Tag: Les Smith

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

On Frank Murtaugh’s Tiger Blue post “The Tigers’ Five Biggest Wins at the Liberty Bowl” …

That 1996 W over the Vols is without a doubt the most incredible, satisfying game I’ve ever attended. Memories of that day will keep me warm and fuzzy the rest of my life. After the game, the 18,000 UT fans left in total silence without saying a word. You talk about surreal. …

Midtown Mark

Memphis hasn’t had a kickoff return for a touchdown since the Tennessee game in 1996. I’ve read multiple sources online indicating that could be the longest such drought for any DI football program ever, or at least going back to DI’s creation as we know it in 1950.

AlonsoWDC

On Toby Sells’ post “Sammons: Lipscomb Allegations ‘Sickening,’ City to Offer Free Counseling” …

So Sammons is convicting on words only? I smell a rat here, and you all are falling for it. Shame on you all!

Earnestine Taylor

That was a pretty strong statement by Jack, wasn’t it? Apparently, what he heard he believes sounds a bit odd … but he knows more than I.

Scott

On the editorial “The Lipscomb Bombshell” …

For the second time in two days (the other being Jackson Baker’s blog on the matter yesterday) the Flyer, which is held out a progressive voice in this community, has felt the need to mention Mr. Lipscomb’s sexual orientation as though it has anything to do with the crimes he is accused of. Would the Flyer have noted his orientation if Lipscomb had been accused of abusing under age girls? How exactly has he “benefited” from people not caring if he is gay? Are you implying that people should have suspected something like this was going on because he is gay? It sure seems like it. I am in no way supporting Mr. Lipscomb, but I expect better from the Flyer.

Evil

On Les Smith’s “A View from Afar” …

I have found Les Smith’s column both enlightening and refreshing. That is why when I read his last column “A View From Afar,” I felt compelled to clarify a point made regarding the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission statistics. The Crime Commission uses the year 2006 as a basis of our reporting for a strategic reason. In 2005 our community came together to create a plan of action to reduce crime. The plan, Operation: Safe Community (OSC), is a strategic initiative to reduce crime in Memphis and Shelby County, spearheaded by the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission. The underlying philosophy of this plan was best stated by John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address: “United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do — for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.”

The crime-reduction initiative, chaired by Attorney General Amy Weirich now has 26 strategies, 45 accountable partners, and more than 100 public and private agencies engaged in its implementation. The goal is to make Memphis-Shelby County one of the safest communities of its size in the nation — a truly powerful challenge.

Yes, we have a long way to go, but we are making progress and holding ourselves accountable, as Mr. Smith recommended in his article. Each month, we compare where we are in the crime rate now to where we were when we started on this endeavor. So far, the news in good but not great. As of the last reporting period, violent crime rate is down 19 percent, and property crime is down 35 percent.

But as Mr. Smith stated, those statistics are of little comfort to a victim of crime, so let me put those statistics in real terms. There were over 1,600 fewer victims of violent crime in the first seven months of 2015 than there were in the first seven months of the year our plan began, 2006, including 24 fewer murder victims. President Kennedy’s words are as true today as they were in 1960, and we’re out to prove it.

Rick Masson

Interim Executive Director

Memphis Shelby Crime Commission

Categories
News News Feature

Belize It!

Mary and her husband had planned a dream vacation to Belize. It was the top priority on their bucket list of places to enjoy together after retirement. Last March, after 40 years as a teacher in Stone Mountain, Georgia, she finally arrived in the country they both had hoped would be a shared paradise. But she had to come alone, after burying her life partner just two months before.

As she related her experience as we sat outside at a sunny Belizean bar and restaurant, there was no hint of what would have been understandable melancholy. She elected to sell most of their worldly possessions, including a five-bedroom house. She worked through the vehement skepticism expressed by her adult children that she could go it alone in Central America. But Mary has fallen in love again. Not with another man, but with a simplicity and vibrancy of life she hasn’t felt since her childhood.

