Author: Bruce VanWyngarden

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At Large Opinion

An Innocent Man

Unbelievable. (Photo: Photographerlondon | Dreamstime)

“Good morning, sir. Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You were going 67 in a 35-miles-per-hour zone.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Sir, I have your speed recorded on my radar gun.”

“Well, your ‘gun’ is wrong. There’s no way I was going that fast. In fact, I was going well under the speed limit.”

“No sir, you were going almost twice the speed limit, and I’m going to have to issue you a speeding ticket.”

“I wasn’t speeding.”

“Yes. You. Were. Remain here. I’m going back to my car to pull your vehicle information and write you a ticket.”

“Fine. I’m going to call my lawyer.”

“You do that.”

Five minutes pass.

“All right, sir. Here’s your citation. I’m required to inform you that you will have to appear in court, since you were going more than 25 miles per hour over the legal speed limit.”

“That’s fine. My lawyer just said, and I quote: ‘Don’t worry. They’re going to have a hell of a time trying prove you knew you were speeding.’”

“Sir, we don’t have to prove you knew you were speeding. We only have to prove you were speeding — and you were. My partner is in the squad car and he also can attest to your breaking the speed limit by more than 30 miles per hour. You also sped through a school zone, which doubles the fine.”

“Well, my lawyer said we’re going to get an alternate slate of cops, and they will testify that I was not speeding. And all I have to do is say I believe them. Check and mate, my friend.”

“An alternate slate of cops?”

“That’s right. If I sincerely don’t believe I was going that fast and I didn’t see any school-zone signs and an alternate slate of cops testifies I wasn’t speeding and I say I believe them, there’s no way they can find me guilty.”

“Uh, okay. Good luck with that strategy, pal. Your court date is on the citation. I suggest you don’t miss it. Going more than 25 miles per hour over the speed limit in a school zone can lead to jail time.”

“My lawyer says we’re going to subpoena your radar gun. He says we have evidence that it’s been tampered with by the manufacturer in Venezuela.”

“What? That’s insane.”

“Not if I sincerely believe it.”

“That’s not how the law works, sir.”

“Yes, it is. If I don’t believe I was going that fast and I didn’t see any school-zone signs and I have an alternate slate of cops and your radar gun has been tampered with, there’s no way those charges stand up in court. It’s a free-speech issue.”

“Okay [sighs, heavily], I’ve had enough of your bullshit for one morning. Tell it to the judge.”

“The judge is a biased thug who was appointed by someone who hates me.”

“The judge was not appointed by anybody. She was elected.”

“AHA! It was a stolen election! Boom! Case closed! If I don’t believe I was going that fast and I didn’t see any school-zone signs and I have an alternate slate of cops and your radar gun has been tampered with and it was a stolen election, there’s not a court in the country that would convict me. I’m an innocent man!”

“Whatever, sir. See you in court. You’re free to go.”

“Good! I’ve got a crowded theater to get to. I hear there’s a fire.”

Categories
At Large Opinion

Lights Out!

These storms are no joke. (Photo: Shara Clark)

While driving through the city in recent weeks, I’ve found myself being re-routed around fallen trees and/or limbs several times. There were at least four big ones restricting access to streets within 10 blocks of my Midtown home. Out east, and up north in the Bartlett area, things were much worse.

It’s becoming the new normal. Over the course of several storm systems this summer, the number of Memphians without power at various times was well over 100,000, often for days.

And if it’s not wind turning off our lights, it’s ice, as heavily coated trees and limbs fall on power lines and leave us in the cold and dark. After February’s ice storm, thousands of people were without power, some for up to 10 days. The winter before, it was the same thing — with the added bonus of making our water undrinkable for several days.

MLGW says its infrastructure is outdated and being upgraded, but there’s no getting around the fact that the magnificent trees that shade us through Memphis’ asphalt-melting summers also shut off our air conditioners (and furnaces). If you add up the number of people in the city who’ve lost power just this year as a result of various weather incidents, it’s well into six figures, certainly well above the 100,000 number I cited above.

This was a tweet from MLGW in response to criticism from city council members during the 2022 ice storm: “It took three years to get our budget with a rate increase to fund our five-year improvement plan approved by City Council. We are in the third year of the five-year plan, which has been hampered considerably by the pandemic.”

