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HOW IT LOOKS
Author: Cheri DelBrocco
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HOW IT LOOKS
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MAD AS HELL
STROM’S GIRL
A few years ago, my neighbor, Frank* approached me when I was at the mailbox. He had noticed the “Clinton/Gore” sign in my yard and wanted to talk to me about his feelings regarding Bill Clinton. “How?”, he asked, “can you support Bill Clinton? He is so immoral. He fathered a black child when he was Governor of Arkansas”. (The word “black” was not the descriptive word used.) My neighbor went on to announce that he had once been a Democrat, but had left the party because Republicans had better “Christian values.” He told me he knew all about Bill Clinton because the Sunday School class at the church he formerly attended in Arkansas regularly discussed President Clinton’s “ immorality”. Imagine that.
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During this season of miracles and wonder, let us hope for the greatest of all miracles – that our country will take a holiday from hypocrisy.
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I was surprised, but not entirely shocked. Having grown up in the South, I have been accustomed to hearing offensive racist remarks. What is stunning, however, is that Frank is a family man, and an active member of his church, who presides at prayer breakfasts, Bible classes, and Christian men’s groups. He is also involved in civic organizations that perform acts of charity such as delivering health supplies to developing countries in Central America. By all appearances, he is what people call a “fine, Christian, man.” Such is the perception for white, fundamentalist, Southerners.
This past week, I have thought about Frank and his comments that day at the mailbox. I have thought about his friends, the fellow church goers. I wonder if his former Sunday School class members discuss George W. Bush’s “immorality”. But what I really would like to know is what they think of the bombshell that was delivered that did not concern the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a seventy eight year old former California school teacher, publicly announced she is the late Senator Strom Thurmond’s illegitimate black daughter. Her story is a remarkable one.
Mrs. Washington- Williams was fathered by Strom Thurmond when he was a twenty two year old, living at his parent’s home while working as a public school teacher. Her mother, 16 year old Carrie Butler, was the family’s maid. What would the people in the town of Aiken, SC , where Mrs. Williams was born, think if a 22 year old male public school teacher fathered a child with an under age girl in today’s world?
This truly fascinating story was kept secret from the world so that Senator Thurmond could pursue his life in politics. In an interview with Dan Rather, Mrs. Washington- Williams admitted that if she had come forth with her story, during the Senator’s lifetime, he would have been politically ruined.
America is familiar with the kind of politics Strom Thurmond pursued. He was the country’s most passionate segregationist. He believed in and fought for an American Apartheid. While he was railing against integrated schools, bathrooms, and restaurants, he was secretly giving his black daughter envelopes of cash. While he was fighting against voting rights and Civil rights for blacks, he was paying tuition to an all black college for the daughter he publicly renounced by claiming the son born to him and his white wife was the first child to make him a father.
In turn, Essie Mae has remained the respectful firstborn who is grateful for the brief demonstrations of love and courtesy he seldom bestowed to her.
Perhaps, in the South of today, people would say Strom Thurmond was a “fine, Christian man” because he financially provided for his secret daughter. Such is the still the perception of many.
My neighbor, Frank, recently had a Christmas party for his Sunday School class. Some of the cars sported bumperstickers that read, “Jesus is the reason for the season”. Imagine that – Jesus and the N-word co-habitating in the same house.
During this season of miracles and wonder, while we are harking the heralds and assembling the faithful, let us reflect on stories such as Essie MaeWashington-Williams and hope for the greatest of all miracles – that our country will take a holiday from hypocrisy.
*Name changed to protect the identity of the individual.
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TIGER FOOTBALL
BRAVE NEW WORLD
It’s an ill wind that blows hot, I remember thinking to myself, while standing in the parking lot just south of the Liberty Bowl at high noon Saturday, a parking lot that the blue-clad U of M faithful had turned into a mini-Grove for the occasion. The football Tigers were about to attempt winning an eighth game for the first season in thirty, and the mood was decidedly upbeat. But the wind was spooky, not the cold biting kind you’d expect in November, but something different, twisting, turning, swirling in all directions.
