Month: April 2013

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Politics Politics Feature

Mike Ritz: It Ain’t Over Yet

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Shelby County Commission chairman Mike Ritz, the man who has been at the center of the school-merger crisis for the last two years and has been the driving force behind ongoing litigation, assayed the situation in the wake of Monday’s passage of municipal-schools legislation in Nashville and saw some complications remaining.

Jackson Baker

Mike Ritz

At some point, a few of the six suburban municipalities may find the independent school districts they establish vulnerable to legal challenge, Ritz said. The chairman, a resident of Germantown himself, pinpointed Germantown as most likely to encounter problems because of the large number of non-resident students served by the eight schools now operating within the city.

“These students may not be educated by the city for long because they won’t be contributing to the taxes paid by Germantown residents to maintain the schools, and the city’s taxpayers may get their board to react to that,” said Ritz, who noted that a fair number of the outliers would be minority students, and any change in their status would put the district in jeopardy.

The next phase of the commission’s litigation against municipal schools is an equal-opportunity challenge on resegregation grounds, and presiding U.S. district judge Hardy Mays is maintaining the option to hold trial on the point, though Ritz acknowledged that any such process might not occur until after the new municipal districts are established, probably in August 2014.

Another matter noted by Ritz was that of how and at what cost new municipal districts might acquire existing school buildings. This is a question to be negotiated between the municipalities and the Unified School Board, Ritz said. “That makes it all the more urgent that we go ahead and expand the board to 13 members, a number more representative of the entire community.”

Ritz said that enough issues remained unresolved to justify a resumption of the negotiations between the commission and the municipalities that were conducted briefly but suspended at year’s end. “I think they [the municipalities] will see it in their interest to come back to the table,” he said.

• The bill enabling municipal schools in Shelby County (SB 1353/HB 1288) was a retooling of a 2012 version that had been ruled unconstitutional by Mays because its application was limited to Shelby County.

The new version applies statewide and, for whatever reason, did not encounter the controversy that befell an early draft of the 2012 bill that was scaled back to meet objections from legislators outside Shelby County.

With little more than perfunctory debate, this year’s bill passed both chambers of the Republican-dominated Tennessee General Assembly with comfortable margins Monday, thereby allowing the de facto secession from Shelby County’s soon-to-be “unified” school district that six suburban municipalities in the county have been seeking for at least two years.

Mayors and other representatives of those suburbs — Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Lakeland, Arlington, and Millington — were on hand for the occasion and were introduced in the state House of Representatives by suburban GOP members before Monday’s vote in that chamber. The House vote was 70-24 in favor. The Senate followed with a 24-5 tally for the bill.

There was some opposition. In the House, Representative Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) rose to express forebodings about the measure and declared his opposition to it, as he had to last year’s original model. Dunn worried that, since this year’s bill, unlike the final product last year, was cast so as to apply statewide, not just to Shelby County, “we’re going to see some problems down the road.”

The Knoxville legislator pointed out that he had ultimately supported the Shelby County-only version of last year’s bill, but “unfortunately, a judge shut it down.” He reminded his colleagues that he had “asked that the current bill be rolled” until a version with dependable safeguards for school districts statewide could be perfected, but,” unfortunately it was not rolled.” Consequently, “I will be voting no tonight. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’m gonna be.”

Objections came also from representatives from the city of Memphis, who, unlike their suburban Shelby County colleagues, were opposed to the bill. Representatives G.A. Hardaway, Antonio Parkinson, and Johnnie Turner all took shots at the measure, articulating their concerns about the effect of the bill on the county’s unified school district, still in the process of formation, and extracting assurances from primary House sponsor Curry Todd (R-Collierville) that the bill had no immediate impact upon the future disposition of school buildings currently owned by Shelby County.

Both Hardaway and Parkinson gave voice to a rumor that has circulated widely of late, namely, that an unspoken arrangement exists between the bill’s sponsors — Todd and Senate majority leader Mark Norris being the principal ones — and Republican colleagues in districts elsewhere to the effect that a one-year window would be held open for Shelby County and would be closed for everybody else by follow-up legislation next year.

