Recent Toxic Fumes: Voluntary Unnatural Disasters

I just have to note that this column was written in mid- and late-September, when the Vols were still a Top 10 team. I love being prescient. 

"Toxic Fumes" appears in East Tennessee's Environmental Journal, The Hellbender Press (http://www.hellbenderpress.com/).

Voluntary Unnatural Disasters

By Scott McNutt

Now that Hurricane Katrina has shown that FEMA is prepared for a national disaster like a turkey is prepared for Thanksgiving dinner, it's time to fret over the potential local disasters we invite upon ourselves.

And when I speak of potential local disasters, I'm not referring to mismanaged road construction (appalling though it may be), bungled developer selection for the World's Fair Park (appalling though it may be), or Stacey Campfield (appalling though it may be).

I'm not even talking about more serious potential local disasters such as a sudden, catastrophic failure of Norris Dam, massive, cataclysmic radiation leaks from the Oak Ridge nuclear facilities, or the very real, very scary risk of terrorist bombings posed by the reopening of the City-County Building's garage.

No, I'm talking about UT football. It's a disaster -- a lot of disasters -- waiting to happen, and some that are already happening. And I don't mean Erik Ainge.

For instance, during each UT home game, on average, 90,000 pounds of garbage is deposited in Neyland Stadium. Given six home games per year, that's 540,000 pounds of garbage Vol game attendees send to landfills each year. And that figure doesn't even begin to capture the staggering amount of refuse we UT fans create in our lust to vicariously participate in the Large Citrus rituals.

How much garbage is generated in all the bars and restaurants in Knoxville by all the fans mindlessly consuming their nachos and beer while spellbound by the action on the giant-screen TVs? Add to that all the potato peelings shed by us sofa spuds who merely loll at home and stuff our faces during the games. The final tally of waste begot as a result of UT football games probably exceeds the gross national product of Papua New Guinea.

And what about allthe exhaust-belching vehicles that convey all those fans to those games? Knoxville's already in nonattainment status for its ozone levels. But six times a year we probably burn a hole in the ozone layer above Shields-Watkins Field. A TVA coal-fired power plant may be environmentally friendlier than UT football.

Of course, as disasters go, these are merely incremental environmental disasters. The potential is there for abrupt annihilation, too. Disregard for a moment the obvious allure a capacity-full Neyland Stadium would have for terrorists. Sure, drop a middling-sized bomb there during a game, and -- blam! -- Joe Insurgent has severely afflicted the South Eastern Conference football schedule for at least two weeks.

Hell, if you're a terrorist and you simply want to prove you have the power to inflict visceral harm in America's heartland, you could infiltrate the athletic department's entertainment staff and schedule as the halftime show a televised tribute to Kenny Chesney. Then bring out Rene Zellweger to perform. Thousands would be trampled to death in the resultant panicked, stampeding flight, while the nation looked on in horror at the absolute lack of talent displayed in the show.

Back to the more serious perils. Oak Ridge National Laboratories commissioned a study a few years back on the effects of releasing a smallpox germ during a packed home game at Neyland. But who needs smallpox germs when you have 90,000 pounds of garbage?

According to UT, that trash arrived at the stadium as wrappers, cups, containers and accessories for the 25,000 hot dogs, 3,500 sausages, 3,000 chicken sandwiches, 3,000 pizzas and 100,000 soft drinks that are consumed at an average game. If you were a terrorist, and you wanted to do something truly devastating at a UT football game, but you didn't have access to highly controlled substances like smallpox germs, what could you do? The simplest thing would be to infiltrate the stadium food service and spike the consumables with a substance so vile, so loathsome, so repulsive, and yet so easily obtainable in the South that, if the North knew how awful this substance really was, it would fight the Civil War all over again, only this time to force the South to secede. Yes, if you really want to commit mayhem, lace all the stadium concessions with chitlins.

I don't know what goes in chitlins, but I do know this: They are disgusting. If UT concessions were tainted with them, the resulting gastronomic burst would set off earthquake monitors in Djibouti. The toilet system of Neyland Stadium would be overloaded by the most noisome, reeking, pestilential human emissions imaginable, and the Tennessee River would be designated a disaster zone for the next 500 years. The residual poisonous cloud would be visible from orbiting spacecraft. The probability cannot be discounted of a category 5 hurricane being created when all 110,000 occupants of the stadium simultaneously passed gas from all their intestinally connected orifices.

Do you honestly believe that the FEMA is prepared to provide chitlin relief to some middling Southeastern town? Don't be absurd. Knoxville must face the chitlin threat alone. My suggestion? Build chitlin containment walls with the 540,000 pounds garbage from UT home games.

You may not take the chitlin menace seriously. That's OK. It's farfetched. Do take the garbage seriously. It's going to be with us for a long, long time.

Roadkill on the road to progress - First "Yikes!"

This is the first Yikes! I had published, seven or eight years ago. Given Knoxville's current road work blitz, it seemed appropriate to reprint.

Construction Zone

Are we but roadkill on the road to progress?

by Scott McNutt

Today I'd like to use this space to talk about something positive in Knoxville; a something that touches Knoxvillians' lives in an intimate way, but a something whose touch is often unfairly castigated. I am referring, of course, to road construction.

