Author: Bruce VanWyngarden

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At Large Opinion

Fast Car

I’m old enough to remember when Tracy Chapman released “Fast Car” — old enough to remember how stunning and incongruous it was, coming out at the end of the techno-Eighties, a softly strummed acoustic song with lyrics that indelibly captured what it meant to be young and poor and stuck in a bad place with no way out. I bought the album, bought the cassette, played it, and played it again.

I didn’t watch the Grammys Sunday night, but the video of the song’s performance by Chapman and country singer Luke Combs — who resurrected the song and released his own version last year — was everywhere the next day. No doubt there were millions of people who’d never heard of Tracy Chapman or heard the original version who were seeing her sing it for the first time. It was a beautiful and moving performance, and I must admit it got a little dusty in my office as I watched it on my laptop. Twice.

It’s a testament to the song’s power that it could be sung together by a queer Black woman and white male country star who says he used to hear it in his dad’s truck when he was a kid. The lyrics transcend categories that too often put us in our separate silos, unable to see what we could have in common with one another.

See, my old man’s got a problem
He lives with a bottle
that’s the way it is
He says his body’s too old for workin’
His body’s too young to look like his
When mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life
than he could give
I said, “Somebody’s got
to take care of him”
I quit school and that’s what I did.

In 1988, when Chapman released “Fast Car,” it became a big hit, rising to number six on Billboard’s Hot 100. Chapman won three Grammys that year — a year in which the other top songs belonged to INXS, Guns N’ Roses, Cheap Trick, George Michael, Billy Ocean, and Rick Astley (who is never going to give you up). Mostly white guys with guitars and hair.

In 2023, 35 years later, Combs’ version of “Fast Car” hit number one on the Billboard country charts in July and earned the number two spot on Billboard’s Hot 100. Other number one country songs on the chart in 2023 were by Jelly Roll (a country rapper), Kane Brown (a multi-racial singer who was discovered on social media), and Morgan Wallen, who famously once used the “n-word,” got drunk at Kid Rock’s Nashville club, and has been fervently rebranding himself ever since. Country music ain’t what it used to be (totally white, except for Charley Pride), and that’s mostly due to TikTok stars coming into the picture. It can’t hurt, I say.

Speaking of country music … I don’t know how many of you have heard of this girl, Taylor Swift. She also won a Grammy or two and is becoming something of a big deal these days. I predict major success for her. Sure, she’s gotten famous mostly because of her boyfriend — Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce — but I’ve seen a couple of her videos and she seems to have a real knack for making snappy songs for young people. Of course, it can’t hurt that Taylor’s boyfriend is playing in the Super Bowl this weekend. Talk about your lucky timing! Plus, he’s rich!

There are those who say Taylor Swift’s rise to fame isn’t based on talent or luck. They say it’s all part of a deep-secret government operation that goes all the way to the top: namely, President Joe Biden. Certain MAGA types now say that the Super Bowl is rigged and that after the Kansas City Chiefs win on Sunday, Swift is going to come out and endorse Biden.

It makes sense, when you take a minute to think about it. What does Biden famously have in his garage? A 1967 Corvette. And what is that? A fast car. Boom! Game, set, and match, sheeple!

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At Large Opinion

Same Old Tune

Congressman David Kustoff (Photo: Congressman David Kustoff Via X)

“Okay, so tell me, who makes laws in the United States? … That’s right, Congress. … Who was Thomas Jefferson? … The third president, and he wrote the Declaration of Independence, correct. … Who is one of your U.S. senators? … Marsha Blackburn, yes, that’s right. … I can tell you’re ready. You’re not going to have any problems with this test.”

I was listening to my wife in the other room. She’s an immigration attorney and was talking on the phone to a client who was going to take his citizenship test the following Monday. He’d jumped through lots of bureaucratic hoops, filled out lots of forms, and waited several years for his chance to become an American and he wasn’t going to blow it. It was inspiring, especially given the level of disinformation about immigration being spread by members of the Republican Party.

Here’s some legitimate information: In 1850, immigrants made up 11 percent of the U.S. population. In 2021, they made up 13 percent of the population. Ooh, facts! Scary! Here are some more scary facts from a March 2023 report by the Migration Policy Institute: The population of Tennessee is roughly 6.6 million people, of which 370,000 are foreign-born, or 5.3 percent. Of that number, 175,000 were born in Latin America, meaning the “threat from the Southern border” currently comprises 2.5 percent of Tennessee’s population. I don’t know about you, but I’m terrified.

