Month: April 2017

Categories
News News Blog

State Outsourcing Contract Signed Early, Seen As ‘Betrayal of Public Trust’

CREDIT: Micaela Watts

Micaela Watts

On April 19, campus workers and union representatives waited outside of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center to confront Terry Cowles, who was meeting with university officials to discuss details of the proposed outsourcing.

State officials have already signed a controversial contract to outsource work in state-owned facilities, a move some watching the issue called a “betrayal of public trust” as the signing came days before it was even supposed to be presented.

According to a public document released by the state’s Central Procurement Office, the state of Tennessee signaled that the contract for outsourcing custodial and maintenance services in state-owned facilities would be presented to commercial real estate giant Jones Lang La Salle (JLL) on April 24.

David Roberson, a Department of General Services spokesperson, confirmed with the Memphis Flyer that the contract was signed on Friday, April 21, three days ahead of the date the contract was to be presented unsigned to JLL. Roberson said the jump ahead of schedule was nothing unusual.

“I’m not sure that’s a tremendous difference, between late Friday afternoon and 9:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, are you telling me that’s a bad thing?” asked Roberson.

The union representing public university workers, United Campus Workers (UCW), contend that yes, it is a bad thing.

“This move is consistent with their pattern of doing things in secret,” said UCW spokesperson Thomas Walker, who added that the hastened timeline doesn’t necessarily put UCW in a different position, but it further signals “a betrayal of public trust, accountability, and democracy”.

Though Governor Bill Haslam has repeatedly said that outsourcing state facilities will save the state upwards of $35 million a year, the outsourcing plans have been met with increasing bipartisan criticism, and multiple protests by students at potentially affected universities.

Just days before the contract was signed, 42 Tennessee legislators signed a letter addressed to Terry Cowles, Director of the Office of Customer Focused Government (OCFG), the office that oversaw the outsourcing plan, urging Cowles to halt the process until economic impact statements have been reviewed by legislators in both rural and urban districts.

For urban areas such as Memphis and Knoxville, the impact of outsourcing will be felt most heavily by campus workers, and state-run detention centers. In rural areas, state park employees will likely be the most affected category of public workers.

The shared concern by both factions is a reduction in wages and benefits, but OCFG spokesperson Michelle Martin is adamant that it won’t be the case.

“Contractors weren’t even allowed to bid unless they could match wages and benefits of the state’s employees,” said Martin.

Martin emphasized that in the case of public universities, the institutions would still have complete discretion on whether or not they would opt to contract with JLL.

“It’s really about whatever makes the most sense for these institutions,” said Martin.

While this has been a stressed point throughout the privatization process, UCW is quick to draw attention to lines in the state’s own request for proposals, which they feel are largely unanswered at this point.

[pdf-1]
In the past, the repeated figure for savings through outsourcing has been $35 million a year. But without economic impact statements requested by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, that figure is uncertain, though Martin explained that the $35 million is an estimate figure, and is drawn from a scenario in which all state facilities participate fully in outsourcing their non-specialized workers.

Like the $35 million, the state’s own timeline for contracting with JLL is also an estimate, at least according to Roberson.

“These dates aren’t promises, and they weren’t absolute guarantees,” Roberson said. “They’re estimates.”

This story will be updated with additional statements and information.

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

When Local News Isn’t Local: A “Guns & Bunnies” Slideshow

The Memphis Flyer‘s “Guns & Bunnies” issue measuring violence and fluff in TV news is on stands (and online) now. We didn’t undertake a proper survey in this area, but it seems like most of the news content local stations pick up from other markets can be described as a Gun (violence, crime, disaster), or a Bunny (soft news, celebrity, trivia, novelty cute stuff). Here’s a taste of what’s out there. [slideshow-1] [content-1]

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Checking Your Privilege

“Check your privilege.”

You hear and read that phrase more and more these days, usually in reference to a white person being unaware of issues that affect people of color. Often, the response from the white person to the remark is defensive, something along the lines of “I’m not privileged. I’ve had to work for everything I’ve got.” While that may be true, that’s not the issue.

Checking your privilege isn’t about being forced to acknowledge you’ve had an easy life. It’s about recognizing that there are certain struggles that you won’t ever encounter, problems and challenges that are specific to certain groups.

