Happenings about town
Yesterday morning I engaged in my first "out and about" here in
White Pine. One of the great things about this town is that in my situation, I normally have to rely on public transportation to get around, but there is no need of that here on a day to day basis. The town is small enough that I can make it from one end of town to the other in the space of a few minutes in my power wheelchair, and there is very little that isn't readily accessible to me. The only place in town that it isn't safe for me to go is the
Food City and the
Subway shop next to it, and that is only because I have deemed that it is not especially safe to cross the highway. The reality is that if I really
needed to get over there, I probably could.
Every morning, a bunch of the men of the town meet for coffee at the old Sanitary Drug Store on Main Street. There is still a lunch counter at the old pharmacy, complete with the barstools still in place. There is even a brass NCR cash register with the old lever on it. As the official new man in town, it was recommended to me that I drop in on one of these morning caravans that apparently begin at 7:00am at Allen Surrett's Hardware Store and wind their way over to the coffee pot at the Sanitary. I skipped Surrett's yesterday and went straight for the lunch counter instead.
I resolved that I would begin by simply being quiet and observing others, and listening to them. Hospitality was extended immediately upon my entering, as one person immediately asked if I wanted coffee and poured me some, dropping change in the cash register before I even had a chance to dig for the dollar in my pocket. I was able to leave my chair parked right outside the door of the drug store. Every now and again, someone would peak over at my chair to see that it was unmolested, but of course no one touched it.
As it turned out, sitting and listening was the best policy for today, as I quickly learned that two of the fellas at coffee had been to
Saudi Arabia, not as soldiers, but as contractors, and told stories of life in Jeddah at the American compounds there. As it turned out, neither knew that the other was in Saudi (
Jeddah), but they lived only a few miles apart while there. Everyone was in unanimous agreement that all Washington officialdom were "out of touch" with people in White Pine, and all complained that they felt unrepresented. Further, some concluded that this would be the case no matter who was sent to Washington.
At that point in the discussion, I turned to the center of my table where someone had left a campaign card for
Vance Cheek Jr. for Congress. I don't know who was in the drug store or left the card, but it is the first Vance Cheek campaign material I have seen in White Pine proper.
After some further discussion, this time about the fact that something new is said to cause cancer every week, Friday coffee adjourned until Monday and all of us got on with our daily business.
Perhaps Monday I will feel a bit more free to speak.
Distorted
It has come to my attention that if you are viewing this blog with Internet Explorer, you are once again seeing a warped version of this website where the sidebar somehow appears distorted at the bottom of the page. I have tried to fix the problem, but nothing I have tried seems to work.
I suppose now is a good time to remind readers that this blog is best viewed using Mozilla Firefox, and you can get Firefox on your computer by clicking on the link in the upper right corner.
College football may change, Maurice Clarett never will
Well, it is nearly football season and that means that you'll probably be reading a bit more football commentary here at
The World. I would have discussed more baseball this year, but as a true blue die-hard
Chicago Cubs fan, writing about the Cubs extensively this season might have driven me to very heavy drinking from the depression that inevitably results from such an endeavor.
The jury is still very much out on how
Tennessee will do this year, but of course the local talking heads are all being told by the Hill Propaganda Machine that we are in for vast improvements over last year's decline to the college football abyss. I agree that the
Vols will have a better year this year than last, but I question how much better things will get until there are some changes at the top.
One thing the jury is no longer out on is the fact that
former Ohio State tailback Maurice Clarett is a total loser. I took all kinds of heat immediately after the 2002-03 National Championship when I said as much on the air on a Dayton, Ohio radio program. For days after saying that Clarett was out of control, had no respect for authority, was trouble the day he walked on campus in
Columbus, would be a flop in the
NFL Draft, and would get no respect in the pros, I received calls from people claiming to know Clarett saying that I did not "understand him." I got hate e-mails accusing me of being a racist, a bigot, and a hatemonger-all because I said that Clarett had no place in the professional ranks if he had no care for the feelings of others and no respect for authority.
To be fair, if you are one of the few who have followed this blog from the beginning, you know that I have been beating the anti-Clarett drum for a long time around here. However, I think the fact that he can't stay out of trouble and
behaves like a common criminal speaks to the fact that he thought (and may still think) that the world owed him a football career and he did not have to earn it.
