They’re still doing it.

Looks like they had quite a shindig going on in London for Democrats Abroad where I could have cast a ballot. Didn’t make it because my dad and brother were visiting, but the news coverage made me kinda sad I missed out.

But I’m so grateful for the opportunity to cast my ballot online in the DA Global Primary. Come November, I’ll vote in my home state. Hillary won there last night without my vote and this fall she’ll win in Tennessee with my vote.

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My brother backs Obama. Tsk, tsk. But he also voted for Nader in 2000, so I think we know how politically wise he is.

Obama could still win and as a good Dem, I’ll vote for him, but I tell you I hope he cuts out the backsniping bullshit pronto. That’s not helping anyone.

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I’ve noticed the Hillary Clinton coverage is all spun negative. They’re still doing it. In one sentence it’s all “Hillary wins more delegates…” in the next it’s all “Hillary is struggling, Hillary is losing her advantage…” blah, blah, blah.

Hello, people – she’s winning. WTF?

The Tennessee Guerilla Women have a good low down on the misogyny and last night’s coverage.

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But you know the weird press coverage is not just about misogyny. John Edwards couldn’t have got 30 seconds if he were the man biting a dog. And poor old Mitt Romney had been winning until the media anointed that crazy McCain. And Huckabee? Well, he’s getting good coverage, cause he’s winning in the snake handling states. (Yeah, I know…. I’m bad.)

Keep on rockin in the free world

Yesterday I got my paper notice about the Global Primary. (If this link doesn’t work, don’t worry – more info below). Since Buddy is eating paper these days, I wanted to get it on the bulletin board and out of his way. But of course, I forgot and left it dangerously close to the changing area.

Me: Hand me that voting thingy.
Vol-in-Law: Voting thingy?
Me: Yeah, that paper there.
ViL: Oh, your voting thingy. (Extra derisive tone where you see italics).
Me: Yeah, you know the vote the directs activities in the free world.

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Living abroad? Want to vote in the primary? Check out the Democrats Abroad site.
Need to register to vote? Check out – www.votefromabroad.org

Beat Bama

It’s just a darn shame I don’t know any Alabama expat bloggers. When I had the bet going with Chris for the Georgia game, it sure added a little extra sparkle. It would be fantastic to make some Bama baby in England (heck, anywhere in Europe would be fine) wear the beautiful Volunteer orange.

The best part about it was that the Vol-in-Law finally felt like he had a bit of a stake in it – given that his only son might have to wear the red and the black. For once, he listened to the game and said “we” when referring to Tennessee. He’s never really seen himself as a fan – merely a Vol-in-Law.

As for Cletus, my husband knows the boy has only one option in the NCAA fandom stakes, on my side it’s all UT. In the UK, universities and sports don’t really go together – although Cletus will be free to support Daddy’s alma mater in the annual Oxford-Cambridge boat race.

How ’bout them Vols?

Well, hey hey – Go Vols. What a fantastic game – (Tennessee wins 35 to 14) Between you and me, I wasn’t quite sure they had it in them. Well, I thought the Vols definitely could win, but I wasn’t sure they would win and I certainly didn’t think they would trample. Phil Fulmer must have found a can of whoopass he’d forgotten about way back in the back of the cupboards.

Or maybe Phil told the Volunteers that there was a little tiny boy across the big, big ocean who would have to wear Georgia kit. Yep, I bet against another expat blogger – a Georgia fan – that if the Bulldogs won I’d dress my boy in Georgia gear.

“Y’all don’t want to see that baby Vol wearing red and black!” Coach Fulmer told the assembled kids in the locker room. “Y’all don’t want to see that sad baby’s face when he sees himself wearing red and black. Men, think of the children.”

On the upside, a young boy in Oxford will soon be introduced to beautiful Tennessee orange. His daddy, even posted a Rocky Top mp3 on his Georgia supporting blog. Magnanimous in defeat – I got to admit that’s more than I would have done. Rocky Top has hardly ever sounded so good.

sleepy Vol

Shhhhh – the Vol Baby is sleeping.

We’ve nearly woken him up FOUR TIMES in the first half of the UT – Georgia game. It’s hard to keep quiet when you hear Tennessee Touchdown.

Things are looking good for the Vol household in the SEC expat blogging feud.

Keep it up y’all.

Go Vols!

Ratcheting up

Goodness the rhetoric is strengthening in advance of the UT-Georgia game. This expat blogger declares a feud. Well, he might be from the swamps of North Florida, but he’s rightly reckoned that folks from the hills can be dangerous, especially when challenged.

And the challenge is getting mean – strong talk from a team with a junkyard mutt as a mascot.

There were strange folk up in the hills, you see – moonshiners, hillbillies, people who didn’t understand the principles of genetics. If you looked at them wrong they would start a feud with you and never rest until your entire family was hunted down. Well, turns out you can take the Vol out of the hills but never the hills out of the Vol.

First off, there’s nothing wrong with a little entrepreneurial distillation action, all the folks on Rocky Top get their corn from a jar and it tastes better by far that way.

And as someone who’s worked in politically correct England for a while, Chris should know better than to throw around racial epithets like “hillbilly”. I’m proud to have been born on a mountain top in Tennessee (technically the ridge running through Fort Sanders affording a beautiful view of the Knoxville campus) – and I prefer the term Appalachian-American, thank you very much. Under the Race Hate Act, you can actually be thrown into jail (gaol) for stirring up cultural hatred – and then who’s gonna be wearing the prison orange? But don’t worry, I won’t be making a complaint – I know it all arises out of pure jealousy from the swamp dweller – for we all know what rolls down hill.