So, now they’re in the fourth year of the plan. Forgive me if I remain skeptical — and not because I don’t think they’re trying. MLGW workers have been magnificent, working long hours, doing their best to fix a system not built for the increasing frequency of severe weather. They’re trying to play Whac-A-Mole and the moles are winning — with a big assist from global climate change.

The outcry always arises that we need to put our power lines underground. The utility’s response, and I think it’s legitimate, is that it would take decades and cost several billion dollars. So maybe let’s think outside the Whac-A-Mole box.

Some people are already doing it, of course. This has mostly taken the form of buying a gas generator to provide power when storms strike. I get the appeal, but let me suggest another option that came to me when I drove through the back roads of Arkansas last week. I couldn’t help but notice the surprising number of solar panels on rural houses and businesses, many of them new, some even being installed as I drove by. These folks are likely taking advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act’s solar Investment Tax Credit, which reduces tax liability on solar installation by 30 percent of the cost. In addition, taxpayers will be able to claim a 30 percent bonus credit based on emission measurements, which requires zero or net-negative carbon emissions.

So, instead of getting a generator, maybe consider installing solar panels. The initial cost is higher, but the long-term advantage is significant. In addition to a tax credit, you can even get paid for selling electricity back to the grid. Not to mention, solar panels are quiet and don’t pollute.

And here’s another thought: Maybe the city and/or MLGW could divert some of those theoretical funds for burying power lines into incentives to Memphis home and business owners for going solar.

I’m under no illusion that thousands of Memphians will immediately begin installing solar panels, but some will, especially if the benefits are publicized. It beats snarky tweets between city council and MLGW. And there are similar federal tax incentives for businesses that have solar technology installed, so why not sweeten the pot with local funds? Maybe we could get solar panels on our grocery stores. Or our 10,000 Walgreens.

We have to start somewhere. Continuing to chainsaw ourselves out from under fallen debris and wait to be reattached to the grid after every major weather event is not a plan. It’s time to re-route our approach to keeping the lights on.

Categories
At Large Letter From An Editor

Sweet Dreams

Eurythmics’ Annie Lennox (Photo: Library of Congress)

Did you see the video of President Trump singing the Eurythmics’ 1980’s hit, “Sweet Dreams”? He’s really pretty good, to be honest. Except honesty has nothing to do with it. The video — all of it, including the imitation of Trump’s voice — was created by a Google artificial intelligence program, an algorithm trained on Trump’s voice and speech patterns and tasked with creating this bizarre cover song.

The video was only online for a couple of days, but it’s just another example of what we’re all going to be facing in the coming years: The fact that most human creative endeavors can be replicated by artificial intelligence, including novels, screenplays, television scripts, videos of politicians or celebrities (or any of us), pornography, political propaganda, advertising jingles, emails, phone calls, “documentaries,” and even the news. It’s going to be a huge influence in our lives, and it has an enormous potential for creating mischief via disinformation and the manipulation of “reality.”

That’s why seven companies — Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection AI, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI — met with President Biden last Friday to announce a voluntary commitment to standards in the areas of safety and security. The companies agreed to:

  • Security test their AI products, and share information about their products with the government and other organizations attempting to manage the risks of AI.
  • Implement watermarks or other means of identifying AI-generated content.
  • Deploy AI tools to tackle society’s challenges, including curing disease and combating climate change.
  • Conduct research on the risks of bias and invasion of privacy from the spread of AI.


Again, these were voluntary agreements, and it bears noting that these seven companies are fierce competitors and unlikely to share anything that costs them a competitive edge. The regulation of artificial intelligence will soon require more than a loose, voluntary agreement to uphold ethical standards.

The U.S. isn’t alone in trying to regulate the burgeoning AI industry. Governments around the globe — friendly, and not so friendly — are doing the same. Learning the secrets of AI is the new global arms race. Using AI disinformation to control or influence human behavior is a potential weapon with terrifying prospects.

It’s also a tool that corporations are already using. I got an email this week urging me to buy an AI program that would generate promotional emails for my company. All I had to do was give the program the details about what I wanted to promote and the AI algorithm would do the rest, cranking out “lively and engaging” emails sure to win over my customers. I don’t have a company, but if I did, the barely unspoken implication was that this program could eliminate a salary.

