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Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Frank Murtaugh’s post, “Memphis Tigers Post Mortem” …

Josh Pastner is my guy. He’s 38, a great recruiter, has gotten us to the tourney three times, and is destined to make a great run because he’s a great coach.

How stupid will Memphis look if he leaves and gets that run for another school? I’m a true fan of Memphis, but unfortunately our fans will turn their backs on you the minute things aren’t going the way they imagined it.

We’ve got to go through it to get to it. If we bring another coach in, we lose the recruits coming in, and to recruit a decent team will take a couple years or more. No one said it was easy, but for the sake of Memphis, Tiger fans need to be patient and loyal. Go Tigers, go!

Stevo37

Pastner may be a nice guy, but that isn’t the only requirement for being a head coach. We all knew when he took the job that he was coming in green. Heck, he started off badly by saying in his first interview with the Commercial Appeal that if his team tried on defense, he’d let them run on offense. That might be fine in high school, but it’s a recipe for disaster in college.

Being a mediocre coach would have been okay if he had made efforts to get better. That should have included bringing in an experienced bench coach who could help him learn the ropes. That he never did was his failing. It’s also the responsibility of the AD to recognize that. His teams look lost on defense. Trying hard isn’t enough, and too often, he didn’t hold his players accountable on the court. When your power forward runs down and attempts a three-pointer when the clock has barely started, why does he stay on the floor? The fact is, Pastner had the talent to be in the sweet 16 or better almost every year.

The city of Memphis has great talent. Any good coach should be able to keep the best talent home, not chase them away. Pastner needs to GO, GO, GO!

DatGuy

Dedric Lawson has done his year of indentured servitude, and there’s not much promise of improving his position next year, while there’ll be plenty of opportunity to suffer an injury. He should take as much money as he can get. Whoever gave Pastner that contract should foot the bill to buy him out of it.

Jeff

If you’re Pastner, you’d be crazy to take another job. Where else are you going to get that level of salary guaranteed for the next four years? If he walks away, he leaves $10.6 million on the table. If I’m him, I’m staying until they either fire me (and pay me), or until the contract runs out. I might leave if I’m down to the last year in my contract. In that case, I could pass up $2.6 million in the final year, if I got a nice $1.5 million gig with a fresh start.

GroveReb84

About Toby Sells’ story, “Q & A with Tina Sullivan” … 

It seems to me that there’s a parking solution that would be acceptable to the Memphis Zoo and the Overton Park Conservancy: Couldn’t overflow parkers be directed to the nearby Center City Shopping Center? All it would take is a shuttle, charging a nominal fee, to ferry zoo-goers from the shopping center to the zoo’s front gate. The Greensward could be preserved (as it should be; the zoo has taken over too much of the park), and the zoo would have parking for busy days.

Cheryl M. Dare

About President Obama and the Supreme Court …

The cover of the November 14th Time magazine had Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s face on it. The caption read “Change.” That’s because Mitch and other Republican leaders promised to cooperate and work with Democrats for the good of the country. For the last two years, Republican politicians have done the exact opposite, obstructing President Obama at every turn.

McConnell said he was going to “teach the GOP a new word: ‘Yes.'” The “Party of No” had no intention of honoring this promise. 

Now McConnell is leading the Republican charge to keep Obama from his constitutional duty to select a new Supreme Court justice. As Donald Trump might tweet: “Losers!”

Brad Levin

Categories
Editorial Opinion

De-Annexation: The Moral of the Story

As this week’s Flyer cover story notes, the city of Memphis — in the judgment of numerous spokespersons for city interests — may have dodged another bullet in the General Assembly this week. This was a bill, the product of

longstanding collaboration between various opponents of urban expansion in Tennessee, that would have crippled the efforts of Memphis to right itself and resolve what was already a difficult financial predicament even before the advent of the bill.

