Month: June 2007

Categories
Book Features Books

Lucky Lady

It isn’t every day that an author inspires a slot machine. But in the case of mega-best-selling novelist Jackie Collins, that day was Saturday, June 23rd — the same day Collins talked to the Flyer by phone from her room at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. The big occasion: the launch date of Collins’ latest book, Drop Dead Beautiful (St. Martin’s Press). The honors set for the afternoon: the official announcement that it was Jackie Collins Day in Vegas. She’d be receiving a key to the city, and Harrah’s was unveiling a set of slot machines featuring Drop Dead Beautiful. No need, however, for formalities on the morning of the 23rd. “Call me Jackie” were the first words out of Collins’ mouth. Here’s what else the Flyer heard before the author of Hollywood Wives, Hollywood Husbands, Hollywood Kids, and Hollywood Divorces heads to Davis-Kidd and Horseshoe casino for a set of Mid-South booksignings.

Flyer: In Drop Dead Beautiful, your leading lady is once more Lucky Santangelo, a woman who possesses, according to one admirer, “the three B’s in abundance — Brains, Beauty, and Balls.” What’s the reason Lucky’s back?

Jackie Collins: My readers were demanding it! I have a Web site, JackieCollins.com, and fans are always writing, “Oh, we love this book and we love that book, but please bring back Lucky Santangelo.” Why? She’s an inspiration. She does all the things women would like to do and don’t quite have the nerve to do. She says all the things women would like to say and don’t quite get away with saying.

You get away with it too.

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 20 years. I’ve got lots of stories to tell. But if there’s one question fans always ask it’s: “Do people in Hollywood come up to you mad because they recognize themselves in one of your books?” I say, “No. They recognize their worst enemies.”

Any differences between the Hollywood of 20 years ago and today?

One important difference: You have people now who are famous for not doing anything at all. There’s also a lot women in Hollywood who are married to younger men. But even if it’s just a small age difference, it bugs them because these women are not quite sure it’s okay. It’s always the old geezers with girls 40 years younger, like James Woods’ relationship with a 20-year-old. If Woods were a woman, there would be an outcry.

You’re about to cross the country on a booksigning tour, but you’re including not only bookstores but casinos too. You may be setting a trend here.

You want people to know your book is out there, and casinos are a great place to do it. I get to meet my readers. They love it. I love it. And in Tunica, in addition to signing books, answering questions, and unveiling the Drop Dead Beautiful slot machine, we’ll be doing makeovers. Dress designer Pat Kerr of Memphis will be showing her gowns. She married a friend of mine, John Tigrett.

I’m looking forward to Memphis too … home of Elvis, but I’ve never been to Graceland. I hope I can go. But I was in Memphis once before — to promote my book, Chances. A funny thing happened, though. I was at my hotel and asked for a wakeup call. When I picked up the phone the next morning, there was the voice of a country singer. I’m not sure of his name. Porter … Wagoner? I thought, What did I do last night?

Speaking of what people do at night, during the day, whenever … Drop Dead Beautiful has its share of sex scenes. Is there a line you won’t cross?

Anything to do with cruelty to children, anything sexual to do with children. I will never touch that.

Care to touch on the writing process?

I write in long hand, not on a computer, and what you see is what you get. I don’t plan ahead. I never have the story mapped out. I sit down each day with my characters, and they take me on a trip. No wonder people say to me, “I couldn’t put your book down.” I say, “I couldn’t put it down while writing it.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Who’s the Boss?

When city and county police forces in Charlotte, North Carolina, merged 15 years ago, someone was forced to give up his title.

The city police chief was granted the highest role in the consolidated force, while the county chief (similar in role to Shelby County’s elected sheriff) was moved to the position of “deputy chief.”

“The former county chief became deputy over police services in the unincorporated areas of the county,” says Darrellyn Kiser, assistant to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief.

