Month: January 2006

Categories
News News Feature

It’s in the Cards

Drive down any major thoroughfare in Memphis and you’ll see the occasional storefront with a neon sign advertising “tarot readings” or “fortune telling.” What you may not foresee, if curiosity gets the best of you and you find yourself inside one of these establishments, is that the price of learning what lies ahead can be steep.

But you don’t have to pay someone to read your cards. According to local tarot expert Cindy McMullin, anyone can learn. She’ll be teaching a beginner’s class at the New Age bookstore Spiritual Freedom on Thursday, January 12th.

“Many people have been conditioned to think of tarot as a horror-movie kind of thing,” says McMullin. “In fact, it’s not so much a tool for fortune telling as it is a tool for self-examination and spiritual development.”

So how does it work?

McMullin says the artwork on the cards contains universal symbols that tap into the human subconscious. These symbols can represent the elements (earth, wind, fire, and water), states of consciousness, or numerology. McMullin believes that deep down all people connect with these symbols.

“The symbols take us to the level where we are plugged into all things — each other, the past, present, and future,” says McMullin. “The symbols on the cards help access that pool of knowledge we already possess.”

Before a reading, the seeker (the person whose cards are being read) focuses on a question. McMullin believes the energy of that question goes into the cards. That energy, combined with the symbols on the cards, results in a reading that examines one’s life path.

In the class, students will learn the origins of the tarot, the various suits of cards, the meaning of common symbols, a few tarot spreads or layouts, and how to mentally prepare for a reading.

McMullin asks all students to bring a Rider-Waite tarot deck, one of the most common brands, because suits and symbols on other decks can vary. Spiritual Freedom will also be selling the decks in the store.

McMullin’s tarot class is the first in a series of classes at Spiritual Freedom this month. The bookstore, which specializes in texts on alternative religions, spirituality, and conscious living, will also offer classes on drum-making on January 14th, the shamanistic practice of animal medicine on January 19th, and “indigo children” (a special group of kids believed to operate on a higher vibrational frequency than other humans) on January 28th.

“Spiritual Freedom is a conscious-living store that was created to enlighten humanity of evolutionary change,” says co-owner Jack Armstrong. “We’re here to help people who are searching for something.”

Spiritual Freedom opened in April 2005 and began offering classes in October. It also has weekly Spiritual Cinema Nights on Saturdays, at which various films and documentaries with spiritual and conscious-living themes are shown.

Besides selling books and offering classes, the store doubles as a healing center. Called Maggie’s World, customers can migrate to the back of the store for reiki or energy healing, a session in a massage chair, or an exercise session on a vibrating machine called the Power Pad. The Power Pad is said to work muscles as they’d be worked in a strenuous workout while the person using the machine remains completely still.

“One side of the store is more ethereal and the other is more focused on nature-based philosophy,” says Armstrong. “We’re hoping to appeal to people who are into New Age and psychic stuff and anyone interested in raising their consciousness — anybody searching for something out-of-the-ordinary.”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Good Grapes!

What started as the organic food movement is now a $15-billion-per-year industry, filled with all the government regulation and business intrigue of any other market segment. But for winemaker Gilbert Heller, it’s much more personal than that.

“It’s our mission in life,” says Heller, owner of Heller Estate in Carmel Valley, California. “When you put pesticides on your crops, those pesticides go into your body, and into your children’s bodies, and your grandchildren’s bodies. There’s no reason for it. We believe in the organic lifestyle.”

Heller, who has made wines for 45 years, will be in Memphis on January 18th to spread the word about organic growing and to introduce people to his wines during a dinner at Jim’s Place East.

When Heller bought his vineyard in 1994, he set out to have it certified as organic — an arduous four-year process which, he says, only half a dozen vineyards in California have completed.

“For example, we planted French plum trees, which play host to predatory wasps,” he says. “The wasps eat the eggs of insects we don’t want on the vines. We also bring in vineyard spiders to attack other insects.”

Such is Heller’s dedication that the winery steam-cleans the tires of cars and trucks that come from non-organic vineyards.

Heller uses 100 percent organically raised grapes to create his wines, and the results are no novelty product. The London Times gave favorable reviews, and The New York Times restaurant critic came for a visit after being impressed by Heller’s wines at a Manhattan restaurant.

“I have been very pleased with the recent quality and quantity of organically produced wines now available,” says Kevin Weaver, national wine buyer for Wild Oats Markets. “The quality of these wines is there and should be celebrated.”

The dinner’s host, Victor Robilio, who is president of the wine importer Victor L. Robilio Co., sees organics as playing an ever-larger part in the future wine industry.

“It’s coming on strong,” he says. “As grape growers find out that people want these products, you’ll see a swing in that direction. Whatever the public wants — even if it costs a little more — the industry will provide. And the quality is good. You don’t lose any thickness of the body or the bouquet; what you probably have is a less heavy taste.”

Marne Anderson, Robilio’s general manager, says that healthier wines make for healthier sales.

“With the organics, you get a purer concept of the grape varietal itself, rather than tainting it with herbicides,” she says. “From a business perspective, there’s such a glut of good-quality wines right now, it’s nice to have something that has a unique selling appeal.”

For Gilbert Heller, though, it’s still very simple: “Organics is the future of the food industry. It costs a little more, but it’s our mission in life. We’re here to run a vineyard and make money, but we’re also doing it the right way.”

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Mountain Men

Perhaps what is most striking about Brokeback Mountain, a film whose content certainly preceded it (yes, right, they’re queer!) and whose title seems to cry out for facile punning (I recommend Bareback Mounting), is how little it resembles a “gay cowboy movie.” Directed with a stoic tenderness by Ang Lee and adapted from a short story by Annie Proulx, this is the aching story of a love that cannot be fully consummated. Brokeback Mountain doesn’t marginalize the sexuality of its primary characters, but the film does look beyond it to the human depths and repercussions of a youthful passion that lasted a lifetime.

The film opens on Ennis Del Mar (magnificently sullen Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (the respectable but less captivating Jake Gyllenhaal), two young cowpokes looking for work. The pair is hired to guard a herd of sheep on Brokeback Mountain and their journey out to the grazing lands allows for Lee’s evocation of that classic western sequence: the cattle drive. Lee’s combination of panoramic and detailed shooting gives a sense of both the isolation and the intimacy the two men are going to experience. Ang Lee’s treatment of the countryside is thrilling. As he did in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lee parlays the natural setting into a powerful metaphor for the love between his main characters.

I don’t want to suggest that this movie is drawing heavily on the established mythos of the Western genre but rather draw attention to the wonderful realism with which it paints the life of the Wyoming roughneck. Ennis and Jack are not swaggering archetypes but hardscrabble youths living paycheck to paycheck. Their friendship is slow-growing and truthful, their budding attraction not initially expressed.

As Ennis and Jack become closer, they start sleeping in the same space instead of splitting their duties between watching the sheep and the campsite. Soon the moment arrives: the sex. I almost don’t want to go into it, because I’m afraid the anticipation of it can overshadow enjoyment of the film. What is most striking about it is the almost accidental tone and the sudden ferocity while they struggle for dominance.

The two men form a deep bond during their stint on Brokeback but end up parting on ragged terms. When it becomes clear the next year that the situation will not repeat itself, they both try their hand at playing it straight. But Brokeback, the almost Edenic site of the two men’s first commingling, acts as a tether, calling the two back as they try and increasingly fail to maintain both their secret love and their safe roles as hetero husbands and fathers.

One of the fantastic things about Brokeback Mountain is that it makes room for the women who enter the lives of both men. Ennis marries Alma (Michelle Williams), has two daughters, and continues work as a ranch hand. Jack marries Laureen (Anne Hathaway), the daughter of a rich farm equipment salesman, and they have a son. For a while at least, the two men appear to have settled with their past. They find some small joys in marriage and fatherhood. One of my favorite scenes is of Ennis, who has taken his family to a 4th of July picnic, protecting them from a pair of bikers who are behaving lewdly. Lee shows Ennis, determined and masculine to the extreme, silhouetted against bursting fireworks and acting for all the world like an American hero, while his impenetrable scowl hides his buried desires.

The two men eventually reunite and begin a long-distance relationship as old fishing buddies. The relationship is their secret joy, but it increasingly becomes a burden as well. The two are torn by allegiances to their families, by a growing economic divide, and by struggles over the marginalized nature of their relationship. Jack wants to run off together but Ennis is unwilling to, and his fears about the repercussions are captured in a flashback to his youth. When Ennis was young, his father took him to see the corpse of a murdered man, who had lived on a ranch with another man as his partner. Ennis wonders aloud if his father was showing him a warning or an example of his own handiwork, a chilling juxtaposition of a father’s hidden life.

There is time in this film for many twists and turns. We struggle along with the two men, feeling the weight of their love and the painful impossibility of it growing clearer with age. The film is a triumph because it creates characters of humanity and anguish, in a setup that could easily become a target for homophobic ridicule. Jack and Ennis are a brave challenge to the stereotyped image of homosexuals in mainstream films, their relations to their families and to each other truthful and beautifully captured.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Yep, the report just came out that the Dick was suffering some shortness of breath and went to the hospital, but it turned out that it was not his bum ticker but a problem with fluid retention because of taking anti-inflammatory drugs for his foot. So they gave him a diuretic. So let’s see: Dick Cheney’s breath, feet, and fluids. There goes the most important meal of the day for me. Maybe I should have a dr- … Oh, never mind. Too early. The good news for me is that, despite waking up to news about his fat little white feet, I don’t think about the Dick anymore. I don’t care about the spying. The torture thing still bothers me, but I don’t think about it as much as I once did. I don’t even think about the Bush crime president anymore. None of it matters to me because I once again have kittens! And if you tend to get stressed out about the ways of the world and all the crap that goes on in front of your very eyes every day and how crooked people are and yada, yada, yada, I highly recommend that you offer yourself up as a foster parent and take in a rescued mama cat and some tiny little kittens. You won’t pay attention to anything else. Just a little while ago on CNN, the Bush was conducting a press conference in the White House rose garden with Sam Alito, using the phrase “uh” between every other word and barely able to complete a sentence, and all the media did was ask the Bush about the Dick’s feet. While I would normally moan in embarrassment for the human race, instead I was rolling around on the floor yelling, “Tum here! Tum here! I’m gonna kiss dem tummies! Y’all sure got some fat little tummies!” Instead of wondering if any of the congressmen who took that funny money from Jack Abramoff will get even the slightest slap on the wrist, I have a five-week-old fuzz ball on my face making biscuits on my eyes and I’m cooing, “Awe, doodness! You is so means!” I don’t know why everything becomes plural when it involves little kittens. It’s horribly obnoxious, but I can’t help myselves. As of this morning, they have begun the practice of jumping up and attacking the air and then flopping back down on the floor, only to look up as if totally surprised and bolt across the room running sideways. They are tumbling and climbing on each other’s heads and chewing on each other and falling asleep in a big pile, exhausted from their escapades. I am a jaded, crusty 46-year-old man and I am laughing so hard my stomach is hurting and I am screaming, “Y’all all get in that box and take some big poops!” Yesterday morning when I went to put on my shoes to go get the newspaper, there were big eyeballs staring out of them and I shouted, “How Daddy gonna go get the paper if y’all piled up in his shoes?!” One of them has ears bigger than mine. I hate to leave the house. I tell the mama cat what a good mama she is about 100 times a day. Every time I leave the room and come back in, I ask, “NOW, what y’all doing?” It is so pathetic. But I’m telling you, it is the greatest distraction in the world. As long as I can have four kittens on my chest and kiss all of their little feet, I don’t have to think about Dick Cheney’s. So there.

Categories
News

STATE BOARD DEADLOCKS OVER ROUT PENALTY

NASHVILLE — In the case of former Shelby County mayor Jim Rout, the tie goes to the runner. That was the de facto judgment of the state Election Registry, sitting in judgment Wednesday at a “show cause” hearing concerning two possible breaches of the state election code.

Basically a 3-3 deadlock, with one member of the seven-member Board abstaining, put the case on ice, where it is likely to remain.