The bill, still not formally dead, is a measure to facilitate de-annexation by residents of incorporated cities. It was proposed by two House members from the Chattanooga suburbs who two years ago had succeeded in establishing the principle of consent on the part of residents about to be annexed. The new bill has, in the lexicon of our time, gone a bridge too far beyond that. It would allow referenda on the part of residential areas annexed since 1998 to de-annex themselves, even if, in the words of Memphis Chamber of Commerce head Phil Trenary, the results would be “swiss cheese” urban maps, with gaping holes marking where formerly contiguous Memphis neighborhoods had existed side by side. 

In the case of Memphis, there would be gaping holes in the city’s financial resources as well. Even those legislators who favored the bill — including suburban Shelby County legislators who helped to get it passed in the House of Representatives last week — acknowledged that it would occasion a $28 million annual loss in property tax and local-option sales tax revenues for the city.

And the bill’s proponents made no pretense of applying an objective standard to all urban areas in Tennessee. It singles out Memphis and four other areas — Knoxville, Chattanooga, Kingsport, and tiny Cornersville — as liable for redress penalties on account of allegedly “egregious” annexations of adjacent territories. That these annexations were all performed in perfect compliance with the letter of Tennessee law was of no matter to the authors of the bill. Nor was the fact that the bill would up-end the long-standing provisions of Public Law 1101, a.k.a. the Urban Growth Act, a compromise arrangement agreed upon in 1998 among representatives of Tennessee’s urban, suburban, and rural constituencies.

The Urban Growth Act was the result of positive and coordinated effort. The current attempt to dismantle it, which the de-annexation bill would achieve, is the consequence of ex parte vengefulness, by way of contrast.

Luckily, as detailed in the cover story, various representatives of Memphis and Shelby County interests mounted a coordinated effort of their own to get the bill sent back to committee this week, and, as of this writing, the chances of positively amending the measure seem good. Only one thing is lacking, a joining in the effort by representatives of Shelby County government per se. And that, we have the right to hope, will be forthcoming. 

After all, it would be county government that would have to shoulder the financial burden of, say, 150 additional Sheriff’s deputies, and as many new vehicles, in order to police the newly de-annexed areas. We’re all in this together, and that’s the moral of the story.

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Bianca Phillips’ story, “Hispanic Man Sues City Over Beer Laws” …

I’m glad to hear he won. I am so tired of laws that tell your neighbor how to live. If you don’t want to buy a bottle of wine on Sunday, then don’t. I might have a dinner party that night and want to buy a bottle. Get over it.

DatGuy

It’s one of our stupidest laws. On the other hand, opening a church is an awesome way to make money. Your product costs nothing to produce, and it exists in infinite quantity. People pay out the nose for it, then use it all up in anywhere between seven and three days, depending on the denomination. It is extremely addictive and habit-forming, and there is enormous social pressure to use. Not only can they not live without it, they can’t die without it. The best part is, they aren’t aware that they can grow their own, so they keep coming back for more.

Jeff

A Walgreen’s next to a church can sell beer, but small mom-and-pop stores can’t? Oye, WWJD?

CityGirl

I know where I’m going to buy my beer from now on. Way to go, Marco!

Greg

About Mary Norman’s Viewpoint, “A Letter to the City Council” …

At the council meeting in which the Overton Park Greensward was given to the Memphis Zoo, attorney Allan Wade was more concerned with what the zoo thought than what the citizens of the city of Memphis think. When Councilman Worth Morgan amended the resolution to remove zoo control of Rainbow Lake and the playground, Wade piped up and said, “Is the zoo okay with that?”

Mr. Wade, it’s not your job to represent the zoo. If you’re the city council’s attorney, it’s your job to give a legal opinion, not advocate for a private business. All we citizens were asking for was to table this motion for two weeks so the people could read it. Of course, if that had happened, it would have been even more evident that this was nothing but a landgrab.

Blaine’s Nanny

And why did not one representative from the Memphis Zoo speak at the meeting? Because their interests were being “handled” by the city council and the city’s attorney, Allan Wade. Collusion, at its finest. Shame on all of them.

PDP

There’s a television show called Portlandia that pokes fun at the cultural idiosyncrasies of Portland, Oregon. Each show is made up of sketch-comedy episodes with overlapping narratives. I’ve long opined that Memphis needs its own medium for local humor. The recent drama between the OPC/zoo was the cherry on top. Look for the first episodes of Memphia sometime this fall.

