Author: Bruce VanWyngarden

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At Large Opinion

Who’s Zooming Who?

Empire State Building (Photo: Nbogdev | Dreamstime.com)

“25 Empire State Buildings Could Fit Into New York’s Empty Office Space.” Now that’s a headline. The article, in the May 10th New York Times, was equally compelling, citing the high office-vacancy rates in the nation’s major cities and suggesting some creative possible solutions.

As many sociologists have pointed out, the physical layout of most large American cities is not set up to handle the work-from-home economy that was spurred by the pandemic. After the onset of the high-rise office building, circa 1920s, American cities became increasingly segmented into geographic spaces for home, work, and play.

That 100-year-old urban game plan is no longer working. The national office-vacancy rate as of April 5th, according to an FDIntelligence report, was 18.5 percent. The rate in Memphis for the first quarter, according to Cushman-Wakefield, was 16.2 percent. From Cushman-Wakefield: “The [Memphis] office market continues with lower than typical leasing activity though absorption remains positive. … Tenants continue to downsize into smaller spaces.”

The company I work for, Contemporary Media, Inc., is doing just that, moving from a lovely old Downtown building with brass elevators to a space that makes more sense economically. We learned during the pandemic that we are capable of putting out the Flyer and Memphis magazine and our other publications with our writers, editors, art staff, and sales staff working from home.

I’m writing this column from my couch (along with my dog, Olive), and have the Flyer’s Slack app open on my laptop so as to be able monitor communication between my co-workers and chip in with editing help when needed — or when I feel like joining in the genial smack talk. It’s like a free-flowing group text, only much more useful. We do have weekly in-person staff meetings, as well, so we can put on grown-up clothes, brainstorm, gossip, and remember what we look like. But it’s a far cry from the 40-hour-a-week office-and-cubicle farms we occupied for the first 40 years of the company’s existence.

Back to the Times: “To create a city vibrant enough to compete with the convenience of the internet, [cities] need to create mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods that bring libraries, offices, movie theaters, grocery stores, schools, parks, restaurants, and bars closer together. We must reconfigure the city into an experience worth leaving the house for.”

Is Downtown Memphis worth leaving the house for? Well, I can look out my soon-to-be-former office window and see the nascent construction of a new Memphis Brooks Museum, one that will cascade down the bluff to the river. There, it will overlook the spectacularly reimagined Tom Lee Park. A Downtown grocery store has sprung up on the south side, not far from a snazzy movie theater, which is adjacent to the city’s largest farmers market and the thriving South Main district. The Cossitt Library has just been beautifully redone. New restaurants are coming on, and long-time favorites are still thriving. Old buildings are getting new life. FedExForum, home of the Grizzlies and Tigers and big-ticket touring concert acts, is getting a multi-million-dollar facelift, as is AutoZone Park, home to the AAA Redbirds and the 901 FC soccer team. And I can think of at least five standalone breweries in the 38103. So yeah, I’d leave the house for some of that action — and do.

“We are witnessing the dawn of a new kind of urban area,” the Times concludes: “the Playground City.” That sounds nice, but it can go wrong. Consider, for example, how Downtown Nashville’s party wagons, mobile hot tubs, and cheesy honky-tonks are choking the city’s urban center at night — and demonstrating how a “playground city” can chase locals away rather than attract them.

Memphis needs to be smarter. If we want more people to live Downtown, we need to keep the noise down after a reasonable hour and restrict the more boisterous action to Beale Street and other designated areas. (Talkin’ to you, party wagons.) And Downtown needs to be closely monitored by police, with a presence that protects citizens and visitors without stifling the Memphis vibe.

The truth is, our Downtown probably doesn’t even have one Empire State Building’s worth of vacant office. We’re fortunate that mid-size cities like Memphis are poised to recover and adapt to a post-pandemic economy much more quickly than mega-cities. Let’s not screw it up, Memphis.

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At Large Opinion

No Ifs, Ands, and Bots

It was not obvious that something could go wrong. (Photo: Devidgrutz | Dreamstime.com)

I was shocked and dismayed recently at the most unlikely of places: a company lunch. I don’t get to the physical office much these days, so a co-worker kindly brought my mail to the get-together. Imagine my horror when four of the letters turned out to be hate mail, each criticizing a different column I’d written in the past few weeks.

