One of my regular stops on the Internet trail is at Professor Hex's blog. The professor calls himself a "scholar of the strange and mysterious," and his site mainly consists of links to news accounts and stories on the web about flying saucers, bigfoot, ghosts, and other paranormal subjects.

Most of the links are interesting if you are intriqued, as I am, by weird stuff. But today, well, the ol' professor linked to one of the dumbest stories I've ever seen. It's a hilarious report by a Minnesota television station on some locals whose brooms stand up by themselves — as in they don't fall over when you stand them upright. The report is mind-bogglingly stupid faux journalism, the kind that is rampant all over the country, particularly in small markets. The formula is as follows: Raise a ridiculous question — in this case, "Standing Brooms: Is it spirits? Is it science? Is it simply the style of the brooms?" — then find "experts" to talk about it, i.e. a physics professor and a "pyschic." Simply hilarious. Trust me.

And what's even more hilarious is that it turns out that this "phenomenon" is happening all over the country. How do I know? I googled "standing brooms." Check out the headlines from local television "reports" from around the country: "Brooms Standing Up: Planets Aligning?"; "Magical Standing Broom Stuns Alabama Town"; "Standing Broom: Is It Paranormal?".

I love America. I can't wait to go home and stand up my broom. Then I'm calling Fox 13.

There is little doubt that fear of bodily harm will make people a more careful with their words. Of course, there's also the very real possibility that two high-strung non-anonymous people will challenge each other to a fight in the real world, with tragic consequences. That's not something we want any part of.

Still, I must admit, I find it admirable when people post under their own names. It's like walking into the saloon unarmed. It's badass. Which is why I do it on the Flyer site. I'm a badass. Not really. I post anonymously on other sites, just like most people. I post as myself on the Flyer site because I believe it would be unethical of me to post under a pseudonym on my own site.

The fact is, I don't believe anonymity is necessarily a bad thing. I get many weird, scary, unbelievable communications from people anonymously that I wouldn't get if they used their real identities. I think this is helpful. It lets me know that real evil, real assholes, and really twisted people exist out there. I like being forewarned. (All their IP addresses, emails, comments, and grungy hand-scrawled letters and envelopes, etc. are neatly preserved, in case they are ever needed.)

On a less serious note, I just like it that people can create noms du web that allow them to express themselves without restraint. They may be at work (most likely) and posting under their real names could jeopardize their job. There are many reasons people may prefer to remain anonymous. And that's okay by me. If they cross the line, we can just eliminate the comment. If they cross the line repeatedly, we can simply block them from participating.

I liken the Flyer website to a big neighborhood saloon. You may not know the guy you started talking politics with at the bar, but you argue in a civil way, if at all possible. If things get out of hand, the ol' bartender walks over with his Louisville Slugger and gently thumps the table.

In a chat room, ideas are the important thing, not identities. If someone's an ass, or a "troll" as they're called in cyberworld, it's best to let them stew in the corner rather than provoking them. But I say let's keep the conversation flowing. Let's enjoy the camaraderie with our anonymous and not-so-anonymous pals on MemphisFlyer.com. Better to communicate anonymously than to fume alone in the dark.

And should we ever meet in the real world, feel free to introduce yourself. Or not.

At least, it used to be. But now the bottom of my computer screen is constantly teasing me, trying to divert me from the task at hand. As I write this, for example, the e-mail icon is tirelessly bouncing up and down, indicating some fresh e-juice awaits. The Twitter alert is popping onscreen in the lower right-hand corner every few seconds, letting me know that one or more of my "friends" has posted an update.

How the hell am I supposed to work? How can I possibly ignore my friends? See, here's an email letting me know that someone wants to be my friend on Facebook. A new friend!! How great is that!

I know. I know. I could and should turn off the alerts. Shut out the cyberworld. Focus.

But I don't wanna. Besides, I'm in the news and entertainment biz. If I shut off the outside world, I'll miss something important.

For instance, since 8:00 this morning I've learned the following from Twitter:
A man was arrested for trying to burn the gay pride flag in Cooper-Young; Hippolite Tsafack will play basketball for the University of Memphis; there will be a speed-dating event at SOB tonight; WREG reporter Mike Matthews joked that he is known as the King of cold cuts; the Memphis Airport has become a nation-wide joke on Twitter, thanks to R.C. Johnson's referring to it as a recruiting asset. And that's just the minimal highlights gleaned from 148 tweets. There's so much more.

E-mail, for instance. All day long, my email has been delivering even more exciting news: Marsha Blackburn is doing something patriotic for Veterans Day; four bands want their CD reviewed; several folks think my penis needs improvement; my buddy Jerry wants to play golf Saturday; somebody thinks we should run a different astrology column (the one he writes) in the Flyer; there's a new recycling thingie called "trash talk" that's perfect for tailgating and parties. And those are just a very few of the highlights from the more than 220 e-mails I've received so far today.

So you see, I couldn't possibly shut off the outside cyber-world. This is vital information, necessary for my work. Without it, for example, I couldn't possibly have written this blog post.

The Commercial Appeal reported today that there were similar problems at Alexander's previous employer, the Animal Services Division of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Alexander was hired by the Herenton administration after the proverbial "nationwide search."

• Bianca Phillips
• Vigil at Memphis Animal Shelter

The public's outrage was fueled by photos in local media of starving animals and the disgusting conditions at the shelter. There have been dozens of letters to the editor, comments on websites and, last night, a candlelight vigil. And as might have been predicted, numerous reactive letters and comments immediately appeared along the lines of: "How come all these people are outraged about animals when (pick one) 1) babies are being aborted 2) children are being shot 3) people are being murdered at Fort Hood ..."

It's so tiresome and misguided. The director and employees of the Animal Shelter betrayed the public's trust. We expected them to treat animals in their care humanely and compassionately. Instead, they ran an animal holocaust. Why shouldn't people be pissed and why shouldn't they protest vociferously? And what's that got to do with drive-by shootings? They are also horrible, but caring passionately about one cause does not preclude people from caring passionately about another cause.

I don't understand why it's somehow deemed clever or insightful to demean the outrage because it's "just about animals." As in, "I love my dog, but he's not as important as my Momma." Well, duh.

Comparing the importance of causes is not insightful or clever. It's predictable and meaningless. If you feel your issues are more important, then by all means organize, protest, make your voice heard. But lay off the silly conflation of issues. It's apples and kittens.

The book begins with Grant being hunted by coked-up Mexican rednecks who kill "to please the trigger finger," and the back-story doesn't let up much from there. It's a look at a culture that's impoverished, ravaged by narco-violence and machismo, and headed nowhere fast. Everyone's on the take and on the prowl. It's a place where declining an offer to get drunk can get you killed. And so can accepting one. It's a good read, and I recommend it to you.

So what do you recommend for me? If you could suggest just one book for me to read in the next couple of weeks, what would it be? Nominations are now open. Hit me up.

When I heard that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, I was surprised and frankly a little cynical about it. It seemed premature, to say the least. I twittered the following: Nobel Peace Prize Committee: Jeez, we need to reward America for electing a cool guy and dumping Bush. WIN.

Ha ha. See, I was suggesting that the Nobel Prize Committee might have given the prize gratuitously rather than strictly on merit. I'm cynical that way, sometimes.

A few moments later, I passed along the following tweet that came my way: So it's easier to get a Nobel prize than an honorary degree at Arizona State?

Funny, I thought. A little irony regarding how "prizes" are often awarded for subjective and politically motivated reasons.

Then, perhaps foolishly, I started reading posts from conservatives trashing Obama and the Nobel committee, the typical "if Obama does it, it sucks donkeys" drivel. Bitter, angry, etc. The rhetoric was coming from the usual suspects, the same people who led the cheering when Obama failed to get the Olympic bid for the U.S. Some of it was quite venomous, much of it over the top. Remember, Obama didn't go out and pay off somebody to win the Nobel Peace Prize. They selected HIM. Trying to win the Olympics for your country has never been seen as a bad thing before, as far as I know. Suddenly, it is.

So I twittered this: Right wing cheers Olympic fail, boos Nobel win. What's next? Rooting for Sasha to get the flu? Hoping the new dog dies? These ppl are sick.

And, within moments I got the following from a local conservative blogger: LOL. "Why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam in thine own eye?" There was also a link to a Michelle Malkin post that detailed all the hateful stuff liberals used to say about George Bush.

Sigh. I wanted to respond, but starting a 140-character political argument, like I said, is just stupid. So I didn't. I guess that's what blogs are for. So here goes:

If George Bush had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I would have been surprised, appalled, and, yes, cynical. When Obama won, I was surprised and cynical. If George Bush had gone overseas to try and win the Olympic Games for the U.S., I can confidently say I wouldn't have cheered if he had failed, though I have no doubt that there are some on the left who would have.

Suggesting that because I criticized those who are irresponsibly demonizing Obama that I am somehow responsible for those who irresponsibly demonized Bush is a stupid argument. It's like suggesting that because the Taliban and al Queda are also saying Obama doesn't deserve the prize, right-wingers are in league with them.

Bottom line: There is no beam in my eye. Not even a splinter.

This is true genius marketing. It really hits my generation where we live. It's that kind of insouciant ironic approach that we love. Sure, iPhone seems to be saying, we could check email or organize our photos or find Tokyo on a map or catch a cab or count calories or check ski conditions in Vail, but hell, what's the hurry? Relax. The iPhone will always be there later. Just take a nap!

I'm definitely getting one of those things! Right after my nap.

AC Wharton (1161 followers) is a businesslike Twitterer, announcing his appearances, thanking supporters, etc. Many of the tweets are done by staff. All words are spelled correctly with proper punctuation. Like so: "Looking forward to taking part in the Rotary Debate on Tuesday, 10/6." Wharton uses Twitter as an efficient — but dull — tool.

Charles Carpenter's Tweets (350 followers) are minimalist as well, but not as frequent as Wharton's. Carpenter also eschews "text-speak", shortened spellings, etc. Not much personality is revealed. Ditto Carol Chumney, (118 followers) who is an infrequent and boring Twitterer.

Myron Lowery (390 followers) uses Twitter similarly to Wharton, but links frequently to favorable media articles. While his Tweets aren't exactly personable, one gets the sense that Myron does his own Tweets, a la: "CNN has published my views on the fist bump with the Dalai Lama. http://bit.ly/DHuch"

Then we get to the Boss of Twitter among the candidates: Rev. Kenneth Whalum Jr. (304 followers) Whalum is a BIG FAN of all-caps, exclamation points, and text-speak. He is by far the most entertaining of the legitimate candidates. He presents himself as a RENEGADE who's leading the campaign for a MEMPHIS MIRACLE! He's a prolific Twitter user. He's also thin-skinned and prone to arguing with and blocking those who disagree with him. Whalum (or as I like to call him, WHALUM!!!) likes to complain about the media's biased coverage and being left out of Channel 3's debate. He exhorts his 300 or so followers with inspirational Biblical quotes and compares himself to Moses, Gideon, Maya Angelou, and other notables. Whalum would be a volatile but entertaining mayor, if his Tweets are any indication. He's sometimes witty, but more often over-the-top, and borderline manic. You can't ignore him. Definitely a hands-on kind of guy.

""Rumble young Man, RUMBLE!" BTW, I'd wear the "frontrunner OUT in a REAL debate!"

"MAN I'm upsetting some status quo folks today! To paraphrase Maya Angelou: "Don't let my haughtiness offend you." It's called INDEPENDENCE"

Like I said, FUN!

But the MOST fun is pseudo-Twitter candidate FakeMongo, imitator of candidate Prince Mongo (228 followers). After Lowery's ill-advised fist-bump with the Dalai Lama, FakeMongo tweeted: "If I met the Lama, I wouldn't greet him with crude gestures. I'd do the honorable thing and extend him the Zambodian penis of friendship."

That's only one example of the twisted madness of this anonymous wit. I don't know who he is. I'm not sure I even want to know. (Yes, I do.) But you have to admire the man's comic genius. I just hope he hangs around after the election. A few more examples:

"Says here in the city bylaws the mayor has to wear a shirt at all public events where booze is served. Checkmate, Mr. Lawler."

"Show me on the doll where the mayor touched you, Mr. Lama."

"Enjoying some flash-frozen gamma locust with Severed Head of Charles Carpenter. Wish we had some honey mustard for dipping!"

Gotta love this guy. I almost wish I could vote for him.

"Bruce," she says, "you need to get a reporter and a photographer down to Tom Lee Park in the next 15 minutes."

"Why?" I ask.

"I can't tell you, but it's big, trust me." And she's gone.

So I send out a call for a reporter to check out what's up at Tom Lee. Chris Davis volunteers. He texts me a few minutes later that there are lots of cop cars and that the rumor is that the Dalai Lama is about to appear. It was around lunchtime, so I got on the company intercom, announced the Dalai Lama was soon to be in our neighborhood, and if anyone wanted to say, "Hello, Dalai," now was their chance.

"Hello, Dalai," is, of course, the most obvious and overused joke about the Dalai Lama. I said it ironically, okay?

Apparently Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery thought this joke was somehow original, and somehow a good idea to try out on the Dalai Lama himself. So when introduced to his holiness, Myron babbled something about a fistbump being a local tradition (really?) and started awkwardly forcing his fist at the DL, saying "I've always wanted to say this: HELLO DALAI!"

• Chris Davis
• Mayor Wharton, Mayor pro tem Lowery, the Dalai Lama, and Linn Sittler

Get ready Myron, you're probably going to make the Daily Show, David Letterman, Keith Olbermann, etc. in the next 24 hours. After that, you will live on Youtube.com forever and ever. Yep, the Mayor Pro Tem is fixin' to get his 15 minutes, and he ain't gonna like it much. This clip is going get played and played (The Flyer will have one up by Davis later today.), and it will probably destroy what little shot he had at the mayor's office. Surprisingly, we Memphians still like a little dignity in our public officials, especially after the Herenton clown-show of recent years.

I did hear that Myron and his advisers had been thinking about trying to chest bump the Dalai Lama, but decided to save it for the Pope.

I was watching the president's healthcare speech from home and Tweeting casually about it, along with a number of other local Twits, some in journalism, some not.

• Joe Wilson

When Wilson shouted "You lie," several people tweeted, "Did someone just call the president a liar?" Who was it? Everyone wanted to know. Within seconds, we did know. The culprit had been identified on CNN and his identity tweeted to millions. Within minutes, Wilson's Wikipedia entry had been updated to include the shout in his bio. Wilson's Twitter and email addresses were sent out and thousands of people began sending him messages demanding he apologize. Within 15 minutes, the name, address, website, and phone number of Wilson's opponent in the 2010 Congressional election had been spread around the blogosphere. Within 8 hours, more than $400,000 had been pledged to him.

So many website URLs about Wilson's background were sent out via email and Twitter, that within a half hour I'd learned more about an obscure South Carolina congressman's history and record than I know about my own representative's. And this was a man I'd never heard of a half-hour earlier.

Wilson had to change his Twitter account. He quickly apologized, more or less, for his actions. The next day, he appeared on Fox News, where he received sympathy and understanding as only Sean Hannity can deliver it. Rush Limbaugh, predictably, offered his support. On the opposite side of the spectrum, on MSNBC, Keith Olbermann did a typically histrionic "special comment" on Wilson, elevating the man and his moment of stupidity to even higher planes of outrage.

Let's review: Within 24 hours, South Carolina representative Joe Wilson went from an absolute nonentity on the national radar to a household name. His opponent now has twice as much as money to campaign with as Wilson does. A national campaign to unseat him has been put into motion. Millions of people think he's an ungracious ass.

Fifty years ago, Wilson's outburst might have been reported in the morning paper. A few of his colleagues might have insisted he apologize, which would have been duly reported over the next day or so. Most people would never have heard about it or cared, if they had. Now, we're all connected, like bees in a cyber-hive. Consequences come quick and hard. Public — and even private — stupidity is much more difficult to get away with.

That's a good thing, right?

Hello everyone — how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday — at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world — and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer — maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper — but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor — maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine — but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life — I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that — if you quit on school — you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school.

That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you.

Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer — hundreds of extra hours — to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education — and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you — you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust — a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor — and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you — don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down — don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Memphis is no different. To our huge native legion of cynics, we're "the most racist city;" our politicians are all greedy crooks, our crime problem is the worst in America, etc. etc. (Often, the folks making these remarks are the ones who proudly write letters to the paper about how they've "escaped" to Fayette or DeSoto or Tipton counties. I think they're just lonely out there.)

At any rate, I was reminded of our universal provincialism when I read this article, about how Atlanta, a majority black city, like Memphis, may elect a white mayor for the first time in many years. My first reaction was, HA! See, racial politics — just like Memphis. And, yes, the article does point out how some black leaders are calling on one black candidate to drop out, to help assure that the mayor's office stays in the hands of an African American. But what really struck me were the following paragraphs:

And while blacks have been the majority population and voting bloc in the city for decades, the demographics have changed in recent years.

"You have a young generation of blacks — not native to Atlanta — who don't necessarily see that as something that has to happen," Boone said. "They may be staking their vote on matters more critical than race."

This information truly gives me hope. If Atlanta can finally get past racial politics, so can Memphis. If Atlanta can lure young professionals, black and white, back into the city, so can Memphis. If Atlanta can get beyond "racial-majority rules" politics, so can Memphis. Can't we?

Just as we look back and are appalled at the firehoses and bombings and injustices endured by those struggling for civil rights in the '60s, I think the next generation will look back and be appalled at the racial stupidity of the Herenton/ThaddeusMatthews/MikeFleming/SidneyChism/etc. era, when the struggle was all about which skin color gets to wield political power. It won't happen overnight, but Herenton's retirement — if the stars are with us — will at least help stem the unbridled cronyism and attendent cynicism of the past few years. Then, it would help if we could elect a mayor who would govern and hire solely on the basis of competence and the best interest of the electorate. After that, the sky's the limit.

I hope.

These are my personal opinions. Take them for what you will.

Lowlights: The utterly embarrassing performance of Sharon Webb, who appeared to be on heavy tranquilizers and unfit for any office; Prince Mongo's proposals to give every citizen an UZI, put comic books in the library, and "flush the political turds down the toilet"; Jerry Lawler's continuing insistance that he isn't a politician; Kenneth Whalum's weird suit, winks, refusal to speak of the incident at his church, and his comment that he "hates religion." Just weird.

• Sharon Webb

Quick impressions:
Halbert appeared stiff, answers canned. Not at ease.
Chumney seemed flinty and tough, but not so likeable. Very blinky.
Carpenter: smart, well-spoken, but probably a non-entity in final shakeout.
Lowery: Seems a little prissy, but gave the most substantive answers IMO.
Wharton: better than "tapioca," did nothing to hurt himself as front-runner

If I were producing this reality show, Mongo and Webb would be kicked off the island before the next debate.

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