Tag: opinion

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Opinion Viewpoint

The Pyramid: Too Big to Ignore

In opinion writing and investing, it’s good to remember that, as the cliché says, every day is the first day of the rest of your life. All those mistakes and misjudgments and lost causes don’t matter. Move on.

So, The Pyramid. It’s too big to ignore and it won’t go away, at least not without engineers and high-grade blasting materials.

First, readers should check out the Smart City Memphis blog. Author Tom Jones and, apparently, many of his readers were around at the inception of The Pyramid and saw many of its signature moments first hand. There are some good comments. I also saw The Pyramid come out of the ground, and these are some of the things I remember.

The Pyramid was the vision of one man, John Tigrett. It simply would not have happened, period, without him. Off hand I cannot think of another “big deal” in Memphis that you can say that about. This is one reason why adapting it to a new use is so hard.

Tigrett was charismatic, reclusive at times, very smart and sometimes aloof and he would refer to mayors Bill Morris and Dick Hackett as “sport” and “boy” in a way that was part avuncular and part hard-edged. My impression was that he usually knew exactly what he was doing.

He wanted to do something big and lasting for Memphis, and other than fame of a sort, which I don’t think he cared that much about, there was nothing in it for him. He could afford to lose some money, but the damage to his reputation hurt him.

His vision was also the building’s great limitation. Once it got rolling, there was no stopping it because The Public Building Authority that studied it and ultimately blessed it held several public meetings that were personally chaired by Tigrett’s friend Fred Smith. If you thought you had a better idea or had a nagging feeling that the whole thing was a great mistake, you were advised to have your ducks in a row because this was one powerful train.

I vividly remember three things during the construction period. The original location was the South Bluff, but it was moved for practical and political considerations that depreciated its appeal as a landmark, probably fatally. When the steel skeleton was finished, I went to the top with county engineer Dave Bennett. Ironworkers were balancing on beams 300 feet in the air like it was nothing and one guy was perched at the end of a beam with a video camera like a dad taking movies of his children at the mall. There was about a three-foot gap between walkways at one point, with a straight drop to the floor if you stumbled, lost your nerve, or looked up to admire the scenery. Three or four feet doesn’t seem like much until you’re way up in the air. I let my photographer do that one.

On another tour a few months later after the building was enclosed, I remember attorney Bill Farris, a PBA member, Tigrett contemporary, and a pretty powerful guy politically, quietly saying to noone in particular “would you say too much space?” when our guide pointed out all the open space between the arena floor and the “ceiling.” Farris clearly had an opinion, but he also knew the cards had been dealt and played and it wasn’t his day.

You had to meet Sidney Shlenker to believe him. Some people think The Pyramid was his idea but it wasn’t. It was like the gods decided to play a great practical joke on Memphis and sent us Mr. Shlenker. He had a track record with big arenas in Houston and Denver and I think he tried his best.

You also had in the mix one Isaac Tigrett, son of John Tigrett, and cofounder of Hard Rock Café, which was the hottest, hippest thing going in the late 1980s. The Pyramid never got a Hard Rock, but it did get some of Isaac’s mystical crystals stashed in the apex, which was seriously weird and possibly a continuation of the cosmic joke.

The practical limitations and wasted space inside the building were obvious from Day One to anyone attending a basketball game or concert, but it still hosted some very cool sold-out events that Memphis would not have had otherwise, including the Grizzlies. And the view from across the river when The Pyramid is lit up at night the way it should be but isn’t, and the view from the top (there are actually two levels and a whole lot of space) if you ever get a chance to see it, are spectacular. There should be a public open house so everyone can do that. I bet if they put in an elevator a lot of people would still take the stairs.

