Month: September 2006

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Do Not Enter

Retired Congressman Lacy Clay, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, has written a memo saying it’s “critical” that membership in the CBC remains exclusively black.

According to Clay’s memo, “The CBC welcomes support from others in the House and Senate, especially those with liberal credentials but it is critical that its membership remain exclusively African American.” The memo was written after two white, Jewish congressional candidates, Tennessee’s Steve Cohen and New York’s David Yassky suggested that they would seek membership in the CBC in order to better serve majority black districts.

Read more here.

Categories
News The Fly-By

For Shame

It’s not exactly a scarlet letter, but a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) Web site is being used to shame people who have been caught making and selling crystal meth.

When 39-year-old Stacey Gore was convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell, she not only received over three years at the Shelby County Correctional Center and a hefty fine, her name was also added to a public list of meth offenders.

Much like the mandatory sex-offender registry, the TBI’s Meth Offender Registry is a list of convicted meth cooks and dealers posted on the TBI’s Web site, www.tbi.gov.

“Just as sex offenders are deemed to be a public threat, so are meth makers,” said TBI spokesperson Jennifer Johnson. “We know the chemicals used to make meth are very volatile. So the governor’s task force on methamphetamine came up with the idea to start this registry to inform citizens about potential meth cooks who may be living in their neighborhoods.”

Unlike the sex-offender registry, the meth registry does not contain addresses. Citizens concerned about meth cooks in their community would have to know their neighbors’ names for the list to do much good.

Johnson said addresses were excluded because many offenders on the list are currently in jail. Meth cooks and users also tend to have a more transient nature, making it hard to pin down their location.

“They may be living with a friend or in an apartment or rental property. In this case, it’s more important to know who the person is rather than their address,” said Johnson.

The registry is searchable by county. A search for Shelby County nets 15 names, most of whom have been charged with possession of meth with intent to sell. Searches for the more rural counties of Tennessee net more people with manufacturing charges. Each offender’s name, date of birth, offense, and conviction date are listed. The registry only includes people with convictions dating back to March 30, 2005.

“Hopefully, this will be a deterrent to those who do not want to have their name on a public list,” said Johnson.

Tennessee was the first state in the country to compile a list of meth offenders, but Minnesota and Illinois have since designed their own registries. Oklahoma and Georgia are also considering such a list.

While the TBI maintains that the list is a public service, others consider it insult to injury. “Non-violent drug offenders already have a hard time when they get out of prison. They can’t get student loans. They have a hard time finding a job,” said Bill Piper with the Drug Policy Alliance. “Registries like this make it harder for these people when they get out of prison to lead law-abiding lives.”

Piper is also concerned about whether meth registries could be a slippery slope to identifying all drug offenders on public lists. But Johnson says the TBI has not considered such an exhaustive registry.

“There’s never been a discussion to have a marijuana registry or a cocaine registry,” said Johnson. “The reason meth was singled out is because it’s not only a danger to the person who’s using it, it’s a danger to everyone around them.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

A judge sentences a Collierville retailer to 10 days in jail for displaying furniture on the sidewalk outside his store. The law is the law, we suppose, but good grief, the guy is selling patio furniture — you know, the kind that goes outdoors.

Greg Cravens

The Peabody celebrates a birthday, marking 25 years since it reopened. We can remember when downtown was looking pretty dismal, but thanks to The Peabody, everything seems just ducky now.

Bartlett plans to install LED lights in its traffic signals. Not only are they easier to see, the bulbs don’t need replacing so often. We’ll go along with cost savings, but better visibility won’t mean a thing. What drivers in Memphis pay attention to traffic lights anyway?

Thousands of hopeful contestants jam FedExForum to audition for the next season of American Idol. Considering some of the winners from past seasons, it’s easy to understand why some of these people think, Heck, I can do that.

