Well, yes, now that you ask, ace phtographer Frank Chin did drop by International Go Topless Day at Overton Park Sunday.
Archives
Greg Cravens
About Chris McCoy’s cover story, “Best of Enemies” …
Thanks for a good article. Having known Mr. Buckley and written at length about him, I can assure you that this infamous moment with Vidal was highly uncharacteristic. In fact, he had great friendships with many of the leading liberal/left-thinkers of the era: John Kenneth Galbraith, Murray Kempton, Norman Mailer, Al Lowenstein, etc.
Vidal, on the other hand, managed to alienate seemingly everyone with whom he engaged, including Mailer, Podhoretz, Truman Capote, and Robert Kennedy. I look forward to the film, but the reality is that Buckley set the standard for civil discourse for decades, but for his exchanges with Vidal.
George Shadroui
About Susan Wilson’s column, “Gen X Marks the Spot” …
Generation X is considered to be anyone born between 1962 — sometimes 1961 — and 1981.
wutisay
I’ve heard 1964 ended the baby boom. So I’ve considered myself a boomer for years. You’re messing with my claim to curmudgeonliness.
Brunetto Latini
About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Master Debaters, Near and Far” …
I like the Trumpster being in the midst of the current slate of GOP presidential candidates. There’s never a dull moment with Trump’s politically unorthodox behavior and tactics he uses against the cowering blue-blood establishment — milquetoast Republicans and the in-the-Democrats’-back-pocket media.
I think there’s deep resentment of the political scum in Washington, who have been governing over the last nine years or so against the will of the majority of Americans. Trump’s ever-rising poll numbers are indicative of their angst and disgust. The more Trump rants about illegal aliens, closing our borders, Marx-Obamacare, tax rates and structures, foreign enemies, the higher his numbers.
The RNC, DNC, and media have to be scratching their heads about Trump’s poll numbers. None of their playbooks have instructions on how to deal with non-politicians like him. Especially ones worth $10 billion.
Will Trump make it to the White House? Not likely. But candidates are definitely paying close attention to Trump — his poll numbers and his tactics — and they’re taking notes. Needless to say, the next 14 months of American politics should be interesting and entertaining.
Nightcrawler
Abortion was certainly a major topic during the recent Republican debates. There were passionate denunciations of abortion made by most of the candidates. But I think much hypocrisy is shown by these “pro-life” candidates who are so concerned with protecting unborn life but who seem to lack compassion for people after they are born. The candidates would all repeal Obamacare and offer no plan to help the 50 million people who would then lack access to health care. The suffering of millions of Americans and the deaths of thousands of others each year because they lack health coverage does not seem to be a problem for them. These candidates and other conservatives look at the poor as deadbeats waiting for government handouts, when the overwhelming majority of poor people work and pay taxes. Poor people struggle, because they are paid wages a person cannot live on. Sister Joan Chittister recently said a person can be against abortion but not deserve to be called “pro-life,” because they do not care about a child after it is born. She said instead of being truly pro-life that these people are really just pro-birth. I would characterize all Republican presidential candidates as pro-birth, not pro-life.
Philip Williams
The fact that Trump can rise in the polls after supporting a single-payer heath-care system at the RNC debate ought to establish once and for all that the Republican base is driven more by animus than by any concern for policy. He can run to the left of Bernie Sanders if he wants, as long as he keeps saying mean things about women and minorities.
autoegocrat
It was roughly a year and a half ago that Mayor A C Wharton publicly proposed a fallback position regarding possible upgrades of Memphis’ convention facilities. He did so as a follow-up of sorts on what had been less than sanguine
estimates from Convention and Visitors Bureau head Kevin Kane about our city’s having the means to catch up with Nashville’s new glittering and cavernous Music City Center.
In an editorial of March 20, 2014, “A Patchwork Mecca,” we reviewed the mayor’s pitch for a scaled-down convention complex, outlined in a speech to the Rotary Club of Memphis.
From the editorial: “‘We don’t have the money. That’s the bottom line,’ Wharton said, pointing out the obvious. And anyhow, he said, ‘I don’t want to be Nashville or Atlanta.’ He thereupon proposed a method of taking the best advantage of the ‘legacy’ assets our city already has and connecting them in such a way as to be competitive in the tourist and convention markets without breaking the bank.”
