Month: August 2006

On the Eve

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date August 3, 2006

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

In the last week of the various election campaigns, Shelby County Republicans drew a visit from a dignitary whose name wasn’t on the August 3rd ballot but may well be again in, say, 2008, when presidential primaries are held in various states, including Tennessee.

This was Bill Frist, the outgoing majority leader of the U.S. Senate, whose seat is up for grabs this year and has been hotly contested by Republicans Bob Corker, Ed Bryant, and Van Hilleary and Democrat Harold Ford Jr.

Before going to the Oaksedge grounds in East Memphis for an “ice cream social” sponsored by the local GOP, Frist sat down at the Wilson Air Terminal for an exclusive interview with the Flyer to discuss his current situation and future plans. Here are excerpts:

Flyer: Do you see your possible presidential race as being conflicted between conservative and moderate positions or between those wings of the Republican Party?

Bill Frist: We will see. I’m convinced that the party, including the nominating groups, are going to be focused on who can lead with principle, and that ultimately will be what distinguishes me in my service as a senator and if I decide to run for president.

And I think leading with principle is what has characterized me both as majority leader as well as being in the Senate itself — whether it’s on issues like the judges and a commitment to use the “nuclear option” if it came to that, to leading on Medicare, to entitlement-type reform issues, which traditionally Republicans don’t do, or stands on stem cells.

Issues like the Islamic movement that we see today which will so color our generation — I feel pretty good about that. I think my leadership style has been very different compared to previous leaders by my willingness to take certain risks in certain areas based on principle and acting on those principles.

The left didn’t like your position on the Terri Schiavo issue, and the right didn’t like your position on stem cells. Does that present a political problem?

Yeah, but I think that each of the issues, whether it’s HIV/AIDS, whether it’s reform of entitlements, whether it’s Schiavo, whether it is stem cells, whether it is tax cuts, [there’s] a consistent principle.

You look at stem cells: I did exactly what I said I was going to do six years ago … before the president came out, and that’s right where I am right now. That’s what people want. I’m a citizen/legislator. I said I was going to serve 12 years, and I’m not like most politicians who get in it and stay forever and say I didn’t really mean it. I do what I say, and that’s what people want.

How do you think you’ll do in the early primaries?

Well, again, this is all hypothetical, if I decide to run, but I think in particular New Hampshire and Iowa, those two states look right in somebody’s eyes and see the person, and then they make a judgment. Most people understand [that], being majority leader, my responsibility is, unlike other senators, to lead that upper legislative branch, the United States Senate. That’s what I get elected to do. And particularly the 55 Republicans, where I act and take into consideration those broad range of views in a way that gathers the strength and the leadership and minimizes the weaknesses of that group.

Is being majority leader, a very partisan position, a possible handicap to running for president?

It’s hard to say. You don’t see majority leaders become president. You don’t see United States senators become president. If one’s motivation [were] to be president, you certainly wouldn’t — or I certainly wouldn’t — have become majority leader when my colleagues came to me to serve the country and lead in the capacity of majority leader.

Thoughts on the ongoing Middle Eastern crises — Iraq and Lebanon?

With the current events, with the terrorist activity that’s going on right now in Israel and along that southern Lebanese border, with the rise of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that is threatening the sovereignty of Israel, I think people are getting a much better understanding that the war on terror is not just a war on terror, it’s a war against a radical Islamic fascism that is not just in Afghanistan, is not just in Iraq, is not just in Lebanon, not just in Syria, not just in Iran but throughout that entire region.

And the importance of us recognizing that surrender is not a solution and that retreat is not an option when we have this growing, burgeoning entity whose purpose is to take down the West, destroy your future and the future of all Americans. Specifically, in Iraq, we should stay and do exactly what we’re doing now.

We need to continue supporting that now-sovereign government, with the full resources and the full moral might of the United States of America. We need to continue to focus attention on Iran, which is an even greater threat to the United States because of its commitment to nuclear proliferation. And then most acutely and most recently, we’re going to need to focus increasing attention on the northern Israel/southern Lebanon border.

Some worry that we’ve given a blank check to Israel. Do you agree?

