Collierville School Bans Backpacks In a moment relatively devoid of media hysteria and overt parental concern, the administrators at Collierville High School are citing safety reasons to severely limit the use of backpacks by students. From now on, high schoolers will not be able to use their backpacks as they wander from classroom to classroom. Allowing transparent backpacks was considered, but administrators ultimately went for a total ban, says Collierville principal Tim Setterlund. "This is one small attempt on our part to make sure that we have a safe environment," Setterlund says. The principal says the school has been debating this policy change long before the school shootings in Littleton, Colorado. Setterlund's backback ban may appear to be less psychologically invasive than metal detectors.However, Collierville High School already has metal detectors, both hand-held and stationary, mounted at the entrances. Students who may want to come to school armed with automatic weapons (i.e., AK-47s or Uzis), shanks, knives, pipe bombs, ammo clips, firecrackers, and other potentially dangerous devices now are more limited in their choices. The students can keep them at home, they can hide them in their lockers and hope they don't get caught, or they can just get rid of them and attempt to use the school as a place to get an education. —Phil Campbell NCCJ Plans October Walk-a-thon Picture a diverse group of Memphians striding through downtown within sight of the river to raise money for youth summer camps aimed at achieving racial understanding. Throw some fall colors into the scene and you've got the October 16th Walk as One Walk-a-thon, a fund-raiser for the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ). Memphis is one of 11 cities that are sponsoring similar events this fall. The approximately three-mile walk will begin and end at the National Civil Rights Museum downtown, and will proceed along Second Street before looping around at Exchange. Originally called the National Conference of Christians and Jews, NCCJ is a national organization founded in 1927 to eradicate racism and other forms of bigotry, says walk coordinator Kelley Pratt. She says that NCCJ hopes to attract 1,000 participants and to bring in $100,000. The money will help fund NCCJ's youth programs including Anytown, a weeklong program held at an isolated retreat where about 30 high school students (accompanied by alumni and counselors) take part in activities designed to break down their prejudices. Registration for the walk will start at 8 a.m. on Saturday, October 16th. For more information, call the NCCJ at 278-3551. -- Daniel Connolly Memphis Stations Change Hands "We're going to be in Memphis for a long, long time," Kerby Confer of the Sinclair Broadcast Group said last November when asked if his company intended to sell off its three Memphis radio stations, WRVR-FM 104.5 "The River," WOGY-FM "Froggy 94," and WJCE-AM 680 "The Juice." Eight months later, however, the Baltimore-based television and radio company has announced plans to sell 43 radio stations in nine markets, including Memphis, to Pennsylvania-based Entercom Communications for $821.5 million, fulfilling a promise made to stockholders last year to sell off $500 million in assets. In Memphis, Entercom, which currently owns 42 stations in eight markets, will acquire the city's second-most lucrative station cluster, representing 19 percent of the market's 1998 radio advertising revenue. The Memphis radio market, the nation's 46th largest, produced $52.8 million in revenues last year, according to BIA, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm. Curt Peterson, vice president and general manager of Sinclair's Memphis stations, would not comment on the deal. -- Jim Hanas Independent Cherry Could Debut In Memphis This Fall If Michael Harwood has his way, Memphis will become known for movies as much as music. The founder of the year-old Memphis Film Forum is courting director Joseph Pierson and his latest film Cherry for a late-September moviehouse debut in Memphis. The independent comedy stars supermodel Shalom Harlow as a single woman bent on having a baby. Cherry marks Harlow's second on-screen appearance since receiving thumbs-up reviews for a minor role in 1997's In & Out with Kevin Kline. In addition to showing Cherry, Harwood wants to create a city film festival that would give Memphians a chance to view shorts and art films that mainstream box offices don't offer. But Harwood doesn't shun the big guns either. He's currently working out a deal to include Memphis in the much-anticipated Cider House Rules select-city November debut. Cider House Rules stars Toby Maguire, Michael Caine, and Charlize Theron. Originally from Memphis, two years ago Harwood met filmmaker Ira Sachs while studying film at New York's New School for Social Research. Sachs directed The Delta, shot entirely in Memphis. "Here was a filmmaker [Sachs] who was playing at Sundance and Berlin, but there was no venue for him to show it in Memphis," Harwood says. "I moved back to Memphis to help put the city on the film festival circuit." After reading a letter that Cherry director Joseph Pierson sent to Entertainment Weekly about cinema violence, Harwood wrote to the director. The two corresponded for a while and eventually talked about debuting the independent in Memphis. "I feel pretty confident that it's going to happen," Harwood says. Whether Cherry will be at the top of everyone's "must see" list won't be confirmed until the first week of September. -- Ashley Fantz Business Booms For Online Antiques by Mary Cashiola Let's say you have a hankering for a plastic Hawaiian hula girl, one that rides in your car and sways with every swerve. Days were when you could go to an antique mall and find a dashboard darling all your very own. But times are changing. With the advent of online auction services like eBay, items that would usually be sold at antique malls or even in garage sales are showing up online instead. The largest of the auction sites is currently eBay (www.ebay.com), a site started in 1993 as eShop and sold to Microsoft in 1996. Not only does eBay have more than 2 million registered users, but it has about 2 million items for sale at any one