Category: At Large

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At Large Opinion

Information Overload

“Covid met January 6th. They slept together and gave birth to the anti-Christ of anger, fear, distrust, disinformation, and trauma that plagues America to this day.”

That was an X/Tweet on my timeline last week. I hope it was written by a human and not a bot because it reflects a very human feeling I’ve been trying to get my head around. I think we’re in the midst of one of the most disordered eras in the history of this country, comparable to our great wars, our Great Depression, our presidential assassinations.

We are riding a chaotic chariot of change with no idea of where or when it stops. We have come to a place where we can’t even agree that the sky is above us, that day follows night. Facts are fungible. Everyone is entitled to their own facts because you can “prove” anything. Politics and religion have become intertwined and irresolutely tribal. Disinformation is the currency of the realm, a bloated ratatouille of content — true, false, and irrelevant — that overloads our brains. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, Truth Social, even such presumably benign sites as Nextdoor have become infiltrated with the madness of our political discourse. Every commenter is a pundit or a cynic or an expert … on everything. Crime is everywhere. Democrats are pedophiles. Trump shits his pants. Biden can’t walk. Trump has dementia. Be very afraid. Be very confused.

Former President Trump’s rally in New Jersey last Saturday provides a perfect template for what I’m talking about. Prior to the event, Trump touted that there would be 80,000 people there, so that number became the focal point. When Trump began speaking, pictures from Trump supporters, mostly taken from the stage area or from the crowd, were cited as evidence that Trump had drawn at least 100,000 people. “Let’s see Biden draw a crowd like this!” they said.

Then photos from anti-Trumpers appeared that purported to show a much smaller crowd. Next came photos of a full Michigan football stadium and of a Taylor Swift concert. “This is what 100,000 people looks like,” said these posters. “Compare this to photos of Trump’s pathetic rally. Hah!”

Not to be outdone, an aerial photo of 400,000 people appeared under the headline: “Trump Draws Massive Crowd to New Jersey Rally.” Roger Stone and lots of other Trump supporters retweeted it. But the picture turned out to be an aerial shot of a 1994 Rod Stewart concert in Brazil. Boo! Fake news! Then video appeared of Trump speaking to a small crowd, possibly near the end of his speech. No way, said his supporters. It was “AI-generated and put out by Antifa.” Or something.

So how many people came to hear Trump speak? Pick a number. There’s “proof” of everything, so everything is meaningless. And maybe that’s the point: Flood the zone with so much conflicting information that none of it can be trusted, that it all can be discounted.

How did we go from a country that elected a centrist African American 12 years ago to one that actually appears capable of reelecting an amoral, foul-mouthed, self-absorbed misogynist who took away women’s bodily autonomy, stole federal classified documents (and probably sold them), slept with porn stars, botched the handling of a pandemic that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and, oh yeah, tried to overturn a presidential election?

What. The. Hell?

Normally when a time of upheaval is over, a country will celebrate. There are parades, a coming-together, a time of kumbaya. Americans have had no downtime in the past eight years, no room to reflect — just unrelenting chaos. The Covid pandemic continued implacably, even as the 2020 political campaign unfolded. People were still dying by the thousands, while two major party candidates debated and campaigned in the midst of it. Remember the masked appearances and debates? Even masks and vaccines became political. So exhausting.

Then the election happened and Trump lost (really), and as most predicted, he claimed it was all rigged. Phony Venezuelan voting machines! Mule teams! Crooked election workers! A minute later and it was January 6th, and we all watched an attempted insurrection in real time. It’s all been too much. Too many bad actors, too many alternate facts that created an information overload, one that allowed a man with no moral core to attain the highest office in the land. And to possibly do it again.

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At Large Opinion

Course Correction

Photo: Charles Brutlag | Dreamstime.com

The jokes write themselves.

In January, when I asked Dr. Nickalus Khan — the talented young neurosurgeon from Semmes Murphey Clinic who had rebuilt my upper back a year earlier — if I could play golf again, his answer was a reassuring “Absolutely.” When I told my friend John Ryan that my doctor had said I could play golf, his response was: “That’s amazing! You couldn’t before.”

See what I mean?

For six months, I had been working to get my body back in some sort of shape after a bout with lymphoma and a concurrent rebuild of my upper back because of damage from the tumor. I was declared in remission last July — a happy day to be sure — but I’d lost 30 pounds and almost all my muscle tone during the six-month chemo protocol: too much time on my back; too little time moving. I’m in my 70s, and it didn’t take long for me to realize the road to full recovery would be long.

When I began my comeback in July, the slightest exercise made me stiff and sore. Getting out of bed required pushing off the wall into a seated position. My oncologist, Dr. Mike Martin of West Clinic, said my condition was a common one following chemo treatment and that I needed to begin — slowly — working to strengthen my stomach and back muscles.

