Facebook user Tasha Jeffries bravely stepped up to explain this meme last week.
“Within the last two years in Memphis, there has been an influx of people buying older model Infinitis (AKA Fin Fins). They are usually bought with body damage, two-toned, and most people never get actual license plates.
“Typically, the drivers of these vehicles drive as if there are no laws to abide by. They go in between cars, cut people off, and tend to run red lights. If you see one — even if you have the right of way — treat them as if they are the police or an ambulance. You do not want to be hit by one of these vehicles because they are less likely to be insured.”
A.R. The Mermaid
Posted to YouTube by Dirty Glove Bastard
Memphis rapper A.R. The Mermaid was featured on Dirty Glove Bastard’s YouTube channel last week for a signature “Off The Porch” interview.
When asked what’s life really like in Memphis these days, the East Memphian responded, “Shit, I ain’t gonna lie to you. You smooth. You straight. You gotta know where you at, who you fuck with, or be at. You can’t get fucked up being at the wrong place at the wrong time, you know what I’m saying. But, shit, they fuck with me out there. It’s love. So, I fuck with the city.”
“Never, never kissed a car before” — Agathe Rousselle stars in Julia Ducournau’s Titane.
Film, like all art, has its own cycles. It’s not just cycles of marketplace expansion and contraction, or the rise and fall of great stars — although those are things that affect film production — but of artistic direction and audience taste.
In the 1990s, the so-called indie era began with a flowering of filmic weirdness. There was no shortage of social realism, like Kevin Smith’s Clerks, a no-budget look at the world of the service economy’s working stiffs. But there was also formal experimentation, like Quentin Tarantino’s timeline-scrambling structures; magical realism, like Spike Lee’s nods to musical theater; and downright surrealism, like Stephen Soderbergh’s experimental cul-de-sac Schizopolis. By the 2010s, the cycle had receded. Mainstream studio films had been taken over by magic and superheroes, so the underground reacted by swerving toward realism.
Now, there are signs that the film weirdos want to get weird again. This January, the Sundance lineup was crowded with magic, such as Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney’s Strawberry Mansion and Dash Shaw’s animated tour de force Cryptozoo. Then in July, the Cannes Film Festival awarded the Palme d’Or to Titane. Director Julia Ducournau became only the second woman in history to win the festival world’s most prestigious award — and, since Jane Campion’s The Piano tied with Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine in 1993, the first to win it outright.
If you’ve heard anything about Titane, it’s probably that this is the movie where a woman has sex with a car. I’m here to report that yes, that absolutely does happen more than once, but there’s a lot more to it than that. We first meet Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) when she is a bratty tween. Angered by some unseen slight, she’s annoying her father (Bertrand Bonello) from the back seat as he drives on a French freeway. But the family conflict takes a tragic turn when Dad, chastising his daughter, takes his eyes off the road and crashes the car. He’s okay, but Alexia sustains a fractured cranium, which requires the implantation of a titanium plate to fix. She survives the injury, but the doctor warns Alexia’s parents to “watch for neurological signs.”
When we flash forward a decade or so, there is no shortage of “neurological signs” with Alexia. You would think her youthful brush with death would have put her off cars, but in fact the opposite has happened. Alexia loves cars — I mean, she really loves them. She makes her living as a booth girl at automotive shows, getting paid to dance seductively with custom autos. When random guys follow her into the parking lot to hit on her, she simply kills them. See, she’s not just a sexy technophile, she’s also a dangerous psychopath who has been terrorizing Europe for years.
After gruesomely dispatching a would-be rapist with a chopstick, Alexia works off a little extra energy with a Cadillac lowrider that’s been giving her the come-hither headlight. A few recreational slayings later, she finds out that 1) the cops are onto her, and 2) she’s pregnant with the Caddy’s car-child. She goes on the lam, but a close call with the gendarmerie causes her to decide that she needs to radically change her appearance. After an excruciating sequence where she remakes her face with brute force, she poses as Adrien, a missing child whom she may have murdered. Adrien’s father, Vincent (Vincent Lindon), is a fire captain who has been mourning his disappeared son for a decade. He accepts Alexia as Adrien because he wants it to be true. But Alexia’s Adrien gambit is destined to be short lived, as she grows more and more visibly pregnant. If you think it’s going to be awkward to explain to Vincent that she’s not who he thinks she is, throw in the fact that his “son” is also pregnant with a car baby.
I’m a big fan of Ducournau’s film Raw, which transforms eating disorders into cannibalistic urges for some cutting body horror. Titane is a lot messier and more uneven. It starts off strong, with Rousselle’s fearless performance channelling Malcolm McDowell’s charming psychopathy from A Clockwork Orange. But once she takes up with Vincent, and Ducournau ramps up the paranoid body dysphoria, the story loses momentum. Even if the director can’t quite stick the landing, Titane is a visually ravishing and thematically daring film unlike anything else you’ll see today.
Sex and, maybe, sexual dominance were broadcast from the license plate of a Nashville woman who says the Tennessee Department of Revenue (TDOR) officials allowed the vanity tag for a decade but now say it’s illegal because someone complained to the department’s chief of staff.
In July, the Flyer told readers about the woman who sued the state after it revoked the vanity plate, which reads “69PWNDU.” Leah Gilliam got the plate in 2011 to marry her loves of astronomy and gaming, her lawyer claims in the suit filed against TDOR in July. She said the “69” part references the 1969 moon landing. The “PWNDU” part references “pwnd,” a common gaming term for “owned.” So, “pwndu” means “owned you,” or something like “I have dominated you in this video game.”
A ruling on the matter was expected early this week but was not available at press time. Check memphisflyer.com for updates.
Officials have interpreted these vanity plates as offensive, despite the car owners’ insistence otherwise.
Who PWND Whom?
No one — state officials or members of the public — lodged any formal complaint against Gilliam for a decade. Her cars — a Volvo and two Mercedes-Benzes — carried the personalized banner until Gilliam received a surprise letter from TDOR on May 25th that the plate had been “deemed offensive.” She was instructed to return the plate immediately or face fines and up to 30 days in jail.
In June, Gilliam requested a hearing about the plate, explaining its phrase “is a gaming term and — above all — not rude, mean, or implying anything other than a friendly term for ‘I won.’”
“It is my hope I can get some younger jurors at my hearing who are familiar with the term and can enlighten the non-gamers in the crowd,” Gilliam wrote in June.
In 2018, Gilliam requested three choices for her vanity plate: “69PWNDU,” “PWNDU69,” and “IPWNDU.” She preferred “69PWNDU” and explained on the form that “PWND = video gaming term. [69PWNDU] is my Google phone.” The plate was approved.
By July 9, 2021, Gilliam’s case was before Administrative Law Judge Phillip Ewing. Daniel Horwitz, of the Nashville-based firm Horwitz Law, represented Gilliam. Camille Cline, assistant general counsel in TDOR’s legal office, represented the state of Tennessee. The conference was brief, set to establish that the attorneys would need time to gather documents for evidence and set future meetings. It also set the stage for a fight.
Horwitz asked, “My question was whether or not the state is going to take the position that they screwed this one up and that they should not have demanded this revocation. Is that going to happen?”
Cline responded, “No, sir. No, we are not going to take that position.”
Tennessee state law “requires” TDOR officials (including the commissioner of the department) to refuse to issue any vanity plate “that may carry connotations offensive to good taste and decency.” As for “69PWNDU,” it satisfied this part of the law, according to state attorneys, as it “was deemed to have a sexual association.”
“Specifically, the department determined that the significance of the configuration was likely interpreted to mean ‘69 pound you,’ which includes two terms or phrases with a sexual association,” reads the state’s explanation. “The numerical sequence ‘69’ is likely to be understood to reference a particular sexual activity; whereas, ‘pound you’ is a colloquial phrase that is also likely to be ascribed a sexual association.
“Additionally, the configuration could also be interpreted to mean ‘69 pwned [sic] you,’ with ‘pwned’ [sic] being a term frequently used by the gaming community in situations where one player has ‘owned’ or dominated another player. When this portion of the configuration is combined with the ‘69’ sequence, it could be read to signify sexual domination.”
In his legal complaint, Horwitz argued Tennessee’s law discriminates against Gilliam’s federally protected rights to free speech. The law, and the revocation of her plate, violated the First Amendment, Horwitz claimed, on the basis of both content and viewpoint. That is, laws cannot stop speech based on what it says (the content). Laws also cannot stop speech because of the underlying views in the message (the viewpoint).
“A law banning all political speeches in a public park would be content based,” according to the First Amendment Encyclopedia from the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee state University. “A law banning only political speeches by members of the Socialist Party would be viewpoint based.”
Horwitz also complained the Tennessee law is vague, does not adequately describe what it prohibits, leaving “reasonable people to guess at its meaning,” and “leaves the definition of its terms to law enforcement officials.”
For this and more, Gilliam and her attorney wanted to stop the state from revoking her “69PWNDU” plate, stop the state from revoking any vanity plate, the court judge to rule the law unconstitutional, for the state to pay court costs and attorney fees for Gilliam, and pay damages in the amount of $1 for every day she was forbidden from displaying her license plate.
State attorneys argued Tennessee’s personalized license plate program could not violate First Amendment rights. The program “involves government speech, which is outside the scope” of free-speech rights. Also, the program “is a nonpublic forum” and laws regulating it cannot violate the First Amendment. They also argued, generally, that laws governing the vanity plate program are not “unconstitutionally vague.” They asked the judge to declare the law constitutional, affirm TDOR’s decision to revoke the “69PWNDU” license plate, dismiss claims against TDOR Commissioner David Gerregano, and to have Gilliam pay all costs associated with the matter.
Interesting stuff emerged when state lawyers began handing over documents in the case. Horwitz wanted a list of every Tennessee license plate — personalized or not — that included “69.” State attorneys said the request was overly broad as there are over 250,000 license plates that contain the “69” sequence, including many non-personalized plates they deemed irrelevant to the case.
Those attorneys, however, turned over a list of active vanity plates in Tennessee that include “69” and were approved by TDOR. Most of them — the lion’s share of them, actually — are harmless reference to cars like “69ETYPE,” “69BUG,” “69FORD,” “69VET,” or “STANG69.” At least two — “697IBEW” and “IBEW969” — are references to labor unions.
