Read His Lips

Ever since we ran the item about Gov. Don Sundquist's Knox campaign manager Jack Barnes' comments regarding getting dissed by a bunch of "pisswillies," people have been requesting a definition of the term. Barnes, you may remember, was bent out of shape about getting seated way in the back of the room at Gov. Don's most recent local fundraiser, and denounced the slight as the work of "snobs and pisswillies" around Sundquist.

We thought Barnes' sentiments were fairly self-explanatory, but in deference to our readers, we called him and requested a definition, which he kindly provided:

"Just an overbearing asshole. A stuckup sumbitch that thinks they know it all and you're a dumb bastard..."

Tennessee: Finally First in Something

With the possible exception of Chattanooga—and then only in the last few years—Tennessee has never had a reputation for progressive planning, especially in the realm of controlling urban sprawl. But that may have changed suddenly with the Legislature's passage earlier this year of a little-heralded provision of PA 1998 Chapter 1101 requiring cities and counties to cooperate to minimize heedless growth, and restrict annexations to areas within established urban growth boundaries. Counties will have to agree on those boundaries by mid-2001. The law's enforced with the power to deny state subsidies for highway construction and other services. Passed to replace an earlier annexation law declared unconstitutional last year, this act was supported by a diverse coalition that included the Tennessee Farm Bureau and the Sierra Club—and opposed, of course, by Tennessee Home Builders.

Prominent in the Oct. 19 issue of Nation's Cities Weekly is an article remarking on the Tennessee legislation. Headlined "Curbing Sprawl: Tennessee's Surprise Breakthrough," it opens, "Tennessee, a state few expected would have the moxie [when was the last time you heard that word?], has jumped into the forefront of American states requiring strong growth-management plans for its cities and counties." It concludes, "So if planners want what Americans increasingly want, why shouldn't progressive reforms like Tennessee's (and Maryland's) make it into legislative agendas in more and more states? Just maybe, this is a cause whose time has come."

Sign of the Times

We never thought we'd live to see Albert Gore described mainly as somebody's father in a News-Sentinel headline, but there it was, on Wednesday morning, page 5: "Vice president's father recovering from illness." Serving as Tennessee senator for 18 years in the '50s and '60s, Albert Gore Sr. was one of the loudest-voiced politicians in modern Tennessee history, supporting the interstates and nuclear plants and desegregation, and opposing the Vietnam War. In 1956, he was boosted as a likely contender for the Democratic presidential ticket. Just 25 years ago, if you saw the single word Gore, or even Albert in a headline, you didn't have to ask. But there he is, in the headline and lead of an AP story as mainly the guy who sired a vice president. It's just another of those indignities of living to the age of 90. (And speaking of News-Sentinel headlines, what are they drinking on the copy desk these days? We're all in favor of loosening up a little, but "Saddam: Still Hangin' in There" is maybe pushing it. Not to be too stuffy, but this is a possible war we're talking about.)

Friday the 13th

Yikes! Could it be that Metro Pulse, despite being a fairly infrequent frequenter of the world of sportswriting, nevertheless has its very own jinx going? It hasn't escaped our notice that last Thursday's cover story on the glories of UT basketball was followed by back-to-back basketball losses by both the Gentlemen and the Lady Vols. The football team, whom we barely mentioned, narrowly escaped.