Month: February 2016

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Oatmeal: the least effortful way to change your life.

With turning 40 on the horizon, we realized that some things had to change. Our diets definitely needed some rethinking, and that was the easiest place to begin. We started to fit more superfoods into our meals, and whole grains like oats were at the top of the list.

Our latest recipes don’t turn trying to be healthy grown-ups into drudgery. Sneaking in more servings of whole grains is an easy fix, and capitalizing on oatmeal’s magical ability to sweep out the bad stuff from one’s digestive system is a great start. We propose a new way for us all to deal: Eat power foods like oats whenever possible, and, well, just sprinkle a little denial and avoidance on all the less palatable stuff that comes with getting older.

Vegan Chipotle Sweet Potato Burger

Vegan Chipotle Sweet Potato Burger

1 1/2 cups baked, peeled, mashed sweet potato (1 large or 2 medium)

1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper

1 or 2 minced chipotle chilies (from a can)

Olive oil (for panfrying)

In a large bowl, mix the mashed sweet potato, oats, cumin, garlic, salt, pepper, and chipotles until well-incorporated. Cover and set aside in the fridge for 15 minutes to allow the moisture to distribute. Form mixture into 4 patties and pan-fry over medium heat in a little oil for about 4 minutes per side. Serve on a Kaiser roll with slices of avocado, tomato, arugula, and salsa. (Serves 4.)

Oat, Banana, & Chia Silver Dollar Pancakes (GF)

Oat, Banana, & Chia Silver Dollar Pancakes (GF)

1 cup rolled oats

2 large eggs

1 ripe banana

1 tablespoon chia seeds

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon coconut oil (more for cooking)

1/4 cup milk (almond, soy, or dairy)

1/2 teaspoon salt

berries, bananas, and honey or maple syrup (to serve)

Heat a large cast-iron skillet or large, non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat. Into the work bowl of your food processor place the oats and grind them into a fine flour. Add the eggs, banana, chia, baking powder, vanilla, coconut oil, milk, and salt and blend until smooth. (Unlike traditional flours, you really can’t overwork them because there’s no gluten to activate.) The mixture should be thick but pourable like a traditional pancake batter. Add more milk if needed.

Place about 1 teaspoon of coconut oil on the griddle and brush to coat. Place 1/8 cup of batter on the griddle. It should fall into a 2-inch circle. Repeat. Allow pancakes to cook for 4 minutes or until bubbles start to form on the surface and the underside is golden. Carefully flip the pancakes and cook for another 3 minutes or until pancake is golden and set all the way through. Repeat until all batter is used. Makes about 1 dozen small pancakes. Serve warm with a drizzle of honey, maple syrup, bananas, and berries. (Makes 1 dozen; serves 2.)

Vegan Breakfast Sausage

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/4 cup finely diced shallot

3 cloves garlic (finely diced)

8 ounces cremini mushrooms (finely diced)

1 cup finely diced celery (about 2 ribs)

1/2 cup finely diced carrot (1 medium)

1 1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon clove

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 tablespoon soy sauce (like Bragg’s)

1 tablespoon maple syrup

sea salt and cracked black pepper (to taste)

1 1/2 cups uncooked quick-cooking oats

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the shallot, garlic, mushrooms, celery, and carrot to the pan. Stir consistently and sauté until all of the liquid has released and then evaporated; this should take about 5 minutes. Add the sage, red pepper flakes, clove, nutmeg, soy sauce, and maple syrup to the pan. Stir to incorporate and remove from heat. Allow mixture to cool. Add the uncooked quick-cooking oats, and knead the mixture until everything is well-incorporated. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover and set aside in the fridge for at least 15 minutes to allow the moisture to distribute.

Next, pinch about 2 tablespoons of the mixture off, roll it into a ball, and flatten it to for a patty. Repeat. In a medium pan over medium heat, pan-fry disks in enough canola oil to coat the bottom of the pan until nicely browned. Drain on paper towels. Serve hot.

This recipe makes about 2 dozen sausage patties. Freeze uncooked patties in a single layer then store them in a storage bag in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Energy Cookies

1 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup almond flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons iodized salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup coconut oil (melted and cooled)

2 large eggs (beaten)

2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 cup raisins (golden and regular)

1/3 cup dried cranberries

2 tablespoons rum

1 cup grated dried coconut

2 tablespoons crystallized ginger (finely diced)

1 cup raw walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together the oats, almond flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Set aside. Combine the honey, coconut oil, eggs, and vanilla. Microwave the raisins, cranberries, and rum for one minute, let them cool a bit, microwave for one more minute, and set aside. Combine wet and dry ingredients and then add the fruit and rum mixture, coconut, ginger, and walnuts. Shape into large, flat cookies and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes until edges are lightly browned.

