Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Tigers 78, East Carolina 72

Penny Hardaway did not look or sound like a victorious coach late Thursday night in the media room at FedExForum. When asked to assess his team’s win over the East Carolina Pirates — a team fresh off an upset of Cincinnati — Hardaway insisted his players must collectively change their mindset to achieve any measure of success.

Larry Kuzniewski

Antwann Jones

“We took two freshmen [Tyler Harris and Antwann Jones] out of the starting lineup and replaced them with seniors [Kareem Brewton and Kyvon Davenport],” explained Hardaway, “because [the freshmen] were being too lax, had to be pushed every day in practice. You can’t come to practice half-assed, going through the motions. We’re trying to get better. How you practice is how you play. They took the challenge. But I’m really disappointed in the seniors, falling behind early.”

The lineup change, as Hardaway made clear, yielded mixed results. Despite starting five seniors, the Tigers fell behind by 15 points (33-18) over the game’s first 12 minutes. Only a pair of three-pointers in the final minute before halftime — one by Davenport, the other by Harris — made the deficit (40-36) at the break feel close. Considering the energy deficit at tip-off, it could have been much worse.

“We can build off this and learn from our mistakes,” acknowledged Davenport, who scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for his sixth double-double of the season. “Come out with more energy for the next game.”

When the Tigers finally did energize, the benched freshmen were key components. Harris led Memphis with 16 points and connected on four three-pointers while Jones scored 10 points, handed out three assists, and picked up three steals. But there can be more, if you listen to their coach.

Larry Kuzniewski

Tyler Harris

“We’re trying to create a culture around here where you’re working hard every second,” said Hardaway. “When we’re at the practice facility and when we’re on the court. They’re coming back next year. I want them to be able to tell the new guys, ‘This is the way we do it around here.’ You’ve got to set a standard.”

The Tigers finally took the lead (61-60) on a pair of free throws by Jeremiah Martin midway through the second half. The game was tied at 65 with 7:47 to play before the U of M took control for good, Davenport dunking the ball on a feed from Harris and Harris delivering a trey that proved to be the dagger.

The win improves Memphis to 10-6 and 2-1 in the American Athletic Conference while ECU falls to 8-7 (1-2).

“I’m so competitive,” said Hardaway. “I went with a [starting lineup] that started most games last year. I felt we were in good hands. For the seniors to start out without much energy — after not making the NCAA tournament last year, not making the NIT — it speaks volumes.

“The team chemistry is getting better. It’s not going to move forward without the seniors. They have to talk to the freshmen. I don’t know if they’re doing a good job of that. We’re coaching, we’re teaching. But those guys have to lead us.”

Freshman guard Alex Lomax only played two minutes, suffering an upper-body injury on a collision early in the game. (Hardaway couldn’t confirm if Lomax had undergone concussion protocol.) Junior Isaiah Maurice absorbed some of Lomax’s minutes off the bench and scored 10 points. Brewton hit all five of his shots from the field and added 13 points.

The Tigers will get a chance to re-energize Sunday when they travel to New Orleans to face Tulane (4-11).

Categories
News News Blog

Midtown Store Closed as Nuisance

Google Maps

Thanks to a rash of drug trafficking, prostitution, assaults, robberies and thefts, a Midtown store was closed Thursday as a public nuisance, according to Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich.

The tiny Express Deli and Grocery at 1295 Jefferson was closed after an investigation by the Memphis Police Department’s (MPD) Organized Crime Unit.

From June 2016 and September 2018, the store was the site of 69 calls for police service, according to the MPD. Those resulted in 43 incident reports and 29 arrests, including 17 felony arrests on the store’s premises and surrounding property. MPD said the store attracts loiterers, crack cocaine traffickers, and is the site of “illegal and dangerous activity.”

The store’s owner, Fatima Saeidi, is scheduled for a hearing at 10:30 a.m. Monday before Judge Patrick Dandridge in Environmental Court. Saeidi will be asked to show why the temporary injunction/restraining order should not be made permanent.

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Local 24 Quietly Deletes Controversial Tweet

WATN, Local 24, had an interesting way of framing news about Cyntoia Brown’s commuted life sentence.

Brown, the teenage sex trafficking victim who killed a john when she was 16, was granted executive clemency Monday, January 7th.

Here’s WATN’s original tweet on the story:

Local 24 quietly deleted the tweet Tuesday, after it started receiving negative attention. The account has made no official mention of the deletion, nor has anybody accounted for the unfortunate framing of a tragic and complicated story.

Commissioner Tami Sawyer cuts to the heart of things:

Local 24 Quietly Deletes Controversial Tweet

Over the past week, MLK50 founder Wendi Thomas has been taking local broadcast stations to task for the huge role they play in linking African-Americans and criminality. She’s been particularly vocal about the number of black faces linked to crime that show up in local social media feeds whether the news is local or not.

