No. 156: A Christmas Send Off
⁂ Nashville's Alt-Daily ⁂ Metro Meeting · Song of the South · What's on the Calendar · Much More!
Good morning, everyone.
Below, we review last night's council meeting, compose an ode to the South, and encourage you to completely ignore COVID over Christmas as the press mounts another full-court press to compete over who is more emotionally damaged and excited about getting their booster. That American leaders have found a way to get US citizens to shill for Big Pharma without charge is one of the more pathetic developments in recent memory.
In other news, we'll be taking the rest of the Christmas week off. We'll see you again on Monday.
The winner of yesterday's Titan's Ticket Giveaway was Stephen Adkins. Stephen is a 30 year old country artist and an online student at Liberty University where he's pursuing a degree to become a Chaplain. He loves the city of Nashville, football, and fishing. Thank you to everyone who participated.
Our New Year's Eve Ticket Giveaway will run until tomorrow. You will have a chance to win 4 tickets to St. Paul & the Broken Bones at the Brooklyn Bowl in Germantown. If that interests you, signup below.
You can follow us on Twitter (@realpamphleteer), LinkedIn (@realpamphleteer), or Instagram (@realpamphleteer) for additional content.
Thanks for reading.
🎫 OUR END OF YEAR TICKET GIVEAWAYS
Enter to win four tickets to see St. Paul & the Broken Bones at the Brooklyn Bowl on New Year's Eve. We'll announce the winner tomorrow morning (December 23rd).
If you refer people to the contest, you will increase your chances of winning.
🎙 Enter the New Year's Eve Ticket Giveaway Contest (Link)
𝌯 LAST NIGHT'S COUNCIL MEETING
ARPA (Biden’s America Rescue Plan Act) dollars funding MNPS vehicles, LPR (license plate readers), transportainment, and trash were all on the Metro Nashville City Council meeting’s agenda last night. Let’s go in that order, shall we.
Rescue Plan Funds
RS2021-1263 is approved, which means $9,069,614 in American Rescue Plan Act funds will go towards a new fleet of MNPD police vehicles.
License Plate Readers
LPRs (License Plate Readers) have been a deferred topic of debate for a long time at Metro City Council meetings. Voting on BL2021-961, which would allow for the scanning of government issued license plates in the metropolitan area, was deferred for two meetings. Multiple coalitions have been opposed to LPRs, including the American Muslim Advisory Council, API Middle TN, Conexion Americas, Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, Worker’s Dignity, Libertarian organizations, and others. LPRs are used to collect data that helps law enforcement investigate criminal activity including auto theft and other crimes. The main aversion to LPRs is a fear that loosely defined data collection is an overreach by government and the fact that minorities are affected most by the implementation of criminal data collected by LPRs. Over 100 stolen vehicles were intercepted in Mt. Juliet since their installation at major intersections and on/off ramps in 2021. Stay tuned for January’s meeting regarding this bill.
Transportainment
Transportainment vessels (downtown pedal taverns, party buses, and the like) are still a topic of discussion circulating in Metro Council meetings. Regulations have passed regarding how the vehicles are enclosed, BYOB rules, and other regulations but parameters regarding where and when these vehicles can operate during school hours are still on the table. Hume-Fogg High School has expressed concerns about noise disturbances that have interrupted learning and an instance where children were flashed by a patron on a pedal tavern has been cited. Voting on BL2021-1010, which states that no entertainment transportation vehicle may operate within 600 feet of the property line of a community education facility during school hours, has been deferred until the second council meeting in January.
Trash Collection
Ironically, we saved the trash for last in this Metro Council rundown. Issues regarding trash and recycling collection have emerged. One district went two weeks without their trash being collected. This fall, the city's waste management contractor filed for bankruptcy and Metro Council members on the Budget and Finance Committee and Metro Water Services are working on solutions regarding the rubbish. It looks as though they will be suspending recycling pick up until late January or early February to use those resources towards trash pick up.
HEADLINES
- August 21 rainfall officially sets state 24-hour precipitation record with 20.73 inches in McEwen (Channel 5) The devastating rainfall that hit Middle Tennessee on August 21 has officially set the state's record for total precipitation within a 24-hour period. The previous record was 13.60 inches in Milan, Tennessee was set on September 13, 1982.
