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VOL. 132 | NO. 203 | Thursday, October 12, 2017
Last Word
Bill Dries
Last Word: 'Seismic Shift,' Mason Village and Running A Store From A Cloud
By Bill Dries
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to drive through the old town part of Cordova near its one-time train station and see the potential. Now word of a new restaurant opening later this month in what is known as Farley House. The old town is an interesting mix of new development and old development including an iconic country Baptist church that not too long ago turned 100 years old. And then there is the trail head for the Shelby Farms Greenline that runs near the train station.
House Speaker Paul Ryan trying to play GOP peacemaker by suggesting President Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Bob Corker should “talk it out” – not Tweet it out between one another.
It may be too late for that based on the legs this story has nationally, including Frank Rich in New York magazine talking about “Republican silence” on Trump. Then again, there has been so much talk about what the latest controversy is being the point where surely impeachment will happen or the party will revolt against Trump that it has become a political version of crying wolf.
State-side in the race to succeed Corker in the Senate, Twitter has changed its mind on U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s Senate campaign ad and declaration of candidacy that it blocked initially.
Our Nashville correspondent Sam Stockard sees a “seismic shift” in the races for Tennessee Governor and U.S. Senate among Tennessee Republicans in his “View From The Hill” column.
If you use the SmartMart automated convenience store at Park and White Station you might or might not have noticed an upgrade this past August. That’s when the company that owns the technology rolled out new cloud-based technology that is patented. Look for a second SmartMart location locally and the technology it uses could spread to big box stores and much farther.
On Crump Boulevard, groundbreaking Wednesday for Mason Village, the set of affordable rental townhomes made for families developed by the Church of God in Christ just across Mason Street from Mason Temple – the mother church of the Memphis-based denomination. And the developers talked about lessons learned from the public housing development that once stood on the lot, Fowler Homes, and why projects like this can take six years even in a recovering economy. Among the quotes: “It costs the same whether poor people live in it or rich people live in it.”
A garden at Christ Methodist Day School in the Poplar Corridor. It is the latest educational garden by The Kitchen Community nonprofit. You may remember we covered the first garden this group undertook in Memphis at Maxine Smith STEAM Academy. The schools involved now number almost 100 with partnerships among them including the students and the teachers. And while all of that is important, how do you describe the benefit of a group of the Day School’s youngest students walking to the planter in a few months and seeing a sprout where their little hands planted a seed just like they were told way back a long time ago in child time.
From one end of the age spectrum to the other – the state’s hotline for elder abuse or exploitation fielded 20,000 calls in a year’s time and a growing category in the calls that lead to findings of abuse and exploitation is financial exploitation. About a third of the cases the state has tallied were reported by family and close friends. The other two thirds were reported by physicians and social workers. We talked with the head of the economic crime division of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.
How do you evaluate a loan to make an album? That’s right a musical album. The first loan through the Memphis Slim House Collaboratory was $9,000 for the Eric Hughes Band to make a CD. It’s a collaboration with Community LIFT and River City Capital Investment Corp. This is called a front loan because it is advance money that goes toward revenue-producing items in the music business which would be touring, merchandising and recording. It could also be some element of a musical show. Lansky's was built on the credit it extended to musicians looking for stage clothes including Elvis Presley. Otherwise it’s save up your money and that can take a while even in a city with an abundance of superior live music.