“For Texas blacksmith, the kilt's a must - El Paso Times” plus 4 more

For Texas blacksmith, the kilt's a must - El Paso Times
News anchor’s ‘heads up’ called judgment lapse - Las Vegas Sun
Free Speech by the Millions - Newsweek
ROUSH FENWAY RACING-6-CWTS - Rotoworld.com
Property owners snub Nashville's offers for convention center land - Nashville Tennessean

For Texas blacksmith, the kilt's a must - El Paso Times

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 11:51 AM PDT

MILFORD, Texas—Cliff Yeary hasn't been seen in pants for eight years.

The kilt-wearing blacksmith of historic downtown Milford marches to his own drummer.

His garment of choice harkens back to his ethnic heritage: Scottish on both sides. His everyday wear is a leather kilt. For dressier occasions, he sports his family tartans.

"I swear, if the aliens came down and saw us naked, they'd put kilts on men the way we're built," he said with a grin. "It's the most unbelievable garment on the face of the earth."

At first it was a novelty. With a leather kilt and lace-up Roman-style calf boots, he resembles a character from the movie "Highlander" or a Roman centurion.

"I got so much attention that I kept it on—and it's so unbelievably comfortable to wear," he said.

A rugged and imposing 6-foot-3, he finds the kilt softens his appearance.

"The kilt has been my biggest bonus in communicating with people. It's been like a gateway," he said.

Some like it hot

While others are complaining about the Texas heat, Cliff Yeary has other irons in the fire. Literally.

His vintage commercial building, built 64 years ago to be an auto repair shop, fronts old U.S. Highway 77 in downtown Milford.

He's turned it into a smithy and apartment and studio all rolled into one. It will eventually become a gallery for his work, while the back will be a working blacksmith's shop where students can learn the craft and scout

groups can observe him at work.

"The whole thing is like a giant art project," he said. "I'm going to turn (the building) into an art piece—I've got the first building you see when you come off the highway, so it's got to be pretty. I want to see people's curiosity—Wow, what's that?'"

The building gets a little warm.

"It's always hot in here—I go outside in 110 degree weather to cool off," he said. "I learned a long time ago that heat is a relative term." His propane forge heats to 2,500 degrees—but his coal forge is his pride and joy. That can get up to 4,000 degrees.

"That's where the saying, Too many irons in the fire' comes from—if you've got too much going on, you can't control it and you can destroy your work.

Another familiar saying with additional meaning to Yeary? "Strike while the iron is hot."

"Beating cold steel just wears me out," he said.

The most massive job he ever did? A 360-foot handrail at Gilley's nightclub in Dallas that took 25,000 pounds of steel and 2,000 rivets. His most elaborate project to date? A $60,000 two-panel gate that spans a 20-foot opening at a Highland Park home and weighs two tons.

He attributes its perfect balance to ancient technology.

"A cat could lean into it and open it. And it hasn't moved a 64th of an inch out of line since I put it in the ground," he said.

True blacksmithing—not welding fabrication, horseshoeing or weaponmaking—is an ancient art. As long as there's been steel, people have been figuring out how to work it. So where do you find a 125-pound hammer that stopped being used 100 years ago?

"Blacksmith tools are difficult to find—I make my own and then I have a tool forever," he said.

For Yeary, blacksmithing is more than a job. It's a calling.

"I'm a tamer of the fire and the elements," he said. "I was born for this. I don't have to question why I'm here—I know. I feel like I'm making the world a bit better by my artwork and the smiles on people's faces. The best part is the look on the customer's face when I hand it to them. Getting paid is necessary to run a business and stay alive, but the look on the customer's face is the reason I do my work," he said.

"Sometimes I think God gets sad and he comes to my shop and we play. Sometimes I'm so surprised—I don't feel like I've accomplished something, I just get to see it first.

"My artwork is my way of witnessing—this is a craft I've been given. When you see a piece of artwork, that talent comes from God. I win again—it's my way of witnessing," he said. "That's why I'm so d--- happy!"

Making metal bend to his will is just what he loves to do.

"If I had no need for money, I'd still be doing this," he said. "I feel like I'm playing all the time—I feel like the fun police are going to come to my door any second and tell me I've got to go get a job."

Never married, no kids—Yeary finds his legacy in his creation.

"In 1,000 years, people will still be saying my name. This is more or less my legacy," he said.

Life's forge

Yeary was born and raised in Fort Stockton, where his mother taught school and his father was an engineer for the highway department.