Earlier this month, Shelby County commissioner Mike Carpenter and Memphis city councilman Jack Sammons co-sponsored resolutions to form a joint city/county committee to look into consolidating the Memphis Police Department (MPD) and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO). That committee will be charged with deciding if consolidating is a good idea and, if so, who should lead a merged force.

“The [new head] should be an appointed position. It should be a part of the executive branch, as it is now,” says MPD director Larry Godwin.

Godwin, himself an appointed official, says appointed officials cannot sue the city when problems arise.

But Shelby County sheriff Mark Luttrell sees things differently.

“The head of a new organization needs to be directly accountable to the people, not buried two or three steps down in a bureaucracy,” says Luttrell, an elected official.

Though full consolidation has never been tried in Shelby County, the departments attempted some merging of units several years back (called functional consolidation). The former metro DUI unit and the gang unit pulled officers from both city and county police forces, but those were disbanded under Godwin’s leadership.

“Those fell by the wayside because the city doesn’t think functional consolidation is the way to go,” Luttrell says. “I think it’s still valid.” But Godwin says consolidation is an all-or-nothing issue.

“With functional consolidation, you’re working for two agency heads,” Godwin says. “When you need those resources, they’re already committed, and you don’t always have the control to yank them away.”

Full consolidation of the departments would also mean a merger of tactics. Currently, the MPD focuses much of its attention on crime hotspots. The SCSO puts more emphasis on building relationships with community members and faith-based organizations.

“If you were to combine the two forces, you would have to combine those philosophies as well,” says Mike Heidingsfield of the Shelby County Crime Commission.

“There’s a huge number of issues to be worked out,” Kiser says. “Does everyone keep their same rank and position? How do you consolidate salary schedules? What about benefits packages? All of that took us about two years to iron out.”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Dick Cheney’s Tortured Logic

If you’re paying attention at all anymore to the shenanigans of this administration, you learned this week that Vice President Cheney has declared he doesn’t consider the vice president’s office to be a part of the executive branch of our government.

His reasoning? He presides over the Senate. There’s 231 years of American history overturned, folks. Who knew? But what’s more interesting is the reason for this tortured “logic”: A standing executive order requires that all offices of the executive branch submit regular reports to the National Archives on how they are safeguarding classified documents.

This seemingly reasonable requirement is apparently too much of an intrusion on Cheney’s lust for secrecy, so he came up with his ludicrous defense. What’s even more ludicrous is that it’s working — thanks to weasel-boy, aka Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who hasn’t even bothered to respond to the National Archives’ request for a ruling on the matter.

Cheney’s fingerprints are all over this administration’s misdeeds: lying to build a case for war with Iraq; the “torture memo”; presidential “signing statements”; warrantless wire-tapping; ordering the outing of a CIA agent and letting his buddy “Scooter” take the fall. (Not to mention, he shot a man in Texas, just to watch him die.)

Republicans have been going along with this farce for six years. It makes me wonder how they’ll feel when the president and vice president are not Republicans. Will they regret allowing the executive branch to establish such unilateral power?

It’s a bad idea, no matter who’s in office. This republic was founded on the principle of three co-equal branches of government. The way it’s set up now looks a little different:

Executive

Judicial

Legislative

Dick Cheney

It’s way past time for the citizens of this country to rise up and take back our government. These are impeachable offenses. What’s it going to take to wake up this Congress? Someone giving Dick Cheney a blow job?

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Two things are troubling about the selection of Henry Hooper to replace Rickey Peete on the Memphis City Council:

First, the IRS assessed nearly $400,000 in tax liens against Hooper between 2000 and 2005. Second, Hooper didn’t volunteer this information and explain it to the council, and members didn’t ask him about it.

Hooper, agent/owner of State Farm Insurance and Finance Agency and a former United States Secret Service agent, was chosen to replace Peete for the remainder of the term that expires at the end of this year. It’s not clear yet whether Hooper will be a candidate in the October election.

