Tag: Ophelia Ford

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Opinion The BruceV Blog

Election Results Give Reason for Optimism

It’s been a long time since I woke on the day after an election in Shelby County feeling as optimistic and grateful as I do today. Let me count the ways:

First, my state senator, the mentally and physically impaired embarrassment, Ophelia Ford, was soundly defeated in the Democratic primary by Lee Harris, a smart, young law school professor with, I suspect, a bright political future hereabouts. This was the result I wanted most from this election cycle. Win.

Across the state in Knoxville, GOP primary voters turned out in droves to demolish the re-election bid of lunatic state senator Stacey Campfield, aka “Mr. Don’t Say Gay.” Thanks, Knoxville. Love ya. For grins, check out Campfield’s reaction to his defeat on his blog.

Perhaps the result that surprised me most was the defeat, statewide, of Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey’s attempted purge of three Tennessee Supreme Court justices. The upshot: Ron spent a few hundred thousand dollars to let Tennesseans know the names of three Supreme Court justices. Epic fail. Couldn’t happen to a sleazier jackass. This vote, and Lamar Alexander’s victory over anti-immigration nut Joe Carr, gave me some real hope that the Tea Party tide may have finally turned in Tennessee. I hope so, anyway.

Joe Brown and Henri Brooks were resoundingly trounced in their races for attorney general and Juvenile Court clerk, respectively. I’ve had my issues with Brown’s opponent, Amy Weirich, but Brown, like Brooks, simply self-destructed, making Weirich the winner by default, and by a landslide.

To recount, Memphis purged itself of Ophelia Ford, and along with other Shelby County voters, soundly rejected two potential lightning rods/potential embarrassments for public office.

On the other hand, Germantown and Collierville re-elected self-promoting loon Brian Kelsay and public drunk Curry Todd to the state legislature — without opposition. Shades of Ophelia Ford. The next time you hear some suburbanite snarking on Memphis politicians, remind them to check their own backyard.

And I was glad to see Steve Cohen retain his 9th District Congressional seat. Some advice: If local Democrats want to win county-wide races, they would do well to figure out how to organize behind Cohen and his presidential support and national clout, instead of lobbing a futile and divisive primary challenge at him every two years. The muddle-headedness of the SCDP is self-defeating.

There also needs to be serious state legislation passed to crack down on the illicit fake “official ballot” business hereabouts. It’s scandalous. But, all in all, not bad results to wake up to, IMO.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: Beach Ball of Death

We’ve all had those moments — the little beach ball starts spinning on your laptop, or your iPad screen freezes or, as happened to me yesterday, Siri wouldn’t respond to my request to text a friend. I knew the little minx was in there, but she stayed mum, no matter how hard I pressed the button to summon her.

When these things happen, I always remember the loving mantra of our company IT guy, who, when you ask about a computer malfunction, inevitably snarls: “It probably just needs to reboot. Did you restart it?” And rebooting works, almost every time. It even brought Siri back.

Which brings me to this: Here in Memphis and Shelby County, it’s time to reboot. Far too many of our political offices are held by spinning beach balls. Far too many of our candidates have no business running for public office.

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of strong political reporting hereabouts — by the Flyer‘s Jackson Baker (you should take his cover story from last week with you into the voting booth), and by reporters at the Commercial Appeal. If you’ve been paying attention to the reportage, you have learned that there are judges who don’t come to work on a regular basis; there are judges and judicial candidates with personal issues that should preclude them from any public office, much less that of a judgeship; there are candidates using extremely misleading political advertising, including a white judicial candidate whose ad includes a picture of a black endorsee next to his name. There are candidates and office-holders who don’t pay their taxes, who abuse women, who are racists, who shoot themselves in the foot every time they open their mouth, who are drunks and pill-heads and financial miscreants. Reboot!

The Ophelia Ford Show needs to be cancelled. The Henri Brooks Show is a bad rerun. Judge Joe Brown has fallen and can’t get up. Reboot. Reboot. Reboot. And it’s not just Democrats. Republicans also have their fair share of clowns and buffoons. Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey’s tawdry campaign to unseat three Tennessee Supreme Court judges is beyond shameful, filled with lies and bald-faced distortions.

This has nothing to do with race or party. There are dedicated public servants and qualified candidates of all political stripes and ethnicities. Keep and elect the good ones. Dump and defeat the self-entitled, self-important, and stupid ones.

I know taking the time to learn about all the candidates involves effort. I know it’s a long ballot and that voting can be inconvenient. But surely all sentient Shelby Countians can agree that a little inconvenience is well worth the pay-off: more honest and competent public servants; fewer fools, egomaniacs, and spinning beach balls.

Reboot.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

No “Down Ballot” in Shelby County This Year

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

In most elections, there is something called a “down ballot,” consisting of races that, for one reason or another, do not draw media or public attention to the same degree as a few widely noticed marquee races.

The August 7th election ballot in Shelby County is the kind of lengthy one that invites such potential lacunae, but be advised: Some of those potentially overlooked ballot matters are crucial indeed.

The best example is the ballot’s final section, headed “Statewide General Election” and consisting of several “retention” choices in which voters are asked to decide whether to retain or to replace members of the state’s appellate judicial core.