It’s the eternal human quest to find contentment and happiness that lured my wife Lisa and me to Belize. It’s a country of unmatched natural beauty and ethnic diversity — and equally visible abject poverty. With a government that’s borrowed itself to the hilt, Belizeans exist without unemployment insurance, food stamps, and welfare programs. You could consider it a laid-back version of rugged individualism. Their motto is, “Take care of your needs first and your wants become secondary.”

We met many American fellow travelers. It’s safe to say that many of our countrymen have a tendency to flaunt their self-perceived superiority while abroad. Some of the American visitors were brash, loud-laughing, loud-talking masters of the universe. They consumed voluminous amounts of alcohol, not that there’s anything wrong with that while on vacation, but the solitude and time for personal reflection Belize has to offer are lost on such people. I didn’t really hold anything against the sometimes crude attitudes of my fellow Yankee Doodlers. The majority of Americans have been taught to believe that happiness can only be achieved through hard work, determination, and sheer will. Serenity is not top of mind.

Belize offers the exact antithesis of everything we’ve been taught to desire. Most Belizeans get around on bicycles or golf carts as primary transportation. Or they walk. The American dollar is worth twice as much as Belizean money. The average Belizean makes about $20 a day. Yet, in this melting pot of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity, there appears to be no caste system. No one seems particularly jealous of anyone else’s status as server, waiter, bartender, driver, security guard, or beach captain. Instead there was a shared universal zest for enjoying life’s basic pleasures. They have a roof over their heads. They have an abundance of natural foods. They work hard for hourly wages. They love their heritage — and their children (who seem to love and respect their elders). For Belizeans there is no fee to enter into paradise, because they believe they are already living in it, every day they are here on earth. There is a serenity of body and spirit that can’t be measured. It emanates from within.

On the next to last day of our stay, we caught up with Mary again. She just appeared from a side street in the bustling Placencia Village. It’s a community noted for having the narrowest main street in the world. She had just emerged from a Thai-owned restaurant and massage parlor. I thought that sounded interesting, but Lisa insisted we had business to attend to first. Besides, Mary told us she was in a hurry to get to her apartment. She was going to get some rest and prepare herself for the “second half” of what had already been a very active day of walking, talking, visiting, and learning about the country she now calls home.

She was preparing, too, for a visit from her daughter, coming from Illinois. She hoped one day her son and his family would make the trip, as well. As we waved goodbye, I could not help but think how proud and happy her late husband would be if he knew how well his wife is fulfilling their bucket list.

Categories
News News Feature

Remembering Pierre

When I first met Pierre Kimsey I had no idea what to make of him.

It was an era when it seemed everyone in the television industry was trying to find the elusive magic formula that would capture viewing audiences in whatever media markets we were in. The “happy talk” format, which often painfully forced interactions between news anchors, was just starting to become a trend. I could imagine to uncomfortable viewers it verged on the voyeuristic. Here were people in a previously one-dimensional box suddenly sharing snippets of their personal lives when they were on camera in an attempt to humanize themselves with a strained 30-second exchange of conversation.

But I knew, when Pierre and I watched in disgust — at the now defunct Fort Pierce, Florida, television station WTVX — while two of our anchors feebly struggled to talk to one another, I’d found a kindred spirit. What I didn’t know was it would be the beginning of a 30-year bond between two people who saw an opportunity to explore television as the free-form medium we thought it was meant to be.

WTVX, a UHF start-up, was the perfect testing ground for us. Pierre was hired as feature reporter and film critic. I reported and anchored sports, but was pressed into service for news stories, as well. Our station struggled to find an identity in one of the fastest-growing television markets in the country. Since we had to fill hours of news time with a small staff, it was imperative that on occasions, we would stretch the envelope of creativity.

I specifically remember when, in his role as film critic, Pierre came up with the idea of doing a review of one of the original trilogies of Star Wars movies. He enlisted my help as co-starring in a four-minute piece in which he portrayed Han Solo and I was his nameless co-pilot. I was nameless because Pierre, long before such concerns existed, worried that casting me as “Chewbacca the Wookie” might come off as racist.