It’s part of what’s driving the strike by screen actors and writers against the major film and television studios: The next episode of your favorite TV show could be “written” by an AI program, thereby eliminating a salary. Will the public care — or even know — if, say, the latest episode of Law & Order was generated by AI? Will Zuckerberg figure out how to use AI to coerce you into giving Meta even more of your personal information? (Does it even Meta at this point? Sorry.) You can be sure we’ll find out the answer to those questions fairly soon.

And we’ve barely even begun to see how AI can be utilized in the dirty business of politics. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign used an AI-generated voice of Donald Trump in an ad that ran in Iowa last week. Trump himself never spoke the words used in the ad, but if you weren’t aware of that, you might be inclined to believe he did. Which is, of course, the point: to fool us, to make the fake seem real. It’s coming. It’s here. Stay woke, y’all.

Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody’s looking for something …

Categories
At Large Opinion

The Pander Posse

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (Photo: United States Supreme Court, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, Photographer Fred Schilling)

Right-wing radio host, election denier, and rabid Trumper Charlie Kirk said last week that MSNBC host Joy Reid, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and former First Lady Michelle Obama “used affirmative action” because they “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously, so they had to steal a white person’s slot.”

This racist and misogynistic statement was part of Kirk’s response to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina could no longer use affirmative action or any other race-based criteria in their admissions policies.

Did SCOTUS rule thusly because racism doesn’t exist any longer? (Maybe they don’t listen to Charlie Kirk.) Or because people of color are no longer discriminated against in the United States? Or because economic and educational opportunities are no longer intrinsically more difficult for minorities to attain? Or because white supremacist media stars with millions of listeners and viewers have ceased to exist?

Or did the Supreme Court rule against affirmative action because it has become a bought-and-sold verdict factory for the Republican Party’s troglodyte wing? I’m going with the latter, but that’s just me.

Not missing an opportunity to get some media attention, Tennessee’s noisy GOP attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, immediately jumped on the “reverse racism” bandwagon, along with GOP attorneys general from Kansas, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Montana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. This pander posse proudly announced that they’d sent a letter to each of the country’s Fortune 100 CEOs warning them not to try any of that nefarious DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) stuff in their states, by God.

Here’s the money shot from the letter: “The Supreme Court’s recent decision should place every employer and contractor on notice of the illegality of racial quotas and race-based preferences in employment and contracting practices. As Attorneys General, it is incumbent upon us to remind all entities operating within our respective jurisdictions of the binding nature of American anti-discrimination laws. If your company previously resorted to racial preferences or naked quotas to offset its bigotry, that discriminatory path is now definitively closed.”

In other words, “You bigoted companies better not try any of that ‘woke’ stuff in our state or we’ll see you in court!” Ron DeSantis would be proud. These 13 gas-bags are pursuing the same economically suicidal policies that caused Florida’s largest employer (The Walt Disney Company) to drop plans for a nearly $1 billion corporate campus in Orlando that would have brought 2,000 high-paying jobs to the state. DeSantis’ anti-woke crusade has also resulted in the cancellation of several major conventions and conferences, a “brain drain” of the state’s scientists and teachers, and a drop in tourism. ‘Woke’ isn’t going to die in DeSantis’ Florida,” wrote the editorial board of the Miami Herald. “It’s just taking its dollars elsewhere.”

Tennessee, it should be noted, is headquarters to two Fortune 100 companies: FedEx and HCA Healthcare. Both corporations have active DEI programs. Google “DEI FedEx,” if you doubt it. I guess this means General “Stonewall” Skrmetti is about to absolutely, positively come down on them hard, right?

Tennessee is also home to facilities for several other companies on the Fortune 100 list, including Nike, Sysco, State Farm, Lowe’s, The Home Depot, and, not least, Ford, which is in the process of constructing a $5.6 billion plant in Western Tennessee to build EV pickup trucks.

Just for fun, here’s Ford’s DEI statement from its corporate website: “For more than a century, Ford has been a pioneer in providing opportunity to people regardless of race, gender, ability, sexual orientation and background. We view this less with pride than the sober realization that we must go further to create a company where our differences are truly valued and every team member can bring their whole selves to work. Creating a culture of belonging isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing. Diversity breeds innovation and the companies that attract the most talented and diverse workforce will succeed in our rapidly changing world. We are family. We celebrate our differences. We all belong.”

