Not Latest Toxic Fumes: Throwing the Trashcans Out with the Trash

The latest Hellbender Press is out, and I'm fortunate enough to have a column in it. But I suggest picking up a hard copy and reading the rest of the mag, too -- especially the editorial.

Check out the web site of East Tennessee's Environmental Journal, at http://www.hellbenderpress.com/ for a table of contents of the latest issue.

Throwing the Trashcans Out with the Trash

By Scott McNutt

This is a story of the Knox County Government.

We once had a beat-up, ratty-looking indoor trashcan. Its lip was cracked, its lid ill-fitting, and its once lustrous white exterior, dulled with age and discolored with countless spilled beers, had dimmed to a grungy, chalky color – to grasp the degree of decrepitude I’m trying to convey, picture Bill Frist’s face as a trashcan. See what I mean?

My wife wanted it gotten rid of -- she not being a fan of Frist -- so on trash collection day, I set it on the curb for pickup next to our big, black outdoor cans. Its plainly poor condition, its empty state, and its out-of-place character I thought would announce to the garbage collectors that this trashcan was itself trash.

We returned home that evening to find the unwanted bin standing next to the other receptacles.

The next week, I carefully lined up the three outdoors cans, then delicately composed the refused refuse container atop them. The resulting arrangement resembled nothing so much as the corpse of an oft-married belle dame sans merci, dressed in her frequently used wedding dress -- now faded, threadbare and dingy -- being borne to her final repose by dark-suited pallbearers, would-be consorts of the great lady during her days upon the earth.

Surely, I thought, if this tableau could inspire me to such flights of achingly bad simile, the overt symbolism of the array must signal to the garbage collectors that this can was destined for the Great Garbage Heap in the Sky.

That evening, there it was, crouched behind its larger cousins, like a wraith returned to haunt the living – or, at least, to irk them.

The following week, I poured as much foul, stench-ridden slop as I could into the increasingly antagonizing can, then crammed it into an outdoor can. When we returned home, it was standing next to the container I had placed it in, looking like Jonah sprung from the whale. And smelling worse.

The next week, I had an inspiration. On garbage collection day, I once again put the wanton indoor can on the curb next to the outdoor cans. To it, I taped a piece of cardboard on which I wrote "THROW THIS AWAY." That evening, it was gone. The sign, I mean. The can remained.

In the end we had no choice but to sell the house and flee, to start life anew far from the influence of the relentless, ineluctable trashcan.

Twelve years ago, Knox Countians resolved to impose term limits on county officeholders. Specifically, they voted that "After January 1, 1995, no individual shall be permitted to hold the same elected office of Knox County government more than two (2) consecutive terms."

After the votes were counted, it was clear that the term-limits resolution had passed. County officials deliberated long and carefully on the matter. After this lengthy, considered discussion, county officials made an announcement. The announcement was that what the voters had meant with this resolution – what they had really, truly meant -- was for only the county law director to be term limited. All other elected county officials declined to vacate their offices. They became the trashcan that couldn’t be trashed.

In response, we Knox Countians shrugged, picked up the old trashcan, brought it back inside, and continued filling and emptying it for another twelve years.

Then a miracle happened. A case involving Shelby County officeholders was decided by the Tennessee Supreme Court in favor of term-limits. It was further adjudicated that the ruling applied to Knox County officeholders, too. Finally, the trashcan would be tossed out!

Since that decision, everybody who could has acted to restrict the impact of the State Supreme Court’s decision. Like the trash collectors who refused to take away the shabby can, The county Powers That Be have done what they could to ensure that the county government would, as much as possible, continue exactly as it has.

So somebody decided it was too late to remove the names of the term-limited county commissioners from the primary ballot. And somebody decided that if these commissioners won their primaries, then their parties could pick their replacements for the general election. Somebody else said, no, dammit, term-limits don’t apply to the sheriff! Because the sheriff is God and nobody term-limits God! Except those darn evolutionists, and they’re wrong.