Getting back into the swing of things (Photos: John Ryan)

Thanks to the fact that I have two very persistent dogs, I resumed walking every day last summer, mostly in Overton Park. When I began, I was winded after 15 minutes, but after three months, I worked my way up to a brisk 35 to 40 minutes with no stress. Progress! I also began something of a fitness regime at home: pushups (at first, from my knees), leg lifts, stretches, sit-ups. As hair returned to my head, strength began to return to my muscles.

What about playing golf again? I used to play at least once a week, but my golf-friends and I got out of the habit during the pandemic. They still play, though less frequently. Now that Covid is a lesser concern and cancer is in my rearview, I began thinking maybe it was time to get myself out on the links again. Perhaps golf could even be a way to accelerate my physical recovery.

Feeling frisky in early January, I tried swinging a 5-iron 100 times. The next morning, the pain in my lower back was nearly intolerable. It was obvious that I would need golf-specific exercises.

I checked in with Dr. Google and found lots of interesting connections between golf and fitness. I learned that golf is often used to rehabilitate people from addiction: “Since golf is a type of exercise that enhances the release of endorphins, it becomes an effective way for patients to recover from substance abuse disorders,” claims a site called Healthy Life Recovery. And I learned, from the same source, that golf is used in the treatment of some mental health disorders: “Golfing enables patients to form and foster cordial relationships based on shared interests, a crucial factor for mental health recovery.”

All good to know, but what about getting my ancient body back in shape to make a full swing at a golf ball and not embarrass myself in front of my friends? You know, the physical stuff (and the pride stuff). As I’d learned the hard way, golf puts a lot of stress on the back muscles. This paragraph from a golf-instruction website sums it up: “The athletic, correct golf swing is a total body movement that requires flexibility, mobility, and stability in a wide range of joints. Utilizing the ground for a powerful hip extension through the shot along with pulling left and delaying release of the clubhead puts a great amount of strain on the body. That is the swing most of us are searching for.”

There’s a huge body of literature online on the subject of how to get your body in “golf shape,” and lots of instructional-video options: “Best Back Exercises for Golfers,” “Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Back While Golfing,” “Rehabilitation of the Back for Golfers.” The list goes on longer than a Dustin Johnson tee shot. I eventually settled on HansenFitnessGolf.com. Coach Mike Hansen has a lo-fi approach, and looks a little lumpy, like the kind of guy who’s not going to be too judgy, even if he can’t see me. He clearly lays out the issues for senior golfers, and for those trying to return to playing golf after injury or illness. I qualified on both counts.

The three major issues that Hansen addresses are, yep, flexibility, mobility, and stability. If we can improve those three areas, he says, we’ll be well underway to finding a real golf swing again. Hansen’s exercises are easily done at home on a carpet or yoga mat and focus mostly on strengthening lower back muscles, stretching and turning the torso, strengthening the knees and thighs, and my favorite, “firing your glutes.” Frankly, mine should have been fired a long time ago. I jest. But anyway, yes, strengthening your butt muscles is important.

After a couple of weeks, I was swinging that 5-iron 100 times a day with no pain cropping up. I still couldn’t turn into a complete back-swing because of the reconstruction of my upper spine, but I felt like maybe I was ready to try the real thing — with a ball. I enlisted my cynical friend John and we drove out to Mirimichi Golf Course and each bought a big bucket of balls to hit on the practice range.

As I rolled a shiny, white Pinnacle into position on the astroturf practice mat with my trusty 5-iron, I got a little nervous. I was worried I might be unable to hit the ball straight with my shortened swing, or worse, shank it horribly. It was my first time on a golf course in 16 months.

I said something to John about not feeling comfortable over the ball and he said, “Just swing smooth and easy and try to make contact. You don’t have to kill it.”

He was right. I focused on just hitting the ball and took what felt like a half-speed swing. I was elated to see the white pellet fly straight, and to feel the joy of flushing a shot right in the middle of the clubface. I hit the remainder of the bucket of balls, maybe 75 or so. Sure, I hit some clunkers, but I hit enough good shots with my new, easy swing that I was eager to try the real thing.

Playing a round of golf is, of course, much different than hitting balls from a mat. There is grass and dirt and trees and water and sand, all of which delight in diverting golf balls from their mission of falling into a hole on a green. I drove to the Links of Riverside on a Sunday afternoon in late February for my first test. Riverside is a modest, nine-hole muni run by the city. Nothing fancy. I figured I’d be able to play by myself with no issues. But nope. As I drove my cart to the first tee, a single golfer was preparing to hit. “Hey,” he said, cheerfully, “Want to play together?”