Buttermilk Oatmeal with Butter-Poached Peaches and Sorgum

2 cups low-fat buttermilk

1 cup rolled oats

1 heaping tablespoon light brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

4 ripe peaches (pitted, peeled)

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon sorghum syrup (or maple syrup)

In a medium pot over medium heat, warm the buttermilk, and stir in the oats. Add the brown sugar and salt and stir. Cover, reduce heat to low, and continue to cook for 10 minutes; stir it occasionally to prevent sticking.

Next, cut peaches into bite-sized wedges. In a medium frying pan over medium-high heat, melt the butter, and just as it starts to brown, add the peaches. Allow them to cook for 3 minutes to lightly color on one side before turning them. Cook another 3 minutes and remove from heat. Divide oatmeal and peaches between 2 bowls and garnish with sorghum. (Serves 2.)

Roast Beet Salad + Sea Salt Granola & Honey Tarragon Dressing

Roast Beet Salad + Sea Salt Granola & Honey Tarragon Dressing

Roast Beets (recipe follows)

1/2 cup Sea Salt Granola (recipe follows)

Honey Tarragon Dressing (recipe follows)

4 cups lettuce (Boston or baby romaine)

4 ounces soft goat cheese (crumbled)

Follow the directions below to make the beets, granola, and dressing. The beets and the dressing are proportioned correctly for this recipe, but the granola will make more than you need for this dish. I guarantee it will be eaten. That stuff is addictive. Once your components are made, all that’s left to do is assemble the salad. Layer beets and lettuce together like you would a Caprese salad. Each serving should get about 5-6 slices of beet. Next, drizzle the assemblage with about a tablespoon of the Honey Tarragon Dressing. Finish with an ounce of crumbled goat cheese and 1/8 cup Sea Salt Granola.

Roast Beets:

5 medium red beets

1/2 cup white wine

4 cloves garlic (smashed)

2 tablespoons soy sauce

8 sprigs thyme

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Trim 1/8 inch from both the stem end and root end of the beet. Place beets in a small casserole dish along with the wine, garlic cloves, soy sauce, thyme, pepper, salt, and olive oil. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 1 1/2 hours. Allow beets to cool completely. Peel skin from the beet by rubbing it with a damp paper towel — the outer skin will rub right off. Slice beets in 1/4-inch slices.

Sea Salt Granola

(makes about 5 cups)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup brown rice syrup*

1/3 cup canola oil

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups oats

1/3 cup sliced almonds

1/3 cup pecans

1/3 cup pepitas/pumpkin seeds

1 tablespoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk the sugar, syrup, oil, and vanilla. Add oats, nuts, and salt and combine. Spread it all out on a baking sheet. Bake it for 10 minutes, stir it up, and then bake it for 10 more minutes. It should be toasted and ready by then. It’ll last about a week.

*Brown rice syrup is a key ingredient here, so make the effort to find it. It is always in stock at Whole Foods and natural foods stores.

Honey Tarragon Dressing

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon minced tarragon

1.2 teaspoon minced chives

1/4 teaspoon Maldon salt

1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

In a small bowl, add the lemon juice, honey, tarragon, chives, salt, and pepper together. Drizzle the olive oil into the mixture as you whisk to emulsify the dressing. Set mixture aside.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Super Tuesday Time!

Come next Tuesday, March 1st, or “Super Tuesday,” as it is known in the political lexicon, the next president of the United States might well be sped unstoppably on his — or her — way to victory. Or the current indecisive muddle could continue a mite longer.

It all depends on what happens in the 13 states where presidential primaries or presidential-preference caucuses are being held by one or both of the two major parties. Up until now, voting has been relatively piecemeal, beginning with the Iowa caucuses of February 1st and continuing with voting in New Hampshire on February 8th and in Nevada and South Carolina last week. But now a sizeable hunk of the nation — including Tennessee — gets to express its opinions all at once.

And that could establish trend lines that will hold the rest of the way until the party conventions this summer.

Although other, more populous states will play a major role in next Tuesday’s voting — Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Texas, for example — what happens in Tennessee will be significant, too, both because the Volunteer State has appreciable voting blocs of various kinds, and because the state has traditionally played a bellwether role in national elections.

It may be, as Tennessee Senator Bob Corker pronounced on a visit to Memphis last weekend, that Tennessee’s identity as a “red state” (i.e., Republican state) is “a given,” but its Democratic and Republican voting populations could each shift the direction of the political consensus for the primary contests in both parties.

As for Memphis, one sign of the city’s perceived importance was a much-ballyhooed speaking visit to Whitehaven High School two weeks ago by former President Bill Clinton on behalf of his wife, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The visit — on February 11th — was two days after candidate Clinton had taken a shellacking from Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary. (She has since rebounded with a victory in the weekend’s Nevada caucuses.)

Another sign will be the visit here on Friday of Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich, the governor of Ohio who scored a strong second in New Hampshire’s GOP primary and is looking for another bounce to keep his candidacy alive. Kasich will hold a town hall event at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis, beginning at 6 p.m.

Yet another Republican candidate made a fund-raising stop in Memphis last month. This was Florida Senator Marco Rubio, whom many observers now see as the Republican establishment’s favored candidate against GOP front-runner Donald Trump, the Manhattan real-estate billionaire and reality-TV host whose bizarro tactics and populist appeal have upended advance expectations and made him the Republican candidate to beat.

According to Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland, honorary chairman of the Trump campaign locally, candidate Trump will hold a rally at 6 p.m. on Saturday in Millington at the Regional Jetport. Roland says a large crowd is anticipated.

On Sunday, fading contender Ben Carson will attend services at Highpoint Church in Memphis, according to an announcement on the church’s Facebook page.

Local backers of various candidates are busy setting the stage for next week’s crucial vote. Within days of each other recently, large crowds showed up for the local headquarters openings of, respectively, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Clinton. Get-Out-the-Vote efforts of various kinds were proceeding in earnest on behalf of those two candidates and several of the Republican candidates as well.

 

• As it happened, two influential Republicans — Corker and Senatorial colleague Lamar Alexander — were appearing on the platform of the Shelby County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner at the Holiday Inn on Central Avenue Saturday night, in the immediate wake of Trump’s primary victory in South Carolina. 

In a joint encounter with reporters, and later, on the stage of the event, both Senators avoided making any direct comment on Trump’s victory, which, among other things, chased out of the race former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a symbol of the national Republican establishment, and opened the way to a serious claim on the GOP’s nomination by Trump himself, an outlier’s outlier and the surprise front-runner among Republicans this year.

“My experience is that Tennesseans didn’t elect me to tell them how to vote,” Alexander said in the meeting with reporters. The state’s senior senator stressed the importance of nominating an acceptable conservative so as to ensure that a GOP president, not a Democrat, has the choice of filling the Supreme Court vacancy left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia. 

To win the presidency, a Republican nominee has “got to get a few Democrats and independents” to vote for him, Alexander said.

And he, like Corker, made a point of pooh-poohing early contests — Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as South Carolina — as guides to the matter of who should be nominated. Alexander likened the nomination contest to an NFL season, in which the decision comes down to a final two teams after a long winnowing-out process.

Corker used a a similar metaphor in the meeting with reporters, comparing the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary — and, by implication, South Carolina — to “preseason games” but suggesting that the forthcoming multiple primaries, including Tennessee’s, on Super Tuesday, amounted to a real “Showtime.”

“The citizens of our state have the tremendous opportunity of seeing so much and taking it in, and now we have to decide,” said Corker, who, unlike Alexander, hinted broadly that he would be making his preference public in a matter of days.

Acknowledging that “we’ll be getting some calls tomorrow” from various candidates’ camps — and perhaps from party dignitaries — Corker said he would “have to decide first who I’m going to support,” either by Monday, the last day for early voting in the primary, or by Tuesday, March 1st, itself.

Repeating that formulation to attendees at the Lincoln Day banquet, Corker said the ideal Republican candidate whom he might support would have to demonstrate prowess in three specific ways: a determination to deal with fiscal issues, a plan for dealing with “a growing wealth gap” between rich and poor, and an ability “to lead the world.” As it happened, Monday came and went without any statement of support for a candidate by the senator.  