At the very top of this list is the most crucial section, featuring the names of three of the five members of the state Supreme Court — Chief Justice Gary Wade and Justices Cornelia A. Clark and Sharon Gail Lee. These three justices, all appointees of former Governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, have been targeted for replacement by Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey and other members of the state Republican establishment.

A serious and financially well-endowed campaign has been mounted against the three justices by Ramsey et al., abetted by Tea Party backers and other major donors from around the nation. Supporters of the justices, who are enjoined by the canon of judicial ethics from saying very much in their own defense, have organized a counter-campaign, and the fat, as they say, is in the fire.

Should any or all members of the beleaguered trio fail to receive a majority for retention, Governor Bill Haslam has the duty of naming their replacements. Haslam, who has already had the opportunity to name replacements for two retiring judges, has adopted a hands-off position toward the judicial purge campaign, though members of his traditional support group are said to be working against it.

Former members of the state judiciary are opposing the purge campaign more overtly — notably former Chief Justice Mickey Barker of Chattanooga, a Republican, who has appeared in TV ads urging voters to retain the three justices, who have journeyed to Memphis as an ensemble more than once this year and were the guests at a Memphis Bar Association reception last Friday.

Jackson Baker

Justice Sharon Lee addressing Memphis group at Rendezvous

Justice Lee even stayed behind over the weekend to go door-to-door asking voters to vote for retention.

Almost as far down on the ballot as the judicial retention section is a portion listing candidates for seven of the nine Shelby County Schools (SCS) board positions. Most of the races are considered to be tight, notably one for District 1, pitting incumbent Chris Caldwell against his former colleague on the erstwhile 23-member transitional city/county board, Freda Garner-William. They ran against each other once before, in the 2012 election for the original seven-member post-merger SCS board, with Caldwell coming out ahead.

Other contests feature Teddy King, Anthony D. Lockhart, and Stephanie Love in District 2; Scott McCormick and David Winston in District 3; Shante K. Avant (incumbent) and Jimmy L. Warren in District 6; and Roshun Austin, Mike Kernell, and Damon Curry Morris in District 9.

The election is for a new nine-member SCS board, representing only Memphis and unincorporated areas of outer Shelby County, to replace the former SCS board, which covered the entire county. New districts were drawn by the County Commission in the wake of Shelby County’s six suburban municipalities forming their own districts.

Presumably only party activists will be drawn to the section of the ballot consisting of choices for the state executive committee of the Republican and Democratic parties. Suffice it to say that there are a surprising number of contests on both sides of the party line, and, of course, a voter must choose either the Republican slate or the Democratic one. You can’t do both.

The same choice is necessary in deciding on nominees for governor and United States senator, and for the 8th and 9th Congressional Districts.

Though perhaps they should have been, Dana Matheny and John Mills, Republican candidates in the 8th District to oppose incumbent congressman Stephen Fincher were not mentioned in this week’s cover story, nor were Wes Bradley, Rickey Hobson, Lawrence A. Pivnick, and Tom Reasons, Democratic candidates in that race.

That omission is repaired here. Nobody imagines that any of the above have a chance to win, but most of them have been putting themselves, their energy, and their convictions on the line, and they are entitled to recognition of the fact, as is Isaac Richmond, the also-ran in the 9th District Democratic primary.

(Richmond got his unexpected due two weeks ago when incumbent Steve Cohen was asked what he knew of the position his “opponent” had taken on this or that matter. “I don’t know what Isaac Richmond has done,” Cohen answered straight-facedly.)

Voters will also have to choose whether to vote Democratic or Republican on a few contested primary races for the state legislature.

In the Democratic primary for the 84th District of the House of Representatives, longtime incumbent Joe Towns is opposed by Kenneth L. Wells. In the 91st House District, both Republicans and Democrats have choices. Samuel A. Arthur Watkins and Orrden Williams Jr. are the GOP contenders, and incumbent Raumesh A. Akbari, winner of a special election for the seat last year, is opposed by another contender in that 2013 race, Doris Deberry-Bradshaw.

A more closely observed race is taking place for the right to represent District 29 of the state Senate. Two Republicans are running, James R. “Jim” Finney and Anthony D. Herron Jr. but the real contest is on the other side of the party line in this heavily Democratic south-side district.

Jackson Baker

Ophelia Ford with supporters

Ophelia Ford, a member of the extended Ford political family, has held sway in the 29th since eking out a win in a 2005 special election to replace her brother, former state Senator John Ford, in the wake of the Tennessee Waltz scandal.

That race, against Republican Terry Roland, produced scandals of its own, notably when it was confirmed that a pair of dead people had somehow managed to vote for winner Ford. The seat was declared vacant, and Ford won the revote with room to spare.

But her tenure has been plagued with long absences and with Ford’s occasionally bizarre behavior, both in and out of the Senate chamber. All of this presented City Council member Lee Harris with an opportunity, and Harris is running hard to unseat Ford in the District 2 Senate primary. He takes care not to impugn the Ford family or tradition, even conferring occasional praise on both, but he stints no words in pointing out his opponent’s notorious absentee record, one which he says ill serves the district.

Should he win, Harris would become the first person to unseat a Ford-family member running for reelection, and it is undoubtedly in recognition of that fact that members of the Ford clan turned out en masse for a rare recent public event of the Senator’s. Also present, surprisingly, was erstwhile GOP foe Roland.

