Month: September 2011

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The Guard turns familiar material into effective comedy.

Irish import The Guard is a familiar black cop/white cop comic thriller, transported to an exotic-to-us locale and dotted with contemporary indie-flick tics. It’s the feature-film debut of writer-director John Michael McDonagh, whose younger brother — writer-director Martin McDonagh — scored a minor hit with 2008’s crime yarn In Bruges, a film similar in theme and tone.

Like In Bruges, this shaggy-dog character study/police procedural stars veteran Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, here playing rough-edged, aging, small-town cop Sgt. Gerry Boyle, whose days spent sampling drugs taken off car-crash victims and frolicking with hookers masks latent intelligence and integrity, which makes him a marginalized figure among his co-workers.

Gerry’s comfortable routine changes when his village is invaded first by a crew of murderous drug smugglers and then by a straight-laced FBI agent (Don Cheadle) on their trail.

Cheadle’s otherwise inessential Wendell Everett is a surrogate through which the audience is encouraged to find Gerry’s brusque political incorrectness endearing, despite his casual racism. Even before Cheadle shows up, Gerry utters vaguely offensive one-liners about Detroit and Barack Obama, and he “apologizes” to his American visitor by explaining, “I’m Irish, sir, racism is part of me culture.” Gerry’s happy-hooker associates serve much the same redeeming function, minus the racial component.

In content, The Guard evokes another minor but lasting cult film, 1983’s Local Hero, in which Peter Riegert plays an American businessman negotiating an eccentric Scottish village, as well as the father of all salt-and-pepper cop movies, 1967’s In the Heat of the Night.

Stylistically, however, it’s pure post-Tarantino: sardonic spaghetti Western and retro-kitsch (“Ode to Billie Joe”) music cues, copious blood and bullets, self-consciously clever and referential dialogue (crooks debate poets and philosophers; a beat cop mentions Fellini).

As shopworn as this crash of genres and tones is, The Guard works better than it should. Credit Gleeson, who carries the film as the gifted underachiever Gerry, rolling his eyes and issuing wisecracks at his less-gifted colleague and bosses.

There’s a subplot where Gerry visits his ill mother at her retirement home, and their conversations are full of outré material. The mother makes a “that’s what she said”-style orgy joke. Discussing one of his cases, she muses, “Cocaine? I could do with some cocaine; they say it gives you great get-up-and-go.” This could be lousy, easy comedy, but it isn’t played that way. Like Gleeson, Fionnula Flanagan, as the mother, doesn’t hit any wrong notes. There’s real companionship and familiarity between this mother and son, who bond over liquor, literature (she’s reading the Russians; he’s not a fan), and their shared deadpan sense of humor and suffer-no-fools misanthropy.

Like most of The Guard, these scenes shouldn’t work as well as they do but manage to find moments of truth and idiosyncratic humor in predictable material. If nothing else, this minor pleasure certainly has more life in it than most big-screen options available during the traditionally fallow weeks of late summer.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Hurricanes in New York; earthquakes in Virginia; drought in Texas; historic flooding on the Mississippi; and the tornadic destruction of Joplin, Missouri, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. That’s quite a summer. But climate change is a hoax, right? It’s just another racket for Al Gore to cash in on, like he did with his invention of the internet. Every sensible person knows it’s only the Earth’s cyclical behavior, and we’re just at the metaphorical top of the Ferris wheel. We’ll come down someday. Meanwhile, floodwaters are raging through Vermont, and it’s still too early to calculate the damage caused by last weekend’s hurricane. But go ahead and have another cocktail and try not to think about it. Historic, destructive weather events are the government’s responsibility. Or they were before the conservatives chimed in. Ron Paul declared there should be no FEMA relief for the storm’s victims and that federal disaster relief is “bad economics, bad morality, and bad constitutional law.”

In any other time in our history, if there’s one thing the populace could depend on, it is federal aid in a natural disaster. Even the criminal Bush got to New Orleans, eventually. But since the Tea Party is flexing its flaccid muscle and trying to abolish the federal government, this time there are strings attached. Even while the hurricane was bearing down on majority leader Eric Cantor’s district, he was explaining that no federal relief would be forthcoming without equivalent cuts in other social programs. Arrogance like this can only come from a representative who doesn’t fear for his reelection, but let a bridge collapse in Richmond and we’ll see if he combs the budget for something to cut before requesting funds. Cantor, the only Jewish Republican, is what is known in Yiddish as a nar, or a fool. He has many positions on social matters, but they’re all contrary to the Judaic principles of social justice. If I weren’t so concerned about ugly mail from my fellow tribesmen, I’d go so far as to say Cantor is a disgrace to the Jews. The really troubling fact is that not a single Republican disagreed with or disavowed Cantor’s statement about holding emergency funds hostage to their asinine budget process.