Memphis Filmmaker

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter From the Editor, “Detention Deficit” …

It’s amazing how the American mind sees open space as a thing that needs to be filled up. There is a Daoist saying that it is only the emptiness of a vessel which makes it useful. That psychological and spiritual resource is actually a requirement for human well-being.

When we leave our little rooms — at home, at school, at work — and walk into a large, green open space, it fills the mind with the sense of possibilities — to the dreams, and the dreamer, within us. Having such a resource isn’t important to the people who voted to use this space as a parking lot, because they have alternatives. Inner-city kids don’t.

It’s important to remember why we need these spaces and to give them the respect and care they deserve. If we care for them, they in turn take care of us. And that’s why this microcosm of our existential fight, between balance and imbalance, strikes so strong a chord in those who understand that.

Thank you for keeping this issue in the public consciousness.

OakTree

Thank you for cutting through the malarkey and putting a spotlight on what is the right and good decision for Midtowners and Memphians regarding our jewel of a park. The chilling thought is that the zoo, with the consent of the council and mayor, is making a landgrab for the whole park. Make no mistake, they will be stopped.

MemphisTigers

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Jim Eikner

Memphis lost one of its finest citizens last week — Jim Eikner. Lawyer, onetime prosecutor, actor, singer, painter, wit, public speaker par excellence, he was, among many other things, the on-air presence and golden voice that sustained WKNO, Memphis’ public broadcasting station, for decades. He was a blend of dignity, service, and wit who, even before his ascension in the current year to the presidency of the Rotary Club of Memphis, was the embodiment of the club and its motto, Service Before Self. And no Memphis Rotarian can forget — or emulate — his erstwhile weekly news reviews that for years, faithful to Aristotle, always both amused and instructed.

Jim’s death was attributed to heart failure, though it is misleading to leave it at that, since his heart — in the metaphorical sense, anyhow — never failed us. Indeed, as we learned, even after he was disconnected medically from his artificial life supports, his heart kept beating for some time before subsiding into its final, reluctant rest, as if to remind us that he intended to remain with us in spirit.

We learned upon his death that Jim was 82, and, as we thought about that, it certainly made sense. He had the gravitas that comes with such age. But in another sense, he was still Jimmy Eikner of Messick High School, a youth who was equal parts sober-sided and impish. He stayed that way throughout his time at Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College) and at the University of Tennessee Law School and throughout his adult career as a full-time Renaissance man.

It was ironic that Jim Eikner should leave us on the very cusp of spring— he whose wardrobe and manner always distilled the essence of that season. But it was appropriate that, after one of the bleakest local winters on record, the weather should relent this week after his death, enough so to allow several of us to fetch our own cords and seersuckers from their hiding places, in his honor.

One of Jim’s memorable roles as an actor was that of Norman in On Golden Pond, the octogenarian who in the course of the play comes to terms with the generations that are preparing to succeed him. Eikner himself never had to play catch-up with anybody of any era. He was a man for all times and an inspiration to them, as well, and will not stop being that.

The one thing we will miss the most about Jim Eikner is that voice of his, something that he himself was so dismissive about, referring to it as mere nasality, but which we knew to be an uncommonly mellow instrument, whose silky baritone expressed all the tones and nuances of life like nobody else’s. But it will still be there, in the mind’s ear, to fill such uncomfortable silences as come along.
These remarks were given at Tuesday’s Downtown Rotary Club by Jackson Baker.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Post-Super Tuesday Thoughts

As longtime Flyer readers know, we don’t endorse candidates at election time, and didn’t on the occasion of this week’s presidential primary in Tennessee. But we do have some opinions. By now Super Tuesday is over, you’ve already voted, and we invite you to join us for a little bit of post-election armchair-quarterbacking:

On the Republican side, is there an alternative to Donald Trump?

There are things we find attractive about Ohio Governor John Kasich, who seems unique among the GOP contenders in that he appears to be both an experienced administrator and a pragmatic centrist, not a trash talker, a negativist, or a partisan demagogue. But maybe the punditocracy has it right: Only the Mambo Brothers, right-wing Senator Ted Cruz or former Tea Party darling and now ad hoc establishmentarian Senator Marco Rubio are serious alternatives to Trump.