In true Pierre form, the preparations and logistics were meticulous. We commandeered station owner Frank Spain’s twin engine plane, which was parked in the station’s lot. Our fellow employees came out and rocked the plane as if it were undergoing an attack. The finished product was seamless. With his usual unselfish nature, Pierre gave me all the laugh lines while he played the foil. It was brilliantly edited and produced … and when the ratings came in, it was stunningly obvious, almost nobody watched it. Thus was life at X-34!

After working together for a couple of years, Pierre took a job in Detroit and became a sensation. We kept in touch through the years as I eventually landed in Memphis, and he fell from the stars in Detroit as a feature reporter to be resurrected in Huntsville, Alabama, as a producer of award-winning documentaries.

We eventually reunited at WHBQ to work together on investigative stories. It was during that time I came to fully recognize the talent and caring for the human condition Pierre had behind his cultured and sometimes distracted demeanor.

As I related in a recent WKNO tribute to Pierre with my television colleagues Jackson Baker, Bill Dries, and Andrew Douglas, issues such as the depth of poverty and racism in Memphis truly angered and befuddled him. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe that every man could be transformed into a foot soldier for change. However, unlike many of us, he was willing, until proven otherwise, to give everyone he met the benefit of the doubt.

Pierre’s unmatched body of television work was reflective of his attempt to reach the core of people’s feelings. He assumed a life’s mission to make that one-dimensional box come alive, not through idle chatter but by producing thought-provoking weekly programs and thoroughly researched documentaries for WKNO.

My biggest heartbreak is in knowing that for all the lives he may have unknowingly touched and motivated, Pierre died alone. The circumstances of his death will haunt me for the rest of my life. Why didn’t I ask him about his health? Why didn’t I have him over to the house just to talk with him about whatever was going on in his life? Why didn’t I know there might be something amiss?

The answers to those questions were just a phone call away. Yet, it was a phone call I didn’t make.

Decades ago, I didn’t know what to make of my first meeting with Pierre Kimsey. But I learned, as so many viewers also did, to appreciate his creative genius. He will be sorely missed.

Les Smith is a reporter for WHBQ Fox-13.

Categories
News News Feature

On the Bus

For years, in the early 1960s, I rode the bus to school every day, for an hour each way, back and forth. As one of the few black students living in the central Missouri countryside, most of those who endured this ordeal with me were white. It wasn’t because of some court ordered edict designed to offset segregation. It was because our junior high was 25 miles away in the community of Williamsburg.

What brought me to remember those days was last week’s furor over the decision of a Durham school bus driver to stop her vehicle after some Bolton High School students began acting up on her route. She emptied the bus and gave them an expletive-ridden tongue-lashing about their conduct and how she wasn’t going to tolerate it while she was driving.

As always seems to happen these days, her tirade was captured on video and went viral. Durham opted to temporarily suspend the driver, but by week’s end, public support of her actions forced the company to reinstate her as a driver, though not in the Shelby County School system. The school system vowed to take disciplinary actions against the students, who were ready to incite a fight on the bus.

It may sound like I’m waxing nostalgic, but on those long bus rides with my classmates on the way to school, we actually had many meaningful conversations. My best friend, who I always sat next to, was Robbie Christensen. On a socio-economic scale, we shouldn’t have even come close to bonding. His parents had money. Mine did not. Yet, through sharing our youthful observations of the changing world around us, a genuine friendship blossomed.

As 12 year olds, we told each other of our fears about dying during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. What if a nuclear war broke out against Russia, we wondered. Who would be our allies? Robbie told me his family had already built a bomb shelter and he’d have to ask, but he was pretty sure my family could use it too if we were attacked.

As school opened after the summer of 1963, the March on Washington had taken place. Robbie told me he’d heard his parents say they didn’t know what the Negro people wanted in terms of civil rights. Didn’t we have rights already? I told him I thought it meant more than just being able to go to places we hadn’t been able to go to before. “We want to have the right to choose our own paths in life,” I said. “Whether it was to be a doctor, a lawyer, or somebody on television.” Robbie promised me that if I ever got on television he’d watch me.