time. Annually, the site generates about $1 billion in sales. Most antique malls are considerably more "low-tech." They are usually cavernous spaces -- former furniture stores or warehouses, for instance -- divided into room-like booths that contain furniture, accessories, and collectibles with various levels of kitsch value. Inside, shoppers browse with friends and relatives, gossiping as they look at the vintage wine glasses or old metal lunchboxes on display. According to most of the antique mall owners in Memphis, the online services have not hurt the number of customers they see in their stores, "Our customers don't just buy one thing," says Francis Blanton, the owner of the Antique Mall of Midtown. "They come in to look." David Little, owner of Town Square Antique Mall in Collierville, thinks his customers know the pitfalls of the online business. "I think the 'net business is good, but they can't see what they're getting. Some of my customers have been burned on the 'net," he says. "I think that in the newness, there are still some kinks." Shoppers at the Antique Mall of Midtown cited the possibility of not getting what you ordered and the risk of credit card fraud, as well as the higher cost of items on the Web, as reasons why they don't do their shopping online. Dealers rent space from the mall for about a dollar a square foot, filling it with whatever antique furniture and collectibles they can find at yard sales, auctions, and estate sales. The antique mall then takes a small commission—usually 10 percent -- from the dealers monthly. Some dealers might find the online auction services much to their liking. On eBay, for example, sellers must first register free of charge as a member; after that, they only have to submit an item description, add a photo for good measure, then contact the highest bidder after the auction closes. When the bidder meets the payment terms, the seller sends the item. There's no fee to buy or sell; eBay makes its money from advertising placed on the site. Dewayne Young at the Madison Avenue Antique Mall says that the new online auctions don't affect his dealers "so much, as others. I'm not a collectibles mall. The big furniture you don't really see on eBay." Blanton agrees: "It's just the small collectibles." She cites shipping costs and hassles as the distinction between selling the small and large items online. "You have to ship the furniture. I don't want to be responsible for that." Then there are the antiquers taking full advantage of the new high-tech auctions. At Madison Avenue, Young has recently started posting his 50 dealers' items online as an added service. "We did a test run with a couple of dealers," says Young. "It's gone real well. We're reaching such a larger audience." "The harder-to-sell items -- the rarer pieces, the very high-end pieces -- will sell through the 'net easier because your audience is looking for that," says Little. "A lot of collectors will shop the 'net for that rare piece they can't find in stores." Is Latino Census Count in Trouble? by Phil Campbell The U.S. Census isn't prepared for the task of getting an accurate population count on the number of Latinos living in the Memphis area, claims one census employee who says he recently quit the federal agency in disgust. If true, the news is of major concern for the Latino community, which is hoping that the results of the next census will accurately reflect what everyone suspects -- that the Latino population has exploded in the Memphis area, accounting for as much as 6 percent of the city's population. If the census doesn't undercount Latinos, it will help them legitimize their political and economic power here. Which brings us to Garland Reed, who is fairly well-known throughout much of the Latino community for the Latino-friendly grocery store that he used to own on Getwell Avenue. Reed says he was hired by the census bureau back in February to be the point person for the local Latino community. His job, he says, was to recruit people with Spanish language skills to work as census administrators, the employees who go door-to-door collecting census surveys and answering people's questions. Reed had started doing just that. His proof: several advertisements and newspaper articles in the local Latino press urging Latinos not to hide from census agents. For many Latinos, census agents are not to be trusted because they work for the same government that runs the Immigration and Naturalization Services agency. The advertisements that Reed had published prominently included his photo and a phone number that Latinos can call to take the test to be hired as a census administrator. Reed ran the ads before the census had even appropriated the funds for such efforts (though, oddly, he has yet to turn the invoices in so the newspapers can be paid). But, late last month, Reed had a falling out with his bosses, and he was abruptly reassigned to work with black churches, although Reed speaks fluent Spanish. Another Spanish speaker has taken his place. The Flyer tried to get responses to Reed's charges, but the local census agency would not comment. Instead, the branch referred questions on the matter to the regional census bureau in Charlotte, North Carolina. David McMahon, the bureau's media specialist there, gave a brief statement. "We're trying to build a pool [of census administrators] now," he says. "But a majority of jobs probably won't be available until the first of the year. It's hard to tell people, 'We want you to apply now, but the jobs won't be available until the spring.'" McMahon says the bureau is concerned about getting Hispanic census administrators, particularly "if the word isn't getting out." But is Reed just another disgruntled employee with an ax to grind? Maybe, but he gives an effective demonstration regarding the bureau's current problems with the Latino community. Non-English speakers will encounter a problem immediately if they attempt to get hired as census administrators. Reed calls the phone number in the census bureau advertisements that he secured. When a woman answers his call, he pretends that he can only speak Spanish. "I want to take the test," he tells the woman in Spanish. "Where can I go to take the test to administer the