Finally, in addition to the judicial retention races late in the ballot, there are contested races for trial judges listed further up. There are some 81 candidates in all vying for positions in Circuit and Criminal Court, Probate Court, Chancery Court, and the civil and criminal divisions of General Sessions Court.

A good deal of controversy has arisen regarding the plethora of endorsements made in the judicial races by this or that self-serving group, including the local Republican and Democratic parties. Both political parties laid primary stress on the real or imagined political loyalties of potential endorsees, and the Democrats in particular found themselves engaged in mutual recriminations over alleged lapses and misjudgment in their final endorsee list.

Even more questionable are the several endorsement “ballots” being circulated by private individuals, who customarily charge candidates substantial sums for the right to be included (or, alternatively, to have their opponents excluded).

Once again this week, readers will find on page 18 of the Flyer a race-by-race evaluation of the contenders by members of the Memphis Bar Association, whose members presumably have the best and most objective vantage points in sorting out the candidates from one another.

For a look at what the August 7th ballot looks like, try this online link: http://shelbyvote.com/DocumentCenter/View/9863.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

With Election Less Than a Month Away, Patterns Are Taking Shape

CREDIT: Jackson baker

We are now less than a month away from August 7th, when the final votes in the Shelby County general election and state and federal primaries will be counted, and distinct patterns are taking shape.

Those races that were expected to be the most closely watched ones at the beginning of the election season — for the 9th District congressional seat, for Shelby County Mayor, for District Attorney General, for the District 29 state Senate seat, and for Juvenile Court Judge and Juvenile Court Clerk, among others — continue to command attention.

Although several circumstances — including charges and counter-charges, endorsements, demographics, and the like — are potentially influencing voter reactions, one factor that cannot be overlooked is the perennial one of money. Some candidates have it in spades, while others are struggling.

A word of caution: Lest it be forgotten, two candidates in the May 6th primaries for county offices — Kenneth Whalum, running for the Democratic nomination for County Mayor, and Martavius Jones, a candidate in the Democratic primary for the District 10 County Commission seat — nearly won races against highly favored opponents with more visible campaigns and vastly more funding.

Credit those outcomes to the power of name recognition, which remains a major factor in the current scene.

For what it’s worth, however, here are three examples:

• City Councilman Lee Harris, who is campaigning aggressively in his Democratic primary effort to unseat District 29 state Senator Ophelia Ford, garnering endorsements by the bushel and across the political board, is also raising disproportionate amounts of money — he boasts a 10-to-1 ratio over Ford’s in the reporting quarter ending June 30th. (His edge in money on hand is somewhat lesser — $28,646.29 to $11,549.66, a shade less than 3-to-1).

• Incumbent Republican County Mayor Mark Luttrell, whose ads have been omnipresent on TV of late, has a marked financial advantage over Democratic nominee Deidre Malone, with a reported $132,417 on hand as of the June 30th report, against $38,915.

• Rather famously, the Democrats’ nominee for District Attorney General, Joe Brown, whose colleagues on the party ticket were counting on him for help, both from the luster of his “Judge Joe Brown” TV fame and from his bankroll, has hit snags in both respects and reports only $745 on hand as of June 30th, compared to $269,227 for his opponent, Republican incumbent D.A. Amy Weirich.

In all three of these cases, the financial underdog is seeking a tactical edge elsewhere.

Ford had her first public event last week, a fund raiser/meet-and-greet at the funeral home of brother Edmond Ford on Elvis Presley Boulevard, gathering around her not only numerous members of the still powerful Ford extended family but supporters from elsewhere on the political spectrum, notably GOP County Commissioner Terry Roland, her former opponent in a 2005 special election.

Malone continued with a series of events targeting various components of the Shelby County body politic — meeting, for example, with a group of women’s rights advocates on Saturday at Pyro’s Pizza on Union, and contrasting her strong pro-choice stance with what she described as positions on Luttrell’s part that were ambivalent at best, particularly in his having chosen to disenfranchise Planned Parenthood in 2011 as the county’s partner in employed Title X federal funding for women’s health.

Brown, meanwhile, was working the grass roots, especially in the inner city, with his “Law and Order Tour” with sidekick Bennie Cobb, the Democratic nominee for Sheriff. He presided over an event last week at the Central Train Station downtown and made appearances at forums, like one held at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church on Sunday, where he continued to levy attacks on Weirich, blaming her for negligence in the matter of the much-discussed rape-kit backlog and questioning her use of federal and state funding.

• Early voting for the August 7th elections begins this Friday, July 18th, at the Shelby County Election Commission’s downtown location, and will continue there and, from Monday, July 21st, at 21 satellite voting sites until Saturday, August 2nd. (The locations of the satellite sites will be posted at memphisflyer.com.)

• In the wake of several meetings of the Shelby County Democratic Executive Committee hashing out disputes over the party’s endorsement of judicial candidates but leaving them intact, a group of Democratic lawyers, including former party chairmen David Cocke and Van Turner, is issuing its own ballot — including judges left off the party endorsement list whom they deem deserving.

These include Probate Court Judge Kathleen Gomes, Criminal Court Judge Mark Ward, and General Sessions Judges Bill Anderson, Phyllis Gardner, and John Donald, among others.

