Blake’s Blog

Now it all becomes clear.

For months, there have been rumors that Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton plans to step down before his current term ends. For his critics, that can’t happen soon enough.

Well, at an education summit that’s going on today, Herenton suggested that Memphis and Shelby County government could be consolidated if the city surrenders its charter.

So there it is.

Herenton will quit when the rest of city government does.

Just what the heck is going on in the Fayette County town of Oakland?

I couldn’t help but ask that, after reading a story over the weekend about how the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into the alleged death of one of the town’s police dogs.

According to Oakland Mayor Bill Mullins, a police dog named Kit was run over by a car about four years ago during a training operation in Bolivar. Mullins said the police officers handling the dog returned to Oakland with nothing but a bloody collar and a leash.

Without going into specifics, the TBI disagreed, saying Kit had been found alive.

Since there’s $5,000 worth of insurance money involved, I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of this.

But, like I said, what the heck?

It’s not like this dog went sailing aboard a yacht and got lost at sea under mysterious circumstances. If Kit was in fact hit by a car, wasn’t there a carcass to recover? Please don’t tell me the cops just left the dog’s body by the side of the road.

If the TBI has found the dog, I wonder where it is today. Is it in witness protection or what?

People frequently talk about the amount of corruption in Memphis politics, often for valid reasons. But if Oakland cops faked a dog’s death to collect the insurance money, that should demonstrate that small town government types can be ever bit as crooked as their big city counterparts.

Uh-oh.

I’m not sure I like where this is headed.

On Tuesday night, the Los Angeles City Council put a ban on new fast food restaurants in one of the city’s impoverished southern neighborhoods.

Then yesterday, Dunkin’ Donuts announced plans to start serving some healthier menu options, like egg-white flatbread sandwiches, at its restaurants across the country.

(As Homer Simpson would say: "Mmmm. Egg-white flatbread sandwiches….")

Clearly, if there’s a healthy eating craze sweeping the nation, the consequences here in Memphis could be quite dire.

How dire?

Imagine next year’s Memphis in May barbecue cooking contest, only with smoked turkey instead of pork.

It could happen.

Oh, the indignity of it all.

Bob Tuke, one of the Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Lamar Alexander, got caught in traffic on Interstate 240 on his way to a meeting with me this morning.

He arrived only a few minutes late, after taking a detour that wasn’t entirely comfortable for him.

The street he detoured onto happened to be Lamar.

Poor John McCain.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee is taking some heat because yesterday in a speech he referred to the ongoing state of relations between Russia and Czechoslovakia.

Which is mildly embarrassing since Czechoslovakia hasn’t existed as a single country in more than a decade.

Oh well. On the bright side, I can see McCain winning a lot of votes with people around here who still refer to Southwest Tennessee Community College as "Shelby State."

And the people who still call the University of Memphis "Memphis State."

And almost certainly the people who still refer to Rhodes College as "Southwestern."

It’s nice to see that Memphis city officials have come to some sort of agreement with the Canadian National Railway about fixing a sinkhole that has disrupted passenger train service at Central Station for weeks.

(As our editorial page recently suggested that they should, I might add.)

So who says our city leaders don’t know how to sling a little dirt when they have to?

Walls, Mississippi may only be a few minutes away from Memphis by car, but it seems to occupy another world politically.

According to a story in today’s newspaper, Walls Mayor Gene Alday cuts grass on public property around town because the city doesn’t have money to hire anyone else to do it.

And he’s not the only one. The deputy town clerk and aldermen also help out with landscaping and maintenance work.

I’m trying very hard to visualize Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and City Council members mowing medians and clearing overgrown vacant lots, but it’s just not coming to me.

However if Memphis’ elected officials are serious about cutting Herenton’s proposed budget for next year, that’s certainly something they could consider.

Tennessee legislators have come to their senses on the issue of carding beer buyers. Well, almost.

A year ago, they passed a law requiring grocery and convenience stores to request IDs of everyone buying beer, no matter whether the prospective buyers were obviously of legal drinking age or not.

The law was set to expire July 1. But now it’ll be extended with one big change: It’s no longer necessary to require identification of anyone who appears to be 50 or older.

Great, just great.

For a while after I reached my 21st birthday, it made me mad whenever I got carded. Didn’t I look old enough?

Then, as I got closer and closer to my middle-aged years, getting carded seemed more like a compliment. Looking youthful seemed (and still seems) like a good thing.

But under this new legislation, if I DON'T get carded, it’ll mean that I look a lot older (OK, somewhat older) than I actually am.

Seems like common sense ought to factor into the equation somewhere. Then again, maybe that’s just too much to ask.

How could Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton even think about resigning when he’s so close to being on top of the world?

I’m referring, of course, to the competition for the 2008 World Mayor Award, for which Herenton is one of the finalists.

Voters can cast ballots for their favorite among the finalists online at www.worldmayor.com through the end of June.

But will some of Herenton’s supporters still be inclined to vote for him, if there’s a chance he won’t even be a mayor a month later?

What an international scandal that would be, if the best mayor in the world was too fed up to finish out his last term in office.

On the other hand, the uncertainty over Herenton’s future plans could be just the break that Eleni Mavrou, the mayor of Nicosia, Cyprus, has needed.

Mavrou would rather be mayor than superintendent of Nicosia City Schools. At least as far as we know.

U.S. Attorney David Kustoff has a serious job, but he’s not above making a joke or two every now and then.

Kustoff, who has announced plans to step down from his post later this year, was part of a group of community leaders who met with our editorial board this morning to provide a progress report on Operation Safe Community, an anti-crime initiative.

A briefing on the initiative is scheduled for tomorrow morning. And Kustoff noted that Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton is scheduled to provide some closing remarks at that briefing.

"I think he may announce he’s interested in the soon-to-be-vacated U.S. attorney’s position," Kustoff quipped.

Think about that for a moment: U.S. Atty. Herenton.

The criminals wouldn’t be the only ones shuddering at that prospect.