Rodent Regatta

Everybody’s doing stories about the stories of the year. Things that caught our attention this past year are in the news again. Past is prologue.

What will (or should) catch our attention in the new year called 2006? Here are local, national and global stories that came to mind this morning:

• Hurricanes on the US gulf coast have created ongoing needs.
• Tsunami recovery efforts remain.
• Murders in Memphis continue at rates not seen in bigger places.
• The Tennessee Waltz goes on and on.
• After 88 years in business a local bicycle shop is closing in 2006.
• The Wall Street Journal listed the actors/movies that Jeff Daniels watches over and over to improve his skill: Alan Arkin in The In-Laws, Eddie Bracken in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson. It seems the star of Dumb and Dumber might have been acting! [Thanks to Lauren Mechling of the Wall Street Journal for the insight.]
• Bill Miller of Legg Mason managed a mutual fund so that for the fifteenth consecutive year he beat the S&P500. No other mutual fund manager has done that.
• What can I do to help Wal-Mart with quality and customer service?
• Someone used the term “junior seniors” this week to refer to people aged 55-64. Demographics are becoming more important. Young folk may see their forays into age discrimination come back to haunt them.
• A minister wrongfully dismissed from a smallish church after 21 years of faithful service now ministers in a church over twenty times the size of the former one. Life loops. Good wins. God is good.
• Natural gas prices continue to escalate in Memphis. I wonder what a normal annual inventory turnover rate is for Memphis Light, Gas & Water?
• In 2006 some more CEO’s will discover that employees and investors and customers expect more from them than celebrity, financial engineering and high profile shenanigans. Run the business, please.