No. 212: Snake in the Grass
⁂ Nashville's Alt-Daily ⁂ DA · St. Patty · Zelenskyy · Numbers · Trash Graph · Much More!
Good morning, everyone.
I spent the morning chatting with Michael Patrick Leahy and Roger Simon on the Tennessee Star report about the District Attorney's race — which we mentioned on Tuesday in this here newsletter. In particular, the conversation focused on the main challenger to incumbent Glenn Funk, Sara Beth Myers, who masks her thoroughly progressive platform and represents herself as a moderate depending on who she is talking to.
The District Attorney in Nashville serves an 8-year term, and it's in the interest of the city's health that we oppose a DA running on the same disastrous platform that Woke DAs like Chesa Boudin in San Francisco do — soft on non-violent crime, permissive bail reform, and a myopic inability to self-reflect and assess truthfully if their policies make things better or worse.
Myers has been able to take advantage of a vacuum left by Republicans' inability to put up a candidate and has stealthily begun to appeal to Republicans and Moderates tired of Funk who are eager for anything that's different. To contra-Funk Republicans and Moderates, Myers plays up her supposedly conservative bona-fides and obscures the dangerous elements of her platform. That the Republican Party has not offered up anyone to run leaves those upset with Funk — who is no saint — vulnerable to exploitation by savvy operators like Myers.
Moderate supporters of Myers fall into a trap expressed best by "We must do something, and this is something. Therefore, we must do it." It's the same animating force that put a man with dementia into the White House.
We'll have more to say on this, and Sara Beth Myers in particular, in the coming days and weeks. The 5th Congressional district race steals all the spotlight, but the most consequential for quality of life in the city is definitively the District Attorney's race.
Today, we look at St. Patrick's Day in Nashville, consider Zelenskyy's incredible popularity in the US, peer at some numbers, and marvel at the amount of trash the US produces.
You can follow us on Twitter (@realpamphleteer), LinkedIn (@realpamphleteer), or Instagram (@realpamphleteer) for additional content.
Thanks for reading.
Jerod Hollyfield reviews Woke, Inc. which looks at the political capture of American corporations.
Jerod Ra’Del Hollyfield
FROM THE ARCHIVE
- Politics in Everything and Everything in Politics by Megan Lee (Read)
- The Sanity of the South by Davis Hunt (Read)
- Book Review: In Trump Time: A Journal of America’s Plague Year by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
♣ IRISH EXIT AND SAVE A LIFE
St. Patrick’s Day brings its fair share of Irish drinking. MNPD will be staffing a sobriety checkpoint on Murfreesboro Pike near the airport today. Last year, there were 665 alcohol related crashes in Davidson County and almost half of fatal crashes involved impairment. There’s no need to become a statistic.
AAA is offering a free “Tow to Go” service this entire weekend if you find that you overindulged a bit and are too impaired to get home. The service is available from 6 p.m. tonight through 6 a.m. Monday morning (they know and Irish party lasts all weekend). You are not required to be a AAA customer to take advantage of this service if you find yourself in a bind. The company does ask that the service is used as a last resort.
FOR PRACTITIONERS
- People Who Leave Parties Without Saying Goodbye Save Up To 2 Days Per Year (Read)
- In Praise Of The Irish Goodbye (Read)
- American Alternatives to the Irish Exit (Read)
- Why the Irish Exit Is a Mark of High Moral Character (Read)
➫ MORE ON ST. PATTY'S DAY: SETTLING IN TENNESSEE
The most common migration route for settlers from Ireland was through Philadelphia, south into Virginia and the Carolinas, and across the Appalachians. The Cumberland Gap was the easiest passage through the mountains and into the area that would become Tennessee.
Source:
Estyn Evans, "The Scotch-Irish: Their Cultural Adaptation and Heritage in the American West," in E.R.R. Green, Essays in Scotch-Irish History, 1969.
HEADLINES
- TN consumer outlook hits another all-time low amid inflation worries, rising gas prices, Ukraine (Main Street) The Tennessee Consumer Outlook Index registered a score of -198, down significantly from -93 in December and besting the previous all-time low -106 in September.
- Bill To Stop Social Media Censorship Of TN Elections & Citizens Passes Senate Subcommittee (TCN) The bill seeks to designate social media platforms as common carriers and prescribe fines for de-platforming and shadow-banning users passed the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee Tuesday evening and now moves on to the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee.
- Mayor Cooper says Titans are responsible for costs of new stadium (Channel 5) Mayor John Cooper clarified that Metro's priorities remain in education and creating safer streets and roads, not in building stadiums.
IN THE MEDIA
- Breaking Out the New Mid-South as a Place and Culture of Its Own (Governing) It’s not a household name, but it’s a place with a distinct culture and a raft of economic opportunities.
- MacKenzie Scott donates $20 million to Meharry Medical College in Nashville (Tennessean) Meharry, one of Nashville's historically Black colleges and universities, said it has experienced unprecedented growth since 2015, and that Scott's gift helps push its vision forward.
