Month: March 2009

Pay the Whistleblower!

Post author By Becky Clark Carter
Post date March 5, 2009

Our state’s budget crisis demands that state leaders devise new ways to protect taxpayers’ precious dollars — a significant part of which is lost annually through fraud, waste, and outright theft by state employees.

There’s one good way to encourage conscientious state workers to report those who misdirect taxpayer dollars. How? By funding legal protection for whistleblowers.

Statistically, most government fraud is observed and reported by employees (26 percent), while only 11.5 percent is discovered by external auditors and 1.7 percent by law enforcement. Frontline whistleblowers are less expensive than fraud investigators, and they enrich our budget by rescuing and recouping taxpayers’ losses.

But, as the Tennessee State Employees Association and the state comptrollers’ office can report, whistleblowers suffer retaliation from managers, perpetrators’ friends, department officials, and investigative officers, as well as from co-workers. Abuse can be brutal and relentless, taking a physical and mental toll.

In 33 years of working in Tennessee state fiscal offices and with TSEA, I often observed that managers discouraged workers from reporting violations that could embarrass their departments. They sometimes turned the investigation against the whistleblower with cruel and intimidating behavior.

There was the case of a supervisor who reported to her human resources office an employee who was absent most days but getting paid for massive amounts of hours and days not worked. Result? The supervisor was compelled to leave her own job when the HRO turned the investigation against her.

Another employee who reported the same perpetrator had her computer confiscated, then suffered various forms of intense retaliation from managers and from the perpetrator’s friends and finally had her job terminated. Both whistleblowers in this case are currently unemployed. Yet, though internal investigators produced documentation suggesting that the accused employee was guilty of misappropriating thousands of dollars in state funds, she was promoted and given a raise.

Why does this happen? Possibly because government differs from businesses, in that job security and promotion do not necessarily depend on quality performance or protecting assets. The primary motivator is often friendship or connections. Survival in some state offices depends on skillfully performing the reality-show dynamics of alliance-building, co-worker manipulation, and currying favor with managers. An ethical, hard-working employee can suffer by not investing in these dynamics.

In some cases in which employees report waste or fraud, their departments either do not want to be embarrassed or hesitate to take action against a popular employee. Co-workers circle the wagons around the perpetrator and attack the whistleblower for “rocking the boat.” The aforementioned promoted employee charged with theft had protective friends on all levels.

There are efforts at official remedial action from time to time. I helped state representative Mike Kernell of Memphis craft one such action: the Advocacy for Honest and Appropriate Government Spending Act. And there have been others: the Financial Integrity Act, Risk Management and Internal Control Requirements, and the Whistleblower Protection Statute.

What tends to make these remedies ineffective is the fact that whistleblowers must pay lawyers to protect themselves from inevitable retaliation and job loss. Lawmakers need to put fangs into these regulatory words-on-paper by funding the legal fees that whistleblowers incur. They also need to establish an entity that, with objectivity and uniformity, can mete out real consequences for fraud, thereby bypassing the biased “friendship-based” department officials.

There are abundant examples these days of heroic whistleblowers in the financial industry, people whose sensitive consciences and altruistic concern for the public’s welfare prompt them to shine a light on investment fraud.

Whistleblowers in government perform a similar service. After all, Tennessee taxpayers sacrificially “invest” their money in state officials and employees, trusting it will be returned to them through services and quality of life. An effective way to keep their money from being misdirected into the pockets of a few delinquent employees is to further invest a modest portion of it in paid legal protection for courageous, ethical whistleblowers. Protecting them will protect Tennesseans’ assets.
Becky Clark Carter is a former state employee who continues to be active with the Tennessee State Employees Association.

Politics Politics Feature

Odom’s Predicament

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date March 5, 2009

CREDIT: by Jackson Baker

For much of last week, Gary Odom of Nashville, the leader of the Democratic Party in the state House of Representatives, was experiencing a dramatic reversal of fortune. Suddenly endangered were not only the laurels he seemed to have won by engineering the election of Democrat-friendly East Tennessee Republican Kent Williams as House speaker but, indeed, Odom’s own position of party leadership.

A rebellion swelled up in House Democratic ranks, ostensibly over remarks made by Odom during a visit to Memphis the weekend before last. Led mainly by close allies of former House speaker Jimmy Naifeh but including also Democrats close to Odom himself, like fellow Nashvillian Mike Turner, the party’s caucus chairman in the House, the challenge was based on two matters: What Odom said about the origins and timeline of Williams’ ascent to the speakership and what he said about Naifeh’s legacy as speaker.

