Tag: Truth

Categories
At Large Opinion

L.A. Hot Takes

Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to ashes. (Photo: MMPhoto21 | stock.adobe.com )

And the lights of L.A. County
They look like diamonds in the sky … 
— Lyle Lovett

As I write this, devastating wind-fed fires have killed at least 25 people and swept through 40,000 acres in the greater Los Angeles area. If you’re looking for a size comparison, that’s equal to a fourth of the acreage of the city of Memphis burned to the ground — an area equal to Downtown, Uptown, and everything inside the beltway. Thousands of people have lost their homes. Hundreds of schools, churches, businesses, studios, and iconic architectural structures are gone. Entire neighborhoods are reduced to ashes.

Los Angeles County officials characterized the fires as a “perfect storm” event in which hurricane-force gusts of up to 100 miles per hour prevented them from deploying aircraft that could have dropped water and fire retardant on the drought-ravaged neighborhoods when the fires first broke out. The combination of the winds, unseasonably dry conditions, and multiple fires breaking out one after another led to the widespread destruction.

But as L.A. firefighters battled the flames, disinformation was spreading like, well, wildfire: One theory pushed by right-wing media was that the blazes were raging because fire-fighting personnel were led by a lesbian fire chief and the department utilized DEI hiring criteria. X account Libs of TikTok, known for spreading anti-LBGTQ rhetoric posted: “DEI will get people k*lled. DEI MUST DIE.” Donald Trump Jr. said that donations the Los Angeles Fire Department sent to Ukraine in 2022 were somehow related to its response to the current fires.

Not to be outdone, the president-elect himself posted a deluge of misinformation on Truth Social, including this: “Governor Gavin Newscum [sic] refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snowmelt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.” 

And what’s a good tragedy without a trash take from Alex Jones, who posted that President Biden had grounded firefighters and that the fires were being spread as part of a “globalist plot to wage economic warfare”? First Buddy Elon Musk responded to Jones’ tweet in a now-deleted post with one word: “True.” 

None of it was true. The level of diversity in L.A. Fire Department personnel is typical of most urban fire departments in the U.S. The Southern California reservoirs were full, above historic levels. Water intended for the city was not diverted to save a fish called the smelt. Some hydrants went dry because they were intended for use against urban fires — houses, buildings in a self-contained area for a limited time — not wild-blown wildfires spreading over many acres for many days. 

Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said, “We are fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is an unprecedented kind of event.” Quiñones added that experts have seen wildland fires move into urban areas only in the last 10 to 15 years and that they’re still figuring out how to address it.

“The way that firefighting has traditionally been, there are wildland firefighters and agencies, and then there are urban firefighters and agencies,” she said. “Are we having wildland firefighters fighting fires in urban areas or the reverse? Sometimes the approaches are really different.”

All this brings to mind an interview with Denzel Washington I saw last week. When asked about today’s media, he said: “If you don’t read the newspapers, you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you’re misinformed.” 

He went on: “What is the long-term effect of too much information? One thing is the need to be first. … We live in a society where it’s just, get it out there, be first! It doesn’t matter if it’s true, who it hurts, who it destroys, just be first. So what a responsibility [the media] have — to tell the truth!” 

To which, I would add: What a responsibility you and I have — to seek out the truth, and to learn not to blindly swallow the first piece of information offered, no matter who offers it, no matter how it tickles your confirmation biases. A hot take is seldom the best take. 

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The True Story of Truth

When you call your movie Truth, you’re setting a pretty high bar —especially if your setting is a time when truth was in short supply.

Truth is based on a memoir by Mary Mapes, a CBS news producer who was instrumental in breaking two stories of the Bush era: the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and the so-called Killian documents scandal, where she and Dan Rather uncovered letters proving that then-president George W. Bush had gone AWOL from his Air National Guard unit during the Vietnam War. The former story got her a Peabody Award. The latter got her fired when it turned out the documents were fake. Maybe. That’s the rub in Truth and the source of the possible unintentional irony of the title.

