No. 144: Win Four Titan's Tickets
Good morning, everyone.
Below, we cover some of the more bizarre efforts made by Tennessee to protect us from Covid, detail the life of an unsung hero from the French Revolution, and introduce our first ticket giveaway.
We're hosting two ticket giveaways this month. To enter, you'll be asked to fill out a brief survey. To increase your chances of winning, share the contest with friends/family/loved-ones/etc. Each person who refers you will increase your chances of winning. Feel free to enter both if you wish.
The first includes four tickets and a parking pass to the Thursday Night Titans vs. 49ers on December 23rd. The tickets are arranged right on the fifty-yard line (Section 134, Row F). They're fantastic seats for what could end up being a crucial game for the Titans.
🏈 Enter the Titans vs. 49ers Ticket Giveaway Contest (Link)
The second includes four tickets to St. Paul & the Broken Bones at the Brooklyn Bowl on New Year's Eve. If you're not aware of them, St. Paul & the Broken Bones is an Alabama-based group that blends gospel, soul, and funk. They put on a hell of a show. Here's a sample of them on Stephen Colbert's late-night show back around Christmas of 2018.
🎙 Enter the New Year's Eve Ticket Giveaway Contest (Link)
In other red-blooded news, if you haven't seen our Pierce Brosnan Shrine scroll to the bottom of this email to cleanse your palate of the politics. You can follow us on Twitter (@realpamphleteer), LinkedIn (@realpamphleteer), or Instagram (@realpamphleteer) for additional content.
Thanks for reading.
◘ Supply Stories from the Covid Era
As leadership in Tennessee scrambled to properly equip the Volunteer state after the novel Coronavirus made it’s grand debut back in 2020, irrelevant materials and supplies suddenly became vital. The new whirlwind of demand left a few odd supply-related stories in its wake. Incidents ranging from price gouging to the mismanagement of millions of Tennessee taxpayer dollars flew under the radar. Lest we forget, here are a few examples of the ships that passed in the night after the Coronavirus sunsetted our attention spans.
Nomi Health Contract
Tennessee taxpayers ended up paying $5.9 million dollars for useless Covid-19 testing kits. The original contract with the “startup” medical supply company, Nomi Health, was a $25 million dollar no-bid contract deal. Back in December, 2020 Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey and Deputy Commissioner John Webb both gave testimony before the Fiscal Review Committee regarding this particular contract. It is still unclear where certain supplies received by the state even went.
Noteworthy: In response to Covid-19, Tennessee taxpayers shelled out a little over $490 million dollars in no-bid contracts.
Colvin Brothers
How did a pair of brothers from Chattanooga. TN end up with 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer they couldn’t sell? During the onset of the pandemic, the Colvin brothers cleared store shelves in Kentucky and Tennessee by buying up supplies of sanitizing products. Once a state of emergency was declared, the pair were investigated by the Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III. The state looked into the matter as a price gouging scheme and later reached an agreement with the brothers.
When all was said and done, the Colvins were allowed to sell some of the supplies they had bought up, but only at regular prices. They were also asked to donate a portion of their hoard. In a positive twist to the story, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III came together and delivered some of the confiscated supplies to law enforcement and first responders back in March of 2020.
Direct Payments for Covid Testing
To ensure Tennessee could get a consistent turnover of results from Covid-19 Test Labs, the state resolved to directly pay the labs. The direct payment cut out the billing process involving insurance companies. This gave the labs in contract with Tennessee the confidence to properly staff and equip their testing laboratories and led to a more consistent and reliable Covid-19 testing and result process.
Going Once, Going Twice… TN Covid Supplies Up For Auction By Accident?
Back in 2020 Tennessee mistakenly put pallets of nasal swabs up for auction. Apparently a case of mislabeling led to the mistake. The transgression was prevented, but only on the account of an inquiry into the matter by the Tennessean. Nasal swabs continue to be a hot commodity. A very specific swab is necessary for accurate and safe nasal testing, therefore the process of making the swabs isn’t easily duplicated. Add the fact that there were only two companies readily able to make the necessary swabs back in 2020, this was a major oops.
HEADLINES
- NASHVILLE ELSEWHERE: George Soros has blood on his hands for the rise in killings nationwide (NY Post) Republican candidate for TN's 5th Congressional district (depending on how redistricting pans out) pens an op-ed in the New York Post on criminal justice reforms coming from the Soros camp.
- Tennessee AG is right to challenge Biden’s vaccine mandate (Beacon Center) "Regardless of your opinion of COVID-19 vaccines, the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to impose this mandate, nor should it do so even if it did."