The person who wrote the letters didn’t sign them (shocker), but it got me to thinking — maybe I’ve been too harsh lately. Maybe I need to tone down the rhetoric a bit. My wife, who’s much more tuned into the zeitgeist than me, suggested I try one of those new AI bots designed to help writers fine-tune their prose. I thought, why not?

After downloading a popular AI program, I submitted this week’s column to my new digital editor. It bleeped once and told me my options were: Proofread this but only fix grammar; Proofread this strongly; Proofread this lightly, improving clarity and flow; Proofread this significantly, improving clarity and flow. I went for the latter — I mean, why do things halfway? It was a revelation! What follows are samples of the column, followed by the digitally edited version in italics:

Just exactly what level of greed did it take to impel CNN to give twice-impeached, serial philandering, tax-cheating, insurrection-leading, secret-document-stealing, election-tampering, lying douchebag Donald Trump an hour of free television to spew his lies in a “town hall”?

Hello, fellow humans. This week’s column (by me) in the Memphis Flyer newspaper is about the CNN cable television network’s decision to hold an hour-long Town Hall on May 10th with Donald Trump, the former (2016-2020) president of the United States (the country in which we both reside). I think this is a bad idea.

This is the kind of unmitigated media avarice that got us Trump in the first place. From the moment the former president descended on that damned escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015, the television networks swooned, thrilled to learn that letting an orange-colored, poofy-haired, former reality-TV star spout racist, misogynistic garbage and lie his ass off made for stratospheric television ratings. Trump was the golden boy, and the networks gave their viewers wall-to-wall coverage of the candidate from that point forward, raking in unheard of levels of ad revenue all the while. What could go wrong?

When Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he rode an escalator down two levels. Television networks covered the event — which got excellent ratings — and continued to broadcast coverage of Mr. Trump for many hours a day throughout the campaign for the 2016 presidency. During this period, Mr. Trump made many controversial statements, which raised viewership levels and allowed television networks to earn high profits. It was not obvious that something could go wrong.

CNN says it will have a moderator for the town hall, but that Trump will answer direct questions from the audience, which, according to a network spokesperson, will include “Republicans and other voters.” In other words, Trump will have free rein to continue to lie about the 2020 election, the January 6th insurrection, those missing official documents, his rape trial, President Biden, the “Russia hoax,” and whatever other stream-of-consciousness fantasies erupt from his addled cortex. Awesome stuff, CNN!

CNN has announced that Mr. Trump will answer questions from members of the Republican Party and other voters. There will be a moderator for the discussion, topics for which are expected to include the 2020 election, the January 6th event at the U.S. Capitol, the handling of official government documents, and other possibly controversial subjects. CNN is awesome.

Fact-checking Trump in real-time is like standing under Niagara Falls with a bucket and expecting to keep your shoes dry. It can’t be done. He uses his mouth like an AR-15, and his lies are the bullets. Letting this ass wander around a stage with a microphone and a national television audience will only further normalize this dangerously aberrant behavior. Simply put, it’s journalistic malpractice, CNN. And I have two words for you: “You’re fired!”

No errors detected.

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At Large Opinion

Look Away, Dixieland

Abraham Lincoln (Photo: Alexander Gardner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Here’s something of an ode to the South, my home for 30 years now. It’s called “Red States.” Enjoy.

Red States, where the state amphibian is the gerrymander; where the GOP supermajorities rule with a closed fist and minorities have no voice; where legislators are mostly rural, ignorant, and mean; where the governors are small men with small intellects and smaller hearts.

Red States, where Confederate flags still fly; where racism — subtle and blatant — still lives; and where its long, ugly history isn’t allowed to be taught in school.

Red States, where LGBTQ rights are threatened; where drag queens are vilified; where you can’t say gay (or gender) in school; where hateful ignorance (and lustful hypocrisy) comes dressed in the cheap suit of a rural preacher.

Red States, where books are banned; where libraries get unfunded; where public schools are starved and tax dollars go to private academies; where college students are urged to report their professors for thought crimes.

Red States, where abortion is murder; where forced pregnancy is the law; where doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and pharmacies must conform to a religious doctrine; where 10-year-old rape victims must carry their rapist’s baby to term.

Red States, where more people live in poverty; where salaries are lower; where hunger is more common; where more housing is substandard; where homelessness is rampant.

Red States, where voting is harder; where precincts are fewer in poor neighborhoods; where students have to jump through hoops to register; where you can’t offer rides to the polls or a cup of water to those waiting in line.