Peete resigned shortly before pleading guilty in federal court last week to bribery charges. It is the second time Peete has been convicted of bribery in the performance of his public duties. He was indicted in December along with Councilman Edmund Ford. Ford has pleaded not guilty and is still on the council. Ford’s unpaid MLGW bills have drawn federal scrutiny and taken up hours of council time.

If there was ever a time for full disclosure of potentially embarrassing money matters, this is it. With Memphis at the center of the Tennessee Waltz, Main Street Sweeper, and MLGW investigations, this is no time for don’t ask/don’t tell. Hooper, who ran for sheriff in 2002 and the Shelby County Commission in 1994, is no virgin. The City Council, which is rewriting its ethics code, well …

The IRS assessed Hooper for $109,958 in taxes, interest, and penalties for 1998, $99,755 for 1999, $73,138 for 2000, and $113,112 for 2001. The assessments were in 2004 and 2005. The notice of a federal tax lien reads as follows:

“We have made a demand for payment of this liability, but it remains unpaid. Therefore, there is a lien in favor of the United States on all property and rights to property belonging to this taxpayer for the amount of these taxes.”

In an interview Tuesday, Hooper said the civil dispute involves a business trust and deductions which the IRS did not allow. He said he has hired an attorney and taken the case to tax court in Cincinnati. He said the investigation began when the IRS looked into an illegal offshore trust in which he was not involved, but the same people who set up that trust also set up his trust. He is hopeful of a settlement.

“Our trust was not illegal, but they were not going to let us deduct everything we wanted to,” he said.

He said he wasn’t trying to hide anything from the City Council.

“I was not under any legal obligation to go into a personal tax matter,” he said. “There has never been any question of my integrity at any time in my life. Now it becomes a question because somebody is trying to discredit me.”

He said the tax lien is “totally different from” Ford’s overdue utility bills because his tax issue is in court and there are no charges of favoritism.

On the resume Hooper submitted to the council, he lists his federal employment including the Secret Service for 24 years, six years with the Green Berets, and 22 years as an insurance agent and businessman. That was enough for council members. Jack Sammons said he learned of the tax lien after Hooper was chosen, but “it wouldn’t have bothered me” because it is not unusual for businesses to have IRS disputes that drag on for several years. “It’s sort of refreshing to be dealing with someone who has enough business to have a tax challenge,” he said.

Councilman Carol Chumney, however, said the tax lien should have been disclosed and “would have influenced my vote.”

The Secret Service, until 2003, was, like the IRS, a division of the U.S. Treasury. Hooper said he worked with IRS agents during his career.

Memphis politics is a forgiving business. Once you’re in the club, it’s a new day. It wasn’t only the voters in his district and his colleagues who embraced and forgave Peete. He was chairman of the board of the Center City Commission for five years and also served on the board of the Riverfront Development Corporation.

After pleading guilty last week, Peete stopped to shake hands and make a brief statement in front of the news cameras. Then he grinned and waved and climbed into an SUV. If you weren’t listening, it was hard to tell if he won or lost.

That was Rickey Peete. Henry Hooper is no Rickey Peete. He should take pains to make that clear.

Categories
Music Music Features

Nashville to Saturn

Most Memphians don’t think of Nashville as having a booming soul scene, but as the group Charles Walker & the Dynamites attest, the town’s legacy is more than just twangy country tunes.

“The history of Memphis soul music is a big deal to the band, and we’ve looked at Memphis from the get-go as a second market,” says Doyle Davis, owner of Nashville record store Grimey’s and an ardent supporter of the Dynamites.

This Friday, June 29th, the group will roll into The Hi-Tone Café for a release party for Kaboom!, their debut album, released on Outta Sight Records, which is co-owned by Davis and the Dynamites’ founder/guitarist Bill Elder, aka Leo Black.

