"Snark Bites" 09/20-26/09

9/25

County Magic Director Refuses to Halt Endurance Stunt

But audience's homemade "vanishing act" may upstage him

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The Knox County Magic Director, who goes by the stage name Blockett the Unbudgeable and is known for his feats of extreme endurance, has outdone himself again. His latest endurance act requires that he remain motionless, frozen in place in his office, with only his paycheck for support. Blockett the Unbudgeable, whose real name is unknown, has refused to end his current stunt despite pleas from an audience who fear for his political life.

Echoing a sentiment he expressed when he first announced the stunt in June, Blockett the Unbudgeable proclaimed that he would remain frozen in place in the magic director's office until his bag of tricks is exhausted.

"I intend to continue working on the diabolic affairs of Knox County as I have since being sworn into office," he said. "There are still some rabbits left in my hat, and I still have a few tricks up my sleeves."

Blockett the Unbudgeable then gave an example of his sorcerous prowess.

"This is a potent popularity charm," he proclaimed. "Learned from ancient fakirs I studied with in the far east recesses of Knox County, once I chant the mystic incantation, you will succumb to my personal magnetism:

O-ah-wesh-ahwuran-auz-kar-my-yar-ween-ahr,
thahdiz-wut-ayed-truh-leeh-laktwobee,
furef-ahwuran-aus-kar-my-yar-ween-ahr,
heveri-wun-vudbee-enluff-vid-mee!

You are now under my thrall."

Charm spells notwithstanding, not all citizens are enthralled with the magic director's routine...

9/22

County Commission to Extend Self-Subpoena Process

"We still haven't gotten to the bottom of us!" proclaims Commissioner Mike Hammond

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The Knox County Commission will revisit a procedure established last year for investigating itself and extend that power to the County Ethics Committee and the County Audit Committee under a resolution approved Monday by the commission's Finance Committee, which may also use the procedure to investigate itself.

The issue arose because the Audit Committee and the Ethics Committee have recently conducted several acrimonious meetings in which committee members have had fallings out. At the last Ethics Committee meeting, Knox County Commissioner Colonel Doctor Richard M. Briggs, M.D., and ethics committee member Richard Briggs announced the separation of Briggs's divided political allegiances after the two reached an impasse over which political allegiance took precedence.

In that same meeting, the Ethics Committee excused itself from itself on a 3-0 vote amid hurt feelings and bruised egos after a quorum couldn't be reached to vote on whether County Commissioner "Our" Larry Smith's moustache had taunted former County Commissioner Scott "Scoobie" Moore's smirk into outsmirking itself in a smirkiness contest last year.

The procedure under consideration allows commissioners to subpoena themselves as part of an investigation - or simply to liven up commission proceedings. The commission's self-inquisition powers were clarified by then-Law Director John Owings in spring of last year when the panel was considering investigating Mayor Ragsdale for inappropriate and excessive P-card use and itself for grandstanding, wastefulness, violations of the sunshine law and questionable competency in general.

It took Owings several months to pare down a procedure usable by commission. When asked at the time why streamlining the self-subpoena process took so long, Owings sighed, rolled his eyes and said, "Have you ever tried explaining the sunshine law to this crowd? You might as well explain gravity to bricks. We had to 'dumb down' the self-subpoena process. A lot..."

9/20

City Ponders Aping County to Stir Voter Interest

Officials, lamenting lack of interest in city politics, say city politicians "not disrespectful enough"

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Early voting totals suggest that Knoxville could set a record-low voter turnout for the upcoming district-only primary election for five or six or however many Knoxville City Council seats are open this cycle, said Knox County Elections Administrator Greg Mackay.

"If city voters maintain their typical apathy, we're on a pace to be on par with or below previous low voter turnout," said Mackay. "Short of trying some of the county's antics or hog-tying voters and dragging them to the polls, I'm durned if I know what to do."

