Month: January 2013

Blues Invasion

Post author By Chris Herrington
Post date January 31, 2013

CREDIT: Billy Gibson courtesy Dustyblues.com

Beale Street may be the “Home of the Blues,” but this week, perhaps more than any other time of the year, that’s true, with more than 200 blues acts from around the globe — bands, duos, and solo artists — descending on the fabled street for the 29th International Blues Challenge. And the three-stage contest itself is merely the cornerstone of a week’s worth of events celebrating the genre. Some of the highlights:

The Contest

A four-day, three-stage contest will winnow down the field of more than 200 entrants to individual winners in both band and solo/duo competitions. Quarterfinal heats will take place in venues all along Beale on Wednesday and Thursday, with high scorers passing on the semifinal events in the same clubs on Friday night.

Finalists in both competitions will gather at the Orpheum on Saturday for a final, blowout competition, after which winners will be crowned. Combining band and solo/duo finals into one event rather than separate ticketed events is the biggest change this year.

Hopefuls have landed in Memphis from every corner of the country and, increasingly, from all over the globe, with acts from Spain (Belceblues), Switzerland (Fabian Anderhub), Croatia (Delta Blues Gang), the Netherlands (Sugar Boy & the Sinners), the Philippines (Kat Magic Express), and Slovakia (Lubos Bena & Charlie Slavik) only the tip of the international iceberg.

Most are, to this point, unknown outside their home territories. But some come with bigger resumes. One that might be worth keeping an eye on is Little G Weevil, representing the Atlanta Blues Society. A young Hungarian immigrant who spent some time in Memphis before settling, for the moment, in Georgia, he combines rough juke-joint riffs and Bo Diddley beats into a warm-toned sound that suggests vintage and modern all at once. Little G Weevil’s most recent album, The Teaser, was named one of 2012’s 10 best blues albums by the British music magazine MOJO.

Regional Entrants

The Memphis area is well-represented in this year’s contest. The Memphis Blues Society is sponsoring acts in the band and solo/duo competitions. In the band arena, the Memphis Blues Society entrant is Fuzzy Jeffries & the Kings of Memphis, led by longtime sideman Kevin “Fuzzy” Jeffries, who has backed up traditional soul and blues artists such as Otis Clay, Little Milton, and Bobby Rush. Jeffries is a strong, growly singer and guitarist adept at both rhythmic precision and flash. The band is contemporary electric blues at its most authentic.

In the solo/duo competition, the Memphis Blues Society is putting up Little Boys Blue, a West Tennessee country-blues combo making a return trip after finishing third in the IBC back in 1996. The duo is made up of Jackson-based slide guitarist Steve Patterson and Brownsville harmonica player Jimmy D. Taylor.

The Memphis Blues Society-sponsored competitors aren’t the only acts with a strong local connection.

Competing under the banner of the Crossroads Blues Society of Rosedale, Mississippi, is the young Memphis-based sextet the Ghost Town Blues Band, which released its second album, Dark Horse, last year on the local Inside Sounds label. Deploying instrumentation that ranges from a two-man horn section to cigar-box guitars, this band draws from Memphis’ roots-blues and soul heritages.

And Leslie, Arkansas’ Buffalo River Blues Society is sponsoring David Kimbrough, son of the late north Mississippi blues legend Junior Kimbrough.

Other Events

Among the many ancillary events happening around the IBC, here are some potential highlights:

A. Schwab on Beale will be hosting midday “Talking the Blues” conversations with notable local blues scholars. These occur from 10 a.m. to noon each day.

On Wednesday, January 30th, the featured guest is author Robert Gordon, who penned the Muddy Waters biography Can’t Be Satisfied. On Thursday, it’s folk and country blues musician Andy Cohen. On Friday, it’s University of Memphis musicologist and performer David Evans.

At the Hard Rock Café on Thursday, Danish harmonica master Lee Oskar — of the ’70s rock-funk group War — will conduct a workshop on the instrument. At 1:30 p.m. at the Hard Rock, crossover blues star Keb’ Mo’ will perform as part of a rally for the “Raise the Roof” capital campaign to build a Blues Hall of Fame as part of the Blues Foundation.