If you’re white, you’re “privileged” in countless ways, many of which you’ve probably never thought about. You (and me) are the “norm,” the baseline. We don’t have that little frisson of tension when entering certain stores or restaurants or when being pulled over by a cop or applying for a job. We’ll seldom if ever be discriminated against for our skin tone. Acknowledging that reality won’t hurt us. It makes us better humans.

In fact, there are many types of privilege, including gender, economic status, appearance, celebrity/notoriety, age, and health, to name a few.

If you’re male, for example, you’re privileged in ways you’ve likely not considered, but most women could enumerate them for you: your salary, your confidence that you’ll be listened to when you speak assertively and not be considered “pushy,” the knowledge that you won’t be critiqued for your “outfit,” and that you won’t be sexually harassed or raped.

If you’re straight and not aware of your privilege as measured against those in the LGBTQ community, you need to open your mind. Imagine growing up gay in a small town and keeping it a secret — from everyone. Imagine not being able to hold hands with your loved one. Imagine not being able to get married. Imagine being in fear because of who you love or how you look. You have to imagine it — acknowledge it — because you’ll never live it.

Wealth is another massive kind of privilege: the privilege of never worrying about your lights being cut off or about having to eat the cheapest food available or paying the rent or getting your kids to school or getting your car fixed. You can travel, buy what you want, when you want it — live in ways poor folks can only dream about. No matter how hard you worked to gain your wealth, it’s still a privilege.

Appearance can also be a kind of privilege. Observe the difference in how a beautiful woman or handsome, well-dressed man is treated when entering a business or restaurant, as opposed to how an unattractive, poorly dressed person is treated.

Celebrity also has its privileges: VIP seating, no waiting in lines, the best service possible. And age … If you’re too old, people overlook you and relegate you to insignificance. If you’re too young, people don’t take you seriously. Even health is a privilege, and if you ever lose it, you’ll quickly realize that.

So, would you rather be an attractive, wealthy, black female lawyer or a poor, old white man who works wiping down cars at Mr. Pride? Both have privilege of one kind or another; both are disadvantaged in some ways.

There are no easy answers, because the concept of privilege itself is complicated. It may help some folks understand if instead of saying, “Check your privilege,” we said “Count your blessings.”

Categories
Book Features Books

Hannah Tinti’s The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley (The Dial Press) is a violent book. It’s a book about guns and gun culture, revenge, paranoia, and murder.

It’s a book about family. The story of a father and daughter, a wife lost too soon, and a grandmother who wants to be nearer to her granddaughter to keep a sense of that lost daughter.

It’s these two worlds that make Hannah Tinti’s first novel in 10 years so compelling. It is the world we live in today, one consumed by compassion and devotion, anger and violence. Her storyline can be so authentic at times that I had to put the book down and walk away. As the news and social media fed me a steady diet of all that is wrong with our society, I didn’t want it from a novel I’d chosen for escape. But I’d go back to it because the pull of the story of Hawley and his daughter, Loo, as they struggle to survive as a team in the world he’s made for them is too strong.

Sam works as a collector, traveling the country taking back merchandise or cash from those who have stolen from powerful and corrupt people. That merchandise is collected by any means necessary, most often violently. It’s the sort of life that leaves in its wake grudges and vendettas like a map of stars across the night sky.

The structure of the book breaks every other chapter into the story of a bullet in Hawley’s life — 12 in all. As a writer, when I first began reading this book, I thought, “Why 12? Why not make it easier on yourself with, say, six bullets?” But Hawley’s life is measured by these bullets as they pass through his body. And Hawley passes through his life the same way — messily, violently, bloody. He tears at flesh and the fabric of a decent society as he moves from one job to the next.

He and Loo move from place to place, often at a moment’s notice, taking along whatever they can fit in a piece of luggage. There are other ways to measure time — a shampoo bottle, lipstick, a handwritten shopping list, a bathrobe, snapshots. Hawley carries these items of his wife’s, long dead now, from place to place, scraps of memory he arranges into a shrine at every stop along the way. This is how Hawley finds his way back to Lily.

Hawley’s longtime friend and partner in crime tells Loo, “Watches used to be important. When you got your first, it was special. A reminder of the days you had left, ticking away right there on your arm.”