Those 175,000 people are a threat to open restaurants, do construction work, start lawn care companies and auto repair shops, work in our offices, and send their children to our schools — where they may even become lawyers! They are a threat to contribute to our economy! They must be stopped!

When Donald Trump began his campaign for the presidency in 2015 at Trump Tower, the first comments out of his mouth were racist: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us [sic]. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

Now it’s almost nine years later, and he hasn’t changed his tune, and most Republicans are still singing along. Blackburn and Eighth District Congressman David Kustoff constantly use their bully pulpits (and X accounts) to spread fear and misinformation about the “threat at our southern border” — a threat that has not adversely impacted their constituents’ lives to any noticeable degree. It’s not surprising to anyone who’s followed the political careers of these two cosplayers. Like most Republicans, they live to get airtime with Laura Ingraham or the other Fox hosts. It’s all they’ve got. They lack the courage of Mitt Romney and other Republicans who understand that Trump and his ignorant, dying MAGA herd are dragging the party into irrelevance.

The people trying to enter this country at our southern border are fleeing poor economic and/or socioeconomic conditions in their homeland. They are mostly impoverished and desperate. They are here hoping to make a life for themselves and their families. They aren’t taking over. They aren’t “poisoning the blood of our country.” They are human beings who don’t deserve to be shoved back into a river to die in order to get some asshole an appearance on Fox News.

There was an astonishing report that came out last week from the Inspector General of the Department of Defense. I urge you to read it. It will blow your mind. The report’s purpose was “to determine the extent to which the DoD implemented appropriate controls for executive medicine services in the DoD’s National Capital Region.”

In English, that means they were looking at pharmacy policies at the White House under Trump. The report showed that drugs were being given to White House staffers without prescriptions or any records as to who was getting them — including such Schedule II controlled substances as fentanyl, ketamine, Provigil, Oxycodone, and morphine.

Quote: “We found that the White House Medical Unit provided a wide range of healthcare and pharmaceutical services to ineligible White House staff in violation of Federal law and DoD policy. Additionally, the White House Medical Unit dispensed prescription medications, including controlled substances, to ineligible White House staff.” An example: From 2017 to 2019, the White House went through 4,100 doses of Provigil (an amphetamine) at a cost of $98,000. That’s a lot of speed, amigo.

It’s ironic that this report came out in the same week Trump was found guilty of defaming E. Jean Carroll, the woman he’d previously been found guilty of raping. It’s almost like at Trump’s White House they were bringing drugs, they were bringing crime, and they were rapists.

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At Large Opinion

Non-Liquid Gold!

Songsak Paname | Dreamstime

“Non-liquid gold. You know where it was? Iowa. It’s called corn. They have, it’s non-liquid, that’s my thing, you have more NON-LIQUID gold. They said what is that? I said corn, we love that idea, you know it’s a pretty cool thought isn’t it? That’s a nickname in its own way, but we came up with a new word, a new couple of words, for corn.”

This was part of a speech Donald Trump gave in New Hampshire last week, just after he’d won the Iowa primary. He went on for more than an hour, free-styling, feeling the flow, singing the song of himself, like Walt Whitman on Adderall: “We’re going to place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to debank you from your — your political beliefs, what they do. They want to debank you. We’re going to debank — think of this — they want to take away your country. Electric cars!” 

They want to debank your electric cars! Or something! Wake up, Sheeple! Also, “non-liquid gold”? Isn’t there a name for that already? Like, um, gold?

According to news reports, people began edging out of the room after 40 minutes, leaving The Donald to wander on unescorted through the echo chambers of his brain for another half hour. In a speech four days later, he repeatedly confused GOP opponent Nikki Haley with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. If your elderly uncle were talking like this, you’d recognize that he’s tired and sundowning and that you needed to get him back to his assisted-living facility. Trump’s people? Not so much. They understand all too well that Trump babbling incoherently is like Trump shooting a man on Fifth Avenue. His hardcore base will lap it up and still follow him anywhere. They’re like Deadheads, only stupid. 

Look, fatigue can get to anyone. Trump had just spent a week in frigid Iowa, putting in long days of shaking hands, schmoozing, and speechifying. He’d also made an appearance in New York at his rape/defamation trial, where he muttered and scowled and ticked off the judge. Then he’d traveled to Florida to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral, before then flying to New Hampshire to shake hands, schmooze, and speechify some more. That kind of schedule would exhaust any normal human, much less an out-of-shape 77-year-old facing four looming court dates and 91 felony charges while trying to run for president in his spare time. 

