Tag: nextdoorcom

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Tumbleweave Returns

Not the ‘baby’ in question, but ain’t she sweet?

It’s been a while since your Pesky Fly reported on Memphis’ rolling tumbleweave crisis. Then again, it’s been a while since the city has seen a Nextdoor exchange like this one.

Under the topic “Dead Animal,” someome writes “There is a dead animal in the middle of McLean before Central just wonder if this baby is anyone’s pet.”

Nah. Just somebody’s good hair having a bad day. 

Via: 

Tumbleweave Returns

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Survey Says … We Don’t Agree. About Anything.

Some of the “news” I was exposed to before 9 a.m. today:

An “urgent alert” post on Nextdoor.com that read, “I love my penis.”

A tweet that led me to a video link showing President Trump praising Kim Jong-un as one the “great leaders” of the world, and saying that he “loves his people.” (These would be the people he imprisons and murders, keeps impoverished, and denies basic human rights to, I suppose.)

A story in the print-version of The Commercial Appeal about the “grandma” who put her kids in a dog kennel in her car.

A link on Facebook to a story about the facilities in Texas where the separated children of (brown) asylum seekers are being kept in cages until they can be sent off to foster homes. America!

A CNN video of Dennis Rodman in Singapore wearing a MAGA hat and pitching a crypto-currency called PotCoin.

A Commercial Appeal email that sent me to a video of state Representive Reginald Tate talking to a Republican on a “hot mic” and saying his fellow Democrats were “full of shit.”

An NPR story about U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ latest ruling, one that categorically denies asylum to any (brown) woman who claims to be a victim of domestic violence.

Drake Hall playing “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones.

I also made two moves in Words With Friends on my iPhone.

I don’t think I’m particularly atypical. We are bombarded with “news content” from multiple sources these days. It seems unimaginable that just a decade ago, most of us woke up, made coffee, read the paper, and went to work, assuming we were reasonably well-informed.

Information now comes at us nonstop, a pupu platter of news, opinion, tragedy, nonsense, pathos, and propaganda. None of us get the same serving. All of us filter our information stream differently, picking and choosing what catches our fancy.

Is it any wonder we can’t agree about anything?

A survey conducted last week by the the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute found, unsurprisingly, that most Americans are unsatisfied with the current state of journalism and the news. Perhaps, surprisingly, three out of four journalists who were surveyed agreed with them. News creators and news consumers both want the news to be better, but for different reasons.

Journalists are feeling beleagured and threatened by the continued down-sizing of the newspaper industry, the dumbing down and politicizing of television news, and by the constant attacks on the media from the president, who denigrates any reporting he doesn’t like as “fake news.” The survey found that most journalists believe the public’s level of trust in news media has decreased in the past year. Forty-four percent of news consumers said it had.

Interestingly, the survey found that the public wants what most journalists say they want to deliver — stories that are factual and offer context and analysis — but 42 percent of those consumers who were surveyed said journalists too often strayed into non-objective commentary.

Here’s where it gets sticky. When newspapers ruled the Earth, readers pretty much knew what was news reporting and what was opinion. Newspapers had (and still have, for the most part) a clearly delineated “op-ed” section, where pundits unleash points of view about various subjects. It was easy to differentiate news reporting from opinion.

Now, not so much. Is that clip of Dennis Rodman news? Entertainment? A reality show gone rogue? Hell if I know. When that video of Trump and Kim gets posted to Facebook with a snarky comment from a friend, the video itself is ostensibly news, but the comment is opinion. The lines are blurred and getting blurrier. Most of the news we get via social media comes with an opinion attached. Too often, we react to the opinion rather than to the news itself.

Where do we go from here? I don’t know. But it’s worrisome that in a time when accurate, serious reporting has never been more important, most Americans can’t even agree on what it is.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Howdy, Neighbor!

I can see your little beady eyes through the blinds, neighbor. I was minding my own business, walking down the street and listening to my podcast — ironically, the episode is about the complexity of gentrification, the fact that there aren’t always clear-cut reasons for why urban displacement happens the way it does outside of those forces we already know are at play.

Why are you watching me so closely? Is it because my body and my skin make me a walking violation of the unspoken rules here? Are you worried that I’m going to rob you? Don’t. You don’t have anything I want. I love my life. I don’t want to have what you have or be a part of you or drive your car or eat your food. And I’m certainly not going to jeopardize my future over you and your insecurities.

But I’m irritated. Despite my innate status as a habitual line-stepper, I do follow the rules. Obsessively, even. I have created my own internal taxonomy of the unwritten rules, research spearheaded by my decades of necessary study of how you move through the world and the hateful current you leave in your wake. I clean up my trash; I leash my dogs; I don’t make too much noise. I am loud sometimes sure, but that’s just how I am sometimes. You’ll be all right. I hold the door and smile and stand up straight and don’t walk toward you too fast and jingle my keys or cough when it’s dark outside so that you know I’m coming and don’t accidentally call the police to have me arrested for the crime of breathing too close to where you’ve decided you want to be. All of this in 2017, a time when I’m more than justified in cursing you out for slights old and new. But I’m trying to be nice, stupid me.

And what’s really screwed up is that I don’t have time to worry about you. I have to worry about my city being the “bankruptcy capital of the U.S.” I have to worry about the Tennessee Historical Commission blocking us from removing the honorable racist general and his horse from our public parks. I have to wonder how my little brother is getting home from work and whether or not my dog can go another week without a bath and whether I’ve wasted $30 because I didn’t freeze the three pounds of catfish still sitting on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. I have to worry about whether or not Amazon or “public improvement projects” or any number of contentious developments are going to once again extract labor and time and pain from poor people here and use it to pad their pockets. I have a lot of worries, you see.

You’d think that black neighborhoods were cesspools of savagery, with broken-down cars and untended yards and robberies — all reasons why they deserve to be kept in disinvestment purgatory. But the folks in my previous neighborhood were calm and kind. They let my dogs run in their yard and pulled my trash can to the street if I forgot and let me borrow their jumper cables. They gave me spare change when I needed it and brought me back bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos from the corner store even when I didn’t ask them to. The way they looked at the space that we shared included me, saw me and my family for what I was in truth, not for what I represented based on their silly biases and lack of empathy.

You’re not good at sharing, which is what you’re supposed to do in spaces like this. You’re not good at sharing because you’ve been centered in everything since the beginning of this grand experiment, and this centering, all this attention paid to you is so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness and in our operation that you feel truly justified in the disgusting ways that you behave toward me in this space that we’ve both paid for access to. I don’t have room to be a bad neighbor, which sucks, because if I could I’d invite my thuggish rapper friends over and I’d pay them to jump up and down and spit fire verses over those dank beats y’all like to play in your Prius. But this would be in the middle of our shared street, and all of the other black people over here would dance around the glow of my rapper friends’ gold chains like it was a bonfire and we were casting a dark magic spell to banish you from our space.

But I’m not a bad neighbor, so I won’t do that. Instead I’ll continue to find joy in being better than you and making you so uncomfortable that you’d rather disappear than chance a meeting with me in the hallway. Oh, and my address has finally been confirmed on NextDoor.com, so be careful, because I’m lurking. The next time you make a frantic post about how scared you are because there are strange black men walking down the street like crazed gorillas, I’m gonna spam your posts with that picture where somebody photoshopped buttholes over Donald Trump’s eyeballs and mouth. In the meantime, I’m going to get to work on having my rapper friends come over to our part of town. It’s gonna take us a while to get this dark magic spell cast, and I want to make sure it’s done just right.
Troy L. Wiggins is a Memphis writer whose work has appeared in the Memphis Noir anthology, Make Memphis, and The Memphis Flyer.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Toby Sells’ post, “Bill Would Remove Hoover’s Name From FBI Building” …

Politicians should be focused on rewriting the future, not rewriting history.

JR Moody

Hey, who let Congressman Trey Gowdy in here?

Packrat

The name of the building should be changed. This man was a pure racist and shouldn’t be honored in this manner. If it’s history, put it in a book, not on display so an ever-changing world sees hate honored. Kudos to Representative Cohen and all who voted to end this madness.

Time Up

It is a mistake to vilify prominent gay Americans from the time before gay rights became acceptable to the mainstream. J. Edgar Hoover may not have been the most moral character in American history, but we can look back on him as a successful and powerful man who was gay and who demonstrated the falsehood of some things generally believed about gay people in that time, and some things that are said and written in this time.

