Tag: At Large

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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.

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At Large Opinion

Blood Simple

Photo: @itspastorcris on X

This is a story about nazis, the rock group Paramore, a folk singer, and the GOP members of the Tennessee State House. Bear with me. It all comes together in the end.

First, the nazis: Last Saturday afternoon, a group of 30 or so white men demonstrated on the grounds of the state capitol in Nashville. They carried nazi flags, wore face masks (naturally), and red T-shirts proclaiming that they were members of a group called “Blood Tribe.” They then walked in loose formation down Broadway, along sidewalks filled with tourists.

The march was videoed by dozens of people, including by one brave stalwart who walked alongside the group, screaming, “Cowards!! Cowards!! Show your faces!!” They didn’t because — duh — they’re cowards. That video was posted on X and went viral.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, Blood Tribe members exalt Hitler as a deity, a reincarnation of the Norse god Wotan. They are “a hard-core white supremacist group, that sees themselves as the last remaining bulwark against enemies of the white race and the only path to a white ethno-state.” Blood Tribe members “emphasize hyper-masculinity,” and the group does not allow female members.

Here’s my favorite part: Once accepted into the Blood Tribe, “members take part in an initiation ceremony during which they cut themselves using the group’s ceremonial spear and then rub their blood on the shaft of the spear.” Uh huh.

Also possibly notable is the fact that the group’s first public demonstration was in March 2023, when they protested a drag queen story hour in Wadsworth, Ohio. According to news reports, attendees “wore matching red sweaters, waved swastika flags, and held a banner that read, ‘There will be blood.’” No word on whether their shoes matched their outfits.

But there’s really nothing funny about nazis, no matter how un-self-aware they are, unless hyper-toxic masculinity and ignorant racism amuse you. These guys are evil thugs, even if they are afraid to show their faces.

Among many others catching the nazis on phone video last Saturday were state Representative Justin Pearson of Memphis and state Representative Justin Jones of Nashville — the two Black members of the “Tennessee Three” who were excommunicated from the state legislature last summer for advocating for gun reform in the House chamber. Pearson and Jones (who were reinstated by special elections) both denounced the Blood Tribe march and referenced their GOP colleagues in their X posts about the group.

Jones said: “This is exactly what my Republican colleagues’ hate speech is fostering and inviting.” Pearson said: “Tragically, [the Blood Tribe’s] views are shared by many who I serve alongside on the other side of the aisle.”

Too harsh, you say? This is where Paramore and the folk singer come in. The Nashville-based rock band won Grammys for Best Rock Album and Best Alternative Music Performance. The folksinger, also from Nashville, was Allison Russell, who won a Grammy for Best American Roots Performance. Jones made what is typically a perfunctory consent calendar resolution — noncontroversial motions that the legislature passes en masse — to honor both artists for their awards.

But, oops. Nope. GOP House Speaker Jeremy Faison removed the resolution honoring Russell from the consent calendar, saying he had been approached by other GOP members with questions about Russell “which made it appropriate for us to press pause on that particular resolution.”

What questions? He couldn’t say. Here’s a guess: Russell is Black. The members of Paramore are white. The GOP reps decided to “press pause” on the Black woman because as they have shown time and time again, they are country-ass, cousin-humpin’ racist tools. In a real democracy, you could put that resolution on the consent calendar and take it to the bank.

Too harsh? I’m pretty sure Faison doesn’t like it when people bring up the 2022 incident in which he ran onto a basketball court during a game (between two “Christian” academies, no less) and attempted to “de-pants a referee” because he disagreed with a call. Probably should have pressed pause on that move, Jeremy.

To their credit, the lead singer of Paramore said the group would decline the “honor” from the legislature unless Russell was also honored. Oh, and if you’re still wondering about that “press pause” business? Last year, Russell criticized GOP legislators for enacting legislation targeting LGBTQ rights and banning drag shows.

Huh. How did we nazi that one coming?

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At Large Opinion

Same Old Tune

Congressman David Kustoff (Photo: Congressman David Kustoff Via X)

“Okay, so tell me, who makes laws in the United States? … That’s right, Congress. … Who was Thomas Jefferson? … The third president, and he wrote the Declaration of Independence, correct. … Who is one of your U.S. senators? … Marsha Blackburn, yes, that’s right. … I can tell you’re ready. You’re not going to have any problems with this test.”