DEVELOPMENT
- Project planned for east side moves forward (Post)
- Development company pays $6.52M for Music Row building (Post)
- Local developer pays $5.2M for WeHo property (Post)
- Flying Saucer taproom in downtown Nashville to close after 23 years (Tennessean)
- Brentwood mixed-use building sells for $5M (Post)
⚜ A LESSON FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
At the height of the French Revolution, during the Reign of Terror in 1793 following the decapitation of Louis the XVI, the iconoclasm of artifacts from France's history reached a fever pitch. Churches turned from sacred places of worship to material stockpiles. Bronze statues were melted down to produce guns and cannons. The lead from the Church's roof was used to produce bullets. Books and manuscripts were shredded to produce cartridges. In one of the more heretical efforts, looters exhumed the graves of kings and nobles going back centuries, piling up their bodies in the street and lighting them on fire.
It is from this era that we receive the word vandalism which Henri Grégoire coined to describe the revolutionary's destruction and draw comparisons between it and the sacking of Rome by the tribe of Vandals in 455 AD. Against the tide of revolutionary destruction which sought to remake French culture into a utopian mecca of universal rights and flattened social hierarchies distanced as far as possible from its corrupt and evil past, there stood one man.
Alexandre Lenoir ran a small museum called the Museum of French Monuments that, in the retelling of French history, has been vastly overwhelmed by the birth of the Louvre in 1793. Lenior took it upon himself to save the artifacts that the revolutionaries wished to destroy. He salvaged the corpses of French icons like Molière, painted bronze states to look like marble so they wouldn't get melted down, and defended various church statues by claiming that they could teach revolutionaries about the history of costume.
Lenoir was a savvy operator who, using the language of the times, stockpiled a crucial storehouse of French art and artifacts and protected them from destruction. His museum, he claimed, would serve as a repository of the "masterpieces which used to decorate the temples of the fanatics, the palaces of the tyrants and the houses of their affiliates." As the revolutionary fervor quieted and gave way to Napoleonic imperium, Lenoir was able to negotiate access to a larger space and, in 1800, Napoleon and Josephine famously graced the grounds. Until its shuttering in 1816 — due in part to its association with the Revolution, truthful or not — it was a popular destination for international travelers and beloved by Frenchman.
Lenoir's iron-clad commitment to the protection of, and willingness to advocate for a view of France's past, warts and all, serves as a crucial lesson for those of us who view our American legacy in a similar light. Against the destructive fervor of America's Left, we need men like Lenoir.
⚔ MISSIVES
- Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) became the 19th Democrat this year to announce his retirement from Congress and his plan to forgo the 2022 mid-term elections. By comparison, 10 Republicans are retiring or running for another office. Ballotpedia has a useful breakdown of historical trends on this front.
- The Biden Clan hung Christmas stockings at the White House for six Jill and Joe's grandchildren neglecting one of Hunter's daughters had out of wedlock with a stripper. Hunter claims he doesn't know the woman despite having her on his payroll up until she gave birth.
- As crime spikes in NYC, senior executives have instructed Wall Street staffers to "dress down" and avoid wearing corporate insignia that might draw attention to them amidst a 15% spike in felony assaults over the past 28 days.
We’ve sifted through the hordes of imposters calling themselves “artists” to bring you some worthwhile shows in Nashville this week.
THINGS TO DO
View the full calendar here.
⭐ Cheekwood’s Christmas lights exhibit is running until January 9.
🖼 At the Frist, Medieval Bologna: Art for a University City is running until January 30 and American Art Deco: Designing for the People, 1918–1939 until January 2.
TONIGHT
🎸 Harry Fontana @ American Legion Post 82, 7p, Free, Info
+ Genuine Rockabilly.
💃 Motown Monday @ The 5 Spot, 10p, Free, Info
Around the Web
⧗ Australia Is the Drunkest Country in the World People from Australia are getting wasted at a much higher frequency than the rest of the world, according to a global drug survey.
↔ Are Left & Right Real? Zero HP Lovecraft vs DC Miller, Part II Dialogue: Daniel Miller and Zero HP Lovecraft argue over empirical evidence for Left and Right
⚱ 3,500-Year-Old Stone Carving Discovery May Change Art History as We Know It A new discovery by researchers at the University of Cincinnati is upending the way we think about the development of Western Civilization.
Political Theater Highlight Reel
- Stacey Abrams claims she didn't 'challenge' 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election results (yes, she did)
- Biden administration expected to announce diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics this week
- Black cast members boycott Dickens Christmas Fair over failure to prevent racist, sexist behavior
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Words of Wisdom
As we all know, time sometimes flies like a bird, and sometimes crawls like a worm, but people may be unusually happy when they do not even notice whether time has passed quickly or slowly.
Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons