Month: July 2008

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

A Sleeper Election?

CREDIT: by Justin Fox Burks

If lukewarm early-voting totals are a reliable indicator to Election Day itself, August 7th should come and go without much sizzle in the total numbers. But there are several heated contests on the ballot, and a number of races could have unforeseen outcomes.

U.S. SENATE: There is only one Republican running — Lamar Alexander, an incumbent so heavily favored (and financed) that early on he could count on the formal support of numerous name Democrats, including Memphis mayor Willie Herenton and Shelby County mayor A C Wharton. (In the course of the campaign year to date, the two local mayors have been incessantly courted by other candidates for office, most of whom have gone wanting.)

Alexander is the Senate Republicans’ caucus chairman, a position that obliges him to stay within hailing distance of official GOP positions, including most of those favored by President Bush. But the former governor and University of Tennessee president has always had a public crossover mode — certainly in comparison with the state Republican leadership, whose hard-edged partisan rhetoric Alexander (along with GOP Senate colleague Bob Corker) has frequently made a point of repudiating this year.

Of course, Alexander isn’t ecumenical enough to satisfy the six Democratic candidates vying for the unenviable task of taking him on. Of these, three — Nashville lawyer Bob Tuke, former Knox County clerk Mike Padgett, and Nashville businessman Kenneth Eaton — can be regarded as serious.

Tuke, a genial ex-Marine and former state Democratic chairman, has outraised the others financially, boasts home-grown polls showing him ahead, and has more establishment support across the state than Padgett, though the latter is a dogged campaigner who enjoys the local backing of Shelby County commissioner/political broker Sidney Chism. Eaton, an also-ran in last year’s Nashville mayoral race, has loaded up a showy war chest with his own money but has spent virtually nothing.

Other Democrats running are Mark Clayton, Gary G. Davis, and Leonard D. Ladner.

7th DISTRICT, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: Here, too, the seat is occupied by a Republican incumbent who in theory — and perhaps also in practice — should have clear sailing. This is Marsha Blackburn, the former state senator from suburban Nashville who won a sizable following for her firebrand opposition to a state income tax.

It was Blackburn whose e-mails from the state Senate floor summoned an intimidating horde of protesters to the state Capitol in July 2001 and frustrated what looked to be a compromise tax measure in the making. That, plus a congressional voting record that is consistently right-of-center and a position as an assistant party whip, should be enough to satisfy her conservative base, but former state senator and current Shelby County register Tom Leatherwood has mounted what some see as a credible challenge in the GOP primary.

Capitalizing on two well-publicized circumstances — a sizable discrepancy in Blackburn’s financial disclosures and a penchant for putting family members on her payroll — Leatherwood has challenged the incumbent on grounds of both “ethics” and “effectiveness.” At the very least, he will have more traction in Shelby County than did Blackburn’s previous three local opponents — lawyer (later U.S. attorney) David Kustoff, state senator Mark Norris, and then city councilman Brent Taylor — who divvied up the Shelby vote.

Blackburn also had some adverse media attention up at the Nashville end of the sprawling, snake-like 7th District, but the weight of her incumbency and a campaign bankroll that dwarfs Leatherwood’s, plus organized endorsements from party heavyweights, should be enough to pull her through.

Two Democratic unknowns — Randy Morris and James Tomasik — compete for a Democratic nomination whose value is mainly symbolic in a rural/subutban district that is dependably Republican.

9th DISTRICT, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: The Democratic primary (no Republican is running) pits incumbent Democrat Steve Cohen against his leading challenger in 2006, lawyer Nikki Tinker. James Gregory, Isaac Richmond, and Joe Towns are also on the primary ballot, but only Towns, a state representative from South Memphis, has any real standing, and, while he did well in last month’s televised three-way debate with Cohen and Tinker, he basically is running on the fumes, while each of the major Democrats has a war chariot that is, by comparison anyhow, super-charged.

Cohen’s is especially so. The second-quarter financial disclosures showed that he had raised almost three times as much money as Tinker, and his endorsement list — featuring most of the other runner-up Democrats from 2006 — is correspondingly larger as well. (Conspicuous add-ons this week were associations representing the Memphis police and Shelby County sheriff’s deputies.) The Poplar corridor, which Cohen served as a high-profile state senator for almost three decades, is his for the asking, and he has not failed to ask.

by Justin Fox Burks

Steve Cohen and challenger Nikki Tinker in a televised debate

Nor has the incumbent been slack in his courtship of the 9th District’s black majority. Aided by his capable aide-de-camp Randy Wade, Cohen has maintained a steady presence among his African-American constituents, focusing on bread-and-butter issues as well as symbolic ones. He has meanwhile cut a formidable figure in Congress, appearing frequently on national television as a spokesman for various party causes and shining particularly as a member of Chairman John Conyers’ Judiciary Committee.

