Newscoma

This has been an eventful week in Tennessee and in Hoots.

No one is shocked that the House and Senate overrode the governor’s veto on guns in restaurants/bars, but signs are being thrown up around here quicker than you can say Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill.

William Howard Hobbs is out as communication director of the TNGOP, which quite frankly surprises me. There are many times that I would scratch my head, roll my eyes, shake my fist to the sky and sigh deeply with some of his antics, but no one can say that the man wasn’t stealth with his pressers. Jackson Baker, however, was not surprised at all.

Steve Ross is on top of what’s happening in Memphis. A quick recap has to do with the Memphis Sexual Assault Resource Center and that two rape victims were turned away from the center because they didn’t have the staff to help them. Ross is following the press conferences and breaking down the funding trail. It’s sad actually because MSARC used to be the model for the south in victim’s assistance. Now it appears that politics may be standing in the way to help victims.

GoldnI made this point earlier this week regarding bloggers in Nashville. I think it needs to be revisited.

The importance of that information cannot be emphasized enough.  Bloggers want to help!  Bloggers want to be a part of the conversation.  But we can’t do that if we have no idea what’s going on, and that’s where we need the help of those in the legislature who can feed us that information.  You can’t be angry at us for not saying the “right” things if all we’re hearing is the “wrong” things.  If I could have said one more thing to Mike Turner, to paraphrase Jerry Maguire–”help us help you.”

Well, as usual, my bi-monthly dose of bronchitis is rearing its ugly head. Again.
Ode to joy. (snark.)
Here are a few things I’ve witnessed in the last few days albeit it isn’t as interesting as, oh let’s say, this.
In Hoots, life goes on.

Sheriff deputies are investigating the killing of a goat (I can’t make this stuff up. Goat murder!), a man was arrested over the weekend for showing his naughty bits to the cops while screaming that he knew where they lived and when he got out of jail he was going to kill them (welcome to a long visit in the pokey) and I found out from a lottery dude that sales were through the roof. The grand jury convened, there is a bridal show going on and apparently we have our own mini-hell of an illegal dump that ace reporter Editor Bates is all over.
And there is a lot of earthquake talk going on which I find disconcerting. Do folks know something that the average bear doesn’t or are we just preparing for the apocalypse because not a lot is going on.
I also got to inform an elected democrat that Bill Hobbs is no longer blogging. He smiled. I then said “Now you don’t know what he’s up to.”
He quit smiling.
I’m a realist about these things, you know.
I also heard someone confuse Sanjaya with Sanjay Gupta. (I’m banging my head into a wall as I type this over that little disclosure), I decided the only reasonable thing I could to was throw myself in front of a train or drink a bottle of swill. Squirrelly think he’s a weird choice for Surgeon General (and we bantered about this for hours for some odd and unknown reason), Kate wonders, in the comments, what a surgeon general actually does and I am ambivalent. I guess it’s better than Surgeon General Lou Dobbs.
Now on to your early morning moment of zen:

From Eat Liver

I’ve written about this before and I’m not going to go into it more than just to say that I really am so disappointed in the national press focusing on the actions of Bill Hobbs and the Tennessee GOP.

I’ve lived in Canada and In Europe for long stretches of time. I guess I’m not your typical Tennessean. The stereotypes of Tennesseans is a reality because I’ve seen how we are perceived outside of this country’s walls. It’s something we have anyway. Not everyone in the state of Tennessee, for those of my readers that live outside the state line, is like the way we are being portrayed.

When industry is looking to move to Tennessee, are they going to be looking at the Obama bashing that we’ve seen over the last few months and think, “No, I think I’d rather move to Minnesota.”

I’m a Tennessean. I love the way the mountains in the east side of the state have lazy clouds hiding the tips of their peaks. I love the color of winter wheat which is impossibly green that is so vibrant and alive that it makes one wonder if you could swim in it’s buttery softness. I love the feel of Midtown in Memphis where there is a subtle urgency that makes you pick up your feet. I love sitting in the juke joints with people who talk about their parents, and their parents’ parents and how the first time they heard The Beatles they thought they had died and gone to heaven. I like that in Nashville I would go to Pancake Pantry and see Lyle Lovett eating chocolate chip pancakes not once but numerous times and that no one bothered him. I love the way the wind whips off the river in Chattanooga as you walk downtown. The cypress knees that line Reelfoot Lake are incredible as you see hundreds of turtles neatly lined on fallen logs.

It’s a good state really. We are not the crude lines that are being portrayed by the national media right now. That is not the Tennessee I live in.

I make fun of Hooterville, but I stay here because, at this point, I choose too. It’s flawed but it’s also not too bad and I love the people here. I do. I feel such affection for my home. When people are struggling to make ends meet and I see that the state branch is making a short-term funny (I don’t think it’s amusing in the least) I can’t help but wonder what the long-term cost will be.

Our area lost a plant several years ago because of James Hart being written up in a Florida newspaper. The industrial folks who were looking to bring industry here didn’t like that a (former) alderman talked to Hart and said he agreed with Hart’s blathering. Hart has been denounced by the GOP and that’s not my point, but it was that two men’s words made a difference that impacted thousands of people’s lives.

My state is not a one-note joke.