The mayor went on to propose spending modest amounts of money ($50 to $60 million) refurbishing the existing convention center, as well as the now dormant Peabody Place, and connecting those two hubs with the then soon-to-be Bass Pro Shops Pyramid, the National Civil Rights Museum, and various other downtown attractions via the city’s trolley system. And “voila!,” as we said, “there you have it, a new convention center complex done on the cheap.”
Well, a funny thing happened between then and now. Several funny things, in fact: one being the discovery that our trolley system was dangerously unstable and fire-prone, requiring a retrofitting process, the dimensions of which remain uncertain. That by itself argued for a change of mind. But there were other factors, too — most of them considerably more upbeat.
The bottom line is that the powers-that-be have apparently decided that, not only do we want to “be Nashville or Atlanta,” we actually are in a position to give those boomtowns a run for their money. The aforesaid Convention and Visitors Bureau in tandem with the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Memphis Commission have hatched a two-part plan: 1) to spend the aforementioned $50 to $60 million on refurbishing the existing Cook Convention Center; and then 2) to spend another $900 million in the next few years to expand the Convention Center all the way to the Mississippi River basin. All it would take, say the planners, would be a 1.8 percent increase in the city’s hotel/motel tax (which is paid by visitors to Memphis, in the main) and a temporary $2 fee on hotel-room stays of up to 30 days. This would cover a repurposing of the current bed tax in 2017 to pay off FedExForum bonds.
The Memphis City Council is considering the project right now, with every expectation of giving it the go-ahead. And we’re thinking, What! You mean, it’s really that easy? And we wonder why it is that we are always considering these complicated Rube Goldberg-like TDZs and TIFs to lift our urban bootstraps.
And, by the way, have we cleared this with the Grizzlies?
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Those lines are familiar to most students of literature as the first words in Charles Dickens’ classic A Tale of Two Cities. After Monday, they may have a somewhat different meaning to Steve Basar, a member of the Shelby County Commission.
Basar, who represents an East Memphis district and has a major concern with economic development, has desired to be chairman of the commission for some time. Two years ago, he was elected to serve as the body’s vice chair, an office which, once upon a time, positioned one to ascend to the chairmanship in a year’s time. Harboring such expectations, which were reinforced by another commission tradition, that the chairmanship should be rotated from year to year by party, Republican Basar made ready for his ascension to the chairmanship a year ago, at the end of outgoing Democrat James Harvey’s one-year term.
Like Harvey before him, Basar even had a speech ready. But, for reasons that have never been fully explained and that may be as much personal as political, Basar was not elected. His fellow Republicans, whom he expected to serve as his base, not only deserted him, they ended up voting in Democratic Commissioner Justin Ford.
Stunned and understandably aggrieved, Basar fell into a pattern of cooperating with the commission’s Democrats on key matters. The positive lure of bipartisanship may have been one of his reasons, but there were other reasons for the de facto alliance, which has held firm for most of the succeeding time. For, just as Basar felt he’d been done wrong by his fellow Republicans, the Democrats on the commission were suspicious that Ford, to gain his chairmanship, had made some deal with the Republicans.
Nobody wants to use the term “payback,” but the ad hoc Basar/Democrat coalition set out on a systematic campaign to depose chairman Ford, and, if not that, then at least to set limits on his powers. They succeeded in the latter aim, reducing from eight to seven the number of commission votes necessary to overrule the chairman’s control of the agenda.
Came Monday, and Basar, more or less on the strength of his Democratic alliance, won election as chairman by the whisker-width of a single vote. The best of times.
But payback is a two-edged sword, and to the astonishment of Basar (and everyone else, except whoever was in on the deal), the new chairman-elect saw his chairmanship abruptly taken away from him an hour after he got it, when one of his previous voters, whether induced or not, went over to the other side and forced a reconsideration vote that went against Basar. The worst of times.
For the time being, the commission is leaderless and won’t have another chairmanship election until next month. Other people’s ambitions, and other factors, including no doubt some real issues, went into this outcome. But, at root, what it signifies is that political gamesmanship has gotten the upper hand in what is constitutionally the supreme legislative body in Shelby County and which has real business to accomplish. Any more of this hanky-panky just won’t do.
