Month: March 2006

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

1 The University of Memphis men’s basketball team picks a really, really bad time to play their worst game of the season. They fall 50-45 to UCLA, ending their (and our) dream of a trip to the Final Four. In just 40 minutes, March Madness turns to March sadness for Tiger fans everywhere. Still, with 33 wins, the team finished with the best record in school history, and we have to say that we enjoyed that wild ride while it lasted.

2 Graceland is named a National Historic Landmark. The former home of the King of Rock-and-Roll already had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but this new designation is a higher honor. Just one question: What took them so long? The Jungle Room alone is worthy of landmark status.

3 Members of the Horn Lake Tactical Apprehension Containment Team smash their way into a house and rough up the elderly owners. The cops are looking for a meth lab being run out of the home, but there’s one problem: The meth lab is in another house on the property, occupied by somebody else. Excuse the pun, but that’s some crack investigative work.

4 D’Army Bailey has relisted on eBay the boarding-house bathtub where James Earl Ray supposedly stood when he shot Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968. Bailey tried to sell the old bathtub in 2004, and bids reached $152,000 before eBay shut down the auction, concerned that the sale violated some policy about listing “offensive” items. We don’t know who would want the tub or who would want to spend $150,000 on it. For that kind of money, you can buy something really nice from the Watson’s girl.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Smorgasbord

You know it’s a political season when you have six events on your calendar within a two-hour time span — stretching geographically from downtown Memphis to east Shelby County. That was the case on Monday night of this week. Highlights from four of these:

Earnestine Hunt Dorse fund-raiser at the Best Western on Union Avenue downtown: A more-than-respectable turnout from members of the legal and political communities graced this affair for Dorse, a Memphis municipal judge who is running for Juvenile Court judge.

Interesting Twist #1: Criminal Court judge Loyce Lambert reflexively returned to her roots as a defense attorney and public defender, energetically presenting various legal scenarios by means of which Mary Winkler of Selmer, accused of killing her minister husband in a currently sensational case, might successfully defend herself at trial.

Interesting Twist #2: Criminal Court clerk candidate Vernon Johnson Sr. vigorously defended himself against a charge by Democratic primary opponent Kevin Gallagher (also present) that Johnson, who entered diversion some years ago on a felony charge of theft, was technically ineligible to pursue his current livelihood of bail bondsman.

Asked for an informal opinion, Lambert ruled in favor of Johnson — that he had purged himself of any legal recriminations by completing the diversion process and possessed the same rights as any other citizen. “We turn ’em on and turn ’em off,” she said. “He got turned back on.”

Interesting Twist #3: Dorse’s husband, Fred Dorse, one of the more thoughtful members of the local political community, laid out a somewhat counterintuitive theory as to how his wife could win in a field that includes both former U.S. attorney Veronica Coleman and retiring state senator Curtis Person.

Conventional wisdom would hold that Coleman and Judge Dorse — both women, both African Americans — would split the same voter pool, giving Person, a white Republican, the edge. Not so, said Fred Dorse: “Veronica Coleman lives up in Millington, and she has more ties with the white establishment than with the black community. It’s she and Person who’ll divide up their vote.”

J.W. Gibson fund-raiser at the Inn at Hunt Phelan on Beale: A well-connected local businessman, Gibson, a Democrat, African-American, and candidate for the County Commission, boasted a diverse and influential sponsor list that included the likes of Beth Gallagher, Ron Belz, Harold Byrd, the Rev. James Netters, Robert Spence, and former Shelby County mayor Bill Morris. He was also being promoted by former Commercial Appeal columnist Susan Adler Thorp, currently doing TV commentary and working in business and public relations.

Gibson’s position is iffy by definition, a true gamble. He could be running in a three-man primary field against Derrick Harris and longtime incumbent Walter Bailey, or, if the state Supreme Court, which held hearings on the matter last week, upholds a 1994

countywide referendum in favor of term limits, against Harris alone.

It makes a difference how the cards fall, in that influential veteran Bailey, one of three plaintiffs in the current suit, would be heavily favored if he stays in. In case he does, both Gibson and Thorp came armed with an argument against his incumbency. Bailey has had a long and distinguished career, both said, but now it’s time for fresh blood. “What can he do now that he hasn’t accomplished in the 30 years he’s had to do it?” asked Thorp rhetorically.

Regina Morrison Newman fund-raiser at Palm Court in Overton Square: Newman is one of three candidates for the Position 4 General Sessions judgeship being vacated by longtime incumbent Russell Sugarmon. Opponents so far (April 6th is the deadline for filing) include Tony Kizer and Joseph K. Wilcox.

The turnout for her affair included a number of well-known figures in the political and legal communities. Two in particular stood out: Judge Sugarmon, who is enjoined by the judicial code and by long tradition from involvement in political races and therefore issued no endorsement as such, and his wife, Gina Sugarmon, who isn’t so constrained and, as one of the organizers of the event, does in fact endorse Newman.

Another factor in Newman’s favor is her sheer ubiquity at political events of various kinds during the last year. She is almost as much a fixture at such gatherings as is Sheriff Mark Luttrell, who rarely misses anything. There is a logic to such a steady presence and something intangible as well. In a metaphysical sense, the gods seem to favor such determination, and, in a more practical way, it surely helps out in name identification down the line.

Especially in judicial races, where explicit talk about issues is limited by the nature of the judicial canon, just being there is half the battle.

Campaign kick-off for 9th District congressional candidate Ralph White at the University of Memphis Holiday Inn on Central Avenue: White, pastor of Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church, is a likable, gregarious sort, and his politics reflect the breadth of his relationships.

Democrat White has, in fact, a number of Republican supporters (including campaign manager Burns Landess and former three-time congressional candidate Rod DeBerry) — a fact White met head-on in remarks to his faithful Monday night. “I’ve always been a Democrat,” he said, “but I’m not going to be the Democratic congressman from the 9th District, nor the Republican congressman from the 9th District. I’m just going to be the congressman for the 9th District!”

By virtue of his profession, White knows how to pump up a crowd and did so Monday, ending by standing at the doorway, Baptist preacher-style, and greeting each attendee on their way out.

The crowded 9th District Democratic field may be about to add two new filees. Intimates of state senator Steve Cohen say he will file for the congressional seat either Friday or Monday, and Tyson Pratcher, who has resigned his position with U.S. senator Hillary Clinton, e-mailed supporters that he would shortly be doing the same.

In sum, these four events offered a taste of the ample smorgasbord that will be offered Shelby County voters during election year 2006. A fifth event during the same brief time frame Monday night was a fund-raiser for incumbent Shelby County mayor A C Wharton at the Germantown home of Al and Ruby Bright and a sixth was a League of Women Voters meeting at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library on matters relating to urban sprawl — destined to be one of the key issues, both spoken and unspoken, in this year’s mayoral and County Commission races.

Other events Monday relevant to the campaign year included a forum for U.S. Senate candidates in Nashville, sponsored by the Tennessee Health Care Association, and an address on health-care issues by Governor Phil Bredesen to a joint session of the General Assembly.

The governor, who has been roundly buffeted by proponents of TennCare for his significant budget reductions in the program last year, offered an innovation of his own called “Cover Tennessee,” which would guarantee portability of health insurance for working adults and arrange for joint public-private funding assistance for low-income Tennesseans seeking coverage.

It remains to be seen how serious a challenge Democrat Bredesen will face from the Republicans, but declared GOP candidate Carl “Two Feathers” Whitaker promptly sent out an e-mail denouncing the governor’s plan as woefully insufficient, and another possible Republican entry, state senator Jim Bryson of Franklin, was reported by the Tennessee Journal to be preparing his own health-care proposals.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Farewell, Wendi

Chris Davis’ parting shot (Fly on the Wall, March 16th issue) to departing Commercial Appeal columnist Wendi Thomas was a little harsh.

Maybe Thomas went a little overboard with her “everyday sin tax” ideas, but her heart was always in the right place. Thomas’ columns were about getting people to think and to live responsible, moral lives. She held all politicians to high standards, never playing the race card in her call for all of us to look at ourselves and try to live better lives. Thomas is a brilliant writer, wise beyond her years. Baltimore’s gain is Memphis’ loss.

Randy Norwood

Memphis

Snake Oil?

Every time I hear George Bush on TV, I feel like I need to take a bath in extra-strength degreaser. This guy is the slimiest snake-oil salesman on the planet. For him to say that he tried to avoid the Iraq war is ludicrous. Bush did everything in his power to make sure we went to war so he could get the regime change he desired.

Joe M. Spitzer Memphis

The president is on tour promoting the idea of “staying the course” in Iraq, using the same platitudes he has used for three long and bloody years. He’s speaking in front of giant signs that read “Plan for Victory,” which is ironic, since he has yet to present one.

As former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright noted recently: “Good versus evil is not a strategy.” Under the guise of being a “wartime president” (in the endless “war on terror”), Bush has abused the Constitution and stripped a weak-kneed Congress of its ability to offer checks and balances. If we, as a people, don’t rise up soon, our liberties will be taken and America as we know it will disappear.

Warren Hagan

Memphis

George Bush ran for reelection by avoiding discussion of his own record and by demonizing John Kerry. Republicans up for election in 2006 may well try the same smear tactics to deflect attention from the issues and how they’ve failed at those issues. As the campaigns begin, listen closely to see if candidates are really answering questions. “He is partisan,” for example, does not answer questions about the deficit, war, torture, spending, corruption, or illegal activities. Representative Marsha Blackburn and Senator Bill Frist would rather talk about the “far left” or “liberals” rather than the details of their records on the issues. What they say “most liberals” think is absolutely not what most liberals think.

