This Story Had So Much Potential

I was all giddy to read this story entitled “Fury Face Greets Teachers“. I thought it may be about some parents who were up in arms about the quality of education their children are receiving. They were fed up with being ripped off by gov’ment education, mad as hell, and unwilling to take it anymore.

🙁

Never mind. It was just a feel good story (self-written PR), about 1/3 which was about a ground hog at a local school. The rest was singing the praises of how great the school is. I assume it was written by a teacher at the school who misspelled the word “furry”–twice.

God luk two all the kidz at Fort Craig Elementary in this yeers spilling be!

Half Full in Knoxville, Half Empty in Nashville

A report called Kids Count was released today that ranks states on child welfare, infant mortality, etc. There were headlines about the report in both the Knoxville News Sentinel and The Tennessean, but they put opposing spins on the story.

According to the KNS:
Report shows state improving on health of children, teenagers

But The Tennessean says:
Tennessee ranks low in well-being of kids

Oddly enough, these stories seem to be working towards the same end, glorifying the use of state funds to improve the well being of our children. It’s always about the children, isn’t it?

Minnesota ranked at the top. It will be interesting to see how the papers there spin this, won’t it?

Lobster for Lunch in Knox County

KNS has the story about our mayor’s executive administrative assistant, a commissioner, and an unknown third party feasting on $37.98 each lobster tails, then grabbing a couple more to go, for pre-tip bill of $198.56, Luckily for the taxpayers (I guess), they basically stiffed the waiter, only tipping him $29 (14.6%).

Frugality and class! So the total bill was $227.56–FOR LUNCH.

Good thing we had a 100% increase in our wheel tax a couple of years ago (hope you are enjoying the new library).

“Clearly, while we consider business meals legitimate expenses, we certainly feel that expense was excessive,” Norwood said.

See, that’s the problem. County government is not a business. Businesses sell products and services to customers on the free market. In business, customers have a choice to buy from someone else or not to buy at all. The business then has a choice on how it spends this money and is accountable to shareholders.

“While we can’t tell our guests what to order,” Norwood said, “we discourage people from ordering unusually expensive meals.”

Obviously.

Ron Paul Support in Tennessee

For those of you who are local and support Ron Paul for President, there’s a new website and Meetup group.

Their next planned event will be this Saturday at Market Square, 9:30 am. This is a great chance to get out and get involved while meeting some other supporters of Dr. Paul.

See you there!

Barbie Cummings Misses Court

All she had to do was show up and her ticket would have been dismissed. Now she’ll have to pay it. 🙁

Since her old site has been taken down, she has a temporary blog. According to that, she’s been pretty busy lately, traveling to the West Coast for some business engagements and even getting married in Las Vegas.

It states there that she’s moving from Knoxville to L.A. soon, so I guess the court date completely slipped her mind.

***UPDATED 7.25.07
You COULD read about it in her own words, but Blogger deleted her site…probably because there was extremely explicit material on there. You can always depend on me to stay well informed on this story. 😛

What a truly strange story to be cumming (sorry, had to) out of sleepy old Knoxville!

Tim Hutchison De-certified

We’ll see how it pans out, but for now this is good news. At least Hutchison and company didn’t insult the intelligence of the citizens of Knox County by sneaking around to get the maximum pension for him in a sneaky, clever way. Nope. They made it obvious, right in front of our faces.

The maneuvering in this situation reminds me of that scene in “Casino” where Robert DeNiro’s character is constantly changing his title at the casino so that his application for a gaming license is perpetually kept at the bottom of queue to be processed. Food and Beverage Manager, VP of Guest Relations, Head Pool Cleaner, or whatever else, the fact is he was running the place.

Look for Hutchison to start his new job on Monday as “Special Guest Referee” in a basketball game between the deputies and the inmates.

And how about this:

Hutchison responded to the decision in a statement posted on the Knox County Sheriff’s Office’s Web site

Is it really okay for County employees to use public assets like the Sheriff Office’s website to make opiniated posts for political and/or financial gain? That seems unethical if not illegal.

Knoxviews has a pretty entertaining take on Knox County Deathmatch 2007.

KPD Prostitution Sting Wildly Successful

The KNS reports that a sting ending at 6 am in the Magnolia area caught eleven “criminals”. Apparently ten women and one man were engaged in swapping services one party was willing to provide for money the other party was willing to pay.

Stay tuned to the KNS. I’m sure they’ll have a follow up story once the victims of these crimes are found and identified.

In (somewhat) related news, the former Highway Patrolman involved in the Barbie Cummings traffic stop is under further investigation for other traffic stops he made involving women. Not sure if they are looking for evidence of him disposing of drugs or receiving sexual favors from the women he has stopped. Based on the photo I saw of him, I’d say the former is more likely than the latter.

Again, they should let this die. Cummings herself says there was no exchange of services involved and he still gave her the ticket. The guy has already been fired, and I think that’s enough–not because of what he did, but because he was stupid enough to tell everybody about it. We should expect our Highway Patrolmen to be at least a tad bit brighter than former presidents.

Should Villa Collina Raise My Asking Price?

All I can say is that it is really nice to own a property that is right across the street from a $40M mansion. Hopefully this will be taken into account when I put my condo on the market this month. I can just hear my real estate agent now explaining what a bargain my place is compared to the other homes in the neighborhood.

Sorry. This house just doesn’t make sense in Knoxville. I mean, I LOVE living in Knoxville and East Tennessee, but if I ever live in a $40M home it will be on a beach in Hawaii, not on a dirty lake in Knoxville.

The big spider on the wall at Halloween is cool though. 😉

Barbie Fever is Sweeping Knoxville Blogs

So it’s not just me. Other bloggers in Knoxville are being bombarded with Barbie traffic as well.

Joe Powell :

An insatiable desire to find Hitleresque cat pics and porn doesn’t exactly boost my overall optimism in web-aware humans. It makes me wonder if there is some nefarious site of Hitler Porn which gathers billions of readers.)

I wouldn’t doubt it.  I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll end up saying it again…

Blogging is a lot like having a yard sale. The only thing more amazing that what people are completely uninterested in buying is what they are interested in buying.

The Barbie Cummings Saga Continues

It’s odd that this latest KNS article releases her real name (it’s Justis Ellen Richert by the way). It’s odd that in their first article they stated that she asked not to be named out of safety concerns–not sure who she was afraid of, or whether she’s okay with it at this point, but the cat’s out of the bag now.

The officer, James Randy Moss, has been fired and may face criminal charges for destroying the drugs she had on her. Continue reading “The Barbie Cummings Saga Continues”