Hawley knows from the beginning that his days are numbered, ticking away, and he wants to quit for his daughter’s sake. Violence begets violence. But simply retiring isn’t an option, and he works backward through time, tracing his wounds to the men who caused them like following the constellations to eradicate any future threat. Tinti writes: “What a mess he’d made, Hawley thought. He wished he could erase his entire life, starting with his father’s death and then every step that had led him here to this crap motel room, every bullet, every twisted turn of the road he’d followed — even meeting Lily, even having Loo. Hawley wanted it all gone.”

I want to finish by saying that, while Samuel Hawley is violent — and let’s make no bones about it, he is a bad dude — his devotion to his daughter is without question. And because he loves his daughter so much, he’s raising her to be a strong and independent woman. He may be going about it in the extreme — the book opens with Hawley teaching a 12-year-old Loo how to shoot a rifle — but it’s a lesson for all of us: If we love and respect our daughters, we must raise them to resist when society seeks to undermine their strength. Sam gets that, flawed though he may be.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Bookstock at the Central Library

You know how at some offices they’ll have one monthly birthday party to cover the entire staff? Well, consider Memphis Public Library’s annual Bookstock event that party, only with local authors instead of cakes and candles.

According to the library’s Adult Services Coordinator Wang-Ying Glasgow, the origins of Memphis Public Library’s Bookstock were purely practical. Local authors would approach the library to do a booksigning. Not having the staff to accommodate all the requests, they would turn down most of them until the idea struck them to have one large, yearly event. Now, when the library’s approached by authors, Glasgow says, “We tell them we have this event for you.”

Bookstock, now in its seventh year, features 40 local authors — covering everything from nonfiction to inspirational. Different this year: Instead of one keynote speaker, they’ll have four. They are Lisa Wingate, author of Before We Were Yours; ReShonda Tate Billingsley, author of The Secret She Kept and The Perfect Mistress; Daniel Connolly, author of The Book of Isaias; and Adrienne Berard, author of Water Tossing Boulders. Flyer friends Justin Fox Burks and Amy Lawrence will be giving a cooking demo, and Otis Sanford, Geoff Calkins, and Mark Greaney are among the other authors who will be at the event.

Welcome to Bookstock!

One key feature of Bookstock is the scavenger hunt. Every author’s booth has a clue. This encourages guests to talk to the authors. There will also be hat making and musical story times. Kids can get their faces painted like a storytime character.

Connolly’s Book of Isaias follows a young Latino immigrant in Memphis. Berard’s Water Tossing Boulders tells the true story of a Chinese family in Mississippi fighting segregation. In a nod to those books and to draw in all of Memphis, Bookstock will feature Latino dancers and a Chinese choir and other flourishes. These are “our stories,” says Glasgow. The event, she says, is focused on community and history.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1470

Dog Bites … Nobody?

There’s good news out of Mississippi, but it’s married to some more ambiguous, probably not-so-good news for journalism.

“Dog doesn’t bite man” is now officially considered news, according to a report in The Commercial Appeal titled “Dogs and people get along well in Mississippi, data shows.”

Oh, sure, there’s still a lot of work to be done in the feline and hamster communities, and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant recently signed off on Confederate History month to go along with Black History Month and Native American History Month (suggesting that people are still pretty horrible to other people). But puppies!

Conspiracy Theory

Okay, here’s what we know for sure. In 2013 Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich was attacked by the High Point Owl (AKA Murder Owl).

More recently, Frayser Bear has been on the prowl and may be traveling underground, using a series of tunnels constructed by the Barksdale Beaver.

The Midtown Coyote and Zimm the Escape Monkey are both keeping such a low profile it seems like only a matter of time before we find out who really killed Hugh the Memphis Manatee.

Made It

Bighearted actor Ron Gordon was laid to rest last week. The veteran stage performer was immortalized on film as a gangster in the early Judd Nelson film Making the Grade.

If there was an Oscar for best performance by a man eating and appearing to enjoy an onion, Gordon, a multiple Ostrander-winner, would have taken home another prize.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Guns & Bunnies: What’s Really on the News in Memphis?

“If it bleeds, it leads” is the conventional wisdom regarding local TV news programming. But how real is the hype? And if it’s real, just how much blood are we talking about? Buckets? Boatloads? Mother-of-All-Boatloads?

