Research PHOTO BY LARRY KUZNIEWSKI JFK’s LSD trips? So, we were doing our usual gossip-mongering, flipping through the cable dial, when we came across a special on this year’s Miss USA pageant on the E! network. That’s where we saw Beale Street baron John Elkington grilling Miss California about what she would do if she discovered her husband was cheating on her. The Trump-run pageant takes place in Shreveport, Louisiana. Elkington’s been working on a development there and says that’s what landed him a gig as one of the preliminary judges for the competition. Unfortunately, the E! special never got to Miss Cali’s answer. But Elkington was able to provide this look into the minds of the would-be Miss USAs: “Out of the 51 people I asked the same question, 48 said they would leave their husband … The women in their twenties today, they don’t mess around.” Sightings In a not unrelated story, The Collierville Herald reports that the world’s most famous near-mistress, Paula Jones, hightailed it to C-ville to stay with in-laws right after announcing in Dallas that she would appeal the dismissal of her sexual-harassment suit against President Clinton. “Mrs. Jones was seen at the Applebee’s Restaurant on Poplar Avenue in Collierville, dining in a booth by the front entrance with her husband and two frolicking toddlers,” the Herald reports. To forever preserve the memory of this brush with greatness, we propose that Collierville never be washed again. Blowin’ In The Wind Likewise, anyone who caught the latest installment of Channel 5’s occasional “Get Out Alive” series last Thursday is sure not to forget it anytime soon. It’s not easy finding a stunt-news angle for tornado season, but that didn’t stop Rod Starns from mooring himself to the floor of a University of Maryland wind tunnel to demonstrate that a tornado’s really high winds are, well, really high winds. “And that 115-mile-an-hour wind was nothing compared to the swirling and sucking winds of a real tornado,” he warned, once stock footage of tornado damage had ghosted in behind his wind-blown frame. But even Starns seemed to think the angle might have been a stretch. “Although the image of me in a wind tunnel may have looked funny,” he conceded to viewers, “our point was to show you that even the weakest tornado-force winds can batter your body.” What it does to the news judgment, we can only guess. n		Merging State Tech, Shelby State? Shelby State Community College president Floyd “Bud” Amann asked the Tennessee Board of Regents last week to consolitdate the efforts of his troubled college with those of the State Technical Institute at Memphis. “It’s time to level the playing field,” he said. “Shelby State’s been a neglected institution for too long.” Last year, Shelby State’s enrollment declined 17 percent, which caused Amann to eliminate dozens of jobs. While Shelby State, the urban and predominantly black institution, has struggled with financial problems, State Tech, the suburban and mostly white school, has become more like a community college in its course offerings. “The community is confused by our respective roles,” he says. “I’m even confused by our respective roles.” Amann’s comments were directed to a committee of the Tennessee Board of Regents that is studying whether the two institutions should be merged. State Tech president Doug Call opposes the idea of a merger, but says the two institutions could work more closely together by jointly hiring faculty and sharing space in off-campus facilities. n – Jacqueline Marino Lawson To Perform Ray Funeral Lawson Former Memphis minister and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. associate the Rev. James Lawson said Tuesday he will be doing a funeral service for James Earl Ray. “I will be presiding at such a service,” Lawson told the Flyer. “The time and place have not been finalized.” Lawson, former minister of Centenary United Methodist Church, said he was asked by members of Ray’s family to do his funeral service. Lawson performed the prison marriage ceremony of Ray and Anna Sandhu in 1978. Lawson has championed Ray’s innocence for several years. Ray, who confessed to killing the civil-rights leader in Memphis and later retracted his confession, died of liver disease in a Nashville prison April 23rd. In 1968, Lawson brought King to Memphis to lead a march in support of striking sanitation workers. Lawson is now minister of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. n – John Branston It’s All Over But The Accounting Rotan Lee is gone, and so is the controversy stirred by his three months of questionable consultations over the possible sale of Memphis Light, Gas and Water. Now all that’s left is for the city’s finance department to reimburse him for his expenses. For posterity, the Flyer requested copies of the East Coast consultant’s invoices. The final bills were turned in last week. Lee had a $150,000 contract, plus expenses, which totaled $19,055.70. He is asking the city for $11,742 in plane tickets (eight flights), $6,290.50 in hotel accommodations (plus room service?), and $64.15 in taxi fares. He also ate $959.05 worth of food. We would ask exactly what Lee dined on that cost $239.64 during one week in January, but the city did not provide the Flyer with detailed itemizations of his expenses, only generic invoices. It can be assumed with reasonable certainty, however, that Lee didn’t visit a Perkin’s or Piccadilly while he was here. n – Phil Campbell Rocky Road Time Warner Communications recently unveiled Road Runner, a new service that offers access to the Internet over cable lines at speeds significantly higher than those available through dial-up phone access. Of course, you have to get the service first. When that will be depends on what part of town you live in, and in some areas, there is no firm answer about availability. When the service was unveiled last October, it was to be available throughout metropolitan Memphis by the end of this year. That’s still the target, but some customers won’t be seeing Road Runner – except in its ubiquitous advertisements – until sometime next year. Steve Cox, a computer consultant who lives north of the University of Memphis, received word last week that the “timeframe” for his installation had changed and that Time Warner didn’t anticipate having the service to his area until the first part of 1999. “Quite honestly, it’s been frustrating for people who want a definitive date,” says Mark Guberman, general manager of Road Runner in Memphis. “And it’s frustrating for us, since we want to give them a definitive date. Most of the areas are going to be up and running by the end of 1998, but it’s being phased in.” Currently, the service is available in Cordova, Collierville, and East Memphis, with installation just beginning downtown. Bartlett, southeast Memphis, and Southaven are to be added by early summer. Beyond that, Time Warner has no firm schedule, but plans to post updates on its Web page (http://www.midsouth.rr.com/rr/service.html) as they become available. n– Jim Hanas PHOTO BY JACQUELINE MARINO Workers ease the riverwalk bridge over Beale Street on Monday. Last week a judge eliminated the final barrier to the walk’s construction by dismissing a lawsuit filed by blufftop homeowners, who object to the walk being notched into the bluff below their properties. The homeowners say they may appeal the ruling.