Greg Cravens
About Bianca Phillips’ cover story, “Transgender in Memphis” …
When my oldest son came out as a transgender female last year, I immediately offered unconditional support to her. We attended the support group at MGLCC together. That is a great place to start. They are an awesome group that is ready to share their experiences. They are ready to listen to you. I am a big Southern, straight, non-trans man, and the people there made us feel at home. My daughter now knows she has support from family, friends, and the people at the group.
Dept. of Redundancy Dept.
Memphis has come a long way! And I, for one, am very happy about that.
Clint
This is a sin and an abomination. God have mercy on your souls. Trans people are dressing that way because they are confused and need help to define their appropriate roles. This nation was founded upon Christian principles.
Screamer15
Screamer15 seems to think he knows more about God’s plan than God does. But that’s okay. Someone who must rely on religious nonsense to hide their fear, hatred, and bigotry is obviously not someone who has any sort of ability for rational thought.
GoProtege
About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter From the Editor, “Aborting the Truth” …
I find it fascinating how this new “culture war” crisis popped up as soon as being anti-gay marriage got firmly shut down by the Supreme Court. It is as if the GOP was looking for some new and shiny thing to get their base off of gay marriage and on to some other topic.
Charlie Eppes
In truth, no one “likes” abortion, but birth control not being 100 percent reliable, not all are willing to compromise the lives of their living children or those they hope to have in continuing a pregnancy that would capsize their lives. Thank you for speaking up.
Elizabeth Hinds Davis
If there is no smoking gun, why all the invective against an investigation? PP may be the most wonderfully altruistic organization on earth, but as long as my tax money is used to subsidize their activities, I think I have a right to find out what is going on with these body parts.
Arlington Pop
To me, the use of fetal tissue is no different than using donated organs. I’m an organ donor, because, the way I see it, when I’m dead and gone, my body is no longer of value to me, so whatever good can come of using the remaining parts is the best thing to do with it.
If you have an abortion and allow the aborted fetus or tissue to be used for research, why is that a bad practice? I fully understand those who are against abortion, but if it happens, why would you not want the tissue to be used for something positive if possible?
GroveReb84
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it interesting that there is an entire class of people who proudly display their “pro-life” bona fides, while simultaneously enacting and supporting policies that make actual living problematic?
Jrgolden
About Bruce S. Newman’s Viewpoint, “Pay the Band” …
On behalf of musicians and songwriters, I sincerely thank you, Bruce Newman.
Nighthawk
Correction: An image in last week’s calendar was misidentified. The caption should have read “Work by Nathan Yoakum at Jay Etkin Gallery.”
Greg Cravens
About Toby Sells’ story, “TDOT Delays New Interchange Plan, I-55 Bridge Closure” …
This only shows the misguided thinking of a lot of people. The project is needed! I’m sure that Arkansas and West Memphis did all the studies as to how the mess that was I-40/55 that ran through the area for over two years would affect Memphis and Shelby County.
Instead of thinking about the future, we are stuck in the past. The bridge and approaches are not designed to interstate standards. It is too expensive to replace the entire bridge, but the power brokers in Arkansas are too busy protecting their turf. What reason is there to go to West Memphis other than the dog track, which would be closed had it not been for the river flooding a few years ago that shut down the casinos in Mississippi.
Crittenden County has not seen the growth or development that the other areas surrounding Memphis have seen in the last 30 years, but no one seems to ask the question why. Maybe it’s because they are stuck with the “good ol’ boy” network and can’t see the big picture, because they are too busy looking out for themselves.
Kevin Schultz
The whole Mid-South dodged a big bullet when this ill-fated TDOT boondoggle got stopped in its tracks. Spending $60 million on an interchange for an already obsolete bridge is backward thinking at its best. Shutting down the bridge for such an idiotic plan would have imperiled the area’s economy and public safety.
TDOT definitely needs to go back to the drawing board with the I-55 interchange plan, but the larger, undeniable long-term solution is that another bridge needs to be built over the Mississippi at Memphis.
Newman
Thank goodness this was stopped. They need to come up with a safer, better plan.
Andrea Amato Marconi
I’m looking forward to seeing the designs for the catapult launch and net capture system for crossing the river. Will they use gravity power or compressed air?
