Bill Boner slunk away to Kentucky and into the pallet business after his sexual shenanigans as Nashville’s mayor. Megan Barry stuck around after hers, ran for Congress and wrote a book.

The congressional run, against the Republican incumbent in the 7th District, had predictable results: Barry lost by 20-plus points. The book, published one week after the election, is similarly unsurprising: She is repentant.

2. - Friday, November 29, 2024

3. Not defining ‘hate’ doesn’t mean it vanishes - Friday, November 22, 2024

It doesn’t seem like a radical idea: an ordinance to prohibit Metro Police and Fire Department personnel from taking part in criminal hate groups or paramilitary gangs.

Would you trust a police officer or firefighter who had a swastika tattooed on his forearm?

4. - Friday, November 22, 2024

5. Mercy for a mole? There are limits to catch and release - Friday, November 15, 2024

At first I thought maybe the landscaping company had laid some curious manner of sod in the front yard. A sort of spongy, randomly furrowed fescue that sinks slightly when walked upon.

Before long it became apparent that something else was going on. Something subterranean and active. Two and two came together: I’d been invaded by moles.

6. - Friday, November 15, 2024

7. Parental rights? Banning books strips their power - Friday, November 8, 2024

As you might have heard, Wilson County school officials banned almost 400 books from their school libraries. I don’t blame them.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s an appallingly bad decision, embarrassing not just for Wilson County, but for the entire state by extension. It champions ignorance. Book banners are never the good guys. Check your history.

8. - Friday, November 8, 2024

9. Democrats are leaning on celebrity star power. Will it matter? - Friday, October 25, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris has Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Donald Trump has Kid Rock, Waka Flocka Flame and Hulk Hogan.

As the 2024 campaign whirls into its final week, Democrats are noticeably leaning on their star power advantage, calling on a diverse range of celebrities to endorse Harris, invigorate audiences and, they hope, spur people to the ballot box.

10. Buses are nearly empty now. Do we need more? - Friday, November 1, 2024

The scariest part of the Davidson County ballot comes right at the top, the contest for president, but that’s also the easiest choice to make: Rachele Fruit.

Just kidding! Fruit is the unfortunately named Socialist Worker Party nominee for president, one of five candidates listed as independents on the ballot. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has actually withdrawn from the race, is another one. The Memphis Grizzlies stand a better chance of winning football’s Super Bowl than any of them have of being elected.

11. - Friday, November 1, 2024

12. Harris tells computer chip workers in Michigan they are a 'source of my optimism' about the US - Friday, October 25, 2024

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — Kamala Harris on Monday emphasized how government funding for computer chip manufacturers could create factory jobs in the electoral battleground of Michigan, days after Donald Trump criticized the bipartisan 2022 law that provides the money and said he would rather just charge tariffs.

13. Dread replaces joy in deeply divided political climate - Friday, October 25, 2024

Remember when presidential elections used to be relatively civil affairs? When you felt like the country was still going to be in responsible, adult hands, no matter who won?

Not lately. Not in a while.

14. - Friday, October 25, 2024

15. Southern Festival of Books is city’s best annual event - Friday, October 18, 2024

One of the standard questions featured in The New York Times Book Review author interviews is, “What kind of reader were you as a child?”

A frequent response is that they were “voracious,” gobbling up whatever they could get their hands on. Perhaps, even, late at night under the bed covers with the proverbial flashlight to avoid detection for waking-hours curfew violations.

16. - Friday, October 18, 2024

17. Trump tested the limits on using the military at home. If elected again, he plans to go further - Friday, October 11, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — During his first term as president, Donald Trump tested the limits of how he could use the military to achieve policy goals. If given a second term, the Republican and his allies are preparing to go much further, reimagining the military as an all-powerful tool to deploy on U.S. soil.

18. Contrition might have given Rose his place in Hall of Fame - Friday, October 11, 2024

The recent death of the baseball legend and pariah Pete Rose offers a timely opportunity to reflect on our culture’s notions of punishment and forgiveness, at least as they relate to sports.

