Winners, Losers

LOSER: The power that Chris Peck has as editor of ther Morning Publication can sometimes blow up in his face. I challenged Peck to list in any shooting death in Memphis to say if the shooter has a permit to carry or not. He has steadfastly refused to do it, but he had no problem with listing shooting deaths if they had permits to carry. Fair? Of course not.

LOSER: Chris Peck. No, I'm not picking on the dude, but he's part of the strangest thing I've ever seen involving the Morning Publication. Peck and other top leaders at the newspaper threw a special supplemental section in a recent publication that went to great lengths to say the newspaper is going to publish tomorrow, the next day and so on and so forth. Obviously it was designed to show the newspaper's goal was to thwart that its death -- like many other publications aroung the country -- is close. Hummmmm, makes me think it must be bad at 495 Union and worse than we thought, otherwise why goes to such lengths to say everything is good.

WINNER: Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. co-founder and CEO, recently had a liver transplant at a hospital in Tennessee. No hospital was revealed, but its nice to see anything in our state be singled out for doing good work. A little birdie tells me the operation was performed in Memphis, most likely Methodist University Hospital. Jobs and Fed/Ex's Fred Smith mean more to their respective companies than anybody I know.

LOSER: The weather. It's hot and I hate it.

LOSERS: Memphis Mayor "King" Herenton and Stevie Cohen, a congressman representing the 9th District in Memphis. Why both men? Because I said so. I was asked the other day how I would rate them and if race would be used in the election if Herenton follows through in running for the position. Are you kidding? Herenton has already mentioned race and it will only intensify.

LOSER: The Morning Publication for its stupid editorial comment that said the gun legislation passed by the General Assembly only appealed to special interest groups. I beg to differ with the staunchly anti-gun pulbication. There are over 300,000 permits b eing carried around by Tennesseans. It's quite sickening to see the publication act to foolish.

LOSER: Former House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh has won the title of Speaker Emeritus. Silly, really silly. Nobody deserves that title unless it's voted on by the people. But, who should be surprised when Naifeh or his henchmen have insisted in the past that buildings, cars, horses, pigs be named for Naifeh. I've only been kidding -- just a tad -- that everything except the grass in yards have escaped this childish baloney. Oh, I wonder why a Tennessee Highway Patrol vehicle was seen several times at one of Naifeh's old haunts, a small grocery just down from the big Naifeh grocery. What could that be? Is he still getting favored treatment? If so, he doesn't deserve that, either. Used to be Naifeh had a Highway Patroman to drive him to and from Nashville. I always argued that it would be better if that trooper was out patrolling.

LOSERS: I'm willing to bet that the Morning Publication has two columnists (Otis Sanford and Wendi Thomas) that refer to race more than anybody else.