The two issues conflate in the sense that both concern Naifeh’s role. On the question of how Williams came to be speaker, not only Odom but several specific others — including, importantly, Williams himself — concurred from the beginning that Naifeh knew nothing of the Williams ploy until 5 p.m. the evening before the vote. Until then Naifeh was by all accounts, including his own, still preoccupied with trying to round up votes for himself.

At the height of last week’s furor, Turner and state representative John Litz of Morristown, a Democrat and Williams confidant, held a press conference in which they outlined a counter-theory, one in which Naifeh had been an active collaborator in the maneuver which would see Williams cast his own vote, along with those of 49 Democrats, to overcome Republican House leader Jason Mumpower, who had expected to gain the speakership in a chamber which had a 50-49 Republican edge after last fall’s election.

On the surface, it would seem that the two extant chronologies are inconsistent with each other, though there are some who argue — à la left hands not knowing what right hands are doing — that the rival versions are compatible. The meta-issue would seem to be whether Naifeh comes off better as somebody who helped mastermind the Williams coup or as somebody who stayed free and clear of a plot which still riles partisan anger.

The other point of contention regarding Odom concerned the wisdom of his having offered opinions in Memphis regarding what he saw as the negative effect of Naifeh’s erstwhile support of income tax proposals on party fortunes and the need for Democrats to chart a different course regarding that still tender subject.

Perhaps Odom was indiscreet in having so spoken (to a handful of political adepts at an after-hours gathering following a formal reception for Williams and himself with local Democrats), and perhaps he regarded his remarks — though not accompanied by “off the record” or “between you and me” or any of the usual disclaimers — as meant privately rather than publicly.

In any case, there was nothing inherently treasonous or disrespectful about what he said, and, as somebody who strongly opposed income tax legislation during the legislative wars of the late ’90s and early 2000s, and as somebody who now has a position of influence within his party, Odom may have both a right and duty to espouse a different view on the issue than that which once prevailed in Democratic ranks.

Reality and protocol both dictate that Odom now make amends and pay some kind of public homage to the distinguished Naifeh, whom — it is well known — he considered challenging for the speakership had the Democrats maintained their House majority. But that is not the same thing as needing to backtrack on his political philosophy or his views concerning his party’s proper political tactics.

Odom’s fellow Democrats elected him to a leadership role two legislative sessions ago, in search of an aggressive, alternative mode. It would be ironic indeed if he should now be penalized for supplying it.

• The Republican field of gubernatorial candidates has grown by one — Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey of Blountville, who made a formal announcement of sorts in Greeneville at the weekend Lincoln Day Dinner sponsored by the Greene County Republican Women.

When Ramsey took the platform to announce the keynote speaker, state GOP chairman Robin Smith, he took note of the three declared gubernatorial candidates who had preceded him — District Attorney General Bill Gibbons of Memphis, 3rd District congressman Zach Wamp of Chattanooga, and Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam — and was reported as saying, “I am here in Greene County to announce that I am going to be a candidate for governor.”

Thus ended speculation that had been rife for several days about the imminence of a Ramsey announcement. Prior to that, there had been serious speculation as well about the likelihood of Ramsey’s ascending to the governor’s office through the departure of Governor Phil Bredesen, who had until recently been rumored to be a possible nominee for secretary of health and human services by President Obama.

The entry of Ramsey, from the Tri-City area of the state’s northeast corner, means that each of the state’s major population centers has been accounted for in the Republican primary field except for Nashville.

• Heading into next month’s March 7th precinct caucuses and March 28th county convention, the Shelby County Democratic Party may have a close contest on its hands for the position of party chairman.

Current party parliamentarian Van Turner won a straw poll held Wednesday night at the Hi-Tone Café by the Mid-South Community Organizers (formerly Memphis for Obama). And Turner has a fair amount of support from the reform coalition that made inroads in party organization at the pivotal party convention of 2005.

But lawyer Javier Bailey has the support of at least two major brokers in the local party, David Upton and Sidney Chism. And he has launched an aggressive and innovative campaign for the chairmanship, accumulating endorsements from public officials and prominent Democratic activists and advertising his candidacy with full-color mailers and messages on local cable TV channels.

