Tag: Sarah Palin

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

David Kernell, Whose Email Stunt Made History, Dies From Effects of MS

David Kernell at the time of his 2010 trial

David Kernell, whose father, Mike Kernell, is a School Board member and a moderate former Democratic state Representative and who, like his activist parents, was no political firebrand, died in California last weekend, more or less as a footnote to the 2008 presidential campaign and, in particular to the now stalled career of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who was — and is — regarded as the most unlikely and eccentric nominee for national office prior to the rise of Donald Trump.

The word “footnote” is a quite literal word choice, because, while Kernell, a young man of significant gifts and promise, who had just reached the age of 30, has a page in Wikipedia, that page consists of a single line which links to a longish article entitled “Sarah Palin Email Hack.”

Now that he is deceased — of natural causes related to multiple sclerosis — perhaps the proprietors of Wikipedia will be respectful enough to assign Kernell more space in his own right. While the “email hack” of Palin, which would earn him almost a year’s imprisonment, drew abundant publicity, both during the 2008 campaign and during the 2010 trial of young Kernell, then a University of Tennessee economics major, he had given evidence of being a truly round character with numerous roads to possible influence and success.

His quasi-Caesarian handle, “Rubico,” made (temporarily) famous because of the hack, was also used for Kernell’s online chess competitions, which would see him ranked among the top 10 percent of national players. While a student at Germantown High School he had won a state chess championship.

He had also developed skills as a naturalist, and after completing his degree at UT after serving his time at a minimum security prison applied his cybernetic abilities to the development of facial recognition software that could help identify children susceptible to abuse.

Palin herself, who in 2008 and at Kernell’s trial had likened the hack of her private email to the transgressions of Watergate, had mellowed to the point of contributing a sort of eulogy herself this week:

“I can not fathom losing a child, at any age, and can only imagine the sorrow,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page.. “I am so sorry for [the family’s] loss. As the Kernell family said, the 2008 incident does not define David. He went on to do good for his family and community. I would ask the public to let David’s good memory supersede anything else. My family and I pray that David’s family is enveloped in peace, knowing God has their son, awaiting a reunion someday.”

In today’s political environment of Wikileaks espionage, stolen emails and online misrepresentations, David Kernell’s offense in 2008 was a modest thing indeed — something, as his lawyer argued, closer to a “prank” than to a crime.

What he had done, essentially, was to guess Palin’s online password from publicly available biographical information, gone in out of curiosity, and published a few harmless odds and ends from her email correspondence on the imageboard 4chan, along with the new password he had devised for Palin’s email account once he’d hacked his way in.

The incident, while it technically made Kernell eligible for both felonies and misdemeanors, was a stunt that may have embarrassed Palin but caused neither her nor her campaign any permanent harm. It was nevertheless an invasion of privacy, and the fact that Kernell had attempted to erase evidence of the hack on his computer qualified as obstruction of justice and was the proximate reason for his year’s worth of prison time.

While David Kernell may have enjoyed, by his own statement at the time, a momentary high from the success of his hack, he never perpetrated anything directly malicious with it, and by all accounts, came to regret what he had done. He accepted his punishment and, as indicated, resolved thenceforth to use his gifts and ingenuity on behalf of society as a whole.

Hopefully, his amended Wikipedia page will come to recognize that fact, as his family and many friends and Sarah Palin herself do. His death leaves a palpable sense of loss.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Zingers and Jello

CREDIT: Reuters | Kyodo

Those North Koreans do the darndest things. Now they’ve gone and launched another missile of some sort. Thankfully, this time they didn’t cause an earthquake in their own country, as they did back in January, when they reportedly tested a hydrogen bomb, apparently in an effort to build up an arsenal to bomb the United States. I don’t know exactly why, but I laughed myself off the edge of my bed when I heard that one.

I don’t think I will ever understand why there are people in the world who live just to make other people miserable. Terrorists, gangs, bigots, serial killers — the list goes on and on. Why do some people choose to be horrible instead of just trying to be happy and spread that happiness? It’s a lofty thought, and the world is an incredibly complicated place, but still, why wake up each day and think of ways to be horrible?

Reuters | Kyodo

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

This is one of the reasons I try not to watch the news about the presidential campaign going on (and on and on and on and on and on and on) right now. I feel bad that I don’t have much interest in it, but I just see it as a pile of goons grandstanding for their own ego-driven interests.

The GOP debates would be entertaining, at the very least, except none of the candidates appear really interested in doing anything to improve society as we know it. They just want to gnaw on each other and come up with “zingers.”

I actually saw a professional television news commentator ask Jeb Bush why he didn’t come up with any “zingers” after one of the debates. Of course, poor Jeb appears to be in a walking coma most of the time, so how would he come up with “zingers?” I did actually crack up when, after Jeb got his mother Barbara Bush to get out and stump for him a little, Donald Trump made fun of him bringing out his mommy and making her walk in the snow. Why is Jeb Bush still even in the election? And who is John Kasich? I keep seeing him in the lineup, but I honestly had never heard of him. I see in my search that he is the governor of Ohio. Is this man really a viable candidate for president of the United States?

And why did the Donald have to go and resurrect Sarah Palin? Why bother her when she is busy dealing with her son’s domestic violence issues and his arrest (all of which she blamed on, of course, Barack Obama)? Why not leave her to her hunting and gathering in the woods? Donald, please don’t make us relive having her on the news a lot. She’s still as gross as she always was, and her endorsement of you didn’t do you too much good in Iowa. Leave it alone, and just tease Jeb about his mommy.

And why the hell does the opinion of Iowans mean so much to the political process? I’ve never understood that one. Iowa is probably the least diverse state in the country. It’s almost all white and mostly rural. I secretly think that no one really lives in Iowa and the campaign people just ship people in for the caucuses during presidential elections.