So that’s what we’ve got. As Robert Lipscomb says, people are not exactly lining up to buy it and Bass Pro would be a pretty good idea, IMHO. On the other hand, tearing it down might also be a pretty good idea given all that’s come before.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Less Government is More

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” — P.J. O’Rourke

I promised last week (The Rant, October 18th issue) to propose a solution for the competing desires of the liberal Vermont Republic and conservative League of the South to secede  from the union. So here are my ideas for what we really can do to make this  work:

First, let’s face it. We live in a divided country. Every recent national election has been close to 50-50 splits, and we are also split on how we want to run the ever-expanding federal government. As European countries such as Great Britain and France become more conservative and pro-capitalist, we in the U.S. seem poised to elect Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, who want to expand the  powers of Washington into healthcare and beyond. It will not work.

I held out hope in 1994, when the Republicans swept into a majority in Congress. They did force a few good things, such as welfare reform and  lower taxes. But over time the Republicans preferred power over principle, and they have been a bitter disappointment.

The federal government provides us with one important service, which is national defense. Lately, to let us know how important they are, the feds have been using our military in wars of choice that never  seem to turn out well. In fact, it is no longer “defense;” rather, they seem to take pleasure in deploying our troops for offense — while  confiscating 38 percent of our incomes in taxes to do so. Congress also run up trillions in deficits because they have no collective sense.

On the other hand, our state and local governments take much less of our income, and they balance their budgets, because they have to. They then provide us with services we actually use and count on: schools, roads, libraries, trash pickup, parks, airports, police, and  fire protection. They tend to do so in a manner that suits local priorities. And if you do not like what they do, you can simply move to another state.

The federal government, on the other hand, seldom does anything that pleases locals. It is more concerned about preserving and expanding its powers. Realistically, most of us can’t move to another country if we don’t like what the feds do. Movie stars sometimes threaten to do it. But most don’t follow through, which was a pity in the case of Barbra Streisand and Rosie O’Donnell.

So my solution to the unworkable-yet-appealing idea of secession is to grant more powers to the states and fewer to Washington, D.C. It is, after all, what our founding fathers intended in the first place. If you read the Federalist Papers, you will realize that they never intended for our national government to be expansive and overbearing. They wanted the states to be in charge. That way, if, for instance, you want an abortion on demand, then you move to a state that allows it. If you want to smoke weed, then you go to a state with liberal pot laws. If you think that we should pay for everything for people on welfare, you go to a state that provides flat-screen TVs and offers an assortment of French cheeses that are both delicious and  presented in a pleasing manner.

The basic reason that we fought for our independence is so we could do what we damn well please as long as it doesn’t harm others. Yet at every turn, the federal government seems to want to make us do as they think we  should, whether it comes to using windmills, driving a Prius,  or being forced to join the Hillary Healthcare Plan. (It’s interesting to me that the Democrats, who complained loudest about the  inept federal response to Katrina, are now advocating a federal takeover of  healthcare.)

The U.S. government spends our  money to make us increasingly dependent on the U.S. government’s programs.  Unfunded mandates, (which is not Larry Craig going to the bathroom without his wallet), are not good for states either. They not only waste federal money, they waste states’ money, too, with legislation that forces states to implement programs without providing funding to run them.

The Republicans did it with the expensive prescription drug-benefit giveaway. When a product that the private market should sell, such as prescription drugs, is taken over by the government, the first thing — and perhaps the only thing — that the drug companies need to buy are congressmen.

Our free-spending federal government officials think they are filled with enough hubris to believe that they should even tell other countries what to do. They call it “foreign policy.” The real answer to fixing foreign and domestic policy is allocating less money and power to the federal government and more to to state and local governments.

Ron Hart is a Southern libertarian who writes political satire. He lives  in

Florida and is an investor. His e-mail is

RevRon10@aol.com.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Class War?

President Bush’s visit to Memphis this week was a real eye-opener. I have read that the war in Iraq being waged by this administration is a class war, but I had not seen it so blatantly played out.

I was holding a sign that read “STOP THE WAR” as I took part in a peaceful protest. Bush was attending a political fund-raiser nearby for Republican senator Lamar Alexander.  The ticket price was $1,000, and if you wanted to super-size, you could spend $10,000 and get your picture taken with the man himself.