Though she seemed to flounder early, corporate attorney Tinker has gotten organized of late, and, while cynics might maintain that she has only two planks in her platform — “black” and “female” — neither of these is to be discounted. Nor is she without allies. Her longtime employer, Phil Trennary of Pinnacle Airlines, has given Tinker the same unstinted support as in 2006, and Jim McGhee, the mega-developer and former Airport Authority chairman, has lately been doing some aggressive arm-twisting on her behalf.

Also arrayed on Tinker’s side are such personages as state House speaker Lois DeBerry and Chism — though the depth of their support has yet to be gauged. The same can be said of the pro-choice feminist PAC Emily’s List, which backed Tinker substantially in 2006 but has been more nominal on her behalf thus far.

This past week, both Cohen and Tinker have been firing away on TV, the ultimate political battlefield even in an age of media transition that sees the progressive elevation in importance of bloggers and other Internet phenomena. Up to this point (and unlike the case with the 7th District battle between Blackburn and Leatherwood), their television ads have avoided the negative per se — Tinker’s casting her as the champion of the oppressed and underprivileged, and Cohen’s focusing on his two years as a breadwinner for the district and (a favorite theme, always) his long legislative sponsorship of the state lottery and the Hope Scholarships it endows.

Leatherwood by Jackson Baker

Tom Leatherwood is challenging Marsha Blackburn for her GOP seat in the 7th District

STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES RACES:

DISTRICT 85: Larry Turner, the diminutive long-term incumbent, always draws primary opposition, and he gets it again in this year’s Democratic primary from Eddie Jones and Paul Lewis. But the unassuming, mild-mannered (but independent-minded) incumbent, whose wife Johnnie Turner heads the local NAACP, undoubtedly will prove hard to turn out once more.

DISTRICT 87: The situation of Karen Camper, an interim County Commission appointee, is less salutary. Though she commands the loyalty of most legislative colleagues, the teacher and former military professional is under challenge in the Democratic primary from gadfly broadcaster Jennings Bernard, a quasi-perennial who is making what may be his stoutest bid yet.

DISTRICT 92: This Democratic primary race is a grudge match of sorts, pitting current incumbent G.A. Hardaway against Eddie Neal, the homespun bricklayer who preceded him as an interim commission appointee. Hardaway, author of a controversial proposal to test all putative dads for DNA matchups with their children and foe of a Fairgrounds development proposal, has aroused some opposition but commands decent establishment support, as well.

But Neal, who campaigned to limit officeholders to a single elected position, has well-placed backers, too, and is very much a contender.

DISTRICT 98: Ulysses Jones, the veteran firefighter/legislator who serves here, has — in more than one sense of the term — long legs, and he should easily outdistance a primary challenge from Boris Combest, a busy maverick member of the local Democratic executive committee.

COUNTYWIDE POSITIONS:

Criminal Court Judge, Division 6: Incumbent John Fowlkes got a fill-in appointment from Governor Phil Bredesen that the governor wanted badly to bestow on Fowlkes for the position of state Supreme Court justice, had the state Judicial Commission obliged Bredesen by including Fowlkes’ name on any of its several recommendation lists for the high court.

But it didn’t, and Bredesen and Fowlkes, a former prosecutor and, more recently, CAO for county mayor A C Wharton, had to settle for Criminal Court. Fowlkes has Wharton in his corner, along with other high-powered supporters, and that should be enough to hold off three challengers, the busiest and best-financed of whom would seem to be LaTonya Burrow, a member of the public defender’s staff.

Her gender could be a factor, given the recent tendency in Shelby County to elect female judges. The other hopefuls are Claiborne Ferguson and Michael Floy.

Assessor: This race is a straight party-line matchup with Cheyenne Johnson, longtime chief assistant to outgoing incumbent Rita Clark, representing the Democrats and realtor/restaurateur Bill Giannini, who doubles as local Republican chairman, holding up GOP hopes.

