Goose Vs. Cop: Goose Wins

A goose attacked a police detective in Clarksville,
Tennessee in an assault that was caught
on security cameras. 

From the YouTube Police Center channel, we get this video of a Clarksville, Tennessee detective attacked by an assailant as he makes his way to the office recently.

The goose gets the upper hand quickly, shoving the detective into the bushes and causing all sorts of havoc before the detective escapes.  

The goose was apparently trying to protect a nest that had young goslings. This kind of attack is fairly common in the spring.

The goose was engaged in what botanists say is "wing slapping," which uses the strongest part of their body to fend off would-be attackers.

The good news is the detective wasn't hurt, aside from a bruised ego.

So far, no charges are pending against the goose, but it does clearly seem to be a case of assault on a police officer.

Watch:

Latest Outrage: Tennessee Bills Teen Nearly $2,970 For Wrecking Guardrail That Killed Her

Hannah Elmers, 17, died in a Tennessee car crash involving
an unsafe guardrail. The state of Tennessee later billed
her for the wrecked guardrail, but withdrew the
bill after public outcry.

Last November, Hannah Elmers, 17, was driving her dad's 2000 Volvo down Interstate 75 near Niota, Tennesees when she somehow lost control of the vehicle, traveled into the median skidded sideways, forcing the driver's side door to hit the end of a guardrail.

As USA Today reported, instead of deflecting the car, the guardrail pierced it, killing Elmers.

This would have ended up as another terrible local tragedy, a nice young teenager dying too young.

Except Tennessee decided to make things worse. Much worse, as Hannah's dad, Steven Elmers soon learned.

As USA Today describes it:

"Four months later, Steven Elmers of Lenoir City received a $2,970 bill from the Tennessee Department of Transportation, dated February 24 and addressed to Hannah for the cost of labor and materials to install 25 feet of guardrail at the scene of the crash. 

'I'm shocked, the audacity,' he said. 'What bothers me is that they're playing Russian roulette with people's lives. They know these devices do not perform at high speeds and in situations like my daughter's accident, but they leave them in place.'"

Wait, what?!?

It turns out, not only did Tennessee have the audacity to bill Hannah, they also know the type of guardrail they used is unsafe. And could kill other people.

Last fall, Tennessee transportation officials did decide to stop buying the type of guardrail involved in Hannah's crash, called a Lindsay X-Lite.

When a car hits the end of this type of guardrail, it's supposed to collapse like a telescope, theoretically minimizing injuries to the people in the car that hits it.

However, at high speeds, it doesn't collapse, and you get situations like Hannah's, where she crashed into it at high speeds. The stretch of Interstate where she was driving has a speed limit of 70 mph.

The state was originally going to leave existing dangerous guardrails in place, but now says they are  going to remove the remaining Lindsay X-Lite guardrails from other high speed locations in Tennessee.

They'd better. The Knoxville News-Sentinel says that since June, 2016, four people have died in Tennessee after colliding with this type of guardrail.

But what about that $2,980 bill?

A spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Transportation says the bill came from "a mistake somewhere in processing" and the department "greatly apologies for it."

Nice, but I don't trust it. How could somebody not catch this before it went out? I think the reversal and apology is more because of the bad PR that came when after the bill went out than any good intentions from the state.

By the way, the maybe unsafe other types of guardrails, made by Trinity Industries Inc. might be along highways in other states, like yours.

A whistleblower named Joshua Harman won a $663 million settlement against Trinity, after he alleged the company altered the design of one of its guardrails without getting approval from the Federal Highway Administration, the Knoxville News-Sentinel said. 

Virginia, citing the safety reasons, is removing a Trinity guardrail called ET-Plus for safety reasons. The city of Nashville, Tennessee did the same.

Adds the Knoxville News-Sentinel: 

"Trinity has since been involved in a slew of lawsuits nationwide in which crash victims alleged the unauthorized changes caused the guardrails to spear vehicles, resulting in injuries and deaths."

Hoo, boy, this company is in trouble. Let's hope any problematic guardrails made by this company get replaced before there are more tragedies.

