Wednesday, August 18, 2010

EDITORS: Be advised that beginning this week, Today’s Response will be issued on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday only. As usual, Today’s Response will not be issued on official university holidays.

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

The wolf is knocking at the door.

Past due mortgages continued to rise in Tennessee in the first quarter. According to Tennessee Housing Market, “Past due mortgages rose to 10.8 percent in Tennessee from 10.5 percent in the previous quarter. Tennessee typically experiences a higher past due rate than the U.S. average; this continues to be the case, but the United States is gradually catching up with Tennessee, as past due mortgages reached 10 percent during the first quarter. The number of new foreclosures started during the quarter is nearly one percent of all mortgages, not much different from the average of the past four quarters and somewhat lower than the U.S. average. The big difference is that Tennessee continues to experience a much lower inventory of foreclosures, 2.41 percent in foreclosure in Tennessee during the first quarter compared with 4.63 percent for the United States.”

Contact the Business and Economic Research Center at 615-898-2610.

Car tunes

The extent to which Tennessee’s economy depends on motor vehicle manufacturing cannot be understated. According to an analysis presented to the Tennessee Gas Association in June by Dr. David Penn, director of MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Center, Tennessee had 40,000 jobs in transportation equipment manufacturing as of 2008, including vehicles and aircraft. Thirty-two thousand of these jobs were in auto parts manufacturing. Some supply Nissan, but many supply manufacturing plants in other states. Penn’s analysis stated that auto manufacturing was doing better and that manufacturing employment in Tennessee has stabilized, but is not much different from last fall.

Contact Penn at 615-904-8571.
dpenn@mtsu.edu

Media mutilation

Some newspaper readers have complained lately that photographs from Afghanistan showing mutilated women are too graphic to be printed. Dr. Larry Burriss, journalism, agrees that many of the pictures are disturbing. However, he says the fact that the mutilations took place is even more disturbing. “What these letter writers need to understand is that the media do not create tragic events throughout the world,” says Burriss. “In fact, if anything, the media routinely under-report tragic events. Ask yourself, for example, whatever happened to the millions of starving Rwandans we heard so much about a few years ago? Or whatever happened with the genocide in Darfur? Are all of those problems solved? I don’t think so.”

Contact Burriss at 615-898-2983.
lburriss@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

IF YOU YEARN TO LEARN—“Adventures in Learning,” the annual mini-school for adults age 50 and above, will take place from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sept. 13, Sept. 20, Sept. 27 and Oct. 4 at First United Methodist Church, 265 W. Thompson Lane in Murfreesboro. The purpose of the event, which is planned by an interfaith coalition, is to provide a program by and for older adults in which they can shore knowledge, talents and skills for lifelong learning and personal growth. As usual, retired and active MTSU faculty will play prominent roles in the event. A highlight will be “Mount and Mountain,” a dialogue between Dr. Rami Shapiro, adjunct professor of religious studies and an ordained rabbi, and Dr. Michael A. Smith, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro. This class will be based on online conversations Shapiro and Smith conducted about the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. To register, or for more information, contact Mary Belle Ginanni at 615-895-6072.

“A HEALTHY STATE ENCOURAGES MANY VOICES—AND LOTS OF LISTENING.”—HHS SECRETARY KATHLEEN SEBELIUS--Expressions of confidence, faith, defiance, togetherness, satire and sobriety characterize the second edition of Voices We Haven’t Heard, a publication of MTSU’s June Anderson Center for Women and Nontraditional Students. The latest Voices is larger than last year’s edition, and it includes feminist poetry and prose nestled between glossy, colorful covers. Center Director Terri Johnson says the magazine empowers students by providing them with a creative outlet for their observations on racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and other forms of oppression. Voices We Haven’t Heard is free and available from the June Anderson Center in its new home, Room 320 of the Keathley University Center. For more information, call 615-898-5989 or go to www.mtsu.edu/jac.

I’M PLAYING WITH MY BOOKS, MOMMY.--“Books and Children in the 19th Century: A Small Portrait” is the theme of an exhibit on display now and throughout this summer in the fourth floor Special Collections area of MTSU’s James E. Walker Library. The purpose is to show the variety of ways children and the adults around them engaged with books in the 1800s and early 1900s. The works available for viewing are indicative of the children’s book as an object of moral and educational value. The idea behind the books is to teach values and build character. Entertainment techniques are employed strictly to attract the children and hold their interest. Highlights include several movable books, which are books that contain text or illustrations that the child can manipulate. Pop-up books are one such type of movable book. Many items in the display have never been exhibited previously. Call the James E. Walker Library at 615-898-2772.