The guy looked to be about my age and was playing from the old-man tees, so how bad could it be, I thought. “Sure,” I said, “but I have to warn you I haven’t played in more than a year, so I might slow you up.” No worries, he said.

And there weren’t any. We had a great time and I didn’t embarrass myself. After the round, we had a beer in the clubhouse and agreed to play again. I’d made a new friend and was back in the swing of things. You might even say I was rehabbed. Huzzah.

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At Large Opinion

Animal Instincts

Photo: Jarihin | Dreamstime.com

I’ve been sitting on this story for a bit, just waiting for a chance to work it into a column. That time has come, my friends. It’s the tale of one Reginald Cook, 26, who allegedly attempted to rob a Shell convenience store on Elvis Presley Boulevard — three times — on the night of April 14th.

The official Memphis Police Department report states that Cook went into the station around 2 a.m. and demanded money from the clerk. The clerk told police that Cook kept reaching into his clothing, indicating that he had a weapon. The clerk didn’t buy the ruse and told Cook to scram.

A few minutes later, Cook returned, again demanding money and again reaching into his clothes as though he might have a weapon. And again, the clerk was having none of it and told Cook to leave the store. This is where the story takes a turn.

At 3:05 a.m., Cook returned once again to the scene of his Kabuki Krimes. Only this time he had a live, five-foot-long snake wrapped around his neck. Emboldened, he shouted, “Gimme all your money or I’ll unleash my attack snake, you bastard!!!” Or words to that effect, one presumes.

By this time, the clerk was getting boa-ed by the whole thing and pulled out a handgun, taking Cook and his slithery sidekick into custody.

Only in Memphis (or maybe Florida). Seriously, Cook has to be one of the dumbest crooks of all time. Who did he think he was going to fool? Anyone could see that snake was unarmed. Heh.

The cops soon arrived and hauled Cook off to jail, charging him with attempted robbery and a reptile dysfunction. After letting the snake make one phone coil, the police let him slide on his own recognizance, mainly because they were unable to get cuffs on him.

Speaking of dumb crooks and animals … How about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, the evil creep who outed herself in her own book last week as a puppy killer. And a goat killer. And god knows what else, at this point.

Noem’s book — No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward — will be published next month, but Guardian.com obtained an advance copy and revealed the literal money shot: Noem shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, because she was “untrainable.”

In her book, Noem describes taking Cricket, a wirehaired pointer, on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, hoping they would calm the young dog down. It didn’t work. Noem writes that Cricket was “going out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life” and “ruining the hunt.” Little did Cricket know it would be the last “time of her life.”

On the way home, Noem writes that she stopped at a farm and Cricket got out of her truck and killed some of the farmer’s chickens. Noem writes that Cricket was “the picture of pure joy” during her spree. “I hated that dog,” Noem says, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.” So, when Noem got home, she led the unsuspecting (and probably still joyful) Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her. As one does, apparently, when one is a “farmer” from South Dakota. Or Hell.

Then, since Kristi was already in a killin’ state of mind, she went and got a goat that “smelled of urine” and had “knocked her kids down and ruined their clothes,” and executed it, as well. She had to go back to her truck and get another shell, she writes, since she only wounded the goat with the first shot.

Noem is angling to be Donald Trump’s running mate. She’s fond of posting pictures of herself with dead animals: bears, elk, deer, pheasant. I doubt that she posed with her dead pup but I wouldn’t be shocked. Noem says that she included the animal assassination story in her book to show her willingness to do “anything difficult, messy, and ugly” if it needs to be done. So far, she’s had plastic surgery, dental implants, and an affair with former Trump operative Corey Lewandowski, so she’s three-for-three. Kristi Noem is scum.

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At Large Opinion

Welcome Turnaround

Volkswagen ID.4 (Photo: Courtesy Volkswagen)

“The reality is companies have choices when it comes to where to invest and bring jobs and opportunity. We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our states. These jobs have become part of the fabric of the automotive manufacturing industry. Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy.”

Sounds just like the kind of statement a well-paid automaker CEO would make when faced with the prospect of his company’s lowly worker bees forming a union. Except in the preceding case, it’s the kind of statement six Southern Republican governors would — and did — make at the prospect of the United Auto Workers unionizing a car-manufacturing plant in their state.

The governors — of Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and, of course, Tennessee — were getting the vapors over the notion that factory workers would dare to organize for better working conditions. “Lawsy mercy,” said Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, in a statement. “We cain’t have no communist unions moving into our bidness-lovin’ Land o’ Cotton™. Old times here are not forgotten! Next thing you know, these uppity workin’ folks will be wantin’ gummit healthcare and decent public schools and gun reform.” Okay, ol’ Voucher Bill didn’t really say that, but he sure as hell thought it. And to be fair, he wasn’t the first Lee to get his butt kicked by a union.