Along the way, he has worked in a number of professions—including gas pipeline work and serving as a scuba dive operations director in Honduras. Always, his best path to learning has been hands-on.

"If I can see it done or touch it, I can learn it a thousand times faster than if I see it in a book," he said.

Now 51, Yeary's been tested in life's forge.

He's had his neck broken in a car wreck, had a steer stomp on his face at a rodeo in Pampa. He hit a feral hog while going full speed on a motorcycle.

And for a guy who got his eye shot out when a friend accidentally shot him in the face with a crossbow, Yeary's pretty cheerful about the whole thing.

"You know how your mom always says, Don't be doing stupid stuff, somebody could lose an eye?' It just happened," he said.

And yes, as might be expected, he wears his difference with panache—a classy woven leather eyepatch—and he found the silver lining to that particular cloud.

"I could have chosen to be sad or resentful, but I chose to go forward, I chose to forgive. I don't know how many people I helped when they saw that losing an eye wasn't that big a deal to me.

"And it actually helped out my work—I'm right-handed and I can look something and tell you in a heartbeat, at a glance, if it's straight, level, square, crooked, bent out or out of line."

A persistent optimist, he looks on the bright side—with his good eye.

"Life is interesting—you take as much fun as you can. Every day is a blessing, every day is an adventure," he said.

"How could I possibly have a bad day with all these things going right in my life? I don't have a right to have a bad day."

Now semi-famous for its slogan, the Milford welcome sign bears the city's very unofficial motto: "A town of about 700 friendly people. And three or four old grouches."

If you're looking for the grouches, don't bother looking at Yeary, who moved to town in January and works his fiery craft in the shadow of Milford's sole high-rise—the city's pale blue water tower—across the street from the postage stamp-sized U.S. Post Office.

"If the water tower fell over, it would crush my building. I've got the best landmark in town," he said.

"I love this little town—everybody knows everybody, everybody's friendly. Very Norman Rockwell," he said.

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News anchor’s ‘heads up’ called judgment lapse - Las Vegas Sun

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 11:01 AM PDT

By Abigail Goldman (contact)

Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Channel 13 anchor Nina Radetich was recorded telling Tire Works -- the subject of investigative reports -- that her boyfriend could help the company with media relations in the wake of the series.

In March, KTNV-TV, Channel 13 news aired a series of undercover exposes on Tire Works — a Las Vegas auto repair chain the ABC affiliate reported was ripping off consumers.

Days before the first Tire Works segment aired, recorded phone calls obtained by the Sun reveal, Channel 13 news anchor Nina Radetich was telling the Tire Works owner that her boyfriend could help the company handle media relations to counter the negative coverage coming from her newsroom.

Radetich, who introduced a number of the auto repair sting segments during news broadcasts, was also recorded asking Tire Works owner Roshie Weightman to keep their conversations secret.

The recorded call opens with idle chitchat between the two women, which is cut short when Weightman asks Radetich for her boyfriend's phone number again, indicating this is one of several phone calls between the two.

Radetich gives Weightman the contact information for Jack Finn, a special projects manager at NV Energy and former spokesman for Sen. John Ensign and former Gov. Kenny Guinn.

Speaking of Finn, Radetich says on the tape: "He sort of does this stuff on the side. But he is more than willing to talk to you and this is, like, his favorite thing to do. I'm not kidding. If he could do this full time — consult and tell people how to handle the media — he would. So I wanted to kind of give you that heads-up. That's his cell phone and he's more than happy to talk to you."

Weightman then says she hopes Finn can come up with some advertising ideas and help Tire Works "kind of show our ethics and integrity and that we're not bad" — to which the news anchor replies:

"He is the master of that, and also, I have not told a soul at my station that we've talked. I'm just kind of letting you know that because a couple of the sales people have said, 'Hey, has Roshie called you?' and I said, 'No,' so I just kind of wanted to keep that between us, just so you can have that heads-up."

Tire Works has advertised on the Channel 13 Web site.

Radetich did not respond to the Sun's request for comment.

After reviewing a transcript of the recorded conversation, provided by the Sun, KTNV Vice President and General Manager Jim Prather said the station considers Radetich's actions a lapse of judgment. He would not discuss whether there had been or would be any punitive measures taken in response.

"Upon review, it has absolutely no impact nor will it have any impact on our news gathering in the Tire Works investigation," Prather said.

Kelly McBride, head of the Ethics Group at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism think tank and training center, said, "There is no circumstance where a journalist working with a newsroom should be offering advice or services to a source outside of what the newsroom is doing.