Local 24 Quietly Deletes Controversial Tweet (2)

Local 24 Quietly Deletes Controversial Tweet (3)

If you want to know just how disproportionately crime is reported in the Memphis market, the Memphis Flyer does an occasional survey.

This isn’t a condition unique to Memphis and since, at a national scale, local TV news stations reach more viewers than all the top cable stations combined, it’s fair to say that regional broadcasters across America play a huge role in shaping urban narratives related to race and crime. Local 24’s tweet is just the latest example, and an especially egregious one. 

By deleting the tweet, someone has acknowledged its inappropriateness or, at least, the potential for controversy. But deletions like this require some accompanying public statement. For example, when WMC distanced itself from a deleted tweet reading: “Nashville is still trash,”  a subsequent tweet explained the deleted post didn’t represent the station’s “values or views.”

Whether there’s an accounting or not, here’s something to think about. Negligent and incendiary headlines and the over-association of black and brown faces with violent crime isn’t new, and neither is criticism pointing it out. The people responsible for organizing and distributing the news in 2019 know exactly what they are doing. They do it anyway. 

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

After Slow Start, “Slow Mo” Keeps Things Moving

Larry Kuzniewski

Kyle Anderson defends against the Spurs, Wednesday night.

I’ll preface this by saying that I am probably the last person to expect to write something about Kyle Anderson without being biased. I’ve had a strange fascination with him, dating back to the summer before the 2014 NBA draft, when he was taken eight spots behind the Grizzlies’ pick at 30th overall.

Tayshaun Prince was the team’s starting small forward, and I welcomed the prospect of having a play-making small forward that actually showed the ability to make three-pointers in college — shooting 48 percent in his final season. And Anderson was crafty around the basket and found ways to get to the rim in spite of his obvious lack of athleticism.

And then he was “Spurred.” Or should I say “Popped”?

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is known for shaping his players to fit his system and philosophy and he made no exceptions with Anderson. Gone were Anderson’s days of being on the ball and being the primary ball handler. Instead, Popovich used Anderson as more of a power forward with limited on-ball usage. While Anderson’s offensive game was forced to change, he also developed a knack for being a high-level on-ball defender.

Anderson’s signing with the Grizzlies was a bit of a surprise, and his tenure with the home team started off a little rocky. After an early achilles injury that limited him in the preseason, Anderson found himself coming off the bench in a reserve role. He would struggle to find his way with the team even after gaining the starting spot after the now-departed Chandler Parsons began to experience knee soreness.

As of late, Anderson has picked up his game, and despite his nickname, “Slow Mo,” he has quickly become a necessary component of lineups that lead to success. He is far from being a great shooter — especially from three-point range, only shooting 27 percent on the season — but Anderson has a knack for scoring around the basket and has been much more assertive since being allowed to be on the ball more this season.

Defensively, he has been outstanding. Though he’s Limited athletically, Anderson’s high basketball IQ, combined with his elite-level hand instincts and reactions, allows him to work angles and create turnovers. He was one of the team’s best rebounders during a crucial period where rebounding was a prime need, and his ability to find and feed rookie stud Jaren Jackson Jr. is unmatched among his team-members. (Not to mention, it brings cheer to the fanbase that wants to see Jackson emerge as more of a scoring threat.)

In Wednesday night’s 96-86 victory over his former Spurs team, Anderson didn’t have a monster game, or even a revenge game, but he had the type of Kyle Anderson game that we have come to expect — one that’s relatively low scoring, mixed with timely plays and defensive highlights. This was most evident in a highlight-reel lob pass and finish by his favorite target, Jackson Jr., late in the second quarter, and an insane block of a Bryn Forbes shot with 4:47 remaining in the game.

That sequence was typical Kyle Anderson, as he missed a free throw on one end, got back on defense for a chase down block, and started off a break that led to a Mike Conley layup that made the score 91-77, basically sealing the deal on the victory.

Anderson will never be a knockdown shooter, he won’t blow by anyone on his way to the basket or amaze you with his offensive aesthetics, but he does things that pass the eye test — and fill the spreadsheet — that contribute to winning. When the Grizzlies are making a run and playing good basketball, it’s more than likely that Anderson will be on the floor. Regardless of his deficiencies, he’s looks to be a player you would want to keep throughout this transitional season and the imminent rebuild.

His game won’t wow you, although you will get a kick out of noticing that he actually appears faster during slow motion replays than in real time. Go look it up. It’s a real thing and it’s low-key awesome. Sort of like what he brings to the table for this team.

Don’t blink, (well you actually might have time to blink a lot) because Slow-Mo is making things happen faster than you think!

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Rude and Crude

Some Republicans are still clutching their pearls over a remark made last week by newly elected Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib. The Congresswoman, speaking to supporters at a small, raucous rally on the evening after she was sworn in, concluded some remarks about elections and bullies and the president by saying, “We’re going to impeach the mother———.”