Another — “USAFA69” — seems to be a reference to a graduation date from the United States Air Force Academy. “USMC69” seems to reference to service in the United States Marine Corps. Another — “ETSU69” — may communicate a graduation year from East Tennessee University. “ELVIS69,” perhaps, references the artist’s continued revival in that year. “LOSTN69” may even communicate a sweet nostalgia for a time gone by.
Others may be easy to understand but hard to know the intent: “KARMA69,” “MAGIC69,” “COOK69,” “FROG69,” “HUB69,” “PONY69,” “SUMMR69,” and more. Some of them, however, are harder to decipher: “PM37369,” “ROATE69,” “VLB669,” “X69,” “52769,” “656909,” and “356911.”
It does seem, though, that some naughty (but crafty) “69” aficionados got plates past the state censors. Consider “REAL69Z,” “TOPLS69” (both of which may be auto references), “694FUN,” or, simply, “I69.” The meaning of two plates are hilariously obvious, “42069” and “69420.” All of those, including “Gilliam’s “69PWNDU,” were approved at one point by officials in Nashville and released into the wild.
So, who are these officials? How do they decide what gets stamped on a plate and what does not? These were the central questions in an August deposition by Horwitz to Demetria Hudson, TDOR’s assistant director of vehicle services.
She said the plate caused no issues from May 2011 to May 2021. One day that month, someone verbally complained about the plate to Justin Moorhead, chief of staff in TDOR. After 10 years on the road, the department got that one complaint, reviewed the tag, and deemed it offensive. Why?
“Because it represents the department and it sends a message to the constituents that the department released one … a license plate … what the license plate entails … ,” Hudson said.
She said the “69PWNDU” plate was not protected by the Constitution because it was “harmful because somebody complained about it and took offense to it.” Asked about the department’s definition of “offensive,” Hudson said she wasn’t sure how state law spells it out. However, she gave an impromptu definition of “offensive,” saying it means “anything … that makes someone uncomfortable, or readily angry, or upset … ” and said that was the department’s definition of it. She said she got the definition from Webster’s Dictionary but wasn’t sure the department relied on it totally to define “offensive.” Similarly, Hudson said her department did not have formal definitions of “good taste” or “decency” and no training materials defined them.
However, she said the department does have formal regulations to determine whether or not a plate can be deemed offensive. She was not sure, though, that those regulations were “published for the public to see.” But the rules include a glossary of prohibited terms. She described those as “anything that pertains to ethnic or racially … ethnic, racially, sexual, violence, patriot.”
Asked about ethnic terms, Hudson said she didn’t know them all off the top of her head. When asked to name some she said, “things like white trash … or honky.” [Editor’s note: She was able to remember some other derogatory ethnic terms that don’t belong in this paper.] Asked about sexual terms, Hudson replied “things like screw you, 69 you,” but “that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.”
As for formal vetting of plates, Hudson said “[O]ur objectionable table is checked and then we also check Google search and Urban Dictionary.”
Answering questions from Horwitz, Hudson said “69420” should not be allowed on a license plate “because the 69 have [sic] sexual connotations.” Neither should “42069.” Neither should “694FUN,” “69BEAST,” “69BOSS,” “I69,” “69PONY,” “SMOKIN69,” or “TOPLS69.” Hudson did say that all of those plates should have been vetted before they were approved.
She said “69” alone was not enough to disqualify a plate. The number’s context had to be sexually explicit. However, she said she was sure sexually explicit “69” plates have “slipped through.”
Unsettled Law
Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, said Tennessee would have to show “extremely strong state interest” in banning any kind of speech from its license plates. He believed last week its regulations on them would be overturned.
“Offensive speech is protected by the First Amendment,” he said. “In fact, you only need a First Amendment to protect offensive speech. You don’t need protection for speech that everyone agrees with.”
So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on license-plate speech. Two federal court rulings have gone in opposite directions on the matter, he said, and Tennessee’s ruling will likely follow one of those.
In 2001, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Missouri officials violated the First Amendment rights of a woman by denying her request for the license plate “ARYAN-1,” according to the Freedom Forum Institute. That same year, the 2nd Circuit said Vermont officials could deny a vanity plate that said “SHTHPNS” because license plates are a nonpublic forum and government officials can regulate them.
With no official ruling from the highest court in the land, states make up their own laws on plates and how to manage First Amendment protections on them. Paulson said two federal judges have decided what the Constitution says, and the rest is “fine tuning by state legislators.”
Case Study: California
Chris Ogilvie sued the state of California in March 2020 after he was denied his vanity plate. The plate, “OGWOOLF,” was a mash-up of two of his nicknames. “Og” was his military nickname, and “Woolf” was his nickname back home. It was deemed offensive as “OG” could be read as an acronym for “original gangster” and was too offensive for other motorists.
The Pacific Legal Foundation took up the case and added four others to join the suit. “DUK N A,” short for “Ducati and Andrea,” was rejected because it sounded like an obscene phrase. “BO11UX” was rejected because the term was said to have sexual connotations. “SLAAYRR,” a reference to the metal band, was rejected because it was considered “threatening, aggressive, or hostile.” “QUEER,” a reference to a musician’s identity and record label, was rejected because it was considered insulting, degrading, or expressive of contempt.
