Categories
At Large Opinion

The Price of Gaffes

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

With these nine words — apparently an ad-lib departure from his scripted speech in Poland last Saturday — President Joe Biden started the media’s hearts a-thumpin’ and created a field day for pundits, commentators, and other opinionistas. The next morning, the front pages of the country’s major newspapers led with the story of Biden’s “gaffe.” The Sunday cable shows were all over it. Quelle horreur!

Biden was speaking of Vladimir Putin, of course, the man who has single-handedly shoved Europe into disorder, destruction, and bloody conflict over the past month, the man who unilaterally invaded and attempted a takeover of a sovereign nation by brutal force.

But, apparently, suggesting that such a man should be removed from power is a bridge too far. Biden’s improv sent Washington media elites to their fainting couches. What will Vlad think? Will he be peeved? Sensing that the president may have taken a step too far, the White House immediately walked back the statement, saying that the president only meant that Putin should be removed from power in Ukraine. Right.

Here’s the thing: There are two sets of rules in play here. Donald Trump used to utter more “gaffes” before lunch on any given Tuesday than Biden has offered up in 14 months. “Little Rocket Man,” anyone? Redrawing the path of a hurricane on a map with a Sharpie? Suggesting that scientists figure out a way to “do an injection into the lungs” with bleach? Now those are gaffes.

And remember that Trump loves Putin, repeatedly calling him a “genius.” At a Mar-a-Lago gathering a month ago, Trump said, “Putin’s taking over a country for two dollars’ worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart. He’s taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.”

How remarkable is that? The former president of the United States is rooting for the current iteration of Hitler’s invasion of Poland to succeed, discussing it like it’s a real estate deal. The remark didn’t get much play on the morning shows, though. Not gaffe-y enough, I guess.

Biden, by contrast, was saying the quiet part out loud, something most decent people wish would happen: Putin has got to go. Forty years ago, President Reagan routinely called for the Berlin Wall to fall and labeled the Soviet Union “an evil empire.” Today, that’s not prudent. And, as with everything else in the U.S. these days, the political tribal divide defines how we react to things.

We have only to look at the circus surrounding the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson for another example. Despite having no real blemishes on her record and more judicial and trial experience than any nominee in decades, she suffered the slings and rubber-tipped arrows of GOP opportunists such as Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, and our homegrown lightweight, Marsha Blackburn, who accused Jackson of having a “hidden agenda to bring critical race theory into the law” (Huh?) and asked the judge to “define a woman.” (I would dearly love to see Marsha try to answer that latter question. Or “what’s eight times seven?” for that matter.)

Speaking of SCOTUS, how about that wacky Ginni Thomas, amirite? (Fun fact: Ginni’s number was 867-5309.) Copies of texts she sent to Trump chief of staff, Mark Meadows, were released to the media last week, and it’s clear she was a major force in organizing the January 6th insurrection and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Kind of unseemly for the wife of a Supreme Court justice, don’t you think? Surely, even Republicans would agree with that? Nope. Crickets.

But, to be honest, I’m hard-pressed to think of any Republican senator who would put principle and/or love of country over party hackery and self-interest. Maybe Mitt Romney? Lisa Murkowski? I know the Democrats have their own hacks, but the country has come to a sad state of affairs when we can’t find agreement on issues with such an obvious demarcation between right and wrong. It’s always tribes über alles — much to our mutual detriment.

Categories
At Large Opinion

The Ashtray of History

Sure, your grandparents loved you, but did they love you enough to put a picture of you and your siblings on the bottom of an ashtray? I think not. Check, and mate, my friend.

If you look at the photo accompanying this column, you’ll see me (middle) and my brothers mugging for the camera in clothes made by my stepmom. It was taken in the 1960s, probably for Easter, and was on the wall in my parents’ house for a long while. I’m guessing they must have given a copy to my paternal grandparents, at least one of whom thought, “Hey, I’ll put this in the bottom of an ashtray so I’ll think of the boys whenever I crush out a Camel.”

My sister found the ashtray in a long-unopened box last week and sent me a picture of it. It was truly a “WTF?” moment, and we had a good laugh over the phone. But that’s because we were looking at it through the social mores of 2022 rather than those of 60 years ago, when smoking was acceptable and decorative ashtrays of one sort or another were displayed in most people’s houses. My grandfather was a physician and smoked like a wet campfire all his life. Having an ashtray with a photo of his grandkids was probably normal back then. I assume. I hope.

I shared the photo with my brothers and the rest of my family via social media and we had a good laugh — or at least some good emojis and text exchanges. These kinds of familial artifacts are like archeological finds, evoking memories long buried. We shouldn’t take them for granted.