No, we just passed a resolution on the floor of the Senate last week that condemned Hezbollah and supported Israel’s right as a sovereign state to defend itself, and so I don’t believe so. We have a long-standing relationship with Israel as an ally, and we will support them as an ally, and if their sovereignty is being threatened and being attacked, they need to defend themselves, and we will continue as we would with any ally.

Front Porch Politics: “Money can’t buy you love,” said the Beatles a generation ago. In a striking demonstration of commitment to the cause of “clean money and clean elections,” a goodly sized crowd gathered Sunday in the front yard of District 29 state Senate candidate Steve Haley to hear him and two other speakers — Democracy for Memphis activist Brad Watkins and state representative John DeBerry (see Viewpoint, p. 17) — insist that money can’t buy you good government, either.

In an obvious reference to a highly public campaign or two going on just now, the stem-winding DeBerry commented, “Thousands upon captive thousands of dollars are being pumped into Memphis and Shelby County to tell us that people we’ve never heard from before are better than those whom we know.”

In his remarks, Haley stood on his literally planked platform and unveiled political planks on strong handgun legislation, an end to regressive taxation, a further strengthening of predatory lending law, and, most importantly, publicly financed elections. “Clean money and clean elections,” said Haley. “That’s why we’re here. That’s the centerpiece of my campaign.”

Inadvertently left out of last week’s pre-election review was a reference to the hotly contested race for Shelby County trustee between Democrat Becky Clark and incumbent Republican Bob Patterson. Overlooked also was the District 87 state House race, in which incumbent Democrat Gary Rowe is favored over challenger Jeff Shields.

Editorial Opinion

Why We Don’t Endorse

Post author By Flyer Staff
Post date August 3, 2006

In the past few weeks, we have been asked on numerous occasions whether the Flyer will be endorsing this or that candidate in one of the 144 different races on the Shelby County ballot this Thursday. Our answer is the same as it’s always been over this newspaper’s 17-year history: We do not endorse individual candidates, preferring instead to let our editorial opinions on specific issues, expressed week after week in these pages, speak for themselves.

Why do we not endorse? For starters, political endorsements suggest a uniformity of opinion among members of a newspaper’s staff. Given the independent-mindedness of our staff members, we would be foolish to suggest that any one candidate would be the unanimous choice of all our employees.

Second, we feel that there are real-life circumstances when the endorsement of individual candidates can hinder a newspaper’s ability to do its primary job: covering the news. Way back in 1991, Dr. W.W. Herenton first won election as mayor by the slender margin of 141 votes out of over a quarter of a million cast. A recount seemed essential for this, the closest municipal election in American history. But the daily newspaper had endorsed the defeated incumbent early and often; any Commercial Appeal call for a recount may well have been perceived as sour grapes. There was no such call, and no recount, although later reporting by this newspaper indicated a host of voting irregularities that clearly had direct impact upon the final vote totals.

Here at the Flyer, we have broken with this no-endorsement tradition on only one occasion: In November 2004, we endorsed Senator John Kerry in his presidential campaign versus the incumbent, George W. Bush. At the time, the reason seemed obvious: “Four more years of George W. Bush is a potential disaster of such magnitude that we feel obliged to add our editorial voice to those of so many other newspapers around this country.” Sadly, nothing has happened over the first two years of Bush’s second term to cause us the slightest regret over expressing that opinion.

Our decision to “dis-endorse” President Bush had less to do with ideology than it did with incompetence. As recent events have made even more clear, the president is clearly out of his depth in the Oval Office, having blundered his way into civil war in Iraq, completely botched the Katrina recovery effort, and ignored the nuances of foreign policy so thoroughly that today the entire Middle East is a powder keg waiting to explode.

Let the Bush “experience,” then, be a lesson to all Shelby County voters: Ideology may be important, but if the candidate you are considering has no proven track record of achievement, no history of managing his or her own life wisely, let alone any kind of experience managing others, proceed with caution. And as you cast your ballot, ask yourself this: Is the person I’m voting for the best-qualified candidate to do the job of this office? If you can answer that question in the affirmative, then you will have done yourself and Memphis proud.

Opinion Viewpoint

Change the Paradigm

Post author By John DeBerry
Post date August 3, 2006

When I was on a flight back into Memphis a few weeks ago, I noticed the Mississippi River. The thing cut all over the landscape for hundreds of miles.