It’s all so absurd. Iowa’s primary is essentially meaningless. So is New Hampshire’s. Here are a few numbers to consider: Iowa has 2.1 million registered voters, including 631,689 Democrats and 718,901 Republicans. Around 110,000 Republican voters participated in the caucuses. Trump won 56,260 votes — 51 percent of Republicans who voted — or a whopping 2.6 percent of Iowa’s registered voters. 

Here are some of the next day’s Big Media headlines: “Trump Gets Blowout Win in Iowa!” “Record Winning Margin for Trump!” “Trump Trounces Rivals!”

We’re being played, my friends — hustled for clicks, views, engagement. The Iowa Republicans who caucused are 98 percent white. Fifty percent were older than 65. Fifty-one percent were born-again Christians or evangelicals, and two-thirds (66 percent) believed Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 presidential contest. Sixty percent favored a nationwide ban on abortions. 

The Iowa caucuses are not a “barometer” of anything except what a tiny handful of old, white, rural Midwesterners want. Don’t believe me? Just ask President Cruz, who won Iowa in 2016, or President Santorum (2012), or President Huckabee (2008).

And New Hampshire is just more of the same — 94 percent white, mostly rural, and with even fewer voters than Iowa. But the national media will have spent countless hours of airtime and created millions of words of reportage, conjecture, and spin on this meaningless ritual by the time you read this. President Bernie Sanders would like a word. 

It would all be comic opera, if it weren’t so terrifying. A presidential candidate from one of the two major political parties is clearly morally and mentally unqualified to hold the office, and the national media treat the situation as though it were politics as usual. If Trump is reelected, an entire administration, an entire country, and the rest of the world, will all be trying to do a work-around, pretending like Trump’s impulsive blather is coherent and meaningful.

“Yes, Mr. President, we’ve informed the British prime minister and his wife that we’ll be serving the president’s favorite dish — non-liquid gold on the cob.” 

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At Large Opinion

Tribes

Photo: Helena Bilkova | Dreamstime.com

How many tribes do you belong to? Republican? Queer? Wine connoisseur? Grizzlies fan? Gun collector? UM alum? Dog lover? Catholic? Environmentalist? MAGA? Memphian? Midtowner? It’s conceivable that you could belong to all of those tribes. Very unlikely, but conceivable.

Sociology defines a tribe as a “volunteer social division of people with a mutual sense of belonging, loyalty, security, and shared life experiences.” Throughout most of human history, tribes were shaped by geographic proximity: immediate family, relatives, neighbors, residents of the same village or town or shire. Tribal bonds were built by facing life together with those who lived around us, for better or worse: births, deaths, a bountiful harvest, a plague, storms, fires, fights with other tribes.

Our tribes have traditionally provided us with a sense of belonging and personal security — the comfort of knowing we weren’t going through life alone, that others had our back. As humans’ ability to travel more broadly and communicate more easily with those beyond their home tribes grew, tribes became bigger, more amorphous, less localized. Tribes kept growing. They eventually got formal borders and became countries. We’re all in the American tribe now, kemo sabe.

But the advent of social media over the past two decades has provoked a profound sea change in how we see each other and how we relate to each other — our intrinsic affinity for tribalism has been sliced and diced and manipulated. Here’s an example of what I mean: Let’s say your high school class is about to have its 25th reunion. At your 10th reunion, you probably didn’t think once about your long-unseen classmates’ political leanings. And that’s mainly because you didn’t know what they believed and you didn’t care. You just went to the reunion, schmoozed, shared stories with that weird guy from your gym class, and went home.

Now? Not so much. Because of Facebook, you probably know exactly which of your classmates are members of the MAGA tribe and which ones belong to the progressive tribe — two groups that disagree on abortion, guns, immigration, race, Trump, Biden, and who knows what else. This political tribalism has made it much more difficult for folks to look forward to a jolly reunion of the “We Went to the Same High School” tribe. There are going to be people there you have no interest in seeing or talking to because you’ve seen their social media self-branding, and it’s likely you’ve already been communicating with the people from school that you like, anyway.

