On January 6th, The Commercial Appeal ran as its main front-page story a piece subtitled, “God grants wish to reunite husband and wife in death.” The Fly was shocked to discover that the CA reporter did not confirm her report with the Supreme Being or with ranking members of the Heavenly Host. This kind of shoddy reporting is to be expected from the supermarket tabloids, but not from the Mid-South’s paper of record. So what’s next for the CA?
— Chris Davis
Plante: How It Looks
Mayor Willie Herenton wants the city school board to give up its charter in order to achieve consolidation with Shelby County or at least support a referendum on the question.
Speaking to the Memphis Rotary Club Tuesday, Herenton revived the charter surrender idea that has been floated at least twice in the last 12 years of his administration without a favorable response.
He said he sent a letter to the school board asking members to expedite consolidation by charter surrender. He said the board should at least allow Memphians to vote on consolidation of the school systems by that method.
The idea was previously proposed by Herenton in 2003 and, in a different form, in 1993 when a task force said the city of Memphis could legally surrender its charter but should consider alternatives.
Herenton spoke for about 15 minutes and answered a few questions in general terms. He said that doing nothing will hurt the city and county schools and increase the financial strain on both city and county government.
The school board has three new members but is not likely to dissolve itself. In 2002, the board declined to act on yet another task force plan to overhaul the way schools are funded.
Herenton said his opposition comes mainly from suburban mayors and their constituents and he wants to see if Memphians will start a grassroots movement in favor of consolidation.
The Rotary Club members applauded politely, but some raised questions about the practical impact of a charter surrender. One member said it would open parts of Memphis such as the Wolfchase Galleria shopping mall to annexation by suburbs.
The mayor said Memphis is currently competing with Louisville for a California-based biomedical company and that Louisville has the advantage of having been consolidated since 2003.
“Wattstax: It Remains To Be Seen“: a photography exhibit from the Wattstax concert in 1972, featuring performances by Rufus and Carla thomas, Albert King, Isaac Hayes, and the “I Am a Man” speech by Jesse Jackson. At Stax Museum of American Soul Music, 926 E. McLemore, through January.
Turning the Page
A new year is a time for resolutions, for starting fresh, for cleaning the slate. In the world of college basketball, it just so happens, a new year also means the start of conference play. And I can’t recall a time the University of Memphis basketball program was more in need of tabula rasa than right about now.
Last Thursday night in Austin, Texas, the Tigers had their opportunity for a breakthrough win. The 15th-ranked Longhorns wanted to give a game away, missing free throws and turning the ball over enough in the second half to blow a 9-point lead. But Memphis couldn’t make the big shot . . . when they got a shot at all. (It would have been nice to see a timeout on one of the two disjointed possessions late in the second half when the U of M couldn’t even take a shot with the game on the line.) In seasons other than this, “moral victory” might work for the Tigers’ seventh loss. But with dreams of an NCAA tournament bid now all but dead, the program needs victories that actually show up on the left side of the standings.
Which brings us to Sunday night, and the opening of Conference USA play, the Southern Miss Golden Eagles playing the foil at FedExForum. Shooting a cool 50 percent from the field on their way to a 43-18 halftime lead, the Tigers beat an undersized USM squad to alleviate some of the pressure building since mid-November. At least until Tom Crean brings his own flock of Golden Eagles — those that call Marquette home — to town this Thursday, the U of M can call themselves undefeated . . . in conference play.
Fifteen games in, there are three lessons with which Tiger hoops devotees should grow comfortable as conference play unfolds:
Minus a true post presence, this team’s offense is built from the outside in. When the Tigers are hitting their three-pointers — and they dropped eight on Southern Miss — they typically win. When they don’t — and they were under 30 percent in six of their previous seven games — they typically lose. This makes for fan-friendly basketball in good times, and dreadfully ugly, desperate-looking strategy when the rims aren’t friendly. Rodney Carney (five of eight from behind the arc Sunday) and Anthony Rice (the school’s alltime leader in treys) have to be hot for a winning streak of any length.
As much as their coach might like it otherwise, the players who make the difference for this team — Carney, Rice, Sean Banks, and Darius Washington — are offensive players first. The Tigers won’t hold many opponents to the 46 points they did Southern Miss last weekend. They average 64 points allowed per game. Back to the first lesson, when the U of M shooters are connecting, they can outscore the opposition. Asking this team to win with defense isn’t being honest with the skills on the roster.
For good or ill, the Tigers’ fortunes are going to have a lot to do with the mood of Mr. Banks. He remains the most talented player in uniform, and about as consistent as a Memphis winter. Sporting a shiner delivered by teammate Arthur Barclay after the game in Austin last week, Banks was in a giving mood (quite literally) Sunday night, dishing out a team-high five assists with nary a turnover. Memphis won a blowout with their top player getting only five points. If Banks plays angry, if he sulks and draws the ire of his mates, it’ll be a long winter indeed for Tiger Nation. But if he can regain the hunger he played with as a freshman, if he works in the context of Calipari’s plan — move the ball! — Banks is the kind of player who can win four or five game +s by himself.
The 2004-05 Memphis Tigers must take the rest of the season as a challenge in itself. Play the underdog . . . which means use some humility to advantage. After a loss, concede the better team won, no finger-pointing. Don’t act like an official is the sixth opponent on the floor. But if things get rough, go down fighting. Take some pictures of that shiner Banks is carrying these days, and post them in the locker room. This has been one black-eye of a season thus far. With conference play now upon us, it’s time for the counterpunch.
After months of expectations, Governor Phil Bredesen outlined his plan for TennCare on Monday, one which calls for severe a severe reduction in enrollment and benefits, while maintaining full coverage for children.
