UT quarterback Erik Ainge passed for 324 yards and four touchdowns in Tennessee’s 41-7 rout of Memphis at the Liberty Bowl.
“The Vols (4-1) have now won 20 of the 21 games in the series, and this one was never in doubt. Read it and weep here.
Who knew? Paul Tudor Jones II, the big-shot New York investor and native Memphian, collects waterfowl decoys. And his isn’t just any collection: As befitting a man of his reach and means, his set of antique decoys is among the finest in the world. “The Art of Deception: Waterfowl Decoys from the Private Collection of Paul Tudor Jones II” will be at the Brooks Museum through October 29th. As chairman of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and director of the Everglades Foundation, Jones has made natural conservancy one of his prime endeavors. His decoys have never before been publicly displayed.
The exhibit runs in conjunction with the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest, the entries for which are on display at the Memphis College of Art (MCA) through October 7th, when the winner will be announced. To learn more, go here.
On October 13th, Hope Church in Cordova is holding its annual Beast Feast. It’s a night just for the guys, featuring a barbecue contest and a vehicle “show-off.” Not a word on the press release about belching.
For more information, go here.
To promote the movie, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, opening today in local theaters, canes were buried in Memphis, Nashville, Norfolk, and Los Angeles. Clues posted on the movie’s web site lead to the cane, and those who find it will receive $1,000 each.
We’ve been unable to get the site to work. You can give it a shot here.
WMC’s Jarvis Greer was voted “Best Sportscaster” in the Memphis Flyer’s Readers Poll for the millionth year in a row.
To see how everybody and everything else ranked, check out our Best of Memphis issue here.
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“Fearless is being billed as Jet Li’s final martial-arts epic. If this is true, it’s too bad for a couple reasons: One, the performer is abandoning the genre that has seen his best work; two, the martial-arts movie that he’ll last be remembered for is such a subpar product. …
Get Flyer reviewer Greg Akers’ take on the new Jet Li flick here. And as long as you’re scoping out movies for the weekend, you should read what Chris Herrington has to say about the quirky Science of Sleep.
Bob Corker, the Republican candidate for the Tennessee Senate seat currently held by Bill Frist, has made drastic changes to his campaign leadership 39 days before the midterm elections. The DSCC is reporting that Corker fired his campaign manager and hired a new media consultant who has previously worked for President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.
Drastic change-ups so close to the election usually indicate trouble within a campaign. DC Republicans have expressed their concern over the race and recently reprimanded Corker for running a lackluster campaign. Read more here.
As we go to press, President George W. Bush is due for an imminent set-down in Memphis, his second such visit this year. The first occasion was the president’s journey to Graceland, back in June, in tandem with the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, a well-known Elvis fan. That was Mr. Bush at his best — accommodating, gracious, and rendering a public service — both to Koizumi and to our fair city, which, let us not deny, benefited from the publicity.
This week’s visit is designed to assist former Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate and a candidate who is struggling just now. The president appeared with Corker in Nashville some weeks ago, and this Memphis reprise, for a fund-raiser, confirms what we had begun to fear: namely, that Corker, whom we had invested some hope in as a political moderate, has chosen to stay the course he charted during the Republican primary as a faux right-winger whose attacks on “liberal” Harold Ford Jr., his Democratic opponent, derive from the unscrupulous school of veteran Bush-meister Karl Rove.
We concur with former Congressman Harold Ford Sr. that his son, now surging ahead of Corker in the polls, profits to the degree that Corker is caught in this unholy embrace and only lament that the younger Ford himself feels compelled — no doubt for strategic reasons in red-state Tennessee — to keep professing affection for “my president.”
Like everybody else, we have to buy gasoline and have noticed the recent decline in prices at the pump. Cynically, we can’t help wondering if that isn’t the result of some pre-election collusion between the administration and the oil companies. If so, and if that’s the best Rove and Bush can do by way of an October Surprise, then we suspect that the real surprise on November 7th will be all theirs, and it won’t be a pleasant one for them.
We wonder, too, if the recent forthrightness shown by individuals as diverse as former President Bill Clinton and TV commentator Keith Olbermann isn’t a truer indication of a revised national mood than anything the polls might say. Did we enjoy Clinton’s recent trashing of Fox News anchor Chris Wallace for attempting “a nice little conservative hit job” on the president’s efforts against al-Qaeda? We did. Did we further enjoy the resulting commentary by Olbermann in which the MSNBC sage (a miraculous blend of Edward R. Murrow, David Letterman, and Cicero) accused Bush of attempting to “hide your failures by blaming your predecessor”?
Oh, we did, we did. And, above all, we enjoyed Olbermann’s climactic statement, in which, we believe, he spoke for the emerging American majority: “The ‘free pass’ has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.” We could only hope that our two senatorial hopefuls come to see that as clearly as have Clinton and Olbermann.