Also on Thursday, from noon to 5 p.m., the Memphis-based Blind Raccoon firm will host their annual IBC showcase at Purple Haze, adjacent to the Westin Hotel, which will be highlighted by the pairing of Memphis harmonica great Billy Gibson and flamboyant Mississippi-blues guitarist Vasti Jackson.

International Blues Challenge

Wednesday, January 30th-Saturday, February 2nd

Quarterfinals and semifinals: various Beale Street venues Wednesday-Friday

Finals at the Orpheum Theatre: Saturday, 11 a.m.

Full festival pass: $100

Quarterfinals: $10

Semifinals: $15

Finals: $42.50

For more information, see blues.org.

Politics Politics Feature

And There’s Deidre …

Post author By Jackson Baker
Post date January 31, 2013

Ever since the names of state senator Jim Kyle and county commissioner Steve Mulroy were mentioned in a recent column as possible Democratic candidates for county mayor in 2014, numerous plugged-in sorts have made a point of reminding me that former county commissioner Deidre Malone is almost certain to be a candidate.

Malone, who was edged out in a bid for county mayor by then provisional mayor Joe Ford in 2010, confirms that she’s likely to run. And she has experience and relationships that would enable her to run seriously. A longtime Democratic Party activist, Malone served two terms on the commission, from 2002 to 2010. She subsequently ran Memphis mayor A C Wharton‘s successful 2009 reelection campaign. She served two five-year terms on the Shelby County Housing Authority and is currently a member of the city/county EDGE board and the Memphis-Shelby County Port Commission. And she runs the Carter-Malone public relations firm.

• While we’re speculating on names of possible future candidates, an interesting email came through the transom this week from a well-informed friend who suggests that Wharton is almost certain to run for reelection in 2015 and wonders who might be wanting to succeed him in 2019.

Sez he: “The general consensus seems that people need to be positioning themselves now for a run at the big chair when that time comes … but nobody really is. There are a few usual suspects that pop up in conversation (Darrell Cobbins, Tomeka [Hart], Mike Carpenter, [Jim] Strickland, [Harold] Collins, Paul Morris, and Keith Norman).”

All of the aforementioned seem credible and credentialed enough. Cobbins is a longtime activist and former MLGW chairman; Hart has served as local Urban League head and on the MSC and Unified school boards and ran for Congress in the 9th District last year; Carpenter, currently an aide to Wharton, served two terms on the county commission and, until recently, represented the StudentsFirst organization in Nashville.

Strickland and Collins are both city council members who have been prominent as budget chairman and council chairman, respectively; Morris is head of the Downtown Memphis Commission; and Norman is a local Baptist minister who has been Shelby County Democratic chairman and was recently cited by the White House for his efforts to stem youth violence.

Of course, 2019 is a long way off.

• NOTES FROM NASHVILLE — Shelby County Democrats voted overwhelmingly for the winner in last Saturday’s election contest for a new state party chairman.

The winner, by a 32-27 vote of state executive committee members, was former legislator Roy Herron of Dresden, who as a late entry overcame what had earlier appeared to be a consensus in favor of Dave Garrison of Nashville, who had been serving as party treasurer.

The vote by Shelby Countians was nine for Herron, a fellow West Tennessean, and three for Garrison.

• Governor Bill Haslam, ever adept at walking political tightropes, managed several versions of the feat during his 2013 State of the State address before a joint legislative session in the House chamber and before whatever political junkies might have tuned in to a statewide multimedia simulcast.

On several key issues, the governor expressed himself with studious ambiguity — notably on the still pending matter of Medicaid expansion under the terms of the Affordable Care Act. “Most of us in this room don’t like the Affordable Care Act, but the decision to expand Medicaid isn’t as basic as saying, ‘No ObamaCare, No expansion,'” he said. In other words, he was carefully weighing the issue.