“Wait’ll you see how crazy it gets in the stadium,” Drew Pairamore, standing beside me inside a particularly festive tent, observed. Pairamore should know; he spent three seasons in the early 1990s as the Tiger punter, where he learned to be wary of days like this one down at ground level.
Sure enough, the tempest spiraled and gusted inside the Liberty Bowl that afternoon, like an invisible wooden spoon stirring all the contents, which included two highly-regarded junior quarterbacks, each of whom would not count this among their better days. Danny Wimprine braved the fickle winds in decidedly worse fashion than his Cincinnati counterpart, having a real stinker, perhaps the worst game of his Tiger career. But at a fateful moment midway through the fourth quarter, with the Bearcats nursing a 16-14 lead, Gino Guidugli launched his own aerial misfire, a pass that veered a good ten yards off course, and into the waiting arms of ecstatic Tiger safety Wesley Smith, who scampered down the siudeline and inside the Cincinnati 10 yard line. The U of M punched it in three plays later, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Eight victories. Whodathunkit, especially after the disheartening loss to UAB back in early October? Certainly not those who have spent two decades in the football wilderness, fans who have known more heartbreak than a hundred cardiologists. The Tigers won ugly, to be sure, but we’ll take it. The U of M has all too much experience with losing well, with style and grace, and with being the best bad football team in America.
Ah, but back to the ill wind. Such was the havoc it wreaked upon Wimprine’s passing abilities that the Tigers came out after halftime with a revised game plan, one built around a simple premise: give the ball to The Franchise. And give it to him they did, play after play. DeAngelo Williams racked up his usual mega-yardage (and his tenth consecutive 100-yard game) before Fate intervened. Going to the well perhaps once too often, the Tiger coaching staff grimaced right alongside DeAngelo when his knee popped at the one-yard-line, and his storybook 2003 season came to what is likely to be an abrupt conclusion.
The Franchise’s injury was eerily similar to the one that befell another franchise player back in 1993, when, also in the next-to-last game of the season, Steve Matthews (to my mind still the best quarterback in U of M history;sorry, Danny, after Saturday, you still have some work to do) also dove into the middle of the line and ended his season instantly. Breaking his leg in two places, Matthews was never the same, never having the NFL career he was on course to enjoy. Happily, DeAngelo’s injury looks less severe, and it’s likely he’ll be back next year to build on his already certain reputation as the greatest running back in Tiger football history.
Williams is truly a joy to watch; I can never make up my mind if he reminds me more of Gale Sayers or Tony Dorsett, but let’s just say he moves in pretty elite company. His misdirection skills are the best I’ve ever seen; if you haven’t been out to see him in person yet, make sure you do next year, for that may be the last chance you get. Williams is the Penny Hardaway of Memphis football.
But that’ll be next year, more than likely, and this year still has two games to go, now that a U of M bowl bid is a certainty. Those contests promise to be a bit of a struggle offensively (although Derron Parquet acquitted himself well in Number 20’s absence), but with Joe Lee Dunn’s defense hitting on all cylinders, South Florida and whomever the Tigers go bowling with will have their hands full. After five victories in a row, this team really does seem to have a rendezvous with destiny. And now that they’re mastering the concept of winning ugly, I wouldn’t bet against them.
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MAD AS HELL
A LAST LAMENT FROM JOHNNY CASH
Shortly before his death, Johnny Cash gave his last interview to Rolling Stone magazine. Although he was nearly blind and confined to a wheelchair, Johnny was mentally sharp and still knew how to convey his thoughts with bare-boned honesty. He was particularly outspoken about the impending war with Iraq. “I fear for the future for my grandchildren,” he said. “I fear what’s coming down on them. How they’re going to handle all the hell that this country is going through if it goes to war. And it’s going to be hell – it’s going to be terrible what we’re going to face if we go to war.”
