Month: January 2001

Check out Ashley Fantz’s Salon.com feature story on Shelby County jails.

I won’t say what gym it was,” says Lisa Buckner, “but the guys who signed me up promised to help me. After I signed up, I walked in the door at 268 [pounds] and no one looked like me. It was a freaky experience. No one would help me; they didn’t know how to help me.” Looking at a “before” picture of herself, Buckner says, almost wistfully, “That used to be me. That ol’ girl is long gone now.”

In that ol’ girl’s place is a different Lisa Buckner, with 100 fewer pounds on her 5’6″ frame and sporting certifications in personal training and spinning. The memories of that gym experience drove Buckner, who co-owns the Cooper-Young gym InsideOut with partner Donna Issac, to create Ground Zero, an “intensive weight loss training project,” as she describes it, designed for those at least 40 pounds overweight. Though a person’s ideal weight is personalized to fit body mass, musculature, age, and sex, the principles of the program remain the same: The weight has to come off, sure, but more importantly, a person must be willing to change his or her life in order to be healthy.

Says Buckner, “I knew this had to be my life. I knew there was no way I could do this unless I made a lifestyle change.” In the 30-day program, each participant is required to complete at least six hours of cardiovascular training a week, weight train at least twice a week, and attend a weekly meeting to discuss the program, individual progress and eating habits, and one’s own personal hang-ups about weight.

Leading those sessions, Buckner plays part motivator, part physiologist, part trainer, part philosopher, and guru. Buckner keeps the groups small (maximum of six) so she can create a highly personalized atmosphere for each participant. In the current group, there are four women, ages 18 to 38, toting water bottles every one.

The topics members discuss vary greatly. One woman explains how she steered clear of the food spread at a party but drank red wine. Buckner responds by saying that the wine is just as caloric as the food. Then Buckner launches into a small diatribe pointed at another participant. “You’ve been living for someone else your entire life,” Buckner complains, though she follows this with a warning. “As soon as you start to change, everyone [you know] is going to freak out.”

The members of the group keep up this sort of conversation, sharing histories and deeply personal issues about their weight gain and loss. They tell each other things they cannot tell friends or loved ones. While Buckner doesn’t claim to be a psychologist, she is able to share her experiences firsthand with the group and help them face their own fat demons.

Buckner is realistic about the actual weight loss goals of the program. “They will not lose 40 pounds in 30 days,” she says. “They’ll be lucky to lose 10. The whole deal for the 30-day time period is to give them enough time to develop habits, to give them enough information, and to meet with them enough times so they are educated about fitness and the emotional issues that go with being overweight. Because this is a lifestyle [change], they have to take off on their own after the 30 days. I can’t hold their hands.”

During the program, Buckner is your typical nag. She calls the participants to check up on them, making sure progress is steady and that none misses a session. Her role also serves as a reality check for participants. In one instance, Buckner calls on one woman who was supposed to reveal an emotional secret that might be a key to her body issues. She told the secret to her best friend. “Isn’t that a cop-out?” Buckner asks, and tells the participant to tell someone else, someone who would be more shaken by that secret.

“Sometimes I get real put off by that whole ‘big beautiful woman’ thing because it’s just an excuse,” she says. “If you ask anybody on the face of the earth, ‘If you had three wishes, would you want to be normal-sized?’ I’d say everyone would.”

The Ground Zero brochure warns up front that “It’s not for everyone,” but it is for men too. This is Buckner’s third Ground Zero group — after running the program on an individual basis for the past two years — and in that time, she has not had a single male attend the group sessions. “I’m trying my darndest to get them in here,” Buckner admits. “But men don’t like to talk about it.” Buckner is confident, however, that Ground Zero can help men as well — “if they told the truth.”

Memphis Flyer investigative writer Ashley Fantz’s story on the Shelby County Jail is today’s lead story on salon.com.

“I’m Chucky,” the man says, a broad, affable grin spreading like juicy gossip beneath his wispy graying mustache. He shook my hand and led me to an unoccupied table. This was, of course, no difficult task. Even though it was early afternoon on a weekday, the time when most restaurants are jumping, Chucky’s, the tiny cafe on Overton Park Avenue that once housed the storied Cuban restaurant Lupe and Bea’s, was totally empty.

