Author: Bruce VanWyngarden

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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.

Categories
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!

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Getting Schooled

Photo: Sandra Cunningham | Dreamstime.com

“We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.” — Donald Trump

You know who else loves the poorly educated? Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and the GOP-led Tennessee Legislature. In fact, they love the poorly educated so much that they’re determined to make a lot more of them. Let us count the ways. It’s a multi-pronged approach.

Earlier in November, the GOP formed the very seriously named “Joint Working Group on Federal Education Funding” to consider whether Tennessee should become the first state in the nation to turn down federal education funds, which amount to more than $1 billion per year.

On its face, such a move seems really stupid, since we Tennessee taxpayers contribute to that $1 billion with our federal tax dollars. And since much of that rejected funding would have to be replaced by state money, we taxpayers would take a double hit if it were rejected.

But don’t forget, this is the same bunch of loons that votes to reject billions of dollars in federal healthcare funding every year because it has “strings attached,” even as the state’s rural hospitals are folding in county after county due to lack of funds. Brainiacs, they are not.

Similarly, many Tennessee Republicans think the state shouldn’t accept federal education money because, well, “strings” — the strings in this case being requirements that some of that funding must be used for low-income students, students with disabilities, Title IX (which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender), and school lunch and breakfast programs. You know, the communist stuff.

At any rate, when the very serious task force wrapped up its meetings last week, Republicans had not yet made a determination one way or the other about accepting the education funding, but pledged that more hearings are possible in 2024, and that they planned to invite the U.S. Department of Education to testify before the legislature.

But it gets worse. Much worse. Get ready to say hello to Governor Lee’s new statewide voucher program. He’s scheduled to announce it this week. Here’s how it works: For every school-age child in your household, you get a $7,000 voucher which can be applied to pay tuition at any school in the state — religious, secular, charter, you name it. For a wealthy Tennessee family with, say, three kids at high-tuition private schools, this amounts to a $21,000 gift from the state to go toward sending Aiden, Heather, and Maverick to Hutchison and MUS.

Or, should you choose to do so, you can spend that $7,000 per child voucher to send your kids to Billy Bob’s Jeebus Academy, where science classes are based on the Old Testament. The state doesn’t care. The GOP is doing anything it can get away with to help destroy our public schools. If it also happens to help out the state’s wealthier citizens and its evangelicals, well, so be it.

It’s wrong. It’s even unconstitutional. Article XI, Section 12 of the Tennessee Constitution declares that the state recognizes the inherent value of education and mandates that the General Assembly provide for the maintenance, support, and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools.

Government funding of religious schools strikes at the very heart of the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which keeps the government from establishing an official religion or supporting a specific religion: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Which means if my neighbor wants to send his kid to a Muslim school — or a Catholic school or a Baptist school — I shouldn’t have to pay for that with my tax dollars.

It’s really simple: Public funds should go to public schools and private schools should be funded privately — by those who attend them. Governor Lee and the Tennessee GOP are determined to underfund our public schools, dumb down the children who attend them, and give our tax dollars to parents to help pay for their kids’ tuition at religious and private schools.

It’s bad policy and it’s bad math. It doesn’t add up.

Categories
Letter From An Editor Opinion

Office Space

Editor’s note: Flyer writers will occasionally share this space.

The other day my Mac laptop started freezing up. I looked at its storage capacity and saw that it was more than 90 percent full, stuffed to near capacity with photos, documents, music, apps, and email files. I needed to offload some of that RAM-devouring content.

I began by deleting hundreds of photos, since they are on the iCloud, anyway. Next were thousands of old Word files, everything I’d written since 2015, most of it duplicated elsewhere. Also deleted were a couple dozen ancient apps — Chess, Stickies, Photo Booth, Lensa — all unused for years.

Then I really hit pay dirt: emails, thousands of them from 2010 to 2014. I’d transferred them to this computer from my old one for some reason. It was like finding a time capsule. All the pressing problems and issues and humor and humanity of that time brought back to life: Can we change the cover photo on the Weirich story? Is Branston’s column ready yet? Don’t forget, the annual 20<30 party is tomorrow night. Bianca put cupcakes on the Flyer table. Cashiola wants to have lunch about the size of the paper after the meeting.

As I scrolled, other names appeared that I hadn’t thought of in years — ad sales reps who didn’t make the grade, that weird receptionist who liked to use the intercom just a little too much, that snooty intern who dropped a milkshake on the front hall carpet and just kept walking. “That’s what janitors are for,” he said. Keep walking, we said.

It was a different time, a different culture. We ate lunch together, smoked on the back stairs together, stayed late when a story was breaking, ordered pizza and drank beer together on Tuesday after the paper went to the printer.