Rubio, who made an appearance in Nashville over the weekend, and who stands to inherit some of the establishment support from dropout candidate Jeb Bush, and Cruz, who has made a systematic effort to organize the state through developing a base among Christian evangelicals, are given some chance of doing well in Tennessee. But Republican lieutenant governor, state Senator Ron Ramsey of Blountville, while maintaining neutrality, is on record as saying that Trump will likely win both the Republican nomination and the presidency.

• Super Tuesday voters in Shelby County will see a ballot that asks them to vote by presidential candidate for one of 14 Republican candidates or for one of three Democratic candidates (the names of numerous Republican dropouts will appear on the ballot, as will that of dropout Democrat Martin O’Malley.) Voters will have to choose which primary to vote in, of course.

Beyond that, the ballot allows voters in the Republican primary to choose among several local citizens running as would-be Republican delegates, most committed to specific candidates, some not.

And there is one other matter to be decided. Democratic primary voters must choose between two candidates for General Sessions Court Clerk — incumbent Clerk Ed Stanton Jr., or his opponent, William Stovall. Republican Richard Morton is unopposed on the Republican primary ballot.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Jackson Baker’s post, “Local Reactions to Passing of Justice Antonin Scalia” …

Justice Scalia was not allowed to rest in peace before Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio made statements that the next president should name his replacement. Mitch McConnell said that the nomination should be delayed until after the next presidential election because the “American people should have a voice” in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice.

The American people had a choice when they elected President Obama twice, and each time he received over 50 percent of the vote. It is the president’s right and constitutional duty to nominate a successor to Justice Scalia.

There is no historical precedent to leave a vacancy unfilled during a presidential election year. There have been several nominations by Democratic and Republican presidents, and confirmations during presidential election years, including the nomination and confirmation in 1916 of one of the greatest Supreme Court justices, Louis Brandeis.

It is all dirty politics with the Republicans. But the Republican majority in the Senate shame themselves and the Constitution if they refuse to consider President Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Scalia.

Philip Williams

Scalia regularly asserted originalism, yet frequently based his decisions upon his religion. Like many, he worried too much about his neighbor’s actions and too little about his own.

DatGuy

The issue that will be fought over like a modern civil war is: Who the hell is going to assume custody of Clarence Thomas?

Packrat

Scalia is a fine example of a bifurcation of intellect and intelligence.

CL Mullins

About Toby Sells’ post, “Parking, Traffic Proposals Unveiled for Overton Park” …

“Reinforce the Greensward with Grasscrete, a concrete structure that allows grass to grow through it.” I am not surprised this statement elicited a negative response. It is completely out of phase with the primary concern of many park-goers; i.e., the preservation of the Greensward.

Sidewinder

I imagine grasscrete would feel just like it sounds, especially when you slip and fall on it while chasing a runaway 5-year-old. That isn’t really going to be a solution.

OakTree

That’s a very professional and creative team from Looney Ricks Kiss working on this project, with Memphis’ best interest at heart. No doubt a doable solution can be agreed upon to preserve all that Overton Park and the zoo have to offer.

SewsoMom

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter from the Editor, “Trump vs. Sanders? It Could Happen” …

The truly crazy thing about Sanders vs. Trump is that it would be a contest over issues that people care passionately about. Bush vs. Clinton would only be a question of what team you’re on.

Autoegocrat

Trump trumps them all in the latest USA Today polling. The Bern has a chance against Cruz, the only Republican he outpolls at this point, if he can get past HillBilly and her shenanigans.

Clyde

Millions of twenty-somethings have been dumbed down enough to think that there is a such a thing as “free” tuition.

Mickey White

Whenever people deride “free” college and medical care, no one points out that, by the same thinking, our wars are free, too.

I suspect Mickey knows wars are not free, either. But plenty of other people who are perfectly happy to spend a billion dollars a day fighting wars on foreign soil for no good reason except “America” will sneer and mock the hippies who want free college and free medical care, as if they’re a bunch of naïve tools.

It’s a question of what we want to spend our money on, because the money will be spent. War? Or free college and free medical care? A little less of the first and we can afford the second.

Jeff

Categories
Book Features Books

Memphian Devin S. James’ Inside Ferguson

Devin S. James’ story is all too familiar. Raised in a single-family home with four siblings, his father spent much of James’ childhood behind bars. His mother spiraled into abuse, and he recalls in his new book, Inside Ferguson: A Voice for the Voiceless, a time when he stole a garden hose from a local hardware store: “That night, I hooked it up to our neighbor’s spigot and filled a bucket with water so we could wash up. I boiled whatever water we had left using a stolen kerosene heater, and that served as our water supply for the next day.”