And as for the fighting Volunteer spirit, well hell yeah – bring it on. I don’t care if you have raised the stakes. Now that we’re calling our stadium Fort Neyland your dawgs will find this a much less hospitable locale.

My boy, myself and my dog will all don orange if by some bizarre act of the devil the Vols and their fat little coach manage to slip past the mighty Dawgs. By accepting this bet, you are succumbing to the inevitable fate of adorning young Cletus, yourself and your little cat in glorious red and black.

Dress my cat? That’s just crazy talk. And in red and black? You know how the English feel about animal cruelty. But if by some chance, the puppies squeal through – we’ll see what we can do about the cat.

And so honor must be satisfied

Well, well – you can understand why Georgia might be feeling a little confident going into this game what with the bizarre reverse home ground winning streak.

But what this fellow describes is just hubris. Pride goeth before a fall. And to say we’ve had a decade of bad football in Tennessee is just a lie. Hmmm – we’ve had a national championship somewhere in the last ten years. Sure, it’s now at the outer edges, but still.

And we’ve got something else, too. Phil Fulmer knows that he can’t play choke artist on this one. The Big Orange Army will be taking scalps this Saturday – and they can be from Dawgs or they can be from coaching staff.

The Bet

My brother didn’t lose a tooth down in Athens “defending Smokey’s honor” just to see his nephew dressed in red and black. But I’ve been challenged – one expat blogger against another with the ultimate stake: one tiny expat SEC fan against another – his son vs. mine. If the Vols win – little Zach will finally be dressed right – in Tennessee Orange. If Georgia wins, and though it sickens me to write this, poor old Cletus will have to don Bulldog colors.

Which would be a shame, because as we all know, my boy looks so good in orange.

I do note that like a wily, welching Georgia fan Chris has already laid the foundation for a get-out clause.

Would it be inappropriate to use our sons in a bet? Son of losing fan wears colors of the winning team? Or will our respective better halves step in…

Mine sure won’t. Although he’s from Northern Ireland and doesn’t even much care for college football, he perversely likes to see Tennessee squirm. (Grounds for divorce, I know) Although even he can appreciate a win like the thumpin’ we gave the Dawgs last year.

So here’s what I propose. Losing team’s fan dresses son in winning team’s colors – for real. With team logo (this can be photoshopped, since NCAA baby gear is impossible to source in the UK). Photo to be posted on the loser’s blog by Wednesday. First in a post, then kept in the sidebar for a week.

Go Vols

talkin expat trash

This week I’d like to highlight the blog of a fellow American expat, Chris Della Vedova. His blog is pretty, it has music clips and interesting posts about science and politics and sports and stuff.

We have some other things in common besides our nationality. He has a brand new baby boy, too. He’s also a recovering smoker. He thinks Steve Earle isn’t quite so good since he got so politically bitter. I don’t know for sure, but I bet he thinks the SEC is the toughest football conference in the nation. Anyway, that’s where his heart is.

And that’s where the similarities end. You see last week he combed the baby clothing aisles of Oxford (England, not Mississippi) for suitable team colors for his little Zach. But instead of choosing a beautiful golden orange, he chose red and black.

He’s raising that kid to support Georgia. And to my mind, that’s just bad parenting.

Hey Chris, I hope the sound of your bitter wailing come Saturday night when Tennessee woops your Dawgs doesn’t wake up your baby.

UPDATE: I’m challenged, and I accept.

Cross cultural comparisons

A Tri-Cities area chicken farmer featured in the latest round of the US version of Survivor. It was filmed in China. And here’s how Steve “Chicken” Morris summed up his observations.

“There’s no biscuits and gravy, and there’s no cornbread and beans. And not too many front porches,” he said. “A very unusual culture it is.”

Well, there you go. Genius. You could say the same about England. And Steve – you should see what they do to ice tea here!

(Of course, I do some pretty darn good cornbread and beans – if I do say so myself.)

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Hat tip to Big Orange Michael’s TV coverage at Music City Bloggers.

It’s not about the next election

I’m still not blogging about the 2008 Presidential election until, ya know, it’s an election year. But this is about the process, so it doesn’t count. John H hits on the forever backwards creeping primary dates in post entitled

In a blazing round of ‘Who’s on First’, Tennessee proclaims its Presidential Primary to start RIGHT NOW

and says:

If Tennessee could somehow become an actual meaningful primary instead of the afterthought of the backwash and therefore often ignored or taken for granted (nice job AL!) by moving the primary up a bit, I guess I wouldn’t object.

I didn’t vote in the Tennessee primary last time. Partly cause I never registered with a party (yes, I know you don’t have to in Tennessee, but you do if you want to receive a meaningful primary absentee ballot), but also because I gave up my vote so I could participate in the UK Democratic caucus with hundreds of other American expats. It was so much fun I’d advise everyone to move to Iowa for one electoral cycle (or here, or Paris whose caucus attendance numbers we beat, so a hearty yah boo to the Americans in Paris) Seriously, it was like a big ol’ grown up pep rally

We’ve got spirit, yes we do
We’ve got spirit, how ’bout you?

But in place of spirit plug in, rational foreign policy and non-punitive tax code for expatriates (we deserve it – after all just who do you think is minding the empire?)

So maybe Tennessee should get a caucus – or since we’re such a great online community, why not a blog-cus. The candidates with the biggest online word counts win*. What do you bet we’d be the only contest to return two native sons who aren’t even running.

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*written by registered TN voters, of course