The trouble with Trump, when you get down to it, is that he has no fixed principles. Like a hypocritical preacher, he can preach the world round or he can preach it flat. He can be free-trade or protectionist, pro-choice or pro-life, “liberal” or “conservative.” In one campaign, he can rebuke Mitt Romney for advocating self-deportation of illegal immigrants; in another campaign, his own, he can advocate forced deportation on a massive scale. He is what you want him to be, and he wants everybody to want him to be something, namely, president of the United States. That, we hazard, is why he had so much trouble repudiating David Duke to Jake Tapper on CNN once he’d heard that Duke had endorsed him. He’d want the Miley Cyrus vote, too, if he thought he could get it.

Trump is all over the map. That said, we wonder if that gives Rubio and Cruz, who restrict themselves more or less to one side of the map, the reactionary one, any claim to superiority over Trump. The Donald tries to go along to get along. He will, for example, give lip service to the GOP shibboleth that “Obamacare” should be abolished, but he hints that he might replace it with something amorphous that sounds like universal health care. There is no such ambivalence on the part of Rubio and Cruz; they would insist on a full return to the Darwinian system of health-to-the-highest-bidder medical rationing.

And on the Democratic side, is there any alternative to Hillary Clinton? 

We find much to admire in Secretary Clinton. She is strong, determined, and resourceful (all adjectives that she earned all over again in her redoubtable 11-hour standoff of a GOP lynching party at last fall’s Benghazi hearing). A little too calculating sometimes, and almost clam-like in her self-containment, but she’s smart and vetted, and her heart is in the right place — or near it — on numerous humanitarian and social issues. 

In fact, she seems right on so many things that we find it frustrating that she can’t be as simple and direct and, as they say, proactive on the issue of economic inequality as Bernie Sanders can. And because he can, frankly, we’d just as soon the Democratic contest went on long enough for the right kind of osmosis to occur between her point of view and his. Regardless of which one wins.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Toby Sells’ story, “Lawmakers Consider Bills on Bikes, Historical Markers, and Skunks” …

Translation: “No Gas Tax for Bike Lanes,” written and paid for by the Koch Brothers’ Banana Brand Banana Republics. Where the Bananas Don’t Grow on Trees; They Legislate™.

“No Removal of Historical Markers,” doesn’t apply to the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue, since it’s not in honor of a conflict. It’s in honor of a man.

“Legal Skunk Ownership,” leads to the next step: skunk-fighting rings.

Jeff

There are already enough skunks in local and state government, thank you.

Bike lanes are nice, if they aren’t converted from congested public roads designed and built for — and funded by — motorists.

ALJ2

About Bianca Phillips’ story, “Memphis Police Department Attempts to Boost Presence” …

MPD is 400 officers shy of a full complement, by their analysis. Large cities across this nation have varying numbers of law enforcement officers. Memphis has more than some comparable cities and fewer than others. I hope our new police director will do his own assessment of what a “full complement” should be.

He/she could start with an assessment of how we are currently using our force. Reactivating the PST program is a good start, as is increasing data-based “hotspot” policing. Another thing that would help is getting all the officers parked car-to-car in our parks and behind buildings back moving on our neighborhood streets. We might not need to pay overtime if we more efficiently used our force.

Memphis Tigers

Our violent crime rate is second only to Detroit (12 percent lower), and our police force is 25 percent smaller, based on the total number of officers. Oakland and St. Louis have similar crime rates, but their police forces are significantly smaller. Oakland’s ranks are one-third the size found in Memphis. Milwaukee rounds out the top five violent-crime-rate cities, and their force is 10 percent smaller.

Barf

Barf, try adjusting those numbers by geographical size.

