1. Harding Academy, a landmark near the corner of Park and Cherry for half a century, wants to move part of its campus to Lakeland. School officials apparently couldn’t resist the chance to have such a classy address as Huff ‘n’ Puff Road.
2. Open auditions are held at The Pyramid for Craig Brewer’s next film, Black Snake Moan, which will be filmed in Memphis. Let’s see. District attorney Bill Gibbons made an appearance in The Firm, Memphis City Schools board member Michael Hooks Jr. showed up in Hustle & Flow. Looks like quite a few Memphians would rather be in the movies than doing their day jobs.
3. City officials once more turn up a $10 million budget “shortfall,” as they call it. We guess that sounds better than admitting, “Uh, we lost $10 million.” Even so, they assure citizens that the money can be made up without cutting services. Didn’t we hear this last year? And the year before?
4. A Harley-Davidson police motorcycle stored at the West Precinct is discovered stripped of just about everything but its frame. This is the first time we’ve heard of someone operating a chop shop out of cop shop.
5. Mechanics go on strike at Northwest Airlines. There were two horrific airplane crashes last week, neither of them involving Northwest, thank goodness, but this is not exactly news a nervous flyer wants to hear.
