For many of us, the golden, authoritative, and exuberant tones of Grizzlies broadcaster Don Poier — which first graced our ears in 2001, with the coming of the city’s NBA team — meant that we were big-league at last. Whether it was Poier’s inflection, his knowledge of the game, or his sense of humor, he was as valuable as any player or any franchise to a city that had felt itself to be minor-league in terms of sports and so much else for far too long.

“Only in the movies and in Memphis!” That was the excited finis spoken by Poier during one of the Grizzlies’ first game-saving moments in Memphis. It became a signature line for the whole fairy-tale saga of the now-beloved Griz.

This year, TV fans had the opportunity to put a face with the voice, as Poier became the Grizzlies’ television broadcaster. Though he preferred radio, Poier was a team player and agreed to the new duties after it was arranged for him to switch back to the radio broadcast on untelevised games.

“They asked if I would be interested in doing television,” Poier said when the change was announced by the Grizzlies’ front office last year. “I said, ‘Not really. I don’t want to give up doing every game.’ I have been since the team started. I wanted to continue.”

Though he’s gone — dead of an apparent heart attack in Denver last week during the Grizzlies’ recent road trip — the veteran broadcaster, one of several team figures who came with the team from Vancouver, leaves behind a legacy not only of professionalism but of goodwill and bountiful inspiration. And there’s no doubt: That legacy will continue, just as Don Poier wanted.

He is our loss but, for time to come, also our gain.

Nobody could have seemed, at first thought, a more unlikely booster of the Flyer than Charles S. Peete, who died Sunday after a long and dedicated career as a conservative activist. He preferred the word “conservative” to “Republican,” because, frankly, he could get just as agitated about suspected abuses of power by GOP types as those he surmised so frequently among liberal politicians.

Charlie Peete was our friend, however — a dedicated Flyer reader who showered us with letters, advice, criticism, and, when he thought it was merited, praise. We took his interest as a sign that we were about the same business he was — that of taking the pulse of the public weal and of suggesting corrective action.

Tireless as he was in arranging political speakers for the monthly programs of the Dutch Treat Luncheon forums over several decades, Peete was content to remain in the background — first as the loyal factotum of the late mayor Henry Loeb back when Loeb was the luncheon’s public face and later when Christian Right luminary Ed McAteer was the official host. But Peete was the one who did the grunt work for those forums, and he was also the one who insisted on rules of civility from the almost exclusively conservative audience. During one presidential election year, he actually physically ran off a noisome critic of the speaker, who was dutifully espousing the campaign and platform of Democrat Bill Clinton.

Local politics just won’t seem the same without the conscientious Peete standing guard. And it won’t be the same around the Flyer offices without that weekly letter to the editor, written on an old typewriter and signed “Chas S. Peete.”

We don’t know whether Abraham Lincoln was, as a controversial new biography alleges, a homosexual. All we know is that he was — by any kind of definition, literal or metaphorical — a man. Similarly, we don’t know all the contours of Dr. Martin Luther King’s private life, though we are aware that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made it a point, via wiretaps and other clandestine devices, to maintain a dossier on King. Despite such misguided prying, we know that King too was a supreme example of manhood, in the purest sense of that term.

That public men have private energies, that they entertain passions as well as positions, is a fact of life, and it is helpful to keep that in mind on holidays like the one we have just observed, honoring the birthday of Dr. King. It is all too common on such occasions to hear tributes from the unlikeliest of sources, chiming in with praise for the great martyr by means of quoting this or that noble sentiment from one of his famous addresses. By such means do those who might have opposed Dr. King’s goals during his lifetime manage to appropriate his mantle now.

We too rejoice in the unrivaled rhetoric of such passages, though we think it important to note that King was no political eunuch but a flesh-and-blood orator who could and did breathe fire. In his most famous speech, the “I Have a Dream” address, delivered to a multitude from the pulpit of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, he did not shy away from speaking of “vicious racists” in Alabama or from a chastising reference to “every hill and molehill of Mississippi.” Though he cautioned that civil rights advocates should avoid violence, he also warned, “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” As they say, he neither asked nor gave quarter.

And what was true of King’s quest for racial justice was true also of his other great campaigns — on behalf of economic justice for all races and for an end to the then raging Vietnam War. He was fully engaged in both endeavors at the time of his assassination here in Memphis in April 1968.

