It’s long been the custom for Flyer writers to devote their year-end column to the 12 months just past, so I’ve spent the past couple of days rummaging through my 2022 columns.
January — The brutal assassination of Memphis rapper Young Dolph dominated the news for a couple of weeks and put Memphis into an unwanted national spotlight. I also wrote about the increasingly troubling phenomenon of souped-up cars with drive-out tags ignoring all traffic laws with impunity. By the end of the month, I was reduced to writing about the joys of learning a language on Duolingo, just to catch a breather.
February — The new Republican-created Tennessee voting district maps were a joke at all three levels, a mugging of democracy in plain sight. Newly configured districts in and around Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville were designed to break up neighborhoods and Democratic voting strongholds in urban areas, especially Black communities.
Later that month, I took in a pup I found abandoned at the Overton Park dog run. I named her Wink and soon discovered she was deaf. The story had a happy ending, eventually, as two women adopted her. She’s now Sasha, and I still get pictures of her.
Also, Marjorie Taylor Greene ranted about Nancy Pelosi’s “gazpacho police” enforcing mask requirements.
March — I urged the Mighty Lights folks to light the M Bridge in Ukrainian blue and gold after Putin’s invasion. It took a minute for them to catch on.
That was followed by a column on the right’s obsession with “wokeness.” Steve Bannon predicted that Ukraine’s “woke” army would succumb to Putin’s manly Russian forces in a couple of weeks. As usual, Bannon got it completely wrong.
March also saw the beginning of the circus surrounding the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Despite having no real blemishes on her record and more judicial and trial experience than any nominee in decades, she suffered the slings and rubber-tipped arrows of GOP opportunists such as Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, and our homegrown lightweight, Marsha Blackburn, who cleverly asked the judge to “define a woman.”
April — I took a deep dive into the Wordle phenomenon, and how I personally got name-checked as a Wordle grinch.
Right-wingers began whining ceaselessly about saving American schools from “Critical Race Theory,” and Governor Bill Lee first tipped his hand about funneling tax dollars to Hillsdale College to fund 50 right-wing charter schools.
Blackburn once again found a way to embarrass (most of) us by slyly giving a white power symbol while questioning Judge Jackson on the Senate floor.
May — The leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade was beginning to stir dissent, as American women realized that this SCOTUS was apparently quite willing to overturn the right of women to control their own bodies. I suggested the leak came from Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni, but it now appears the leaker was Alito himself.
A shooter in Buffalo murdered 10 Black people in a supermarket, citing as his reason the “white replacement theory” that had been spouted by Fox host Tucker Carlson and other white supremacists for weeks. Many thoughts and prayers were offered.
June — Oh, hey, time for another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Thoughts and prayers were immediately issued and everything was fine.
A few days later, after giving a speech at the NRA convention, Donald Trump read the names of the 19 victims of the shooting (mispronouncing many of them). Then, as one does, he danced off-stage to Sam & Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Coming.”
July — Roe v. Wade was overturned and American women in many parts of the country were required to adhere to a religious tenet held by 13 percent of the country’s adults, and six of the nine Supreme Court judges. Conservative activists had spent years working to pack the Supreme Court for the express purpose of undoing Roe v. Wade, and they succeeded. Pundits wondered if women would be able to sustain their outrage until Election Day.
In Memphis, it was 100 degrees or so all month, including one day in which our “feels like” temperature reached a balmy 114.
August — After an investigation, the DOJ became convinced that Trump was lying about not having more classified information stored at Mar-a-Lago and conducted a raid, which uncovered lots more classified and top-secret information. Trump had lied. Shocker.
I wrote about the horrific problems of Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert’s office, then I went on vacation for a couple weeks and had a great time. Kinda like Wanda did.
September — Like I said, I went on vacation. When I got back I wrote about license plates, “In God We Trust,” and propping up religion by the state government.
October — I managed to get out a column about being a bird-nerd and getting busted for pot in college. You wouldn’t think there would be a connection, but that’s why they pay me the big bucks to write this stuff. I also commended President Joe “Cheech” Biden for letting all those dope-fiends out of prison.
The next week I went out in a boat on the Mississippi River, what was left of it, and took a lot of pictures of sand dunes that used to be river bottom.
November — Finally, there was good news. The “red wave” that was supposed to crush the Democrats’ power in Washington, D.C., and around the country turned out to be blue. People didn’t forget the Roe v. Wade debacle. People didn’t want to overturn the 2020 election or put Trump’s hand-selected clowns in high office. Huzzah.
December — We learned that the city would be getting a minor league football team called the Memphis Showboats (again). The city went crazy with all-night celebrations for a week. It was awesome.
We were also treated to another episode of the ongoing series, “I’m an anti-Semite,” starring “Ye,” Trump, and another horrible person. Then Trump demanded that we “terminate” the Constitution and make him president again because Elon Musk released an earth-shattering Twitter expose about Hunter Biden’s penis. So far, the Constitution hasn’t been terminated, but there’s always next year. See you in January.