The group won the suit in November as a federal judge ruled the state’s restriction of vanity plates it considers “offensive to good taste and decency” was unconstitutional.
“This is a great day for our clients and the 250,000 Californians that seek to express their messages on personalized license plates each year,” said Foundation attorney Wen Fa. “Vague bans on offensive speech allow bureaucrats to inject their subjective preferences and undermine the rule of law.”
Case Study: Rhode Island
A Rhode Island man Sean Carroll and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island argued to a federal judge in July 2020 that he should be able to put a plate on his all-electric Tesla that reads “FKGAS.” Carol contended the phrase read “fake gas.” He displayed the tags for six months until another driver complained to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
Attorneys for the state contended vanity plates are sold to raise money for the state. They said the plates were government property, and they are not a public forum to express themselves.
However, the judge ruled that the state’s law on such plates was vague and violated Carroll’s First Amendment rights.
“I am thrilled with [the judge’s] decision on my First Amendment right allowing me to express my views through my vanity plate,” Carroll said at the time. “The only thing better is to be able to continue to see all the smiles, laughter, thumbs up, and fist bumps in the rear-view mirror as people continue to read and get the humor in my message.”
Case Study: Maine
Maine stopped vetting vanity plates altogether in 2015. The program was loose enough that WGME reporters this year found 40 vanity plates that straight-up used the “F” word, and dozens had variations on it. Another review by the BangorDaily News found as many as 400 “obscene” plates with phrases like “FARTN,” “KISMYAS,” and “PHUKU2.”
But those wild and free days ended this summer. Maine lawmakers passed a bill that created “appropriate standards” for the Secretary of State to follow when approving vanity license plates. The bill became law in June.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, testified in support of banning the plates, according to a story from The Boston Globe.
“The First Amendment protects your right to have any bumper sticker you want, but it doesn’t force the state to issue you a registration plate that subjects every child in your neighborhood to a message the government wouldn’t allow them to see in a movie theater,” she told lawmakers.
The rules were not formally passed by the Maine legislature. Though, many expect the rules to face many legal challenges before they can be enacted.
Printing Plates and Money
Paulson agreed that the issues would all be cleaner if states just did not allow personalized license plates. They aren’t likely to stop, though, because they make money. In the 2020 fiscal year, Tennessee’s personalized plate program yielded $368,041.66 to state coffers, according to the TDOR.
But Paulson noted that while these issues seem countless and the topic is “fascinating,” it’s hardly a “pressing level matter.” The First Amendment Center is nonpartisan, he said, and does not lobby nor litigate.
“But as a matter of philosophy, we believe America is stronger if everybody is free to express themselves in any medium they choose,” he said.
Cars parked on the Greensward (Photo: savethegreensward.org)
Let us hearken now to those halcyon days of 2016, back to the difficult final months of the Great Battle of the Greensward. For those of you new to the history of the Kingdom of Memphis, let me share the tale: The Memphis Zoo — led at that time by a rather intransigent fellow named Chuck “You and the Horse You Rode In On” Brady — had begun to allow increasing numbers of cars to park on the Overton Park Greensward, a large, flat, grassy field used by park patrons for Frisbee football, soccer, picnics, and the occasional drum circle.
Over several years, the zoo kept expanding its parking footprint, finally going so far as to set up temporary fencing across the middle of the Greensward — usually on nice weekend days. On one side of the fence were people doing the aforementioned park things. On the other side were cars, SUVs, trucks, and the occasional bus, which left dead grass, mud, and deep, rutted tire tracks in the Greensward, rendering it useless for recreation even when it wasn’t being parked on.
Things started getting really heated in 2014. Park lovers formed groups: Get Off Our Lawn (GOOL) and Citizens to Preserve Overton Park (CPOP). Activists stood on nearby street corners urging zoo patrons to park on nearby streets, rather than despoiling the Greensward. Aerial photographs were taken that showed just how much of the people’s parkland was being taken over by a private entity. The pictures got national attention. Protestors were arrested. Houses all over Midtown bore signs urging Memphis to save the Greensward. Then the zoo cut down some trees. Some activists threatened to begin spray-painting cars. A zoo sign at the park entrance was defaced. Things were tense.
And then, in the winter of 2016, newly elected Mayor Jim Strickland managed to get both sides into mediation. After months of costly negotiation, a compromise was struck. The zoo would be allowed to enlarge its lot to 415 spaces, taking some of the Greensward, but with the great majority of the land being preserved. The zoo subsequently announced that it would build a parking garage on nearby Prentiss Place and wouldn’t need to expand its lot. Huzzah! Parking on the Greensward was a thing of the past. Peace reigned in the Kingdom.
At least it did until last Friday night at 5:06 p.m., when the zoo and city issued a joint press release stating that the Prentiss garage project was being scrapped because it was too expensive and that the zoo would go back to the lot-expansion plan, and, oh, while it was being expanded, the zoo would once again be letting its customers park on the Greensward. Enjoy your weekend. Nothing to see here.