Red States, where hospitals are dying from a lack of funds because Obamacare was named for a Black man; where health insurance isn’t for everyone; where alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes kill more people; where the infant mortality rate is high and getting higher; where life expectancy is low and getting lower.

Red States, where guns are sacred totems untouchable by the laws of man; where you can buy a pistol in 10 minutes and walk out with it strapped to your body; where innocent people are slaughtered; where the shrieks from grieving families go unheard; where mass shootings by disturbed humans carrying weapons of war are a necessary sacrifice, an offering that must be made to the Holy Church of the NRA, blessed be thy name. …

Oh Lord. Amen.

I’m so sick of this shit, so sick to death of what is happening in our so-called red states. And I’m particularly angry — and sad — about how this hateful cabal is slow-murdering the American South, turning it into a one-party banana republic and rolling back the calendar to the 1950s for all who dare to color outside the lines.

Not all red states are Southern, but all Southern states are red (with the possible shaky exception of Georgia). And those of us living here are experiencing what the entire U.S. would look like under unbridled GOP rule. Yes, we reside in a “blue” city, but you have only to look 180 miles to the east, to Nashville, where now-unchecked GOP legislators are trying to take over the airport authority, and where they attempted to reduce the number of members of the Nashville Metro Council because it voted to reject holding the Republican National Convention there. And if these bozos are jacking with Nashville, just imagine what mischief they could do in Memphis — a city they already hate because we have the nerve to be majority Black. (Not to mention, that uppity Justin Pearson comes from here.)

So is there any hope of changing any of this? Yes. Tennessee, for example, was a blue state until a decade or so ago. We can hope that the gun-reform furor that erupted in the wake of The Covenant School shootings will sustain, here and elsewhere. We can hope the pro-choice vote that has swung elections around the country in the past few months will turn out in 2024. And we can hope that at some point the South will rise again. Only better.

I’m reminded of a closing line from Abraham Lincoln’s second Inaugural speech, given as the bloody Civil War was staggering to a finish. It summed up his hopes for his divided country: “With malice toward none,” he urged, “with charity for all.” Amen to that. Amen, amen.

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At Large Opinion

The 10 Commandments of Woke

Thou shalt walk in a park and forest bathe. (Photo: Megan Lee | Unsplash)

Visit a Park. Follow a trail or a path until you are immersed in nature. Stop for a moment and listen. Take in the bird-song, the whisper of the breeze through the trees. Breathe in the wood-smell. Feel the earth beneath your feet. (The Japanese call it “forest bathing.”) Then give thanks that some woke folks once had the foresight to preserve the corner of nature you are now privileged to experience. 

Read a Banned Book, maybe even one you’ve read before. There are now hundreds to choose from in the U.S. And support your local libraries and independent bookstores. They are an endangered species in many parts of this country. Reading is fundamental. So is the right to choose what you want to read. 

Be a Voice for Choice. Never forget that abortion services and pregnancy counseling are also healthcare, and all women deserve the right to make their own medical decisions without government direction or interference. Religious beliefs and political ideology do not trump core human rights in this country.

Consume Real News. Don’t be fooled by websites and “news” organizations that exist only to excite your confirmation biases. While no media organization is perfectly neutral, the reporting in most major newspapers is relatively free of bias. Some of the most balanced news (not opinion) sources, according to the AllSides Media Bias Chart, are AP News, BBC News, NPR News, PBS News, Reuters, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal.

Don’t Spread BS. This could be considered a corollary of the preceding commandment. Before posting something on social media or otherwise amplifying any content, google it and check the source. If it seems too good to be true or perfectly aligns with your own beliefs, be suspicious. Mark Twain, for example, did not say all things the internet says he did. Be a spreader of truth, not, er, bullshit. 

Speak Your Mind. State your political views freely and clearly when asked or when otherwise appropriate. There’s no need to fear offending others if you speak the truth. In fact, polite silence in the face of racism, homophobia, misogyny, lies, or hate-speech indicates that you are okay with it. Don’t be okay with it. Also, it’s okay to say, “Happy Holidays.”

Don’t Fear History. The saying goes, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” These days, too many people are trying to bury history so they can freely ignore it. Or repeat it. They want to suppress any portion of the past that makes them uncomfortable, like slavery, lynchings, and segregation, to name a few things some white folks don’t want to talk about. Being uncomfortable with parts of our past is part of the process. Otherwise, yes, we are doomed. 

