I hope to hear from you there !
Dave
I dread the day before prepping as much as I do the surgery. First, you have this evil liquid that you must drink all in one sitting. Also, you have to take enough laxative tablets to un-clog a circus elephant who has feasted on cheese and french bread for a month. You spend most of the day driving the big porcelan bus, blowing the horn as you make stops all around your route.
You spend enough time on the Seat Of Great Thought, than you can get an entire Road And Track Magazine read, maybe memorized..including the ads in the back pages. I know all of this, because I have been there before. The doctors want your gut as clean as a chittlin at a Sunday School social.
Ten days.
There’s a lot riding on the next few days. Prayers would be appreciated.
I’ve discovered the October Surprise. I found it when I checked my retirement fund today. It felt like a cold wind up my britches leg. I am surprised to learn that were I to retire today, I would have enough money to… for every day of my remaining life… be able to buy one item from this list:
I think the October Surprise is our economic implosion. And if it ain’t ..keep the other surprise to yourself.
… and neither story portrays our area in a positive light.
Here’s my quick take:
First, the world learns that the suspect in the Sarah Palin e-mail hacking is a University Of Tennessee student. Not that it took a lot of brain power to hack such an obvious password- but regardless, it doesn’t portray the school or the student in a positive light. I am sure some commentators will say “wonder what they’re teaching those kids down there in Tennessee?”
And then, this afternoon, the area is shocked at another very public shooting. This time, police say a worker at a clothing store at Knoxville Center Mall was shot several times and died at the scene. Law officers confronted the suspect just outside the store, and there was a gunfight. The suspect was wounded twice, and taken to UT Hospital. Officers are not saying what they believe was the motive for the attack.
Couple that with a killing at Central High, and the deadly attack at a Kingston Pike Church, and Knoxville has really been making the news headlines. In the worst way.
This area consistently ranks high in the list of desirable places to live in America. But even the most desirable place has its share of undesirable people. We can only hope that our measures to deflect trouble work better than the people who want to harm others.
I see a lot of comments on the internet that say Knoxville has big city crime problems. That is not true - so far.
I challenge you to look at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at http://www.ajc.com/
Look at the crime news in that area over a few days, and you will see what big city crime is all about. We had a couple up from Atlanta this past weekend, and some residents are miserable because criminal elements have moved into what was once a peaceful area.
In no way do I want to minimize what is happening in our area. It is bad, and we need to do everything we can to support law officers, educators, and leaders in their effort to make sure our local news doesn’t spiral into a litany of crime reports.
My perception is that Knoxville has experienced a string of unrelated, violent events that have caught the media’s attention. One reason for that is because our local reporters do such a good job of covering breaking news.
Now, you can’t gloss over what’s happened and whistle through the graveyard. One bad incident is one too many.
It’s not big city crime… yet.
But we’re getting there if we’re not careful.