I accepted a menu and began to peruse the list of mouth-watering soul food staples described therein: pork chops, baked ribs, Salisbury steak. It was, or so I believed at the time, an exercise in futility and frustration. Though the sign on the door clearly read “Open,” I was quickly informed that no lunch was being served. Not today. Maybe not tomorrow. In fact, nobody really seemed to know when lunch would be served on any kind of regular basis. But that hardly seemed to matter. I hadn’t come for lunch, per se. I had come to feed my not-so-secret addiction. I’d come for a fried pie.

After making doubly certain that I was comfortable, Charles “Chucky” Gammon disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned he had the goods. He carried before him one perfect cup of chewy black coffee and a fresh fried pie plucked from the hot grease. I didn’t know what flavor it was. I didn’t care. Anything to stop the terrible shakes, swimming head, and paranoia that any serious sugar junkie who has ever gone into withdrawals knows all too well.

The pie was of the peach variety, considered by most blue-collar connoisseurs (at least the ones I associate with) to be the tip-top of the fruit-pie heap. It was one-and-a-half times the size of my fist (huge as fried pies go), brown as an old fence-post, and nine-and-a-half months pregnant with a spicy fruit filling that was as hot and sticky as napalm. The first fork-prick sent up a cloud of steam like a venting nuclear power plant. One of the most interesting things about this particular pie was the distinct lack of grease. The pocket of crust surrounding the filling was thin, crispy, and flavorful, and if you didn’t know better, you would swear it had been baked. But it wasn’t baked, it was deep-fried to something quite beyond perfection. The crust is Chucky’s secret. And he’s not about to give it away. Not to me. Not to anybody.

“My grandmother started making the pies back in the ’30s,” Chucky says proudly. “She had the first chuck wagon in Memphis. In fact, she had three chuck wagons.” Indeed, Delia O’Kelly, Gammon’s grandmother, was quite an entrepreneur. She ran a small but popular diner in the Beale and Dunlap area in the ’30s and ’40s. Of course, OSHA rules were unheard of back then and when businesses limited their employees’ lunch breaks to only a few minutes, O’Kelly got a license to take her tasty wares directly to the workers. Years later Mamie Gammon, O’Kelly’s daughter, took her mother’s plan one step further. She opened Mamie’s, a cafeteria-style diner and catering service at 219 Madison in a building which has now been taken over by AutoZone Park. It quickly became a Memphis institution, and it was there in 1969 that Mamie’s son, Chucky Gammon, learned the fine art of frying pies. “I’ll make peach, apple, sweet potato, pineapple, cherry, lemon, you know — you name it, I’ll claim it,” Chucky crows. He’ll also make chocolate and vanilla on request.

The peach pie disappeared and was replaced by a sweet potato pie that was every bit the previous pastry’s equal. In spite of the sweet’s tooth-aching flavor and richness, Chucky swears up and down that there is no butter in his pies. “We’ve learned to do things a little differently than my grandmother did,” he says, claiming that absolutely no animal fat is used in his pies. You would never know it to taste it.

There is one exception. I asked if he ever made simple brown-sugar and cinnamon fried pies. “You mean like butter roll?” Chucky’s business associate Ann Jacobs asks, and my mouth began to water. Butter roll (sometimes called butter cobbler) is a Depression-era delicacy that was my grandmother’s specialty. I have never seen this dish outside of East Texas, and after my grandmother passed I was certain that I would never taste one of those thin pastries filled with brown sugar and cinnamon soaking in a sweet butter gravy ever again. Suddenly one appeared in front of me. It was just like I remembered it.

But what about the restaurant? After all, man does not live by pie alone and it’s hard to build any kind of regular clientele when you aren’t open for lunch on any kind of regular basis.

“I just got a contract with Kroger,” Chucky explains. “I don’t have time to fill all the orders and do the lunches too.” Should his pies prove to be a popular item at the dozen or so Krogers where the product is being tested and should Chucky land a contract to supply an additional 189 stores, he’ll be forced to move his pie-making business into a larger facility. “But I’ll want to hang on to this place,” he adds. “We’ve got a three-year lease. Maybe then we can really get the restaurant going.”