Only days earlier, on March 31st, he had spoken at the National Cathedral in Washington, in an effort to bring an end to the conflict in Southeast Asia. He did so in words that might be taken note of by the more timid change-seekers among us today, those who heed focus groups and consultants and fear to trouble the mighty:

“I’ve not taken a sort of Gallup Poll of the majority opinion,” said King. “Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus. On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?

“There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.”

The issue then was Vietnam, but the message still resonates, and the admonition applies to some identifiable particulars of our own time, when perhaps what we need most of all is a leader willing to go to the mountaintop and take his chances there, come what may.

The Flyer‘s cover story this week details the controversy surrounding Memphis congressman Harold Ford Jr. and the perception by many national political pundits that he has become the Democratic “point man” for the Bush administration’s push to partially privatize Social Security.

Ford disputes the allegations, but there is no disputing that the administration is trying to sell the American public on the notion that Social Security is in “crisis” and that allowing Americans to privatize a certain percentage of their wages will help solve the problem. However, as has become increasingly clear in recent weeks, the crisis is largely fictional, driven more by the Republican neocons’ philosophical desire to scale down government and send money into the private sector than by a budget crunch. (You remember the neocons? They’re the ones who “philosophically” got us into the unholy mess in Iraq.)

Social Security is not going broke anytime soon. Most analysts set the date for “running out of money” at somewhere around 2052, plenty of time to make measured and responsible adjustments. Social Security should not be treated as an “investment opportunity.” It is and always has been insurance: a trust fund generated by every American who works that pays funds back to those who survive to retirement age and beyond. It guarantees all of us at least a minimal income for life after we retire. Taking money out of this fund to allow private investment is a recipe to destroy Social Security, a fact that doesn’t particularly trouble the Republican neocons — or the large investment firms that will reap the windfall profits if such a policy comes to pass.

Social Security trustees estimate that over the next 75 years the shortfall in funds will be $3.7 trillion. Contrast that number with the estimated loss of revenue if the president’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are made permanent: $11.6 trillion. The crisis, it appears, is eminently solvable: Don’t make the tax cuts (yes, for the richest 1 percent of Americans) permanent and use some of the money to keep the retirement safety net for the American worker on solid footing.

A memo from the administration’s Peter Wehner to presidential uber-aide Karl Rove was leaked last week. It detailed how the public needed to be “sold” on the idea that Social Security “is heading for an iceberg.”

“For the first time in six decades,” the memo said, “the Social Security battle is one we can win.” It’s not an exaggeration to say that if this administration “wins” on Social Security, we all lose.

Bad News

The revelation last week that conservative “journalist” Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 of our tax dollars to surreptitiously tout administration education policies was troubling in several regards.

First, the public’s already skeptical attitude toward the media got another boost. “How many more journalists are on the take?” they might justifiably ask. And indeed, Williams himself told The Nation‘s David Corn that he was “not alone,” that other pundits and journalists had also benefited from the administration’s PR largesse. If true, and if bigger fish are fried (say Robert Novak or Rush Limbaugh), the repercussions will be many and major.

But even if the Williams case is an isolated one, emerging details about the pundit’s life will inevitably lead to even more cynicism about our media “elite.” Williams, a noted opponent of gay marriage and the man who got Trent Lott to compare homosexuality to “kleptomania” and other mental diseases, has in fact been sued for sexual harassment by a former male employee who accused him of more than 50 advances. Williams settled out of court. Just like another noted media moralist, Bill O’Reilly.

The hits just keep on coming. And so does the hypocrisy. •

Be careful what you wish for, it is wisely said. Okay, we’re exercising all due caution. This is some of what we wish for in the New Year:

We hope for the improbable: that President Bush, elected for real this time, will recall his 2000 pledge to be a “compassionate conservative,” stress on the first of those words. We are not greatly heartened by his new cabinet decisions — notably, to retain Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and to appoint Alberto Gonzales, an attorney-general designate even more indifferent toward civil liberties than predecessor John Ashcroft. But at least the president seems to have fashioned an ethnic rainbow of sorts, and maybe this diversity can be its own reward.

We are encouraged by the increased outspokenness of several key Republicans in Congress about the mounting debacle in Iraq. May Senators Lugar, Hagel, McCain et al., along with their counterparts in the House, continue to speak out. More than that, may they actually have an influence on policy. For better or for worse, one of our Tennessee senators, Majority Leader Bill Frist, must press the Bush agenda. Let us hope that his colleague, Lamar Alexander, gravitates to a more critical position — one that might crown the former governor’s once-promising career as a thoughtful moderate.