The first matter, relating to Rout’s use of campaign funds to defray wife Sandy’s expenses on what was presented as an official trip to Europe, was disposed of relatively quickly and without controversy. The Registry’s seven-member bi-partisan board held a brief discussion and decided by acclamation that the expenditures were in order and consistent with prevailing practice. The then county mayor’s own expenses for the trip, centering on an economic conference, were paid for by Shelby County government.

There was disagreement, however, on a 40th wedding-anniversary celebration that Rout’s lawyer John Ryder referred to as a “political event” but which was regarded as a wholly private affair by complainants, including Jerry Cobb, Rout’s fellow Memphis Republican, whose letter of protest about the use of campaign funds was part of the record under review on Wednesday.

Democratic board member George Harding of Lebanon got discussion under way with a quip: “Why weren’t we invited?” To which Ryder replied: “The short answer is, you weren’t on the contributors’ list.” That was followed up by Memphian Karen Dunavant, a Republican, who said, “Nor are you likely to be.”

Discussion did not altogether remain in the jesting vein, however. Rout made a presentation in his own defense, contending, like Ryder, that invitees to the 2002 event belonged to former mayor’s political and official universe, that no gifts were conferred on the Routs, and that the event was “themed” as an anniversary-celebration more or less incidentally, as one alternative among many.

That satisfied Harding, Republican member William Long of Nashville, and Democratic member John McClarty of Chattanooga, but it didn’t go all the way with board chairperson Lee Ann Murray, a Nashville Democrat, nor with Republican Darlene McNeece of Loudin nor Marian Ott of Nashville, who represents the League of Women Voters on the panel. Citing the conclusion reached at an “ethics convention” she had just attended, Ott insisted that some signal of disapproval needed to be sent. “What you allow is what you encourage,” she said, going on to propose a $5,000 fine.

Dunavant, a friend of both Rout and Ryder, had recused herself, making possible an even-numbered deadlock. Ott’s initial resolution and subsequent ones from her, Murray, or McNeece downsized to $2500 failed to get a crucial fourth vote. As Harding said at one point, “You can make it a dollar if you want to, and I won’t vote for it.” His own resolutions to dismiss the charge altogether also hit the 3-3 barrier, however, so that the final result was permanent and irreversible stalemate.

All principals acknowledged afterward that a renewal of the charges is unlikely, and, understandably, Rout professed satisfaction with that result. If he were doing things all over again, would be insist that the even in question be themed differently? “Of course,” the former mayor said.

For the record, all members of the Election Registry panel, including the three who insisted on a penalty, had made it clear that they did not regard the Routs’ wedding-celebration event in the same light as a wedding celebration for former state Senator John Ford’s daughter, paid for out of campaign funds and sanctioned last year by the Registry.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Plante: How It Looks

Cartoon

Categories
Opinion

CITY BEAT: Rewriting the Recall





New Page 1

The rules for recall elections in Memphis are about to
be reinterpreted.

 

The bar will be raised from roughly
11,000 petition signatures to roughly 65,000 signatures. After researching the
issue, city attorney Sara Hall has concluded that state law, which requires the
higher number, trumps the city charter, the source of the lower number that has
been widely reported. And whether you like Mayor Willie Herenton or hate him,
that’s a good thing. Here’s why.

 


There are some 435,000 registered voters in the city of Memphis, not counting
cemeteries. In the 2003 mayoral election, 103,226 people voted, which was 23
percent of the electorate at that time. Herenton got 72,043 votes, nearly three
times as many as challenger John Willingham.

 

Home
Rule Amendment 27 to the Memphis City Charter, approved in 1966, says a mayor
can be recalled if petitions are signed by a number of qualified voters equal to
10 percent of the total number of votes cast in the last mayoral election. That
means 10,323 certified signatures puts this question on the ballot at the next
general election: “Shall the Mayor be Recalled?” If a majority of voters favor a
recall, “the office shall be vacated when the Election Commission shall declare
the results, and shall immediately be occupied by the person so designated to
succeed the mayor in case of his death, inability for any reason to serve, or
resignation.”