What kind of snowflakey bilge is that? Built Ford Tough? Really? It’s clear these woke assholes need to straighten up or get the heck out of Tennessee. Your move, General.

Categories
At Large Editorial Opinion

Smoke on the Water

Try saying Naromiyocknowhusunkatankshunk Brook 10 times fast, we dare you.

Greetings from the shores of Naromiyocknowhusunkatankshunk Brook. Not the literal shores, to be honest. I just wanted to work the name of that stream into my column. I’m actually down the road a couple of miles, near the little town of Sherman, Connecticut, where my wife and I rented an Airbnb for 10 days and are being visited off and on by our children and grandchildren who live in and around New York City. 

Sherman is a quaint village (pop. 3,527) named after Roger Sherman, the only person who signed all four founding documents of the United States, but you knew that. (I think he was also one of the stars of Rocky and Bullwinkle, but don’t quote me.) Anyway, Sherman, the town, has one intersection, a nearby boutique IGA and liquor store, and not much else, except lots of swell-looking white clapboard houses and zillions of orange day lilies everywhere.

According to Wikipedia, Sherman is home to Daryl Hall, Jeffrey Toobin, Diane von Furstenberg, and Rob Zombie, though we have not run into any of them during our stay.

Our Airbnb is pseudo-rustic and has lots of beds and futon couches spread over three levels, plus a couple of big decks to sit out on and enjoy the surrounding forest, so it’s been nice. The temperatures have been wonderful — low- to mid-70s — and the rain sparse enough to allow plenty of beach and fishing time in the crystal waters of nearby Candlewood Lake. I have also spent some time fly-fishing in the melodiously named Squantz Pond, which is either a damn lake or the largest pond in America. Anyway, we are having good times.

Except for the smoke, and honestly, it’s only been really bad for one day. It seems we scheduled our vacation to happen just as those annoying Canadians began wafting wildfire detritus into the colonies again. (We really need to secure that border!) But it didn’t last long, so we held our breath and persevered.

We also timed our vacation to coincide with the hottest day on Earth since record-keeping began more than 40 years ago, according to scientists at the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer project, but that was just luck. Over the July 4th holiday, the global average temperature reached an all-time high of 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit. This followed a June that was the warmest on record, worldwide. The heat index 70 miles south of us in New York City was 100 degrees on Independence Day, even though the actual temperatures in Sherman and New York were not that far apart. The difference being that we were in the woods, near cool water, and under tall, shady trees while New York’s concrete-and-exhaust-filled hellscape was exacerbating the sun’s heat to near-intolerable levels.

And, meanwhile in Memphis …

I pull up some local news sources on my laptop and read that things are pretty much in line with the new normal for summer: 100-degree days, one after another. Oh boy, I think, I cannot wait to get back.

I find myself heat-scrolling on what’s left of Twitter and end up reading a vox.com story called “Bus stops and playgrounds are too damn hot.” It addresses a problem that cities will increasingly deal with as temperatures rise over the next couple of decades: a lack of shade. It sounds simplistic, but it’s true. The temperature difference between the corner of Union and Cooper and the center of Overton Park’s Old Forest — four blocks away — can be more than 20 degrees, according to a study conducted a few years back.

While it’s true that Memphis is blessed with a canopy of trees over much of its landscape, we still need to ensure that public spaces such as bus stops and the like are adequately shaded. That would also include our public parks — making sure canopies, picnic shelters, or other shade options are plentiful, as well as water features such as sprinklers and wading pools. The days of frolicking in a big, open, unshaded space during the dog days of summer are behind us, Memphis. And for what it’s worth, the new Tom Lee Park is looking increasingly like genius — a project that’s gotten here just in time. Take it from Sherman.

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At Large Opinion

The Remissionary Position

Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland rocks a kerchief. (Photo: @CalltoActivism | Twitter)

I wrote a column in late January called “Daze of Christmas Past,” in which I recounted how I got diagnosed with cancer — large B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma — a couple weeks before Christmas. It was a really not-fun holiday surprise. As a bonus, since the tumor was attached to the front of my spinal column, I had to undergo a reconstruction of my upper spine to stabilize it prior to cancer treatment.

