This may seem unlikely to readers of this column who are still clinging to the golf slacks of the former president and write me uncharitable emails, but I actually do research these weekly missives. I copy links to relevant or interesting articles into a “column fodder” folder on my desktop; I save interesting emails; I even look up stuff.
I also reread my Twitter feed, which isn’t exactly research, but sometimes it can capture the zeitgeist of a particular week. To wit: Editor & Publisher posted a story last Thursday about how their publisher had pulled off a stunning deal to buy all 1,100 Gannett newspapers, including The Commercial Appeal. Whoa!
I read through the first couple graphs rapidly, slowing to reread only when I got to this part: “The new Operations Center is to be located about two miles northwest of Lebanon, Kansas, the geographic center of the contiguous United States. Newton will be recruiting retired NASCAR drivers to get the newspapers into each individual market within 72-hours of printing, which is, on average, two-days faster than currently being provided by most Gannett properties.”
Then I remembered the date: April 1st. Got me.
That same day, County Mayor Lee Harris issued a tweet urging all of us to get a COVID vaccine, citing the emergence of a highly contagious and deadlier Brazilian variant, which is definitely no joke. I’m a month post-vaccination and feeling somewhat bulletproof, though I still wear a mask in public. There’s no better feeling, right now. Seriously, if you’re sentient enough to be reading this and haven’t started the process of getting the vaccine, there’s really no excuse left, except “I’m an idiot.”
Later in the week, a Twitter debate broke out about which state had the absolute worst trifecta of governor and senators. Top contenders were Texas (Abbot, Cornyn, Cruz); Missouri (Parson, Hawley, Blunt); Florida (DeSantis, Scott, Rubio); Mississippi (Reeves, Hyde-Smith, Wicker); Alabama (Ivey, Shelby, Tuberville); and Tennessee (Lee, Blackburn, Hagerty). South Dakota (Noem, Thune, Rounds) also got some mention, to be fair, but the South truly owned this competition. So proud!
Speaking of pride, there were lots of tweets about the Tennessee legislature’s appointing Laurie Cardoza-Moore, an anti-Muslim, anti-BLM, 9/11 truther, vax-hoaxer, and all-around nutball to the state Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission, which, among other things, selects the textbooks used in Tennessee’s public schools.
Memphis Senator Raumesh Akbari interviewed the candidate on the Senate floor, picking apart her past lunacy and concluding, after questioning: “I cannot think of someone who is more uniquely unqualified to be in this position.” Senator Brian Kelsey, the ever-reliable GOP tool from Germantown, pooh-poohed the idea that Cardoza-Moore would be a problem, because, well, he’s Brian Kelsey.
Our legislators and governor also bum-rushed through an open-carry law that will allow any mouth-breathing crackpot to take a gun pretty much anywhere his tiny penis tells him to go. The law was opposed by all major law-enforcement organizations, attorneys general groups, and the vast majority of Tennessee voters. After the law’s passage, Governor Bill Lee made a quick call to the NRA to thank them for their support, making it pretty clear whose opinion matters to him. I really hope I live long enough to see these shameless GOP hacks get sent packing.
But it wasn’t all bad news. There were tweets about how the Memphis Fire Department, community advocate groups, and MATA set up a vaccination center for the area’s homeless, and inoculated dozens of folks who are living in the most vulnerable of circumstances. Good for them. And for us.
What else? I met a friend inside an actual restaurant for dinner for the first time in almost 13 months. We had steaks and split a bottle of Bordeaux and bitched and told the usual stories, and for a couple of hours, life seemed normal again — except for our longtime bartender saying we were starting to sound like the two old guys in the balcony in The Muppets.
Tough crowd. Tough year.
