Read more about it in Sing All Kinds.

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• l to r: Luttrell, Gibbons, Godwin

Ware is not one of the indicted parties, all eight of whom are former of current employees of the Shelby County Clerk's office. But District Attorney General Bill Gibbons, who announced the indictments at a press conference attended by other law enforcement officials, said merely, "The investigation is continuing," when asked about Ware's potential liability.

What the councilwoman did, according to the indictments of Millicent Rogers and Patricia Reid, was offer money "to register a vehicle without the vehicle having gone through inspections required by the City of Memphis or without other proper documentation required to register the vehicle."

The sums involved were unspecified.

Besides Rogers and Reid, others indicted for similar violations were Janice Garrett, Rita Jones, Anita Porter. Three other past or present clerk's employees -- Seprice Crews, Julia Marshall, and Darlene McKee were indicted for "accepting a benefit to "run multiple transactions ... as opposed to running a fewer number of transactions at one time.'"

Among those attending the press conference, held in Gibbons' office in the Criminal Justice Center, were Sheriff Mark Luttrell, Police Director Larry Godwin, and officials of the state Department of Revenue and other official services.

Unmentioned in the indictment was Charles Nichols, former CEO for County Clerk Debbie Stamson and for the previous clerk, Jane Creson. It was public allegations that Nichols had rendered improper services that first called attention to the ongoing investigation.

Gibbons declined to answer directly when asked if Nichols was cooperating with the investigation. The D.A. noted only that Nichols wasn't named and that the investigation was continuing.

What was the dollar amount of Councilwoman Wade's bribery? Gibbons et al. answer:

According to the Chicago Tribune, Clear Channel cited the bad economy as its reason for laying off Fleming and more than 2,300 additional employees since January. Like floundering daily newspaper chains that also tend to blame the economy for their current woes, Clear Channel is mostly making excuses for its own overreaching. Although the global economic crisis has certainly exacerbated the situation, the real problems were created when the Dow was soaring and credit was cheap and plentiful.

In February, one month after slashing 1,800 jobs, Clear Channel announced that it would seek an additional $1.6-billion in credit. In March, Clear Channel's debt rating was slashed by Moody's Investor Service due to a “high probability” that the company couldn't meet debt obligations. At that time Neil Begley, the senior vice president of Moody's told the New York Times that if the company can't meet its covenants with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia and other lending organizations, it may be forced to seek Bankruptcy protection. “With a capital structure that was highly speculative from its inception, the company’s ability to continue as a going concern is completely dependent upon remaining in compliance with its covenants,” Begley was quoted as saying.

Clear Channel is often referred to as a “media empire” an accurate description that is too often mistaken for a metaphor. Like most empires the company overextended itself and took on extraordinary debt in order to own more stations that could be treated like exploitation colonies. Even in good times the company—like all media giants— squeezed out local talent and replaced it with cheap syndicated programing. Now the economy has taken an ugly turn, stations have already been cut to the bone, and what was already crippling debt has become crushing debt. And Mike Fleming got squashed in the process.

Former Rock 103 morning man Tim Spencer, now Clear Channel's director of operations in Memphis says he's not at liberty to say whether or not Fleming 's evening drive-time slot will be replaced by local talent or by syndicated programming.

From E&P:

The Appeal noted that the advances made this spring were mostly due to an uptick in electronic editions used for Newspaper in Education (NIE) programs. Individually paid circulation at the CA declined 14.2 percent according to a comparison of the March 2009 and March 2008 FAS-FAX reports. "While we have seen declines in home delivery -- some of it because of the same things happening to other papers and some of it was self-imposed -- we had a dramatic increase in schools wanting to use NIE editions," said Karl Wurzbach, vice president of sales and marketing at the Appeal, about the rise in daily circ.

Any good news for the CA is welcome. The paper witnessed dramatic circulation losses in recent years and, as Wurzbach notes, cut back on home delivery in 2008. Redefining circulation is nothing new but counting online NIE programs as if it was the same as growth in newsstand sales or paid home delivery seems like a stretch if not an outright contortion.

Even if it's accurate, an accounting of students in NIE programs as subscribers would dramatically lower the average age and income of the CA's readership.

Regular paid-circulation, arguably the most telling metric for judging a daily newspaper's health, declined 14.2 percent, as E&P also reports. No matter how hard you spin it, that isn't good news.

--Chris Davis

"While Shelby County has not reported a swine influenza case, we want everyone to be in full prevention mode," said Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, "This means following good hygiene practices to include the simple task of repeatedly washing your hands and if you are feeling sick with flu-like symptoms, stay at home."

MGMT alleged that UMP used the song in political rallies without properly compensating the band. UMP, which has an anti-music piracy platform, eventually agreed to compensate MGMT for its use of the track.

MGMT issued this statement:

"About two months ago, it was brought to our attention (through the MGMT message board) that the UMP French political party was using our song 'Kids' at rallies and posting videos of these rallies on their official website. Normally MGMT steers clear of mixing music and politics, but the fact that the UMP used our song without permission while simultaneously pushing anti-piracy legislation seemed a little wack.

"We believe that access to music benefits both the musicians and the fans, and has undoubtedly helped spread our music around the globe, while also expanding our personal musical collections.

"We didn't want to be 'typical Americans' and sue, despite the amazing monetary benefit and chinchilla coats and Navigators it would bring. Instead we're using the settlement fee the UMP presented and donating it to artists' rights organizations.

"Thank you France for the wonderful food. C'est bon."

MGMT will play Minglewood in Memphis on June 11th.