With This
Typo, I Thee Wed
So, we were doing our usual gossip-mongering, flipping through the pages of RSVP, when we came across a handsome portrait of mayoral spokesperson Carey Hoffman and city councilman Tom Marshall, enjoying themselves at some bash at “THE hottest new dance joint in town right now,” Raiford’s Hollywood. And then we noticed the caption: “Carey Hoffman and Tom Hoffman.” Married? And where was our invitation? That must have been some party. At any rate, our hats go off to Mr. Hoffman, née Marshall, for going against centuries of patriarchal tradition by taking his new bride’s name. “I’ve strived to be very avant-garde that way,” he says. Don’t Take Any Wooden … AIDS prevention educators in Tennessee must be a little worried about the state legislature’s recent efforts to ban sex toys. If the law went into effect, where would instructors get the phallic-shaped tools they need to teach people how to properly use a condom? Maybe it won’t be a problem. According to the descriptions of Charla Folsom, director of education at Friends for Life, sex educators around here are still a bit prudish. “To be honest, it doesn’t even look like one,” Folsom says. “It’s just a wooden thing you put the condom on.” Advice The following are some tips on how men can prepare for “the irresistible temptation to use pornography while they travel,” provided by a pamphlet from the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, one of the groups that helped fund the recent crusade against area topless clubs: • Ask hotel personnel to disconnect channels that offer sexually explicit material – before you enter your hotel room. • Instead of channel surfing in your hotel room, know beforehand what each channel offers and punch in the number. • Carry a framed photo of your wife and family with you; place it on top of the television. • If you suspect you may be invited to go to a strip club during a business trip, plan beforehand how you will respond. And, of course, make sure you have lots of singles. Dennis and Elvis The Blue Hawaii The Jordanaire Jingle The Ann-Margaret The Colonel Tom – some of the drinks on the menu for Elvis-themed Wednesday nights at Dennis Rodman’s Illusions nightclub in Chicago. n |
Commission Pushes Alarm Ordinance
False alarms continue to pose a problem for local law enforcement. About 98 percent of the residential and commercial alarms to which police responded in 1996 were false.
The Memphis Shelby Crime Commission is proposing a new city and county ordinance that would punish people who have had repeated false alarms. The commission proposes strengthening and enforcing current laws which are supposed to prohibit false alarms.
Under the crime commission’s proposal, a city-county agency would be established to monitor false alarms. The agency would have a $565,000 budget.
If your alarm system goes off five times without an emergency, you would be fined $25, and you might be required to take a class on how to properly use your alarm. If your alarm falsely rings six times, it’s another $25 fine, and the class is definitely required.
If your alarm falsely rings seven times, your alarm permit may be suspended, meaning your right to use the alarm would be temporarily denied.
“We want [law enforcement] to be out there preventing crime and chasing real criminals, not chasing false alarms,” says Bob Bryden, president of the commission. Despite the huge volume of false alarms in Memphis in 1997, only $335 in fines was collected by the city. The proposed agency would raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and cut down on false alarms by 23 percent, according to the commission. Bryden believes that the city-county alarm department would pay for itself through the fines and permit fees it collects (permits cost $30; the commission is proposing that everyone with an alarm also pay an annual renewal fee of $10). n – Phil Campbell
Downtown to Get Artier
Picture this: A performing-arts school where talented children of all economic backgrounds can get on “pathways” to careers in music, theatre, and dance.
That’s the scene Tom and Julie Knowles, founders of Memphis Dance Theatre in East Memphis, are setting for downtown. The lights should go up in January 1999.
“Memphis has a lot of artistic strength, but no one’s been focusing it,” Tom Knowles says. “The talent is here. It’s certainly in the downtown area, but a lot of children are not receiving opportunities in the performing arts.”
Tom Knowles says the nonprofit Memphis Performing Arts Conservatory (MPAC) will be a hybrid between a community performing-arts center and a conservatory, in the spirit of The Juilliard School in New York City, which recently sent the Knowleses a letter of support. It will teach a complete curriculum of multicultural courses in dance, music, and theatre in the pre-professional division, as well as classes for students with nonprofessional aspirations.
Targeted groups will be high-school age and younger, but older students will also be able to attend classes. Scholarships will be available to children who demonstrate a financial need.
