|
Calling Reinforcements
Monday's News-Sentinel editorial tsk-tsking the City Council's decision two weeks ago to remove from the upcoming election a referendum on changing the city election cycle to coincide with state and federal elections served to remove any lingering doubt that a new Sentinel editor might have thrown cold ink on the cozy arrangement between the city administration and the daily paper. The election cycle change was widely acknowledged to be Mayor Ashe's pet project. And if anyone needed convincing that Ashe was pulling out all stops in a last-ditch effort to save the referendum, what happened next surely removed any doubt: The editorial was followed later in the day by a suit filed on behalf of former City Councilman Gary Underwood, seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the Election Commission from removing the referendum from the ballot. Underwood might not have been the best person to file suit, however. He did not appear at the City Council vote on the issue or last week's Election Commission meeting on it, and he didn't bother to appear at the Chancery Court hearings for his suit, which apparently did not help his case with the court. The petition was rejected.
Whistle Blowing
That bane of Vol-dom, Linda Bensel-Meyers, was the subject of a Robert Lipsyte column entitled "A YEAR AT SCHOOL: A Whistle-Blower Endures at Tennessee" in The New York TimesSunday. Lipsyte reports that his "favorite whistle-blower" is working on two books: a textbook called Architecture of Argument, an examination of 16th-Century rhetoric as it applies to modern discourse, plus the well-publicized Guarding the Plantation, which is her account of her stormy relationship with Vols' fans.
Lipsyte's sympathetic column reports that "Bensel-Meyers, on her best days, is righteous, intellectual, idealistic and long-suffering, a total mystery to the athletic departments she is aggravating. The woman is not a good sport; after a day of 'fencing' over issues of plagiarism and eligibility, when coaches suggest they go have dinner, she walks off in a huff. 'I'm not here to play some game,' she said. 'That would trivialize something that has consequences for the whole university.'"
Hello, You're on Car Talk
During the popular National Public Radio show Car Talk last Saturday on WUOT, 91.1 FM, Click and Clack took a call from Jim in Knoxville. Jim said his problem was that he was running for sheriff and his friends keep telling him he needs a more macho vehicle than a red Mazda Miata to win, especially when his opponent has six helicopters and a fleet of manly vehicles. Should he get a Ford pickup, he asked. Click and Clack told him it was best to run on his past macho achievements. Take the high road, they said.
The caller was of course Jim Andrews, who is running an aggressive campaign to unseat Tim Hutchison. But, some listeners might have been a bit suspicious of the call. The show was made possible in part from underwriting by Jim Andrews' campaign. Did the donation have anything to do with him getting on the air?
No, Andrews says. The underwriting commitment was made weeks ago, long before Andrews thought about the question, he says.
He says he's emailed Car Talk questions in the past, but they liked this one. A producer had contacted him saying she liked the question. Andrews says he disclosed the fact that he was underwriting the show, which gave her some pause. But, Andrews protested that he shouldn't be treated differently than any other caller because of his donations. They taped his question 10 days before it ran.
July 11, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 28
© 2002 Metro Pulse
| 