I wonder, for example, how much family memorabilia was destroyed in Luhansk, Ukraine, last week, when a Russian tank pulled up in front of a home for the aged and opened fire, killing 56 elderly people. “They just adjusted the tank, put it in front of the house, and started firing,” an official told The New York Times. Lives and memories lost forever in the rubble.

These stories keep emerging. It’s like an enormous, crushing boulder, seemingly unstoppable. Each day brings new tales of horror, of bombed schools, of proud, once-vibrant cities being blasted apart block by block, of Ukrainian civilians being put in trucks and shuttled back to camps in Russia.

Almost as horrifying are the Americans who support this evil or who look for rationalizations or suggest providing an “off-ramp” for Putin. This would include the Republican senators who were fine with former President Trump withholding arms and supplies from Ukraine for political purposes, and who are now hypocritically raging that President Biden isn’t sending enough. Marsha Blackburn, I’m looking at you.

We’re way past the time to let domestic politics have any part in this struggle. This is a pivotal moment in world history. Are we big enough as a country to rise to the occasion? Or do we waste our energy hating the president of Mar-a-Lago or shouting, “Let’s Go, Brandon”?

Maybe, instead, we should be thinking about how many families have been destroyed by Vladimir Putin’s forces in attacks on more than 50 hospitals. Hospitals! And about how many lives and families have been ended or ruined because of cruel attacks on apartment buildings, schools, grocery stores, and homes? If it helps humanize the situation, maybe think about how much family memorabilia has been left behind by the 10 million Ukrainians displaced from their homes by this merciless, unprovoked assault on their country.

A crucible is coming. We can’t keep appeasing a murderous sociopath with the lives of innocents, hoping he will stop if we keep enough Big Macs and credit cards from his people. How many more civilians have to die before we realize the Russian leader just doesn’t care? What is the level of evil we will tolerate before we call his bluff, before we finally put Vladimir Putin’s picture in the ashtray of history?

We’re going to find out soon.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Woke Like a Man

“How many sexes are there in Russia, Brad?”

“Two, Steve.”

“Exactly. And Putin’s army ain’t ‘woke.’”

“Huh, huh, huh.”

That exchange came at the end of a discussion on Steve Bannon’s podcast a couple weeks ago about how Vladimir Putin’s Russian army was going to walk all over Ukraine because it was a manly fighting force that didn’t fret about wussy stuff like pronouns and wokeness. Putin was a man’s man and his soldiers would waltz in and kick ass. This would be a good thing, Bannon continued, since Ukraine was a corrupt autocracy run by a crook. (Project much, Stevie?)

Since then, we’ve seen an under-equipped Ukrainian fighting force made up of people of all ages and genders, sometimes using borrowed and homemade weapons, battle overwhelming numbers of Putin’s manly conscripts to a standstill. And now Ukraine is getting resupplied by the U.S. and “woke” countries from all over Europe. Putin’s forces may eventually capture Ukraine, but this isn’t turning out the way he and Bannon hoped it would.

Now let’s switch to Florida and take a listen to Governor Ron DeSantis waxing eloquent on foreign policy last week: “Can you imagine if [Putin] went into France?” he asked, with a sneer. “Would they do anything to put up a fight? Probably not.”

I’m not sure why DeSantis felt it necessary to insult America’s oldest historical ally and disparage the fortitude of a country whose citizens resisted Hitler’s nazis for six years (and a country, I might add, that has 300 nuclear warheads). But, hey, France, amirite? Cheese-eatin’ sissy boys. Huh, huh, huh.

What’s with all these displays of ignorant machismo emanating from the right these days? Why all the pathetic sucking up to bully-boys like Putin by the GOP and its media enablers? And when did “woke” become the official MAGA shorthand for “liberal wussies”?

Maybe it’s because “caravans are coming,” “build the wall,” “liberals will take your guns,” and “gays will force you to marry them” are played out, and the GOP needs a new boogeyman to stir up the rubes. Woke is the handy code word for everything the right hates and fears: considering more than one side of a question, thinking before reacting, acknowledging the existence of gender and sexuality issues, racial justice, scientific analysis — not to mention nuance, kindness, and empathy. It’s so much easier if you can just ignore all that stuff and go straight to painting political opponents with simplistic insults about their manliness — and hating them.

And it’s not just right-wing men. CongressClown Lauren Boebert said last week that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has to learn to “chest-feed,” because, you know, he’s a gay man who is a father. Huh, huh, huh.