I know what you're thinking: "Are you always an idiot, or did you take special stupid pills this morning?" But think what road construction really means for you, the average driver. Sure, it means waiting in long lines of traffic, missing your dinner and little Tiffany's piano recital. True, it means enduring moronic drive-time traffic reporters blathering about "fender benders" while making inane banter with the disc jockeys. Maybe it means leaning on the horn when some self-serving jerk zips around the line of law-abiding drivers that you've been patiently waiting in for the last 37 minutes.

Yes, it may even mean yanking your car out of that line of traffic and trying to chase after the thoughtless jerk, only to be cut off by someone else, leaving you cursing and shaking your fist and futilely shooting a bird at his receding taillights.

Sure, it means all that, and all I can say about it is that I only do it in emergencies or when I just can't take any more of the DJ's drive-time chatter. So don't take these things so personally, average driver. In fact, in such situations, don't pay attention to fellow drivers like me at all. Instead, contemplate, with pride, what road construction delays mean for you.

That's right: "with pride." Road construction signifies progress. And progress means the economy is booming. And a booming economy means that you, personally, must be getting richer. So, let's say you're stuck in traffic again, waiting for the rolling road blocks to let you loose on I-75. Now let's say that I, not being stupid enough to sit there with you, zoom past you on the shoulder. Rather than cursing me for not being as stupid as you, why not count the money that's rolling into your bank account instead?

Don't think I haven't hadthe same experience. Last summer, I enjoyed all this progress first-hand. For a while, every major thoroughfare between West and North Knoxville was under construction. That's right: So much "progress" was being made on the main roads between Pellissippi Parkway and Clinton Highway that I could make no progress at all between my home and office. What had been a routine 15-minute commute became a snail-paced, hour-long nightmare. But did I whine about it? Heck no! I thought proudly of our percolating economy and drove back roads like I was starring in a remake of White Line Fever. Sometimes I even made the trip in less than 15 minutes. Of course, a few of the nearby woodland creatures may not have survived the experience.

Which brings up another benefit of road construction: pest control. Think about all those annoying creatures that used to ravage your pitiful attempts at gardening. You don't have to worry about them messing with you anymore! Nor do you have to be bothered with the temptation to take home some cute, furry, orphaned bunny that you would have named "Thumper." Nope! All such critters are now spread over the pavement like cheez-whiz on a cracker, appetizers for the scavenger set.

The most important benefit of road construction, though, is that it discourages people, meaning you, average driver, from going anywhere at all in your car. For instance, one day last year, I tried to go to South Knoxville from downtown via the Gay Street Bridge. I couldn't, of course: the Gay Street Bridge was closed. So I didn't go; in fact, I realized that nobody ever needs to go South Knoxville. I mean, what's there? They tore down the Chapman Highway Drive-In years ago, so what's the attraction now? Besides, for all I know, you really can't go to South Knoxville anymore. It's probably one big road construction site by now.

Which is what I think our goal should be: more road construction. Lots more. Forget the Riverfront, forget the Smokies' stadium, forget the World's Fair site (I mean those of you who haven't already), forget all that piddly stuff. And quit looking at the Turkey Creek construction project as another instance of development run amuck. It is, but that's not the point. The point is that Knoxville has a grand opportunity to mark its spot in the history books. If we all work together, Knoxville could become the first city ever in the history of the world to have every one of its roads under construction at the same time. (Babylon came close in 986 B.C., but one overzealous road crew foreman named "Fred" kept getting his crew to finish on time and under budget. The city council had him drawn and quartered, but by then the other crews had finished too.)

Think of it: All the interstates and all the major thoroughfares would have bulldozers crawling over them. All the main roads, boulevards, avenues, etc., would have road crews furiously tearing up the asphalt then racing off, leaving behind only "road closed" signs. All the little courts, points, loops, traces, and every way everywhere would have crews standing around leaning on their shovels, blocking traffic. Nobody would go anywhere.

What an achievement! Remember, because road construction equals progress equals a booming economy, we would all be rich, even though we wouldn't be able to drive to the mall to spend our new-found wealth. We could even write a book about the experience. We'd call it Roadkill on the Road to Progress: Cities Who Love Road Construction Projects and the Road Construction Projects Who Hate Them. Then, all 160,000+ of us Knoxvillians would be invited to appear on Oprah. Of course, we couldn't all fit on the set, so Oprah would have to do a live, remote broadcast from Knoxville. If she didn't get stuck in the traffic, that is.

Earlier Toxic Fumes: Underdeveloper and proud of it!

This is the latest Toxic Fumes column The Hellbender Press has run (written under the pseudonym Robin Goodfellow). The Hellbender can be read at http://www.hellbenderpress.com/.  

Underdeveloper and proud of it!

by Robin Goodfellow  

 Disclaimer: The following column contains wildly abusive language, full of gross stereotyping, sweeping insinuations and blanket condemnations of a certain species of occupation. Which is not to say it's wrong.