As an ordinary grandfather, sharing his concerns, Johnny Cash probably had no idea of the profoundness of his words. The hell he was so worried about has already visited thousands of families across the nation. It came to Memphis last week. Sergeant Morgan Kennon’s death in Iraq brought sorrow, sadness, and yes, hell to our city. For those who knew him, it was a private, personal hell. The rest of the community shared in the hell as we watched his funeral on television and listened to the gut wrenching sobs of his beautifully dressed mother.
For parents of soldiers in Iraq, the anxiety of possibly facing the Kennon family’s brutal experience is overwhelming. However, as a parent of a child old enough to serve, but who is not in the military, I have a lot of anxiety, as well. That is because the Bush administration has quietly begun a public campaign to bring the draft boards back to life.
An announcement on an obscure federal Web site urges citizens to “Serve Your Community and the Nation.” It goes on to say, “If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men…receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service.” For those who were of age to fight in the Vietnam War, it is an ominous flashback of a message. It brings back a memory of being forced to face hell.
Not since the early days of the Reagan administration in 1981 has the Defense Department made a push to fill over ten thousand draft board positions and eleven thousand appeals board slots. So why is the Bush administration working to possibly oil up the draft machine?
In Iraq, regularly relentless bombings demonstrate things are going awry. Daily news accounts detail how the U.S. is stretched too thin to be effective. Growing tensions in Syria, Iran, the Korean Peninsula, and most currently, Turkey, suggest that military action may be necessary in those spots, too.
Representatives of the present administration have denied there are suggestions to bring back the draft and of course, for George W. Bush to mention it, in an election year, would be political suicide; however a spokesperson for the conservative think tank, The Cato Institute, recently commented about the raging war in Iraq and the denials by the White House of a return to the draft by stating, “As an incumbent, safely in for a second term—-that might be a different story.”
Earlier this month, Lieutenant Benjamin Colgan of Kent, Washington was killed in Baghdad.. He was the father of two young daughters with a third child on the way. When interviewed, his father told of his last e-mail to the family. It said, “It’s getting real old and getting real crazy.”
Naturally, at his funeral, his mother painfully wailed like Mrs. Kennon. But she also said this, “People keep asking , ‘Are the Iraqis better off?’”What we have to start asking is ‘Are we better off?’ And we’re not. We’re losing our children.”
Reportedly, George W. Bush is a country music fan. Perhaps, he should take to heart the words of the late, great Johnny Cash, because parents shouldn’t have to fear their kids being drafted into an interminable war and grandparents shouldn’t have to fear for the future of their grandchildren and the hellish reality of a war that shouldn’t be.
First of all, it was a day on which the onetime county assessor and current county commissioner visited the downtown office of the Shelby County Election Commission and pulled a petition to run for his old assessor’s job on next year’s election ballot. (Ironically, the fourth floor of the county office building – where Hooks and his commission mates moved from two floors up some two month ago — also houses one of incumbent Assessor Rita Clark’s administrative offices.)
Secondly, Hooks got off one of the most spirited improv riffs yet seen in local government circles of any kind. One of the items considered by the Shelby County Commission’s land use committee on Wednesday was an application by developer Mark Lovell to construct a wedding chapel in the Collierville area. Upon the committee’s approval of the application (pending approval by the full commission at its next meeting), Hooks then addressed Lovell about a wholly imaginary website (www.gethitched.com) on which he could, as a legally entitled county commissioner, perform marriages.
Said the commissioner: “I would like to make applicant aware that one of the powers vested in the county commission is to marry. So if you want to visit my website ‘gethitched.com’ we’ve got the attorney general’s interpretation recently that I don’t even have to be present with the present digital and video technology we can marry off-site, and mine includes and is not limited to a hologram so you can look right at me, and I can actually look like I’m there, and I’m not there. [laughter] Next item please.”
Lovell, who had remained silent throughout the commission’s deliberations on his zoning proposal, was moved to respond: “Is there an underscore between ‘get’ and ‘hitched’?” he asked.
You had to be there.
The commissioner, who underwent what would appear to be a highly successful rehab for an acknowledged coccaine addiction, is now attempting to break the tobacco habit.
