Cleaning Up

Nobody but the Halls GOP ever wins the Glad Bag-A-Thon prize for picking up the most trash. Their secret weapon? Mary Lou Horner, of course. Last week, Horner, the grand dame of local beautification, went to the Halls Republican Club and made an announcement about the upcoming Bag-A-Thon—that annual Saturday event where you see lots of nice kids on the TV news working their butts off cleaning up creek banks and roadsides and such. Horner told the elephant people that she'd arranged to have their secret weapon delivered for the clean-up session—a couple of truckloads of convicts from the county jail. Now, we're not suggesting there's anything wrong with this. Convicts quite commonly pick up litter on a volunteer basis and the Halls Elephant Club always contributes its prize money to the Dwight Kessel Scholarship Fund. The superchambermen would call it a win-win situation. Anyhow, about the same time the convicts were getting started on the trash pick-up detail, the supremely confident Republicans were having their pictures taken for the Halls Shopper—commemorating another first-place finish. Halls has it!

Invasion of the ConQUISTadors

Another thing Halls has is a lively political scene.

But how, you might ask, can we say such a thing about a place as dominated by a single political party as any banana republic you'd care to name (see above)?

Because it's true.

A scary new political movement has arisen out there in GOP land amidst the suburban sprawl: "The ConQUISTadors." This is a group of Halls High students who have declared their allegiance to Cathy Quist, who is running for Clerk of A Whole Bunch of Courts against incumbent Lillian Bean. Scariest of all of them is HHS senior class president and ConQUISTador Coordinator Scott Frith, who has been leading forays to Bean events ("Into the belly of the beast," as he puts it). Frith, who says he and his friends met Quist when she spoke to a HHS class about Zero Tolerance policy, reluctantly denies any knowledge of "Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Days" signs being slapped across Bean yard signs in Halls. "I confess it's not us; but it's pretty good," Frith says. Be warned: soon as he finishes his term paper on Machiavelli, Frith and his lieutenant, Chuck Edmondson, are planning a "Saturday Blitz."

Doc-ing It Out

Doctors and hospitals are continuing their attempts to take over the managed care health system, with a new contract between Baptist Hospital and the HMO, Healthsource.

Starting May 1, Baptist and 170 of the doctors affiliated with it, will completely manage the care for about 10,000 Healthsource patients. The agreement is similar to one Healthsource has with Summit Medical Group—which was the first of its kind in Knoxville. Baptist and the doctors (collectively known as QualMed) will be paid a flat fee for each insured person, regardless of how much care they need. The hospital-doctor group will decide what kind of care each person needs, and pay for it—from the cholesterol tests to the surgery.

Advocates of arrangements like these say it makes sense to shift control of medical decisions from HMOs and insurance companies to those who know medicine. But can doctors and hospitals be trusted to make dollar and cents decisions when it's coming out of their own pockets?

Putting It Blountly

Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. We don't know, but we figure Andy was thinking about historic 18th-century houses, too. Knoxville's oldest home—and, some say, the oldest frame house on this side of the Smokies—will get its 15 minutes of national fame Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m., when the History Channel will air WBIR-TV's award-winning video, "Building a State: William Blount and Tennessee Statehood," which prominently features Blount Mansion on Hill Avenue, where the territorial governor, senator, and international conspirator spent the last eight years of his life. We don't know anybody who'd admit they ever watch TV at 8:00 on a Sunday morning, but you might want to set your VCRs and watch it in prime time.

The Harold Stassen of the '90s?

In the process of ridiculing a local congressman's "eternal senate campaign," New York magazine in an article headed "The Lamar!-ing of Charles Schumer," said Schumer "...with a war chest almost four times the size of his competitors combined, has purchased a secure spot in last place." Calling Schumer "one of the most ferocious media hounds D.C. has ever seen... reduced to casting himself as a humble, hard-working servant of the people..." New York then made an unflattering Lamar Alexander comparison by asking "What's next, Buffalo plaid shirts for all his supporters?"

Mush, You Huskies!

Pat Summitt's book-signing tour may end up as successful as the '98 basketball season, if a recent foray into arch rival U-Conn territory is any indicator. When Coach Pat made an appearance at Border's Bookstore in Farmington, Conn. recently, 669 people lined up for autographs before they closed the doors. The store's previous book-signing record was 480 for Dr. Laura, with skater Oksana Baiul and homegirl basketball star Rebecca Lobo finishing third and fourth. One U-Conn fan reported on AOL that she'd come to see Summitt with a dual-objective mission: to get an autograph and to experience the Sports Illustrated glare. She said she reached "the throne" after spending two hours in line and asked Ms. Pat to give her The Look. "She raised her head slowly and glared at me. As I walked away I realized my legs had turned to Jell-O," she wrote.