Guests for the Bush event parked at the Pink Palace lot. I couldn’t help but notice that every car that pulled in was a brand-new BMW, Mercedes Benz, large SUV, or Cadillac. They were all luxury cars. And the occupants, in their expensive dark suits, starched white shirts, and red ties, all looked spit-shined and neat, just like their vehicles. The women were dressed to kill, hair just so, accessorized and tanned. It was really weird how neat and perfect they all looked. They all seemed giddy with anticipation and didn’t give us the time of day. They were there to support the president.

In contrast, the 60 or so people I was standing with looked very different. We were a bedraggled bunch, mostly college students standing up for our right to assemble and speak our opposition to this mess that has been created in Iraq against our will. There wasn’t anyone among us in a suit. Where we parked, there were no shiny cars, just used vehicles. And there were a lot of us on bikes.

Polls say that two-thirds of Americans are against the war. That means there should have been more of us standing on the corner than there were attending the fund-raiser, but we were outnumbered at least four to one. Maybe it was because people who have a lot of money have more flexible schedules. Maybe it was because we just weren’t organized enough and nobody got the word. Maybe meeting the president seemed more important than standing on a corner holding a sign for peace.

Whatever the case, I found myself very comfortable with the people I was standing with, even if we were the minority. I firmly believe that what we did was the right thing to do. But I sure hope more people show up to stand with us next time. Maybe even somebody in a suit.

Billy Simpson
Memphis

The “Seniorphobic” Flyer?

It has been a while since the Flyer has rattled my cage, because someone has decided that all of us at the Frayser-Raleigh Senior Center don’t need to read your paper anymore.

Has the Flyer become “seniorphobic”? I would find that hard to believe, but nevertheless, I haven’t had my Flyer fix in three weeks.

Now, I can’t sit in my easy chair and smoke my pipe while listening to “Axis Bold As Love” and reading the only Memphis newspaper that seems to truly care about this city.

Please correct this travesty and don’t leave this faithful reader and some of his friends out in the cold.

Frank M. Boone

Memphis

Editor’s note: We will look into the situation and make sure your senior center remains on our delivery list.

Bush and the Devil

Americans need to wake up to the fact that President Bush has been making deals with the devil.

We know how the State Department has protected the killers at Blackwater, but there are more sinister killers that are coming to light. Arms dealers like Tomislav Damnjanovic, who operated out of Belgrade under Slobodan Milosevic during the Bosnian conflict, is now being paid with our tax dollars to run arms into Iraq and Afghanistan. While doing this, he is also running arms to terrorists linked to al-Qaeda in Somalia. This is according to U.N. investigators.

Damnjanovic also helped supply Libya’s air force and army with illegal arms shipments. In fact, almost anywhere people are being murdered by rebels or their own governments, this dealer of death is shipping arms and making money.

This is the man that our professed born-again Christian president is doing business with.

If you support Bush, you might want to start asking some tough questions of your senators, such as, why they have not protested or asked why America is doing business with killers who have no respect for freedom or the American way of life.

Jack Bishop

Cordova

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Polls: The Dark Side

The next time a pollster calls you, just say no.

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say to a pollster can and will be used against you and the democratic process.

Polling organizations have a right to call us. I confess I read the polls and find them interesting fodder for discussion. But I do not trust them, and my usual response when called by a stranger on behalf of a pollster is “none of your business” or something like that. The late Chicago columnist Mike Royko had an even better idea: Lie to them.

Several polls were taken by different organizations prior to last week’s Memphis mayoral election, which was won by Willie Herenton with 42 percent of the vote.

One early poll showed Carol Chumney leading, with lots of “undecideds” and virtually no white support for the mayor. That poll, of course, was designed to convince Herenton to bow out and to get Shelby County mayor A C Wharton to enter the race. Fat chance.

Another poll showed Herman Morris gaining ground but still losing. His handlers were all over that, claiming their man had momentum, as if that is the most important thing in an election.

