"Snark Bites" 08/23-29

8/29
Outside Counseling Proposed for Ethics Panel
Commissioners say, "The lawyers will take everything if we don't get help!"

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Knox County Ethics Committee members believe the County Commission that the commission insistence that the couple receive outside relationship counseling will weaken their relationship.

Commissioners recently discussed a plan to bring in three "relationship advisors" to establish rules for the ethics panel and commission to interact by. They also invited the committee members to attend their Sept. 28 meeting, when they will take up the proposal and meet the proposed counselors, Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura and Dear Abby.

Several commissioners say they are concerned that the ethics committee is listening to "nasty rumors" about them and may be swayed by gossip from "ill-intentioned" friends. Commissioners also insist that there is nothing to the rumors that they fear the committee may be hearing about them.

"If you're going to be bringing all kinds of things from the past in and hearing about people being charged with criminal conduct when they were very young and easily swayed, there needs to be a formal set of procedures that's fair to everybody," said Knox County Commissioner Mike Hammond. "My big thing is that they are hearing hearsay and gossip and innuendo and not a word of it is true, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

The committee did agree to review its circle of friends and be more equitable in its relationship with commission, but members appear ready to resist any attempt to control their actions.

"If Dr. Laura comes in here and screams 'Do the right thing!' at us, then I know they're trying to emasculate us," said committee member Julia Tucker.

Ethics Committee member and Knox County Commissioner Colonel Doctor Richard M. Briggs, M.D., asked and answered his own question: "Am I a commissioner or a committee member? What kind of question is that for me to ask myself? I'm a doctor, not philosopher, blast it! I don't know how to separate out the committee member from the commissioner! And there's a colonel in there somewhere too..."


8/29
County Audit Committee: Auditor 'Vital' Piece in Chess Match
"I'll take my game and go home if I can't control my pieces," says Chair Joseph Carcello

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The chairman of the Knox County Audit Committee says he will resign the board if the County Commission reasserts authority over the highly valued game piece, Knox County Internal Auditor Richard Walls.

"If the commission is saying 'We want direct control of the internal audit committee game board,' then there's really no point in playing the game," said Joseph Carcello, a University of Tennessee accounting professor and co-founder of UT's Corporate Governance Center. "Because that's a shell of an audit committee, and the house always wins a shell game. If you remove the auditor from control of the audit committee, then the position becomes a pawn for every political chess player in the county, which makes the auditor more of a political Ping-Pong ball."

The five-player committee, authorized by the state gaming board and established in October 2008 by the commission, is made up of Carcello; Mary Kiser, a UT-Battelle senior internal auditor; and Commissioners Ed Shouse, Finbarr Saunders and Dave Wright. Walls reports to the Audit Committee regarding internal audits - including checks of office football pick 'em pools - and the committee reports to Commission.

Before the establishment of the Audit Committee, Walls bounced between the commission chairman and heads of the Commission's two major committees. At Monday's Commission meeting, commissioners voted to bounce the audit ball to Walls himself.

Carcello read a strongly worded memo to commissioners, noting that all committee players support him and explained why he believes giving Walls his own game would be "ill advised, like touching your tweezers to the metal edge and setting off the red light and buzzer in that 'Operation' board game. If commission asserts its control over the auditor, then Knox County will become like 'Risk,' with several rival camps amassing armies trying to take over the auditor, who'd be sort of like Australia."

"Oh, yeah?" retorted Commissioner Paul Pinkston. "Well, if the audit committee keeps control of the auditor, then 'Risk' is more like 'Monopoly,' because you're monopolizing the auditor position and keeping all that power to yourselves."

"I kind of think of the auditor more like 'Clue,'" mused Commissioner Michele Carringer. "I want us to be able to send him out to investigate and then for him to tell commission where who did which to whom with what. I want to know where the Mr. Bodies are buried in Knox County."

"OK, maybe I went overboard with the board game analogies," sighed Carcello...