Attorney Lee Harris, whose support derives from many of the same sources as Turner’s, is a possible dark-horse candidate. Meanwhile, current party vice chair Cherry Davis has bowed out of contention, while Shelby County commissioner J.W. Gibson‘s continued participation in the chairmanship race is in doubt. Current chairman Keith Norman, meanwhile, appears to have dropped the idea of running for reelection.

Both the precinct caucuses and the convention will be held, according to recent custom, at Airways Middle School. A new party executive committee also will be elected at the convention.

Shelby County Republicans, meanwhile, will be forced to reschedule their own caucuses, which were slated for the past weekend but canceled due to snow. The apparent consensus candidate for chairman is attorney Lang Wiseman.

• City councilman Jim Strickland, who was in the vanguard of efforts to deny or reduce the council’s traditional funding of Memphis City Schools and to amend residency requirements for new police hires, is taking the lead on yet another controversial issue.

As he proposed in remarks made to members of the Downtown Kiwanis Club last week, Strickland favors dealing with city government’s version of the current financial crisis by imposing immediate austerity measures — including a hiring freeze until the end of the current fiscal year.

Strickland, who would exempt first responders from the freeze, also told the Kiwanians that significant employee layoffs and pay cuts may be necessary. At the time last year that a council majority voted in favor of withholding significant portions of the council’s traditional allotment to the schools, Strickland abstained on the grounds that cutting back on new city hires should be pursued along with such a remedy.

We Recommend We Recommend

Awfully Good

Post author By Chris Davis
Post date March 5, 2009

The Memphis Brooks Museum’s “Contempt for the New” exhibit puts shock and awe under glass.

Nothing provokes cattiness, crankiness, and reckless ire like a piece of unusual art. In 1896, the audience rose from their chairs and howled at the first spoken word of Alfred Jarry’s profane political satire Ubu Roi. The Impressionists were persona non grata at the annual salon exhibitions in Paris. “The Fauves,” a group of European expressionists who emphasized strong color and loose technique, literally translates as “wild beasts.” Truman Capote described Jack Kerouac’s racing prose as “typing,” not writing. Jackson Pollock’s splatter style of painting earned him the nickname “Jack the Dripper” (pictured: his “Number 9”). The list of maligned trailblazers goes on.

With “Contempt for the New,” Brooks Museum curator Marina Pacini showcases the work of several spectacular artists ranging from Cezanne and Matisse to Pollock and Memphis’ own William Eggleston to explain how the history of modernism is also a history of foot-stomping hissy fits about anything new and different.

“Each work is accompanied by a quotation from a contemporary critic or member of the public,” says Brooks’ marketing director Elisabeth Callihan. “It makes people think more critically about what’s going on in our own time.”

Every Thursday in March an accompanying lecture will examine the sometimes uncomfortable relationship between trendsetting art, music, and literature and public perception. Commercial Appeal contributor Andria Lisle, rapper Al Kapone, and Highway 61 radio host Scott Barretta kick things off on March 5th at 6 p.m with a discussion about audience reactions to blues and hip-hop music.

“Contempt for the New” lecture, Thursday, March 5th, 6 p.m. at the Memphis Brooks Museum of art, 1934 Poplar. the Exhibition will be on display at The Brooks through July 5th. Call 544-6200 for more information.

Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Post author By Tim Sampson
Post date March 5, 2009

I realize that this may seem callous at a time like

this, and believe me, I am feeling the effects of it too, but I would like

nothing more than to go for just a few days without reading about, seeing news stories

about, talking about, or even mentioning “the economy.” First of all, I’ve never been driven by money, so I’ve never really

had any and I don’t understand how it all works. I don’t understand why AIG is getting another big batch of bailout billions when they seem to have spent a decent-sized portion of their last wad of cash on lavish corporate getaways with fine wine, massages, and hotel rooms that cost more by the night than my monthly mortgage note. I’m sure I could read enough about it to figure it out, or at least to get fairly pissed off, but I don’t even want to know at this point. I don’t understand how Bill Clinton could have left office with a healthy surplus in the reserves and now, after eight years of the Bush regime, there’s not only nothing left but there’s also this massive debt and many in the Republican Party are blaming it on the Democrats.

Who cares whose fault it is? It’s done. We’re toast for now. Or at least that’s what many of us will be considering a major food group until things get better. What makes me a little bit nuts is to have seen those holiday stampedes at Wal-Mart and Circuit City and Best Buy and stores like them, with throngs of people knocking each other down to get to the latest video game or PlayStation or iPod or iPhone or whatever, and then bitch about being broke. Why weren’t they stampeding the “everything’s-a-dollar” section at Piggly Wiggly and feeding their families?