"The station credibility rests on its loyalty to the audience, and so the minute somebody does something that undermines that loyalty, it harms the station's credibility," McBride said.

The first Tire Works story ran on KTNV on March 31, one day after the state Business and Industry Department filed a complaint against the 13-store chain, alleging the company had engaged in deceptive business practices by charging customers for services they didn't need. In the first news segment, TV cameras rolled as a car from the state's motor pool — deemed to be in tiptop shape — was dropped off at various Tire Works locations by Consumer Affairs Department investigators, who argued that expensive repairs and tuneups later recommended by Tire Works mechanics were bogus.

This was the first of multiple stories the news station did on Tire Works in the weeks that followed.

Weightman says she first called Radetich when she learned of the TV investigation, hopeful the news anchor could help her get balanced coverage.

The women have known each other for about four years, Weightman says. In the past, Weightman has made large donations to an annual charity fundraiser — Nina's Night Out — founded by and named after the news anchor.

Weightman claims Radetich told her in an earlier, unrecorded phone call that Tire Works would have to pay for Finn's services, and that Weightman could "spin" the story in her company's favor by emphasizing the corporate donations to Radetich's charity and others.

Weightman says she was aghast at the suggestion.

"I wanted to run into the bathroom and vomit," she said. "Am I in 1920s Las Vegas? I'm feeling like I'm being shaken down and living in old world Las Vegas. This was unheard of. There was another agenda here."

Weightman would not say whether she has talked to Radetich since.

State law prohibits recording telephone conversations unless both parties agree. The source who provided the recording to the Sun assured the newspaper that it was obtained legally.

Finn said he thought Radetich "did a pretty good job of upholding her ethical standards."

When Weightman found herself in a public relations crisis, Finn said, she reached out to the news anchor for advice. Finn says Radetich recognized she was "ethically bound" from giving personal guidance or advice to Weightman, and rightly suggested she seek help from a third party — him.

Finn, who worked as a TV news reporter before becoming a spokesman for politicians, says he never talked to Weightman.

In the ongoing segments, the TV station's coverage was often described as a "joint investigation" or "team up" between the news outlet and Consumer Affairs.

In court filings, attorneys for Tire Works argue this stated partnership was unfair to the auto repair chain because it made the TV coverage look like definitive proof of fraud, even though the complaint against the company had just been filed.

When this issue and others came up in court, Deputy Attorney General Raelene Palmer, who is representing the state in its complaint against Tire Works, told the judge, "I know the media says there's a partnership, but there is no partnership with Channel 13."

When the Sun asked KTNV's Prather about this discrepancy, and whether the claims of a partnership were exaggerated, he said the station "worked with the state by documenting the state's investigation."

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Free Speech by the Millions - Newsweek

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 10:39 AM PDT

Money talks. In Washington, it shouts. But the question is: do we have to let money jack itself into stadium-size loudspeakers? As I made my rounds in the capital the other day, I could hear the rustling of corporate cash everywhere I went.

In the august hearing room of the U.S. Supreme Court, I listened to the conservative majority—Chief Justice John Roberts's Gang of Five—seethe with skepticism as they considered arguments about limiting corporate spending in elections. Later, across First Street in the U.S. Capitol, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained to me how Barack Obama's health-care plan would ruin the health-care industry—an industry, not coincidentally, that McConnell believes should be set free to dump its treasury into the political campaigns of obliging politicians. In a White House briefing room later that day, I listened to a top official sketch his game plan for countering corporate clout in the health-care debate. And then I saw Obama himself try to do just that, at least rhetorically, in a speech to Congress.

No, you are not reading a screed against corporations. I work for them, as do many of us. I give speeches to them. I am sort of one myself, sole proprietor of a boutique Beltway blab factory. Nor am I a foe of free speech; just the opposite. I am a devout believer in the sanctity—and even the economic utility—of the First Amendment. There's a reason why the Founders put it first.

But do corporations have the same free-speech rights as individuals? Do they have the right, confirmed for real persons by the court in 1976, to spend as much as they want for or against a political candidate, as long as they do it "independently"? Is it constitutional for Congress, as it did in the McCain-Feingoldlaw, to limit when they can speak (not right before an election) and what media they can use (not TV or cable)? That's the issue the court wrestled with last week.

