Well, I gotta say that, happily, my little temporary existence here on Earth is just about as dull as it can be right now. I ve been paid no more visits by the guy in the white robe who was walking to Nashville to spread the word of God, which convinced me he was actually Jesus testing me and that the second coming is going to be in Nashville so expect to see some donkeys entering the Grand Ole Opry with palm leaves being waved about. No more guys recently taking dumps in the car wash near my house. My cat pretty much just eats and sleeps now, instead of psychologically torturing me and rolling her eyes at me. I still don t have cable, a microwave, a palm pilot, or a dishwasher. I did buy two old mule harnesses at a yard sale the other day, something everyone needs. I have nothing to say about the war, other than I think it s pretty odd that a recent Knight Ridder article stated that if the suspected use of the nerve agent sarin was substantiated, it would be the first evidence of weapons of mass destruction just below a Cox News Service article about one of America s deadliest friendly fire tragedies of the war, when we kind of accidentally dropped a bomb in the wrong place on some civilians and, according to one witness s account, All of a sudden the plane appeared and a bomb came down . . . I saw oceans of fire and people were screaming. I was blown into the air and then there were pieces of bodies, God knows what, falling all around. I d go out on a limb to say that sounds a little like mass destruction to me. But enough about the war. I m so sad about David Bloom I can t go into it, as did Bill Clinton, who had some very touching and nice things to say about him. So far, and I may have missed it, I haven t seen or heard anything from Chia-President Bush, who may not even know about it since he seems to be resting a lot and playing with his dog at Camp David. But enough about the war. We do have one little war of our own going on here in Memphis. In case you missed the little item in The Commercial Appeal the other day, it seems that a man wearing a woman s wig robbed a bank. This seems to be a quickly growing trend. I can t remember how many times I ve read about men in drag robbing banks. Yes, Memphis is, or at least used to be, the female impersonator capital of the world, with any gar bar with more than two stools also having a stage for men dressed as women lip-syncing various pop ballads and country music classics. But this crime/drag thing is even stranger. And during this most recent robber, the man wearing the woman s wig was dressed in a mechanic s outfit. Did this not make the bank employees perk up and take a little notice? No offense at all the female sex; I m sure there are many of you out there who are good mechanics. But really? A big person in a woman s wig and a mechanic s outfit entering a bank? Perhaps they need a special panic button for these crossdressing criminals. Oh, well. I wish I had been there so my life wouldn t be so boring. But it is, so why not just get around to the real point of all this: what s going on around town this week.
This evening, you could take a Memphis Botanic Garden Candlelight Tour of the Japanese Garden of Tranquility, and sample Japanese treats and green tea in the Sculpture Garden before exploring Japanese folklore and symbolism with tour guides. The Memphis Redbirds play Iowa tonight at AutoZone Park. The Distraxshuns are playing at Elvis Presley s Memphis. The Dempseys are at the Flying Saucer. And award-winning Canadian folk singer/songwriter Lueie Blue Tremblay is performing at the Deliberate Literate.
The pandas come to Memphis. “P-Day.” “Panda Pursuit.” “Cuddly Guests.” It’s the ultimate warm-and-fuzzy story and antidote to war coverage. Is it also a defining moment for The Commercial Appeal under the leadership of new editor Chris Peck?
The folks at Microsoft aren’t going to tell you. Neither are the guys at Dell. Bill and Mike didn’t get rich and famous by talking about the limitations of technology. But the truth is, computers in the classroom don’t have much of an effect on student achievement. And protests among some local teachers notwithstanding, cutting out Internet access from schools isn’t going to do much to students in Tennessee, except to make their parents’ tax burdens lighter as our governor tries to find ways to trim our very bloated budget.