The televangelical wing of the Republican Party was quick to blame the erratic weather on an angry and judgmental God who is displeased with us for not mentioning Him before the football game. Pat Robertson pointed out that the Virginia quake put a crack in the crown of the Washington Monument, and he immediately took it as a sign of impending national destruction. Franklin Graham has been saying the end times are at hand ever since the Japanese tsunami, and phony reverend Glenn Beck stated that the hurricane was a “blessing” to remind us that mankind is not in charge. I suppose a hurricane’s a “blessing” until it hits your house. And if corporate radio blatherer Rush Limbaugh hasn’t found a way to say the hurricane was sent to postpone the opening of the Martin Luther King Memorial, he will. The current GOP has a faith-based emergency response where you love your neighbor, unless they’re poor, black, brown, Mexican, or Muslim, and any government assistance is viewed as creeping socialism. As a grateful beneficiary of a Christian charity, the Church Health Center, I can testify to the great good they do both in a disaster and on a daily basis. Why is there always some hair-sprayed, half-bright rube explaining God’s motivation for visiting destruction on humanity? I would never have known why Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans if not for Jerry Falwell’s explanation that it was divine retribution for a gay pride parade.

Leave it to the Tea Party to lose another argument. As soon as they begin chanting “Drill, baby, drill,” there’s a historic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They scream for more nuclear energy and additional power plants right before Japan goes radioactive. Then here comes Rick Perry with a six-gun in one hand and a Bible in the other. Pridefully ignorant, Perry believes he was called by God to run for president. But then so does Michele Bachmann. I guess it’s true that many are called but few are chosen, but somebody’s God is punking them. This perfectly illustrates the difference between progressive and conservative thought. Liberals come by their beliefs by reading and staying informed of the news. The evangelical right is indoctrinated in church. Progressives have opinions. Evangelical conservatives hold to their beliefs as acts of faith. The most recent poll shows that the Tea Party is the same old religious right that’s been around since Richard Nixon recruited them to his cause. They’re the Silent Majority, the Dixiecrats, the States Rights Party, the Moral Majority, and George Wallace’s American Independent Party. Nothing new to see here, folks. Just move along. My question is, how do you reason with someone who’s convinced that their way is the only way?

Hurricane Irene could have been worse, but the damages will be substantial. With washed-out roads and damaged infrastructure, this could be a golden moment for the president. I expect Obama to seize this opportunity to introduce vast new employment programs to repair crumbling bridges and electrical grids, flooded tunnels, and deteriorating highways. Give the old interstate system to the 16-wheelers and build a new one just for cars. Try some New Deal programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed people to build public works and parks, or the Works Progress Administration, which involved millions in the construction of roads and buildings across the nation. Whatever Obama does, it may as well be something bold, because while the country is in need of a new New Deal, the GOP is still trying to repeal the last one. It’s now clear that the time for negotiating with rigid ideologues is over. In the last presidential election, I had hoped to be voting for another FDR, not the next Gerald Ford. The Tea Party believes Obama re-regulated Wall Street because liberals hate capitalism. If the president would stop trying to appease those who only wish for his destruction, maybe we could make some progress on the nation’s economic recovery and the emotional well-being of its people. To paraphrase Cee Lo Green, forget the Tea Party. They’ve become irrelevant. Yet again.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Tiger Talk

CREDIT: Courtesy of U of M Athletics

The University of Memphis football program is at a crossroads. Over the last two seasons — under two different head coaches — the Tigers have won only three of 24 games. (The wins have come against UT-Martin, UTEP, and Middle Tennessee.) Over the next few years, the program will either grow into one worthy of consideration for inclusion in a money-making conference with ties to the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), or it will stumble along in front of more empty seats than spectators at the Liberty Bowl. For a sense of where the program has been — and where it’s heading — we gathered thoughts from five recent Tiger stars. No one knows U of M football better.

DeAngelo Williams, running back (2002-05): One of only four players in NCAA Division I history to rush for 6,000 yards in his career, Williams had a record 34 100-yard games for the Tigers (nine of them 200 yards). He was named Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year three times. Williams is the career rushing leader for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.

Reggie Howard, defensive back (1998-99): One of the most inspirational stories in Tiger history, Howard suffered what appeared to be a catastrophic neck injury late in his senior season. He recovered fully, though, and went on to have a seven-year NFL career. As a member of the Carolina Panthers, Howard intercepted a Tom Brady pass in Super Bowl XXXVIII.

Brandon McDonald, defensive back (2005-06): McDonald was named second-team all-conference as a senior. Memphis went 7-5 and played in the Motor City Bowl his junior season, then went 2-10 his senior year. He was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the fifth round of the 2007 NFL draft.

Martin Hankins, quarterback (2006-07): As a senior, Hankins led the Tigers to a 7-6 record and an appearance in the New Orleans Bowl. (Memphis won five of its last six regular-season games.) His 3,220 passing yards in 2007 is a single-season Tiger record.