• The first fully separate cattle call for Board candidates took place Monday night at the First Baptist Church on Broad under the joint sponsorship of several ad hoc education organizations.

Present and accounted for were Chris Caldwell and Freda Garner-Williams in District 1; Stephanie Love in District 3; David Winston in District 5; Shante K. Avant in District 6; Miska Clay Bibbs in District 7; and Roshun Austin, Mike Kernell, and Damon Curry Morris in District 9.

Absent from the event, which took place during an off-and-on thunderstorm, were Teddy King and Anthony D. Lockhart in District 3; Scott McCormick in District 5; Jimmy L. Warren in District 6; and William E. Orgel in District 8.

The format called for each candidate to make an introductory statement and field one question from the moderator, Daarel Burnette II of the education periodical Chalkbeat Tennessee subbing for Keith Norman, the church pastor, who was absent. Though Burnette’s question was the same for each candidate, having to do with the candidate’s foremost objective as a prospective board member, there was a fair amount of variety in the answers elicited, most of them sensible and well informed, concerning issues ranging from curriculum to parent-teacher relations.

A final round of questions was solicited from the audience. Fielding a question about the desirability of separating “politics” from education, Kernell, a longtime state representative from southeast Memphis, was unique in embracing that inevitable pairing, saying that his experience and entrée with the state legislature could have positive results for his district and Shelby County Schools (SCS).

The nine-member SCS board being elected in this year’s school board elections from the city of Memphis and unincorporated areas of Shelby County replaces the provisional seven-member board, which was elected from the whole of Shelby County.

One of the members of the outgoing seven-member board, David Reaves of Bartlett, was an interested spectator Monday night, chatting amiably before the event with several of his current Board colleagues who were taking part in the forum. Reaves is now a County Commissioner-elect and will be swapping chairs in September.

Monday night’s event took place under the auspices of the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Ad hoc co-sponsors included representatives of Students First, Stand for Children, and the aforesaid Chalkbeat Tennessee.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Henri Brooks and Joe Brown: Beyond the Storm

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

If, for partisans of the Shelby County Democratic Party, the period just before the current month got under way was the calm before the storm, what has happened since has been the storm.

Believe it or not, there are several Democratic candidates on the county general election ballot — including Deidre Malone, the party’s candidate for Shelby county mayor, who is running an intelligent, well-conceived campaign involving several ad hoc support groups; and Cheyenne Johnson, the incumbent Shelby County assessor, who is widely regarded as having served effectively, and who proved her appeal to a general public with an impressive reelection win just two years ago.

But two other Democrats on the ballot have monopolized all the attention of late, effectively drawing it away from Malone, Johnson, and other Democratic nominees. Worse, most of the publicity attracted by those candidates — Henri Brooks, candidate for Juvenile Court clerk, and Joe Brown, candidate for district attorney general — has been negative.

To be sure, both Brooks and Brown have seen a closing of the ranks behind them of core supporters — backers of Brooks, especially, have been active, filling the County Commission’s interim meeting room on Monday, making it S.R.O. for yet another showdown on her residential status — but general elections in Shelby County are not won solely on the basis of partisan support.

And both Brooks and Brown seem to have burned more bridges than they have built to swing voters, despite what had initially seemed good prospects for expanding their bases.

Brooks, a term-limited county commissioner, began the election year on a wave of relative acclaim, having almost single-handedly forced the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate conditions at Juvenile Court and subsequently to mandate reforms in the court’s procedure. Really, all Brooks had to do to sustain good election chances was to make nice in the way of most candidates, doing at least minimal outreach beyond her African-American inner-city constituency.

Instead, she managed to alienate considerable numbers of white and Hispanic voters in the course of a stormy commission debate about minority contracting on county construction projects (one in which her rhetoric undercut the tenable logic of her case); incurred a misdemeanor assault charge in a needless wrangle over a parking-lot space; and, finally, was discovered not to be inhabiting her listed residence, leading to serious efforts by fellow commissioners to declare her ineligible to serve and to vacate her seat.

Brooks has so far come out ahead in a series of skirmishes on the residential matter. She won a declaratory judgment last week from Chancellor Kenny Armstrong invalidating County Attorney Marcy Ingram’s finding that Brooks’ seat should be vacated. Armstrong ruled that only the commission could make such a finding.

And when the commission took up the matter on Monday, in the aforementioned jam-packed meeting room, no agreement on going forward could be reached by Brooks’ 12 colleagues. After a lengthy and contentious session, the commission concurred on a resolution to meet again on a still undefined date later this month, but there was a general consensus, at least privately, that Brooks would be able to run out the clock — on the basis of her attorneys’ appeals, if by no other means — and will be able to finish her term of office.

But that tactical victory, and the ongoing fuss about Brooks, could turn out to be Pyrrhic for her election chances.

As for Judge Joe Brown (as the former Criminal Court judge was billed during the 15 years of his nationally syndicated TV arbitration show), the aura of de facto ticket booster that his celebrity had initially gained him had already sagged due to an extended period of inactivity during May and June.

Brown had let it be known that, as of July 1st, things would be different. And he was right about that, if wildly wrong about which direction the difference would take. Speaking to a group of supporters last week, he responded grumpily to a TV station’s prodding him about the deleterious effect of an ongoing divorce on his surprisingly scanty campaign finances.