On the one hand, “The federal government is famous for creating a program and then withdrawing the funds years later, which leaves state governments on the hook.” That was apropos conservative opponents’ expressed fears — embodied in new prohibitive legislation sponsored by state senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown).

But on the other hand, “There are hospitals across this state, many of them in rural communities, that are going to struggle, if not close, under the health-care law without expansion.” For “hospitals,” read: sources of serious lobbying efforts for expansion.

And, regarding proposed legislation to enable state vouchers for use in private schools (including a far-reaching variant by the self-same Kelsey), Haslam was able to thread his way through the controversial issue without ever even using the word “voucher” at all. Still, the governor left no doubt that he would be pushing a “school choice” proposal, one that focused on low-income students, and he balanced that with boasts that he had greatly increased financial support — $47 million, over and above annual funding — for the struggling schools that might lose students through a voucher program.

What was interesting about the SOTS address from the standpoint of audience reaction in the chamber was that every time Governor Haslam mentioned this or that new expenditure — $51 million for “technology transition upgrades in schools across the state”; $16.5 million for workforce development programs; $45 million for a new community health facility at the University of Memphis; $58 million for new jails and prisons, etc., etc. — he got substantial applause from the supermajority of supposed GOP tightwads.

True, too, however, that the governor stressed whenever possible anything he could refer to as a tax cut — in levies on groceries, for example; or in the state inheritance tax (which he, admirably, declines to call a “death tax)”; or on gift taxes; or on the Hall income tax — and he got the same prolonged applause.

Haslam briefly boasted about his educational reforms and improved student performance on standardized tests. He touted a variety of public-private partnerships in the marketplace and an increase in the number of state jobs. He circled around a couple of problem areas — issues within the department of children’s services, for example, concerning which he spoke mainly of “upgrading nearly 200 case manager positions” and “guns and schools,” which he morphed into a call for “a larger conversation about mental health issues, identifying warning signs, and getting people the help they need.”

One of Haslam’s strongest stands concerned his support for stability in the state’s procedures for making judicial appointments. He noted that a pending 2014 referendum calls for modest changes and said, “I … believe that it makes sense to preserve the current process until the people have a chance to vote. … Making changes in the meantime does nothing but confuse the situation further.”

At the very onset of his speech, Haslam hit one inescapable issue head-on: “I believe we have to begin this evening by addressing the elephant in the room — or I guess I should say the elephants in the room. There are a lot of expectations and preconceived notions about how our Republican supermajority is going to govern. … As we go through this legislative session, I ask everyone in this chamber this evening to keep in mind what Senator [Howard] Baker said: ‘The other fellow may be right.'”

And in the spirit of that suggested bipartisanship, the only significant modification made by Haslam in his prepared text was an ad-libbed recognition of Memphis state representative and former House speaker pro tem Lois DeBerry for her 40 years of service in the legislature. That drew a standing ovation, as did several other tributes to various state employees whom he recognized for their superior performance.

In one sense, Haslam’s State of the State message left a lot of blanks to be filled. But in another sense, he filled as many as he could with what seemed to be encouraging data and honest feel-good sentiments.

• Several of the established lobbyists on Capitol Hill in Nashville have jumped at the chance to apply for the new position of lobbyist for the Shelby County Commission — one whose very existence attests to the continued strain between the county administration of Mayor Mark Luttrell and the commission as a whole.

Indeed, suspicion regarding the administration’s motives is one of the few circumstances which can unify the members of an oft-fractionated commission.

A solid commission front emerged recently when, as commissioners saw it, Luttrell unilaterally signed a provisional accord with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding Juvenile Court reforms, which members felt could obligate the commission financially.

In any case, the deadline was this week for applicants seeking to become commission lobbyist, and interviews could begin as soon as Wednesday of next week.