Sad Story Of Child Dying In Santa's Arms Proves To Me Santa Is "Real"

Eric Schmitt-Matzen, aka Santa, did a hero's job for a
dying boy. Just the dose of humanity we needed

UPDATE/EDITOR'S NOTE

This is disillusioning, but the Knoxville News Sentinel is now saying they can't verify the veracith of this story.

A statement from the News-Sentinel says in part:

"Since publication the News-Sentinel has done additional investigation in an attempt to independently verify Schmitt-Matzen's acount. This has proven unsuccessful. 

Although facts about his background have checked out, his story of bringing a gift to a dying child remains unverified. The News-Sentinel cannot establish that Schmitt-Matzens' account is inaccurate, but more importantly, ongoing reporting cannot establish that it is accurate."

If there are further updates, I'll either update or delete the post, whichever is most appropriate.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

You know damn well there's a Kleenex warning with this story.

The viral story going around now is about the hospitalized child in Tennessee dying in Santa's arms.

The whole thing is hopelessly sad and tragic, obviously, save for one bright spot. The man who was playing Santa, Eric Schmitt-Matzen, is an absolutely beautiful human being.

When not Santa, the white-bearded, six foot one, 310 pound man is president of a company called Packing Seals & Engineering in Tennessee.

I'm sure he's a great mechanical engineer and CEO, but Schmitt-Matzen gave us all a welcome dose of humanity in a world that seems sorely lacking in that department.

There's a heartrending video interview with Schmitt-Matzen at the bottom of this post, but if it is too much to watch, what follows is a narrative of this simultaneously terrible and beautiful story.

According to the Knoxville News-Sentinel, the story begins with an urgent telephone call.

It was a nurse from the hospital Schmitt-Matzen knew. She told him to come right away for a sick five year old boy. The nurse told him don't even change into your whole Santa Clause outfit. There wasn't time.

I'll let Sam Venable, an author, storyteller and columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel pick up the story here:

"Schmitt-Matzen got to the hospital in 15 minutes. He met the lad's mother and several family members.

'She'd bought at toy from (the TV show) PAW Patrol and wanted me to give it to him,' he said, voice growing husky. 'I sized up the situation and told everyone, If you think you're going to lse it, please leave the rom. If I see you crying, I'll break down and can't do my job.'"

Venable wrote that nobody entered the room with Santa, but watched, sobbing, through a hallway window in the hospital's ICU.

Schmitt-Matzen continued, as relayed by Venable:

"'When I walked in, he was laying there, so weak it looked like he was ready to fall asleep. I sat down on his bed and asked, 'Say, what's this I hear about you're gonna miss Christmas? There's no way you can miss Christmas! Why, you're my Number One Elf!'

He looked up ad said, 'I am?'

I said 'Sure!'

I gave him the present. He was so weak he could barely open the wrapping paper. When he saw what was inside, he flashed a big smile and laid his head back down.

'They say I'm gonna die,' he told me. 'How can I tell when I get to where I'm going?'

I said, 'Can you do me a big favor?'

He said, 'Sure!'

'When you get there, you tell 'em you're Santa's Number One Elf, and I know theyll let you in.'

He said, 'They will?'

I said, 'Sure!'

He kind of sat up and gave me a big hug and asked one more question: 'Santa, can you help me?'

I wrapped my arms aroud him. Before I could say anything, he died right there. I let him stay, just kept hugging and holding on to him."

And so, Schmitt-Matzen, aka Santa, sent the boy on his next journey, whereever that might be.

The boys mother ran into the room, screaming, "No, No not yet!"  Schmitt-Matzen handed the boy back to his mother and fled the hospital in tears.

He said he cried so hard driving home he could barely see the road. That's understandable.

What's also understandable is Schmitt-Matzen considered giving up his Santa gig after this. He just didn't have the heart to do it.

But he did one more gig, which was fortunate.  Schmitt-Matzen said, "When I saw all those children laughing, it brought me back into the fold, it made me realize the role I have to play....For them and for me."

At 54 years old, I'm too old to believe in Santa. Or am I?

No, a fat, happy old man from the North Pole is not going to come down my chimney Christmas Eve and give me presents.

You can call people like Schmitt-Matzen what you want. Great human beings, Good Samaritans, or guardian angels.

Or you could call him Santa. This time of year, when I hear stories like this, I'm glad that Santa lives on, not in some hokey television commercial that demands that you Buy, Buy, Buy!, but in the quiet grace of Schmitt-Matzen, aka Santa.