MPAC doesn’t have a home yet, but it’s already generated a lot of interest among arts supporters.
“The most exciting piece is their mission of taking 12- to 18-year-olds and getting them to that next level, getting them to Juilliard,” says Kate Gooch, president of the Memphis Arts Council.
Gooch suggested the Knowleses begin first with a scaled-down pilot program.
“They’ve certainly got a good plan,” she says. “Now they just need some strong financial and human-resource support.” n
– Jacqueline Marino
Women’s Shelter Finds New Home
Just before Christmas, Seek for the Old Path homeless shelter for women and children was itself homeless.
The former shelter at 236 Madison was the second to get booted by the new downtown ballpark last year. When the Salvation Army closed temporarily, Seek for the Old Path was one of the shelters scrambling to provide emergency beds for women and children.
After its lease expired in November, executive director Barbara Moment moved her clients into a temporary warehouse space across from Lauderdale Courts at 265 Exchange. It had a roof and beds, but no kitchen. It didn’t meet code inspections either. Desperate for a new home, Moment issued a call for help in the Flyer and on TV news.
St. John’s United Methodist Church responded, offering Seek for the Old Path a new permanent home at 1169 Linden. It will lease the space for five years and then take over ownership. The shelter plans to move into the two-story, seven-bedroom house in May.
There’s one downside: The shelter will have to decrease the number of available beds from 50 to 28. And it’s already getting more referrals than it can handle.
“I get 20 to 30 calls a day,” Moment says. “They call day and night. We’re turning them down all the time.” n – Jacqueline Marino
Anti-litter Law Rewards Tattlers
As of July 1st, you can earn a reward for squealing on litterbugs in Tennessee. But whether this new law will be more effective than the previous statute is uncertain.
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The “Crying Indian” is making a comeback. |
Under the current law, littering is a civil offense punishable by a $500 fine – but judges tend to simply throw out cases. The new law, sponsored by state Sen. Tommy Burks (D-Monterey), makes littering a criminal offense with a $200 first-time fine and a sentence of at least 14 hours spent picking up trash on public property. “The feeling was that if the fine was more proportional to the offense, judges would be more likely to enforce it,” says Edith Heller, state coordinator for Clean Tennessee.
As an extra incentive, $100 of that fine goes to the person who turns in the offender. But the devil is in the details. You have to catch the litterer in the act, take down his license number, and somehow prove to authorities that the trash did in fact come from that person’s car.
“It would be very easy for this to become a ‘he said, she said’ kind of thing,” says Heller.
Still, the publicity surrounding the law could be beneficial. “For the first time in years, litter is in the headlines,” Heller says, adding that this is important because littering is on the rise. To fight this trend, Keep America Beautiful kicked off an educational campaign on Earth Day, bringing back its famous “Crying Indian” commercials that originally aired in the 1970s.
What the public doesn’t realize, according to Heller, is that more than half of all roadside litter is “involuntary” – it’s stuff blown out of the backs of trucks. One goal of the campaign is to make people realize that in Tennessee, all truck beds must be covered or tarped, even on pickups.
To learn more about litter prevention, call 1-888-TN-CLEAN. n – Debbie Gilbert
Clarification
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Judge Crawford |
Inadvertently omitted from last week’s rundown of the state Judicial Evaluation Commission’s ratings of Memphis-based Tennessee appellate judges was one of the foremost members of the bench – and one, moreover, whose ratings were at the top of the commission’s chart.
This was Presiding Judge W. Frank Crawford of the Western Section of the
state Court of Appeals. A lifelong Memphian, Judge Crawford received a blanket 12-0
endorsement from the 12-member panel of judges, lawyers, and court employees who make up
the commission and whose recommendations are meant to affect voter judgment in this
year’s Missouri Plan balloting on appeals court judges in Tennessee.
All state appellate judges will be subject to Yes/No voting on the August 6th election
ballot.
Judge Crawford was rated “Good to Excellent” in every category considered by the 12-member panel.
In a related matter, Judge Joe Jones of the state Court of Criminal Appeals should have been credited with nine Yes votes from the Judicial Evaluation Commission last week. We regret the omissions. n