Todd, who had begun his remarks by expressing thanks for the “61 signatures” of House co-sponsors he had received, blithely gave assurances that no such revocation next year was planned and that if it was proposed, “I would vote against it.”

Representative Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley), leader of the 27 House Democrats, made one last stand against the measure. “I hadn’t planned to speak on this bill,” Fitzhugh said. “I thought I didn’t have a dog in the hunt. … But, as so goes Memphis, so goes my little town and my district.” And he expressed concern about the “long-term effect” of the bill upon Memphis.

In the Senate, Democratic leader Jim Kyle (D-Memphis) warned his Senate colleagues of potential negative effects of the bill on other counties and other districts.  

“A special school district could withdraw and become a municipal district,” he said. “This is a mistake — a mistake you’ll see in your community one day.” And senators would ask themselves, said Kyle, “‘Why did I get involved in a boundary dispute in Shelby County?’ … bringing to your front door what essentially is a local dispute.”

The bill now requires only the signature of Governor Bill Haslam and perhaps an ultimate vetting by Mays.

• Another long-running issue dealt with as the General Assembly neared the end of the 2013 session was legislation (SB 0132) proposed by state senator Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) that would have required the state department of human services to reduce state aid to families of failing school children.

Dubbed “Starve-the-Children,” the bill would be shunted off to “summer study” by the state Senate, earning a fate that had previously befallen Campfield’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would have outlawed discussions of homosexuality in the state’s elementary schools. That bill, after being relegated to summer study in 2011, finally expired in a House committee this year.

The first hint of serious trouble for Campfield on SB 0132 came during floor debate, when GOP majority leader Norris pronounced himself “queasy” about the bill, which would reduce state aid to dependent families whose children were experiencing grade trouble. The bill had already engendered a mid-week statement of opposition from Haslam and had been actively opposed by any number of agencies and institutions concerned with student welfare.

Norris told Campfield, “You’re fooling yourself,” regarding the Knoxville senator’s claim that only parents and not children would be penalized by the withholding from the affected family an average of $20 a month in state support payments. The majority leader also referred to the bill as “the sort of legislation that gets challenged in a court of law as vague and ambiguous, arbitrary and capricious.”

Concurring with a statement by state senator Lowe Finney (D-Jackson) that the bill would “make the child responsible for the parents’ actions,” Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) said, “You can’t legislate parental responsibility. I don’t care what you do.” He foresaw “unintended consequences” for the student. “The parent will beat the dog doo out of him for taking that $20 away from them, that’s what’s going to happen.”

In the end, with Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville), the Senate speaker, explicitly encouraging him to do so, Campfield offered to have the bill referred again to the Senate health committee and to have it relegated to the aforesaid summer-study status, which he hoped would allow it to be ultimately retooled in coordination with K-12 education subcommittees of the Senate and House.

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Film Features Film/TV

Fathers and Sons

Handsome, tatted-up carnival cyclist Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) spends night after night defying gravity and safety by riding around and around a Globe of Death with two other daredevils while the working-class crowds under the big top ooh and ahh. Does Glanton ever notice that he works in such an apt metaphor for his own existence? He leads a flashy, hollow, confined, and repetitive life.

One night he changes his ways: Inspired by a chance encounter with his former lover (Eva Mendes), who informs him of the infant son he didn’t know he had, Glanton drives his trusty motorbike out of the steel cage and becomes the “Moto-Bandit,” a high-strung bank robber looking for one big score that will redeem him in the eyes of his makeshift family.

So begins director/co-writer Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines, a well-organized, earnest, and hokey film whose title aptly suggests an interlocking short-story collection that’s been writers-workshopped half to death. The film’s literary pretensions and artistic ambitions are just fresh and sincere enough to be frustrating and irritating when they miss their mark.