Oh my stars and garters! Such language! We just can’t have that. It coarsens the public discourse.

I got news for ya, Goopers. The public discourse got crude when Donald Trump jumped into politics and started calling his primary opponents names and making fun of their physical characteristics. It got cruder when Trump was caught on tape talking about grabbing women’s genitalia. It got even cruder when we all learned about Trump’s affairs with a porn star, and when that porn star issued a description of the president’s, er, staff.

Now the Republicans are getting upset about crudeness? Listen to Trump at one of his rallies. Or read some of his tweets. They are a cornucopia of rudeness and crudeness. (And ignorance and prevarication and bad spelling and typos, but I digress.)

The fact is, Trump’s supporters love his crudeness. They say he just “tells it like it is.” Fine. What goes around comes around. If a feisty new congresswoman drops the F-bomb, so be it. This new Congress is full of feisty women — and men — just itching to put a brake on the runaway Trump train. We’ll be seeing bills requiring presidential candidates to reveal their tax returns and to prevent presidents from being able to pardon themselves. The Democrats will be tackling voter suppression laws, heath care, gerrymandering, immigration reform, and climate change, to name just a few issues. That’s not to mention the multitude of forthcoming committee hearings on violations of the emoluments clause, campaign finance shenanigans, and, yes, collusion with Russia.

The new Democrats look like America — men, women, brown, black, Asian, Muslim, queer, even trans. The Republicans look like white guys in suits, standing on the tilting deck of the USS Trump. I predict administration staffers will soon be hearing lots of F-bombs in the corridors of the White House.

And already, there is jockeying for position among Democrats to see who will win the party’s presidential nomination in 2020. (Here’s a free campaign slogan: “2020 Vision.” You’re welcome.)

Elizabeth Warren was the first to make a move. I like Warren. And I like her focus on helping the middle- and working-class. But I also can’t help but see her as the latest in a long line of old Democratic stiffs — Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, i.e. — who seem irretrievably out of touch with common folks. I am tired of the East Coast Ivy League feeder chain that informs so many of our major institutions, especially the Senate and the Supreme Court.

Democrats need more candidates who aren’t millionaires, who know what it’s like to have to live on a paycheck rather than stock dividends. They need candidates who know what it’s like to deal with our health-care system, who understand the pain of paying an insurance “deductible” that’s the size of a month’s mortgage payment.

Democrats need to be the party of regular people — the job-havers, not the mostly mythical “job creators” worshipped by the GOP. They need to be Main Streeters, not Wall Streeters. Democrats need to be the party of “trickle up” economics and universal health care and lower college tuition. They need to focus on voting rights and coming up with a workable fix for our long-standing immigration issues. Hint: It isn’t a wall.

And most important, the Democrats need to check this president and his administration’s unrelenting deconstruction of the federal agencies responsible for our public safety, our environment, and our health. It might mean a few F-bombs get dropped. It might even mean we impeach the …

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Cover Feature News

New Year, New You, 2019

New Year’s Day is arbitrary, a conceptual restart created by the ancients to note the beginning of another trip around the sun. The new year could just as easily start at the summer solstice, since we never stop rotating around the sun, but somehow, the winter solstice got the gig.

Through the eons, the beginning of a new year has become linked to human beings wanting to start over, to reinvent themselves, to change and improve their approach to living. This is not a bad instinct. We could all use a fresh approach now and then. Every new year serves as a reminder that we only get a limited number of trips around the sun, so we should make the most of our upcoming trip. Which is one reason why the ancients invented the Memphis Flyer‘s annual New Year, New You issue. So, read on. Maybe some of these varied suggestions will help you trip the restart switch. Think of it as a gentle wake-up call.

Greg Cravens

Get a Life (Coach)
You’re caught in a trap. You can’t get out. And, no, it’s not because I love you too much, baby.

“Usually, when people come to me, it’s because they’re stuck,” says Jen Frank, a professional life coach. “There’s something they might want, but they can’t move forward or they might feel a lack of clarity about the path they’re on. There’s just something that they haven’t been able to figure out by themselves.”

But Frank doesn’t give advice, won’t tell people what to do. She is not your therapist. “Therapy is really about past issues or past trauma,” she says. “Coaching acknowledges that those things happened but rather than go backward, it’s about recognizing how we’re going to get past it.”

Frank does life, career, and executive coaching, both individually and in groups. It usually takes from 10 to 12 weeks. Frank says that life and career coaching are ultimately the same thing. “Whatever that’s not working, it’s showing up in relationships at home and relationships at work. You’re a whole person. It overlaps.”  

Frank begins by asking questions. “I ask them what prompted them to call me. We talk a little bit about where they want to get to,” she says.

They then work through exercises, which may involve drawing and storytelling. This is part of what she calls a values exercise. “If you want to learn about somebody, have them tell you a story about a time when they were proud.” Frank describes her visioning exercise as sort of like meditation, where the subconscious meets the conscious. She’ll have the client visit their future self for advice.