Both have indicated in forums and interviews that they know their stuff concerning reassessment procedures and property values in the currently unstable housing market. What the race comes down to, probably, is a test of whether this year, unlike the last several countywide elections, sees the long-prophesied demographic edge for Democrats finally materialize.

General Sessions Clerk: The same issue holds in Democrat Otis Jackson‘s challenge to incumbent Republican clerk Chris Turner, who will benefit from the presence in the race of black independent Robert J. Matthews Jr., as he did four years ago when Turner squeaked by Democratic challenger Roscoe Dixon, now a federal inmate after conviction in the Tennessee Waltz scandal.

Trustee: Ordinarily, incumbent Paul Mattila would be considered a shoo-in. A white Democrat with Republican connections, he reportedly also had the blessing of the late trustee Bob Patterson, with whom Mattila worked closely for years as legislative liaison. Those circumstances (along with shepherding from Sidney Chism) got Mattila the County Commission’s nod as interim trustee following Patterson’s unexpected death in January.

But Republican Ray Butler, a CPA, also boasts a Patterson connection as his longtime campaign treasurer. And self-proclaimed “real Democrat” M. LaTroy Williams, running as an independent, further complicates the picture. Two other independents, David Vinciarelli and Tammy Warren, are lesser factors.

See also ”A Post-Racial Election?” and ”The Fine Print”.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Strip Tease

For several years, fitness instructors Rachael Vint and Kyra Bailey have been teaching a striptease workout in various rented spaces. But when the women attempted to open their own studio in Bartlett in July, Mayor Keith McDonald gave them a bit of a tease.

“On July 10th, we were supposed to have media night. The poles and mirrors had just been installed, and I was about to leave the studio to go change clothes and come back,” says Vint, co-owner of Eccentric Studios. “Right before I left, a code enforcement guy came in and said all the work had to stop.”

The code enforcement officer handed Vint a stop-work order at McDonald’s request. The Bartlett mayor was concerned that the studio violated zoning laws as a sexually oriented business, even though clothing is required and men are not allowed to watch.

The stop-work order was lifted last week, and Bartlett aldermen approved a $20,000 settlement to make up for attorney fees and lost revenue. Eccentric Studios began classes this past Monday, two weeks after their scheduled opening.

“When we found the space in Bartlett back in May, we read through all of Bartlett’s ordinances and zoning information to make sure we wouldn’t run into any issues,” Bailey says. “We didn’t fit the criteria for an adult-oriented business, so we went ahead with work on the studio.”

After the stop-work order, Vint’s attorney advised her to remove the poles and mirrors. Vint also had the power turned off.

“We came in and took the poles down with no power or electricity. It was terribly hot, and we tore up the ceiling a bit trying to get them out,” Vint says.

But days later, the city lifted the stop-work order, and the poles and mirrors were re-installed.

“They were obviously concerned that the longer they kept us out of business, the more difficult this would be for everyone,” Vint says.

Though Bartlett aldermen voted 4-2 to approve the financial settlement, alderman W.C. “Bubba” Pleasant says the move was more about preventing a costly court battle than admitting the mayor was wrong to prevent the business from opening.

“Code enforcement should be making sure that different businesses are in the right zoning areas,” says Pleasant. “They were just doing their job.”

Eccentric Studios held their open house this past weekend, and thanks in part to media attention about the stop-work order, classes for August are almost full. The studio boasts 11 poles, which Vint says she’s never been able to have in her rented studios.

“Poles are the ultimate progression in this type of workout,” Vint explains.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

NCAA Will Investigate U of M Over Booster’s Phone Call

A phone call to prized basketball recruit Abdul Gaddy’s mother by FedEx president and CEO David Bronczek has triggered an investigation by the NCAA, according to FoxSports.com.

Oseye Gaddy, Abdul’s mother, works for FedEx in Tacoma, Washington. She received a call from Bronczek in which she said her boss told her about the FedExForum and said positive things about Tigers coach John Calipari.

Read Jeff Goodman’s article on FoxSports.com.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: An Uncivil Maverick

The presidential race is starting to turn nasty — at least on one side. John McCain said last week that opponent Barack Obama was willing to “lose a war in order to win a campaign.” McCain also ran an ad falsely claiming that Obama canceled a meeting with wounded vets in Germany because “cameras weren’t allowed.” (This, even though McCain similarly had canceled an appearance with wounded vets this spring, also at the request of the Pentagon.)

