MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1995
NEW YORK – A federal court Thursday declared the core of the Pentagon's “don't ask, don't tell” policy unconstitutional, the first direct judicial rebuke to the 16month-old law barring open homosexuals from serving in the armed forces. In a blunt 39-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Eugene Nickerson said the law's “don't tell” provisions — which let the military discharge troops who openly declared themselves to be gay — violated the Constitution's free speech and equal protection clauses. “To presume from a person's status that he or she will commit undesirable acts is an extreme measure,” he wrote. “Hitler taught the world what could happen when the government began to target people not for what they had done, but because of their status.”
50 years ago — 1970
Mayor Henry Loeb will ask the City Council today for about $96 million, almost $8 million more than current requirements, to run the city and pay its debts in the fiscal year which begins July 1. The 1970-71 budget proposal, to be outlined by the mayor at the council's executive session this morning, is expected to be based on a property tax rate of $2.03 per $100 of assessed valuation, a drop of 11 cents from this year's $2.14.
75 years ago — 1945
NEW YORK – Science moved a step forward when three Cornell University technicians reported that they had successfully recorded the mating call of a mosquito. Science Magazine said the recordings were made in an effort to discover whether mosquitoes could be lured to destruction by transcription of the mosquito's love notes. 100 years ago — 1920
There is an ordinance in Memphis preventing chickens from running at large. We cannot grow gardens and have chickens on the open range. A number of citizens enthusiastically worked gardens last year, and then the chickens came along and destroyed the result of their labor. Several months ago the mayor appointed a chicken inspector. The people laughed, but a chicken inspector making arrests for failure to keep the chickens within bounds would help the gardening campaign.
125 years ago — 1895
Tennessee can take care of her own centennial exposition. So far as we are concerned we never looked with favor on the idea of soliciting alms from the national treasury anyway. The failure of the United States Congress to grant an appropriation for our exposition will not affect it in the least.