Author: Ed Weathers

HERENTON’S NEXT FOUR YEARS

The election is almost a week old, so obviously it’s high time to chart out the next four years. The fate of Herman Morris and The Pyramid, those frisky Fords, Dr. Carol Johnson, taxes, consolidation, some key staff vacancies, and a gender gap are some of the issues facing Mayor Willie Herenton as he winds up his third term and looks forward to his fourth.

MLGW: Remember the big wind storm in July? Some people at MLGW would just as soon you didn’t. Two months after the big blow, MLGW still hasn’t produced a simple explanation of total costs, overtime, and impact on rates for its customers or a detailed report on its storm response.

MLGW instead chose the time-tested option of appointing a committee Ñ packed with its own employees, no less Ñ to buy time until the storm is a distant memory. The committee has not yet met.

Herenton has the power to extend the expired contract of MLGW CEO Herman Morris. The terms of most board members have also expired, and Herenton must decide whether to reappoint them. In the days following the storm, the mayor seemed a bit distant from Morris, but the longer he holds on, the better his chances.

Box out future rivals: Sure, the next city mayoral election is four years away, but that’s within the planning timetable of serious politicians. And there are some serious politicians on the City Council or involved in runoffs. Republican George Flinn and Democrat Carol Chumney, vying in District 5, have both already made runs for county mayor and would likely use a council seat as a stepping stone to something bigger.

Current members of the council who, based on past behavior, also might harbor mayoral dreams include Myron Lowery, Jack Sammons, and Brent Taylor.

Groom a successor: Again, assuming this is his last term, Herenton could give a potential successor a leg up with a key appointment in his administration, favorable treatment on the council, or some kind words and contributions from his well-stocked campaign larder.

The mayor’s sons Rodney and Duke are successful businessmen. Neither has expressed an interest in politics yet, but it’s not as if genes don’t matter in Memphis where names like Ford, Hooks, and Bailey show up with regularity.

Make appointments: Four city division directors have announced they are leaving: Donnie Mitchell of Public Services, Clint Buchanan of Emergency Management, Chester Anderson at the Fire Department, and Butch Eder at General Services.

Others could be asked to leave. Chief administrative officer Keith McGee still has that nagging “interim” attached to his title and has had a hard time following veteran Rick Masson. The CAO is the mayor’s liaison with the council. Last week, the council rebuffed McGee on a big Motorola contract, a police firing range, a downtown tax proposal, and a collective bargaining measure.

At the Park Commission, Wayne Boyer seems to be popular with the mayor but he has health problems and his job has shrunk due to privatization. Playground and golf-course maintenance, anyone? Look for some action on the long-dormant fairgrounds and for the Skinner Center for the Disabled to move downtown.

There is a notable shortage of women in the top ranks of the Herenton administration. Gail Jones Carson is the mayor’s spokesman and Sara Hall heads the personnel department. That’s it. Herenton is too good a politician to leave it that way.

Reach out to new MCS superintendent Carol Johnson. Herenton can’t continue to make disparaging cracks about the school board and insist that the only solution is consolidation with Shelby County. On second thought, he can, but the board survived the election pretty much intact and Johnson has to work with them.

One giant consolidated school system headed by Johnson and four or five assistant superintendents? Maybe some day, but Johnson has more immediate concerns, and a decade of diplomacy and acrimony between city and county have produced nothing.

Big downtown decisions. The City Council voted 12-1 against a plan to create a special tax district for downtown, but the Center City Commission and their friends at the daily newspaper seem to think the proposal should come back.

Herenton stayed in the background, in contrast to Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, who wrote a supportive letter that was passed out to the City Council. Council members noticed and voted accordingly.

The Pyramid could be starting its final season as home of the U of M Tigers. There will be council resistance to letting the Tigers out of their lease, assuming there is no alternative user. In the crunch, the question could be whether the mayor or council has the power to enforce the contract.

A GRADE-A MISTAKE

I suppose I ought to write about the California recall election, but I have nothing new to say about that particular indictment of the American electorate.

I suppose I ought to write about the outing of a CIA agent by a White House bent on political retaliation, but Bush and Rove will no doubt get away with it no matter what I say.

I suppose I ought to write about the Middle East, but I can’t really comprehend what’s going on there.

So instead I want to write about something closer to home for me right now: grades. That’s right, the grades that students get in school. The American education system places too much emphasis on grades, and it stinks. It stinks ethically, and it stinks pedagogically. It might even be why people like George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger get elected in the first place, and why Americans like me understand almost nothing about Israel, Palestine and Iraq.

