Month: October 2007

Categories
News

National Family Literacy Day at Civil Rights Museum Sunday

The Memphis Literacy Council, along with Mid South Reads, and Shelby County’s “Books from Birth”program is presenting a National Family Literacy Day celebration, Sunday, November 4th from 2 -4 p.m., at the National Civil Rights Museum. The event is a city-wide initiative to promote literacy activities in the family.

Participating organizations include Memphis City Schools, Shelby County Schools, Memphis Public Library, Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Greater Memphis, Bridges, The Urban Child Institute, and Seedco. These organizations, along with First Book Mid South, Children’s Museum of Memphis, The Memphis Grizzlies, and the United Way’s “Success by 6” program have joined the national family literacy movement in encouraging parents to read with their children from the earliest ages.

The event draws together Memphis and Shelby County’s leading literacy organizations and agencies in a collaborative to highlight the need for lifelong learning.

“National Family Literacy Day brings us all together, around the issue of parents’ and care-givers’ fundamental role in their children’s success”, according to Wilson McCloy of the Memphis Literacy Council.

The celebration will feature live music, appearances by Mayor A.C. Wharton, Mr. Chuck, and a variety of children’s book characters. Free books will be provided by Davis-Kidd Booksellers, along with prizes from the Memphis Area Teacher’s Credit Union and the Memphis Grizzlies.

For additional information, contact the Memphis Literacy Council at (901) 327-6000, Mid South Reads at (901) 678-2001, or Shelby County Books from Birth at (901) 820-4501.

Categories
News

Law Enforcement Consolidation Group Discusses Deadline

“I’m concerned about the time we have left to make a decision,� said Memphis Shelby Crime Commission director Mike Heidingsfield at a meeting of the Shelby County Commission’s Law Enforcement Consolidation Task Force Wednesday afternoon.

The committee has until December 15th to make a recommendation as to whether or not city and county police forces should consider consolidation. But Heidingsfield and other committee members expressed concern that the group, which has been meeting since August, has yet to determine whether they’re considering full consolidation (a complete merger of both police forces) or functional consolidation (a merger of individual units like a metro DUI squad or metro SWAT team).

“If we’re going to continue to talk and talk and talk, we need to decide what we’re talking about,” said Memphis Police director Larry Godwin.

“Meeting a December deadline would be very problematic for this body,” added deputy county attorney Danny Presley.

So far, the committee has heard presentations from consolidated departments across the country (like Las Vegas and Louisville, Kentucky), briefly looked at a cost analysis for full consolidation, and talked with representatives from the Memphis Police Association and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputies’ Association.

But Heidingfield says the group has yet to consider the additional cost of adding the 600 Memphis Police officers requested by the mayor earlier this year. And they haven’t spent much time on discussing whether a sheriff or appointed director should run a new consolidated force. Nor has the group spoken with representatives from neighboring towns, like Arlington and Lakeland.

“We haven’t even discussed a rationale for changing from the status quo,” said Heidingsfield.

Task force chair and county commissioner Mike Carpenter reminded the group that they should only be thinking about making a general recommendation as to whether the forces should or should not consolidate. That recommendation will be studied in greater detail by a new committee formed after the December deadline.

Said Carpenter: “After December 12th [the date of the last meeting], if we need more time, we can go back to the council and ask for more time.”

–Bianca Phillips

Categories
News

“Memphis is Also America”

The Nation posted an article online today from its April 22, 1968 issue. The essay, by Pat Watters, takes a hard look at Memphis — its white leadership, its newspapers, its racism — in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination earlier that month.

It’s quite illuminating. An excerpt: His movement, his life were Southern; but Memphis, where he died, symbolized more than the South. Its racial crisis of 1968 and its murderous failure were those of all America.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went there during the fifth week of a garbage workers’ strike that had built into a civil rights movement and a dangerous crisis. The Memphis Negro community had not developed much of a civil rights movement during the early 1960s. So the movement that did come in 1968 capsuled into a few swift weeks the decade’s history of white America’s failure to respond to the nonviolence of Dr. King, and black America’s recoil into despair and a violence of desperation …

Read it all at The Nation‘s website.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Tulane Files Complaint After U of M Game

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Tulane sent video to Conference USA as part of a formal complaint after officials declined to stop the clock on a late-game reception along the sidelines in the Green Wave’s 28-27 loss to Memphis last Saturday.

Head coach Bob Toledo said Green Wave tight end Gabe Ratcliff clearly was able to get out of bounds after making a first-down catch at midfield with 17 seconds to go.

“We see very clearly in our video he catches the ball; he’s going out of bounds,” Toledo said Tuesday. “He lands, clearly, out of bounds.”
Tulane had a time-out remaining and Toledo said he intended to save it for another play while the Green Wave tried to get into field goal range.

While Tulane huddled, thinking the clock would be stopped until the next snap, the referee signaled for the clock to start as soon as the chains were moved to mark the new first-down distance.

Neither Toledo nor quarterback Anthony Scelfo realized the game clock was running again until Tulane’s offense came to the line of scrimmage with about 7 seconds left.

Scelfo ran a play instead of using Tulane’s last time-out. He was tackled after scrambling 5 yards and the game ended.

Toledo, who has coached in college for more than three decades, said when a team is in a hurry-up offense, officials usually make it clear if they intend to keep the clock running immediately after any play that ends near the sideline.

To do so, they generally make a winding motion with one arm after the tackle, then temporarily stop the clock to reset the chains, Toledo said.

In this case, the line judge only waved his arms above his head, indicating that Ratcliff was out of bounds.