Who was right?
Beltway Bob
Last I heard, Bob Corker was accusing
Ed Bryant and
Van Hilleary of being beholden to "special interests" because Bryant and Hilleary are "registered lobbyists." If Ed and Van are really in with the lobbying crowd, they would each have outraised Corker by now and would be using that money to have run ads even sooner than Corker had.
Yesterday, the
Knoxville News-Sentinel finally reported what
The World has been telling readers all along, namely that
Bob Corker is the darling of K Street. The Bryant campaign officially declared "
Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Bob Corker," after Corker has attempted to portray both Bryant and Hilleary as "Washington insiders" who are deep into the
K Street culture.
We learn, however, that Beltway Bob scheduled "a Tuesday evening fund-raiser at the offices of Capitol Decisions, a lobbying firm. An invitation shows that admission for PAC representatives was $1,000 each, $250 for others attending," reporter
Tom Humphrey wrote in yesterday's KNS.
Bob Corker will take money from anyone apparently, all the while pointing the finger at his opponents accusing them of doing what he does. Bob Corker-do as he says, not as he does.
The love of money is the root of all evil
I cannot possibly begin to compare with
Terry Frank for her fantastic work in investigating this story, but if the rumors are true that
Bill Haslam intends to run for Governor in 2010,
his connection to an indicted drug smuggler and said friends of that smuggler may be of interest to anyone contesting Haslam for the
GOP nomination, especially if Scott West is actually convicted.
As Terry points out in her brilliant work (which
Rob Huddleston has also highlighted), not only has Bill Haslam had questionable connections with drug runners, but the Haslams and their allies have also aided and abeted the pornography trade here in East Tennessee to a tremendous degree,
encouraging the purveyors of "smut" to set up business right in the heart of Knoxville.
These are the same people who are the lead backers of
Bob Corker for U.S. Senate. This is the very same Corker who tells us that he has converted and become pro-life because a missionary trip to Haiti changed his outlook forever. Well, if I suddenly "saw the light" and "got religion," I don't know that I would want to
smear my good name by associating with those who give aid and comfort to drug runners and porn distributors. The fact is that these people are not
our kind of Republican-they aren't conservatives of the heart and soul and they have no principles. Their primary concerns are money and power, and the good of Tennessee and the Union as a whole be damned. In the mind of these sorts of folks, the good of the country is what they say it is, nevermind what the rest of us think.
If you want to support those who support the cultural excrement that is ruining our society and our country, by all means vote for Bob Corker for Senate, or vote for
Harold Ford Jr. If you support those who give advantages to pornagraphers and drug traffickers, please vote for Bill Haslam in 2010.
If you support decency, dignity, and a just society, and you are a Republican, you really need to vote for
Ed Bryant for Senate, and run as far away from Bill and Jim Haslam as you can.
Sundquist gives new hope to Bryant campaign
As
Terry Frank reported over the weekend, former
Governor Don "it will just be a little income tax" Sundquist, who late last year donated $2,000 to Corker's Senate campaign,
has given money to Corker or Corker-backed candidates under the guise of his Sundquist Committee as well.
Ed Bryant's campaign people need to roll out new radio and television ads immediately to trumpet the fact that one of the worst Governors in Tennessee history (and by far the most unpopular since
Andrew Johnson) is backing Corker twice over. Usually the very mention of the name "Don Sundquist" in the same sentence as someone else in a positive light is the kiss of political death for that person.
Up to this point, Corker has been able to avoid the large-scale public mention of his association with Donnie-boy. If the Bryant campaign can drag out the truth-namely that Don Sundquist is one of
Bob Corker's biggest political backers short of the Haslam family, this campaign is far from over.
Let us take the war to the enemy in the same way they are attempting to do to us with these false ads that cite no references for the accusations they make. The difference must be that we can fight and win with the truth.
I have returned
Well, much to the despair of certain people on the Left, I am happy to report that we now return to your regularly scheduled blogging programming. I will say that blogger is a bit slow today, so bare with me.
There has been a
whole lot of news while we've been away, including a
suprise trip by Secretary of State Rice to visit Lebanese Government officials in Beirut.
However, what caught my eye the most was a post by
Rob Huddleston on Congressional candidate Vance Cheek Jr.'s faith. More a bit later.