I say this is all Ann Coulter’s fault. I think Coulter is the Antichrist and that she has come from another planet to drain our collective intelligence and turn us into strange robots, like herself. I thought maybe she had decided to leave Earth and stay on her own planet while the presidential election was going on, because she was nowhere in sight, but then she came back through the Star Gate somewhere and reemerged. I first saw her on a talk show on which she refused to refer to President Obama as anything other than “Barack Hussein Obama,” trying to connect him in some pathetic way to Saddam Hussein. Of course, she was just hawking her latest piece-of-crap book that people will go buy instead of buying food and then bitch about being broke.

But at least she hasn’t lost her keen sense of humor! While Rush Limbaugh may have been the headliner at last week’s big Conservative Political Action Conference (go to that group’s website and try to find a minority face!), it seems that Longneck Ann gave a little speech of her own and had the crowd just a-chuckling. And I have found THE greatest review of it imaginable. It’s from a lawyer named Tommy De Seno who also has a newspaper column named JUSTIFIED RIGHT (yeah, he uses all caps) but, according to his bio, he “still finds time to walk about the City by the Sea debating, and proving wrong, all sorts of IQ-challenged political pee-wees such as Dummycrats, Green Party Pansies, and the dimmest left-wingers on God’s earth — Secular Humanists.” This guy is fabulous. He fancies himself “the last scion of conservative thinking in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and the only person there brave enough to challenge Asbury’s favorite son, Bruce Springsteen, on his ‘Born to Cut and Run’ political views.”

I don’t want to shame the guy for what he believes in, even if he thinks people who care about the environment are IQ-challenged. He has a right to his opinions. But his newspaper column? Oh, dear. Here is just a sample of one that he wrote about Coulter’s performance at the White Convention:

“Ann Coulter is the funniest woman on the planet. I don’t know why the media always paint her as the toughest man on the planet. No one is better at putting funnies into serious stories.” Yes, the man used the word “funnies.” And it gets even better: “She started right in against the liberal media, telling the crowd that every host at MSNBC went to the ‘alternative prom’ in high school. The crowd cracked up, and the jokes and laughter grew from there.”

Good Lord, how I wish I would have been there to laugh at that hilarious “funny.” I’m almost wetting my pants right now laughing at how clever she is. And at what a good and insightful writer Mr. De Seno is. Ha. Ha. Hahahahahahaha. “Alternative prom.” That is a real knee-slapper. Very original. There’s some more “funnies” about bed-wetting and such (“only Coulter can get away with that!”) and De Seno observes all of her zingers with great zest. Oh, and he is now offering himself up for “appearances” on his website, justifiedright.typepad.com. I do wish someone would book him to come to Memphis and maybe bring Coulter along with him so they could play off each other. And if the economy, which we won’t mention any more, is any worse by then, maybe they can eat each other.

Hot Properties Real Estate

Divide and Conquer

Post author By John Griffin
Post date March 5, 2009

The history of family estates in Memphis seems forever intertwined with subdivisions. Often a generation or so after a rural retreat was established, and as the city grew in that direction, the heirs carved up the acreage and divided the proceeds. Fortunately, Memphis still has many such grand houses on, of course, circumscribed lots.

Annesdale set the pattern. The house was built in 1855 outside the city limits on a 200-acre estate that was subdivided 50 years later by Robert Brinkley Snowden. The family lands north of Lamar were subdivided in 1903, and Annesdale Park was laid out. Its success prompted a second development in 1906, carved out right around the family home south of Lamar and named Annesdale-Snowden.

Clarence Saunders built the Pink Palace as his residence in 1922, situated just north of the Memphis Country Club. Saunders suffered an economic reversal, and the 160-acre property was subdivided. The result: Chickasaw Gardens.

At the same time that Saunders’ estate was being carved up, the Pidgeon and the Crump families flocked to Goodlett, around Poplar and Walnut Grove. Six grand houses were constructed on Poplar, Tuckahoe, Gwynne, and both sides of Walnut Grove in the late 1920s and early 1930s by these closely connected families.

J. Everett Pidgeon built his home north of Walnut Grove. The house was designed by local architect George Mahan Jr. and modeled after George Washington’s Mount Vernon. So it seems only logical that Colonial Revival houses would fill the lots created from this country estate in the 1950s.