Stand Up for Gun Reform. The United States is a scary place, a civilian battlefield where innocent people are being gunned down by military-grade weapons so often and in so many places it’s become a mind-numbing parody. Too many of our legislators are in the bloody pockets of the NRA. It’s long past time to pass sensible gun legislation, including reinstating the assault weapons ban. We can’t give up this fight. 

Do Say Gay. It’s getting hard out there for LGBTQ+ folks, so show your support for gay-friendly businesses and organizations. Hey, maybe drink a Bud Light and go see a drag show. And let young people know, as soon as they are curious about it, that being gay isn’t scary or something to be made fun of. Introduce them to your Aunt Peg and her wife. Take them to Disneyland.

Believe in Science. Climate change is real. The oceans are rising. Temperature levels that used to be unusual are now the new normal. Severe weather events are more commonplace. Floods and droughts rack the globe. Coral reefs are dying and ice caps are melting. Your beachfront property may soon be worthless — or gone. Also, vaccinations are not a government plot, tobacco can give you cancer, and you should go ahead and schedule that checkup with your doctor. Trust me on this.

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At Large Opinion

Is This a Circus?

The Tennessee Three — Gloria Johnson, Justin Pearson, and Justin Jones (Photo: John Partipilo | Tennessee Lookout)

“We are talking about nothing less than 75 people overruling the wishes of 78,000 people! And you’re gonna cut off debate? Give me a break! Is this a circus? If you can’t sit through a conversation or a debate on something no less than expelling a colleague … you don’t belong here!”

Democratic Representative John Ray Clemons of West Nashville spoke for thousands of Tennesseans last week as he watched his GOP colleagues turn the democratic process into meaningless procedural flimflam. It was a travesty, a mean-spirited exhibition of white men wielding power in the worst possible way.

They did it because they’re used to doing it. They did it because they’ve never paid a price for it, mostly because no one was ever watching before. It was just one of the many tricks the Republicans in the Tennessee House of Representatives used in the process of expelling three duly elected representatives. These included cutting off Wi-Fi in the galleries, postponing action until late in the day after thousands of demonstrators had arrived for the scheduled morning opening, not allowing the three lawmakers to know what would be expected of them in mounting their defense, showing unattributed video of their protests … and, well, I could go on.

It was an astonishing display of autocracy, ruthlessly leveraged by hypocritical ignoramuses — only this time, the entire world was watching — and instead of suppressing the voices of change, as they so clearly intended to do, the Tennessee GOP instead amplified them in ways they could have never imagined in their wildest fever dreams.

Prior to last week, Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson were known only by their constituents, if that. Now they are household names, appearing on major television networks, here and abroad, meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, and being invited to the White House. Tens of thousands of dollars are flowing into their fundraising coffers.

To those Republicans responsible, I’d just like to take a moment to say: Nice job, you racist, gun-sucking assholes. You’ve embarrassed yourselves and your state, but mostly yourselves. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of clowns.

There. I feel better. Especially knowing these fools have helped spawn a new generation of activists, one that will stand strong against the only two arrows the Republican Party seems to have left in its pathetic quiver: a Taliban-esque, no-exceptions, anti-abortion platform and a no-permit, total open-carry, pro-assault-weapons agenda. Good luck running on those issues in 2024 and beyond.

And speaking of clowns … How about that Justice Clarence Thomas, amirite? Turns out that for the past couple of decades he’s been taking hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of luxury yacht cruises, resort vacations, and private jet rides courtesy of a right-wing Texas billionaire named Harlan Crow. Crow also founded a side-hustle PAC for Thomas’ wife, Ginni, and paid her a sweet $150,000 a year to run it.

But nope, no corruption to see here, said Clarence. He and Harlan were just friends, he said, adding that he would stop now that he knew it was wrong.

Never mind that Crow is embedded in the activist judicial group, the Federalist Society, and never mind that he has one of the world’s great collections of Hitler memorabilia. Because that’s normal. Right?

Listen, when I began my journalism career, one of the first things I was told is “don’t accept anything from a potential source, not even a cup of coffee.” The reason being, of course, that any hint of impropriety could compromise a story by calling into question the journalist’s impartiality.

The Thomas case is the very definition of compromising someone’s impartiality with favors. And, much as was the case in Nashville, it went on only because no one was watching. How is it remotely possible that the ethics code for a member of the United States Supreme Court is flimsier than that of a newspaper reporter?