Don’t let this daunt you. Food will be served at Chucky’s when time permits, but before making the trip it’s probably a good idea to call. And even if there is no catfish to be had, it’s well worth a visit just to sink your teeth into what may very well be the best fried pie in the known universe, while it’s still hot. After they have cooled down and been wrapped in plastic, the magical, seemingly greaseless pies can get a little greasy. In addition to Kroger stores, Chucky’s pies are also sold at the Cozy Corner (the perfect follow-up to a spicy six-bone plate) on North Parkway.

Will Hudson, general manager of the Memphis Area Transit Authority and his light Rail experts pulled into the Memphis City Council’s Transportation Committee meeting January 2nd. With funding from a million-dollar grant, the Regional Rail Steering Committee was appointed by Mayor Herenton to study two light rail transportation issues. The first was the selection of the best routes to link downtown to north, south, and east Memphis The second involved finding a source of funding for the light rail system.

Hudson began by saying, “We have gotten approval from the city council for the first leg of the light rail that goes out Madison to Cleveland. The second phase of the program will continue down Madison going out to Parkway. From there you can go either north, south, east, or a combination of all three.”

Tom Fox, director of capital improvements at MATA, added, “By the year 2020 we expect to have all three built.”

The corridors referred to have always been aligned with the major railroad tracks that traverse the city. These include the Canadian Northern/Illinois Central Lines on a north-south axis and the Norfolk Southern Line going out east. The north corridor extends through Frayser to Millington. The south potentially goes to Tunica. A newly combined, part-south and mostly-east corridor extends out through Germantown to Collierville and incorporates the airport. In presenting his group’s evaluation of the three corridors, Hudson said, “It is now time for us to select one.”

The Regional Rail Steering Committee identified a number of criteria that would be foremost in determining which areas would be established as corridors and ultimately which one would then be selected for initial construction. Access and mobility to jobs was ranked as the first priority. Parsons Brinckerhoff, a recognized transportation consulting firm, was then hired to see how each of the selected corridors measured up.

A detailed matrix summarizing each corridor’s characteristics demonstrated substantial differences regarding length in miles, movement to job centers, impact on low income areas, traffic congestion, and operating costs. Consultant Michael Eidlin stated, “One of our first challenges was to see if there were other alternatives to the railroad rights-of-way if for some reason we were not able to use their properties.” Previously, MATA had city council approval to purchase an abandoned railroad right-of-way to Cordova but those plans did not materialize.

A number of alignments that are essentially surface routes outside of the present rail trackage are possible if the railroads choose not to participate. However, defining the actual routing remains a part of the upcoming development phase once a corridor is selected.

Following these initial studies, significant changes in the region’s demographics have occurred. Two major factors have changed in the northern corridor. Staff reductions at the Naval Air Station at Millington — now Naval Support Activity Memphis — and decreased growth in Tipton County have greatly diminished the group’s attraction to that corridor. Furthermore, Council member Janet Hooks who chaired this meeting said, “In between the north and southeast corridors, where Highway 64 and Wolfchase are, there is an awful lot of growth. At some point we need to look at that as a potential corridor.”

The preeminent corridor, the Southeast, is the longest and would be the most costly. One proposed routing would involve 4.5 miles along or on city streets and another 21 miles of shared railroad right of way. The projected costs are expected to approach half a billion dollars.

Initially, the most viable option involves a spur to Memphis International Airport. It would begin with the existing downtown trolley system and the planned Medical Center segment down Madison Avenue. “Getting to the airport was most important”, according to feedback Eidlin and his associates received from a series of public meetings held last October and December. The consulting firm also identified some of the benefits of a light rail system with infrastructure improvements, accessibility, and travel convenience. Concerns were expressed over funding, construction delays, safety, and the impact the final routing could have in revitalizing a depressed area by new growth within the corridor.

Dexter Muller is chair of the subcommittee within the Regional Rail Steering Committee that handled the final corridor selection. “The subcommittee essentially recommended that the first thing to do is connect to the airport,” he says. Alternatives such as going out Cleveland instead of Parkway were one of other options taken into account.

“The airport area is the biggest employment center in the entire county,” says Muller. “The airport area is quite spread out, but number-wise there are substantially more jobs [in comparison to other areas].”

Muller concluded by saying, “We have to begin with one corridor in order to make progress within thefederal system for getting funds.” The airport segment is about five miles long. “This is what the federal government typically likes to fund,” added Muller.

The final selection will require coordination and approval between the MATA board of commissioners and the city council.