“Pete should go into the Hall of Fame,” the noted baseball writer Jon Heyman tweeted post-mortem. “As a great baseball person reminded me, he was given a lifetime suspension. So he has satisfied the terms of his ban.”

19. - Friday, October 11, 2024

20. Replace Sevier with Elvis? What a Capitol idea - Friday, October 4, 2024

All in all, I’d say Arkansas just one-upped Tennessee, which is not something that happens very often, unless you’re talking about poverty rates or Walmart headquarters. Which I’m not.

21. - Friday, October 4, 2024

22. Trump’s ‘weave’: Pure genius or windy gibberish - Friday, September 27, 2024

Donald Trump: “I do the weave. I’ll talk about, like, nine different things that they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.’”

23. - Friday, September 27, 2024

24. Real San Francisco treat? Baseball on cold summer night - Friday, September 20, 2024

It might well be the most memorable line ever conceived in reference to local weather patterns, usually attributed to the author of quite a lot of memorable lines, Mark Twain.

You’ve probably heard it: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

25. - Friday, September 20, 2024

26. Metro’s mask law has us covered – or does it? - Friday, September 13, 2024

Face masks are popping up again here and there. I’ve seen a few on people at the airport, in church and even at the grocery store.

Are they breaking the law in Nashville?

The situation is nothing like it was in 2020-22 when COVID made mask-wearing the rule, either explicitly by government mandate or implicitly by example. But it’s a reminder that, despite most attitudes and behaviors to the contrary, COVID hasn’t disappeared.

27. - Friday, September 13, 2024

28. 50th reunion: Confirmation we were once young - Friday, September 6, 2024

It’s unnerving to face the prospect of a 50th high school reunion, one of those undeniable signposts of geezerdom, like Medicare, Social Security and hip-replacement surgery. It’s even more unnerving when the reunion is three years late.

29. - Friday, September 6, 2024

30. The line between free speech and theft, vandalism - Friday, August 30, 2024

On a hot Saturday morning at the end of June, dozens of gay rights supporters marked the close of Pride Month in Nashville by painting a rainbow crosswalk at the intersection of Woodland and 14th Streets outside the Lipstick Lounge, three blocks from my home.

31. - Friday, August 30, 2024

32. No taxes for seniors? It just doesn’t add up - Friday, August 23, 2024

You would think that in a state overwhelmingly run by conservatives, conservatives would feel pretty upbeat. Not necessarily so.

The Tennessee Conservative, a website that purports to speak for the right, seems perpetually aggrieved. Whether it’s complaints about illegal immigration, insufficiently conservative RINOs or gender issues, it delivers unabated criticism of the status quo.

33. - Friday, August 23, 2024

34. Weird how insult can be turned into something cool - Friday, August 16, 2024

Of the many disparaging labels applied to Donald Trump – liar, narcissist, draft-dodger, felon and election-denier, among others – one finally appears to be gaining some political traction: weird.

35. - Friday, August 16, 2024

36. Rogue is coolest thing made in the state? Really? - Friday, August 9, 2024

The winner of the Coolest Thing Made in Tennessee contest has been announced, and it is (imagine a drumroll here) the Nissan Rogue.

It’s an SUV, made at the Nissan plant in Smyrna. Which leaves me thinking that my definition of “coolest” must be different from some other folks’.

37. - Friday, August 9, 2024

38. Vance’s focus on reproduction, cats a little weird - Friday, August 2, 2024

I come to you today in defense of childless cat ladies across this (still) great land, a group that includes my wife. And of childless cat gentlemen, if that’s the word, a group that includes me.

39. - Friday, August 2, 2024

40. Ledger newspapers honored in state competition - Friday, July 26, 2024

The Nashville Ledger has won three first-place awards in the annual Tennessee Press Association’s annual statewide competition.

The Ledger’s sports coverage won best overall with entries from Terry McCormick and Tom Wood. Wood also won for investigative reporting (“One more crack in scrambled supply chain”) and, along with Joe Morris and Lucas Hendrickson, for education reporting.