We won’t even go into the write-in candidates. Because we don’t really care anyway, do we? Because we Knox Countians tend to pay as much attention to the quality of the government we elect as a sphincter pays to what’s passing through it.

Amidst all these rulings, one chancellor did opine that Knox County’s charter form of government may be illegal. So five commissioners have filed suit to have Knox County's charter ruled invalid. If that happens, Knox County would revert to the standard form of county rule per the state constitution, which, naturally, contains no term limits for county commissioners. The five commissioners all solemnly swear on their constituents’ graves that that fact had nothing to do with their suit. And, yes, their constituents will die of old age before these commissioners and The Powers That Be behind them willingly relinquish control. The suit is still pending as of this writing.

Like the cliched cold, dead extremities you must pry loose to take something precious from someone, the local political parties are a moribund hand, and these commissioners are the five frigid fingers still clutching to power by any means possible. Something must be done. And for a problem this serious, the tired "dead hands/grip on power" metaphor won’t do. We’ll return to the trashcan motif, instead.

So, what my wife and I ultimately had to do about our trashcan (flee and start life anew) may apply here. Only in this case, rather than literally fleeing, we Knox Countians may have to distance ourselves from Knox County metaphorically, by tossing its current political structure into the trash. From whence it will return, with all irregularities redeemed, born anew, like the Phoenix, rising from the ashes.

Because they don’t have term-limits in Phoenix. Do they?

Thirteen Pitiful Points -- New Column for New Alternative Mag

Knoxville has a new voice -- Knoxville Voice. You can check out some samples of the kind of stuff they do at http://www.knoxvoice.com/. They were kind enough to ask me to contribute something:

Thirteen Pitiful Points

What to do about voter turnout?

by Scott McNutt

A few weeks ago, the Knox County primaries generated about 33,000 votes, or roughly 13 percent of the approximately 245,000 registered voters in Knox County. This is absolutely outrageous. Something must be done. This creeping rise in voter turnout must be nipped in the bud.

Don’t these 13 percenters recognize the pointlessness of it all? Everything is controlled by the major parties anyway, and besides, no one vote is ever going to make a difference. So why bother? As someone who has voted and been disappointed, I can attest: Nonvoting is the better path. If you haven’t considered nonvoting, please do. Because life would be so much better if only everyone would nonvote.

Mind you, there are those who will not allow for the possibility of achieving zero percent voting. The officials who would know about such things decline, officially, to speculate on the matter. When asked (by email) to comment on what would happen if no one voted in the general election, Knox County Administrator of Elections Greg MacKay replied, "At least until the smoke clears, I have given up answering questions that contain the phrase ‘what would happen if....’"

Also via email, Knox County Law Director Mike Moyers agreed, saying, "I am pretty much in agreement with Greg on this, given the volume of litigation that is in the works."

Moyers went on to say, "I would say that the possibility that no one, including the candidate him/herself, would vote for a candidate on the ballot is far too remote to even speculate about."

You can take Moyers' word for it if you want, and resign yourself to exercising your franchise, voting in the fall elections and thus securing your right to be governed by a government you don’t even like. Yes, you can take that pessimistic, defeatist path and decide that you have no choice but to go ahead and vote.

But you do have a choice! Dadgumit, this is America, known for its fiercely independent streak. Every day, Americans are demonstrating their fierce independence by not doing things that they don’t want to do, like obeying the "walk/don’t walk" sign or flushing afterthey use public toilets.

Why, think of George W. Bush’s old pa, H.W.: He courageously banned a vegetable from the White House and Air Force One, declaring: "I'm President of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli!" Pa Bush is the perfect symbol of the little guy standing up against impossible odds to thwart the implacable will of American Green Vegetable Lobby.

Like H.W. keeping his jaws clenched tightly shut against the broccoli florets determined to throw themselves upon his revolted taste buds, you too can resist when an electronic voting machine suddenly leaps at you from the alleyway, thrusting its buttons at your all-too-vulnerable fingers. You do have a choice. You can run away. You can hide. If we really, really want to, we can all nonvote in the fall elections.