The opening act of Place is its strongest, and the raw, kinetic camerawork that follows Glanton on his dirtbike conveys the mad rush of driving fast as well as anything in the Fast and Furious series. But Cianfrance’s cult-member conviction that Ryan Gosling’s face in tight close-up is an ever-changing and fascinating whirlpool of emotional ripples is distracting.

Gosling is still the good-looking lump he was in Drive, but he still can’t stand around and attract meaning like some steely-eyed genre axiom. Just when you’ve had enough of staring blankly into the Gosling abyss, though, the film whips around to follow the adventures of young policeman Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper) as he chases criminals like Glanton and tries to steer clear of the bad deals going down at his local precinct.

The film’s second act is also concerned with the ethical conundrums facing a new father who wants to provide for his family — only this dad is on the right side of the law. Nevertheless, Cross eventually has to reckon with a wicked fellow officer (Ray Liotta, naturally) who’s trying to drag him into the murky world of the corrupt cop. A third dramatic shift moves the story ahead to focus on Glanton’s and Cross’ teenage sons, who have inherited none of their parents’ willpower and all of their self-destructive urges.

Cianfrance is keen on the ways everyday conflicts awkwardly and suddenly become emotional showdowns, and he likes to set his stories in more remote, more working-class American towns. These tendencies are promising.

Unfortunately, the emotional fireworks of his first film, 2010’s Blue Valentine, are almost completely absent, in part because the female roles here are so threadbare. (Rose Byrne, who plays Cross’ wife, is almost invisible.) Cianfrance’s narrative strands are also woven together too neatly at the end. But he’s a hoper and an optimist, and he makes a more than convincing case that hitting the road is a justifiable way out.

Thumb’s up, kind of.

The Place Beyond the Pines

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Ridgeway Four

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Film Features Film/TV

Jackie Robinson biopic is a minor take on a major story.

Jackie Robinson’s is one of the great stories in modern American culture. Born a sharecropper’s son, Robinson became a multi-sport star at UCLA and an Army man before being discharged for refusing to move to the back of a bus. He was a Negro Leagues baseball star before breaking the color barrier for the National League’s Brooklyn Dodgers, suffering all measure of abuse with strength and dignity on the way to becoming one of the most significant figures in the history of America’s civil rights movement. Oh, and he happened to be one of the greatest players to play his country’s signature sport.

It’s a rich story that deserves commensurate film treatment. It deserves the epic take that Spike Lee longed to give it at his Do the Right Thing/Malcolm X peak — full of energy and detail and politics and subjectivity. It deserves the filmmaking acumen and high-wattage cast that Michael Mann brought to the flawed but considerable Ali.

Instead, in the form of 42, from writer-director Brian Helgeland, the Robinson story takes the form of a conventional inspirational sports movie, just barely a step up from the likes of Glory Road or We Are Marshall. 42 (the film’s title refers to Robinson’s uniform number) puts just a bit too much of a halo on Robinson, underscored by the presence of a prayerful schoolboy fan who tracks his hero’s spring-training debut. The supporting performances rarely rise above acceptable into the memorable range. And the exterior scenes, in particular, have the lightly CGI’d look of painted postcards — though the in-game scenes feel more credible than most.

Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey, the Dodgers executive who famously recruited Robinson. Ford’s hammy performance is cringeworthy on first contact but becomes more agreeable the longer you live with it. As Robinson, Chadwick Boseman is neither beacon nor albatross. He looks the part on the field more than most actors and holds his own off it but doesn’t quite elevate the middling material.

Given the limitations here, the film makes a good decision in balancing its use of Ford’s Rickey as an audience stand-in with Wendall Smith (Andre Holland), a young black journalist who befriends and chronicles Robinson.