But when we got to our freshman year in high school, we found our friendship wasn’t immune to societal pressures. After getting off the bus, we sat together in our school’s auditorium, with black students on one side and whites on the other. For weeks, we tried to ignore the polarization. Sadly, I was the first to crack. It was the toughest and longest bus ride home I ever had. Robbie and I sat together again, but we didn’t speak. The age of our youthful innocence was over. We would see each other at school and briefly exchange pleasantries, but it wasn’t the same. Our estrangement seemed complete when my family moved into town and I stopped riding the bus.

So, who could have imagined that, years later, when I circulated a petition to become the school’s first black student body president, the first signature at the top was Robbie Christensen? When I won, he held my hand up on stage in triumph.

It makes me sad to think that times have changed so much that our children can’t think of any more to do on a school bus than to be disruptive, obnoxious, and unmannerly.

When that lone bus driver took her foot off the gas pedal and put it down to try to stop that unruly behavior, her words were perhaps harsher than they should have been. But, they were earnest and necessary. And the fact that she felt the need to say them at all bespeaks the loss of respect for common decency too many of our children display. I know from experience that a bus ride can offer an opportunity for meaningful discussion and growth. It’s too bad the kids in question don’t seem to know that.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Jackson Baker’s cover story on Mike Matthews, “It Only Hurts When He Laughs” …

I commend Jackson Baker for this article. Mike is a compelling enough personality by himself, but he becomes even more larger-than-life thanks to the excellent writing in this piece. Very nice work, Jackson, and welcome back, Mike. You can’t keep a good Watchdog down.

Ken Jobe

Wonderful story about a real reporter with a heart and courage. As a photographer and videographer in Memphis for over 40 years, I have often found myself at news events, back in the line of cameramen and reporters. The people we all know from TV sometimes are very different off-camera. Some are not very nice. Over the years, I have seen some offensive behavior from reporters who magically transformed when they picked up a mic and stood in front of a camera. Most are not like this, but Mike Matthews is even better off camera.

He is exactly what we need on the air — and in our city: depth, truth, humility, humor, and most of all, love.

Peter Ceren

About Toby Sells’ post, “MATA Hopes for May Return of Trolleys” …

So MATA’s short-term solution is returning some trolleys to service 11 months after they were supposed to be down for only three or four months? As the late Don Poier used to say, “Only in the movies, and in Memphis.”

Midtown Mark

About Les Smith’s column, “The Natural” …

Right on point. I agree about Lee Harris and Berlin Boyd, too. We have too much talent in Memphis just sitting around on their hands, waiting for a chance at the plate. We shouldn’t settle for another retread, no matter how great a guy he is. There is, quite simply, too much at stake. It’s time for fresh people and fresh ideas.

OakTree

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Sammons ’R Us” …

I’m available to take over the airport authority. I’m totally unqualified, so I can give it my full, unqualified attention.

Jeff

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “The Museum of Terrible Ideas” …

Surely there was a typo in the statement that the Riverfront Development Corporation put up $200,000 and got $800,000 more from the Feds to study that goofy water taxis on the river idea. If it was not a typo, what in the world are they spending the money on? Is the contractor one of the decision-maker’s brother-in-law?

Harry Freeman

About Chris Davis’ Viewpoint, “The 75 Percent Rule” … I am writing on behalf of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to request a correction to the op-ed “The 75 Percent Rule,” which appeared on the Memphis Flyer website on March 5th.

Specifically, the piece states: “The proposed legislation, in the long run, benefits nobody but Todd’s fellow ALEC member, the Corrections Corporation of America, a private company that operates three of Tennessee’s 14 prisons.” This is false. CCA’s non-voting membership with ALEC ended in 2010. As such, CCA is not a current member of ALEC.

Jonathan Burns

Senior Manager, Public Affairs, CCA

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Hot Water in Memphis

It was one of those drop-the-microphone, Elvis-has-left-the-building moments that Memphis City Council meetings can sometimes produce: A frustrated councilwoman, Wanda Halbert, verbally blasted stoic Memphis Light Gas & Water President Jerry Collins with an observation that sounded familiar. During a discussion about the city-owned, nonprofit power company’s fees, Halbert said, “Memphis Light Gas & Water belongs to the city of Memphis. It doesn’t belong to Memphis Light Gas & Water. It feels like it does not belong to the City of Memphis. It’s almost like, somehow, you all have evolved into an island of your own!” She then exited the room without waiting for a response. No rebuttal was needed and none came.