I was listening to my wife in the other room. She’s an immigration attorney and was talking on the phone to a client who was going to take his citizenship test the following Monday. He’d jumped through lots of bureaucratic hoops, filled out lots of forms, and waited several years for his chance to become an American and he wasn’t going to blow it. It was inspiring, especially given the level of disinformation about immigration being spread by members of the Republican Party.

Here’s some legitimate information: In 1850, immigrants made up 11 percent of the U.S. population. In 2021, they made up 13 percent of the population. Ooh, facts! Scary! Here are some more scary facts from a March 2023 report by the Migration Policy Institute: The population of Tennessee is roughly 6.6 million people, of which 370,000 are foreign-born, or 5.3 percent. Of that number, 175,000 were born in Latin America, meaning the “threat from the Southern border” currently comprises 2.5 percent of Tennessee’s population. I don’t know about you, but I’m terrified.

Those 175,000 people are a threat to open restaurants, do construction work, start lawn care companies and auto repair shops, work in our offices, and send their children to our schools — where they may even become lawyers! They are a threat to contribute to our economy! They must be stopped!

When Donald Trump began his campaign for the presidency in 2015 at Trump Tower, the first comments out of his mouth were racist: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us [sic]. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

Now it’s almost nine years later, and he hasn’t changed his tune, and most Republicans are still singing along. Blackburn and Eighth District Congressman David Kustoff constantly use their bully pulpits (and X accounts) to spread fear and misinformation about the “threat at our southern border” — a threat that has not adversely impacted their constituents’ lives to any noticeable degree. It’s not surprising to anyone who’s followed the political careers of these two cosplayers. Like most Republicans, they live to get airtime with Laura Ingraham or the other Fox hosts. It’s all they’ve got. They lack the courage of Mitt Romney and other Republicans who understand that Trump and his ignorant, dying MAGA herd are dragging the party into irrelevance.

The people trying to enter this country at our southern border are fleeing poor economic and/or socioeconomic conditions in their homeland. They are mostly impoverished and desperate. They are here hoping to make a life for themselves and their families. They aren’t taking over. They aren’t “poisoning the blood of our country.” They are human beings who don’t deserve to be shoved back into a river to die in order to get some asshole an appearance on Fox News.

There was an astonishing report that came out last week from the Inspector General of the Department of Defense. I urge you to read it. It will blow your mind. The report’s purpose was “to determine the extent to which the DoD implemented appropriate controls for executive medicine services in the DoD’s National Capital Region.”

In English, that means they were looking at pharmacy policies at the White House under Trump. The report showed that drugs were being given to White House staffers without prescriptions or any records as to who was getting them — including such Schedule II controlled substances as fentanyl, ketamine, Provigil, Oxycodone, and morphine.

Quote: “We found that the White House Medical Unit provided a wide range of healthcare and pharmaceutical services to ineligible White House staff in violation of Federal law and DoD policy. Additionally, the White House Medical Unit dispensed prescription medications, including controlled substances, to ineligible White House staff.” An example: From 2017 to 2019, the White House went through 4,100 doses of Provigil (an amphetamine) at a cost of $98,000. That’s a lot of speed, amigo.

It’s ironic that this report came out in the same week Trump was found guilty of defaming E. Jean Carroll, the woman he’d previously been found guilty of raping. It’s almost like at Trump’s White House they were bringing drugs, they were bringing crime, and they were rapists.

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At Large Opinion

Tribes

Photo: Helena Bilkova | Dreamstime.com

How many tribes do you belong to? Republican? Queer? Wine connoisseur? Grizzlies fan? Gun collector? UM alum? Dog lover? Catholic? Environmentalist? MAGA? Memphian? Midtowner? It’s conceivable that you could belong to all of those tribes. Very unlikely, but conceivable.

Sociology defines a tribe as a “volunteer social division of people with a mutual sense of belonging, loyalty, security, and shared life experiences.” Throughout most of human history, tribes were shaped by geographic proximity: immediate family, relatives, neighbors, residents of the same village or town or shire. Tribal bonds were built by facing life together with those who lived around us, for better or worse: births, deaths, a bountiful harvest, a plague, storms, fires, fights with other tribes.