McCain, who pledged not long ago that he wanted to run a “civil” campaign, apparently has abandoned that approach in favor of a Rovian scorched-earth attack on his opponent’s patriotism and integrity. So it was with some interest that I watched McCain’s appearance on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on CNN last Friday, where McCain claimed unequivocally that he would capture Osama bin Laden.

Blitzer asked how McCain was going manage such a feat when President Bush hadn’t been able to do it in seven years.

McCain told Blitzer: “I’m not going to telegraph a lot of the things that I’m going to do because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But, look, I know the area. I have been there. I know wars. I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden.”

Of course, a few days earlier, McCain had proclaimed himself worried about the situation on the nonexistent “Iraq/Pakistan border,” which would suggest he doesn’t know the area quite as well as he’d like us to think. What got to me, though, was his assertion that he knew how to capture bin Laden but hadn’t bothered to share this magical information with the president, the CIA, or the Pentagon. He’s a U.S. senator, for heaven’s sake. Surely the president will take his calls.

Seems to me that McCain was dangling his secret plan to capture the world’s leading terrorist as an incentive for the American people to elect him president. “Elect me,” he appeared to be saying, “and I’ll get the bad guy.”

Huh. Sounds like he’d rather win a campaign than capture Osama bin Laden. Either that, or the “maverick” is full of, uh, non-straight talk.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion

Bottom Feeders

All of them are homeless and a few of them hopeless. Some of them come from bad homes and have been abused. Each one has a story.

Once somebody loved them, but now they stand in the shade and roast in the sun. They sit on flat tires and rusted rims, with busted transmissions, engines that won’t crank, and ignitions that might or might not have keys.

But after 30 days in the shelter of the city’s motor vehicle impound lot, scores of these orphans are about to get new homes and owners on this 98-degree afternoon, for prices ranging from $50 to $1,900.

Every Tuesday at noon, at the old International Harvester lot in Frayser, the city auctions off about 100 vehicles. Like mutts in a kennel, they can be admired from afar through a cyclone fence for 30 minutes before the auction, but no close contact or inspection are allowed.

All sales are cash or cashier’s check only. Cars, if you can call some of them that, must be paid for by 3 p.m. and hauled away within 48 hours.

“If you don’t pay, you are barred from the lot and will not be allowed to come back for one year,” supervisor W.L. Taylor tells the crowd of about 75 tire-kickers, ranging from junk dealers chomping on cigars to a few couples with young children.

It’s a $2-million-a-year business with a steady supply of inventory. Memphis has about 7,000 motor vehicle thefts a year, and thousands more cars are abandoned. For several years, the impound lot was run by the Memphis Police Department, but in July it shifted to the city’s General Services Division.

“We’re putting things in order to be more effective and efficient,” said GSA director Estrice Boone. “In General Services, we have always auctioned off city fleet vehicles, so it seemed more righteous to take over impounded vehicles and blend it together. The staff will remain the same over there, but they will work for General Services instead of the Police Department.”

A lot of cash changes hands during an auction. The auctioneer is a strapping, red-headed man in jeans and a “Bama” ball cap. He is shadowed by a uniformed Tact Squad officer in black. A half-hour before the auction begins, buyers are allowed to pass through the gates and enter the yard. Hoods are raised, doors opened, radiator caps removed and sniffed, dipsticks pulled, and, yes, tires are kicked a few times, assuming there are any, which is true in about half the cases. The smart buyers carry umbrellas and wear pith helmets to block the sun. The rest of us sweat through our shirts.

You’re not allowed to start up any vehicles, although only about one in 10 has a key anyway, and you can’t get keys made on the lot. “As is” means just that, as in a 1997 Plymouth with diapers, a purse, a child’s toys, CDs, a car seat in the back, and a completely smashed front end; a 1993 Ford Explorer with a box of Huggies in the back and a Ron Paul bumper sticker; and a 1985 Ford F-150 that has been cleaned out except for a Gideon’s Bible on the front seat.

Nothing is too wrecked to auction, although some can only be purchased by junk dealers because the cops don’t want them back on the road. There are cars that have been shot up in homicides, cars that have been stolen and stripped, cars in which the occupants were mutilated, crushed, or burned up. A 1992 Toyota has been compressed to less than half its original size, and the “1993 Toyota” next to it is nothing but a burned shell.