“It all happened so fast and we were unaware of it and I didn’t know what to do at that point,” Toledo said. “The game was over and everything else is water under the bridge. … We’ve sent video in that shows everything and now it’s up to the commissioner to get back to us and the supervisor of officials.”

It was the third close loss of the season for Tulane (2-6, 1-3 Conference USA), which also fell 20-17 in overtime at Army and lost 26-21 at Alabama-Birmingham.

Toledo stopped short of blaming officials for Tulane’s latest loss, however. Tulane also missed a 22-yard field goal with 5:07 remaining.

“The officials didn’t lose the game for us,” Toledo said. “I’m not blaming officials. I’m just saying I wish we would have had a chance to see what we could have done.”

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

USA Today Touts Basketball Tigers

USA Today has a nice story on the basketball Tigers online today.

An exerpt: For all his attributes, and he has a ton, Chris Douglas-Roberts has been scrutinized for the absence of an outside shot.

Not anymore.

The 6-6 guard says he spent countless hours in the offseason working on everything from his midrange jumper to his three-point shooting. He is one reason Memphis is considered a favorite to reach the NCAA tournament title game.

With four other returning starters and the addition of one of the most heralded freshmen in the country in 6-4 guard Derrick Rose, the team could give Memphis its first NCAA championship in basketball.

“Yeah, we’re talented, and we’re deep,” Memphis coach John Calipari says. “But when you have good guys that get along. .. and they’re on a mission, that’s when it becomes like, ‘Wow.'”

Like “wow” indeed. Read the rest here.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Movie Casting on Friday — Enormity Required

On Friday, 20th Century Fox will hold a casting call in Memphis for the film The Blind Side.

The film is based on Michael Lewis’ nonfiction book, which follows the story of Michael Oher, a homeless black teenager who was taken in by a white couple in Memphis. The couple enrolled him in Briarcrest, where Oher caught the eye of college football recruiters across the country. Oher now plays at Ole Miss.

According to a press release, the casting is for an African American male, between 18 and 21, who is between 6’3 and 6’6, weighs between 260 and 300 pounds, and is very athletic.

While the release doesn’t state it outright, the description suggests they may be casting for Oher– or at the very least a football player.

The auditions are on Friday, November 2nd at the Firehouse Community Arts Center (985 South Bellevue) between 1 and 6 p.m.

Categories
News

An American Apparel Halloween?

Halloween is coming right up, and American Apparel on South Main, has some suggestions.

Using inspirations from pop culture, American Apparel suggests generic versions of Edie Sedgwick, Michael Jackson, the cast of Three’s Company, and our very favorite, a look described as “Hollywood Blvd. Streetwalker.”

Of course, not all of us look as good as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but American Apparel’s version is a lot less skanky than 90 percent of what you see adult women wearing on Halloween.

You can check out their suggestions here.

Categories
News

Controversial Goodwyn Street Closing Proposal Nears Hearing

A controversial proposal to close Goodwyn Street at Southern Avenue (near the Memphis Country Club) to through traffic gets a hearing at City Council next Tuesday, November 8th.

Residents of the area are sharply divided over the issue, with proponents claiming the move will stop excessive speeding on Goodwyn and reduce crime.

Opponents of the closing say the measure is all about race and class and that the closure is to keep residents of the poorer neighborhood south of Southern from being able to enter the exclusive Chickasaw Gardens area.

Last May, a highly publicized rape occurred on Goodwyn. Since then, some residents have been pushing for more crime control, including closing Goodwyn at Southern.

But Gwen Lausterer, who lives in condos at Southern and Goodwyn, questions how the proposal will affect traffic on Haynes, Greer, and other side streets that run between Central and Southern, especially those that don’t have a traffic light (as Goodwyn does) to control traffic.

Activists on both sides of the issue are gearing up to attend a hearing set for next Tuesday, November 8th at 10 a.m.

For more information about the street closing and the hearing, contact city planner, Carlos McCloud, at 576-6619 or carlos.mccloud@memphistn.gov.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Darius Washington May Return to Memphis to Face Griz Wednesday Night

It appears former Memphis Tiger point guard Darius Washington will be in uniform when the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs open their season Tuesday night. With injuries to a pair of guards already on their roster, the Spurs may well suit up Washington for his NBA debut.

The Spurs come to Memphis Wednesday night for the Grizzlies season opener at FedExForum. Will D-Wash return to the scend of his collegiate glory? Stay tuned.

Read more about Washington here.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Fred Thompson Vs. The Moonshiners

In what it’s billing as “Defining Moments: A series of articles on events that shaped the presidential candidates”, The Los Angeles Times took a look at former senator Fred Thompson’s career as a Tennessee assistant prosecutor.

An excerpt: The case appeared to be open and shut.

The county sheriff had been caught selling an illegal whiskey still from the back of the county jail. The buyers were a federal informant and an undercover federal investigator. The sheriff, to elude honest police, had even escorted the illegal still out of town.

But for Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Thompson, few cases would prove easy.

Today, as a Republican candidate for president, Thompson is cultivating an image as a tough prosecutor who, like the character he played on TV’s “Law & Order,” battled powerful criminals during his three-year stint as a prosecutor.

He was “attacking crime and public corruption,” boasts a video played at his campaign events. During a candidate debate this month, Thompson said he spent those years “prosecuting most of the major federal crimes in middle Tennessee — most of the major ones.”

But a review of the 88 criminal cases Thompson handled at the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville, from 1969 to 1972, reveals a different and more human portrait — that of a young lawyer learning the ropes on routine cases involving gambling, mail theft and, in one instance, talking dirty on CB radio …

Read it all here.