The Urban Mythos
This week, your household Fly would like to pay a bit of overdue respect to the anonymous blogger who operates gatesofmemphis.blogspot.com for posting a YouTube video he/she took at the September 13th meeting of the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board. In the video, a woman identifying herself as “JonBenet Ramsey” and “the President,” stood up to oppose development plans for the Medical Center, and in the process, touched on issues far more distressing than any redesign of a neglected downtown neighborhood.
President Ramsey warned that not enough Americans carry guns, making us sitting ducks for Mexicans who’ve illegally crossed the border hunting “body parts” and “human bodies.” She sounded an alarm over the potentially devastating effect laser beams could have on our roadways and correctly noted that a bomb could easily accomplish the same level of destruction. She was about to discuss the church’s role in all of this when she was cut off and asked to step down. Admittedly, rumors about Mexicans needing American “human bodies” are greatly exaggerated, but it’s a sad, sad day when our Land Use Control Board won’t allow an open and honest public debate concerning the threat of laser beams.
Crunk’d
Variety reports that Adventures in Hollyhood, the MTV reality/comedy show starring River City rappers Three 6 Mafia, will be produced by Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d production company.
Will Memphis’ favorite pimps show up for the first day of shooting only to discover that everything has gone wrong? Will the situation spiral hilariously out of control until DJ Paul “loses it” on one of Kutcher’s hidden cameras? Stay tuned.
Sometimes you just have to dump all your pieces on the table and see what you’ve got.
After months of stalling by the city attorney’s office, representatives from the Salvation Army met with the City Council’s park committee last week to discuss a site-specific plan for the proposed Kroc Center. The more than $20 million recreational facility is tentatively planned for 28 acres on the fairgrounds, but the council had questions about where exactly the Kroc Center would be located and how the land would be transferred.
“I’m a little concerned,” said Dedrick Brittenum. “I think it’s a great facility, but if we agree on a location before we finish the fairgrounds analysis, we’re basically letting the Kroc Center dictate to developers how the rest of the fairgrounds will be developed.”
The fairgrounds re-use committee has been studying how best to use the land since 2004. Last February, six different scenarios were presented to the committee — including one that omitted the Mid-South Coliseum and the Mid-South Fair from the property entirely — but no decision was ever made. A study of each scenario’s economic impact is expected by the end of the year, after which the council should have a clear plan for the property.
But the Salvation Army’s proposal was to put the Kroc Center — made possible by a trust from McDonald’s widow Joan Kroc — on property just south of Fairview Junior High and north of what used to be Libertyland.
“It’s like the tail wagging the dog,” said Brittenum. “That is the choice location on the property. This way developers will have to work around the Kroc Center. It may diminish the opportunity that developers see.”
But with time running short — the Salvation Army would like to break ground on the center next spring — both groups need to start thinking seriously about what the final product is going to look like.
Stephen Carpenter, director of the Kroc Center, said the group’s architects have done preliminary drawings, using the fairgrounds site as a placeholder.
“We can only go so far,” said Carpenter. “If it ends up not being that site, that will be wasted work. We’re getting within a month of having to stop everything if the site is not set.”
But the location is not the only problem. The Kroc Center must own the land, whether it’s donated or bought at fair market value. And there’s a question of whether or not the city can give land to what is — technically — a religious organization.
“That’s valuable land. I would prefer a sale rather than lease it or give it,” said council chair TaJuan Stout Mitchell. “I would rather look at land that would be harder to sell. … It could be in the Salvation Army’s best interest to look at that part of the land and save your money.”
Saving the choice property for high-dollar customers may be a smart move, especially if the Kroc Center will increase the nearby property value. But the problem for both sides is this: How do you put a puzzle together if you don’t have all the pieces?
By the parameters of the trust, the Kroc Center has to be highly visible and easily accessible. And without knowing what else will be located on the property, there are no guarantees that those parameters would be met if the Salvation Army agreed to a different fairground site.
“If we don’t have a street, then it’s questionable,” said Carpenter. “The Salvation Army is the only one that’s come forward with a project with money on the table, ready to do a program. … We’d work with other parties, but there aren’t any that we know of.”
The city and the Salvation Army are meeting this week to discuss a possible contract agreement, with an aim to having a proposal before the full council within the month. However, with an eye to the other possible puzzle pieces, the committee asked that the city attorney’s office go forward with negotiations without a particular site in mind.
I don’t think anyone in city government wants to lose this project, especially if it means sending it to DeSoto or Crittenden counties. And the city definitely has the opportunity to make the fairgrounds a landmark project. But there’s no need to get greedy. Think about what’s there now; almost anything would be an improvement.
Selling the best piece of the property first may make other groups less interested in the land, but maybe not. Wouldn’t the Kroc Center — with $24 million to be raised locally and a $48 million grant for operational costs — make the less desirable land more desirable?
We could be looking at the perfect fit.