For the third time in their careers, many Memphis obstetricians are making plans to deliver babies at a new Baptist Hospital. Located on the opposite corner from Baptist East at Walnut Grove Road, the new Women’s Medical Center fronting on Humphreys Boulevard is scheduled to open May 6th.

At a recent organizational meeting of the medical staff, Dr. Larry Johnson assumed, for his third time, the position of Medical Staff President. More than 130 physicians (80 of whom are obstetrician-gynecologists) are credentialed for the stand-alone facility devoted to the care of women. Neurosurgery and orthopedic cases will continue to be done at the Baptist East facility. Cardiovascular care will soon be performed at the new Baptist Heart Institute.

Labor and Delivery will be the first department transferred at the opening of the new hospital. Surgical procedures involving one day and major surgeries will commence May 7th. Geared to being a full-service hospital for the female patient, all of the ancillary x-ray, lab, and support services will be contained within the 140-bed building. Pediatricians, anesthesiologists, pathologists, plastic and general surgeons will also be on the staff. Dr. Christine Mroz, a noted breast surgeon, will be among those using the seven available operating rooms.

Typically these freestanding specialty hospitals are designed as the place a woman can see her OB/GYN, get a mammogram, receive infertility treatment, give birth, have breast reconstructive surgery, and take stress management classes — a full spectrum of women’s health services available under one roof.

A female-specific inpatient hospital is a new concept for this community, which Dr. Larry Johnson feels is “the right template that will create a great resource for women’s health care in the Mid-South.” The oldest hospital of this type was Boston Lying-in, founded in 1832. Nearby, in Baton Rouge, is another Women’s Hospital that is similar in size and demographics. Baptist officials have actively incorporated a number of positive aspects of the Louisiana structure into the new building. Working closely with their administration, Anita Vaughn, Baptist Women’s administrator and CEO, studied the many positive aspects such an entity could provide. “Our primary focus will be on preparation for emergency situations,” Vaughn stated. A high proficiency in Advanced Cardiac Life Support by nursing and medical personnel will be continually maintained.

While Baptist will own and manage the new hospital building, the adjacent Physicians Office Building is being built by Healthcare Realty Trust. Staffing with nurses and surgical technicians is almost completed. The new hospital will have about 475 non-physician employees, many of whom were previously employed at the recently closed Baptist Medical Center.

Unlike a number of other institutions which have rehabbed a wing of their hospital and called it a women’s center, the Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women will be a full-service, tertiary care facility. Although it will not have its own Emergency Department, hospital officials feel that it will be prepared to handle the 6,000-plus deliveries projected for the near future. Expansion planning is on the drawing board when future growth trends emerge.

Two perinatalogists will provide consultation care for high-risk pregnancies while four newborn specialists will supervise the neonatal intensive care unit. Intensive care for the mother or gynecological patient will be provided in a specialized area with specialty trained ICU nurses. Access to more involved care is “four speed bumps away at the Baptist East building,” says Vaughn.

After 2,000 phone interviews, 10 public meetings, and years of steering committees, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) released its Environment Justice Strategic Plan last month. Local environmental activists remain skeptical that TDEC’s enforcement procedures will improve.

Ten years ago, African-American community activists united with the nation’s largest environmental organizations to address the fact that most of Tennessee’s worst polluting industries are found in poor and minority neighborhoods. They labeled this phenomenon environmental racism, or environmental justice, and the issue was brought to the public’s attention through lawsuits and protests.

Two years ago, TDEC received a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to write a plan on how to better address environmental justice issues. The just-released plan calls for hiring environmental justice coordinators at each of TDEC’s branch offices, publishing corporate emission records and violations on the Internet, reaching out to effected neighborhoods, and acting on pollution complaints sooner.

Sue Williams, who works on environmental justice issues for the Sierra Club, says it is difficult for residents of effected neighborhoods to find out what the emission permits actually allow. Not only are the permits huge and full of technical jargon — a single permit fills four or five notebooks — they are not usually available in or near the neighborhood where the emissions are proposed.

Although she has been trained by the federal Environmental Protection Agency on how to read permits, Williams says it’s still difficult for her to know what chemical companies are wanting to do.

Posting permit information on the Internet has been proposed, but she is angered at TDEC’s suggestion that data on past violations be excluded from their records as an incentive for offenders to go beyond what’s called for in their punishment.