Here’s another gem from the governors’ statement: “We want to keep good paying jobs and continue to grow the American auto manufacturing sector here. A successful unionization drive will stop this growth in its tracks, to the detriment of American workers.” Right, because you clowns are always all about the “workers.”

The scare tactics didn’t work. Employees at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga voted by a three-to-one margin to join the United Auto Workers last Friday, making their factory the first in the South to unionize since the 1940s.

It’s no wonder the governors were scared. The GOP economic model is to keep workers underpaid and uneducated, grateful for any crumbs their corporate overlords deem them worthy to receive. In return, the politicians get fat corporate “contributions” and corporations get sweet tax breaks to move into the states of the old Confederacy. When it comes to workers’ rights, the mantra for those at the top of this pyramid scheme is, “Look away, Dixieland.”

Another vital part of the GOP’s strategy has been to keep working-class Americans fighting amongst themselves, mostly by exploiting racial division. Gotta make sure the MAGA whites stay mad at the African Americans and the Latinos. And vice versa. The GOP knows that if all those folks ever organized to challenge the game being played on them, well, it could get ugly for their overlords.

That’s why it was so edifying to see videos of the Volkswagen plant workers — white, Black, and brown — celebrating their successful union vote with fireworks, chants, and cheers. They were celebrating getting a voice in their workplace, including better healthcare and retirement benefits, and more paid time off. They were celebrating getting some skin in the game.

Current wages for workers in Chattanooga range from $23 to $32, according to Volkswagen. The UAW noted that following their strikes last year against Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, wages for the highest-paid production workers at those plants rose to more than $40 an hour, plus improved benefits. Fireworks, indeed.

Interestingly, Volkswagen said it respects its workers’ right to determine who should represent their interests. “We fully support an NLRB vote so every team member has a chance to vote in privacy in this important decision,” the company said. It’s almost like the state governors were fear-mongering or something. Or maybe the company actually respects its workers. What a concept.

Next up for the UAW — which says it plans to try to unionize a dozen Southern automaker facilities — are two Mercedes-Benz plants in Alabama, where a vote on unionization will take place in mid-May. The UAW says a majority of workers at those plants have already signed authorization cards supporting union membership.

The results of the Volkswagen vote, could have far-reaching consequences for the labor movement in the region, said Stephen Silvia, a professor at American University who was quoted in a recent Washington Post article: “If the UAW can prevail,” he said, “it means that the Volkswagen victory isn’t an anomaly and we’re really seeing a turnaround in attitudes in workers in the South.”

If so, it’s kudos to Tennessee’s auto workers for standing up to the governors and for leading the turnaround in attitudes toward workers’ rights. And here’s hoping Alabama can keep the momentum going. Roll Tide.

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At Large Opinion

Gettysburg, Wow

Robert E. Lee (Photo: Julian Vannerson | Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

“Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. It was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways, it represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow. I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And, uh, the statement of Robert E. Lee, who’s no longer in favor, did you ever notice that? He’s no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill. He said, ‘Wow, that was a big mistake.’ He lost his great general. And they were fighting. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys!’ But it was too late.”

You may or may not be familiar with the preceding paragraph. It depends to some extent upon how much of a political junkie (or masochist) you are. But even if you’re not familiar with it, you can probably guess the source. And if you guessed, Donald J. Trump, you win.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee scatted the forgoing brain jazz at a speech in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. It was just one discursive, rambling aside in an oration that consisted of more than 75 minutes of discursive, rambling asides. Some highlights:

“China is sending illegals here to start a little army in our country.”

“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate.”

“I love women more than I love anything. I looove women.”

“Last night we had 20 people come to our country from the Congo. Welcome to our country. Where do you live in the Congo? We live in prison. They’re bringing them in from Africa!”

“The 2020 election was rigged, pure and simple. It was a disgrace and we can never let it happen again.”

“I’m perhaps the most honest guy in the world.”

Perhaps. And if you believe that, well, you’re an idiot. We’re past the point of pretending any of this is remotely normal, but here’s the worrisome thing: It actually is normal in one sense. It’s “normal” because it happens every day that Trump says something in public. After nine years of listening to this guy, Americans have become inured to it; our politics have literally transformed. Trump has normalized things that would have destroyed the career of any politician before he came along.

Gary Hart was the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination when revelations of an extramarital affair emerged and he was finished. In 2004, presidential candidate Howard Dean was deemed unelectable because he screamed “Yeah!” at a rally in Iowa. See ya, Howard. You’re not “presidential” enough.