The whole process is just strange. The people who are reportedly residents of Iowa (I still don’t believe anyone really lives there) gather at local spots in each county, including schools, churches, and individual’s homes (thank you, Wikipedia!). So, to the best of my understanding, all of these rural white people huddle up and try to figure out who they want to win the presidential primary. And they seem to eat a lot of food items that are stuffed. Like big, nasty stuffed flapjacks and fried bread stuffed with cabbage. I feel certain they also indulge in their fair share of Jell-O with canned fruit.

But back to their caucuses, food notwithstanding. They gather and talk about the pros and cons of the candidates, but they do it differently for Republicans than they do for Democrats. Ya think that’s a red flag? And apparently, if there’s a tie, they flip a coin. Fortunately, it’s not just all tater tot casseroles (sorry, there I go again) and secret voting. They actually did give Barack Obama 98 percent of their votes, or delegates, or whatever it is, the last time. But the caucus winner in the Republican caucus the same year was Rick Santorum. Ick.

So why Iowa, and, for that matter, why New Hampshire? Again, approximately 94 percent white. I’m not saying white people don’t know what they’re doing, but why choose almost white-only states for these important elections to reflect the diversity of the country? Why not have the caucuses in New York or California? What am I missing here?

Admit it. Have you ever actually met someone who was from Iowa? I don’t think I ever have. Nor have I ever met anyone from North Korea. I would like to meet some people from these places to get their take on what really goes on there. In the meantime, I’m going to find a way to cast my presidential vote for the late New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm.

Categories
Cover Feature News

The Snarkiest Man in Memphis

Wonkette.com editor/writer Evan Hurst has called Sarah Palin “Our Lady of the Mesquite Moose-Scented Denali Farts” and Mike Huckabee a “presidential candidate and sometimes conjugal-visit-sex lover of Kim Davis.” But he makes certain to protect his journalistic integrity by following that moniker with an all-caps “ALLEGEDLY!”

Speaking of Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was briefly jailed for refusing to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples, Hurst wrote a Wonkette article in September comparing Davis’ jail sentencing, which happened on a Thursday, to Jesus’ sentencing before Pontius Pilate. (For all you heathens, that’s when Jesus was sentenced to die on the cross, and Jesus was sentenced on a Thursday, too).

That piece opens with “And lo it shall come to pass that on Thursday, the third of the month of September, that Kim Davis, clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, will be taken before the high priest, and all the chief priests … the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin will seek evidence against Davis so they may put her to death, but they will not find any, because the United States doesn’t put people to death for being a dirty adulteress … Instead they’ll probably just find her in contempt of court for refusing to do her job for Bigot Reasons.”

”It’s probably my favorite thing I’ve written for Wonkette,” says Hurst, who grew up in a religious household in Germantown, became an atheist, and says, “I’m somewhere in the Christian tradition, though I’m not sure where. Let’s just say I’m a hopeful agnostic who likes Jesus.”

Hurst is one of only three full-time staff writers at Wonkette.com, an online political satire magazine best-known for snarky social commentary, intentionally misspelled words for comedic effect, and lots of dick jokes. But they do all that while managing to present actual journalism and reliable reporting.

Wonkette is a national publication, so its writers are scattered all over, but Hurst lives in Memphis, and he cooks up his sarcastic columns from the comfort of his Cooper-Young home.

Ben Carson, Chick-fil-A, and Josh Duggar! Oh My!

Hurst posts multiple articles on Wonkette daily, averaging about 21 posts per week. And the topics range from whatever wacky idea Ben Carson is spouting that day (like that time he backed up Donald Trump’s claim of seeing a video of American Muslims partying it up on the Jersey Shore after 9/11 and then later admitted that maybe he was confusing New Jersey with the Middle East) to sex tips from Jim Bob Duggar, the father of accused molester (or as Hurst calls him “nasty-ass scum pervert”) Josh Duggar and 18 other kids made famous from their TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting.

The latter focused on a post the elder Duggar wrote about preventing sexual deviance by removing books, magazines, and other media “that have worldly or sexual content.”

“Well, praise Jesus, because Jim Bob Duggar knows how to keep your wangdoodle sparkly clean for Jesus and your broodmare wife,” Hurst wrote.

From the patio at Bar DKDC, one of his favorite haunts, the 35-year-old Hurst discusses his style over Wiseacre beers. He’s a self-professed introvert, but you’d never know from talking to him. He’s constantly cracking jokes, and he cusses like a sailor.

“I write about anything and everything,” says Hurst, who showed up to the interview in a Wonkette T-shirt. “You always end up getting your pet things when you’re a writer — some more serious, some less serious. The first two stories I posted on Wonkette this morning were one on Kim Davis (I read the 126-page appeal they filed in the Sixth Circuit) and one on which one of the Duggars is going to have sex next. Those are two pet things of mine.”

His style is snarky and filled with witty one-liners, even when he’s writing about far more somber topics, like last week’s mass shooting in San Bernadino.

His piece the day after the shootings was a harsh critique (a style he calls “journalism ‘splaining”) of the mainstream media’s tendency to sensationalize and jump to conclusions before the facts are known. Although more is known now on the shooters’ possible links to radical Islam, not much was known on the day after the shooting, yet mainstream networks were all over the terrorism angle.

From that story: “There are theories flying around: that it was an act of workplace violence after Farook’s stapler was stolen one too many times, or maybe he was a hardened jihadist doing ISIS in Southern California. (Fox News is already committed to the DUH, OBVIOUS conclusion that of course it is radical Islamic terrorism, just like in Paris, because Farook had a Muslimy name and his co-shooter’s name is just plain ‘weird.’) We don’t know yet, and neither does Fox News, and neither does your right-wing uncle.”

Most of the time, though, Hurst’s commentary focuses on less tragic stories of national interest. As a gay man, he tends toward stories that affect the LGBT community. Last month he wrote about the “wing-nut gay-hatin’ fans of Chick-fil-A” being up in arms about a Nashville Chick-fil-A franchise’s sponsorship of an LGBT film festival.

Since he’s located in Memphis, Hurst has the upper hand when a Memphis story goes viral. In September, he picked up on a story originally broken by the Flyer about Christian Brothers High School senior Lance Sanderson, who wasn’t allowed to bring his male date to prom.

