Author: Cheri DelBrocco

SQUISHY SOFT ‘DEMOCRATS’

Have you heard about the newest political party? You probably saw them, and mistook them for someone else. They are called The Invertebrates. Their symbol is the jellyfish. Dozens of Democrats, especially the leadership, have defected to the Invertebrate Party. Their “I sorta kinda disagree with W” squishiness has made possible the triumph of the fanatical. Their opposition to the agressive rightwing is so spineless, so timid, and so lacking in confidence, it can only be described as cowardly.

Why is the leadership of the Democratic Party so lacking in – well, leadership? Why are they so paralyzed when it comes to mounting any kind of credible challenge to the Bush agenda of war without end and decimation of the economy? Does anyone in the Democratic Party have a single idea which does not mimic the Republican Party? It appears that, collectively, the Democratic Party is struggling hard to straddle the right of center line the Republican Party is straddling, so it makes it impossible to recognize them as anything but Bush-lites.

The Democratic Party may have had all the “moderate” it can stand. There’s nothing “moderate” about George W. Bush and the Republican Party. As a matter of fact, a larger agenda of fundamentally changing the role of government is taking place in Washington, and no one is doing anything to stop it.

The problem isn’t that Democrats are on the wrong side of the issues. They are afraid to make an issue of being on the right side – not to mention directly in the middle of mainstream America.

For example, three out of four Americans believe the latest round of tax cuts will not significantly reduce their taxes and fewer than 30 percent think the cuts are the best way to stimulate the economy. A majority of Americans are intensely concerned about the skyrocketing unemployment rate and out-of-control budget deficits. But Democrats gelatinate when it comes to challenging a president who consistently provides more and more tax cuts for the wealthy. Some of them shoot out a few stinging words, but, inevitably, hitch themselves to that piece of Republican taxcut seaweed and float.

On foreign policy, numbers also favor the Democrats. The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll indicates that 57 percent of Americans are oppposed to investing the proposed years and billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq; however, Democrats twitter into semiliquidity when it comes to providing forceful opposition to the Iraqi quagmire – “Gosh, it may take a while, but we should fight the war on terrorism”.

And even though Weapons of Mass Destruction, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden have not been found, Democrats fear being called unpatriotic and unAmerican for speaking out about the wrongheaded and arrogant way pre-emptive invasion has been carried out without the support of the American public and the world.

And on it goes. The majority of the American people agree with the Democrats on protecting the environment, safeguarding Social Security, improving the quality of education, and providing greater access to affordable health care. They agree that corporate criminals must be prosecuted and that corporations must start ponying up their share of taxes instead of being given “corporate welfare”.

All of this makes the inability by Democrats to provide alternatives and opposition to the Bush administration even more infuriating. And shameful.

There are nine Democrats running for President in 2004. Some of them are talking tough. A few have stridently spoken out against the destructive policies of this White House.

But many of them, as Congressional members, have complied with Bush, have hemmed and hawed, but given wholehearted support of the war in Iraq and the tax cuts. They now expect us to believe they will stand up to the right wing forces wanting more tax cuts for the wealthy and more military aggression, even though they have previously been hesitantly milquetoast.

One of the greatest of all Democrats, Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. So to all you fearing, apprehensive Invertebrates, heed the word. Otherwise, you may find yourself to be just another washed up jellyfish on the political shore while the rest of us try to figure out how to live in a country that is broke and at war with the next enemy-of-the-month.

O, CANADA!

This past week, on Tuesday, June 17, Canadian Prime Minister Jean ChrŽtien announced that his cabinet had approved a new national policy allowing homosexual couples, male and female, to be legally married.

This is just one more example of how much more grown up Canada is than its neighbor to the South. If you want other examples, see CanadaÕs policies toward medical marijuana, greenhouse gases and the United Nations, and compare them to those of the current adolescents in the White House.