The two-week early voting period, which ended Thursday, totaled 16.25 votes, as well as almost 4 absentee ballots. That's compared to the 14.5 early voters who cast a ballot during the same seats' last primary election in 2005. (Fractions are tallied for citizens who voted but cast their ballots for ineligible candidates, such as Victor Ashe or the McDonald's Hamburglar). The total turnout among those five races in the 2005 primary, including Election Day voting, was 37. Barely 80 city voters participated in the citywide general election that followed in November 2005, out of more than 100,000 eligible voters. Finding city dwellers who even remember that there was an election in 2005 is a daunting task.

Said Old North Knoxville resident Rip Shorn, "Vote in 2005? What the heck for? The city seems to hum along without me mucking it up by casting ballots for candidates I don't know anything about. Now, if it was a county vote, that's a different story."

"There's an election?" said Sequoyah Hills resident Tipsy Shersatin-Undergarter. "The city still has those? Why aren't the candidates getting themselves in the news like Lumpy, Scoobie, 'Our' Larry and Commissioner Colonel Doctor Richard M. Briggs, M.D., so I'll know who they are?"

"I'd like to see more people vote," Mackay said. "I think more people should vote in local elections, and not just because I'm elections administrator. Well, OK, that's a big part of it. But it's important enough to their day-to-day lives that I'm considering offering free toasters or big-screen TVs to the first 100 voters and hiring press gangs to round up citizens and take them to the polls by force."

"I'm sort of leaning toward drafting a Lumpy or a Scoobie or some of our other more colorful commissioners to run for city seats," said local rabble-rouser Brent Minchey. "These smooth-running council meetings and mind-numbingly noncontroversial candidate debates have me longing for the days when King Vic(tor Ashe) was still practicing the fine art of political payback and trying to build enormous glass-encased Shoppertainment™ complexes on Market Square and leveling potshots at Shurf Tim every chance he got..."

"Snark Bites" 09/13-19/09

9/18

County Abandons Plans for Anti-Lockett Defense Shield

"After his pay raise, it became obvious the shield wouldn't work," say officials

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - After it was announced that Knox County Law Director Bill Lockett received a substantial pay raise in the current fiscal year, Knox County Commission abandoned plans to erect an anti-Law Director defense shield around the City County Building, crying, "Cap'n, the shields canna' hold!"

Lockett, who seems to radiate chutzpah from every pore, has received $9,840 in raises since taking office in 2008, including an almost $7,000 raise during the current fiscal year, and has shown a remarkable capacity for bravado, brass, brazenness and bunkering down. Despite being rejected as legal counsel by both Knox County Commission and the Knox County school board and being under multiple investigations, Lockett siphons $154,320 a year from the county, drawing away precious funds that the county might have used to erect the defense shield against him.

The county has been casting about for some means to force Lockett from office - or at least surround him with a neutralizing force shield - ever since he disclosed that he had defalcated his former employer by accepting money from clients intended for his law firm. Lockett is now undergoing a criminal investigation by the Sullivan County DA, an ethics review by the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility, which oversees lawyer conduct, an IRS criminal unit investigation and has several outstanding parking tickets.

Yet, like the legendary Timex watch that takes a licking but keeps right on ticking or the indefatigable Energizer Bunny that keeps going and going and going, the law director keeps on drawing his regular county paycheck - while the county founders in its search for a way of shielding itself from him.

Initially, commission had planned to install anti-Lockett rocket launchers just inside the entrance to the City County Building, but abandoned that plan when it was realized the devices would never get past the building's metal detectors. Commission then considered bringing in several wild snarks to freely roam the building's hallways - but that scheme fell through when commissioners realized the mouthy beasts would have no effect on the law director but might frighten off other county officials.

Finally, commissioners hit upon the idea of the plastering the entire exterior of the building with a protective shield of "No Defalcation Allowed" signs - only to discard it when they realized that funding for the signs was tied up in the law director's salary. Also, commissioners were unsure who else in county government the signs might apply to...

9/15

Burchett Won't Take Candy from Babies

Mayoral candidate also takes heroic stance against "boneheadedness"

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE -State Sen. Tim Burchett, a candidate for Knox County mayor in 2010, said Monday that he will not take candy from babies of Knox County employees to support his campaign.