This is some seriously tone-deaf policy and very stupid politics. The zoo has amply demonstrated over the past five years that it can operate without parking on the Greensward. The zoo has also amply demonstrated that it has the resources to raise millions of dollars from its patrons and funders. Now it can’t afford a parking garage? There’s an aroma of fish here. You don’t do a Friday night news dump unless you know you’re doing something that doesn’t bear scrutiny in the light of day.
Activists are already meeting and planning. This move is not going to play well with those who went through all this drama five years ago. And I need not remind those who’ve lived here a while that Overton Park has been under assault before, and that its supporters (then derided as “little old ladies in tennis shoes”) once managed to defeat the mighty U.S. government when it announced plans to split the park with Interstate 40 more than 50 years ago. Overton Park is the only place in the country where I-40 was stopped and forced to take a detour.
The force is strong in this place, this Old Forest, this people’s park. There is a history here, and the Memphis Zoo and the city of Memphis would be wise to take a cue from it.
At the beginning of 2019, as a newly elected governor, Nashville Republican Bill Lee, an industrialist of sorts, prepared to inaugurate his first four-year term, it became my task — both self-assumed and officially assigned — to write as authoritative a take as I could possibly make on what this ascendant Tennessee executive-in-chief had in mind to do.
As the Flyer’s chief politics writer, my job at the onset of a new state administration would be to chronicle the opening of a new session of state government, focusing significantly on the early actions and intentions of the General Assembly. The problem was that the issue allocated (or, as we say, budgeted) for just after New Year would be on the streets before the first gavel was destined to fall on the opening of the 2019 General Assembly.
The solution was to shift gears and write instead about the mind of the Governor-elect, and, if we could get to him beforehand, to dilate upon his plans and his intentions as against the actions of the General Assembly. The calendar permitted me to take in his formal inauguration (and with it access to the rhetoric of his acceptance address and the theater of the state ceremony).
To accomplish my end, however, I needed to flesh things out with the kind of detailed explanations from him on his plans that would be unlikely to turn up in a formal acceptance address. Accordingly, I made overtures through what was then but a thin group of gubernatorial retainers and got his assent to take part in a remotely conducted interview on the eve of his installment. The result was done partly via phone calls and partly through his answers to a questionnaire I sent to him. I had covered his election campaign fairly extensively as well and had that to go on, along with one of those superficial and polite relationships writers have (ideally) with their sources.
The piece, a Flyer cover story, begun on Memphis turf and completed in Nashville during inauguration week, turned out more or less successfully.
Dated January 31, 2019, it was entitled “Fresh Start in Nashville” and focused mainly on Lee’s expressed support for criminal justice reform, one of the few planks in his inaugural platform that could be called remotely “progressive.” (His views on that issue were actually praised by Tennessee ACLU head Hedy Weinberg!)
Most of his positions on other issues — education, public safety, government spending, what have you — were antiseptic Republican generalities. All in all, the profile probably suggested the same thing that Lee’s campaign had: Here was a man who had a pleasant exterior and was something of an enigma, enough of one to allow such benefit of the doubt as one might have toward a political figure.
Curiously, in the collection of bromides and generalities that constituted his answers to my questionnaire, there was one glaring omission. I had asked what he might do regarding the dormant industrial megasite that for more than a decade had been out there in Haywood County, a stone’s throw from both the needy cities of Memphis and Jackson, a bane to his several gubernatorial predecessors’ efforts to find a big-time industrial proprietor to make it more than a jumbo-sized vacant lot.
Lee shied away from answering that part of the questionnaire, saying he’d have to think about it. And think about it he presumably did for the next couple of years, even as the more straightforward positions he claimed for other issues dissolved into his version of a bully pulpit, one in which the adjective “bully” predominated. Attacks upon “socialism”; idealization of guns and school vouchers; restrictions on LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and other non-insiders; clampdowns on efforts to minimize the spread of Covid-19 — all this was his legacy.
Until, lo and behold, it is Lee, after the failures of all his immediate gubernatorial predecessors, who has actually succeeded in getting somebody big-time — the Ford Motor Company, for crying out loud — to commit to a $5.6 billion factory at the megasite, to make electric-powered vehicles (read: environmentally friendly ones) and to open up economic prospects for the beleaguered backwaters of West Tennessee.
A nice pre-election move, that, and maybe enough to justify a new look at Lee’s developing legacy.
On Monday, October 4th, Facebook — and, with it, Instagram and WhatsApp — went down for a little more than five hours. Though I’ve read a few articles about the crash, I can’t say I completely understand it. The social networking company issued a statement apologizing for the brief lapse in service and explaining that “configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication.”
In other words, the infrastructure of the internet has been built ad hoc over time, and behemoths of the ’net, themselves used by nearly half the world’s population, rely on seemingly insignificant components to work. If those small components go down, so too do the bigger systems that rely on them. Fair enough.
The outage was short-lived, and I doubt too many users of Facebook or Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, were dramatically impacted. WhatsApp is another story, as it’s used by many Latin American customers as a way to avoid high mobile phone tariffs. But what if Facebook hadn’t booted back up?
