One of the most famous lines in the English language is actually of Scottish derivation, via the poetry of Robert Burns. As transliterated: “Oh, would some Power the giftee give us, to see ourselves as others see us.” We would recommend that maxim to the cadres of the two major political parties, both of which […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Two Parties, One Goal
The Memphis City Council and the Shelby County Commission are 13-member bodies that meet with regularity, both in full session and in committee meetings. The way in which they both have come to operate might constitute a lesson of sorts to other legislative bodies supposedly higher up the chain of government. By that, of course, […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Tennessee’s Healthcare System: Forced Into a Corner
Imagine the predicament on Tuesday of Wendy Long, director of Health Care Finance and Administration for the state of Tennessee, as well as, crucially, director of the state’s TennCare program, Tennessee’s version of Medicaid. Long, also a physician, was the scheduled luncheon speaker of the Rotary Club of Memphis at the Universitry Club, and, if […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Remembering Leonard Gill
There is a sense in which the larger community of letters is a polity of sorts, or at the very least a spiritual institution that transcends particular parochial venues. So it is then that the unexpected passing of former Flyer writer and editor Leonard Gill this week is being mourned everywhere in Memphis and its […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
A Call to Arms on Health Care
It was a heck of a party, jammed to the rafters and brimming with overflow energy. The only problem was that the chief invited guests were a no-show, though no one was much surprised by that. We’re talking about last Saturday’s town hall on health care at the IBEW union hall on Madison, sponsored by […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Making Waves at Shelby County Commission
Changes in national government always cause adjustments on the part of local governments, in the same way that dropping a pebble on the surface of a settled body of water prompts ripples outward. But the most recent change from the Democratic presidency of Obama to the Republican administration of Trump has generated more than the […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Go Ask Alice
The popular sense of the word “schizophrenia” is that it denotes a condition of split identity. Clinically, it is regarded with more complexity, as “a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Complicated Change
A snag developed Monday in the Shelby County Commission’s twin initiatives to increase the number of county contracts with locally owned small businesses (LOSB, in governmental shorthand) and with those owned by women or minority entrepreneurs (MWBE, for Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises). A single contract dispute threatens both well-intentioned objectives. It involves the question […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Heavy Weather: The Politics of Climate Change
There is a serious argument to be made that the most important recent development on the national political scene is not the ongoing and inexorable rush to judgment on the troubling Russophilic foibles of President Donald J. Trump, a Barnum- like figure who seems more and more out of his element, even dangerously so. That […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Arkansas Goes to Pot
On November 8, 2016, 53 percent of Arkansas voters approved Issue 6, a medical marijuana initiative. The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment enables Arkansans to use and safely obtain medical marijuana with their doctors’ approval. The amendment establishes between four and eight cultivation facility licenses and up to 40 dispensaries statewide, all regulated by the Alcoholic […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
Remembering Irvin Salky: One of a Kind
There will be — indeed, there already have been — major statesmen, captains of industry, stars of stage and screen, inventors, wizards, and saints who come and go in this world without leaving the kind of imprint on their environment and on humankind that Irvin Salky did. Irvin Salky The diminutive 75-year-old genie — a […]
Posted inEditorial, Opinion
The Russians and Hacking the Vote
There was some familiar fallout from this week’s special hearing of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee at which former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates testified about her repeated warnings early this year to the White House about the compromised position of then National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn vis-à-vis his relations with Russia. The major fallout […]