Yet another poll showed Herenton winning by a whisker. The excitement was almost unbearable! Don’t touch that dial! Stay tuned!

The most outrageous poll, taken by Steve Ethridge and published by The Commercial Appeal just before the election, showed Morris running close with Chumney and within striking distance of Herenton. This played neatly into the CA‘s editorial endorsement of Morris and the Morris yard signs that said “only” Morris could win. As it turned out, Morris could “only” win if the only other candidate was Prince Mongo. Chumney squeaked past Morris by 22,000 votes. And Herenton shocked the world at 495 Union Avenue by getting twice as many votes as Morris.

The CA and Ethridge should be ashamed and disgraced but not because they, in effect, threw the election to Herenton by low-balling Chumney and unrealistically boosting Morris, as some have suggested. They should be ashamed because they used the CA‘s stature as the city’s only daily newspaper to sell a highly dubious piece of partisan polling as big news, knowing full well it would be seized upon by the Morris camp.

Some anti-Herenton voters no doubt felt that they would be “wasting” their vote if they cast it for Morris or Chumney. Pollsters have a name for a poll with an intended outcome: “push” poll.

Some polls are more honest than others, but as far as I’m concerned, the benefit of the doubt goes against all of them. I know far too many people who’ve been involved in campaigns over the years, and winning may not be everything to them but it sure beats coming in second. What all the pollsters and their fans fail to grasp is that, in Memphis at least, voting and responding to a poll are not the same thing.

If a candidate runs a serious campaign and that candidate’s previous accomplishments and present positions on the issues make him or her seem like a worthy public servant, then that candidate absolutely deserves your vote, and polls be damned.

Voters, fortunately, can be pretty discerning. John Willingham, who said he had 10,000 black supporters, got only 1,118 votes in all. You can bet the Shelby County Republican Party, which endorsed him and put out sample ballots supporting him, is doing some hard thinking, if it is actually possible for them to think.

The most accurate predictor, on the other hand, turned out to be Herenton, who said the race was between him and Chumney and he would win it. It was, and he did.

I know, columnists and reporters also call people on the phone and try to get them to open up about all kinds of things. Some of us write opinion columns, like this one. But that’s different from a poll masquerading as news.

This opinion column is worth exactly what you paid for it. In that respect, it has one thing in common with a poll.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Best of Memphis

Once again, the Flyer‘s “Best of Memphis” issue has both entertained and infuriated me. I realize that polling is an imperfect art and the (sometimes) lowest common denominator will determine the winner. And yes, I like Huey’s hamburgers.

But seriously, how can a multi-million-dollar golf course such as Spring Creek Ranch possibly be tied (for third-best golf course) with a goat track like Overton Park? And how can a pedestrian “Italian” restaurant like Pete and Sam’s possibly be in consideration for “Best Italian” in the same garlic breath as Ronnie Grisanti’s?

I could go on: “Best Service” had Texas de Brazil first, followed by Chick-Fil-A??? Holy crap! That’s just insane. And Mud Island Amphitheater winning third in “Best Place To Hear Live Music”? Yeah, like what, twice a year?

I know the Flyer doesn’t have any control over the voting, but, people, please — show some common sense!

Ricky Gardner

Memphis

I want to know how Geoff Calkins and Wendi Thomas win “Best Columnist” every year when the Flyer offers us such stellar and superior talents as Jackson Baker, John Branston, Mary Cashiola, and Bruce VanWyngarden?

Haven’t you people ever heard of stuffing the ballot?

Mary Warren

Memphis

War Ethics

As I watched the excellent PBS Ken Burns series The War this past two weeks, I was struck how American expectations and standards seem to have changed since World War II. Think about what President Bush is reviled for in Iraq.  

Under an order signed by Roosevelt, well over 100,000 U.S. citizens — mostly based solely on their race — were sent to concentration camps and much of their property was stolen. For years after Pearl Harbor, Americans weren’t told the extent of our losses in men and ships. GIs in Europe, three years after we got into the war, had such lousy equipment to fight in winter, they were stealing from the German dead to try to keep from freezing.