How did it happen so quickly? Money. Our ideological disagreements have been exploited and exacerbated to generate engagement, which generates advertising sales. We are what we read and what we view. When you click on a Facebook ad for, say, eyeglasses, your social media streams across any number of platforms are soon flooded with ads for eyewear. The marketing algorithms have signed you up for membership in the “I’m Interested in New Glasses” tribe, whether you want to be in it or not.

It’s the same for politics. We all click on links that confirm our biases, which in turn causes the algorithms to feed us more of what we like, which reinforces and solidifies our beliefs. I read a lot about how Trump is a complete sleaze-ball who is rightfully charged with numerous felonies, who cheated on his wives, who lies like he breathes, who used his office to grift millions of dollars, and who provoked an insurrection to keep himself in office despite losing an election by eight million votes. I’m in the “Trump Is a Crook and a Danger to American Democracy” tribe and I’m not particularly interested in hanging out with people who click on links about how President Biden is senile, the economy sucks, Trump won the last election, Democrats are pedophiles, and abortion is murder — the “Biden Is a Creepy Old Guy Who Shouldn’t Be President” tribe.

And that’s a problem. A group of people with a diversity of beliefs, skills, aptitudes, races, and religions living under a big tent makes for a strong tribe. Social media works against this by herding us into groups with others who “like” the same things we do, and makes it easy to shield ourselves from those who disagree with us. We snipe at each other. Block. Mute. It’s an environment where polarization and disinformation thrive. It’s an environment that divides human beings into two hard-headed tribes: Us vs. Them. We need to do better. 

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At Large Opinion

Old Times

Olive, a good dog (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

Highway 64 runs straight as a Pentecostal preacher, aimed at the shadowy Ozark hills far across the flat belly of Arkansas. I hardly have to turn the steering wheel to stay in my lane. Cruise control is set on 65. It’s early morning and I can hear Olive softly snorting in her sleep on the passenger seat, legs restless and scritchy as she dreams of squirrels, just out of reach. Good dog.

Driving is a great time to think. I think about age a lot. I’m still learning how to be old. There’s all the usual stuff people talk about that happens to you: You walk into a room and forget why you were going there. You suddenly can’t remember the name of the drummer for Genesis or that ridiculously famous actor who starred in Pretty Woman. It drives you crazy and you refuse to google. Then you wake up to pee at 2:37 a.m. and it comes to you. Richard Gere, what a jerk. But he’s just another old guy now. Probably peeing somewhere in Bel Air.

You begin to notice how age is an invisibility cloak, unless maybe you’re Richard Gere. No one cares what clothes you wear or what kind of car you drive or how your hair looks. Store clerks and waitresses call you “sweetie,” like you’re 6. They offer to carry your wine out to the car at the liquor store. Punks.

It strikes you how blithely younger people assume the years ahead are guaranteed. My young neighbor says of her toddlers: “I can’t wait to see what they’ll be like as teenagers.” A TV analyst discusses possibilities for the 2028 presidential election — five years away — like it’s tomorrow. Yeah, well, you think, I might not be around for that stuff. It’s entirely unavoidable, and no one does it meaning to be cruel but, you know, age rings some new bells. You might think twice about getting a pet that could outlive you.

And lots of things have a potential to become a “lifetime supply” — a box of 100 plastic 30-gallon trash bags, a 24-roll package of jumbo paper towels. Shopping at Costco is for optimists, I say to my wife. She laughs. Or she used to. Even my jokes are old.

I have a friend in his early 80s. He’s bought three cool cars in the past 10 years, each on the excuse that it would be his “last car.” That’s the way to game the system. Also, shout-out to the admissions guy at the Children’s Museum last Saturday for questioning whether I was eligible for the senior discount. You rock.

When do we move from “late middle-age” to “early old”? When do we stop being surprised by our reflection in a store window? Is that wrinkly face really mine? I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise every time, so far.

One thing I do know is that how you may feel at 70 can be a lot different than how someone else may feel. The number of years we’ve lived is an odometer, not a watch. Some of us are Volvos, some of us are Kias. Your mileage may vary. As will your number of trips to the repair shop. The writer Penelope Lively wrote, “chronology bores me,” as well it should. Burn the days. They’ll spill into years soon enough.

People give you books: Better With Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging; The End of Old Age: Living a Longer, More Purposeful Life; Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age. They can’t hurt, I suppose, though reading the subtitles can eat up valuable days.

You can also get lots of books on how to stay healthy. Don’t buy them. They all say the same thing: Exercise, eat a balanced diet, stay mentally active, socialize often. Good advice. It also helps if you have longevity in your genes. Just ask my 99-year-old mother.