“We had to get the CD out for Bonnaroo,” Davis says, noting that the Dynamites played the East Tennessee music festival on June 16th:

“It was awesome. The Dynamites were on one of the small stages, but they packed in over 1,000 people. There were kids up front dancing up a storm and screaming, ‘Who are you?’ Charles kept screaming back, ‘I’m Charles Walker, and these are the Dynamites!’ It was the most enthusiastic crowd we’ve ever had, and the band ended up throwing away their set lists, because Charles took it and ran.”

Kaboom! features 10 show-stopping, James Brown-styled funk numbers, ranging from the propulsive “Body Snatcher” to the deep groove “Killin’ It.” The album has already garnered a distribution deal for Outta Sight with RED, which has placed it in mom-and-pop record stores and at national chains such as Barnes & Noble and Borders and online stores such as Amazon, iTunes, and Miles of Music.

“We pressed 5,000 copies to start with, which is our break-even point,” Davis explains. “We put this record out with the hopes that we can make some money and put it back into the label. Daptone (the Brooklyn-based label that’s home to Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings) has been a huge inspiration for us. We see ourselves as the Southeastern complement to what they’re doing.”

Locally, the explosive Kaboom! is available at several stores, or you can pick up a copy at the Hi-Tone on Friday night. Memphis DJs Buck Wilders and The Hook-Up will open the show, which costs $8 in advance or $10 at the door. For more information, go to www.MySpace.com/TheDynamitesBand.

“You have to use your imagination to tap into what really went on, and that’s what I like about rock-and-roll.”

So says local filmmaker John Michael McCarthy, best known for films such as Teenage Tupelo, E*vis Meets the Beat*les, and The Sore Losers.

This summer marks the 30th anniversary of Elvis’ death, but right now, all McCarthy can talk about is David Bowie.

“I’m looking for anybody who has stories about Bowie in Memphis,” McCarthy says. “His second Ziggy Stardust show in America took place at Ellis Auditorium in September 1972. The next year, he did Aladdin Sane at the Coliseum. And back in ’72, he visited Dolph Smith at the Memphis College of Art and bought some work from him.

McCarthy’s new Bowie-esque band, Fingers Like Saturn, will make its debut at The Madison Flame on Friday, June 29th, with openers The Limes and Sector Zero.

Although most people on the Midtown scene know McCarthy primarily as a filmmaker, the Tupelo native made his local debut 23 years ago as a guitarist in the punk group Distemper.

“I’m just lucky that all of these talented people help me with my crazy ideas,” he says of Fingers Like Saturn, which features Jonathan Wires, Susie Hendrix, Jonathan Kirkscey, Steve Selvidge, Cori Dials, and George Takaeda, McCarthy’s former musical partner in Distemper and its follow-up, The Rockroaches.

“When I saw Cori sing in her group The Splints and talked with George, whom I haven’t played with in 15 years, it was like the planets lined up,” McCarthy says.

Playing the Madison Flame, site of the old Antenna club, also makes sense, he says, citing the 1986 date when Distemper played the club’s first all-ages show and the numerous gigs that the Rockroaches performed there.

“My new songs,” McCarthy says, “are like short stories. They’re tightly structured glam pop songs about the South in a ‘what if Bowie came from Mississippi?’ kind of way.

“I think it’s interesting that with most bands in town, there’s no front person. I don’t want to be the front person myself. I like being behind the scenes or to a little left of the scene. Cori has the charisma to do it: She doesn’t just sing songs. She invades space.”

For more info, visit GuerrillaMonster.com.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Q&A: Henry Hooper II

Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret Henry Hooper II, 68, is a retired Secret Service agent who now has a career in insurance sales. Hooper has owned his State Farm Insurance and Finance agency for the past 22 years. He spends Saturdays tutoring at Guthrie Elementary School and other days spoiling his four grandchildren. Now, he’s stepped up to fill Rickey Peete’s position in the Memphis City Council.

— Cherie Heiberg

Flyer: Why did you decide to try for the seat on the City Council?