It seems like there's so little of Schmitt-Matzen's type in the world today, in a time when people feel like they have "permission" to scream insults and threats at people they don't like.

I, like everybody else, shed a tear when I read about Schmitt Matzen and the dying boy. Not only for the context of the story, but because it makes me know there are still people like him out there.

Thanks, Santa.

Here's the video. (Warning, it's a real tear-jerker, but worth watching)

"Make America White Again" Politician Has Other Stupid Things To Say, Too

 A Tennessee politician who has LOTS of stupid
things to say put up this annoying billboard.  

Rick Tyler certainly caused a splash this week when he put up a billboard in Polk County Tennessee that says "Make America White Again."

Tyler is running for to be a U.S. Congressman, representing Tennessee's 3rd District. Almost nobody thinks he'll win that seat, which is a good thing.

Beyond the extreme offensiveness of Tyler's billboard, we can also bask in the shining stupidity of his thoughts, his quotes and his campaign web site.

First of all, Tyler told television station WRCB in Chattanooga that he has no hatred for "people of color" but that the sign's message is that America should go back to a "1960s Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It To Beaver time when there were no breaks-ins, no violent crime, no mass immigration."

Yes, Ozzie and Harriet  and Leave It To Beaver were pleasant, calm and um, pretty white, but has anyone clued Tyler in that they were TV shows. As in fiction. As in not reality.  As in viewers' escape from their day-to-day trouble.

No mass immigration? I seem to recall at that time, America saw an influx of Cubans - decidely nonwhite people coming to our shores and living here. I'm glad we welcomed those Cubans fleeing Castro's repression, but still, no immigration?

No violent crime? The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was on TV from 1952 to 1966. To pick one year during that show's run, the murder rate in 1960 was 5.1 per 100,000 in the United States, according to Infoplease, citing statistics from the FBI.

The murder rate in 2014, Tyler's much hated modern era, was lower than in 1960, at 4.5 per 100,000 says Infoplease

OK, this next one is a smaller point, but maybe Tyler is more impressed with himself than others.

Television station WTVC in Chattanooga took a peek at Tyler's web site and found some real gems. Including this take on his billboard:

"With its towering and massive stature, the billboard sign is difficult to ignore an dits message comes across as authorative and influential."

First of all, the billboard looks a little small and lame, judging from the photos. And was Tyler just trying to ridiculously channel the 1988 song "Nothing But Flowers" by the Talking Heads.

After all, that song has the following lyric:

"Years ago, I was an angry young man
And I'd pretend that I was a billboard
Standing tall, by the side of the road.
I fell in love with a beautiful highway."

Kind of the same message as Tyler's, no?

In ever-more flowery language (Tyler needs an editor!) he goes on on his web site:

"The Make America White Again billboard advertisement will cut to the very core and marrow of what plagues us as a nation. As Anne Coulter so effectively elucidates in her book, "Adios America," the overhall of Amerca's immigration law in the 1960s has placed us on an inevitable course of demise and destruction.

Yes, the cunning globalist/Marxist social engineers have succeeded in destroying that great bulwark against statist tyranny, the white American super majority. Without its expedited restoration, little hope remains for the nation as a whole."

Wow, quite a helping of word salad there, Ricky!

So that strange performance artist Ann Coulter is right up there with the most classic of American writers writing about America? Right up there with Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman and John Steinbeck, huh?

You're also telling us that those Mexicans and other Latin American who streamed across our borders, either legally or illegally, was some evil plot by some Marxists to create tyranny in the U.S.

But what of the white Americans who seemed intent on tyranny. Does the name George Wallace ring a bell? How about Joseph McCarthy? J. Edgar Hoover?

Of course, Tyler's "Make America White Again" billboard is a play on Donald Trump's campaign catchphrase "Make America Great Again."

Tyler's an enthusiastic Trump supporter, but it's telling that a lot of people, including a pretty good sized number of Trump enthusiasts, really hated Tyler's billboard.

Here's a great example from WTVC's Facebook page which lists viewer comments:

Don Tate said, "As a Trump supporter, that is a poor excuse of a human to put a sign up like that. But that's the wonderful thing about freedom of speech. At least you know what's really in their heart."