Homophobia is one of the great character flaws of the United States, which pretends to be an inclusive society, but which in fact has always preferred as little diversity as possible within its borders, except when itÕs economically advantageous. If youÕre poor, black, Hispanic, or mentally challenged, the power structure in the U.S. has traditionally had only one use for you: to provide the rest of us with cheap labor. Would 19th Century U.S. capitalists have welcomed the Chinese or the Irish if they had demanded a living wage? Would 20th Century capitalists have permitted mass immigration from Mexico and Central America if they hadnÕt needed their crops picked and their lawns mowed for next to nothing? Tired, poor, huddled masses work cheap. If homosexuals promised to work as cheap, maybe our police, our politicians, and our judges would be more welcoming. Otherwise, privileged heterosexual Americans would prefer that gay people just go away, or pretend to be something else.

Okay, so IÕm painting with a broad brush here, but I donÕt think IÕm far off. Outside of Broadway (Nathan Lane), an occasional Massachusetts voting district (Barney Frank), and Hollywood (Ellen Degeneres), homosexuality is still a matter of discomfort, even to most Òopen-mindedÓ U.S. citizens. If you donÕt think so, imagine the uproar that would ensue even in the most liberal northeastern cities if, in the next Harry Potter novel, our adolescent hero revealed that the true secret of his identity is that he is gay and in love with Ron.

Fundamentalist Baptists and puritans of other denominations, citing Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, claim that the Bible calls homosexuality Òan abominationÓ punishable by death. Interpretations vary, and the Bible seems to talk only about male homosexuality, but the fundamentalist view is pervasive in this country, even among nonfundamentalists: homosexuality, they believe, especially between men, is icky and wrong, and the Bible justifies every attempt to stamp it out. As far as IÕm concerned, thatÕs just more evidence that the Bible is out of date as a moral map.

(Traditional religious dogma, along with a history of poor education, also accounts for the fact that homophobia is a powerful force, not just among the privileged white elite, but among many minority groups in the United States–especially blacks and Hispanics–and among the poor. Gays are in the unique position of discomforting Americans of nearly all classes and races.)

There are people in the United States who not only want homosexuals to stay in hiding, they want them to stop being homosexual altogether. These people believe that gay sex should be outlawed and that decriminalizing it is a threat to family values and will lead to the legalization of bestiality, incest and rape. Really, they actually say that. In fact, George W. Bush has nominated some of these people to our federal courts. (See last weekÕs column about William Pryor, one such nominee.) Now the U.S. Supreme Court is about to decide the constitutionality of a Texas law that prohibits homosexual–and many heterosexual–sex acts in the privacy of oneÕs own bedroom. LetÕs hope the court majority overrules the Scalia-Thomas know-nothings, discards the outdated mores of an outdated religious text, recognizes the right to privacy as real and necessary, and ushers the United States into the 21st Century.

But even if that happens, donÕt expect gay marriage to be on the agenda in U.S. legislatures anytime soon. VermontÕs recent recognition of Òcivil unionsÓ (but not marriage) between homosexuals is a step in the right direction, and now many U.S. gays will go to Canada, get married, and return to test their marriage rights in U.S. courts. But if recent history is any indication, U.S. courts, growing ever more Bush-conservative, will spit in their face.

Which is precisely why many, perhaps most, homosexuals still hide their faces.

Three weeks ago, a friend of mine–a colleague for ten years and one of my favorite people–was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia. In his fevered delirium, he revealed to some of us that he has AIDS. Most of us who have known Matthew (not his real name) had long suspected he was gay. But in our workplace–a sports-oriented business with lots of jock types–homophobia has been an ever-fragrant presence. IÕve since learned that many years ago, our then-CEO even tried to get Matthew fired, claiming he was Òa fag,Ó but MatthewÕs immediate boss, bless him, defended Matthew as one of our best workers. Matthew learned his lesson, though. During the decades he has worked with us, he has never mentioned his sexual orientation, and we havenÕt asked. Even after letting us know last month that he has AIDS, he has still not said anything about homosexuality.