Stephen Gostkowski, kicker (2002-05): Overshadowed by teammate DeAngeloWilliams, Gostkowski finished his college career as the most accomplished kicker in Tiger history, with career marks for field goals (70) and points (369, seven more than Williams). As a member of the New England Patriots, Gostkowski earned All-Pro honors in 2008 when he led the NFL in scoring with 148 points.

You’re the University of Memphis athletic director and you have an unlimited budget. What’s the first thing you do for the football program?

DW: Indoor football facility and a player’s lounge. My lounge would be different. Wii games, X-box games. I’d want players to be comfortable and want to stay here more than they want to stay at their house. It’s not the games, but guys being around guys. So when they’re in the trenches, on the field, they can look to their left or right and feel like, “That’s my brother.” Sometimes you break off into small groups. But a player’s lounge would bring everybody together. Teammates around the clock.

RH: Unlimited budget? I’d put it into the facilities and build a new stadium. That would create excitement and buzz, and I’d build on that buzz as marketing fuel and to help the recruiting process.

BM: Update the facilities, do a little renovating. Instead of having all athletes work out in the same facility, I’d separate things so that track, or baseball, or football would have its own space.

MH: The indoor facility is exactly what needs to be done. The weight room and the turf field were a great start, and this is the next step. When you take an 18-year-old kid and he goes on a visit to Ole Miss, he sees an indoor facility. That same kid goes to Memphis, and he doesn’t see that indoor facility. He’ll ask why this school doesn’t have the same glamorous indoor facility. Competitively, we have to keep up with what other schools are doing around us.

SG: I’d put a stadium on campus. We’re going in the right direction. Hired a great coach [Larry Porter], from a great program [LSU]. He knows a lot about winning. The recruits will follow. A new stadium would be a great selling point. We’re heading in the right direction. It’s exciting to be a part of, and hopefully we’ll see some success from it.

What could the program do to be more attractive to top recruits?

DW: They’re doing it. The weight room is second to none. The turf room. The indoor facility. The SEC doesn’t offer anything but their facilities. There’s nothing to do in the cities. Whenever Ole Miss kids want nightlife, they come to Memphis. We have a lot to offer; this city is booming. There’s something to do every day. Once we get our facilities top-notch, there’s nowhere to go but up. I know the day is not too far when I look up and we’re in a BCS bowl game. They won’t be able to shut me up.

RH: Winning games is big. The attractiveness of facilities is a key driver. Top recruits have to know they have the opportunity to take their games to the [NFL]. Those are the three things most kids look at when they’re deciding where they’re going to commit their next four years as a college player.

BM: Win, basically. When you think of Memphis, you don’t really think of football. You think of basketball. If they can turn that around, recruits will feel more comfortable coming.

MH: The campaign to raise $10 million is very attractive. To recruit with the big schools, we’ve got to have that. The only way we can keep up with schools in our conference is to upgrade our facilities. When you go to Central Florida [in Orlando], it’s unbelievable. The campus and everything. It’s bigger, newer, on-campus. Everything about it is upgraded. It’s where we need to go as a program.

SG: We just have to build on what we’re doing with the facilities: the weight room and the indoor field. The recruits will come if we win. Coach Porter is a great recruiter, and he’s running a tight ship. If guys buy into what he’s doing, and we start seeing success, things will turn around in the right direction. It doesn’t matter what your weight room looks like if you’re not winning. We just need to get into a bowl game and compete for a conference title.

What drew you to the U of M as a recruit?

DW: It was the persistence of [Assistant Coach] Randy Fichtner. Memphis didn’t send me a letter or anything; I didn’t think they knew about me. But Fichtner took the offensive coordinator position at Memphis and started recruiting me. He had been recruiting me for Arkansas State. He sat down in my living room, and he said, “You have the talent to be the kind of player that will be sitting in this room three years from now, deciding whether or not to jump to the NFL.” He said in four years, I could own every record at the University of Memphis. Now, when you’re 17 or 18 years old, you’re not trying to hear that. You want to hear if you’re gonna start, if the atmosphere is good, if the parties are good.

I took visits to Ole Miss, Arkansas State, Iowa, and Arkansas. David Cutcliffe [at Ole Miss] talked too much about Eli Manning; I didn’t really like where he was going. He was selling the program on having a quarterback; when you’re 17, you want them to talk about you. He liked his quarterback too much. Iowa’s facilities — football only — were second to none. But it was nine hours away, and it was mad cold.

Coach [Tommy] West was the only coach in the recruiting process to tell me he wasn’t sure if I’d start. He said I could either be part of history, or I could make history. I put the pros and cons of each school in a hat. It was overwhelming for Memphis. Everybody wanted me to go to Arkansas, but it didn’t feel right.