And, while one scene where white reporters mock a colleague’s press-box racism feels anachronistic, the film doesn’t always flinch from the environment Robinson confronted. Philadelphia Phillies’ manager Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk) subjects Robinson to lengthy verbal abuse. And the strongest scene happens in Cincinnati, where the film has the steeliness to give us a little Norman Rockwell-esque scene of a father and son in the stands, anticipating the game, only for this all-American duo to both shout racial epithets the moment Robinson takes the field. It pulls back further to suggest the fans are relatives of Dodgers’ shortstop Pee Wee Reese (Lucas Black), who puts his arm around Robinson and explains, “I got family up there from Louisville. I need them to know. I need them to know who I am.”

After a recruitment and tryout prelude, the film covers only Robinson’s breakthrough rookie season, but even at 128 minutes across a relatively tight time frame, the film feels slight. It’s a worthwhile primer on an essential American story, but it leaves you wanting more and better.

42

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Cover Feature News

Playoff Bound!

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Saturday night at FedExForum was a troubling and likely costly bump in what has otherwise been a strong regular-season finish for this year’s Memphis Grizzlies. At 55 wins and counting heading into Wednesday’s season finale against the Utah Jazz, the Grizzlies have enjoyed, by a decent margin, the best regular season in franchise history. But they’ve had the misfortune of doing so amidst a brutally tough Western Conference landscape, which makes the record both more impressive and less effective.

The Grizzlies — the only Western Conference team located east of the Mississippi River — would have been the second seed in the East, but with Saturday’s home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, the team will only be fifth in the West and, pending an unexpected development in the season’s final two nights, will likely begin their postseason on the road.

That’s disappointing, but according to many observers around the league, the Grizzlies never should have gotten even this far, not after trading Rudy Gay at midseason.

The Gay trade became something of a Rorschach test around the league. NBA traditionalists — invested in reputation, narrative, per-game stats, and highlights — were apoplectic and dismissive. The most notorious response came from ace Yahoo! Sports reporter Adrian Wojnarowski, who took a gratuitous shot at new executive John Hollinger, called new controlling owner Robert Pera a “freeloader” for whom “winning isn’t a priority,” and concluded that the team had intentionally “bailed” on a chance at a playoff run.

Others followed. Sports Illustrated‘s Chris Mannix wrote that Pera “now wears the black hat of an owner who prioritized profits over winning, a scarlet letter players won’t soon forget.” On broadcasts, former players such as Magic Johnson bemoaned the deal while describing an imaginary Rudy Gay.

Meanwhile, commentators attuned to statistical analysis and the league’s complex salary rules were more sanguine, seeing Gay as a player making Lebron James money and getting touches and shots commensurate with that comparison, but actually performing as the team’s fourth best player. And they deemed this a bad allocation of resources, especially in the context of a small-market franchise. In this quarter of the NBA cosmos, the deal was seen as a lateral short-term move that averted long-term disaster.

At first, the trade did seem to have the potential to derail the season, with the team and its coach in a funk for several days, but sometime between a road loss to Atlanta and a home win against Golden State, there was an attitude adjustment. Holding court outside the locker room before the Warriors game, head coach Lionel Hollins asserted that he had moved past his displeasure over the deal and expected his team to do so as well. The Grizzlies proceeded to win eight games in a row and 14 of their next 15.

The Grizzlies stood at 30-18 (a .625 winning percentage) at the moment of Hollins’ “calming the waters” address. They’ve gone 25-8 (.758) since, pending the regular-season finale.

Rather than being shackled by the absence of Gay’s one-on-one shot creation, as critics suspected, the team’s offense has instead been freed. Despite a wildly anachronistic paucity of three-point shooting and the seemingly accelerating decline of leading scorer Zach Randolph, the Grizzlies offense has improved.

At the time of the trade, the team’s offense was 22nd out of 30 NBA teams in scoring per possession — the most accurate measure of offense — and trending down. An ecstatic November had been revealed as a mirage, driven by unsustainable individual shooting performances, and in December and January the offense had collapsed.

But from the moment of Hollins’ acquiescence, things began to turn around. With the new roster, the team has settled into a league-average offensive performance while holding ground as an elite defense.