This Colonial Revival is graced with extra-tall windows, and the effect is enhanced by the old brick sidewalk that leads to the recessed front entry. White marble on the fireplace surround and hearth continues the classic touch inside. Unexpectedly, the dining room features a central domed ceiling with a hand-painted stone finish.

The kitchen has had a crisp remodel and incorporates an earlier breakfast room into the new space. There is now a large ell of work surface atop white cabinets with a tumbled marble backsplash. Amplifying the traditional feel, a new oak floor perfectly matches the rest of the house. A large storage wall offers pantry, laundry, and recycling areas.

The house’s other notable feature is a rear addition that includes a spacious family room with equally well-matched oak floors. Down a few steps beyond the family room is a very private master suite. It has taller ceilings and an attached bonus room suitable for office, nursery, or exercise space.

This is a lovely, well-kept house that readily conquers the challenge of finding a traditional home updated for modern living. •

224 Pinehurst

Approximately 2,477 sq. ft.

3 bedroom, 3 baths

$379,000

Realtor: Hobson Co., 761-1622

Agent: Allen Hamblin, 312-2968

Cover Feature News

Winners

Post author By Frank Murtaugh
Post date March 5, 2009

CREDIT: by Larry Kuzniewski

Antonio Anderson has a tattoo of an angel on his chest. The angel’s head gazes upward, eyes closed, with a wing stretching across each pectoral. Above the image are the words “Death Before Dishonor.” A bit on the grim side, perhaps, but a message that reflects Anderson’s basketball life rather poetically. As the senior guard nears the end of the most successful four-year career of any Memphis Tiger basketball player — ever — “dishonor” is a word well outside his considerable sphere of influence on the U of M program.

Somehow it’s fitting that when Anderson does leave the Tiger program, he’ll leave it merely tied for the most decorated career in its history. For this “complementary” player, this “glue guy” as even the national media have come to see him, the dozens upon dozens of victories were compiled almost entirely with Robert Dozier at his side. Unlike Anderson, Dozier has a blemish on his four-year life as a Tiger, but it’s one he’s survived and may be as important a lesson as any he’ll learn before picking up his diploma. Labeled “complementary” far too much himself, Dozier joins Anderson as the most distinguished duo the Memphis program has seen since the days of Larry Finch and Ronnie Robinson 36 years ago.

When the Tigers won their 23rd game of the season on February 18th against SMU, it was the 127th notch on the belts of Anderson and Dozier, passing former teammate Joey Dorsey (2004-’08) for the most career wins by any player in the program’s 89-year history. (It should be noted that fellow senior and former walk-on Chance McGrady is the third member of this record-breaking class, all three of whom are on schedulue to graduate in May.) Said Anderson after the game, “It’s a nice record to have, but we also want an NCAA [tournament] record. It’s a lot of wins, but before we’re finished, it’s gonna be an impossible number to reach.”

Should Memphis earn 30 wins for a fourth straight season, Anderson and Dozier will break the current NCAA mark of 133 career wins by the Duke senior class of 2001 (which featured former Memphis Grizzly Shane Battier). With their final postseason still ahead, Anderson and Dozier already have four regular-season Conference USA championships to their credit, along with three C-USA tournament titles, two trips to the NCAA regional finals (Elite Eight), and last year’s march all the way to the national championship game. When they suit up for their first NCAA tournament game this month, it will extend the school record of 14 they currently share. It could be argued these two have earned their own wing of the yet-to-be-built athletic Hall of Fame on the U of M campus. Yet watch how quietly they leave the spotlight.

Anderson was part of the most acclaimed recruiting class in Coach John Calipari’s nine years at the Memphis helm. He arrived in 2005, alongside three teammates from a prep-school juggernaut (Laurinburg in North Carolina) that had gone 40-0 the season before. Those teammates: Shawne Williams (now a member of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks), Kareem Cooper, and Robert Dozier. While Williams stole the show among that freshman class, Anderson started 21 games for a team that featured All-America-to-be Rodney Carney and Darius Washington. By season’s end, he was guarding the opponent’s top scoring threat one game after another, a role he’s maintained ever since. And he loves the “glue guy” tag.

“That means I mean a lot to my teammates and coaches,” he says. “I want to be remembered as one of the guys who always came and gave it his all, whether I scored 10 points or no points. I just want to be known as a hard worker and a winner.”

