"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..."