Our tribes have traditionally provided us with a sense of belonging and personal security — the comfort of knowing we weren’t going through life alone, that others had our back. As humans’ ability to travel more broadly and communicate more easily with those beyond their home tribes grew, tribes became bigger, more amorphous, less localized. Tribes kept growing. They eventually got formal borders and became countries. We’re all in the American tribe now, kemo sabe.

But the advent of social media over the past two decades has provoked a profound sea change in how we see each other and how we relate to each other — our intrinsic affinity for tribalism has been sliced and diced and manipulated. Here’s an example of what I mean: Let’s say your high school class is about to have its 25th reunion. At your 10th reunion, you probably didn’t think once about your long-unseen classmates’ political leanings. And that’s mainly because you didn’t know what they believed and you didn’t care. You just went to the reunion, schmoozed, shared stories with that weird guy from your gym class, and went home.

Now? Not so much. Because of Facebook, you probably know exactly which of your classmates are members of the MAGA tribe and which ones belong to the progressive tribe — two groups that disagree on abortion, guns, immigration, race, Trump, Biden, and who knows what else. This political tribalism has made it much more difficult for folks to look forward to a jolly reunion of the “We Went to the Same High School” tribe. There are going to be people there you have no interest in seeing or talking to because you’ve seen their social media self-branding, and it’s likely you’ve already been communicating with the people from school that you like, anyway.

How did it happen so quickly? Money. Our ideological disagreements have been exploited and exacerbated to generate engagement, which generates advertising sales. We are what we read and what we view. When you click on a Facebook ad for, say, eyeglasses, your social media streams across any number of platforms are soon flooded with ads for eyewear. The marketing algorithms have signed you up for membership in the “I’m Interested in New Glasses” tribe, whether you want to be in it or not.

It’s the same for politics. We all click on links that confirm our biases, which in turn causes the algorithms to feed us more of what we like, which reinforces and solidifies our beliefs. I read a lot about how Trump is a complete sleaze-ball who is rightfully charged with numerous felonies, who cheated on his wives, who lies like he breathes, who used his office to grift millions of dollars, and who provoked an insurrection to keep himself in office despite losing an election by eight million votes. I’m in the “Trump Is a Crook and a Danger to American Democracy” tribe and I’m not particularly interested in hanging out with people who click on links about how President Biden is senile, the economy sucks, Trump won the last election, Democrats are pedophiles, and abortion is murder — the “Biden Is a Creepy Old Guy Who Shouldn’t Be President” tribe.

And that’s a problem. A group of people with a diversity of beliefs, skills, aptitudes, races, and religions living under a big tent makes for a strong tribe. Social media works against this by herding us into groups with others who “like” the same things we do, and makes it easy to shield ourselves from those who disagree with us. We snipe at each other. Block. Mute. It’s an environment where polarization and disinformation thrive. It’s an environment that divides human beings into two hard-headed tribes: Us vs. Them. We need to do better. 

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At Large Opinion

Old Times

Olive, a good dog (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

Highway 64 runs straight as a Pentecostal preacher, aimed at the shadowy Ozark hills far across the flat belly of Arkansas. I hardly have to turn the steering wheel to stay in my lane. Cruise control is set on 65. It’s early morning and I can hear Olive softly snorting in her sleep on the passenger seat, legs restless and scritchy as she dreams of squirrels, just out of reach. Good dog.

Driving is a great time to think. I think about age a lot. I’m still learning how to be old. There’s all the usual stuff people talk about that happens to you: You walk into a room and forget why you were going there. You suddenly can’t remember the name of the drummer for Genesis or that ridiculously famous actor who starred in Pretty Woman. It drives you crazy and you refuse to google. Then you wake up to pee at 2:37 a.m. and it comes to you. Richard Gere, what a jerk. But he’s just another old guy now. Probably peeing somewhere in Bel Air.

You begin to notice how age is an invisibility cloak, unless maybe you’re Richard Gere. No one cares what clothes you wear or what kind of car you drive or how your hair looks. Store clerks and waitresses call you “sweetie,” like you’re 6. They offer to carry your wine out to the car at the liquor store. Punks.