It isn’t, and Thomas knows it. Otherwise, he would have reported the largesse extended to him. It’s absurd on its face. If, however, Republicans are still intent on expelling a Black man from office, I do have a suggestion.

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At Large Opinion

It’s Limbo Time!

Photo: Natalya Erofeeva | Dreamstime.com

The excitement began last Thursday with a post by former President Donald Trump on his Truth Social network: “These Thugs and Radical Left Monsters have just INDICATED the 45th President of the United States …” he wrote. Yes, Trump was very angry that he had been “indicated,” but the misspelling went mostly unnoticed, except by snarky liberals who were unaware that outrage doesn’t need no damn proofreader.

Trump went on in his usual grammar-free, random all-caps style: “THIS IS AN ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!” he wrote. Which was true, since previous attacks on our country have involved bombs, airplanes, armies, other nations, and such. But this was not an attack on our country. It was an indictment of one American citizen, which happens around 90,000 times a week in the U.S. judicial system. Still, Trump had a point of sorts: This was at least an indictment, the likes of which have never been seen before — one issued to a former U.S. president.

Those who’ve lived in this country for the past seven years have experienced a political maelstrom unlike any in our history, one involving a president — now-former president — who utters one lie after another, ignores all political and ethical protocols, and has no apparent respect for the rule of law. Trump used all of these tools during the final months of his presidency, culminating on January 6, 2021, when his planned attempt to overturn the national presidential election mercifully came up short.

Now that he’s facing real-life repercussions, the evidence is pretty clear to anyone not in the Trump cult that the former president will not hesitate for a nanosecond to do whatever it takes in order to keep himself out of jail. It’s who he is. It’s who he always has been.

The forthcoming New York case is likely just the preview before the main feature hits the screen. The charges (unreleased as I write this) in this first indictment are not expected to rise to a level that would put Trump behind bars, unless there is an egregious felony charge that no one saw coming. His punishment, if he is found guilty, will probably involve a fine, probation, and/or suspension of his business license. (There could also be a mug shot that will break the internet for a couple of days.)

But this is worth remembering: A defendant in a criminal case has to appear in court every day during his trial. With a possible 34 counts to argue, this trial could go on for weeks, meaning Trump would have to stay in New York City and sit in a courtroom for several hours every weekday. No social media, no Mar-a-Lago schmoozing, no television, no golf, no distractions. Just hour after hour of sitting still, watching other people talk about him, unable to interrupt. That scenario will be pure hell on earth for a twitchy narcissist like Trump.

But, unfortunately for millions of schadenfreude lovers, that’s not going to happen for weeks, if not months. Trump’s lawyers have those 34 charges to appeal, and they will — all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Trump attorney Joe Tacopina has said that his client does not intend to take a plea deal, and that his team planned “substantial legal challenges,” including motions to dismiss or appeals on all or most charges.

The same scenario will play out in any subsequent indictments of Trump, whether they be in Atlanta, New York, or Washington, D.C. Trump’s legal tactics have remained the same for 40 years: delay, appeal, obfuscate — anything to throw gravel in the gears of the legal system. The day when Trump will have to sit down and face a jury of his theoretical peers isn’t coming any time soon. In fact, we can expect that Trump’s various legal entanglements will be ongoing during the 2024 primary season and ensuing presidential campaign.

This isn’t comforting news for any American longing for a return to normalcy. The lunacy, crudeness, and threats of violence from Trump and his die-hard supporters will be with us for the foreseeable future. The 65 percent of Americans who just want this all to go away will have to remain strong and steadfast. Maybe it will help to remember the former president’s own words: “THIS IS AN ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”

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At Large Opinion

Sex, Lies, and Statuary

David by Michelangelo (Photo: Massimo Lama | Dreamstime.com)

When Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was asked to describe his test for obscenity in 1964, he responded: “I know it when I see it.” This much-quoted bit of judiciary shorthand was offered in the case, Jacobellis v. Ohio, in which the state of Ohio fined Nico Jacobellis, a Cleveland Heights theater owner, $2,500 for showing the French film, Les Amants (The Lovers), directed by Louis Malle and starring famed actress Jeanne Moreau.

Stewart went on: “I have reached the conclusion that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

In so ruling, Stewart struck a blow for art, in this instance a film that explored the emotional and physical dimensions of an affair, but that was not pornographic in any sense of the word.