Wrote Hurst: “The all-male Christian Brothers High School in Memphis — which SCIENCE FACT, was yr Wonkette’s rival high school back in the day, so you already know how many bags of dicks we think it sucks — has come up with a whole new thing in its desperate attempts to let this gay kid know how much the school hates him.”

Growing Up Gay and Religious

Hurst spent his early years in Little Rock, but his family moved to Memphis when he was 12, so he thinks he’s lived here long enough to claim “Memphian” status. He went to Germantown High School for a while but finished up his studies at Briarcrest Christian School.

“My parents are good, normal Christian people who live in the suburbs,” Hurst says. “We had gone to a church that I don’t care about naming. You won’t get much better church music in town than there, but their theology is insane. When you combine Calvinism and predestination — the whole idea that God decided before anyone was born who would end up saved and who wouldn’t — you get an attitude that’s very, very rigid.”

Right after high school, Hurst worked in the church music department as an intern, singing and playing piano. A classically trained pianist, Hurst was certain at the time that he was headed for a music career. He majored in piano performance at the University of Memphis.

“I didn’t finish. I left school like a common gadabout. Part of it was that I started to realize that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. Existential crisis right there,” Hurst says.

He quit his job with the church shortly before coming out at age 19. His pastor had made some anti-gay remarks in a sermon. And Hurst says he thought, “Am I really sitting here in the Republican Party of Prayer Memphis Country Club Church hearing this?”

He got a job at the Borders bookstore in Germantown. Many of his coworkers were also gay, and he says it was the first place he saw “out, happy, gay people.” He officially came out to a manager there before he came out to his parents. His parents struggled with the realization that their son was gay, but they eventually came around, and he has a good relationship with them now.

Hurst also spent 10 years as a knife peddler with Cutco, the direct-sales knife purveyor that employs mostly college students as independent salespeople. He credits the job with teaching him to be “assertive without being an ass.”

Hurst was still selling knives when he took on a job in 2010 as the social media director (and later as the associate director) for Truth Wins Out (TWO), a national organization aimed at taking down religious ministries that focus on reparative therapy that claims to “cure” people of homosexuality, often dubbed the “ex-gay movement.”

“At that time, I realized I had loud opinions that I wanted to share. I was in the very beginning of the process of learning how to harness that and make it productive,” Hurst says.

Hurst was ideal for the job, since one of the most well-known ex-gay organizations was the Memphis-based Love in Action (LIA). In its heyday, LIA was headed up by John Smid, a man who once claimed he’d been cured of homosexuality, and it operated a widely criticized youth “straight camp” known as Refuge.

LIA turned its focus to adults-only treatment and ended its Refuge program in 2007, a couple of years after it made national headlines when gay youth Zach Stark posted a Myspace entry about being forced into the program by his parents. Smid resigned in 2008. He denounced reparative therapy and came out as gay in 2011. He’s now married to a man.

By the time Hurst took the job at TWO, Smid was already out of the picture, but Hurst’s job as social media director was focused on the national ex-gay movement, which was very much alive and well in 2010.

“As social media director, I was making things up as I went along. I was doing a lot of writing [on TWO’s website] and trying to build an audience,” Hurst says. “There was a lot of improvisation and creativity. But I’m kind of a jack-of-all-trades, at least in areas that I know,” Hurst says.

Around the same time in 2010 that Hurst started with TWO, he began freelancing a semi-regular column on Wonkette called “The Homosexuals,” a tongue-in-cheek report on “what the homosexuals are doing to society.” But as his responsibilities grew at TWO, his freelancing fell by the wayside.

In recent years, though, more and more former ex-gay leaders have denounced reparative therapy. Leaders like Smid and former Exodus International president Alan Chambers and former Exodus chairman John Paulk have made formal apologies to the gay community for the harm the ex-gay movement caused. Hurst saw the need for TWO diminish as the movement changed, and in February, he contacted Wonkette publisher Rebecca Schoenkopf about getting back into freelancing for the site. Within a few months, Schoenkopf had moved Hurst into a full-time role. In addition to writing for the site, Hurst also serves as its social media director, meaning he’s responsible for Wonkette’s tweets.

“Evan is disgusting, and he’s my favorite person in the world,” Schoenkopf says.

Wonkette Value Added

Hurst and other Wonkette writers pride themselves on being more than just a news aggregator site. When a piece goes up on Wonkette, it typically contains new information or an angle not covered by the national media.

“If we write about something on Wonkette, there has to be what we call the ‘Wonkette value added.’ You might not hear about something from us the second it happens, but for our readers, they’ll see a big story happen, and their reaction is ‘I can’t wait for Wonkette’s take on this,'” Hurst says.

Take, for example, Hurst’s piece on Troy Goode, the Memphis man who died in police custody after being hog-tied. Goode had taken LSD before a Widespread Panic concert in Southaven, and when he began acting erratically, his wife attempted to drive him home. She pulled over in a parking lot on the way home. Police were called, and they attempted to restrain Goode by hog-tying him. He died in Southaven police custody at the hospital.

The Mississippi state autopsy report is claiming Goode overdosed on LSD, which, as Hurst reports in his story, is highly unlikely. Rather than simply rehashing what other Memphis media had reported, Hurst did some original reporting, comparing how much LSD was in Goode’s system (1.0 nanogram) to a 2008 Harvard Medical School study that looked at eight test subjects who had between 10 and 70 micrograms per milliliter of LSD in their bloodstreams. There are 1,000 nanograms in a microgram. Hurst mentions in his article that while some of those test subjects experienced comas and respiratory problems, none died.

“If we are doing our back-of-the-napkin math correctly, Troy had approximately A FUCKTON less acid in his system than the research subjects we just mentioned, who, again, did not die,” Hurst wrote.

Hurst prides himself on accuracy. Lately, he likes to point out that none of Wonkette’s San Bernadino coverage has been retracted.

“We’re dirty and vulgar, but we also pride ourselves on being one of the most accurate websites that we know of,” Hurst says. “When you read about a bill or a Supreme Court decision or a court filing on Wonkette, you can be sure that the author read the thing first. We have the source material.”