Coaching is about building confidence and promoting self awareness. Frank says that people are never as awful as they deem themselves to be. “I create a safe space because I’m completely nonjudgmental about all of people’s stuff,” Frank says. “I like their dark places. I see beauty in dark places.” — Susan Ellis

Greg Cravens

Mentor in Memphis
When I was in the fifth grade, I had the one and only speaking part I would ever have in all of my kindergarten-through-12th-grade school productions: “‘R’ stands for rewards. To better the lives of others is one of life’s greatest rewards.”

I don’t remember the context or what the occasion was now, but either the power of the words or the trauma of public speaking (let’s go with the former) caused that line to stick in my head all these years.

There are tons of ways to better other people’s lives here in Memphis that, believe it or not, could fulfill you, too. You could volunteer at a soup kitchen or build houses with Habitat for Humanity or read to elementary kids. The list goes on and on.

But, one way to really make a difference in someone’s life in a personal and intentional way is mentoring.

There are dozens of organizations in the city that need mentors. One of them is REACH Memphis, which exists to help Shelby County students succeed in high school and, subsequently, in college.

Lauran James, director of mentoring and volunteer services for REACH, says mentors play an integral part in the program, largely by helping students find direction.

“Mentors are needed across the board,” James says. “We have a crop of students that need direction. Our students just need positive guidance. And that’s what mentoring gets them. There would be no way we could do what we do without mentors.”

Meeting with students bi-monthly or weekly, mentors take on different roles, including helping students prepare for summer study programs at universities, career guidance, and college preparation, James says.

Though mentors must have at least two years of college education, James says the most important qualification is a “love for students and the desire for them to reach their highest potential.”

Many of the students come from underserved communities with parents who might not have attended college, and therefore without the program, have no idea how to prepare for a higher education, James says. “Those who aren’t getting mentors are missing out,” James says. “There’s no one to counsel them. Not one of the students who has gone through the program hasn’t said that it’s changed their life. It’s awesome and powerful.”

James says the benefits aren’t only reaped by the mentees either, as the mentors get the satisfaction of having a hands-on part of changing a person’s life. — Maya Smith

Greg Cravens

Start Your Own Business
This is the year. You’ve had that great idea swirling in your brain for months, years maybe. You can see your own small business in the distance. It’s bathed in a shimmering, golden light. A scene plays in your mind: You’re laughing and giving your boss the bird, while $100 bills blizzard you both. Then, the record skips. The daydream ends, and the vision of starting your business seems complicated and far away. But you still have that great idea. And this year — by god — you’re ready to begin your journey.

First step? Get yourself to the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library (3030 Poplar) on Monday, January, 14th, at 6 p.m. There, you’ll find an event called Simple Steps 1: Starting Your Small Business. It will feature a speaker from the local branch of the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) to help get you started. 

The class introduces key business concepts, including the myths and realities of entrepreneurship. It’ll also walk you through some of the legal and financial considerations of business ownership. It is one of a five-part series from SCORE to help prospective entrepreneurs. 

Beth Behrens, a Memphis Public Library librarian in business and sciences, organizes at least three small-business education events at the library each month, and they can draw sometimes up to 100 people. 

“We’re very accessible and free and open to the public,” Behrens said. “Other places may want [to charge for such events] but this is a free service.”

Behrens said the library also hosts other events with the Small Business Adminstration and the Tennessee Small Business Development Center. The library also has a small-business book collection, funded by First Tennessee Bank, that includes books (duh), DVDs, audiobooks, e-books, and more. — Toby Sells

Greg Cravens

Learn How to Cook
If learning how to cook is your New Year’s Resolution, who better to ask for advice than Kelly English, chef/owner of Restaurant Iris and The Second Line?

English says you should begin by reading up on the subject. “Get some books of some chefs you like and read and go with the basics,” he says.

English’s pick is The New Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America. “It’s the most comprehensive book of all the basics and the reason why things are and the reason why they should be.” It defines cooking terms, including “braise” and other mysteries of the kitchen.

As for those basics, one of them is to know “how to use seasoning. Really, salt. Like a lot of times you go to a restaurant and you say, ‘Oh, my God. This is the best whatever it can be.’ It can be any restaurant. And you want to know what they put on it. Usually the answer is salt and pepper.”

Another basic is to “practice things like knife cuts. When you cut your vegetables and they’re all the same size, they cook evenly.”

English says it’s important to get to know your stove. “Your stove has more settings than ‘off’ and all the way on ‘high.'” It’s important to know when to use different heat on your stove. “Heat is an important thing to grasp,” English says.

It’s also a good idea to watch TV cooking shows. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat on Netflix is a great one, English says.

Get good cooking equipment. “A really sharp knife is important,” says English. “A really sharp knife is less dangerous than a dull knife. Any time you have to use a lot of pressure with a dull knife, that’s when you end up cutting yourself.” And, he says, “You don’t have to get the most expensive set of knives. But you do need to keep them sharp.”

Next: “A good cutting board you keep clean. I like wood.” And “a good set of cast iron” and “a good non-stick skillet.” Metal bowls — as in stainless steel — are also on the list.

Finally, English says, it’s important to measure everything. So, get “one of those sets of measuring cups and measuring spoons.” — Michael Donahue

Go Keto
U.S. News & World Reports says the Mediterranean diet is the best, overall. The Today Show predicts your Facebook friends will be all about the flexitarian diet this year. I won’t make any recommendations or predictions. (I’m not a doctor or a psychic.) But you should check out this October Facebook post from Memphis’ own Jacqueline Luisa Maria “Five Names” Sparks-Davila: “Game changer alert: Central BBQ nachos, (substitute) pork rinds. Sneak in your own sugar-free BBQ sauce and hold the nacho cheese sauce = low carb/keto meal dream.”

Sounds like a Memphis diet I can get behind.

By now, you or someone you know (maybe an annoying Facebook friend) has extolled the virtues of a low-carb diet, maybe the paleo or keto variety, where you replace grains, sugars, and processed foods with fats, protein, vegetables, and, y’know, “real” food. 

Sparks-Davila began her keto (and sobriety) journey around the 2017 new year. She’s since said goodbye to 50 pounds and now describes her life as “true happiness.”

“It has honestly been life-changing,” she says. “I struggled with an addiction to carbs and sugars as well as binge eating. Keto successfully helped me change my eating habits, curbed the cravings, and helped me form a healthy relationship with food.”

Sparks-Davila says that her diet might not be for everyone and adds that you should check with your doctor first. But, if you can, it might worth a shot. You can still eat at your favorite Memphis joints. Sparks-Davila says, for example, that Slider Inn “will be happy to wrap any of your sliders in lettuce.” And just think about those barbecue nachos at Central. Dang.

If you need further help or inspiration, Sparks-Davila plans to launch her Sparkle and Keto! YouTube channel this year. She’ll share her story, tips and tricks, and keto cooking and baking videos. — Toby Sells

Try Yogalele
Learning to play a musical instrument as an adult is tough. Your fingers don’t move like that! And between work and yoga, who has time to practice?

If you’ve ever tried to learn an instrument and failed, you may want to reconsider the humble ukulele. And if you’re worried that learning to play ukulele might cut into your yoga time, take comfort in knowing that, thanks to ukulele and yoga instructor Misti Rae Holton, Yogalele is a real thing that exists in the world.  

Holton teaches jazz classes and swing classes and group classes, and she’s begun to combine yoga and ukulele classes into this thing she calls yogalele. But she likes teaching beginners best, and for folks who like seeing fast results, she says it’s not uncommon for starters to leave their first uke lesson playing between four and six songs.

“I was working at Midtown Music when my boss told me, ‘you’re going to teach a group ukulele lesson to a grandmother and her two grandkids,'” Holton says, describing an unanticipated assignment that sparked an even more unanticipated career expansion.

“I’d never taught a music lesson in my life, but it ended up being an amazing experience because ukulele is so easy to teach and learn,” she says. “It hit me immediately that this is the most accessible way for people to learn and start playing songs. It was magical for me.”

“Usually we do yoga first, then we play ukulele,” she says. “But I do combine them.”

Trends come and go, but the Memphis ukulele community is strong and growing. All 17 branches of the Memphis Public Library have donated ukuleles and free classes are available. Weekly meeting of the Memphis Ukulele Flash Mob brings close to 100 people to Central BBQ every Tuesday between 6 and 8 p.m. Those who start learning to play now may even be ready to participate in impromptu jams by the time Memphis hosts its first ukulele festival, April 23rd-26th at the Warehouse. — Chris Davis

Greg Cravens

Grow a Garden
Gardening is one healthy habit. Research has shown that working in the dirt can significantly improve one’s mood and immune system, due to contact with microbes in the soil biome, which mix with the microbes in our own guts. On a more terrestrial scale, you and yours can enjoy the flavor and vitality of a fresh-picked harvest some weeks or months later, barring any droughts or plagues of locusts.

January is just the time to start planning a garden. Plenty of greens, legumes, and root crops can be planted in a month or two, and even plantings after the last freeze can benefit from you picking your spot and prepping the soil now. For starters, it’s better to think of your dirt less as a mud pie and more like a giant lung. Ideally, you’ll be creating a plant bed that’s inhaling and exhaling air and water, with plenty of organic matter to break down in the process. That means considering the air flow above and below ground level, as plant health improves with circulation; low plots of land can hinder such flow and pool water to boot.