Kathryn Bowers resigns from the state Senate, saying she needs a rest. Then a few days later, she’s involved in an automobile accident and charged with DUI, reckless driving, and failure to control her vehicle. We’re no doctors, but that is not the best way to relax.

The University of Memphis loses a close game against arch-rival Ole Miss. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Vols just tear the University of California Golden Bears all to pieces. Something tells us both teams are going to enjoy a roller coaster ride before the season is over.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Q&A: Robert Phillips

Overton Square, once a bustling entertainment and shopping district, isn’t what it used to be. The sprawling building that previously housed a dance club and, before that, a comedy club, has been empty for over a year. Square Foods, Cosmic Closet, and other retailers have relocated.

But the Midtown Redevelopment Corporation (MRC) has big plans for reviving the square, as well as other areas of Midtown.

The MRC, which is currently working to obtain nonprofit status, will function similarly to downtown’s Center City Commission. It will find funding for Midtown projects, assist with security in public areas, and focus on luring retailers and other businesses. — By Bianca Phillips

Why start with Overton Square?

No one is really taking care of the square. It was once the most vibrant entertainment district. Now it’s partially defunct.

It’s owned by a nice family who happens to not live in Memphis. We’d like to see if we could get some degree of local ownership. We’re also going to plant some trees in the square and make it prettier. We’re going to create some signage to create a sense of space.

What would you like to see in that large building on the corner?

Something that works. I never thought [a dance club] was going to be viable. There are great clubs in New York and Atlanta, but I don’t know that we’re a club city.

It’s a unique space, so it’s hard to say. If there were an easy answer, that space would already be filled. Maybe it could be broken down into smaller places. Maybe a dry cleaner, a place to pick up dinner, a place to rent a movie, and a place to buy music or get your shoes repaired.

What about the rest of Madison Avenue?

If you look at Madison, it’s virtually intact, almost by neglect. It has the bones of a great old Midtown east/west corridor. It has all these stores up close to the street. We’ve even got the trolley now.

There are vacuum-cleaner repair shops and cleaners and restaurants. We’ll have to go building to building and find out if each is adding to the neighborhood. If they’re not, we’ll try to encourage the owner to make it look nicer.

We may try to pull together some grant money to help owners change their signs or their facade and make them look more historic. If we find that one building is owned by a slumlord, we can buy it and renovate it.

What about safety?

I live in the Evergreen Historic District. I moved there a year ago, and I’ve been burglarized six times. I’ve had two bikes stolen out of my backyard.

We’re thinking about tracking systems. You put a radio device in the seat of your bike, and if someone takes it, you instantly know when it’s been moved. Police are notified, and you can apprehend the person red-handed.

We’ve also talked about putting cameras in public spaces and entertainment districts. That creates a state of deterrence.

Any plans for bringing in new businesses?

We want to bring a culinary institute into Midtown, and I’m not talking about a stove in a community classroom. I’m talking about a very viable, large culinary institute.

Memphis does a pretty good job of promoting its music, but fitting right in with that is the culture of food. There’s all the ballyhoo of attracting the creative class. We don’t have mountains and oceans, so we need something to attract talented young people. A culinary institute on a big scale would have a major impact.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Guardian Angel

Emily Land first suspected something was wrong with her left leg in January 2003 when she had trouble flexing her quadricep. For many people, this would be a minor annoyance. For Land, a Division I soccer player at the University of Tennessee-Martin, this was a problem.

And with every passing week, her symptoms grew worse.

“I’d randomly just, you know, fall down,” she explains. “I had trouble climbing stairs, the pain kept getting worse and worse, and my doctors couldn’t figure out why. After three months, I had to tell them that nothing seemed to help.”

Land was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of malignant bone cancer that affects about 900 people each year. Of these cases, about a third are fatal.

She was offered several treatment options, including amputating her leg, but she would have to act immediately.

“I was extremely scared of losing my leg,” she says. “I was determined to be physically active, but they told me the alternative to amputation was one of the harshest treatments at St. Jude.” Nevertheless, she persevered, enduring four rounds of chemotherapy that lasted almost a whole year.

