Tennessee...

Randi and I have noticed that living in Hong Kong whenever news comes out regarding Tennessee or Memphis in particular it is always bad...we have yet to hear any good news come from our former home. For instance, the recent Memphis murders made international headlines and it appears that the Memphis Police Department (MPD) have no leads to go on.

I want to believe that there are some very good detectives in the MPD but, I have serious doubts about the professionalism of the MPD. First, they have lowered their recruiting standards, you can now become a police officer with little or no college education and they are lowering their psychological requirements. The following informative piece of information is available on the MPD website: "Individuals who were disqualified for the position of Police Officer on the basis of their psychological evaluation for the period of 1996-2001 will be allowed to reactivate their application of employment with the Memphis Police Department." Now, I don't know about you but, I really don't want my police department accepting people who were previously disqualified based on psychological factors...even if they have to undergo another psychological evaluation.

Memphis is notorious for having unsolved crimes, basically if they don't catch them in the first 48 hours they are not going to get caught - or the odds greatly decrease. In fact, the MPD was involved in a TV series called the "The First 48". I'll just say this - I watched a few of the shows when the MPD was involved and I was not exactly filled with confidence. I even had lunch with a few of the "crew" members from the show (the actual production people) at Cafe Ole one day when they were filming in Memphis - and they said that they were very unimpressed with the MPD. So, we will see how this plays out but, I would hope that whomever committed this atrocious crime is brought to swift justice.

Now, back to the point of Tennessee and the fact that all the stories coming out of there are usually bad. I opened up foxnews.com this morning and see this heading: "Man Dies When Wind Flips Mattress He Was Moving". So, I immediately have the following thought, "I bet this was in Tennessee." Sure, enough I open it up and find out that of course it was from Tennessee. So, this poor guy was riding in the back of a truck sitting on top of the mattress he was helping move when the principal of "lift" ruined his day. Now, I am sure this guy was having a blast right up until the end. I can just picture this guy in the back of the truck hooting and hollering as his friend was driving and he was riding the "magic carpet" in the back of the truck. Then, a little too much lift was created and the mattress probably just flipped right over and out of the truck with this guy holding on for dear life. Not the way I want to go out...moving a mattress. My thoughts and prayers are with this man and his family and I hope that we all learn a lesson from this one. You do not "ride" a mattress in the back of a truck. There are these neat inventions called tie-down straps...please use them to prevent this sort of tragedy from happening again. Less, Tennessee get more negative press.