Said Strickland, after a peal of laughter on hearing about the allegation: “Not a chance. A Democrat couldn’t wiin in that district [#1, also served by Willingham’s fellow Republicans Linda Rendtorff and Marilyn Loeffel].” Would he make a “Shermanesque” disavowal (after the Civil War general who said about rumors of president ambition: “I will not run if nominated; I will not serve if elected”)? Strickland: “Oh yes.”
The commission — through a unanimous vote by its Public Service & Tourism committee, headed by Willingham — approved a contract with independent consultants Barnett Naylor/Hanscomb, a Memphis firm to report independently on matters concerning the arena and the deal with HOOPS
And Willingham, Bailey, and various others took umbrage at a clause of the 2001 agreement that amounted, explained county attorney Brian Kuhn, to an “incentive” for the deal, “a pre-negotiated payment of operating moving costs” for the former Vancouver franchise.
This was the now notorious Section 5.25 of the agreement that provided for a $3.75 penalty, payable to HOOPS, if the new arena was not playable by the beginning of the 2003 season. City and county officials recently received a letter from HOOPS which pointed out the incompleteness of the FedEx Forum and continued: “Consequently, Hoops demands that City/County pay the Hoops the entire amount of funds in the Capitalized Start-Up Costs Reserve Fund….”
On behalf of the county, Kuhn had answered that letter with one of his own, noting that not all the jots and iotas of the protocol had been observed and suggesting there would be a procedural delay in the payment. But he left no doubt Wednesday that the contract ultimately provided for what HOOPS claimed and said that the inevitable “peanlty” had been, in effect, an add-on payment agreed to at the time of signing.
“I’m just a small-time laywer,” complained Commissioner Walter Bailey, a big-time lawyer. But, he went on, at no time before, during, or after negotiations and the signing of the contract with HOOPS, had the cited section been explained as a de facto prepayment of moving expaneses. “It’s been said that there were meanings and sub-meanings,” Bailey said. “Well, I wasn’t part of that sub-meaning. This was a subterfuge.”
Hooks agreed: “The chicanery involved is ridiculous.” Added Marilyn Loeffel: “Smoke and mirrors.” And there was general agreement that the tone of the HOOPS letter demanding payment had been offensive to the point of appearing imperious.
Even so, the payment of the “penalty” would appear a done deal. The thrust of Wednesday’s committee hearing, though, was that the commission was serving interest that it intended to use its new consultants’ arrangement as a fine-tooth comb to vet the contract and the rest of the arena-building process.
Under questioning, however, Patterson conceded that there was “significant cross-border bleeding” of sales tax revenue to Mississippi. That gave Willingham, Mayor Herenton’s recent city-election opponent, an opportunity for one more piece of anti-Herenton rhetoric. The mayor had, he alleged, been observing crossing the state line for shopping purposes. “If You go to Wal-Mart [in Southaven] you’ll see Mayor Herenton down there,” he maintained.
Governor Phil Bredesen wasted little time moving forward after asking Department of Children s Services (DCS) Commissioner Mike Miller to step down Tuesday morning.
On Thursday the governor named a seven-member group to develop an action plan and timetable to meet the requirements of the Brian A. settlement. “While we have 26 months left to comply with the terms of the Brian A settlement, I expect the department to be moving much more rapidly toward addressing some of these issues,” said Bredesen in a prepared statement.
The seven members of the panel include three members of DCS, chairman Steve Norris of Mental Retardation Services, the governor s assistant legal counsel, and two other state department members.
State representative Kathryn Bowers of Memphis also addressed Miller’s termination Thursday by commending the governor for his actions. “I am proud that [Bredesen] had the courage and fortitude to ask [Miller] to step down. It takes a very special person to admit to their mistakes or misjudgment,” she said in a prepared statement of her own.
Information regarding Miller’s possible termination was discussed with Bowers and other legislators last week. She received the official announcement Tuesday morning, 30 minutes before the governor made the public announcement during a budget hearing.
“I had some serious reservations about [Miller’s appointment] when it was
first announced,” Bowers said, citing a long, negative history in a “department infested with problems.” She continued: “I always felt that the staff in that department was like mixing water with oil because of the makeup of people in former competing child care services now having to work together. And it still didn’t work, as you can see, because oil and water never mix.”