The Allies killed 35,000 German civilians in one night in one city. A million Japanese civilians were burned out of their homes in one day in one city. German Army prisoners were executed out of hand, and an experienced U.S. soldier protesting this was warned he might get shot too.

“Intelligence failure” hardly seems an adequate term for the massive surprise military attack on Pearl Harbor after FDR had been in office for years. Of course, the U.S. in 1940-’41 had a military smaller than Romania’s, years after Germany and Japan were arming to the teeth.

If you don’t like Bush, fine — there’s a lot not to be happy with. But maybe think about what you accept without reservation in one president before you curse another.

Herbert E. Kook Jr.
Germantown

Air America

Because I still mourn the loss of Air America Radio, I am writing in response to the letter from the gentleman in Germantown (“Letters,” September 27th issue) and his reference to a “disgruntled” listener (and the three other listeners).

There were actually a lot more than three listeners and would probably have been many more if we had been made aware Air America wasn’t going to be available in our area. He mentions “hate,” and I won’t say there wasn’t some in evidence, but I guess it was just the wrong flavor for him, because I didn’t hear it directed at homosexuals, minorities, pro-choicers, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, or war protestors.

The “bile” being spewed was more directed at those who were perceived to be failing in their duty to protect and defend our Constitution and to respect our country as a nation of laws. How can dissent be un-American? Is that not what created this country? I would ask the gentleman, and anyone else, if you had been around in 1776, would you have stood with the king or the colonists?

Linda Cowart
Germantown

Iran and the U.S.

I keep hoping the damage the elected heads of state of Iran and the U.S. can do is reaching its limits.

It is a sad commentary on democracy when an “Ahmadina-Bush” is chosen. For my part, I vow never to vote for a Republican again, as I did in several races in the last general election.

Let’s send a message and work to take back our country from the election thieves of 2000!

Greg Williams

Memphis

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

MAD AS HELL: I’m Back!

About a year ago, I decided it was time to chill. Time to
take a change. When it came to discussing or writing things political, it was
time to simply throw in the proverbial towel, and stop being mad as hell.

With all of the amusements and distractions on
television, not to mention the ever inept MSM (mainstream media), it would be
easy to tune out. With places to travel, plans to make, and life to live,
doing all of that in a constant state of pissiness was becoming a drag. From
now on, I told myself, when the subject of politics, the war, and Dubya came
up, I would declare myself to be SO over it. My garage door was officially
down. I would now simply be Resigned As Hell.

Last week, as I faithfully read the latest copy of The
Flyer, I scanned Chris Herrington’s review of the movie No End
in Sight. The movie, a documentary on the invasion and occupation of Iraq,
sounded interesting, but like something that would appeal to those who are
still venting and irked about the state of affairs. Superbad or The
Simpson’s Movie would be a better choice for someone who is calm, cool,
and over with politics. After all, when you are Resigned As Hell, the last
thing you want to do is to get all hot and bothered about Bush, the war, etc.,
etc.

Labor Day, fall’s official entry, is marked by Americans
with a last swim, some school shopping, and a chance to see that blockbuster
you’ve missed all summer. Like many, I decided it was time to catch a flick.
Call it a change of season, or something in the air, but when I got to the
cinema, for some reason, my resignation started to crumble. I bought a ticket
to No End in Sight.

One critic of the movie said, “Even well-informed
audiences will find their jaws dropping.”

He was right. Comments made by former Bush political
advisors, strategists, and planners were so alarming, my jaws were dropping.
The many remarks made by the U.S. soldiers made my head jangle.

Hearing former Army Major General Paul Eaton, responsible
for training the New Iraqi Army, recount that George W. Bush, Commander in
Chief, had been, after the invasion of Baghdad, totally unaware that his
hand-picked official, L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer, was disbanding the Iraqi Army,
was infuriating.