The Mississippi is called a “meandering stream” because it is so crooked. It takes the path of least resistance. When it runs into something, it goes around it, and over a period of time, it cuts itself into the landscape.

We have to ask ourselves why we have so many other things that are crooked in the city of Memphis. It’s because we take the path of least resistance. It’s always easier not to take a stand, not to say what has to be said, not to do what has to be done, and not to fight the battle that has to be fought.

For too long in the city of Memphis, we’ve taken the path of least resistance. We’ve taken the easy path of race or gender or section of town or political party or political standing. We’ve taken the easy route of not rocking the boat or shaking the tree, of compromising, capitulating, to just get past election day and let everything get back to normal.

We can’t afford that any more. We have reached the point in the life of the city where we have to have some change. It’s going to have to be immediate, drastic change. We need to change what’s between our ears. We’ve got a system that is broken. We need a check-up from the neck up.

We have to change the paradigm.

I haven’t had a fund-raiser since 1995. I don’t send out letters. I don’t ask for money. If certain groups think I’ve done my job well enough that they want to send me some money, cool. But they’re not going to get anything for it other than what I give to every other citizen in Tennessee: I’ll listen to your issues and weigh the pros and cons for the benefit of the people I serve.

Elections in Memphis are decided on personalities. It’s not about merit. It’s not about performance. It’s about names. It’s about families. As long as we keep that paradigm in Memphis, we’re going to have the same old politics.

We have people who want to start their political careers in Congress. They don’t want to start at the Board of Education and help the kids learn. They don’t want to go downtown to City Hall and fight the battles of picking up garbage and fixing roads and work with MLGW. They don’t want to go over to the County Commission and deal with the deficit and the budget. They want to go to Congress and get their start there.

Money says they can do it. So there are thousands upon captive thousands of dollars that are being pumped into Memphis and Shelby County to tell us that people we’ve never heard from before are better than those whom we know — better than those who have driven up and down the road, those who have paid the price and worked the work, made the speeches, taken the stands.

Folks think that all they’ve got to do is have the right last name. That’s ridiculous in a city this size.

It stops with you. None of us are entitled to do anything with a political title if we have not done the work. It’s just that simple. I hope that folks will ask a very simple question before they push the button for an individual: What have they done? Have they served in the community? Where do they come from?

We’ve got folks transferring to Memphis to run for office when we’ve got folks standing in this front yard who are more qualified. It’s in your hands. We need to end the status quo. We need to end the politics of entitlement. It’s up to you. Make a statement.

John DeBerry is the state representative from District 90. These remarks are from a speech he made Sunday at a “front porch” rally for District 29 state Senate candidate Steve Haley.

Cover Feature News

Teaching For America

Post author By John Branston
Post date August 3, 2006

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Eight years ago, Brad Leon was playing college baseball and football and studying public policy at Occidental College in California. Little did he know that the first place he would have an opportunity to put his lessons into practice was almost 2,000 miles away in Memphis.

Leon, 27, is executive director of Teach For America in Memphis, as well as a former teacher. The national program brings top college graduates to teach in underperforming school systems for two years, with a goal of turning them into career teachers and administrators. The catch, if you can call it that: Most of them lack formal certification beyond what Teach For America provides them.

Fifty-four “corps members” from colleges as far flung as Princeton, Minnesota, and Texas were in the first class that came to Memphis in July. Like Leon, many of them had never been to Memphis and knew little about it, but they were intrigued enough to make it one of their top choices among the 28 cities and regions where Teach For America operates.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, with the temperature pushing 100 degrees, about 40 corps members met at Uptown Square to talk to leasing agents, find roommates, figure out how to get to local landmarks, and pick up whatever scuttlebutt they could about their new assignments. For most of them, Memphis City Schools will be their first full-time job. The salary: $37,000.

“I never knew how the city almost died after the [Martin Luther] King assassination,” said Ira Leeds of Atlanta, a 2006 Princeton graduate who will be teaching biology at Kingsbury High School. “You feel like you are part of a city that is really in rebirth.”

Tim Ware, 30, a 1998 graduate of Cedarville University in Ohio, is one of the oldest new teachers. He worked at a hospital and in an inner-city outreach program in Indianapolis after graduation. Ware, who is single, will be teaching history and possibly coaching basketball at Frayser High School.

“I think Indianapolis and Memphis are pretty close to the same,” he said. “You can live comfortably on a teaching salary.”

The benefits of Teach For America for Memphis are twofold. The school system gets an infusion of idealistic young teachers and the city gets 54 of the young college-educated professionals it is competing for with Nashville, Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, and other cities. Unlike school “reforms” that embrace the view that public schools are hopelessly broken and should be replaced with charter schools or vouchers to attend private schools, Teach For America believes in undiluted public education. The Hyde Foundation, the Assisi Foundation, and FedEx contributed $782,000 in funding for three years.

“We believe Teach For America is one of the most important initiatives in one of the most important areas of our community: secondary education,” said FedEx chairman and CEO Frederick W. Smith. “It provides truly outstanding talent that will hopefully make a big difference in local school performance.”

Jane Walters, the former Tennessee commissioner of education and Craigmont High School principal for many years, is another fan.

“They’re going to get the world redone if it takes ’til March,” she jokingly said about the idealism of new teachers. She particularly likes the fact that Teach For America wants to improve the public school system from within rather than working around it. The certification issue doesn’t bother Walters, who is now principal at the Grizzlies Academy, a small, downtown high school for students who are at least two grades behind when they finish middle school.

“Common sense needs to take over,” she said. “We need an amazing number of teachers who are passionate about it.”

Studies by the Southern Regional Education Board show that after five years nearly half of new teachers left teaching in the state where they started. Although it has been called a Peace Corps for schools, Teach For America wants corps members to stick around beyond a two-year hitch in the public school backwaters.

“My vision 10 years down the line is hundreds of corps members teaching in the schools and dozens of alumni as principals or running for school board or leaders in the business community,” said Leon. “Of our more than 10,000 alumni, 63 percent are now working full time in education, and 94 percent of them are still working in low-income communities.”

In an interview with the Flyer, Leon talked about his own experience with Teach For America in New Orleans, his impressions of Memphis, and his goals for teachers.

Flyer: How did you come to the program?

Brad Leon: I joined after taking two years off to be a bartender in Southern California. People who know me in Teach For America would be dumbfounded by that because I’m a pretty straight-edged person, but that’s what I did. It was a great job. And one of the sad things, which may be a commentary on education, is I made more per year as a bartender than I did as a teacher in New Orleans. I was making around $36,000 as a bartender, and I believe I made $27,000 my first year as a teacher.

Why New Orleans?

You get to choose where you want to go on your application, and New Orleans was one of my highly preferred sites. I taught at a place called the New Orleans Free School, started in the Sixties by self-proclaimed hippies. The theory was that students shouldn’t have to take certain courses and should sign up for what they wanted to sign up for.

I taught language arts and social studies to seventh- and eighth-graders. The students called me Mr. Brad. We actually didn’t grade our students the first year. We gave written evaluations. My second year, I felt like a piece of American counterculture had died, because the faculty voted to give our students grades. Our principals were devastated that we would do that.

So what was it like?

In eighth grade, students were required to take and pass a standardized test in order to go to the next grade. Only 41 percent of eighth-graders passed before I got there. One of the things I love about Teach For America is this idea of relentless pursuit of results. You are not a missionary. You are going in there to get results for your kids. I had mandatory tutoring for one hour before school and one hour after school.

The big picture came home to me one day when a student was waiting at my car after tutoring. He was a big kid named Thomas, about my size. He was just staring down at his shoes. He said in the saddest voice I’ve ever heard, “Mr. Brad, am I going to pass the LEAP test?”

He wanted to go to Grambling and play in the battle of the bands in the Superdome like his family members had done. He started to explain this to me, and when he got done, his eyes went back down to his shoes because he was afraid it wasn’t going to happen. When we got the test results back, the principal called me down to the office over the loudspeaker. My entire class went silent. They were just terrified. I went back upstairs and started pulling kids out one at a time. Thomas was the last name on the list. He was sitting in the back of the classroom crying hysterically, sitting on the floor with his shoulders heaving. The other kids had formed a horseshoe around him, offering encouragement. When I led him outside, he wouldn’t look at me. I said, “Thomas, you passed.” If I thought he was crying then, he started crying even harder.