 

A recall petition cannot be filed until
after the first two years of a mayor’s four-year term. But a case can be made
that the more popular the mayor, the easier it is to get a recall question on
the ballot. Herenton’s closest call was in 1991, when he was the challenger and
got 122,596 votes to incumbent Dick Hackett’s 122,454 votes. Including perennial
candidate Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges, a total of 247,973 votes were cast — a
65 percent turnout. A recall petition in 1994 would have required 24,797
signatures.

 

Herenton has been reelected easily
three times since then. Lower turnouts and less formidable candidates may
indicate voter apathy or voter satisfaction. Either way, the charter gives the
losers, the 338,000 people who didn’t vote in the 2003 election, and political
hired guns a second bite at the apple.

 

Hall, a Herenton appointee, began
researching the recall provision in December. She stated her position in an
interview and letter to the
Flyer in response to our inquiries. 

 

“Under the Tennessee constitution, any
law of general application trumps our charter,” she said. She said Memphis could
pass a home rule ordinance requiring a greater number of signatures than
required by state law but not a lower number.

 

The
Tennessee Code says recall petitions “shall be signed by at least 15 percent of
those registered to vote in the municipality or county.” In Memphis, that comes
out to 64,500 signatures — an appropriately big number for a big question.

 

In a
press conference last week, Herenton characterized one recall organizer as “a
societal misfit” who should not be taken seriously. But it doesn’t matter if the
organizers are misfits, pillars of the community, or — as is perfectly legal —
residents of Germantown. If the charter provision applied, the will of 72,043
people who voted could be undone and a new election called by 10,323 people who
voted for someone else or didn’t vote at all.

 

If a
recall is approved, the charter provision promptly heaves out the mayor and
hands the job to someone else. If you think “the person so designated to succeed
the mayor” is clear language, then you are not familiar with lawyers, local
history, or the Memphis City Council. This is an invitation to a brawl. In the
California recall election of 2003 in which Governor Gray Davis was ousted and
replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ballot had two parts: a recall question
and a list of candidates to replace him. 

 


Memphis is bigger than Willie Herenton or any other politician. If someone has
evidence that Herenton has broken the law, let them give it to the FBI or the
district attorney for investigation. If someone wants to replace Herenton, let
them run against him in 2007, persuade someone else to run against him, or vote
for his next opponent. 

                   

       

Categories
Editorial Opinion

EDITORIALS: “An Uncommon Event;” “Odell Baker”

An Uncommon Event

 

In his short, sweet address Tuesday to the Tennessee
General Assembly convening a special session on ethics, Governor Bredesen called
the circumstance “an uncommon event.” And, though the governor went on to assure
his audience of 132 legislators that he assumed the chamber to be “chock full of
honest, ethical, caring people,” he knows – as they do – that many, perhaps
most, members of the public might assume otherwise these days.

 

How could they not – after the Tennessee Waltz scandal of
last year in Tennessee and, for that matter, the continuing fallout from the
Abramoff affair in Washington? And, even as the legislature convened, there were
signs that the cure, such as can be passed in the three weeks allotted to the
matter by Bredesen, may not be equal to the dimensions of the disease.

 

Though Democrat Ophelia Ford has been provisionally seated
as the new state senator from Memphis’ District 29, her former Republican
opponent, Terry Roland, is still pressing his challenge, alleging that Ford’s
13-vote margin of victory was padded by various frauds and illegalities. It has
to be said that all members of the special Senate committee sitting in judgment
on the matter, Republicans and Democrats like, gave Ford herself a clean bill of
health on Monday afternoon. But partisan differences persisted on the committee,
and will in the body as a whole, as to whether two verifiable cases of Dead Man
Voting, coupled with votes from four proven felons, are enough to cause the
election to be voided.
 

Roland and his attorneys point to additional residence
issues and improperly filled-out election forms, while Ford and hers caution
that unavoidable ambiguities and inadvertent human error, not outright
chicanery, might explain most of those additional cases. Tellingly, they
produced one questioned voter, Lavinia Hampton of Memphis, who signed her
election form once, not twice as required, because election workers didn’t ask
her for a second signature. It didn’t hurt Ford’s case that Hampton, who made an
eloquent witness, was a Gold Star mother, having lost a son in Vietnam.