If you’re in doubt, ask us what we think. Don’t let Republicans or Fox News tell you. You can be sure that when a question is deflected or another candidate is smeared, there is a reason. Let’s not allow candidates to turn our heads with emotional rhetoric. Let’s demand the truth from everyone. And let’s demand that smear tactics stop immediately.

Brandy Branigan

Memphis

A Worthy Cause

Although we greatly appreciate Bianca Phillips’ story on the closing of our no-kill home (February 23rd issue), the article failed to mention a few important points: 1) Furry Friends did not close down altogether. We merged with Guardian Angel Pet Rescue. 2) Our remaining dogs were placed at the Memphis Humane Society through the support of its executive director, Ginger Morgan. 3) Our shelter was open for six months, not four.

Most importantly, we would like to thank all of our donors whose contributions paid for 76 dogs and cats to have food, shelter, spaying/neutering, and medical care. Furry Friends was and is — in conjunction with Guardian Angels — a worthy cause.

Susan Mah, Furry Friends founder

Memphis

Selling Memphis

How do you sell Memphis (In the Bluff, March 23rd issue)? That’s a no-brainer: Memphis music. Yeah, we all know about our musical heritage. And I’m thankful we have places like the Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum and the Stax Museum and other appropriate homages to our illustrious past. But I’m talking about Memphis music today. We have a vibrant, creative, and talented community of musicians who play all kinds of music. These artists represent a diversity that reflects the Memphis that we are now, not the Memphis we used to be.

No need to hunker down with a bunch of high-priced strategic brand designers. As Christopher Reyes from LiveFromMemphis.com would say, “Get off your ass and go see some music!”

Joann Self Memphis

Categories
Cover Feature News

End of the Dance

I want everybody to understand that this is not going to be an easy road. This doesn’t change because I became coach. I don’t walk on water. I’m just a regular guy. But I want people to see our players fighting, playing like they’ve never played before, doing things people have never seen them do. Win or lose, they leave the building saying, ‘Now if this is the era we’ve gone to, I’m excited.”’ — University of Memphis basketball coach John Calipari (Memphis magazine, October 2000)

You know the first name I thought of when the Memphis Tigers tipped off against UCLA in the Oakland Regional final Saturday? Dennis Freeland. My friend and former Flyer editor lost his battle with cancer in January 2002. But 15 months earlier, he wrote what amounted to an introduction for the city of Memphis to one John Calipari. And if there’s any justice in the universe, Calipari absorbed a sliver of Dennis’ spirit — both for his basketball program and the city of Memphis — during their time together.

Even with the dispiriting season-ending loss to the Bruins — haven’t we been here before? — one could spur a debate these days on whether or not a boatless Calipari could cross the Mississippi without getting wet. (Dennis was petrified of what the coach might think of an illustration that ran with his story that depicted Calipari not only standing on water, but with a halo! “Artistic license,” I kept telling him. Here in Memphis, we know how to sanctify mere mortals.)

The 2005-06 Tigers may have come up a game shy of the Final Four — the expressed goal since Calipari was hired in March 2000 — but consider what they did achieve. They won more games (33) than any other team in the program’s rich history and more than any other team in the entire country this season. They were only the fourth team in school history to play for a berth in the Final Four. They are Conference USA champions, whether measured by their regular season record (13-1) or the tournament championship they earned by beating a game UAB squad March 11th. In Rodney Carney — a player off the radar of the recruiting world when he signed to play for Calipari in 2002 — Memphis is sending the third-most prolific scorer in school history toward an NBA career that will begin as a lottery pick in June’s draft. And four of this year’s top eight players were freshmen. Ask Tiger Nation after it gathers itself, and you’ll hear: If John Calipari doesn’t walk on water, he floats rather nicely.

By many measures, an NCAA regional final is the hardest game to lose in college basketball — one game shy of the biggest spectacle in American amateur sports. But as Tiger fans dry their tears, they would do well to remember the journey. In reflecting on the end of a season in which Carney, Shawne Williams, and Darius Washington took turns being the star of the night, remember Calipari’s starting lineup from his first team in 2000-01: Shyrone Chatman, Scooter McFadgon, Kelly Wise, Shannon Forman, and Modibo Diarra. The argument could be made that Calipari did a better coaching job in getting those Tic Price recruits to the NIT semifinals than he’s done with his abundance of talent here five years later.

Return trips to Madison Square Garden for the NIT “final four” in 2002 and 2005 didn’t help in the longing for more national glory, the kind Larry Finch knew in 1973 and Keith Lee in 1985. Last weekend, the Tigers were but a victory over the most decorated program in the sport’s history from reaching the promised land. A heartbreaking loss to UCLA in the NCAA tournament? The U of M is the latest victim in a long line. And the fact is, the Tigers won more NCAA tournament games this month than the program did over the previous 13 seasons combined.