What got you into administration in Memphis?

I was thinking about a third year, and the recruitment-director job came open. I thought, Yes, I’m making an impact on those 53 kids, but what if I can get hundreds of our nation’s best college graduates to do this? I recruited at the University of Notre Dame, Iowa, and the University of Chicago. Over my two-year span we went from 100 applicants at Notre Dame to 240 this year. Then I heard we might be opening a site in Memphis. I knew about New Leaders For New Schools here and the New Teacher Project and the KIPP academies. I saw it as a place that was radically reforming education for the better.

What took so long for the program to come to Memphis?

We are a nonprofit. We need to be able to raise money. I’m not sure the funds were there until now. In Memphis you have Billy Kearney, an alum and executive director of New Leaders For New Schools. On the state level, Drew Kim, policy chief for the governor, is another alum. The Hyde Foundation brought me in for a meeting after we had come here. They had pledged $250,000, and it had to be approved. So I went before their board and talked about what we were doing. They have been the real drivers behind this.

Can you attract top grads with the salary structure in Memphis?

This year, we had close to 19,000 applications, and we accepted about 2,400 — or 12 percent. Of those in Memphis, 97 percent highly preferred to come to Memphis. We are very critical about who we get into the program, because we know if kids are on average three grades behind, you are going to have to get the very best to bridge that gap.

How did you like Memphis when you moved here?

I went on apartmentratings.com and found a great place downtown on Jefferson Avenue. When I moved here, I just loved it. My one-bedroom apartment cost $631 a month. I was paying $560 a month in Chicago for a one-room shack, so I felt like I was walking into Shangri-la.

My schedule starts around 5 a.m. I am at the downtown YMCA at 5:30 when they open, less than a mile away. I read the news, get into work, work until 5:30 p.m. There are a couple things outside of work I got to experience. We took all our corps members to the National Civil Rights Museum, and I absolutely loved it. I’ve been to a lot of Grizzlies games and a couple of games at AutoZone Park.

What happens after corps members put in their two years?

One thing that brings people in is the national connections we have. Teach For America has partnerships with all the top law and medical schools and MBA schools. Their career track depends on them.

Justin Fox Burks

Dossier White, 21, Vanderbilt University, human and organizational development, teaching government at Kingsbury High School. “I have family here, and I was born here. I want to make a change in my own community.”

Dossier White

Katie Campbell, 22, Bryn Mawr College, political science, teaching special education at Georgian Hills Elementary School. “Memphis was my first choice because I want to be part of a city that is engaged, hopeful, and proactive not only in education but in building a stronger community.”

Katie Campbell

Rachael Szydlowski, 24, Bluffton College, psycholgy/sociology, MAIA from Ohio University in Southeast Asian Studies, teaching language arts at Soulsville Charter School. “I liked the idea of a city that didn’t feel overwhelming or overbearing.”

Rachael Szdlowski

Timothy Flowers, 23, Wabash College, French and political science, teaching at Soulsville Charter School. “I was looking for a community the exact opposite of the small, 100 percent Caucasian farming community [Cicero, Indiana] I am from. I wanted something more cosmopolitan.”

Timothy Flowers

Ira Leeds, 22, Princeton University, politics, teaching biology at Kingsbury High School. “Memphis is the perfect combination of big city and small town.”

Ira Leeds

Tim Ware, 30, Cedarville University, history, teaching history at Frayser High School. “Memphis was attractive to me in light of the culture and the rich history of civil rights activism here.”

Tim Ware

Shelby Rohrer, 22, University of Minnesota, psychology, teaching math at Hamilton Middle School. “I had never been to Memphis, but my preconceived notion was that it was a big city that had more of a small-town feel.”

Sports Sports Feature

Fathers & Sons

Post author By John Branston
Post date August 3, 2006

CREDIT: Dreamstime.com/Mark Viveen

We baby-boomer fathers spend years tossing baseballs, footballs, and basketballs to our sons, hoping they’ll live out our dreams of becoming big-time ballplayers. But when they grow up, they become huge fans of the great sport of … poker.

