Here's hoping the state follows through and cleans house at the diversity office at the University of Tennessee.
By now, you almost certainly have heard about the outlandish memo circulated earlier this year in which the office wanted teachers to use made-up pronouns like chi and xyz and what have you so as not to offend the less than half of one percent of gender-neutral students enrolled in Knoxville.
If that's not bad enough - and wasteful enough of our tax dollars - the office of dipstickery earlier this month put out a social media post on how not to let your holiday party become a Christmas party.
Excuse me, but in an effort to not offend every other religion, that's overly offensive to Christians.
Imagine, for a second, the news if said office of doofusness had published ideas on how to avoid recognizing any meaningful part of any another religious event. It would never happen.
Ulysses was the last good grant
I have a real problem with the "grant" system from the federal government that has allowed our local officials to try to convince us it's a good idea to pass the expense through this trough or that side door.
People, where do you think these grants come from? They come from our taxes but under a different line item.
Sorry for the tangent, but grants are in the news again as the city of East Ridge applies for a series of grants that if awarded could get the city millions.
Of course, the city would have to spend millions, because several of those grants call for matching funds.
And for those millions, there's talks of a new park, potentially a new sidewalk somewhere and maybe even a new animal shelter.
What?
In the last six months two condemned buildings in East Ridge have been all over the headlines. Superior Creek Lodge being condemned left hundreds homeless, and the stands at Raymond James Stadium will be torn down later this month.
Yep, but that sidewalk is going to be sweet.
Pictures worth 1,000 words
Well, now people are really going to get Playboy for the articles.
The longstanding punchline to the granddaddy of adult magazines has become the case as Playboy will no longer feature nude photos, much to chagrin of Hugh Hefner, who made more money on skin than anyone this side of Coppertone.
It's crazy to think that there is so much nudity all around that there's no longer a market for a skin magazine.
This almost certainly was not what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the Internet.
Oh, my
We have officially run a study on everything.
Everything.
This week, The Washington Post informed us that researchers, led by Binghamton's Celia Klin, have determined that ending text messages with a period is rude. In fact, those tested say the use of punctuation made the messages less sincere somehow.
Buckets.
(Anyone else want to bet that Celia and her research team got a fat grant for this study? Stupid grants.)
Experience, a grand teacher
There are several tips that you just know without really testing them.
"Don't eat yellow snow" and "Don't touch the pot with the boiling water" are pretty self-evident and clear.
Then there are others that become all-too clear after the fact.
Earlier this week, I was finishing up some Christmas shopping. Well, after the sixth person asked me if I worked at the store it became quite clear that wearing a blue vest to Wal-Mart is an extremely poor choice.
That said, I hope the nice old lady looking for Christmas DVDs found what she was looking for.
(Hey, at least she didn't ask for a grant, you know?)
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343. His "Right to the Point" column runs on A2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.