Category: Letter From The Editor

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have. — Barry M. Goldwater

Where is Barry Goldwater when you need him? Now there was a conservative. He wanted a small government and a balanced budget. He was for a strong military but only for defense, not nation-building. Goldwater was a man of principle, unafraid to point out hypocrisy, whether it emanated from a Democrat or a Republican. Of course, he got slaughtered in the 1964 presidential election by Lyndon Johnson, who went on to create the Great Society, the largest government social-engineering program since the New Deal.

I’ve been reading about the 1960s lately, and what has struck me most is how clear the line was between conservatives and liberals. The nation was divided, yes, but the division was about political philosophy — how best to govern. Liberals wanted to use government to solve the nation’s social ills — racism, poverty, hunger. Conservatives wanted to leave such things to the “free market,” believing the best government is that which governs least.

So how is it that “conservatives” are now supporting our largest-ever budget deficit? And why are “conservatives” in favor of letting the government invade our phone calls, our emails, our library records, our Internet searches, our bedrooms, and our pull-life-support-or-not decisions? And when did “conservatives” become such cowering nancy-boys, jettisoning the Constitution in the name of “national security”?

And finally, how did “conservative” come to mean being anti-science — against stem-cell research, global-warming research, or even the teaching of evolution — and favoring the insertion of fundamentalist Christianity into our governmental and educational institutions? Goldwater would be turning over (to the right) in his grave if he could see what passes for conservatism these days.

Which reminds me of another Goldwater quote, issued in his dotage in response to some foolishness uttered by Jerry Falwell: “I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.”

You go, Barry.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

Notes from a road trip to New York City and Washington, D.C., to visit my young adult children:

No establishment on America’s great interstate highway system can make a decent cup of coffee. In fact, to call the stuff that’s sold at most establishments swill is to be kind. (To be fair, you can buy a cactus shaped like a penis growing from a pot that looks like a hillbilly’s overalls.)

Tennessee is like a movie made by a self-indulgent director: It’s at least 150 miles too long. Put the state line at Knoxville, and drivers would leave Tennessee happy and feeling like they’d made some progress. Just an idea.

Why are some interstate highways free while others cost money? They’re all federal highways, aren’t they? Lots of states — New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia, to name a few I passed through — charge money to drive on the interstate or to cross a bridge. And there’s no rhyme or reason to it. You’ll be driving happily along and all of sudden, blammo! — it’s toll-booth time. Want to cross this nice bridge? Three bucks, please. Want to keep going on this lovely interstate? That’ll be four bucks. Thank you, and enjoy your trip. It cost me $36 in tolls just to drive from New York to D.C. Can you say TennCare?

Nobody under the age of 25 reads newspapers. WiFi laptop computers, however, are strewn about like magazines and are consulted for everything from the news to movie times to menus to crossword-puzzle answers (for the doddering father who’s actually reading The New York Times). They do read magazines, though. Lots of them.

American radio is a vast wasteland of crappy music, sports talk, and Sean Hannity. Sirius Radio has a future — at least until car makers put an Ipod dock on the dashboard.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

“The future seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done.”

— E.B. White

Like E.B. White, I also see the future as somewhat half-baked. But that won’t stop me from joining dozens of other writers and various media types in making some predictions for 2006.

For example, I forecast without fear or favor that KFC’s highly advertised new “all-breast-meat” chicken wings will be a fly-away success. In fact, the product will be so successful that it will spur McDonald’s to create a new Happy Meal item: all-beef fish sticks.

I predict that bank robbers who are apprehended will take a cue from Congress and attempt to avoid prosecution by giving the money they stole to charities. I predict that a hurricane will strike Corpus Christi, Texas, and that Pat Robertson will say it was the will of God because Texas misspelled Christ. I predict that Jerry Falwell will eat Pat Robertson. (Have you looked at ol’ Jabba Jerry lately?)

I predict that Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise will become parents and that their baby will immediately ask to be adopted by Angelina Jolie. I predict that Britney will dump K-Fed — and that he will immediately ask to be adopted by Angelina Jolie. I forecast that Craig Brewer’s next movie will be about a pair of gay Memphis drug dealers. It will be called Smoke Crack Mountain.

I predict you will get at least one e-mail a day offering to enlarge your manhood. And at least three prominent “family values” conservatives will be busted for homosexual behavior or illegal drugs or infidelity. I predict that the Memphis Tigers will win the NCAA championship and that Rodney Carney will sign an endorsement deal for Wendy’s new grilled-tuna chicken fingers.

And I predict that you will enjoy another 51 issues of the Flyer. Or double your money back.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

“It was beautiful and simple, as all truly great swindles are.”

— O. Henry

I like simple things — the cardinal singing on the trellis as I sip my coffee; the fog that hides a cold stream before the sun clears the trees; the smell of jasmine on a summer night; the sweet rumble of a Gibson J-45 in open tuning.