By the time I got home from the hospital, on Christmas Day, no less, I was stiff, sore, using a walker, and breathing from an oxygen tank at night. I felt like I was 95 years old. It will get better, the doctor said. Be patient. Or a patient. I can’t remember which. I didn’t move around much for a couple of weeks, but I began keeping a daily journal that I cleverly called “Cancer Diary.” I was scheduled to begin chemotherapy in late January. The odds of a cure, they told me, were 70 percent. Not so bad.

I watched on television as Congressman Jamie Raskin announced that he’d been diagnosed with the same cancer I had. He was about a month ahead of me in treatment, it appeared, so I decided to keep an eye on his progress. He was wearing a kerchief to cover his newly bald head — not a great look.

I read a lot about various natural cancer-fighting foods and decided to begin each day with a bowl of Cheerios and fresh berries, and with liquid mushroom extracts — lion’s mane, turkey tail, and reishi — on the highly scientific theory that it couldn’t hurt.

On January 24th, I began the first of six chemo treatments — one every three weeks — at West Clinic in Midtown. After I arrived and had some blood taken, I was escorted into the chemo area, a large room with 20 or so matching reclining chairs, each next to a rolling stand holding medical drip bags. There was a wall of windows facing Union Avenue, the cars filled with people who, like me, had probably never noticed this building or had any idea what happened inside. A Wendy’s was across the street.

I was taking the “R-CHOP” protocol, a well-established treatment for large B-cell lymphoma. It’s a regimen of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, prednisone, rituximab, and vincristine. So there. Mmmm.

The process began with three 40-minute drips: Tylenol, Benadryl, and an anti-nausea medication. The heavy stuff was to come a couple hours later. I was to be there “all day,” the nurse said. Two of my fellow drippees chattered ceaselessly on their phones. Others slept or listened to music through headphones. I guessed they were old hands at this. Six hours later, and I was no longer a chemo virgin.

Thus began the next five months of my life. I never had the horrible reactions to chemo that many people get — headaches, nausea, and other gastric thrills — but I got three or four days of extreme fatigue about halfway through each three-week cycle. My hair fell out in mid-February. I tried wearing various theoretically cool-looking toppers but decided finally to just roll with a chrome dome. Once my facial hair was gone, my head looked like a thumb.

I started writing my column again in late January and only missed a couple of weeks. I read voraciously on the Kindle my son bought me. It’s light and easy to hold in bed. My mother-in-law came from Spain to stay with us and help out until I “got better,” and she was a delight.

I had a couple of setbacks that led to visits to the ER and hospital stays, but I weathered the storms. The scans I took showed the tumor was shrinking — from an egg, to a walnut, to a grape, over the course of three months. Then, in late April, Congressman Raskin announced that “chemotherapy has extinguished the cancer cells.” I took this as a good sign. In the meantime, I was starting to feel pretty “normal.”

After my last chemo on June 5th, I got another PET scan. Three days later I got an email from my oncologist. “Scan showed remission,” it said. “More details when we meet.” Details, schmetails. I still have some follow-up treatments to get through, but apparently “chemotherapy has extinguished the cancer cells,” and I count myself a lucky man.

Categories
At Large Opinion

FDT!

He could hear it coming up from behind him, maybe a block away, the basso thump of hip-hop. As the car pulled level on his left, he didn’t look, just stood at the light, waiting for the change. Damn, it was loud.

“Fuck Donald Trump, Fuck Donald Trump, Fuck Donald Trump” — loud enough to melt asphalt, loud enough to rattle window glass. Was he hearing that right? Yes, he was. He turned and looked at the driver, a Black guy in a black beret who looked back at him. He stuck up his thumb and nodded. The Black guy laughed and pulled off, nodding, “Fuck Donald Trump” fading in the afternoon glare. A Black guy, a white guy, a bonding moment. America the beautiful.

At home, he googled “hip hop song Fuck Donald Trump” and found it on Wiki: “‘FDT’ (‘Fuck Donald Trump’) is a protest song by YG featuring Nipsey Hussle, and is the second single from the album Still Brazy. The song is a criticism of the policies of the Republican candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

A criticism? No kidding.

The white guy was semi-retired, a former editor who still wrote a column for a local rag. The incident at the light at Belvedere and Peabody stayed with him, the sequence of his reactions — his irritation at the throbbing beat, his nervousness when the car pulled up and stopped, the aha moment when he got the lyrics, felt sympatico, turned, and smiled. Maybe the dude was hoping to piss him off? If so, it backfired. Or maybe he was conducting a survey, taking the pulse of Memphis. He got one old white guy to give a thumbs-up to “Fuck Donald Trump,” if so. Or maybe he just hates Donald Trump and doesn’t care what anybody thinks.