And I think driving with your dog to a trout stream in Arkansas is a great way to stay young. You wade in, you think and you don’t think, you’re in the mist, in the moment. Alive. And tonight, I’ll softly snort in my sleep, my legs restless and scritchy as I dream of trout, just out of reach. Good boy.

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At Large Opinion

Memphis Moonshot

John F. Kennedy (Photo: Cecil Stoughton, White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed Congress and proposed that the United States “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” It was an astonishing thing to propose, but Kennedy persevered and managed to achieve NASA funding for the unlikeliest of goals. Kennedy did not live to see the dream he set in motion fulfilled, but his ambition was achieved in July 1969, with the landing and return to Earth of Apollo 11.

My New Year’s wish for Memphis is that its leaders — civic and corporate — have the courage and vision to embark upon a moonshot: to set a goal to become the first American city to successfully address its poverty problem, to change Memphis from one of the country’s poorest cities to one of its most prosperous.

I know. That seems an impossible dream, like, well, walking on the moon in 1961. Besides, if you ask the average Memphian what the city’s biggest problem is, they’ll say it’s crime, not poverty. Yes, Memphis does have a crime problem. Too many cars are being stolen, too many homes are being broken into, too many citizens are being shot and killed, too many young people are living without hope or guidance and turning to crime.

But the crime problem has publicists, and they’re pushing a 24/7 narrative that crime is everywhere. Local television news and social media are the crime problem’s biggest boosters — getting clicks, views, and readership by scaring us, day after day.

In response, politicians get elected by promising to be “tough on crime,” usually meaning they’ll hire more police and demand stiffer sentencing. That’s like pledging to put band-aids on a cancerous tumor. If those policies worked, our crime problem would be fixed by now. Get-tough policies don’t stop crime; they just fill up jails and overload the court system — and lead to the kind of police brutality that killed Tyre Nichols.

Poverty gets little TV time, little social-media buzz. No politician gets elected by pledging to “get tough” on poverty. But almost all of the city’s problems, including crime, stream from the river of poverty. The way to reduce crime is to dam the river, not the stream.

Too expensive, you say? Listen, if this poor-ass city can come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to fund football stadiums, basketball arenas, fabulous art museums, and glorious new city parks, surely we can find ways to leverage private and public funds to pay for more and better teachers, to fund a public transit system that can reliably get people from one side of town to jobs on the other, to keep children fed, to get people healthcare, to pay them an equitable wage.

Impossible, you say? Let me return you to 1961, the year Kennedy proposed going to the moon. Do you know what was happening in Memphis that year? Thirteen “Negro” first-graders were integrating our public schools. They were separated into small groups, no more than four to a school, because, you know, Memphis didn’t want to rush into things. In fact, the city initially planned to integrate its schools one grade at a time over the next 12 years — longer than it would take to put a man on the moon.

The grade-a-year plan held until 1965, when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. In 1966, all Memphis school grades were integrated, although that could mean 20 Black students at a high school with 1,500 students. And vice versa.

Let me do the math for you: Black people were enslaved in this country from 1619 until 1865. They lived under Jim Crow and segregation in this city for another 100 years, until 1965, meaning Black folks in Memphis have had 58 years to overcome the oppression that kept them from equal opportunity in employment, education, housing, and political leadership for 346 years.

This is the root of our poverty problem, which is the root of our crime problem. Our city’s leadership is Black. Most of its citizens are Black. It’s time for all of us who live here to dare to dream big. Come on, Memphis. Let’s shoot for the moon.

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At Large Opinion

Twelve Months At Large

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

In my first column of 2023, I wrote about the most traumatic Christmas I’ve ever experienced, one in which I was gifted with a cancer diagnosis and the daunting prospect of back surgery and chemotherapy to try and get rid of it. Merry effing Christmas, indeed. It all seems kind of like a bad dream now. And I suppose it was.

Anyway, I was determined to keep writing, to maintain some semblance of normalcy, even as I lost 30 pounds, my hair, and my ability to walk without assistance. But typing wasn’t hard, so on things went.

In January, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had not yet become a high-heeled boot-wearing, tongue-twitching laughingstock, but you could see it coming. The dude was pushing “don’t say gay” bills, banning school books, bashing drag queens, prohibiting AP classes from teaching African-American history, and finally and most ludicrously, fighting against a mythical liberal ban on gas stoves. All this shit was “woke,” y’all, and Ronnie wasn’t having any of it because he was fronting a run for president and being against woke was his entire platform. Oops.