The film is a bit of a throwback. The story is told primarily with dialogue, and it expects the viewer to bring a little knowledge of recent history to the party. It’s kind of like All the President’s Men, only the good guys lose. The cast is killer: Cate Blanchett stars as Mapes, Robert Redford plays Dan Rather, and the supporting cast includes Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss, and, best of them all, Stacy Keach as Bill Burkett, the ultimate source of the controversial letters. The story opens with Mapes and her team, fresh off the prisoner abuse story, which put the Bush administration on the defensive and eroded public trust in the team running the Iraq War, contemplating what to do next. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are in the process of undermining Democratic candidate John Kerry’s Vietnam military record. But Mapes has heard Bush never even showed up for much of the stateside Air National Guard duty he pulled to avoid being deployed, and so she goes searching for proof, which is too-conveniently delivered to her.

In the film, passing reference is made to Mapes hearing rumors about the story during the 2000 campaign. But in fact, the story came from work done by Memphis Flyer political reporter Jackson Baker, who wrote about it in these pages in February, 2004, seven months before the ill-fated 60 Minutes report aired. Baker quoted Memphian Bob Mintz, a FedEx pilot who had flown in Bush’s Air National Guard unit in Alabama, who claimed that he had never seen the future president on the base. Baker confirmed the story with fellow pilot Paul Bishop. The Flyer story was ignored for months until The Boston Globe and The New York Time‘s Nicholas Kristof interviewed Mintz, setting the CBS investigation in motion. But Baker’s role in uncovering the story has gone unremarked until the website Raw Story reprinted the original column last week.

 “It used to piss me off. It’s probably a good thing for my piece of mind that I’d stopped thinking about it long ago,” Baker says. “There’s a sequel to this unjust oversight that’s almost too much! In those days I was a regular stringer for Time magazine, and, when the Rather debacle occurred, the magazine’s New York office delegated me to try to track down the source of the information that the ill-fated but well-intentioned (and well-aimed) CBS anchor had acted on in his late-campaign Bush story of 2004. I checked back through various layers of the likely daisy chain and finally got in touch with a Texas media guy who played a key role in getting the story to the national sources that ended up with it, including Rather. And where did this guy get his info? ‘Why….’ he sputtered, in obvious confusion. ‘Why, from you! It was your story in The Memphis Flyer!’ (SIGH!) I had found the mysterious Ur-source, and it was me. It’s worth noting, by the way, that my account relied totally on Mintz and two other first-person National Guard witnesses on the scene in Alabama—no documents, suspect or otherwise. If the big boys had restricted themselves to the information in my story, Rather and Mapes would have kept their jobs, and Bush might have lost his.”

Truth is ultimately about old-guard media giants ambushed by the Bushes’ ruthless black-propaganda operation. Even at this late date, it never seems to occur to anyone involved that the story might be true, but the letters they were using for proof might be fakes planted to destroy their credibility. It’s a solidly-made movie, but you may come away from it wondering who, if anyone, has a claim on truth in the 21st century.

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Last Word

In January, city councilman Edmund Ford declared 2007 the year of truth.

Now, we’re not saying it wasn’t a truthful year, but maybe — especially since Congressman Steve Cohen found himself on The Colbert Report — it was the year of what Colbert calls truthiness.

Rickey Peete, under an indictment of bribery, resigned again from the City Council. Ford, facing a similar indictment, decided to stay on the council until his term ended. When the election rolled around, Ford’s son ran and won his father’s former seat.

Below is a month-by-month guide to 2007. Or, in all truthiness, as close as we could get.

January

At his annual New Year’s Day Prayer breakfast, Mayor Willie Herenton proposes building a brand-new football stadium to replace the aging Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. Meanwhile, the City Council commits $15 million to upgrade bathrooms and disabled access at the Liberty Bowl.

Memphis Zoo female panda Ya Ya gives Le Le the cold shoulder when he tries to impress her by doing handstands, apparently a panda mating ritual.

Memphis-based Stax Records turns 50 and celebrates the big day with a party not in Memphis but in New York City.

February

A national survey ranks Memphis number one in the amount of time we spend watching television.