There hasn’t been much change in the kind of shots the team’s taken since the roster shake-up — they still take roughly a third of their attempts from mid-range, they’re still the league’s least prolific three-point shooting team, etc. — but they have redistributed who’s taking and creating those shots, with strongly positive results. And most notably, the fourth-quarter struggles against the Clippers notwithstanding, the team’s improvement has been most dramatic in exactly the kinds of situations where critics assumed the team would miss Gay most.

With Gay, the Grizzlies had ranked 26th in “clutch” offense, per NBA.com. (Clutch defined as the final five minutes of a game or in overtime when the score is within five points.) Since then — and, admittedly, a sliver of game time taken from less than half a season is not a very reliable sample size — the team has ranked fifth in clutch scoring.

It’s remarkable just how much the team’s shifting style of play has reflected the styles of Gay and his replacement, veteran Tayshaun Prince.

Prince is not the stat generator Gay was, but the Grizzlies have happily sacrificed some individual shot creation, rebounds, blocks, and steals for surer ball handling, quicker and smarter ball movement, and more consistently attentive defense. The team doesn’t feast off turnovers the way it once did but executes its offense better in the halfcourt and guards the three-point line better. And redistributing some of Gay’s team-high touches to other players has helped Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, and sixth-man Jerryd Bayless all bloom.

For various reasons — some connected to the mid-season deals and some not — this Grizzlies team seems better equipped for the playoffs than last year’s model. The offense, while still problematic, is more functional. Gasol and Conley have improved. Tony Allen, whose knee was bothering him a year ago, seems at least a little healthier. Quincy Pondexter has become a more assertive three-point shooter since last spring. Prince won’t force bad shots or lose track of shooters the way Gay did. Bayless has matched O.J. Mayo’s scoring in the sixth-man role but with more solid ball handling. And there seems to be no way he won’t improve on Mayo’s disastrous postseason play. Off the bench, forwards Ed Davis and Darrell Arthur, while both inconsistent, are likely to give the team more than Marreese Speights and Dante Cunningham did last season (which wasn’t much).

And while Randolph’s poor play down the stretch is a significant concern, he was limited last spring too. If his heroics from two years ago seem to be gone for good, he should at least be able to match his play from last season, when he had just come back from a serious knee injury.

If there are reasons for optimism, there are also signs of concern. The Clippers are, again, the probable opponent, and this time they are likely to have homecourt advantage. They’ve had a better season as well and enter the playoffs healthier after having their two best players — Chris Paul and Blake Griffin — banged up last spring. The Clippers have won three straight games at FedExForum and have beaten the Grizzlies in seven of 11 contests between the two teams since last April.

These two teams will enter the postseason with potentially the widest range possible of any teams in the NBA. Either could make a run to the NBA Finals with the right breaks, but if they face off in the first round, as expected, one will be going home early.

What would an early exit mean for the Grizzlies? The team’s new ownership and front office — vindicated with the Gay deal — will face a decision this summer: Keep much of this core together for two more seasons (the amount of time veterans Randolph and Prince are still under contract) or embark on a more aggressive overhaul around the fulcrum of Conley and Gasol. What happens over the next couple of weeks could well determine which course to chart.

For a detailed breakdown of the Grizzlies’ first-round playoff matchup and other coverage throughout the postseason, see “Beyond the Arc,” Chris Herrington’s Grizzlies blog, at memphisflyer.com/blogs/beyondthearc.

X-Factors

Five specifics that could determine the Grizzlies’ playoff fate.

