Author: Bianca Phillips

Colonial Acres residents COULD have a new neighbor — a 24-hour Kroger store. But several members of the neighborhood association aren’t singing “Let’s go Krogering.”

Last fall, neighborhood association president Anne Shafer got word that some Colonial Acres residents had been selling their homes to Kroger. She said that 14 homes and the property owned by Colonial Cumberland Presbyterian Church on Perkins are affected by the plan.

“We’re in the process of hiring a lawyer to fight this,” said Shafer. “Kroger moving in would destabilize the neighborhood. The people who have moved here didn’t buy their houses so they could live across the street from a great big Kroger store.”

The store would be bordered by Quince on the north, Marcia on the east, Dunn on the south, and Perkins on the west. But the city’s Office of Planning and Development must first approve a zoning change, which would in turn need approval by the City Council.

Shafer said she’s encouraging residents to write the City Council in protest, and several have placed “Boycott Kroger” signs in their yards.

“If this thing goes through, traffic, which is already bad, will get worse. Property values will go down, and crime will increase,” said resident Kevin Lindley. “I’ve got six grocery stores I can get to in 10 minutes. Kroger coming in just doesn’t make sense.”

E-mail: bphillips@memphisflyer.com

Colonial Acres resident David Maxey said he sees a lot of junk cars

parked in yards in his neighborhood but he had no idea neighbors were violating city and

county codes until he got involved with the city’s first Community Improvement Project.

By now, every Colonial Acres resident should know the top 10 code

violations thanks to volunteers who spent Saturday morning handing out brochures listing

the most common complaints, which includes junk vehicles, storing household

appliances outside a house, and using indoor

furniture outdoors.

“Once people know the violations,

we’re hoping they’ll get into compliance,”

said Maxey. “If you’ve got a refrigerator on

the porch, it doesn’t belong there.”

Residents will have three weeks to get

their property into compliance. At that time, the volunteers will scan the neighborhood

again, and addresses of homes that are still in

violation will be turned in to the district

attorney. Letters will be mailed to residents

warning them that if their properties aren’t cleaned

up in two weeks, they will receive citations.

The Colonial Acres neighborhood in East Memphis received a lot of attention last

year when Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges

battled code-enforcement officials in Environmental Court over his yard filled with

mannequin heads and plastic lawn furniture at the corner of Colonial and Park. But residents

who gathered in the Colonial Baptist Church parking lot on Saturday said Hodges wasn’t the

sole motivation for this project.

“That situation was just the tip of the

iceberg,” said resident Byron Tredway. “It

gets much worse than that — crack houses, meth labs. You don’t know what’s going on until

you get out and start turning rocks over.”

The event on Saturday was phase one of a pilot program devised by the Mayor’s

Citizen Service Center, the district attorney’s

office, city and county code-enforcement offices,

and the Police and Citizen’s Alliance (PACA). According to Jennifer Donnals,

communications director for the district attorney’s office, if

this program is successful it will spread to other parts of the city.

“We’re going to target this area and

work out the kinks,” said Donnals. “If people

can fix problems on their own, that will help alleviate the work load that code enforcement

has now.”

Shouting “Compassion is a fashion, fur is dead!” two protesters from a North Carolina chapter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) stripped down to painted-on leopard spots Friday at the corner of Union and South Main to demonstrate their gripes with the fur industry.

“Leopard Lady” Kayla Rae Worden and a man who would only identify himself as “Kristo” visited Memphis as the last stop on a four-city tour that included Tampa, Mobile, and Biloxi. In other cities, Worden and Kristo protested the Ringling Bros. Circus by wearing only painted-on tiger stripes and promoted vegetarianism by wearing nothing but lettuce leaves. According to Worden, nudity is the best way to get attention when trying to promote their cause.

“If I came out here and said I was going to hold a press conference, I don’t think I’d get much coverage. But if I can bare my skin for the animals, I’ll do it,” said Worden.

Worden said that animals on fur farms are anally electrocuted and confined in deplorable conditions.

She said she’s been arrested during her protests about 10 times and was once deported after a protest in Beijing, China. The two had no encounters with police in Memphis.

Memphis has some of the highest-quality groundwater in the world. It’s so good, in fact, that a scholar from the Republic of Moldova has come here to research our system in hopes of improving groundwater resources in his own country.

Dr. Constantin Moraru, head of the geohydrology laboratory of the Institute of Geophysics and Geology in the Republic of Moldova, will stay in Memphis through April while he studies at the Ground Water Institute at the University of Memphis. Moraru is part of the Fulbright Scholar Program, which provides grants for scholars from other countries to study in the U.S.