Here’s a case in point:

When I’m not writing this column, I teach English composition at a very good public university. Last Friday, one of my students, a freshman named Elizabeth, came to my office to discuss an “analysis” paper she has to turn in this coming week. The paper is a tough one for most students, requiring them to identify the assumptions underlying the argument of a book we’ve just finished reading. The book is called Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, by Bill McKibben. It argues that technologies like genetic engineering, nanobotics, and artificial intelligence threaten what it means to be human, and therefore the government should restrict research in those technologies. In other words, the book asks students to think hard about a difficult issue of public policy.

Elizabeth, bless her heart, is a thoughtful, conscientious student. She received a C+ on her previous paper, and it wasn’t good enough for her. She wants desperately to do better on the next assignment. So she came to my office last Friday to discuss her idea for the analysis paper. It turns out she has a terrific idea: She wants to take some concepts she’s been learning about in her philosophy class–concepts having to do with the meaning and value of human actions–and point out how McKibben’s book uses those same concepts as the basis for his argument. (If your brain is hurting right now trying to follow all this, be glad you don’t have to write this paper. But it would probably be a good thing if you tried.)

I told Elizabeth that I thought her idea for the paper was swell. I said it was wonderful that she saw a connection between the ideas in her philosophy class and the ideas in her English class. Then I pointed out that it was going to take some careful writing for her to explain the complex philosophical concepts for her reader, but I said I thought she could do it. As I said this, Elizabeth’s freckled face turned red, and it looked as if she might start crying. I asked her what was the matter.

“You’re such a hard grader!” she said. “Maybe I should do an easier idea. I don’t want to get another C!”

That tells you everything that’s wrong with grades. Here was a student with an original, challenging idea that would have stretched her brain and made her stronger in every way a college assignment should make a student stronger. But she was willing to throw the idea away because doing something easier might give her a better grade.

And I couldn’t blame her. There’s a good chance Elizabeth would have gotten all muddled trying to explain her philosophy-class ideas, and the paper would have been a mess. I might have had to give her another C.

The American system of education, you see, is all about the final product. And the final product, for us, isn’t the student. It’s not even what the student learned. It’s just that computer-printed and stapled thing called “the paper.”

Which is probably the least important thing in this whole process.

You see, I can admire Elizabeth’s intellectual struggle all I want. I can watch her mind grow more powerful and more nimble in that struggle with ideas. But I’m not allowed to grade her intellectual growth. I’m not allowed to grade our conversation in my office. I’m not allowed to grade her discovery of a difficult concept or her effort to articulate it. Heck, it’s easier for both of us if she just chooses a simpler idea and successfully explains it in simple terms, so I can reward her with a happy B, and we can both go away content.

Which is just why people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and George W. Bush get elected. They think simple thoughts and explain them in simple ways that American voters, having been rewarded their whole lives for avoiding difficult ideas, can feel comfortable with. Israel? Palestine? Iraq? You can’t get an A from American voters by forcing them to deal with complex topics like those. Just ask Jimmy Carter.

Let me make it clear: I’m not advocating grade inflation. I don’t think I should give Elizabeth an A just for trying hard. My point is, I shouldn’t have to give her any grade at all. I should simply read her paper, tell her what she can learn from its strengths and weaknesses, congratulate her for an intellectual fight well fought, and send her on her way. Instead, I will hand her the paper back, and Elizabeth will care about only one thing: Did she do better than a C? For my part, I will have written just those comments on her paper that will justify whatever grade I think it’s worth, because I think she in fact deserves justification for that grade she cares so much about. We both will have acted the part of cowards, and the whole idea of learning will be reduced to alphabet soup.

American elementary schools, high schools and colleges should give up grades right now. No grades, period. If you are a student, you pass or you fail. You pass if you are engaged fully in whatever intellectual struggle the course calls for. You fail if you don’t try. There are good colleges that already work that way, although not many.

But without grades, you might ask, how does the graduate school Elizabeth applies to decide whether to admit her? How does the marketing firm she sends her resume to decide whether to hire her? Well, I don’t really know, and I don’t really care. They can do it any way they want. I recommend, for starters, that they talk to her, make her show them how she thinks (whether she thinks), see if they like the mind inside that head. It would be lazy and immoral for them to reduce her future to letters on the grid of a transcript.

This is an old discussion, I know, but I think it needs to be renewed occasionally. The other night I watched a debate among the Democratic contenders for their party’s presidential nomination. Not one of them said a single thing that was original. Not one of them seemed to be struggling in any way with his own ideas. Everything they said was rehearsed, predigested, careful, comfortable. They were bland and predictable, every one.

I’ll bet in school they all got straight As.

I must admit: I was sorely tempted not to write anything at all here about Saturday’s debacle at the Liberty Bowl, where the U of M Tigers ruined a beautiful early-fall afternoon for an expectant crowd of thirty-thousand-plus, rendering most of us both speechless and borderline nauseous.