True, that.

Tyler is a fringe candidate who will never be elected, so the temptation is to ignore him. But it's always best to look under rocks and into dark corners to see what kind of pestulence and rot is in there.

Because of if you catch it early and bring it to the light of day, you can disinfect it pretty quickly so it doesn't cause more damage.

Indeed, Tyler faces a backlash, as you might expect. The billboard has been taken down and pretty much everybody is boycotting the local restaurant he owns.

I  hope the fine folks of Polk County, Tennesee find a great candidate among the many who are ruming. I'm sure you can find somebody better than Tyler.

Mississippi Latest State To Screw Itself Over Because Jesus

The Mississippi billboard says it all...A 

It seems to be a required ritual of Republican state legislatures across the United States.

Prove to their voters they are Christians by passing odious and usually unconstitutional laws "legalizing" discrimination against gays, and transgender people and anybody else they deem as not going to be Saved.

The latest is Mississippi, and as is that state's style, basically every business, every service provider, every government agency and every church can now refuse service to gay people, and anybody else they deem immoral, like people who have sex outside of marriage, whether straight or gay, divorcees, you name it.

The only protected people in Mississippi are monogamous, straight married couples. Presumably only ones that are Christian.

I don't know how you determine whether somebody who walks into your store is following these rules without interrogating them, but I'll let Mississippi figure that out.

That state sure does have a lot to figure out, especially this: Why does the Mississippi legislature and governor do something like this, knowing that there will be an outcry that will hurt its already meager and sad economy, budget and everything else?

I don't have a good answer, and they probably don't, either.

I know these weird "religious liberty" bills are coming fast and furious nationwide from wackos who want us to turn into a theocracy.

It's everywhere, it seems, not just Mississippi. Tennessee. Idaho.

The governor of Idaho just had to veto a bill that would have said schools can use the Bible in public school instruction. The gov, and his attorney general, wisely said this would have been unconstitutional.

Tennessee State Senate, not to be outdone, approved a bill designating the Bible as the official state book. The state's attorney general, along with every other legal eagle, says the measure violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

One Tennessee senator, according to Slate, said "the very founding of our nation, the very form of government we have to today" is based on the Holy Scripture.

Um, no. They created a secular government in which the freedom of religion was bestowed on the citzenry. Quite a different thing.

 The Tennessee legislature, in its "wisdom" also passed a bill that would allow mental health couselors to not help someone if doing so would conflict with their "sincerely held religious beliefs."

As the website thenewcivilrightsmovement.com put it:

"The ACLU of Tennessee warns the bill, should it become law, would allow counselors to 'refuse to see clients for almost unlimited reasons. For instance, a counselor could refuse to see a lesbian simply because of her sexual orientation, or see a couple involved in an interfaith relationship A counselor who is an atheist could refuse to see a Catholic client - and the list goes on.'"

That last sentence is important, and could really screw the right wing evangelists who are trying to create this evangelical Christian theocracy.

All this anti-gay, right wing evangelical Christian faux lawmaking is being done in large part to distract from the real problems facing their constituents that the legislatures are too stupid, or too in the pocket of wealthy campaign donors to tackle.

Let's not deal with an iffy economy, creating jobs, paying for schools and infrastructure, all that stuff is too hard!

So the resort to the tried and true "the gays did it" or "the atheists did it" or whatever to redirect voters' ire. That way, when the economy, the state, the schools, the roads and everything else is a mess, they can just blame it all on the gays and the ungodly, and pretend it's not their fault.

OK, then, Christianity is saved from the heathens! Our laws work!

Or not.

What happens if some smart aleck gay person, atheists, activist or prankster tries to take advantage of these new rules and laws to turn them on their heads?

The unconstitional lawmaking is designed to "protect Christians" from the "attack" their under from society as a whole, not to mention the big bad heathen U.S. Supreme Court.

You saw the example above of the atheist counselor not treating a Catholic client. You know somebody is going to refuse to serve somebody in Mississippi or North Carolina because that would-be client is an evangelical Christian.

"It's against my closely held religous belief to serve a Christian, so I'm not going to do it."

Will these upstanding Christians cling to their weird theocratic laws then? It will be fun to watch.