The first vehicle auctioned is a camouflage-painted four-wheeler with only two wheels. The bidding is brisk, and it goes for $825. Next up is a Toyota Camry that looks drivable and fetches $575. The 1997 Plymouth with the smashed front end and the toys in the back is the pick of the litter on this day and sells for $1,900. A 1991 Caddy with what the auctioneer calls “custom headlights” (clear duct tape) goes for $900. A 1993 Ford truck in the corner of the lot draws half a dozen bids before selling for $450.

“Are we at a yard sale, folks?” the auctioneer jokes when the bidding lags.

So it goes, for more than an hour. One person’s headache or death trap is another’s find and salvation. The 1985 Ford truck gets $550, but somebody has swiped the Bible during the auction. When it comes time to auction the compressed Toyota death car, the auctioneer says, “It may have been in an accident, but you be the judge.”

It goes for $50.

Categories
News The Fly-By

What They Said

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

About “In Search of Good Americans in the Justice Department,” by John Branston:

“Good Americans are easy to find. Good American lawyers? Now, you’ve gone too far!” — tomguleff

“About ‘Dirk Diggler,’ Larry Godwin, and the First Amendment,” by John Branston:

“I’m not surprised to see a columnist argue against bloggers! There’s a difference between journalism and being a columnist. It has to do with navel fur.” — denise parkinson

About “Cooper Now Says Eatery To Be ‘Ocean Club’ but Cordova Activists Remain Suspicious,” by Andrew Douglas:

“Cordova’s already well on its way to becoming Hickory Hell North anyway, what difference does it make?” — packrat

Comment of the Week:

About “Fish, the Lord, N/A? Take the Pyramid Poll,” where we asked what would be the best use of the Pyramid:

“Personally, I think that they should paint a giant portrait of Mayor Herenton on all four sides of the Pyramid. But that’s just me.” — kyle

Categories
News The Fly-By

Pyramid Scheme

CREDIT: Courtesy of Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau

Memphis’ Pyramid Arena — like its ancestors in Egypt — seems destined to sit empty and slowly rot away.

About a month ago, Cummings Street Missionary Baptist Church decided to put in a $12 million bid for the aging, and empty, former arena.

“We’ve outgrown all the space we have,” says church pastor Gary Faulkner. “On Sundays, we have four different services in three different places, so we’re looking at finding one roof that we can all be under together.”

The church has felt constrained by space for some time now. When they moved to their current home in Whitehaven five years ago, they doubled their seating capacity.

“We thought we had some growing time,” Faulkner says. “The first Sunday we were there, we were filled to capacity.”

Thus the satellite services in Cordova and East Memphis for at least part of the church’s 5,000-member congregation. But with the Pyramid’s more than 20,000 seats, the church thinks the facility would be an easy fit.

But city officials aren’t so sure.

Faulkner says he’s been thinking about the Pyramid ever since the Grizzlies moved to FedExForum, but it wasn’t until a month ago, when he heard a familiar refrain about options, that he decided to submit a letter of intent.

“I was listening to the news, and someone said we didn’t have any other options other than Bass Pro,” Faulkner says. “Instead of griping and complaining about what’s not happening at the Pyramid, I decided to do something about it.”

Bass Pro has been at the heart of Pyramid reuse negotiations since a press conference in early 2006. Though the outdoors retailer has signed several letters of intent, a deal has not been finalized. The Pyramid was once listed on Bass Pro’s website as the location of a future store, but it has since been removed from that list.

The current story is that Bass Pro is still doing feasibility studies.

An effort by the Ericson Group to turn the Pyramid into an indoor theme park fell apart earlier this spring. The group became frustrated with the lack of progress and the reuse effort’s seemingly unwavering attachment to Bass Pro.

Even this latest bid to take the Pyramid — and its annual $600,000 maintenance costs — off taxpayer hands doesn’t seem to be getting a serious look.

Robert Lipscomb, the city’s chief financial officer and the head of the Pyramid reuse effort, has reportedly cast doubt on the church’s offer, saying it wouldn’t provide the economic impact to the area that Bass Pro would and that the church might not be able to afford the Pyramid’s utility bill.

That may be true, but like any option, it’s worth checking out before discarding the idea.

“We’re looking at more than a place to worship,” says Faulkner. “Our vision for the Pyramid is bigger than just a place for prayer, praise, and preaching. It’s bigger than just Sunday morning.

“If that’s what anyone is thinking, they have no idea what we have in mind.”