Wonkette.com was founded in 2004 by Gawker Media. Its founding editor Ana Marie Cox has gone on to work as the Washington correspondent for GQ and as the lead blogger on U.S. politics for The Guardian. The site went through a few editors and another owner before Schoenkopf purchased it in 2012. Schoenkopf has a background in alt-weekly journalism, having previously worked for OC Weekly, the Santa Barbara Independent, and LA CityBeat.

“In the early days, there were like a million posts a day, and they were a paragraph long with a link to something. Now it’s longer form, and each article should have an entire argument within it, instead of just like, ‘here’s a thing,'” Schoenkopf says. “I think it’s really well-done by smart people with a lot of institutional knowledge.”

The Wonkette style is unique in that each writer puts a personal spin on stories through any combination of made-up words, cursing, or run-on sentences.

“Some people see the style, and it personally offends them. For other people, it might take a minute, but then they’re like, ‘Oh, I get it. [The writers] really are smart people,'” Schoenkopf says.

Hurst is a fan of cursing, dick jokes, and funny asides written in parentheses and in all-caps. For comedic effect, he also likes to use phrases and slurs that he knows may offend some, but that’s his way to address what he sees as a tendency among liberals to be overly politically correct.

“There’s a reason I use phrases like ‘the gays and the BLTs’ for the LGBT-whatever-it-is community. We call all kinds of people on our own side funny things,” Hurst says. “But it’s like, get over yourself. There’s this sort of humorlessness that has taken over on a lot of the left that says we can’t even laugh at ourselves anymore.”

He crafts his vulgar prose from his home computer, likely with his 11-year-old dog Lula at his feet. He lives alone, since he’s “hopelessly single,” which suits him just fine, since he says writing for Wonkette is a 65- to 70-hour-a-week job.

“It’s always a struggle. I work on weekends too. It takes a lot just to make that happen, week after week. And then you have days where we have a presidential debate or when the name-a-shooting-here happens. Those days are completely different. That’s a whole different schedule,” Hurst says.

“If there’s a debate, I’m going to work a whole day, starting at 7:30 a.m., and, hopefully before the first debate, I’ll have an hour to do whatever — eat some food, play Scrabble on my computer, or whatever. And then we’re live-blogging, and then you get to the end of it, and it’s 10 p.m. Then you have to figure out what happened in the debate that deserves its own individual story the next day. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t love it. But it’s a very time-consuming job.”

He’s so busy writing for Wonkette that Hurst says he’s completely let his passion for music fall by the wayside. He used to play at Mollie Fontaine, but he hasn’t done that in a while.

“I want to get back into it. It’s one of those things on my to-do list, forcing myself back into writing music and singing,” he says. “It’s a big thing to find the time.”

For now, though, Hurst is making a different kind of music — the kind where he writes lyrical blog posts about gun-crazed Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore’s Christmas card, which features the lawmaker posing with her entire family — even the 5-year-old grandson — posing with an arsenal of Glocks and assault rifles (The large-breasted Fiore famously released a 2016 calendar filled with pictures of herself in tight clothing, posing with guns).

Wrote Hurst: “For liberals, it is the War on Christmas season, where we get up every single day at early-o-clock to receive our marching orders for how to make the baby Jesus cry in his manger. REAL AMERICANS, though, are sending Christmas cards, with reindeer and funny faces and nativity scenes and #familyjokes. And boobs and guns. Mostly boobs and guns.”

Random Thoughts

As you might imagine, Hurst has a few strong opinions. Here are some of the Flyer‘s favorite quotes from our interview with him.

On Kim Davis: “[She] actually said this is a heaven or hell issue — doing her job as a representative of the government. You mean to tell me that she literally thinks that her belief system says this loving God she found four years ago who gave her life is going to turn around and throw her in hell because she signed a gay marriage license? That’s stupid. That’s a dumbass belief.”

On Ben Carson: “This guy, the poor thing, we think his brain is broken. I don’t understand how that’s the same person who walked into an operating room and said ‘I’m going to operate on your brain.’ We think something happened, and his brain is broken.”

On the presidential race: “The Republicans … don’t know what the hell they are doing. They have such high hopes, and I’ll eat my words if something happens, but I don’t see any of those Republicans having a prayer against Hillary Clinton. I wouldn’t say that about Bernie [Sanders], but I’d say that about Hillary. They’ve lost their last scandal with Benghazi.”

On disgraced former Congressman Aaron Schock, who resigned in March after he was caught spending government funds on lavish office décor, new cars, and a personal photographer, among other things: “There are the long-standing rumors about him being gay — you can look at his Instagram and draw your own conclusions. We never explicitly said he was, but we implied it. A lot. Regardless, he was misusing taxpayer funds to do all of these elaborate, ornate things for himself, starting with the office [decorated in the style of TV show Downton Abbey]. And then you find out about his hot, personal photographer Jonathon with an ‘O.’ And you see how Jonathon gallivants around the globe with him. He took him to India on what I imagine was a completely romantic trip. Not that I’m saying he’s gay.”

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Congrats, Bristol!

CREDIT: Featureflash | Dreamstime.com

Featureflash | Dreamstime.com

Bristol Palin

Hey Bristol,

Congratulations! I read that you were expecting again! I’m not really sure why I know this, because it’s 2015 and, no offense, I expected your family to have dropped off the face of the earth by now. I thought I wouldn’t hear your name again after your mom didn’t get to be vice president in 2008. But then came summer 2009, when Sarah Palin decided she just didn’t feel like being governor of Alaska anymore. Can you believe that was six years ago? Wow.

But then came the reality shows, the books, the Fox News segments, and the will-she-won’t-she in the months leading up to the 2012 presidential election. I can’t give Sarah Palin credit for much, but she sure made the most of her 15 minutes of fame. I guess that makes your family the Kardashians of politics.