Towboat Pilots Continue Strike

by Jim Hanas

PHOTO BY JIM HANAS

Members and supporters of Pilots Agree rally in Crump Park.

Three weeks into a strike for higher wages and better safety, members of Pilots Agree – a union representing river towboat pilots – held a rally here last Friday, on the grassy bluff of E.H. Crump Park.

“The business as usual is that the companies want to treat you the way they’ve always treated you,” Pilots Agree president Dickey Mathes of Lake Village, Arkansas, told a crowd of approximately 80 union members and supporters.

The walkout was called on April 3rd, when 98 towboat companies snubbed the nascent union by refusing to attend talks here in Memphis. Pilots Agree began organizing informally last September, but has only had elected officers since late February. According to Mathes, the group’s membership includes around 1,400 of the 3,000 pilots who tow barges along the nation’s inland waterways. Of those members, he estimates that between 650 and 700 are observing the walkout.

Mathes’ reference to “business as usual” echoes the industry’s insistence since the beginning of the strike that the walkout has had no effect on river traffic. Karen Coltrane, spokesperson for American Waterways Operators, a trade organization representing the shipping industry, says the strike has had a “very minimal effect.” Mathes, who concedes that the strike could have been better organized and would be more effective if all Pilots Agree members took part, says it is making a difference.

“Within the next two weeks,” he said Friday, “some major happenings are coming because these guys are going to need relief.” Mathes contended that the boats still on the river are understaffed and the remaining pilots are being overworked. “And this is their relief,” he said, gesturing to the union-members assembled in Crump Park, many carrying signs bearing the slogan: “All the Danger, None of the Profit.”

Pilots for the larger towing companies make about $50,000 per year. They work 12-hour shifts for 30 days and then are off for 15 days.