 

Which is to say, resolving this matter, like others that
will be before this legislature, ain’t as easy as it may look from the armchair.

 

Nor will there be an easy solution to other matters, even
procedural ones governing the special session itself. A spirited dispute broke
out on the Senate floor Tuesday between two Memphis Democrats, minority leader
Jim Kyle and Steve Cohen, on the question of whether the chamber’s traditional
committees will continue to function as such during the special session. Issues
of  turf, centralization, and open access are involved in that one, and working
it out is no piece of cake, either.

 

Still and all, the special session is under way.  Where
there’s a will, there’s a way, right? The real question is whether such a will
exists – or can be generated in three short weeks.

 

 

Odell Baker

 

All of us who believe in democracy have to be grateful for
the dogged, decades-long efforts of Odell Baker, a furniture dealer and
old-fashioned patriot, to personally enroll as many voters as he could in
various registration efforts. The kindly Baker, who died this week, was a
dedicated Republican, but he was just as avid about signing up Democrats. A
citizen’s citizen, he believed in the process.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

POLITICS: Cohen for Congress?

Now that it’s actually 2006, the
list of candidates for major offices is getting longer – and more interesting.
Take the field for Congress in the 9th District.
        

This district – majority-black and
traditionally Democratic but containing also several new pockets of upscale
development – includes most of historic Memphis and would merit special
attention on that score alone. Just now, it is notable also as the launching pad
for the widely watched U.S. Senate candidacy of current incumbent Harold Ford
Jr., who basically inherited the office from his namesake father but has
since become something of a national media cynosure altogether on his own.

Up to the end of the year the
soon-to-be-vacant seat had attracted a mixed bag of promising newcomers and
seasoned activists from the local political and governmental pools. But no big
names – at least partly due to lingering suspicion that Rep. Ford might change
his mind and run for reelection. That’s about to change – especially as it
becomes more and more obvious that Ford is in the Senate race to stay.

Enter state Senator Steve Cohen,
who first ran for the congressional office in 1996 as the younger Ford’s first,
last, and only serious opponent. For years the articulate and oft feisty Cohen,
father of the state lottery and a tireless advocate for civil liberties and the
arts, has been among the state’s best-known and most respected legislators.

Cohen last week confirmed that he
will probably run for the 9th District seat.
           

Though he launched a
characteristically long-shot campaign on behalf of legalizing medical marijuana
only last year and is more or less constantly at odds with his party’s titular
head, Governor Phil Bredesen, concerning a variety of Tennessee-specific
issues, Cohen’s vistas have always been as much national as statewide.

And, after a quarter-century in
Nashville, he seems ready for another challenge. Given the facts that Cohen
isn’t up for reelection until 2008 and that he’s accumulated a decent war chest
over the years, he can afford to take a shot at something else this year.

Going into the holidays Cohen had
four options: a late entry into the U.S. Senate race; a damn-the-torpedoes
challenge to Bredesen; a run against District Attorney General Bill Gibbons;
and the congressional race. Only the last two prospects looked serious, and
Cohen told friends at the end of the year that he’d made up his mind to make
another run for Congress.

Though the civil-rights
credentials of Cohen, a liberal’s liberal, are in order, he’ll still have
demographics against him, as he did in 1996. But the potentially diverse field
he confronts this year gives him better chances than his essentially one-on-one
contest ten years ago against Ford, who was after all a dynastic successor. (Rufus
Jones, a state rep back then, also ran in 1996 but became marginalized as
the third man out.)

Still in the field for 2006, and
unlikely to yield, is corporate lawyer Nikki Tinker, a bright young
African-American who has garnered serious support from the city’s business and
social elite and has attracted some national attention as well. Though Alabama
transplant Tinker’s somewhat top-heavy, trickle-down campaign has not yet
sprouted real grass roots, she is personable enough to make an impact in the
long run, and in the meantime it surely doesn’t hurt to have king-sized
billboards and help from the likes of actor Morgan Freeman, who graced a
major fundraising event for Tinker last week at Isaac Hayes’ Club.

More problematic is whether Tinker, the titular
head of one of Rep. Ford’s unopposed campaigns, can convince Ford loyalists that
she’s the heir apparent – given that the congressman, his eyes on the Senate
prize, must be both officially and actually neutral. Some Ford intimates regard
Tinker’s efforts in that regard as a stretch.