No, I thought maybe instead I’d do something on the similarities between politics and football, sort of a get-out-the vote piece on the eve of Thursday’s municipal elections. Maybe point out how in every kind of contest, you can’t have a happy winner without a disheartened loser. And point out the public service the football Tigers have provided for their neighbors across the Mid-South over the years, by making lots of other people happy…

But my editor insists I say something about last Saturday’s stinker. Ok, boss, here goes:

Proving that they learned nothing from opening with a singularly miserable first half against Arkansas State — a weakling against whom such a misstep could be overcome — the Tigers came out against UAB Saturday even more discombobulated, digging themselves into a steep 17-0 hole by halftime. And while the second half showed clearly why ours was the better team on paper, that hole proved way too deep to crawl out of, given that we were up against an opponent as well-coached and as disciplined as Watson Brown’s Blazers invariably are.

And so for the fourth consecutive season, UAB went away with the spoils of victory, and we went home in the depths of depression. This year’s loss was particularly hard to figure; even the bookmakers had us as 9 1/2-point favorites. Somebody in Vegas must be making boatloads of money betting on Tiger football. By simply studying recent Conference USA history, and understanding one of that conference’s guiding principles — the U of M will invariably lose the games it seems most likely to win — you could accumulate a tidy fortune.

And so Tiger fans face another blue and gray autumn. After raising our hopes with that impressive victory over Ole Miss, the Tigers have now stumbled back into their usual rut, on course for yet another losing season, unless Tommy West can pull a rabbit or two out of his hat on this upcoming three-game road trip against Mississippi State, Houston, and Tulane.

Let’s see, I’m beginning to see an emerging pattern for this year. Against Southern Miss, the U of M had six turnovers; it’s almost impossible to win when you do that. And while losing to UAB, the team took six personal-foul penalties, probably a school record. And yes, it’s extremely difficult to do that as well and win, even if a couple of the calls were questionable.

So what’s in store next week against Mississippi State? Six interceptions from Danny Wimprine? Six missed field goals? Six broken ankles to go along with the one sustained Saturday by cornerback Lee Hayes (a critical loss, it seemed, one that threw the Memphis secondary completely out of rhythm)?

With this cursed team, you must admit, just about anything — bad — seems possible. Last year, remember, our fatal flaw was punting; we had to resort to Danny Wimprine kicking on the run. This year we can kick, we’ve got a 100-yard-per-game running back (D’Angelo Williams) and a veteran quarterback who, in his junior year, has already broken every school record for passing. So you put up a goose-egg in the first half, after just three points before halftime against Arkansas State? What gives here?

How inured are we Tiger fans to these kinds of painful, frustrating defeats? Well, consider this: I’m gonna cheat and go home early, by simply finishing this column by plagiarizing myself, citing certain post-game comments I made in this paper after last September’s UAB debacle down in Birmingham. Hey, they still seem appropriate. And what’s the editor gonna do; fire me? I wish…

Last year like this one, remember, the UAB game was crucial for us. We went in cocky as all get up, having smashed Tulane to bits the week before, and knowing that a win in Birmingham would put us on course for a winning season. You all know what happened next, of course: we got our clock cleaned, 31-17, before what was virtually a home crowd in near-empty Legion Field. And now that I reread that column from last October, I can see that this year’s clock-cleaning was clearly, as Yogi Berra likes to say, “deja vu all over again.”

Here’s just a sample from last year’s report: “Bad bounces not withstanding: I have watched Tiger football for over two decades, and never, ever, seen a more dispirited effort or, for the fans, a more disheartening performance.” (Gee, how much longer can I keep using that line?) This year like last, Watson Brown and his staff clearly out-thought and out-maneuvered their Tiger counterparts. So how about this for a reusable line: “What has offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner been doing to mess with these guys’ heads since the Ole Miss game?”

This year, inspired perhaps by the anouncement that assistant coach Pat Sullivan was seriously ill with cancer and was leaving the team, the entire UAB squad seemed to be moving as one with and without the ball. The Tigers seemed confused and disoriented, especially in the first half. There seems little point, therefore, in changing last year’s column title, “Little Boys Lost.”

Coach West and his staff have a mountain of work ahead of them in the weeks ahead. More than anything, he has to rejuvenate a talented squad’s confidence before this season slides down the same slippery slope into despair as so many have in the past. I hope he and they can learn from Saturday’s huge mistake.

We all make ’em, though, and I’m trying to learn from mine. One I won’t repeat from last year was my reference to “losing to a bunch of piss-ants from Birmingham.” The next week, a not-so-pleased UAB fan correctly pointed out that piss-ants don’t beat you three times in a row. I can only imagine how much he’s chuckling today, knowing his Blazers have done us in yet again.

Me, I only wish they could make humble pie a little bit more tasty.