The lasting beauty of the 2005-06 Memphis Tigers is that they are now a talking point on the historical timeline of this city’s flagship sports enterprise. For all their virtues, the Grizzlies and Redbirds can’t approximate the historical tapestry woven across generations by Tiger basketball. And from this point on, at water coolers and watering holes across the Mid-South, Calipari’s sixth Memphis team will be part of the debate when the question of the greatest Tiger team is raised.

If the debate is narrowed down to regional finalists, the 2006 Tigers are one of four. What about 30-win teams? The 2006 Tigers are one of two (and the only one with 33). How about Memphis teams that won both regular-season and conference-tournament championships? The 2006 Tigers are one of four. Star power? Carney scored more points in his Memphis career than everyone except Keith Lee and Elliot Perry. (More than Penny, more than Finch!) Williams and Washington will give this team three future pros (and you just might see Joey Dorsey, Antonio Anderson, and Chris Douglas-Roberts playing for pay someday). It’s a team for posterity.

With the end of a season comes speculation about the future, particularly in modern college basketball, where a roster’s turnover becomes a complicated amalgam of pro ambitions, academic eligibility, and — since Calipari’s arrival — even graduation. We know Carney will be in an NBA jersey come November. But who knows about Washington and/or Williams? (One man’s opinion: They would each help their pro careers with another season of college ball.) If Washington stays for his junior year and Williams his sophomore, next year’s club will start the season ranked in the country’s top five, if not number one. But what if they don’t?

Willie Kemp (a guard) and Pierre Niles (a forward) will be highly acclaimed rookies at the Finch Center when practice starts next fall, and they’ll make an impact, with or without this season’s stars back to help roll out the red carpet. Some healthy advice for college hoop fans: Teams must now be measured as individual, one-year novellas, as opposed to chapters in a larger book. The 2005-06 Tigers were best-sellers in this category. Celebrate them for what they gave the city, and separate your memories of them from that dreadful season finale last weekend. A 33-4 team deserves that much.

Once again, remember the journey, ye Tiger faithful. In two very forgettable years under Tic Price, Memphis won a total of 30 games and played nary an NCAA tournament contest. With due respect to Price’s best player, Omar Sneed would come off the bench for the 2005-06 Tiger squad. And the Price “era” was but seven years ago.

Dennis Freeland was as good a sportswriter as Memphis has seen in some time. He was, foremost, a professional journalist. Dotted all his i’s, as they say. But he was also a graduate — and fan — of the University of Memphis. Objective as the day is long, Dennis was passionate about Tiger basketball. Were he here for the season just past, Dennis would have relished all the positives, all the cheers he might have covered, for it’s the teams that do something special that make sportswriters pay attention, year in and year out, when most clubs simply do the best they can within fairly standard limits. A season begins, reaches its peak (or nadir), and ends.

I’ll tell you a secret about Dennis and his coverage of the 2005-06 University of Memphis Tigers, as I imagine it. His gaze would have remained steady, his thoughts and perspective focused as the team grew into one of the three or four greatest in the history of the program. But Dennis’ heart? It would have been pounding.

What Happened in Oakland?

— By Dave Woloshin

The horn sounded and he collapsed to the floor, hiding his head beneath his jersey. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. Not for Rodney Carney. Not for any of the Memphis Tigers. The chase for greatness ended one week too soon. One trip too soon. It was supposed to end in Indianapolis, Carney’s hometown.

What the heck happened in Oakland? How could every Memphis player have a bad game on the same night? John Calipari had made it clear to his team and to the national press that to be successful his stars would have to “play like stars.” But a different set of stars had aligned over San Francisco Bay.

It began when the NCAA selection committee bestowed the honor of a number-one seed to the Tigers. The University of Memphis had never been a one-seed before. And coming from a league like Conference USA, it was even more improbable. All the so-called experts thought your schedule wasn’t tough enough. But there Memphis was, sitting at the top of the bracket. The only problem was the view.

The NCAA placed the Tigers in the Oakland region, figuring Memphis was the fourth-best team in the tournament. The fourth number-one seed has the lowest priority of the top seeds and is usually forced to play farthest from home. So if the Tigers made the Sweet 16 they would head west.

In the first two rounds in Dallas, the Tigers took care of business like a top seed should against Oral Roberts and Bucknell. So, it was on to Oakland!

As the Sweet 16 got started, it appeared the Tigers might have destiny on their side. Their next opponent, Bradley University, a small school from the Missouri Valley Conference, had upset favorites Kansas and Pittsburgh to get to Oakland. They were a 13-seed. If you know your NCAA trivia, you know that no 13-seed has ever made it to the Elite Eight. Bradley wouldn’t either. Again, Memphis took care of business, winning by 16.

UCLA and Gonzaga squared off for the right to meet Memphis. The Zags dominated the game and led by nine with three minutes left. Then UCLA went on an 11-0 run and took its first lead with nine seconds left. The lead held, and suddenly, UCLA was destiny’s child.

Memphis had beaten both UCLA and Gonzaga earlier in the year, so it really didn’t matter which team they played, right? Oh, but it did, and I’ll give you 15,000 blue-and-gold-clad reasons why.

The Oakland Arena looked like Pauley Pavilion-North. It was packed with UCLA fans. This was now a Memphis road game. For only the second time since the NCAA began seeding the tournament, a higher-seeded school was forced to play in the home state of a lower seed.

All year long, the young Tigers had stood up to pressure. When games got physical, so did Memphis. When referee calls went the other way, the Tigers shook it off. But not against UCLA.

Credit UCLA coach Ben Howland for coming up with a brilliant game plan. He decided the Bruins would play rough and clog up the middle, taking away Memphis’ ability to attack the bucket. Everything UCLA planned paid off. When the Tigers tried to match their physical intensity, they were called for fouls. They became tentative. When a hard drive to the hoop became a charge, bewilderment set in.

Shooting threes? That didn’t work either. At the half, Memphis was 0 for 10. Bewilderment turned to panic. UCLA’s crowd was in a blue and gold frenzy. What hadn’t happened all season finally did. The Tigers played like the freshmen and sophomores that they are.

Which gets us back to center circle and senior Rodney Carney, on the floor, trying to regain his composure. His career at Memphis is over. But his professional future looks bright. Most experts predict he’ll be an NBA lottery draft choice. As for his young teammates, their future looks just as shiny. Almost every key player on this Tiger team other than Carney could be back. Add four new blue-chip recruits to the mix, and an Elite Eight repeat is not only feasible, it’s expected.

Sure, the hangover of disappointment still lingers, even a week later. I believe these Tigers could have won the national championship. The Tigers could have licked any of the Final Four survivors. But that doesn’t take away from what this group has achieved. They are the new bench-mark for Tiger greatness.

And a new chase begins in seven months.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Constitutional Crisis

George W. Bush and his most trusted advisers, Richard B. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, entered office determined to restore the authority of the presidency. Five years and many decisions later, they’ve pushed the expansion of presidential power so far that we now confront a constitutional crisis. Relying on legal opinions from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Professor John Yoo, Bush has insisted that there can be no limits to the power of the commander in chief in time of war. More recently, the president has claimed that laws relating to domestic spying and the torture of detainees do not apply to him.

His interpretation has produced a devilish conundrum: President Bush has given Commander in Chief Bush unlimited wartime authority, but the “war on terror” is more a metaphor than a fact. Terrorism is a method, not an ideology; terrorists are criminals, not warriors. No peace treaty can possibly bring an end to the fight against far-flung terrorists. The emergency powers of the president during this “war” can now extend indefinitely, at the pleasure of the president and at great threat to the liberties and rights guaranteed us under the Constitution.

When President Nixon covertly subverted checks and balances 30 years ago during the Vietnam War, Congress passed laws making clear that presidents were not to engage in unconstitutional behavior in the interest of “national security.” Congress was reacting to violation of Fourth Amendment protections against searches and seizures without judicial warrants establishing “probable cause,” attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, and surveillance of American citizens.

Now, the Iraq war is being used to justify similar abuses. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, providing constitutional means to carry out surveillance, and the Intelligence Identification Protection Act, protecting the identity of undercover intelligence agents, have both been violated by an administration seeking to restore “the legitimate authority of the presidency,” as Cheney puts it.

The presidency possesses no power not granted to it under the Constitution. The powers the current administration seeks in its war on terror are not granted under the Constitution. Indeed, they are explicitly prohibited by acts of Congress.

The Founding Fathers, who always come to mind when the Constitution is in danger, anticipated just such a possibility. Writing in the Federalist Papers, James Madison defined tyranny as the concentration of powers in one branch of the government. “The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department,” Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others.”

Madison continued, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition”; the interest of the officeholders must “be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Recognizing that he was making an appeal to interest over ideals, he concluded that it “may be a reflection of human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what,” Madison asked, “is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Madison’s solution to the concentration of powers that lead to tyranny relied upon either Congress or the Supreme Court to check the overreaching of a president. In our present crisis, Congress has been supine in the face of the president’s grab for unconstitutional, unlimited power, and no case is working its way toward a Supreme Court judgment.

If Madison’s reliance on the ambition of other officeholders has failed us, we need to look elsewhere. Can what Jefferson called the “common sense and good judgment of the American people” help us now? In the past, they have been a last resort when our leaders endangered the constitutional checks and balances. But first the public must wake up to this crisis.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Rover Rescue

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Snowball — a small, white, fluffy dog — was famously, and forcibly, separated from his young owner during the evacuation of the New Orleans Superdome. Of course, Snowball wasn’t the only one.