Why did God invent utilities? To give developers something besides the weather to blame for project delays. Curious, isn't it? Despite having to build everything they've ever built in the rain, no developer has ever developed a project schedule that realistically accounts for weather delays. Any time there's a dry spell, "unexpected utilities problems" serve as a good scapegoat. For certain, the one thing that will not be blamed for delays is the developer.

Ever hear the story of the First Developer? It appears to be Biblical in origin, first appearing in "Numbers" as an allegory involving a poodle. The First Developer appeared when early Hebrews were ready to move out of the dank, smelly caves they were living in and settle down as urbanites. Tribal, shepherding folk, they were accustomed to holding their possessions in common, so they decided to pool their resources and create the first publicly funded housing development.

There were those who argued that the smelly old caves held a certain primitive charm and that their adaptive reuse should be the tribe's next project. This is how historic preservationists were born.

The low bidder who got the project kept pushing back and pushing back the completion date, until everybody was utterly fed up and called for a review of the project ledgers. The First Developer sent his accountant over to meet with the tribal elders while workers finished up his stupendous luxury yacht, the funding for which had been a subject of intense speculation among his neighbors.

At the very moment the tribal elders announced that the books, and therefore the developer's goose, were cooked, the mother of all downpours hit, and the whole project and almost everyone on Earth was destroyed in a great flood. The developer's ark was completed just in time to allow survival to this day of "the weather" as the best excuse for project delays.

Humankind has constructed things in all weather for untold centuries. Yet, from all this experience developers have had working in the elements, they seem unable to recognize natural forces' effect on their work, and the effect of their work on nature. Is it too much to ask them to acknowledge that runoff from their construction sites pollutes nearby streams? That denuding great swaths of land of vegetation increases erosion and flooding and destroys fragile wildlife habitat? Then again, these are men incapable of grasping the concept that it rains in the rainy season.

This, of course, is why developers are not trusted to take care of such details themselves. Instead, laws minimizing environmental impact are promulgated by government, and standards for meeting these laws are formalized in contracts concluded between the public's governmental representatives and the developers. Thus are the public's interests safeguarded. Still, writing a standard into a contract is one thing, enforcing it is another. The devil is in the details. Why did the devil build hell from scratch? Because he was scared to sign a contract with a developer.

Besides the difficulty in ensuring that developers abide by environmental standards, do their work in a timely manner, and fulfill the terms of their contracts, another problem with them is, simply, getting a worthwhile result. A much-ballyhooed standard for development bandied about in downtown Knoxville states, approximately, that the removal of any existing structure is acceptable, as long as what replaces it is better.

Even under this nebulous standard, can the Turkey Creek development be called an improvement over its previous state? Are Market Square and Krutch Park better now than before? Will the Knox County Farmer's Market be better as a Target? Will TVA's riverfront property be better in the loving care of private developers?

Does a tree grow in Brooklyn? No, because some damn developer bulldozed it down to build something ugly and shoddy. Use developers if you must, but watch them like hawks, and wash your hands afterward.

Disclaimer: The preceding column was prejudiced, uncharitable, mean-spirited and just plain nasty. It was exaggerated to the point of caricature. Plus, it ignored the many public projects in which the developers' work is timely, cost-conscious, and satisfactory overall. It was an expression of the frustration inherent in all public projects, where all interestswill be disappointed in some respects, and the people who do the work, the developers, always get blamed, often unjustly. Which is not to say it was wrong.

Old Yikes!: Urban Removal

This is one of my early Yikes! columns (circa 1998) that never made it on line. With the James Agee Park in Fort Sanders having recently been much in the news, this might be relevant to those who can remember the Fort's latest last stand.

 

Urban Removal

The James Agee Memorial Big Gaping Maw That Once Was Fort Sanders

by Scott McNutt

The community-spirited, historically and aesthetically minded Hysteric Fort Sanders Neighborhood Association has lost the battle it's been waging against Just Pancake It, AKA the money-grubbing, Weasel Developers. How did it happen? Heck if I know.

The outcome may have been determined simply by someone inducing "Bulldog" Ashe to roll over. If this is what occurred, I assume the Association tried reasoning with him, while the Weasels cannily went to the heart of the matter and scratched him behind the ears, patted his tummy, and gave him little bacon treats. Unfortunately, with the lure of a $5,000 bacon-flavored tidbit, the Weasels have now made the Association roll over and play dead, too.

That may sound unaesthetic, but let's be realistic: Who did Fort Sanders have on its side? Concerned citizens, activists, historians, artists, musicians, poets, small children, pets, kudzu…pretty much everybody except City Hall, right?

Now, who did the Weasels have on their side? Money. So who was City Hall inevitably going to side with? Right, we're back to rubbing Trader Vic's tummy again. And as repulsive as that may sound to you, Weasels have no compunctions. You can't really blame the Association for drawing the inescapable, obvious conclusion, dropping its compunctions, and offering up its belly, too.

Strangely, despite this obvious surrender and the evidence of a big, dirty, gaping, barren spot on 11th Street that used to be a row of beautiful homes, the Association is still making noises like "bring the neighborhood together" and "promote unity," as if it truly can't see what's going on. Maybe it's difficult for an organization so devoted to the preservation of the past to recognize that it has no future.