But her treatment included more than chemo. She was also fitted with an internal prosthesis designed by Arlington-based Wright Medical Technology — a device called the “Guardian” — that would save her leg. It stretches from six inches below her hip to six inches above her ankle. The still-healthy exterior of her existing bone would be enclosed in a rigid casing, and her kneecap would crown the exterior of the artificial joint. The aim was to restore her range of motion.

“Fourteen weeks of physical therapy — every single day,” she sighs as she recalls the treatment. “After four weeks, I could put the crutches down. There were times I came out of therapy sweating and crying, but I felt good about myself because I knew from soccer that sometimes it took pain to get results.”

After a second surgery to correct minor errors with the first prosthesis, Emily’s range of motion has now reached a full 120 degrees. Though she can’t play soccer anymore due to the stress it would put on the prosthesis, she has embraced mountain biking and can be found riding with her husband at Shelby Farms almost every weekend.

Most important, though, are the benefits that can’t be measured in degrees.

“The greatest thing about having this prosthesis is that it is internal,” she says. “Every time I go out in public I don’t have to open myself up to telling my story. After going through chemo — being bald, sick, and gray — I don’t stand out anymore. [I can] stand out in other ways. I can be a good friend, good public speaker, and a good worker first and a cancer patient second.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

It’s a Go for Bowers!

“I’m ready to fight! I’m ready to roll my sleeves up!” Those words, delivered by a spunky Kathryn Bowers outside federal court on Tuesday, were, to say the least, a vivid contrast with her last several appearances before a group of assembled media.

The week before last, a glum-looking Bowers left a hearing before U.S. District judge John D. Breen, at which she asked for extra time to examine evidence and told reporters that her health was suffering because of stresses related to her situation as a Tennessee Waltz defendant.

The next week, a visibly drained Bowers announced her resignation from the state Senate on medical advice — an act that gave local Democrats a chance to nominate a successor for the November ballot. And only days after that she was pulled over and cited for DUI, after sideswiping a UPS truck on Interstate 240.

So who was this refreshed-looking woman in a spiffy white pantsuit smiling at ease Tuesday, with her equally relaxed attorney, Bill Massey, at her side?

Clearly, someone who, after reviewing the government’s video- and audiotapes and other evidence, decided she had a chance to beat the rap — unlike her predecessor in state Senate District 33, Roscoe Dixon, who was convicted earlier this summer of several counts of bribery and extortion similar to those confronting Bowers and now awaits sentencing.

“Not guilty,” Bowers said Tuesday morning, to the astonishment of almost everybody besides herself and Massey. Certainly, assistant U.S. attorney Tim DiScenza, chief prosecutor in the case, was buffaloed and confessed in court that he had been expecting an effort at plea bargaining and had been unprepared for what actually happened.

Tentatively, Bowers’ trial is set for April — though that could change as a result of a pre-trial hearing now set for January.

All of this had to have an impact on another Tennessee Waltz defendant, former state senator John Ford, Bowers’ colleague for the briefest of times in the General Assembly’s senior chamber.

A somewhat prescient Ford said last week, just before the news of Bowers’ DUI incident, that he harbored doubts that her resignation from the Senate necessarily meant she was determined on a change of plea to guilty. “She’s had real bad health,” Ford said then. “I’m privy to some stuff. I mean, long before all of this came up.”

Hobnobbing before last weekend’s Memphis-Ole Miss game at Oxford were former Mississippi governor Ronnie Musgrove (left) and Harold Ford Jr., the Democratic nominee for U.S. senator in Tennessee. Another local hopeful attending the game, won by the Rebels, was Steve Cohen, the Democrats’ nominee for Congress in the 9th District.

