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Some Great Reading on Knoxville History

Doesn’t matter if you’re local or not, there’re two great stories in the KNS over the past two days that are very intriguing.  The story is about two possibly connected murders from 1968 and 1972 respectively.   Everything needed for a good novel is involved–an unsolved murder of a prominent wife whose husband was having an affair with a woman of notoriously ill repute, an unsolved murder of the husband of a prominent local madam who may or may not have been involved in the first murder, a possibly crooked police officer’s involvement in both, deathbed confessions that never happened, etc.

I love it that the KNS is featuring this type of thing.  There’s some great work involved in piecing together bits and pieces of information–police reports, old articles, interviews with old friends.  This is exactly what I meant back in January when I said newspapers can still do some reporting better than bloggers and armchair pundits ever will.  I’d love to see more of this, and I hope there’s a book in the making.  It’s a really interesting piece of local history.

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What to do With Your Galt Time

If you’re thinking of going Galt next year, it wouldn’t hurt to start finding something to do with all that down time now. After all, it’s damn near impossible to be completely unproductive, and it’s going to take some planning.

I think I’ve found one outlet.

Last Sunday, I was running with one of my buddies, we’ll call him The Schwartz, and he said (this is a direct quotation), “I’m glad you got me out to run today, man. I’ve wasted way too much time this weekend on Wookieepedia.”

Now, you have to understand that my initial reaction was that this was some sort of weird porn site. But no, it’s actually a wiki all about Star Wars. The Schwartz was absolutely engrossed in how much other people knew about Star Wars and how much he didn’t. He remarked that his brother was actually pissed because people knew so much more about Star Wars than him.

I’m not making this up. And this is why I love my friends–each and every one of them. I have so much to learn from other people. Without The Schwartz, there’s a good chance I’d never have never known that Wookieepedia exists. Maybe you’d never have known either.

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Thank You Veterans!

That’s not really enough to show my appreciation for the job that you guys do. The best I can do is share one of my favorite stories my grandfather wrote down for us. I’ve posted a couple of things he wrote before in different contexts. This is a short one about two “feasts” he had while serving in World War II. Something for the rest of us to remember when we’re having an afternoon snack that trumps these meals.

It was a one-day trip from Finch Haven to Saidor and we got a1 day supply of “C” rations. As usual we didn’t leave Finch Haven until the next day and our food supply was gone. When we reached Saidor a little after night, the Japs had bombed a fuel (gas) supple and the place was lit up like midday. They ordered us back out sea so we wouldn’t be a lit up target for the Japs to bomb. We spent the night out at sea and came in the next day to land. We sure were a hungry bunch.

While on the boat, I saw a fellow lying on the aft deck under a workbench to shade him from the sun. He was lying on his back and had a can of corned beef setting on the deck right at the top of his head. I was starved which helped put my military strategy ticking. I got down on my stomach, crawled up there, got that can of beef, crawled backwards to where he wouldn’t see me get up and I sat down and had a feast.

When I got off the ship and grabbed a duffel bag and took off, every way I turned that bag something would be resting on my shoulder. We went about 1-½ miles up through the Mott river bottoms grown up in Cuni grass about 12 to 15 fee high. The sun was bearing down 100+. When we got to a stopping place, I took my knife and cut the duffel bag open. It had a lock on it. There were 6 cans (2-½ size) of peaches in that bag. Where he got them I don’t know. Where they went he never knew but me and five of my buddies had a feast.

Vets have sacrificed many small things on a daily basis for us that we don’t even realize.  Again, thank you all for what you do.

More from Newscoma, TennZenn, Michael Silence, SayUncle,

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Joe Six-Pack Going Galt

I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about people “going John Galt” if the changes we’ve been threatened with promised are enacted. What’s interesting to me is that, unlike the situation described in Atlas Shrugged, the captains of industry are not among them. Isn’t it interesting that the people who seem to be most concerned and agitated are small business people? It’s not the mega-rich who are worried, it’s the “Joe Six-Pack” entrepreneurs who employ 5 people instead of five thousand.

Maybe I’m over analyzing, but it seems like the uber-rich are more than happy to pay a little extra.  To them, it’s a way of buying an insurance policy.  The more oppressive the tax system, the less capital up and coming challengers have to compete with them.  Why not hedge your bets?

And, as expected, big corporations are more than happy to be complicit with socialistic economic policies.  They are getting hand outs left and right, literally.  The left wants to reward the unions save people’s jobs, and the right wants to reward their college buddies save people’s jobs.

Right.