Almost the exact description of MLGW’s operational procedures was uttered by our former “forever king,” Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton more than a decade ago. In 2003, Herenton roared, “MLGW is an island unto itself,” in accusing the utility of being wasteful and inaccessible to the needs of customers. Six years earlier, Herenton had tried mightily to convince council members to sell off what is universally acknowledged as the city’s most profitable asset.

Former Flyer columnist John Branston chronicled the story in great detail. Herenton hired a Philadelphia consultant named Rotan Lee, who, for the nice round figure of $150,000, produced a study of the utility’s effectiveness — making a case for privatizing all or parts of the utility, estimated at the time to be worth $800 to $850 million. Lee tried to make the case that community-owned utility companies could no longer be “natural monopolies” in a world where federal deregulation of utilities was becoming the norm. Lee concluded that such utility companies would, in the end, “lose the crucible of good will with their customer base.” In hindsight, Lee’s prediction would appear to rival those of Nostradamus.

Distrust of the utility’s intentions only heightened, when, just after receiving the tongue-lashing from Halbert and other skeptical members of the council, MLGW officials announced they would propose a 2 percent hike in residential water rates to make up for revenue projected to be lost when the Cargill company closes its corn-milling plant on Presidents Island in January 2015. MLGW officials said that Cargill accounted for 5 percent

of the water sold by the utility, leaving a $4 million revenue shortfall to make up. There had been no mention of the rate hike in the council meeting just two days earlier.

To add insult to injury, Cargill is walking away — without any financial penalty — on the four years that remain on a PILOT property tax freeze agreement issued by the city and county in 2010.

What should be even more worrying for MLGW customers is the fact that Roland McElrath is the man behind the plan for the utility’s proposed rate hike. McElrath became the utility company’s controller in 2012 after resigning his post, for the second time, as the city of Memphis finance director. This is the same career numbers-cruncher who, in 2011, assured city council members Memphis could afford to give its city employees Christmas bonuses because of a surplus created by cost-saving measures enacted during the prior fiscal year.

After the council passed a $6.2 million Santa offering, a sheepish McElrath recalculated. Oops. There was actually a $6 million deficit — a shortfall that later ballooned to $17 million — that required the council to dip into dwindling city reserves to cover the overall deficit. This should give all of us, particularly those struggling to pay their bills each month, plenty of reason for pause when it comes to MLGW’s plan to offset lost Cargill revenue.

When most companies lose a valued client, they don’t take it out on the good customers that remain with them. They buckle down and try harder to keep them happy. As MLGW customers, we appreciate the employees’ hard work and dedication whenever power outages hit the city. We appreciate their charity work. We appreciate their moratoriums on bill payments in extreme weather conditions. However, it’s their perceived arrogance and take-it-or-leave-it autonomy that spawns tirades like Halbert’s. Taxpayers pay the hefty salaries of the utility’s management. Aren’t we owed an open accounting of their billing procedures, rather than being suddenly blindsided with a rate hike?

Don’t we all live on the same island?

Les Smith is a reporter for WHBQ Fox-13 News.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Learning From Ferguson

Almost seven years ago, I stood under a clear, blue September sky in Jena, Louisiana, as more than 20,000 African Americans flooded the streets of that rustic community in protest of the conviction of six teenagers for the alleged beating of a white student at the town’s high school. I thought then, in 2007, that that demonstration of unity of purpose might lead to a new awakening of social consciousness in America regarding race relations. It didn’t.

Five years later, I was reporting on the daily demonstrations of outrage in Memphis in reaction to the shooting death in Florida of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman. The outpouring of tears, outrage, and disgust at the fact that Martin’s “stereotypical” hoodie served as a catalyst for his being targeted by the overzealous wanna-be cop seemed universal — an appalled response from the majority of the general public. Surely, I thought, this would be the incident that would sustain a national dialogue about race, false perceptions, and tainted justice and result in sweeping positive social upheaval in the name of equality. It didn’t.