Hooper: I thought I needed to step forth and maybe add — I don’t want to say — integrity to the council, because it’s certainly there. It’s just that we’ve had some ups and downs with a few people. It’s time to make a change, start getting people [with] the ability to work and do [their] job responsibly and make decisions based on the information received and what’s in the best interest of [their] constituency and the city of Memphis.

Can you tell us anything about your time with the Secret Service?

I was in the Memphis office and primarily involved in the investigation of U.S. securities, government checks, counterfeit money, transfers of funds through the Internet, and so on. I worked for what I felt was the greatest investigative agency in the world.

why did you start an insurance business?

I was interested in the business. There comes a time in everyone’s life when you want to make a change. I had a family to think about. Coming from a single-parent household, I understood the impact of having a dad around.

What do you plan to do as councilman?

I just want to do the right thing. That’s who I am, that’s what I do. If you have the abilities, you should step forward and do what’s necessary to try and make a difference.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

New Mayor, New Council?

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Naming “crime, cronyism, and corruption” as major issues in this year’s mayoral election, candidate Carol Chumney addressed the Germantown Democratic Club at the Pickering Center Monday night, pledging if elected to “get a good team” in order to bring renewed efficiency to Memphis city government.

Subsequently, City Council member Chumney fielded at least two questions from the membership (which includes several Memphis voters who live in Cordova) about her reported difficulties with the mayor’s office and fellow council members.

One member asked: What about her “relation-building” and “leadership style”? Would these be obstacles?

Chumney responded that she had developed good relations with fellow legislators while a state House member for 13 years and said, “City government has been a little different because there’s been, quite frankly, some corruption. Many times I would be the only one who would stand up and say anything. Some folks are going to get mad at you. I’m a strong leader, I will tell you that.”

When another member followed up by asking if the City Council would back her proposals if she were elected mayor, Chumney said, “We’re going to elect a new City Council.” Noting the virtual turnover of membership in the County Commission in last year’s elections, she expressed confidence that city voters would follow suit. “It’s going to happen here. They’re going to vote in a new team.”

Pledging to renew cooperation between city and county law-enforcement agencies, Chumney said, “It’s disrespectful to expect the police to go two years without a pay raise while asking them to risk their lives for us.”

She repeated her objections to the Riverfront Development Corporation’s proposals, including the recently approved Beale St. Landing project, and called both for the city’s retention of the Coliseum and for “something classy” in the downtown Pyramid.

Chumney said she’d heard “disturbing rumors” about the past management of Memphis Networx and reported plans for its pending sale and promised “to get to the bottom of it.” She said the council’s authority over a prospective sale was uncertain but said she was seeking authoritative word on that from the state Attorney General’s Office.

• Germantown is becoming an important campaign venue for candidates running for office in Memphis. A week or so earlier, members of the Republican Women of Purpose organization heard a presentation at the Germantown Public Library from Brian Stephens, City Council candidate in District 2, the East Memphis-suburban seat being vacated by incumbent Brent Taylor.

Stephens has been active in an effort to strengthen laws regulating sexually oriented businesses (S.O.B.s in the accepted jargon) and specifically to make sure that veteran topless-club entrepreneur Steve Cooper does not convert a supposed “Italian restaurant” now under construction in Cordova into an S.O.B.

He discussed those efforts but offered other opinions as well, some of them surprising (a statement that “consolidation is coming, whether we like it or not,” for example) and some not (like his conviction, à la Taylor, that tax increases are not necessary for the city to maintain and improve basic services).

In general, Stephens, who seems to have a head start on other potential District 2 aspirants, made an effort to sound accommodationist rather than confrontational, stressing a need for council members to transcend racial and urban-vs.-suburban divisions and expressing confidence in the ability of currently employed school personnel to solve the system’s problems.

• Also establishing an apparent early lead over potential rivals is current school board member Stephanie Gatewood, running for the District 1 council seat being vacated by incumbent E.C. Jones. Gatewood’s fund-raiser at Fresh Slices on Overton Park Avenue last Thursday night drew a respectable crowd, and her membership in Bellevue Baptist Church on the suburban side of District 1 provides an anchor, in addition to an expected degree of support from the district’s African-American population.