First, let’s try a little experiment. Tab over to Google, and type “Facebook admits” in the search bar. What results do you see? I got “Facebook admits Instagram is toxic,” “Facebook admits it messed up again,” “Facebook admits to social experiment,” and “Facebook admits to selling data.” Sure, this is hardly scientific, but what is it people say? “Believe people when they show you who they are.”
Facebook is a business, of course, and not a person, but the point stands. So what would happen if the site — and those it owned — never booted back up? Admittedly, it would be a little more difficult to secure some interviews. Not everyone has their email address listed publicly. In fact, I might have missed out on a column pitch, as someone had sent me a question about a potential column on a Facebook comment thread just hours before the site went down. But let’s look beyond the immediate inconveniences that would be caused.
Vaccination rates would probably skyrocket. It seems to take a steady stream of propaganda to keep people at the requisite anger levels needed to erode critical thinking skills. Because what social networking apps sell is user engagement. They’re geared toward keeping our eyes on the screen, our thumbs continuously caressing our precious fondle slabs. That way we see more advertisements on the sites, and we give them more of our personal data, which in turn allows them to better advertise to us.
At this point I should probably say that, in general, I am a fan of any new technology that makes communication easier. I remember being younger and living 1,400 miles or so away from my dad. We used to buy long distance “minutes” cards because calling long distance on the landline was so expensive. With the advent of the internet, people can talk to each other from opposite sides of the globe, for free, as long as they have access to an internet connection. That’s amazing. Frankly, I don’t think we stop and marvel at it often enough. But we’ve given Facebook free rein to work with little oversight. It’s huge, and remember, Instagram and WhatsApp didn’t get their start as creations of Mark Zuckerberg and co.; they were bought because they threatened to take up a little slice of our attention.
That’s the problem. In order to be successful, Facebook has to take up more and more of our attention. So things that make us angry are prioritized because anger boosts engagement. If psychologists and sociologists and ethicists and legislators sat down with a wide selection of potential users of a new technology and figured out guidelines for safe use, then wrote regulations based on those guidelines, we wouldn’t have a problem. Most of us never would have heard of the anti-vaxx group Global Frontline Nurses. But the automobile is always invented before the traffic light — or the seat belt or airbag or shatter-proof windshields or anti-lock brakes. And those inventions are small potatoes anyway. What about the highway and interstate systems? Or the way that vehicles changed the basic makeup of most American cities? No cars, no suburbs, for example.
Social media is more or less ubiquitous, and it’s relatively new. Maybe the time has come to, if not phase it out altogether, then at least make sure it’s promoting the best interests of the 3.5 billion people who use it.
Tennesseans picked the blue one with the state outline on top.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee let Tennesseans pick the new standard license plate in a poll conducted last month. Two plates were blue — one with “Tennessee” printed on the top, the other with “Tennessee” printed on top inside a shape that resembles the state borders. The other two plates were identical to this but white.
More than 300,000 Tennessee residents cast a vote, with 42 percent voting for the winning design. The “in god we trust” motto is optional.
New plates will be available online and in-person beginning January 3rd, 2022 as residents complete their annual tag renewal. Up to 100,000 plates per week will be produced to meet initial inventory demands.
Beer was the thing at the 2019 Memphis Brewfest. The expanded event returns this year. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Memphis Brewfest is returning, but under a new name and with an additional event.
“Memphis Brewfest Weekend” will be held Oct. 16th and 17th at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. Memphis Brewfest, with all the beer, will be Oct. 16th. And the new addition, “Memphis Brunchfest,” will be Oct. 17th. With brunch and more beer.
The last Memphis Brewfest was held in May 2019.
More than 50 breweries will be showcasing their beer at this year’s Brewfest, says event coordinator Eric Bourgeois, marketing director for Packed House Productions, which is presenting the event along with Good Beer Events. Packed House Productions is the parent company of the Aldo’s restaurants, which include Aldo’s Pizza Pies, Bardog Tavern, Slider Inn, and Momma’s.
Brewfest, which will be held from 3 to 7 p.m., will feature more than 150 beers, ciders, and seltzers “from around the country and a few international breweries as well,” Bourgeois says. Food from area restaurants will be available.
Partiers at the 2019 Memphis Brewfest. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Brunchfest, which will be held from noon to 3:30 p.m., also will be presented by the Arcade, Hattie B’s, and Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, all of which will provide the brunch items.
“We will have beer, but the big thing at Brunchfest is the Old Dominick’s Distillery Bloody Mary bar,” Bourgeois says.
Guests will be provided ingredients to create their own Bloody Marys. “Old Dominick is providing the vodka.”
And, Bourgeois says, “We’ll have bottomless mimosas for those that aren’t too into the Bloody Mary.”
They also will have “a considerable amount of beer and seltzer. So, if they can’t make that Brewfest experience, fear not. They’ll be able to get the boozy experience Sunday.”
JJ Wilson the DJ will provide “the vibes for imbibing” during Memphis Brewfest Weekend.
Cost of the events are $45 for general admission Brewfest tickets, which include “unlimited samples from 50 breweries and cideries from across the country. They can sample food from local Memphis eateries. And craft vendors will be there.”