So, pardon me if the prospect of people taking to the streets of Memphis this week to demonstrate solidarity with those mourning the loss of 18-year-old Michael Brown in a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, strikes me as a hollow gesture — especially since we’ve got so much work left to do in addressing the plight of African-American youth here in Memphis. It’s blasphemous to focus on a tragedy 300 miles away when we should be concentrating on the atrocities within our own city. It doesn’t take much to know where to begin.

As I reported on television last week, there are an estimated 10,000 students who have not yet enrolled in school in Shelby County. Because of confusion regarding the various municipal, private, charter, and state-run achievement district school systems, clarity about who is going where might be a little muddled, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that thousands of students are apparently not in school anywhere. The SCS superintendent and school board members are only now, two weeks into the educational year, deciding to push parental procrastinators into action to get their children in classrooms through a series of radio and television ads.

Since when did getting a basic education become an option? There are laws on the books about the penalties parents can face because of their children’s truancy. Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich stands ready to enforce them. Let’s take her up on her word to do so. You can’t tell me there’s not a direct correlation between school truants and the youth violence in our streets. In the month between July 13th and August 13th, Memphis police responded to 27 shooting incidents involving juveniles. The youngest victim was 12. Apparently, these incidents have caught the attention of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton who now wants to call a summit to discuss ways to stop the violence.

Though I have my doubts, I hope the mayor isn’t content in this situation to surround himself with “yes men” who are going to give him a false sense that the city is doing all it can to turn around this distressing tide. If the city truly wants to help, it should join the D.A.’s office in cracking down hard on truancy. Join with the schools in reaching out to young girls to teach them that making babies out of wedlock is not a career path. Have MPD hold seminars to stress to young black males the less-than-attractive alternatives of imprisonment or death that could come from living the life of a “gangsta.” If you want to call it “scared straight” or some snappier title, it doesn’t matter. Just do it.

As history has proven, marches and public demonstrations of concern are usually after-the-fact reactions — too little, too late. We shouldn’t have to march in memory of our slain youth, not when we can be proactive in giving our children a fighting chance to succeed through education. You can’t bring Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown back. But we, and the leaders of our community, can do our utmost to work toward making sure their deaths and the temporary unity of purpose their tragedies generated were not in vain, at least not here in Memphis.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Les Smith’s column, “Where We Live Now” …

I have followed Les Smith’s reporting for years and have always found him undoubtedly ‘fair and balanced’ in the truest sense, as opposed to a marketing moniker.

His article was insightful and fair. We must as a community begin now to dedicate ourselves to judging our political servants or those aspiring to elected office by their qualities and not the color of their skin or, for that matter, their sex.

Because of Smith’s race, he is granted the candor to acknowledge this fact and move beyond it. Yes, I live in the suburbs and, yes, I am white, but I try every day to be “color blind.” I am thankful for my 23 years in the Army and a childhood with a father in the Army, where we as children and soldiers lived with, deployed with, and marched with every race for a common mission.

Let us all recognize that there are more color-blind black, brown, and white folks in Memphis than there are myopic racists who are only bent on their own benefit. We need to grow the number of color-blind children in Memphis through our daily modeling if we are to ever move things up and forward.

Martin Zummach

Amen and amen to Les Smith’s article. He spoke the sad truth.

Suzanne Jones Raines

About Bianca Phillips’ story, “Bumpy Ride” …

Memphis is a city on the rise, one that needs to be embracing technological innovation, not turning away from it. We have a booming downtown with new restaurants, bars, and shops opening every week. Raymond James recently renewed its commitment to downtown, keeping 600-plus employees in our city’s core. The downtown core had the lowest crime rate in the city last year, thanks to a renewed fight against violence and homelessness. But Memphis is making waves for the wrong reasons with its vengeful fight against ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft. I have used both extensively and make it a point to get to know the drivers, all of whom have been polite, courteous, and professional. With downtown occupancy rates at all-time highs, parking is more difficult. These two services mitigate the traffic and nuisance of parking for many residents — from the city and those who live in outlying areas.