Jeff
About the Flyer’s cover story, “Totally Skewered” …
It’s a shame you left off a true Memphis treat: Steak Kabob and Kabob Snack at Belmont Grill. One of the best beef experiences in Memphis. No sauce needed; goes great with a gin and tonic.
Debra Blundell
I second the rave Toby Sells gave to Rizzo’s Diner’s Lobster Pronto Pup. That’s some dang good eating.
Downtown Moe
About a Tuesday morning at Shelby Farms …
It is 7:30 on a Tuesday morning, and as I drive through the twists and turns off of the Shelby Farms entrance I see a woman speed-walking down the road. Then, as I make my way past the horse stables and the new playground, I see happy “morning people,” like me, getting out of cars with dogs, bikes, children, and friends. Most of them are laughing or waving at passersby.
Who are these people? Where did they come from? Teens and tweens are walking alongside their mothers. A few men are fishing at the lakes. A kayaker dips his oar into the water as he glides along.
It’s a fresh look at Shelby Farms for me. I normally come out to walk on a weekend afternoon or to shuttle kids here for soccer. It’s a completely different crowd in the early morning — peppy, organized, and full of smiles. I want to be part of this crowd. Oh wait, today I am a part of this crowd, as my friends and I sit and chat in an open field.
We see the dew on the forest-green blades of grass. The sky is as blue as Dorothy’s dress in The Wizard of Oz. Tiny, puffy clouds dot the sky, and dragonflies dance across the field.
Who knew that this little piece of heaven was waiting here at Shelby Farms, only known to a few at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning.
Marie White
Nowhere is the dilemma of city government in Memphis — and of the officials and current candidates who will be attempting to guide it for the next years — more stark and challenging than in the area of law enforcement. Of the four candidates for mayor generally acknowledged to be the leaders of the pack, one, Memphis Police Association president Mike Williams (on sabbatical during the campaign) is a policeman himself; two others, Councilmen Jim Strickland and Harold Collins have made the matters of youth violence and public safety prominent aspects of their campaigns; and another, incumbent Mayor A C Wharton, finds himself more and more concerned with the issue on a day-to-day basis.
In the last year, no crisis on the national scene has been more omnipresent and unavoidable than that involving the troubled relationship of citizens and their police, particularly when the individuals on opposite sides of the thin blue line have been of different races. The fact of police violence against African Americans has been a nonstop phenomenon, a staple of the daily news, and, while the public reaction has been most intense when the confrontations, often fatal, have been between white cop vs. black citizen, there have been incidents as well involving individuals of the same race.
Not quite matching this in volume, but every bit as terrifying in effect, have been a spate of violent attacks against police. No one in Memphis needs to be reminded of what happened in the last few days to Officer Sean Bolton, who was shot multiple times and left to die while performing a routine traffic stop. If there is a silver lining to this horror, it is in the massive minute-by-minute commitment of city officialdom and law enforcement that brought the suspect, apparently a career criminal, to turn himself in to custody within 24 hours, when it became obvious that he was out of running room. None of the usual racial or political lines were in evidence during this act of collective hot pursuit, and Memphis Police director Toney Armstrong and the personnel of the MPD are to be congratulated for their efforts.
As the fates would have it, this event immediately preceded this week’s latest consideration by the Memphis City Council of a revamped Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board. Both the council and Mayor Wharton have undergone a back-and-forth on how strong this oversight board needs to be, and what its intrinsic powers are.
Whatever the final result of this week’s deliberations, we would urge that the public view the reconfigured board neither as an antagonistic watchdog force nor as a mere advisory body, but as a true partner to law enforcement — a body that can provide positive as well as negative feedback and that spurs our police force further toward the kind of effective protective action that it exists to provide in the first place.
On September 2, 2001, the Cartoon Network launched a new block of shows called Adult Swim. It wasn’t the first time the network produced shows not aimed explicitly at children — the surrealist talk show deconstruction Space Ghost Coast To Coast had been baffling audiences since 1994. But enabling producer Mike Lazzo’s obsession with creating cutting-edge television would turn out to be a fateful decision for the network. Adult Swim became wildly popular, and many of the boundary-breaking shows that came out of Williams Street studios proved as influential on the comedy sensibilities of the Internet generation as David Letterman had been on Generation X.