Low land is also more prone to compaction. That’s not conducive to soil respiration or friendly to every farmer’s friend, the lowly worm. It’s just one thing to keep in mind when choosing a site. Avoid gardening near walnut or hickory trees, as they secrete the plant-inhibiting toxin juglone. And naturally, you’ll want a spot with plenty of sunshine; though areas with a couple hours of summer shade can help cool-weather crops thrive longer.

If you’re installing raised beds, compaction won’t be a problem, but be aware that they dry out easier, come summer. If you’re opting for bare ground you can eventually till, note that many farmers use a broadfork to poke deep holes in their earth; a yard aerator or a even a potato fork, stepped into the ground every few inches, can approximate the effect. You can then throw compost over the area, and even cardboard and leaves over that. Later, when the ground is drier, you can spade or till up the area, incorporating the compost into your pre-aerated bed: a paradise for practically any kind of crop you care to grow. — Alex Greene

Greg Cravens

Go Vegan
My original thought was to interview my family relations in Atlanta about their dietary regimen by way of suggesting a new path in personal behavior. My 16-year-old granddaughter Eva responded in written form, as follows, and I would not presume to try to improve upon what she said. — Jackson Baker

I went vegan three years ago because I love animals. However, I constantly hear arguments about my decision. Veganism is better for your health, helps the environment, and is an ethical lifestyle choice. So what’s the problem? I often get the question, “Where do you get your protein from?” Despite the fact that I don’t consume animal products, I get plenty of protein from plant-based foods such as grains, nuts, beans, and even vegetables. Did you know that per calorie, broccoli has more protein than beef? Veganism is also beneficial to the environment. Did you know that animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change? As difficult as it is to imagine, you could fill up a swimming pool with the amount of water it takes to make one person a week’s worth of hamburgers.

As we start a new year, a vegan diet is a healthy choice because it lowers cholesterol, reduces risk of cancer and diabetes, and can help you live a longer, healthier life. Because I’m only 16, I am mostly concerned with the immediate effects of going vegan. I have lost weight and became more energetic on the diet. I often hear people say that they could never go vegan because it’s too difficult. I thought the same thing before I went vegan, but I soon got used to it. There is a vegan version of everything now, even Oreos and Coke. Going vegan will also make you feel better about your ethical choices. I was raised as a vegetarian, but wish I’d known that the egg and dairy industries kill just as many animals as the meat industry. I love animals, and I feel so much better knowing that I am helping to save lives. My only regret about going vegan is not doing it sooner. — Eva Baker

Greg Cravens

Transform Yourself
Do you want to transform yourself into a new you for the new year, but you’re not sure how? You can start by looking to the movies for examples. Since character change is vital to a satisfying story, films and television are full of people transforming themselves.

Take the Transformers, for example. Bumblebee, now in theaters, is the sixth film about robots from the planet Cybertron who transform themselves into cars for … reasons. The films have earned a combined $4 billion at the box office, so they must be doing something right.

On the other hand, Transformers movies are terrible, and transforming yourself into a car is not really something you can do in real life. God knows I’ve tried.

For a more useful personal transformation template, look to superheros. Sure, Aquaman, who ruled the holiday box office as well as the Atlantean depths, was born that way, but many superheroes undergo a life-changing tranformation before they start fighting crime in tights. The star of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was bitten by radioactive spiders, thus gaining the strength, grace, and wall-crawling ability of an arachnid. Again, this is not great life advice. First of all, radioactive spiders aren’t a thing. If you irradiate a spider enough, it’s just going to die. Assuming there was a spider with radioactive venom, and it bit you, you wouldn’t get superpowers — you’d get leukemia.

A better superhero template for self transformation is Batman. He doesn’t have any impossible superpowers, he’s just a guy who does a lot of push-ups. Batman’s superpower is his will. He’s determined, he’s thought the situation through like a true paranoid who dresses up like a bat at night, and he’s used his vast fortune to prepare for all possible contingencies. As they say on the internet: Always be yourself — unless you can be Batman. So there you have it. If you want a new you for the new year, all you need is a transformative childhood trauma, superhuman willpower, and unlimited dynastic wealth. Good luck! — Chris McCoy

Categories
News The Fly-By

Void and “Absurd”

Shelby County officials said last week that a new state immigration law that went into effect on January 1st doesn’t apply here, invoking a disapproving response from some Tennessee GOP leaders.

The law prohibits local government entities from adopting sanctuary policies that interfere with the enforcement of federal immigration laws. This means local law enforcement agencies aren’t required to have a warrant or probable cause to comply with federal immigration detainers.

Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition

A Tennessee immigration rally.

It also stipulates that governments that don’t abide by the law will be ineligible for grants from the department of economic and community development until the sanctuary policy is repealed.

However, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) said that, on the advice of the county attorney, Marlinee Clark Iverson, the law won’t apply in Shelby County.