A supporter filmed and posted online Brown’s angry, rambling suggestion that the media should turn its attention instead to the matter of what he called the “down low” sexuality of his opponent, incumbent District Attorney General Amy Weirich, whose lifestyle is regarded as that of a conventional wife and mother. 

Brown’s unsubstantiated remarks generated a predictable and virtually universal outrage, but he declined to disavow them, calling himself an “entertainer” running for office.

Doubtful as it is that swing voters will be amused, they were “summoned” by the newly visible Brown to a meet-and-greet this Wednesday night at the Central Train Station on Main.

• Interestingly enough, County Commissioner Justin Ford was scheduled to be the host for another meet-and-greet on Wednesday — this one for aunt Ophelia Ford‘s reelection campaign in state Senate District 29. 

It will be remembered that Commissioner Ford won his primary race in the new Commission District 9 in something of a stealth manner against two highly active opponents, former school board member Patrice Robinson and Memphis Education Association President Keith Williams. During most of the spring primary campaign, there was talk in both of those two campaigns that the race was between the two of them, that Ford had been redistricted away from his main source of support in the South Memphis environs of N. J. Ford Funeral Home, and so forth.

When votes were counted on the evening of May 6th, however, it was Justin Ford who came out ahead, having put on something of a late rush and, perhaps as importantly, riding the residual cachet that belongs to the Ford name.

Reports of a decline in the Ford political dynasty have been somewhat exaggerated. Take a look: There is a Ford on the County Commission, another (Edmund Ford) on the City Council, and, however battered by bad publicity, adverse revelations about her attendance (more of which is likely to come) and doubts about her competence, Ophelia has so far managed to remain in the state Senate.

There is no doubt that City Councilman Lee Harris, is running a smart, vigorous, and apparently well-supported and financed campaign to unseat Senator Ford, and he has the further advantage of the free media that comes from being in the public eye as a highly active member of the council.

But there is a rule of thumb about incumbents having the edge in three-way races, and the fact is that the Democratic primary race in state Senate District 29 is a three-way — a four-way, really, inasmuch as Ricky Dixon and Herman Sawyer are on the ballot along with Ford and Harris.

Either Dixon or Sawyer could siphon anti-incumbent votes away from challenger Harris, but Dixon is a threat in his own right. Brother of former state Senator Roscoe Dixon, also a Tennessee Waltz figure, candidate Dixon has run before, most recently as the Democratic nominee in 2010 for Circuit Court clerk, netting 44 percent of the votes in that race.

What happens in the remaining month or so before election day on August 7th will be crucial. If Harris can translate his endorsements and campaign appearances into visible evidence of support during early voting, which begins on Friday, July 18th, he could be on his way to a new political venue.

If so, Harris will have accomplished something not yet done by anybody — defeating a Ford for reelection. Even with someone so visibly tarnished as Ophelia Ford, that might not be so easy.

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Cover Feature News

Your Fly Remains Open

Call me Pesky. I’ve probably said that before, but I’m an old Fly and sometimes I repeat myself. Myself. I’m the third generation in a noble lineage of “Fly on the Wall” columnists beginning with Jim Hanas, a former Flyer staff writer who moved to New York at the turn of the century and is now the director of audience development at HarperCollins Publishers. Hanas created the column in 1996 and nurtured it through its larval stage, before handing it off to former Flyer music editor Mark Jordan on his way out of town. I inherited the gig from Jordan, who still lives in Memphis, where he plays and writes about music.

Did I tell you what the Fly-Team has been doing with our little strip of newsprint for 18 of the Flyer‘s 25 years? Like all our brother flies who came before, we fix our eyes on the Mid-South, reading every paper, scanning every magazine, watching every news broadcast, running up and down the radio dial and to the most terrifying corners of the internet, looking for all the things that make Memphis weird and keep it wonderful. Here are some examples for the ages:

• In 2008, the Christian-themed news aggregator and wire service One-News tried out a computer program that automatically changes the word “gay” to “homosexual.” It worked too well, frequently collecting and altering the content of stories about one Memphis Grizzlies player. According to One-News: “Memphis backers hit the hay, hoping that Kevin Love would open things up for Rudy Homosexual in the frontcourt.” Ooh la la.

• In 2000, when Councilwoman Barbara Swearengen Ware wanted to install a phone in a bathroom stall at City Hall, Councilman Joe Brown had something to say about it: “This building is not totally safe. … Also, nobody is exempt from abnormalities of the human body. We need that phone in there. God bless everybody.”

Brown knows how to make a rousing speech. When hundreds of ironworkers interested in arena contracts showed up to a city council meeting in April 2002, he delivered an enthusiastic off-the-cuff speech about the importance of labor unions in America. When Brown concluded, a lone iron worker was heard saying, “My titties just stood up. I think my titties just stood up.”

• On a related note, the table decoration from Mayor A C Wharton’s 2009 victory party had inexplicable boobs:

• Sometimes the mistake is better than the actual headline:

• Walgreens gets creative in the toy department:

• November 15, 2003 — If you love something, stab it in the chest. If it comes back, it’s yours forever. Larry Henry of Memphis declined to press charges against fiancee Shirley Martin, even though she attacked him with an eight-inch butcher knife. Martin stabbed Henry in the chest because she thought he was sneaking a peek up another woman’s skirt. In retaliation Henry bit Martin’s pinky finger. But the two resolved their differences and married the following month.