After Katrina, Memphis Animal Services and the local Humane Society took in hundreds of animals rescued from flooded and abandoned homes in the Gulf. Now that most of those animals have been reunited with their owners or placed in foster care, city officials and pet rescue groups are thinking about what would happen to local animals if a major disaster were to hit Memphis.

“Sadly, it takes something bad to force everybody to come together and keep an interest,” says Phil Snyder, director of Memphis Animal Services. “Even though Katrina did not happen in Memphis, people came here from the devastated areas and kind of forced the disaster on us. It was good training, and it certainly helps us to be more prepared for a disaster in our own area.”

Memphis Animal Services hosted “Animals in Disaster: Working Within the System” last week at the Agricenter with about 60 attendees from various county and regional animal rescue groups, shelters, and emergency management offices. Speakers addressed issues such as preparing animal disaster kits and the importance of training for disaster rescue.

According Nina Wingfield, director of Collierville Animal Services, anyone rescuing animals in a disaster must have credentials from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA). TEMA offers an animal rescue training class, and once completed, volunteers receive a photo ID allowing them access to areas blocked off by the National Guard after a disaster.

“Many people helping after Katrina were not experienced in animal rescue,” says Wingfield. “When volunteers started coming in and doing their own thing, people got bitten, and animals died.”

Snyder says about 15 people in the county are currently certified through TEMA, but he would like to see more people take the course. Those who have completed training are forming a Disaster Animal Response Team, responsible not only for saving domestic pets but livestock and exotic animals.

In recent years, the Memphis Emergency Management Agency (EMA) has developed a disaster plan for local animals that includes shelters, crates, food, and leaving some roads open to transport livestock.

However, the EMA recommends that all county residents have personal disaster plans to care for themselves and their pets for up to a week after a disaster.

Since the EMA is involved in disaster plans for local animals, Snyder hopes Memphis won’t see a repeat of the New Orleans situation where people were forced to leave their animals behind.

“The worst thing you can do is leave your pets behind,” says Snyder. “You may think you’ll be back in a day or two, but that may not happen. It’s been proven that pets left behind are in greater danger.”

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

We Recommend

thursday March 30

Great Conversations

University of Memphis Holiday Inn, 5:30 p.m., $75

Fifth annual fund-raising dinner put on by the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Memphis. Designed to introduce the public to the brainpower at U of M, you’ll get to break bread with one of 30 experts who have ties to the school. Among the many fascinating topics are “Ask an Egyptologist,” “The Ingeniousness of Jokes and Other Twists of Language,” and “How Minds Work: Human Minds, Animal Minds, Artificial Minds.” Registration is required. Call 678-1332 or e-mail lellis2@memphis.edu.

friday March 31

Brooks Museum League and Artists Showcase 2006

Agricenter International, $10, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Juried show featuring art, furniture, jewelry, and accessories by the region’s top designers and artists. At 10:30 a.m., architectural historian and University of Memphis professor Jim Lutz will give a talk about the homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Cost of the lecture is $35.

Art Trolley Tour

South Main Arts Distric, 6-9 p.m.

Art openings galore tonight, including one for “Turn 2,” prints by Sheri Fleck Rieth at Memphis College of Art “On the Street” Gallery.

Ubu Roi

Rhodes College McCoy Theatre,

7:30 p.m., $2-$7

This ought to be interesting: Alfred Jarry’s absurdist drama that satirizes the foibles of the ruling class. Directed by Rhodes alum and Flyer staff writer Chris Davis.

Alison Brown Quartet

Bartlett Performing Arts and Conference Center, 8 p.m., $20

Innovative banjoist Alison Brown and her quartet bring their bluegrass/jazz hybrid to Bartlett. In addition to her own extensive recording and touring, Brown has been a member of Alison Kraus’ Union Station and the band leader for Michelle Shocked.

saturday April 1

Mid-South Cat Fanciers Show

Agricenter International,

10 a.m.-4 p.m., $4-$6

All sorts of cats will be at this 14th annual cat show and championship. In honor of its 100th anniversary, the Cat Fanciers Association has established its Centennial Celebration Challenge, in which regional show winners earn points toward competing in a national online event to choose the best cat in the world. The show ends Sunday.

“mFAC 001”

Medicine Factory, 85 W. Virginia, 6-9 p.m.

One-night-only show in this new downtown artspace near South Main. The exhibition features multimedia work by 15 local artists — David Dieckhoff, Anastasia Laurenzi, Erin Harmon, and Greely Myatt, among them. The works were created to be site-specific in a space that originally served as a medicine factory.

Rigoletto

The Orpheum, 8 p.m., $30-$73

Verdi opera about a court jester named Rigoletto, who gets a horrible taste of his own medicine after he helps a lascivious duke seduce women.

sunday April 2

Operation Art Relief

Dr. Bob’s Studio, 12 S. Main, 2-6 p.m.