RH: I came to Memphis from Henderson State University, a Division II school in Arkansas. I walked on at Memphis under [Coach] Rip Scherer. It was my hometown. I wanted to support the university, be a part of doing something special in Memphis. I loved the fact that my family lived right across the street from the Liberty Bowl. I could hear them on the field; it was an added benefit.

BM: Coming out of junior college, I felt it was the right fit, as [the U of M] played the same type of defense we played [at Jones Junior College in Mississippi], so I thought I’d have a decent chance of adjusting to the scheme.

MH: Being from Hattiesburg, I remember going there as a kid, when Southern Miss played in the Liberty Bowl. What drew me was Coach West and his staff. I felt like it was home for me. I was able to fit right in. I was scheduled to go to the University of Houston, but Kevin Kolb was their quarterback, and something would have to happen to him for me to get on the field.

SG: I had been recruited by a couple of other schools — Ole Miss and Southern Miss — mainly for baseball. Didn’t really have a good senior year in football. Out of nowhere, [Memphis baseball coach] Dave Anderson came and saw me pitch and offered me a scholarship. I talked to Coach West. The opportunity to play right away in two sports was exactly what I was looking for. I wasn’t too worried about the name of the school. Memphis seemed to want me the most, and it felt right.

Is it critical that the Tigers become a member of a BCS conference?

DW: No, it’s not. We just need to win football games. We build our fan base first … 80,000 or 90,000. We’ve got a following, we just haven’t been able to fill the Liberty Bowl yet. When we do, then we’ll be ready for the BCS.

RH: When you come from a small [conference], a lot of people will think you’re not as talented a player. That you’re not playing against the top talent on a weekly basis. So yes, definitely.

BM: I don’t think they’re ready to be competing [in a BCS league]. I think they’re in the right conference, and it will take a few years before they’re ready to move up.

MH: We have to get back to bowl games and consistently win bowl games. We have to be at the top of our conference, year-in and year-out. Look at TCU 10 or 15 years ago. They weren’t a consistent, winning football team. People remember the consistency.

SG: It would definitely help; I’m not sure how we’ll get in. But with the basketball program and FedEx there, it seems like we’d be a good fit. To tell guys they have a chance to compete for a BCS bowl would be huge. It’s tough to recruit against SEC schools in football, but we’ve had players come in and do just as well. It would be nice to compete with the big boys on an everyday basis.

Do you like the idea of an on-campus stadium?

DW: Whether we play on campus or off, we have to win.

RH: I’d be behind anything that will help the program succeed. I’m not sure what would benefit the university statistically or fan-base-wise. Whatever brings more fans out and gives the football community a better experience, I’m behind that.

BM: That would be good for students. Not sure if it would be good for the school. I could go either way.

MH: I love it, but I also love what they did with the Liberty Bowl [and Tiger Lane]. If we can’t get an on-campus stadium, what they did with Tiger Lane needed to be done, and it helped out a lot, from a fan’s perspective and alumni’s perspective.

SG: It would make a huge difference if students could just walk to the game. The Liberty Bowl is a great stadium.

But to have an on-campus tradition, like most schools have, would be a huge selling point for students and fans. Southern Miss has a smaller stadium, but, man, do they know how to pack a stadium. It would be a great idea.

Is a 60,000-seat stadium too big?

DW: No, it’s not too big. Boise State came from nowhere. We used to play TCU, and they couldn’t fill their stadium. They built their fan base, and now they’re in a BCS league. Winning solves everything.

RH: It’s too big for the Tiger program today. If the Tigers were in a better league, that stadium might actually be too small. It’s the league [Conference USA]. Based on the league we’re in, and the teams we’re playing … the biggest crowds are when teams like Ole Miss or Mississippi State are scheduled.

You have to figure out which way we’re going to go. If we’re going to stay in this conference, do we need to reduce our [stadium] to reflect our fan base? Or are we able to move into a bigger conference and maximize the size of the Liberty Bowl?

BM: It filled out pretty well when I got here. I came when DeAngelo was a senior. [The Tigers averaged 39,991 fans in 2005.] Fans obviously wanted to see him. It was a good experience for me. I’d want to see the seats filled. It’s a mind thing. You see the crowd, everyone to see you play … and you want it filled.

MH: It’s a good question. I go to some of the Southern Miss games here in Hattiesburg, and they have a smaller stadium, and they don’t fill it. It’s hard being in Conference USA. I don’t think it’s too big, because I think if we were consistently playing near the top of our conference, you could put 50,000 to 55,000 people in there.

Some stadiums become louder than others. I’ve been at the Liberty Bowl when Tennessee came, and it was packed to the rim. And I’ve been there when East Carolina came and there were 1,200 people. If you can put 45,000 to 50,000 people in that stadium, it holds it well.

SG: I love the Liberty Bowl, but I think someone would rather play in a packed 30,000-seat stadium than a two-thirds-full 60,000-seat stadium. It’s the atmosphere. It’s something you could call your own: Tiger Stadium.