Or in the case of young Allie Prescott, a professional poker player. He’s one of 10,000 amateur and professional gamblers who put up $10,000 to play in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this week. Maybe you saw him last week on ESPN, staring down something a lot scarier than a 3-2 count or a 95-mile-an-hour fastball: a $700,000 bet on one hand of cards.

I happened to be on the phone at the time with my son Jack in Knoxville when he said, “Wait a minute. Allie Prescott’s playing poker on ESPN! I’ll call you back.”

Seven years ago, Jack and Allie were pitchers on the baseball team at White Station High School. Allie had the size, the speed, and the genes. His dad, Allie Prescott III, was an overpowering pitcher with big-league potential 40 years ago. He picked up a law degree instead, and these days he runs a mediation firm. His wife Barbara is a psychologist and former member of the Memphis City Schools Board of Education.

Allie, the poker pro, graduated from Tulane University, where he played baseball for a year and a half before tearing his rotator cuff. He began visiting the New Orleans Harrah’s casino at about the time Texas Hold ‘Em was becoming a national craze among high school and college guys. Prescott played small-limit Hold ‘Em until two years ago, when a friend turned him on to Internet poker. He honed his skills and played his first poker tournament in Las Vegas, a $2,000 entry-fee affair. His fourth-place finish earned him $45,000.

A car wreck set him back, but when he returned to the table in San Jose in a tournament where the buy-in was $10,000, he had a shot at $1 million before finishing 12th and collecting $60,000. In a little over two years as a poker pro, his winnings total about $270,000, less expenses. Not bad for a guy a few years out of college.

The $700,000 bet came about this way: Prescott and a buddy, Gavin Smith, were playing in a $10,000 poker tournament in New Orleans. From the original field of 170 players, 35 were left. Prescott was in fifth place and Smith was fourth. They decided to make a little side bet.

If Prescott won, Smith would pay him $1 million, or $100,000 a year for 10 years. If the more experienced Smith won, Prescott would pay him $700,000, or $70,000 a year for 10 years. The bet was off if neither of them won or if they both made the final twosome. As it turned out, both did make the final table but only Smith got to “heads up.” Playing more aggressively than usual, Prescott was knocked out, earning $65,000.

“Heads up” lasted six hours, as neither man could knock out the other. At one point, Smith had a huge opportunity with a pair of kings in the hole, but his opponent drew a fourth six on the last card. On the final hand, Smith lost to an ace high. “It was hard for me not to pull for him because he is my best friend, but maybe I will pull for him next time,” said Prescott, who sweated it out in front of ESPN cameras.

How does the thrill of poker compare to the thrills of baseball? “Since I am out of sports,” said Prescott. “I probably get more of a rush out of poker than just watching a game. But nothing is better than the thrill of actually playing.”

Speaking for a generation of fathers, we’re glad to hear that.

News

Get Out the Vote

Post author By
Post date August 3, 2006

CREDIT: BBC

If you’ve already voted this morning, good for you. Why not make a day of it by voting in the Flyer’s 2006 Best of Memphis Readers Poll? Results will be the September 28th issue.

Politics Politics Feature

Justice Department to Monitor Today’s Election

Post author By John Branston
Post date August 3, 2006

The Web site Raw Story is reporting that the U.S. Justice Department will monitor today’s Shelby County elections. Raw Story says the Department indicated in a release today that it, “will watch and record activities during voting hours at various polling locations in the city to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act.”

We’re not sure whether to be comforted or depressed, but given last night’s stolen ballot box caper, we suspect they’ve come to the right place.

News

The Search for Elvis

Post author By John Branston
Post date August 3, 2006

About a year ago, the Flyer published an article about the sighting of the thought-to-be-long-extinct Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Researchers named the elusive bird “Elvis.”

Now comes word that last month scientists from NASA and the University of Maryland launched a project to identify possible areas where the woodpecker might be living. Using a research aircraft, they flew over delta regions of the lower Mississippi River to track possible areas of habitat suitable for the woodpecker. The scientists used NASA’s Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS) onboard the aircraft.

That’s right. The acronym for the system they used was LVIS! That’s spooky. Read all about it here.