Listening to the former official in charge of the
Baghdad occupation, Barbara Bodine, describe the office she was given at the
Pentagon and its lack of a computer, or even a telephone, brought back
memories of the unbelievable incompetence demonstrated by this administration
after Hurricane Katrina.

The comments regarding the inability of our officials to
communicate with the Iraqis because no one spoke Arabic was outrageous.
Finally, when discussing the occupation and the ensuing chaos that took place,
former Marine Lieutenant Seth Moulton, a Harvard graduate who led his infantry
platoon during a 2004 deadly attack by militias in Najaf, asks, “Are you
telling me that’s the best America can do? Don’t tell me that. That makes me
angry.”

Well, Seth, I’m feelin’ ya. I’m incensed! I’m livid!
I’m MAD AS HELL!!! And for the next 505 days, there’s no end in sight! Watch
this space!

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Don’t Go for the Gun

The carnage at the Virginia Tech campus last month has inevitably revived the arguments about gun ownership in this country.

Advocates of arming the population as a means of preventing gun violence take the view that guns in the hands of citizens will always be effective in neutralizing the threat posed by an armed assailant, when nothing could be further from the truth.

There was a time, not too long ago, when I was the proud owner of several guns. I had lived my whole life in fear of guns and with the belief that their use and ownership should be severely controlled. So, to confront my fears and prejudices, I embarked on an episode of my life that saw me accumulate and familiarize myself with the use of a variety of firearms.

I was the proud owner of several exotic shotguns (for sport-shooting purposes) and managed to acquire more than a few Glock, Beretta, Smith & Wesson, and lesser-known handguns. I even had the big daddy of handguns, a .357 Magnum (the kind Clint Eastwood made famous in his “Go ahead, make my day” scene in Dirty Harry).

I joined a local gun club. I was living the fantasy every boy of my generation envisioned when he got his first toy gun. I even went to the trouble of being trained in the use of the handguns and getting a carry permit issued by the state. I carried a concealed weapon in the belief that in this Wild West town I needed protection from crazed criminals.

Then, I was robbed at gunpoint not 500 yards from a police station (a fact I throw in only to show that no place is totally safe from a determined criminal). The robber surprised me as I was entering a store late at night and already had his gun drawn and pointing at me from no more than five feet away, much the same way the assailant in Virginia was already brandishing one (or more) of his weapons when he confronted his victims.

As it happens, I was “carrying,” and I gave a fleeting thought, during what seemed to be the longest few seconds of my life, to wondering whether I could, O.K. Corral-style, outdraw him. But I realized, thankfully, I probably couldn’t shoot him before he shot me (or worse, that we would both die in a hail of bullets), and I abandoned that thought as I threw him my wallet.

Since I’m writing about the incident, I obviously did the right thing — not to mention that I’m not sure I could have shot another human being, even at the risk of my own life. And I’m not sure whether I could have hit my target. I must admit I still have moments when I regret not having at least tried to defend myself, but then I realize: Charles Bronson I’m not.

Even law-enforcement personnel, who are thoroughly trained in the use of firearms, will tell you that in the heat of the moment, the likelihood of hitting your target diminishes substantially.

The proponents of a ubiquitously armed citizenry assume that merely carrying a gun equips the person carrying it to use it effectively and rationally, when the fact is, increasing the number of guns being carried in the population will only create more guns available to be stolen or used for some unintended purpose (i.e., suicide, crimes of passion, accidental firing, bystander injury, etc.).

My gun-toting days are now behind me, primarily because of my recognition of the uselessness of doing so, born of my experience with an armed assailant. I don’t regret familiarizing myself with the world of firearms, but my experience taught me guns aren’t the solution to gun violence, they’re the problem.