We earnestly hope too that the Democrats — both in Tennessee and in the nation at large — get their act together and their tails out from between their legs. The defeats they have suffered should not further debilitate them but should spur them on to discover new and constructive ways of fulfilling their role as an opposition party. The 2004 election results demonstrate what they should already have known: that trying to ape the ways and attitudes of the ruling Republicans is futile monkey business. Our own congressman Harold Ford, who aspires to be a U.S. senator and to rise even higher in the national pantheon, disappointed us with his repeat-after-me stance on Iraq and other issues, but he has an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership potential in defense of Social Security, Medicare, citizens’ legal recourse, and other currently threatened bulwarks of self-government.

Let us hope also that Memphis mayor Willie Herenton and Shelby County mayor A C Wharton can resolve their dilemmas, shelve their demons, and work in harmony with their legislatures — the City Council and County Commission, respectively — to solve the potentially crushing fiscal problems that confront us. And while they’re at it, may they also see to the long-overdue restructuring that is required for local government to work. Yes, that probably means — in short- or long-term — consolidation. Though we intend to maintain an independent perspective, we cannot help but be impressed by the bold and generally effective steps taken by Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen to cut through red tape and rhetoric and resolve some long-festering issues — that of TennCare among them. Bredesen has adopted a genuinely nonpartisan mode in the process, and this too is worthy of emulation.

We have some druthers on the social and recreational spheres too. We want the mojo back for University of Memphis basketball, and we want it to continue for Tiger football. Let Mike Fratello follow in Hubie’s footsteps with the Grizzlies, and may many a warm-weather day pass pleasantly for thousands of Memphians at AutoZone Park. Let the salons and saloons of our revivified downtown continue to multiply, and let Memphis music trumpet forth yet another new sound to redeem an errant and restless species.

How’s that for a start? •

Those who consider Shelby County mayor A C Wharton the epitome of political consensus and those who regard him as essentially a frontman for established interests might withhold further judgment pending the outcome of his current campaign to revamp Shelby County’s revenue options.

In proposing a three-tiered set of options for the property tax, each involving a different segment of the county’s developmental infrastructure, the county mayor hopes to break loose the logjam that has long forestalled any fundamental change in the tax system. Though Wharton himself would not choose to put it this way, his initiative seems aimed at creating fissures in a front of opposition to tax overhaul by the county’s realtors, home builders, and developers.

On Monday, the 13-member County Commission mustered eight votes to endorse legislative consideration of a real estate transfer tax, to be assessed on sales of real property, while deferring action on two other proposed levies — an impact fee and a so-called adequate facilities tax. Realtors would be most directly affected by the real estate transfer tax, while the burden of the other two would fall in varying degree on homebuilders and developers.

Although spokesmen for the three industries were on hand Monday to express an across-the-board resistance to all the proposals, intense negotiations were under way behind the scenes, with at least one prominent developer, Rusty Hyneman, said to be playing a leading role. At some point between now and the commission’s next meeting on January 10th, a consensus is likely to emerge behind one of the three proposals. The key to that was signaled in a parliamentary move made Monday, when commissioners accepted an amendment from David Lillard to confine potential new revenues from the proposed transfer tax to use for educational purposes.

If sentiment should shift to one of the other proposed taxes, a similar provision would likely be appended to it.

Though legislative opponents of a new tax pointed to the relative narrowness of Monday’s vote, the fact remains that it crossed party lines, and the Tennessee General Assembly, which must approve any of the proposed plans, might well look with favor on a revenue option earmarked for education.

The announcement this week from state senator Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville that she intends to seek the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2006 means that 9th District congressman Harold Ford of Memphis will not have a free run, as he had surely hoped, in the Democratic primary. In a larger sense, it ensures an unprecedentedly diverse field of candidates for the seat that Majority Leader Bill Frist intends to vacate in order to prepare a presidential run in 2008.

Coupled with last week’s announcement of candidacy from state representative Beth Halteman Harwell, the outgoing chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, Kurita’s announcement means that women will be serious challengers in both major-party primaries. (Still undeclared, but a distinct possibility to make a bid, is 7th District GOP congresswoman Marsha Blackburn.)

