👷 We’re tearing down a mall!

🏛️ The Sweet Mercy of Sine Die is Upon Us

The Tennessee General Assembly limped to yet another ignominious close yesterday, so please check in with one of our outstanding local news outlets for full coverage on that today. Thankfully, this final week of the excruciating 2024 session featured a couple of bright spots: An effort to ban “political and ideological flags” from classrooms (aka the Pride flag bill) failed in the Senate on Tuesday, and the House voted down an anti-reparations bill on Wednesday. We’ll take it. [Tennessee Lookout]

✊🏾 Nashville Honors Diane Nash At Last

Last weekend, the city finally gave civil rights icon Diane Nash her flowers, adding her name to the plaza in front of the courthouse where she stood in 1960 and got then-Mayor Ben West to admit segregation was wrong. My favorite local historian, Betsy Phillips, has been advocating for Nash’s legacy for years, and her write-up of Saturday’s event — where Nash once again stood on those steps to offer words of wisdom — is a must-read. [Nashville Scene/Nashville Banner via YouTube]

⛔ MNPS Will Not Arm Teachers

The bill to arm teachers in Tennessee schools is on Gov. Bill Lee’s desk, and it continues to face staunch opposition from parents, students, gun control advocates, and school districts across the state. Metro Nashville Public Schools announced Wednesday they will not allow staffers to carry on campus, as have our neighbors in several surrounding counties. [The Tennessean]

🚧 Hickory Hollow Mall to be Demolished

Remember that one time we bought a mall? Yeah, now we gotta tear most of it down. Global Mall (née Hickory Hollow) was supposed to be a new facility for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. But in the two years since former Mayor John Cooper’s impulse purchase, the interior has degraded past the point of use due to water damage. The four anchor buildings will be retained for … well, there’s still no plan. But this probably kills the dream of pole vault competitions. [Nashville Banner/KCCI via YouTube]

🙀 Oracle Cometh. (What Is Oracle?)

With co-founder Larry Ellison’s surprising announcement that he’ll be moving the international headquarters of his giant company Oracle from Austin to Nashville at some undisclosed point in the future, it’s a good time to re-read Eli Motycka’s 2022 piece, “What Exactly Does Oracle Do?” [Nashville Scene]