Trying to make fellow Memphians understand that he is suffering as much as they are, Mayor Willie Herenton complains on a local radio station that his utility bills tripled in recent months. Turns out they increased by only 20 percent. Wasn’t this guy head of the city schools at one time?
Our good neighbors across the river — for lack of anything better to do — get into a heated political debate about whether the possessive of their state should be spelled Arkansas’ or Arkansas’s. And all this time, we’ve been saying Arkansawyer’s.
A Texas woman who has never been to Memphis has donated $1 million to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The money was part of a settlement, reached after her parents’ death at a refinery explosion in Texas, which stipulated that $23 million go to various charities. All we can say is thank you for the very generous gift — one of the largest individual donations in St. Jude history.
Police step into a 
Greg Cravens
barbecue joint on Chelsea and leave with a bunch of illegal “gambling machines.” We don’t know what they mean by that, exactly, unless they are talking about those rib cookers. Our cardiologist keeps warning us that we’re risking our lives by eating all that barbecue.
Despite protests from neighbors, teachers, and students who want their school kept open, Memphis City Schools closes Douglass High School. For more than 20 years, activists urge the Board of Education to reopen the sealed building. Last year, bulldozers finally tear the school down. And guess what? Now the school system has decided to build a brand-new Douglass High School right where the old one once stood. This is how we do things in Memphis, you see.