1. A More Gluttonous Gasol: Two years ago, when the Grizzlies made their deep playoff run, Marc Gasol was Zach Randolph’s sidekick. This time, the roles need to be reversed. But that requires a team-wide recognition: from the coaching staff, from Gasol’s teammates, and, perhaps most of all, from the unselfish-to-a-fault Gasol himself. While Gasol’s usage rate has shot up since Gay’s departure, it still lags behind both Randolph and Jerryd Bayless. Gasol is the Grizzlies’ best matchup advantage against the Clippers, the team’s likely first-round opponent, where he averaged 17-9-4 on 54% shooting in the season series while still taking fewer shots than Randolph, who shot 37%. Last Saturday night, with homecourt likely on the line, Gasol led the team in points, rebounds, and assists — yet had only one field-goal attempt and zero assists in a stagnant 14-point fourth quarter. This should now be Gasol’s team. It’s time for him to claim it.

2. Z-Bo’s Bully Ball: While it’s unfair to expect Randolph to be the offensive force he was two springs ago, and unwise to funnel him the ball as if he is, the Grizzlies still need him to impose his physicality. While Randolph’s shooting and scoring have declined, his elite rebounding has held steady. And his penchant for close-quarters combat doesn’t seem to suit Clippers star forward Blake Griffin, who averaged only 14 points and seven rebounds on 44% shooting against the Grizzlies this season, well short of his All-Star averages. Griffin topped 20 points only twice in seven games against the Grizzlies last spring.

3. The Conley Correlation: All season long, the Grizzlies’ fate has tended to align with Mike Conley’s performance. And with Conley having a career-best season, that connection has worked in the Grizzlies’ favor. But it could be a problem if the Clippers’ matchup holds. A bulked-up Conley’s big finish will get a stern postseason test from probably the best defensive point-guard tandem in the NBA: Chris Paul and rugged reserve Eric Bledsoe. The latter, in particular, has been Conley kryptonite, with the Grizzlies’ lead guard shooting 30% in the season series with the Clippers but even worse when Bledsoe has been on the floor. In last year’s postseason series, per NBA.com, Conley shot 25% when Bledsoe was in the game and 48% when he wasn’t.

4. 3-D: The Grizzlies were an average team in terms of defending against three-point shooting before the Rudy Gay trade but have been the NBA’s best in that department since. A more attentive Tayshaun Prince is less likely to surrender the kind of long-range barrage that helped the Clippers steal Game 1 last spring. Meanwhile, the Clippers struggle to defend the three. If Prince and reserve Quincy Pondexter (a combined 8-15 from three against the Clippers this season) find the range, this usual disadvantage could swing in the Grizzlies’ direction.

5. The Thirsty Dog & 4th Quarter Chris: As frustrating as his offense can be at times, Tony Allen defends, in his own words, like “a thirsty dog,” and that key weapon can’t be underexploited. This will be particularly interesting in a Clippers rematch, where Clips star Paul tends to involve teammates early and look for his own offense late. In the final seven minutes Saturday night, Allen got the assignment and held Paul to only one basket (a difficult step-back jumper) and zero assists.

Five in the Spotlight

For a handful of Griz figures, postseason performance could impact their future with the team.

Lionel Hollins: Hollins is not under contract for next season — maybe you’ve heard — and management has insisted it would wait until the conclusion of the season to deal with this issue. Hollins’ traditionalist approach and the new front office’s more progressive bent made for a bumpy fit initially, and, for much of the season, Hollins’ return seemed like an even-money proposition. It looks more likely now, but there’s still a negotiation to be made, and how far Hollins can take this team can’t help but impact his leverage. Could a first-round flameout — something worse than a mere series loss — cause the organization to second-guess Hollins’ return? I took a deep dive into the coaching issue at “Beyond the Arc,” the Flyer‘s Grizzlies blog, last week. You can find it at memphisflyer.com/blogs/beyondthearc.