Brewfest VIP tickets will be $100. That gets you “all of the above, plus Fast Pass Entry into the festival, access to the VIP lounge at the Memphis Tigers football locker room, all-you-can-eat buffet, and VIP exclusive specialty beers and ciders.”
Eric Bourgeois at the 2019 Memphis Brewfest. (Credit: Michael Donahue)
And, Bourgeois says, the VIP ticket will include “most importantly, private restrooms.”
Brunchfest admission is $50. That ticket “adds even more boozy fun for the weekend warrior.”
As for Covid-19 precautions, Bourgeois says they will not enforce showing proof of vaccination, but they are “operating under the same safety measures by the host venue, the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.”
Tickets will not be available at the gate this year. Go to memphisbrewfest.com to secure tickets because they are anticipating a sell-out crowd, Bourgeois says.
Eric Bourgeois, Aldo Dean, and Michael Donahue at the 2019 Memphis Brewfest.
Mississippi took its 16-year battle against Tennessee for water rights to the U.S. Supreme Court Monday and Justices compared the issue to wild horses in Mexico and fog over San Francisco.
John Coghlan, attorney for the state of Mississippi in the case, said the court should reject the Special Master’s conclusions to the case. Last year, the judge said, basically, that Tennessee has not been stealing water from Mississippi.
However, Coghlan said the case is not about whether or not Tennessee is asking more than its fair share of the water. He said the Supremes should focus on another question: Can Tennessee control groundwater while it’s located in Mississippi’s sovereign territory?
“Even if the aquifer is an interstate resource, Mississippi still possesses sole and exclusive control over groundwater within its sovereign territory, as recognized in [Tarrant Regional Water District versus Herrmann] and ensured by the Constitution,” Coghlan said. “And [Tennessee] cannot force groundwater across the border without violating this sovereignty.”
In questioning by Justice Clarence Thomas, Coghlan admitted that the Tarrant decision was a “cross-border situation.” But this case is, also, he said, as Tennessee’s “wells are physically located in Tennessee, but the pumping is physically crossing the border, unnaturally changing the pressure levels in this aquifer.”
Justice Thomas replied, “But couldn’t Tennessee make the exact same argument about you? Couldn’t Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri all make the same argument that whenever you pump you’re causing similar problems for them?”
David Frederick, attorney for Memphis Light, Gas and Water in the case, told the court that Tennessee has lawfully pumped water from the Middle Claiborne Aquifer for more than 130 years. Traditional water-sharing rules don’t apply in the case and, therefore, Mississippi’s claim for $600 million in damages should be dismissed.
“The undisputed facts are the aquifer’’s water volume in the greater Memphis and northern Mississippi area has changed very little in the past 100 years,” Frederic said. “The aquifer is fully saturated and in a state of equilibrium, and Mississippi has increased its own pumping dramatically and can extract all the water it needs.”
Chief Justice John Roberts clarified that Mississippi’s argument goes past equitable apportionment, the equal sharing of natural resources that flow between states. Coghlan agreed that it did, as Tennessee was reaching across its border and exercising control in waters located in Mississippi.
Coghlan conceded that water in the aquifer flowed from Mississippi into Tennessee. But he argued it was irrelevant whether or not it was classified as interstate water to be shared.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor reminded Coghlan of the case’s long legal history and asked, “When is enough enough?”
“You’ve been litigating this case for over 16 years,” Sotomayor began. “You started in the Fifth Circuit. You went to the district court, you went to the circuit court; both courts told you you’ve got to seek equitable apportionment.
“You came here in 2010. We tell you the same thing. Now this is the third time you’ve done this. This time you explicitly disclaim any claim for equitable apportionment. When is enough enough? When should you be stopped from amending and seeking equitable apportionment, assuming you lose?”
Coghlan explained the case is relevant still as it is for future damages, not rectifying not seeking damages for the past. This is, in part, he argued, why simply sharing the water is the wrong legal remedy. It doesn’t address the sovereign control of the water.
If the court ruled against Mississippi in the case this time around, Coghlan explained to Justice Sotomayor that, yes, the state would want the option to change its argument and pursue the matter in courts in the future. He said, we would want to obtain “whatever relief is possible for Mississippi.”
The Justices then began comparing the water that flows beneath Mississippi and Tennessee to natural resources that flow freely in other states.
Chief Justice Roberts: “In the western states, they have these, I don’t know, wild horses or wild burrows, whatever they are, and they don’t obey the state lines and they’re wandering around and they — let’s just say they go from, you know, New Mexico to wherever.
“Let’s suppose that they’re — I know they’re pests, I guess, in some places, but let’s suppose they’re a valuable resource. If they were in Mississippi and crossed into Tennessee and Tennessee seized them at that point, would that be damaging Mississippi, or could Tennessee say, ‘Look, they’re on our territory, they’re under our physical control. We can exercise dominion over them, period’?”
Justice Stephen Breyer: “My understanding — and you have to — it’s very elementary. I mean, I think water falls from the sky. Some of it’s evaporated back. Others of it goes into oceans or lakes or streams. A huge amount goes underwater — underground. It’s groundwater, and it runs all over the place. That’s why I like the wild horses. My idea of that groundwater is it’s going all over the place.
