When Governor Bill Haslam gave his final State of the State address in Nashville on Monday night, he accentuated the positive, not unexpectedly. Haslam cited figures relating to job growth and educational achievement that seemed indeed to indicate a measure of progress. And, while his boast of having cut taxes is somewhat undermined — as […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
DACA Dilemma
The nation has just witnessed another orgy of political partisanship on steroids — the 69-hour governmental shutdown resulting from a standoff between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, with the GOP members carrying water for the immigration hardliners in President Donald Trump’s White House. The ostensible issues involved in the standoff were hardly trivial, with congressional […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Memphis: Becoming a Real City of Good Abode
I Am A Man Plaza Well, this new year isn’t going to start the way things did 50 years ago. Mayor Jim Strickland’s communications director, Ursula Madden, made that clear Tuesday in remarks to a luncheon of the Rotary Club of Memphis at Clayborn Temple — the venerable edifice that served as a point of […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Statue Removal Process Sets Wrong Precedent
Forrest and his wife still remain buried where the statue once stood Dawn’s first light of 2018 found two empty pedestals where symbols of oppression once stood — and in their place, fresh concerns have grown about the method and processes that emptied them. Officials at the highest levels of local government toiled in secret […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Free At Last
Minutes before Nathan Bedford Forrest’s statue was removed from Health Sciences Park So they are gone now — finally — the misguided memorials to Nathan Bedford Forrest, soldier, KKK leader, and slave trader, and Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Their images have been removed, not by outside edict — in fact, contrary to outside […]
Posted inFood & Drink, Hungry Memphis
Hattie B’s Opening in April
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Hattie B’s, the hot chicken Nashville chain, had originally hoped to open this fall. They’ve since reset their sights to early April.
Construction of the space on Cooper includes new plumbing, HVAC, and electrical. The restaurant will have seating for 126, with seating for 60 outdoors.
“We are so excited about our Memphis opening in early spring. It’s such an honor for all of us at Hattie B’s to be a part of the community, and we look forward to seeing our many Memphis friends and meeting new hot chicken lovers real soon,” says Nick Bishop Sr., co-owner of Hattie B’s Hot Chicken.
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Zach Wamp Redux
Tennessee Republicans who, eight years ago, were faced with choosing between candidates for governor, may remember one Zach Wamp, then a U.S. Congressman from Chattanooga, who ran in a stoutly contested Republican gubernatorial primary against Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey and Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, the ultimate winner of both the GOP primary and the general […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Help From Abroad on Climate Change
While Trump is spurning world opinion on climate change, the French have come to the rescue with — wait for it — “Make Our Planet Great Again!”
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Undermining the Public Will
We live in a time when elected officials and bodies seem determined to ignore the will of the populations they have been elected to represent. This phenomenon is observable in every governmental sphere — state, local, and national — and it threatens the democratic principle in the abstract and strikes at the core of our […]
Posted inNews, The Fly-By
Fly on the Wall 1501
Space Bus According to The Daily Star, a daily tabloid newspaper published in the U.K., a recent “raft of UFO sightings included a “flying bus” over Mississippi. The Mississippi couple who saw the skybus dismissed the sighting, believing the craft to be “some secret military aircraft probably headed to Memphis.” Weird Wrestling Last week, thesportster.com, […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Fairer Sex
As becomes increasingly obvious, we are unmistakably in the middle of a sea change apropos relations between the sexes. That “we” clearly refers to the corridors of power in politics, media, entertainment, and elsewhere. And by the sexes, we mean something beyond the erstwhile binary sense of the word. It is obvious, in this polymorphing […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Happy Jones: Memphis Activist
Memphis lost one of its most valuable citizens Thursday when Dorothy Jones, better known to family, friends, and the world at large as “Happy,” passed away at the age of 80. Happy Jones was born a member of the socially prominent Snowden family but, like her late sisters, Sally and Edie, embraced society in the […]