Who are the role models for these fools? Beavis and Butt-Head? Have they even done the math on some of these issues, or is that too complicated? The latest Gallup poll has the American public’s support for gay marriage at 70 percent. Another Gallup poll found that 87 percent of Americans approved of France. And around 75 percent of Americans are at least partially vaccinated, meaning they probably didn’t find having to wear a mask in certain spaces during a pandemic infringed enough on their freedom that they needed to start a truck convoy.

Seriously, how deranged is driving across the country to protest having to wear a mask two weeks after the CDC ended mask mandates? People are dying for freedom in Ukraine and these bozos are wasting thousands of gallons of fuel driving around the outer loop of Washington, D.C. — to demand what? Lower gas prices? The right to drive around in circles? It’s just more stupid macho cosplay.

Because I’m of a certain age, I am reminded of the old Saturday Night Live skit “¿Quién es Más Macho?,” in which game-show host Bill Murray asked contestants to pick which of three male actors was “más macho.” As I recall, Gilda Radner won by picking Lloyd Bridges, who beat out Ricardo Montalbán and Fernando Lamas for the title. It was stupid — and racist by today’s standards — so it may be time to bring that show back for real. Bannon vs. Boebert vs. DeSantis? It would kill on Fox.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

This Land …

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York island

From the redwood forest to the Gulf stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

This land. These United States. My country. Your country. A country that welcomes the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” A country where we have the right to worship as we please. A country that is seen as a beacon of freedom around the world. A country that walks softly and carries a big stick. A country that values straight talk over bluster. A country that is in danger of losing it all.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway

I saw above me that endless skyway

Saw below me that golden valley

This land was made for you and me.

We are a country that should be outraged that our Jewish brothers and sisters are facing daily bomb threats and destruction of their graveyards. We should be outraged that anti-Semites and racists are working in our White House. We should be outraged that highly educated legal immigrants who teach in our universities and offer medical care in our hospitals are harassed and shot on the street by those inflamed by xenophobic rhetoric. We should be outraged that the hard-working immigrant laborers who build our houses and serve our food and do our dirty work for minimum wage are being harassed and frightened and summarily arrested, leaving shattered families and broken lives behind.

I’ve roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts

All around me a voice was sounding

This land was made for you and me.

We should be outraged and ashamed that our waters and mountains and fields and national parks are now being seen as corporate profit centers and dumping grounds for industrial and agricultural waste. We should be outraged that our public school system is being dismantled and profitized, that our children have become commodities. We should be outraged that our prisons are becoming profit centers, serviced by an immigration policy that guarantees hundreds of new customers each week.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling

And the wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling

As the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting

This land was made for you and me.

This land was made for you and me. Not for Vladimir Putin. Not for Donald Trump. Not for any one man. Not for oligarchs and billionaires, Russian or American. Our democracy is all we have. If there is evidence — and there certainly is — that our democratic process has been tampered with by an avowed enemy state, we should be outraged that party loyalties and lust for power are forestalling efforts to learn the whole truth, whatever it may be.

We have fallen into a dark place, where the rhetoric of fear and hatred and division — and bold-faced lies — are being normalized and used as political weaponry.

We are better than this. I believe it in my heart, just as I believe with the voices of true Americans chanting and standing up for what’s right, this fog, too, will lift.

This land was made for you and me.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1360

Sweat Spot

A number of news outlets have reported that Jelly Belly Candy Co. plans to close its warehouse and visitor center in Prairie, Wisconsin, and relocate that facility to Tennessee. But only WREG-TV seemed to grasp the true hotness of this news story. According to Channel 3, it’s a “SWEAT DEAL.” It’s especially exciting for Memphians with a sweat tooth.

Big Ol’ Ratings

Speaking of WREG, News Channel 3 won the first Nielson “sweeps” period of 2015, topping the competition in almost all weekday and weekend slots. Maybe it’s because of their winter weather coverage. Or perhaps it’s because they have the SWEAT beat covered. Or maybe it’s because they know a “big ol’ snake” when they see one.

Putin in Memphis

Your Fly Team is pretty sure that

Russian President Vladimir Putin spent at least some part of his mysterious 10-day absence in Memphis, where he was spotted on Poplar pretending to be an Illinois tourist and testing out a new title.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Enough with the commie Olympics already. It’s difficult to

take a winter sports festival seriously when the snow in Charleston, South Carolina, is deeper than it is at the site of the games. There was more ice in

Atlanta than there is in Sochi. Seriously, one afternoon in the city chosen to host the quadrennial ice capades, the temperature soared to 60 degrees, transforming a powdery overcoat of machine-enhanced snow into a layer of sno-cone ice that lacked the bubblegum flavor that some of the hapless skiers might have preferred.

