News - Friday, September 14, 2012

Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence through nonviolence. Next week, his grandson, Dr. Arun Gandhi, will teach the people of Chattanooga how to take Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence onto their streets.

The event, dubbed “Gandhi Visits Chattanooga: A City Moving Toward a Season for Nonviolence,” will begin with a youth rally at Miller Plaza on September 15 beginning at noon. The event will include music, food and opportunities to meet with local service providers and obtain information on colleges and careers. The event will carry the theme “Be the Change.”

You can be whatever you desire, no matter who you are.

That’s the message at the heart of “The Elephant Ballerina,” a book that made Cohutta, Ga., resident and WTCI Kids Club Member Hanna Grace Hammontree the winner of the nationwide PBS Kids Go! Writers Contest.

San Francisco is an intriguing place. So open to the individual choices of its inhabitants, yet so very cold. I talk not only of the weather, but also of the nature of the people that live there. There’s a numbness that comes from minding one’s own business, a numbness that likely finds its roots in a desire to be safe from harm from strangers. Of course, this phenomenon is found not only in large cities, but it is certainly much more noticeable when folks are packed into small areas – dead spots where the inhabitants refuse to look each other in the eye and the plight of others is just that: the plight of others. I spent four days in San Francisco last week at a seminar learning a new jury selection technique.

I remember one Saturday about a year ago being at a party the same time a Razorback game was on. It was not, even though it claimed to be, a game watching party. Rather, and I’m just guessing now, the hostess needed a reason to invite people, of which I was one. So, she called it a “Football Game Watching Party,” or some such nonsense, on the invite. (I think the invitation had a Hog head and some cheese dip next to it.)

As a movie buff, I like to feed my wife trivia about the films we watch. “Steven Spielberg was going to direct ‘Return of the Jedi,’ but he would have been kicked out of the Director’s Guild because George Lucas refuses to run his credits at the beginning of his films,” I once offered as a logical segue from watching “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to viewing “Star Wars.” She calls these tidbits “useless facts,” making sure to emphasize the word “useless” over “facts.”

In 1952, Congress passed a new law claiming September 17 to commemorate “the formation and signing, on September 17, 1787, of the Constitution of the United States.” In 2004 under Senator Robert Byrd’s urging, Congress changed the designation of this day to “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day” and added two new requirements - the first being the head of every federal agency provide each employee with educational and training materials concerning the Constitution on September 17, and the second being that each federally funded educational institution have a program for students every September 17.

It’s been a while since I’ve featured a cooking quiz, so I think today is a good time to have one.

Some of the questions might be easy for you, but in all honesty, I missed quite a few. The answers are found at the end of the recipes.

The television show “Numbers” centered on an FBI agent and his mathematical genius brother who together solved crimes for the Bureau. The show opened with a narrator saying, “We all use math every day - to predict weather, to tell time, to handle money. Math is more than formulas and equations. It’s logic. It’s rationality. It’s using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know.”

Only one Prudential Realtor in Tennessee sold more houses than Paula McDaniel of Realty Center in Chattanooga during the second quarter of 2012. McDaniel placed second in the state among Prudential Realtors for residential sales during the announced period. McDaniel carries the ABR, GRI, CRS and e-Pro designations. She works out of the Prudential office on East Brainerd Road.  Her Web site is located at www.AllChattanooga.com. (Photo provided)

Sculpture Fields at Montague Park last week announced the hiring of executive director Donyale Grove. “Donyale Grove brings to Sculpture Fields an enthusiasm and passion for the arts and a wealth of experience in the non-profit community,” said John Henry, founder.

There’s a sequence in “The Possession,” a new horror movie from producer Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man,” “Evil Dead”), that recalls a scene in “The Exorcist.” In the latter movie, Ellen Burstyn carries a lit candelabrum into her attic to investigate something strange. I remember the scene because the flames suddenly flaring up startled me.

I never had much patience as a kid for board games. About 15 minutes into “Monopoly” or “Life,” I would realize that I’d be sitting on the floor for at least another hour or two before anything was settled. Suddenly, climbing a tree, catching bubble bees in a mayonnaise jar or tossing a tennis ball against the side of the house seemed like better plans.