- Nashville temporarily halts curbside recycling due to staffing shortage (WPLN) For trash collection, Metro relies on waste services contractor Red River, which has been unable to complete its routes for three weeks due to staffing shortages.
- Nashville’s police oversight board votes to oppose license plate readers (WPLN) The civilian-run board that supervises Nashville’s police department says it does not want the city to expand its use of license plate readers.
- Metro Benefits Board denies transgender health coverage, but city officials vow to keep pushing (Tennessean) The board on Dec. 7 voted 7-3 against the proposal, which would add coverage to the city's self-insured medical plans for medical procedures deemed necessary to treat people diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
DEVELOPMENT
- Nashville remains the fastest-selling housing market in the US (Biz Journal)
- Shelby House – A 484 Unit Affordable Housing Development in East Nashville. (Now Next)
- Germantown property sells for $7.5M per acre (Post)
- Truck service property sells for $15M (Post)
- WhyHotel Inc. shatters previous per-unit apartment sales record with SoBro buy (Biz Journal)
- Apartment tower sells for record $447.6K per unit (Post)
- Tennessee Bar Association building sells for $6.8M (Post)
- Downtown hotel building sells for $99.6M (Post)
✪ SONG OF THE SOUTH ✪
Depending on who you are, Southerners in the United States are either the craziest people in the world or the sanest. If you've read this newsletter, you know I am not about to make the case for why they are the craziest except to say that they are an outlier, and typically, outliers receive the designation crazy for acting in ways others do not expect or want them to.
In the midst of the pandemic, media outlets, especially our own foreign outpost, The Tennessean, have not shied away from demonizing and mocking the South over the course of the pandemic. As if some latent nerve impulse excited by ancestral memories of the Civil War awakened at the New York Times, the South often gets castigated for the country's ills deserving or not. Why coastal elites take such great concern with a people that largely want to be left alone is a curious development and speaks to a deeper riff, but suffice it to say that Southerner's decision to do things their own way, regardless of the ill effects to their health, doesn't make Coastal Elites sad and soften their hearts. It makes them angry.
But why do Southerners act this way? This is a question you rarely seen asked except to say, "They are racist or something," which in modern parlance, explains everything if you are sufficiently stupid.
There's a strong case to be made that Southerners are the only group of people keeping the United States from veering towards the hysterical COVID policies of Austria and Germany. Yes, Biden's speech yesterday was surreal and mildly comical to many of us, but those are just words. Your Northern and Coastal counterparts likely felt similar revulsion when Donald Trump took to the microphone. Maybe we can unite over this, but probably not. Nonetheless, lockdowns are not returning and there's a fair chance that because of the actions of states in the South such as Tennessee, Texas, and Florida, vaccine mandates will fall flat on their face.
The typical Southerner is characterized as a White Christian, but people often forget that 54% of the nation's Black population — that makeup 20% of the South's total population — live in the South. Southerners, despite only making up about a 1/3 of the nation's population, account for almost 50% of its service members. 80% of service members nationwide have a parent or sibling who also served which speaks to the lineage the South passes on to its inhabitants. Of their character, William T. Sherman's says:
War suits them, and the rascals are brave, fine riders, bold to rashness … and they are the most dangerous set of men that this war has turned loose upon the world. They … must all be killed or employed by us before we can hope for peace.
The militant nature of the South speaks to an Old World affinity for the now out of fashion virtue of honor. It seems that it's this reputation for and relative comfort with violence that creates the South's foreboding specter in the modern Left's imagination. The region does, after all, account for nearly 50% of the nation's murders.
The South also tends to have a significantly lower population of immigrants than other US states which is to say is that Southerners tend to be of older American stock, regardless of their race. With legacy and familial ties to the area, they are steeped in the history of the nation and the South in particular. Nowhere else is closer to the stains of American history from slavery to Jim Crow to the Civil Rights movement of the 60s.
Having witnessed, learned about, and in many cases, been directly complicit in some of America's worst moments, Southerners feel shame and guilt on a level that the rest of the country simply does not. Following the Civil War, which ravaged, impoverished, and destroyed Southerners' way of life, and the conclusion of the Civil Rights movement, its people learned a crucial lesson and gained a more realistic view of human nature. Its homes and families had been torn apart. Drive around the great city of Nashville and you can still see the scars from both events — artifacts absent from elite enclaves like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area.