Maybe if he had said something earlier, he wouldnÕt be sick now. Maybe if he had felt free to be open about his sexual preferences, he would have also been free to have an open, monogamous relationship with a live-in partner. Maybe he wouldnÕt have AIDS now.

In the United States, itÕs not just military policy, but pretty much the unofficial policy of society as a whole: We donÕt want to know if youÕre gay, and if you are, donÔt show it. But for some people, ÒdonÕt ask, donÕt tellÓ isnÕt just a wrongheaded policy, itÕs lethal.

ALTERNATIVE USE

Go-slowers are alarmed that the city and county intend to move forward with a study of the prospects for turning The Pyramid into a casino “without exploring alternatives.”

Alternatives? Where have they been for the last 15 years?

Certainly not paying attention in Memphis. Otherwise they would remember John Tigrett, Isaac Tigrett, Hard Rock Cafe, Sidney Shlenker, Rakapolis, the College Football Hall of Fame, hidden crystals, Disney on Ice, the WWF, the inclinator, Bill Morris, Jim Rout, Willie Herenton, the University of Memphis, Marius Penczner, Island Earth Park, Ed Armentrout, NARAS, Michael Greene, the Grammy Museum, Titanic, Wonders, Dick Hackett, John Calipari, Michael Heisley, the Grizzlies, and Alan Freeman.

Every one of those people took their best shot at getting maximum mileage out of The Pyramid. All of those attractions have been tried or seriously proposed since 1988 when The Pyramid was designed. Let’s look at them again, starting with the most recent.

* Alan Freeman and SMG manage The Pyramid and 157 other facilities worldwide. Freeman has booked family shows, concerts, fights, graduations, ballgames, elephants, monster trucks, wrestlers, rappers, you name it. Last weekend The Pyramid was dark while Wynonna Judd played Dixon Gardens, Blues Traveler was at Mud Island, and Ray Charles was in Tunica. Add FedEx Forum to the mix next year, and The Pyramid does not have a bright future as a first-choice concert and entertainment venue.

* The University of Memphis has been a partner in The Pyramid, sometimes reluctantly, since its inception. Three presidents, four basketball coaches, and two athletic directors have taken their best shot at filling it. It will be a surprise if the U of M doesn’t follow the Grizzlies to FedEx Forum which everyone agrees will be a superior facility. The Pyramid does not have a bright future as a college basketball arena.

* Michael Heisley and the Grizzlies moved to Memphis from Vancouver and will play in The Pyramid for a third and final season in 2003-2004. The NBA, Heisley, and the Grizzlies’ local owners insisted that The Pyramid is not up to NBA standards, hence the $250 million FedEx Forum. The Pyramid does not have a future as a professional basketball arena.

* The Wonders Exhibition was moved to the lower level of The Pyramid during the Convention Center renovation, which is now complete. Wonders is taking a year off in 2003. The head of Wonders is former Memphis mayor Dick Hackett, who knows a little about marketing, salesmanship, and The Pyramid because it was built on his watch. The Pyramid does not have a future as a permanent home for cultural exhibitions.

* NARAS and its president at the time, Michael Greene, looked at The Pyramid from 1998 to 2000 as a potential home for a Grammy museum. Ed Armentrout, then head of the Center City Commission, and downtown developer Henry Turley also worked on it, assisted by some of the best architects, investment bankers, and real estate pros in Memphis and several out-of-town consultants. The conclusion: The Pyramid does not have a future as a music museum.

* In 1995, Marius Penczner went to the city and county with a proposal for a high-tech attraction at The Pyramid called Island Earth Park. Penczner had a national reputation for creative advertising in political campaigns, credentials, contacts, videos, renderings and feasability studies. Conclusion: The Pyramid does not have a future as a privately operated high-tech theme park.

* Former Shelby County Mayor Bill Morris helped bring International Paper to Memphis and keep St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital from moving to St. Louis. He’s raised millions of dollars for political candidates, the U of M, and charities. Morris was mayor when The Pyramid was proposed and spent four years figuring out what to do with it.