Our fans are some of the best fans in the country, but we just don’t have some of the numbers that bigger schools have. Tiger Nation is as die-hard as any other school. A smaller environment could help with the game-day experience. That’s not a knock on our fans.

What are your fondest memories of the U of M program?

DW: The New Orleans Bowl [after the 2003 season]. I didn’t play [due to a knee injury], but the atmosphere … it was so crazy. I remember sitting on the sideline, looking up in the stands. I broke down in tears when they started singing “I’m So Glad.” This is what it’s all about. One of the fans who goes to all our games, he bought his dad a ticket, and his dad had died 10 or 15 years ago. But he put his dad’s hat in the seat next to him.

RH: The camaraderie and friendships among players. We felt like the team was our family. A lot of guys from that team are still bonded. You’ve got 15 to 20 guys from that program now coaching high school football in Memphis.

BM: My first time playing in the Liberty Bowl [against Ole Miss]. Just seeing a Division I field and seeing how the crowd reacted. It was heartwarming.

MH: Going to the [2007 New Orleans Bowl] my senior year, of course. But also going to Southern Miss and beating them, which was a pivotal point in our season, allowing us to become bowl-eligible. I’ll carry that to my grave. It was a cherished moment for me, my family, and the team.

SG: Just the guys we had: DeAngelo Williams, Danny Wimprine, Mo Avery. I made a lot of good friends. Being around Coach West. And making a bowl game for the first time in 32 years. Then three bowl games in a row. The best moment, for sure, was beating Ole Miss [in 2003] when Eli Manning was there.

For the thoughts of one more Tiger star, check out the Tiger Blue blog at memphisflyer.com.

Schedule & Forecast

Sept. 1 — MISSISSIPPI STATE (7 p.m.)

Sept. 10 — at Arkansas State (6 p.m.)

Sept. 17 — AUSTIN PEAY (6 p.m.)

Sept. 24 — SMU (11 a.m.)

Oct. 1 — at Middle Tennessee (6 p.m.)

Oct. 8 — at Rice (11:30 a.m.)

Oct. 15 — EAST CAROLINA (6 p.m.)

Oct. 22 — at Tulane (2:30 p.m.)

Oct. 29 — at UCF (3 p.m.)

Nov. 12 — UAB (3:15 p.m.)

Nov. 17 — MARSHALL (7 p.m.)

Nov. 26 — at Southern Miss (3 p.m.)

New to this year’s schedule are Arkansas State (4-8 in 2010), Austin Peay (2-9), SMU (7-7), Rice (4-8), and Tulane (4-8). Off the schedule from a year ago are Tulsa (10-3), UTEP (6-7), Houston (5-7), Louisville (7-6), and Tennessee (6-7). So the math would indicate the Tigers will be in more games this fall than they were a year ago when eight of their 11 losses were by at least 20 points. Three home games in September should allow Coach Larry Porter and his staff to identify problem areas in advance of a midseason grind that sees the Tigers playing four of five games away from the Liberty Bowl.

In terms of the Tigers’ standing in Conference USA, the first half of the schedule is merely prelude. Memphis faces all five of its divisional foes in the second half, starting with ECU on October 15th. Prediction: 4-8 (3-5 in C-USA).

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Home Care, Too

CREDIT: Reino Jonsson | Dreamstime.com

The first Monday of September, Americans celebrate the workers who make our country strong. On Labor Day, we are proud of the traditions that brought us the eight-hour work day, paid vacation and sick days, and minimum-wage and overtime protections. These basic labor standards helped to make our country the wealthiest in the world by creating a vast middle class able to buy the goods and services that kept our economy growing.

Unfortunately, 129 years after the first Labor Day celebrations, more and more American workers find themselves without some of these basic labor protections. Amazingly, the fastest-growing occupations in the country — personal care and home health aides — are explicitly excluded from the Fair Labor Standards Act minimum-wage and overtime protections.

As a result, the 1.7 million workers who provide loving care and assistance to our frail and disabled family members are among the most poorly paid workers in our nation.

In 1974, the Fair Labor Standards Act was updated to include most domestic workers, such as cooks, maids, and yard workers. However, companions for the elderly were exempted. At the time, long-term services and supports for elders and people with disabilities were primarily provided in skilled nursing facilities. Home-care workers were considered the equivalent to babysitters, providing company to elders who were lonely or needed “someone in the house” to assure safety while family members were out working.

Today, the home-care industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors of our economy. Federal and state policies explicitly promote care at home over facility-based care — and by 2018, home and community-based aides are expected to outnumber facility-based aides by 2 to 1. Home-care aides provide the same skilled services to their clients as certified nursing assistants provide to nursing-home residents.