Meanwhile, the economies in the states with the bigoted legislatures are going to suffer because of their actions. (But as noted, it's the gays fault! And the atheists!)

We know North Carolina is losing lots of investment and business from people repelled by their bad anti-LGBT law. North Carolina has potentially a lot to lose: Its business sector is pretty vibrant.

You'd think the Mississippi legislature and its governor would work on fixing the state's really big problems. And they're YUUGGEE! as Donald Trump might say.

As ThinkProgress notes, Mississippi's economy is ranked worst of all the 50 states. It has the highest unemployment rate, the lowest gross domestic product per capita, the lowest averge money spent on personal consumption and the lowest average annual wages.

Mississippi also ranks lowest on its innovation and technology efforts, its educational attainment and health.

The state sounds like a helluva fun place, huh?

Their legislature and governor are only making things worse in Mississippi.

What happens when Mississippi gets too poor to even maintain its Christian churches?

School Bus Lights Freak Out Religious Woman

A Tennessee woman says she sees signs of Satan
in these school bus brake lights.  

In this year's first classic case of over-reacting, a woman in Tennessee is totally, TOTALLY upset over some brake lights she saw on the back of a school bus.

To her, the lights looked like a pentagram, an upside down star that looked like the sign of the devil.

Is it SATAN?!?!?

No it's just regular school bus brakes lights designed in such a way so that devilishly inattentive motorists see them and don't smash into a bus load of kids.

But this woman is having none of it, says WMC Action News 5 in Tennessee.

"Anyone who fears a God if not God and Jesus Christ should be outraged," said the woman, describing the school bus brake lights.

The woman's over-reaction resulted in a bigger over-reaction. The woman who is afraid of the school bus lights doesn't want her name used in news reports because she's gotten death threats over her comments.

Really?

Actually, I totally believe the woman (about the death threats, not about the Satanic brake lights).

I mean, Jeez! Yeah, the lady is stupid for believing that Satan lives in random school bus brake lights, but does she really deserve the death penalty for being, um, a little eccentric?

I know most of the death threats came from low life Internet trolls who are too physically and mentally weak to actually do the violence, but did the trolls even think of what they were suggesting?

If everybody deserved to die because they said stupid things, then the trolls who issued the fatwa of sorts against School Bus Brake Light Lady deserve to die, too. Actually, if stupid comments deserve the death penalty, practically everyone on the planet would be dead.

Everybody says stupid things, including yours truly.

So let's all have a nice little chuckle over School Bus Brake Light Lady, then we'll hope the designers of school bus brake lights worry more about childrens' safety than imaginary devils in vehicle electronic components.

Then we can move on an nobody dies.

Unless a distracted nut drives into the back of a school bus to kill the devil in the brake lights.

Woman Jailed For Heinous Crime Of Not Maintaining Her Lawn Adequately

Does this messy yard mean the homeowner
should go to jail? A Tennessee city thinks so.  

The property and landscaping Nazis continue to run amok.

My evidence? A woman in Lenoir City, Tennessee was jailed because she did not keep up with her yardwork, says television station WVLT in Knoxville. 

Karen Holloway was initially sentenced to five days in jail but a judge "generously" reduced it to six hours.

She'd been cited by Lenoir City officials who first gave her a warning, but then, when the lawn wasn't cleaned up to their satisfaction, sentenced her to jail.

WVLT quotes Holloway:

"'With my husband going to school and working full time, me with my job, with one vehicle, we were trying our best,' she said.

Holloway, who has two kids still at homes, says she'll be the first to admit this yard needed some attention. But she feels the city has gone too far by imposing jail time." 

Ya think? Sure,  it's a bit annoying to see your neighbors bushes and trees overgrown, as Holloway admits. You want the neighborhood to look nice, but jeez, is putting a person in jail for a sloppy yard the best use of resources in the fine community of Lenoir City?

Apparently, Judge Terry Vann thought so, but he's not talking to the press to elaborate on that point. Code enforcement and police aren't talking about this either.

Maybe they're embarrassed?

Holloway has a reasonable question: "Why would you put me in jail with child molesters, and people who've done real crimes, because I haven't maintained my yard?"

"I feel like I'm being bullied."