• Last Wednesday night was a hot one for local politics, with three more-than-usually significant events, and there were any number of dedicated and/or well-heeled visitors to all three:

Residents of the posh Galloway Drive area, where U of M basketball coach John Calipari resides, are surely used to long queues of late-model vehicles stretching every which way in the neighborhood, especially in election season, when Calipari’s home is frequently the site of fund-raisers for this or that candidate.

But Wednesday night’s event, a $250-a-head fund-raiser for District 5 City Council candidate Jim Strickland, was surely a record-setter — outdoing not only Calipari’s prior events but most other such gatherings in Memphis history, including those for senatorial and gubernatorial candidates. A politically diverse crowd estimated at 300 to 500 people netted Strickland more than $60,000 for the night and brought his total “cash on hand” to $100,000.

Meanwhile, mayoral candidate Herman Morris attracted several hundred attendees to the formal opening of his sprawling, high-tech campaign headquarters on Union Avenue, the same HQ that, week before last, suffered a burglary of computers containing sensitive information — a fact that some Morris supporters find suspicious in light of various other instances of hanky-panky currently being alleged in the mayoral race.

Yet a third major political gathering took place Wednesday night, as Shelby County mayor A C Wharton was the beneficiary of a big-ticket fund-raiser at the Racquet Club. Proceeds from that one have been estimated in the $50,000 range — a tidy sum for what the county mayor alleges (and alleged again Wednesday night) is intended only as a kind of convenience fund meant for charitable donations and various other protocol circumstances expected of someone in his position.

Right. Meanwhile, Wharton declined to address the most widely speculated-upon subject in Memphis politics: Will he or won’t he enter the city mayor’s race? As the county mayor has informally acknowledged, he is the subject these days of nonstop blandishments in that regard, and there’s very little doubt that these have accelerated since a recent press conference by Memphis mayor Willie Herenton alleging “the 2007 Political Conspiracy.”

While some of Mayor Wharton’s intimates at the Wednesday night affair were keeping to the line that the chances of his running for city mayor were minimal to nonexistent, their answers to inquiries about the matter were delivered after what we’ll call meaningfully inflected pauses. The door may be shut for now, but it clearly isn’t padlocked.

Jackson Baker

Carol Chumney

NASHVILLE — The name McWherter, prominent in Tennessee politics for most of the

latter 20th century, will apparently resurface in fairly short order, as Jackson lawyer and

businessman Mike McWherter, son of two-term former governor Ned McWherter, is

making clear his plans to challenge U.S. senator Lamar Alexander‘s reelection bid next year.

Apparently only one thing could derail Democrat McWherter: a renewed Senate candidacy by former Memphis congressman Harold Ford Jr., who last year narrowly lost a Senate race to the current Republican incumbent, Bob Corker. “I don’t think I would compete against Harold. But I don’t think he will run,” McWherter said in an interview with the Flyer at Saturday’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Nashville.

The 52-year-old activist sees Alexander as a slavish follower of President George W. Bush.

“With one or two exceptions, he’s done everything the president has wanted him to do. He’s toed the party line,” said McWherter, who has recently paid courtesy calls on ranking Democrats, both in Tennessee and in Washington, D.C., informing them of his interest in running next year and soliciting their support.

• Keynote speaker at the Democrats’ dinner in Nashville was presidential hopeful Bill Richardson, whose situation somewhat paralleled that of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who earlier this month had been the featured speaker at the state Republicans’ Statesmen’s Dinner, also in Nashville.

On that occasion, Romney — who had been invited before the entrance of former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson became likely — was a de facto lame-duck keynoter, and mindful of the attendees’ expected loyalty to favorite-son Thompson, cracked wanly, “I know there’s been some speculation by folks about a certain former senator from Tennessee getting into the presidential race, and I know everybody’s waiting, wondering. But I take great comfort from the fact than no one in this room, not a single person, is going to be voting for — Al Gore.”