Wake up and smell the construction, people. Fort Sanders is already too far gone, hemorrhaging from a dozen mortal wounds. The buzzards and weasels are now simply stripping chunks of meat off the neighborhood's dying carcass. For you good citizens who want to preserve the Fort Sanders neighborhood, I havea "modest proposal": Forget it.

Follow the Association's example and go with the flow. Cease your pointless struggle against urban renewal and put the Fort out of its misery with a single, swift, killing stroke. In other words, stomp the sucker flat. Rip the neighborhood up by its foundations, tear down every last priceless piece of Victorian architecture, and embrace our cookie-cutter condominium destiny.

Everyone who loves Fort Sanders, pitch in! Destroy something precious and vital today! Where once was the most diverse, fun, and convenient neighborhood in the city, just trash everything and leave a huge, vacant, yawning chasm. And when I say "everything," I am, of course, excluding all UT and Fort Sanders hospital property, and all parking meters.

Now, I have some suggestions about what use we might make of the Big Hole That Used To Be Fort Sanders. But first, to make it sound more prestigious, I propose that we append a phrase to the front of Knoxville's Big Pit O' Damnation. The phrase is "The James Agee Memorial --" plus whatever we happen to call The Big Gaping Maw That Was Once Fort Sanders And Is Now The Gateway To Hell. I suggest this particular phrase because Agee was such a good sport when his childhood home in Fort Sanders was torn down for an apartment complex back in the sixties. Of course, this may be explained by his being dead when it happened.

My first suggestion for how to use The James Agee Memorial Big Black Hole Sucking The Life Essence Out Of Knoxville is to turn it into a landfill. What could be more natural? After all, we have no use for this unique historical neighborhood, but we always need more dumps. Besides, given the treatment the neighborhood gets every fall from the influx of Vol lemmings and every day from the absentee landlords, you'll have to admit that Fort Sanders already pretty much is a dump. And think how convenient (and symbolic) a landfill at the center of the city would be!

Another possible use for The James Agee Memorial Scarred, Pitted, Ruined Landscape That Prisoners Of War Should Be Shot And Dumped In is to turn it over to its original owners, meaning the Cherokees. They could build a casino on the site and call it The James Agee Memorial Big Teepee By The Tennessee River Casino Resort.

In this venture, I vow that I would do my share. Because I am part Cherokee, I personally guarantee that I will assumejoint ownership of the club and reap vast profits while ignoring the plight of the poor Knoxvillians who gamble their life savings away in my casino.

My last idea for the use of The James Agee Profusely Bleeding Hole Shot Straight Through The Heart Of Knoxville is to just leave it as is. I think having an enormous, raw, devastated, muddy space where Fort Sanders once was would precisely symbolize the hole in the soul of our city.

In a ghoulish, slow-down-as-you-pass-a-car-wreck sort of way, it would attract tourists from far and wide who would want to see what could happen in their own cities, given the right amount of mental myopia from their local officials. Of course, to accommodate the constant flow of visitors to The James Agee Memorial Big Ol' Hole In The Center Of The City, we'd have to build a parking lot where Sequoyah Hills is now. Maybe we could put in a cell phone transmission tower while we're at it.

Old New Column: Toxic Fumes, The Litterati

A few months back, I started writing a humor column for East Tennessee's Environmental Journal, The Hellbender Press (http://www.hellbenderpress.com/), under the pseudonym Robin Goodfellow. Here's the first one.

The Litterati

We have met the litterbug, and he is squashing us

By Robin Goodfellow

Litter is a problem, and we are all party to it. Some of us may be litter-littles while others are litter-lottas, but we all contribute. We are all litterati.

Part of our problem may be natural. After all, we are animals, and many animals don’t clean up after themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stepped barefoot into my backyard only to yank my foot back, yipping in pain and surprise, the shard of a half-eaten walnut shell imbedded in my foot, deposited by a squirrel indifferent to the concept of "litter."

I’ve stepped into much worse remnants as well, such as leftovers from predatory repasts and the inevitable excretions that are their consequence. All sorts of animals leave their trash in my yard. Why should I, no less an animal, care where I leave my litter?

Our problem is also cultural. We are so conditioned to living with trash, we scarcely see it. On a recent walk through downtown Knoxville, I made an effort to see my environment. And I saw. I saw legions of gum wrappers dancing on the wind, tree planters that could have been ashtrays for all the cigarette butts choking them, curbs overflowing with discarded fast-food containers, plastic soda bottles, chips bags, and other detritus, dog turds sprouting on every greensward. On seemingly every street corner were metal bins the size of freight trucks, whose sole function is as repositories for our larger litter – toilets for the waste pouring forth from downtown’s "revitalization."

What I saw was that we, as a culture, accept litter large and small, actual and symbolic, as a part of life. We must. How else could that repulsive, that hideous, that grotesque bulk, the Knoxville Convention Center, come to be squatting on a prime piece of downtown real estate, plopped there like the bowel movement of a fantastical, cubist elephant?