Now, again, you can take the word of government officials like Moyers and MacKay, and believe there is no way possible that no one will vote, or you can take the word of a faceless curmudgeon such as myself, and establish a paradise right here on earth. Because nonvoting would usher in a shining age of peace and contentment in Knox County.

Look at it this way: It stands to reason that if no one voted, then no one would take office. If no one were in office, then nobody can sue anybody to get somebody out of office. (And Wanda Moody and Herb Moncier are two such nobodies, eh?)

And all this hassle with county commissioner term limits and such like? Gone. All that squabbling over how much the school budget should be this year? Forgotten. All those pesky services like tax collection, education, road construction, automobile registration, business certification, law enforcement, and so forth? This is America! We’re Americans! We don’t need the government taxing, collecting, educating, constructing, registering, certifying, enforcing and just generally restricting us. The free market will do all that.

After all, if the government that governs best is the one that governs least, then the government that languishes in limbo must be the ultimate government, the Übermensch of government, the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire champion of government.

Speaking of popular TV shows, if we could get everyone in Knox County to nonvote this fall, we’d be famous. If all 212,000 of us nonvoters convince those other 33,000 deluded voters (or "voterians") to remain neutral in the August general elections, we’ll knock "All Cock Fighting, All The Time" Cocke County off the throne as the most nationally known Tennessee municipality.

It should be easy to sway those 13 percenters not to vote. We’ll use the force of logic and the proud tradition of democracy to prove our case. There are 212,000 nonvoters compared to 33,000 voterians in Knox County. In a democracy, majority rules. Once we demonstrate our nonvoting will is the majority, the would-be voter minority must abide by our decision to nonvote.

How do we demonstrate our numerical superiority on this issue to those fanatic voterians? Perhaps a show of hands? No, bad idea, that’s like voting. Well, there are six and a half of us nonvoters for every one of the voterians; we can just physically restrain them. However we do it, not one person can vote in August. Then fame and fortune will roll into Knox County.

If we achieve zero percent turnout, our accomplishment will be so significant, we’ll be acclaimed from coast to coast. All the big shows, the important shows, would want us. Rush Limbaugh would be calling us. Jay Leno and David Letterman would be racing each other to broadcast their shows live from Knox County with us as their guests.

After that, it’s a natural for at least one network to build a new series around us, a show where other major municipalities would try to match Knox County’s no-vote achievement. They’d call it American Idle. Simon and Paula would stop bickering and try to talk at least one of us newly minted celebrities onto their show to shore up their sagging ratings.

If we keep our nonvoting record unsullied in the coming years, more of our American dreams of celebrity and status will come true. Jeff Probst would keep us in the limelight with Survivor: Knox County, where zealous wannabe voters from other parts of the country are dropped here to try to register and vote with only their new proofs of residency to aid them. Knox Countians, naturally, would strive vigilantly to preserve our sweetly hygienic nonvoting record.

All of this is within our grasp. All that must be done is to stop the 13 percenters. Only they are standing between Knox County and glory. For the good of the many, the few, the 1.3 of every 10 Knox Countians, must be prevented from mindlessly and futilely voting in the general elections in the fall.

Yes, it’s a grand dream. There’s only one problem. It won’t work. Ultimately, sad as I am to admit it, Moyers and MacKay are right. Somebody will vote. No matter how hard the rest of us try to forget that we live in a country where our vote can make a difference, somebody always remembers. No matter how much we strain to be indifferent to who governs us, somebody always cares. No matter how fervently we wish otherwise, somebody will always vote.

And we won’t really restrain anyone from voting, because we’re Americans, and we don’t do that. Mostly, we don’t. So if you don’t want somebody else’s single vote to decide your fate, come August, you’d better go vote. All 244,999 of you.

The Limb Loss Experience: Stages of Grief, Phases of Recovery

Although this is amateurish, and some of the lettering is downright bad, I'm excited about it: My first published, illustrated page, from inMotion, May/June 2006, Vol. 16, No. 3.