The digital revolution hasn’t diminished the role TV news plays as a window to the world. For rural Americans — whose communities receive relatively little TV coverage — it’s a daily dose of urban life. For most media consumers, it’s their primary source for public affairs information. So what are they seeing? There are compelling reasons to measure the amount of crime coverage in nightly broadcasts relative to content about government, business, justice, culture, community, etc.

In 1996, The Memphis Flyer ran a cheeky cover package called “Guns & Bunnies.” We watched Memphis’ TV news broadcasts for a week to determine just how many minutes, on average, each station devoted to stories about violence, criminal activity, and disaster — a category we called “Guns.”  

We also measured how much time each station devoted to fluffy news, such as celebrity-watching, cute animals, self-promotion, curiosities, and trivia — a category we called “Bunnies.” For this week’s issue, the Flyer staff recreated the original experiment, monitoring each of Memphis’ four news teams over four consecutive days. Minute-by-minute viewing diaries were kept, chronicling the headlines and the amount of time spent covering each story.

Memphis actually has five news stations: WMC-5, WREG-3, WHBQ-13, WATN-24, and WLMT-30. The last two constitute a duopoly under the same ownership, sharing a news team and content. To avoid redundancy and to measure similar half-hour news blocks, this survey looks only at the 10 p.m. broadcasts of WMC, WREG, WHBQ, and WATN.

The period between Tuesday, April 11th and Friday, April 14th was a relatively normal news week. Big national stories included the U.S. military action against Syria. Regional news included an attempt by Arkansas to step up the execution timeline for death row prisoners; a Memphis couple’s alleged racist vacation rant; and the Memphis Zoo naming its newborn hippo.

If the mayhem numbers reported below seem large, they may also be misleading and a little low, since not all chaos is created equal. It doesn’t get more violent than dropping something called “the mother of all bombs,” but that story was identified as U.S. foreign affairs. Similarly, some Arkansas death row reports revisited the crimes and victims of convicted felons, while others focused on celebrity protest.

These stories were treated as reporting on criminal justice, not criminal activity.

Now, without further delay — A BREAKING EXCLUSIVE FROM THE MEMPHIS FLYER: GUNS AND BUNNIES  HAVE BEEN SPOTTED ALL OVER THE NIGHTLY NEWS!

WREG News Channel 3 (Tribune Broadcasting)

Every night, WREG signs on with the old line “It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?” And for good reason, given the reporting. Highlights from Tuesday’s broadcast included a truck crashing through apartments in Parkway Village, a woman shot while driving in Orange Mound, an Arkansas machete attack, an exploding ammo plant in Missouri, and mysterious lights in the sky over San Diego. A four-minute teen violence package covered a Binghampton murder, a shooting in Tom Lee Park, and a North Memphis shooting broadcast that was on Facebook Live. Tuesday’s broadcast also covered the story of a sick Midtown kid who’s getting a trip to Disneyworld and included the popular segment, “Pass It On,” wherein Richard Ransom gives money to people who need it.

Wednesday’s broadcast began with gunshots at a North Memphis community center, followed by reports about an Arkansas man who set his wife on fire and a deadly explosion in Lakeland. Also covered: bullets in a barber shop in Arizona; microchips being installed in people in Sweden; a 9-year-old driving himself to McDonald’s in Ohio; and a fight between a horse and an alligator in Florida. (The horse won, by the way.)

Thursday’s broadcast led with a young child left at home, followed by a man charged with murder in Hickory Hill, three people killed in a Benton County car crash, and a woman who was carjacked at First Congo church. On the less grim side, a miniature goat saved a family from a house fire in Arkansas, and a Wisconsin girl grew a 35-pound cabbage!

Friday’s broadcast was almost half sports reporting. Other stories included an armed robbery at the Midtown TitleMax and a report about flowers in California.

Based on a four-day sample, WREG devoted 43 percent of its weeknight 10 p.m. broadcast to news, 10 percent to weather, 15 percent to sports, and 3 percent to teasers. The roughly half-hour blocks were rounded out by ads (29 percent).

Around 52 percent of the news content was related to crime, violence, mayhem, and disaster — earning a “guns” rating. Nearly 16 percent of news content was devoted to celebrities, trivia, novelty stories, and fluffy feel-good pieces — earning a “bunnies” rating. The remaining 32 percent of WREG’s news programming covered stories that didn’t scream, bleed, or wiggle their nose, such as government, business, development, and education.