The longest-lasting of the Adult Swim Class of ’01 is Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Created by Space Ghost Coast To Coast writers Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro, it stars an unlikely combo of talking fast-food items: a box of french fries named Frylock, voiced by Carey Means; an egotistical, disposable plastic cup named Master Shake, voiced by Dana Snyder; and the self-explanatory Meatwad, voiced by Willis. From their house in darkest New Jersey, they fend off alien invasions, fight monsters, and sneak into porn- and football-obsessed neighbor Carl’s filthy above-ground pool. Or at least they did in the first few episodes. As time went on, the plots became looser, and the humor more surreal and idiosyncratic. Willis and Maiellaro delight in coming up with weird new characters to bounce off the lead trio, such as the The Cybernetic Ghost Of Christmas Past from the Future, a robot turkey who tells shaggy dog stories; MC Pee Pants, a giant insect in diapers played by nerdcore rapper MC Chris; and a classical Greek Siren voiced by indie songstress Neko Case. Tied together with a catchy hip-hop theme song by Schoolly D, the show struck a chord, and, as other shows fell by the wayside, it served as Adult Swim’s unlikely flagship. Aqua Teen‘s biggest splash came in 2007 when an LED sign depicting a Mooninite, the series’ most popular recurring characters, briefly closed down the city of Boston when it was mistaken for a bomb. The hubbub overshadowed the Aqua Teen feature film the sign was supposed to be promoting, but that was just as well. One of the show’s great strengths is its 11-minute length, which helps free the scripts from any sort of traditional TV expectations. Stretched out to 70 minutes, its non-sequitur plotting collapsed under the weight of its own ridiculousness.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
The current 14th season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force will be its last, but the insanity the show championed has been assimilated by the legion of YouTubers and anti-humorists that define the current comedy zeitgeist. The show’s impending demise was mourned with a candlelight vigil at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.
After a string of wildly inventive creations in the 2000s, Adult Swim has struggled to find material to live up to the Aqua Teen legacy. The best show currently in production is Rick and Morty, created by Justin Roiland and Community mastermind Dan Harmon, which had its second season premiere last Sunday. Imagine if Doc Brown in Back to the Future was completely insane and took Marty McFly on mind-bending comedy adventures in the multiverse, and you’ve got a good idea of what Rick and Morty is like. At one point in “A Rickle in Time,” the first episode of the new season, the on-screen action was split up into 64 panels, each showing a slightly different version of the same events. The show is visually inventive, wildly funny, and occasionally hints at deeper characterization in the classic Simpsons mold.
But as great as Rick and Morty is, it still adheres to the 25-minute sitcom structure. Recent Adult Swim attempts to recapture the magic of Aqua Teen‘s 11 minutes of anarchy, such as Mr. Pickles and the Mike Tyson Mysteries, have fallen short. Last year’s breakout viral hit Too Many Cooks points a way forward for Mike Lazzo’s ongoing experiment, but it was an elaborate live-action skit. When the last quirky, limited-animation Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode airs later this summer, it will mark the end of a very strange era.
Greg Cravens
About Tim Sampson’s The Last Word column, “Trumped” …
After Trump wins the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, I expect to see Trump step up on the stage and tell his adoring conservative fans, “Bitches, you just got punk’d!!” And then Ashton Kutcher jumps out from behind the curtain.
Charley Eppes
Trump is a hero. He is the living embodiment of the Republican id. Unrestrained by the need to court the votes of the squishy middle, he is free to pull back the bed sheet and reveal the raging Rotary club president within. He is what the Republican Party would be if we didn’t have elections.
Jeff
About Chris Davis’ cover story, “Rockin’ the Halls” …
Thank you for last week’s story about the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, and especially for the focus on the artistry of Jim Dickinson. Of course, in Memphis, museums love to exhibit musicians’ rhinestone jumpsuits or stage costumes. Dickinson’s musical genius was that he helped develop so many of those superstars from studios like Ardent and Zebra Ranch. We’re proud to be able to display an expression of Jim’s artistry in that piano.
I made an insensitive mistake in last week’s article, referring to that piano as “Jim’s soul,” and I apologize to his great family. As a fellow Christian, while I love the awesomely creative expression of that piano, I understand that his soul, through grace, is both huge and eternal, a testament to his great slogan, “I’m just dead, I’m not gone.”