That bit of verbal bait-and-switch got the expected laugh, and so did a joke Saturday night by New Mexico governor Richardson, who uttered some ritual praise of native Tennessean and former presidential candidate Gore and then, when the crowd warmly applauded the former vice president, jested, “Let’s not overdo it. I don’t want him in this race!” — JB

Categories
Editorial Opinion

What Gives?

Three members of the Shelby County Commission cast votes Monday for a proposal that may be good politics but makes for unsound public policy. This initiative — for a five-cent across-the-board reduction in the county property tax — came from Wyatt Bunker, who represents the county’s suburban and rural edge and its ideologically conservative edge, as well.

According to Bunker, the proposal, if enacted, would have cut $8 million out of county revenues for the next fiscal year — although the commissioner maintains that such a cut would, sooner or later, raise revenues. Right. The same logic pursued by the relentlessly tax-cutting Bush administration has driven the national deficit to new historical heights.

Various of Bunker’s commission colleagues expressed exasperation with the proposal, especially since A) it came just after a tense debate concerning the commission’s need to divert wheel-tax money originally earmarked as operating funds for the schools into the county’s general fund, where it can be tapped for future capital improvements, and B) it followed weeks of a painstaking budgetary process, now concluded, in which every stray corner of county government was scrutinized for real or potential waste.

Yet, two other commissioners, fellow suburbanite George Flinn and Chairman Joe Ford of Memphis’ inner city, joined with Bunker in voting for the proposal which, had it passed, would have thrown county government back to square one in its financial planning for the next cycle.

What gives? Well, the legitimate needs of the taxpayers would have been first. As several commissioners pointed out, the needs of the schools would have come asunder, closely followed by law enforcement. It made a certain political sense for Bunker and Flinn to vote the way they did, since they represent (or believe they represent) constituents who favor tax cuts at all costs. But what was Chairman Ford, who normally balances policy and service needs with the legitimate requirements of fiscal solvency, thinking?

Ford, who must have known the discussion and the vote were pro forma, urged Bunker to reintroduce the proposal next year. Fair enough. At least that will give the commission enough lead time to reorganize fiscal priorities so as to facilitate such an across-the-board cut, if that’s what they regard as needful. Given Governor Bredesen’s success in imposing drastic cuts when he took office in 2003, we’re not saying the idea of an across-the-board cut is impossible. But the last time we looked, the governor was taking some criticism of policy changes (his gutting of TennCare, for example) that we regard as legitimate.

Property owners are surely entitled to relief and deserve consideration of the sort just awarded in Nashville, where state senator Mark Norris and state representative John DeBerry won passage of legislation authorizing the state’s local governments to enact limited tax freezes for seniors.

Those eligible in Shelby County are homeowners at least 65 years old with incomes not exceeding $31,549. That amounts to 59 percent of the county’s senior households and is consistent with Shelby County’s unique need for balance between revenues and services. When it can, the commission should act upon the new law. Anything more drastic will have to wait.

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

With the site at Central and East Parkway in limbo, two other communities — Millington and Tunica — are apparently competing to be the new home of the Mid-South Fair. We just don’t know how we feel about that. We realize the event was never called the “Memphis” fair, but to move it to Millington or Mississippi just doesn’t seem right to us.

Fifty years ago this week, a group with the rather awkward name of the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities met in a Chicago hotel. They gathered together about 100 members, raised about half a million dollars, and thanks to their efforts, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was born in Memphis in 1962. The fund-raising arm of St. Jude now has more than one million members, who generate some $580 million every year. Happy birthday, ALSAC.

Two local entrepreneurs are charged with selling fake Nike shoes and shirts. What intrigued us about this crime was the curious charge: “criminal simulation.” We can remember the good old days when stuff like this was called “bootlegging.”