WMC Action News 5 (Raycom)

Tuesday started with a bang: A woman was taken to the hospital after being shot on East Parkway; a recently baptized teen shot another teen; and then there was that shooting on Facebook Live. The story of Arkansas’ attempt to launch a mass execution of death row inmates took a celebrity turn, as WMC focused on former death row inmate Damien Echols. Other stories included metered parking rates going up and the death of J. Geils Band’s lead guitarist. WMC also reported on the Civil War’s “controversial” Fort Pillow massacre of African Americans
by Confederate soldiers, without mentioning commanding officer Nathan Bedford Forrest.

WMC consumer advocate Andy Wise and a group of big-hearted contractors renovated a disabled American veteran’s garage after he was ripped off by shoddy workmen. And every night, a WMC anchor pitches to Jimmy Fallon for a Tonight Show promo. Closing anchor chatter included a tease for women with “coffee problems.”

WMC’s Wednesday broadcast got under way with stories about a teen beaten by West Memphis police and a mother shot while driving, followed by reports on the settlement of a lawsuit against Christian Brothers High School for not allowing a student to bring his same-sex date to the prom, code violations that plagued a new Midtown hotspot, comedian Charlie Murphy’s death, an Ole Miss fan’s traffic ticket woes, and someone who was shot and carjacked in downtown Memphis.

On Thursday, WMC led with a story about an infant who was left at home unattended, followed by a story on West Memphis police breaking their silence on a teen beating, police responding to reports of shots at Superlo, a family wanting answers about their son, who was found dead in a creek, “a mom” who allegedly killed two sisters in Hickory Hill, the Memphis Zoo’s new baby hippo, and a multi-vehicle crash in Durango, Texas.

“Arkansas calls off executions,” led Friday night’s broadcast, followed by a Memphis couple’s alleged racist vacation rant/viral sensation, a story of a 12-year-old shot, an armed robbery, and a fatal hit-and-run in Raleigh. Other stories included abortion restrictions, Beale Street Bucks returning, the Grizzlies giving away gear, thieves stealing an Arkansas woman’s statue of Jesus, a three-minute package about the 2011 murder of Holly Bobo, and a professional athlete surprising a young cancer patient.

In our four-day sample, WMC devoted 45 percent of its weeknight 10 p.m. broadcast to news, 10 percent to weather, 7 percent to sports, and 8 percent to teasers. Advertising filled roughly 30 percent of the broadcasts.

Around 47 percent of WMC’s news content was “guns” — crime, violence, mayhem, and disaster; 20 percent of its news content was “bunnies” — stories devoted to celebrities, trivia, novelty, and fluffy feel-good pieces. About 33 percent of WMC news programming covered stories that didn’t scream, bleed, or deliver candy to children on Easter.

WHBQ Channel 13
(Cox Enterprises)

While Fox 13 devotes much of its on-air time to mayhem, WHBQ also seems to have fewer commercials and uses the extra time to touch on a broader mix of local stories about local government and other non-crime-related news.

Tuesday began with a weather update, then went right into the shooting on Facebook Live, followed by a story about a Memphis teenager facing charges after shooting another teen, Overton Park Greensward parking, MATA improvements, and a Memphis Police Department audit.

Wednesday kicked off with police brutality in West Memphis, followed by a package about the planned execution of death row inmates in Arkansas. Crime reporting continued with the rape of a minor in Arkansas, a Rutherford County shooting, and a man breaking into cars.

WHBQ led off Thursday with a story about Tennessee’s weed bill, followed by pieces about adults getting free tuition for community college, the U.S. MOAB bomb in Afghanistan, a non-critical shooting in Orange Mound, the Tennessee Senate passing a new age requirement for school bus drivers, and Toyota expanding in Mississippi.

“Arkansas blocks lethal drug in execution” got Friday started, followed by stories about two shootings in Tom Lee Park, a man robbed at a fraternity house, buildings on fire in Nashville, and a Murfreesboro couple charged with neglecting to feed their baby. A report on local refugees was followed by the story of a Mississippi family facing deportation.

