|
Which Side Are You On?
This year's 6th District City Council race is predicted to be a battle between lawyers Mark Brown and Sheryl Rollins, and the tensions are already starting to cause frayed nerves among some of Knoxville's African-American elite. So far, there have been dueling receptions: Margaret Gaiter's for Rollins, Ruth Benn's for Brown.
"These are people who go to the same functions—bridge clubs, the Ladies of Distinction—and there's a lot of tension building up," a source says. Rollins supporters have focused some of their ire on state Rep. Joe Armstrong, who is openly supporting his fraternity brother, Brown. "That's caused a lot of hard feelings in the Rollins camp," the source says. Armstrong was cagey about the controversy, but made his preference clear:
"I think people ought to concentrate on their own race," he said. "In the end, it's going to come down to who is going to get out there and knock on doors. And I think Mark Brown'll make an excellent City Council member."
Divvying Digs
Politicians generally know the territory they serve like the backs of their hands, but when County Commission got on with redistricting at this week's meeting, one area turned up on the map that nobody'd heard of:
"Rock and a Hard Place" got put in Mary Lou Horner and Leo Cooper's North Knox district.
Can't Keep Him Down
Last fall, 92-year-old Howard Armstrong—legendary jazz/blues fiddler/mandolinist, late of Martin, Bogan, and Armstrong, and perhaps the sole survivor of Knoxville's lively and diverse pre-radio (!) music scene—gave an astonishingly lively performance at the Laurel Theatre.
When fans heard he'd subsequently suffered a stroke, some thought they'd heard the last of the one and only Louie Bluie. But after a successful show at Somerset, Kentucky, last week, the longtime Boston resident returned to his native East Tennessee for the third time in a year. He astonished his hosts and a lobbyful of Hampton Inn guests in Caryville—near his LaFollette boyhood home—when he played a total of 22 songs.
He ended the trip Sunday with a sentimental journey through what little of the Vine Street area of Knoxville remains, and a dinner at Patrick Sullivan's in the Old City, where he busied himself giving away elaborate napkin-drawn caricatures to fans, among them Bill Claiborne, who spent much of the weekend as chauffeur of Armstrong's sentimental journey.
When in Osaka...
In the online version of Sandra Clark's fiesty weekly shopper newspaper, the Halls News, a Kiwanis service club member who had traveled to Taiwan for the 86th Annual Kiwanis International Convention "officially representing Division 5 (metropolitan Knoxville area) of the Kentucky-Tennessee District" wrote a first-person account of his trip. He pointed out that "everyone needs to take a trip outside of the United States at least once in their life to really appreciate the freedom we have here."
Apparently his emphasis is on free speech. He made a point to recall a verbal encounter with a store clerk while he was on a stopover in Osaka, Japan, in which he was told that the shop had closed and he was to put back the merchandise he'd selected. After a sharp exchange of words, the writer/traveler, identified at the bottom of his lengthy article as Donnie Ellis, says he told the clerk: "Now I understand why we bombed you guys." He says he got a dirty look from the shop's security guard. No kidding. Another goodwill ambassador for fine old-fashioned American values. Maybe he should have mentioned he was from near Oak Ridge.
...Only Following Orders
Knoxville Fire Department Chief Gene Hamlin called chief's meetings this week to discuss his plans to revise the fire department's Manual of Policies and Guidelines concerning regulations "regarding chain of command and outside interference."
Fire Department sources believe the changes Hamlin proposes are a direct result of a well-publicized controversy that grew out of the two-alarm fire that destroyed warehouses owned by Neely Produce late last month. The on-scene incident commander, Assistant Chief Kenneth "Red" Lowe, asked to be relieved of duty when Hamlin came on the scene and began to contramand Lowe's orders. Under Hamlin's command, the fire, which was virtually extinguished when Hamlin arrived, soon flared up and became a two-alarmer again. Strain ensued between Lowe and Hamlin.
Under the new regulations, in part, "All orders that are given by a superior officer are to be obeyed, whether or not the superior officer is that individual's immediate and direct supervisor. Any violation of this policy may result in immediate disciplinary action up to and including termination..."
July 26, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 30
© 2001 Metro Pulse
| 