Friday’s rally focused on safety issues and risks to the public, in the wake of several accidents in the St. Louis area, one involving a replacement pilot. Lt. David Baugh of the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Office in St. Louis says the number of accidents has been typical for high-water conditions. A Coast Guard investigation of an incident over the weekend involving 137 runaway barges near St. Louis revealed evidence “inconsistent with an accident.” The Coast Guard has asked the FBI to assist with that investigation.

So far, companies have shown no willingness to come to the negotiating table, arguing that pilots are management and can be fired for going on strike. Mathes, however, says the union is in it for the long haul. Pilots Agree had no funds to support striking workers when the walkout began, but he says they have since received over $18,000 in donations from individuals and various labor organizations.

“If the workers stay off the boats, it works, [the companies] can’t stop it,” says Mathes. “If the workers are on the boats there’s nothing we can do.” n

Department of Safety Sells Consumer Info

by Dominic Jesse

For every vehicle registration in the state of Tennessee, a data entry exists in the computers of the Department of Safety showing name, address, make, model, and license number. But this information is for sale, and over the course of last year, companies and individuals across the United States spent over $570,000 to dip into this pool.

Some of the data is bought by law firms and news agencies, used to track certain people for legal and news-related purposes. But for the most part, the information is used for market research and mailing lists.

“We provide customers, mostly manufacturers, with geographic information,” says Jim Miller, director of public relations at the R.L. Polk Company, which spent almost a quarter of a million dollars on Tennessee vehicle information in 1997. According to Miller, most of the information purchased by Polk is used in market research, and “less than 5 percent” of the data Polk buys ever makes its way onto a direct mailing list.

However, this is not always the case. Jaco Vandermerwe, manager at Benz Haus, Inc. in Kingsport, says his company used the Tennessee Department of Safety to get “a listing of names for Mercedes-Benz,” a list that was used for direct mailings.

Other firms employ similar direct-mail tactics.

“We use it [the vehicle data] for solicitation to sell mechanical breakdown insurance,” says Sharon Spohn, director of operations at the Dealers Alliance Corporation in Ohio, which spent over $1,800 on Tennessee vehicle data in 1997.

Spohn defends her company’s practices, claiming that the money spent on direct mailings (including “junk mail”) ultimately lowers the price of postage for the average citizen – “subsidizing” the price of a stamp.

Barry Fraser, a staff attorney with the Utility Consumers Action Network, a consumer watchdog group, disagrees with this assertion.

“There might be a little subsidy there,” Fraser says, “but look at all the trees being chopped down for mail that goes directly into the garbage can.”

Furthermore, Fraser and many other privacy-rights advocates point to other uses of purchased data, such as marketing. According to Fraser, marketing firms create “mega-databases” with the information they buy. These databases are then sold and circulate among corporations, all without the knowledge of the people whose names, addresses, and spending habits are contained therein.

Despite this loss of privacy, most states still allow the selling of public data to private companies.

“It’s a pretty profitable business,” says Fraser, noting that only recently, California passed a law prohibiting the state from selling such data for marketing and direct-mailing lists.

People or companies buying vehicle data in Tennessee can specify what information they want. For example, they can get a listing of people in a specific area or owners of a certain type of car for about 2.5 cents for each record they want. Marketing companies can get data for the entire state and break it down for their clients.

“We’re an open-record state,” says Anthony Kimbaugh, spokesman for the Department of Safety. The money made through the selling of vehicle data is put in the state’s general fund.

There is, however, a way registered drivers can keep their names and addresses off the ledgers of marketing researchers or direct-mail pundits. A form at the county clerk’s office, “Department of Safety – Request to Block the Release of Personal Information,” has been available for slightly over a year now. People who submit this form may avoid unwanted junk mail, although they can still be contacted in certain situations, such as during manufacturers’ recalls or for law-enforcement purposes.

Kimbaugh estimates, however, that only “a relatively low number” of Tennessee citizens have ever submitted this form, leaving most of the information in the Department of Safety’s records up for grab. n