It’s possible that Steve Cohen, being a straight liberal, doesn’t understand the desire of gay Americans to identify prominent (even if closeted) gay Americans in history.

Brunetto Latini

We vilify Hoover, not because he was closeted and needed to be, but because he did everything in his power to ruin the lives of gay people, closeted or not. Not because he was in the pocket of the Mafia, but because he attempted to derail civil rights for all Americans.

Hoover was a fascist lowlife who just happened to be gay.

Mia S. Kite

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Curb Alert” …

I got kicked off the Nextdoor.com site. What a bunch of uptight assholes. Absolutely no sense of humor. All I said was, “Dude, nobody wants your broken TV.” The guy was trying to sell a 50-inch broken TV for $250. For that they tossed me.

Mudgirl1

Wow, Mudgirl, I’ve never heard of anyone getting kicked off Nextdoor.com. I’m guessing my neighborhood needs to step up its game. We’re pretty snooty though, and for the most part we don’t have “curb alerts.” We do have the usual complement of paranoid “suspicious” persons alerts.

Back to topic: curb alert for the Ole Miss football season — Bwahahaha!

Jenna Sais Quoi

I am tired of Jeb Bush mouthing the falsehood that his brother kept us safe. Donald Trump has been wrong about so many things, but he is right that George W. Bush failed to keep the U. S. safe. Bush and his administration ignored warnings from the CIA and FBI of possible terrorist attacks before 9/11. He had the CIA report “Bin-Laden Determined to Strike in America” and took no actions to protect us. Not one. With the country and most of the world behind him, Bush could have focused on destroying al-Qaeda completely after 9/11.

Instead, he got us into an unnecessary war in Iraq and allowed al-Qaeda to grow stronger during his terms. Bush did not keep us safe, and Jeb Bush would be wise not to mention his brother’s name.

Philip Williams

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Memphis Makes a Change” …

Hypocrisy is another word  for dishonesty, and liberal is another word for dishonest. 

Reading The Memphis Flyer is like traveling to an alternate universe where up is down, especially when the editor decries and is “saddened” when former Mayor Herenton took “cheap shots” at A C Wharton, but mere moments before, took the cheapest of cheap shots at former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee. 

I am no fan of Mike Huckabee, but I am also no fan of the dishonest. You chose to use the word “Christian” as if it were a four-letter word, then had the unmitigated audacity to add “sleazeball?” And you call that being “progressive,” inclusive, open-minded, and tolerant? 

You and your liberal rag are the real sleazeballs. 

Frank M. Boone

Editor’s Note: The term used to describe Huckabee was “Christianist.”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Curb Alert

Do you know about Nextdoor.com? It’s a social media site that links you with your neighbors, providing an online forum for discussing common concerns: garage sales, lost and found pets, garbage and recycling, criminal activity, references for chimney sweeps and handymen, and curb alerts, where someone announces they’re putting, say, an old couch on the curb. First come, first served.

Last Sunday, the greatest curb alert of all time was posted on the Central Gardens Nextdoor.com site. It read:

Curb Alert – Ole Miss Football Season

The Ole Miss football season is on the curb by the Liberty Bowl.

Frankly, it was a rare example of wit on the site. Most posts are pretty mundane and some are borderline paranoid. “Suspicious” is perhaps the most-used word on Nextdoor.com. As in, “suspicious-looking teens walking down alley behind my house on Vinton at 4:45 p.m. Be aware.” I leave it to you to guess what usually constitutes a suspicious-looking teen. But, occasional paranoia aside, the site is pretty useful.

As is a big win over that SEC team from Oxford.

I was out Friday night, listening to the City Champs at the Buccaneer. During a break, I got into a conversation with a couple of Ole Miss fans from Nashville. I could tell they were Ole Miss fans because they were dressed entirely in red and white, and they were a little drunk and a little loud. But they were raving about Memphis. Seriously.

“There’s no music like this in Nashville,” they said. “There are no little clubs like this. It’s all that country shit.” They’d just had a large time earlier in the evening in Cooper-Young, and then in Overton Square, where someone had told them that they’d hear the best music in town at the Buc.

Then talk turned, as it must when talking to people dressed in garish school colors, to football. The Rebel fans conceded that Memphis had a nice offense and that Paxton Lynch was a “good college quarterback.” But, they explained, helpfully, Memphis was not ready for SEC competition. “Y’all’s defense won’t know what hit them,” they said. “SEC football is on a different level. It might be a game for a quarter or so,” they said, “but our depth will wear y’all down.”

I blush to admit now that I sort of agreed with them. Like most Memphians, I was hoping the Tigers could score enough to make the game interesting, but I had few illusions that Memphis could actually beat Ole Miss.

I’ve never been happier to be wrong about something in my life. And I’m happy the Ole Miss fans at least had a great night in Memphis before their team got kicked to the curb.

They were right about one thing: It was a game for a quarter or so.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

On the cover story “The Lipscomb Affair” …

Please stop referring to Robert Lipscomb as a “city planner” or “planner.” Nothing could be further from the truth. He devised his projects and proceeded to implement them without a bit of input from other city agencies or the public. He implemented them WITHOUT a plan visible to any of us, but I suppose envisioned by him in his own mind. He caused various divisions like police, fire, parks and public works to change their long term plans to comply with his projects. The problem with Memphis right now is that it is “planning deprived.” Robert was king of his own kingdom. His real name should be Robert “Moses” Lipscomb and that is not meant in the biblical sense. Please refer to Robert Caro’s The Power Broker. Robert Moses was the original power broker and brought NYC to its knees through his control of the park commission, turnpike authority, and housing authority, among other posts. Their lives are parallel.

IMPlanner

On Susan Wilson’s Last Word “One Man’s Trash” …

I had to delete my profile from Nextdoor. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I decided it’s better to be “uninformed” than to start to hate my neighbors.

nobody

On the Fly on the Wall post “U of M Plans John Calipari Celebration and Other Weird Stuff” …

Very well done! Except for that completely INSANE, IDIOTIC stuff about UM honoring Calapari. That’s too stupid even for a wild-azz parody.

ALJ2

On Susan Ellis’ Letter from the Editor “Finding Promise in Turmoil” …

Regarding your Letter from the Editor in the latest issue of “Memphis Feces Flinger”:

Would it be true social activism for someone to use Power Box’s list to create a list of alternate, white-owned businesses and distribute that list to people who support falsely accused law enforcement officers?

No, it would not. It would be racist, divisive, and stupid.

Whatever. At least she is trying to do something positive with Power Box.

I hope the businesses on the list do well. That would create something positive from something disgraceful, pathetic, and hope-crushing.

Memphis rules!

Warren

On Frank Murtaugh’s cover story “Encore?” …

Frank Murtaugh’s story calling last season “the Tigers’ finest in school history” is inaccurate, to say the least. The 1963 team finished 14th in the country — not 25th, as last year’s team did. The ’63 team beat No. 11 Mississippi State, tied No. 3 Ole Miss, had five shutouts, and their coach (Murphy) was National Coach of the Year. Their running back (Cassinelli), led the nation in rushing and won the national scoring title. Harry Schuh and Chuck Brooks were All-Americans. The Mississippi State game was considered “the toughest game the Tigers ever played.” The Tigers’ quarterback (Vollmer) came back to the game to lead the final drive to victory from the hospital after being knocked down some concrete stadium stairs. The Ole Miss game was the first in which Ole Miss did not win. Last year’s team lost badly to a lower-ranked Rebel team. The undefeated ’63 team turned down an invite to the Sun Bowl expecting a Gator Bowl invite. If the ’63 team had played 13 games as last year’s team did, they most likely would have finished 12-0-1 — not 10-3. I don’t know how much research you did, Mr. Murtaugh, but your declaration on last year’s team is blatantly wrong.

Bob Joralemon

On God and Taxes …

Wait. Don’t move. Don’t talk. God is talking to me. God is telling me not to pay income taxes. God says they are evil and illegal. I figure that bit in the bible about “give Caesar what is Caesar’s” is a moot point. Caesar’s been dead a long time. God’s will is most important, and God does not like income taxes. Who am I to question God?

Dagmar Bergan