* Sidney Shlenker came to Memphis in 1989 to develop attractions inside The Pyramid. Shlenker’s reputation was tarnished in his later years, but before that he was a player in pro sports promotion in Houston and Denver. He spent two years trying to get private financing for an inclinator and to develop Egyptian-themed attractions dubbed Rakapolis at The Pyramid and Mud Island. With all his contacts and experience and with his personal reputation at stake, he failed.

* John Tigrett was the father of The Pyramid. His son Isaac was cofounder of the Hard Rock Cafe and interested enough in The Pyramid to hide New Age crystals in its apex. John’s wife Pat is responsible for the bridge lighting and the Blues Ball. Their close friend Fred Smith is founder of FedEx and was the first chairman of the Pyramid Public Building Authority. With all their clout and connections, the best they could do for The Pyramid was . . . Sidney Shlenker.

Now comes Lakes Entertainment with a proposal to do a non-binding study of casino gambling at no charge to the city or county. If another casino company ever operates an exclusive casino in The Pyramid, that company — not the city or county — would pay Lakes $20 million. That’s a lot of money, but Boyd Gaming, the owner of Sam’s Town Casino in Tunica, paid $25 million for its site ten years ago, and it has eight competitors.

What exactly do the go-slows think has been overlooked? If there are investors out there willing to take over a 30-story pyramid-shaped fixer-upper with 20,000 cramped seats, no elevators, and a $35 million mortgage, where are they?

HIGH ON HILLARY

As a 2002 GOP candidate for the state legislature, I am not supposed to admit this, but I don’t hate the Clintons. Never have, probably never will. I tend to reserve animosity strong enough to be called hatred for really nasty people. Armed robbers who take lives. Robber barons like Kenneth Lay and Bernie Ebbers who ruin lives.

But the Clintons? Nah, I just can’t get exercised over Bill’s libido and Hillary’s ambition. Just garden-variety excesses that have far more impact on the Clintons than on the body politic, despite Ken Starr’s claims to the contrary.

With the release of Hillary’s book last week, I have had to hear the expected criticism from my conservative friends about her real motives in writing the book. Real motives? How about a $2.5 million advance against an $8 million book contract? I consider myself a private person, but if Simon & Schuster offered me that kind of dough to reveal my deepest secrets, I’d be faxing my psychiatrist’s report by the end of the day.

Except for diehard Clinton fans, I suspect the only real interest most of us have in reading Hillary’s tome is to find out how much she made Bill pay for the Monica thing. And who can blame her? If my spouse were caught fooling around and his transgressions splashed across the front pages of the domestic press, I’d want his paramour to look more like Catherine Zeta-Jones and less like the very ordinary Ms. Lewinsky. Finding out your mate is frolicking in the favors of another would be hard enough to take, but at least one could understand falling for the physical charms of the extraordinary Zeta-Jones. Given a similar situation with Pierce Brosnan as the object of my temptation, I’m not sure I could have resisted, either.

But Monica? Think about it: Mick Jagger cavorts with supermodels, but the Leader of the Free World, more handsome and intelligent and by all accounts more charming than Jagger, squanders his political legacy with a young woman that can charitably be called “attractive.” Don’t get it, probably never will.

But to the point of Senator Clinton’s book and the juicy parts–is Hillary’s account of being awakened by her husband trotting out his tearful truths believable? Could she really not have known? Is their marriage merely an arrangement between two politically ambitious people who need each other?

Clinton-haters of course, suggest that every word of her autobiography is carefully chosen to defend herself and her husband, and to redeem their marriage in the eyes of the public with an eye to future elective office. And that the Clintons have no marriage in any but the politically expedient sense. Perhaps so. But I was struck by something as I saw Hillary interviewed with the footage rolling of the Clintons walking to the helicopter in August, 1998.