And Jimmy Carter was so concerned about a possible conflict of interest that he put his little Georgia peanut farm in a blind trust during his presidency, so as not to appear to be in the pocket of Big Peanut.

In contrast, Trump and his family made millions from his businesses while in office, including from a hotel in Washington, D.C., where foreign diplomats and lobbyists stayed in order to curry favor with the American president.

And just imagine the merde-storm that would engulf the mass media if Joe Biden bumbled his way through anything remotely similar to Trump’s lie-filled Schnecksville speech. Think of the outrage from the Confederate-loving MAGA types if Biden invented a Robert E. Lee quote that made the general sound like a surfer-pirate.

Argh, dude.

As this presidential campaign stumbles into summer, and as Trump’s trial in New York takes center stage, it is becoming more and more obvious that the GOP presidential candidate has some real issues with, well, reality. Trump is quite literally making things up — creating stories, statistics, and personal anecdotes out of whole cloth. This is not an opinion; it’s a verifiable fact: He’s a full-service gaffe station.

The question becomes: Is he doing it knowingly — just running a hustle to get elected again — or is he truly losing sentience, unable to tell fact from fiction? Does he truly believe all vaccines are bad, and that he is the most honest person in the world, and Robert E. Lee said “wow.” If it’s the latter, well, that is so interesting and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways. And we are so in trouble.

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At Large Opinion

The Big E

No rapture. No chicken-wing stampede. What was all the hoopla for? (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

You’re reading this, so I guess it’s safe to say you survived Monday’s great solar eclipse. What an extravaganza! I am hard-pressed to remember any news event that generated so much hype, so much blathering punditry, so many hours of television coverage, so much social media content as did the Big E.

There were countless maps (interactive and static) of the eclipse’s path, helpful hints on how to watch it, where to go for the best vistas, where to buy viewing glasses, how to photograph it, where to sleep, where to eat, even how to make a pinhole device from a shoebox. It was the most ballyhooed three-and-a-half minutes since Donald Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels.

The media breathlessly reported about how lodging and food services and gas stations in the path of the darkness all across the country would be overcrowded and overbooked. Scary, scary! Governor Sarah “Colonel” Sanders of Arkansas even declared a three-day state of emergency for her state (three days!), and it had nothing to do with the outfit she was wearing.

And, of course, the eclipse came with a heaping dollop of wasabi-level crazy sauce from the MAGA crowd. Georgia congresswoman and professional troll Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once claimed that Jewish space lasers caused wildfires in California, added a side of supernatural hysteria to her usual wacky brain-salad, posting on X that the earthquake in New Jersey and the then-forthcoming eclipse were messages from God (probably not the Jewish one): “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” she wrote. “Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”

Scientists helpfully pointed out that the eclipse was predicted hundreds of years ago, so it probably wasn’t caused by a fabulous gay wedding in Atlanta. Scientists also noted that “earthquakes occur naturally and happen (on average) more than 30 times a day across the world.”

But wait, there’s more nuttery to be had. What major event in the United States would be complete without the paranoid vocal stylings of InfoWars’ Alex Jones, who announced that Monday’s shadowy spectacle was merely a “dress rehearsal” for martial law in the U.S. How? I don’t know. It’s Alex Jones, people. He doesn’t make sense. He makes noise. And lots of money off of morons.

Speaking of which … Let us not forget about the religious weirdos who saw the eclipse as the coming of the Rapture, wherein all true Christians would be whooshed up to Heaven, leaving us heathens to stumble around in the dark and party with Satan, I guess. Some of this silliness was apparently spawned by the fact that there was going to be totality over the town of Rapture, Indiana. Right. It was also dark over Buffalo but nobody was predicting a chicken-wing stampede.

And I do find some irony in the fact that evangelicals have warned us about the coming of the Antichrist for hundreds of years, and then when he finally appears, they rush out to buy a $70 Bible from him. Just sayin’. And speaking of that guy … I’m shocked that the former president didn’t notice that the eclipse just waltzed over the Mexican border into Texas in broad daylight without a bit of interference from Snarky Joe, or whatever Trump’s calling him now. What a scandal!

Honestly, none of this should be a surprise. Eclipses, earthquakes, and other natural phenomena have always sparked religious and conspiratorial theories. And there have always been people who seek to turn such events to their advantage for money or power. The difference now is that those humans are aided by our “LOOK OVER HERE!” media — social and otherwise.

Finally, I have to say, as one who took in our 98-percent Memphis eclipse from my back deck: That thing was way-the-hell overrated. It got a little gloomy for five minutes, but birds kept singing, traffic kept driving, nobody got raptured, and nobody went to Hell (that I’m aware of). Maybe, just maybe, we’ll learn something this time. Maybe we’ll stop and take a beat, possibly even pause and think about how this thing was over-hyped by media sources that use emotion, fear, and sensationalism to gain our eyeballs, no matter the cost to their credibility. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll finally begin to see the light.