“San Francisco has beautiful fog. Suppose somebody came by in an airplane and took some of that beautiful fog and flew it to Colorado, which has its own beautiful water — air. And somebody took it and flew it to Massachusetts or some other place. I mean, do you understand how I’m suddenly seeing this and I’m totally at sea? It’s that the water runs around. And whose water is it? I don’t know. So you have a lot to explain to me, unfortunately, and I will forgive you if you don’t.”
At this point, Coghlan explained that he’s not arguing that Mississippi owns the water. He said he’s arguing the state has the right to control the water while it’s within the borders of the state. Tennessee, he said, should not have the right to control it, by pumping it while it’s under Mississippi ground.
Chief Justice Roberts looked to the future of the case, noting that, if Mississippi won the suit, then Tennessee could bring a counterclaim with the exact same argument: that Mississippi was controlling water under its sovereign border. Coghlan agreed.
Roberts said if Tennessee did sue, “The normal thing would be [that] I’d take whatever … Tennessee owes you, whatever you owe Tennessee, and set it off against the other.” Coghlan agreed and Roberts said, “That starts to sound a lot like equitable apportionment.” Coghlan said that remedy would “be similar to equitable apportionment.”
In the end, the court was skeptical of Mississippi’s argument that it owned the water “simply by virtue of having passed through Mississippi’s territory,” said Frederick Liu, who filed a brief supporting Tennessee on behalf of the federal government.
The court also worried the case could set a precedent. If Mississippi prevailed and Tennessee had to pay for water in the future, that other states would begin suing one another for water rights.
The Rambler is open on South Main (Credit: Justin Fox Burks)
The Rambler boutique apartment hotel at 400 South Main and Huling is officially open.
“We’ve been working on it for a bit,” says founder Kenny Lipschutz, 34. “So, we’re excited to be finally open.”
“Apartment hotel” is the “new catch phrase” for this type of combination hotel/apartment, says Lipschutz, who is based in New York. “In all ways, shapes, and forms it’s a boutique hotel. But the units are designed as apartments. We rent them out on short term rental platforms such as Airbnb. And to some longer term guests, a month or two. Someone who wants to be here longer than a night or two.”
The concept is to “try to bring the best of both hotel and apartment living. So, on the hotel side we look to offer hotel quality beds, high quality management, and what we like to call impeccable cleanliness. On the apartment side, we would hope to offer the opportunity to live more comfortably and authentically in larger units with full kitchens and living rooms.”
An open kitchen and dining room space at The Rambler. (Credit: Justin Fox Burks)
The building, which dates to 1910, previously was a private residence. “It was really a full-blown historical renovation. We wanted to preserve the original character of the building, which really had beautiful bones: exposed brick walls, vaulted ceilings, wood beams. Really a beautiful building.
“So, we went about renovating it in a way we could preserve those original details and that original charm while basically converting it from a single family home to adding modern finishes to 18 apartment units which comprise 28 bedrooms that range from studio all the way to larger three bedroom units, which are designed to accommodate group demand.”
A living room at The Rambler (Credit: Justin Fox Burks)Kitchen at The Rambler (Credit: Justin Fox Burks)Bedroom at The Rambler (Credit: Justin Fox Burks)
The Rambler also includes “3,300 square feet of retail along South Main.”
Landmark Bank, soon to be Simmons Bank, “opened their first downtown retail bank branch in this location.”
Pool and patio at The Rambler (Credit: Justin Fox Burks)
The Rambler officially opened September 9th. “Had our first guests. And we’ve been fully booked every weekend.”
The hotel name has musical inspiration, Lipschutz says. “The name was inspired by the story of how B. B. King hitchhiked to Memphis and took his shot at being a performer. The name derives from people who made the journey to Memphis and changed their lives in different ways throughout history. Memphis attracts that traveler for whatever reason. They arrive in Memphis looking for a fresh start and a new adventure. With a nod to that tradition past and present, the hotel offers an opportunity to continue this great tradition of travel to Memphis.”
Lipschutz, who works for real estate developer Twenty Lake Holdings (which owns the former The Commercial Appeal building), wanted to pursue his idea of opening a boutique apartment hotel in Memphis. “We’d go from block to block to see if we could find a good location to try it out.”
South Main was a perfect fit. “I loved the vibe and energy along South Main.”
And, he says, “You really feel the local ownership and pride. The local business owners’s energy and personality really shines through.”
Lipschutz formed his own company, “Blue Suede Properties,” to develop the Memphis project. “It’s been really fantastic. Everyone in the Downtown Memphis area has been incredibly welcoming and has been incredibly generous with their time and helping out whenever they can. And it’s just been fantastic to use this property as small part to help the momentum people have started downtown and, generally, in the South Main arts community.”
Kenny Lipschutz (Credit: Kenny Lipschutz)
And, he says, “I spent so much time it almost feels like home in a way. It’s just always great coming back. And always a welcome change of pace coming from New York City.”
Memphis, Lipschutz says, “has such an incredible tradition of hospitality whether it’s the food, the lodging, the music. And just through all of it is the incredible generosity of the people. I’ve really felt that welcoming with open arms. And it’s really inspired me and has truly motivated me to do my small part to help contribute to it. That’s really been my North Star through this whole thing.”