I mean, who skis when it’s 60 degrees? In the South, that’s considered warm enough to swim. By the way, if snow skiing is considered a sport in the winter Olympics, then why is water skiing not a sport in the summer Olympics? And this biathlon business is not a sport. The combination of cross-country skiing while pausing to target shoot with a scoped-rifle is basic training for the Swiss army.

The problem with the winter Olympics is that they’re just not American. Every year, people all over the United States are breaking legs attempting to ski, because skiing just isn’t an American sport. It’s an Alpine sport that began when Heidi needed a doctor and the fastest way for grandpa to get down the mountain was on a couple of old bed slats. Now, the men’s downhill tests technology as much as the skier.

If you want to go skiing in the U.S., you have to either be part of the fortunate one percent who can afford a ski lodge, or else you have to go to a ski resort. In either case, it screams of elitism. Anybody can learn to swim or run, but skiing is a rich man’s sport. You first have to book a flight to a mountain resort and reserve a room well before snow season. If there is no snow when you get there, that’s your problem. If it’s snowing, there are other arrangements to make: ski lessons, time on the slopes, doctor’s appointments. But before you do anything, there’s all that gear you need to buy. I suppose that you can rent skis, but no self-respecting resort attendee would consider wearing any protective garments previously worn by another. That’s too much like renting bowling shoes. Each ski student must have the weather protective, one-piece garment that they used to call a leisure suit back in the day. Then there’s the helmet, goggles, and gloves, and the derigueur insulated, Michelin Man-looking overcoat. Not to mention the plaster casts for sprains and breaks. Personally, I don’t care to participate in any sport where a St. Bernard is involved.

The only race as exciting as men’s speed skating was watching Bob Costas’ pink-eye race from his left eye to his right. He remained in his post like a trouper before his malady began to frighten and disgust viewers, then he was properly relieved to receive treatment. There’s a sort of sports poetry in Costas ending his iron man streak of Olympic broadcasts and Derek Jeter announcing his retirement from baseball in the same week. 

Back to the men’s speed skating, which is a more accessible sport to the ordinary human than skiing, since everyone remembers that ankle pain when first attempting to step on the ice. Speed skating is an exciting sport, but the skaters’ suits have become so aero-dynamic and skin tight that they may as well skate naked just like the ancient Greeks. I understand it’s necessary to keep a tight package for wind resistance sake, but if everyone skated naked, it would be the only sport that rewarded the man with the small penis. Also, if they would like to make skating even more thrilling, make them skate on dry ice. That would add an incentive to remain upright. One more X Games-themed idea: They should ban ski poles on the mountains and make them gut it out like surfers and ski jumpers.

During Vladimir’s Olympics, Putin himself made appearances at some of the more macho events. It’s good that he passed on the men’s figure skating and the teams ice-dancing, or his head would have exploded. He might have admired U.S. figure skater Jeremy Abbott’s reaction to his critics after crashing and burning in the men’s short program. Abbott exploded during an interview and told his detractors to go fuck themselves. Some of Abbott’s competitors’ costumes were so outlandish, I was afraid Putin would order the Russian police to arrest them on the spot.

Putin’s glassy stare and mirthless smile conjure up images of those old KGB agents who would stab someone with the tip of a poisoned walking stick. In fact, that’s who Putin is. When I heard that the U.S. hockey team beat the Russians in a shootout, I thought that meant the squad had to escape under the cover of CIA sniper fire.

The greatest anticipation remaining is whether the return of Costas will yield yet another infection of some sort, and whether the yellow tap water is responsible. CNBC reports that the 2014 Olympic Games is costing an estimated $51 billion, making it the most expensive games in history. Even Mitt Romney criticized Putin, calling the games an “unsavory” vanity project. If only this country could spend that kind of money on roads and bridges. Putin’s Winter Olympics at Sochi do prove one thing: If you build it, they will come.

Randy Haspel writes the “Born-Again Hippies Blog,” where a version of this column first appeared.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Bravo!

So, I’ve been working on concepting this new television show for the Bravo Network. It’s going to star that Versace woman, the weird one. The working title at this point is, Don’t Ask, Donatella.

Rimshot. Sorry. But if there was ever a week for a lame gay-themed joke, this would be it — possibly the gay-newsiest week ever.

Let’s review: The Winter Olympics in Sochi opened amid the controversy surrounding the repressive anti-gay sanctions of Russian President Vladimir Putin (a man who’s posed for more bare-chested photos than the Village People). The U.S. sent a delegation of openly gay athletes to the opening ceremonies, because that’ll show ’em. (Ralph Lauren’s over-the-top, red, white, and whoa! uniforms were also a nice touch.)