A wife who has made a bargain with her devil of a spouse does not behave as a wounded woman. Her feelings do not compel her to put their child between them so as not to have to touch him. Think Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline in Dave, when she enters the White House beaming and holding her husband’s hand for the benefit of the press, then immediately drops it once out of camera range. Now that’s an arrangement.

Would the public have been happier if Hillary had behaved as peevishly as Princess Diana when she discovered that her Prince was charming Camilla? Would Americans have preferred watching a betrayed wife weep on camera while discussing her periods of bulimic self-loathing? When I think of “arrangements” I can think of no connubial contract that meets the criteria better than the one between Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles. It was politics, not love that made her selection as Cinderella possible. Without her bloodline, fecundity and lack of a past, Lady Diana would have been just another minor royal on the roster of Burke’s Peerage.

But we excused Diana’s behavior and the self-pitying interviews that ensued because she was prettier and more feminine and less intelligent than Hillary. And that, ultimately is Hillary’s real crime. That she chose catering to her career over catering dinner parties. That she preferred perusing policy papers over paging through Vogue. That she would rather sit at a Cabinet table than stand at the kitchen cabinet.

And yet when she stands by her man, she is accused of being calculating.

Virginia Slims had a slogan in the seventies: “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.” But progress apparently accrues to some women but not to others. Martha Stewart, for example, personifies ambition but couldn’t hold a marriage together yet she is lionized because she can whip up a batch of pastry cream. Hillary, on the other hand, no more or less ambitious than the doyenne of domesticity, decided for better or worse to honor her vows but is villified because she is more familiar with a balance sheet than a cookie sheet.

Enjoy the eight million, Hillary and to hell with your critics–let ‘em eat torte.

WHERE ARE THEY, MR. BUSH?

In its April 24th issue, The Memphis Flyer reprinted an editorial that had originally appeared that same week in the London Independent. Entitled “Where Are They, Mr. Blair?” this piece questioned the existence of the “weapons of mass destruction” which the Bush Administration used as its primary justification for launching “pre-emptive” war against Iraq on March 19th.

In the ensuing weeks, as we all now know, no WMDs were found. Not one. Each and every one of the dozens of “hot” leads eagerly seized upon by the American mass media — and reported as network news flashes, time and time again — turned out to be bogus. In the aftermath of the attack, each and every Iraqi “scientist” questioned about his country’s possession of WMDs told his interrogators the same thing: there just weren’t any, at least not in the spring of 2003.

Objective observers around the world now seriously doubt that Iraqi WMDs will ever be found, if indeed they existed at all at the time of the Iraqi invasion. And today, ordinary Americans across the country are slowly but surely coming to grips with the remarkable realization that, yes, Operation Iraqi Freedom may well have been launched under false pretenses.

This is not a pretty exercise for the national ego. The Bush administration is doing its best to stall congressional inquiries into its actions, pleading for more time, more time, the Defense Department says, for ever-more intensive searching. The irony of that request would be hilarious (given the fact that Hans Blix and the UN weapons inspectors were asking for exactly the same thing — more time — last March, and were told by these self-same warriors to stuff it), were it not for the hundreds of American and thousands of Iraqi lives that this war has claimed, lives that have been lost as a result of military actions deliberately undertaken by the US and British governments, with minimal international support.

Clearly, the Bush Administration now appears guilty of what at best can be called a colossal misjudgment, and at worst a deliberate act of deceit unparalleled in American history. The time has come to find out just which of these unhappy scenarios is reality.

Last week, House Resolution 260 was introduced in Congress, sponsored by 35 Democratic congressmen, in an attempt to do just that. HR 260 calls upon President Bush to come clean, as it were, on his reasons for attacking Iraq, by providing documents to Congress in timely fashion that corroborate his administration’s many statements regarding Iraq’s “certain” possession of WMDs.

Statements like this one, uttered by White House spokesman Ari Fleisher on January 9: “We know for a fact that there are weapons there in Iraq.” HR 260 simply asks the President to share with Congress the information that allowed his administration to make this and dozens of other equally bold statements in the months leading up to war.

