How Taxpayer Money Supports Liberals' Art

The culture war's wholesale destruction of neutral civic spaces continues apace, and it's no secret that libraries are on the front lines. This is on full display in Louisville, KY, where branches in Fern Creek and Middletown have been shuttered, and more rural branches, which homeschoolers rely on for educational resources, face constant, existential budgetary concerns, yet space and funding for progressive ideology can always be found. 

Much has been made of Drag Queen Story Hour, which aims to “put the rainbow in reading,” but a lesser-known phenomenon lurks underneath the library’s knitting groups, seed exchanges, and adult literacy programs: a patronage network designed to turn taxpayer funding and apolitical branch donations into big payouts for zeitgeist-conforming authors, forcing libraries to struggle under the burden of digital catalog expenses. 

Public libraries purchase eBook licenses for $55 a pop. The licenses are good for two years or 26 loans. This shocking number is a consequence of the uneasy compromise reached between publishers and libraries to balance the non-degradability of digital files compared to paper books (which, if popular, would need to be continually re-purchased). In other words, eBooks are big business—big business that appears to benefit one side of the political spectrum.

Let us study two comparable, diametrically opposed books: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo, and Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier. 

💸 The Anti-Sales Tax Coalition Unites In February, when asked how the city would finance Choose How You Move, Mayor O’Connell said, “The IMPROVE Act offers several opportunities for pursuing revenue in the form of surcharges,” and continued, “The whole point of asking voters is to say, ‘Here is the plan, here are the returns on the investment that we have to make, and we are inviting everybody to participate in that conversation….’”

Now, a bipartisan group has formed to defeat his proposed surcharge. “People have already sustained a pretty significant increase in property taxes in 2020,” Emily Evans, a former council member and one of the group’s organizers, told Axios’ Nate Rau. “That was a price shock that has yet to be absorbed.” 

According to Axios, the organizers of the cohort called the Committee Against an Unfair Tax include Evans, TNGOP Executive Committeewoman Beth Campbell, and attorney Dianne Ferrell Neal. Evans, a Nashville mainstay who represented the area stretching across West Meade and Belle Meade, has had some concerns about Metro Government in the past.

You may remember her petition to reduce the number of council members and extend term limits in 2015. (Her reasoning? To help cultivate more effective public servants.) Now, Evans is taking on a new fight. Along with pushing back against the mayor’s proposed sales tax and citing WeGo safety concerns, she told Axios that the coalition believes parts of the transit improvement plan, such as sidewalks and traffic signal upgrades, should be funded annually by the capital improvements budget. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

🖲️ Innovation Ecosystem Forum On Monday, Mayor O’Connell joined a forum with Vanderbilt University to discuss the goals of their newly formed Nashville Innovation Alliance. Standing alongside Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, the mayor discussed their mutual aim to make Nashville “a leader in AI applications, climate research, AV technology, and much more.”

Given O’Connell’s dedication to alternative energy investments, his partnership with the university comes as no surprise. (Don’t forget that one of Freddie’s Fifteen Fixes is to convert all Metro buildings to 100 percent solar by 2027.) During his campaign, we’d noticed a number of the mayor’s donors were involved with or connected to solar and clean energy initiatives. Along with the establishment of the Innovation Alliance last month, the latest hint at O’Connell’s ambitions was the mention of converting Bordeaux’s old landfill-turned-wildlife habitat into a solar farm last week. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

DEVELOPMENT

• Hattie B's closing Texas location, opening new spot (NBJ)
• Chinese-American cuisine restaurant opens in North Gulch (Post)
• New York-style pizza joint coming to Gulch (Post)

✹ ART REVIEW: RENDEZVOUS

When Thomas F. Frist Jr. founded the museum that bears his name in 2001, its opening exhibitions brought illuminated manuscripts and artworks from the Middle Ages to Music City in what would be the opening salvo of the city’s transformation into a national arts hub. At the time, the idea that the museum would one day house the work of the fashion designer responsible for creating the low-rise pants that gripped a generation was likely not part of the philanthropic plan. However, a quarter century after the museum’s founding, The Frist’s primary summer attraction is dedicated to British fashion provocateur Alexander McQueen. Featuring over 60 garments and 65 rare photographs by McQueen’s long-term photographer, Ann Ray, the career-spanning exhibit proves fashion as a medium that can preserve the visual arts’ deep history while charting its enduring relevance in the era of the global corporation.

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🎸 Nico Vega @ The Basement East, 7:30p, $32.97, Info

🎸 Juan Wauters @ The Blue Room, 7p, $20.72, Info

🎸 Vince Gill @ Ryman Auditorium, 8p, $65+, Info

🪕 Texas String Assembly @ The Basement, 8:30p, $12.85, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
+ vet community here

📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.