Based on our four-day sample, Fox 13 devoted 55 percent of its weeknight 10 p.m. broadcast to news, 13 percent to weather, 2 percent to sports, and 8 percent to teasers. Advertising filled the remaining 22 percent of air time.

WHBQ’s “guns” rating was 48 percent: content related to crime, violence, mayhem, and disaster. “Bunnies” stories — celebrities, trivia, novelty, and feel-good fluff — comprised 8 percent of the station’s news content. Nearly 44 percent of Fox’s news programming covered stories that didn’t scream, bleed, or taste delicious when fried in a light batter and served with tangy mustard sauce.

WATN Local 24 (Nexstar Media Group)

Based on our sample, WATN-24 (formerly WPTY) appears to have the highest percentage of mayhem in the Memphis market. In fact, among Memphis stations, Channel 24 seems to devote the least amount of time to news reporting.

WATN begins its weeknight broadcasts with a weather update. Tuesday’s opening news roundup covered road rage and a pop-up park, a Cookeville shooting, a Memphis chocolatier appearing in British Vogue, a local salon that’s pampering kids who make good grades, and a safety alert about Tom Lee Park.

Following weather and its headline roundup, Wednesday’s newscast began with a story about the identification of a body found in a car trunk, followed by the Shelby County Commission addressing sewage backups in Cottonwood, a propane tank exploding in California, and a Mississippi video of a fight at Alcorn State that went viral. Other stories included the Tennessee Department of Transportation suspending work for Easter, Ole Miss football coach Hugh Freeze being protested by an atheist group, and a Bartlett woman who turned 100.

Thursday’s broadcast began with news that violent crime is up in Memphis, and with two sisters being killed in Hickory Hill. Those stories were followed by Shelby County officials warning faith-based organizations celebrating the Passover and Easter holidays to be on high alert, a Target recall of potentially dangerous Easter toys, and Loretta Lynn’s new record.

“Jesus Stolen” and “Sisters Murdered” were the two stories starting Friday’s news block, followed by the Memphis couple’s alleged racist rant, a boy recovering at Le Bonheur after being shot, Delta Airlines paying for overbooked flights, and a stay of execution for Arkansas prisoners, featuring star power mentions of Johnny Depp and Damien Echols.

Based on our sample, Local 24 devoted 28 percent of its weeknight 10 p.m. broadcast to news, 13 percent to weather, 14 percent to sports, and 6 percent to teasers. The station’s ad content was 39 percent.

Local 24 earned a 60 percent “guns” rating — news content concerning crime, violence, mayhem and disaster. Around 25 percent of the station’s news content was “bunnies” — stories about celebrities, trivia, novelty, and fluffy feel-good pieces. About 15 percent of its news programming covered stories that didn’t scream, bleed, or hop around and serve as an easy metaphor for an overactive libido.

So that was the Memphis television news, as surveyed between April 11th and April 14th, 2017. To say the least, our news stations painted a rather dystopian picture of life in Memphis, focusing heavily on crime, violence, and mayhem, while stirring in lots of stories to make us say “aw” or “wow!”

If all of Memphis’ major stations were rolled up into one big news broadcast, 50.6 percent of their average news content would be “guns,” and 16 percent would be “bunnies.” Only about a third of local news programming covers stories that are neither.

Is it any wonder lots of people have a skewed view of life in Memphis?

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Testing Trump

This week marks President Trump’s 100th day in office. On day one, after listening to Trump’s inaugural address, former President George W. Bush reportedly said: “That was some weird s—t.” The GOP establishment still holds that view after 100 days of President Trump.

Juan Williams

Democrats are offering “we told you so” looks. Trump’s most striking achievement in his first three months is being the least popular new president in modern history.

A majority of Americans — 52 percent — disapprove of his job performance as president, according to the most recent Gallup tracking poll. Even Trump’s supporters have to admit these first three months have been defined by the administration’s failure to deliver on campaign promises. For all of Trump’s talk about being a great dealmaker, the flashing lights on the political scoreboard read as follows:

No repeal of Obamacare. No tax reform. No Muslim travel ban — the attempt to enact one is bogged down in the courts — and no evidence to support the incredible claim that President Obama had Trump wiretapped.

There is also no wall on the southern border and no indication that Mexico will pay for it. And in the last few weeks, the reversals on campaign promises have come thick and fast.