Yes, the rubbish of our lifestyles sums to more than literal litter. If we have garages crammed with unused, but somehow "necessary," junk (as I do), we are litterati. If we have cars dribbling fluids and belching fumes (as I do), weare litterati. If we advertise on the billboard eyesores that clot our landscape, that is litter. If we purchase goods from those advertisers (as I do), we are litterati. I am casting no stones. I’m as litterati as the next gal.

But our cultural failings as a whole are even grander. What makes us a litterati society is reckless, wasteful, exorbitant consumption. And virtually all of us partake. Almost all of us, indulging our lifestyles, buy into some aspect of our consumerist society. We concede small points or large in our desire for "more" or "easier" or "faster," making us as culpable for the resultant destruction to our environment as the litterattiest.

So, if we stood by while taxpayer money built that cathedral of false profits, the Knoxville Convention Center, we are litterati. If we concede without protest when an arctic wildlife preserve is drilled for oil, we are litterati. If we turn blind eyes (and pinched noses) to relaxed emissions standards for coal-fired plants, we are litterati.

Because, you see, we know better. True, we are animals like other animals. But we are unlike them as well, aren’t we? Whether from divine revelation to the spirit or rational examination leading to mind’s enlightenment, humans should know better than to exhaust and foul their environment. Yet, no "Homo sapiens," no wise human beings, are we. "Bestia quod plus sapere debet,"* that’s humankind: The animal that ought to know better.

And as long as we know better but act worse, we will be litterati.

*Thanks to Maria at "Ask an Expert" (http://www.allexperts.com) for help with the Latin translation.

Last Snarls

Only where love and need are one,

And the work is play for mortal stakes,

Is the deed ever really done

For Heaven and the future's sakes.

-- Robert Frost, "Two Tramps in Mud Time"

 

Living Your Obituary

Here lies…ahead truth?

by Scott McNutt

Marching along a downtown sidewalk, the ramrod-stiff psychopath barked at passing pedestrians, "You're living your obituaries!" He bellowed more, but I was arrested by that single phrase.

The words snatched my attention because I'm dying. No news there, of course. We're all born dying, the seeds of our own destruction sown within us at inception. So forewarned, we should each live in persistent cognizance of our gathering twilight. And mostly we do, mostly by puffing up the significance of now, healthing up to fend off inescapable decline, siring offspring to perpetuate our line, or trusting in a promised hereafter.

As the still-raging lunatic passed from view, his epithet clung in my brain, a gift of clarity in a chattering world. Seriously, it’s not morbid. Out of roaring chaos, "living your obituary" offers a path to serenity. In small ways, I’ve tried to make my life meaningful. Through work I have pursued and causes I have aided, I’ve hoped to accomplish "something." And when that felt inadequate, I've used confidence enhancements, ego inflaters, and soul supplements to attain a sense of significance. None of it worked.

Life, to me, has always seemed to be just living, no more, no less, no matter how much purpose I tried to infuse into it. But "living your obituary" invites new perspective. What the madman meant, I think, is that each moment lived is a testament. He intended it as a condemnation. I heard an affirmation. Living your obituary is living the life you want remembered.

I am not talking about wielding your faith as a cudgel, fustigating nonbelievers to manifest your own righteousness. After all, if you consider battling enemies more important than embracing friends, well, there are more would-be Napoleons in our mental institutions than in our combat zones. Ponder carefully before you commit to being commemorated by the causes you fight for.

Nor am I talking about constructing flashy edifices with public funds or making splashy donations to immortalize yourself as a person of consequence. Living for his legacy has left Victor Ashe memorialized as the architect of a state-of-the-art, cash-digesting cow of a Convention Center that’s currently grazing on Knoxville’s tax dollars. Substance is not measured by money spent or buildings built.

Living your obituary is being who you are, finding your avocation, and pursuing it as best you can. If you aspire to juggle 27 capuchin monkeys left-handed while bouncing on a pogo stick atop the Sunsphere, follow that bliss, sister! Come to think of it, if that’s what living your obituary means, and your passion really is raising enormous, civic erections funded with citizen’s moolah, or gleefully condemning others because their sexuality involves rubbing together different body parts than you do, then have at. Be all the mooch or bigot you can be.

All of which brings us to this column’s conclusion, literally. I am ending Snarls before it rear-ends me. Let it be clear: Metro Pulse did not present me an ultimatum, like "assimilate or die." Nor has CRACKDOWN (the Committee of Republicans to Anoint & Crown Karl [Rove] Dark Overlord of the World, Now!) sent black-hatted emissaries to silence me, threatening to reveal photos that the secret police took of me checking indecent materials out of the library. Nobody has abridged my freedom of speech. I have been doing that, unconsciously.

I've been lying to myself. It's one thing to lie to you, the readers, whom I disdain, but another entirely to lie to me, whom I esteem. No, I'm kidding. Lying to others, lying to yourself, each is equally abhorrent. The difference is, when I lie to others, they usually intuit it and quickly confront me, but when I lie to myself, I'm usually the last to know.

And so it is. I have realized only just now that I have been self-censoring. Maybe I can’t catch the scent of the conservative odour of the times. Maybe I could never get the sense of the new Metro Pulse, where old stories seem cherished, but old employees depart on a pace like the slowing pulse of a deathbed patient. Or maybe I'm just getting old and jelly-spined. I don't know.