“I chose this area because the geological and hydrological conditions are similar to the conditions in my country,” said Moraru. “In my country, we have a lot of problems with the drinking water supply, and I know there’s a good experience here to learn about protecting water used for human consumption.”

Since Moldova’s economy is largely driven by agriculture, the groundwater has been polluted by excessive use of pesticides, including DDT. Water from public-supply wells also contains high levels of selenium.

Moraru is studying the Memphis aquifer, the deep sand aquifer layer that provides and filters water for much of the Mid-South, and he’ll compare that system with Moldova’s. According to Jerry Anderson, director of U of M’s Ground Water Institute, Memphis has some of the best drinking water in the world because it goes through a natural sand-filtration process.

“We treat our water very little to make it drinkable,” said Anderson. “As a matter of fact, it’s so clean that I wouldn’t be afraid to drink it straight from the aquifer system.”

Anderson said Moraru is the first foreign scholar to study the Memphis ground water system.

“He realized the opportunities here and requested to be sent here,” said Anderson. “We’re happy to get to host him, and we’re honored that he chose Memphis.”

E-mail: bphillips@memphisflyer.com

Southern College of Optometry student Molly Barber says she had a touching moment last summer in Costa Rica when she fitted a near-blind 12-year-old girl with proper prescription eyeglasses.

“Her world was probably three inches in front of her before,” says Barber. “When we put the glasses on, she could see everything for the first time. It was very exciting to see that and watch her tears.”

In many third-world countries, impoverished residents don’t have access to affordable medical care, much less affordable vision care. But for the past 28 years, a group of students from the Southern College of Optometry (SCO) in Midtown has been traveling overseas to provide cheap eye exams and prescription glasses to the needy through Student Volunteers in Optometric Service to Humanity (SVOSH). SVOSH got its start in 1975 after then-SCO student Donald Holbrook visited his father in Costa Rica and noticed the visual problems experienced by the rural poor. SVOSH has since spread to 16 other optometry schools across the country.

The organization, which is fund-raising for its next set of trips to Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands, Jamaica, and Belize, divides members into teams of seven students and two doctors. The Lion’s Club, a worldwide service organization, helps host the events, provides some funding for the trips, and donates glasses (which are also donated by local churches and optometrists).

“We try to do a full eye exam for each patient,” says Barber, the current SVOSH president. “We have the typical eye charts with the big “E” up top. We try to do a comprehensive exam with full dilation and drops, and then we assign their prescription.”

This year, students traveled to Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Paraguay. In those five trips, they performed more than 5,700 exams and prescribed more than 6,200 pairs of glasses. Since 1975, they’ve made 41 trips to foreign countries and performed nearly 170,000 exams.

The teams bring about 800 pairs of glasses on each trip, and members say they usually distribute the majority of them. Students work from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with patients forming lines that “wrap around the building.” Although SVOSH provides services for free, the hosting Lion’s Club charges patients the equivalent of about $3 in local currency.

“They’re charged enough to make sure there is a serious need, but not so much that they can’t afford it,” says Barber. “I know there have been several situations where they have let people pass through even if they couldn’t afford it.”

Occasionally, serious problems are uncovered, like the time Barber discovered a tiny button lodged in a Costa Rican man’s eye.

“I was looking into this man’s eye, and on the front of the eye, right before the colored part, I saw a white opacity with two pin-sized holes in it,” she says. “I immediately ran to a staff doctor, and she said it looked like a button to her too. We asked the interpreter to ask the patient if he’d ever had any trauma to his eye. He replied that he had actually had a button slammed into his eye by one of his siblings.”

In such cases, students have to refer the patients to a local specialist, but according to Dr. L. Allen Fors, a SVOSH faculty adviser, the Lion’s Club in the host country can usually get the price of the doctor’s visit lowered. Fors says about 10 percent of the patients they see cannot be helped on-site. Referrals are made for diseases such as cataracts or glaucoma.

“In Central America, Social Security will pay for cataract removal but won’t pay for eyeglasses, so once the cataract is removed, they’re still as blind as they were before. We usually take any cataract eyeglasses with us that we have,” says Fors. “It just lights up their smile when they can see again. I remember one guy turning to his wife after putting on the cataract glasses and saying, ‘You’re beautiful.’ He hadn’t been able to see her in 20 years.”

E-mail: bphillips@memphisflyer.com

If Gone with the Wind were set in the 21st century, would Scarlett be into bondage play? And what about Rhett? After a night of courting Miss O’Hara, would he sneak off with Mr. Ashley for a night of passionate love on the “down-low”? These are questions that come to mind while reading Arkansas journalist Suzi Parker’s new book, Sex in the South: Unbuckling the Bible Belt (Justin, Charles & Co.).

