Joining the Bad Popes
1 day ago
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
New story: Mail-order DNA test reveals mutts' breed heritage
Mail-order DNA test reveals mutts' breed heritage
Heirs of the dog
The Young-Williams Animal Center listed our dog, Dakota, as a beagle mix. But an arching, curly tail and other oddities convinced my wife Dana that Cody (Dakota’s nickname) had a different lineage.
A foot high at the shoulder and two feet from nose to tailbone, 1-year-old Cody weighed a surprising 27 pounds. The dog’s muscular build, thick neck, powerful jaws and barrel chest prompted Dana to dub Cody “the world’s tiniest pit bull.” Friends guessed Cody might have Welsh corgi, basenji and terrier in her...
For the full story:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/dec/10/mail-order-dna-test-reveals-mutts-breed-heritage/
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Knoxberry, USA -- Knoxville Voice column
This will probably be up on the site eventually, but you can alway pick up the hard copy at any of these fine locations:
http://www.knoxvoice.com/find-us.html
Es
Knoxberry, USA
Potentially popular TV programming?
By Scott McNutt
The screenwriters’ strike offers the perfect opportunity to create a Knox County-based TV show. Because our county government is so abysmally dysfunctional, the show would write itself. Imitation being the sincerest form of profit in the television industry, maybe our show could be "The Mikey Ragsdale Show," about Mikey Taylor, mayor of the sleepy Appalachian community, Knoxberry. He’d have a son, Lumpy, and helping him raise the boy would be his Aunt Cynthia (Aunt C for short) and Deputy Mayor Armstrong "Army" Mike; plus there’d be the well-meaning interference of the community’s colorful, incompetent eccentrics.
To show how easy it would be to script this thing, here’s a sample episode:
Stage Directions: (Mikey swings open his office door. Inside, Mikey’s always-befuddled assistant, Army, is sitting on the side of Mikey’s desk, fiddling with a charge-card swiper.
Army leaps up, startled, and twists around, trying to conceal the machine. Tangled in the device’s cord, he rips the wires out, shocking himself in the process.)
Army: Ye-OWTCH!
Mikey: Army, how many times have I told you to keep your P-Card holstered?
Army: I wasn’t using it, Mij, honest I wasn’t. Dad-blamed malfunctioning doodads! It just started beeping at me! I warned it to keep its peace. This is the mayor’s office. We have to maintain some dignity, don’t we? We can’t just have dadburned machines up and beeping, can we? Nip it in the beep, I say. But the infernal thing just kept up the racket. It was challenging my authority is what it was. I had to subdue it.
Mikey: Subdue it? Army?
Army: All right! All right. It wasn’t cooperating, so I had to wheel tax it. It was disrespecting me is what it was!
Mikey: Arm, we been over and over this. You can’t go wheel taxing everything that don’t behave like you want it to. Now, if—
(A tremendous racket cuts off Mikey’s next sentence as Commissioner Scoobers Pile bursts into the office.)
Scoobers: (Out of breath) Mayor Mikey! Mayor Mikey!
Mikey: Scoobers! Just settle down now, Scoobers. Get your wind back, then tell us what’stroubling you.
Scoobers: Hootie-hoo, Mikey, I do thank yew for helpin’ me gather my thoughts together, ’cause like my Grandma Pile used to say, ‘If thoughts ye don’t gather, yew’ll only blather.’ So I do thank yew, thank yew, thank yew. Yes, I do. (Pause.) Well, I guess I’ll be gettin’ back to the commission. (Scoobers starts to exit.)
Mikey: Scoobers? Wasn’t they something you’s going to tell us?
(Standing half through the doorway, Scoobers gapes at Mikey for a moment, then yanks the door shut.)
Scoobers: Well, Sha-zay-um! Fer shame, fer shame, fer shame! I guess my brains’d be wanderin’ behind the forest critters if they weren’t stuck plumb inside my noggin. Yes, Mayor Mikey, they was something. Them P-Cards yew told me weren’t goin’ to be gettin’ no more charges from must be faulty, ’cause that little approvin’ machine down to the commission wuz just chirrupin’ up a storm.