Volunteer event for teens, during which they’ll create artworks under the supervision of recently relocated New Orleans artist Dr. Bob. The art will be displayed at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library and then auctioned off during Memphis In May. Proceeds go to New Orleans schools. Participants are asked to bring canned goods or nonperishable items and to wear clothes they don’t mind getting messy.

weDnesday April 5

Booksigning by Elizabeth Dewberry

Burke’s Book Store, 5-6:30 p.m.

Elizabeth Dewberry’s latest novel, His Lovely Wife, revolves around a woman named Ellen who is in Paris with her physicist husband. Ellen is mistaken for Princess Diana. Then Di dies and spiritually sets up house in Ellen’s body.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Q and A: Glen Fenter

West Memphis was in high spirits during last week’s dedication of Mid-South Community College’s Workforce Technology Center. The new $7 million center, part of a four-school consortium that includes Mid-South, Arkansas Northeastern College, East Arkansas Community College, and Phillips Community College, includes multimedia classrooms, automotive manufacturing training areas, and diesel maintenance technology equipment. The schools have joined forces to stimulate large-scale growth in Arkansas’ manufacturing sector, as well as the more immediate goal of training workers for the Hino Motors plant in Marion. We asked Mid-South president Glen Fenter why the group, known as ADTEC (Arkansas Delta Training and Education Consortium), is so important.

— By Ben Popper

Flyer: How did this consortium of colleges begin?

Fenter: Necessity is the mother of invention. When we started having conversations locally with the Hino Motors officials, we came to understand very rapidly that in order to maximize the opportunities of Hino and other foreign investors, one community college would not be enough to provide the wealth of workforce programs we would need for the region. So we began to communicate with our other members as to the rationale of commingling our efforts. The formalization of that effort really was a large part of the Department of Labor’s recent decision to give us a $5.9 million grant. Automotive manufacturing represents a huge opportunity for growth in our region, and we want to make sure we’re prepared for that.

At the dedication, Mike Beebe, the attorney general of Arkansas, spoke about adapting the curriculum to the needs of industry. Does tailoring yourself to one company limit your ability to grow in the future?

As we develop our school, we are allowing dozens of different kinds of industry to have input, not just automotive. The end result of this curriculum is to be prepared for all manufacturing areas.

What is the central goal of your facility?

To be successful in creating a workforce. That is our only true goal. This isn’t about growing enrollment; our goal is to make eastern Arkansas the absolute best location for industry to choose in North America. The equation that we use is “world-class geography plus world-class infrastructure plus world-class education equals world-class economy.” We have the interstates, airports, and intermodal facilities. We have the river, flat, cheap land, and are located in the center of the country. We have a population that, when educated, could meet any workforce demand.

What does your student body look like?

There are several populations. The first is the unemployed, and we have everything from literacy to adult education and work-based learning for those who may have missed some of their educational background. Then you start targeting the underemployed, those who want better jobs, so we will have night and weekend programs. The group missing from that is our kids. How do we capture and excite them? We are going to aggressively add programs to the public schools here to encourage our kids to consider this opportunity.

When and how did you make connections with industry in Japan?

The first model we had for creating this training consortium was based on distribution, warehousing, and logistics. We knew that was a big part of our economy and all those geographic variables are important to us. When a Hino location appeared here, we knew we would be shifting our focus from distribution and logistics into the manufacturing arena. We went to Japan in September of 2005 and began to establish relations with the Hino training models so we would be able to make as much progress as possible in terms of making them comfortable. While there, we saw the Hino High School, which is a great opportunity to see how they handle education. We saw their factories and the level of technological intensity there. A lot of what we saw in Japan reinforced what we already had in play.

Has there been any formal study of the center’s economic impact on the region?

There have been a number of projections. We’ve seen some estimates for the initial hiring at the new plants. The cumulative estimates are 1,000 new jobs, and that’s conservative. More aggressive estimates look to see that number grow many times over if these companies are as successful as we want to make them.

At one point, the Japanese auto industry was considered a threat to American jobs. Was there any negative reaction to foreign investors in Arkansas?

I think people are happy to see great education, job opportunity, and economy. It is something our citizens have longed for. I don’t think it matters to them who the company is. If they are willing to invest, we want to support them and grow them, as long as they are putting people in eastern Arkansas to work. We are offering classes today and have been training workers for the Hino plant for months.

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Music Record Reviews

Record Reviews

Destroyer’s Rubies

Destroyer

(Merge Records)

New Porn wordsmith outdoes himself on a career-best solo album.

There are modern singer-songwriters, and then there is Dan Bejar (aka Destroyer). It’s a bold statement for sure, but the new Destroyer’s Rubies offers more considerable evidence of the greatness of this sometime New Pornographer. Bejar’s previous Your Blues was, to many (though not this writer), a misstep. By breaking out the MIDI and filtering his previous style through Electric Light Orchestra-style ’70s rock, Bejar turned Your Blues into the token “difficult” member of his discography, which has set up Rubies as the obligatory “return to form.”