Ford, who resigned from the Senate more than a year ago, has from the beginning been considered the star player in the Tennessee Waltz saga. That’s largely because of his own longtime notoriety as a flamboyant and influential player on the state scene, but it owes something as well to the general fame of the Ford political family — particularly in a year when his nephew, 9th District congressman Harold Ford Jr., is a well-publicized candidate for the U.S. Senate.

John Ford’s trial for multiple counts of extortion and bribery was originally set for October, just before the fall election, but has been reset for early next year. The former senator said last week he wouldn’t disclose his legal strategy, but he promised “a correct presentation” and insisted, “I don’t have to prove anything. They have to prove something!”

One clue to what that correct presentation won’t include: any reference to the independent movie filmed by undercover informant Tim Willis in the same downtown office space where one of the government’s videotapes has shown then-Senator Ford pocketing FBI cash. That money, several thousand dollars worth, was handed over by a supposed representative of “E-Cycle,” a fictitious computer firm used as an FBI front.

“That’s news-media talk. That don’t mean nothing!” Ford scoffed about speculation that he might claim only to have been an actor in Willis’ fictional drama.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Bryson‘s two-day visit to Memphis last week was characterized by an unusual form of ambivalence.

Bryson, a marketing specialist and freshman state senator from Franklin who has been regarded as a potential GOP star, is smart enough to know that incumbent Democratic governor Phil Bredesen is well ahead in all the categories that count — money, poll standing, and name recognition.

But Bryson also knows that Tennesseans as a whole may have become a bit uneasy about Bredesen’s health during the governor’s recent prolonged absence from the public eye — due to a mystery illness that was tentatively identified as caused by a tick bite.

Even key Republicans will say privately that the GOP nominee has little chance if the governor’s health holds up. But key Democrats will tell you privately that they are concerned about what could happen in the event of a further prolongation of Bredesen’s illness or a serious future relapse

Meanwhile, all the GOP challenger can do is keep his campaign going while the future sorts itself out.

Last Thursday night, Bryson’s statewide bus tour arrived in Shelby County — “county 94 in our 95-county tour,” as the candidate put it during a brief address at GOP headquarters in the Eastgate shopping center. (A Friday morning visit to the office of the Center for Independent Living would be the highlight of his second day in Memphis.)

At the Eastgate stop, Bryson revealed himself to be a ready man with a quip. He recalled that he had first run in 2002 for then state senator Marsha Blackburn’s seat, vacated that year by the soon-to-be-elected member of the U.S. House. “I ran for that seat to fill those pumps,” Bryson said.

Somewhat later, after alleging that Bredesen had referred to the issue of illegal immigration as “not my job,” Bryson paused for a couple of beats, then continued: “Pretty soon he’ll be right. It won’t be his job. It’ll be my job.”

As for serious content, Bryson rolled out a series of issues that seemed designed to out-do Bredesen on both his left and his right flanks. On the one hand, Bryson lamented the governor’s paring of some 200,000 Tennesseans from the TennCare rolls, maintaining that he himself had made a proposal that would have kept some 67,000 of that number — uninsurables, in the main — on the program’s rolls.

“He [Bredesen] said it was ‘reckless,'” Bryson said. ‘Well, it’s time we had a heart.”

As for the other flank, Bryson made a point of espousing the proposed amendment to the state constitution that would limit marriage to “one man and one woman” and that he, among other GOP legislators, had been instrumental in getting it on the November general election ballot.

Bryson said that he was “puzzled and disappointed” that the governor had not signed on to the amendment.

As eight new members of the Shelby County Commission were sworn in last Thursday, there was a mixture of the expected and the unexpected.

As many might have predicted, newly elected Henri Brooks conformed to what had become her habit as a state representative, rising for the Pledge of Allegiance but not reciting it.