8/26
Commissioner, Ex-Commissioner Play "Truth or Consequences"
Meanwhile, Ethics Committee declares independence, forms "more perfect union" without county commission

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Knox County Commissioner "Our" Larry Smith said he didn't lie.

Former County Commissioner Scott Moore says Smith did lie.

Smith says Moore challenged him to a dare that Smith completed.

Moore denies daring Smith.

Moore said Smith called him "Liar, liar, pants on fire!"

Smith said Moore said, "Neiner, neiner weinerhead!" to him, and he isn't even sure what that means.

Moore said, "Did not, did not!"

Smith said, "Did too, did too!"

That was the issue yesterday before the County Ethics Committee, which took up Moore's complaint that Smith lied when competing in a version of "The Dozens" putdown playoff in an October 2007 open playground competition or at the September 2008 "Your Mother" Bowl, during which Moore was ousted.

During the course of the meeting, the ethics committee also digressed into a discussion of the previous day's Knox County Commission meeting, whereupon the committee declared its independence from county commission, saying that "these united committee members are, and of a right, ought to be free and independent committee members, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the county commission, and that all political connection between them and the county commission, is and ought to be totally dissolved..."


8/24
Councilman Hall Would Require Antiaircraft Artillery in Public Spaces
Also wants cowboys to have advantage in "cowboys and Indians"

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Knoxville City Councilman Steve Hall is bringing the heated issues of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in public places and armaments in children's games back to the forefront at city council's meeting Tuesday.

Hall is sponsoring a proposal to repeal an existing city ordinance that disallows firearms in public spaces and would instead require that citizens be armed whenever they enter a public space. The proposal would also require that cannons, bazookas, mortars, and "other forms of projectile-type armaments be available in public spaces in case of emergency."

Further, the proposal would ban anyone from carrying bows and arrows, crossbows, slings, battle axes, hand axes, blowguns, javelins, spears, swords, scimitars, pole arms, throwing stars, bolos, whips, chains, weighted saps, harpoons, baby-seal clubs, maces, tridents, daggers, knives, garrotes, sharpened sticks or pointy-ended rocks.

"Those are dangerous items right there, not safe like guns," said Hall.

Hall also said he would prefer in children's games of "cowboy and Indians" that the "cowboys" be armed with firearms while the "Indians" be disallowed from having bows and arrows. "A big concern for safety" is his main reason for proposing the game restrictions, he said...

"Snark Bites" 08/16-22

08/22
Local Lawsuits "SLAPP"-Happy Lately
Latest suits involve SLAPPy developers, vulgar monkeys

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - In recent days, Knox County lawsuits have been sprouting like mushrooms in this year's copious summer rain - and some of them weren't filed by attorney Herb Moncier, even. Three sprang up this week.

In one development, poor local developer Victor Jernigan is threatening to sue the mighty nonprofit Tennessee Clean Water Network for suing him to "attempt to defang me and deprive me of my right to make a living through my developments, which never, ever have any sort of stormwater violations whatsoever."

In another suit, Brad Majors, a plaintiff in a lawsuit involving Knox County's mulch operations, is suing the county and two key county officials to obtain primates that he contends will prove that County Solid Waste Director Tom Salter sent trained chimpanzees to insult an attorney using Majors' name.

The third suit is whatever is the latest jab Herb Moncier is taking at former Sheriff Tim Hutchison. It also may or may not involve former Knox County Law Director and current Chancellor Mike Moyers, a situation which caused Knox County Chancellor John Weaver to throw up his hands in dismay and announce Friday that he will recuse himself from the suit.

"I have in this case documents filed by Mike Moyers since he has become chancellor," Weaver said in a motions hearing Friday. "How can I find whether he is or is not involved in this case? I don't know, but I know Herb is involved in it, so I think I don't have any choice but to recuse myself from this matter."

The Knox County Chancery Court lawsuit by Majors, who runs the Rocky Holler Mixture Grow Mulch Shop, is against Knox County, Salter, and Bruce Wuethrich, director of the county's Engineering and Public Works Department. It claims that Salter, in a series of e-mails, developed a scheme to send a trained chimpanzee to attorney Mark Napier, who represents Natural Resources Recovery of Tennessee in the ongoing lawsuit by Majors, and play tape-recorded insults to Napier.

