Marky Mark and the Good Fight

The latest brouhaha here in the Bluff City concerns First Amendment rights to free speech and fascist attempts at squelching said rights. To wit:

• Police director sues for critical bloggers' names


• Director Godwin's Looking For Him -- and We Found Him: MPD Enforcer's Dirk Diggler!


• Mayor says blog case is not about 'whistleblowers'


• Matthews files motion to see blogger papers

Over at Biddies in My Brain, my friend has written a couple of good posts about the whole fiasco. No need to reinvent the wheel when you can link to it!

Aside from the serious constitutional issues this raises, my main complaint is this: WHY, for the love of all that is fried and musical in this city, are our leaders wasting time and energy on this? They will lose this case - it seems pretty darn cut and dried. Why are they not out there trying to clean up the drugs in Binghampton? Why are they not doing something about the aggressive panhandlers or the rampant vandalism and graffiti down the Sam Cooper corridoror? BTW - why have we never heard any more about the Sam Cooper Sniper?

Oh wait - some of them are too busy hurling racist and anti-semitic smears at Congressmen or suing the school board who is (SURPRISE!) upset because their budget was slashed with no warning and now hundreds of millions of dollars of state monies are in jeopardy and school starts in two freakin' weeks.

This city has so much to offer - a world-class zoo, the Mississippi River, trees that would make even my hippie tree-hugger brother gasp, museums, culture, theater, food (other than BBQ even) nationally and internationally recognized colleges and universities, Steve Cohen, unique architecture and neighborhoods, Greg Cravens, cutting edge cancer research hospitals, Fed-Ex, Shelby Farms, Overton Park, Autozone, the Redbirds at Autozone Park (all baseball fans - you really need to visit that place!), Sun Studios, Graceland, Issac Hayes, Al Green, Justin Timberlake, independent movie moguls, The Shell at Overton Park, 3-6 Mafia, the Civil Rights Museum, Gibson Guitar Factory, Huey's, and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head with only one glass of tea in me!

Why do our leaders, elected and otherwise, squander all this with useless, inane, asinine bullshit lawsuits and infighting? They cry and moan about the flight to the 'burbs and flail around for "solutions" and form task forces and advisory panels. Hey - guys - the problem is YOU! Get your heads out of your collective butts and get busy fixing the mess you made or get out of the way and let people like "Dirk Diggler" at MPD Enforcer 2.0 and Smart City Memphis get busy.