January was also the month Memphis got pushed into the national spotlight when the brutal beating death of Tyre Nichols was revealed. Video from a nearby pole-mounted police camera showed five officers mercilessly beating Nichols with batons, face-kicks, and brutal punches to his head for more than three minutes. Nichols was then left on the ground for nearly a half-hour as his assailants stood around discussing possible alibis, ignoring him. Three days later, Nichols died from his injuries at St. Francis Hospital. A nation was outraged. Memphis responded with the dignity requested by Nichols’ family, but the scar still lingers, and the trials are ongoing.

We needed a break, and February provided one. Remember “Balloon-gate,” when a nefarious Chinese balloon slowly crossed the country, serving as a high-altitude Rorschach test for the body politic. Republicans and Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity were all clamoring for President Biden to shoot it down immediately. The thing was probably “woke.” Biden listened to his military experts and held fire until it was over the Atlantic, and plop it went into the ocean, and out of our memories.

After that fiasco, Memphis was ready for a fight, so I provoked one by writing about the ongoing struggle between Memphis in May (MIM) and Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP). Traffic on the Flyer website blew up and comments on social media got nasty. You were either on the side of the evil mastermind of MRPP, Carol Coletta, or you were in the pocket of those lying weasels at MIM, led by the nefarious Jim Holt. Memphis in May happened despite the brouhaha. The park got trashed. MRPP charged MIM lots of money for damages. MIM pulled next year’s events from the park, another music fest announced it was coming in, and people are still arguing. Meh.

In April, Tennessee Republicans decided to humiliate themselves on a national stage by kicking out state representatives Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson for protesting the GOP’s inaction on gun reform. The three instantly became household names, appearing on television networks, here and abroad, meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, and being invited to the White House to meet the president. To those Republicans responsible, I’d just like to take a moment to say: Nice job, you racist, gun-sucking assholes.

In late June, my cancer went into remission and I set about regrowing hair. Also, homophobic nut job Pat Robertson died and Donald Trump kept getting indicted. WTG, June!

The rest of the summer was relatively uneventful and I wrote amusingly and poignantly about golf, dogs, weather, my vacation, and fireworks.

In the fall, I penned a couple of sage and insightful columns about the race for Memphis mayor. Soon thereafter, I voted for the guy who came in fourth, so my stellar record as a political prognosticator remains intact. And then, just because I needed to divert attention from politics, I tossed off another column about Memphis in May, with predictable results. Half of the city thinks I’m an idiot and half thinks I’m a pretty smart guy. Which pretty much sums my year — and my career, for that matter. At any rate, I’m just happy to be here as we begin another spin around the sun. Happy New Year!

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At Large Opinion

What the Hell?

Let me tell you, friends, there are weeks when writing this column is a slog. You search your brain for a subject about which you can offer 725 words of original thought and you come up with bupkis.

Other weeks, the world is generous and just gift-wraps something for you. It’s like manna from heaven or in this week’s case, manna from hell. And for that I am grateful. Thank you, Satan.

The fun started when a flyer with the headline, “Hey Kids, Let’s Have Fun at After School Satan Club,” caught the attention of some parents and the local media. According to the flyer, the first meeting of a fun new club apparently dedicated to promoting Lucifer-lovin’ to local kiddos was scheduled for January 10th at Chimneyrock Elementary in Cordova.

Pearls were clutched and outrage was churned. People were mad as, uh, hell. The flyer was soon all over the TV news and the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board was forced to hold a press conference last Wednesday to explain the situation.

“Satan has no room in this district,” said Althea E. Greene, MSCS Board chair. To emphasize the point, a group of 40 or so pastors and faith leaders joined in.

“They threaten to rent a facility under the First Amendment right and they entice us into saying no, and of course, they take us to court and then they look for a settlement,” said Bill Adkins, pastor of Greater Imani Church. He’s right. The organization settled a lawsuit with a school district in Pennsylvania for $200,000 for blocking the organization from using its facilities.

“We don’t go to a school unless there is another religious club operating,” said June Everett, the national campaign director for After School Satan Club. So there’s the rub, Beelzebub. You don’t get to pick and choose which “religious” groups can rent your facilities. It’s all or none. Such divine comedy.