Majors' most recent lawsuit, filed Thursday, demands the county comply with the Open Records Act and turn over any primates sent by Salter to Napier with Majors' name on them. For example, the lawsuit states that a monkey dressed in a telegraph delivery boy's costume came to Napier's office with a note pinned to its lapel that read "Brad created a Monk-e-mail-o-gram just for you. Now what did you do to deserve that?" under which the address of "brad@rockyholler.com" appeared. Majors alleges this is not his e-mail address.

The lawsuit contends the chimpanzee had a tape recorder slung around its neck with a Post-It note reading "press here to play" on it. Upon the play button being pressed, the lawsuit alleges "that the monkey mouthed along to the message, making it appear to be a talking chimpanzee that had vulgar language inserted into its vocabulary."

The suit seeks to have Salter permanently "cease and desist" from training vulgar monkeys and have Knox County pay for the "deprogramming and reintegration into primate society" of all chimpanzees affected by the insult-a-gram program.

Salter declined to comment on the lawsuit, but a monkey in his office characterized the suit as "bananas..."


08/18
Ragsdale Won't Say Who Wrote Lyrics for 'Kosovo'
Were song's verses lifted from Kosovo 3rd graders?

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale won't reveal who wrote the lyrics to "Kosovo," his ode to Eastern Europe, which was supposedly composed during his trip to the eponymous country. But when asked about the junket on Monday, he said, "It was written over there, and no one from the county had anything to do with it."

Before and after a meeting of the Halls Republican Club at the Mandarin House on Maynardville Highway, the mayor's answer gave rise to speculation that the lyrics may have been "inspired" by homework assignments the mayor saw while reading to a group of Kosovo 3rd graders.

Ragsdale briefly addressed reporters' questions as well as some tough questions from audience members about the origin and meaning of the song and the workings of the creative process.

The eight-day trip to several cities in Kosovo was part of a possible citizen-swap program whereby the mayor could acquire some citizens less inclined to question his administration's previous missteps, according to the mayor's office. The trip was paid for by an unnamed business interest, which may be in the lyric-writing sector. Ragsdale and his operatives have repeatedly declined to identify who wrote the "Kosovo" lyrics.

"Other than myself, no one in Knox County government has written song lyrics during my tenure in office, and as far I know, no one in the unnamed business has either," Ragsdale said before his talk to about 50 GOP faithful.

After a speech in which he outlined his administration's accomplishments in reading to children, reading to toddlers and reading to infants, Ragsdale fielded questions from the audience.

Bruce Willis, a sometime-songsmith who has cast doubts on Ragsdale's "stand-up mayor" ambitions and who also started an unsuccessful attempt to have him "gonged" from office, asked if taxpayers were footing the bill for his musical ambitions or if "internal auditor Richard Walls would find spending improprieties in another audit that shows who you paid to write those lyrics."

Ragsdale did not directly answer Willis. Instead, the mayor said Willis wasn't "concerned about whether the lyrics were paid for - you just want to cast aspersions on my songwriting talent."

"Songwriting talent? Song writing talent!" hooted Willis. "That song is execrable! Those lyrics are right out of your left armpit! A 3rd grader could have written better meter..."


08/17
Knox County Hosts Parasite Experts
"It seemed like the ideal environment for up-close study," says one expert

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Hookworms and fluke worms and bureaucrats - oh my.
Like a bad government official, a parasite lives and eats off another organism without giving anything helpful in return. The victim is called, ironically, a "host" - and in the bureaucrat parasite's case, the party's on the taxpayers' tab.

Knox County has been hosting more than 250 parasite experts from several countries this past weekend at the 84th annual meeting of the American Society of Parasitologists at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. This year's meeting was highly anticipated by members of the ASP, as parasitologists flocked from around the world to observe the thriving parasitic activity in Knox County.