One can only imagine what Potter might think of the school board and administrators in Florida who last week fired their principal for allowing a teacher to show sixth-graders in an art class what it called “pornography” — a picture of Michelangelo’s statue David, widely regarded as one of the most important artworks in the history of mankind.

The statue, which depicts David just as he’s about to go into battle against Goliath, stood in the central square of Florence, Italy, from 1504 until 1873, when it was moved indoors to Florence’s Galleria dell’Accademia due to concerns about weather damage. It should be noted that the statue was originally commissioned to stand in a cathedral but was moved to the central square so that more people would have a chance to view its magnificence.

So why, you might ask, would the administrators of Hillsdale Academy’s Tallahassee Classical School object to its sixth-grade students viewing Michelangelo’s masterwork? What could be more “classical” than Michelangelo?

There’s a one-word answer, and I bet you can guess what it is: penis. Yep, David’s artistically sculpted junk is up there, right where it’s supposed to be on a human male, and this was a big problem for the administrators. Spurred by complaints from three parents, the right-wing idiocracy swung into action.

It makes me wonder if these folks have ever heard of Stormy Daniels. I mean, if you want to see what pornography really is, just google “Stormy Daniels films.” Try explaining that to little Braxton. And how are these Hillsdale administrators going to talk to their students about the forthcoming legal brouhaha surrounding former President Trump and the aforementioned woman he paid $130,000 to for doing absolutely nothing wrong at a hotel in Lake Tahoe?

(Note: It’s at this point that I’m duty-bound to remind you that if the name Hillsdale Academy sounds familiar, it’s because it is the smarmy religious-based operation to which Governor Bill Lee wants to give millions of your tax dollars in lieu of that money going to public schools.)

But finally, to be fair, I guess I have to point out that there is some historical precedent to Hillsdale’s overreaction to the sight of David’s massive marble peen. In the mid-1800s, Great Britain’s Victoria and Albert Museum installed a full-size replica of David in one of its central galleries. Upon her first visit, Queen Victoria staggered backward, hand to chest, and was heard to exclaim, “Oh my stars and garters! What am I looking at? Make it stop!” The museum then had a fig leaf created that was hung on the statue whenever the queen paid a visit. How, er, hard was that? Perhaps Hillsdale could show its students the fig-covered version.

No, it’s not a perfect solution, but these days it’s any port in a Stormy.

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At Large Opinion

Memphis in Maybe

Photo: Beale Street Music Festival | Facebook

There is about to come a true reckoning for Memphis, and for the two organizations — the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) and Memphis in May (MIM) — who’ve been wrangling for years over the fate of the 30 acres of land along Memphis’ Mississippi waterfront that comprise Tom Lee Park.

MIM, the ever-whinging predictors of doom for their annual events because of the new park’s facilities and landscaping, and MRPP, the ever-optimistic promoters of a “world-class reimagined riverfront,” will soon see their competing visions encounter a real-world test.

From May 5th through May 7th, the Beale Street Music Festival will return to the still-uncompleted but thoroughly reconfigured terrain along the river. Tens of thousands of music fans will stream into the park searching for music, which for the first time ever will not involve merely wandering around in a big field and stopping when you see a band on a stage.

According to MRPP, the new Tom Lee Park is 80-percent completed. There are new trees, sodding, bushes, and grasses, plus landscaped ridges, moguls, and walkways and partly completed shelters and playgrounds, plus natural spaces and trails, including a “riffle area.” In other words, music fans are going to have to walk around the plantings and landscaping and new construction — or on it and over it.

In the past, after Music Fest, with its seemingly inevitable rainy day or two, the park was almost always a disaster area — a muddy, gross morass littered with discarded tennis shoes, boots, clothing, food and drink detritus, and dozens of ever-aromatic porta-potties. How will it go this year?

I don’t know, but I’m trying to imagine, say, Keith and Travis, two young music fans from Jonesboro, a little stoned, a lot drunk, meandering through the park. Then let’s say they hear the raucous sounds of Low Cut Connie in the distance and head in the direction of the music. It’s dark, and Keith stumbles in some monkey grass, drops his beer cup, falls to his knees, then climbs up on a mogul of earth to get a better view. Travis, who is a more sensitive type, says, “Dude, you probably shouldn’t be up there. You’re trampling the liriope.”

