The Devil's Lettuce
🥬 What's Wrong With Weed? · Session within a session · Film Rundown · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone.
Yesterday, I mistakenly referred to the victim of the Antioch shooter by the wrong name. 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante was killed by the assailant. Apologies for the mixup and thanks for pointing out the mistake.
It seems the main question at hand is how the guy got a gun into the school. Metal detectors would’ve prevented that. A reporter on the scene asked MNPS Superintendent Adrienne Battle about the presence of metal detectors which the school has utilized in the past. She replied, “While past research has shown they have had limitations and unintended consequences, we will continue to explore emerging technologies and strategies to strengthen school safety.”
Doesn't that fill you with confidence? Such strength of language.
Onward.
Is smoking the “Devil’s Lettuce” a sin? “Maybe!”
At least that’s the answer strenuously achieved last night through discussion at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church. The modest Anglican Church in North America parish—hidden just south of I- 40 in Sylvan Park—hosted the first of a series of meetings and group discussions focused on applying “Christian theology to controversial and difficult topics,” called What Then Shall We Do?
The turnout was modest with a mere nine people filling the sanctuary for its introductory meeting, but the hosts still managed the feat of tackling a few nuanced ideas on a subject prone to intense propaganda—that being support for marijuana.
This was an all too rare feat in a society where any scrutiny of the issue tends to get berated by its supporters. Weed legalization has been a defacto accepted position in contemporary politics for much of both the left and right, with 24 states effectively decriminalizing the drug for recreational use while 47 allow it for medicinal use. Usage of the drug is only increasing, with 44% of adults aged 19–30 admitting to using it regularly in 2022.
Conversely, there isn’t much of an anti-weed apparatus in place beyond older politicians showing unwillingness to capitulate on legalization and a few critics raising alarms about its negative side effects, while its advocates regularly declare it a miracle drug with no addictive tendencies or negative externalities.
Coming from non-puritan Christians (actively sipping on wine during the reception no less), Thursday’s event enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the role of legitimate vices in the Christian life absent the extremes of total prohibition so commonly demanded among Southern Christians.
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🖋️ Edited by Megan Podsiedlik.
💥 AI Surveillance Useless In School Shooting In the wake of the tragic shooting at Antioch High School on Wednesday morning, local leaders are weighing in on safety protocols implemented throughout the Metro Nashville Public School system. Despite past pushback on metal detectors and additional School Resource Officers, MNPS Director Adrienne Battle has expressed a willingness to explore additional safety measures after the AI weapon detection technology installed in the school failed to activate.
“I would say, if in fact the school was using the technology, this is a worst-case scenario of how a school discovers that they’ve been bamboozled by one of these gun detection school surveillance companies,” Chad Marlow, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Tennessean. Marlow explained that there has been a money grab going on within the education technology industry: "All these student surveillance technologies, they’re not being sold to keep kids safe, they’re being sold to make lots and lots of money for the people marketing them."
When the Metro Nashville Public School Board approved the $1 million gun detection software contract two years ago, advocates with the Metropolitan Nashville Education Association criticized the decision to invest in technology over personnel with tech. “In practice, given the limitations of the software, the chance that it would be visible, in a place where the software can pick it up, and not seen by another person, that seems unlikely to happen, and if that were to happen, it would really be more of a reflection of our schools being understaffed,” warned MNEA member and Antioch High School teacher Hallie Trauger during a 2023 interview with WKRN. During the final vote on the contract, several members in attendance held up “understaffing is a safety issue” signs, and, unfortunately, all the warnings were devastatingly accurate.
🏛️ A Session Within A Session On Monday, state legislators will come together for the first day of the governor’s special session on education, disaster relief, and immigration enforcement. Unlike the hundreds of bills we saw filed leading up to 2023’s special session on public safety, so far, there is only a handful of legislation submitted by leadership.
Aside from the legislature’s housekeeping bill covering the cost of special session, Senate Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) and House Leader William Lambert (R-Portland) are sponsoring the four bills likely to steer the session:
- SB6001/HB6004: the Governor’s Education Freedom Act of 2025.
- SB6002/HB6001: immigration enforcement, including the creation of the Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division, a chief immigration enforcement officer, anti-sanctuary city policies, and new ID requirements.
- SB6003/HB6003: creates a Hurricane Helene interest payment fund and the governor's response and recovery fund to assist with the response and recovery from certain declared emergencies.
- SB6004/HB6002: authorizes TEMA to assist a political subdivision or local emergency management agency with recovery from disasters and emergencies on public property at the request of the political subdivision or agency; suspends certain eligibility requirements for unemployment benefits for persons in the area of a declared emergency.
You can read more about the changes made to the governor’s school choice legislation here.
🚜 Farmland Easement Back On The Docket Last year, Senate Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) tried his best to get Governor Lee’s farmland easement bill through the Senate Energy, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Committee. In April, Senate Ag Chairman Steve Southerland (R-Morristown) reopened the committee to accommodate the legislation after landing in hot water for closing it before Johnson’s bill could get voted through. The gesture proved fruitless—after all the fuss, Johnson was ultimately unable to land the votes he needed.
This year, it seems that the Senate Majority Leader may be bringing the legislation back. Meanwhile, Senator Southerland is facing the consequences of his actions and has been removed as the Ag Committee’s chair. Though the bill is slightly different when compared to last year’s easement bill, the same section of code is outlined in the caption.
DEVELOPMENT
- Portland Brew to shutter last Nashville location (NBJ)
- Investors pay $4.1M for Eighth Avenue South property (Post)
- Approval sought for Jefferson Street project proposal (Post)
- Hotel project planned for SoBro advances (Post)
✹ WEEKLY FILM RUNDOWN: January 24-30
Presence (Dir. Steven Soderbergh; Starring Lucy Liu and Julie Fox) Hollywood’s most versatile director shoots a haunted house movie entirely from a first-person POV. Not even Orson Welles could pull this off. And it’s also terrifying. Now playing in theaters.
Flight Risk (Dir. Mel Gibson; Starring Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, Topher Grace). A pilot, air marshal, and convict play a game of cat and mouse while flying over the Alaskan wilderness. It’s a Mel Gibson movie set at high altitudes. If anything is worth a trip to the multiplex, it’s this.
Hard Truths (Dir. Mike Leigh; Starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste) The latest darkly hilarious character study from the Brit film master follows an agoraphobic misanthrope put off by her younger sister’s happiness as a mother. Now playing at AMC Thoroughbred 20 and The Belcourt.
September 5 (Dir. Tim Fehlbaum; Starring Peter Sarsgaard) The true story of an American broadcasting crew caught in the middle of the 1972 Munich Olympics terror attack just got some Oscar attention for its screenplay. Now playing at Regal Hollywood 27.
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown 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
🪕 The Po' Ramblin' Boys @ Station Inn, 9p, $25, Info
🎻 Julia Wolfe's Flower Power and Beethoven's Seventh @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $20+, Info
🪕 The Cowpokes @ Acme Feed & Seed, 12p, Free, Info
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
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