41. Once more into the breach: Brave Dems battle on - Friday, July 26, 2024

The reminders came in the forms of a knock on the front door and a text message: The Aug. 1 statewide primary election is approaching and fast.

I try not to think about the big election in November. Otherwise, I get depressed and start to speculate about what distant locale might be a good place to spend the next four years. Oaxaca has a certain appeal, and I could brush up on my college Spanish. ¡Que bueno!

42. - Friday, July 26, 2024

43. ‘Patriots’ hide behind disguises, racist chants - Friday, July 19, 2024

You no doubt saw that the racist-wingnut group Patriot Front staged a march in downtown Nashville recently. A question: What’s the difference between Patriot Front members and Tennessee Republican legislators?

44. - Friday, July 19, 2024

45. After reshaping Las Vegas, The Mirage to be reinvented as part of a massive Hard Rock makeover - Friday, July 12, 2024

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Mirage is about to vanish from the Las Vegas Strip.

Gambling ends and the doors close Wednesday at the iconic tropical island-themed hotel-casino that opened in 1989 with a fire-spewing volcano outside, and Siegfried & Roy's lions and dolphins inside.

46. Hats off to the national anthem, but that’s all - Friday, July 12, 2024

I don’t think of myself as a rebel, college alma mater (Hotty toddy!) notwithstanding. But I staged a mini-protest the other night at a Sounds game by refusing to stand and take off my hat as requested.

47. - Friday, July 12, 2024

48. Homebuying guide needs update for Nashville market - Friday, July 5, 2024

The National Association of Realtors provides a simple 12-step guide for prospective homebuyers through its HomeLogic.com website. It’s fine, so far as it goes.

49. - Friday, July 5, 2024

50. Some legislators can’t seem to get anything passed - Friday, June 28, 2024

The ballots have been counted, and the winner of the award for Best Republican Legislator, 113th Tennessee General Assembly, is Rep. Iris Rudder of Winchester.

Never heard of her? Neither had I. But a low profile is part of her winning formula. That, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of legislation.

51. - Friday, June 28, 2024

52. Today’s ‘athletes’ are becoming hard to stomach - Friday, June 21, 2024

Will the Fourth of July really be the Fourth of July if Joey Chestnut isn’t cramming hot dogs down his gullet for a Coney Island crowd?

Chestnut is a trencherman of the first order: a 16-time winner of the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog-eating contest and the world’s No. 1-ranked competitive eater.

53. - Friday, June 21, 2024

54. Waffle House raises worker pay after strikes and pressure from labor organizers - Friday, June 7, 2024

Waffle House is increasing pay for its U.S. workers after a year-long push from labor advocates.

In a video message to employees late last month, Waffle House CEO Joe Rogers III said base pay would rise to at least $3 per hour in June and then gradually rise to at least $5.25 per hour by June 2026. Base pay doesn't include workers' tips, and will be higher in some states depending on minimum wage laws, Rogers said.

55. Andrew Johnson: Really the worst US president? - Friday, June 14, 2024

My store of knowledge about the 17th president, Andrew Johnson, has until just recently consisted mostly of gaps. He took over after Lincoln’s assassination, was later impeached by the House but saved from conviction by one vote in the Senate, and, uh …

56. - Friday, June 14, 2024

57. ‘Cinderella story’ draws to close for an old friend - Friday, June 7, 2024

In 2012, I wrote of my high school classmate Truitt Williams, that he had “crossed over, passed on to glory, reached the promised land.” The use of death imagery was a joke. Truitt hadn’t died; he had retired.

58. - Friday, June 7, 2024

59. How did anyone expect Graceland sale plan to work? - Friday, May 31, 2024

You’d think it would be pretty hard to steal a house. Especially one as prominent and distinctive as Elvis’s former Memphis digs, Graceland.

For the record, I am not alleging any criminal intent in the recent goings-on involving Graceland. That might be considered libel, in a financially costly sort of way, and I certainly wouldn’t want that. I’m just, you know, raising questions.