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At Large Opinion

Games People Play

I went with “wazoo” on my fourth guess. I should have gone with “taboo,” and because of that little miscalculation, it took me five tries to get Sunday’s Wordle instead of four. Dang.

A group of friends and I play The New York Times’ popular word game every day and share our scores with accompanying visuals. There are five of us, in different cities, connected mostly by school and family ties and a sense of humor. Our gimmick is that we take turns picking a different starter word every day, and quite often those words are, well, let’s just say, not geared to an easy solution.

Wordle aficionados know that you should start with a word like “arise” or “audio,” something with lots of vowels and/or often-used consonants. Our group doesn’t go that route (a decent starter word, by the way). For instance, “grams” is a terrible starter, but when one of our members announces she’s going to become a grandmother, that kind of stuff happens, and we roll with it. Nobody has suggested “zyxin” or “geese” yet, but it’s probably just a matter of time.

We humans love puzzles, and there is some evidence that the recent pandemic that kept us all mostly homebound for months just exacerbated those tendencies, not that we needed a push. Think of the great variety of such activities we engage in: crosswords, crypto-quotes, sudoku, mazes, find the difference between pictures, jigsaw puzzles, Scrabble, Jumbo. We watch television game shows like Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? We play zillions of games on our phones — at least everyone in my doctor’s office does.

These little self-imposed challenges give us the thrill of the chase and the endorphin lift of success that follows overcoming an obstacle — attaining that “aha” moment. It’s no accident, I think, that most of the games we pursue are solitary endeavors. We’re testing ourselves, our brains, our thought processes, and finally, if we succeed, enjoying the dopamine of success. It’s addictive.

My morning routine goes as follows: Feed the dogs, make coffee, then sit down on the couch with my phone and do — in order — the Times’ Wordle puzzle, Mini-Crossword, Connections, Spelling Bee, and Letter Boxed. Then I hit The Washington Post website and do their Mini-Crossword and Keyword (one word to spell ’em all!). I’m done in 30 minutes or less, but if I miss a morning I feel incomplete. Some of you can relate, I’m sure.

It may make you feel better about your own gaming rituals to learn that human beings’ love for puzzles is rooted in more than just finding a diversion. It’s bred into our genes. Psychologists say that the urge to solve puzzles comes from human beings’ instinctual proclivity for pattern-finding, and for using those patterns to try to find solutions to problems.

And it goes even deeper than that. Humans have historically used the patterns they’ve observed in nature to search for the very meaning of life itself, to plumb its mysteries and magic. Our ancestors saw patterns in the stars and planets of the night sky, in the phases of the moon, in the duration of the sun’s rise and fall. They observed the rhythm of the seasons, the greening of the spring and the brown fade to winter, the solstices, the yearly cycle of life on Earth. They discovered the big picture, created calendars, clocks, began to measure the passage of time.

The discovery of these patterns led to the creation of gods, legends, and myths, as humans strove to understand their world and to give it meaning beyond the simple arc of life and death. Our coming to understand the seasons of the earth and the patterns in the night sky is why we have recurring annual celebrations, and why most of them are spiritual or religious in nature.

Seeing the patterns in life — whether it’s in a sunset of cirrus clouds, in the rings of a fallen oak, or the nebula of a sunflower blossom — can bring a sense of balance, a respite, a reassurance that all is not chaos and disorder. There is beauty and symmetry to be found in the course of every day that we’re alive and breathing, if we pause long enough to look for it. It can even be found in the simplest of puzzles. Today’s word is “pause.”

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At Large Opinion

The Banality of Evil

Kyle Rittenhouse (Photo: Kyle Rittenhouse via X)

He was small, scrawny, middle-aged, with a receding hairline and ill-fitting teeth. His name was Otto Adolf Eichmann and he was on trial for his life, charged with facilitating the murder of 5,000,000 Jews in extermination camps in the years preceding, and during, World War II.

Israeli Mossad special forces had tracked Eichmann down in Argentina in 1960, where he’d fled after the war, and brought him back to face charges in Jerusalem. Eichmann’s defense became known as “superior orders,” also known as the Nuremberg defense or “just following orders.” It is a court plea that a person should not be considered guilty of committing a crime that was ordered by a superior officer or official.

Eichmann’s defense team argued that under the Nazi legal system the deeds he was accused of were not crimes but “acts of state” that it had been his duty to obey. His conscience was clear because his conscience required him to follow orders.

Eichmann said that he would have had a bad conscience only if he had not done what he had been ordered to do — to ship millions of men, women, and children to their death with meticulous care and efficiency.