He says the church would use the arena as its worship center but would also hope to leverage the surrounding area as an economic incubator, with restaurants and retail that would be open seven days a week.

I’ll be honest — I don’t know how, or if, the church’s retail component would work. But I’m not even sure that’s the most important question.

I mean, how much economic impact is the area getting right now, waiting for Bass Pro to make a move one way or the other? Actually, let me rephrase that: How much positive economic impact is the area getting right now?

When the Pyramid reuse committee came out with their recommendations for the building in 2005, their preferred use for the building was an indoor theme park with a major destination retailer. A number of other ideas were also thrown around, including turning it into a church or building an aquarium.

And yet, when Ericson proposed an indoor theme park, his financial backing was called into question. When Cummings Street proposed a church, their finances also were called into question.

I’m not saying we should make a hasty decision, but why not give these ideas the benefit of the doubt?

Frankly, I’m not sure that the best use of the building in 2005 is the best use of the building now. Because of the economy, retail in general is in a slump. And when the mortgage crisis hits property tax revenue, we might find ourselves needing to unload unnecessary debt.

“Right now, the Pyramid is empty and it’s been empty for years,” Faulkner says. “I’m giving you another option.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Fine Print

As if political and governmental matters in Shelby County weren’t confusing enough, voters on August 7th will be asked to approve two ordinances, each of which has generated some controversy.

The more troublesome one is Ordinance 360, made necessary by the state Supreme Court overturning the means by which several Knox County officials were elected. The same decision invalidated the constitutional status of five similarly provisioned Shelby County offices — those of sheriff, trustee, assessor, register, and county clerk — and made it necessary for the offices to be redefined by the county charter.

After much wrangling, the Shelby County Commission managed to reestablish the five offices on terms close to their previously presumed status under the state constitution.

But there’s a major obstacle to passage of Ordinance 360, one that divided the County Commission during deliberations and has generated some opposition in the community at large. This is a provision establishing a limit of three four-year terms, not only for the five newly defined officials but for the county mayor and members of the commission as well.

The problem is that a prior referendum to establish two four-year terms as the limit for mayor and commissioners was overwhelmingly approved by Shelby County voters in 1994 and was the primary factor in a virtual overhaul of the commission’s membership in the 2006 general election. Even though current mayor A C Wharton and all sitting commissioners are constrained by the two-term provision, the proposed re-do of term limits is bound to be a chancy matter.

And if it should be rejected, the five former constitutional offices will still have to be redefined by a new ordinance hastily put together by the commission for the November ballot. That one almost certainly would restore the two-term limit.

Ordinance 361, which addresses a variety of largely administrative matters, has occasioned less fuss, though a lengthy argument on the commission greeted one of its provisions that would establish 15 percent of registered voters as the perquisite number of signers to force a recall election.

A last-ditch resistance to the provision was led by commissioners Sidney Chism and Henri Brooks and may have resulted from some effective lobbying by Circuit Court judge D’Army Bailey, who had once, as a city councilman in Berkeley, California, been the subject of a politically motivated recall. But Ordinance 361 ended up intact.

See also ”A Sleeper Election?” and ”A Post-Racial Election?”.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Not Chump Change

Flattered as I always am to be mentioned in John Branston’s column (City Beat, July 24th issue), it’s misleading to imply that the controversy between the County Commission and county schools is only over a $56,000 raise for the superintendent or is merely “symbolic.” The rub concerns dozens of top-level administrative positions with pay raises of 4, 5, and 8 percent compared to last year (not to mention the 32 percent pay raise for the superintendent), in a year in which fiscal crises forced us to lay off workers and effectively cut county employee pay by denying them a customary cost-of-living increase while raising health premiums.

The amount in question is well over $300,000. Our proposal would be to limit such high-level management raises to the 2 percent given the county school teachers, saving well over $240,000, which could be used for school supplies or for stipends for the many non-teacher school employees who got no raise at all. This ain’t chump change, and it’s more than mere symbolism.

Stephen John Mulroy

Shelby County Commissioner

Non-Creationist Intelligent Design

In Bianca Phillips’ article (“Q&A with Barbara Forrest,” July 24th issue), she gives hearty praise to Forrest for her role in the Intelligent Design trial in Pennsylvania. Forrest injects a very narrow and biased view, without offering the alternatives.