Who knows? Didn’t really matter. The editor had been reading a lot of crime fiction by Elmore Leonard, the “Dickens of Detroit,” who wrote about loan sharks, bad cops, hustlers, strippers, blackmailers, bookies, debt collectors, and other assorted American lowlifes in such novels as Get Shorty, Maximum Bob, Road Dogs, Hombre, Out of Sight, and Killshot. The guy knew how people talked, how to tell a story with dialogue without a lot of writerly “hooptedoodle.” That’s what Leonard called it in an interview. “Just try to keep it moving without showing off,” he said.

Other Leonardisms: “Never open a book with weather; never use a word other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue; avoid detailed descriptions of characters; try to leave out the parts that readers skip.” In other words, cut to the action and the dialogue, which Leonard did, and which is why so many of his books got made into movies.

He really only had one plot: A bunch of money exists somewhere and various characters fight to get it, overcoming conscience if they have any, cutting straight to the chase if not. Death steps in, takes out a character now and then, disappears, returns. Life is a hustle. There are no heroes or villains, just some people you might like better than others.

How would Leonard have written about the encounter at at that Midtown corner? Hard to say, but for one thing, his character wouldn’t have been an editor; he’d have been a sleazeball bail bondsman or some such and would have gotten into the car, fired up a joint, and ridden off into a novel called FDT.

And now that he thought about it, there has never been a more perfect Elmore Leonard character than Donald Trump, a man with the soul of motel furniture: the orange makeup, the absurd comb-over, the sleazy grifts, shady lawyers, porn stars, foreign nationals, crappy steaks, real estate cons, the fake university, the phony charity — all pieces of an amoral, lifelong quest for money and power. And imagine what Leonard could have done with Rudy Giuliani, Roger Stone, Ivanka and Jared, Melania Trump, Walt Nauta. Subplots galore! The dialogue? Done and done. FDT writes itself.

“He could hear it coming up from behind him, maybe a block away, the basso thump of hip-hop. As the car pulled level on his left, he didn’t look, just stood at the light, waiting for the change. Damn, it was loud. He turned finally and gazed into the car, the driver motioning for him to get in. ‘What the hell does Rudy want?’ he thought.”

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At Large Opinion

6/08/23

Photo: Vasakkohaline | Dreamstime.com

Boy, last Thursday was quite the news day!

We woke up to the startling revelation that New York City was basically paralyzed, hazed over by dense smoke from forest fires in Canada, our supposed “ally.” Eh?

Then it was announced that the Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey company had won its case over a dog-toy manufacturer that had created “poop-themed” chewies with a “Jack Spaniel’s” label. Justice was fetched. Woof!

Next we learned about the earthly departure of “Christian” broadcaster Pat Robertson, who made a career of claiming that LGBTQ folks caused hurricanes, earthquakes, and even the 9/11 attacks. Sadly, ol’ Pat missed out on a chance to blame extra-polite, denim-clad Canadian homosexuals for the smoke invasion, but he did have the good taste to leave us during Pride Month. Enjoy the eternal smoke, Pat.

Oh, and I almost forgot one other tiny bit of news from last Thursday: Former President Donald Trump announced that he was going to be indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for mishandling classified documents after leaving office.

Trump, no doubt intentionally, preempted the DOJ’s official announcement of the indictment with his own, and quickly began grifting funds for his defense. It was all so unfair! Send money!

The messaging from the usual GOP piss-pots and pundits was remarkably consistent. They bemoaned the country’s “two-tiered justice system” and “selective prosecution.” They raged about “Joe Biden’s Justice Department,” and alleged that the coming Trump indictments were just a distraction from the ever-imminent prosecution of Hunter Biden for giving his father a $5 million bribe, or something, which the GOP could prove if only they didn’t keep misplacing “FBI whistleblowers.”

In fact, the Trump World response was so uniform that one could almost imagine it had been coordinated. Either that, or grievance and what-about-ism was the only ammo they had left. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s reaction was typical. He said “the indictment of Donald Trump was a dark day for the United States,” and that he “stood with” the former president, adding that “House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”

It’s worth noting that more than 30 elected Republican officials — including several congressmen and senators — are reputed to have exchanged texts and voice messages with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on January 6, 2021. Indictments for the January 6th insurrection case are presumably forthcoming, so there may be some understandable anxiety among those on Meadows’ speed-dial list.