“I will jump into my grave laughing,” he said, “because the fact that I have the death of five million enemies of the Reich on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction.”

I have been reading lately the 1963 account of Eichmann’s trial in The New Yorker by Hannah Arendt, subtitled “A Report on the Banality of Evil.” I am struck again and again by the “ordinariness” of Eichmann, an aimless, unambitious young man who stumbled up the ladder in the Nazi hierarchy and found himself assigned to the most horrific task imaginable — ruthlessly exterminating millions of men, women, and children. It’s a textbook lesson in how human beings can rationalize pretty much anything.

In August 2020, 17-year-old Kyle Howard Rittenhouse traveled from his home in northern Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where there was unrest following the shooting by police there of a man named Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and joined a group of armed citizens in Kenosha who said they were there to protect local businesses.

During the unrest that night, Rittenhouse said a man chased him into a parking lot and grabbed the barrel of his rifle, whereupon he fatally shot him. Rittenhouse said he fled and was pursued by a crowd, and then fatally shot a second man after he struck him with a skateboard and tried to grab his rifle. Rittenhouse said a third person approached him with a pistol and he shot and wounded that individual.

In his subsequent trial, Rittenhouse was acquitted after tearfully testifying that his actions were in self-defense. After that, things went quite well for the young man. He went to meet former President Donald Trump, who said nice things about him; he was lovingly interviewed by Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, and soon became a cause célèbre for right-wing organizations, with his image being used to sell T-shirts, coffee mugs, and other products. He announced the creation of a video game, Kyle Rittenhouse’s Turkey Shoot, and became a speaker for Turning Point USA, an outfit that advocates for conservative policies and politics on college campuses.

Last week, Rittenhouse brought his “Rittenhouse Recap” speaking tour to the University of Memphis and it did not go well. Initially, there was a movement on social media to reserve tickets and then not show up, leaving Rittenhouse with an empty auditorium. Even after a last-minute reshuffling of the ticketing process, Rittenhouse still found himself speaking to a half-full room, most of whose inhabitants were there to run him out of town. After 27 minutes of tough questions, most of which he dodged, Rittenhouse had had enough and hurried off stage left, dragging his poor “support dog” behind him.

One gets the sense that Rittenhouse has no idea what to do with the remainder of a life that was indelibly defined by his actions on that August night four years ago. Now he’s a prop, famous only because he shot and killed people; a shill being used to raise funds; a washed-up, one-hit wonder at the age of 21; an aimless, unambitious young man who stumbled up the ladder in the right-wing hierarchy. Now he’s just following orders.

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At Large Opinion

Zoned Out

Port St. Joe, Florida (Photo: Google Maps)

How was your Sunday morning wake-up? I imagine, like me, you were still a little drowsy because in Memphis, as in most of the USA, except Arizona and Hawaii, we all “sprang forward” for Daylight Saving Time, meaning 8 a.m. magically became 9 a.m. overnight, and meaning it’s darker outside when you wake up and there’s more daylight when you go to bed. It will take most people’s bodies a few days to get used to the change because our circadian rhythms get all fouled up.

Circadian rhythms are the 24-hour cycles that regulate essential bodily functions and processes — the release of hormones and such — including the sleep-wake cycle. They work by helping to make sure that the body’s processes are optimized at various points during a 24-hour period. The term “circadian” comes from the Latin phrase “circa diem,” which means “around a day,” which seems a little vague to me, but this is coming from people who wore togas and probably partied a lot.

Oddly enough, I got a head start on the whole process last week. That’s because I was visiting my brother and sister-in-law at their Vrbo near Port St. Joe, Florida. It’s a place where time waits for no one, and where you’d better keep an eye on your phone or you’ll be late. Or early. It depends. A watch is no good here. If your car’s clock updates automatically when you switch time zones, you will need to pick up a flux capacitor at AutoZone. Your phone will soon be googling itself.

See, Port St. Joe is in a little time peninsula of its own. The line of demarcation between Eastern Standard Time and Central Standard Time is a bit wacky hereabouts, running like a string tossed on a rumpled blanket: north, south, east, and west through Gulf County, the last piece of land before the Gulf of Mexico puts a stop to this linear nonsense.

Port St. Joe is on Eastern Standard Time, but it’s possible to drive a couple miles due east and be in the Central Standard Time zone. Meaning you could — depending on where you’re staying — arrive at the beer store in Port St. Joe at 5 p.m. and get home to drink those Bud Lights on your deck at 4:15 p.m. Time is a flat circle, baby. When 5 o’clock rolls around again, did those beers really exist? I say no. Also, if you do this 24 times as fast as possible, you could save a day. In theory. And get really drunk.