It strikes you how blithely younger people assume the years ahead are guaranteed. My young neighbor says of her toddlers: “I can’t wait to see what they’ll be like as teenagers.” A TV analyst discusses possibilities for the 2028 presidential election — five years away — like it’s tomorrow. Yeah, well, you think, I might not be around for that stuff. It’s entirely unavoidable, and no one does it meaning to be cruel but, you know, age rings some new bells. You might think twice about getting a pet that could outlive you.

And lots of things have a potential to become a “lifetime supply” — a box of 100 plastic 30-gallon trash bags, a 24-roll package of jumbo paper towels. Shopping at Costco is for optimists, I say to my wife. She laughs. Or she used to. Even my jokes are old.

I have a friend in his early 80s. He’s bought three cool cars in the past 10 years, each on the excuse that it would be his “last car.” That’s the way to game the system. Also, shout-out to the admissions guy at the Children’s Museum last Saturday for questioning whether I was eligible for the senior discount. You rock.

When do we move from “late middle-age” to “early old”? When do we stop being surprised by our reflection in a store window? Is that wrinkly face really mine? I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise every time, so far.

One thing I do know is that how you may feel at 70 can be a lot different than how someone else may feel. The number of years we’ve lived is an odometer, not a watch. Some of us are Volvos, some of us are Kias. Your mileage may vary. As will your number of trips to the repair shop. The writer Penelope Lively wrote, “chronology bores me,” as well it should. Burn the days. They’ll spill into years soon enough.

People give you books: Better With Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging; The End of Old Age: Living a Longer, More Purposeful Life; Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age. They can’t hurt, I suppose, though reading the subtitles can eat up valuable days.

You can also get lots of books on how to stay healthy. Don’t buy them. They all say the same thing: Exercise, eat a balanced diet, stay mentally active, socialize often. Good advice. It also helps if you have longevity in your genes. Just ask my 99-year-old mother.

And I think driving with your dog to a trout stream in Arkansas is a great way to stay young. You wade in, you think and you don’t think, you’re in the mist, in the moment. Alive. And tonight, I’ll softly snort in my sleep, my legs restless and scritchy as I dream of trout, just out of reach. Good boy.

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At Large Opinion

Twelve Months At Large

The Tennessee Three — Gloria Johnson, Justin Pearson, and Justin Jones (Photo: John Partipilo | Tennessee Lookout)

In my first column of 2023, I wrote about the most traumatic Christmas I’ve ever experienced, one in which I was gifted with a cancer diagnosis and the daunting prospect of back surgery and chemotherapy to try and get rid of it. Merry effing Christmas, indeed. It all seems kind of like a bad dream now. And I suppose it was.

Anyway, I was determined to keep writing, to maintain some semblance of normalcy, even as I lost 30 pounds, my hair, and my ability to walk without assistance. But typing wasn’t hard, so on things went.

In January, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had not yet become a high-heeled boot-wearing, tongue-twitching laughingstock, but you could see it coming. The dude was pushing “don’t say gay” bills, banning school books, bashing drag queens, prohibiting AP classes from teaching African-American history, and finally and most ludicrously, fighting against a mythical liberal ban on gas stoves. All this shit was “woke,” y’all, and Ronnie wasn’t having any of it because he was fronting a run for president and being against woke was his entire platform. Oops.

January was also the month Memphis got pushed into the national spotlight when the brutal beating death of Tyre Nichols was revealed. Video from a nearby pole-mounted police camera showed five officers mercilessly beating Nichols with batons, face-kicks, and brutal punches to his head for more than three minutes. Nichols was then left on the ground for nearly a half-hour as his assailants stood around discussing possible alibis, ignoring him. Three days later, Nichols died from his injuries at St. Francis Hospital. A nation was outraged. Memphis responded with the dignity requested by Nichols’ family, but the scar still lingers, and the trials are ongoing.

We needed a break, and February provided one. Remember “Balloon-gate,” when a nefarious Chinese balloon slowly crossed the country, serving as a high-altitude Rorschach test for the body politic. Republicans and Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity were all clamoring for President Biden to shoot it down immediately. The thing was probably “woke.” Biden listened to his military experts and held fire until it was over the Atlantic, and plop it went into the ocean, and out of our memories.

After that fiasco, Memphis was ready for a fight, so I provoked one by writing about the ongoing struggle between Memphis in May (MIM) and Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP). Traffic on the Flyer website blew up and comments on social media got nasty. You were either on the side of the evil mastermind of MRPP, Carol Coletta, or you were in the pocket of those lying weasels at MIM, led by the nefarious Jim Holt. Memphis in May happened despite the brouhaha. The park got trashed. MRPP charged MIM lots of money for damages. MIM pulled next year’s events from the park, another music fest announced it was coming in, and people are still arguing. Meh.

In April, Tennessee Republicans decided to humiliate themselves on a national stage by kicking out state representatives Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson for protesting the GOP’s inaction on gun reform. The three instantly became household names, appearing on television networks, here and abroad, meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, and being invited to the White House to meet the president. To those Republicans responsible, I’d just like to take a moment to say: Nice job, you racist, gun-sucking assholes.

In late June, my cancer went into remission and I set about regrowing hair. Also, homophobic nut job Pat Robertson died and Donald Trump kept getting indicted. WTG, June!

The rest of the summer was relatively uneventful and I wrote amusingly and poignantly about golf, dogs, weather, my vacation, and fireworks.

In the fall, I penned a couple of sage and insightful columns about the race for Memphis mayor. Soon thereafter, I voted for the guy who came in fourth, so my stellar record as a political prognosticator remains intact. And then, just because I needed to divert attention from politics, I tossed off another column about Memphis in May, with predictable results. Half of the city thinks I’m an idiot and half thinks I’m a pretty smart guy. Which pretty much sums my year — and my career, for that matter. At any rate, I’m just happy to be here as we begin another spin around the sun. Happy New Year!

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At Large Opinion

Made Ya Look!

Heavy is the head that wears a cap. (Photo: Bruce VanWyngarden)

I’m normally not the kind of guy who likes to draw attention to myself or my politics in public. There are no candidate bumper stickers on my car. I don’t wear political T-shirts, unless it’s something like “Save the Aquifer.” I don’t put up yard signs for candidates, though my wife sometimes does.

I try to keep my professional life and my social interactions separate, but it doesn’t always work. Often, when I’m introduced, people will say something like, “Oh, the Flyer guy. Yeah, I read your column.” Then there’s often a moment of frisson as I wait to check the vibe. I got a bad vibe the other night at a restaurant in Regalia Shopping Center, when the person I was introduced to said, “Oh, yeah … You’ve got a lot of opinions, don’t you?”

Yes, I do. Pleasure meeting you. See ya. Bye.

Anyway, as I said, I try to avoid such situations. So I don’t know what on Earth I was thinking last Saturday when I decided to wear a red baseball cap to Fresh Market. It looks exactly like a Trump MAGA cap, but the text reads:

MADE YA LOOK

BLACK LIVES MATTER

It was a gag gift from my wife and it has hung from my desk lamp at home for months. I can’t tell you why I suddenly thought it was a good idea to wear it.

When I got to the store and started walking across the parking lot, I realized that anyone more than 20 feet away would just assume I was wearing a MAGA hat. The joke only worked if the jokee was facing me and close enough to read the text. Oops. Nonetheless, I persevered, while noting as I grabbed a shopping cart, that the damn hat and people’s possible reactions to it was all I was thinking about.

First stop was at the berries display to pick up my weekly ration of blueberries. There was a Black guy putting out fresh plastic tubs, stacking them neatly. I saw his head jerk my way as he noticed my hat. I stared nonchalantly down at the produce, hoping the dude was reading my hat. He was.

“I like that hat,” he said, laughing. “You had me for a minute.”

“Oh yeah, this hat? Ha ha. It always gets a reaction,” I said, shamelessly. Ha ha. Phew.

I drew a couple of looks from people in the produce section, but no one was close enough to get the joke, so I was either just another dumb-ass Trumper or a fellow patriot, depending on their politics.

At the deli counter, I studied the array of roast chickens, head lowered, as if deep in concentration. The woman behind the counter made no comment. As I pointed at my selection, she handed it to me with an inscrutable smile and said, “Have a great day.” Bupkis.

It was then that I realized the stupid hat was wearing me, instead of the other way around. I might as well have been wearing a white Klan hood with “JUST KKKIDDING” on the forehead. Or a Confederate T-shirt with “I’M A LOSER” on the back. Some things just aren’t funny, even ironically. The MAGA hat has become too loaded with political baggage to be amusing any longer.

I took off the hat and stuffed it in one of my reusable shopping bags in the bottom of the cart. Which is ironic at some level, I suppose.

That evening, being on my own for the weekend, I went to Boscos in Overton Square for dinner. I like to sit at the cozy little bar, and I like their steak sandwiches. As soon as I sat down, I realized I’d seated myself in a combat zone. The Black woman to my left was arguing with a white guy across from her about Trump. “He emboldened people to be racist,” she said. “I can’t stand the man.”

“He did a lot of good things for the country,” the man said.

And so it went for a few minutes. I managed to get my order in, as the bartender rolled his eyes apologetically. Then I watched, unbelieving, as the two protagonists stared at each other silently for a moment, then walked around the bar and hugged. I wish I’d had my hat.

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At Large Opinion

Preacher of the House

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Photo: United States Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

After three weeks of turmoil, the Republicans in Congress finally picked a speaker of the house last week. His name is Mike Johnson. He’s from Shreveport, Louisiana, and you could be forgiven if you’d never heard of him. He’s only been in Congress seven years, and his political views are, well, concerning. When asked how he would approach the issues of the day, Johnson responded, “Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.”

At first, I took this as possible good news. After all, the Bible commands that we love our neighbor, care for the poor, welcome refugees, judge not lest ye be judged, and treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated — all good ideas. Looks like there might be some changes in the GOP platform, I thought.

Turns out, not so much. Johnson’s Bible is nothing if not flexible. When asked about last week’s mass shooting in Maine, for example, Johnson’s governing philosophy was put to an immediate test, since, you know, nobody was packing heat in Biblical times.

Johnson said it was not the right time to consider legislation. “The problem is the human heart,” he said. “It’s not guns, it’s not the weapons. We have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves.” In other words, forget that Jesus-y “turn the other cheek” stuff. Lock ’n load, pilgrims.

On climate change, Johnson will likely be the most vocal climate-change denier to ever hold the speakership. He received a 100 percent rating from the pro-fossil fuel American Energy Alliance in 2022. As, no doubt, Jesus would have.

Johnson worked for years as an attorney for the Christian nationalist organization, Alliance Defense Fund, fighting to ban abortion and gay rights. He called the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade a “great, joyous occasion,” and favors a nationwide ban on abortion. As for LGBTQ rights? “States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual intercourse,” Johnson says, “including concerns for public health, safety, morals, and the promotion of healthy marriages.”

At this point, it won’t surprise you to learn that Johnson was one of the principal congressional leaders in Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and an enthusiastic promoter of the absurd legal theories used by Trump’s “legal team.”

In sum, Johnson is a boiler-plate, right-wing Republican who checks all the boxes: evangelical nationalist, anti-abortion, anti-climate change, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-gun reform, pro-cutting Social Security and Medicare, and a pro-Trump election denier. The vote to elevate him to the speakership, a position two heartbeats from the presidency, was unanimous among his fellow GOP congressmen. So much for the myth of “moderate” Republicans.

The guy is a loon. And I haven’t even gotten to the weird stuff yet.

When asked why his wife, Kelly, didn’t come to Washington, D.C., to witness his swearing-in, Johnson said, and I quote: “She’s spent the last couple of weeks on her knees in prayer to the Lord. And, um, she’s a little worn out.”

I can’t even begin to parse that. Why would she pray for two weeks prior to Johnson’s election, which took less than one day? What kind of Jeebus weirdness is this? Even Monica Lewinsky couldn’t figure it out, tweeting in response (and I’m not making this up): “Not touching this.”

Johnson and his wife are in a “covenant marriage,” a Christian construct which makes divorce exceedingly difficult. It’s an institution beloved by misogynists, er, evangelical men, because it makes it nearly impossible for a woman to leave a marriage if she’s not financially independent.

And Johnson’s finances are yet another point of intrigue. From Vanity Fair: “In financial disclosures dating back to 2016, the year he joined Congress, Johnson never reported having a savings or checking account in his name, his spouse’s name, or in the name of any of his children. In his latest filing, which covers last year, he doesn’t list a single asset.” So how is that even possible? How does he pay bills?

And it gets weirder. In the late 1990s, when Johnson was in his mid-twenties, he “took custody” of a 11-year-old Black kid. When he and his wife got married in 1999, they claim to have “taken in” the teen as their own child. The teen doesn’t appear in any of the wedding pictures or current Johnson family pictures that have been released to the media. He is said to be living in California with children of his own. It’s undeniably strange. Johnson has likened the relationship to the one in the movie, The Blind Side. Okay. More to come, I suspect.

Johnson and his wife deleted the 69 (heh) episodes of their fundamentalist podcast within 24 hours of his winning the speakership, but they’ve been archived by an activist group and are reported to be very controversial. I’m not in the prediction business (well, maybe I am), but I’m guessing Mike Johnson will come to rue the day when the national media began to take his personal history off the shelf and read it.

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At Large Opinion

A September Morning

Nearly 3000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks. (Photo: Kentannenbaum | Dreamstime.com)

As the early sun climbed into a cloudless sky, the city went about its business as usual. At the Starbucks on Union, a line of commuters waited for their tall cappuccinos. Joggers were jogging, cyclists were biking. Birds were singing high in the grand oaks of Midtown. Memphis was beginning a September Tuesday, and a beautiful one it was.

And then we started hearing the news, the horrible, unbelievable news that transfixed the country and forever altered the course of American history. It began with a kaleidoscope of images and speculative reporting. A plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Was it a terrible accident or terrorism? Nobody knew. Stay tuned. We’ll have more as the story develops. Then, 18 minutes later, a second plane struck the other WTC tower and the intentional nature of the attacks became apparent.

We’d barely begun to let the enormity of these events sink in, when we learned that yet another airliner had crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Then, we watched in stunned disbelief as the tallest buildings in New York City collapsed upon themselves, one after another, killing thousands in a slow-motion horror movie.

By the time we’d learned of a fourth plane crashing in the middle of Pennsylvania, it seemed the chaos and carnage might not end soon. Were there more attacks coming? What the hell was happening?

With each new revelation of death and destruction came a queasy fear, a growing sense of awareness that the United States was no longer a safe haven, isolated from the bloody but distant terrorism that plagued the rest of the world. We too were vulnerable — at the mercy of an evil that seemed too deep to comprehend, too much to take in on that sunny September morning.

We called friends and family, no matter where they were, seeking assurance that they were okay, seeking affirmation that they too had seen the news, had shared — were sharing — the nightmare on everyone’s television.

The events of September 11, 2001, became a Pearl Harbor moment for all of us old enough to experience and remember the day. Anyone who lived through it can tell you where they were when they got the news. I first heard about it in my car, on Drake & Zeke’s morning radio show. They were at first discussing the incident as though it might have been an accident, maybe a private plane? No one knew. Soon, I’d switched to a more news-oriented station, and by the time I got to the Flyer office 15 minutes later, everyone on staff had gathered around a television.

“So,” said one Flyer reporter, after an hour or so, “I guess we’re not gonna go with that ‘Nightlife in Memphis’ cover story for tomorrow.”

It really wasn’t meant to be funny, but it somehow broke the spell, reminding us that we had a job to do, and that that job had changed. We cobbled together a reaction story and somehow got the paper to the printer a day late. And “9/11” became a number that would be forever etched in our brains.

Now, it’s 22 years later. Most college students weren’t even born in 2001. They studied 9/11 in high school history classes, just as my generation studied World War II. I don’t remember ever getting emotional while reading about Pearl Harbor in my history books, and that’s because I didn’t live it. I didn’t feel it. It was no more real to me than the battle of Gettysburg.

My father’s generation lived it and felt it. My dad, a Navy man, drove around Hiroshima in a jeep not long after the atom bomb fell, a thing that seems insane and impossible, looking back on it. But I know it happened because I saw the square, brown-tinted photos of the city, his jeep, and his ship docked in Hiroshima harbor in a weathered scrapbook he kept in a drawer.

That generation is mostly gone now, along with their emotions and memories of Pearl Harbor and World War II. Most of you reading this carry the emotions and memories of living through 9/11, another day that will live in infamy. Don’t keep them stuck away in a drawer. Share. History does have a tendency to repeat itself.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Age Before Duty

A striking resemblance. (Photo: Barol16 | Dreamstime.com)

Did you see the latest Mitch McConnell moment last week? For the second time in recent weeks, the minority leader of the Senate just “froze,” seemingly unable to move or speak for almost 30 seconds after hearing a reporter’s question. An aide came forward, grasped his arm, and asked if he heard the question. McConnell mumbled, “Yes,” but continued to stand motionless for a bit longer.

The 81-year-old McConnell fell and suffered a concussion in March, and was subsequently away from his job for several weeks. The reoccurrence of a freeze moment renewed questions about his ability to continue to lead the Republicans in the Senate.

The New York Times interviewed two neurologists who viewed video of the incident and said it could have been a “mini-stroke” or “partial seizure.” A spokesperson for McConnell’s office did not share any further details about the incident, including whether or not the senator had seen a doctor. McConnell has continued to insist that he will run for reelection. Ironically, that was the very question that sent the senator into his second freeze.

There have been similarly troubling incidents with Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. Now 89, the senator missed 91 votes over the course of several months last winter and spring due to medical issues with shingles, facial paralysis, and encephalitis. She returned to the Senate in April, but appeared confused when questioned by reporters. “I haven’t been gone,” she said. “I’ve been here and voting.” Nope, sorry, Dianne. You’ve been gone. Feinstein, like McConnell, is insistent that she will finish her term, which ends in 2025.

If you watched or read any right-wing media, you’d quickly get the impression that President Joe Biden is in worse shape than either McConnell or Feinstein. There are countless memes and deceptively edited videos on social media and conservative cable channels that show the 80-year-old Biden as a gibbering, dementia-ridden geezer. Fox News hosts ride this horse on a daily basis: Biden is too mentally incompetent to be president. We can expect this drumbeat to only get louder as we enter the election year of 2024.

Judging from the unedited videos I’ve watched of Biden speaking in impromptu situations in recent weeks, he does not appear to be mentally impaired. He talks in complete sentences and seems to have a grasp on the issues he’s discussing. He misspeaks occasionally, but the man does have a lifelong stuttering problem. His probable opponent for the presidency, Donald Trump, is only two-and-a-half years younger and is himself no stranger to verbal gaffes.

For the record, I don’t think we’re sending our best people for this job. It’s like we have two old guys climbing rickety ladders to a third-story window and voters are hoping their guy doesn’t fall off first. I think the Democrats’ old guy is by far the saner choice, but making long-term plans with people at these candidates’ ages is fraught with peril. Just ask Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Oops. Sorry. Maybe ask Feinstein or McConnell? Oh, wait, never mind.

And don’t talk to me about the supposed third-party candidates. Robert Kennedy Jr.? Loon. Cornel West? Loon. Who else you got? Tulsi Gabbard? Loon. None of them have a chance to do anything other than possibly throw the election into chaos. And we already have a pretty good shot at that happening with just two candidates. 

Trump polls as the most-disliked politician in America, blathers like a narcissistic fool, and is built like a pierogi — not exactly the picture of mental or physical health. But his base doesn’t care what he says or does or looks like. Trump could freeze in the middle of Fifth Avenue for an hour and it wouldn’t matter.

Biden has good cases to make on the economy, unemployment, prescription drugs, infrastructure, abortion rights, LGBTQ issues, and the environment. His policies are in line with the majority of voters, according to most polls. But even so, all it will take is one McConnell-like moment for the president and the hounds of hell will be unleashed, the news filled with “Is Joe Biden too old?” stories. At that point, the Democrats can release all the Bikin’ Biden videos in the world and it won’t dispel the fact that he’s 80 and looks his age. It’s going to be an interesting year, I’m afraid.