• March 7, 2001 — And lo, he was ashamed: When asked why he fled when police attempted to pull him over, West Memphian Fate Patterson answered, “Because I was naked.” Of course, that’s not entirely true. When Patterson was extracted from his vehicle, he was wearing a jacket.

• June 26, 2003 — Does anyone remember Elite Memphis magazine? Elite’s special “30 Most Beautiful People of Memphis” edition listed “Dicks Unlimited” as a community service activity to which one of the featured beauties devoted her “time, finances, and talent.” The “What They Wore” section from the same issue found one woman sporting an “outtit from Lost in Paradise. As near as we could tell, no tit was actually out, though. And we looked pretty hard.

Elite‘s action-packed special issue also included a feature titled, “If you were a fruit or a vegetable, what would your friends say you were, and why?” Pam Montesi replied to the question saying she was “the corn. It’s a very popular vegetable and is sweet to the taste.”

• This isn’t legal in Mississippi:

• The state Senate passed a “bill endorsing animal training for police,” according to an AP headline from March 2003. Maybe they’d been peeing on the rug?

• Speaking of dogs and rugs, this 2003 ad is quite possibly the ickiest lost-dog listing ever to appear in The Commercial Appeal classifieds: “Sponge, you soak up spilled lovin.” Woof.

• In 1999, Fly on the Wall reported the strange case of Shawn Harper, a Memphis construction worker who shot and killed Shawn DeVaughan while hunting in Tipton County, telling authorities he’d mistaken his fellow hunter for a giant owl. DeVaughan, who weighed 250-lbs, was sitting in a deer-stand 20 feet in the air. At the time, mistaking a fully grown man for an owl seemed incredible, but in the fall of 2013, Fly on the Wall reported on a series of owl attacks in Memphis’ High Point neighborhood. No less credible a witness than Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich gave the following account: “And sure enough, this bird comes flying at the top of my head. It had the wing span of a Buick. It was the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

• Who among us hasn’t wished there were more hours in the day? In 2014, state Representative/Time Lord Curry Todd waved his sonic screwdriver creating widely mocked legislation to eliminate Daylight Saving Time and/or make it permanent, miraculously giving Tennesseans an extra hour to get ready for work in the morning and an extra hour to unwind in the evening.

• In 2004, Johnny Cash’s estate entered negotiations to prevent the song “Ring of Fire” from being used to advertise hemorrhoid cream.

• Wise words from Justin Timberlake, taken from a column the young boy-bander penned for Entertainment Teen magazine in 2000: “I used to have a lucky rock but I lost it. So I was like, you know what? I don’t need it.”

• “Acrobatic and mean-spirited”: an Associated Press article describing the raccoon that scaled a 30-foot fence and caused a massive power outage for 8,000 MLGW customers in 2010.

• In October 2002, after West Memphis police shut down a gambling house, neighbors complained to the press. They preferred it to the building’s previous tenant, a CB radio shop. The CBs interfered with their radio and television reception.

• State Senator Ophelia Ford, after being asked about her $12,000 taxpayer-funded travel bill in December 2008: “You mean to tell me that all I spent was $12,000? Oh, well, hallelujah. Thank you, Lord, for making it so economical.”

• Memphis medicine:

2014

• Supermodel Cindy Crawford speculating on the reaction of a patient she’d visited at St. Jude: “I’m standing over him … as he’s coming to. He’s probably thinking he had some good drugs.”

2006

• In 2006, Fly on the Wall presented Channel 5’s Jason Miles with the Howard Hughes “Cleanliness is Next to Craziness Award” after he took his “secret swab” into restrooms all over town and found — astonishingly enough — fecal matter. Speaking of Miles, here he is crawling under a car to get the big story.

And here’s that same picture on somebody’s birthday cake:

2014

• In 2009, a short, mean-spirited poem written by Elvis Presley sold at auction for $20,000 — 10 times its previously overestimated value. The rhyme, scrawled on Elvis’ personal stationery, reads, “As I awoke this morning when all sweet things are born, a robin perched on my window sill to greet the coming dawn. He sang his sweet song so sweetly and paused for a moment’s lull, I gently raised the window and crushed his [expletive] skull.”

2003

• Actress Margot Kidder told the Calgary Herald, “Satan doesn’t live in my vagina” after her production of The Vagina Monologues was picketed in Memphis. A protester had described Eve Ensler’s play as proof that Satan had arrived in Memphis. “Maybe God,” Kidder said, confirming the possibility of at least one occupant in her vagina. “But not Satan.”

• I originally said I couldn’t show you the entire photo that WREG reporter Melissa Moon tweeted from a charity 5K in 2014, because the shot of Moon with some superhero cosplayers was NSFW. So this is all you got:

2014

But this is an anniversary issue, so here’s the rest:

Insert your own Peter Parker joke here.

• Shortly after officials in casino-rich Tunica announced that the area’s property tax would be eliminated in the summer of 2000, Commercial Appeal correspondent Bartholomew Sullivan wrote, “Residents of Tunica will have only death to worry about.”