As a proud resident of downtown and a native of Louisville, Kentucky, I chose Memphis because of work, but have come to truly embrace the culture and blossoming scene that is Memphis. Young, talented individuals (a large percentage of downtown residents) have a choice of places to live, and headlines about Memphis thwarting new technology will not encourage these people to choose Memphis.

Was there a cry from pay-phone operators when cell phones were invented? Of course. But we all learned to embrace the change. Cities all over the country have welcomed Uber and Lyft. It’s time for Memphis to drop the cease and desist order and let our city grow!

Cas Lane

About Severin Allgood’s story, “Atlas Moth at the Buccaneer” …

Sev, stop using big words. You’re writing about metal, man, and you are going to make the other Flyer writers look like tools.

Allgoodrules

About Jackson Baker’s cover story, “Gripes, Groans, and Grudge Matches” …

Nice work, JB. I have to wonder why anyone would vote for Joe Brown or Henri Brooks, other than the fact they are black. In the course of this brief campaign period, both have demonstrated a real deficiency of personal integrity. In fact, neither has anything close to their opponents’ qualifications for the jobs they’re running for.

Now let’s pray the criminal justice system follows through on Brooks’ multiple election law violations, as well as her assault on a citizen — and on Brown’s contempt citations.

Julius Jones

Steve Cohen will win with same margin as he did against Tinker/Herenton — 79 percent. Ricky Wilkins should then run for council.

GeorgeGallup

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Les Smith’s column, “Sounds of Silence” …

Les Smith seems to hate those who have served the city and keeps telling them what wonderful benefits they have. Why don’t you try to actually report on the issue instead of quoting the mayor’s talking points? If you take away the health-care benefits, the city’s benefits are not nearly as good as private industry, even though the pay is much less and the risk is much higher. How many mayors and city councilmen are in a wheelchair or on a breathing machine or have a hip that doesn’t work that they hurt while serving their fellow citizens? 

Let’s compare private sector businesses versus fire department employees: A firefighter’s retirement benefits are about $3,000 a month for life, no current plans for cost of living increases, ever. There is no employee matched 401k and no Social Security benefits. Health-care costs $1,650 per month for a married couple (premier plan). Continuing work-related injuries are very common and not covered.

A typical private employer may not offer a company-funded pension, but employee-matched 401k plans are common at almost every private business. They almost all pay Social Security benefits and health care.

Continuing work-related injuries are covered by Social Security Disability.

Put us on the same benefits as private industry, and you can start by making the city pay Social Security, just like everyone else.

Jim Wilson

About Jackson Baker’s column, “‘Fair Game’ or Smoking Guns in Shelby County Judicial Races” …

A judge is as a judge does. This judicial race should not be about who is a Republican or who is a Democrat. It’s supposed to be a “nonpartisan” race. If members of the executive committee of either party choose to reject the grotesque, self-serving, and corruptive special-interest influences currently being exerted upon all courts in general and the Probate Court in particular, I welcome their endorsement and much-needed support because this judicial election should not be about political parties or individuals running to be officious; it’s about whether or not the candidate will be judicious after he or she is elected.

Lawparks

You have to remember that the official Democratic Party has absolutely no influence and, as long as they act like this, they never will.

Memphis Democrat

About Frank Murtaugh’s column, “USA! USA! Futbol Time in America” …

My opinion is that the drama in the flops has changed from the last World Cup. Still seeing lots of guys who are incredibly clumsy in the box, but the refs seem to ignore most of it.

My favorite is the magic spray. What is it, and how does it cure these guys who get tripped, banged in the shin, etc.? They scream, grab the leg, and writhe on the ground, and the trainer gets out the spray and they are magically all better.

homersimpson

About Greg Akers’ post “Bad Movie Double Feature” …

Gotta check these out; never seen either one. In the meantime, 1970’s Myra Breckinridge gets my vote for worst movie ever. The cast was bizarro: Raquel Welch, Mae West, John Huston, Farrah Fawcett, Jim Backus, Tom Selleck, and even Rex Reed. I’m guessing the casting director was out of his skull on mescaline.