Others very much in the game and
expected to be heard from include, among Democrats:  Joseph Kyles,
Tyson Pratcher, Ralph White, Ron Redwing, Ed Stanton, Lee
Harris, and William Whitman. Among Republicans: Mark White, Derek
Bennett, and John Farmer.

All these have either picked up
petitions for the office, have filed, or have otherwise expressed interest in
running.

Meanwhile, at least two other
well-established political names have been talked about as likely entries: state
Representatives Joe Towns and Henri Brooks. Brooks finished a
close second to Ophelia Ford last year in the special Democratic primary
for state Senate District 29.

And another perhaps momentous name
has received a good deal of recent speculation: that of Circuit Court Judge
D’Army Bailey.

A debate last week
between Mike Rude and Mike Ritz, opponents in the Republican
primary for the District 1,Position 1 county commission seat, produced some
fireworks, notably when Rude, answering a question about his position on
consolidation, went on to denounce Memphis mayor Willie Herenton as a
proponent and then said this:    

“I’m a Republican, and I’m going
to fight for Republicans, and my opponent is a financial contributor to the man that’s wanting to consolidate, and he’s supporting Ophelia Ford to beat Terry Roland, and I just – to me, it just boggles my mind why we can’t stand up and unite.”

Ritz, who acknowledged having
supported Herenton financially in the past, denied any involvement on
Democrat Ford’s behalf against the GOP’s Roland in the recent special election
for District 29 – a fact confirmed by members of Ford’s organization.

Rude later said he had meant only
to say that Herenton had supported Ophelia Ford, not Ritz. For the record, even
this is uncertain, since, while the mayor’s press secretary, Gale Jones Carson,
who is state Democratic Party secretary, supported Ford, Herenton, often a
political foe of the Ford family, took no active part in the special election.

        
  

In other races: A
possible contest is shaping up between former clerk Shep Wilbun and
Memphis school board member Wanda Halbert in the Democratic primary for
Juvenile Court clerk….Shelby County Commissioner Cleo Kirk, one of three
litigants in a term-limits case currently under appeal, has pulled a petition
for reelection, joining his protégé Bob Hatton, former interim state
senator Sidney Chism, and Jeffrey Shields as Democratic primary
candidates so far….County commissioner Tom Moss, who successfully
triangulated his reelection four years ago when Republican primary opponent
Jim Bomprezzi ran afoul of his personal Lakeland nemesis, Mark Hartz,
a spoiler entry, looks to have good odds again this year. Bomprezzi is back to
challenge Moss, now commission chairman, but so are Wyatt Bunker and
John Bogan….Still being rumored as a candidate for Juvenile Court judge is
state senator Curtis Person…. lawyer and former city council candidate
Jim Strickland will apparently square off against longtime party activist
David Upton in a contest for a Democratic state committee seat.

 

Thanks mainly to the
support given to the Diebold Corporation by former Election Commission chairman
and current member O.C. Pleasant, a Democrat, Diebold machines won out
over models proposed by the rival ES & S Company in 3-1 vote by the commission
last week to determine the election machinery that will be used in this year’s
local elections.

           

Voting with Pleasant for Diebold
were Republican members Nancye Hines and Rich Holden; voting
against Hines’ motion for Diebold was Democratic member Maura Black Sullivan,
who was returning to action after a recent serious illness. Commission chairman
Greg Duckett abstained.

           

The backstory was that Holden, who
harbored serious doubts about Diebold as a company, had intended to vote for ES
& S and that Duckett was regarded as a tiebreaker in that case for ES & S. But
Holden said he found his hands tied when representatives of both the county
purchasing department and the commission staff announced endorsements of Diebold.

 

At the rank-and-file level, local
Democrats tended to favor E.S. & S, while Republicans on the whole supported
Diebold.

 

Perhaps more meaningful in the
long run was the commission’s endorsement by a 3-2 party-line vote — the
Democrats prevailing – for add-on “Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail” technology
which would provide a reliable paper trail to authenticate the results of local
elections. VPAT, as the technology is called for short, must still be approved
by the state for use in local elections.