Unsurprisingly, those defending Trump have it precisely backwards. President Biden didn’t indict Trump; the Department of Justice did, and only after months of investigation by a special counsel and his team. (Fun fact: When the feds prosecute somebody, their win rate is 99 percent.) The first-ever indictment of a former president is a huge deal, and the DOJ is not about to file a frivolous case. As the Friday release of the indictments made clear, Trump mishandled and resisted returning hundreds of government documents, even after being subpoenaed for them. There is no parallel with President Biden’s — or Mike Pence’s — handling of the same situation; both cooperated with investigators.

A true dark day for this country would be if the DOJ did not investigate a former president for criminal behavior. It would put presidents above the rule of law, giving them a privilege granted to no other American, creating a true two-tiered justice system.

There was one other piece of news from last Thursday that was overshadowed by Trump’s indictment revelation — but it was potentially as important. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Alabama’s Congressional Districts had been gerrymandered to minimize that state’s African-American vote. Only one of the state’s seven districts had a Black majority in a state with a 27 percent Black population.

In what most legal analysts considered a surprising ruling, the Court preserved at least a vestige of the 1982 Voting Rights Act by ruling that Alabama must redraw its district maps. It’s a decision with potential ramifications for similar cases in Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas. When future historians look back at June 8, 2023, they may see this SCOTUS decision — a blow to the plague of gerrymandering — as more consequential for the country than Trump’s whiny announcement. The years have a way of clearing the smoke.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Targeted

Pride Flag Photo: Cecilie Johnsen | Unsplash

To stimulate sales for Pride Month (June), Target stores around the country put up displays of LGBTQ-centric clothing. Customers in some stores were offended and showed their displeasure by knocking down the Pride merchandise, angrily confronting sales clerks, and posting threatening videos on social media. Target’s response to the vandalism and intimidation was to remove entirely some of its Pride merchandise, and move other items from displays at the front of the store to less-prominent areas.

“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said in a statement last week. “Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.” In other words, Target gave in to the wishes of a loud minority of bigots and bullies who created those “volatile circumstances.”

And we let them.

There were no major counter-protests of Target’s actions from LGBTQ activists. There were no cries of outrage from those of us with LGBTQ friends, co-workers, and family members (which is all of us). We just let it happen. Oh well, who needs a rainbow T-shirt, anyway, right?

This is how fascists take over a country: one small victory at a time. They are the would-be thought police, the Christian Nationalist Taliban, afraid of anything that challenges their tiny-minded view of the world. They are easily manipulated by leaders who stoke their fears and bigotry.

Sadly, there are now plenty of would-be autocrats in this country eager to lead the charge — one small victory at a time: They ban books about Black history, even about heroes like Rosa Parks. They prohibit the viewing of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David. They try to fire a teacher who shows a fifth-grade class a Disney movie suitable for 8-year-olds. They want to force every pregnant woman to give birth. They shoot cases of beer. They make white-supremacist noises on social media and cable news. Their game plan is to intimidate a pliant majority and fire up their own ignorant base in the process.

It’s time to say enough, time to stop conceding ground that was hard-won over decades to racists, bigots, misogynists, and other assorted morons seeking to force their prejudices upon us and our children. It’s time to emulate a group in Florida that fought back when the Escambia School Board banned a book called And Tango Makes Three, a true story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who lived in New York’s Central Park Zoo and raised an adopted chick. The book was banned at the insistence of one parent who said she was concerned “a second-grader would read this book, and that idea would pop into the second grader’s mind … that these are two people of the same sex that love each other.”

A group of parents, book publishers, authors, and PEN America stood up and said, “Enough.” They filed suit against the school board, alleging that the ban restricted books “based on their disagreement with the ideas expressed, an orthodoxy of opinion that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. … State censors are spiriting books off shelves in a deliberate attempt to suppress diverse voices. In a nation built on free speech, this cannot stand.” Hopefully, a judge will agree.

But lawsuits are just one tool in the toolbox. Confrontation at every turn is how this hateful stuff gets stifled. Bullies understand the power of numbers and volume. Progressives need to show out in numbers and stand up to these repressive tactics at every opportunity.