"I want the children's photo ops and their parents' respect and support," Burchett said. "But I expect to earn that support with a photogenic smile and generalized promises of a chicken in every bucket and a fish in every barrel. So I don't want their kids' candy. I repeat: I do not want the kids' candy. The last thing I want to create is a situation where the kids are on a terrific crying jag, and I'm left looking like a boneheaded bad guy with sticky fingers in the cookie jar - because obviously, I am not a bad guy since I'm vowing not to pry the lollipops from those tiny, tiny fingers."

Also, county employees who want to attend his Sept. 25 fundraiser need not pay the suggested $50 contribution, he said, "because that would be like shooting the fish in the barrel that I'm promising everyone will have."

He noted that in the past, some county employees were "shook down" for contributions. When it was pointed out that the correct grammatical construction would be "were shaken down," Burchett said he would make a note of it and instructed his staffers to use the phrase "all shook up" in the future...

9/13

Knox County Libraries to Become Bookstores Under New Plan

Proposal explores bingo, boutiques, other means to make library self-sufficient

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The Knox County Public Library's new five-year budget plan includes a "bombshell" option of becoming a bookstore franchise, taking over UT's library by force, renting some branches as venues for dances and bar mitzvahs and creating a "Bookmobile" that would rush to the aid of bibliophiles everywhere who were threatened by the forces of evil - or, at least, a lack of new reading material.

The system budget has been stagnant the last two years, but demand for services, especially at downtown's Lawson McGhee Library, is growing every day, library officials said, so drastic measures are needed. People are forced to sit on each other for lack of seating, use periodicals for toilet paper, burn shelving for illumination and wait in lines for punch-card driven computers. Plus, thousands of books, including deteriorating 19th-century editions, are being used as kindling to fire the generator that powers the key-punch computers.

"Part of the plan is to reshape this system knowing full well one of the challenges is that no one in Knox County seems to appreciate that library systems cost money to run," said Larry Frank, senior director of library services. "To deal with the very real reality of limited funds, we must think off the bookshelf, color outside the page, play outside the sandbox, step outside the frame, and run without the scissors. How can we change and reshape the system so that it is sustainable? One way is to go for-profit."

The new plan, distributed to Knox County commissioners last weekend, would also consider several locations for a new, $40 million main library to be known as the "Bookcave," according to Ginna Mashburn, co-chair of the Knox County Public Library "Help, We Need Money" Foundation.

Possibilities include the Knoxville Convention Center near the World's Fair Park and a karst sinkhole under Church Avenue and Gay Street. Another possibility is launching a hostile takeover of the University of Tennessee's library system and establishing the county library's new central base in the Hoskins Library Building.

Other options in the plan include "boutique" branches that would sell materials that appealed to the interests of their neighborhoods, such as UT football paraphernalia, John Grisham novels and beer. Alternatively, these branches may be rented out for special events or used as clandestine bingo parlors, from which the library, as the "house," would take a considerable percentage of the profits. The library director would also periodically don a costume to become that Dark and Stormy Knight, the Bookman. Bookman would drive his Bookmobile, equipped with the latest accoutrements to fight boredom, ennui, and illiteracy, to the rescue of those thirsting for current reading materials amidst a barren wasteland of interactive computer games...

"Snark Bites" 09/06-12

9/11

Group Wants to Give Guns Voting Rights

"Stop treating firearms like second-class citizens," says leader of gun advocacy group

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - A Knox County Commissioner wants to allow guns in parks, at football games and even in commission meetings, but a group originally organized to promote "gun art" says Commissioner Amy Broyles' proposal doesn't go far enough.

Broyles says gun unenthusiasts will be safer if they realize that other people are carrying guns everywhere, including parks, football stadiums and government buildings. She plans to add an item to the commission's agenda Sept. 28 to require handguns to go wherever gun enthusiasts go.

"The bottom line is, guns are carried everywhere, and if we can't beat them, we might as well enjoin them," Broyles said. "Allowing individuals to carry guns doesn't do anything to make our parks, government offices or recreational facilities any safer, but by recognizing they are there, we can take proper measures to deal with the situation - like introducing a fall line of fashion flack jacket and bullet-proof vest ensembles."