The department was created in 1996 through a consolidation of five state departments with intentions to be dedicated entirely to child welfare and juvenile justice issues.
While the new panel works to meet the settlement guidelines, it will also have to handle the latest blow dealt by plaintiffs’ attorneys in the case who Thursday filed a contempt of court motion against the governor and the commissioner.
The motion, filed in the district court for the Middle District of Tennessee, alleges that DCS has failed to comply with requirements of the settlement and that no plan has been developed to implement the consent decree. The motion also calls for a hearing report date to present evidence, appointment of a special administrator to oversee the settlement agreement implementation plan, and a revision in the progress deadlines currently outlined in the settlement.
Lawyers said their requests will be in addition to any groups or administrators put in place by Bredesen.
The federal monitor’s report, released early this month, found DCS in full compliance with only 24 of 136 provisions. A state audit of the department, requested by Bowers, is scheduled for release on Tuesday.
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A TOPPING OUT…AND A BOTTOMING OUT
Against a backdrop of clear blue sky, ironworkers balancing on beams up in the sky, hammers clanging against steel, whirring generators, and the traditional fir tree and American flag, the FedEx Forum was topped out Thursday.
At precisely the same moment, Shelby County government’s relationship with city and state government leaders hit something close to rock bottom.
The $250 million basketball arena, the largest public building project in Memphis history, is still several months from completion, but the exterior work is in the final stages. On a brilliantly clear day, well over 100 people gathered outside the arena to sign their names to a beam that would carry the fir tree and flag to the top of the structure.
The celebration, however, was tempered by a nasty undertone of political threats and resentment directed at county elected officials, The Pyramid, and the ever unpopular “naysayers” and “small-minded” citizenry.
The immediate cause was a county commission committee’s decision Wednesday to insist upon a $50,000 “value engineering” study of the project.
At a meeting of the New Memphis Arena Public Building Authority just prior to the topping out ceremony, Chairman Arnold Perl and vice-chairman and State Sen. John Ford took turns beating up on various county officials, none of whom were present.
Ford broke the ice by accusing County Mayor A C Wharton, County Attorney Brian Kuhn, and members of the county commission of “possible malfeasance” by letting the study go forward. The consultants, he said, “can’t tell us anything we don t already know.”
Perl, a trial attorney specialist in labor law, vented his opinions next.
Memphis, he said, “has one of the worst reputations in the United States to do public building projects . . . I don’t want to go into it, but they’re known.”
“Ask any national contractor and they’ll tell you this is a bad place to do a project, he said.
The FedEx Forum, by coming in on time, under budget, and in excess of expectations, can “change the image of Memphis, Tennessee.” He vowed that it would not become “Pyramid Two.”
Then it was Ford’s turn to ratchet up the rhetoric another notch. He said the county has “messed up” the construction of the new jail and the convention center.
“I have a long memory,” he said ominously, adding “some of us have the votes to do things you can’t imagine. I am suggesting, don’t rub us the wrong way.”
Shelby County has to go to Nashville for state funding of many of its
rograms.
After the meeting adjourned to the building site, a nice-size crowd had formed as Mayor Willie Herenton stepped forward on the speakers’ platform to say a few words. After praising Perl, the building authority, and the contractor, he ripped into “naysayers, some of who are private citizens and some of whom are elected officials.”
For 30 years, it has been traditional for city mayors from Wyeth Chandler to Dick Hackett to Herenton and county mayors from Bill Morris to Jim Rout to Wharton to come together to make nice at countless groundbreakings and dedications far less significant than the biggest public building project in local history.
Yet among the notable absentees Thursday was Wharton, who was represented on the platform — any closer to the edge and he would have fallen off — by chief administrative officer John Fowlkes, silent as a cigar store Indian. Wharton’s absence signified both his growing estrangement from Herenton and the sea change in county government since Wharton replaced Rout 14 months ago and Rout’s senior aide and arena liason Tom Jones pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges.
