Month: June 2007

Thousands of dogs spend everyday chained to trees or poles in backyards across the nation. Some have no shade. Others cannot reach their food or water bowls, and all are denied the chance to move around.

As a part of the national Dogs Deserve Better campaign, several local humane animal groups will be chaining themselves to a giant doghouse at Bumpus Harley-Davidson this Sunday to encourage irresponsible dog owners to unchain their pets.

Communities across the nation are beginning to ban tethering and chaining of dogs. At a recent Memphis City Council meeting, member E.C. Jones raised the issue in response to a pit bull attack. City public services director Keenon McCloy said a committee is reviewing the possibility of outlawing tethering, which she said, makes dogs more aggressive.

The event is sponsored by The Animal World newspaper, St. Francis Animal Rescue Refuge, and Rainbow Ridge Pet Rescue.

Links: http://www.dogsdeservebetter.com/home.html

–Bianca Phillips

Now, just a minute! Even as a neighbor publication is reporting that a certain online travel agency ranks our city as only Number 10 on a list of desirable barbecue destinations, we find in this past week’s Chicago Tribune a marvel of elucidation as to why we should forever be considered Number 1. Entitled “Savor the Smoky Spell of Memphis,” this article of several thousand words tells it all. Go read.

Forget the Ides of March, July the 4th, and all those other supposedly memorable dates. The ultimate day to remember was the one just passed – Friday, June 29th. iPhone Day!

Seriously, talk about anti-climax…. After all the hype about queues that would stretch around the block, the most that were counted at any one time at a Cordova AT&T location was 20 – all of whom got into the store (the inside of which was protected by two armed guards, mind you!) to buy the new Apple smart-phone treasure within an hour of waiting.

Still, there was excitement in the air – especially at the Germantown Apple Store, where customers were invited to play with actual iPhones (that were hooked safely to table-tops, of course).

Although the 8-gigabyte model — priced at $599 (or $600 in earth-language) — sold out at at least one AT&T store, there seemed to be enough $499 4-gigabyte models to go around of the combination iPod, cell phone, camera, and bona fide readable Internet device. And restocking was bound to be just around the corner..er, block.

A great leap for mankind? Hmmmm. Dunno. Still depends on who’s calling, doesn’t it?

Memphis has a lot of park land – maybe more than any big
city in the country.

And the debate over what to put in downtown parks and
Shelby Farms is very similar to the debates going on in many other cities.

Those two things are made clear by a story in Friday’s
Wall Street Journal, “The Focus-Grouped Park,” on the “heated debate” about
what to put in them.

Although Memphis isn’t mentioned in the story, the cities
that are – Seattle, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Louisville, Minneapolis,
Houston, and Orange County, California – all have multi-million dollar park
improvements or expansions underway.

“On a scale not seen since the City Beautiful movement of
the late 19th century, public green spaces are proliferating,” the
story says.

The report says the real controversy is over what to do
with them, with suggestions ranging from passive activities to zip lines,
climbing walls, riding trails, bocce ball, and free wireless internet. And, of
course, how to pay for those things.

Anyone following the debate over Tom Lee Park, Beale Street
Landing, the downtown promenade, or Shelby Farms will find many familiar notes.
What’s most striking, however, is that the biggest park in the Journal
story is 1,347-acre Great Park of Orange County. The story notes that this is
“60 percent larger than New York’s Central Park.”

Well, as many Memphians know, Shelby Farms is five times
the size of Central Park. And downtown Memphis, with 250 acres of parks, is also
park-rich.

Corporate sponsorship, naming rights, and private donations
are helping pay for the new parks in other cities. Gold Medal Park in
Minneapolis was financed by a $5 million donation from a United Health Care
executive, and Millenium Park in Chicago has named prominent areas after SBC,
Boeing, and British Petroleum. So far, Memphians have taken a dim view of
private development on park land, preferring to seek state and federal funds to
bolster local funding. Meanwhile, rival groups engage in an intellectual arms
race by bringing in friendly experts and consultants to rally supporters and
publicize their views.

Friends of Shelby Farms, the Riverfront Development
Corporation, and Friends For Our Riverfront take note: Memphis has an
embarrassment of riches. And the story suggests that focus groups, consultants,
and visiting experts may help the process along, but ultimately nitty-gritty
decisions are made at the local level by concerned citizens battling it out.

“It’s much more challenging to satisfy everyone’s notion of
what a park should be,” says Witold Rybczynski, a professor of urbanism quoted
in the story. “You want to please as many people as possible, but we’ve become
so different.”