According to MSCS policy, nonprofit community groups are allowed to rent school property for events, meetings, and other functions. Groups such as the Christian-based Good News Club and the Boy Scouts of America are among the nonprofits using facilities after school hours. The Satanic Temple is a legitimate 501(c)(3) public charity and nonprofit recognized by the IRS.

MSCS board member Mauricio Calvo was quoted in the Daily Memphian: “We have a portal on the MSCS website where any organization that is recognized by the IRS has the possibility to rent facilities. Being a public facility, we had to make our facilities accessible. If we let a church rent space from us, does the pastor have to submit his or her sermon days before? If that is the will of the board and the people, then we’ll have to change the policies. This is very new, and there’s no precedent in Tennessee.

“We’re going to continue to engage the public, legal team, state legislatures on what can be done,” Calvo concluded. “Ultimately, participation is going to be the parents’ decision. For now, this is the law. For now, we have to comply.”

Interim Superintendent Toni Williams added, “We can support the First Amendment and support our students at the same time.” That seems like a good plan.

Upon closer inspection, it seems obvious that the Satanic Temple is basically an organization dedicated to trolling for outrage — and perhaps a few bucks. Old Nick is just their snazzy front man, a way to get attention. The ASSC has been holding meetings and events in public schools around the country since 2016.

According to the group’s flyer, the organization is a “non-theistic religion that views Satan as a literary figure who represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny and championing the human mind and spirit.” Which isn’t very scary, even if it is a bit pretentious.

The flyer says the ASSC “does not attempt to convert children to any religion or ideology,” and “supports children to think for themselves.” The group claims that it’s dedicated to promoting a “scientific, rationalist, non-superstitious worldview” via puzzles and games, nature activities, arts and crafts, science projects, and community service. That doesn’t sound too horrible. Plus, there will be snacks, presumably devil’s food cake and hot tarts.

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At Large Opinion

White Plains

The view from White Plains (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

I had occasion to visit family in the New York area last week. The weather was soft, pleasant, very non-Decemberish for the Northeast. We took walks, drove to nearby restaurants and parks, and in general had a low-key great time.

One of the more pleasant discoveries I made before leaving Memphis was that Delta flies into White Plains, New York, out of Atlanta, making it possible to avoid the insanity of LaGuardia or JFK and still land in the NYC area.

The White Plains airport is tiny — one baggage carousel and one waiting area for all departing flights. You want a drink? Go to the snack bar/newsstand and order a cocktail to-go (to a nearby seat, if you can find one). It’s a long line, with the same beleaguered clerk selling bottles of water, Cheez-Its, magazines, neck pillows, M&M’s — and mixing gin and tonics in her spare time. Good luck.

But despite its small size, large jets come and go into White Plains, supplying hassle-free air travel to the swells living in White Plains, Greenwich, Fairfield, and other upscale ’burbs. It’s a great way to avoid the grinding traffic of LGA or JFK, so call me a swell. (Dad Joke Warning: Despite its misleading name, not all the planes in the White Plains airport are white.)

On my Sunday return flight, I had a 40-minute layover in Detroit, which is tight timing given the vicissitudes of modern air travel. My seat mate was a woman I guessed to be around my own age. We did the obligatory, “Hi,” then fastened seat belts, dug into carry-ons, and turned to our reading — me, a Michael Chabon novella; she, a legal-looking document onto which she occasionally scribbled margin notes. It was a short flight, and as we began to descend into Detroit, she said, “I’ve got to get off this plane in a hurry. I’ve only got 30 minutes to catch my connecting flight.”

“You’ve got me beat,” I said. “I have 40 minutes.”

Eye rolls and shoulder shrugs.

“What brought you to White Plains?” I asked, as we bumped below the cloud cover.

“Visiting my grandchildren,” she said, flashing a picture from her phone.

I nodded approvingly.

“Cute!” I said, returning serve with a photo of my own.

Then she asked me what I did for a living. I admitted I was a journalist, and she confessed that she was an attorney from Kansas City.

After a moment of silence, she asked, “Did you talk to your children about politics? My son is 40 and he and his wife are really not excited about Biden.”

“Nor are any of my kids,” I said.

“They say they’ll vote for him because there’s no alternative, but they are just really tired of Boomers running things.”

“I get that,” I said. “I remember in ’92 I was really sick of old guys like Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr. after 12 years. I remember being so excited when Clinton won. It seemed like a miracle. Presidents weren’t supposed to like Fleetwood Mac or wear jogging shorts. It seemed like we finally had a president we could relate to, which was mind-blowing after ol’ Ronnie Raygun.”