What I do know is, recently, I have left columns unwritten, fearing the topics were taboo (example: "Developers: rapacious devils or merely scheming demons?"). In columns I’ve finished, I now realize I dampened inflammatory humor. But a mewling Snarls is not worthy of its title. A Snarls that whines should change its name to Tom DeLay.

"His snarls became whimpers" is not what I want in my obituary. So this is farewell. To thosewhom Snarls consternated, I say, ha-ha.To those whom Snarls entertained, I say thank you. For those interested in more Snarls, a collection of links to most of my previous columns is accessible with an AOL or AOL Instant Messenger account (I know, I know) at http://journals.aol.com/smcnutt338/MrMean.

Maybe I’ll get a real cyber-repository in the future. And rest assured (or uneasy, depending), I will be spewing my spleen in other venues later. Just now, though, I got some obituarying to do.

http://www.metropulse.com/articles/2005/15_18/snarls.shtml

Latest Snarls

Ends Means Justify

Hint: they don’t

by Scott McNutt

As the old saw goes, the only surprising thing is that people are unsurprised at the continuing revelations in the petty email theft among local Republicans, dubbed GOPhergate by the pundits. (I prefer GOPjape, GOPgaffe or Harberbate myself; that "gate" reference is so stale.) Does it matter that the main suspect in the case was a trusted operative of County Mayor Mike Ragsdale? Does anyone care that Ragsdale continued to deny he knew who left the stolen emails in his office days after the perpetrator was supposedly revealed to him? Apparently Knox Countians don’t. People seem to be taking the position of, "Well, it’s just politics. That’s what politicians do."

And that’s right, it is what politicians do. This is what party politics is all about. It's not about the good of the city, state, country or electorate. Mostly, it's not even about the good of the party. It's about the thirst for power, totally impure and absolutely corrupting, even when the target for corruption is only the tiny pond of Knox County politics and the power is only that of a sad little toady who thought an elephant’s kiss had turned him into a prince.

Perhaps people are now too jaded to be piqued by small scandals. Maybe voters still recall how deep, dirty, and enduring were the floodwaters after Watergate broke. Possibly they remember the wrists slapped in the Bill Frist flap over the aide whose cyber-fingers were caught in the Democratic cookie jar. Perchance we still reflect on the as-yet unresolved game the Bush administration is playing with Valerie Plame’s name. Maybe, just maybe, We, The People, finally know we see only the tip of the dunghill that is party politics.

After all, power plays, cronyism and corruption -- party politics wouldn't be the same without them. To be reminded that, to politicians, the end always justifies the means, we need look no further than the current presidential administration: "We invaded Iraq because it had Weapons of Mass Destruction! What’s that? It doesn't? Well, gosh darn, we coulda sworn...Well then, we invaded Iraq because it was harboring terrorists! What? Not until after we invaded did it become a haven for terrorists? OK, our bad- whoops, not our ba-, ah, our faul-, ah, ah, I mean, OK, now, now hear this: WE INVADED IRAQ TO BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE LITTLE CHILDREN IN THE MIDDLE EAST WHO DON'T HAVE ANY. Y'all like that? You do? Good gosh all mighty,all righty then!That's our story and we're stickin' to it. What's more, that was always our story and we always stuck with it! You never heard anything otherwise. All we ever talked about were waves and waves of democracy washing over the children of the desert. We were always saying we were bringing democracy to the little children who got none."

Bush’s snuffling about for a war justification was so overt, maybe we’re just desensitized to outlandish political stunts. So maybe the lack of public outrage at a local, relatively minor, in-party spat is also understandable. But it is sad nonetheless. It appears more and more people are coming to believe that, because politicians are scum, they will always behave scummily, no exceptions. And while I don’t argue with the sentiment, it leaves us with an untenable state of affairs. Scum they may be, but they’re our scum. It’s up to us to keep our scum in check.

To bring this maundering essay back to our own little cesspond, what should be made of the Haslam administration's cheerleading the demolition of the much-beloved Sprankle Building? Well, we should expect the city to get more than Home Federal's promise to stay downtown. Free checking and a toaster, at least. Haslam is, after all, scion of deal-master Big Jim. Surely, some of that savvy rubbed off. But even if Knoxville gets a good return on its acquiescence, City Mayor Haslam should not be given a free pass on his silence.

Last fall, Haslam announced he would be given a 45-day notice of Home Federal's decision to proceed with the Sprankle's demolition. If he was given such notice, why wasn't the public? If the mayor knew, then it's an abuse of the public trust to keep silent on so significant an issue. The ends do not, can never, justify the means. No matter how good the payoff, even if the payoff is in the city’s interest, the mayor had no right to withhold information from the public. Not even if We, the People, get the free checking, the toaster, and the super-size broiler pan.

