No. 323: Everything I Don't Like is a Social Construct
⁂ Nashville's Alt-Daily ⁂ Sunday · Titans PSL · Motherhood · Amos Miller · Lean Out · Much More!
Good morning, everyone.
Holly McCall's opener for the Tennessee Lookout's daily newsletter yesterday was really something. Here's how it opened:
Sunday, of course, is the Sabbath for many Christian denominations. We use today's newsletter to address some of the ramifications of the state's abortion ban, which took effect Thursday, for Tennesseans of different faiths.
Can you hear the gritted teeth resentment coming through here?
Take those of the Jewish faith, for instance. Ariana Figueroa with our DC bureau reports lawsuits are popping up in states with draconian abortion laws from Jewish holy men and women — one calls himself a "rabbi-rouser."
The issue is that Jewish holy texts — the Torah and the Talmud — make clear the rights of the living supersede "that which is not living," to quote a St. Louis rabbi.
Now, I'm not so arrogant that I'd try to put words in the mouth of people who don't share my religion as Holly does here, but it doesn't take that long to realize that what Holly has represented here as the "Jewish faith" is not true for all Jews, but just a cherry-picked example from a liberal sect meant to win her some political brownie points.
What's odd about the duality presented here (white Evangelical Christians vs. Jews) is that white Evangelical Christians are, by and large, Jew's greatest ally in the US. Donald Trump expressed this well.
Onward.
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Thanks for reading.
❏ PSLS AT THE NEW TITANS STADIUM
Last week we did a breakdown of the Titans stadium and the East Bank development costs, but the half baked deals have left Nashvillians with questions. We received a question about Titans Personal Seat Licenses at the new stadium. Here’s what we found.
PERSONAL SEAT LICENSES
A Personal Seat License (PSL) allows a person to purchase a claim on certain seats in a stadium. Teams use PSLs to guarantee ticket sales and fund new stadiums. PSL policies vary between franchises, but generally, fans purchase PSLs as zero interest loans or through a one-time fee that lasts for a set period of time.
For the Titans, PSL owners must pay a one-time fee and renew their claim every year through the purchase of season tickets. Besides securing valuable seats in a stadium, PSL owners can also turn a profit by selling tickets that they are not using during the season and can even transfer their PSL by selling claims directly through the Titans PSL marketplace.
TITANS PSL POLICIES
Here are a few things to note about the Titans' PSL policies:
- Season tickets for Titans games can only be purchased by PSL owners. If a PSL owner fails to purchase season tickets, they forfeit their PSL.
- PSL owners can transfer their PSLs to a different owner but, as mentioned, do not receive a refund if they don’t find a buyer and fail to purchase season tickets.
- PSLs are considered a capital asset and are not tax deductible.
- The Titans, like many stadiums with PSLs, have experienced a higher number of out-of-town fans for home games. In an attempt to prevent this, they introduced a series of ‘post purchase’ policies on PSL owners that increased the price of their season ticket packages and restricted single-game ticket sales. In 2021, eleven PSL owners filed a lawsuit against the Titans. The case is still open.
- Titans season ticket holders could opt out and receive a refund for purchased tickets during the 2020 season affected by Covid-19.
WILL CURRENT PSLS TRANSFER?
This is the million dollar question, and the jury is still out. Discussions between the Mayor’s office, the Titans, and the state have been opaque. In many cases, PSLs do not transfer to new stadiums, but PSL owners are given new PSL purchase preferences based on their stakeholder position in the old stadium. Sometimes PSL owners even receive deals on the purchase of PSLs in a new stadium.
In theory, the sales tax of new Titans stadium PSL purchases will go towards the new stadium if the policy remains the same and the old PSLs are terminated instead of transferred. Only a $700M investment has been promised by Titans ownership. If the franchise does not exclusively offer up new PSL purchase revenue as additional capital to be used toward the construction of the new stadium then PSL revenue will not add to the pot, it will only line the pockets of the ownership.
There’s still time to put in your two cents. You can email or call the Mayor’s office, your Council Member, or the Sports Authority.