“I remember Reagan was literally senile at the end,” she said. “And I couldn’t believe Clinton won either. He was the first Boomer president.”

“Now he’s 77,” I said, “the same age as Trump.”

“Lord help us. If Trump wins, we’re so screwed.”

“And it’s weird to think about it — Biden’s older than Reagan was when he left office — but at least he’s not using astrology readings to make decisions.”

“Yeah, I think Biden’s a decent man,” she said. “I know that’s a low bar, but it’s more than I can say about the other guy.”

“True that.”

We taxied to a stop and I bid farewell to my 10-minute friend who I’ll never see again. Maybe Biden should rebrand his campaign, I thought: “Be patient. I’m just a short layover.”

Categories
At Large Opinion

Neighbor With a Gun

Photo: Catherine Goode | Nextdoor

“Did anyone just hear gunshots and police cars in Cooper-Young?”
“Did anyone just hear that drive-by shooting? Five shots fired, I hear police now.”
“My camera caught this random guy going through my car. Around 1:55 a.m.”
“Anybody recognize this porch pirate. 4:00 in the afternoon!”
“Kittens! Found these three under my porch.”

These were the first five posts I read Sunday on Nextdoor.com, the social media network that keeps us all alerted to gunshots, porch pirates, “suspicious” youths, and stray kittens. I get email alerts and occasionally succumb to the teasing headline, often to my regret, mainly because of the comments.

But last Monday, November 27th, Nextdoor made real news. You probably heard or read about it. The Flyer’s Kailynn Johnson broke the story on our website, and local television stations soon ran with it. It was a pretty scary tale.

A woman living on Peabody posted a photo of one of her neighbors walking down the street brandishing what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon. He was holding it high, at face level, and looked to be striding westward. Two schools are within a couple blocks of the spot where the armed man was walking: Grace St. Luke’s (GSL) and Idlewild Elementary.

From Johnson’s story: “When pictures of the individual began to circulate on the neighborhood app Nextdoor, GSL began a school-wide lockdown and notified police. At the time that parents received the initial notification, the school stated that the ‘suspect [had] been apprehended per the Memphis Police Department.’

“Shortly thereafter, parents received a second email with updates to the situation stating that they had received information from the West Precinct that ‘the individual with the weapon had been apprehended.’ However, according to the school, an in-person visit from an officer contradicted this information.”

MPD spokesperson Christopher Williams issued a statement Monday that there were complaints of a “man walking on the sidewalk armed with a rifle.” Williams said the man was not accused of committing a crime. “While it’s odd,” he said, “merely openly carrying a gun on a public sidewalk isn’t illegal. He was not located.” The spokesperson said there was “no incident report” filed on the Peabody gun-wielder.

“Odd” is not the word I would use, but that’s just me. What is odd is the fact that people on Nextdoor said they saw police officers and vehicles at the mystery man’s house, to wit: “He lives near me in a rental. And yes. It’s for real. Eight policemen were over there banging on the door and on the side of the house. He wouldn’t come out. They spoke to him thru his door and then left.”

On Tuesday, November 28th, the MPD told Johnson the individual was not accused of a crime and was not located.

So, who was lying? GSL, the Nextdoor posters, or the Memphis Police Department. The answer became obvious the following day, Wednesday, November 29th, when the MPD issued an, oops, incident report.

From the report: “The male subject told officers that he was the person walking down the street with his weapon. He said he was walking down the road with his weapon because he was scared. He told officers that Memphis is a dangerous place. He advised that he never wanted to harm anyone. He said that he only carried the rifle for his protection.

“The writer [officer] had the Real Time Crime Center check the subject, and he came back with negative results. Officers on the scene also checked him; he had no criminal history. The writer asked him if officers could see the weapon he was walking with, and he allowed officers to see the weapon. The writer … took a photo of the weapon. … The writer did not notice him to have any mental illness. The weapon was left with the subject.”

Well, that certainly makes me feel better. An MPD officer “did not notice” him to be mentally ill, so he got to keep his AK. Welcome to Governor Bill Lee’s and the GOP’s Tennessee, where a random guy can walk the streets around elementary schools with an automatic weapon.

For freedom. Or something. Please remember who put the NRA in charge of Tennessee gun laws when you vote next November. And let’s all pray that the unnamed police officer’s evaluation of “the subject’s” mental health is accurate.