Dave Clancy

On Jackson Baker’s post, “Brooks Ousted But Declines to Go Gentle Into That Good Night” …

My guess is, rules is rules, except for them that make the rules. Long sad tale of Memphis ‘leadership’, no matter what their stripe. The old ones need to go, either side of the bickering.

OakTree

So she’s lived all these places without owning any of them or paying any property taxes to Shelby County? And she votes on property tax rates? Interesting. And no wonder it’s difficult to establish residency.

Brunetto Latini

[Brooks’ opponent] Joy Touliatos needs to buy a Powerball ticket because she has the most amazing good fortune of anyone in Shelby County right now. Autoegocrat

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News The Fly-By

A Father’s Day Lament

Our eyes met for only a second or two. Throughout the court hearing, I had stared at 15-year-old Jonathan Ray. I wanted to get a sense of what he was thinking. Like most news reporters, I have a fascination with the criminal mind. But, with this African-American teenager, it was more like: What if it had been one of my sons who was doomed to decades in prison for the heinous crime of murdering his mother and setting fire to their home to cover up the dastardly act?

Could it somehow have been avoided? Could someone have sensed his silent pain and the depressive state that led up to the moment when he decided to take the life of the one person whose only apparent fault was her unconditional love for him?

Don’t get me wrong. Whether in the spur of the moment or intentionally planned, Ray consciously made the decision to become a killer. We, as a society, and through us, our judicial system, shouldn’t mollycoddle such people. Ray is the latest example of the legal conundrum: What is the right thing to do when “tweeners” — adolescents — who commit brutal crimes come before the bar of justice?

The day before I covered Ray’s trial, I’d done a story on an event called the International Fatherhood Conference. It was a three-day workshop aimed at bringing together fathers, predominately African American, to exchange views and techniques on assuming leadership roles in their own households. Presented by a “think tank” that had done years of study on the subject, there were plenty of statistics on how the absence of a father figure in the home has a detrimental effect on children: They don’t do well in school. They often run away. The male children tend to go toward fathering out-of-wedlock babies. The girls gravitate toward being “baby factories.”

I kept thinking, tell me something I don’t already know. The thing I found curious about the scheduling of the seminars and workshops was that nearly all of them took place during the day. If you’re a hard-working father, when would you have time to come to such an event? Besides, those who desperately need this kind of manly therapy in Memphis aren’t going to get anywhere near the East Memphis hotel where it was held. It reminded me of what my grandfather once lamented: “Do-gooders often drink the mother’s milk of fools.”

These two seemingly disparate stories have been gnawing at me as we approach another Father’s Day. With all due respect to the fine folks who put on that conference, as a father, I didn’t need somebody to tell me how I needed to assume a leadership role with my children. That is a given. If you’re man enough to have them, then you should be man enough to take care of them. That applies as well to the children you might inherit if you marry into an existing family. My biological father died of tuberculosis when I was 2 years old. My mother married my stepdad when my brother Larry and I were 4 and 5, respectively. He never made us feel anything less than his children, even though three other sons would follow. My mother was a strong woman. But there was never any doubt who the “leader” of our family was, like it or not.

That’s what made the testimony given at Ray’s court hearing so soul-wrenching for me. James Wallace, Ray’s stepfather, who married the victim, Gwendolyn Wallace, when Ray was 9, said under cross-examination by Ray’s defense team that he clearly remembered someone had read his then 14-year-old son his Miranda rights before he was grilled for hours without a bathroom break by criminal investigators. However, four hours of videotape dispelled Wallace’s testimony. No one read the teen his rights.

One of the investigators admitted to lying to the boy about evidence authorities didn’t even have in order to wrangle a confession out of him. Wallace admitted he was in a room adjacent to where the interrogation was taking place and watched it all without any interference. Where was Ray’s biological father during all this? He was nowhere to be seen; he lives in Detroit.

All of this made those brief seconds of eye contact with Jonathan Ray all the more sad. Yes, he’s been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Yes, he is a convicted killer. But he is somebody’s son, too.