HEADLINES
- Nolensville Little League ends its LLWS run with 2-0 loss to Chinese Taipei (Tennessean) Nolensville Little League reached the final day of the 2022 Little League World Series, and its run ended with a loss in the third-place consolation game on Sunday.
- Tennessee halts assignment of A-F letter grades to schools (Tennessean) The department was expected to assign and publish letter grades to schools this fall, a first for the accountability measure that has been stymied since its creation.
- Coffee County student arrested after threatening to shoot up school with AK-47 (WSMV) The student was taken into custody after a Coffee County school resource officer was tipped off about a threatening text written by the student, according to a Coffee County Sheriff’s Office Facebook post.
POLITICS
- Metro council members pitch $500K grant for abortion access and sex education (WPLN) The plan would create a grant, with $200,000 for comprehensive sex education and $150,000 each for distributing safer sex supplies and helping abortion patients get care out of state.
- Large economic incentives like in Tennessee benefit politicians who approved them (Center Square) The research focused on political donations from groups, such as trade and construction organizations and lawyers/lobbyist, and found that their political donations increased exponentially after incentives were given.
DEVELOPMENT
- BrandSafway Debuts The Future Of Overhead Protection At Paseo South Gulch (Now Next)
- Midtown hotel project sees altered start date (Post)
- Music Row property sells for $5.2M (Post)
- New images, road unveiled for Madison development (Post)
- Chaatable closes as some employees were seeking union (Post)
↯ DENYING REALITY: MOTHERHOOD
A recent column from the NYT finds an author claiming that the patriarchy prevented women from actualizing as productive members of the economy by constricting their role to raising children and taking care of the home.
The notion that the selflessness and tenderness babies require is uniquely ingrained in the biology of women, ready to go at the flip of a switch, is a relatively modern — and pernicious — one. It was constructed over decades by men selling an image of what a mother should be, diverting our attention from what she actually is and calling it science.
What is the modern woman then, actually? Well, completely equal to a man in every respect, of course! As one Duke professor put it on Twitter, "Women don’t naturally have a comparative advantage in child-rearing, it’s just that most women don’t get to reach their full potential in the labor market and we don’t see how productive they could be outside the home."
Right, right. Because working a 9-5 marketing job is clearly more deserving of respect than rearing a child. There's a French writer named Michel Houellebecq whose novels searingly critique modern developments, including this sort of feminism. One of his central points is that man is no longer judged for his role as a reproducer, but for his productivity in the marketplace. Houellebecq expresses this as a lamentation because of the shallow life offered to those who forgo family in the pursuit of a career.
But it gets worse:
The myth of maternal instinct places a primacy on biological mothers, suggesting the routes to parenthood fall into two categories: “natural” and “other.” It sustains outdated ideas about masculinity that teaches fathers that they are secondary — assistants, babysitters — and encourages mothers to see them that way, too. It undermines the rights and recognition of same-sex couples and transgender and nonbinary parents, whose ability to care for their children is often questioned.
So the connection between mother and child is fake—just another social construct to be dismissed out of hand. Real big brain stuff here!
Source: Maternal Instinct Is a Myth That Men Created
New York Times, 26 August 2022, Read Online
❦ THE WAR ON GOOD FOOD
There's an Amish farmer by the name of Amos Miller up in Pennsylvania who is renowned for his humane farming practices and the sustainable, nutrient-dense foods they produce. Customers all across the country buy their meat and dairy products directly from Miller, who feeds and processes his animals as "God intended."
A few weeks back, federal agents raided Miller's farm and sullied him with $250,000 in fines for, purportedly, skirting American food regulations. Miller, being Amish, doesn't believe in or use chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or industrially engineered seeds. Additionally, his farm operates without government subsidies. Miller's actual crime? Not needing the government.
➾ CHART OF THE DAY: WHOSE WEALTH?
