Category: The BruceV Blog

A reader sent me the following definition. I leave it to you folks to decide if it’s relevant. — BV

Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:

Believing that you’re better than others
Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
Exaggerating your achievements or talents
Expecting constant praise and admiration
Believing that you’re special
Failing to recognize other people’s emotions and feelings
Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
Taking advantage of others
Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
Being jealous of others
Believing that others are jealous of you
Trouble keeping healthy relationships
Setting unrealistic goals
Being easily hurt and rejected
Having a fragile self-esteem
Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional

Although some features of narcissistic personality disorder may seem like having confidence or strong self-esteem, it’s not the same. Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence and self-esteem into thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal. In contrast, people who have healthy confidence and self-esteem don’t value themselves more than they value others.
When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may have a sense of entitlement. And when you don’t receive the special treatment to which you feel entitled, you may become very impatient or angry.

But underneath all this grandiosity often lies a very fragile self-esteem. You have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have a sense of secret shame and humiliation. And in order to make yourself feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and efforts to belittle the other person to make yourself appear better.

By picking up a petition to run for mayor in the October special mayoral election today, former Mayor Willie Herenton maintained his reputation among most sentient Memphians as an unpredictable loon. He further solidified that reputation by issuing a megalomaniacal statement that denounced Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery and announced that Herenton was preparing a referendum that would “allow the citizens of Memphis to rescind the current charter amendment that elevated Myron Lowery to the office of Mayor Pro Tem. This resolution would prescribe limitations on the powers of a non-elected mayor.”

So now Herenton wants ANOTHER election? To rescind a charter amendment??? When is THIS supposed to happen? You need signatures, lots of them, to get a referendum on the ballot. Then the Election Commission has to certify the signatures and, if there are enough valid ones, schedule a referendum election. Lowery has only another three months in office as Pro Tem mayor. Preparing a referendum to take his power away makes no fucking sense. Excuse my French.

But then again, nothing Herenton has done in the past few weeks has made any fucking sense. He’s been caroming and bouncing like a pinball, making outrageous statements (“Steve Cohen is an asshole”), announcing one thing, then doing just the opposite. Resigning, not resigning, etc. etc. etc. He’s floundering, lost, blustering and staggering like, well, a punch-drunk fighter that’s taken one too many blows to his noggin.

Call me a crazy optimist, but I think Herenton may have finally stepped off the curb this time. I don’t think he can win back the mayor’s office. He doesn’t look like a tough man of the streets anymore. He looks like an unstable nut, an ego-tripping old man with delusions of glory. He’s the mayoral equivalent of George Foreman. He can jump back into the ring, but nobody’s scared any more. Many of his former business allies have gone to County Mayor AC Wharton, never to return. And Wharton appears more and more to be the safe and stable candidate, one that middle-class and upscale whites and blacks will feel most comfortable with, and the kind of candidate people will look to to end the “drama.” In fact, I ran into a couple of Wharton advisers at lunch the other day. When I asked them how things were looking, they both smiled big Cheshire grins and said, “The polling is very, VERY positive.” Which is the political equivalent of saying “Our man’s got this in the bag.”

That was pre-Willie’s reentry, of course, and you have to discount for some spin from Wharton advisers, but I don’t think Herenton’s voter base overlaps much with Wharton’s. Sure, Willie will keep most of his core supporters (though I think Kenneth Whalum and Jerry Lawler will pick off some), but that core won’t be enough to win. Carol Chumney and Lowery, in my mind anyway, are just fooling themselves. They pull from the same pool as Wharton and can only advance if Wharton does something scandalous or stupid. If anything, Herenton’s reentry solidifies Wharton’s chances. Herenton doesn’t realize just how many “haters” he has, people who will do anything — or vote for anybody — to keep him out of City Hall. In the last mayoral election, the electorate was triangulated, with people literally waiting for the final polling before making a decision, trying to decide which candidate, Chumney or Herman Morris, had the best chance to unseat Herenton. There are too many variables, too many candidates, this time around. And Herenton’s burned a lot more bridges.

I believe AC’s sidemen: He’s got it in the bag.

That’s my armchair take, at any rate. For more professional and informed opinion, read Jackson Baker.

I love Google Street View, but I never really figured out how they did it — how you turn your cursor in any direction, even overhead, and still get a picture. Now I know: That nine-camera pod pictured here.

Today, I discovered a great website, where an artist named John Rafman has compiled Google Street images from around the globe. It’s a fascinating collection, as much a social commentary as it is global voyeurism. Check it out here.

And to whet your interest, here are a few samples:

So I spent last week with my wife and 12-year-old stepson, Roman, vacationing in Grayton Beach, Florida. Rented a little house, three bikes, and a kayak, and turned off the outside world for seven days. Sort of.

