Tinker Stuff Again!?

Well, it's been a bad day on the blogs for Ms. Tinker. She has brought the wrath of the Hebrew God (no pun intended) upon herself from the Memphis Flyer and local progressive blogs. (You know some people thought I was being hard on Tinker months ago when I first started writing about her, but a donkey, even of the anatarctic breed, can smell a rat from a good distance away. I should sue all you guys for gimmick infringement! I'm hiring Tinker August 4th for legal representation. You will all fare no better than the NWA mechanics union. HAHAHAHAHA)Then she had some lackeys from as far away as Washington DC to post dumbass comments. This is one of my favorite comments today. "Tinker is fearless and she is a fighter." hahahahhahahahaha
She wasn't fearless enough to go to the candidate forum in January. Everybody else showed up then. Hell, Whitman didn't even ask for sample questions or the format. Tinker entered the race in August 2005, but she didn't start campaigning until May/June 06!?!?
And this crap spin about Tinker increasing visibility, EARLY VOTING IS ALMOST OVER and her first stab at TV advertising was a disaster. (Can anyone forget her first starring role as Cruella de Tinker.) The bottom line is this. 120,000 people may vote in the August election. 55% of that total may be Democratic primary voters (66,000). If Tinker gets her touted 17%, that's 11,220. $500,000 divided by 11,220 equals $44.56 per vote. $44.56 per vote is the political equivalent to the box office success of "Basic Instinct 2." Tinker, your political career is as viable as Sharon Stone's movie career.

Thanks Senator Cohen

When I was looking for help with the student who had a problem with his transcripts, aside from Ms. Gatewood and Dr. Warren, no other elected official looked into this except Steve Cohen. Thank you Senator Cohen. I don't endorse candidates. (I know that may come a shock to some who have been waiting for my endorsement of Nikki Tinker.) I will be voting tomorrow for Steve Cohen. Thanks again and good luck.

Thanks

Sunday, I posted about the kid from Frayser High who had the problem with his transcripts. Thanks to a few good people who took interest and action, the student's transcripts were sent to the college Tuesday morning. Thanks again to everyone.

Update: Wintermute rightly points out that school board members acted quickly to get this student's problem resolved. Stephanie Gatewood and Dr. Jeff Warren thank you.

This Wouldn't Happen At White Station High School

There is a kid at the restaurant I work at who just graduated high school this last May. He was a decent student and a pretty good football player. He’s also hard working, competent, and reliable. He was supposed to leave for college at Division 1-AA school in Kentucky, where he would get a partial scholarship for playing football. He is exactly the type of person the Memphis city school system says it is trying to produce. Unfortunately for this kid, he lives in Frayser and attended Frayser High School. You see, most if not all the graduating students at Frayser High School, as of July 16th 2006, still have not received their final report cards or transcripts. This kid’s opportunity to go to college may be lost. He did everything he was supposed to do. He requested his transcripts be sent to three colleges. They weren’t. When the school wanting him to play football hadn’t received the transcripts yet, it called the kid. He went to the school to get a copy of his transcripts himself. He couldn’t get them. So now this kid may be screwed. He MIGHT be able to enroll for January classes but then he wouldn’t have the scholarship and that may cut his chances of going to college at all.
What the fuck is going on with the Memphis city schools? All I hear is what a good job Carol Johnson is doing with the school system. How is that even possible when a whole graduating class from a high school can’t get their fucking TRANSCRIPTS! Do you think this would be tolerated at White Station? Parents would scream bloody murder and sue the shit out of the school system. But because this is Frayser it’s tolerable. All this says to me is the talk of educating our children and giving them opportunities to better themselves is horse shit.
I found out about this Friday evening and I don’t know what to do about this injustice. There are people from the Memphis Flyer, some people who know lawyers, and political candidates’ campaigns that read this blog, so I’m asking for some help or attention be paid to this. If you’re a journalist and want a good story to tell about how some incompetent school bureaucrat is screwing up kids’ lives because they can’t even send transcripts, well here it is. I’m not sure if this is a viable lawsuit for lawyer, but if it is please put Carol Johnson’s name across at the top of it. Or if you are a political candidate who wants to prove they give a shit about the people of Memphis right before an election and get this and any other of those kids at Frayser High enrolled in college here’s your chance. Steve Cohen, you’re a State Senator and Julian Bolton, you’re still a County Commissioner, why doesn’t one of you have your staff check into this and see if you can fix this. The same goes Willingham and Wharton or just about anybody else. If you want more details and think you can help, write me at polardonkeymemphis@yahoo.com.

Cruella De Tinker

I have talked to various people over the past week or so and nobody thinks Nikki Tinker's TV ads are any good. Now I have been critical of Tinker before but that TV ad is really bad. It makes her look wooden and almost mean. She may as well have been wearing a dalmatian coat because Cruella De Ville doesn't seem to have anything on her. She is sitting in a classroom with children but the kids don't acknowledge her nor does she interact with them. Plus, the production value of the ad isn't very good either. JW Gibson in his county commission race had a better looking ad. It's kind of strange that her ad was so bad. She is smartly targeting her ads on cheap cable networks like Lifetime to get female voters. (But most female viewers of Lifetime locally are probably already voting Cohen.) She has done well with fundraising, even though too much of the money comes from out of town, and hired a pretty advanced company in NPG in Vermont to help run her campaign. She even deftly got that story about being a front-runner in that DC paper back in August 2005 to assist with fundraising. Yet in polling done by some campaigns, Tinker is down to 5th place. Tinker had the opprotunity starting a year ago to actually speak to voters, but she didn't. Now its too late. Voters seem to be going with the candidates they know, Bolton and Cohen. Everyone pretty much knows they will vote if they go to Congress. Why take a chance on Cruella De Tinker with suspected DLC leanings and no track record.

How Much of Memphis Lives in Poverty?

Sorry I haven't written much recently. I have been really busy with school and work, but I have been learning a new skill, map making. I really like making maps. The idea of helping people see issues on a city or regional scale is cool. I know I have been obsessed with poverty here in Memphis, but looking this map you may see why. Here's one of my first maps.