Ford is an African American whose essentially centrist positions on a number of public issues afford him a unique position in the spectrum. And the GOP field — so far including, besides Harwell, former 7th District congressman Ed Bryant, a conservative, and Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker, a presumed moderate — will offer further variety.

Both primaries will likely see even more entrants. Considering the rough-and-tumble to come, it is probably inaccurate to use a phrase like “the more the merrier.” But our attention — and presumably that of both Tennessee voters and national political observers — has certainly been piqued. •

the Bowl, that is. In the last 46 years — the life span of Memphis’ Liberty Bowl — there have been relatively few postseason games played anywhere between high-scoring teams ranked in the Top 10. And most of those have been for a share of college football’s national championship. In this postseason there are only three games between teams ranked so high, and one of those — the FedEx Orange Bowl — will determine the winner of that mythical honor.

But even that game, between the University of Southern California Trojans and the Oklahoma Sooners, could hardly be more exciting as the one that Liberty Bowl director Steve Earhardt and his staff have summoned up for us — and, we doubt not, an avidly watching nation — this year. On December 31st, the game features Louisville and Boise State, two teams that customarily run up point totals that read like basketball scores. They’ll likely hit the end zone enough times to please the TV sponsors (who’ll probably get extra commercials because of the clock stoppages after every score).

And there’s even a local angle: Boise State’s colors are blue, same as those of the University of Memphis Tigers, and the Broncos’ athletic direc tor, Gene Bleymaier, who was in town along with his Louisville Cardinal counterparts this week, says he’s expecting to see a sea of supportive blue in the stands. How can we disappoint him? Especially since the opposing Cardinals are the team that not only lucked out a 56-49 victory over the U of M Tigers a month or two back but have been the closest thing to a real rival the Tigers have had. And now the treacherous Cardinals are leaving Conferencce USA to slip into the fast money and fancy lights of the Big East. Let’s show up and give them a proper send-off!

And even if Louisville should win, it’ll still redound to the credit of C-USA. So the game is a can’t-lose situation for Memphis fans.

Meanwhile, the Tigers themselves are going bowling for the second year straight, and congratulations are owed to Coach Tommy West and staff for that happy ending. Here’s hoping for another year of postseason succcess, this time against Bowling Green University in the GMAC Bowl at Mobile on December 22nd.

Truly, our cup — er, our bowls — runneth over.

We have it on good authority, from The New York Times’ estimable economic columnist Paul Krugman, Molly Ivins, and various economists, that the much-vaunted “crisis” in Social Security is something of a phantasm, being played by the Bush administration as an excuse for a needless and potentially risky exercise in privatization. Realistic estimates are that the Social Security fund (currently being raided to cover the administration’s derelictions in other areas) is sound enough, with virtually no change, to last unscathed at least until mid-century, paying out all benefits as currently scheduled. And even then, somewhere around 2052, only mild restructurings are predicted to be in order.

What the administration’s current proposal — to encourage the allocation of a portion of Social Security revenues into private investment accounts — amounts to is something of a Ponzi scheme. Our descendants will have to finance the $2 trillion the government must borrow in order to cover the “transitional” expenses incurred in reducing their own long-term benefits. That’s the bottom line. •

State senator Steve Cohen keeps making it his business to take on causes that are unpopular in the short run, actually or potentially, but in the long run may end up being of huge benefit to society at large. Cohen’s 16-year efforts on behalf of establishing a state lottery, the proceeds of which benefit education, are well known. And the lottery, now established, has met or exceeded the revenue goals set for it.

Cohen now hopes to overcome what is expected to be significant resistance (and that adjective is, no doubt, an understatement) to the legalization of medical marijuana in Tennessee. In a report last year, the American Medical Association established that controlled use of marijuana could be of benefit to patients suffering from a variety of ailments, ranging from glaucoma to cancer. In particular, the plant’s active ingredients are a known palliative for the nausea suffered by patients undergoing chemotherapy. Predictably, though, opposition has already reared itself, with one fellow senator contending that Cohen is merely trying to open the door to a full legalization of marijuana by the public at large.

We have every confidence that, just as Cohen tied his ultimately successful lottery legislation to prohibitions of state-sanctioned casinos, he will construct necessary safeguards against unbridled (i.e., recreational) use of pot as well. •