Bredesen announced the “basic TennCare” plan in Nashville, less than a month after the Christmas deadline previously set for deciding the program’s future. When talks with public interest groups involving consent decrees in effect against the state’s healthcare program broke down, Governor Bredesen predicted the cuts as the only solution to the program’s survival.
Under the basic TennCare plan 323,000 adults will be cut from the plan. The remaining 396,000 individuals eligible for Medicaid will continue to receive “reasonable” but reduced benefits. The reductions do not affect the 612,000 children on the plan.
“It might not be the level of care we want to provide, but it’s the level of care we can afford without bankrupting our state,” said Bredesen. “We’re putting limits into what has been the most generous healthcare program in the nation.”
Bredesen had long maintained that many of TennCare’s problems were the result of extensive pharmacy and hospital allowances granted to attendees. Doctor visits, prescriptions, and in-patient hospital stays, which had been unlimited under the original TennCare plan, have been reduced significantly under the basic plan. Enrollees will now be limited to 12 doctor visits a year, four prescriptions a month, and 20 days of in-patient hospital care. These and other reductions are expected to save the state $575 million during the next fiscal year.
Enrollee advocate and attorney Gordon Bonnyman,who has long opposed reductions to TennCare, called the “basic” plan cuts “worse than any natural disaster that the state has ever experienced.” Bonnyman, a lawyer with the Tennessee Justice Center, has argued that the TennCare cost problems could be fixed in part by soliciting additional federal funds for the program.
“Instead of very drastic and dramatic cuts, there are other things that other states have done that we haven’t, said Bonnyman. “I would work with the federal government … and if it means making the case for federal relief, then I would do it and I wouldn’t be bashful.”
The governor’s plan also calls for managed care organizations (MCOs) to assume more financial risk in the delivery of TennCare benefits. This is one of the few solutions both Bredesen and advocates like Bonnyman had agreed on.
Bredesen hopes to have the “basic TennCare” plan substantially in place by 2006, with changes beginning as early as April, pending federal approval.
Opening reception for “Inspirations for 2005“: “painting in the round” session involving several artists working on the same canvas for a charity piece. Artists on Central, 2256 Central, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Despite a statement last week from state Senator Curtis Person that Lt. Governor John Wilder is committed to appointing a majority Republican committee structure if reelected as the senate’s presiding officer, Person’s Shelby County colleague Mark Norris remains doubtful.
“I don’t think he’ll do it,” Norris told an audience at the monthly Dutch Treat Luncheon at Piccadilly’s Cafeteria Saturday. Norris said afterward that even if nominal Democrat Wilder responded as Person suggested to the GOP’s new one-vote majority in the 33-member body, he might do so by creating new and relatively unimportant committees. “Anyhow, he’ll leave Democrats in control of the big committees like Finance and Commerce,” Norrris insisted.
Person, who has withstood intense lobbying from fellow Republicans in recent weeks, is one of what seems to be a growing bloc of GOP senators pledged to support Wilder’s claim to the speakership against that of GOP caucus chair Ron Ramsey of Blountville. He confided what he said was Wilder’s firm pledge on the committee issue during a break at last week’s pre-session meeting of Shelby legislators with other Shelby County public officials.
VISUALS: “Under African Skies”, exploring the African continent through the sky lore of its people, at Sharple Planetarium, through March 26th; “Dolphins”, in which “JoJo” and “Freckles” lead viewers on a tour of their underwater world, at Union Planters IMAX Theater, Memphis Pink Palace Museum, through March 4th.
William B. Tanner, whose flamboyant and contentious business career has earned him considerable time in courtrooms over the years, has now earned his second felony indictment — this one for bribing the late Chanellor Floyd Peete in connection with one of the several lawsuits Tanner was involved with.
Tanner and co-defendant Beverly Davis, a financial consultant, were indicted by the Shelby County grand jury on Thursday and are free on $6,000 bond each after voluntarily surrendering to custody on Friday.
“This kind of crime attacks the integrity of our judicial system,” said District Attorney General Bill Gibbons, who congratulated the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for its work in the case. Gibbons said he had asked the TBI to conduct an investigation in May of 2003.
The indictment focuses on Peete’s favorable 2001 ruling for Tanner in litigation brought against him by Jerry W. Peck, Tanner’s former partner in the billboard business, one of several fields in which Tanner — an entrepreneur in broadcast advertising and automobiles, as well — had overnight success.
According to the indictment, Tanner and Davis “did unlawfully and intentionally offer, confer, or agree to confer a pecuniary benefit to influence the opinon, judgment, or exercise of discretion” of Peete in the case.
Tanner, who has been battling cancer in recent years, was sentenced to federal prison in 1985 after pleadig guilty to mail fraud charges and filing false income tax returns. He was also the defendant in several other lawsuits by former associates, besides the one pressed by Peck.
Chancellor Peete died unexpectedly while on a visit to Florida, where he owned real property, in 2002.
George Brown, a Circuit Court judge in Shelby County for more than twenty years and briefly, during the administration of Governor Lamar Alexander, a state Supreme Court Justice, will retire next month, he confided to friends this week.
“I was talking to Wyeth just before he died last fall, and told him I was thinking of retiring, and he recommended that I consider mediation,” said Brown, who added that he first began thinking of retirement from the bench while taking an extended vacation in Montreal last summer. “I had just turned 65, and I was thinking, ‘If I don’t start being good to myself now, than when will I?'” said Brown, who will also pursue some private business interests.
Brown was appointed to the Supreme Court by Alexander in 1980, becoming the first African-American member of the state’s High Court, but later that year, as a member of a judicial slate backed by Republicans, lost out to Frank Drowota, an appeals court judge who had Democratic backing and who went on to become the current state Chief Justice.