Less predictable was the commission’s new seating arrangement. As devised by new chairman Joe Ford, the seats no longer begin with District 1, Position 1, and continue through District 5. They are arranged randomly. “I wanted to mix things up,” Ford explained. Visibly disappointed was new member Mike Ritz, who would have had first dibs under the old arrangement.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

The Last Word

Arthur Prince, as aptly named a person as ever came ’round the bend, died this week, after a long and typically plucky struggle with the ravages of cancer. And with him passes one of the finest exemplars of a venerable American tradition. Arthur (he was an unassuming sort despite his natural — and earned — dignity, and we trust he would permit us this familiarity) was an exponent of one of the most necessary of democratic arts. He was a letter-to-the-editor writer par
excellence, and we are proud to say that he graced our pages since early 1989, when we began publication.

A professor of sociology by vocation, he was fully engaged in all the public processes and knew whereof he wrote. Even before the Internet came along to facilitate our occasional search for the apt aphorism, the relevant quote, the precise allusion, the perfect phrase to underline an idea or concept that we were about to treat, we were able to dispense with our copy of Bartlett’s. After all, we had Arthur Prince as a regular contributor, and we knew that any nuance that we forgot to invoke, or missed altogether, would come along soon with Prince’s reaction to this or that article.

Even as he struggled with his final illness, he was still being helpful in this regard. When our man John Branston, a mere lad in his 50s, wrote a column back in the spring about the overlooked career successes of the long-of-tooth among us, Arthur wrote in to remind us that Goethe wrote Faust in his 80s and Almos Alonzo Stagg was still coaching football at 90. By implication, of course, Arthur was up there himself — a perfect test case of the thesis that riper is better.

A month or so after that reminder, Arthur was back at us with another on-point response. Our music writer, Chris Herrington, had written a lengthy review of local rap artists Three 6 Mafia in which he alluded to criticism of the Academy Award-winning group from the pulpit. Yes, the venerable Prince read that piece. He read everything. He was the most well-informed person we knew. And he wrote in to offer this gloss: “I would take the advice of former senator Hugh D. Scott of Pennsylvania: ‘Never get into an argument with a newspaper or a preacher; the newspaper always has the last word with its readers and the preacher always calls on heaven as witness he is right.'”

Tongue-in-cheek, of course, but what a tasty compliment. Of course, this prince of a man surely knew better. It was he who always had the last word, at least with us, and with him around we had a relatively limited need to call on heaven to confirm a suspect verity. We had Arthur Prince on our letters page — and for that we remain eternally grateful.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Dodging Responsibility

In movies and math, there’s a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. A wing flap anywhere in the world can alter everything in the universe. In the case of insurance companies and Hurricane Katrina, the relationship is tighter. A hurricane in New Orleans will affect premiums in New York, Florida, Maine, California, and elsewhere. It’ll take federal and state intervention to mitigate this problem.

Katrina destroyed homes along 70 miles of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And another storm’s been brewing there ever since: a set of lawsuits against five major insurance companies for shirking post-Katrina claims. The lawsuits, filed by famed litigator Richard Scruggs, cover 4,000 families, including Scruggs’ brother-in-law, Mississippi senator Trent Lott.

All that’s left on the plot of land that was Lott’s home is brown-twig lawn. His insurance company of 40 years — the nation’s largest insurer, State Farm — refused to pay for damage. As with other homes, State Farm contended the cause of the damage was flooding, something the company was not required to cover. That was despite Lott’s 34-year record of opposing corporate regulation.

State Farm didn’t value that record any more than Lott’s home, treating him like all policyholders: badly. This highlights one indisputable fact. Corporate America may generally discriminate against the less wealthy, but nature and insurance companies are equal-opportunity offenders.

Scruggs and other lawyers aren’t suing just about refusal to pay; the suits allege national, systemic fraud and consultant-concocted ways of shirking claims and stretching payment periods.

Scruggs also has evidence of collusion in engineering reports from firms used to evaluate homes for claims. The story goes: Give us (the insurance company) a report we like (that says we don’t have to pay), or keep coming back until you do. With tens of billions of dollars of unpaid claims at stake, it’s a strategy neither insurance nor engineering firms want illuminated in court.