Marty Aussenberg writes the “Gadfly” column in “Political Beat” atwww.memphisflyer.com, where a longer version of this essay first appeared.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Wendi’s City

Commercial Appeal columnist Wendi Thomas is to be commended for her noble attempt to rescue the city of Memphis from all the terrible plagues that have descended upon it. Thomas, turning her pen against hip-hop, the true source of all harm, has called for a boycott of North Memphis’ Three 6 Mafia. After all, it was DJ Paul who taught residents of the Hurt Village housing projects how to smoke crack back in 1983. It was his partner, Juicy J, who convinced all local banks to pull their branches from Memphis’ poor black neighborhoods while Three 6 alum Gangsta Boo worked a deal to bring in more predatory lenders. It should be pointed out that Three 6 had almost nothing to do with spreading the fetid garbage that litters the streets of South Memphis. That work was accomplished by Orange Mound’s DJ Squeaky with a little assistance from Al Kapone and II Black. According to an anonymous source, the master plan for filthifying Memphis was originally developed by Project Pat in the early ’90s, based on his firm conviction that if our once paradisiacal city becomes a truly shitty place to grow up in, then the next generation of rappers will bust positive-themed rhymes about Jesus, butterflies, and how to treat a lady.

Arkansas Follies

The following letter was printed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on April 16th: “You may have noticed that March of this year was … the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. … As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate.”

The letter, a bit of satire written by prankster attorney Connie M. Meskiman, accused liberals in Congress of trying to fool people into believing in global warming. It ran in the ADG‘s Letters to the Editor section under the presumably misspelled headline “Daylight Exacerbates Warning.”

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Looking for the Thread

With the impact of last week’s “voluntary manslaughter” verdict in the Mary Winkler murder case in Selmer still reverberating, John Ford’s trial on bribery and extortion charges headed toward its own conclusion this week in federal court in Memphis. And by now nobody — but nobody — was thinking slam-dunk about anything. Even if the Ford case were to go the government’s way (and that was still in doubt at our press time), most observers who had logged time at the former state senator’s trial — hearing all the testimony, weighing all the evidence — were well aware that the exact shape of the outcome still remained in doubt.

The reason? Juries these days weigh so many factors, including subjective ones, that dramatically contrasting conclusions can quite obviously be drawn from the same set of facts — especially when the prosecution and the defense make a point of presenting radically different interpretations of the same circumstances.

Consider what happened in Selmer: Rev. Matt Winkler had been slain a year ago by a shotgun blast, one that quite clearly came from a gun being held by his wife, Mary, who then fled with the couple’s three children toward the Alabama coast before being apprehended in that state. Authorities both in Alabama and Tennessee promptly claimed to have confessions from Winkler.

End of story? Hardly. By the time crack defense attorneys Steve Farese and Leslie Ballin had presented their version of the case last week, enough doubt had been raised that the slain Matt Winkler himself appeared to have supplanted his surviving wife as the true “defendant” in the case.

Much of this might have been foreseen. Even while most news accounts of the crime last year marveled over how such an inexplicable and shocking crime could have occurred in what had appeared to be a model church-centered family, the Flyer came across the first chink in that construct. That was when a neighbor family disclosed to senior editor Jackson Baker that Matt Winkler had angrily and without much apparent provocation threatened to kill their dog for wandering over onto the Winkler property.

A similar story was told during the trial by a defense witness — a dog-owner from McMinnville, the Winklers’ prior home. But that was as nothing compared to the testimony from the defendant herself about a lengthy history of alleged mistreatment from an overbearing and often irrational husband. Explicit claims by her of aberrant and oppressive sexual behavior on her late husband’s part were buttressed somewhat by evidence of stored pornography on the Winklers’ home computer, even if specific details (involving garish high-heeled shoes and a garish wig, among other artifacts) were in the “he said/she said” category. The late Rev. Winkler, of course, was well past saying.

There was much else that could be read one way or another, and it was up to a jury of 10 women and two men to unravel the contradictions. In the end, the unraveling produced a dominant thread that most observers had not expected. Jury nullification, as some critics of the verdict complained? We think not. It was a group operating as the dominant conscience of a community, and that, after all, is one way of defining what a jury of one’s peers is and does.