John Doyle, Memphis Music Hall of Fame
About Alexandra Pusateri’s post, “TBI Investigating Darrius Stewart Case” …
Who trusts the TBI or D.A. to investigate this? They need the police to produce evidence that keeps the jails full. Who is going to bite the hand that feeds them? I am so outraged, as a U.S. citizen, by the mentality of the police and their supporters. Police can kill without recourse.
Memphis Belle
I am enjoying watching our local media fan the flames and totally try to have this story blow up into something much more than it actually is. Memphis TV media: It’s just not going to happen here. Sorry.
Midtown Mark
I’m also enjoying reading some of the comments being posted on those local media articles. The local racists are so mad that black people aren’t rioting and protesting over this.
Nobody
I’m enjoying all the wanton police violence sweeping the country. Isn’t this just great? People are dying for systemic reasons we could fix but refuse to address, because it makes us feel icky. Wait, this actually sucks, because it could happen to anyone. Now it doesn’t seem so funny anymore.
Autoegocrat
About Wendi C. Thomas’ column, “Black Wealth Matters” …
Black wealth does matter. If things were reversed and blacks were the minority in numbers but majority holders of wealth in Memphis, the sentiment on the Caucasian side of this issue would be very different.
TruthBeTold
It is important that “black-owned businesses” are actually owned by black people and not just a front man or woman and that the employee ranks have actual black workers whose wages form the actual foundation of community.
Nick R.
About Bianca Phillips’ post, “MPD Does Not Have Passenger Policy for Traffic Stops” …
There is always a problem when any authority exceeds its constitutional limits, be it the MPD or anybody else. If it is unconstitutional for the police to demand ID on a passenger when the police are merely enforcing traffic laws, they do not have the right to go ahead and do it anyway.
If I am walking down the street minding my own business and the police stop me and ask me to show ID, I will not do so unless they can show some probable cause as to why I should comply. None of which gives Darrius Stewart cause to run and then fight with that policeman.
Arlington Pop
All of a sudden, we’re getting into Rip Van Winkle territory. But the familiar universe doesn’t require a full 20 years, any longer, to be unrecognizable. Last year at this time, we here in Memphis knew that Nathan Bedford
Forrest was developing into a persona non grata — at least with a major part of our population. The name “Forrest Park” had already given way to the unoffending and somewhat antiseptic moniker, “Health Sciences Park.” But, a year ago, nobody was threatening to move the Confederate general’s statue or transfer his grave back to Elmwood Cemetery. Now both goals are established parts of the political agenda.
And it wasn’t long ago that we were reading articles celebrating the positive moral influence of comedian Bill Cosby on minority youth, and touting his then forthcoming revival tour as a wholesome experience for family audiences. Now, the man is in utter disgrace as an alleged serial rapist, unable to show himself in public for fear of derision — or encountering another process server.
And, hey, you local Democrats who look forward to buzzing up to Nashville for the next ceremonial Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner, be aware that by the time you get there, the names are likely to have been changed to reflect society’s suddenly unforgiving attitudes. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, is lately fallen from favor, due to his status as a slave-owner. And Andrew Jackson? He’s lucky that it was Alexander Hamilton, and not himself, that was recently bumped off his spot on a currency note. Not only was Jackson a slave-owner, he was guilty of massacres of native Americans in Florida and of “ethnically cleansing” that territory for the sake of white folks wanting to move in. Democratic parties in Connecticut, Missouri, and Georgia have already purged the two names from the title spot for their annual banquets. And Tennessee state Democratic chair Mary Mancini has just sent out an email to party cadres informing them, via an official missive titled “The Legacy of Andrew Jackson,” that the Tennessean whose Hermitage mansion is still a much-visited tourist site may be about to lose his lease as a state hero.
Here’s Mancini’s clincher: “In 2015, we may very well decide to name our annual event after someone who better exemplifies who we are today. We may not. But either way, let’s not shy away from the conversation.”
Forrest, Jefferson, Jackson, and Dr. Huxtable! All gone from the icon list. Who’s next? George Washington?
The bottom line is that, in an age when social media have opened up everybody’s closets for inspection, nobody gets away with anything. Not even historical figures. We don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But it’s a thing, and we’d better get used to it.