Next, the SEC’s Defensive Player of the Year, Mike Sam, a graduate of my alma mater, the University of Missouri, shocked the macho football world with his gutsy announcement that he was gay. It was a Jackie Robinson moment for gay rights. NFL executives muttered that it would be a distraction for their teams if they drafted Sam, ignoring the fact that Sam had come out to his Mizzou coaches and teammates before the team’s stellar 12-2 season. Some distraction.

I predict Sam will be drafted and will have a fine NFL career. And frankly, anyone who thinks there are no other gay football players in college — or in the NFL — is fooling themselves.

Finally, it wouldn’t really be a proper gay-news week without some homophobic lunacy from the good ol’ boys in the Tennessee General Assembly. Usually, this nonsense comes from state Senator Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) of the famous “Don’t Say Gay” bill and other similar inanities. This time around, it was Germantown’s own Senator Brian Kelsey who stepped into the limelight by proposing a bill that would basically allow any person or institution to refuse to do business with a gay couple for “sincere religious reasons.” (See Viewpoint, p. 17.)

It was more of the usual pandering to the shrinking Neanderthal base of the GOP, designed to stigmatize gays as sinners — and win publicity for Kelsey. Fewer and fewer people are buying that tired rhetoric. It ignores science and human decency, and the fact that no one’s religious beliefs trump the civil rights of any other American. The Supreme Court has made this clear, and other federal courts have upheld it — even in red states like Oklahoma.

And I have to interject here: Does anyone else find it odd that two unmarried, childless men in their late 30s have set themselves up as the champions of traditional family values? Or is that just me?

I digress. Sorry.

But the reality is that the times they are a’changin’ and there’s nothing Vladimir Putin, the NFL, the Tennessee General Assembly — or Stacey and Brian — can do to stop it.

Just ask Donatella.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Presidents in Glass Houses …

Buried in the back pages of the newspapers these past two weeks by the Olympics, and now pushed offstage almost entirely by the Democratic Convention in Denver, the mega-crisis in the Caucasus — where Russia responded earlier this month to Georgian sabre-rattling over ending the autonomy of two ethnic Russian regions within its borders by invading the former Soviet republic — took a turn for the worse Tuesday, when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev formally recognized the “independence” of those regions (South Ossetia and Abkhazia). Predictably, Secretary of State Condi Rice blustered about this “regrettable” move on the part of Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who may well be welcoming these two mini-states into the Russian Federation before the first snows fall on Moscow.

And what can the U.S., as “the world’s only superpower,” do about this blatant violation of international law? Not much, thanks to the fact that our military forces are overextended in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Not that what the Russians are doing is anything less than reprehensible. But when Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France and the EU president, speaks out against the “outrage” of Russia’s bullying of Georgia, the world listens. When the architect of our own country’s miserably flawed foreign policy speaks, the world chuckles.

“The territorial integrity and borders of Georgia must be respected,” pontificated George W. Bush Tuesday. Right you are, Mr. President. Just like you respected the territorial integrity and borders of Iraq in the spring of 2003, launching an equally unprovoked war against an equally sovereign state left equally defenseless against the military might of a stronger power.

There is, however, one important difference between Russian aggression against Georgia and your aggression against Iraq, Mr. Bush: The Russian army is already headed home, while ours is still pounding sand in a country where so much American blood, treasure, and national honor has and continues to be lost.

“Tourists” and their Dollars

Tourism spending is supposed to support the financing of FedExForum, the convention center, the Bass Pro Pyramid, the fairgrounds, Beale Street, and Elvis Presley Boulevard near Graceland. Add to that the day-to-day operations of the Memphis Zoo, the Memphis Redbirds, the Children’s Museum, and many others.

Tourists, in other words, are really loaded. They’re sleeping in $100-$200 hotel rooms, eating expensive meals, and buying $50 tickets. And they’re oblivious to the price of gasoline, unlike the rest of us. The truth, of course, is that “tourism” spending includes a lot of local spending, too. The revenue streams that support our sports and entertainment projects are fed by taxes that would otherwise go into state or local coffers. And if the state rebates the taxes, you can bet someone in Nashville is keeping track and debiting the Memphis account somewhere along the line.

When public officials say they’re building major projects without using general funds or property taxes, they are fudging. The general fund would be more robust and Memphis property taxes — the highest in Tennessee — would be lower if financiers didn’t play their shell games. One way or another, it’s all public tax money.