This month’s How Appealing “20 Questions” interview is with Mississippi Supreme Court justice Kay Cobb of Oxford. It’s a fascinating interview, and Howard Bashman, as always, asks some pretty insightful questions.

Bill Hobbs has a post over at the Political State Report on an investigation into the contract between Tennessee and the Internet service provider that provides high-speed Internet access to 97% of Tennessee public schools, apparently part of a broader probe of the Sundquist administration's no-bid contracts with politically-connected companies. The Memphis Commercial Appeal has has a similar report.

Mike Hollihan of Half-Bakered has been tracking the evolution in the Grizzlies boycott story in the pages of the Commercial Appeal over the past few days. Having waged my own quixotic battles against the Memphis media in the past (both the divine ra-ra sisterhood of the CA — the URL isn't the boosterish “GoMemphis.com” for nothing — and the holier-than-thou Memphis Flyer), I certainly recognize the pattern.

Meanwhile, Bill Hobbs rhetorically asks why the Oak Ridge TABOR story isn't getting any traction. I think we all know the possible answers to that, at least from the CA's perspective (circle the ones you think apply):

• The CA doesn't want uppity Memphians — or heaven forbid, the dreaded suburban voters — getting any ideas about asking for a charter commission.

• The CA doesn't think any part of Tennessee exists east of Lebanon.

• The CA didn't receive a press release on it.

• The CA isn't as good a newspaper as their fellow Scripps-Howard rag, the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

• The CA can't figure out how to write one of its classic “we take absolutely no position on this issue, but feel like blathering on for several hundred words” editorials about it.

By the way, you can choose more than one option...

Mike circles all of the above, and adds some possible answers of his own for good measure, while Bill helpfully informs that the CA does at least know about the story, although it wasn't in the form of a press release so technically (c) is still on the table as a viable answer.

The Political State Report has added a new poster who's covering Mississippi politics, “JaxGenerals.” He's got an interesting post up today, part of a series on the upcoming statewide races, on how Haley Barbour has apparently cornered the primary field (note, however, that the field isn't closed until the end of Saturday; someone else could still slip in the primary). According to the Mississippi GOP, his only opponent in the primary is Mitchell H. “Mitch” Tyner.

Meanwhile, the current lists of Democratic and Republican primary candidates are up on the state parties' websites. It looks like the incumbent whose seat I'm running for has attracted some primary opposition, while I'm free and clear at the moment. As always, the Magnolia Political Report website should have the latest news.

According to the Daily Mississippian, Mid-South megaplex operator Malco has taken over the local movie theater (the ignorantly-punctuated “Cine’ 4”) and will turn the former Stage department store in the Oxford Mall into a new, modern eightplex.

Thursday's Oxford Eagle reports, in an article by Lucy Schultze (that won't stay online for more than a day, so I'm not going to bother with a link) that an additional ten screens are planned to be built by another developer at a new shopping center at Highway 7 and Sisk Avenue on the east side of town. The developer originally planned to work with Malco, but their purchase of the “Cine’ 4” (mercifully renamed “Cinema 4” on Malco's website) has apparently thrown a wrench into those plans.

Bill Hobbs passes on word from the Nashville Tennessean that Gov. Phil Bredesen is considering using gas tax dollars to balance the general fund budget. While I don't share Bill's enthusiasm for raiding highway funds, and think it would be counterproductive to start accruing debt to pay for highway construction and maintenance, I'll reiterate my position that it would be reasonable to fund the Highway Patrol out of the gasoline and diesel tax. TDOT also should seriously consider using its dormant legal authority to build toll roads in rapidly-growing areas.

Bill has a longer post at the Political State Report.

Kevin Raybould also has a post at PolState.com. Also, a minor correction: the Tennessee Tollway Authority was sunsetted on 30 June 2000 after the legislature failed to pass legislation to reauthorize it for six more years.

The New Albany Gazette has a lengthy article on plans by a group called MEGAPOP to have a high-speed fiber optic link in northern Mississippi, which would have points of presence in Oxford, Tupelo, Columbus, Starkville and Meridian, mostly using an existing unused (or “dark”) link for much of the backbone; most existing commercial links in this part of state go through Jackson (there are some non-commercial Internet2 connections from the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University, however). The backbone would connect to existing fiber links in Memphis and Meridian to provide high-speed Internet access to the rest of the world.

For your edification: MEGAPOP's website.

Jason Anderson at the Political State Report passes on word that new Alabama Gov. Bob Riley is proposing a partnership with Mississippi to alleviate poverty in his state's “black belt” (and presumably nearby counties in Mississippi).