⚔ MISSIVES ⚔
- 🤡 The International Monetary Fund warned European governments against intervening in the region’s worsening energy crisis with broad-based financial support, saying instead that consumers should bear the brunt of higher prices to encourage energy saving and aid the wider shift to green power.
- 📉 Americans are headed for a painful period of slow economic growth and possibly rising joblessness as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to fight high inflation, U.S. central bank chief Jerome Powell warned on Friday in his bluntest language yet about what is in store for the world's biggest economy.
- 📉 Investors are stepping up bets on a market downturn, a sign of waning sentiment that analysts say could presage a return to the volatile trading of the first half of 2022.
- 🇹🇼 Two United States Navy warships have entered the Taiwan Strait in what is the first US naval transit in the waterway since US-China tensions spiked this month over a visit to the island by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
- 🇷🇺 Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the Russian military to increase the number of troops by 137,000 to a total of 1.15 million amid Moscow’s military action in Ukraine.
- 🇫🇷 Emmanuel Macron has warned of "serious problems" for France-UK relations after the favourite to be the next British prime minister refused to say if the French president was "friend or foe".
THINGS TO DO
View our full calendar here.
🍺 The Pamphleteer hosts Bar Hours on the third Thursday of every month (the next meeting is September 15th) at Lucky's 3 Star Bar from 6-8 PM. The first ten guests get drinks on the company tab.
🎪 Check out our favorite driving distance festivals this summer.
👨🏻🌾 The Pamphleteer farmer's market guide.
⚔️ Knights in Armor at the Frist starting July 1st: European arms and armor from the renowned collection of the Museo Stibbert in Florence, Italy.
🎭 Shakespeare in the park is every Thursday through Sunday from August 18th till September 11th
🌌 This weekend the TN Wooks will emerge from their head shop jobs, their parent's basements, or from under a tarp off Charlotte Pike and use their entire net worth to get to the Greenway Music Festival at Short Mountain Distillery in Woodberry, TN. Greenway is a four-day camping festival featuring mostly electronic acts.
🎼 Listen to The Pamphleteer's Picks, our playlist of bands playing in Nashville each week.
TONIGHT
🎩 History Class @ Bold Patriot Brewing, 5p, Info
🎺 Jazz in the Park @ Church Street Park, 5p, Free, Info
🎸 Harry Fontana @ American Legion Post 82, 7p, Free, Info
💀 Grateful Monday @ Acme Feed & Seed, 7p, Free, Info
🕺 Motown Monday @ The 5 Spot, 9p, $5, Info
🎹 Jazz Jam @ The Villager, 11p, Free, Info
ON THE RADAR
🎹 Stereolab @ Marathon Music Works, (9/6), $35, Info
🎸 My Morning Jacket @ Ascend Amphitheater, (9/23), $22.88, Info
⚔️ HELMET @ Marathon Music Works, (9/24), $35, Info
+ 90's alternative metal band from NY, a Pamphleteer favorite
🏜 ZZ Top & Beck @ First Bank Amphitheater, (9/27), $49+, Info
👾 Flamingosis @ Basement East (9/29), $20, Info
🎻 Gustav Holst's The Planets @ Schermerhorn (9/29-10/2), Info
+ Early 1900's orchestral suite, each movement is named after a planet
🕺 Remi Wolf @ Brooklyn Bowl (10/6), $30, Info
+ Young talented funk/pop/hip-hop singer, one of the few
🎻 Mozart & Tchaikovsky@ Schermerhorn, (10/28-29), $25+, Info
🎸 Smashing Pumpkins @ Bridgestone Arena, (10/10), $133+, Info
+ 90's alt-rock from Chicago
🎸 The Doobie Brothers @ Bridgestone Arena, (10/12), $43+, Info
🎺 Too Many Zooz @ Basement East, (10/31), $20, Info
🌶 The Gypsy Kings @ The Ryman (11/1), $39.50, Info
+ The roving band of flamenco guitarists
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RECENT PODCASTS
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Around the Web
➡ Lean Out Why Women Can’t Have it All.
Words of Wisdom
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
H.L. Mencken
Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Edward Landstreet (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).