These services include not only personal care such as bathing, dressing, and toileting but assistance with mobility, oral and injected medications, nutrition, and monitoring of vital signs such as blood pressure. Clearly, these are not “companionship” services.

The Department of Labor recently held two listening sessions to solicit input on revising the companionship exemption to ensure that workers who provide skilled home-care services receive the fair wages they deserve. Industry advocates argued that narrowing the exemption would make care unaffordable for seniors and people with disabilities and would undermine quality.

This argument does not honor our tradition of providing workers with fair wages — wages that allow them to support their families and live with dignity. Moreover, it is not supported by the evidence.

First, 22 states already provide minimum-wage and/or overtime protections to home-care aides. These states have thriving home-care sectors that have been growing apace with the expansion of demand from a rapidly growing elder population. Second, the biggest challenge facing the industry is attracting and retaining workers. Providing basic labor protections would show that as a society we value the essential services that home-care workers provide — and that we respect their right to fair wages.

Better wages, along with better training and supports, would attract more workers to the field and decrease turnover, thereby reducing industry costs and increasing the quality of care provided to clients.

Finally, leading the lobbying effort to maintain the companionship exemption are for-profit home-care franchises experiencing astounding growth, even during these difficult economic times. While it costs on average $19 per hour to hire an aide through these agencies, starting pay for aides is less than $9 per hour.

Obviously, agencies have other business expenses besides worker wages, but profit margins for many are high. This suggests that the additional costs of paying a fair wage would not necessarily need to be passed on to customers.

America’s families are the consumers of home-care services. We want our loved ones to have compassionate, quality care provided by someone we trust and respect. Often these caregivers become like “family members.” But they have families of their own to support.

We cannot ask the caregivers — usually poor, often immigrant women — to sacrifice their meager wages to make the system of care affordable. Rather, we must find solutions that work for everyone. We must begin with the assumption that our nation’s labor laws apply to all workers, including those who provide the intimate caregiving services that allow our loved ones to live independently and with dignity at the end of their lives.

Steven C. Edelstein is the national policy director at PHI PolicyWorks, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the quality of jobs for direct-care workers and the quality of care for elders and people with disabilities.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: If I Were a Carp

CREDIT: Robert Fraser | Dreamstime.com

Scenes from a trip: Two Australians are sitting next to me at gate C6 at the Memphis airport. We are waiting for a plane to Dallas and strike up a conversation. It turns out they’ve just spent four days in Memphis, seeing Graceland, Beale Street, and Sun Studio and “eating the barbie.”

They began their journey with three days in New York City and are headed to Las Vegas, then San Francisco, then home. Why Memphis? I ask. “Can’t go all the way to the States and not see Memphis,” they said. Well, of course not.

In Dallas, I’m catching a plane to El Paso. I’m headed to New Mexico to visit my mother and brother in Las Cruces for a few days, then renting a car and driving 300 miles to Santa Fe to see my daughter.

I’ve got an hour to kill at DFW and wander the concourse. Overhead at one of the news stands a giant video screen is playing the trailer for Footloose, Memphis director Craig Brewer’s latest film. Memphis in the house!

On the plane to El Paso I’m seated behind a young Asian man with hair like cat’s fur, plushy and soft-looking. I resist the urge to pet it when he reclines his seat. When we land, he stands up and I see he’s wearing a Goner Records T-shirt. Why, hello again, Memphis.

A couple days later, my brother and I decide to go see White Sands. He plugs his iPhone into his truck radio and turns it to his favorite Pandora station. The singer sounds very familiar. “Who is this?” I ask. “I don’t know,” he says, “but it’s good.” I look at the phone screen. It’s Lucero.

After a great road trip to Santa Fe and a too-brief visit with my daughter, it’s time to return to El Paso for the plane home. It’s 6:30 a.m. as I drive up over the Trans-Mountain Pass into Texas. The view is breathtaking, desert and mountains for a hundred miles under the rising sun. I’m feeling wistful and turn on the Sirius radio, which is set on a classic country station. The screen reads, “If I Were a Carp” by Johnny Cash.

The truncated title makes me laugh, but the song is sweet, one I hadn’t heard in a long time. Johnny and June Carter Cash sing me over the crest toward Memphis, toward home.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
News The Fly-By

Q&A with Deandre Brown, Executive Director of Lifeline to Success

Finding a good job or even renting a decent apartment can be tough for someone with a felony background. But DeAndre Brown with the Frayser-based outreach LifeLine to a Dying World Ministries helps ex-felons ease back into society.

The problem, Brown says, is many felons have made criminal or immoral behavior a normal part of their lives. Everything from smoking while pregnant to not batting an eyelash when a friend or neighbor ends up in jail might seem like regular behavior to someone with a criminal past.

That’s what Brown, himself an ex-felon, hopes to change. He spoke with the Flyer about why he feels his work is an antidote to crime. — Lindsay Jones

Flyer: How did you get into this type of ministry?