But Will Popakapeneu, spokesperson for Gunners United in Artful Respect for and Defense of Depictions of an Oeuvre with Guns (GUARDDOG), which first came together to advocate for government-sanctioned gun-art installations in public places, says Broyles' proposal is not enough.

"GUARDDOG believes any measure short of full recognition of guns' rights is insufficient," said Popakapeneu. "It's time for guns to be recognized for all their contributions to this great nation. Whether you realize it or not, America was built on the blood, threat and fears of firearms. Guns must be given the suffrage - no, that's not right, guns have earned the suffrage, they have earned the right to vote. It's time to stop treating firearms like second-class citizens."

Added GUARDDOG member Walter Pepekay, "Do you have any idea how painful it is for me as a citizen and a gun-lover to tell Ziggy, my Sig Sauer P220 Carry Elite, that he has to wait in the car while I go for a picnic in the park?"...

9/10

Industrial Park Fights Move into 21st Century

Forks of the Tongue Industrial Park businesses say paying taxes for fire protection is "socialistic"

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - Lost somewhere in the misty recesses of the last century are the origins of the Forks of Tongue Island Industrial Park fire district. Rumored to have been established a mind-boggingly distant two decades in the past, the fire district was supposedly purchased by business owners on the island from Knox County leaders for several dozen possum skins and about $24 worth of 1982 World's Fair deely-boppers. Yesterday, it was revealed that the park's fire district status is currently a tangled mess.

No records exist from that hazy period in ancient times - almost 20 years ago - when saber-tooth-coat clad county leaders and woolly-mammoth-hide-wearing industrial park business owners met and grunted out the details of the fire-protection arrangement. No records exist because, apparently, writing had not yet been invented in the early 1990s. Had there been a means to do so, no doubt more care would have been taken to preserve accounts of who was responsible for what in the fire district.

Today, no one is sure what businesses are in the Forks of Tongue Island Industrial Park fire district, what the district's boundaries are, or who is responsible for paying for the fire protection. Amidst the confusion, only one fact has emerged: Fire protection tax rates for the district have not changed since the dawn of the industrial park's stone age. And that suits business leaders there just fine.

"We like what we're paying for fire protection, and we don't see any reason for that rate to change - ever," said Forks of the Tongue fire district spokesperson Vera Plucking-Feathers.

Upon realizing that the fire district's records were in complete disarray or utterly non-existent, Knox County leaders leapt into action.

As fast as he could, Knox County Property Assessor Phil Ballard shouted, "It's the trustee's fault!"...

9/8

Obama to tell "bedtime story" to local school boards

Local officials to stick fingers in ears, say "Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh"

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - After brainwashing school children with his socialist message of staying in school and studying, President Barack Obama announced today that he would set his sights on socializing local school boards in a "bedtime address" to county leaders around the country.

"Now that I've secured the future of socialism by hooking the little children on the mesmerizing power of my voice, I want to tell local school boards a little bedtime story about how their efforts to control the public's use of recording devices at their meetings will backfire," said Mr. Obama. "Not that I'm opposed to controlling the media - I do it, after all - I just think the school boards need a reality check on how bad these efforts makes them look. I'm trying to help them, here - just telling them, do it my way, and you have hope. Don't, and it's 'Every school board left behind' time."

The president then used a fairy tale to emphasize his point.

"Remember how crafty the Big Bad Wolf was, dressing up in Little Red Riding Hood's grandma's nightie and giving those clever answers about 'the better to see you with' and 'the better to hear you with' to keep Little Red off her guard?" he said. "That's what the school boards need to do. Tell the people what they want to hear. It works. Admittedly, the wolf came to a bad end in that one, but charm and guile can carry you a long way. Look how far my silver tongue's carried me, after all. Anyway, the point is, they need to use charm, not intimidation, so I'll tell them the old saw about attracting more flies with honey than vinegar - although why you'd want flies in your honey is something I've never understood."

Local reaction to the president's planned bedtime story was decidedly mixed.