• We’re not sure what Fox13 News reporter Lauren Lee was doing at The Pony when Prince Harry was in town, but the photo she shared of “America’s Strip Joint” is the best souvenir of Prince Harry’s recent whirlwind visit:

• “It’s weirdly delightful and enchanting in its excess, but it has the feel of doom.” — Canadian journalist Bernard Perusse comparing Graceland to a barbecue, 2010.

• More accidental humor from WMC’s Jason Miles: “Man murdered in Marshall Co. was double amputee. Half brother in custody.” But, was the half-brother armed?

2013

• “It’s just amazing they would be that dumb.” — Guido Boggioni, who claims that he and his wife Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni of Plano, Texas, were stopped by police near Memphis because officers mistook an Ohio State University Buckeye logo on their car for a “marijuana sticker.”

• According to the Commercial Appeal, Collierville was looking to attract a very special kind of food tourism in 2013: “‘I think it’s going to be good for the whole town and especially Town Square. It’ll bring tourists to this area,’ said general manager Debi McCaffrey for Gus’s Fried Children at 215 S. Center.”

Also from the CA:

• The most awkward media moment of 2012 occurred when WMC-TV’s Jamel Major reported that the 5,000-pound statue of Rameses the Great was being moved to its new home at the University of Memphis, and cameras cut away to a sign instructing visitors to turn left for advance ticket sales and arena tours or right if they’re looking for “Hot Black Cocks.”

• As long as we’re going there, this Memphis fabric shop will laugh at your rooster:

• 2011 was a great year for headlines. When cops shut down a local B&B for travelers who like S&M, choice story toppers included “Collierville Cracks Whip in Sex Bondage House” and “Collierville’s Hands Tied in Bondage House Prostitution.” WREG led the news with, “Woman Behind Bars After Dog Found in Heat,” and who can forget the classic “40-year-old Mary Magdalene Caught Naked In Teen’s Closet,” about a 40-year-old named Mary Magdalene caught naked in a teen’s closet? And then there was this headline from The Daily Helmsman that requires no explanation:

• Have other wireless users ever noticed this network prompt at 201 Poplar?

• “It would be like somebody in 1910 saying, ‘We’re looking for somebody to speak minstrel.'” — University of Memphis professor Larry Moore on a leaked DEA memo seeking an Ebonics interpreter. (2010)

• “I don’t hate fat girls, but I make fun of them too.” — MMA fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson on why his description of acting “kinda gay” wasn’t homophobic (2010)

• Licensed to drive in Memphis:

• The biggest news from Arkansas in 2012: Chelsea Harris, described by a variety of media sources as “a very large woman,” spent a night in jail after she allegedly sat on her landlord’s face, inspiring headlines like “Arkansas Woman Sits on Landlord’s Face.” The victim was quoted as saying, “Mmmmf, mmmf, mmmelp!”

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Line is Busy

Here’s a shout-out to Collierville Republican state Senator Mark Norris. As a man of intellect, not to mention the senate majority leader of the rambunctious Tennessee General Assembly, I bet he must cringe every time the phone rings. Imagine, having to appear to be understanding and civil to the looney-toon legislators of both parties who seek his advice on how to proceed with ethically and morally questionable legislative proposals they appear to have pulled out of thin air. Some of the proposed measures brought forward by his colleagues beg the question, “Have the inmates completely taken over running the asylum?”

I don’t know what his conversations specifically entail. But, for the purposes of this column, I’ll put my imagination to work.

“Senator Norris, I have Senator Stacey Campfield on the line, he’d like to speak with you?

“I thought I told you to block his number?”

“Well, sir, he insists it’s of some importance.”

“Okay, put him through.”

“Mark, Stacey here. I need some help on the language of a bill I’m working on to castrate all black men who have more than two children. I heard it works in cutting down on the Chinese population. And we could put more teeth in it by making them take a drug test before copulation occurs. I think I’ve got a sponsor lined up in the House from Johnson City. I know you’re busy, Mark, if you could just streamline the wording for me …”

“Senator, I hate to interrupt, but, it’s Senator Ophelia Ford on line two. At least, I think it’s her. It sounded kind of distant.”

“Okay, I got it.”

“Ophelia, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

“Who is this?”

“Ophelia, it’s, Mark Norris, what can I do for you?”

“Oh, yes, Mark, I’ve introduced a bill to legalize medical marijuana usage in the state. I think it’s timely because, with all the mean nurses I’ve dealt with in the past, I’ve decided self-medication is the way to go. Besides, I read, or someone read it for me, that Congressman Steve Cohen likes marijuana too, and he’s a white man from Colorado. Did you know they have bike lanes just like us?”

“Oops! Sorry, Ophelia, we’ll talk more later. I’ve got another call.”

“Senator, Brian Kelsey, on line three.”

“Hello, Brian, I was expecting your call. Well, you’ve made quite the mess of it, young man, mixing religion and business with homosexuality. I wish you had come to me first about the wording of your proposal. It’s atrocious legislation and no sane-thinking legislator is going to back it. Brian, what in the world were you thinking? (click) Brian? … Brian?”

“Senator Norris, I’ve got state Representative Curry Todd on hold.”

“Okay, put him through.”

“Mark, what time is it?”

“Well, Curry, by my watch, it’s 3:15 in the afternoon.”