census?" The flustered woman puts him on hold for a moment, then picks up again, saying, "Hello, sir?" Then she puts him on hold again. A minute or two later, a man's voice comes on. He asks in choppy Spanish how he can help Reed, but he can't understand what Reed patiently tells him. In particular, the man fails to understand the word "examen," which means "test." Without getting this part of the question, he is unable to tell Reed that the census plans to administer the test to potential job applicants in September. After about eight minutes of this, the census employees give up, and Reed does, too. Both parties hang up. "There you are," Reed says. "That is a federal agency. It's a disgrace that that is here in Memphis. I feel that they are betraying the Hispanic community. I want nothing to do with it." Making A Difference in Millennial Memphis - 12 With a history dating back more than 100 years, Memphis' Orange Mound community has a lot of stories to tell, whether they're about the tradition-rich Melrose High School, W.C. Handy Theater, or the renovated Deaderick Cemetery. Established in the 1890s, Orange Mound was one of the first subdivisions built in the country for black residents in the South. While there was a time when residents prided themselves on the community's stores, doctors, lawyers, businesses, theatres, schools, churches, and even a swimming pool, today Orange Mound's declining neighborhoobs are often plagued with negative perceptions. The Orange Mound Collaborative hopes to change that. Striving for a community renaissance, the nonprofit group has launched the bimonthly Orange Mound Connection newspaper, an annual series of workshops for local residents, a home-improvement loan fund, a computer training center, a housing development corporation, and school tutorial programs. Now the group is off to a new venture, the Orange Mound Oral Histories Project, recording the histories of elderly residents. The group plans to publish the stories and later make a documentary film to be shared with Orange Mound youth and the broader Memphis community. For this worthwhile project, the Orange Mound Collaborative will receive the 12th Making a Difference in Millennial Memphis grant, which the group plans to use for an 8mm digital camera and computer software. As part of its 10th-anniversary celebration, The Memphis Flyer is giving away $50,000 in grants of $1,000 each. The money is provided by an anonymous Memphian who hopes to encourage what might be called "good works" -- little things that improve the quality of life in Memphis. The grants are disbursed by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. Grants are available to any nonprofit in the Memphis area. To apply, send a proposal on the organization's stationery to: Making A Difference The Memphis Flyer P.O. Box 687 Memphis, TN 38101

			Fly on the Wall Elvis Annals As the faithful began to congregate on Elvis Presley Boulevard Sunday afternoon for the candlelight vigil, a small group of media representatives, supporters, and naysayers gathered at a home in the neighborhood directly behind Graceland for a press conference by the "real" Lisa Marie Presley. This Lisa Marie is a Swedish woman who claims that she is the actual daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, who was shipped off to Europe shortly after her father' death to protect her from kidnappers. In her absence, she claims, sinister forces -- perhaps the Church of Scientology, perhaps Priscilla and Elvis Presley Enterprises -- set up an impostor to take her place, effectively robbing her of her birthright. Following a lengthy introduction by her spokeswoman, an apparent descendant of Pocahontas who prefaced her introduction by complaining about people who let spokespeople do all their talking, Lisa Marie stood, thanked those in attendance, and then let her spokeswoman answer all the questions. What proof do they have that the Swedish Lisa Marie is Elvis' daughter? They say that they have exact matches of infantile foot prints and "cranium scans." Would Lisa Marie submit to a DNA comparison? On this point Lisa Marie's handlers were evasive, claiming, at first, that DNA tests were too personal ("So are feet," one attendee cried in response) and later that no one has ever offered Elvis DNA material for a comparison. Upon hearing this another attendee offered her sister's lock of the King's hair. In the end, the "real" Lisa Marie just wants to meet Priscilla and make amends, but, say her handlers, this is unlikely to ever happen because "the associates" would never allow it. Just who "the associates" are was unclear at press time. And so the mystery continues. Ooh, That Smell "I can turn my head to take a breath and the beauty is so spectacular. And then I put my face into the water and I might smell a septic tank that is not working correctly or some fertilizer that is runoff from the green, green grass that I just passed in someone's yard." -- Stunt swimmer Mimi Hughes on the unnatural beauty of the Tennessee River. Hughes, whose previous high-profile swims have included the Bering Strait and the San Francisco Bay from San Francisco to Alcatraz Island, is currently tackling the Tennessee in an effort to raise awareness of pollution. Hughes began her swim August 2nd at the river's headwaters above Knoxville and finished her first leg last Wednesday at the Watts Bar Dam. Hughes plans to swim 125 miles of the river's 652-mile length every August, a breakneck speed that should get her to the river's end in Paducah, Kentucky, sometime in 2003. We're Number 6; We're Number 6! "Quayle seems to be unable to see the obvious. His campaign is over. Unlike Alexander, he is delusional." -- Stu Rothenberg of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report on why former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander is a better Republican loser than former vice president Dan Quayle. Alexander, who has seemingly been running for president since the '80s, finally withdrew from the 2000 race last Monday after coming in sixth in the Iowa Republican straw poll. Quayle, the v.p. to president George Bush, whose son won the non-binding contest, placed eighth between TV com-mentator Pat Buchanan and radio commentator Alan Keyes.