Years from now, Anderson may be best remembered for the pair of free throws he made with seconds to play to beat Texas A&M in San Antonio and earn the Tigers a trip to the 2007 Elite Eight. But there were other moments when the glue guy was the difference-maker. Anderson scored a game-high 19 points in the 2008 C-USA championship game at FedExForum, earning unlikely MVP honors in front of a pair of All-America teammates, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose. His buzzer-beating three-pointer — shot from just inside the halfcourt line — before halftime this year in Knoxville proved to be critical in the Tigers’ two-point win over Tennessee. On January 23rd in Tulsa, Anderson took an inbounds pass, drove the length of the court, and converted an off-balance layup to beat the Golden Hurricane at the buzzer, 55-54.

And let’s not forget the Tigers’ first win of 2009, a blowout over Lamar in which Anderson became only the second player in Memphis history to record a triple-double (12 points, 10 rebounds, 13 assists). He has been, beyond question, Calipari’s steadiest hand in uniform over the last four years, with more than twice as many assists (490) as turnovers (225). With 10 more assists, he’ll become the first Tiger in history to rack up 1,000 career points, 500 rebounds, and 500 assists.

However full his stat box may be, though, it’s Anderson’s leadership qualities that rub off most on his teammates. “He’s an emotional leader on the court,” Dozier stresses. “He’ll get in someone’s grill, on and off the court. He won’t settle for less than the best. He gets on people to go to class. He has to … he’s a leader.”

by Larry Kuzniewski

Antonio Anderson & Robert Dozier

Anderson grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, and was familiar with the success Calipari enjoyed across the state at UMass. “When he started recruiting me here, I thought it was such a coincidence. I committed without even taking a visit. He knew where I was from. He told me the food’s better, you won’t get any snow. All the other coaches promised me things, but Cal told me nothing would be given to me. He told me I’d have to work to earn my way here. All he promised me was that I’d be a part of the team and on a scholarship.”

While Anderson emphasizes that he has work yet to do as a college basketball player, he looks at his final weeks as a Tiger on a scale beyond many student-athletes. “I’ll be the first in my family to graduate from college,” he notes. “That’s better than a national championship. I never would have thought I’d do this in my entire life.”

The most shocking element of the news in January 2008, that Robert Dozier had been involved in a public altercation, was that it was Robert Dozier. Among the most soft-spoken Memphis players in memory, Dozier was in the third year of a gradual rise toward stardom.

When he struck a former girlfriend after an argument that started in a downtown club, a community accustomed to off-the-court “news” from its basketball team was this time jarred by the newsmaker. (The charges were dropped three months later, amid allegations that the former girlfriend had also threatened Dozier’s current girlfriend.) Dozier made a brief apology to the media after the Tigers’ next game, one he sat out as punishment. The rest of the season — all the way to the Final Four — and throughout the 2008-’09 campaign, he’s again been, well, Robert Dozier. Efficient, steady, and, yes, quiet.

Calipari notes the maturation of young men made stars all too soon as an overlooked variable in a program like his. “At some point, kids get it,” he says. “The difference with my guys is they’re in the spotlight. Things that normal kids grow out of — here, it’s the price they pay for being in a top-five program. Some kids have money in the bank. They screw up, you say, ‘What are you doing?!’ And you deal with it. Others, no money in the bank, and they’re gone. Robert turned things around.”

by Larry Kuzniewski

“My parents and my teammates stayed with me,” Dozier recalls. “It’s not about what you do; it’s what you learn from what you do. That changed me as a person off the court, being more focused on what matters. Before that incident happened, I might have felt tired of going here or going there. But it helped me realize how lucky I am to be in this position. People come up to me and ask if they can have my autograph. People would kill to be in that position.” (Anderson and Dozier each say they sign more than 100 autographs a week. “You can’t even go into the gas station,” Dozier says with a chuckle.)

With his omnipresent headband, Dozier has earned his minutes largely in and around the paint, earning stripes with every offensive rebound and putback, at times stretching the opposing defense by firing away from beyond the three-point arc (he’s made 47 in his career). It’s harder to find a signature Dozier moment than it is for Anderson, but let’s not forget that an offensive rebound by Dozier preceded Anderson being fouled and winning that tournament game over Texas A&M in 2007. He’s never scored more than 23 points in a game, but Dozier has climbed into the top 30 among career scoring leaders at Memphis and could become only the fifth Tiger to finish his career with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.

If there was a turning point to the 2008-’09 season to date, it was certainly the Tigers’ demolition of Gonzaga in Spokane on February 7th (a game Memphis entered ranked 14th in the country). And one of the most important sequences of that contest came late in the first half when Dozier hit a pair of free throws to give Memphis a 35-20 lead, then drew a charge on the Bulldogs’ next possesion. The rout, as they say, was on.