Tags Deidre Malone, Governor Bill Haslam, Memphis mayor's race

Editorial Opinion

Gridlock

Post author By Flyer Staff
Post date January 31, 2013

CREDIT: Danziger

In his State of the State speech to the Tennessee General Assembly this week, Governor Bill Haslam issued a public call for political harmony and underlined his plea by referencing an all-too-accurate negative example:

“Tennesseans don’t want us to be like Washington. They don’t want continuous conflict. They do want principled problem solving,” Haslam said, adding, “People are disheartened by what happens — or it’s probably more accurate to say what doesn’t happen — in Washington. They’re tired of all the talk about the problems our nation faces with not many people trying to work together to find solutions.”

It remains to be seen whether lawmakers in the Volunteer State can put their own partisan differences aside long enough to do constructive business as a unit. To be frank, the task in Nashville is eased by the simple fact of Republican supermajorities in both House, where they have a 72-27 edge over Democrats, and Senate, where the GOP majority is 26-7. It’s pretty hard for members of a minority that small to be obstructionist. They don’t have the numbers to resist the ruling party, either on policy issues per se or on procedural matters that can influence the flow and tempo of legislation. As a result, and, even though activists in the Democrats’ state base may seethe over it, there is an increasing tendency for their representatives in the General Assembly to — in the timeless vernacular — go along to get along.

Some bad legislation may come of this state of affairs. Indeed, as we have often chronicled, it already has, especially with regard to social issues, teachers’ and workers’ rights, and, of course, guns. But at least, for better or for worse, government per se is allowed to proceed.

Things are otherwise in the nation’s capital, where the U.S. House of Representatives has a Republican majority and one, moreover, with a core of recently elected hard-liners who regard compromise as being more or less the same thing as surrender to a mortal enemy. Conventional wisdom has it that when Speaker John Boehner tried to reach a “Grand Bargain” with President Obama, the more zealous Republicans in his caucus rebelled, threatening an insurrection and forcing Boehner to back off. (For the record, something like that may have happened in Tennessee to Governor Haslam, who reportedly wanted to establish a state Medicaid exchange under the Affordable Care Act but was warned off by key GOP lawmakers.)

In the U.S. Senate, current cloture rules, even as recently amended, make it all too easy for the GOP minority there to filibuster everything, thereby imposing a de facto minimum of 60 votes (out of 100) for passage of bills, rather than the 51 which would ordinarily constitute a majority.

Both Governor Haslam in Tennessee and President Obama in Washington have legislative goals in mind. Only action from within his own party can limit Haslam’s success in achieving his, it would seem, while the situation in Washington is exactly opposite. Republicans there routinely threaten to shut down the government if they don’t get their way. The effect of this attitude is that, in significant ways, they already have.

Tags Bill Haslam's State of the State address, Gridlock in Washington and Nashville, Tennessee legislature 2013

Music Music Features

Lucero at the Hi-Tone Café

Post author By Chris Herrington
Post date January 31, 2013

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Last week, the Hi-Tone Café — which is scheduled to close at the end of February — announced its final concert, which will, on February 23rd, pair two cult-classic Memphis bands of different vintages: recently reunited ’90s garage-punk icons the Oblivians and the broken-up-before-their-time Barbaras, a garage-pop ensemble that splintered into other configurations, most notably the Magic Kids. But before that finale, the Hi-Tone will get another high-wattage farewell in the form of a free show from Memphis rock stalwarts Lucero, which partly launched its career with its first record-release show at the Hi-Tone more than a decade ago. Lucero takes the Hi-Tone stage for the last time on Sunday, February 3rd. The show is free. Doors open at 8 p.m. The Dirty Streets open.

News The Fly-By

What They Said

Post author By Flyer Readers
Post date January 31, 2013

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

About “Bill Boyd and Janis Fullilove Duke It Out Over Forrest Park Controversy”:

“Two words: CAGE MATCH” — Remote Patroller

About “Guns and Government”:

“How many people have died in car accidents since 1969? Banning assault rifles will do nothing except make liberals feel like they have finally won a battle. It will have nothing to do with the murder rate. As it turns out, the mental case that killed those poor children in Newtown killed them with handguns, not an assault rifle. How come the press hasn’t picked up on that yet?” — HAL

About “Memphis Police Director Comments on Shooting of Steven Askew”:

“I think any reasonable person who saw someone sleeping in his car in a dangerous neighborhood, with a gun next to him on the seat, would at least have to consider the possibility that if someone bangs on the window while blinding him with a light, he might instinctively grab his gun to defend himself.” — GWCarver

About “20<30” and young Memphians shaping our city’s future:

“Yes yes yes!! Please do more stories like this! This city gets better and better every year, and with positive media such as this article, the positivity spreads in the hearts and minds of the readers.” — cdn

Comment of the Week:

About “Campers Get Slots in Optional Schools”:

“We’re talking about kids and their education. We’re talking about the future of this city and this country, and we’re leaving that up to who is willing to camp out and who is lucky enough to get a good draw in the lottery. Those kids whose parents can’t camp out, or who don’t get a lucky draw, are left to fight over the crumbs.” — jeff

Food & Wine Food & Drink

Italian in the ’Burbs

Post author By Hannah Sayle
Post date January 31, 2013

CREDIT: courtesy of Michael Allen Photography

The Italian restaurant Pasta Italia started in Biloxi, Mississippi, moved to Collierville after Hurricane Katrina, and spent a year-long stint in Chattanooga. Now, owners Michele Doto and Laura Derrick are bringing their restaurant back to the area, this time to Cordova near Germantown Parkway and Macon Road.

Owned by Italian transplants — Doto is from Modena, Derrick is from Venice — Pasta Italia serves what the owners call authentic Northern Italian.

“We try to bring everything from Italy and do an authentic Northern Italian cuisine,” Doto says. “We import most of the cold cuts, cheeses, extra virgin olive oils, and specialty items directly from Italy.”

Pasta Italia is set to open in Cordova sometime in mid-February, and fans from the restaurant’s days on the Collierville Town Square will find the menu little changed, except for a few new items Chef Doto has up his sleeve.

Diners can expect homemade pasta: ravioli, baked pastas, and rosette di pasta, sheets of pasta layered with prosciutto, mascarpone, fontina, and bechamel and rolled into the shape of a rose. The menu also features Italian favorites like veal shank osso bucco, lesser-known items like baked rock salt red snapper, and traditional desserts such as tiramisu.

Pasta Italia will have a full wine list with primarily Italian wines and will be open Monday through Thursday from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. and until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Lunch will be served Wednesday and Thursday only, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. A lunch special is served for around $12. Dinner entrées range from $18 to $28.

Pasta Italia, 8130 Macon Station, Cordova (751-0009)

In July, Bruno Russell opened Evergreen Grill on Overton Park Avenue in the heart of the Vollintine-Evergreen neighborhood. Five months later, Russell took on a second restaurant: the revival of his Bruno’s Italian Restaurant, which closed its Madison Avenue location in 2009. “An opportunity fell into my lap,” Russell says. “It’s a great location. As soon as I walked in the door, I knew it was right. I was ready to get the Bruno’s name back out there.”

Russell and his cousin Marvin Mims opened the new Bruno’s in the former Pig ‘n’ Whistle in Bartlett. Russell carries over menu items from the location on Madison, such as lasagna, eggplant Parmesan, and beef ravioli. Some items from the Evergreen Grill menu also made the cut, such as Evergreen Chicken over asparagus and orzo, topped with garlic cream sauce. Russell’s mother, Justine, makes the restaurant’s cannoli cake, a white cake layered with ricotta, marsala wine, chocolate chips, orange zest, and chocolate ganache.

Bruno’s has a full wine and beer menu and is open every day at 11 a.m. and closes at 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 8 p.m. on Sunday. Dinner entrées range from $12 to $16.

Bruno’s Italian Restaurant, 2740 Bartlett (474-7596)

The historic Farley House, former location of Fresh Slices in Cordova, is now home to Cafe Fontana, a contemporary Italian restaurant.

“We love traditional Italian. That’s just not what we do,” says Valerie Schranz, who owns Cafe Fontana with her husband, Chef Thomas Schranz.