While the political logic is sensible — as the Birmingham News points out, getting four U.S. senators on board is better than two — the geographic logic makes less sense, as the nearby parts of Mississippi aren't known for their poverty. The alliance may instead have more to do with Alabama's desire to build a westward extension of Interstate 85 from its current Montgomery terminus to the Alabama/Mississippi line east of Meridian, which would pass through a number of “black belt” counties. Perhaps things will be clearer when Gov. Riley provides more details.

Entering his twelfth year in office, Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton (or is it W.W. this week?) has finally proposed something that makes sense: abolishing the Memphis City Schools. Excuse me before I have a heart attack.

Now all they need to do is figure out how to legally bar any of the existing city school board members from ever serving on the county board, and they might be on to something...

Half-Bakered is “Reading the Memphis papers so you don't have to.” His sacrifice on behalf of us all is duly noted.

About an inch of snow is expected in the Memphis metropolitan area tonight. For those of you new to the Greater Memphis area, or if you're just curious, here's what to expect:

1. Breathless TV coverage of “Storm of the Century 2003”. If you thought you were going to watch Friends tonight — tough luck, you're watching Dave Brown instead.

2. Nobody will know how to drive. Accidents will go through the roof. Free hint: stay off the Nonconnah Parkway (SR 385), since it is (a) mostly elevated and (b) usually the site of a massive pileup.

3. In accordance with points 1 and 2 above, the entire city will effectively shut down for at least a week. Since there's already a holiday on Monday, don't expect to find anyone at work tomorrow — even if all the snow is gone by 8 a.m.

4. People will probably raid stores like a hurricane is coming. Do yourself a huge favor and don't bother joining them.

My helpful advice to the Memphis looney weather newbies: stay indoors, hope MLG&W keeps your gas and electricity on, and watch cable for the next few days. The only legitimate reason to wander outside is to pick up some DVDs to watch at Blockbuster.

This concludes this announcement from the emergency broadcast system. BEEEEEP.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal spins the news that George W. Bush will oppose the Michigan admissions quotas with the following headline: “Bush to contest 'quota' program that aided Ford.” Not, mind you, Gerald Ford (who's from Michigan) or Ford Motor Company; instead, U.S. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr.

Money quote from the article:

Ford has said in the past that he benefited from affirmative action, but he declined to discuss his LSAT score or grade point average.

Here's a hint: he flunked the bar on his first attempt. Meanwhile, you may want to read about the admissions policy of fellow Big Ten member Indiana University.

On Friday, January 10, the Department of Finance and Administration reported a press release in which it stated that “December revenues were $33.8 million more than the budgeted estimates.” In other words, the state is running a budget surplus, largely due to the sales tax increase approved by the legislature in 2002.

Imagine my surprise the next day when the Commercial Appeal failed to even mention this good news. Of the state's three major newspapers, only the Nashville Tennessean bothered to let the state's taxpayers know that the state's budget crisis is essentially over. Instead, we have been treated to a long line of stories saying that retail sales are down (even though they are, in fact, higher than last year's) and that the state faces massive budget problems (mostly due to spending on the bloated TennCare program and court orders to equalize education funding in rural districts).

I guess printing good news would detract from your paper's mission to impose an income tax with no spending limits similar to California's (a state facing a $36 billion budget shortfall over the next 18 months). Your readers deserve an honest reporting of the facts, not suppression of information to further a political agenda.

For more details on this story, see Bill Hobbs' weblog. We'll see if they print my letter; I'm not holding my breath.

Journalist-turned-blogger Bill Hobbs reports on the pro-income-tax credentials of a number of members of Tennessee's “tax study commission”; the commission is already under fire for its rather white-male-ish complexion — all 14 members selected so far (of an eventual total of 15) are Caucasian men.

Bill Hobbs is kind enough to pass along this Fisking of the Nashville Tennessean's lead editorial. Choice quote:

A stab at honesty: “tax reform” = “income tax” in Tennessee media and government language. California’s total 2002 revenues from taxes and licenses were $12.9 billion lower than their revenues for 2001. Personal income tax collections were $11.5 billion lower and corporate income tax collections were $1.4 billion lower, accounting for every bit of the total revenue reduction. Sales tax and other collections were up slightly, offset by those that were down. But the income tax is California’s primary revenue source, accounting for 67% in 2001 and 61% in 2002. Tennessee can equal California’s “performance” with the healthy dose of stupidity required to implement “tax reform”.