“Whooo, LIRIOPE!!” says Kevin. “LOW CUT CONNIE!!! Whooo!!!”

Multiply this action over three days and 30,000 people, plus a probable rainy day or two, and you’re reimagining some serious damage repair. Or at least, one would think so.

Then two weeks later, the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest settles in for four days of nonstop partying and carousing, including the building of often-massive ramshackle temporary shelters for teams to boogie the days and nights away while tending their world-class smokers. Lumber gets hauled in; muddy pathways form between team shelters and sites. Booze gets drunk, trash gets thrown, pigs get smoked, and a good time is had by all. Except the clean-up crews.

Memphis in May has complained that it hasn’t been given enough acreage to carry out its events in the new park. MRPP responded with a document clearly showing that it has in fact provided more space than MIM asked for. Even so, MIM has disinvited 35 barbecue teams to this year’s contest, claiming a lack of space. In addition, the Blues Tent is being moved to Beale Street, also because MIM says the new park configuration isn’t big enough for it. So it goes. If you get what you ask for, it’s difficult to justify the complaints.

But enough theory, enough predicting, enough sniping. Events are in the saddle now, and we’ll soon know for sure whether MIM can succeed — financially and otherwise — in the new park.

And we’ll also soon know how much MIM events will damage the area and its new landscaping. One assumes that both sides will learn a lot from 2023, and that both sides may have to make adjustments for future Memphis in Mays.

The good news is that, after much wrangling, the contract between MRPP and MIM has been signed, with the city agreeing to pay for any repair damages above $500,000. That’s an open checkbook for taxpayers, with the amount to be determined, one would assume, after the last barbecue smoker trailer leaves the grounds. It’s also another reality check, literally, and another learning opportunity.

Call me Pollyanna, but I think that after all the smoke clears this May, both organizations, and the city, will know more about how to create a win-win for Memphis: namely, a great annual festival held in a world-class river park that also serves the populace year-round. That’s the reality we should all be hoping for.

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At Large Opinion

Rush’s Leftovers

Rush Limbaugh (Photo: Gage Skidmore | Creativecommons. org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

I’m guessing you may have missed it: the second anniversary of Rush Limbaugh’s death on February 17th. There were no parades or anything. At least, none that I heard about. His death was little noted or remembered, except for a couple shots fired on Twitter. “Try to live your life so that ‘rot in hell’ isn’t trending at the mention of your death,” posted one. Good advice, says I.

Limbaugh was widely seen as the godfather of today’s vitriolic, hyperbolic, right-wing media subculture, the life force that spawned Fox News and its host of creepy hosts, plus OAN, the Daily Caller, Breitbart, and dozens of other “news” turdlets on the web and elsewhere.

Limbaugh spewed lies by the thousands over the course of his career, taking delight in coming up with terms such as “feminazi,” and was a clear inspiration for a certain former president. The homeless were “compassion fascists,” environmentalists were “tree-huggers.” He made fun of Michael J. Fox, imitating the tremors that were a symptom of the actor’s Parkinson’s disease (Sound familiar?). Limbaugh ran a segment called “AIDS updates,” mocking the deaths of gay men by playing Dionne Warwick’s recording of the song “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.” A lifelong smoker, he told his listeners that tobacco doesn’t kill people. He died of lung cancer two years ago as karma tap-danced on his grave.

Current parallel to El Rushbo? Maybe Tucker Carlson, the guy on Fox who thinks Russia is the victim in Ukraine, and says the January 6th riots were just a bunch of peaceful tourists visiting the Capitol? This guy looked through 40,000 hours of videotape and didn’t see any real violence, or at least chose not to put any on the air in his “documentary.” That’s like showing only the starry sky in a film about man landing on the moon, and saying the film proves it never happened.

When it comes to smoking, TC actually ramps it up a notch from Rushbo, declaring not only that smoking won’t kill you, but it’s actually good for you, it’s “all-American.” And he’s a ceaseless promoter of Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so much so that clips of his shows are featured nightly on Russian television. Most troubling, perhaps, is that he is a promoter of the “great replacement theory,” warning his viewers that “If we continue on this trajectory, eventually there’ll be no more native-born Americans,” i.e. white people. Cue immigrant-bashing from the next guest. It’s hardly worth mentioning that Tucker continues to push Donald Trump’s Big Lie on the 2020 election.