We hung out. We gossiped. And we emailed: What is going on with Rhonda’s hair? Is Phil getting divorced? What’s the deal with this new CFO? Is Donna P. wearing a f—king wig today? Are we getting a bonus this year? All this and more, captured for posterity in those long-forgotten office emails.

There were emails about snow days, which didn’t exist on Tuesdays because the paper had to get out, no matter what. There were Tuesdays when I picked up staffers from all over Midtown because I had a four-wheel-drive vehicle and used to live “up north.”

On days when school was called off, the office was filled with toddlers, as staffers brought their kids to work. The break room became a de facto kiddie lounge. We all knew the names of everyone’s kids. Most of them are in college or older now.

But the real email gold was the discovery of several issues of The Tattler, the now-defunct monthly company newsletter. It was written by senior editor Michael Finger, and to say he took liberties with the truth is, well, something of an understatement. The Tattler featured the expected office news, but it also featured long, rambling stories, very loosely based in truth, but mostly just created by Michael’s fertile imagination. No targets were spared. Once, the CEO had a fender-bender on the way to work. Not a big deal, you might think. But the story published in The Tattler featured ladies of the night (the Richardson twins), the deployment of 17 meticulously enumerated airbags, and the subsequent confinement of the CEO to a mental hospital with aluminum foil on the windows.

And no, Michael didn’t get fired. It was just business as usual for The Tattler. Everyone was fair game.

But those days are gone now, lost to the great office diaspora spawned by Covid. Millions of companies and businesses discovered they could produce their products with their employees working from home “remotely,” which is a perfect word for it. No more rent! Zoom became a noun, as in “I’ve got a Zoom at 10:30,” and now millions of us who once worked in offices mostly see our co-workers in little boxes on a computer screen.

An entire culture has vanished for millions of people. The office once was a congregation, a club, a family. People spent more daylight hours in their office than they did at home. Now, not so much. We take the change for granted because humans are nothing if not resilient. But something of value was lost and is unlikely to return.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Made Ya Look!

Heavy is the head that wears a cap. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

I’m normally not the kind of guy who likes to draw attention to myself or my politics in public. There are no candidate bumper stickers on my car. I don’t wear political T-shirts, unless it’s something like “Save the Aquifer.” I don’t put up yard signs for candidates, though my wife sometimes does.

I try to keep my professional life and my social interactions separate, but it doesn’t always work. Often, when I’m introduced, people will say something like, “Oh, the Flyer guy. Yeah, I read your column.” Then there’s often a moment of frisson as I wait to check the vibe. I got a bad vibe the other night at a restaurant in Regalia Shopping Center, when the person I was introduced to said, “Oh, yeah … You’ve got a lot of opinions, don’t you?”

Yes, I do. Pleasure meeting you. See ya. Bye.

Anyway, as I said, I try to avoid such situations. So I don’t know what on Earth I was thinking last Saturday when I decided to wear a red baseball cap to Fresh Market. It looks exactly like a Trump MAGA cap, but the text reads:

MADE YA LOOK

BLACK LIVES MATTER

It was a gag gift from my wife and it has hung from my desk lamp at home for months. I can’t tell you why I suddenly thought it was a good idea to wear it.

When I got to the store and started walking across the parking lot, I realized that anyone more than 20 feet away would just assume I was wearing a MAGA hat. The joke only worked if the jokee was facing me and close enough to read the text. Oops. Nonetheless, I persevered, while noting as I grabbed a shopping cart, that the damn hat and people’s possible reactions to it was all I was thinking about.

First stop was at the berries display to pick up my weekly ration of blueberries. There was a Black guy putting out fresh plastic tubs, stacking them neatly. I saw his head jerk my way as he noticed my hat. I stared nonchalantly down at the produce, hoping the dude was reading my hat. He was.

“I like that hat,” he said, laughing. “You had me for a minute.”

“Oh yeah, this hat? Ha ha. It always gets a reaction,” I said, shamelessly. Ha ha. Phew.

I drew a couple of looks from people in the produce section, but no one was close enough to get the joke, so I was either just another dumb-ass Trumper or a fellow patriot, depending on their politics.

At the deli counter, I studied the array of roast chickens, head lowered, as if deep in concentration. The woman behind the counter made no comment. As I pointed at my selection, she handed it to me with an inscrutable smile and said, “Have a great day.” Bupkis.

It was then that I realized the stupid hat was wearing me, instead of the other way around. I might as well have been wearing a white Klan hood with “JUST KKKIDDING” on the forehead. Or a Confederate T-shirt with “I’M A LOSER” on the back. Some things just aren’t funny, even ironically. The MAGA hat has become too loaded with political baggage to be amusing any longer.

I took off the hat and stuffed it in one of my reusable shopping bags in the bottom of the cart. Which is ironic at some level, I suppose.