Notices for permit renewals are required to be published in newspapers, but Williams says notices are “buried” in The Daily News rather than placed in the Tri-State Defender or Commercial Appeal.

“While this strategic planning process has gone on for about two years to make [issuing permits] more friendly for customers, it’s always the industry they serve, not those who breathe the air or drink the water,” Williams says.

In November, before the strategic plan was published, the TDEC held a public meeting to address the concerns of Memphians. Only a few environmentalists showed up. Some environmentalists say the meeting wasn’t publicized properly, but those in attendance vented their anger at Dodd Galbreath, director of the TDEC policy office.

While some changes were made to the plan, Tennessee Green Party spokesperson Scott Banbury complains there is no written procedure by which citizens can petition TDEC’s policy or permit decisions.

TDEC spokesperson Kim Olsen says the strategic plan is a “living document” and changes could be made if the TDEC deems it necessary. New employees to assist with environmental justice will be hired in 2001, she says.

Banbury also says that allowing industry representatives to be part of the strategic plan doesn’t jibe with the traditional definition of environmental justice.

“TDEC is taking the issue away from the minority and low-income neighborhoods,” Banbury says. “The whole point of environmental justice is that the process has been unfair. Including the polluters makes it more difficult to rebalance the scales.”

At the TDEC’s public meeting on its environmental justice plan, Rudy Jones read from a ruling from the state court of appeals concerning his four-year fight to get the TDEC to stop the City of Lakeland from dumping sewage into a creek running through his farm. He believes the TDEC has proved their lack of good faith in enforcing environmental laws by refusing to take action.

“If TDEC did this to me with my economic abilities to take them to court — which cost me tens of thousands of dollars — what the TDEC does to those without economic resources must be appalling,” Jones says.

The TDEC’s environmental justice strategic plan can be read and commented on at the TDEC’s Web site (www.tdec.net/epo/ej/plan).

A friend loaned me her copy of Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story Of The Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down A President by Jeffrey Toobin and so in the last days of his presidency, I read the intimate details of Bill Clinton’s troubled sex life. I read it on the plane over the Atlantic Ocean, I read it in the Bombay apartment where we are staying with family, and I continued it on the train to Delhi and the north, home of the ancient Mughal empire.

We visited Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur in an eight-day trip where we saw forts that were 1,000 years old, visited the Taj Mahal, and saw many other very old palaces and tombs from the glorious history of ancient India. In the capital we visited The Red Fort, Shah Jehan’s palace which he built in 1648. Today two-thirds of it are still used as an army base, but the rest is open for visitors to see the lavish quarters where the emperors lived, held court, and planned the elaborate tombs and forts that they built.

Just a few weeks before our visit, terrorists had attacked the army compound at Red Fort so security was tight as we entered. For once, I was glad to look like a tourist. With my fair skin and American accent I was not likely to be confused with a Pakistani commando. The downside to this was that I was a target for the numerous hawkers outside the fort selling everything from film to jewelry. I would find that the hawkers got worse as we continued of our journey.

In Delhi we also saw our first tomb, this one belonging to the emperor Humayun, Shah Jehan’s great grandfather. When I first saw the huge brown and white building with its characteristic bulbous domes, its majestic beauty took my breath away. I would have a similar experience at the Taj Mahal – which deploys some of the same architectural techniques.

It was at Humayun’s Tomb where I first encountered a repugnant practice that almost turned me into the quintessential Ugly American. The price of admission was 10 rupees – about a quarter in U.S. money. That was the price for Indian citizens; for everyone else it was $10 – forty times more! The gross unfairness of this would haunted me for the rest of the trip (even though my in-laws would never let me pay for anything).

On the way out of Delhi we stopped by the only 20th century landmark we would see – the Baha’i Temple. Built in 1986 in the shape of a blossoming lotus flower, the temple makes quite an impression on the landscape of New Delhi. It draws hundreds of visitors every day and the day we visited was no exception. There is no admission charge, but you do have to take your shoes off before entering.

We traveled by car – a multi-purpose vehicle made by Toyota called the Qualis – and made the 125-mile journey to Agra in about four or five hours. Along the way we spotted our first camel. The large beast was pulling a cart filled with recently harvested sugar cane. The camel made a big stir in our car. Our merriment must have been amusing to our driver, who spoke only Hindi. In fact, we would see hundreds of camels in the coming days, so many that we no longer paid them any mind. The next day, we would even go to the Taj Mahal in a cart pulled by a camel.