Parker’s book, which is in stores now, dishes out the scoop on what’s really going on behind closed doors in Dixie. From housewives selling sex toys to Bubbas shooting underwater porn in their backyard swimming pools, Sex in the South gives readers a look at what goes on when church lets out and the Bibles are safely tucked away.

Parker will be in town for a booksigning at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on November 11th. She took a few moments to talk with the Flyer about sex in the land of preachers and tent revivals.

Flyer: Why did you write a book on sexuality in the South?

Suzi Parker: In 2001, I wrote about this love potion, Niagra, which really jump-started the idea for a book. A woman in Arkansas had started selling it out of this little coffee store. What I found when I went to the store was all these society women coming in and buying a dozen of these bottles but wanting them in brown paper bags. After I wrote the story, I got in trouble for writing about sex and was banned from public television here in Arkansas. That’s when I started writing this book.

Why did you choose to write about sex through other people’s stories?

I’m a journalist so I’m always curious about other people, and I figured that there had to be so much more to the South than what I knew. There had to be this underworld of sexual activity going on. That’s why I decided to interview people from all over the South and find out exactly what was going on on Saturday nights before people go to church on Sunday.

Why did you feel qualified to write about sex?

I cover Bill Clinton and covered all of his sex scandals, so of course I’m qualified to write a book about sex.

How is sex in the Bible Belt affected by the religious convictions of the majority?

Obviously, sex is sex, and it happens all over the globe. Some of this stuff is not unique to the South, but if this was New York or L.A., a bondage club would not be a big deal because you’d see people in latex and leather with riding crops walking down the street. In the South, I find that everyone wants to look pious and prim and proper on the outside and to kind of conform to society’s expectations. But then there’s this rebellion brewing in them that has to get out and it fosters itself in different fetishes and sexual acts. It breeds this crazy creativity that you would never think was in the South because everyone’s acting like they’re going to church potlucks all the time.

How did you find some of this stuff, like the swinger scene in North Carolina and the down-low scene — gay sex among straight men — in Natchez, Mississippi?

There were some things that I knew were out there, like the Miss Gay America pageant. I did a lot of research on the Internet, just massive searches on all sorts of different stuff. Then I found after I’d interviewed a few people, other people knew people in various scenes. It’s like a network. Even though someone may not be into bondage they might know someone who is. Strippers know dominatrixes and dominatrixes know porn stars.

When you tried to contact the Impact Institute, the BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism, and masochism) group in Memphis, they flat-out refused you. Did you have any trouble getting consent from any other groups?

The Impact Institute is probably going to come after me now. At first, they were okay with it, but then all of a sudden something changed. They apparently had some sort of meeting where they decided to change their response. I don’t remember anyone else just flat-out saying no. I did have to work with some people on changing names. I had to reassure a lot of people that I’d protect them and their location.

In Alabama, you went undercover at a BDSM convention. Did you feel like you were violating journalistic ethics?

I had never gone undercover because I always try to be very straightforward, but I knew this wasn’t your typical kind of journalism news story. I knew to experience the real scene, I would have to go undercover. I felt a little weird about it at first, but after I got there and realized these were some of the nicest people I’d ever met, I felt a little guilty. I made sure not to name the place in Alabama, and I’ve changed names and occupations.

When you visited Platinum Plus in Memphis, you saw some pretty wild, probably illegal girl-on-girl action going down. Do you think your book will have an influence on the way strip clubs in the South do business in the future?

Honestly, I had never even gone to a strip club until I started doing research for this book, so what I saw at Platinum Plus was shocking. I actually thought that some of what I was seeing had to be a violation of some sort of city code. I’ve wondered if somebody will read something in this book and wonder if it’s illegal and pursue it. I got the feeling when I was there that some of the guys were regulars and this was not all that uncommon. I later went to a strip club in Atlanta and it wasn’t near as crazy. Platinum Plus was more than I ever expected.

Have you received any flak yet from religious groups?

There was a letter in Little Rock to the Arkansas Baptist newspaper kind of going after me about the book. They said it was racy and should not be sold at Christmas. I just heard yesterday that some radio station in a small town here was upset about the book because a story went out about it on the Arkansas radio network. I’m expecting someone somewhere to be upset about it.

Parts of the book are a little racy. Do you think some readers may read the book for comfort on those cold, lonely nights like they would a Jackie Collins novel?

Maybe so, because I know a couple people who’ve read it and got halfway through it and had to put it down because they were at work. I figure if that happens, then that’s a good sign that maybe I should be a sex writer.

What sex topic did you have the most fun covering?

The most fun writing was definitely the chapter on “pony play” and Trigger the man-horse. The most fascinating thing was probably the Alabama bondage convention. That was just so shocking that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had been to a fetish club in San Francisco and I was expecting to see something similar to that. I totally wasn’t expecting what I found in Alabama. I think that’s really the scene, as opposed to a nightclub where people are most likely poseurs.