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My Favorite Cock Fighting Song

You read that right.  I have a favorite song about cock fighting.

There was a time when the only Spanish words I knew were “hola”, “gallo”, “del”, “cielo”, and “borracho” .  That means half of my vocabulary was a direct result of listening to this song.

Now I know all kinds of new words and phrases in Spanish like “¡no!”, “¡parate!”, and “¡suave con gatito!”

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“Daincin’ to an Old Buck Owens Sawng”

I’m resting my mind fingers to get ready for a barrage of posts beginning tomorrow night. As soon as a winner is declared I’m gonna turn it on, turn it up, and turn it loose.

For now, enjoy this Dwight Yoakam video from 1990. It features something for everyone: Dwight Yoakam for the ladies, and an El Camino for the guys. I think Sharon Stone is in there too. They dated for a while, right?

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Business Fail Because of Banks and Credit Card Companies? C’mon.

I normally wouldn’t comment on a situation like Cindy Fairless Lay’s.  She is closing her privately owned business here locally, and that’s none of my business.  However, Ms. Lay wrote a guest column for the KNS (related article) today in which she explains why her business is closing.  In doing so, she’s put herself out there, presumably to solicit opinion and reaction.  I happen to have some.

Because the closing of my business is due to (lending) practices of my bank, legal loan-sharking of credit card companies, price gouging by oil companies, two governmental agencies arguing as to whether my cakes with cream cheese frosting can be sold, and a president that suddenly, as if he were innocently surprised, announces our country is headed for the worst economic shakedown since the Great Depression, I cannot remain silent.

Let’s break this down.  Her business is closing for the following reasons:

  • Bank lending practices
  • Loan sharking by credit cards companies
  • Price gouging by oil companies
  • Two government agencies
  • President Bush

What?  The first two reasons lead me to believe this business was highly reliant on debt for operation.  And that leads me to believe this business would have never even gotten off the ground without debt from banks and credit cards.  Did Ms. Lay write an article crediting them for her success when the business was thriving?  Seems fair to me.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe this business was started from a pure cash position.  Maybe.

And I wonder if her business accepted credit cards from customers.  If so, does that make her complicit in their “loan sharking” practices?  Or is it only loan sharking when they charge you high interest rates and punitive fees?  I’m no fan of credit cards–don’t have one.  But to lay the blame for the failure of your business at their feet while failing to recognize that it was you who agreed to the terms they presented is ridiculous.

Could it be that failure to effectively control debt leverage contributed to the closing of this business?  That seems like a management issue to me.

And price gouging by the oil companies?  If oil companies were gouging and getting away with it, why have gas prices dropped so much recently.  They’d have to be fools to drop prices if they were getting away with unfair gouging practices.

No one is more irritated by the idiocy of government agencies than me, so I sympathise with Ms. Lay there, but their decision over whether or not a cream cheese frosting can be sold is a major factor in the business failure?  Really?  This would make sense if the business were “The Cream Cheese Frosting Company”, but this was a restaurant.  Was the whole thing riding on the ability to sell cream cheese frosting?

Lastly, this is (obviously) President Bush’s fault.  I guess that is a given, because everything else seems to be his fault too.  Look, I’m no fan of Dubya, but I’ll give him this–he has to be the hardest working President in history based on what I’ve heard and read.  I mean, to be personally responsible for every single problem of every single person in this country is quite a feat.  Hell, I don’t even have the time to wreak that kind of havok in my own life.

Ms. Lay seems like a nice enough lady.  She enumerates her virtues as a humanitarian in her article, and she sounds like a nice person to work for and with.  Apparently her food is really good too.  But at the end of the day, she has to realize that she took risks and lost.  She was not forced to take these risks.  In fact, she’s quite fortunate to live in a place where the opportunity to take these risks is available to her.  I’m not sure what her purpose was in writing this article.  Maybe she’s looking for a bailout?

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Is Fulmer Gone For Real Now?

Tony Basilio is reporting on the air that University of Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton has requested a meeting with Jimmy Sexton, who is Phil Fulmer’s agent. This apparently signals an official move to end the Phil Fulmer error era at UT. According to Basilio, neither camp is going to confirm this, at least not right now.

There are some who aren’t going to believe it’s true until it is admitted on the UTAD’s state-sponsored radio station, but you have to give it Basilio–he’s called quite a few of these events early in the past.

So now we can (almost) officially ask the question–who are they going to get?

**UPDATE**
I just realized that it is completely possible that they are meeting to discuss a raise and contract extension.