

By Christine Anne Piesyk | February 21, 2008 |

 

“Goodbye every 1.”

With those words with the numeric ‘1′ displayed in a small black-bordered box on the social networking website, MySpace,  a boy said goodbye to family and friends before taking his life on Wednesday. Above the ID box on his page, which had been set to private and therefore viewable only to his “friends,” this Northeast High School student had written the chilling words, “wishing it would all just end.” In the notation of his mood, he had entered a single word: “Blissful.”

Thursday morning, unsuspecting NEHS students heard the announcement of 16-year-old Steven McCausland’s death over the PA system, along with a request for a moment of silence. Crisis counselors were on hand to assist students, some of whom were crying the hallways and in class. Teachers reportedly made numerous referrals for any student affected by the loss of their friend and classmate. Many students gathered after school to console each other. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News | No Comments

 

« Older Articles

Newer Articles »