Homing In

If you haven't picked up your copy of the Flyer yet this week, John Branston, Bianca Phillips, Bruce VanWyngarden, and I did a package on local foreclosures and how they're affecting the housing market, the tax base, and the overall community.

I know, I know. You're thinking, "Foreclosures? Ugh. Boring."

And maybe you don't know anyone who has been foreclosed on and you're not in any danger of being foreclosed on, so why do you care?

But I would say it's a pretty important story.

When tax revenue relies on local property values, a widespread decline in those values could be very detrimental.

And you never know what might happen.

Bianca Phillips' piece is a first-person account of her recent brush with foreclosure when her apartment building was suddenly foreclosed on. It wasn't anything she was expecting — how could she? Just one day, out of the blue, there was a realtor at the building, telling the tenants they had two weeks to get out or they'd be evicted.

The tenants eventually got more time — you should read the piece if you get a chance — but as she learned, in these situations, tenants basically have no rights at all.

Bruce VanWyngarden wrote about his recent experience buying and selling a home. I don't think his experience is necessarily typical, but it is interesting to read a first-hand account of what's going on in the market.

And if that doesn't interest you, well, there's always News of the Weird (page 60).

UPDATE: You can read the stories from the foreclosure package here, here, here and here.

Happy Birthday, Bianca!

Bianca Phillips, my friend from over-the-cubicle-wall, turns 28 today! (I don't think she'll mind me listing her age since she doesn't look a day over 19. See for yourself.)

She's worked at the Flyer since 2002, starting as one of our illustrious interns. Now she's our calendar editor and one of our most prolific writers.

To see an archive of her stuff, go here.

Or you can check our her blog, Vegan Crunk.

Spotlight Suspension

I haven't been a journalist all that long — certainly not compared to some of my colleagues — but the fairly recent addition of internet analytics and user comments makes it very easy to tell what kind of stories have traction with readers.

Case in point, Bianca Phillips Q&A with former "First 48" detective Caroline Mason in April 2007.

Fans of the true-crime show loved Caroline Mason (before the MPD decided to cease working with A&E on the show). Even though we ran that story more than a year ago, it seems that every few months someone would find it and comment on how much they liked Caroline Mason. (And I'm using the word "like," but the feelings seemed a lot stronger than that.)

I was reminded of all this because Mason was in the CA again yesterday. It seems she received a one-day suspension for participating in the paper's "Spotlight on Mom" section without getting proper authorization from the police department to do so.

I'm not going to second guess the MPD, but it seems that they'd want someone like Mason — someone who people feel so positively about — out in front of the department.

For instance, after Phillips wrote about MPD suspending filming with "The First 48," one of the Flyer's commenters said this:

"Caroline Mason, along with all the other officers, have made Memphis proud, and regardless if the MPD decides to resign a contract with 'The First 48,' the MPD will always have my respect."

A cupcake of a contest

My Flyer colleague Bianca Phillips is a vegan, but she's also something of a cupcake specialist.

She's currently participating in the Iron Cupcake challenge and she would love it if you would vote for her here. The voting sheet is on the left side and her blog — Vegan Crunk — is third from the bottom on the ballot.

Bakers were asked to come up with a cupcake recipe using chili pepper and she came up with Holy Mole Vegan Chocolate-Chili Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream frosting.

Unfortunately, you can't actually taste the cupcakes — unless you whip up a batch for yourself, which you can do because the recipe is on the website — but if you want to trust me, and in this one particular instance you can, they were very, very good. Very good.

(I think the mole might have been my idea, so I'm going to go ahead and take credit for it here. Because, again, they were very good.)

I can't wait until next month's Iron Cupcake challenge.

The cupcake in question.

Carbon Dating

As you may or may not know, my Flyer colleague Bianca Phillips writes an advice column each Tuesday.

This week, she has an interesting question about long-distance love and its carbon footprint, and a link to a very cute site where you can determine your own carbon footprint (even if you're not dating someone in another city).

Mine was more than 11 tons of CO2 each year.

Trans Talking

Sometimes, the good part about reporters/journalists is that they do things you might be interested in, but for whatever reason, can't or won't do yourself.

Like attending five-hour school board meetings or listening to long-winded speeches by the reigning leadership. Or even participating in a sub-culture.

(I'm a huge fan of Slate's human guinea pig column where Emily Yoffe does all sorts of interesting things such as becoming a papparazzo, performing as a drag king, nude modeling for an art class — basically all the things you might want to know what they are like, but that you would probably never, ever do yourself.)

At the Flyer, our resident sub-culture expert is probably Bianca Phillips. She has gone ghost-hunting on a number of occasions, spent time at The Farm, a commune in Summertown, Tennessee, and who could forget her weekend at the annual Furry Convention.

Last week, we sent her to a lecture entitled "How to Talk to a Tranny" (for you regular Flyer readers, that means her story will be out Wednesday/Thursday, depending on your favorite pick-up spot).

The next day, we were talking about the dos and don'ts of talking to transgendered people (tranny is one of the don'ts). I had a lot of follow-up questions (I generally have a lot of questions about everything!) and, as is also often the case, Bianca told me that most of them would be considered offensive. (Oops.) So that's good to know for the future.

The piece is pretty interesting. It cleared up a couple of things I was uncertain about — it's definitely worth a read if you get a chance later on in the week.