FROM MY SEAT

NOW WE DANCE Whew . . . the hex is lifted! For the first time since the University of Memphis football team dared to beat Peyton Manning and the mighty Tennessee Vols-- November 9, 1996, you'll remember-- the University of Memphis basketball team is going to the NCAA tournament. Considering the six-year drought is the U of M's longest since reaching the 1973 championship game, we've got to blame someone or something . . . why not an orange hex?...[H]ere are some keys to Memphis making this sneaker-hop last a few encores.

• by Ed Weathers

EDITING FOR DUNCES

EDITING FOR DUNCES

• by Chris Davis

CITY BEAT

THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE As he waited for Mayor Willie Herenton to arrive at the final session of the city council's annual retreat earlier this year, Councilman Jack Sammons likened the mayor's leadership style to lobbing a grenade into the room and closing the door. Usually, the result is a lot of headlines and hard feelings, but the big idea (consolidation, surrender the city charter, appointed school board, sell MLGW, the Formula for Fairness, raise suburban sewer fees, etc.) goes away. But Sammons thinks Herenton's push for school-system consolidation could be different.

• by Ed Weathers

City Reporter

Governor tightens budgets of state hospitals, and other news.

• by Flyer Staff

CITY BEAT

FOREIGN AID A working knowledge of polyglot profanity is a handy thing to have in the new era of American college sport. Long before the the Memphis Grizzlies and the NBA signed players like Pau Gasol and Yao Ming, the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers University, and other area colleges were heavily recruiting athletes from Australia, Ireland, Austria, and South America. A college tennis or soccer tournament these days is basically a little United Nations Assembly for jocks.

• by Ed Weathers

Home Alone

87-year-old Rosie Jackson lives by herself in a house that's partly collapsed.Where's the county agency that's supposed to be taking care of her?

• by Mary Cashiola

BOWERS TO OPPOSE CARSON FOR DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN

Even as the nation becomes involved in major international hostilities, local pols have started their own war, for control of the Shelby County Democratic Party-- and, though it may be (nay, is) small potatoes compared to the war on Iraq, the local rumble, too, is aimed at displacing a leader. In this case, State Rep. Kathryn Bowers is now the officially designated candidate of a Fordite/legislative coalition to oust local Democratic chair Gale Jones Carson.

• by Ed Weathers

ADVERTISING FOR PERVERTS

ADVERTISING FOR PERVERTS

• by Chris Davis

TRANSLATION: MEMPHIS: Say 'Cheesy!'

For those of you that revel in the millennial delight that is reality television, you may or may not have missed your chance to watch Memphis shine last night. Twice in fact.

• by Jenn Hall

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DADS OUT THERE

"...I wasn't raised a thief. I never put a package of Ho-Ho's down my pants at the local Kwik-E-Mart. I've never taken two papers out of a stand after paying for one. I don't even take pennies out of the take-a-penny tray. And yet, every year I acquire in excess of $10,000 of material for which I did not pay. And, if you have a child over the age of 7, your kid is a thief, too...."

• by Ed Weathers

SPEAKING OF THE BIG EASY...

SPEAKING OF THE BIG EASY...

• by Chris Davis

History Lessons

In the Middle East, millions of young people are clueless about their region's true history.

• by Andy Glass

THE WEATHERS REPORT

RESOLUTIONS FOR THE IRRESOLUTE When it comes to making war, the United States no longer has a president, it has a Caesar. In fact, since 1945, it has had a series of Caesars. In the entire history of the U.S., Congress has declared war just five times: for the War of 1812, the Mexican-U.S. War (1846-1848), The Spanish-American War (1898), World War I and World War II. That's all. Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Kuwait, Kosovo--in these and dozens of other places since World War II, American soldiers have killed and been killed. And in every case, Congress and the courts have weaseled out of their responsibility for seeing that the president abided by our system of checks and balances.

• by Ed Weathers

Short Cuts

50 Cent ups the ante on hip-hop's reality game.

POLITICS

A NEW BALL GAME So far at least, Bredesen is enjoying a honeymoon with the legislature-- both houses and both parties. After a visit to Memphis' Autozone Park on Friday, March 14, during which he continued his tireless advocacy of his unprecedentedly austere state budget, Tennessee's surprising new governor sat down with The Flyer and discussed the reasons for his live-within-your-means budget strategy.

• by Ed Weathers

POLITICS

RIDING THE TIGER At a superficial level, it seemed that the state had exchanged a Republican governor who functioned like a Democrat for a Democratic governor who behaved like a Republican. But there was more to it than that. History itself had taken a right turn, as Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who had backed Sundquist and now backed Bredesen, noted, and, arguably, partisanship of any kind had very little to do with it. "He didnt create the problems," Herenton said of the current governor. And Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton concurred that the current age of scarcity was unavoidable.

• by Ed Weathers

Riding the Tiger

Governmental figures confront the specter of hard times and harder choices.

• by Jackson Baker

Just Win, Baby!

The Grizzlies are playing the best basketball in franchise history.

• by Chris Herrington

Onomatopoeia!

Honk! blows at Circuit; Love Apples: The Musical! was a little sour.

• by Chris Davis

Low-down

The insulting Bringing Down the House.

• by Bo List

Blind Man's Bluff

Blind Man's Bluff

• by Editorial

Foreign Aid

Want a college scholarship? It helps to be a foreign tennis player.

• by John Branston

Postscript

Flyer readers respond.

• by Flyer Readers

Keep HOPE Alive

Lowering standards will dilute the state lottery's purpose.

• by Steve Cohen

TRANSLATION: MEMPHIS: Storm

Waking up after a storm and before a storm. It is morning here in Memphis and I’m told that the dust storms are kicking up in Iraq.

• by Jenn Hall

Naming Names

Professor Faderman: stripper, feminist, ground-breaker.

• by Leonard Gill