More than meets the eye...
🧊 A new ICE facility in West TN · Cleaning up the Capitol · Dress code scaries · Murfreesboro grave destroyed · This week in culture · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone. The town of Macon approved plans to turn an old prison into an ICE facility... Lee sends the Tennessee National Guard to assist in cleaning up DC... The grave of one of Murfreesboro's founders destroyed... And our week in culture suggestions on what to read, watch, and listen to.
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Mason, a town on the outskirts of Memphis, approved a contract to reopen its long-vacant 600-bed prison as an ICE detention center. While many local leaders and residents support the plan due to its promised benefits, a number of people showed up to Tuesday’s special called meeting in opposition to the deal arranged with CoreCivic.
Mason’s Mayor Eddie Naeman is an Egyptian immigrant and spoke in support of reopening the facility to house ICE. As the crowd grew more and more disorderly, Naeman respectfully held his ground and explained how reviving the dormant facility would benefit the citizens of Mason.
“We have to get together to do whatever we are supposed to do for our community,” he said while listing off the benefits of the deal, including more jobs and economic growth. “What's wrong with a small town in the heart of the South here close to Memphis doing whatever we’re supposed to do by our citizens?”
Ultimately, the board approved the contract with CoreCivic 4 to 1 with two abstentions and the contract with ICE 3 to 2 with two abstentions. Leaders claim the center could bring up to 240 jobs to the area. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK
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🏛️ Cleaning Up The Capitol Governor Bill Lee says he’s ready to deploy the Tennessee National Guard to Washington, D.C., to support President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the city’s police force if needed. This week, U.S. National Guard members have been spotted in our nation’s Capitol as the president gears up to take on the area’s violence, crime, and homelessness.
“As of today, I talked with the secretary of the Army, and he indicated that they would potentially be reaching out to states, and I told him that we would be obviously willing to work with them whatever they needed,” State Affairs reported Lee telling reporters after an event for Barrett Firearms Wednesday. “The current status, I can't speak to. But the request to work of interest was made, and I expressed interest.”
🎓 The School Scaries: Dress Code Edition It’s that time of year again to bust out the crop tops and protest school dress codes. At least that’s the notion of some students and parents at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School. A little over a week before the new school year, administrators announced a stricter dress code.
It includes a few basic changes—i.e., covering shoulders and midriffs, requiring sufficiently long dresses or tops over yoga pants and leggings, and specific lengths for shorts and skirts—but the almost universally standard requirements have triggered some backlash.
“This woman… grabs my arm and is like, ‘You need to come with me,’” recounted one student who spoke with the Banner when the publication set out to expose the “‘Misogynistic’ Dress Code” plaguing MLK. “It was very jarring. It was very, like, scary.”
According to the publication, the pushback escalated into a petition that gained almost 900 signatures. The administration at MLK has since agreed to refine some of the changes made to the dress code.
DEVELOPMENT
- Rolf and Daughters' chef debuts French-inspired Junior on Dickerson Pike this week (NBJ)
- Nashville Investment Group Acquires East Bank Scrapyard Site (Now Next)
- Images released for hotel building eyed for Gulch (Post)
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✹ MURFREESBORO FOUNDING FATHERS’ GRAVE DESTROYED
On Tuesday morning, the Murfreesboro grave of a Revolutionary War Hero was found destroyed. In addition to his own, the graves of his family were found desecrated as well. Images of Captain William Lytle’s grave show a large portion of the gravebox destroyed and rubble lying about the site. Lytle was among the first families to settle in what is now Murfreesboro. Few acts of human volition are more dishonorable than the desecration of a grave. Now, yet another American hero has fallen victim to this barbarous act of destruction.
✹ THE WEEK IN CULTURE (August 14th)
Watch
Hot Ticket Nobody 2 Bob Odenkirk returns as the lifelong assassin turned family man who now finds his summer vacation interrupted by a local drug ring and a corrupt smalltown sheriff (Colin Hanks). The 2021 film was the COVID spring’s brightspot. By all accounts, this entry is the perfect way to send off the summer movie season. Now playing in theaters.
Pamphleteers’s Pick Americana Tony Tost of Longmire and Poker Face fame makes his feature directorial debut with this ensemble western noir about a rare Native American artifact that captures the hearts and minds of a small town’s residents, including Sydney Sweeney as waitress with country music aspirations and Halsey as a single mom of reincarnated preteen Sitting Bull. Not only is the movie endlessly engaging, but Tost’s clear admiration for America’s non-coastal regions shines through in every frame. Check back next week for our interview with Tost and actor Paul Walter Hauser about this instant American classic.
For a complete list of upcoming titles, check out the 2025 Film Guide.
Stream
Pavements (Mubi) Fans of the eccentric 90s indie rock legends have plenty to ponder in Alex Ross Perry’s hybrid of documentary and sendup of the bloated Hollywood biopic. Stranger Things’s Joe Keery turns in one of the best performances of the year as a fictionalized version of himself playing lead singer Stephen Malkmus while Perry’s execution of a fake Pavement museum and Broadway musical make for the type of ingenious comedy to which Borat always aspired.
Dragnet (Prime) TV’s pioneering cop show from Jack Webb maintains a higher level of grit and murky ethics than any of its predecessors. For those decrying the decay of our once-great metropolises, this one’s for you.
Read
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation Scott Anderson, the mind beyond 2013’s brilliant T.E. Lawrence tome, Lawrence in Arabia, returns with his expansive and exhaustive take on the Iranian Revolution and the disastrous American foreign policy that culminated in the Carter years and continues to reverberate throughout the Middle East. Anderson will appear at Parnassus Books tonight for a reading and discussion of the book at 6:30 pm.
Listen
Tennessee Lightening Ashley Monroe The Knoxville native and Pistol Annies member offers up the best album of the year so far with her return to recording after beating a rare form of blood cancer in 2021. Amid the rollicking class country throwbacks, collaborations with legends like Marty Stuart and T Bone Burnett, and the occasional synth, Monroe gets back to her roots with the definitive rendition of gospel classic “Jesus Hold My Hand” featuring Armand Hutton.
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week 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.
TONIGHT
🪕 Tim Graves & The Farm Hands @ Station Inn, 9p, $20, Info
🎸 Danielle Nicole @ Exit/In, 8p, $27.37, Info
🎸 Rod Stewart @ Ascend Amphitheater, 7p, $54+, Info
🎸 Chris Isaak @ Ryman Auditorium, 7p, $70+, 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
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Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Jerod Hollyfield (Crowd Corner), Camelia Brennan (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).