"With everything that's been going on in Knox County government, we all just thought this was an obvious location for holding our conference," said Society President Ivan Du Sukublod. "How often do we get the chance to see parasites in their natural habitat? So we were very excited about coming to Knox County. If you ever saw that episode of The X-files with the human fluke worm, well, that's what we're hoping to encounter here."

The theme of the conference is "Parasites on a Shrinking Budget," and more than 140 scientific papers on government leeches are being presented, according to conference organizers. They will range from basic research on parasite economics and how budget change affects parasite behavior to issues surrounding perhaps the most commonly known parasite: bureaucrats.

Government sinecures, poorly supervised programs and some independently elected offices are the most common areas for parasite invasion in Knox County, according to Dr. Rafael Isea, a local government parasitology professor who is helping organize the event. He is a former president of the society as well.

Not every parasite is bad, he insists.

"Some cause horrible scandals, and some cause very little harm to the host while still remaining the life of the party, so to speak," says Isea. "If they go along, doing their little parasitic activities unobtrusively, then you'll never even know they're there, even if they are human fluke worms. It's only when they call attention to themselves by trying to siphon too much off the host that things go bad. We think they're wonderful. We don't want them to cause government inefficiencies or otherwise destroy the county, but we do think they're fascinating. To me, they're not gross - they're part of life's rich pageant..."

"Snark Bites" 08/09-15

8/15
Ragsdale Explores Balkanizing Knox County
Mayor wants to swap citizens from Balkans, but business "friends" may have other ideas

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale returned recently from an eight-day trip to Kosovo, where he explored a program of swapping Knox Countians for Kosovars.

"The people of Kosovo are warm, goodhearted folk," said Ragsdale. "I know, because I spent some time among their children, reading to them. I don't know what I was reading, because I don't speak Albanian. For that matter, I don't speak Serbian. I also don't speak Turkish, Romani, or Bosnian either. But they loved me anyway. One taxi driver even said he would send his son and daughter to Knox County to defend me, which was incredibly flattering. He did demand 500,000 Serbian dinars for the bodyguard service, but it's the thought that counts. That's why I'm interested in swapping citizens..."


8/12
Ethics Panel: County Mayor Does Bad Impressions
Ragsdale may still be gonged out of office

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale, whose "stand-up mayor routine" almost landed him on a revived "Gong Show," which could have gonged him right out of the mayor's office, may not be in the clear after all.

Yesterday, his act received a stinging rebuke from the Knox County Ethics Committee, which found that the mayor does "really bad impressions." The committee is passing its findings on to Knox County District Entertainer General Randy Nichols, who may in turn decide to reconvene a Gong Show panel to review the mayor's act - or if he remains true to form, he'll leave that decision to someone else.

The mayor was found to have committed "official impressions" of Knox County Auditor Richard Walls on at least four occasions.

Walls said, "It isn't so much that the impressions were really bad - they were, don't get me wrong - but that it officially associated me with this government much more closely, which is hugely embarrassing. That hurts my professional standing ... and my dignity..."


8/11
Months Needed to Pry Law Director from Office
"Yes, he's got himself wedged in there, but good," say rescuers

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Emergency workers attempting to free Knox County Law Director from a deep, deep hole he apparently dug in his office floor say it may take months to get sufficient leverage to pry him out.

"Oh gosh yes, he's got himself in waaaa-ay over his head, wedged in too deep, and there just isn't any way we can get any leverage to extract him, so it'll likely take into next year," said Perry Waters, one of several emergency personnel called to the scene.

"Good gracious," was the reaction of Commissioner Ed Shouse. "I'm shocked and disappointed that it's so far out. I was hoping it would be within a couple of months from now. That's an excessively long time for the poor man to wait, all out of his depth like that. Can't they use the Jaws of Life to yank him out?"

"We offered to use the Jaws of Life, but he said he was quite comfortable and preferred to wait to see how things develop," Waters replied.

