On the Memphis edge

BY JACK WEATHERLY

Aminor Porgy and Bess character would cross our little stage in the summertime—a black man walking down our street, balancing a hands-free loaded basket on his head, African-style, and chanting, “Tahmay-tahs, tah-may-tahs.” That’s as close as black folks got to us in my neighborhood in the 1950s. - Sunday, August 17, 2008

COLUMN ONE : Ghosts I have known

PAUL GREENBERG

It could have been a scene out of Ghostbusters, only instead of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, it featured Alan Lowe, 55, of Roland, Ark., and his volunteers from Spirit Seekers Paranormal Investigation Research and Intervention Team. (“Where the Here & the Hereafter Meet,” to quote his business card.) Instead of wandering around the Biltmore or deep in the bowels of the New York Public Library, these Arkansas ghostbusters were spending most of a dark if not stormy night in the friendly confines of the state Capitol, which must get spooky after the lights go out. Those long, echoing marble halls are a little scary even in broad daylight, especially when you remember some of the legislation being sneaked through. (Remember Pensions for Pals?) Alan Lowe and his impressive team of eight came fully equipped with video and audio equipment, though not the 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Ambulance, aka Ecto-1, featured in the movie. Or even the particle accelerators that toasted my favorite character, the huge Stay Puft M - Sunday, August 17, 2008

As a culture, we may be losing our sense of humor

PHILIP MARTIN

One of the not-so-bad parts of my job is that I can sneak out to the movies and call it work. I just got back from a showing of the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder, a film that not only teases but mauls the Hollywood blockbuster apparatus of which it’s very much a part. It’s a smart and often very funny movie that deserves credit for understanding how ludicrous show business can be. - Sunday, August 17, 2008

The week in review

Around the world Credit tightened The Federal Reserve said Monday that more banks have made it harder to borrow money as defaults and delinquencies on home loans soared and the economy faltered. Most “domestic institutions reported having tightened their lending standards and terms on all major loan categories over the previous three months,” the Fed reported in its quarterly Senior Loan Officer Survey. In the previous survey, issued in April, the central bank had found that the percentage of banks reporting tighter lending standards was already near historic highs. The new survey, conducted last month, covers 52 domestic banks with combined assets of $6.1 trillion, along with 21 foreign institutions. About 75 percent of U.S. banks indicated they tightened standards on prime mortgage loans, up from 60 percent in the April survey, the central bank reported. Funds became scarcer for home purchases, credit card loans became tougher to get, and even banks’ best customers were subject to stricter scrutiny. Tighter - Sunday, August 17, 2008

There is a way to find peace in the Caucasus

BY MIKHAIL GORBACHEV IN THE WASHINGTON POST

MOSCOW — The past week’s events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone. Already, thousands of people have died, tens of thousands have been turned into refugees, and towns and villages lie in ruins. Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction. It is a warning to all. - Sunday, August 17, 2008

Ethnic politics is background for clash in Georgia

BY MICHAEL DOBBS THE WASHINGTON POST

It did not take long for the “Putin is Hitler” analogies to start following the eruption of the ugly little war between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. A neo-conservative commentator, Robert Kagan, compared the Russian attack on Georgia with the Nazi grab of the Sudetenland in 1938. President Jimmy Carter’s former national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, said that the Russian leader was following a course “that is horrifyingly similar to that taken by Stalin and Hitler in the 1930s.” Others invoked the infamous Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty, under which Soviet leaders claimed the right to intervene militarily in eastern Europe, in order to prop up their crumbling imperium. “We’ve seen this movie before in Prague and Budapest,” said presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, referring to the Soviet invasions of Czecholovakia in 1968 and Hungary in 1956. - Sunday, August 17, 2008