On the beach, as in many other places, people are creatures of habit. You find a spot on the first day — in our case, near the state park boundary — and you return to the same place each morning. So it was that I started noticing a cast of regulars. There was puka-boy and his girlfriend, a pair of leather-tanned teens who ambled past every morning, holding hands. The girl’s parents occupied the umbrella settlement a few yards to the west of ours. Then there was pink-bikini-smoking-lady, who went through a pack of Marlboro Lights each day while tanning the the 97 percent of her flesh left exposed by her tiny, bright fuscia swimsuit. And there was the couple from Atlanta — let’s call them Bill and Ginny. We even got semi-social with them, since they plopped down near us each day.

I met Bill when he asked about my fishing luck when I returned to the beach in the kayak one morning. “A few skipjack,” I said. “No big ones.” We chatted amiably. Yes, I’m from Memphis, I said. He said they were from Atlanta, etc. etc. The smallest of small-talk. Later, Bill came back after chatting with Roman in the surf. “I’m really impressed with Roman,” he said. “What a bright kid.” Thanks, we said. What a nice guy, we thought. We didn’t have long conversations, but we shared pleasantries with Bill and Ginny off and on throughout the day.

On the third day, Bill and Ginny were joined by another couple from Atlanta. After saying hello and being introduced, my wife and I turned back to our novels. Then we listened, amazed, as our lovely beach-pals and their friends proceeded to turn into monsters. Well, not monsters, really, but right-wing whackjobs, at least. They discussed how Obama was born in Kenya and how the new healthcare plan will kill grandma and make them pay for healthcare for people who were too lazy to get a job. They enjoyed Sarah Palin’s wit (seriously!) and thought Glen Beck was “telling it like it is.” I should mention they were sitting to our right, but a lot farther in that direction than we thought, apparently.

But hey, we were on vacation. We stayed friendly with Bill and Ginny for the rest of the week, and had several more nice, chatty exchanges, and thankfully, politics never came up. I’m sure they would have been as shocked to learn our views as we were to learn theirs. But we didn’t go there. Like I said, we were on vacation.

After the recent MLB All-Star game, Fox host Sean Hannity did a “closer look” at “Presidential Pitching” form (Hat tip to Hoffmania.com) on his evening tripefest. As with almost everything on Hannity’s show, the segment’s primary aim was to disparage President Obama. On this occasion, Hannity made great sport of the fact that Obama “throws like a girl.” To “prove” his point, Hannity flashed this image:

Ha, ha. See? Then, Hannity went on to show visually how the very manly George W. Bush, in contrast, pitched just like a major leaguer:

Hannity, probably rightfully, assumes his viewers will neither notice or care that the photos are taken a) at different stages of the pitch, and b) from completely different angles.

If you compare apples to apples, or in this case, prez to prez, George W. Bush also “throws like a girl.”

Actually, as anyone knows who’s ever seen pictures of major league pitchers in mid-throw, the elbow always precedes the hand as the arm passes the pitcher’s head. So here’s Hall of Famer Roger Clemens pitching like a girl.

What this really demonstrates, of course, is the obvious — that Sean Hannity has no integrity whatsoever — and no balls.

So I went to check out Justin Timberlake’s new golf course, Mirimichi, on Friday, which was media day. JT was there, of course, and made a brief welcoming speech. His parents, Paul and Lynn Harless, run the place, which is similar to the old Big Creek golf course only in the sense that it roughly follows the former layout. The fairways have been narrowed by plots of long grasses and bordering water hazards. The greens are slick and perfect, with lots of tricky undulations and surrounding traps. It’s a very tough track. Whether or not the average hacker is going to want to mess around in the tall grass looking for errant shots is anyone’s guess. I’ll give the lad and his parents big ups for ambition. It’s a potential world-class golf facility. Here’s hoping they can bring golfy back to Millington.

Members of the media got to play a round, and judging from the number of folks I saw chopping out of the deep stuff, it’s probably safe to say the course got the better of most of them. On the signature hole, number 11, a beautiful par 3 set next to a waterfall and fronted by a large pond, JT himself teed off with each group. He was briskly cordial, not particularly warm and friendly, which is probably par for the course (heh) for any mega-celeb who’s been in the public eye from childhood. He is obviously proud of the course.

For the record, he “choked down on a 7 iron” for the 165-yard shot. His swing is quick and strong. His form is solid. The forecaddy on the green said Timberlake had birdied the hole almost every time he’d played it on Friday. Not so, with our group. He hit it right of the green and it bounced into the drink. I did the same thing, for the record. So we’ve got that in common.

Seventh-District Representative Marsha Blackburn recently opened her mouth and offered this pearl of wisdom. Not a good week for local Repubs.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

One for the blooper reel: New Orleanians have had to respond to so many uninformed comments about Hurricane Katrina and our recovery that at times we’ve felt like we’re swatting mosquitoes. But almost four years after the storm we should be done with that kind of stuff, right? Apparently not.