"I don't understand why they would take months and months," Commissioner Mike Hammond said. "I remember once when I was young and got my hand stuck between the bars of a railing of a fence in the back of some old property, and I had to wait and wait until someone came along and noticed me to get unstuck. But this is different. He's stuck in a well-traveled office. That's noticeable. I'm disappointed they would wait so long to clear him out of there."

"I'm disappointed that they are moving so slowly," observed Commissioner Finbarr Saunders. "Perhaps there's some reason. Maybe he's like a feral animal - ferocious when trapped so they are approaching cautiously to put him at ease..."

"Snark Bites" 08/02-08

08/06
Inconvenient Voting Rejected
"Our mothers made us do it," say three election commissioners

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Three Knox County election commissioners voted against convenience voting today calling it "inconvenient" and saying their mothers wouldn't approve of their doing such unnatural things. One commissioner even produced a note from his mother saying he was not allowed to vote for modernizing elections.

"If humans were intended to have convenience voting, then why do we have voting precincts?" said Knox County Election Commission Chairman Chris Heagerty. "My momma sent a note with me that says I'm not allowed to modernize our election procedures."

Heagerty then produced the note and showed it to the assembled media. It read, "Convenience voting is against traditional family values and against the way things have always been. Nature made voting precincts, and humans have no business trying to improve on nature."

Heagerty claimed his mother's signature was appended to the note, but the handwriting was virtually illegible, and possibly may have spelled out "Rejina Kines."

Elections Administrator Greg Mackay's proposal would have been used in the upcoming Knoxville city elections and would have eschewed the city's 52 precinct polls. Instead, city voters would have cast ballots at any one of 10 centrally located voting centers during a 20-day window culminating on the Sept. 22 and Nov. 3 election days. Mackay insisted convenience voting would save the county money and vehemently denied it was a plot to disenfranchise mothers.

In explaining his vote, Heagerty emphasized that older and less efficient methods were almost always superior to anything newfangled.

"Things were always better in the good old days," said Heagerty. "Ice cream sandwiches were bigger, they cost less and they were made with real chocolate in the old days. You might have had to walk farther to get one and they might have melted before you got 'em home, but that just made you appreciate 'em the more. It's the same with my momma. She had to walk five miles uphill through the snow both ways just to vote with a paper ballot, and that's the way she prefers it, because it makes it more meaningful."

"Well, my grandma had to walk 10 miles uphill through the snow both ways just vote, and she fought starving wildcats just for that privilege," said Election Commissioner Paul Crilly...


08/04
Group Seeks Public Funding of "Gun Art" Shows
Controversial "guns in public places" proposal has supporters, detractors

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - A group seeking to have "gun art" installations in parks and other Knoxville and Knox County public areas, including government buildings, also desires the government to help fund its efforts.

"Putting officially sanctioned gun art in public places would go a long way toward reducing the apprehension and misinformation that currently plagues the proper appreciation of the role guns have historically played in American society and culture," said Will Caponof, spokesperson for Gunners United in Artful Respect for and Defense of Depictions of an Oeuvre with Guns (GUARDDOG). "We feel this is an imaginative compromise between a total ban on guns in public places and rightful gun freedom."

GUARDDOG also argues that the public safety and public service would be enhanced with public placement of gun art. One idea the group has suggested is installing magnetically "holstered" handguns on pedestals in public parks and other places. These installations would serve as art, allowing those unfamiliar with the quality craftsmanship that goes into firearms to begin to appreciate their beauty. But if a crisis occurred, a licensed gun carrier could swipe a carry permit through an electronic scanner to free the gun from its magnetic holster for defensive use. "And you'd be required to replace any bullets used," said Caponof.

He added that having pass-key-controlled howitzers lining Knoxville's greenways would serve as excellent examples of installation art, "contrasting the severe beauty of their regimented, uniform lethality with the wildlife surrounding them - and they would also be wonderful crime deterrents."

As to the public service aspect of gun art, Caponof said, "Guns bring people from diverse cultures together. Admittedly, when the gun comes out in a public place, those people quickly scatter, but even as they flee, they are united as one in their fear."