I'm wrestling, too. I understand the arguments for unleashing corporations (and unions, which face the same limits). In this country we have a long history of honoring the legal prerogatives of corporations. Many of our earliest explorers and settlers were working for joint-stock companies founded in the coffeehouses of London and Amsterdam. And while corporations are legal fictions, created and sanctioned by law, they have long been considered to have some people like rights and responsibilities. They can borrow money and sign contracts; they have reputations that can be harmed and that they can sue to protect.

So, the argument goes, why can't they say (spend) whatever they want to and whenever they want to, just like any "real" American person? Don't we want diversity in political debate? Don't we especially need that diversity and vigor as Election Day approaches? "There will be a lot of loud voices competing with each other," says Sean Parnell of the Center for Competitive Politics, a libertarian think tank. He adds that companies will take care not to overstep, because those that take unpopular political stands will be punished in the economic marketplace. Why not simply require corporations and unions to disclose their contributions, and leave it up to the voters to decide if they want to support candidates who are awash in that cash?

I'm tempted to agree. But I can't. There can be no marketplace of speech when only a few voices can be heard—which will almost certainly happen if a few well-heeled companies decide to spend tens of millions at a crack. They will flood the airwaves and drown out anyone who can't afford to spend and spend. I worry about American-based companies, controlled by foreign owners, funneling gobs of cash into "independent" spending campaigns.

Most of all, I'm suspicious of the Roberts Court. At his confirmation hearing, the chief justice promised to be a cautious "umpire," calling the balls and the strikes but not changing the strike zone. Last week he seemed hungry to do the opposite—ignore procedure and precedent and sweep away the Federal Election Commission's hard-won (if admittedly byzantine) regulatory system. "We don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats," Roberts snapped at one point in the oral argument. Justice Antonin Scalia, unctuous and condescending, framed the issue as a matter of protecting "the local hairdresser, the local auto-repair shop, the local new-car dealer." Later in the hearing, Scalia—an ardent foe of most business regulation—invoked the hairdresser again.

I'm sorry. Call me cynical, but somehow I don't believe that mom and pop shops are really his main concern. I think Big Money is. So here's my ruling in this case: Let corporations spend money to praise or oppose candidates. But put limits on how much they can spend, a concept the court has sanctioned in other contexts. That way, corporations can speak, just like the rest of us, but not so loudly that we can't hear ourselves think.

Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent.

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ROUSH FENWAY RACING-6-CWTS - Rotoworld.com

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 10:39 AM PDT

NASCAR Tickets

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Property owners snub Nashville's offers for convention center land - Nashville Tennessean

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 10:25 AM PDT

(2 of 2)

"You're definitely in a bear market for raw real estate and any of the urban land in major cities," said Mark Bloom, part of a partnership that sold about 5.6 acres within the footprint of the convention center site to Tower Investments for $60 a square foot more than two years ago.

"It's obvious that the market has changed," Bloom said.

Land values are down

Demand has been hurt, in part, by a lack of financing for new high-rise office towers, condos and hotels. Fewer properties being sold during the real estate slump also makes it more difficult to draw comparisons with past sales of similar size a key measuring stick typically used by appraisers, along with any income generated by a piece of property.

Among recent transactions near downtown Nashville, a land fund headed by real estate company Crosland LLC paid just under $36 per square foot, or $8 million, for the 5.1-acre former Hansen Chrysler Jeep dealership site off Charlotte Avenue.

Fred Kane, vice president for land development at commercial real estate broker Colliers Turley Martin Tucker here, believes $60 per square foot is a fair value for the properties where the Music City Center would rise. He said the burden is on property owners to prove that their properties are worth more money.

Owners cite burden

Some landowners are miffed, though.

Joe Chambers, who owns the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum, said the $45 to $50 per square foot offer he received for his Sixth Avenue South property isn't enough.

"At this moment, we're far apart and trying to work it out," he said, adding the "unique" nature of his organization makes finding a new site a challenge. "Any further away than where we are would defeat the purpose of having the museum in downtown Nashville."

Greyhound, whose bus terminal is in the hall's footprint, is among property owners to receive offers. Christie's Cabaret of Nashville, a strip club on Eighth Avenue South, is among a final group that should get offers next week, Cain said.

Steve Larios, who relocated his skate supply shop, Asphalt Beach, to Woodland Street last fall, likes his new larger location. Meanwhile, he's still waiting for MDHA to pay his $13,000 in moving expenses. Other property owners, including Fischer, whose car repair business specializes in servicing European cars, said the lengthy process is wearing thin. "Everything's been put on hold because of the convention center," Fischer said.