Brown: I’m an ex-offender. When I got home from prison, I did not find any programs for ex-offenders. That’s when I started with the prison fellowship. They focused more on re-entry.

What did you do to end up in prison?

Identity theft and bank fraud. I was in for 25 months [six years ago]. It was actually forging checks. We stole checks and then forged the information on them.

So you weren’t acting alone?

I had a co-conspirator.

What turned your life around?

Being in prison, I actually started reading the Bible. I started preaching in prison. And after I came home, I didn’t want to do the stuff I [had done] anymore.

How old were you when you went in?

I’m 36 now, so I was 27.

How did you fall into a life of crime?

[I liked] the challenge of attempting to get around the system. I attended Rhodes College when I graduated high school. I had a full scholarship, the whole thing. But I quit after two years. The checks came later. I wasn’t living the lifestyle I wanted. After leaving Rhodes, I made crime my lifestyle. I came from the country and a house with no running water. I saw people in the big city doing big things. So I thought, enough of this.

do you address different issues, or do you focus on ex-offenders?

Our program is focused on ex-felons, but our main issue is dealing with the criminal culture.

What parts of the city do you work in? Is it mainly Frayser?

Frayser’s our target, but we do work in all areas.

What do you think sets Frayser apart?

One, I live in Frayser, and when we started, this is where we began. It’s what we’re familiar with. And Frayser is highest in all of the columns you don’t want to be in [i.e., crime, infant mortality, foreclosures].

How do you measure your success? Are you looking for a sea change, or are you making changes incrementally?

We gauge it basically on the individual, when men and women no longer find crime attractive, when they want to volunteer and give back to the community, and when they [go and recruit other volunteers]. I would say that’s an improvement.

Categories
News The Fly-By

What They Said

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

About “SCS, MCS Boards Take First Step Towards Unity”:

“As soon as the last ‘i’ is dotted and the last ‘t’ is crossed, the old SCS towns will be leaving for their own municipal districts. They don’t want unity with the worst school district in the state.” — uhoh

About “Touristotropolis: Bass Pro’s Pyramid Deal”:

“Wow, those are some awesome visuals. They look like they were done in Second Life. Can we add some dancing crappies and maybe a Bill Dance Jesus dropping a spinner bait from on high?” — jeff

About “The Three-Lane Option” and bike lanes on Madison:

“See, that’s just one of the great things about the proposal for Madison Avenue: It eliminates the possibility of getting stuck behind a cyclist.” — M_Awesomeberg

About “Three Go Free” and the West Memphis Three case:

“I am excited that the WM3 are out. I am disguested by how it went down. … Anyone with half a brain and capable of comprehending comic books understands that Arkansas … is blackmailing these innocent men!” — Disgusted American

Comment of the Week:

About “Green Light” and the city’s plan to coordinate traffic signals:

“It will also do your laundry, cut the grass, help the kids with their homework, look for a cure to cancer, end world hunger, and finally bring about world peace.” — barf

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Sweet Janie

On Sunday, August 28th, snarker Janie McCrary retired after 25 years of organizing the judging for Memphis’ theater awards, the Ostranders. She said goodbye with a scathing roast of the past season’s actors and performances. “I’ll have time to go on picnics with John Moore,” McCrary told the crowd at the Ostranders, name-checking the actor whose bronzed beefcake poster for William Inge’s Picnic appeared in Fly-on-the-Wall earlier this year.
“You don’t suppose that orange rubs off,” McCrary then asked, bringing down the house. From one kidder to another: Congratulations on a great run, Janie. Your annual barbs will be missed.

Religious Experience

The Wall Street Journal listed the original Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken in Mason as one of America’s top “remote cult restaurants.” That distinction has nothing to do with weird animal sacrifice, unless you count all the tasty chickens. It’s just the WSJ‘s way of saying that Gus’s is well-liked and in the middle of nowhere. And speaking of Gus’s…

Listed

Two downtown restaurants are competing for the title of Men’s Health magazine’s “Manliest Restaurant in the Southeast”: Gus’s Fried Chicken and the Rendezvous, which Men’s Health describes in this odd manner: “The Rendezvous isn’t like the chain barbecue joints that dot the Mississippi: You won’t find a neon-lit cartoon pig dancing on the wall or cutesy phrases like ‘finger-licking good’.” We’re pretty sure that cutesy phrase is actually KFC’s famous description of Colonel Sanders’ chicken.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Show Time

CREDIT: Hannah Sayle

So what if the sponsors were health-care providers and the prop canes were real walking aids? That didn’t keep more than 70 seniors from lighting up the stage at the Silver Stars Senior Idol auditions at Minglewood Hall last weekend.

