Mark Cawood, who reckons there's only one way he and his not-so-athletically-inclined colleagues could be so decimated:
"A stampede at the buffet line."
Ivan the Terrible
The weather outside was frightful, but while the rest of the city was queuing up for milk and bread at Kroger, a bunch of Ivan Harmon's constituents slip-slid their way down to the last City Council meeting of '97 to try to persuade their councilman to vote against yet another controversial rezoning in the 3rd District. Harmon's been voting willy-nilly against the wishes of neighborhoods in his district since he was re-elected without opposition in November, and had been a strong supporter of the mini-warehouse development in question, which had been approved by a 6-3 vote on first reading.
The second reading was to be this night, and an unusually statesman-like Harmon took the floor and announced that he'd changed his mind. Been persuaded. Learned new facts.
"Two rights [and this is not a typo] don't make a wrong." He moved to reject the rezoning; Council followed his lead and it was duly reported the next day that he'd had a change of heart.
Cynics in the audience, however, saw a simpler explanation. Gary Underwood, who voted with the majority on first reading, was AWOL at the Orange Bowl. Bill Powell, who also voted with the majority, had been replaced by Danny Mayfield, leaving Harmon with a 4-4 vote and a mayor who makes it a policy not to break ties on zoning issues.
You decide.
Vol Abuse
After suffering the indignities chucked our way this season, Tennessee fans are toting chips on our shoulders the size of Nebraska interior linemen; so it wasn't surprising that there'd be some pre-game venting in the direction of ESPN's resident Vol-basher Chris Fowler, the one who called us Tennessee Trailer Trash here awhile back. When the Orange-necks got wind that Fowler and his buds were set up for their pre-game show outside the stadium in Miami, he was the recipient of a torrent of abuse from fans who dragged ugly signs across the screen behind him and generally berated him unmercifully. After a station break, Fowler and Company returned to the air encased in what appeared to be a cage.
We were still irritated the following day when Tennessee's women's basketball team hosted Connecticut and everybody seemed in the mood to just beat somebody like a stepchild. The game attracted lots of snotty Eastern Fowler-esque media types, some of whom professed (loudly, and with considerable pride) that they'd never heard of Lee Greenwood, who sang the national anthem and evidently pissed them off by asking them to put their hands over their hearts. You'd of thought Granny and Ellie Mae'd just tried to serve them a mess of possum chitlins.
The Wreck of the Zephyr?
One particular attraction has been drawing a steady stream of visitors to Sequoyah Park on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. On the riverbank convenient to the volleyball fields is a stout sailboat christened the Choucoune. With a tall mast and a just-in-case propeller, the 25-foot ship with its weather-beaten cabin has been on display for about two months. The Choucoune's home port is advertised on the stern as Key West, but with its keel buried deep in the mud several yards from the water's edge, it seems unlikely to return there before TVA lets the spring rains fill up the river again. We hear the ship grounded under jovial circumstances after its crew had been celebrating a football victory—and, unfortunately, just before TVA opened the locks on Fort Loudoun Dam.
Now Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Education
They wanted to check their credits, but instead they got credit cards. University of Tennessee students who availed themselves of UT's handy toll-free grade line during the Christmas break might have ended up with more than they bargained for. A call to the automated 1-800 number will eventually produce a student's GPA, but only after callers sit through pitches from "sponsors" like J. Crew, MasterCard, and Mindspring. In each instance, students must push designated numbers to accept or decline whatever product is on offer. The service is run by a national company under contract with UT. Susie Archer, UT's dean of admissions and records, says she initially wondered whether students would balk at sitting through 30 to 60 seconds of advertising to get to their grades; but she was reassured when the Student Government Association overwhelmingly approved the service (which debuted at the end of last summer). "They said students wouldn't [mind], because it was a better and quicker way of getting their grades," Archer says. She says she's not concerned students will infer the particular advertisers are in any way endorsed by the University. And hey—what better way to celebrate your straight A's than with a shopping binge on your brand new Visa? Just make sure you leave enough room on the credit line for your tuition...
Another Modest Proposal from the Simplistic Solutions File
Folks who want a civilian review board to police the Knoxville Police Department have some real stumbling blocks in their way: the mayor, the
police chief, the daily newspaper, and a
majority of city council. Folks with complaints against the Knox County Sheriff's Department who can't afford the services of Herb Moncier find themselves up against it as well. It is well known that these two agencies are headed by powerful guys who wouldn't spit on each other's heads if their brains were on fire.
Solution: Let KPD and KCSD investigate each other.
