Is She Really Going Out With Him

Joe Jackson came out with a song in the early 80s titled "Is She Really Going Out With Him."  Man, how many poems about love did I write influenced by this song? A lot. A lot.

Here is a video with lyrics from YouTube:

The nine senators should channel Mary Ellen Lease

So, the Republicans have won a supermajority in each of the Tennessee state houses.  Nothing can stop a supermajority imparting its will.  And there are 9 Democratic senators. In the Tennessee State Senate. Being a Democrat in the state senate is a lonely place to be.

My advice for the nine? I would take a page from the Kansan Mary Ellen Lease and shout. "Raise hell and not corn!"  If it were me as one of the nine, I would become an angry, jaded senator.

I would stage walkouts, refuse to vote, be irreverent, ridicule, accuse, burn bridges, and scorch the Earth. What is there to lose? Be redistricted? Not until 2021!

These nine shouldn't be quiet to play the game of statemanship. If they have the cojones, they need to be a pain, to be defiant, to be a dissident. That is the only power game they have left.

 

Some Trip Comments

This weekend, I went driving around a little bit. Here are some random comments:

Highway 111 N -- The Tubes sang the song "What a Beauty" and boy is the drive along highway 111 a beaut.

Crossing two plateaus, a descent into the stunning Sequatchie Valley, and a lot of open land.  From about highway 8 north of Cagle to the exit for Fall Creek Falls, there is major construction on highway 111.  It is being transformed into a divided 4-lane highway.  There is already a divided 4-lane from the Fall Creek Falls exit into Spencer. So once this is done, 4-lane highway from Spencer to highway 8; two-lanes from highway 8 through Cagle, and then a 4-lane highway from the tippy top of Cagle Mountain to Soddy-Daisy. And going north from Spencer, after breaking speed records descending Spencer Mtn., 4-lane highway to I-40 in Cookeville.

I agree with Soddy-Daisy: it would make more sense to extend highway 111 on across the Tennessee River to highway 58 for that toll bridge ole Jim Cobb used to tout.

I-40 W  to Nashville--People coming down from Spencer Mtn. just think they are done going down hill when they get on I-40 W at Cookeville.  There is quite the drop going off the Eastern Highland Rim on I-40. They built the descent on I-40 W with the least amount of money building a tall croncrete barrier to separate the divided highway going down.  But they spent a ton of money building 5 bridges to cross the winding Caney Fork River in very quick succession after the descent.

Climatologists have mapped the wind flow from the equator and some of it comes back down from the stratosphere on a line between Nashville and Cookeville.  A little extra cold moisture, anyone?

I-40 in Wilson County needs some serious renovation. Especially betweent Lebanon and Mount Juliet. The traffic is crazy. The interstate is packed. The roadbed is pockmarked. There is a need for a 6-lane divided interstate here.

Nashville 24/40 split--Not enough words without profanity to describe this engineering morass.That's why I took Briley Parkway north to I-24 N.

I-24 N to Clarksville--The trucks on this part of interstate must think they own the road. Because they sure act like it. A driver feels trapped in between the thicket of trees not only on the side of the road but in the median as well. Very eery feeling when a semi truck comes up on you at night streaming headlight beams into your space and then veering off into the passing lane. The trees hide everything.

Too me that wasn't a very good idea to leave a dark path of an interstate among the wild.