Yep, simple is how I roll. Simple is beautiful. Simple is easy. Simple is as simple does.Which makes what I’m about to say a little surprising: It’s my wish for 2006 that all of us begin to realize that the siren song of “simple” has led us far, far astray.

Slogans, for example, are seductively simple: “Stay the Course”; “Bush Lied and Soldiers Died”; “Don’t Cut and Run”; “No Blood for Oil”; “The War on Christmas.” They’re either infuriating or satisfying, depending on your point of view. Simple works great for bumper stickers; not so well when it comes to policy decisions.

When, for example, the president says there are only two courses in Iraq — defeat or victory — what kind of moron would choose defeat? Simple, right? But what is victory? A secular Arab democracy? If last week’s voting is any indication, we’re more likely to have spent three years and thousands of lives setting up an Iran-like Islamic state. Is that victory or defeat? What do you think? One thing is sure: It’s not so simple, after all. In fact, it’s damned complicated.

In 2006, it would behoove us all to move beyond our chosen slogans and embrace “the complicated,” especially in matters of life and death and politics. Let’s try to reason with one another, instead of just reacting to each others’ “simple” solutions. Let’s keep simple in its place — for happiness and pleasure.

Now, excuse me while I go find my Gibson. Oh, and have a Happy New Year. How hard is that?

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

P.S. Next week, look for the Flyer‘s Annual Manual issue. We’ll be back with a regular issue on January 12th.

“It was beautiful and simple, as all truly great swindles are.”

— O. Henry

I like simple things — the cardinal on the trellis as I sip my morning coffee; the fog that hides a cold stream before the sun clears the trees; the smell of jasmine on a summer night; the sweet rumble of a Gibson J-45 in open tuning.

Yep, simple is how I roll, as they say. Simple is beautiful. Simple is easy. Simple is as simple does.

Which makes what I’m about to say that much more difficult: It’s my deepest wish for 2006 that all of us begin to realize that the siren song of simple can lead us far, far astray.

When, for example, the president says there are only two courses in Iraq — defeat or victory? Which would you choose? Why, victory, of course. What kind of moron would choose defeat? But what is victory? It’s hard to say at this point. A secular Arab democracy? If last week’s voting is any indication, we’re more likely to have spent three years and thousands of lives setting up an Iran-like Islamic state. Is that victory or defeat? It’s not so simple, after all.

And slogans are seductively simple: “Stay the Course;” “Bush Lied and Soldiers Died;” “Don’t Cut and Run;” “No Blood for Oil;” The War on Christmas.”

It’s my hope that in 2006 all of us can move beyond the barricades of our slogans. We need to embrace “the complicated.” We need to start thinking rather than simply reacting. Simple works for bumper stickers; not so well when it comes to policy decisions.

If only.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

Howdy, partners. Don’t know if’n y’all heard about it yet, but we’re a-fixin’ to be talkin’ about cowboys a whole bunch in the next few weeks. Yup, cowboys. ‘Cept these cowboys are little different from the hard-ridin’ wranglers we all grew up a-watchin’ on the television. These cowpokes are gay. Yup.

Unless you’ve spent the last couple of weeks in a cave, you’ve heard by now about the new movie, Brokeback Mountain. Based on a short story originally published in The New Yorker, the film is the tale of a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy who meet in the summer of 1963 while sheepherding in the mountains of Wyoming. The two form a bittersweet sexual and emotional relationship that continues through their subsequent marriages, children, etc.

Critics nationwide have raved about the film. And it’s already won “film of the year” from both the New York and Los Angeles film critics and has garnered seven Golden Globe nominations. In a limited opening last weekend — on five screens in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — Brokeback Mountain sold out every screening.

But will it play in Peoria? Or Cleveland? Or Memphis? Is middle America really ready to embrace a movie about cowboys who aren’t, um, straightshooters? Who knows?

What I do know, or at least can predict, is that there will be a firestorm from those who object to any attempt to portray the “homosexual lifestyle” in anything but a negative light. Which, I suppose, helps make the movie’s central point: There is no singular gay lifestyle, any more than there is a “straight lifestyle.” Just lives, lived as best we can live ’em, pardner.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

In the small Missouri town where I grew up, about this time of year everyone would start hanging lights and saying Merry Christmas to each other. It was all we knew.

When I got a little older, I went off to college and became friends with a guy from St. Louis named Mark Resnick. We were suite-mates in the dorm and we had much in common — a love for the St. Louis Cardinals, Mizzou basketball, and beer. At the end of the first semester, as we both headed home, I said to Mark, “Have a nice Christmas.” He reminded me, ever so politely, that he and his family would be celebrating Hannukah.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Well, have a good holiday, then.”

It was a simple lesson for a country kid, and it stayed with me. You respect people’s faith. You say Merry Christmas to some folks; to others, you say Happy Hannukah or, if you don’t know their faith, Happy Holidays.

Now, it turns out — at least according to Bill O’Reilly and Fox News — that this simple act of courtesy is part of a liberal plot to “kill Christmas.” Last week, I watched a panel of four grown men discuss the following topic on Fox: “Economic disaster if liberals win the ‘War on Christmas?'”

