Peace on earth and a paid off mortgage, that’s all I want for Christmas this year . . . sounds like a country song in the making.
Many are promoting the idea of shopping small this holiday season and encouraging consumers around the country to support the independent community businesses with their gift purchases. As a small business owner, and a vendor to many independent businesses, that sounds great. Still, I say shop where you feel you receive the best quality, customer service and happiness. That very well may be from a large operation, but generally after real investigation the smaller organizations usually have the ability to provide a superior level of care and quality.
Check out some of the fine businesses participating in the Pulse’s annual holiday season giveaway—visit BoroPulse.com/win and enter to win some goodies from these wonderful operations for yourself or a loved one.
There’s plenty of great art produced in the Murfreesboro area, and the next installment of the Boro Art Crawl, hitting the Square area Friday, Dec. 11, celebrates that local art scene. Wander into some of the establishments that evening and take in a good dose of Tennessee creativity. Do some Christmas shopping at the same time if you like, and obtain an original piece from an artist in the area as a colorful gift for someone on your list.
I am making a real effort to keep my drawing skills at least equal to those of my 6-year-old.
There are a lot of upset Tool fans out there—just a couple of minutes after tickets for the Jan. 23 Tool concert at Bridgestone Arena went on sale, all tickets were sold out from Ticketmaster and, instantly, the price gouging began on third-party sites. Many music fans are calling the system where Ticketmaster sells the majority of tickets to resellers “broken” and that “the scalpers are the real terrorists.” Years ago Pearl Jam stood up to Ticketmaster; it looks like music fans would really appreciate some more popular artists doing the same.
In shady professional sports practices, Sen. John McCain recently brought to light the practice of the military giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports teams to hold patriotic on-field displays. No, your favorite football or baseball team doesn’t really think that the branches of the armed services are so wonderful they must be repeatedly acknowledged; the Defense Department pays them hundreds of thousands of dollars to hold giant flag wavings and reunion ceremonies as part of the federal government’s PR effort to manipulate young Americans into joining the armed forces and glorifying the military with a massive, taxpayer-funded marketing budget. Interesting.
In more tropical football news, the MTSU Blue Raiders are bowl-bound after accepting a bid to the Bahamas Bowl, a Christmas Eve tradition since 2014 . . . the Popeye’s Bahamas Bowl, that is, let’s not forget the official fried chicken sponsor that makes this monumental game possible.
As usual, there’s all sorts of local music to absorb: from Scissormen to DJs, the Murfreesboro Symphony Orchestra to Shelby Lee Lowe, the Jackillacs and Regi Wooten.
Merry Christmas—make the final month of 2015 a good one!
Peace,
Bracken Mayo
Editor in Chief