Jerryd Bayless: Bayless has a player option next season for roughly $3 million. Early in the season, when he was struggling as a backup point guard, there seemed to be a good chance Bayless might take the option and return. But after the trades of Wayne Ellington and Rudy Gay opened up more minutes at scoring guard and more touches and shots generally, Bayless bloomed as a classic “sixth man,” playing both guard spots, sometimes finishing games, and essentially equalling the production O.J. Mayo had given the team in a similar role. Now, it’s looking more likely that Bayless will opt out. Because Bayless would have only played one year with the team, the Grizzlies would not have “Bird Rights” on him — meaning it could not exceed the salary cap to resign him without using the team’s free-agency exception. Bayless has been erratic in his career, but a couple of big playoff games could raise his profile and value this summer. That’s the catch for the Grizzlies: The better Bayless plays, the more likely he’ll be to leave. But the Grizzlies would accept the risk of that trade-off.

Tony Allen: Could we really be seeing Tony Allen’s final games as a Griz? It’s possible. Allen will be an unrestricted free agent this summer and looking for a substantial raise over his current $3.3 million salary. The bet here is that the Grizzlies are willing to give him one, but exactly how much and — perhaps more crucially — for how long could be sticking points. A two-year deal for around the mid-level exception or just under (say, $5 million) makes the most sense for the Grizzlies, but a strong postseason performance could convince another suitor to offer something bigger or lengthier, which would force the team into a tough decision. Is there life after Grit and Grind?

Zach Randolph: Unlike Hollins, Bayless, and Allen, Randolph is under contract for next season, but he may still be — once the Hollins situation is resolved — the team’s biggest question mark going into the summer. Randolph has two more years and more than $34 million on the books. (The final year is a player option but one he would be likely to take.) With Randolph’s soft decline seeming to accelerate, the Grizzlies will no doubt be taking a long look at their options if Randolph struggles in the playoffs — or maybe even if he doesn’t.

Ed Davis: Davis is an interesting case. He’s under contract for $3.2 million next season but is eligible for an extension this summer. There’s reason to believe the 23-year-old acquired in the Gay trade could be the starting power forward of the future, but the team hasn’t done much to find out, with Davis topping 20 minutes in only nine games for the Griz after averaging 34 minutes a night in Toronto in the month before the deal. Davis is a limited scorer but grades out as a better defender than Randolph or Darrell Arthur, and in those nine games he averaged 10 points, eight rebounds, and two blocks (in only 25 minutes) on 61% shooting, and the team was 8-1, including 4-0 with Davis as a starter. And yet Davis played only eight minutes in two crucial games last weekend. How significantly he’ll figure in the postseason is a mystery, as are the prospects for an extension this summer.

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News

Bring On the Playoffs

Chris Herrington analyzes the Grizzlies’ prospects in the tough Western Division playoffs.

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News

To Catch a Bomber

Bruce VanWyngarden reflects on the difficulty of stopping — or catching — terrorists in the U.S.

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News

Corinth, Mississippi, Man Arrested in Ricin Letter Case

Jackson Baker reports on the arrest of a suspect in the recent Senate ricin letter incident.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Corinth Man Arrested as Mayor Wharton Expresses Concern about Memphis Postmark on Ricin Letters

facsimiles of anthrax letters during earlier scare in 2001

  • facsimiles of anthrax letters during earlier scare in 2001

News sources were reporting late Wednesday that Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, Mississippi (mis-identified in first reports as having a similar name and being from Tupelo) has been arrested in connection with the sending of suspicious mail to Justice Court in Tupelo and possible involvement in the mailing of two letters — one to President Obama, the other to U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi — containing what FBI labs had identified as traces of the deadly poison ricin.

Earlier Wednesday, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton had responded to published reports that Memphis had been the point of origin for the letters to Obama and Wicker. The mayor issued the following statement:

“We are grateful that, to this point, these letters have been intercepted before causing injury to anyone. While it has not been confirmed that the letters originated from Memphis, it is regrettable that our name is connected in any way with this heinous act. Local law enforcement officials have been in contact with the investigating agency, the FBI, and stand ready to cooperate as needed.”

The Associated Press, on the basis of an FBI bulletin the news agency had obtained, had been the source of information that the two letters, both intercepted by authorities on Tuesday, both bore Memphis postmarks and had contained, along with the poison, the same message: “To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance. I am KC and I approve this message.”