“You see, that’s the point of some new legislation I’m wrestling with. This whole daylight savings time issue is so confusing. Now, here’s what I was thinking: We could scrap the whole idea of daylight savings time or we could make it permanent. Or we could try to make the day longer, because this idea of having to go through the tedious process of fixing our clocks twice a year is just ludicrous. We got different time zones in this state. If we rolled back the clocks for an hour, it would give extra daylight for our farmers to be productive, and in the winter our children wouldn’t be going to school in the dark. And for people who go to bars there’d be extra time for happy hour, because, as I well know, it’s always five o’clock somewhere, ain’t it, Mark? If you’ll just put the right words in place, I’ll find some senate sponsor who’d like to have his name on a bill. I tried to call Campfield and Kelsey, but their lines were busy. Do you know how I could get ahold of Ophelia Ford?”

“Senator Norris, I hate to interrupt, but I’ve got a phone call from some supposed elected official from Memphis who’d like to talk to you about legalizing guns in parks?”

“Just tell them, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Categories
News News Blog

Medical Marijuana Act Gains Entry to TN Senate

Senator Ophelia Ford

  • Senator Ophelia Ford

Senator Ophelia Ford (D-Memphis) has signed on as the sponsor of SB 2451, better known as the Koozer-Kuhn Medical Cannabis Act, in the Tennessee Senate. The Senate bill was filed for introduction on February 5th.

The Koozer-Kuhn Medical Cannabis Act would legalize medical marijuana for specific medical conditions through a Safe Access identification card process. The bill is featured as the cover feature “In the Weeds” in this week’s Memphis Flyer.

The House bill, sponsored by Representative Sherry Jones (D-Nashville), has gained 10 co-sponsors: Joe E. Armstrong (D-Knoxville), JoAnne Favors (D-Chattanooga), Brenda Gilmore (D-Nashville), Derren Jernigan (D-Old Hickory), Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), Larry J. Miller (D-Memphis), Gary Odom (D-Nashville), Johnny Shaw (D-Boliver), David Shepard (D-Dickson), and Mike Turner (D-Old Hickory).

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From The Editor: Fords and Cheneys

It was a good week for schadenfreude, which, literally translated from the German, means “harm-joy” and as commonly used in English, means taking pleasure from the pain of others.

Who in Memphis, for example, isn’t taking a little pleasure from the pain, or at least embarrassment, that Toronto is suffering from the public antics of its inflatable, pumpkin-headed mayor, Rob Ford. Ford, who has admitted to smoking crack and whose behavior in various press conferences and council meetings indicates that he’s still hitting the pipe, has become a household name and the target of Saturday Night Live skits and late-night comedians. (The late Chris Farley must be writhing in his grave at the missed opportunity to mimic the man he was born to mimic.)

At any rate, Rob Ford’s behavior makes the Nashville perorations of Memphis’ Ophelia Ford (no relation, except spiritual) look tame, indeed. When Toronto’s city council moved to limit Ford’s powers, he likened the move to the U.S. invasion of Kuwait. He also cussed out the press and inadvertently tackled a female councilwoman in one of the most weirdly hilarious videos to ever hit the internet. He then went on the Today show and told host Matt Lauer that he had a “weight issue” that he was getting treatment for and that he wasn’t going anywhere. “They’re not going to find another Rob Ford,” he said, which is pretty much irrefutable.

And speaking of schadenfreude, how about Liz and Mary, the battlin’ Cheney daughters? Liz, the elder sibling, who sports a blond bouffant hairdone, looks a lot like her mother, Lynne Cheney. Mary looks more like Dick. (Please, please, forgive me.) Anyway, Liz, who is straight, recently moved to Wyoming from Washington, D.C., in order to launch a primary challenge to incumbent Republican senator Mike Enzi. To assuage concerns that she might somehow be perceived as “progressive” by the Tea Party wing that dominates the GOP in Wyoming, Liz took a stand against gay marriage. This did not sit well with sister Mary, who is gay and legally married to a woman named Heather Poe.

Mary issued several statements castigating Liz, first asserting that her sister had often visited her family and had never had a problem accepting her marriage to Heather, then later issuing a statement saying her sister was on “the wrong side of history.” Mary, of course, conveniently neglected to mention her own history, which includes working to elect and re-elect numerous Republicans who not only opposed gay marriage but even opposed gay rights.

Father Dick Cheney then stepped up in support of Liz, even though he himself has come out in favor of gay marriage — in essence, choosing politics over his own ethical beliefs. Big surprise, I know. But it does assure that the Cheney family Christmas will be a little tense this year.

Merry Schadenfreude, y’all!

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Ophelia Ford in Hospital; May Miss Start of Legislative Session

CREDIT: Politopics.com

AP – State senator Ophelia Ford is still in the hospital and a family member says it’s not certain she will be able to attend when the Legislature goes into session next week.

Her brother Joe Ford tells The Associated Press that the senator has been treated for about a month at Methodist Hospital in Memphis. He is declining to provide details on her illness, calling it a “private matter.”

He says Ophelia Ford is receiving physical rehabilitation to improve the movement of her joints and limbs.

As for whether his sister, a Democrat, will be well enough to attend Tuesday’s opening session of the state Senate, Joe Ford says he has “no idea.”

Copyright 2008 Associated Press