Speaking of your mom, I bet she’s super-excited about the new addition! I’m sure she can’t wait to be a grandma again, especially since she is pro-life and all. I’m so sorry to hear that you’re no longer engaged to the father of your future child, but at least you’ll have the loving, nonjudgmental support of your family. You may be on your own, but you’re not alone. Believe me, that’s more than a lot of women can say.

Wait, sorry, is everything okay? Your blog post says, “This has been a huge disappointment to my family.” Ouch. That’s unfortunate.

Bristol, I know you said you’re not looking for any sympathy, but I thought I’d just let you know these things happen all the time. I bet at least half the people you know are on this earth as a result of an accident, or, as we call them here in the South, “blessings.” Sometimes “surprises” or “miracles” — it really just depends on who it is, bless their hearts. Literally, every single day countless women become pregnant whether they plan to, want to, or even can afford to. Anyway, it won’t be easy to proceed with this on your own, but take comfort in the fact that we live in a free country where, as women, the choice to proceed is ours to make.

Even though I don’t know you, you’re a public figure and I know all of your business, so here’s some unsolicited advice. You don’t have to apologize for getting pregnant out of wedlock. But you should probably — no, definitely — stop lecturing people about abstinence. The good news is, Bristol, I read somewhere the average American changes careers four times. And, you know, millennials just can’t stay in the same place for very long. So you can find something else to do. It’s hard enough to get through to young people. Giving them advice you obviously don’t follow? Now, that’s just buildin’ a bridge to nowhere. I’m sure it will be tough to give up your $262,000 salary as an “abstinence ambassador,” because that’s more than an ambassador to an actual country makes.

I’m not exactly sure what being an abstinence ambassador entails. I assume it involves you talking to teens about how much your child changed your life. “Don’t have sex or you’ll end up like me,” in other words. But how? With a cute, happy, healthy kid and a bunch of money you earned as an abstinence ambassador? That strategy sounds about as effective as abstinence-only education.

You love your child, so why would you talk about him like he’s a punishment? How do you think that makes him feel? How do you think your second child will feel when he or she is old enough to read about you apologizing for bringing him or her into the world?

You’re 24 and you’ve given in to the fact that you’re a human and having sex is a fun thing humans like to do, whether they’re married or not. Good for you. You’re an adult woman, and it’s okay to admit that. Better yet, own it. Turn your hypocrisy into an opportunity.

Abstinence didn’t work for you, but you know what probably would have? Birth control. There are a ton of options, and your doctor will help you find one that’s right for you. Some even have non-reproductive benefits and help with issues like migraines and acne. Methods like implants and IUDs last up to five years and are great for single mothers. Organizations like Planned Parenthood can point you in the right direction, just in case the whole abstinence thing falls through again. Give them a call sometime. Who knows, they might even need an ambassador.

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian, and a digital marketing strategist.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant (May 28, 2015) …

CREDIT: Carrienelson1 | Dreamstime.com

Finally, finally, FINALLY! The Memphis Flyer has had the good sense to curb the liberal writings of old men like Tim Sampson and Randy Haspel and change the back page of this paper to something more sensible by adding some female voices. Thank God — and I’m speaking of the God of Christianity who rules this nation and should rule the rest of the world, instead of these so-called prophets like Mohammed — that the paper has finally come to its senses and is now giving voice to women with some conservative values and extremely long necks like mine.

That Sampson guy has been writing his drivel for this paper for 26 years now, and it’s about time he gets limited to write just one piece of garbage each month from now on. I don’t know how you readers have put up with his left-wing musings for this many years. I hope that you will just skip over his soon-to-be monthly “Last Word” column and pay attention to writers like me, who really have something important to add.

Let’s take a look back: Most recently, Sampson verbally defiled pro-American-values crusader Pamela Geller, just because she had the audacity to host a pro-freedom-of-expression art show in which artists and normal God-fearing American citizens were invited to draw cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed at an art gallery in the great, GREAT state of Texas, which (thank God again) gives criminals the death penalty more than any state in the country. They know how to deal with heathens, and I say more power to them.

It’s still a shame that Texas Governor Rick Perry didn’t beat the communist Barack Obama in the last presidential election. Now look where we are: Our taxes are being used right and left to finance food stamps for poor people who are too lazy to get jobs that would allow them to buy their own food and not put the burden on those of us who need to stockpile our millions for when Obama finally destroys the country, which has been his plan all along, because he is a socialist who was not even born in the United States and is, in fact, a radical Muslim from Africa.

Thank God, again, for people like Sarah Palin and me who aren’t afraid to tell the truth about him. Oh, yeah, you’ll be reading much more about this when Sampson’s “Rant” business is sidelined. You better get down on your knees and pray that this new change lasts for a long, long time.

And, no more will you have to be besieged on such a regular basis with his “ranting” about how gay marriage should be legalized in every state or how he thinks voting rights for impoverished blacks and other Democrats are being jeopardized, or his ongoing babbling about how that Soulsville Charter School’s seniors have all been accepted to college for the past four years that it has had graduations — with their inner-city kids receiving more than $30 million in scholarships. To read his biased (because he works there) views, you’d think white kids from wealthy families, who attend Christian-based private schools, don’t achieve anything. It sickens me, and I know it sickens you.

And then there’s the way he goes on and on and ON about how much he loves Memphis and how it’s the coolest city in the world. Give me a break. Most of you reading this live there and you know what a hellhole Memphis is. There’s nothing but crime and people living on welfare there and one black mayor after another. You all know you live in the poorest, most dangerous, most obese city in the United States and that Memphis has nothing to offer upstanding, conservative people of virtue. He thinks places like Wild Bill’s, Ernestine & Hazel’s, Beale Street, and the Blue Worm are all so great, but he never talks about all the great things on Germantown Parkway or the gated subdivisions in the suburbs, where people exercise their God-given freedom to stay away from all that filth that goes on in the city. He and Haspel are just old, white liberal men who are stuck in their hippie days and don’t see the light of what really matters to true Americans.