When the arena was in the formative stages three years ago, Rout and Jones were closely involved, and it would have been unthinkable for an important meeting to have taken place without one or both of them.
Now, in more ways than one, it is a new day.
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CITY BEAT
UNSOLVED MYSTERY
In the wake of a continuing federal grand jury investigation of the bizarre assault upon Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. O. C. Smith, his office has allowed its professional accreditation to lapse.
Smith replaced longtime medical examiner Dr. Jerry Francisco in 2000. Under Francisco, the office was accredited by the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME) from June, 1998 to June, 2003. NAME records show that the accreditation, which could have been renewed by a process that includes inspections and interviews with the medical examiner and staff, was instead allowed to lapse.
Through Shelby County Health Department spokesman Brenda Ward, Smith declined to be interviewed by the Flyer. He has consistently refused media requests for interviews since he says someone attacked him outside his office 19 months ago, bound him with barbed wire, and attached a bomb to his chest. Police and federal investigators have failed to find the assailant.
A federal grand jury in Memphis has been looking into the case, which has attracted interest and skepticism from nationally famous medical examiners Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Michael Baden. Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton last month asked the Shelby County Commission to replace Smith, but he continues to serve at least until the local medical society can recommend willing and qualified replacements.
Nationwide, more than 300 medical examiner offices and forensic science labs are accredited by either NAME or the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. Among them are the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime labs in Knoxville and Nashville and the Nashville and Davidson County Forensic Sciences Center. The Shelby County Medical Examiner’s Office is not accredited by either one.
“Accreditation matters quite a bit,” said Dr. Bruce Levy, chief medical examiner for Tennessee and Davidson County. “Dr. Francisco was one of the earliest proponents of this whole process and Memphis was one of the first offices to be accredited. From the point of view of NAME, it’s a shame to lose an office.”
Smith is still on the job. That’s the scoop gleaned from phone calls to his office. But it is unclear whether his duties have changed in light of the publicity he’s gotten this year. For example, two weeks ago, a burning body was found in a sewer Ñ just the sort of gruesome, sensational case depicted on hit television shows about ace medical detectives. Asked if Smith fielded it, Shelby County District Attorney General Bill Gibbons said, “It is my understanding that he did not go to the scene in the case of the burning body in the sewer. He or an assistant medical examiner is responsible for the autopsy.”
Gibbons added, “Whether or not Dr. Smith or an assistant medical examiner goes to a particular homicide scene is not our call. From time to time, he has gone to the scene. In many cases, probably most, he does not go to the scene.”
Last month, Gibbons and Wharton (who was the Shelby County public defender before he was elected mayor) had either a disagreement or miscommunication about Smith’s status as a potential expert witness in local criminal cases. County Attorney Brian Kuhn said this week he still isn’t clear and suggested the Flyer ask Gibbons and officials at the University of Tennessee, which is Smith’s employer. Spokesman Odell Horton Jr. said Smith’s status “has not changed from UT’s standpoint” and added that the UT College of Nursing has an active and accredited program at the medical examiner’s office.
Gibbons reiterated his position that “Dr. Smith may very well be used by us as an expert. We have never indicated that we would not use him.”
The backdrop to this verbal fandango is the federal investigation of the Smith assault. If, as investigators originally theorized, the bomber proves to be a religiously motivated attacker with a grudge against Smith because of his testimony in the capital murder case of Philip Workman, then Wharton could have some apologizing and explaining to do. But if Smith knows more about the attack than he has said publicly so far, or if he was involved somehow, then defense attorneys are likely to suggest that several other Smith investigations were contaminated.
It has been a rough autumn for police and prosecutors. Another federal grand jury has uncovered massive theft and returned indictments against several former employees of the police department property and evidence room. Police oversight of money, drugs, and crucial evidence in criminal cases was apparently all but nonexistent despite warnings raised in an audit two years ago of the organized crime unit.
The news that comes out of the federal building in the next few months will determine a lot more than the fate of one medical examiner
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HOW IT LOOKS