Blount County school policy committee member Jane Morton said, "We won't listen. We'll shut our eyes and stick our fingers in our ears up to the knuckle and go 'Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh.' That'll show him."

When it was pointed out that if the school board took this course of action, board members wouldn't be able to tell whether members of the public were recording them, Morton responded by shutting her eyes, sticking her fingers in her ears and saying "Nuh-nuh-nuh."...

"Snark Bites" 08/30-09/05

09/04

Knox County Ethics Committee Excuses Itself from Itself

Related: Ethics committee member Briggs, Commissioner Briggs separate

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - In a surprising affirmation of the aptness of Biblical aphorisms, the Knox County Ethics Committee yesterday became a house divided between itself and could not stand, as members agreed to excuse themselves from the panel en masse.

In a related development, Knox County Commissioner Colonel Doctor Richard M. Briggs, M.D., and ethics committee member Richard Briggs have announce the separation of Briggs's divided political allegiances. The two had been increasingly at loggerheads over questions of commission's authority over the ethics committee. Briggs described the separation as "a painful, but necessary, step toward healing and becoming a more reasonable man."

The announcement comes just a week after Briggs had said he hoped his allegiances could work things out.

The 3-0 vote to excuse the panel from itself came about after a quorum couldn't be arrived at to vote on whether County Commissioner "Our" Larry Smith's moustache had taunted former County Commissioner Scott "Scoobie" Moore's smirk into outsmirking itself last year. Moore brought the complaint against Smith after having been ousted from commission for smirkiness by a judge last Oct. 1.

As a flurry of recusals occurred on the Our Larry moustache-Scoobie smirk vote, frustrations within the committee mounted. The voting controversy began when committee member Briggs began questioning Smith's moustache and Moore's smirk and was in turn questioned by County Commissioner Briggs.

"Was there ever a time when you felt that people might be better off without facial expressions or facial hair," began committee member Briggs...

09/03

School Boards Fear Cameras "Catch Their Bad Side"

"Being on camera just brings out our silly side," says Blount County official

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The Knox County school board doesn't plan to follow a Tennessee Shy School Boards Association recommendation that might limit the use of cameras or video recorders at board meetings "because the camera adds at least 20 pounds to our figures," but at least one other local school board will.

Blount County has already accepted the recommendation from TSSBA that changes its existing policy regarding news coverage of school board meetings to one that is "more flattering and more protective of our tendency to try to talk with our mouths full of feet," according to Jane Morton, a member of the policy committee.

The new policy states that the press shall not bring cameras to board meetings without the consent of the executive board "unless they promise to capture our good sides and give us time to properly 'vogue' the moment," said Morton, who is a member of the executive board...

09/01

Knox County Government Takes Leave of Absence

Some officials said to have taken leave of senses months ago

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - In the wake of Knox County Auditor Richard Walls's abrupt announcement that he was on an extended leave of absence, it has been revealed that the entire Knox County government has been on leave for some time - the sense of some officials apparently having departed months ago.

"Oh yes, I can definitively confirm that many officials took leave of their senses long before this," said one anonymous county official. "For instance, the law director's discretion appears to have been Away Without Official Leave since at least before the whole defalcation business began a couple of years ago. Other officials' brains are rumored to have gone AWOL as well. I mean, with all the ongoing investigations, the trustee's office, the solid waste department, the mayor's office - well, what else is one to think? And regarding the mayor's office, it's said that the county mayor's mind is still back in Kosovo."

Mayoral spokesperson Dwight Van de Vate refused to say where the mayor's mind was at.

"I can neither confirm nor deny where the mayor's mind is at at any given moment," he said. "Really, I can't. It could be anywhere. Napping in the executive suite, fixing a hole where the rain gets in, reading to the little children in the playground of his mind, wandering behind the little animals - anywhere."

Pressed about the possibility the mayor had left his mind, his heart or other body parts in Kosovo, Van de Vate said, "I honestly can't answer. Because if I say the name of that city, I'm going to get an earworm of that song again. And you have no idea how hard it is to get rid of once you have 'Kosovooo-ooooohhhhnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooo!"...