Now, Trump approves of the Export-Import Bank. Now, Trump is no longer a fan of the border adjustment tax. Now, he believes in NATO. Now, China will not be listed as a currency manipulator. Now, Janet Yellen is a good chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) put all the flip-flops in delicate terms so as not to offend the Trump faithful: “I think President Trump is learning the job, and some of the things that were said during the campaign, I think he now knows — that’s simply not the way things ought to be.”

Trump’s singular success was getting Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court. But the credit for that win should properly go to the Heritage Foundation and the conservative legal minds at the Federalist Society. They compiled a list of their favorite conservative judges and handed it to Trump.

Now, let’s look ahead to Trump’s next 100 days. The biggest threat to Trump is the split between him and Republicans in Congress. FiveThirtyEight.com forecaster Harry Enten tweeted earlier this month that the House GOP caucus is in the worst position of any party holding the House majority since 1954, when voters were first asked their preference for which party rules the House. That ballot question was simply, “If the election were held today, would you vote for the Republican or the Democratic candidate?” Enten’s average of polls has the Republicans down by six points.

There is more than a year for the Republicans to dig out from there, but it is a big hole. That gives Republicans every reason to start distancing themselves from the Trump White House. Democrats are already standing far away. Yet Trump needs Congress’s help right now to avoid a government shutdown.

After a two-week Easter recess, Congress returns to work with just four days left until funding for current government operations is set to expire on April 29th.
The top two Senate Republicans, McConnell and Majority Whip John Cornyn (Texas), are calling for a bipartisan, stop-gap funding measure to stave off a shutdown.

So, now we have leading Republicans calling on President Trump to work with the Democrats. But Democrats know that Trump’s plans for future budgets anger their base. So why would they help him?

The Trump blueprint for future budgets, released last month, outlined draconian cuts to funds that support popular education, social welfare, and economic development programs. Meals on wheels for the elderly and after school programs for disadvantaged youths were two that invited public outcry.

Trump recently said he remains focused on health reform and is threatening to withhold subsidies to insurance companies to force Democrats to help him pass a bill to replace Obamacare.

If you are a Democrat who enjoyed the disastrous GOP civil war over their health-care bill, then you are going to love the upcoming GOP slugfest over spending and taxes.

Juan Williams is an author and a
political analyst for Fox News Channel.

Categories
Music Music Features

Don Lifted Is In Control

I’m searching for Don Lifted’s East Memphis crib, but I’m not sure which house on the crowded street is his. Then I see the battered Oldsmobile in the driveway. It’s the trusty, mid-sized domestic sedan immortalized in the title of his new album, Alero.

“The suburbs are a pause for me,” he says.

The nine songs on Alero evoke a particular moment in his life when he didn’t have a place to pause. Before he was Don Lifted, Lawrence Matthews’ girlfriend Aleq went to college in Washington, D.C., and he enrolled in a Baltimore school to be near her. “I was on my own for the first time. I had never traveled outside of the South.”

But the constant crush of people and personal turmoil threw him for a loop. “I had some demons I had to get out about that time period. It was a time that I had a lot of frustrations, but I had extreme longing for that time and place and the experiences I had there. I wanted to relive them. The reality was, it was beautiful, but it was bad at the same time. I was poor; I got kicked out of school; I was struggling. I don’t want to say it was drugs. … I was being young and dumb about what I was putting in my body.”

Matthews returned to Memphis, but Aleq stayed in D.C. to finish her schooling. For him, that meant a lot of driving back and forth. “It’s a record about the time period spent in the car.”

Eventually, he got a degree in art from the University of Memphis. “I did everything. I was a photographer, painting, sculpture work, installations, everything. I decided to focus on painting because at the time, that was what people knew me the most for.”

At the same time Lawrence Matthews’ visual art was gaining traction, Don Lifted’s music was struggling. At first, he was making beats for rappers, but when he heard the finished songs, he always was disappointed with the results. “I knew I was writing better songs than these people. So I started writing my own songs and making mixtapes,” he says. “I have to be in control. I now understand that about myself. I make decisions based on maintaining control over what I do.”

