Month: January 2010

In the wake of Tuesday’s East High School incident, in which police found two students in possession of a loaded gun, Memphis City Schools and Memphis Police Department representatives gathered this week to underline their efforts to increase safety measures in schools.

MCS Superintendent Kriner Cash said he aimed to “reassure the community that the safety of Memphis schools and the corridors to and from those schools are top priority.”

Already this year, 10 guns have been found in schools; at this time last year, only six had been discovered. MCS plans to increase their already frequent metal detector checks in all schools, as well as keep better watch on school entrances and exits.

Police Director Larry Godwin reinforced Cash’s concern, stating their shared dedication to ensuring school safety. The MPD plans to increase patrols in the areas surrounding schools, while working with Juvenile Court to “interrupt the source of the firearms.”

“We will make those arrests and do the things we have to for those violent individuals who are disrupting the good students of Memphis City Schools,” Godwin said.

The Trust Pays program, which was recently implemented in all schools and asks students to report criminal activity to a faculty member they trust, was used in the situation at East High and a recent episode at Hamilton High. Cash commended the efforts of students and teachers in the past year to lower overall incidents on campuses, but insisted that these recent occurrences involving guns command the commitment of the entire Memphis community to school safety.

The bad news first: Crazy Heart, a new film about a washed-up country-music star trying to deal with age, alcoholism, abandoned children, a career in decline — and new hope provided by the love of a younger woman — suffers in comparison to two films it bears much resemblance to: Tender Mercies and The Wrestler.

Read the rest of Greg Akers’ review here.

This year, I’ve decided to turn some of my focus to MATA and public transportation. (You may have noticed.)

For the last few months, I’ve been going to their meetings and I *assumed* the MATA board had five members.

Because that is how many board members I’ve seen at the meetings.

But I recently ran across some information on the city’s boards and it turns out MATA has a nine-member board.

According to that information, MATA has three vacancies on its board, along with members Karl Birkholz, M.P. Carter, Fred Johnson, Dale McClendon, Cliffie Pugh, and John Vergos.

One of those board members I’ve never seen. Two of them have terms that expired two years ago. Two of them have been on the board for more than 15 years.

Maybe no one wants to be on the MATA board, but if someone out there does, there seem to be plenty of openings. And I would daresay they need the people.

Right now, they barely have enough board members to get a quorum. Compare that to Memphis City Beautiful, which has a 35 member board and two vacancies.

UPDATE: I just talked to the vice chair of Memphis City Beautiful and apparently, they have seven vacancies instead of two. He said they were looking for more good people, so if you’re interested in that board, they are interested in you.

Didja see the long piece on “indie” Memphis in The New York Times’ travel section today?

Here’s a taste: “This is indie Memphis, a long way from the tourist crush of Beale Street and Graceland, in spirit if not in actual distance. Midtown, just a short drive from a downtown famous for its blues, jazz and barbecue hounds, is its hipster epicenter. a diverse area that is now home to posh cocktail bars as well as divey rock clubs and longstanding juke joints. It parties late, very late, and stays friendly through the night.”

Read it here.

Because Adam Kleinheider, the celebrated blogger-aggregator for the Nashville Post and the City Paper up thataway, has his rapier moving pretty good at the expense of “Chamelon” candidate Harold Ford Jr. in this week’s Viewpoint.

The Memphis Tigers earned their biggest win of the season to date, a 75-72 victory at Marshall.

Read more at Tiger Blue.