Liza Penne-Ziti, Chair of Knoxville's Firearms Elucidation and Arts Reconciliation Subcommittee for Overseeing and Monitoring Lethal Objects, Ornaments, Nonesuchs, Illustrations or Emblems (FEARSOMELOONIE) committee, said that while GUARDDOG's ideas were "provocative" and "unique," such a program would require careful study before any action could be taken...


08/03
City Council Candidates Envious of County's Notoriety
But it's a beautiful day in Knoxville's neighborhoods

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The Knoxville City Council will undergo its largest turnover in nearly a decade - but will voters notice? The answer appears to be a resounding yawn.

Four or maybe five current council members will rotate off the panel this fall. But no one knows their names, because, apparently, they don't get caught committing "Sunshine Law" violations, censure the mayor and each other, fight turf wars, threaten citizens, employ phantoms, entitle themselves to fat pensions, practice laughable record-keeping, get themselves investigated by the state attorney general, the TBI and the IRS, get themselves removed from office for perjury, get arrested for fabricating documents or defalcate former customers. These appear to be the things people find interesting.

"Yes, the old saying seems to be true, that when you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all," sighed Rob Frost, who may or may not be one of the departing council members. "It's too bad the county gets all the attention, but at the same time, I wish the newcomers the best of luck in not finding themselves in the news."

Now 14, 15 or possible 30 candidates are vying for the vacating city council seats. At a recent meet-and-greet with the media, they shared what they felt was the single most important issue facing their districts.

Robert Marlino, running for the 1st district seat, said, "Since I've been getting out and talking to folks in the district, I'd have to say that the single most important concern that's been expressed to me is strong neighborhoods."

Nick Pavlis, also running for the 1st district seat, disagreed.

"What I'm hearing is a concern about weak neighborhoods," he said. "Nobody's worried about strong neighborhoods; they're worried about the weak ones that might not be able to defend themselves in case of attack..."

"Snark Bites" 07/19-08/01

7/31
Federal "Cash for Flunkies" Program Suspended
Too many political operatives demand cut of proceeds; local reaction mixed

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The government has suspended its popular "cash for flunkies" program that buys back old politicians from city and state governments amid concerns that kickbacks to the politicians could quickly use up the $1 billion in rebates for new politician purchases, congressional officials said Thursday.

The Political Sanitation Department called federal lawmakers' offices to alert them to the decision to suspend the program at midnight Thursday. The program offers owners of inept, corrupt or just plain useless politicians $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more constituent-oriented civil servant.

Congress last month approved the Initiative to Move Politicians Earlier Away from Career Has-beendom program, known as IMPEACH, to boost democracy and remove some inefficient politicians from local offices. The program kicked off last Friday and was heavily publicized by back-room wheeler-dealers.

Through late Wednesday, 22,782 worn-out party operatives had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But the wheeler-dealers raised concerns about the politicians demanding large kickbacks in the processing of the deals in the government system, prompting the suspension.

"There's a significant demand for kickbacks in these 'cash for flunkies' deals that make us question how much more funding we can get out of the program," said Holly Wood, a spokesperson for the National Officeholders Organization (NOHO). "The best thing would be for Congress to give us more money - lots more - and we'll see that these politicians are taken care of..."

7/30
Mayor's Office Blames TVA for Auditor's Charges
TVA blames Knox County mayor's office for coal-ash dike failure

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - On the heels of a damning report on TVA's failure to take steps to prevent a massive coal-ash dike blowout, the agency is also being blamed by the Knox County mayor's office for charges level at the mayor's staff by the county auditor.

TVA President and CEO Kilmore Trout responded by blaming the Knox County mayor's office for the failure of TVA's coal-ash dam, among other charges. In dueling press conferences, the accusations flew.

"TVA's taking the heat for everything else around here these days," explained mayoral representative Dwight Van de Vate at Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale's press conference. "Why shouldn't they take the blame for this too? With the trouble they're in, it's not going to make a difference. So TVA takes responsibility for the various things the county auditor says we've done, Congress slaps them on the wrist, and everybody's happy. Perfect solution."