“The Shelby County attorney has advised the Sheriff’s Office that the new Tennessee laws governing sanctuary cities/policies do not apply to Shelby County or the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office,” SCSO said in a statement. “Therefore, the Sheriff’s Office will not detain anyone being released from the jail unless there is a warrant or probable cause to do so. The Sheriff’s Office will continue to honor ICE requests for notifications.”

In her legal opinion, county attorney Iverson said the law’s ambiguity makes it void and “unenforceable.” She also adds that it could violate constitutional rights: “The language in the statute is unclear to the extent that it can be interpreted as requiring absurd and/or potentially unconstitutional conduct by any law enforcement agency.”

The notion that Shelby County is exempt from the law and that detaining individuals without probable cause or a warrant would be in violation of the Fourth Amendment is being challenged by House Speaker Glen Casada and Tennessee Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally.

McNally said that the new law is meant to prevent cities from “selective enforcement of immigration laws.”

“Cities, counties, and states cannot continue to pass the buck,” McNally said. “All government entities must cooperate in order to secure our borders and maintain the rule of law. Shelby County needs to reevaluate their position. As outlined in the law, continued refusal will result in the forfeit of state economic and community development grants which would negatively affect the local economy in Shelby County.”

Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, policy director at the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), who has called the law “one of the most extreme, anti-immigration laws in the country,” said that the group warned legislators that the measure puts local governments in “impossible positions.”

“Tennessee’s new ‘anti-sanctuary city’ law forces local governments to choose: violate the U.S. Constitution or violate the new state law,” Sherman-Nikolaus said. “If the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of the House are going to threaten Shelby County, the state should have to foot the bill when counties are inevitably sued for violating their residents’ fourth amendment rights.”

Sherman-Nikolaus adds that TIRRC applauds Shelby County for defending all residents’ constitutional rights.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1558

News Year Resolution

It’s bad enough that TV news over-reports crime. But wouldn’t it be nice if local news outlets would stop making things seem even worse than they really are by constantly sharing and re-sharing stories about crime from other cities?

I can’t deny, if local TV stations made a resolution to stop doing this sort of thing, I would miss not being able to report that WMC TV-5 reported that a 61-year-old Green Bay, Wisconsin, man was arrested for tearing down his neighbor’s Christmas decorations while drunk and naked. But honestly, I won’t miss it that much.

Dammit, Gannett

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between an astonishing interactive opportunity and garden-variety sloppiness at The Commercial Appeal these days.

Could it be that text reading, “Your Turn Name Here Guest Columnist” is evidence that Gannett is experimenting with a bold new technology that allows readers like you and me to enter into the narrative and attach our very own byline to a story about Tennessee’s rightward political drift?

Nah, it’s just more of what you get when nobody editing the paper in Iowa cares about readers in Memphis.

Verbatim

“I admit I am tired of changing my voice and wearing a wig in order to report on TV.”— TV news reporter Brittany Noble describing pressure to hide her natural hair as one of reasons she “disappeared from WJTV” in Jackson, Mississippi.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Joy of Cooking

In sixth grade, Ali Rohrbacher won first prize at the school’s science fair for her project on recycling. “I weighed each individual house’s recycling for three months.”

And, she says, “It was essentially a lot of math.”

Math wasn’t her strongpoint. “I avoided doing math for my entire academic career, even when I went to college. Then I ended up coming to find a hobby, an obsession that turned into a career, that is so math-centered. I have to do math every single day. So, it’s a little ironic.”

That was baking. Rohrbacher, 28, now is head baker at The cafe at Crosstown Arts.

She excelled at arts and crafts as a child growing up in Memphis. “I was much more adept — and naturally adept — at arts and literature studies.”

Rohrbacher applied to art schools, but ended up going to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, an alternative education-styled public college. She got her degree in arts and literature, but she still didn’t know what she wanted to do for a career.

Rohrbacher eventually moved back home and got a job doing data entry-type work and, later, she got a part-time bookkeeping job. “[I] talked my way into it, being that I went to a college and I could read. That’s basically all the requirements.”

In “an effort to become a healthier person,” Rohrbacher began cooking. “A lot of that stress and anxiety about my future was translating into white cheddar popcorn and wine and candy and things that were not so healthy. So, in an effort to become just a functional adult that is also healthy, not eating white cheddar popcorn every day for meals, I started reading about cooking. I got a book about canning, making jams and pickles.”

After she made some “incredible pickles,” Rohrbacher learned how to make meatballs that rivalled the meatballs in subs she and her roommates got at a restaurant. “I was like, ‘If I could figure out how to make the rolls, we would save so much money.'”

Her first bread recipe was basic. “Maybe it was even in Joy of Cooking. That’s how basic of a recipe it was.”

She then bought a book, Bread Revolution by Peter Reinhart, about sprouted grains and sprouted flour, and she began making sourdough bread starter from scratch. “It was no longer a pursuit of health food. It became about a pursuit of an obsessive hobby.”