And speaking of the great Sarah Palin, it is almost criminal the way this paper has allowed Sampson to criticize her for her beliefs, her animal killing, her beautiful and intelligent children, and her stance on American values. She is a true American hero, but to read Sampson, you’d think she isn’t the genius that she really is, no matter what newspapers she reads. And when she says she can see Russia from Alaska, she is telling the truth. She always has and continues to do so on national Fox News, which Sampson also dismisses as right-wing propaganda, which you all know is not true.

So be very, very happy, people, that “The Rant” will be changing soon, albeit not soon enough for those of you who have had to put up with Sampson’s diatribes for so long. I say, so long to him and pay no attention to what he and Haspel write in their new monthly “Last Word” columns.

This column was actually written by Tim Sampson, of course. No conservative publicity whores were harmed in the writing of this column.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant (January 29, 2015)

CREDIT: Jerry Coli | Dreamstime.com

The president just signed historic accords with India on climate legislation and nuclear trade, before making a pit stop to pay respects to the leaders of America’s gas station, Saudi Arabia.

Mitt Romney is considering a third run for president so the American people can finally get it right.

ISIS is on the move in Syria, and the government of Yemen just collapsed.

Bibi Netanyahu, also known as George W. Bush in wingtips, is campaigning for reelection as Israeli Prime Minister, only in front of the U.S. Congress — without prior knowledge or approval by the White House — as the guest of John Boehner.

In Iowa, Sarah Palin made an incomprehensible speech at Representative Steve King’s “Freedom Summit,” then told The Washington Post that she was “seriously interested,” in running for president.

And a crippling blizzard is headed for the east coast that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio warned may be “one of the largest snowstorms in the history of this city.” Memphis freaks out over three inches of snow. Try an expected three feet, which would set records from Philadelphia to Boston and affect nearly 30 million people. Take that Al Gore.

Jerry Coli | Dreamstime.com

Tom Brady New England Patriots

But screw all that: The NFL discovered that during their conference championship game, the New England Patriots used under-inflated footballs. I could write four paragraphs of balls jokes, but that’s far too easy. And since this has been the lead news story on every network for a week, I’ve heard every smarmy, double-entendre testicle reference in the history of broadcast news, from Rachel Maddow to Jimmy Fallon. I now know more about Bill Belichick than I ever intended.

I guess I’m as big a football fan as the next jerk, only I’m not emotionally invested in the outcome. I enjoy watching pro football because it’s a brutish and violent game played by mutants. If you asked me my favorite team, I guess it would be the Packers, because the citizen/stockholders of Green Bay actually own the team. If you ask me my least favorite team, it would be those with the loud-mouth owners who give high-fives in their luxury boxes while actually believing that what they say has any bearing on the game. Also, those owners that mix their personal, partisan politics with sport.

The NFL is just a billionaire’s playground where team owners play their own, exclusive version of fantasy football. It’s become an industry that has grown like kudzu around what was once a game. Since pro football is the American substitute for gladiatorial war, it has become the perfect vessel for carpet-bombing advertisements, and nothing does it better than the Super Bowl. Can I use that word without sending somebody a check?

Billions of dollars will be spent in and around the Super Bowl on product placement, branding, Hollywood-produced ads, entertainment galas, including the world’s biggest halftime show, and particularly sports betting. Only the outcome is pertinent. The game is secondary to the commerce. With record amounts of cash spent on commercials, the Super Bowl serves as the quasi-Black Friday for awards season.

The game will be played in Glendale, Arizona, at the University of Phoenix Stadium. Of course, the University of Phoenix is a for-profit, online, kollege of knowledge with no actual campus, and thus has no football team to play in its stadium. Like good corporate citizens, they merely bought the naming rights and changed it from what was Cardinals Stadium. So, the Super Bowl played in the University of Phoenix Stadium is like a scam within a scam. Everybody gets paid. Except for the entertainers. The Wall Street Journal reported that the NFL approached Rihanna, Coldplay, and Katy Perry to play the halftime show, but asked the musicians to “contribute a portion of their post-Super Bowl tour income to the league,” or alternately, “make some other financial contribution,” in exchange for the halftime gig. Perry is this year’s special attraction. I sure hope she’s not paying those greedy bastards to play.

In summary, the Patriots are cheaters owned by Robert Kraft of Kraft Foods, whose net worth is around $4 billion, and who has a son who worked for Bain Capital in the ’80s. They have a coach with a shady reputation and a quarterback who’s married to a Brazilian supermodel, makes $40 million a year in salary and endorsements, is said to have a near-genius IQ, and “did not alter the ball in any way,” even though he admitted he preferred them slightly deflated in a previous interview. When asked if he was a cheater, Brady said, “I don’t believe so.”

They play the Seattle Seahawks, owned by low-key Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, who also owns the NBA Trailblazers. According to SeatGeek, the average ticket price is going for $3,262. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the monster snowstorm headed for Boston caused widespread power outages on Super Sunday? I hope by then they will have finally stopped talking about “Deflategate.” The only thing I have to add to that conversation is that Tom Brady’s balls aren’t as big as he thought. The Santa Ana winds are doing biblical-like, wildfire damage in California, and there’s a measles outbreak in Disneyland. And I’ll take the Seahawks and the points.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant (October 1, 2014)

CREDIT: Mark Nassal | Dreamstime.com

Mark Nassal | Dreamstime.com

John Boehner

So now they expect you to reward them. The most unproductive, polarized, ineffective, and despised Congress in American history has abandoned the nation’s business in order to focus on convincing you that they are worthy of your support for reelection. After a five-week summer recess and a grueling eight days back in session, the congressional Republicans just said, “Fuck it,” and lit out for the territories, leaving trivial matters such as war and peace to wait until after the mid-term elections.

Indulge me in a hypothesis: Let’s say that you are the personnel manager of a large hospital, and right in the middle of a measles outbreak, all your employees decided to return home to prepare for their performance reviews. When they came back after the epidemic had worsened, would you rehire them?

And yet, the noise on the right has grown so deafening, they think they’re winning. Republicans are as confident as Mitt Romney on election night. The hammer-locked Congress, led by the fearsome tag-team of “Blubbering John” Boehner and Mitch “The Obamacare Assassin” McConnell, don’t even realize that their strategy of destroying the president at the expense of the country hasn’t worked. Even after Obama’s reelection and Eric Cantor’s loss, they still didn’t get the message and continued with their destructive agenda.