Instead, Chef Thomas, formerly of Cafe 1912 and La Tourelle, serves an eclectic mix of Italian-inspired dishes, everything from a torta di formaggio with mascarpone, pesto, and sundried tomatoes to a shrimp and grits. Valerie says the idea is to be upscale but not pretentious, so that grouper al forno with grits and greens can exist on the same menu as a pizza cheeseburger without sending anyone’s world into a tailspin.

“There’s something for everyone,” Valerie says. “We want people to feel they can come in in their blue jeans and a T-shirt and not spend a fortune but still have a really good dinner.”

To that end, Cafe Fontana offers a variety of sandwiches, even on the dinner menu, and half portions of the pastas — linguini with clams to penne with Bolognese. Prices range from $9 to $25 for dinner entrées, and most wines on the menu run from $24 to $29 per bottle. And, Valerie adds, everything is made from scratch.

“There is no microwave here,” she says.

Cafe Fontana is open for lunch Tuesday through Friday and a champagne Sunday brunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dinner is served Tuesday through Thursday from 5 to 9:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m.

Cafe Fontana, 8556 Macon (529-7526)

Tags Bruno's Italian Restaurant, Cafe Fontana, Pasta Italia

Film Features Film/TV

Filmmaker’s Lament

Post author By Chris Herrington
Post date January 31, 2013

hile Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook and Argo and Zero Dark Thirty duke it out at the Oscars later this month, another of the most heralded films of 2012 will be persona non grata on the Academy stage.

That’s Holy Motors, the audacious fifth feature in 29 years — and first since 1999’s Pola X — from French auteur Leos Carax, which will get a single screening at the Brooks Museum of Art this week. Holy Motors topped 2012 critics’ polls from website indiewire.com (which also tabbed star Denis Lavant for the year’s best performance) and venerable movie magazine Film Comment, while finishing third (behind The Master and Zero Dark Thirty) in the Village Voice‘s annual national critics’ poll.

While it’s certainly difficult in the context of most narrative films, this melancholy, mysterious ode to what Carax seems to see as a vanishing art form — the movies — is such a rich visual spectacle that’s likely to reward the attention of most adventurous filmgoers.

Lavant, a Carax regular, plays “Monsieur Oscar,” who spends a day and night being chauffeured around in a limousine that doubles as a dressing room of sorts, stopping to act out a series of scenarios. He’s a feeble old lady begging in the street along the Seine. He’s wearing a motion-capture suit to help create a sexual/sci-fi scenario. He’s a barefoot brute kidnapping a beauty (Eva Mendes) and taking her to his subterranean lair. He’s a masked assassin. An old man dying. This collection of sequences might be a nod to different aspects of humanity, but they also feel like riffs on film genres. There’s neorealism, fantasy, sci-fi, family drama, musical, crime flick. And embedded within the film are copious film references, from dawn-of-cinema silents to French horror classic Eyes Without a Face to Carax’s own past work.

Along the way, while clear meaning and linear story remain elusive, the film contains many of the year’s most memorable moments and images, and Carax’s lament for the passing of filmmaking as mechanical art — perhaps the “holy motors” of the film’s title — is underscored by a late dialogue scene in which Lavant says, “Some don’t believe in what they’re watching anymore. I miss the cameras. They used to be heavier than us. They they became smaller than our heads. Now you can’t see them at all.”

Holy Motors

Brooks Museum of Art

Thursday, January 31st

7 p.m., $8 or $6 for museum members

News The Fly-By

Cheers and Fears

Post author By Hannah Sayle
Post date January 31, 2013

Part homage to pro-choice activists who paved the way and part call-to-arms against current threats to the law, a documentary screening and panel discussion at the University of Memphis on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade featured one panel member who was particularly aware of the present threats facing abortion rights.

Dr. Carl Reddix, an OB/GYN in Jackson, Mississippi, served as the attending hospital physician for the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state’s lone abortion clinic, for about 15 years. His job was to act as a sort of safety net for patients should anything go wrong during their procedure.