Congressional Quarterly quoted a pearl from U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, who was arguing for stricter pay-as-you-go rules. Rep. Blackburn hoped lawmakers would agree “that we’re not going to cry ’emergency’ every time we have a Katrina, every time we have a tsunami, every time we have a need for extra spending,” CQ reported Wednesday.

The appropriate reply came from Rep. Michael Arcuri, of New York: “If Katrina was not an emergency, and did not merit emergency spending, then I cannot in my wildest imagination [say] what would.”

‘Nuff said.

Finding hypocrisy in politics — on either side — isn’t difficult, but it’s seldom been easier to point out than in the recent case of U.S. Army Major Stephen Cook. Cook, as you probably know, has refused orders to redeploy to Afghanistan because he believes President Obama was born in Kenya. That would mean Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen and unqualified to be president. Cook believes he doesn’t have to obey orders from a faux Commander in Chief. Cook is what’s come to be called a “birther.”

Nevermind that Obama’s birth certificate was certified as genuine by the state of Hawaii or that his birth notice was in the local paper at the time of his birth — in Birther World, Obama has not proven he was born in the U.S. Of course, they offer no proof to support their counter-claims, just innuendo and repeated rumors.

It’s pretty nuts, but that’s okay. There have always been loonies and conspiracy theorists among us. It’s a proud American tradition. Not much anyone can do about it. What bugs me, though, is, as I said, the hypocrisy. When some U.S. soldiers advocated withdrawal from Iraq a couple years back, Rush Limbaugh labeled them “phony soldiers.” Fox News pundits, including Ann Coulter, called them “traitors.” When decorated war veteran Rep. John Murtha raised objections to the Iraq war, Coulter said he should be fragged. Now, Cook is refusing deployment to a war zone. Surely, that’s a phony soldier’s traitorous act, worthy of fragging, right?

Nope. Instead, Fox News has been posting at least one “birther” story every day. (The latest featured an accompanying picture of Obama in native Kenya garb, taken during trip to Africa a few years back.) Cook is treated as a noble patriot, standing up for what he believes in. Apparently, the suits at Fox believe that the more credence they can lend to this phony birther story, the better their viewers will like it. As I said, there have always been nuts and conspiracy theorists among us — they just never had their own “news” network before.

So yeah, I’ve been slowly lured into the sticky briarpatch of Twitter lately. And to make it even worse, colleague Chris Davis introduced me to Tweetdeck, an application that quintuples (at least) the fun. You can set up search boxes that let you know whenever anyone Twitters about a subject you’re interested in (like yourself, or in my case, my son’s band, The Memphis Flyer, etc.). It’s nuts and a constant diversion if you don’t turn it off once in awhile.

For the past two days, Davis has gotten involved in Twitterfests with subject lines such as: Bad Game Shows, Icky Reality Shows, Failed Westerns, etc. The idea is to come up with titles, i.e. Bad Game Shows: The Newly Dead Game, Wheel of Misfortune, The Bong Show, and — my favorite — Pittsburgh Squares.

Failed Westerns (many of these are from Davis) included: The Magnificent Number Two, A Fistful of Deloris, The Cavity Searchers, and Big Hand for the Little Labia.

Failed Reality Shows: The Real Houseflies of Orange County, SuperTranny, The Real World: Calcutta, America’s Next Top, etc. etc. etc.

It’s impossible to stop once you get started. So I hope you have nothing else to do this weekend. Send along your own and join the fun.

You may have seen the story we posted earlier today about the likely prospect that The Commercial Appeal is going to outsource its printing to a press in Tupelo, Mississippi. The suits over at 495 Union may have all the logistics of this move figured out, but as the editor of a paper that prints on Tuesday nights in Jackson, Tennessee, I know a little about the logistics of getting papers delivered from out of town. And sometimes, it’s a bitch.

When I pull into the Flyer lot on Wednesday morning, the first thing I do is look at the dock to see if the papers have arrived. Usually they’re stacked on skids in shiny plastic wrap, waiting to be tossed into delivery vehicles. But at least 10 or 12 times a year, the dock will be empty. When this happens, it’s usually press problems, sometimes bad weather, and sometimes mechanical trouble with the truck. Almost always, we have papers by mid- to late-morning and the drivers then come in and schlep the bundles off to Huey’s, Schnuck’s, Starbucks, and wherever else your favorite weekly paper is distributed.

But nobody expects the Flyer to be waiting on their front steps at 6:30 every morning. And Tupelo is farther away than Jackson. Seems to me, the press run would have to be over by no later than 3:00 a.m. to allow time for the papers to be loaded on trucks, make a two-hour drive, be unloaded, stuffed into bags by drivers and distributed all over town. Adding two or more hours to the production process is a gamble, in my humble (and mostly speculative) opinion. If my CA isn’t on my front lawn in time for me to read it with my morning coffee, it becomes useless to me. Maybe deadlines will be moved up.

Like I said, it’s only speculation. Take it for what it’s worth.