A woman complains that a man is harassing her while she is walking in the High Point Terrace neighborhood, and police arrest the fellow after they discover he is carrying more than 20 little canisters of nitrous oxide — otherwise known as “laughing gas.” No mention of just what he was planning to do with it, but we’re sure the judge will be amused.

Greg Cravens

Officials at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro are considering renaming the school’s mascot, in recent years known as the Indians. Over the years, ASU has used quite a variety of colorful monikers — Gorillas, Warriors, and even Aggies — and all of them, if you ask us, are less offensive than “razorback.” Maybe it’s that whole “Soo-ey Pig!” thing that makes our flesh crawl.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

A Grateful Reader

I don’t always agree with the Flyer‘s editorial stances. I consider myself pretty much a liberal on social issues and a conservative on such issues as immigration, a balanced budget, etc.

And like many Memphians, I probably take the Flyer for granted. But your June 21st issue provoked me to write. From the editor’s column, to John Branston’s and Jackson Baker’s and Chris Davis’ solid takes on civic issues, to your stellar music and film writing, it was a great issue, front to back. I even enjoyed the fluffy “summer” stories.

Keep up the great work. I’ll bet there are a lot of folks out there like me, who appreciate the Flyer being a part of Memphis and never say so. Without you folks, it just wouldn’t be the same around here.

John Ward

Memphis

The Herenton Sex Plot

Regarding the Herenton “sex plot”: I find it hard to believe that a young girl can manipulate a seasoned attorney and a veteran politician unless that is what they wanted to happen. I hope the U.S. government will take the lead and initiate a full investigation into this matter.

I was born and raised here and I know that Memphis is a great city. I remember a time when people would come and cut the yards of elderly and disabled people. I recall when waving to strangers was a normal daily activity.

I fear that without reasonable measures to keep politicians honest, our democracy is in serious decline. I patiently await the outcome of this investigation. We must not live in fear and suspicion.

Gregory Vassar

Memphis

Sucker Punch

You don’t have to be too brave to sucker punch a guy in a wheelchair.

With the first and third vetoes of his presidency, George W. Bush has dashed the hopes of millions of Americans suffering from diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and diabetes.

Thousands of stem cells, now frozen, will go in the trash, no matter how much “spin” the president puts on it.  

Despite the will of the House, the Senate, almost three quarters (72 percent) of Americans, 80 Nobel Prize winners, nearly 600 advocate groups, all 19 National Health Institute directors and an impassioned plea from Nancy Reagan, the president’s first veto, like this recent one, struck down stem-cell legislation.   

Utah senator Orrin Hatch, hardly some wild-eyed liberal, speaking on Charlie Rose last August, said, “I don’t think it’s wrong to try and help the living.” Apparently the powers that be don’t share Hatch’s opinion. So, like I have every day for over six years, I’ll drag my happy ass out of bed and into a wheelchair with no hope for any help from the White House.  

Somehow, it’s morally right to throw stem cells in the furnace but not to use them to improve the quality of existing lives. Despite Congress allotting millions of dollars to help with stem-cell adoption, very, very few have actually been used for that purpose. The cells are left over because couples were successful with in vitro fertilization and the cells are no longer needed; the owners have already planned to discard them.  

The United States will lose many of its best scientists. People wanting to research embryonic stem cells will go to Singapore, China, South Korea, or some other country that encourages it.

The president doesn’t want scientists to destroy stem cells in the course of doing research. His solution? Destroy them first. I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.

Jim DeatonMemphis

Hope for the Future

Recently, something took place at the White House that gave me hope for the future of this country. A group of high school students who were being honored as Presidential Scholars presented a letter to President Bush.

In short, it read: “We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions, and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants.” These kids are my heroes. God bless all of them.

Aaron Prather

Cordova  

Editor’s note: Due to the Fourth of July holiday, next week’s Flyer will come out on July 5th.

Correction: Last week’s Viewpoint stated that the Memphis City Schools budget surpassed the city budget in the 1990s. The correct time-frame is the mid-1980s.