Like Anderson, Dozier will be the first member of his family to graduate from college. And like Anderson, when asked to reflect on the memories of his Tiger days that stand out, it comes down to lots of wins and friendship. “We’re like brothers from another mother,” he says with a smile. “Everybody’s close; we know what’s going on daily with each other’s families. That’s not going on everywhere, on every team. It’s just being together, being able to read a guy’s mood. You get to talking, and you go from there.”

“Robert and Antonio came in with a class that absolutely changed the history of Memphis basketball,” Calipari says. “They altered the course of where this thing was going. They stayed; the other kids moved on, and that’s okay. Now Robert and Antonio end up winning more games than anyone in the history of the program.”

Anderson and Dozier have been a part of five winning streaks of at least 12 games over their four years in Memphis, including the two longest streaks in Tiger history (25 games as sophomores, then 26 as juniors before their current 20-game streak). For some perspective, over the 85 years the U of M played basketball before this pair’s arrival, there was a total of five such streaks. “I’ve never been the type that pays attention to winning streaks,” says a hard-to-impress Anderson. “If the wins come, they come. You just gotta be humble. You can’t take anybody for granted. You gotta go out, play like it’s a championship game, and come away with a ‘W’.”

Junior point guard Willie Kemp has been a teammate of Anderson’s and Dozier’s (and McGrady’s, he’ll emphasize) for three years. Kemp says he’s gained as much from his friendship with these record-breakers as he has any on-court benefits. “They’re great teammates, all three of them leaders,” he says. “I’ve been in class with all of them. Chance and Antonio are my roommates. After this basketball stuff is over, we’ll still talk.”

“They’ve shown great leadership,” Calipari adds, “Antonio especially in that regard. And Robert’s come around; he’s been more assertive than he’s ever been in his life, which is good to see.”

It’s been 14 years since the U of M last retired a uniform number (that of Forest Arnold, a year after Penny Hardaway’s was retired). U of M athletic director R.C. Johnson and friends will need to find an appropriate way to pay tribute to the most decorated four-year era in Tiger basketball history, so here’s a suggestion for a novel approach. Why not honor Anderson and Dozier together, on the same (perhaps oversized) banner? A pair of talented “complementary” players who together took Tiger basketball to an unseen, extraordinary level.

Leave it to their coach to shape the final distinguishing legacy of this pair, now forever linked in Memphis sports history. Calipari has coached a player chosen second in the NBA draft (Marcus Camby in 1996) and another chosen first (Derrick Rose last year). But Camby and Rose are looking up at Anderson and Dozier when it comes to the number that matters most. “When I told a reporter in New York what their record is [130-13],” Calipari reflects, “he went, ‘What?!’ You can’t even do that on a video game. Antonio and Robert will always stand out.”

by Larry Kuzniewski

Music Music Features

Snoop Dogg, Fall Out Boy, Al Green Among Music Fest Headliners

Post author By
Post date March 5, 2009

The full lineup for Memphis in May’s Beale Street Music Festival will be announced at 2 p.m. this afternoon, with local soul legend Al Green, modern rockers Fall Out Boy, and rap titan Snoop Dogg among a diverse group of headliners.

Among the more than 60 acts expected to be announced are locals (Jerry Lee Lewis, Three 6 Mafia), classic acts (Steve Miller Band, Elvis Costello), and contemporary stars (The Roots, Ben Harper).

Tickets for this year’s Beale Street Music Festival will go on sale this afternoon at all Ticketmaster outlets. Three-day passes are $63.50, and will be available through April 30. Check back here for the full lineup at 2 p.m. or see MemphisinMay.org for more info.

Music Music Features

The Beale Street Music Fest Lineup

Post author By
Post date March 5, 2009

CREDIT: Snoop Dogg

The full line-up is out for Memphis in May’s Beale Street Music Festival. The festival, which takes place Friday, May 1st through Sunday, May 3rd at Tom Lee Park, will feature a diverse group of headliners: Rap titan Snoop Dogg, megawatt pop tart Katy Perry, local soul legend Al Green, boomer folk-rock god James Taylor, and modern rockers Fall Out Boy are among the biggest names on the slate.

