Columbine!

Oh, with all of this talk of besmirching and besmooching, I forgot to tell you the most exciting part of my day. I was letting the dog out to poop this morning and I saw something in the big bed. As you do, I said, “What the fuck?”

I was figuring on blanket flowers, since those were the surprise asskickers of the bed last year, but no! It’s the columbine, making little elaborate wizard hats all in my garden.

I haven’t even cleaned that bed up yet! But the columbine doesn’t give a shit. I tell you what. Columbine comes across all delicate and ephemeral but it’ll grow in shady spots and it fucking rocks. I thought it was fine last year, but this, I guess, is its third year and it looks amazing.

It’s not a plant I would have normally stuck in my garden. But upon living with it? I love it.

Michael Silence Has Besmerched My Honor and I Hereby Challenge Him to a Duel!

Before I start this post, I feel obliged to ask Brandon Puttbrese to go get a free ice cream cone or watch old Dukes of Hazzard episodes on Hulu or something, because though I think he’s righting the ship that is the TNDP’s communication strategy, I need to talk frankly about its failings.

So, yes, Michael Silence. Let’s ponder this bullshit post of his about Haslam’s Jobs Party Buses.

“Looks like the Dem party did a good job of getting the talking points out.”

Why, Silence? Because we’re too stupid to be appalled at the Jobs Party Buses on our own? My girly brain can’t figure out what to be outraged about unless someone tells me?

What alternate universe do you live in, Michael Silence, where the Democratic Party in this state is organized enough to a.) quickly develop talking points; b.) quickly and efficiently distribute said talking points; and c.) had enough goodwill built up with the progressive bloggers in this state that we would act on what they said? I mean, at the least, is it late motherfucking Friday afternoon?

No it is not.

Then you know shit didn’t come from the TNDP.

It is utter bullshit to accuse me of being a shill for a party I’ve been fairly critical of. It’s dismissive and it insinuates that I’m either stupid and easily lead or fickle.

Okay, true, I might be fickle.

But that post paints an inaccurate picture of that makes Democrats look more together than they are and it insinuates some dismissive shit about me I don’t like.

I’m not sure of the protocols of challenging someone to a duel, but if I have to drive to Knoxville to slap Silence in the face with a glove, I have plenty of gardening gloves to choose from.

Let Them Eat Cake, And We’ll Have Raises and Party Buses!

As the day trickles on, I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about Haslam’s Jobs Party Buses, but I was telling the Butcher–who has been through the unemployment grind recently–about how Haslam’s Jobs Party Buses will swoop into communities and offer access to state of the art computers, faxes, copiers, and job application training.

Now, yes, there’s something bizarre about this idea that the reason people in Tennessee don’t have jobs is that they just don’t know how to properly fill out an application. And, yes, that these cost $188,000 a piece means taxpayers somewhere are getting ripped the fuck off.

But the part that caused the Butcher to laugh and then get pissed is that they don’t set these Jobs Party Buses up in a location for weeks or even days. So, if you set up an email account and fill out your online application (or hell file for unemployment online), they then drive away with those computers.

So, how the fuck will you know what happened with your application? It’s like the Administration is so sure that you don’t have a job because of your dumb ass, that they never stop to consider the ways that they’re dumbasses.

It seems to me this is the same thing as “Cut twelve hundred state jobs and give my friends huge raises.” I mean, who the fuck has ever heard of any kind of jobs initiative that involves spending a half a million dollars on three vehicles. Can you imagine the amount of computers for local libraries a half a million dollars would have bought? How many permanent jobs centers could have been opened with that?

But, of course, you can’t drive a library down a parade route. A jobs center can’t part out front of the capitol where legislators can walk through it.

And more than that, it just reinforces the “You’re not Tennessee” nonsense. Rather than doing something permanent for your community, that could be tailored to meet the needs of your local situation, the State is busy buying itself toys.

Haslam’s giving raises to his buddies and buying toys. And this is supposed to move Tennessee to more secure fiscal footing?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I see how it makes things more fun, but I have no idea how this does much more than make things more fun for “real” Tennesseans while the rest of us stand outside and watch.

It’s weird. Newscoma and Rachel are already on it.

Just once, I guess, I wish I could tell if these jokers even had the good sense to be embarrassed that this was all they could figure out to do. At least that would be honest and give people a sense of the scale of the problem.