The only reason Governor Bill Lee called for an August special session to deal with gun reform (of the mildest possible sort) is because thousands of outraged citizens filled the streets of Nashville for days at a time after the Covenant School shooting. Now, the Tennessee legislature, which has essentially gerrymandered true democracy out of existence, is trying to cancel the special session, saying it’s a “publicity stunt” that will incite “the national woke mob.”

As a member in good standing of the National Woke Mob™, I say it’s well past time for us to get “incited.” And stay woke. We’re all Targets now.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Whooped?

Al Kapone performing “Whoop That Trick” at BSMF 2022 (Photo: Chris McCoy)

The latest Ja Morant contretemps has been batted around so much by sports pundits that it’s almost old news. The Grizzlies’ star point guard has been involved in a troubling series of incidents in the past year, including a near-fight with a teenage kid at his house, threatening a sales clerk at a mall, an incident with a laser beam being pointed at an opposing player’s vehicle, and the now-infamous Denver strip club lap dance/gun-waving scenario that got him sent to counseling and suspended for eight games by the NBA. Finally, there was the recent Instagram Live clip that showed Morant bouncing to hip-hop with a friend in a car and briefly flashing a gun. Morant issued a statement saying that he took “full accountability” for his actions.

As I write this, Morant’s fate with the NBA is in limbo, with most predicting a multi-game suspension at the beginning of next season. Is that a fair ruling, given that GOP legislators and politicians all over the country routinely run ads brandishing guns to demonstrate their love of the ammo-sexual culture? Or given that Kid Rock and other culture-war morons are now joyfully shooting cases of cross-dressing beer? Not really.

Morant did nothing illegal in that IG clip. He lives in a state where anyone can buy a gun and wear it into the nearest Arby’s — or wave it around in his car while listening to hip-hop. He lives in a state where Johnny Cash sang that he “shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.” This incident isn’t troubling to the NBA because it’s illegal. It’s troubling because what Morant did is contrary to the image the league wants to present, which does not include the gangsta rap culture of drugs, strip clubs, gang fights, and hookers.

So maybe the Memphis Grizzlies front office ought to do some soul-searching of its own on this subject. I’m referring to the team’s embrace of the gangsta rap song, “Whoop That Trick” — which it uses as its anthem when the Grizzlies are closing out a win at home. It’s an inclusive, joyous scene, as kids, adults, and senior citizens — Black, white, and brown — chant those inspirational words about whooping someone in a strip club.

You may recall that the song was written by Memphis rapper Al Kapone for director Craig Brewer’s 2005 film, Hustle & Flow, which chronicled the rise of a Memphis pimp/would-be rapper named DJay, played by Terrence Howard. There’s a scene in the film where DJay is sitting in a studio pondering his potential hit, which he’s calling “Beat That Bitch.” His associate wisely suggests that the song wouldn’t receive much radio play, so they change the name to “Whoop That Trick.” The lyrics are still about going into a strip club and beating someone. Man or woman? Google the lyrics and decide. (And check out the words to “Fresh Prince of Utah,” another hip-hop song that became an unofficial victory anthem with its line, “It’s a parade inside my city …”)

On Twitter, when I said that “Whoop That Trick” was about a pimp beating one of his girls, many were quick to assure me that the song was “actually” about DJay whooping up on a dead-beat john and was therefore an inspirational Memphis fight song about overcoming obstacles.

So, I guess when the L.A. Johns whooped the Memphis Pimps in the playoffs last month, that was hella embarrassing, right?

The Grizzlies adopted a variation of the song (“Whoop That Clip”) during a playoff series during the team’s Grit ’n Grind era. But that was a team with a notable mean streak. Nobody messed with Z-Bo or Tony Allen. The current Grizzlies roster, with the possible exception of Canadian performance-villain Dillon Brooks, looks about as dangerous as a bunch of young Rotarians. The New Zealand center raises sheep. Brandon Clarke (another Canadian) talks like a surfer. Morant acts tough, but at his size, he’s not scaring anyone.

I get that “Whoop That Trick” is performative and part of the team’s historic ethos, but it glorifies a dead-end culture that suckers in way too many of our city’s kids — including our All-Star point guard. So maybe it’s time for everyone — from the top of the organization down to its soon-to-be-disciplined star — to do some image reassessment.