After three successful years of the Silver Stars senior talent competition in Nashville, sponsoring organization HealthSpring decided to extend the first round of the competition to the Memphis area. For the first time, seniors from the Mid-South auditioned for the chance to attend the Silver Stars finals at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Blues diva Ruby Wilson and musical acts the Masqueraders and the Reed Riders were named as finalists and will go on to compete for the $5,000 grand prize.

“We’ve found some tremendous talent,” said Billy Block, who has hosted the program in Nashville for three years and was this year’s host for Memphis’ inaugural Silver Stars event. “Mostly singers and musicians, but a buck dancer won the first year of the competition in Nashville.”

Buck dancing?

“It’s a form of clogging,” Block said.

Yes, you can go ahead and dispel those assumptions that 60-plus performers shy away from dance routines. In the time I spent at Saturday’s audition, I saw things that made my own knees hurt: some hip-shaking, some tap dancing, and even something called “mime-dancing” from 63-year-old James Lewis. Lewis took the stage to shake his moneymaker, miming “A Night Out on the Town” — with his cane doubling as his hot date — to James Brown’s “Ain’t It Funky Now.”

“I hope to place high,” Lewis said, before he went on. “Or at least be seen so somebody might put me in a commercial.”

Kay Catterton, a 67-year-old Grizzlies Granny dancer from Munford, decked out in sparkling jeans and a sequin-collared blouse, performed her tap-dancing routine to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock-and-Roll.” After admiring the saxophone miming, duck-walking, and disco moves, I wasn’t surprised to learn that Catterton is a dance teacher herself, devoted to bringing high-energy moves to seniors at the Tipton County Commission on Aging.

“Anytime there’s anything for a senior to compete in, I’m right there. Because there aren’t that many things,” she said. “And maybe I won’t break my leg,” she added, tapping out a warm-up.

There was no shortage of jokes about the age and condition of participants. “Somebody bring him some oxygen and water,” Block said as one of the dancers finished his routine. “And if you need a B-12 shot, I can hook you up.”

But even with the dose of levity, many of the seniors shared talents they’ve been honing over a lifetime of practice.

Butch Mudbone wailed on the electric guitar. Peggy Sue Kirk revived a sweet country tearjerker, “I Never Once Stopped Loving You.” And 86-year-old William Phillips, by far one of the oldest competitors, sucked the air out of the room with his arrangement to Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees.”

“I’ve never played an electric piano in my life,” Phillips said as he surveyed the stage. “But there one sits, so I’ll do my best.”

Don’t worry. He nailed it. Electric piano and all.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Front and Center

CREDIT: Andrew Caldwell

The newly repaved and repainted Front St. now features “sharrows,” the most recent device used in the push to make Memphis streets more bike-friendly.

Sharrows, or shared lane markings, are the familiar bicycle icon painted in dedicated bike lanes but are instead placed within the automobile lane. And while the markings were approved nationally in 2009, this is their first appearance here. For Memphis, the Front St. sharrows will serve as an acid test for the future.

“There are two big benefits to using sharrows,” said Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s bicycle/pedestrian coordinator. “They give cyclists traveling in shared lanes greater visibility to motorists, and it helps position cyclists by telling them exactly where to ride in the street: directly on top of the markings.”

Front St. was the obvious choice for the first sharrow markings, Wagenschutz said. “[Front] is far too narrow for a dedicated bike lane, and residents and business owners [along Front] expressed their need to maintain on-street parking.”

The markings along Front have been placed near the center of the lane — far enough from cars parked along the curb so bicyclists can avoid any opening doors but not too close to the median, allowing motorists ample room to pass.

The city has no immediate plans for sharrows on other Memphis streets, and their placement will be decided on a case-by-case basis, Wagenschutz said. “Front was ideal in that it has low traffic speed and volume, which is what we’ll look for in the future. We want to use sharrows where there’s a transition between street conditions.”

Wagenschutz said sharrows will be most helpful where a street with a dedicated bike lane narrows to the point where that bike lane couldn’t feasibly continue, as on Front, and cyclists are forced into a shared lane with motorists.

Tennessee law requires motorists to allow at least three feet when passing cyclists. Penalties for violating that law were increased this summer, and though there is no additional fine for violations on roads with sharrows, the markings leave negligent motorists with few excuses.

Since the pedestrian/cyclist coordinator position was created less than a year ago, Wagenschutz, with the help of the cycling community, has established nearly 25 miles of dedicated bike lanes around town, and he’s been working to educate the community on bicycle safety.

In addition to the popular weekly safety classes led by Wagenschutz in locations around the city, he has worked with groups like Livable Memphis, among others, to distribute safety information to cyclists along bike lanes and greenlines.

“There’s definitely a market for [bike safety classes], and we’re always trying to make improvements on what we’ve got. We’re trying to avoid another tragedy with these programs, bike lanes, and sharrows,” Wagenschutz said, referring to the recent hit-and-run death of cyclist Chris Davidson. Davidson was struck by a vehicle near Cooper and Madison earlier this month.