There are many non-creationists who hold to Intelligent Design. Many believe that intelligence is deduced from mathematics and inference and do not speculate on the identity of a designer. Some have suggested panspermia, where life was perhaps “seeded” by aliens.

Complex specificity has never been shown to have evolved by random mutations and selection; i.e., DNA, a living cell, the bacterial flagellum, etc. I guess one can always expect bias, as all worldviews have presuppositions attached to them.

Charles H. Gillihan

Bartlett

Sampson is a Grammar Maven

Tim Sampson is unquestionably one of the best things the Flyer has going for it. I had begun to think that no one else cared about the misuse of “nauseous” and “nauseated” (The Rant, July 24th issue). My best guess is that he also gets chills when people misuse “I” and “me.” Anyone who believes that the two following sentences are correct needs to go back to grammar school for a refresher:

Mom gave Bill and I tickets to the ball game.

Bill and me went to the game.

I see it in print and hear it daily, even on network news. In the meantime, it’s wonderful to read the comments of someone who seems to share the same quirky values about politics, religion, and life in general as me do.

Bill McAfee

Memphis

Memphis Music Fans

In Dennis Cupp’s July 17th Rant, he described the album Raising Sand, and presumably the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant concert, as “airy, dark, and moody” and wrote about how the crowd wouldn’t shut up long enough to realize they were at a concert. Well, Elvis Costello’s New Daisy concert was also loud as hell, so the audience had to scream their idle conversation. The night before Costello’s concert, we drove to Nashville to see Ron Sexsmith and Nick Lowe perform their solo acts at the Belcourt Theater. You could have heard a pin drop. I’m glad I’m not tempted to leave the house.

P.J. Trenthem

Germantown

No Gridlock in Germantown

I found Bruce VanWyngarden’s story of gridlock and profanity after his Fourth of July visit to the river quite interesting (Editor’s Note, July 10th issue).

In 1981, several friends and I went to the river for either the Sunset Symphony or Fourth of July fireworks. The exact same gridlock — and utter MPD indifference to it — was present then. There’s been no change in 27 years and obviously no progress.

What has changed is Memphians. The crowd in 1981 was gridlocked for 30 to 45 minutes, yet we saw no one driving on a sidewalk, forcing their way through intersections, or blasting obscene music. Some were drinking but remained civil.

This year on the Fourth, my wife and I did some things around the house, had a nice cookout, and then at dark went into the backyard and watched the Germantown fireworks — another change from 27 years ago as well as from VanWyngarden’s experience.

The reader can decide which of the changes above is progress and which is not (and where they would rather take two 11-year-olds).

Herbert E. Kook Jr. Germantown

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

MySpaceland

If there’s any truth to this headline from c/netnews.com, there could soon be a significant online migration of users from MySpace to Facebook. According to reporter Caroline McCarthy, MySpace could soon be “flooded by Elvis impersonators.”

There’s nothing wrong with being an Elvis impersonator, per se, but who wants their inbox full of messages reading, “Thankyavurrymush for bein’ muh friend.”

MySpace will team up with Graceland to host an official Elvis karaoke competition for “Elvis Week.

Kong Hungry!

Some primates have all the luck. In June, Mwelu, the Memphis Zoo’s only male gorilla, was given a treat when the mother and daughter team of Penny and Kebara, two gorillas from San Diego, came to Memphis to get Mwelu “in the mood for a family.”

Now Rachel Ray, the preternaturally perky host of various cooking shows, is filming a “personalized greeting” for the oversexed gorilla. Ray, who was unable to visit Mwelu in person, filmed the segment after learning that the gorilla is obsessed with her television show.

Sho’ nuff?

Last week, the Rev. George Brooks, a Murfreesboro-based clergyman who is campaigning against Congressman Steve Cohen, told Fly on the Wall that he doesn’t do interviews.

Apparently, however, he does do imitations … of Steppin’ Fetchit. In his most recent handout, Brooks takes controversial blogger and radio host Thaddeus Matthews to task, saying, “You sho’ knows dat if you downlow white and Jew-type womans, even if dey is lack de Jezebel kind, you’d beez outta yo’ gig, and outta da town too, ‘for de sun goed down. And eben massa Steve Cohen wouldn’t cum to yo’ rescoo.”

Clearly, Brooks doesn’t remember when Matthews, who is ecumenical in his offensiveness, asked the burning question “Does Carol Chumney Have The Biggest Set On The [City] Council?”