Kustoff’s career has mostly centered on federal offices, but if he’s open to another path to advancement, it might be the time for him to start focusing on Tennessee-specific issues that a candidate for governor will have to address.

The irony is this: The very process of trying to prove your value is devaluing. Yearning for more responsibility, more respect for your skills and talents, or even additional compensation can lead to burnout.

Parking, the issue that buried decades of goodwill in greensward mud, will once again be used to define and differentiate the Memphis Zoo experience. 

Trump’s slogan from the beginning was code for marginalizing people of color as different and inferior, while assuring white Americans who have an innate fear and distrust of multiculturalism that they would have a president who was always on their side.

Alzheimer’s disease is a major health concern in the African-American community. Yet people do not talk about it. Our family excused Gran’s forgetfulness as just getting old. 

It's a privilege to host the very best professional golfers in the world in our city, but the PGA Tour’s mission has always been to show that we are more than just a sports league.

The roughly 75 golfers who qualify will play all four days. If there's a golfer you want to see on Saturday or Sunday, you can count on him being there. 

Think of Aretha Franklin or Isaac Hayes in Soulsville, Willie Mitchell in Orange Mound and Dewey Phillips at the Hotel Chisca. A Rufus Thomas statue could go just about anywhere in town and Memphis Minnie and Furry Lewis sure would look good on Beale Street.

My doctors seem to have no idea who I am. I had back surgery in November and follow-up appointments since, but I’m still asked to fill out a complete online personal medical history, family medical history, and identity check including photos, front and back, of all requisite cards and documents in advance of my next appointment.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, first elected in 2006, plans to seek reelection in 2020 and 2022, but it's no secret that more than a few Democrats are positioning themselves to run for the seat the moment he decides to step aside.

The Mike Rose Natatorium is a bold initiative in which University of Memphis students are far from the primary beneficiaries. People who will benefit include at-risk children who might not otherwise learn to swim, competitive youth swimming and water polo teams, and community members who pay a fee to exercise in the pool. 

Venezuela observed 208 years of independence from Spain on July 5, but people there weren't setting off fireworks. Instead, they feared they might hear gunshots. 

Mild inaccuracies mark the play. To which I say, so what?

The appointment of Katharine Schaffzin as dean of the University of Memphis School of Law counters discouraging national trends. Memphis Law and the community are cultivating a place where women who are lawyers get access to leadership roles.

Our abundant existing rail infrastructure could provide key routes in a future light-rail service. A light-rail line connecting the airport to Downtown would make Memphis more attractive as a tourist destination and bring more business conventions and sporting events.

The fates of a Holiday Inn-turned-Hotel Indigo and the empty Sterick Building are a study in the contrasts that define the city.

When Americans vote, speak up, pray (or not), take risks, petition, stand up for the least and the last in society, and do all of this non-violently, that is when America is at her best. 

African-Americans were not about to just show up at all-white public schools and trust that they would be accepted. It required the power of the federal courts – and in some instances the muscle of the federal government – to force change.   

I watched how my dad welcomed people, how his affable, generous approach set people at ease and made them feel included and accepted. I wanted to be just like him.

A smart inmate told me there are two types of criminals: those who embrace anti-social behavior, and those who struggle with it. With these changes in how we do our job – from arrest to sentence – we are better positioned to use our jail/prison/docket space on the former and find alternative solutions for the latter.

Joe Biden recently suggested maintaining civil relations with even the most difficult people is important to accomplish anything in Washington. The problem? He chose as an example ardent segregationist James O. Eastland, who represented Mississippi in the Senate from 1942 to 1978. 

As Memphis in May and Memphis River Parks Partnership negotiate a plan for the park on the Mississippi, city residents should recall other Memphis projects born in conflict.

There is no excusing the murderer who took Glenn Cofield’s life or Brandon Webber’s self-destruction. There is also no excuse in the richest nation on Earth for the poverty and despair our policies produce, and the pressure that puts on law enforcement and support systems.

As former Memphis mayors Dick Hackett and A C Wharton can attest, the top city job requires political skill in the face of bad news or calamity.

Our grandchild, born June 10, is part of the flow of the Mississippi where my father's ashes are, and the stream in upstate New York where my brother Frank's ashes are. Just as every one of us is an individual, every one of us is part of something larger, connected in ways large and small, and always to place.