That's why the public must vigilantly skim its pond scum, er, watch the means politicians take to their ends. Haslam seems mostly well-intentioned thus far. But now he has broken the public trust. Left unchallenged on the matter, he’ll be inclined to do it again. Before long, he’ll believe he’s Prince Charming and order all the other toads out of the pond or something equally heinous. If we don't monitor our politicians, we will find that we, the people, have become the means to the end. If we haven't already.

http://www.metropulse.com/articles/2005/15_14/snarls.shtml

Next-to-Latest Snarls

One Hit, Onederful

Ode to 'Ode to Billy Joe' and others  

by Scott McNutt

Whoomp, there it is, 15 minutes of fame. Hey Macarena! Tell Tchaikovsky the news. No, not Huey Lewis and-. They were hot, hot, hot in the ’80s and lame now, but I’m talking about groups like the JoBoxers that just got lucky when they thought they were making their dreams come true.  

Some readers may chortle at the hope held by the likes of David Naughton, thinking he was dy-no-mite, makin’ it as a hot child in the city. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the joke that if life is a highway, Tom Cochrane is roadkill. The impression I get is that many music aficionados feel these flashes in the pan are too blind to see it and need to just live and learn.

Some may go so far as to say one-hit wonders got no reason to live, like short people. But believe it or not, as Randy Newman would probably tell you, having a single hit single is neither da bomb nor a bitch.  

For a little while they’re swinging on a star. Eventually, these interim “in” things may have to move on and get a job. But, gee whiz, a pop-charting single isn’t a wipeout, even if the critics demand more, more, more. As the years go by, one-hit wonders can hold their heads up. They realize better than the rest of us that precious and few are the moments you get to break your stride and stop to smell the rose garden, especially one that wasn’t promised to you.  

Besides, how long has it got to go on before success is called success? So what if it’s only a season in the sun or an afternoon’s delight? Isn’t it enough that they’re in the driver’s seat right here, right now?  

Maybe these wannabe-stars are fooling themselves to think the future’s so bright, they gotta wear shades, but so what? Who are you to disturb this groove? Who do you think you are? Mr. Big Stuff? Rico Suave? If you can honestly say that nothing compares to you, then you can tell me goodbye. If not, then there’s never been any reason to be cruel to be kind of superior. You get what you give, you know?  

True, some flavors of the month do stink to high heaven like a dead skunk in the middle of the road. As often as not, they let it all hang out, and the result is “She’s Like the Wind,” “Breakin,” or “Feelings.” On the other hand, try writing a better feel-good groove than King Harvest’s “Dancing in the Moonlight,” coming up with the sequel to Sheb Wooley’s “Purple People Eater” or inventing another fad to follow Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy-BreakyHeart.” We ain’t got nothin’ yet, do we?  

Figuring out how to put the bomp in the bomp, bomp, bomp, or the yeah in the yeah, yeah, yeah isn’t easy. Lightnin’ strikes like magic for a few, but everything falls apart for most. No doubt many acts shot a hole in their soul with their one shot at success, and even if you don’t treat no-repeat pop charters like they’re walking on sunshine, you don’t have to be insensitive about it.  

All right now, for what it’s worth, here’s my midnight confession: One-hit wonders ring my bell, they light up my life. No surprises, there, I know. But I can’t help it. Like being torn between two lovers in a third-rate romance, I’m hooked on the feeling.  

Not that I would even if I could. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm. One-hit wonders, I love you always forever. And there are more and more like me. So this elitist dismissal of one-hit wonders? We’re not gonna take it. We’re going to whip it, whip it good. There ain’t no stoppin’ us now. But all you pop purists out there, don’t worry, be happy. All we’re saying is, relax, get used to it. In any case, everybody’s free to do as they please in a big country like ours.  

And in the year 2525, who’s going to care anyway?  

http://www.metropulse.com/dir_zine/dir_2005/dir_1510/t_snarls.html

Not-So-Latest Snarls

Forty-two!

The meaning of life?

by Scott McNutt

By the time you read this, our washing machine should have been repaired for the second time in two weeks, another funeral for another friend will have occurred, and I will have turned 42, a number fraught with significance. As any member of AGA (Adult Geeks Anonymous) could tell you, in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels, "42" is the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything.

The catch, natch, is that no one knows the actual question. But I'm skeptical that "42" -- or any explanation of life -- can provide a comprehensible link between the profane (!!@#$&*%!!! washing machine repair) and the profound (another friend gone).

That's just life, right?

Well, for some, life is a riddle, the answer to which is deceptively self-evident: "What's life?" we ask. To which god, or nature, or our own restless intellects reply, "Why, you are! You're alive! Go! Live! Eat, excrete, work, recreate, procreate, sleep, retire, expire!" If you've a religious turn, add "serve god" and "go to heaven/hell" to the equation. Riddle solved, game over.

Is it that simple?

After all, humankind has been pondering the nature of existence ever since some proto-human first smacked rocks together and wondered what she was looking at as she watched the sparks fly. As the old saw goes, humanity's first joke was purely existential. You haven't heard the purported first joke? It was a knock-knock joke, and it goes like this:

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

I don't know.

I don't know who?

I don't know. Punch lines haven't been invented yet.

Just as the aspiring stand-up caveman didn't know the stinger to his own gag, we can never really know the answer to the question of our own existence, because we are inside it, and it is inside us. Like mirrors, we can't reflect what’s within ourselves. Because of the inherent limitation posed by trying to understand existence while being intermingled with it, all reasoning must ultimately fall short of explaining life, the universe, and everything. Oh heck, that's too generous. Such philosophical acrobatics usually fall flat trying to solve why the chicken crossed the road.