That evening, being on my own for the weekend, I went to Boscos in Overton Square for dinner. I like to sit at the cozy little bar, and I like their steak sandwiches. As soon as I sat down, I realized I’d seated myself in a combat zone. The Black woman to my left was arguing with a white guy across from her about Trump. “He emboldened people to be racist,” she said. “I can’t stand the man.”

“He did a lot of good things for the country,” the man said.

And so it went for a few minutes. I managed to get my order in, as the bartender rolled his eyes apologetically. Then I watched, unbelieving, as the two protagonists stared at each other silently for a moment, then walked around the bar and hugged. I wish I’d had my hat.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Preacher of the House

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Photo: United States Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

After three weeks of turmoil, the Republicans in Congress finally picked a speaker of the house last week. His name is Mike Johnson. He’s from Shreveport, Louisiana, and you could be forgiven if you’d never heard of him. He’s only been in Congress seven years, and his political views are, well, concerning. When asked how he would approach the issues of the day, Johnson responded, “Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.”

At first, I took this as possible good news. After all, the Bible commands that we love our neighbor, care for the poor, welcome refugees, judge not lest ye be judged, and treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated — all good ideas. Looks like there might be some changes in the GOP platform, I thought.

Turns out, not so much. Johnson’s Bible is nothing if not flexible. When asked about last week’s mass shooting in Maine, for example, Johnson’s governing philosophy was put to an immediate test, since, you know, nobody was packing heat in Biblical times.

Johnson said it was not the right time to consider legislation. “The problem is the human heart,” he said. “It’s not guns, it’s not the weapons. We have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves.” In other words, forget that Jesus-y “turn the other cheek” stuff. Lock ’n load, pilgrims.

On climate change, Johnson will likely be the most vocal climate-change denier to ever hold the speakership. He received a 100 percent rating from the pro-fossil fuel American Energy Alliance in 2022. As, no doubt, Jesus would have.

Johnson worked for years as an attorney for the Christian nationalist organization, Alliance Defense Fund, fighting to ban abortion and gay rights. He called the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade a “great, joyous occasion,” and favors a nationwide ban on abortion. As for LGBTQ rights? “States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual intercourse,” Johnson says, “including concerns for public health, safety, morals, and the promotion of healthy marriages.”

At this point, it won’t surprise you to learn that Johnson was one of the principal congressional leaders in Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and an enthusiastic promoter of the absurd legal theories used by Trump’s “legal team.”

In sum, Johnson is a boiler-plate, right-wing Republican who checks all the boxes: evangelical nationalist, anti-abortion, anti-climate change, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-gun reform, pro-cutting Social Security and Medicare, and a pro-Trump election denier. The vote to elevate him to the speakership, a position two heartbeats from the presidency, was unanimous among his fellow GOP congressmen. So much for the myth of “moderate” Republicans.

The guy is a loon. And I haven’t even gotten to the weird stuff yet.

When asked why his wife, Kelly, didn’t come to Washington, D.C., to witness his swearing-in, Johnson said, and I quote: “She’s spent the last couple of weeks on her knees in prayer to the Lord. And, um, she’s a little worn out.”

I can’t even begin to parse that. Why would she pray for two weeks prior to Johnson’s election, which took less than one day? What kind of Jeebus weirdness is this? Even Monica Lewinsky couldn’t figure it out, tweeting in response (and I’m not making this up): “Not touching this.”

Johnson and his wife are in a “covenant marriage,” a Christian construct which makes divorce exceedingly difficult. It’s an institution beloved by misogynists, er, evangelical men, because it makes it nearly impossible for a woman to leave a marriage if she’s not financially independent.

And Johnson’s finances are yet another point of intrigue. From Vanity Fair: “In financial disclosures dating back to 2016, the year he joined Congress, Johnson never reported having a savings or checking account in his name, his spouse’s name, or in the name of any of his children. In his latest filing, which covers last year, he doesn’t list a single asset.” So how is that even possible? How does he pay bills?

And it gets weirder. In the late 1990s, when Johnson was in his mid-twenties, he “took custody” of a 11-year-old Black kid. When he and his wife got married in 1999, they claim to have “taken in” the teen as their own child. The teen doesn’t appear in any of the wedding pictures or current Johnson family pictures that have been released to the media. He is said to be living in California with children of his own. It’s undeniably strange. Johnson has likened the relationship to the one in the movie, The Blind Side. Okay. More to come, I suspect.

Johnson and his wife deleted the 69 (heh) episodes of their fundamentalist podcast within 24 hours of his winning the speakership, but they’ve been archived by an activist group and are reported to be very controversial. I’m not in the prediction business (well, maybe I am), but I’m guessing Mike Johnson will come to rue the day when the national media began to take his personal history off the shelf and read it.