Fly on the Wall
by Chris Davis
Don't Go There
Since last year's sixth-place finish, Memphis has fallen two places on CQ Press' annual list of America's most dangerous cities. The study measures murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries, and aggravated assaults, as well as car thefts, but not everyone is convinced that the methodology is accurate. WREG News Channel 3 cited Richard Janikowski, the director of the Center of Community Criminology and Research for the University of Memphis, as saying there is no way of knowing how CQ determines results.
Citing expert opinion isn't enough for WREG, which also gathered some "man on the street commentary" from a pair of Memphians who claimed that Memphis couldn't be more dangerous than Compton, California, a city ranked lower than Memphis on CQ's list. Nobody bothered to explain why Compton is necessarily more dangerous than Memphis, though it's probably fair to assume that, even though Compton-based hip-hop group N.W.A. doesn't have an Oscar, they've sold more CDs than Three 6 Mafia.
On the Mike
Speaking of station WREG, reporter Mike Matthews recently referred to the brouhaha over whether or not to serve alcohol in strip clubs as "a tempest in a D cup." Salute!
Fatheads
Remember a couple of weeks ago when Forbes determined that Memphis was the most sedentary city in America? Well Kristtv.com out of Corpus Christi, Texas, must have had a slow news day because they've repeated Forbes' report in a story slugged "America's laziest cities." Of course, in the digital age one can be both sedentary and industrious so Corpus Christi needs to shut its pie hole. We're also the eighth most dangerous city in America. And for that matter, Forbes and CQ need to shut it, too. Now watch us sit here and eat these ribs, bitches.
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