Oakland = 78 square miles

St. Louis = 66.2 square miles

Milwaukee = 96.8 square miles

Detroit = 142.9 square miles

Memphis = 324 square miles

That is the problem. Memphis has annexed like a madman, and now officers are stretched too thin. MPD has to provide police protection for 324 square miles. Kind of hard to do when you run off 400 officers (and another 150 are on the DROP, ready to retire soon). The City Council created this problem and refused to listen to officers who said they would leave if the city changed the benefits.

Firefox

About Bianca Phillips’ post, “Brian Kelsey Drops Bill Supporting Racist, Sexist, Homophobic School Leader” …

Now, was Kelsey doing this to send a message to the people in the rural areas of TN-08 that he was just like them? Then, he got so much blowback that he had to drop it, lest he offend donors?
He wants to be in Congress so badly he can taste it, and I can only imagine he is petrified at the prospect of Mark Luttrell crushing him in Big Shelby.

LeftWingCracker

Kelsey: “I just grabbed the next bill in that folder marked ALEC WANTS. Was this one not supposed to be in there?”

Charley Eppes

This is the same creep who crafted the “Turn Away the Gays” bill in 2014, under the guise of the “Religious Freedom” Act. Follow the money. He’s in ALEC’s back pocket, which means he’s all Gays, God, and Guns all the time. And now, he wants ALEC to bankroll his way to D.C. As if Marsha Blackburn, Diane Black, Steve Fincher, and Scott DesJarlais haven’t already made Tennessee enough of a laughingstock.

CD

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Race

The 2016 Olympics in Rio will mark the 80th anniversary of Jesse Owens’ historic wins at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler meant for the games to provide proof of his racial theories of Aryan dominance, but instead, Owens set world record after world record and showed the world that racial harmony is possible by befriending his German rival Carl “Luz” Long.

I’m a self-described Olympic geek, and it’s stories like Owens’ that are the reason why I find the games so compelling in ways that most professional sports leave me cold. At their best, the games celebrate our common humanity and suggest sportsmanship still has its place, and not all competitors have to be motivated by demonizing their opponents. That’s why Hitler’s racial attitudes were so counter to the Olympic ideals, and Owens’ triumph so profound. That Owens did it while facing down similar toxic philosophy back home in the United States only speaks to the strength of his character, and helped many white Americans take the first steps away from notions of racial supremacy.

Jason Sudeikis (left) and Stephan James finish strong in Stephen Hopkins’ triumphant biopic Race.

Race, director Stephen Hopkins’ biopic of Owens, traces the track star’s critical years as a freshman at Ohio State, where he first turned heads by winning four gold medals at the national NCAA Championships the first year he competed. Casting former teen TV star Stephan James as Owens was one of Hopkins’ best choices. James reportedly stepped in after John Boyega dropped out of the production in favor of playing Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I’m sure Boyega would have done a good job, but James grabs the baton and runs with it, capturing Owens’ inherent kindness and the stoicism that got him through pressures that would have crushed most men. In the crucial, movie-defining scene where he first steps onto the Olympiastadion Berlin field to face a crowd of 100,000, he seems to physically shrink for a moment before gathering himself up and striding into battle. Hopkins not only has the physicality to portray Owens, but also the timing and chemistry to keep up with former SNLer Jason Sudeikis, who plays Larry Snyder, the Ohio State coach who recognized Owens’ once-in-a-generation talent and taught him the technique to achieve his potential. Sudeikis plays Snyder as a hard-boozing, boisterous man obsessed with track-and-field dominance because he is haunted by the sense that he missed his shot at Olympic immortality. Like Snyder did for Owens, Sudeikis does for Hopkins in their scenes together, pulling him out of his shell and challenging him into greater performance.

Stephan James as Jesse Owens

The sources I consulted listed Race‘s budget at $5 million, but that seems like a lowball considering all of the period production design on display. Like Straight Outta Compton, director Hopkins plays it straight, favoring well-executed but conventional images over any sort of psychological impressionism. When the movie concentrates on the Owens/Snyder story of the struggle for athletic excellence, it soars. But it gets bogged down in some unnecessary digressions, such as the story of the Nazis’ favorite filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s (Carice van Houten) struggle to make Olympia, her documentary about the games. But at least that subplot gives us opportunity to see Danish actor Barnaby Metschurat’s ice-cold portrayal of Joseph Goebbels.

