With so much attention focused on the overriding drama of the Clinton-Trump presidential race, relatively scant attention was paid in many quarters to developments on the Tennessee political scene. Though it was always highly unlikely — oh, let’s call it impossible — that the current Republican super-majority in the General Assembly would be appreciably modified, […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Trump/Clinton: Chaos vs. Competence
Two flawed candidates approach an electoral day of reckoning that only one of them will survive.
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Memphis’ Big River Crossing is a Game-Changer
bigrivercrossing.com As is well known, the city of Memphis sprawls a good bit. In fact, we are used to hearing politicians contend that, area-wise, Memphis is larger than Chicago, although that claim has an apocryphal ring to anyone who has driven through the Windy City from north to south. It is undeniable, though, that over […]
Posted inNews, The Fly-By
Fly on the Wall 1443
Chicken Issue In case the cover wasn’t a dead giveaway, this is the Memphis Flyer’s “Chicken Issue,” with a cover package devoted to all kinds of fowl play. So it’s probably appropriate — or maybe wildly inappropriate — to draw readers’ attention to a drama that unfolded on Jackson last week that demonstrates just how […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Tubby Smith: A Proven Leader
It seems entirely appropriate that, at a time when we are confronted with the need to choose a national leader, we should have fresh examples of leadership in our midst. Such was the case Tuesday on the occasion of the regular Tuesday luncheon of the Rotary Club of Memphis, when the speaking guest was one Tubby […]
Posted inNews, The Fly-By
TVA Wells, Old Neil’s Site, Bad Lawyer
TVA wells appealed The TVA’s old Allen coal plant The Sierra Club is appealing two permits issued from the Shelby County Health Department to the Tennessee Valley Authority that will allow them to drill into crystalline sand aquifers in order to syphon cooling water for a power plant currently under construction in Southwest Memphis. TVA has filed five permits for […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Crime Commission Offers Fresh Perspective on Shelby County Crime
It is much too early to draw definitive conclusions about the work of the newly revivified Memphis Crime Commission, headed now by Bill Gibbons, who formerly served as district attorney general and has returned to Memphis from his most recent post in Nashville as state commissioner of Public Safety and Homeland Security. Certainly there were good […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
First Debate Was More Heat Than Light
About that presidential debate Monday night: What happened to the pre-ordained and carefully described format of what were to have been six carefully separate segments of 15 minutes each on as many different subjects? It dissolved, that’s what, into a free-flowing game of the Dozens in which Democrat Hillary Clinton artfully baited Republican Donald Trump, matador-style, into […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
TBI Director Gwyn Briefs Memphis Rotary
Among the most intriguing revelations made to members of the Rotary Club of Memphis on Tuesday by Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director Mark Gwyn was that the T.B.I., the Volunteer State’s equivalent of the F.B.I., originated in a newsman’s imagination. TBI Director Mark Gwyn This was John M. Jones, the longtime publisher of the East Tennessee […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Special Session Politics in Nashville
TN General Assembly Special Session meets to fix DUI law and expel Rep. Jeremy Durham
Posted inNews, The Fly-By
Fly on the Wall 1437
Bacon Bits Last week, crummy criminal Martene Stewart called 9-1-1 to report that her purse was snatched by employees at SuperLo Foods as she attempted to run out of the store with a purse full of stolen bacon. Stewart was subsequently arrested for theft of property under $500. Almost Famous Curry Todd may have lost […]
Posted inLetters To The Editor, Opinion
What They Said…
Greg Cravens About Bianca Phillips’ post, “OUTMemphis is New Name for MGLCC” … Please don’t change it again. These tattoo do-overs are both time consuming and painful. Long Duck Dong About Bryce Ashby and Michael LaRosa’s Viewpoint, “The Seismic Shift in Voting Demographics” … To a substantial degree, individuals are products of their race/ethnicity. It […]