Jesus H. Christ! Are you kidding me? Sadly, they weren’t. According to these nutbags, by using the more inclusive “Happy Holidays” in their advertising, many American corporations have fallen under the sway of “liberals” who are trying to “kill” Christmas.

If there was ever a greater perversion of the Christmas spirit than this, I’ve not seen or heard it. I couldn’t help but wonder What Would Jesus Do? My guess is he’d say, Be happy and be merry. And do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Or shut the hell up.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

I’m in the back of the boat, tossing a blue and orange crankbait at the shoreline. Up front, my friend John Ryan sculls with one hand and casts with the other. We have a deal: I buy the beer; he sculls the U.S.S. Tadpole. All things considered, it’s an equitable arrangement. And besides, in front, he gets to cast first to the best spots.

We’re on a pretty tree-lined lake — deep and clear, with a gurgling stream coming in on its north side. A great blue heron squawks and lifts itself clear as we approach, the sound of its wings stirring the still evening air. The sun is low in the sky; the clouds glow crimson and orange like a postcard — just behind the enormous billboard. In the distance, beyond the trees, we can hear the sound of rush-hour traffic. We’re well inside the Memphis city limits, on a lake you’ve never seen. We’ve caught six-pound bass here. If I told you where it was, I’d have to kill you.

Until a couple weeks ago, I thought John and I were probably the only ones who sport-fished Memphis’ “urban waters” — the myriad lakes and borrow pits behind abandoned shopping centers, alongside the Wolf and the Loosahatchie rivers, at the end of dead-end streets in questionable neighborhoods, along the I-240 loop — but I was wrong. At the Flyer‘s Best of Memphis party, I ran into Andy Earles, one of our freelance writers, who, as it turns out, has the same passion. We traded stories and recommendations like chefs sharing secret recipes. (My latest search weapon: Google Earth’s high-resolution satellite maps.)

Why am I telling you this? I’m not sure, except perhaps to point out that this city, and life its own self, offer charms that lie beyond — and below — the surface. We have only to open our eyes.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

So, what are you reading these days? If you asked me, I’d answer: newspaper articles, magazine essays, book excerpts, film reviews, political analyses, and much more. And then, to be honest, I’d have to clarify by adding I read all of the above while hunched over a computer screen, often late into the night.

Meanwhile, the new (and very tempting) Oxford American magazine, themed around Southern art, lies unread on my bedside table; a stack of books I meant to read gathers dust bunnies on the floor. I stagger to bed late, my eyes glazed and weary, my wrist sore from clicking and scrolling. Lord, what have I become?

I grew up loving books, real books. My mother would sometimes have to make me go outside to play in the summer, so much did I prefer the company of The Mudhen and the Walrus or The Kid Who Batted 1.000. And I still love books — the smell of fresh pages, the promise of fresh intelligence or high adventure. I still like sitting under a lamp in a big chair, no keyboard, no clicks, just the soothing sound of a turning page every now and then. So I’ve made the effort lately to reunite with my old flame. I’ve begun reading words on, gasp, paper.

I began with the Bob Dylan autobiography, Chronicles, and found myself transported to Greenwich Village, circa 1961 — a good place to be for an ambitious young musician and a wonderful place to read about for a guy who wanted to be Bob Dylan during his salad days. I learned that one of my favorite albums, New Morning, was made to confound the critics, and some of the songs were originally written for an Archibald MacLeish play. Who knew?

Books, what a concept.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com

There’s a cartoon by The Washington Post‘s Tom Toles that shows President Bush as a Boy Scout leader who has led his young charges neck-deep into a swamp. The caption: “I didn’t mislead. You misfollowed.”

And indeed, the president’s latest defense regarding pre-war intelligence seems to be a variation of that caption: “We weren’t evil. We were idiots — and so were you.” As presidential slogans go, it comes up a bit short of “The buck stops here.” And as a political talking point, it explains, as much as anything, why Bush’s poll numbers are falling faster than Hummer sales.

In the months before the war, in what we now know was a calculated plan, the administration convinced a majority of Americans and Congress that Saddam needed to be removed from power. The issue was presented as “kill or be killed by a terrorist with a nuke.” Most of the world and many Americans didn’t believe it. Around the globe, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in protest. But fear won out over reason, and America started its first war.

But as the rationale for the war morphed from self-defense to “building democracy in the Middle East,” the American public realized they’d been snookered. Fighting and dying to save your country is one thing. Fighting and dying to democratize Iraq is quite another.

In his latest speeches, Bush accuses critics of “rewriting history” and equates criticism of his policies with not “supporting the troops.” That trick isn’t going to fly this time. Bush has jumped the shark. Even his partymates in the Senate have figured out where the tide of public opinion is headed. The senators know better than most how America got into this mess.

And they know history is indelible.

Bruce VanWyngarden, Editor

brucev@MemphisFlyer.com