With the site at Central and East Parkway in limbo, two other communities — Millington and Tunica — are apparently competing to be the new home of the Mid-South Fair. We just don’t know how we feel about that. We realize the event was never called the “Memphis” fair, but to move it to Millington or Mississippi just doesn’t seem right to us.
Fifty years ago this week, a group with the rather awkward name of the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities met in a Chicago hotel. They gathered together about 100 members, raised about half a million dollars, and thanks to their efforts, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was born in Memphis in 1962. The fund-raising arm of St. Jude now has more than one million members, who generate some $580 million every year. Happy birthday, ALSAC.
Two local entrepreneurs are charged with selling fake Nike shoes and shirts. What intrigued us about this crime was the curious charge: “criminal simulation.” We can remember the good old days when stuff like this was called “bootlegging.”
A woman complains that a man is harassing her while she is walking in the High Point Terrace neighborhood, and police arrest the fellow after they discover he is carrying more than 20 little canisters of nitrous oxide — otherwise known as “laughing gas.” No mention of just what he was planning to do with it, but we’re sure the judge will be amused.
Greg Cravens
Officials at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro are considering renaming the school’s mascot, in recent years known as the Indians. Over the years, ASU has used quite a variety of colorful monikers — Gorillas, Warriors, and even Aggies — and all of them, if you ask us, are less offensive than “razorback.” Maybe it’s that whole “Soo-ey Pig!” thing that makes our flesh crawl.