DEVELOPMENT
- Progress At The 25-Story Church Street Tower In The Nashville Gulch (Now Next)
- East Nashville church could be reimagined as hotel (Post)
- Details unfold for project eyed for east side site (Post)
- Major medical office property owner buys in Antioch (Post)
- Work underway on mixed-use building in Germantown (Post)
- Café chain set for soon-to-start downtown hotel project (Post)
- Half Batch Brewing triples in size with 11,000-square-foot expansion project (NBJ)
❦ THE PEOPLE LOVE ZELENSKYY
It's not saying much, but it appears that Americans have a more positive opinion of Volodymyr Zelenskyy than they do their own President. According to the WSJ, 65% of readers view Zelenskyy favorably.
The fawning over Zelenskyy has even inspired Neoconservative War Hawks like Bill Kristol to define a new kind of Democrat, tweeting, "I think it's more likely that in 2024 I'll be voting not for a Reagan Republican but for a Zelensky Democrat." What's a Zelensky Democrat? Someone who takes money from the Clinton Foundation and has no qualms about interfering in American elections if an anti-globalist Republican gains a modicum of popular support?
✱ BY THE NUMBERS: WHAT AMERICANS DON'T KNOW
Americans appear to be very bad at numbers and estimating how many people make up any particular group. This seems to be, mostly, a reflection of how groups are represented in media. Some examples:
- People estimate that transgender people make up 21% of the US population. The real figure is 0.6%.
- People estimate that Christians make up 58% of the US population. The real figure is 70%.
- People estimate that Jews make up 30% of the US population. The real figure is 2%.
- Black Americans estimate that, on average, Black people make up 52% of the U.S. adult population. The real figure is 12%.
- More accurate assessments include percentage of Americans that are married (55%) and the number of couples with at least one child (51%)
Generally speaking, there is a tendency for people to overestimate smaller groups and underestimate larger groups. More in the study linked below.
Source: From millionaires to Muslims, small subgroups of the population seem much larger to many Americans
YouGov, 15 March 2022, Read Online
↗ GRAPH OF THE DAY: FOOD WASTE IN THE US
⚔︎ MISSIVES ⚔︎
- 🇷🇺 Russia issued sanctions of its own against top American officials. Russia's foreign ministry said it was issuing a "stop list" to prevent members of the Biden administration from entering Russia in addition to Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden.
- 📈 The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will raise interests rates by a quarter of a percentage point, hiking rates for the first time since December 2018 in an effort to curb rising inflation.
- 🇺🇦 President Biden announced on Wednesday that the U.S. will send cutting-edge armed drones to Ukraine as part of an additional $800 million aid package to support the war and humanitarian effort.
- 📨 Attorney General Merrick Garland directed federal agencies to “apply a presumption of openness” when fulfilling Freedom of Information Act requests, after lawmakers pressed him to increase transparency as the denial rate for such inquiries has risen in recent years.
- 📊 President Biden enters this year’s midterm elections with roughly half of Americans doubting he will seek re-election in 2024, with some citing the toll of the office on the country’s oldest president as the nation is facing a pandemic, high inflation and Russia’s war with Ukraine.
THINGS TO DO
View the full calendar here.
🍀 St. Patty's day this Thursday, check out this Nashville St. Patties guide.
🖌 At the Cheekwood, Spanning the Atlantic, The Arts and Crafts Movement, an international trend in the decorative arts that originated in the British Isles during the 19th century.
TONIGHT
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
+ Best honky tonk in Nashville
👅 Easy Honey @ The End, 8p, $15, Info
➤ See us there
GET ‘EM WHILE YOU CAN
😂 Tim Dillon (3/24) @ The Ryman, $29.75+, 7p, Info
🎸 Buddy Guy (3/26) @ The Ryman, 7:30p, $80, Info
🎸 Jerry Cantrell (4/17) @ The Ryman, $35, 7p, Info
🎻 Billy Strings (5/6 – 5/8) @ The Ryman, $39.50+, 8:30, Info for 3/6, 3/7, 3/8
🐷 Primus a Farewell to Kings tour (5/9) @ The Ryman, 7:30p, $55+, Info
NEW THIS WEEK
Edward Landstreet
Jerod Ra’Del Hollyfield
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Doc Paracelsus
Jerod Ra’Del Hollyfield
William Harwood
Megan Lee Podsiedlik
Around the Web
↯ “Here Be Monsters” A remedial look at American interests
﹅ Groundbreaking Conference Reveals Health Risks of Seed Oils Medical doctors, researchers, and other experts spoke on March 3 at the “Future of Fat” virtual summit, the first-ever meeting dedicated exclusively to the harmful effects of oils made from vegetables or seeds
༆ The Prescience of Brass Eye, 15 Years Later Chris Morris’s brutal satire aired its last and most controversial episode in 2001, but its skewering of the news media feels more relevant than ever.
Political Theater Highlight Reel
- Marvel denounces ‘all’ anti-LGBTQ+ bills following parent company Disney’s failure to do so publicly
- In China: Thousands of residents in more than 100 buildings in Shenzhen are taken to COVID isolation camps.
- Joe Biden: "I bet everybody knows somebody... that in an intimate relationship, what happened was the guy takes a revealing picture of his naked friend, or whatever, in a compromising position and then blackmails.”
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Words of Wisdom
“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”
James Joyce, Ulysses