The charges against the mayor's office include official persecution and using the bully pulpit to be bullies.

Trout retaliated by claiming the mayor's office was responsible for the failure of the coal-ash dike.

"At first, we thought giant slugs sabotaged the dike," said Trout. "But it appears it was actually damaged by shrapnel from all the egos exploding in the City County Building."

An official investigation by TVA's inspector general found that TVA management was responsible for ignoring warnings for more than 20 years about the safety of the fly ash-pond, refusing to accept responsibility for its arrogance and limiting the scope of the investigation into the disaster to bolster its legal defense against lawsuits, plus kicking dogs and stealing candy from tiny, tiny babies.

"We're going to find out who's responsible for this, and it isn't going to be me," said Trout. "It's Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale's fault. Heads are going to roll in that office, and changes are going to be made. For one thing, there's going to be more bodies without heads..."

7/28
Knox County Auditions New Scandals
"Stand-up commissioner" "Lumpy" Lambert steals show

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - With the state district attorney's office investigation into the mayor's office over and done, Knox County Commission yesterday held auditions for new scandals to entertain citizens. They found what they were looking for - but one of their own stole the show.

Commissioner Greg "Lumpy" Lambert, who recently made headlines with his disruptive behavior at a series of Ridge, Slope and Hillside Development Task Force meetings, opened the show. In the task force performances, Lambert billed himself as "The Hillside Wrangler" and later deemed his outrageous antics merely part of an ongoing performance art show.

Commissioner Tony Norman demanded that commission review Lambert's act and decide whether it was worthy of censure. Norman claimed Lambert's performance was 100 percent out of control, "lacking the discipline and timing to rise to the level of true performance art," and noted that performance was about more than emotion.

Lambert then launched into his routines, including "Is That a Pistol in Your Pocket or Are You Sad to See Me," a comedic reflection on the travails of becoming known for carrying a weapon, "Lumpy Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," an interpretative dance refuting accusations of his instability, and "Who'd Hold Rocky Top," an impassioned rap on his family's ridge-top holdings and private property rights.

Former appointed County Commissioner Victoria DeFreese, voting via video-satellite link from the location of her latest photo shoot, gave Lambert's efforts a thumbs-up, saying, he's got that je ne sais quois, that certain...something. He's definitely got it."

"No, Halls has that," said Commissioner Mark Harmon. "Whatever Commissioner Lambert's got, I hope it's not catching..."

7/25
Loose Snark Terrorizes County Mayor's Staff
Staffers say creature remains at large in City County Building

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - A lost animal got loose in County Mayor Mike Ragsdale's sixth-floor suite in the City County Building Friday, terrorizing staff and escaping into the broader confines of the City County Building - all, apparently, without the mayor's knowledge.

Snarks are small, pale, and almost hairless primates with a retiring disposition. Characterized in the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Snarks as "part thesaurus, part jellyfish, and all mouth," snarks are considered mostly harmless, except for a single defensive mechanism - they are capable of emitting powerful blasts of hot air.

It is uncertain how the snark came to be in the county administrative suite. The mayor's administrative chief, Dwight Van de Vate, dismissed a rumor that an employee of the mayor had brought the creature to the office.

"Who in their right mind would bring a thing like that in here?" he said. "Look, I like most animals. I even like snarks. But I believe there should be a bright line between the mayor's office and the rest of the world."

Mayoral aides attempted to corner the snark in an outer office, but the frightened animal shied away from all advances. Susanne Dupes, the mayor's spokesperson, then snatched an antique musket nicknamed "The Intimidator" off the office wall and attempted to shoo the beast out of the room with it. Apparently confused, the snark instead darted into the mayor's office.

That, Van de Vate said, is when pandemonium truly broke loose.

"With it running around loose in there, we feared it might try to open the mayor's desk drawers," Van de Vate explained. "And nobody gets into the mayor's drawers..."