People come to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, the seventh wonder of the world. It is a popular honeymoon destination for Indians and Europeans alike. (One poor newlywed at the hotel where we stayed was so preoccupied that he walked through a plate glass door leading to the main lobby, shattering the glass and his ego in one loud crash.) The bookstores were filled with various versions of the Kama Sutra, the Hindu love guide. It seems like a great place to come on a honeymoon.

Bill Clinton was not on a honeymoon when he came to Agra last year. He didn’t even bring his wife. He was just a head of state taking an official holiday near the end of his term. The first U.S. president to visit India since Jimmy Carter, Clinton’s visit caused quite a stir in the subcontinent. In Bombay the locals say the restaurants and hotels where the presidential party stayed immediately raised their prices and still saw business multiply.

In Toobin’s book A Vast Conspiracy, Clinton is portrayed as a lonely deceitful man willing to put his presidency and his family at risk for a tawdry affair with a young intern. As I read of the scheming lies of Linda Tripp, of the conservative forces bent on destroying Clinton by any means necessary, and the love-struck silliness of Monica Lewinsky, I couldn’t imagine how Clinton must have felt as he visited this most romantic destination. Did he buy a copy of the full-color illustrated Kama Sutra, available for less than 500 rupees in the hotel bookstore? What did he and Hillary talk about when they discussed his trip? Would she forgive his many transgressions, if he built her a monument such as the Taj Mahal?

As we rocked along on the rough road leading to the gates of the Taj, I felt a sense of excitement and dread. I had wanted to see the Taj Mahal for as long as I could remember. Now it was just down the road. Could it possibly live up to my expectations? How could it be as magnificent as everyone says?

Upon hearing that his favorite wife, Arjamand Bano, had died in childbirth, the emperor Shah Jehan said, “The light has gone out of my life.” He vowed to build the greatest beautiful monument ever built by a man to his woman. And he did just that (with the help of 20,000 workers and the wealth accumulated by his Mughal ancestors).

After entering the main gate, there is a path of about 60 yards surrounded on both sides by galleries that once served as markets. Then a large yard leads to another gate and past this, in the distance . . . the Taj Mahal. You can catch glimpses of the structure from outside the gate but it is only after passing through that you get your first look at the architectural masterpiece.

The initial view is mesmerizing. The Taj Mahal is said to be the most photographed building in the world, but mere film cannot capture the depth and wonders of this building. Words can only hint at the magnificence of this memorial to love and sorrow.

I worried needlessly. The Taj Mahal does not disappoint. The images my mind captured from that day will stay with me forever.

For the last leg of our trip, we traveled from Agra to Jaipur, the capital of the state of Rajisthan. Bill and daughter Chelsea stayed several days in “The Pink City.” We visited Amber Fort, which is over 1,000 years old. Built along side a mountain, you can reach it by two methods: jeep or elephant. The elephant ride, along side a steep cliff only takes a few more minutes than the jeep. Once inside the fort we bought coconuts for our elephant, Munni. She took it in her mouth, dropped it to the ground, cracked it with her large foot, and then ate up the good parts. She was very gentle and we took many pictures of her and her mahout.

By this time we had toured several palaces but Amber Fort was exceptional. At one point we entered a courtyard surrounded by 12 apartments – one for each of the king’s wives. The hallway around the apartments was designed so that the king could walk without being spotted by the women whose apartments he was not going to visit. Jealousy was alive and well even in medieval times. Wonder what Clinton, for whom the fort was closed for two days, thought of that?

As we drove down the hillside back to the hotel it was just past midday. Several of the elephants were going home, their mahouts reclining, napping contentedly. The elephants knew the way home.

By the time Bill Clinton came to India, the United State was heading home without his guidance. He was impeached in 1999 for lying about a sordid affair with a younger woman in his workplace. Afterward Clinton was a sort of prisoner without bars. He only came to India because he had nothing better to do. Al Gore did not want him on the campaign trail, so the disgraced president spent his time traveling.

Shah Jehan died a prisoner at Agra Fort. From his room he could look down at his lasting monument, the Taj Mahal. In Bill Clinton’s prison there was no such view.