Losing continuously over 150 years, the South has gained a healthy distrust of authority and of utopian visions promising to solve all its problems. Through all of this, the South gained a more realistic view of human nature — punishment received, corrections issued, and behavior adjusted. Compare this to the crimes of the present wherein bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci work without fear of consequence, and wars in faraway countries unravel with not a single condemnation issued. The South has not been so lucky.
It is through trials and tribulations that a people grow. While the rest of the country can claim some level of naivete — having never directly experienced defeat and refusing to admit defeat or face the consequences of defeat when it does happen — the South does not and cannot affect the same attitude. You see the same disposition in immigrants who come to the US from authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, and elsewhere. Both groups' skepticism towards authority and "Blanket Solutions" doesn't come from a crude and stupid understanding of the world, but direct experience be it through memories passed through families or oppression experienced abroad. One could say that the South, which has seen its population grow faster than any other region in the US, is set for a comeback. One in which utopianism holds no purchase and leaders govern the people as they are instead of as they should be. Along with a healthy spirit of self-reliance, personal responsibility, and civic duty — all of which the South expresses to a high degree — the dominant quality of a well-governed Republic is meeting people where they are and not where they should be. By my estimation, the South is by far the sanest, well-grounded region in the United States.
⚔︎ MISSIVES
- The Biden administration is preparing to distribute 500 million free at-home Covid-19 testing kits to Americans and deploy military doctors and nurses to overburdened hospitals this winter, as the Omicron variant spreads around the country.
- The top bitcoin holders control a greater share of the cryptocurrency than the most affluent American households control in dollars, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study showed that the top 10,000 bitcoin accounts hold 5 million bitcoins, an equivalent of approximately $232 billion.
Licorice Pizza, the latest film from Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, Boogie Nights), is opening at the Belcourt on December 24. A potent coming-of-age drama tracking the treacherous waters of first love, set in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.
Below you’ll find NYE parties and concerts that will likely sell out. Enjoy the Christmas party circuit, everyone.
THINGS TO DO
View the full calendar here.
🎄 It’s a Wonderful Life is playing at the Belcourt from the 17th - 24th.
⭐ 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
🌾 Bluegrass Night @ The American Legion Post 82, Free, Info
TOMORROW
⚔ Tennessee Titans vs. San Francisco 49ers @ Nissan Stadium, 7:20p, $89+, Info
🎄 Die Hard @ The Belcourt, 8:45p, $11.50, Info
CHRISTMAS EVE
🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯
CHRISTMAS
🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄
SUNDAY, 12/26
🐖 Nashville farmers’ market @ Nashville Farmers’ Market, 9a, Free, Info
🎻 Bluegrass brunch @ Tin Roof Broadway, 11a, Free, Info
🎹 Old Time Jam @ Dee’s Country Lounge, 7:30p, Free, Info
NYE
🍻 NYE Party @ The Bold Patriot Brewery, 7p, Free, Info
🐅 Rosemary Jungle Safari NYE Party @ Rosemary & Beauty Queen, $50+, Info
🤠 NYE with Vinyl Ranch @ The Blue Room, 9:30p, $20, Info
🕺 Sparkle City Disco @ Eastside Bowl, 9p, $47+, Info
Get ‘em while you can
🐷 Primus a Farewell to Kings tour (05/09) @ The Ryman, 7:30p, $55+, Info
🎸 Buddy Guy (03/26) @ The Ryman, 7:30p, $80, Info
Jerod Ra’Del Hollyfield
William Harwood
Edward Landstreet
Doc Paracelsus
Virgil Davis
Around the Web
䷔ Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3 Tim O'Reilly, the guy who coined the the term "Web 2.0" opines on what Web3
☣ Covid Panic is a Site of Inter-Elite Competition to be the most consumed with fear of Covid is just another PMC laurel
↩︎ What books have we been denied? Publishers now operate in a state of fear
Political Theater Highlight Reel
- Bette Midler blasted for denigrating West Virginia as ‘poor, illiterate and strung out’. Both NYC and CA have lower literacy rates than WV.
- Tucker Carlson roasts Eric Swalwell as ‘most physically unclean member of Congress’. Swalwell is famous for having an affair with a Chinese spy.
- Israel to give 4th vaccine injection to adults over 60, immunocompromised individuals and health workers
Words of Wisdom
One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again.
Thomas Sowell