The goose-stepping Congressional Republicans have obstructed, delayed, blocked, and filibustered every single initiative offered by the president, costing countless numbers of desperately needed jobs, and now they want your vote. Republicans have loudly criticized the president for taking executive actions and then they leave town during an international crisis, abdicating their Constitutional responsibilities.

The British Parliament’s debate was fascinating, but Congressman Bubba from Birmingham can’t be called away from his fish fry. There are donors’ hands to shake. Can you imagine if John McCain and Sarah Palin were elected in 2012? We’d be dropping nukes on the Kremlin screaming, “We’re all Ukrainians now,” although recent events have shown we may have used the Palin family fistfight diplomacy first.

While Obama was securing a unanimous vote by the UN Security Council to crack down on foreign fighters joining ISIS, only the second U.S. president in history to chair such a committee, right-wing media exploded in outrage over his salute to a marine while holding a coffee cup. Fox News went wild with indignation, even though this militaristic gesture of saluting while exiting a helicopter was initiated only 30 years ago by the Hollywood warrior, Ronald Reagan.

Then, the usual Fox suspects exulted at the resignation of Eric Holder, like the 7th Cavalry claiming a scalp, while vilifying the attorney general for his presumed “racial favoritism.” Holder once said that when it comes to discussing matters of race, we are “a nation of cowards.” His choice of words may have been combative, but he was right. Or, maybe half-right. We don’t discuss race across color lines, but that never stopped the Caucasian Party from discussing it among themselves.

To believe the GOP, you’d think that roving gangs of displaced Acorn volunteers and welfare cheats were conspiring to vote under false names to steal the next election. Just listen to their rhetoric: A Fox News host said that Holder was, “one of the most dangerous … men in America,” who, “ran the Department of Justice much like the Black Panthers would.” The morally bankrupt Dick Cheney claimed Obama “would much rather spend money on food stamps … than defending our troops.” And Old Faithful, Palin, telling a recent audience how to combat liberals who “scream racism just to end debate,” uttered this gem: “Well, don’t retreat. You reload with truth, which I know is an endangered species at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue.” Her verbal bomb fell about two blocks short of its target. For the sake of sane government, these right-wing obstructionists are richly deserving of being swept from office. If they can’t win fairly, they cheat. They demand new documentation as a condition for voting, they restrict days and hours to make it difficult for the poor to vote, they gerrymander districts to ensure a Republican majority, and they lie. All the time.

In these dark days, what we are witnessing is the last gasp of white supremacy in this nation. That’s what all this “we want our country back” stuff is about. But the GOP is willing to burn down the country club before they’ll admit any of these mixed-race aliens into their midst. Largely based in the South, the Republican Party is now the last bastion of the old Confederate mentality. Regardless of who controls the Congress in 2014 or even wins the presidency in 2016, this is the last spasm of the philosophy of white entitlement. 

Ultimately, leaders will come along who see the value of diversity and replace the agenda-driven, politicized, corporate-owned justices on the Supreme Court and restore honor to the term “public servant.” No time soon, however. The Fox News demographic may be aging, but not fast enough. Die-hard viewers of the corporate propaganda outlet still think Obama is the anti-Christ.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Putin, Palin, and Rudy

Republicans may have finally found their candidate for 2016. He is, according to Fox News analyst, Ralph Peters: “… a real leader.” Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is also excited about what this new candidate will bring: “He decides what he wants to do and does it in half a day. He makes a decision and executes it quickly, and everybody reacts. That’s what you call a real leader.”

I’m talking, of course, about the man who conservatives and neo-cons are currently wetting their pants over: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yes, the communist leader who fixes elections, jails his political opponents, has invaded Chechens, the Republic of Georgia, and Ukraine, and has repressed religious freedoms and gay rights, is now a hero to the right. Conservative icons such as Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Sarah Palin, to name just a few, are rushing to praise the mighty Vlad.

“People look at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil, and our President wears mom jeans and equivocates,” Palin gushed. Another Fox analyst said, “In Putin, you’ve got a big strong guy, muscular and shirtless on a horse who wrestles tigers, while the President wears mom jeans.”

I don’t know if this means Putin wrestles bears and his horse wrestles tigers, or that Putin wrestles bears and tigers (probably at once), but he is the leader conservatives have been waiting for. I guess we should have gotten a clue when former President George W. Bush claimed to have “looked into his soul.” Dreamy.

And there’s a new email going around from one of the many we-hate-Obama websites. It has side-by-side photo comparisons of Obama and Putin, and is called “Macho Putin vs. Girly-Boy Obama.” It starts with photos of both men’s mothers (Obama’s was a “slutty feminist,” you know), and goes on from there: Shirtless Putin rides horses; Obama rides bikes with a helmet. Putin plays with rifles; Obama plays with squirt guns with his kids. Putin drives race-cars; Obama drives his daughters in a bumper car. Putin plays hockey; Obama plays golf. On it goes. And you don’t even want to know about the spouse comparison.

Many of the Obama photos show him with his family, while all the Putin pictures are solo shots. So much for “family values.” It’s impossible for me to imagine communist-hating conservatives doing this with any other president. The level of hatred goes beyond politics. It’s venal.

Interestingly, last month’s emails from the same crowd — before the current crisis in Crimea — were all about how Obama is a dictatorial strongman who ignores Congress and is using unbridled executive powers to take away our guns, our religious freedoms, and our rights. He’s even setting up internment camps for his enemies. Last month, Obama was a ruthless dictator, kind of like, well, Vladimir Putin. Now he’s a girly man?

I just wish these people would make up their minds. Assuming they have minds.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

“Busting loose to my love Jones; Busting loose to each his own;

Talking ’bout busting loose y’all; Busting loose to my love Jones;

Busting loose to each his own; Gimme the bridge y’all!”