 

 

 

Categories
From My Seat Sports

FROM MY SEAT: The Second Season





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Your typical college basketball season has an easily
recognizable pattern. A team opens with soft competition in mid-November (maybe
a made-for-TV showdown thrown into the mix), then builds steadily toward the
opening of conference play after New Year’s Day, during which a team’s mettle is
established (or lack thereof). In looking at the 2005-06 campaign for the
University of Memphis, though, there is nothing typical about this season.

Having already played three teams that opened the season
in the nation’s top 10 (Duke, Gonzaga, and Texas) as well as major-conference
headliners like Alabama, Cincinnati, and Providence, the Tigers — featuring
four freshmen playing heavy minutes — have cut their fangs before conference
play starts and, with a watered-down Conference USA lineup between Wednesday
night (when they open at East Carolina) and March Madness, the U of M now aims
to fine-tune, sharpen, and build a team worthy of its lofty ranking to date.

Yes, even at 13-2 (through Sunday’s victory over
Winthrop) and ranked among the country’s top ten, the Tigers have some areas to
improve during their 14-game conference season (interrupted January 18th with a
home tilt against Tennessee). Here’s a cheat sheet for John Calipari and his
staff.

De-emphasize the three-point shot. A valuable
weapon for a team with shooters like Rodney Carney, Darius Washington, and
Shawne Williams, the trey is just too easy an out for Tiger opponents. With the
considerable skills near the basket of the aforementioned three, along with
Chris Douglas-Roberts and the jump-hook of Kareem Cooper, Memphis must force its
opponents to work on defense, to sweat for their next possession. A team’s
instinct when it falls behind by 10 or 12 points is to shoot the trey to quicken
the comeback. But an easy fix doesn’t often come with the heaving. (Remarkably,
the Tigers managed to erase a 14-point lead against Texas January 2nd despite
shooting 6 for 32 from behind the arc for the game. Alas, the one-dimensional
attack fizzled and Memphis lost by 11.) The fact is, the U of M is too versatile
offensively to allow the lure of three points to dampen its gunpowder.
Penetration by Washington, slashing by Williams, gritty work from CDR . . .
these make up the offensive foundation that will open spots on the floor for,
yes, the three-point shot. Horse, then cart.

Develop the Dorsey/Cooper combination. It
would be hard to argue against Carney in selecting the Tigers’ first-half MVP,
but a few votes for Joey Dorsey are at least worth the conversation they’d
provoke. His shot-blocking ability and size on defense are now established
character traits for this team, and it’s critical he avoid silly fouls as the
season unfolds. Dorsey has become a much-improved outlet passer, which only
intensifies the pressure Memphis can put on its opponent in transition. As for
Cooper, his lefty jump-hook is already a scoring option Calipari utilizes.
Health is the issue with this “fifth freshman.” A stress fracture in Cooper’s
back and a little more weight than he needs to carry are all that’s holding him
back.

TLC for D-Wash. Washington’s thigh bruise has
come to play far too prominent a role in this team’s scouting reports. Calipari
will have to decide over the next two months just how much to baby his star
point guard. The trick will be keeping Washington in game shape for when he’s
most needed, while at the same time finding the necessary rest that is the only
true cure for his ailment. Andre Allen has proven to be a capable backup,
largely because he recognizes his role as a peripheral scorer (though he had 11
points off the bench Sunday), in contrast to Washington’s integral shooting and
driving talents. If Allen can hold the fort as Washington strives toward full
health, the mutual benefits at the point guard position come March will be
invaluable.

Keep an eye on the carrot. From rec leagues to
the NBA, the primary role of a head coach remains that of a motivator.
Calipari’s biggest challenge will be keeping his troops sharp when the spotlight
dims this winter. How does he get his young squad fired up on a Wednesday night
in Tulsa? A Saturday afternoon in Huntington, West Virginia? The Tigers will
likely be tripped once or twice in conference play, but they must “trend upward”
as the pundits like to say. Fourteen games from a C-USA championship. But it’s
what this team does after conference play concludes that will cement its place
in Tiger basketball history.