Why do we keep doing this twice-a-year ritual, which many studies have shown to be a health hazard that negatively affects sleep cycles, causes heart attacks, and spurs mental health crises, including suicide rates, in the fall? In a new poll conducted by the Associated Press/Center for Public Affairs Research, seven in 10 Americans said they would prefer not to switch back and forth for daylight saving time. Consensus! See, Americans can agree on something!

Er, but well, no. It turns out that four in 10 Americans would like to see their clocks stay on standard time year-round, while three in 10 would prefer to stay on daylight saving time year-round. Urgh. Another 3 in 10 say they prefer the status quo, switching back and forth between daylight saving time in the summer and standard time in the winter. These are the people who know how to reset the clock on their stove. Bastards.

A 2019 article in the Journal of Health Economics says: “As all mammals, humans respond to environmental light, the most important signal regulating our biological clock. However, human beings are the only animal species that deliberately tries to master nature … adjust[ing] their schedules responding to incentives to economic and social coordination.” This explains why my dogs were blissfully eating their morning kibble at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, unaware that I’d served them breakfast an hour later than usual. Then again, what’s time to a dog? Day and night. There’s probably a lesson for us there, from one species of mammal to another. Arf.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Learn to Discern

Gov. Bill Lee stands with Tennessee National Guard for a photo op. (Photo: @GovBillLee | X.com)

“As America faces the most severe border crisis in decades, TN is showing the rest of the country what it means to lead. Today, I joined TN National Guard members who will soon deploy on a voluntary mission to secure the Southern border as the federal government fails to act.”

The quote is from an X post by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee last Friday. He was pictured standing in front of 20 or so camo-clad warriors who were apparently going to Texas to … stand along the border somewhere? No word on who would be giving them orders. The Texas governor? The Texas National Guard commander? President Biden? Doesn’t matter. It wasn’t about governing or policy or real life. It was political theater. A photo op.

Judging from the responses to the post, lots of other people besides me saw it as empty grandstanding. Many pointed out that Tennessee had plenty of problems of its own — gun violence, education, healthcare — that ol’ Bill could be paying attention to instead of doing Kabuki theater in a local gymnasium.

Others responded on X, correctly, that House Republicans had declined to support a border bill that could have done much to improve the situation just a week before. Here’s LGilmore: “Good grief. What a freaking waste of time and taxpayer money for political gain. We see your two-faced perpetuation of a problem you refuse to help solve.”

But there were also positive responses to Lee’s post. Here’s one from LITizen JEFF: “Thank you, Sir, and especially, thank you to the patriots in the TN National Guard.” He probably had tears in his eyes while he typed that.

What forms the differing attitudes of LGilmore and LITizen JEFF? Well, assuming they’re not ’bots, it would be a fair guess to say it’s the sources of news they consume. According to a Pew Research study, conservatives like JEFF head to the right-wing buffet table, where they can get a steady diet of Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, Joe Rogan, Epoch Times, etc. Progressive/liberal thinkers like LG are more likely to be consumers of CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS NewsHour, and The New York Times.

When it comes to news, what we consume quite naturally shapes what we believe. A great example of this is the current exchange of video-fire over which old guy running for president is in worse shape. Call it “Dueling Dodderers.” My social media feeds are now filled with clips of Donald Trump’s verbal miscues. He is slurring a lot of words in his stump speeches these days and frequently losing his train of thought. And every time it happens, a clip of it gets posted and amplified in all the liberal media. I consume it gleefully because I think Trump is an evil clown and it gives me hope that he may yet disintegrate into a gooey orange puddle of bile.

Likewise, there are lots of clips of President Biden misspeaking or turning the wrong way or stumbling on a stairway that make the rounds in right-wing media. I don’t see as many of these because I don’t visit those sites much. That’s mainly because the algorithm gods have learned I prefer not to consume right-wing stuff.

That’s how it works: You pick your news, then your news picks you. So, here’s some good advice: Learn how to pick news sources that are trustworthy. Don’t amplify news stories, quotes, memes, or even videos unless you are certain they are legitimate. That juicy clip of Trump being unable to pronounce “Venezuela” may tickle your schadenfreude, but don’t forward it unless it’s from a legitimate source. AI video is real — and, increasingly, a source of disinformation.

Media literacy is a course that should be taught in every school in America from the seventh grade on. Knowing how to discern reliable sources in the flood of information that deluges us — and our children — needs to be a top educational priority.

For starters, here’s a list of the 10 least-biased news sources, according to Pew Research: AP News, Reuters News Service, BBC News, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg.com, New York Times, C-Span, NPR/PBS, Forbes.com, NBC News. We need to be vigilant. If we consume disinformation and spread it, we’re nothing more than vacuous propagandists. Like Bill Lee.