I'm a gardener, and judging from the photos taken when Holloway was cited, this property didn't seem like a total disaster to me.  It was indeed messy. The lawn needed mowing, a lot of vines needed to be removed from the house and the shrubs needed tons of trimming and shaping,  but I've frequently seen much worse, and I've cleaned up much worse.

I bet I could have gotten the property in fine shape in one afternoon.

If the city was that worried about how messy the Holloway yard was, they could have saved a lot of money and angst by hiring some teenager to clean up the property. True, Holloway could have done the same, but still, jail time? She could have spent the time in jail doing her landscaping.

As is often the case with these lawn care crises, Holloway says she didn't really get due process. She said she was never read her rights nor told she could have a lawyer with her.

Holloway offered to do five days of community service, but the judge was insistent on jail. Six hours it was. "This opens a floodgate to everybody in Lenoir city being put in jail for silly things," she said.

There have been a surprising number of people who reacted hysterically to perceived violations of what Were Supposed To Do with our property.

Last year, the idiotic city of Miami Shores, Fla. made homeowners remove a meticulously maintained vegetable garden from their front lawn because apparently bland expanses of lawn is much more interesting, useful and beautiful than gardens.

Two years ago, a homeowner's association in Denver went ballistic because a three year old girl drew pictures with chalk on a sidewalk. Because people had to put up with the artwork until the next rainstorm, which probably arrived the next day. Oh, the suffering!

And on and on it goes.

Sadly, SNL Alum/Tea Party Crazy Victoria Jackson Won't Be Williamson County Commissioner

Sadly, Victoria Jackson will not become Williamson
County, Tennessee Commissioner.  

Sad news out of Tennessee last week when we learned Victoria Jackson will not become a county commissioner in Williamson County.   

Instead, two definitely conservative, but rather sane incumbents won re-election. That's no fun!

Jackson, after a short, mystifying stint on Saturday Night Live several years back, has become an, um, colorful political activist.

And her sense of style! You can see it in the photo that accompanies this post.

I think where she got hung up is she was the nuts and bolts of the important job of Williamson County Commissioner. When she was asked how she would manage traffic congestion in the county, she said she opposed Common Core and Agenda 21, which are apparently socialist/communist assaults against the fine citizens of America. 

Common Core is a controversial, but fairly dense federal education policy. Agenda 21 is a bland, voluntary United Nations policy on sustainable development.

But Jackson says they're plots to take away all of our freedoms, so what do I know?

Jackson warned the fine citizens of Williamson County that the evil Agenda 21 was on their doorstep.  There are proposals to build a bike path or two in the county, which is Agenda 21's insidious first step to take away everybody's private property. Or something like that.

Jackson does have unique opinions. Here's a partial summary from the Oh No They Didn't blog:

"She has strummed a ukulele while harmonizing Muslims 'like beheadings and pedophile weddings.' Even Bill O'Reilly laughed at her when she compared Barack Obama to 'Castro in Cuba or the guy in China, or Saddam Hussein.' She has declared, in a protest of a gay kiss on Glee, that homosexual children need to "pray the gay away' amd that there's a spiritual war in America.'"  

Well, then. I guess Jackson won't lead Williamson County in praying the gay away or protesting Muslim weddings with her ukulele.

That's a good thing, but still, the spectacle of Jackson being in public office would have been a lot funnier than anything Saturday Night Live ever produced. Wouldn't it be great if Jackson and Sarah Palin teamed up? I think Jackson should be a regular on Palin's TV network. 

Jackson's political career is short circuited for now, but her classic campaign ads live on. They're such fine pieces of art.

You have to watch it over and over. The guy in the "Nashville Tea Party" t-shirt waving the American flag definitely adds to this film classic:

OK, One More Fireworks Moment: Tenn. Fireworks Store Goes KABOOM!!

Maybe the biggest, but worst and most ugly fireworks display this weekend happened at the Fireworks Superstore in Tennessee, which spectacularly caught fire Sunday evening.

Tennessee fireworks store goes up in flames.  

Luckily, the fire happened AFTER, and not before the big Fourth of July holiday.

There were some people in the store when the fire started, but luckily they got out safely before the crap really hit the fan. 

Travelers through that part of Tennessee had their share of problems, though. The fire sent fireworks blasting onto nearby Interstate 75, so authorities had to close that major highway for awhile.

Here's the video: