Downtown Memphis Blog

First, I would like to say it’s great that the atm door is locked by a cardreader that requires you to swipe your debit card, and doesn’t fucking work.

Also, I’d like to thank you for posting a sign that says “All deposits after 3pm will post the next business day” but not including “unless you make your ATM deposit after some undefined point in time at which we collect the day’s deposits, so don’t deposit all of your cash other than $20, because the next day you will be wondering why you have $9 in checking despite depositing close to $1000 in cash the previous night”

Nothing better than having to call your parents and borrow some cash when you’re 26 years old.

http://www.wmcstations.com/Global/story.asp?S=8307997

Reported by Anna Marie Hartman
Memphis quits The First 48

Updated: May 11, 2008 11:17 PM
Internet Insider
The First 48 on A & E network
News

The City of Memphis and A & E network’s The First 48 have decided to call it quits.

Audiences around the country have grown to love Memphis homicide detectives featured on the real life crime drama.

Executive producer Laura Fleury says that after several years spotlighting crime investigations in Memphis, the city suddenly decided to suspend their agreement with the A & E network.

“I really have no idea. I mean the people of Memphis seem to love it,” said Fleury.

Fleury says Memphis is one of the favorite featured cities with The First 48 audience members nationwide. But sources within the Memphis Police Department say homicide detectives need a break.

City leaders like council member Wanda Halbert say Memphis needs a break from the negative publicity. Though she appreciates the exposure to MPD’s diligent detective work, Halbert worries about the popular program’s effect on would-be visitors to the Bluff City.

“Memphis is not unlike any other urban city where we have our challenges, but it’s certainly a great place to live, and we want to advocate that to others and encourage them to visit our city,” said Halbert.

Producers say the show has had a positive impact by showcasing the diligent work of detectives and how they interact with the community to solve cases. They say the community is much more motivated to come forward and provide information as a result of the program.

“We love filming in Memphis for a lot of reasons, one because they are a terrific police department very dedicated to solving their cases,” said Fleury.

Show producers say the city is still in discussions with the network, and they hope to resume their working relationship with the Memphis Police Department in the future.

I just sent my feelings to memphispolice.org:

I applaud the Memphis Police Department’s decision to stop working with A&E on the documentary show The First 48. I wouldn’t want you to break the protocol of ignoring the crime problem in Memphis as opposed to actually addressing it.

Mikel Sigler

I forgot to post this from MusicFest weekend.

So, I’ve been kinda MIA because I made the mistake of deciding to update my old desktop with a fresh XP install. I wrestled with BIOS versions, USB keyboard issues, and a million other things, but I finally got it updated with the latest BIOS and a version of XP Pro SP3 stripped down with nLite.
SP3 seems to boot a lot faster, but that could be because my XP install was ~3.5 years old, the format likely helped a lot too. I’m about to install Ubuntu as well, I already have on my laptop and it seems ok, a little complicated for simple shit, but very customizable, so I’ll give it a shot.

In local news, pay attention to West Memphis 3 news, it’s about to start developing.

I finally got around to trying Flying Fish last night after living within blocks for the entire year or so it’s been open. Since I’ve never eaten there, I decided to just go with their “specialty” and got the fried catfish fillet dinner with fries and hush puppies. I called in my order, walked down there, and it was ready. The catfish was about as good as fried catfish gets. It was surprisingly free of grease (as far as deep fried bottom feeders go). The fries were good, and didn’t have the fishy taste that everything in some fish places get. I wasn’t a big fan of the hush puppies, they were almost sweet, really strange. I’ll definitely eat there again, I’ll just sub something for the hush puppies. I was starving, and didn’t notice that my camera battery was completely dead until i got home with the food, and I sure as fuck wasn’t waiting. I’ll edit this post with a picture next time I get food there. In the meantime, here’s a stock image from their website.

I mean, that must be the case if we have the time, money, and resources to devote to legislation as to which parts of titties are allowed to be seen in strip clubs. Pending legislation would change the rules for strip clubs, including banning the sale of alcohol, requiring dancers to remain six feet from customers and other dancers, and banning full exposure of breasts, essentially requiring topless dancers to wear pasties. Titties = Serious business. Give me a fucking break. Let’s try and move out of the top 20 cities for crime per capita, then we’ll concern ourselves with anatomical breasticular legality.

The ordinance, which also requires dancers to stay 6 feet from customers and from one another during performances, aims “to destroy, and will destroy the market for live adult entertainment in the City of Memphis,” the suit contends.

I have no legal credentials, but IMO they have a pretty good case. Topless dancing/gentleman’s clubs/adult entertainment is a legal business, and the city, state, and county all make money hand over fist on permits and taxes for these businesses. Making most aspects of their business model illegal seems to directly infringe on their legal right to conduct business.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of strip clubs. I’ve never really understood the allure, unless you’re horrifically ugly. Most any decent looking guy with any hint of a personality can likely go to a bar, buy a couple of drinks and have a real chance of not only talking to a girl but actually sleeping with her. I’ve been to a strip club less than 5 times in my life, and each time was a birthday or bachelor party for someone else. That said, I think the recent legislation is pseudo-puritanical bullshit. Take their money for decades and give them shit the whole time for operating a business for which you granted a business license and make plenty of money on the tax revenues.

I’d be interested in averaging the salaries of the people involved in this legislation and finding out how much time was spent on the matter in order to get a rough approximation of how much we’re paying to have our government tell us which parts of funbags are acceptable. I think I have a new project for tomorrow.

So I went to go grab some stuff from walgreens late Friday night/saturday morning, and had to go to midtown because the fucking downtown walgreens closes at sundown.

So I get to the walgreens at Poplar and McLean, and they have a sign on the door that says “Temporarily closed due to power outage”, yet the power was on. I guess maybe it knocked out their computers. Anyway, I finally found an open Walgreen’s at Highland and Park, grabbed my shit, and headed back home. I took highland down to central, then was cutting down Cooper to Union. I noticed a car on the southbound side of the road that looked like it was pulled up kinda facing the curb. I thought it was a cop shining his lights on something at first.

I got closer and noticed it was clearly wrecked, pretty solid hit into the light pole. The door was open, but I couldn’t tell if anyone was inside. There was a car coming on that side of the road, and they pulled over, so I figured I would just call it in and keep going. I called 911 and told them a car had hit a pole, someone else had stopped to check it out, and I didn’t know anything else.

I turned on Union toward downtown and got a few blocks, and started to feel bad for not stopping, so I make a huge block, down McLean to Central, and then back to Cooper. Car still sitting there, no one inside or around. 14 minutes had passed, still no cops there. I took a shitty cell phone pic and left.

Does anyone really think shitty puns like “Club Fed” are funny or clever? Jesus fuck man, just stop.

And he likes doritos.

Particularly the way the local media is covering it.

Law Enforcement Crackdown on Terrorists

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FAST FACTS:

• Operation Sudden Impact rounds up suspects
• Officers say the raid can also help identify possible terrorists
• Shelby County Sheriff’s Department calls the multi-agency force a success

april.thompson@wreg.com

(Memphis 4/14/2008) Traveling around Memphis, you probably don’t think much about terrorists, but law officers do.

It was front and center stage at a round up Saturday.

Operation Sudden Impact included police, deputies, FBI, drug agents, and even gang units all working together to see how crimes may be linked.

“People committing crimes down in Crittenden County might have some kind of warrant and we might be looking for them in Shelby County. We in turn feed that information into state police, which can give us a national and international nexus if one exists.” says Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell.

He says terrorist usually have other links and because Memphis is a distribution center, it has to be especially on guard. That includes the waterways.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Memphis was a part of Saturday’s round-up, checking a boat on the river.

“We look at everything, the safety of the tow boat in general. We also check out the crew members, just to make sure there is nobody hiding out on the tow boat, felons, criminals etc.” says Lt. Timothy Martin of the U.S. Coast Guard in Memphis.

They say sharing information and building relationships, is a big step in fighting back against those intent on harm.

The Sheriff’s Department says 332 people were arrested, 142 of whom are were fugitives.

Hundreds of dollars were seized, and drugs recovered.

1,292 traffic violations were handed out.

They are determining if and when they plan another round-up.

Link, not sure if it’s a permalink, hence my quoting the article.

Let’s start with the title. “Law enforcement crackdown on TERRORISTS!”

Not criminals, not fugitives, TERRORISTS!

“He says terrorist usually have other links and because Memphis is a distribution center, it has to be especially on guard. That includes the waterways.”

We’ll just ignore the atrocious grammar and stick with criticizing the content: There’s no evidence they’ve caught any “terrorist” at all. I’m not saying that I doubt the fact that Memphis is a potential target, but the whole goddamn thing is a little too McCarthy for me. “Be on guard!” “Keep an eye out!” “Report suspicious activity!”

Isn’t fear mongering the basic reason that terrorism works? I’m not suggesting we lie down and take it, but over-reacting and sacrificing our basic ideals doesn’t seem like a very good solution either. I don’t see the point of branding what is essentially a solid regional crime crackdown as part of “The War on Terror”.