He never attended the fourth and fifth grades and viewed his opportunity to attend Ridgeway High School as a second chance. He left that school, though, after being involved in a gang-related fight.

James was homeless for a while and learned to hustle on the streets, had his heart broken when his first child was stillborn, and was falsely convicted of reckless homicide. He tells these stories, not to shift focus on himself, but to give context for the rest of his story, and to reiterate the sentiment heard around the world in the summer of 2014: I am Michael Brown.

Brown, an African American, was unarmed and shot by white, Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson in August of 2014. The ensuing media coverage, show of police force, and bungled public relations by the city gave rise to the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

Ten years before the incident in Ferguson, James was shot during a robbery attempt at his place of business. He survived and would go on to graduate from Southwest Tennessee Community College summa cum laude and work in biomedical research with Dr. Paul Herron at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

He eventually founded his own consulting and PR firm, the Devin James Group (now known as DJG), and that August in 2014, he was living in St. Louis and working with the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership on research to determine how to market and put together a program to spur economic growth in an area that had been historically disenfranchised. When Brown was killed, the leaders of St. Louis County called DJG in to be paired with other firms to facilitate community engagement in Ferguson.

“There was no communication. There was a huge divide. There was a lot of distrust,” James said by phone from St. Louis where he is on a speaking tour. “The community basically felt like their voice wasn’t heard.”

His team tried to get a consensus on the requests from the community and protesters, synthesize that message, and take it back to the city to make recommendations.

What he found was that the city leaders said they would take his recommendations into consideration, yet nothing would come of them. “But then if I would package it and send it to one of my white friends or white business owners or nonprofits, and have them send the exact same thing that I said, they [the city] would jump and do it,” he said. “It was a very crazy situation, and we dealt with a lot of old mentalities and unwillingness to take my advice on reform and changes and things that needed to take place to turn things around.”

As evidence of the city’s unwillingness to change, the Department of Justice filed a civil rights lawsuit against Ferguson earlier this month after the city rejected an agreement to overhaul its criminal justice system and address the abuse within its police department.

After months of work, months of coming up against brick walls and institutional racism, DJG was suddenly released from its contract and his reputation, he writes, was left in tatters.

Despite what he experienced in Ferguson, James remains a positive person looking to the future and the progress to be made. “The good thing about it for me is that it brought it to life for the world to see, so now I get a chance to defeat stereotypes and all types of discrimination that devalue black men,” he said.

James is on the public speaking circuit and looking to address the issues at an academic level. “We definitely have a need for more black, male role models in the community and education,” he says. “I think it’s a win-win for the community and me. I get a chance to inspire people and to be inspired by their stories.”

James will read and sign his book at Barnes & Noble in Germantown on Thursday, February 25th.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Books & Brews at Otherlands

Books & Brews is a new series of events for book lovers, music fans, and java junkies. The first installment also doubles as a launch party for Devault-Graves Agency, which is re-releasing a pair of critically acclaimed but long-out-of-print fiction titles using the life and legacy of Elvis Presley to spin dark-edged yarns about jukebox heroes and American dreams.

Publisher Tom Graves (also the author of Getting Naked with Harry Crews and Pullers: A Novel) describes Stark Raving Elvis by William McCranor Henderson and That’s All Right, Mama by Gerald Duff as “Two of the finest rock-and-roll novels ever written.” He says the double release is also just the beginning of an ongoing project to resurrect great out-of-print books about music.

When it comes to satirical depiction Elvis is low-hanging fruit. Fictional versions abound, often in the form of puffy, white-jumpsuited grotesques, but the authors of Stark Raving Elvis and That’s All Right, Mama have avoided most of the usual pitfalls. Henderson’s novel tells the story of Byron Bluford, a nobody factory worker from Portland, Maine, whose one great achievement in life was his teenage performance as Elvis in an Elk’s Club talent contest. Following a brief backstage encounter with the King, Bluford comes to believe he’s been called to take care of Elvis’ unfinished business. That’s All Right, Mama has a classical edge and a Southern Gothic heart. It imagines a world where Elvis’ stillborn twin Jesse Garon lived, becoming a secret stand-in for his weaker brother.