These days, the control extends to the venues where he plays. The artist’s first gigs were multi-artist showcases in traditional club venues. “I always had very elaborate visions of ways I wanted to see and express my music. … It’s an all-encompassing art experience. In these group shows, you can’t really do your own thing. You just have to be a person on the stage. That’s not why I’m doing it. I’m not doing it to just be a performer. That’s just an element of the greater scheme. After a couple of bad experiences, I decided I’m never doing that again. I have to have my own stuff, to sell and curate my own performances and experiences. It started at Crosstown Arts and then branched off from there.”

In mid-April, he became one of the first musical acts to play in the Brooks Museum’s downstairs theater, utilizing multiple digital projectors to create layered, moving images over the stage while he performed songs from Alero, his prior album, December, and some new material. “Art comes easier. Music is a challenge to me. … Being the guy who has to perform these lyrics I wrote, that’s hard. I get stressed about that. I have extreme doubts and extreme confidence in myself musically.”

The autobiographical Alero mixes chillwave synths with twisted and chopped samples. Don’s verses are quick and staccato, sounding sometimes as if the ideas and memories are coming too fast for him to keep up. “I’ve done a lot of projects, but that was the only one that flowed out like that. It happened really quickly.”

For the accompanying videos, he teamed up with Crosstown Arts’ Justin Thompson for “Harbor Hall,” and filmmaker Kevin Brooks for “It’s Your World” and “Take Control of Me.”

“I want to make as many videos as I can. I want to tell the stories through great videos,” he says. “I need people who are just as maniacal and controlling about what they do as I am about what I do.”

The mastering for Alero took place at Bernie Grundman’s Mastering studio in Hollywood, California, with Kendrick Lamar’s engineer Mike Bozzi. For Matthews, it was a life-changing experience — and one that reinforced his determination to stay in Memphis. “When I was in Los Angeles, I thought ‘I could come out here, like everyone else is coming out here, and I could make it out here.’ But every time I do something [in Memphis], the impact is much deeper and more spiritual. They don’t need me in Los Angeles. They don’t need me in New York.”

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News The Fly-By

Sounding the Call

CREDIT: Maya Smith

Drug deaths are rising in Tennessee, and Memphians are raising awareness of the trend in any way they can, from benefit concerts and online support groups, to a newly installed phone booth for the bereaved.

In 2015, Tennessee had the most drug overdose deaths in the state’s history. That year, 1,451 died, including 188 in Shelby County, according to the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH).

“This is a disease every one of us is vulnerable to, not a moral failing,” commissioner of TDH John Dreyzehner said at the time. “Not one of these victims deserved this, and the tragedy of lives lost to overdoses becomes even more painful knowing these deaths can be prevented and are the horrible tip of the overdose iceberg.”

Opioids claimed close to 72 percent of those 2015 drug deaths. One of those was Emily Harvey’s ex-boyfriend.

In response to his death and the rising number of others like it, Harvey decided to install a phone booth, an art installation of sorts. Known as the Phone of the Spirit, the booth was dedicated Saturday in a community garden at St. John’s Methodist Church.

The phone is not connected, but the booth is meant to encourage grieving and healing for those who have lost friends and relatives to the growing drug epidemic, Harvey said.

Maya Smith

attention to overdoses.

“This project may not stop the disease, but it will spread awareness and grant others the hope of recovery,” Harvey said. “People can go to the phone booth any time to say the many things left unsaid, without judgment. The Phone of the Spirit is a visible channel where community members can express all feelings.”

Bethany Morse, a recovering addict, runs a Facebook page called Memphis’ War on Heroin. The group is a closed platform meant to promote education and awareness of the epidemic.

It provides a space where members of the community, whether recovering or active users of the drug, can share motivating topics, conversations, articles, and statistics in an effort to further educate, encourage, uplift, and break the stigma and cycle of heroin addiction.

Morse believes that the epidemic will not be erased until the proper resources and funding are available to addicts.

“We can and do recover, and not only do we recover, we go on to help others do the same,” Morse said. “We become productive, useful members of society. We can only do that if we are alive and given a chance at treatment.”

STOP Doing Heroin, a local activist group, has been working since December of last year, selling buttons and T-shirts, to raise money for addicts in the community who want to receive treatment but lack the means.

The group will hold the first in a series of benefit concerts Friday at the Hi-Tone Cafe. All the benefits from the show go to community members’ treatment, like drug counseling and education, clean needles, naloxone kits, and HIV testing.