Where were we? Hmm? Oh, yes. By the time you read this I will be 42, the washer might be repaired (again), another grave will have swallowed another friend, there are no explanations, and it’s always been this way. Come in a circle, haven't we?

Life's like that.

So the bleeding heart of the matter, the crux of this rubber biscuit that keeps bouncing back and confounding me, is that I have reached what might be considered a mature age, 42. Yet I've not acquired enlightenment. Illumination escapes me.

Despite my geekly inclination to hope that attaining 42 will provide true sapience, I despair of ever understanding life. Forty-two will become forty-three, as forty-one became forty-two, and each preceding year became the next in succession. In not so many years, the succession will stop, the chain will be broken, as it has been and will be shattered for everyone who's been and everyone who's to come. As the popular joke in plague-decimated Europe went:

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Mort.

Mort who?

Mortality.

I can't grasp the meaning of an existence from which all are cruelly snatched, and so many so capriciously. Blown to pieces by a bomb in Beirut; leveled by a heart attack while reclining on a couch; crumpled by a brain aneurysm leaving class; savagely beaten and pushed head first out of a speeding car; ravaged by a rare cancer that "young people don't get." That’s just life, right? Life cut short, maybe, but still, that’s life. So I happened to know them, so what?

So there are the loved ones you have lost. And those lost to every other person reading this, and every other human on the planet, from the dawn until the end of time. And soon enough, each of us will be cut off as well. What enlightenment could possibly explain such whimsically relentless fate?

And how could any wisdom reconcile death and the fact that it's still important to get the damn washer fixed (again)? To finish this column by deadline (again)? To dress up again for the next funeral when the next friend dies?

Forty-two years of existence, and all I can say is, that's life? Yes, I have no illumination. All I have is this:

Love. Forgive. Accept. Endure. And while you can, if you can, laugh.

Knock, knock...

 

http://www.metropulse.com/dir_zine/dir_2005/dir_1505/t_snarls.html

Really-Not-So-Latest Snarls

Rich Dubya's Almanack Thingy for 2005
A compendium of advice and platitudes with attitude

by Scott McNutt

Forecasts
National:                                                                                                                                                    It’s my contention I’ve a secret plan to halve the deficit.
What’s my design?
Simply divine:
Through Jesus’ intervention, we'll have less of it.

Global:
Iraq a democracy will be,
or my wrath the Iraqis will see.
But like another George W, I cannot lie,
More Americans are sure to die.
Rational folks demand an explanation,
They forget -- ours is a faith-based nation.

Platitudes
Setting too good an example is a kind of slander seldom forgiven. So do as I say, not as I do.

Experience is an expensive teacher, so never pay your dues.

In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. For the poor, that is.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, allow more executions in Texas.

Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead, and the secret is not about Valerie Plame's CIA work.

Dead fish and Democrats stink after three seconds.

There never was a bad war or a good peace.

Little strokes fell great oaks, but bunker-busting nukes are cool!

Believe in the laissez fairy. The magic of the market will set all things aright.

Attitudes
Be sober and temperate-NOT! Ha, ha. Just kidding. Be those things in the latter part of your life -- after you've done the share you are entitled to of whoring, cocaine snorting, and booze guzzling. Make sure to have your old dad erase that glove compartment full of drunken-driving charges before you run for governor, though.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither, which is why they are living in my country now.

He that won't be counseled can't ever be proven wrong.

The opposition just has an ox to grind and an ax to gore.

It's not what you do or who you know; it's who you do it to and what you threaten to allow others to know about them.

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it at the expense of others.

The three hardest things in the world are steel, diamonds, and to understand yourself. That's why I'm the toughest president there’s ever been!

Advice
Advice on the Art of Conversing: The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear less, and to understand nothing; always to distrust your reason, and that of your friends, but to follow your gut; never to pretend to wit, but to buffoonery, adhere; to hearken not to what is said and to answer as if to another question entirely. And apply sophomoric nicknames to all and sundry.

Advice to a Young Tradesman: Know your place and stay there. This is our country now.

Advice to a Genteel Ne’er-Do-Well: If your birth you so can plan and manage, be the scion of a clan with advantage: Remember that family is money.

Your youth fecklessly waste, but early and often connections make: None know when the quid quo goes pro.

At business, fail early and often, but your own wealth put not at risk. Rather, have family and friends at the ready you out of danger to whisk: Remember, he does not possess wealth who allows it to possess him.

In mid-life, proclaim loudly the changing of your ways and wear proudly on your face your newfound grace: It's vulgar, but so's our culture.

In politics, early and often vote, and urge family and friends your candidacy to promote, especially those in Florida (whether 'tis legal or no, take no note): In such a fashion can anyone take residency in the presidency.

That is, it was the way anyone could attain the presidency BD (Before Dubya); but that was the way I did it, and it's mine now. Nobody else can use it.

See you in 2006.

http://www.metropulse.com/dir_zine/dir_2005/dir_1501/t_snarls.html