Anarchists Among Us? What happens when a liberal comes to Knoxville?

What if that liberal prefers to refer to himself as a socialist? What if he is comfortable with the label "anarchist" and questions the legitimacy of the power of any government, including our own? How would such a person be received in Knoxville?

The answer might surprise you. It certainly surprised me. I intended this blog to be about the speech Noam Chomsky gave at UT tonight. I hoped to have a picture or two to post. I didn't get in. I arrived about twenty minutes before the scheduled start and was immediately confronted with hundreds of people in a line that flowed from the entrance to the Cox Auditorium in the Alumni Gym, down the hill and around the side of Neyland Stadium. The speech had been moved there because of the anticipated size of the crowd and it proved to be far too small. I'm told the doors were closed at 5:30, a full hour and half before the speech was to begin.

As I was walking toward the front of the line to see if perhaps the doors had not been opened for some reason, the people near the doors began walking down the hill. Further entry was denied due to the building reaching capacity. Hundreds of people left disappointed. Once I re-entered the parking garage to leave, people were still arriving hoping to see the speech. It was stunning.

I'm not sure if he spoke about linguistics - he is considered one of the fathers of modern linguistics - or behavioral psychology, philosophy or politics, each subjects about which he has written numerous books, but it was obvious that this man who does not run from left-leaning political labels that are used as political curse words in today's discourse, was given a very warm reception.

In the shadow of the stadium that a few decades ago hosted Richard Nixon, along with tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters and a few dissenters, a liberal came and was welcomed. Could Knoxville possibly be entering a more politically tolerant phase? Are there that many anarchists among us? I don't know. I do know that many people supported an appearance by a liberal and many left disappointed at having missed him. Maybe there are simply that many fans of linguistics in our little town.

Coming Events, Part One

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Neyland Stadium on a pretty day

This is a bit out of the ordinary for this blog. To get where we are going with this post, the story starts high above the banks of the Tennessee River. Very high. So high, in fact, it is lovingly referred to as the "nose bleed" section of Neyland Stadium. This particular portion is on the southern end of the stadium, poised high in the sky and generally reserved for the fans wearing the wrong color. This is where I generally sit for my every-other year game. It was at just such a game in 1990 that our story begins.

First, there were the curses hurled in our direction from what I could only assume were drunken students as we walked to the game. Our group included my seven-year-old daughter and I was not amused. Once we entered the stadium and the game began, the abuse moved to the field. There was hope until the second half kick-off and then Dale Carter meandered his way toward the south end zone securing a victory for the home crowd.

I don't even want to talk about it.

Then the rains came. Not simply a shower or even a passing storm. This was a downpour of Biblical proportions. One could guess that God was not happy, but 100,000 Vol fans certainly were. By the time the game was over, UT had won 45-3. My party left early only to endure more chants of an obscene sort and to wade precariously and dejectedly back to our cars.

So why would I bring this up now? What could this have to do with a downtown blog over twenty years later? Well, sometime in the second half, sometime after the on-the-field pain was simply too much to bear, my friend and I looked over the southern end of the stadium toward the Tennessee River. Did it pass through our minds that a better fate might await us if we jumped? Would the crowd have cheered if we had? No friends, what we saw was much more important and brings us to our topic today: Massive, unfiltered, completely contaminated oceans of runoff from downtown spewing its venom into the Tennessee River.

One of my companions that day was my friend DeWayne, who may not remember this conversation, though I am certain he remembers the day. DeWayne is an engineer from the state of Florida and is certainly no bleeding-heart environmentalist. DeWayne is, God love him, about a hundred thousand miles to my right on any issue you might name. He was disgusted at what he saw as we peered over the edge into the abyss. He assured me the state of Florida would never allow that kind of runoff to contaminate a river.

It was the first time I realized that oils from cars and all kinds of surface contaminants poison our waterways. It was the first time I heard the words "retention pond." I later learned that some boat owners do not like to put their boats in the river because they have to clean the oil off the hulls after an excursion. I didn't know very much about the problem and I'm not sure I'm more knowledgeable now, but I've been much more aware since that day. I only thought the most important thing for me happened on the field.

So, here we are twenty years later. Knoxville has hopefully come a long way since then in dealing with such issues. I have a feeling we have a long way to go, yet. There is a group dedicated to improving our water quality and they host a number of good events. Parci, one of my faithful readers, has e-mailed me several times requesting a plug for the cause. I think it is an important one.

River rescue cleans streams, rivers and shorelines.

The Knox County Water Quality Forum sponsors a number of events all designed to clean up our waterways, small and large. They are the folks who bring us the River Rescue events. That was the only event I had personally tuned into before Parci began to ever-so-gently enlighten me.

It turns out they sponsor a number of events including one next week which examines creative - yes, even artistic - ways to use trash! It happens at the Bearden branch of the public library. You can read about it at the link above. Soon they will sponsor another major event that will happen right here in downtown. It's called the Rainy Day Brush Off and I've promised Parci I will pass the word along as it nears. Something tells me she won't let me forget!