City Council member Edmund Ford racks up a $16,000 utility bill, but his power stays on. Turns out he and other politicians, like E.C. Jones, Myron Lowery, and Jack Sammons, are on a special VIP list.

Memphis director Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci, premieres. Brewer held off on its release to give people plenty of time to forget that other Samuel L. Jackson film with a serpent title: Snakes on a Plane.

March

Congressman Steve Cohen appears on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Host Steven Colbert asks Cohen if he’s the first Jew from Tennessee.

Church of God in Christ (COGIC) presiding bishop G.E. Patterson dies of heart failure on March 20th. Bishop Charles Blake of the West Angeles COGIC in Los Angeles is named presiding bishop at the annual convocation in November.

Twenty-five-year-old Anna Clifford makes national news after she appears in a mugshot with a 12-inch Mohawk. The attention started after her mugshot, the result of a DUI charge after leaving a Midtown bar, was posted on TheSmokingGun.com.

April

Dale Mardis is sentenced to 15 years in prison for the slaying of code-enforcement inspector Mickey Wright. Mardis admitted to killing Wright, then dismembering and burning the body. Wright’s family becomes outraged that Mardis only received a charge of second-degree murder.

Thieves steal more than $11,000 worth of brass valves from the Sears Crosstown building’s plumbing and fire-control system. It is just one of countless “scrap metal” thefts — air conditioning parts and vehicle catalytic converters are also routinely stolen — across the city during the year.

In Selmer, Tennessee, Mary Winkler is convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of her preacher husband Matthew Winkler. While on the stand, she showed a pair of white, high-heeled shoes she said her husband forced her to wear.

May

Former Senator John Ford is convicted of bribery. Ophelia Ford — who won John’s vacated state Senate seat — falls off of a barstool in Nashville after informing attendees of a Senate hearing that they “need to get knowledged.”

Zookeepers at the Memphis Zoo artificially inseminate Ya Ya, starting a panda pregnancy watch that ultimately ends with a miscarriage.

After playing “Ice Ice Baby” one time too many, Raiford’s Hollywood Disco closes, only to reopen under new ownership in the fall.

June

Robert F.X. Sillerman, owner of Elvis Presley’s image, announces plans to invest $250 million in upgrades to both sides of Elvis Presley Boulevard around Graceland.

John McCain threatens to name FedEx founder Fred Smith to his cabinet if elected president.

July

The Memphis Light Gas and Water board decides to sell Memphis Networx to Colorado-based Communications Infrastructure Investments at a more than $28 million loss.

August

A Raleigh man grabs national headlines when he became the victim of a gunshot wound — inflicted by his dog.

An overzealous Elvis fan steals one of the King’s firearms from a museum across the street from Graceland but “dumps” the pistol in a nearby port-a-potty.

September

Local Air America station trades liberal politics for sports scores.

An FBI report says Memphis is the most dangerous city in the country. U of M football player Taylor Bradford is shot on campus in a botched robbery attempt and later dies at the Med.

October

Noted photographer Ernest Withers dies.

A Memphis high school student shoots his friend during an English class. The friend recovers; the Memphis city school district asks its schools to beef up security.

November

Bruce Thompson is indicted on corruption charges. The former county commissioner allegedly received $260,000 in consulting fees as part of an MCS construction job.

Though Mayor Willie Herenton once vowed he would conduct a national search for a new president of MLGW, after being reelected for his gazillionth term, Herenton appoints the city’s public works director, Jerry Collins, to the job.

New evidence in the West Memphis Three case points to animal attacks to explain evidence once considered signs that the young victims were part of a Satanic ritual.

December

While waiting for outdoor retailer Bass Pro to move forward with plans for The Pyramid, county commissioners hear an alternative reuse plan: a $250 million indoor theme park with a 300- to 400-room hotel and a shopping mall.

Local Scientologists put their Midtown mansion on the market.

Justin Timberlake’s family buys the Big Creek golf course in Millington and promises a new clubhouse, new golf carts, and maintenance to the course itself. He’s bringing BigCreek back!