The question with these kinds of propagandists is always this: Do they believe their own lies or do they just expect the idiots who make them rich to do so? The money’s good either way, but maybe the slight moral edge, if there is one, goes to the propagandist who actually believes his own drivel. We’ll never know if Limbaugh bought the garbage he spewed into America’s airways every day. But given the revelations in the ongoing Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, it is quite provable that Carlson and his employer are lying all the way to the bank.

And it’s all because ol’ Rushbo discovered America’s dirty little secret: There is a dark, racist, proudly know-nothing subset of our citizenry that only wants to have its bigotry and anger reinforced. They are like addicts who want to hear sobriety is for losers, smokers who want to believe smoking makes them healthy, ignorant mouth-breathers who want to believe their skin tone makes them superior.

The whole ecosystem needs to perish, beginning with those organizations who reap millions of dollars knowingly spreading the venal lies that are ripping this country in half. The public airways, including cable TV, need to be brought back to the pre-Limbaugh days of the Fairness Doctrine, when some semblance of truth was required of news organizations, when “equal time” on an issue was mandatory. The current Wild West of “news,” with its blend of anger-tainment, disinformation, propaganda, and profit over truth, needs to die. Karma is waiting.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Free Speech?

Sean Hannity (Photo: The White House | Public Domain | Wikimedia Commons)

You’re likely to be hearing a lot more about the landmark Supreme Court decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan in the coming weeks.

This is the seminal case upon which our nation’s libel law has been adjudicated since 1964.

The case involved an appeal by the Times against L.B. Sullivan, a commissioner of the city of Montgomery, Alabama, who had sued the Times and “four individual petitioners, who are Negros and Alabama clergymen,” based on the claim that an ad taken out in the Times by the defendants made false accusations and that he was entitled to libel damages.

The Alabama Supreme Court had ruled in Sullivan’s favor. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, overruled the state’s decision on the grounds that “mere negligence or carelessness is not evidence of actual malice or malice in fact,” and determined that the First Amendment requires the plaintiff show that the defendant knew that a statement was false or was reckless in deciding to publish the information without investigating whether it was accurate.

In recent years, conservatives, including former President Donald Trump have railed against the Times v. Sullivan decision, claiming it grants media outlets permission to publish false narratives under the protection of the defendant having to prove evidence of malice or intention. Here’s Trump in 2016: “I want to open up our libel laws so when the New York Times and Washington Post write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

In 2019, Justice Clarence Thomas further stirred the kettle, writing: “New York Times v. Sullivan and the court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law.”

And just last week, not to be outdone by anyone in his ongoing choke-the-woke agenda, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis upped his attacks on the “leftist mainstream media,” saying he would push to loosen Florida’s libel laws: “I’d say these companies are probably the leading purveyors of disinformation in our entire society right now.”

Here’s some free advice for these folks: Be careful what you wish for. Libel reform cuts both ways, as Fox News is now finding out the hard way.

The voting machine company, Dominion, is suing Fox for $1.6 billion for promoting fabrications about it regarding the 2020 presidential election. The case will likely turn on the court’s interpretation of Times v. Sullivan and whether Fox knew its hosts’ promotion of lies by election-deniers such as Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and others were false.

Turns out, they did. Shocker, I know. In a court document released last week, Dominion claimed that “literally dozens of people with editorial responsibility — from the top of the organization to the producers of specific shows to the hosts themselves — acted with actual malice.” And the company had receipts, dozens of pages of them.

Here’s a sample email exchange between hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham:

Carlson: “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.”

Ingraham “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

There are dozens more examples of internal communications between Fox News hosts, including Trump acolyte Sean Hannity, disparaging the false claims against Dominion. Here are a few other samples of various hosts’ descriptors of their nightly guests: “Ludicrous.” “Off the rails.” “Fucking lunatics.” “Complete bullshit.”

Yet, the election-deniers were put on the air night after night and allowed to pump their duplicitous bilge without pushback. Most troubling for Fox is that the network’s knowing duplicity extended all the way to the top. Dominion’s filing includes records of Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch calling the voter-fraud claims “really crazy stuff,” among other things.

But the “really crazy stuff” went on the air in prime time for weeks, duping millions of Fox News viewers into believing the “Big Lie” that Dominion’s machines had altered millions of votes and helped steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden.

“Fox knew,” the Dominion filing declares. “From the top down, Fox knew.”

Fox News responded: “The core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.”

Good luck with that. And you might want to give ol’ Clarence a call.