Green, fresh over his recent Grammy triumph, leads a local contingent that also includes fellow hall-of-famer Jerry Lee Lewis, rap stalwarts Three 6 Mafia, blues up-and-comers Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm, and promising Midtown rock band Jump Back Jakes.

Among the more interesting and reliable names filling out the lineup are jam-rocker Ben Harper, hip-hop band The Roots, folk-rocker Bonnie Raitt, and punk/alt godfather Elvis Costello.

For more info, see MemphisinMay.org.

The full line-up:

Friday, May 1st: The All-American Rejects, The Steve Miller Band, Ben Harper & Relentless 7, Tommy Castro, Katy Perry, The Cult, G. Love & Special Sauce, Jack’s Mannequin, Rise Against, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Matt Nathanson, Medeski, Martin, & Wood, Lurrie Bell, Bonnie Bramlet.

Saturday, May 2nd: Al Green, Korn, George Clinton & Parliament-Funkdelic, John Lee Hooker, Jr., Shinedown, Elvis Costello, The Roots, Curtis Salgado, Saving Abel, Los Lobos, Michael Burks, The Bar-Kays, Thriving Ivory, Susan Tedeschi, Julian Marley, Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm, Chancho En Pierdra, Muck Sticky, Green River Ordinance, Hubert Sumlin, Shane Dwight, Jump Back Jake.

Sunday, May 3rd: James Taylor, 311, Fall Out Boy, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Hinder, Bonnie Raitt, Snoop Dogg, Guitar Shorty, Theory of a Deadman, Jerry Lee Lewis, Three 6 Mafia, Sherman Robertson, Chancho En Piedra, Amos Lee, Prosevere, Damon Fowler, Dead Confederate, Reba Russell Band.

Opinion Viewpoint

Commercial Appeal Layoff Announcement Postponed

Post author By Chris Davis
Post date March 5, 2009

CREDIT: nie.com

Life is more stressful than usual for many employees at The Commercial Appeal these days. Last week the newspaper’s management announced that it would lay off 23 Newspaper Guild-covered employees and three employees covered by the pressman’s union effective March 12. The employees being laid off were originally supposed to be notified on Monday, March 2. But recent, not entirely clear events, have resulted in the notification date being been pushed back to March 27.

It was originally announced that 18 of the employees being laid off would come from the newspaper’s editorial department. That has changed with the voluntary retirement of business reporter David Flaum, and the resignations of business reporter Cassandra Kimberly and Alex Doniach, who covers Shelby County government.

According to Mediaverse-Memphis, a blog that covers Mid-South media, the delay was caused by a protracted debate over who on the editorial staff will be laid off. Additional sources suggest that the management is waiting to see if there will be more voluntary resignations. Rumors have also been floated about everything from troubles with accounting software to fears that laid off employees might cause trouble in the workplace between the time of the the announcements and the time that the layoffs actually take effect. The truth is most likely some combination of all these things.

Several sources inside the building have said that, although nobody wants to lose their job, there are reasons to be envious of those who have decided to resign. They no longer have the threat of termination hanging over their head at a time when everybody seems to be concerned about the future of the newspaper industry.

To cut costs, CA management reduced the size of the newspaper, laid off 9 percent of its workforce, and ceased home delivery to thousands of households in surrounding cities in 2008. 2009 began with management taking paycuts of up to 15 percent.

The CA isn’t unique. Shrinking of the physical product and staff downsizing is happening at daily newspapers all across America. That and a seemingly endless stream of articles announcing the death of print journalism might lead consumers to believe that daily newspapers are rapidly going the way of the dinosaur. Yet, amid all the doom and gloom, most newspaper companies continue to post what in virtually any other industry would be regarded as robust operating profits.

So why is a profitable business model failing? In spite of what you’ll read in the papers, it’s got very little to do with the internet or theories that people don’t read anymore. In almost every case, the papers that are suffering the most are those with massive corporate debt. They have “borrowed” themselves into a hole to expand their media empires.

According to Advertising Age magazine, the McClatchy newspaper group posted a 21 percent operating profit in 2008. But the media giant still had to lay off employees and freeze pensions in order to maintain profit margins, while paying back its nearly $2 billion in debt from the purchase of the Knight-Ridder news service.

Scripps, The Commercial Appeal‘s parent company, used its publishing success to launch a battery of cable television channels, and to develop original content for those channels. In 2008, the newspaper division and the cable division became two separate corporate entities, both of which have since lost stock value. That’s bad news for stockholders, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect negatively on the future viability of daily newspapers.

–Chris Davis