Duff and Henderson will both be available to answer questions and discuss their work at the inaugural Books & Brews. Everybody who buys a book will also receive a complimentary Devault-Graves coffee mug and a free cup of coffee.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Lawmakers Consider Bills on Bikes, Historical Markers, and Skunks

CREDIT: Lynn Bystrom | Dreamstime.com

Tennessee’s rule factory is cranking at full tilt, and Nashville lawmakers want to tell Memphians how to pay for bike lanes, what monuments we can move, and whether or not we can own skunks (seriously).

• No gas tax for bike lanes

A new bill would prohibit spending any gas tax revenues on bike lanes, pedestrian walkways, and “other non-vehicular facilities.”

Portions of the state gas tax are required to go to cities and counties. Those governments sometimes use the gas tax funds for matching dollars to get federal money for bike and pedestrian projects. The new bill says all of the money would have to be used for “highways, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure for public vehicular use.”

The bill is sponsored by Rep. Mike Carter and Sen. Todd Gardenhire, both from the Chattanooga area.

Carter told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that he simply wanted more transparency on gas tax spending if the state is on the cusp of raising the tax. Bike Walk Tennessee executive director Matt Farr told the paper that the backlash against the bill has been the largest mobilization of bicycle advocacy in state history.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation said the bill would likely violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and could jeopardize more than $1.7 billion for the state over the next two years from the Federal Highway Adminstration.

• No removal of military

history markers

Last week, the House voted 71-23 for a bill that would prohibit the removal of any historical markers that honor military conflicts.

Three years ago, state lawmakers rushed to pass the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013 to stymie the Memphis City Council from re-naming several parks that were named in honor of the Confederacy. The council changed the names anyway.

The lawmaker behind that rule was Rep. Steve McDaniel, a West Tennesseean who lists “Southern historic preservation” as a personal interest on his legislature homepage. McDaniel now sponsors the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2016, which completely replaces the 2013 law.

The bill says “no statue, monument, memorial, nameplate, or plaque” erected to honor a military conflict located on public property, may be “relocated, removed, altered, renamed, rededicated, or otherwise disturbed…”

Only the Tennessee Historical Commission can approve the removal of such markers, and the bill would lay out a new, more open process for those votes.

To Nashville lawmakers, the bill would help forecast the future of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the Tennessee State Capitol building. In Memphis, the bill could help direct the next moves on a plan to, perhaps, remove the statue of Forrest from Health Sciences Park.

Mayor Jim Strickland’s plans for the statue are not yet known, and a spokesman in his office said the mayor had no comment on the new bill. However, Strickland voted to remove the statue in August as a member of the council.

Lynn Bystrom | Dreamstime.com

• Skunk ownership

If Sen. Paul Bailey has his way, you can soon legally own a skunk in Tennessee.

Skunk ownership is now a Class C misdemeanor here, but Bailey’s bill would remove that offense.

Bailey told members of the Senate’s Energy, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Committee that 17 other states allow skunk ownership, including bordering states of Alabama, Kentucky, and Georgia.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Warren Apartments Resident Talks of Black Mold

CREDIT: Joshua Cannon

A Warren Apartments tenant will appeal what she says is a wrongful eviction following an altercation with a property manager that stemmed from a years-long black mold infestation and neglect on behalf of LEDIC Management and the Global Ministries Foundation (GMF).

“I have been dealing with black mold since day one,” said Warren Apartments Tenant Association co-founder Cynthia Crawford, who moved into the complex with her two children in February 2013. “I went to the maintenance office and asked [about it]. They told me to use bleach. Every time I did, it came back. In June of 2015, the previous property manager had a code enforcement retiree inspect the apartment, who said it was black mold.”

Joshua Cannon

Warren Apartments

Crawford’s complaints come as a voice among a chorus of tenants at the Warren and Tulane apartment complexes. Despite GMF spending more than $300,000 on repairs, both complexes failed twice last year to meet the minimum score of 60 required to pass a federal inspection — falling eight points below at 52. Hundreds of residents from the Section 8 housing will now be forced to relocate as the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) cracks down on GMF for failure to maintain livable conditions.

LEDIC did not respond to a request for an update on the relocation. Residents will receive a relocation voucher. HUD officials met with residents last week and said the process would likely begin in March.