Well, in fairness, in Tennessee “tax reform” also means “divert gas tax money to the general fund.” TDOT may not be a paragon of government efficiency, but I don't think there's anyone outside the Sierra Club who thinks Tennessee spends too much on highway construction and maintenance. You can argue with the allocation of those resources — Mississippi has done far better in a similar time frame with less money to build an efficient four-lane network.

More to the point, though, Tennessee's taxpayers don't trust the state government to spend their money wisely or run their affairs properly. The mismanagement of TennCare, blatant legislative gerrymandering in urban areas, and the rank ineffectiveness of the Republican caucus hardly inspire confidence among the electorate.

The lead in Sunday's Commercial Appeal reports that the Shelby County School Board is seriously considering building schools where they won't be annexed into the City of Memphis (and taken over by the city's independent school board). Wayne Risher writes:

Shelby County school officials, feeling burned by Memphis's recent annexation of newly opened Cordova schools, said they'll actively avoid building new schools in the city's far-reaching annexation reserve areas.

County schools Supt. Bobby G. Webb said he won't recommend new schools in the reserve areas without agreements spelling out how the schools would be funded and controlled once annexation occurs.

Rather than put new schools closest to populations to be served, the county would scout locations that stand the best chance of remaining under the county board's jurisdiction: those within suburban municipalities or within their annexation reserve areas.

Such a policy ultimately could influence the metro area's growth patterns, since new county schools have been a key factor in where residential development occurs.

The final paragraph quoted is perhaps the most interesting. Memphis' growth problems have largely been driven by what I'd call “annexation leapfrogging”; every time Memphis proposes annexing an area, growth there immediately stops and development leapfrogs further away. The prime reason: the city's higher tax rate, which makes new developments less affordable for the new homeowners that they usually target. While Memphis officials and developers attempt to work around this misfeature, apparently by hoodwinking new homeowners into thinking they aren't going to be annexed until they've signed the dotted line, that's hardly a sensible plan. The intent of Public Chapter 1101 was to better tie provision of services to annexation, but that promise has yet to be met in the Memphis area. Ironically, it has worked best in the suburban municipalities, where residents of existing subdivisions generally support annexation (primarily because there is no shift in school responsibility) and annexations have largely kept up with urban development; neither is the case with Memphis.

Ultimately the only solution likely to work for Memphis is to tie annexation directly and irrevocably to development within its urban growth boundary; i.e. to require all subdivisions to be annexed by the city before urban services can be provided. Not only would it reduce the leapfrog effect, it would also place development at the eastern fringe on a more equal footing to "infill" development in the long-annexed but mostly empty Southwest Memphis and Frayser-Raleigh areas.

Bill Hobbs has an interesting op-ed on reforming Tennessee's tax system in today's Memphis Commercial Appeal; it's worth a read. Most of the objection to the Sundquist income tax was that it would potentially open the floodgates for profligate spending by the legislature; Bill's plan would help allay those fears.

His plan's probably worth implementing in Mississippi, too, which already suffers from a byzantine income tax (with bizarre effects at the low end) and relatively high sales tax.

Over the past few weeks, a lot of people have been making a big deal out of Ronald Reagan's appearance in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980; they suggest that somehow choosing Philadelphia, in and of itself, illustrates Reagan trolling for racist votes; Radley Balko, for example, discusses this argument.

Philadelphia does have its own ugly racial history; it was the site of the killings of three northern civil rights workers in 1964, famously dramatized in the film Mississippi Burning.

But there is another explanation for Reagan's appearance. Philadelphia, Mississippi is also the site of the Neshoba County Fair, established in 1889. According to their history page, the tradition of political candidates speaking at the fair dates back to 1896. And, lo and behold, Ronald Reagan spoke at the fair in 1980 to kick off his post-convention campaign. An appearance at the fair, in and of itself, does not suggest a racial motive; former Massachussetts Governor Mike Dukakis spoke at the fair during his 1988 presidential campaign, for example, and most candidates for major statewide or regional office from both parties participate in the fair.

Of course, what you do at the fair also makes a difference. And in 1980, there can be no question that a “states' rights” strategy was in play, with South Carolina's Strom Thurmond on hand as well as then-representative Trent Lott. To a roaring crowd, Reagan emphatically declared his support for states' rights, and in front of that same crowd Trent Lott first publicly said that Strom Thurmond ought to have been elected president in 1948.

On balance, the question has to be: what did Reagan say, not where did he say it. Ultimately his words, and not his location, should indict him.

From today's Clarion-Ledger:

Two former Jefferson County jurors say 60 Minutes owes them more than $6 billion after airing a program that called the county a haven for "jackpot justice."

Nah, Mississippi doesn't need tort reform...

Hit & Run has also picked this one up.