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:

Deja vu? Roxy recreates radio broadcast of H.G. Well’s “War of the Worlds”

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 31, 2008 |
 

Mass hysteria. Alien invasion.  The radio broadcast that terrorized a nation.

The 1938 Mercury Theatre broadcast of H.G. Well’s classic sci-fi thriller, The War of the Worlds, will be recreated tonight and Saturday night, (Oct. 31-Nov. 1), at 8 p.m.  in “the other space” at the Roxy Regional Theatre. Admission is $10.

Pop Watch Blog says:

“Seventy years ago today (Oct 30, 1938), a 21-year-old Orson Welles, along with his Mercury Theater players, gathered at New York City’s CBS studios to perform a one-hour radio play—an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Panic would ensue—though much of it was probably blown a wee bit out of proportion by newspapermen unhappy with radio’s increasing dominance—and mass media would never be the same. It’s easy to say that we were a younger, more naive society in 1938 and it was cake for Welles to convince six million listeners than Martians really were invading Earth, starting with Grover’s Mill, NJ.”

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Events | No Comments
 

Transit Center: For once, eminent domain could serve the people of Clarksville

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 30, 2008 |
 

Successful Main Streets and Downtown Districts have a transportation hub at their core, in other words, mass transit. Something to bring people directly into the downtown area for jobs, shopping, city business, arts centers and museums.  They don’t shift to the outskirts and out of sight. If they must send the primary station to the outskirts, they run free shuttles to key downtown sites (a perfect use for old fashioned trolley-style buses).



Progressive cities also don’t have car dealerships and acres of single-level church parking lots at their core. They make certain that ample handicapped accessible parking slots are available on every downtown street, that parking (garages) are both plentiful and convenient for all citizens. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News, Opinion | 2 Comments
 

Clarksville Police urge Halloween safety

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 30, 2008 |
 

Clarksville Police Department’s officers will be out in abundance in an effort to ensure Trick-or-Treaters, as well as those celebrating the fall tradition of Halloween, have a safe and enjoyable time. There will be 30 additional officers on the streets patrolling through your neighborhoods and on the roadways around Clarksville on Halloween. We’ve listed some recommendations of things you can do to make Halloween safer for everyone.

Halloween should be a fun time for all involved. But, unfortunately it can also be a dangerous and deadly time due to impaired driving. According to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, there have been close 5,000 traffic fatalities during Halloween between 1996-2005. Forty-four percent of those fatalities involved a driver or a motorcycle rider with a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher which is illegal in every state. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Events, Issues, News | No Comments
 

What were they thinking? An UZI in the hands of a child leads to tragedy

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 28, 2008 |
 

Even though this tragic story happened in New England, its subject gives parents, all those who work or connect with our children, and all those who see guns as a game rather than a weapon of war, something to think about. This could happen anywhere. This could happen here.

What were they thinking?



Every time I think I’ve heard it all, I find that I haven’t. This newest jolt came in the form tragedy as an eight-year-old Connecticut boy died Sunday afternoon while participating in a machine gun shoot. You read that right: a machine gun shoot. A game. A contest of sorts. Supervised by gun instructors. At a sportsman’s club. The child “lost control” of the 9 mm Micro Uzi machine gun he was shooting; the force of the gun caused it to travel up and back, resulting in a single fatal gunshot wound to the boy’s head even as his father was recording the event on camera. The boy’s father accompanied his son in the ambulance; the boy later died at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. Charles Bizilj, the father, is  director of emergency medicine at Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford, Connecticut.

I repeat: What were they thinking? «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News, Opinion | 3 Comments
 

Percussion Ensemble slates haunting Halloween concerts

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 27, 2008 |
 

The Austin Peay State University Percussion Ensemble will present the 2008 Halloween Concert in two back-to-back performances. The concert, historically a sell-out performance, will be at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 30 in the Music/Mass Communication Concert Hall.



The group performs all kinds of music on all kinds of percussion instruments: classical music such Carmina Burana as used in the movie “Excalibur,” rock music such as “Walk Like an Egyptian,” music from the movie “Casper” and real percussion ensemble music using instruments from drums, timpani, gongs and cymbals to bells, xylophones, marimbas and chimes. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Events | No Comments
 

Clarksville campaigning hits political low

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 26, 2008 |
 

Politics got ugly in Clarksville Saturday, October 25, as at least one McCain/Palin campaigner chose to take the low road, politicking curbside at Veteran’s Plaza Election near the Election Commission office where hundreds of people arrived to vote between 8 a.m. and noon.

One male Caucasian McCain/Palin campaigner donned an Obama Halloween mask, of and by itself not a big deal, but then attached a hand-printed cardboard “Hamas for Obama” sign perpetrating a lie and creating an implication of terrorist ties to presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. On the flip side of the sign are the words “Honk for Socialism NoBama.”

Debating the issues, building an case for a candidate rooted in facts, is one thing. This kind of ill-informed misinformation and dis-information starts with the word “stupid,” meanders into “childish,” and continues with “dangerous” and “malicious.” Where it ends remains a question mark. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, News, Opinion, Politics | 2 Comments
 

“Saturation” policing targets drunk drivers

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 24, 2008 |
 

The Clarksville Police Department will be performing saturation patrols (partially funded by the Governor’s Highway Safety Office) throughout the City of Clarksville on October 24 and 25, 2008 between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.. The primary purpose of the saturation patrols is to detect and apprehend impaired drivers through aggressive traffic enforcement.

The CPD, in conjunction with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, will also be conducting a Sobriety Checkpoint and saturation patrols on Ft Campbell Blvd (partially funded by the Governor’s Highway Safety Office) October 31, from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.. After completion of the checkpoint, Clarksville Police Department will have additional personnel performing saturation patrols throughout the city until 4 a.m..  «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News | No Comments
 

Decades re-lived on the way to Homecoming

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 23, 2008 |
 


Jesse Ballard, Christian Pierce, and Brandi LaPlante bring their do-wop look to Chem lab Wednesday.

If you’ve seen 1920s flappers, rock ‘n rollin’ kids in poodle skirts and guys with slicked back hair and leather jackets, hippies in bellbottom jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts dashing from class to class … you can believe your eyes: decade by decade, APSU students have been heading towards Homecoming with a celebration of decades past. Halloween has nothing on this Homecoming  celebration, which is themed “Let the Good Times Roll!

Homecoming continues through the weekend with the following events:

Friday, Oct. 24: Decade of the Day - Totally ’80s

30th Annual Homecoming Golf Tournament, 8 a.m., Swan Lake Golf Course. $60 per person. Open to the public. Fee includes ditty bag, refreshments on the golf course and light lunch. Nelson Boehms (’86), Frazier Allen (’99) and Jeff Turner, co-chairs. Contact Alumni Relations Office, (931) 221-7979 or 1-800-264-2586. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News | No Comments
 

« Older Articles

Newer Articles »