GMF is an affordable housing initiative that seeks to provide shelter to low- and moderate-income residents around the United States. GMF CEO Reverend Richard Hamlet proposed a multi-million-dollar rehabilitation program for the two complexes that would use private capital funds. HUD denied the request.

“We’re all on poverty level, but I think we should at least have decent housing,” Crawford said. “We’re not asking for mansions or gold fixtures. We’re just asking for basic, decent housing.”

Three maintenance workers visited Crawford’s unit on Nov. 30th to repair water damage in her bathroom and attend to the mold. Property manager Betsy Waugh entered her apartment around 6:30 p.m., according to Crawford, and asked, “What’s the holdup?” When a senior maintenance attendant told Waugh about the mold, Crawford, unseen in the hallway, allegedly overheard Waugh say, “Don’t say that, just go ahead and cover it up [with sheetrock].”

Waugh, Crawford said, returned an hour later. Waugh allegedly became argumentative and started videotaping Crawford, which led Crawford to “get in [Waugh’s] face and curse her” before asking her to leave the unit. Waugh left and called the police, allegedly claiming Crawford assaulted her, which Crawford says did not occur. A police report was filed, and LEDIC Management issued Crawford a three-day eviction notice on Dec. 2nd. Crawford will appeal the eviction on March 3rd.

The Mid-South Peace and Justice Center (MSPJC) helped the Warren Apartments Tenant Association create a strategy to bridge the gap between management and tenants. The Association has 26 members. Members who have spoken up at Shelby County Commission meetings have been threatened with eviction, says MSPJC executive director Brad Watkins.

“As most tenants do not know their rights, many landlords get over on people all the time for things that the law clearly states are landlord responsibilities,” Watkins said.

Renters often mistakenly make verbal agreements, Watkins says. People don’t fully understand their renter’s rights and other resources available to them.

“We see so many cases where if a person had just known what their rights were they could have avoided being taken advantage of by an unethical landlord,” Watkins said.

MSPJC will attempt to change this through their new renters’ rights project. The immediate goal is to train tenants on how to better understand their rights as renters and form their own associations. Watkins would like to create a Memphis Tenants Union.

“We have allowed slumlords to run amok for so long that now all of our chickens are coming home to roost, and Memphis is on the verge of a crisis in affordable housing,” Watkins said.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Memphis Police Department Attempts to Boost Presence

Homicides in the first couple months of 2016 have nearly doubled from where the numbers were at this time last year, with 33 homicides so far compared with 19 by mid-February last year. Other serious crimes, such as robbery and aggravated assault, are up slightly from last year.

As a result, the Memphis Police Department (MPD) is attempting to beef up their presence in areas considered “crime hotspots,” but they’re doing so with a handicap. The MPD is about 400 officers shy of a full complement.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland recently authorized interim Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings to rearrange staffing to make sure as many officers as possible are on the streets. According to Rallings, that means more officers are working overtime.

“We have allocated additional overtime to put more boots on the ground. We’ve also made some adjustments in our Organized Crime Unit, and we’ve employed some more of our special operations units to targeted areas,” Rallings said.

Rallings said citizens are already beginning to take notice of an increased police presence.

“I’ve had some positive feedback from several citizens who said they’ve seen more officers in some of these problematic areas,” said Rallings, referring to areas identified as hotspots through the MPD’s use of data-driven policing.

Once the MPD’s police service technician (PST) program gets off the ground, that should also free up more patrol officers to deal with serious crimes, Rallings said. Police service technicians are trained to handle minor issues, like fender-benders and directing traffic. The MPD had a PST program years ago, but it was eventually phased out. The program is being revived this year, and the first class of PSTs will begin on April 4th. The program takes six weeks to complete.

Currently, the MPD has 2,063 commissioned police officers, down from 2,450 officers when staffing levels peaked in November 2011.

“Data that we’re getting from exit interviews have shown that the change in the pension was a big deal,” Rallings said. “We had spousal carve-out on insurance benefits, and not fully funding retiree healthcare caused a lot of folks to seek jobs elsewhere.”

While Rallings admits the pension situation still isn’t ideal, he said Strickland is working with the city’s human resources director Alexandria Smith to “lay out a plan to improve benefits.” Rallings said the MPD is working on a new ad campaign to recruit more officers, and he hopes the department can bring in 400 more over the next few years.