Race‘s biggest weakness is its editing, which is often jittery and unsure when it needs to be steady and clear. I guess it’s supposed to be a modernist stylistic choice when it takes five cuts to show Snyder pour a single shot of whiskey from a bottle, but it made me want to scream, “Pick a shot and stick with it! There are Nazis to triumph over!” If this job has taught me anything, it’s that a movie doesn’t have to be perfect to be emotionally effective, and ultimately, Hopkins and Sudeikis carry the day, with a little help from the heroic story of the World’s Fastest Man.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Quagmires in Syria and Nashville

Action in the Tennessee legislature this week to force litigation against resettlement in Tennessee of refugees from the currently raging civil war in Syria occurs at the precise moment that two old foes — the United States and

Russia — have joined in a plan to implement a cease-fire in Syria, one which, if successful, could abate the unprecedented flood of refugees to the United States and various countries in western Europe.

Neither effort is a slam dunk. Both, in fact, have built-in contradictions. The legislative effort is exemplified in Monday’s vote in the state Senate directing state Attorney General Herb Slatery to join in a multi-state suit against the federal government’s resettlement plan. The resolution, by Senate majority leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville), posits that resettlement of refugees in Tennessee violates provisions of the state constitution requiring legislative approval for spending the tax money that accommodating the refugees will require.

The problem with the state action is embedded in what is known as “the supremacy clause,” which mandates that, in instances where state law and federal law conflict, the federal writ is the overriding authority. This is a doctrine that has prevailed in case after case since the most glaring example of a clash between regional and national authorities, that of the American Civil War.

For that matter, the pending U.S.-Russian agreement is in not much better stead. One fact is that the two signatory countries are pursuing contradictory policies vis-à-vis the Syrian conflict, with the Russians backing the embattled regime of Syrian dictator Assad and the U.S. trying to pick and choose its allies from among the assorted groups attempting to overthrow Assad. Some of the rebel groups can be regarded, more or less legitimately, as “freedom fighters.” Others, however, owe their allegiance to radical Jihadist entities such as ISIS or al-Qaeda and have no intention of observing any cease-fire dictated by the erstwhile superpower adversaries. Manifestly, the proposed agreement would be difficult to enforce.

So it seems obvious that, to purloin a phrase made famous more than a generation ago in the film Cool Hand Luke: “What we got here is a failure to communicate.” Or, to put that into Washington/journalist jargon, a pair of quagmires, into which a great deal of hope or desperation will be invested, without much hope, in either case, of a productive result.

We will say that, of the two circumstances, the latter one, in which two powerful former adversaries are at least trying to find common cause, has more chance of turning hopeful than yet another pointless effort by a state government to nullify the constitutional prerogative of the federal government. We settled that argument almost two centuries ago.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Jackson Baker’s post, “Local Reactions to Passing of Justice Antonin Scalia” …

Justice Scalia was not allowed to rest in peace before Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio made statements that the next president should name his replacement. Mitch McConnell said that the nomination should be delayed until after the next presidential election because the “American people should have a voice” in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice.

The American people had a choice when they elected President Obama twice, and each time he received over 50 percent of the vote. It is the president’s right and constitutional duty to nominate a successor to Justice Scalia.

There is no historical precedent to leave a vacancy unfilled during a presidential election year. There have been several nominations by Democratic and Republican presidents, and confirmations during presidential election years, including the nomination and confirmation in 1916 of one of the greatest Supreme Court justices, Louis Brandeis.

It is all dirty politics with the Republicans. But the Republican majority in the Senate shame themselves and the Constitution if they refuse to consider President Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Scalia.

Philip Williams

Scalia regularly asserted originalism, yet frequently based his decisions upon his religion. Like many, he worried too much about his neighbor’s actions and too little about his own.

DatGuy

The issue that will be fought over like a modern civil war is: Who the hell is going to assume custody of Clarence Thomas?

Packrat

Scalia is a fine example of a bifurcation of intellect and intelligence.

