"The purpose of this meeting is to ignite a bottom-up, inside-out approach to addressing the epidemic of gun violence," Wharton is quoted in a release as saying. "I have repeatedly described gun crime as a public health crisis, and it must be treated just as we would any disease: with containment and prevention one person, household, block, and neighborhood at a time.”

The community congress, which will include citizens, law enforcement officers, business owners, and other stakeholders will take place at Golden Gate Cathedral, 3240 James Road.

Four recent murders have taken place within a four-square mile area of Golden Gate Cathedral.

But a local representative from Bash Back Memphis told the Flyer that his group had nothing to do with the action. Their perceived involvement was likely implied from a blog post praising the vandalism on Bash Back News, the group's national website.

• Bash Back

Bash Back, a group of self-proclaimed "radical transfolk, queers and allies," is critical of the mainstream LGBT movement, which it sees as trying to assimilate with heterosexual culture. Though it does not appear that the group is actually claiming responsibility for vandalism on its website, a Bash Back blogger had this to say praising the vandalism of the billboard featuring a gay Marine:

"First, sending gays to be military fodder is NOT pro-gay or conclusive whatsoever to gay liberation. State militarism only reinforces the dominant structures, and the racism/heterosexism they perpetuate, as well as reducing the number of gay people in the world (both those in Amerikkka and the countries Amerikkka is colonizing/conquering)."

The billboard was one of five National Coming Out Day advertisements paid for by private donations to the MGLCC. It featured gay local former Marine Tim Smith in uniform and read, "I'm gay and I protected your freedom." The billboard was ripped down about a week after it went up in mid-September.

The Bash Back post goes on to criticize MGLCC as "racist, anti-queer, and anti-trans" and it criticizes the center for spending $3,500 for a billboard that Bash Back claims promotes militarism in a poor African American neighborhood.

MGLCC director Will Batts says he's open to discussing the group's concerns if they are willing to sit down and talk. Says Batts: "We have an open door policy here for anybody that has issues with how we conduct business."

That's what an old tennis partner used to say, just loud enough for his doubles partner and opponents to hear, after hitting a winner.

Athletes know the feeling by other names — runner's high, in the zone, out of your head, grooved, unconscious — but I like "better than sex" for those rare moments of perfection for us amateurs more familiar with failures that are "worse than dental surgery."

• blogs.dispatch.co.za/cafeafrica

Them's fightin' words!

When the annual series was discontinued after the 1960-61 season, each team had won 24 games. Memphis has won the only two meetings since, in January 1993 and in the third round of the 2002 NIT.

• November 20th has been good to the Tigers of late, with wins each of the last three seasons. The U of M beat Oklahoma in 2006 (in Maui), Arkansas State in 2007, and Chattanooga last year (in Puerto Rico).

I heard a rumor today that the local Salvation Army has raised the $25 million it needed to match the $60 million from Ray & Joan Kroc Trust to build the Kroc Center on the fairgrounds.

Which could mean they'll be breaking ground very, very soon.

Details to come.

A choice excerpt:

On if he thinks AI’s unwillingness to play a supporting role is hurting his chances of finding a team that will be a good fit for him:

“I think so, but he doesn’t think he needs to. Here’s what happened - when he thought about coming with me he said coach I don’t care if I start, you just give me an opportunity to start. And I said that’s fair. I hope I do that with all my players. But I told him that if he came with me, I have two guards sitting there and they would be unhappy, and I didn’t think that was fair. So when the Memphis situation came up, I looked at their roster. One, he made more money with them which I thought was a factor. And two, they just had Conley and Mayo and he was under the opinion that he would get a chance to start. Well, he missed all of training camp and I think that hurt. And then he was a little impatient. But the real factor was his family wasn’t with him. His family’s in Atlanta and I think they didn’t want to move to Memphis. And I think that was the major reason he wanted to leave.”

According to Phyllis Cline, owner of the East Memphis kitchen wares store Forty Carrots, it's one of the city's worst kept secrets.

Forty Carrots has been offering frozen side dishes, pies, Parker House rolls, soups, made-to-order cakes, and more for 15 years. The only difference now is that they're advertising the fact.

Among the impressive array of contemporary fiction, non-fiction, kids books, movie DVDs, etc. are cookbooks.

• Jorge Steven Lopez

The accused killer 26-year-old Martinez Matos told a Puerto Rican newspaper that he saw Lopez wearing a blue dress and boots. Thinking Lopez was female, Matos allegedly let Lopez into his car. Upon learning that Lopez was biologically male, the suspect alleges that he “had a flashback to when he was raped in prison” and proceeded to attack Lopez.

Lopez is the most recent victim of trans-phobic violence. His death and untold numbers of others will be remembered at annual Transgender Day of Remembrance celebrations across the country this weekend.

In Memphis, a ceremony will be held on Friday, Nov. 20th at Neshoba Unitarian Universalist Church at 7350 Raleigh Lagrange Rd. at 6 p.m.

See's Candies opened a temporary "gift center" in the Wolfchase Gallery last week.

"We are convinced that in order to dramatically improve education in America, we must first ensure that every student has an effective teacher in every subject, every school year," Melinda Gates said. "These communities have shown extraordinary commitment to tackling one of the most important education issues of our time."

To read specifics about what MCS plans to do with the funding — to be awarded over six years — here is an earlier blog post.

The announcement of the grants culminated a yearlong application process. Other funding was awarded to Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida, Pittsburgh Public Schools, and a coalition of charter school management organizations in Los Angeles.

The assembled crowd wasn't too happy with the plan to demolish the buildings on the south side of Madison at Cooper. The plans for the property also include a new grocery store, but some community members are concerned no matter how well-intentioned the developers that a discount grocery store will open there.

Now SquareTalk.org is asking community members for input on what businesses "old or new" they'd like to see be part of the new Overton Square. The Memphis Regional Design Center will then forward those responses on to the developers.

So far, the sole response calls for a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe's.

The developers plan to submit their plans to the Office of Planning and Development in early December.

You can also see the results of the regional design center's earlier Overton Square survey here. A majority of the web respondents wanted to see a combination of preserving and demolishing the buildings on the south side of Madison. Almost 70 percent said they wanted to see a grocery store in the area.

Five regulars for the 2009 world champion New York Yankees (counting DH Hideki Matsui) are older than Coach Pastner.