Of course, Rallings may not be around in the top job to oversee that hiring. Strickland will soon sign a contract with the International Association of Chiefs of Police to serve as a search firm to identify a new police director to replace former director Toney Armstrong, who left the MPD last month to take a job at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Though it’s not been formalized, Strickland has suggested raising the MPD director salary to $250,000, up from $150,000. The higher figure is on par with what police directors make in several other large cities, such as Chicago, Oakland, Seattle, and Atlanta.

Rallings won’t confirm if he’ll be seeking the position.

“I’m just here to serve as the interim and assist with that process any way I can and keep the ship floating,” Rallings said. “I have not said one way or another [if I will apply], but I have consistently said that it’s premature for me to talk about that because people are dependent on us to get it right today.”

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Editorial Opinion

Quagmires in Syria and Nashville

Action in the Tennessee legislature this week to force litigation against resettlement in Tennessee of refugees from the currently raging civil war in Syria occurs at the precise moment that two old foes — the United States and

Russia — have joined in a plan to implement a cease-fire in Syria, one which, if successful, could abate the unprecedented flood of refugees to the United States and various countries in western Europe.

Neither effort is a slam dunk. Both, in fact, have built-in contradictions. The legislative effort is exemplified in Monday’s vote in the state Senate directing state Attorney General Herb Slatery to join in a multi-state suit against the federal government’s resettlement plan. The resolution, by Senate majority leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville), posits that resettlement of refugees in Tennessee violates provisions of the state constitution requiring legislative approval for spending the tax money that accommodating the refugees will require.

The problem with the state action is embedded in what is known as “the supremacy clause,” which mandates that, in instances where state law and federal law conflict, the federal writ is the overriding authority. This is a doctrine that has prevailed in case after case since the most glaring example of a clash between regional and national authorities, that of the American Civil War.

For that matter, the pending U.S.-Russian agreement is in not much better stead. One fact is that the two signatory countries are pursuing contradictory policies vis-à-vis the Syrian conflict, with the Russians backing the embattled regime of Syrian dictator Assad and the U.S. trying to pick and choose its allies from among the assorted groups attempting to overthrow Assad. Some of the rebel groups can be regarded, more or less legitimately, as “freedom fighters.” Others, however, owe their allegiance to radical Jihadist entities such as ISIS or al-Qaeda and have no intention of observing any cease-fire dictated by the erstwhile superpower adversaries. Manifestly, the proposed agreement would be difficult to enforce.

So it seems obvious that, to purloin a phrase made famous more than a generation ago in the film Cool Hand Luke: “What we got here is a failure to communicate.” Or, to put that into Washington/journalist jargon, a pair of quagmires, into which a great deal of hope or desperation will be invested, without much hope, in either case, of a productive result.

We will say that, of the two circumstances, the latter one, in which two powerful former adversaries are at least trying to find common cause, has more chance of turning hopeful than yet another pointless effort by a state government to nullify the constitutional prerogative of the federal government. We settled that argument almost two centuries ago.

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1409

Nashville Now!

What happens in Nashvegas doesn’t always stay in Nashvegas. California resident Tod Brilliant told WSMV-TV he was “pretty impressed” by the people he encountered while visiting Music City. He was referring to how calmly people working in the Nashville airport went about their business while a very large, extremely naked man wandered about the premises. The Nashville nudist’s blurry bare bottom became internet-famous overnight, prompting hundreds of international news reports. According to WSMV, Brilliant walked right up to the naked man and said, “You’re amazing,” to which the naked man replied “Thanks.” Then, according to Brilliant, “they came for him.”

This photo making its way around the internet documents what has to be among the least comfortable escalator rides in history.

Lawler Trumped

Who needs wrestling when there’s social media? Earlier this month, Memphis wrestling legend Jerry “The King” Lawler learned that there are no “faces” on Twitter, only heels, when he tweeted his support for Donald Trump. What followed was a flurry of tweets wherein Lawler was described as everything from a “fat scumbag” to a “slimy sexist scumbag” and just about every other kind of scumbag you can imagine. Other commenters just wished he’d die, resulting in the kind of high-drama media heat wrestlers usually thrive on. But instead of pulling down his shoulder strap, throwing fire, or calling his critics a bunch of toothless hillbillies, Lawler told WMC’s Kontji Anthony the tweet was probably ill-advised, and he’d be staying out of politics. Sadly, this probably means Trump isn’t considering the King as a potential running mate.