Meanwhile, insurers pulled policies on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, increased deductibles and premiums, jacked up rates for late payments, and piled more risk on customers. State regulators allowed this because insurance companies moaned that reinsurance companies (which insure insurers but have zero responsibility to consumers) doubled their premiums and they need to share the cost.

The result of all this is that a disaster in 2006 or later will hit policyholders with greater losses than last year. Meanwhile, insurance company profits have nearly doubled, from $22 billion to $43 billion, in the past six years. Even with Katrina, the industry posted its largest surplus in 2005.

Attorney Pamela Stuart has a place in Vero Beach, Florida. Her premiums jumped from $1,300 to $3,000 in the past two years. She battles insurance companies for consumers and has helped neighbors decipher their policies: “I spent years as a defense lawyer. For a layperson, though, reading them is painful.”

Other problems linger. A glaring one in the Katrina suits is what constitutes wind damage versus flood damage. Blaming floods is the industry’s “get out of payment free” card. But for the decimated coastal homes, it’s a seismic leap to proclaim the cause was spontaneous flood rather than wind-caused storm surge.

Another dilemma is the lack of federal oversight of the industry, leaving states hostage to insurers. While many insurers pulled coverage from Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, remaining ones hiked premiums. When Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood commenced investigations after Katrina, insurance firms threatened to bolt.

It’s one thing when a senator has his house blown down. But, for lasting reform, we need more federal and state supervision and fewer leniencies with reinsurance and insurance-company price hikes and reneged claims.

Additionally, having the Federal Trade Commission regulate insurance companies alongside states would mitigate their power. Congress should pass the honesty bill to show support extending beyond Katrina. The role of insurance companies is to insure. Regardless of weather, they should be held accountable to that promise. That’s what the companies signed up for.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Coast Towns

CREDIT: Chris Davis

In February 2006, nearly six months after Hurricane Katrina cut a 200-mile gash across Mississippi, the Magnolia State still looked like a war zone. Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

More than 65,000 houses had been destroyed, and the damage estimates had climbed to $125 billion. In Biloxi alone, three out of four homes sustained damage, and of those, nearly half were considered irreparable. Demolished neighborhoods were strewn with muddy toys. Furniture hung from trees like surreal fruit. Cars were still in ditches, piled on top of one another. The mangled skeletons of fast-food joints and gas stations decorated the beachfront. To anyone who hadn’t witnessed the digging-out process firsthand, it looked like Katrina might have hit the day before. Everyone I interviewed on that trip, from Biloxi mayor A.J. Holloway to the man on the street, expressed the same sentiment: Things are really bad right now, but there will be visible progress in the next six months. Some, like Holloway, were generally optimistic; others just seemed to need hope in order to press on in their unrelentingly primitive circumstances.

Chris Davis

Six months later, the Gulf Coast is showing some signs of improvement, although it would be a stretch to say that things appear to be much better. Tons of rubble have been carted away, but the area still looks like a war zone. Neighborhoods reduced to splinters by Katrina have been converted into sprawling trailer parks with temporary porches and plumbing. Communities where the damage was severe but not terminal remain as empty as an Old West ghost town, with gaping holes in the walls and ceilings of every home. In some areas, the rumble of earth-moving vehicles blends with the sounds of busy saws and hammers, but it seems like the exception rather than the rule. Little, red “For Sale” signs dominate the landscape.

On Thursday, August 31st, the sumptuous Beau Rivage casino reopened on the beach in Biloxi, creating nearly 4,000 new jobs and an atmosphere of renewed hope. Casino employees paraded through the street in front of dignitaries such as Senator Trent Lott and Holloway. Mississippi governor Haley Barbour hailed the event as a “milestone in the recovery of the coast.”

“[The casino opening] underscores an important message that Mississippi is again open for business,” Barbour said. “The private sector will determine the success of our efforts to build a Mississippi that is bigger and better than ever.”