Rohrbacher began baking bread before work and after work. “I have a competitive personality type. I also used to run in the same kind of way. I hated running, but I would run every day because I was competing with myself from the day before. [It’s] almost like I supplemented baking for running.”

About a year later, Rohrbacher began giving her bread to friends. And, after she finally perfected it, she began selling it. She began Hustle & Dough Baking Co., a cottage foods operation she still runs.

While still working at her office jobs, Rohrbacher worked out a volunteer arrangement with Caritas Village. She used its kitchen on Sundays for her baking. In return, she did catering jobs, where she made pies and other items.

She also began selling her baked goods to City & State cafe. She then got a job as The Liquor Store restaurant’s head baker, where she made pies, cakes, fresh biscuits, burger buns, Cuban rolls, and sandwich bread.

Last May, Rohrbacher went to work at The cafe at Crosstown Arts, where she continued her self-teaching practice and developed vegan recipes. She eventually created a bread program and became head baker for Crosstown Arts.

Rohrbacher is in a good place with her career. “I can relate it to that way I thought that I would feel one day about doing visual art. I feel that every day because every day I’m baking bread. Every day I get to see and touch and then sometimes eat these products that I’ve made with my own hands. Because I’ve been working every day at it for the last few years. Because I care so much and I, literally, do work so hard. I get this sense of satisfaction from it that I absolutely did not get from data entry.”

The cafe at Crosstown Arts, 1350 Concourse in the Crosstown Concourse, 507-8010

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Rags of Humanity

For the past seven weeks, I have had the privilege of working with a group of people of great compassion and dedication who have been putting their time and hands at the service of thousands of immigrants traveling through Memphis after seeking asylum. Five times a day, groups of these volunteers go to the bus station to offer food, water, clothes, over-the-counter medicines, and a toy or coloring book to families who come from detention centers near the southern border. Twice a day, other groups of wonderful people are helping to prepare all these things. It is a truly humanizing experience to work with these volunteers and to be able to serve others whose first experience with the people of this country has been interacting with the border patrol agents and the staff of the detention centers. But today I do not want to tell you about these people or the families we have met. I would like to tell you about a person we met during this time and who represents a perfect example of something that is deeply human.

On my second shift at the station, around 4 in the morning, we were attending to the needs of the people who had arrived on the bus. When things had calmed down a little and everyone had some food and water, a lady of about 70, with a very soft voice, asked us what we were doing. The other volunteer with me explained who these families were and why we were there, and that we were part of a group of volunteers who had asked for donations to have something to give them. A young African-American man who had been listening to us offered us money, after thanking us, and this woman, with utmost humility, took her foot out of her shoe and offered us $20. I still remember the gesture of my volunteer partner, knowing that probably this lady did not have much money, but also not wanting to deny her the opportunity to contribute what she could. She almost made me cry.

Four hours later, when we were waiting for another bus, the lady was still there waiting for hers, and she could see a new group of more than 25 people like the ones she had seen us help earlier. In the rush to bring them food, ask about their health, or see if we had some clothes to give to those feeling cold and wearing just a T-shirt or a shirt, we did not realize that the lady had already begun to interact on her own with the families. Then, we saw her donate the coat she was wearing (it was cold that week) and donate one of her handbags to a family that had no place to put their few belongings. She donated two Bibles, clearly used by herself. And she probably donated some more money. What made me cry was when we asked her if she was sure that she wanted to donate her coat, she responded that she could buy another one like it for three dollars at the Goodwill store. With this simple line, a woman who didn’t have much was showing everyone that people only need to dress themselves with the humble clothes of humanity.

I’ve been thinking about her a lot since then. During this time we have seen almost 6,000 immigrants travel through the bus station. We have seen very high levels of need, from sick people to passengers without coats to five-year-old girls who were thrown out of detention into the cold without shoes or socks. We have been able to do much more with the support received from friends, volunteers, and other organizations. Our donation room is a monument to the kindness shown by hundreds of people who have donated time, money, coats, coloring books, food, toiletries. But I still think about this woman and the simplicity with which she made a quick decision to put herself at the service of those who needed help around her.

As immigrants, sometimes we can overlook many things from the places we come to live in. It is true that this country seems a machine of industrialization, a monster that transforms into gold the needs, the tragedies, and misery of the people who live here and in the rest of the world. But there is also something in this place that is essential and humanizing: a well-grounded understanding of the personal responsibility we have toward other human beings. This is hard to see among so much abundance because, as happens with poverty, we tend not to see those who walk through our cities wearing simple rags of humanity.

Do yourself a favor and put on these simple clothes and start looking around and offering your hands — not just your tithes — so that you can accomplish the task of transforming this world into a much better one.

Federico Gómez is an immigrant, educator, and adopted Memphian. This column was translated from El Informante de Memphis, where it first appeared.

Editor’s note: Since several readers have asked: Mariposas Collective is the organization Mr. Gomez is working with. To help or donate, go to their Facebook page.