Those 35 House Democrats are to be applauded for performing their constitutional duty in this regard. And while I find it disappointing that none of our own Tennessee Democratic congressmen were among their number, I find it appalling that that the House Democratic leadership under Rep. Nancy Pelosi — and for that matter, her counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Tom Daschle — have chosen not to endorse this measure.

Granted, with both Houses of Congress now under Republican control, there is virtually no chance that HR 260 will ever be passed. But that is not the point. This is not politics-as-usual. The fact is that the Democratic Party leadership in Congress, having helped the Bush administration obtain its blank check for war last fall, needs to realize that it has an obligation to determine whether or not that check has been applied to the wrong account.

In the current circumstances, silence is no longer an option for Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Daschle. If it has the slightest shred of integrity left, the Democratic Party should be speaking out now, loudly and clearly, asking with one voice: “Where Are They, Mr. Bush?” And all members of Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, should not stop asking that question until the President of the United States has given the American people a coherent and cogent reply.

(Kenneth Neill is publisher of the Flyer and its sister publications at Contemporary Media, Inc.)

I’m worried about our city. Not because of the crime rate or the poverty figures or the fact that one day downtown will break off into the Mississippi and float away. No, I’m worried because I’ve seen what we’re exporting.

Chip. Trenyce. Robin.The “Real” Face of Memphis

I’m worried about our city. Not because of the crime rate or the poverty figures or the fact that one day downtown will break off into the Mississippi and float away. No, I’m worried because I’ve seen what we’re exporting.

Chip. Trenyce. Robin.

Who, you ask? Memphis’ cast of reality show ejects (okay, to be fair, Robin hasn’t been kicked off America’s Next Top Model yet, and for all I know, she may win the whole thing).

The point is, these people are the “reality” face of Memphis.

First there was Chip from Germantown on Survivior Africa. He eventually purveyed his talents into a walk-on gig with Whoopie Goldberg at the Academy Awards, but before that, he lazed around Northern Kenya.

Trenyce has a beautiful voice and she certainly wasn’t the only American Idol to meet a scandal (let’s face it; hers was tame in comparison to sister beating and booty posing). But meet one she did, in the form of a shoplifting charge.

Then there’s Robin of UPN’s America’s Next Top Model. She is lazy; she is loud; she is always late. You’d think if you were 26, full figured and had a shot at a lucrative Revlon contract, you’d at least try to make a good impression on the judges. But even Tyra Banks told her she needed to lose the diva with-a-capital-DEEV attitude. Robin’s pretty, but no one, no one, is that pretty.

It’s not like anyone’s going to remember that these people were all from Memphis (although when you hear about Rueben, they always mention Birmingham) or with each other, but geez. It’s really affecting my civic pride.

I like to root for the hometown hero as much as the next gal. I loved that city councilperson Tajuan Stout Mitchell introduced a resolution for every Tuesday in the city to be Trenyce day. When I was at university, I sat next to Janet from “The Real World: Seattle” in one of my classes. I didn’t really know her, but I liked her and when she was on the show, I was proud of her.

But I find it hard to get behind the Memphis contestants, especially Robin.

On the last episode, one of the models wanted to bring her girlfriend over to the apartment. She asked everyone else if it was going to be okay and they agreed, although some of the girls only begrudgingly.

Robin doesn’t believe in lesbian and gay relationships, she told the house, but they all had to be judged for their own sins. But that’s probably not why she was complaining. She was complaining because she complains about everything: getting a bikini wax (so they could do a bikini shoot), getting her hair cut and dyed (so they can look their best), having to work out (again, so they can look their best), having to take a picture with a snake, and on and on.

I’m sure there’s an element of editing involved and Robin is probably shown to a dramatic disadvantage (she’s probably really nice in real life), but doesn’t she realize everything she says and does is being taped?

To be shown on TV?

Reality television has never showcased the best in people and I understand that. I just want to be able to stand behind one contestant proudly and say, “They’re from Memphis.”

Maybe next season.