Bejar has been making albums as Destroyer since the mid-’90s, long before his membership in the more-heralded New Pornographers. The difference between Bejar and the Pornographers’ other resident solo artist, Neko Case, is that a Neko Case song on a New Pornographers record is still a New Pornographers song. A Dan Bejar song on the same record is a Dan Bejar song.

The early Destroyer releases showed promise within the confines of bedroom four-track indie-folk. Then, with 2001’s Streethawk: A Seduction, Destroyer began a romance with grandiosity and lyrical loopty-loops. Most artists touched by the critical pen have suffered lazy comparisons, and Destroyer’s albatross happens to be Hunky Dory-era David Bowie. Fair in doses, though the real historical templates for Dan Bejar are the ’70s solo output of John Cale and folkie-turned-soft-rock-genius Al Stewart. But ultimately, Bejar has a way with words and a way with a song, ways that are his alone.

Destroyer’s Rubies resembles 2002’s This Night more than other entries in the Destroyer discography. Bejar runs back into the loving embrace of the guitar, both acoustic and electric, and the epic nine-and-a-half-minute, semi-eponymous opener “Rubies” rises to full-blown, full-instrumental heights with head-to-the-sky “la la la la’s” and then dips into man-with-guitar introspection. This pattern could be seen as indicative of what follows, though that would unnecessarily simplify matters. Rubies is signature Destroyer, no doubt, and perhaps Bejar’s strongest record to date.

— Andrew Earles

Grade: A

out of the Ashes

Jessi Colter

(Shout Factory)

Fresh on the heels of Bobby Bare’s return from retirement comes the first new album in 22 years from Jessi Colter, widow of Waylon Jennings, mother of Shooter, and former outlaw-country hit-maker in her own right. Producer Don Was is on board in hopes of adding more fuel to the comeback launch. Opening with a middling gospel number (“My Eye on the Sparrow”), Colter eventually recovers with “Starman,” which percolates to a nice boil even with undercooked lyrics. Her strong cover of Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 and #35” has no such problem, of course. In many instances here, Colter is allowed to meander through numbers that might remind you of soft rock rather than outlaw country. How much you can forgive the sloppiness probably depends on your tolerance for soft rock. (“Starman,” “Rainy Day Women #12 and #35”)

— Werner Trieschmann

Grade: B–

This Old Road

Kris Kristofferson

(Lost Highway)

Kris Kristofferson gets the Rick Rubin treatment on his 18th album, This Old Road. Aiming for the same success that Rubin brought to Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, producer Don Was uses minimal instrumentation to convey “intimacy” and “honesty,” as if trying to convince us that these 11 songs were recorded by a dimming campfire. This less-is-more approach is becoming nearly obligatory for aging artists, aiming to suggest the gravity and wisdom of so many years gone by. Fortunately, Kristofferson settles right into it on most of these songs, holding forth on the inevitabilities of mortality without sounding gloomy or grim. Instead, he’s clinging desperately to his youthful left-leaning idealism even as he looks for heroes like John Trudill and Steve Earle on “Wild American.” As he sings on “Pilgrim’s Progress”: “Am I young enough to believe in revolution?” He doesn’t sound too old on any of these songs. (“This Old Road,” “Chase the Feeling”)

— Stephen Deusner

Grade: B+

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News The Fly-By

Paint the Town Red

Once crumbling and forgotten, the South Main Arts District has come a long way in recent years.

Art galleries, shops, and restaurants now dominate the area, and in keeping with the district’s overall improvement, the South Main Association (SMA) is hosting a series of neighborhood cleanups this spring. To start, four volunteers painted the railroad trestle near Front and Butler streets red last week.

“We’re painting the bridge to add to the artsy quality of the neighborhood,” said Becky Beaton, a member of the SMA. “A group of artists had a meeting, and red was the color they chose.”

But red entered into the project another way too. Beaton says the association feared there would be too much red tape if they asked for the city’s permission to paint the bridge.

“We thought it’d be best to do it first and apologize later,” she said.

Last year, the trestle over G.E. Patterson was painted red, and on April 29th, the trestle on Butler near South Main will be painted as well.

The April 29th event will also be a neighborhood-wide cleanup and planting in conjunction with the Hands On Memphis Servathon.

Three weeks ago, Memphis City Beautiful helped the South Main Association organize an event to pick up litter.

“We cleaned up some eyesores [and trash] that businesses had accumulated in their alleys,” said Beaton. “We cut down tall weeds, trimmed some trees, and picked up some garbage. We just want the neighborhood to have an overall cared-for feeling.”

The association is also organizing an effort to have artists paint their work on parking meters along South Main.

“When I used to come down here in 1996 for the Blues Music Awards, this area was a ghost town,” said SMA member Priscilla Hernandez as she painted. “With all the galleries and residential construction, the neighborhood’s made a phenomenal change for the better.”