Okay, okay. Someone’s probably already written that or referred to Chuck “The Father of Go-Go” Brown’s lyrics in relation to New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s new big disaster: Members of his staff apparently shut down lanes on the George Washington Bridge for four days in September as political punishment for Fort Lee, New Jersey, Mayor Mark Sokolich not supporting Christie in his gubernatorial reelection campaign.

Don’t you love the word “gubernatorial?” I have no idea from what it is derived, and I have been far too busy with other matters to look into it, but I always love the “guber” part of it and wonder why that has never been changed.

So I looked it up. Seems like it’s from the Latin word gubernator for “governor.” I took Spanish in school, not Latin, because the Latin teacher at my high school used to drink a lot of beer and throw books at her students. Looking back, I should have been in there for that. At least I did have an English teacher who came to school stoned out of his mind every morning and read Shakespeare to us in a voice like, and with the talent of, Morgan Freeman, which had us all on the edge of our seats. He also “floated” dollar bills with us in the restroom, often winning our lunch money.

And we had a history teacher who wore a hearing aid, which screamed with static when we rubbed pennies together. Poor thing. And our driver’s education teacher was always so hung over that we drove only to the nearest place that served coffee and just sat there with her in the parking lot while she came to life. At least we learned how to park at the donut shop. But back to the Latin term gubernator (I hope I have at least a shred of this correct). It also seems that the term for female governor in Latin is gubernatrix. Oh, dear. Why, oh WHY, can we not just use this word? Can you imagine if Sarah Palin had been referred to as the gubernatrix of Alaska? It would have made so much more sense, although it would have conjured up images that might have caused me to have even worse nightmares than I have already. Yes, I know some of you dudes out there think she’s hot, and your online comments often allude to wanting to see her in fishnet stockings and a leather whip, but I think I’d rather just go ahead and have my eyes poked out with an ice pick. It would have been great in the debates, though, with the moderator addressing her as Gubernatrix Palin and Joe Biden spitting out his bottled water laughing. At least it would have made things more interesting. Much more interesting than some lanes on a bridge being closed, anyway.

Of all the things in this country and in this world that have the potential to take a politician out of the game, whoever would have thought it would be lane closures on a bridge that might squelch the hopes of a presidential hopeful? Yes, it is the country’s busiest bridge, and a lot of people were inconvenienced and maybe some laws were broken, but still, we’re talking about four days of some bridge lanes being closed.

With all of the new racist voter-registration legislation, campaign-spending corruption, sex scandals, bribe-taking, and everything else that goes on in the wacky world of gubernators and gubernatrixes, doesn’t it seem like closing some bridge lanes kinda pales in comparison? Hell, if it had happened on the bridge here between Memphis and Arkansas, it’s likely that no one would have even noticed, unless, of course, there was the remote possibility that a snowflake might fall on it in which case everyone would be rushing back and forth for milk and bread.

Much more important to me is the issue to be addressed and perhaps even resolved in the Tennessee legislature that opened session this week: whether or not to allow grocery stores to sell wine. Through my day job, I entertain and interact with lots of people from different states and different countries. Do you know how confusing it is to try to explain to someone that in Memphis, grocery stores can sell beer but not wine or hard spirits, that liquor stores can sell wine and hard spirits but not beer or wine openers or anything else associated with wine or hard spirits, and that if there is a store that can sell beer but not wine or hard spirits next to a liquor store that can sell wine and hard spirits but not beer, there has to be something like a nine-foot thick concrete wall between the two?

Good heavens. It’s like different stores have to sell wet cat food, dry cat food, and kitty litter. Just vote for the wine in grocery stores. If not, I may get some of the lanes closed at Kroger and Cash Saver and then look where you all will be.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From The Editor: The War on the War on Christmas

I’m hereby declaring war on the war on the “war on Christmas.” I can no longer sit idly by as Fox News escalates this annual crusade of duplicitous demagoguery every holiday season. Yes, I said “holiday season.” Get used to it.

Bill O’Reilly is the primary culprit, having spent the past several Novembers and Decembers ginning up outrage over the mythical “war on Christmas.” In O’Reilly’s world, saying “Happy Holidays” is an insult, part of a craven liberal plot designed to demean Jesus’ birthday and remove Christianity from Christmas. If a corporation, a school, or any other public entity posts “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” in its stores or as part of its marketing or advertising, it’s perpetrating the war on Christmas and insulting all good Christian Americans, and O’Reilly will call you out on it. Because … he’s tough that way.

Now, predictably, O’Reilly’s Fox-mate Sean Hannity is jumping into this ignoble fray. And, even more predictably, so is the grizzly grifter, Sarah Palin, who’s “written” a book about this horrific problem. It’s called Good Tidings and Great Joy, and it is neither.

Palin went on Hannity’s show on Veterans Day to plug her book. Hannity introduced her by bemoaning the “unbridled and unprecedented attacks” on Christmas. Palin turned it up a notch, claiming that “angry atheists” armed with attorneys “want to tell patriots … that no longer can you acknowledge that Jesus is the reason for the season.” Because … rhyming.

Stop it, you tools. There is no Santa Claus, and there is no “liberal” war on Christmas. Yes, we can all agree that the idea of Christmas as a simple Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ has gotten lost in the blow-up yard snowmen, the billion-light house displays, the shopping binges, the chrome and neon Christmas trees, and the relentless commercials and sales. But let’s be honest: It’s opportunistic retail capitalism and our own lust for more “stuff” that’s waging war on the true meaning of Christmas. If you want to get back to simply gathering your family, filling a stocking for everyone, and having a nice turkey dinner, no one’s going stop you, patriot — though Walmart won’t be pleased.

And people don’t say “Happy Holidays” because they are angry liberal atheists who hate Jesus. They say it because they’re aware that several other holidays occur in December and/or that not everyone celebrates Christmas. They’re being sensitive and sensible, especially if they don’t know you. They’re doing unto others as they would like others to do unto them. (I read that somewhere.) Anyone who could twist a greeting wishing you happiness into an insult or a declaration of war is not a Christian. They’re a fool or a demagogue. Or both.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com