What made you the most uncomfortable?

I would have to say it’d be the Alabama Southern Charms amateur porn chapter. It was so surreal that I was in this small town in Alabama in a chain hotel seeing this. I’ll never look at a hotel the same way again. It’s like, what’s going on behind door number three?

What do you hope to accomplish with the book?

I would like to say my mission is to open minds and eyes to what’s really going on in the South, but my ultimate mission is for people to read this book and never look at their neighbors, teachers, or co-workers the same way again. After that bondage chapter, it became really hard for me to look at people the same, because you just don’t expect a 60-year-old woman to be into bondage.

Do you think there’s any chance of the South becoming more open-minded about sex?

I think it’s opening a little bit, but I still think we have a really long way to go. You have your larger cities like Memphis or New Orleans or Atlanta, but there are still so many rural areas where it’s harder to open up. Part of me would like for it to open up, but then again, if it does, that would ruin some of its mystique.

When your vision starts to go, the customary treatment is to begin wearing glasses. If your vision is bad enough, a corrective-lenses restriction is added to your driver’s license. It’s not often that someone with such a restriction is able to have it removed.

That’s why retired pastor Harold Younger was hesitant to go to the DMV and tell them his once-failing eyesight had improved to 20-20 and that he no longer needed a restriction on his license. He says he just didn’t have the nerve to tell them he’d managed to correct his vision through an alternative healing method that involves repetitive eye exercises.

But when he moved to a different state and got a new license, he decided to let them know that his need for corrective lenses was a thing of the past. The DMV agreed. That was in 1985, and Younger decided to share his secret by opening an alternative vision-correction school in Alabama. He’ll be at the Unity Church of Memphis on October 18th for a workshop on the Bates Method of vision correction.

“The neat thing about the Bates Method is once you learn it, you don’t have to get up every day and do the stuff,” says Younger. “It lasts for the rest of your life. Once you get good vision habits back, you keep them. I’ve had good vision since 1985, and I don’t do the exercises unless I’m teaching.”

The exercises, which focus on relaxation and regaining the eyes’ natural movement, include conscientious blinking and what Younger calls “shifting” — allowing the eyes to follow an instrument that moves back and forth. Younger says once participants understand the concept of shifting, they can practice on picket fences or rows of cars.

Another Bates Method exercise is called palming, which is done by placing warm palms over closed eyes and concentrating on sending healing energy through the hands into the eyes.

“A lot of people don’t understand palming because they don’t understand the energy of the body,” says Younger. “They don’t believe in stuff like that. But the energy that we have in our hands is measurable by instruments. For instance, if you hurt yourself, what’s the first thing you do? You put your hand on it because it makes it feel better. There’s healing in the hands.”

Bates Method teachers are no strangers to skepticism. Dr. William H. Bates, an early ophthalmologist and the founder of the method, was fired from a New York hospital when he released the findings of his research to the American Medical Association. The AMA refused to accept that poor vision could be improved to near-perfect.

Bates began his research in the 1890s. He found that people with good vision moved their eyes more than people with failing vision. He also found that most of his good-vision subjects had a more relaxed lifestyle. He used these principles to create a method whereby vision could be improved through exercises and relaxation techniques.

He believed that failing vision could likely be associated with stress. Even today, Bates Method teachers often refer their more anxious patients to counseling before allowing them to try the techniques.

“I’ve had a lot of students tell me about stressful things happening around the time they got glasses, like maybe their grandmother died or they lost a pet,” says Younger.

Traditional theory says that people see about 10 percent with their mind and 90 percent with their eyes, but the Bates Method teaches the opposite, which correlates with the stress theory: If the mind is stressed out, it can’t put as much work into good vision.

According to Younger, the Bates Method can benefit everybody, no matter how bad his or her vision. He says the method may not eliminate the need for glasses in everyone, but it can help reduce the amount of correction needed. He also recommends the method for people with 20-20 vision, as a form of prevention.

“I’m teaching a woman now who only has one eye, due to an accident a few years back,” he says. “The vision in that eye is good, but she’s interested in preserving that vision because she doesn’t have anything to fall back on.”

The key, he says, is determination. People who don’t make a strong commitment to trading old vision habits for new ones may not see much improvement.

“It’s not for everybody, at least not any more than becoming a vegetarian or lifting weights would be,” he says.

Harold Younger’s Bates Method workshop will be held Saturday, Oct. 18th, at 10 a.m. at the Unity Church of Memphis (2570 Kirby Rd.). Call 754-4241 to pre-register.

You can e-mail Bianca Phillips at bphillips@MemphisFlyer.com.