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The power shift is changing. I honestly don’t know why west Tennessee legislators aren’t paying attention. And if they are, many of them are so involved with the game of politics that they are forgetting about the day-to-day lives of the constituents who voted for them.

Let me repeat, YOUR CONSTITUENTS! The people in your district, regardless if they voted for you or not, are watching plants leave, businesses close and a very real crunch of small businesses (talk to Homer) and it seems like no one is communicating.

How many times do I have to say the gravy days are over for NW Tennesseans only thanks to Gov. Ned McWherter because it did start moving south when he left office.

The voices are silent for the most part.

Man, there are times that I wish that progressive state-wide reps would watch what Barack Obama’s PR team did nationwide but I guess that would be asking for too much progress or something.

And then I sigh.

I want to take a stab at what I’m seeing here right now. I’ve talked to a bunch of folks over the past couple of weeks.

Most people realized a bailout needed to happen because there wasn’t a choice really. Then they saw the pork attached and felt betrayed. They are going to be paying higher TVA rates as of Oct. 1, then that made natural gas go up (30 percent), and then due to lack of competition, fuel surplus charges are going up so drastically for garbage here that there will be a 33 percent increase.

And some folks have nothing left to give. Let’s break it down. The median family income here is roughly $30 grand a year. For men, it’s $28,000 and some change. For women, it’s a bit more dismal at roughly $20,000.

Manufacturing jobs are all but gone.  If the university wasn’t here, the county would be in deep trouble.

Farming? Well, farmers have been dealing with the downside of a drought last year and the futures game. With gas costs kicking their butts (remember, they were on their farming implements during the $4 a gallon game we had last month) and fertilizer costs have already gone through the roof, there is some fear. There isn’t any end in sight to the harsh reality that tucked into this little piece of the planet there is already a recession, depression or whatever the hell you want to call it, going on.

It’s very easy to put our heads in the sand and say “That isn’t happening.”

But, you see, I live here. And my office has been fuller in the past couple of weeks with people befuddled.

A candidate for a local alderman seat came in yesterday and spoke of what he sees happening.

“Empty buildings and people leaving, that’s what I’m seeing.”

I just nodded.

For someone making $28 grand a year, losing a college fund or retirement is devastating. There is no “Buy, Buy, Buy” for folks. There is a loss of something they worked for.

And it’s devastating.

Most folks don’t care about bulls and bears. They just want to know what else they are going to have give because the well is dry.

I’ve talked quite a bit about how I wish we were having a more “adult” presidential campaign right now. It makes me cranky listening to all the political rhetoric when there are more important issues to discuss.

I realize that it’s just not “sexy” to have conversations these days about politics when you aren’t looking somebody in the eye. That’s part of what is missing, I think.

When I’m sitting talking to friends and acquaintances I have who have and will vote differently than I will in November, I find that we never raise our voices, yell obscenities at each other and start threatening to throw fainting goats at the other’s family promoting a riot of some kind here in Hoots.

We have adult conversations. Not always perfect, mind you, but pretty decent.

I find we agree on what needs to be addressed, we just have different ideas on how to fix it and our ideologies on who the best candidate is to take over a government that appears to be nuts right now. Why anyone would want to be president right now is mind-boggling. There is no quick fix.

Where we agree is that the economy is in the toilet, the war in Iraq is a mess and when are we going to have to repay our debt to countries we’ve borrowed money from. Credit card companies will call you when they don’t get paid. We keep wondering when the United States is going to get that call, from let’s say, China.

I wonder what the interest rate will be? I wonder who’s going to pay it. Oh, wait …

We agree that the middle-class in many ways is not the middle-class anymore. We talk about rising gas and food costs. We talk about having health insurance (most of the people I know do) but that we really can’t use it because our health insurance companies won’t let us and the deductibles are killing us when we have to go to the doctor.

So, I mentioned earlier this week about how terrible I thought the Gibsonopolous debate was for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They waited nearly an hour to ask about the economy?

Politics is like a chess game. But real people with real problems don’t want to be pawns.

They just want to know when they are going to see light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m usually an optimist about most things, but right now, I’m worried. And if you sit down and look your neighbor in the eye and talk like an adult about the issues this country is facing, regardless of who you think they are, you will find out they are most likely a bit worried too. Or this has been my experience. Sometimes it’s talking to one person at a time where we see our similarities and can put aside our differences.

On Friday, as I was painfully and tediously trying to figure out how to go home while sitting in my office as I was somewhat bored of life in general and tired from a long workweek as well, I got a phone call from a lady who works for our local school board. I’ve known her for years and she and I have always gotten along extremely well. She’s also a former journalist and although she works for the “man” now as a grantwriter and spokesperson, she’s funny and I dig her.

There was an edge in her voice.

“‘Coma, we have a bit of a problem,” she said. I looked lovingly at the clock, thinking to myself I had about an hour to get out of the office and I really wanted to, you know, do this crazy thing called go-the-hell-home-right-this-very-instant. I did not want a problem. Problems weren’t on my Friday list of “Things To Do”, but, my buddy, didn’t sound so good so I asked what was up.

“Well, there is a confirmed case of a staph infection at Dresden.” she said. “We are contacting all the parents. We also have another case but we aren’t sure yet. We haven’t gotten the results back on that.”

What do you say to that? My first initial response was, “Oh hell to the no.” Instead, we talked about what was going on, how they were going to contact the families and what was going to be done in the coming days. ‘Cause, that’s what’s you do.

Anyway, over the course of the weekend, and being that Homer the sis is the PTO president for said school, the phone rang off our hips. (It no longer rings off the wall as we are a cell phone kind of people.) By Monday morning, it had been confirmed that the other child also was diagnosed with staph.

Both kids, one in elementary school, the other in middle school, were diagnosed with MRSA.

The school was disinfected, buses were cleaned. Now, in Obion County, the schools will be shut down today and tomorrow to also disinfect. According to our sister paper, there have been some strains of MRSA found in the schools there as well.

Obion County Director of Schools David Huss told The Messenger at mid-day Monday that school officials have had reports of staph infection in some of the schools and have received some confirmed reports of a strand of MRSA — Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a type of bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics — in some schools, but not in all of them.
“Some haven’t had any,” he said.
As a precautionary measure, all of the county schools will be closed for the next two days so they can be disinfected “from top to bottom” to ensure the situation doesn’t escalate to a crisis situation, according to Huss.
The closing of the schools includes all after-school activities, practices, athletic activities and other events that would involve use of the school buildings.
“When after-school care is through today, all activities are canceled from then on until Thursday morning — no ball games tonight, no practices in Obion County schools until Thursday morning,” Huss said.

Yeah, We’ve been a bit busy.

I won’t say that people have been panicked but there is a high level of concern.

One good thing I’ve seen is that in our county at least, the school system has been very proactive. I’m pleased with that. On the other hand, when you read about MRSA being called the superbug, you get a bit weirded out and I’ve been trying to explain to folks about this although me explaining MRSA is like a goat reading a book; it’s just damned hard to do. Hell, it’s not Captain Trips from “The Stand” by any means, but still, very disconcerting.

So, that’s what’s going on in my neck of the world. The governor will be here today. Not about this but about rural economic development (can you chant with me, ABOUT TIME!) All together now.

I think I liked being bored better.

This past week has been one of those times that I’ve been so busy that the running around has somewhat taken a life of its own.

I know, you’ve had those as well. Where, when you finally sit down to take a breath, you wonder if you’ll ever get back up again.

Yesterday, I needed a few minutes to myself. I just needed to take a deep breath, put the computer aside, a place of no distraction, no emails, no instant messaging, no news. Nothingness for just a few minutes.

I’ve been working out of two offices which can be, in a word, confusing. Some mornings I forget where I’m supposed to be (not really, but you get my point.)

So I went to lunch. Chinese food was calling my name, so I went and had lunch alone. Sometimes I do that. I don’t mind eating by myself and yesterday it was nice to just clear my head. The lady who runs the restaurant (she’s been there for years) has always been a bit of a sourpuss, but yesterday, we connected.

She was watching a soap opera. I have no idea what the name was but it visually was quite beautiful. And there were samurais in the soap opera which apparently was set back when samurais were popular. I know very little about the Chinese language but the show was subtitled in Mandarin, so you can imagine that I had no idea what was going on.

But, I watched it and was sort of getting the gist of it all, and man, if there wasn’t a lot going on. I figured out our samurai hero was conflicted about something and I was sort of getting into it. The words didn’t matter, but you could see the emotion of it all. Emotion and passion doesn’t need translation.

When she noticed I was watching the show having no idea what was going on but watching nonetheless, she smiled at me and told me a little bit about it.

She called it a soap opera and said her family sends her the videos from home. She mentioned what city she was from but I didn’t recognize it.

This means little, I guess, but I needed just a few minutes like this yesterday. A moment with a woman (who in the past had been a little bit grouchy when I would come in to eat) who smiled when she noticed that I was paying attention to something that obviously meant a lot to her.

For whatever reason, that smile made me feel pretty good.

Who would have thought a samurai soap opera would make two very different women who had seen each other for years have a moment?

And, the few minutes cleared my mind.

Just a slice of life moment, you know. I really should start paying attention to the little things. There usually the things that cheer us up in the long run anyway.