CL Mullins

About Toby Sells’ post, “Parking, Traffic Proposals Unveiled for Overton Park” …

“Reinforce the Greensward with Grasscrete, a concrete structure that allows grass to grow through it.” I am not surprised this statement elicited a negative response. It is completely out of phase with the primary concern of many park-goers; i.e., the preservation of the Greensward.

Sidewinder

I imagine grasscrete would feel just like it sounds, especially when you slip and fall on it while chasing a runaway 5-year-old. That isn’t really going to be a solution.

OakTree

That’s a very professional and creative team from Looney Ricks Kiss working on this project, with Memphis’ best interest at heart. No doubt a doable solution can be agreed upon to preserve all that Overton Park and the zoo have to offer.

SewsoMom

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter from the Editor, “Trump vs. Sanders? It Could Happen” …

The truly crazy thing about Sanders vs. Trump is that it would be a contest over issues that people care passionately about. Bush vs. Clinton would only be a question of what team you’re on.

Autoegocrat

Trump trumps them all in the latest USA Today polling. The Bern has a chance against Cruz, the only Republican he outpolls at this point, if he can get past HillBilly and her shenanigans.

Clyde

Millions of twenty-somethings have been dumbed down enough to think that there is a such a thing as “free” tuition.

Mickey White

Whenever people deride “free” college and medical care, no one points out that, by the same thinking, our wars are free, too.

I suspect Mickey knows wars are not free, either. But plenty of other people who are perfectly happy to spend a billion dollars a day fighting wars on foreign soil for no good reason except “America” will sneer and mock the hippies who want free college and free medical care, as if they’re a bunch of naïve tools.

It’s a question of what we want to spend our money on, because the money will be spent. War? Or free college and free medical care? A little less of the first and we can afford the second.

Jeff

Categories
Editorial Opinion

A Body-Cam Replay

As we know all too well, it isn’t just in other cities — Baltimore, Ferguson, Milwaukee — or in the scenarios of a proliferating number of TV cop shows, that the issue of police/community relations is on the front burner

(in every sense of that metaphor). Memphis has had the sad experience, within the last year, of prominent cases involving life-threatening and even life-ending violence by citizens against police and the converse, of police against citizens. And it scarcely reduces the anxieties that have been aroused that these instances, as has been the case elsewhere, are not simple cases of black versus white. There has arisen a fundamental distrust between the supposed guardians of civic law and order and the host population which, in theory, is being protected by the police. As it happens, blacks are likely to be on both sides of the dividing line between victims and perps, and so are whites.

Further complicating the issue is the increasing danger of organized terrorist activity, which, by its very nature, can happen anywhere — not just in Paris or San Bernardino. And where it happens, these outbreaks clearly require the existence of police responders — SWAT teams or the equivalent — capable of suppressing them. That need runs directly counter to an argument, equally well-reasoned, that urban police units have in our time become too militarized in equipment and attitude, and need to be reduced to a more human scale, less provocative to the communities they serve.

In short, the problem is complicated.

One of the answers that is increasingly put forward — again, here as elsewhere — is for there to be a systematic use of body cameras for police so as to provide a record of police-citizen interactions for the mutual protection of both. It is no accident that body-cam footage of a street youth’s death in Chicago, once pried loose from attempts at suppression by city authorities, turned out to incriminate the officers on the scene — and to place the mayor of that city, Rahm Emanuel, in direct jeopardy of losing his job.

But, as was reported on the Flyer‘s website Tuesday by reporter Toby Sells, there will be further delays in the city’s employment of the 1,700 or so body cameras it has acquired for the Memphis Police Department’s force of around 2,000 active officers.

Last fall, in the hurly-burly of a city mayoral campaign, the prospect of putting the cameras to immediate practical use was made to seem possible. Now, according to MPD officials, the city will have to appropriate money to hire 10 part-time video analysts to review body-cam footage before it can be made public. 

And there are likely to be even more prohibitive delays and training regimens and costs over the long haul before an effective program will be truly up and running. “We’re not there yet,” MPD interim director Michael Rallings said.

We hear that. But we would advise both the department and the Memphis City Council to act with all deliberate speed. The meter is running.