The 45-year-old Curtis, whose initials roughly match up with those in the message, is said to be someone who habitually writes letters of complaint to members of Congress. He is also being identified by several sources as a frequent Elvis impersonator. See here.

Sheriff Jim Johnson of Lee County, Mississippi, had earlier confirmed to the Jackson (Ms.) Clarion Ledger that FBI agents had set up a staging area around Tupelo for their investigation and said he would have a press conference at 9 p.m. Wednesday to release more information. It was at the press conference that he mentioned FBI interest in possible connections between the letter locally received and those to Obama and Wicker.

The Department of Justice issued this clarifying statement Wednesday evening, apparently connecting all the letters to suspect Curtis:

Today at approximately 5:15 p.m. (CDT), FBI Special Agents arrested Paul Kevin Curtis, the individual believed to be responsible for the mailings of the three letters sent through the U.S. Postal Service which contained a granular substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin. The letters were addressed to a U.S. Senator, the White House and a Mississippi justice official. The individual was arrested at his residence in Corinth, Mississippi, following an investigation conducted by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces in Memphis, Tenn., and Jackson, Miss., the U.S. Capitol Police, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Secret Service, aided by the following state and local agencies: Lee County, Miss., Sheriff’s Office, Prentiss County, Miss., Sheriff’s Office; Corinth, Miss., Police Department; Booneville, Miss., Police Department; Tupelo, Miss., Police Department; the Mississippi National Guard 47th Civil Support Team; and the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security.

Since the first reports Tuesday of ricin letters to the President and the Mississippi senator, Senate offices from Alabama, West Virginia, Arizona, and Michigan had all received what were described by news agencies as suspicious envelopes, though no further confirmations of nicin deposits had so far been reported.

The flare-up of anxiety about the ricin letters in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings is reminiscent of the anthrax scare that occurred after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,

MTK, as fresh information is received.

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News News Blog

Lausanne Adds Meditation Program for High School Students

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Last year, Lausanne Collegiate School added optional meditation classes for its middle school students. Kids could choose to opt out of recess one day a week in exchange for a guided meditation class led by Peddler Bike Shop founder Daniel LaMontagne.

Those sessions have been so successful, Lausanne is now beginning meditation classes for its high school students. Starting last week, those students had the option of skipping their daily 35-minute advisory period — the time they meet with their academic adviser — in favor of finding some inner peace.

The six-week meditation course for high school students is also led by LaMontagne, and the first session of 25 students is already at maximum capacity.

Greg Graber, the principal at Lausanne, said he’s been traveling the world to talk about Lausanne’s successful meditation program. He’s led talks in Philadelphia, Des Moines, Iowa, and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

“Our students today live in this accelerated culture. Everything is done at hyper-speed, at the touch of a button. It seems like they’re always plugged in,” Graber said. “This is way for them to relax and focus.”

Graber said, since the school began implementing meditation for its middle school students, he has noticed a big change in some students’ abilities to focus on school work.

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Blurb Books

In town: Dessen/Sedaris

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I admit I’d never heard of Sarah Dessen. I admit I’ve read only the first 50 pages or so of her novel What Happened to Goodbye (new in paperback from Speak, an imprint of Penguin). But already I can see why Dessen’s novels have sold in the millions, why they’ve been translated into more than two dozen languages, why her work regularly makes the list of the American Library Association’s best books for young adults, why two of her novels were adapted for a film (How To Deal, starring Mandy Moore), and why, for Dessen’s book signing at The Booksellers at Laurelwood on Thursday, April 18th, at 6 p.m., a line ticket is required. (Ticket available with the purchase of any Dessen title.) And based on 50 pages of What Happened to Goodbye, it’s a fact: Sarah Dessen has a sure way with the issues facing today’s teens. She’s just as sure on the issues facing parents. Her proven page-turning appeal: understandable, undeniable. So’s the appealing personality that goes with her website’s blog.