Mikey: Was it? (Darts eyes at Deputy Army, who erstwhile makes a great show of rummaging in a filing cabinet.)
Scoobers: That it wuz. I know we’d got them gas and maintenance charges squared away, but gol-ol-ol-lee, the little feller liked to beat the band, a-clicking and a-whirring and a-spitting out little bits of paper. Then—
Mikey: I get the picture, Scoobers. Well, Army?
Army: It was just one piddling little tax charge! You have to believe me, Mikey!
Scoobers: Commissioner’s aye-ray-yest! Commissioner’s aye-ray-yest!
Army: Nip him! Nip him in the butt, Mij!
Mikey: Simmer down, the both of ye. Now, Army, I said you could have one charge if you kept it—
Scoobers: Mayor Mikey—
Mikey: Not now, Scoobers. I said, ‘If you kept— ’
(The door is thrown open again and in strolls Aunt C with Lumpy in tow.)
Aunt C: Oh, Mi-KEEEEEEY! My family credit card isn’t working, and I was trying to buy lobsters to make more of the pickled lobster tails you love so much.
(Mikey is stricken with caution.)
Scoobers: That’s what I wuz trying to tell yew, Mayor Mikey. That little machine kept a-spittin’ out charge after charge from Aunt C. I figured it must be stuck, so I pulled the plug on it. I thought that might be a help.
Mikey: (Only half-listening to Scoobers) The pickled lobster tails I love so much?
Lumpy: Pa—
Mikey: In a minute, Lumpy. Aunt C? The tails?
Aunt C: Mikey, dear, the batch I made last night for my sorority’s sewing circle is already gone, so I knew you ate them. (Mayor Mikey starts to sputter in protest, but Aunt C cuts him off.) There’s no use in making a fuss pretending you didn’t. It’s a flattery that you enjoy them so much. So I just went down to the corner store to get some more lobsters, and while I was there, I thought I would buy a few things, like a few trips to my regional sorority gatherings, a few more lobsters, you know, necessities. And do you know? The silly card wouldn’t work.
Mikey: Aunt C, which card were you using?
Lumpy: Pa—
Aunt C: The family card, of course.
Mikey: But Scoobers here says they were going on the P-Card account.
Aunt C: Why, Mikey! That is a family card.
Mikey: (Groaning.) Now, Aunt C, I have told you and told you and told you that the P-Card is for county business only.
Aunt C: Mikey, I thought I raised you smarter than this. Aren’t you Mayor of Knoxberry?
Mikey: Yes, Aunt C, but that don’t—
Lumpy: Pa—
Aunt C: Don’t interrupt, Lumpy. (To Mikey) If you are the county mayor, then county business is your business. And your business is your family’s business, so family business is county business.
Mikey: (Ponders for a moment) I reckon I never skuck up on it that way, Aunt C. You’re wiser than a hoot owl, and at least twiced as lovable. Scoobers, hook that machine back up. That’s settled, but we still have a poser. I know I didn’t eat them lobster tails. Who— ?
Lumpy: (Sheepishly) I ate ’em, Pa.
Aunt C: Lumpy, you scamp!
Mikey: Well, for the love of— C’mon, son, let’s get your stomach pumped. That lobster’s not yew’s to a-et.
Aunt C: We’llput it on the P-Card!
(All exit, whistling.)
KNS freelance piece --Agee Park dedication
Making their mark at James Agee Park
Volunteers, donors honored for roles in improvements
Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam led a celebration Sunday honoring those who have contributed to James Agee Park, located at the corner of Laurel Avenue and James Agee Street in the Fort Sanders neighborhood, a block from where the Pulitzer Prize-winning author grew up.
"It's a celebration of volunteers and donors who have helped improve the park, especially some recent improvements," said architect and Fort Sanders resident Randall DeFord, who has been involved with the park's development since its early stages...
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