While Reddix did not perform abortions, his position as the clinic’s physician with hospital-admitting privileges allowed the Jackson Women’s Health Organization to stay open under Mississippi law, which requires abortion clinics to have a physician on staff with such privileges.

Reddix also served on the Mississippi Board of Health, but he was dismissed less than a year after being appointed by then-Governor Haley Barbour. Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves said Reddix’s connection with an abortion clinic was inappropriate for someone shaping health policy.

“The venom was spewed at me, because I was the conduit who allowed the clinic to be open under that previous law,” Reddix said. “But then they went back to the state legislature and got this new bill passed.”

That new bill, passed in April of last year, the same month Reddix was dismissed, required that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at hospitals. Reddix was not the doctor actually performing abortions, so this cut off his relationship with the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The bill also threatens the very existence of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic.

“The only reason to have the new law was expressly to deny access to providers,” Reddix said. “The problem is that since most of the [abortion] providers are not Mississippi residents, it’s difficult for them to get hospital privileges.”

And without hospital privileges, the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi could be forced to close its doors.

“This is a strong bill that will effectively end abortion in Mississippi,” Reeves said in a statement last spring.

As of this month, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization has been unable to gain hospital-admitting privileges at any of the local hospitals and has received certified notification that the clinic is not in compliance with the law.

Now, 40 years after Roe v. Wade ensured safe and legal abortions, another lawsuit is in the works fighting for the preservation of those same abortion rights won in 1973.

“Our attorney, Michelle Movahed at the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy, will be, if she hasn’t already, filing a brief on our behalf claiming the law is unconstitutional,” said Diane Derzis, owner of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. “Then the court battle begins.”

Beyond the Arc Sports

First Take: Questions and Answers on the Rudy Gay Deal

Post author By Chris Herrington
Post date January 31, 2013

Wednesday afternoon, the Grizzlies pulled off the most momentous transaction since jettisoning Pau Gasol, dealing current leading scorer and franchise games-played leader Rudy Gay, along with cult hero Hamed Haddadi, in a three-team deal that brought back young power forward Ed Davis and a 2013 second-round pick from the Toronto Raptors and small forwards Tayshaun Prince and Austin Daye from the Detroit Pistons.

There are copious angles to consider with this deal, but let’s try — as quickly as possible — to give an initial reaction to many of them, in question-and-answer form. I’ll wade into some of these issues more, with more time for reflection, in the coming days. But here’s my first impression:

Is this really the best the Grizzlies could do?

Apparently so. While the Grizzlies gave up the highest-wattage player in the deal, they also checked most of the boxes on their wishlist:

Obtain a significant younger player on a good contract: Ed Davis, check.
Add a draft pick: Toronto’s second-rounder this summer, likely to be in the 35-45 range, check.
Add a replacement small forward on a more manageable contract: Tayshaun Prince, check.
Clean up payroll to enable flexibility under the tax going forward: Check.

Even accomplishing all that, it’s hard to get excited about the deal. Prince, at age 32, with three years left on his deal, is a less attractive wing replacement than seemed to be the realistic ideal. (My version of realistic ideal: Jared Dudley.) Davis, while a great get as a general asset, will likely have less of an immediate impact based on available minutes than a similarly productive wing player would have. And the second-rounder is not the kind of draft pick people — including the Grizzlies — had in mind.

The inability of the Grizzlies to get a first-rounder in a deal for Gay may suggest how much the confluence of Gay’s massive contract and sluggish production has impacted his trade value. Toronto, it should be noted, could not have given the Grizzlies a first-round pick for 2013, since their pick this summer may be owed to Oklahoma City. As a result, a first-rounder from Toronto couldn’t have come until at least 2015. But apparently the Grizzlies weren’t able to get a first-rounder in any deals they considered otherwise viable.

Though there’s definitely risk of further decline for Prince over the remaining years of his contract — I would fear the third year may have value only as an expiring-contract trade chip — this deal is preferable to what it would have been without a third team, which wouldn’t have addressed replacing Gay at small forward.

Tags Austin Daye, Ed Davis, Rudy Gay, Tayshaun Prince, Trade