Even with commercial growth and the steady rebirth of the Gulf’s tourist industry, unemployment throughout the region ranges from 10 to 15 percent. Chris Davis

Today

Chris Davis

Before

In spite of the obvious need for jobs, many businesses in Biloxi, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, and Waveland are unable to keep regular hours due to a lack of manpower, and “Help Wanted” signs are almost as common as the ones reading “For Sale.” Business owners, according to reports in the Biloxi Sun Herald, blame the situation on the area’s lack of housing.

Property values have soared as homeowners, frustrated by their inability to get insurance companies to pay a fair price for damage incurred and daunted by new building codes and inflated insurance premiums, are hoping to sell their land to casino and condo developers. This, along with the federal government’s failure to produce funding beyond an initial $7 million HUD emergency grant, has further hindered the development of affordable middle-class housing. Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

The Gulf Coast may be less cluttered than it was six months ago, but the damage is no less shocking. And while there is no doubt that many aspects of Mississippi’s tourist industry are bouncing back, the human disaster can still be easily measured in the number of tents, trailers, and ruins that dominate the landscape. Mississippi may be “open for business,” but beyond the beautifully appointed casinos, it’s understaffed and keeps irregular hours. Reservations are advised. Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

Although much of the rubble has been removed and

temporary fences have been erected, vast portions of the

Mississippi Gulf Coast are still in ruins.

Bay St. Louis’ historic downtown was wrecked by Katrina. Many buildings not demolished by wind and rain were made uninhabitable by human waste and black mold. The road separating downtown from the beachfront had been completely erased but is slowly being reconstructed. Some buildings that seemed unsalvageable are being rehabilitated, but much of the town still looks the same as it did six months ago. Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

It’s difficult to measure the devastation in places like Waveland, where many neighborhoods were completely blown away. Many former residents have hung flags and signs to speak for them in their absence. Lower photos: In February, the Biloxi Community Center housed FEMA and a not-for-profit group called Midwest Help. It was also a relief station for National Guardsmen. Midwest Help was evicted in late February and FEMA has moved. On September 2, 2006, the building was open and empty.

Chris Davis

Today

Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Before

Chris Davis

Today

Chris Davis

Today

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

All Fired Up

“I wanted Smonk … to get dirty,” author Tom Franklin says in the press release for his latest novel. “Or rather, it got dirty on its own. I was constantly shocked at how the characters behaved. I winced at the sex. I worried about the violence. Can I do this? I kept wondering.”

A few pages into Smonk (William Morrow), you might well wonder, Can I stomach this? The sex is positively unhealthy. (Even by today’s substandards.) The violence is way beyond over-the-top. (Think: biblical proportions.) And as for the title character, consider:

Eugene Oregon Smonk is a syphilitic, one-eyed dwarf with a major mean streak. He’s been terrorizing everybody everywhere for years, but in 1911, he’s terrorizing the citizens of Old Texas, Alabama. So the law drags Smonk into court, but it’s Old Texas that’s put to the test: murder, incest, “ray bees,” you name it.

Redemption, Old Testament-style, is at issue in Smonk, but the order of the day is mayhem at its most visceral. You want a man shot so full of bullets he’s reduced to what looks like afterbirth? You got it. You want a fake eyeball fought over, swallowed, digested, and then some? You got it. And you want all of this told with shocking wry humor? You got that too, courtesy of Tom Franklin, the John and Renee Grisham writer-in-residence at Ole Miss, the author of Poachers and Hell at the Breech, and the gunman pictured here, playing a prospector on the TV series Deadwood.

However: Speaking for your fans, Mr. Franklin, can we ask that you drop the firearm for your booksigning at Burke’s? As with any independent bookseller these days, that store’s got enough problems.

Tom Franklin booksigning, Burke’s Book Store, Tuesday, September 12th, 6 p.m.