60. - Friday, May 31, 2024

61. Knoxville has a new fan in this Ole Miss alum - Friday, May 24, 2024

For Kayne, it was a chance to revisit some of her college haunts and to relive days gone by. For me, it was a debt repaid. And a long drive to get some pizza.

That pizza, from a place called Stefanos, was probably Kayne’s primary goal for the trip. I’ve been hearing about its superior merits for decades. Proust had his madeleine; Kayne has her Supreme. Whole wheat crust.

62. - Friday, May 24, 2024

63. Should 18 be old enough to serve on Metro Council? - Friday, May 17, 2024

A proposal to let teenagers run Nashville was recently floated at a couple of meetings of the Metro Council Charter Revision Committee.

That might overstate the proposal just a bit. What it actually sought to do was to lower the minimum age for Council membership from the current 25 to 18.

64. - Friday, May 17, 2024

65. Mental evaluations for legislators? How did that not pass? - Friday, May 10, 2024

Just as one invading species – state legislators – has departed Nashville, we’re steeling ourselves for the imminent arrival of another: Brood XIX cicadas. Of the two, which is more irksome?

66. - Friday, May 10, 2024

67. Penny for your restoration? The coin still has value - Friday, May 3, 2024

My church has launched a fundraising campaign that, as a side effect, restores a measure of dignity and worth to a long-scorned object: the lowly penny.

Beyond that, it also serves as a reminder for me about the spiritual value of things that might hold little or no monetary utility. A sermon in action, if you will.

68. - Friday, May 3, 2024

69. GOP challengers looking to wash Ogles out of House - Friday, April 26, 2024

On a recent Monday, as mayhem reigned in Ukraine and the Middle East and the criminal trial of an ex-president displayed our own nation’s political chaos, the Rules Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives scheduled for discussion the following measures:

70. - Friday, April 26, 2024

71. These questions might make for better poll results - Friday, April 19, 2024

The latest poll by the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a conservative think tank, is out. Full of surprises it is not. Upon surveying 1,197 registered Tennessee voters online, it reports that:

• Tennesseans favor Donald Trump over Joe Biden for president by 57% to 29%. If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is tossed into the mix, the margin drops to 48 to 25, with Kennedy attracting 16% – a political choice roughly on a par with supporting Mickey Mouse, but there you have it.

72. - Friday, April 19, 2024

73. Top Davidson County residential real estate transactions March 2024 - Friday, April 12, 2024

Top Davidson County residential real estate sales for March 2024, as compiled by the Nashville Ledger.

74. Sure, legislators, let’s OK gun use for citizen’s arrests - Friday, April 12, 2024

Mention the words “citizen’s arrest,” and any faithful “Andy Griffith Show” fan will immediately flash to the episode of that title. It’s among the classics, of which there are many.

75. - Friday, April 12, 2024

76. Logic goes for a spin in debate over guns in cars - Friday, April 5, 2024

The General Assembly ought to come with a warning label: Watching legislators in action may lead to eye-rolls, head-shakes and muttered oaths of exasperation.

Case in point, last week, when Sen. Jeff Yarbro spoke in support of his bill that would have encouraged the safe storage of guns in vehicles. Not mandated, mind you. Encouraged.

77. - Friday, April 5, 2024

78. Opt out of gun ‘education?’ Not in Tennessee schools - Friday, March 29, 2024

In 2008, Barack Obama, running for the Democratic nomination for president, stepped in a bit of political cow plop when talking about disaffected working-class voters in faded industrial towns.

“[T]hey cling to guns or religion,” he said in comments that provided an easy opening for his chief opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. She quickly jumped on the remarks as “elitist and out of touch.”

79. - Friday, March 29, 2024

80. No mystery why legislators killed reparations study - Friday, March 22, 2024

Legislation, like people, can die a variety of deaths: fast or slow, public or private, merciful or cruel. But perhaps the most humiliating form – sometimes intentionally so – might be thought of as death by silence.

81. - Friday, March 22, 2024

82. ‘Fringe’ Birchers have nothing on today’s politicos - Friday, March 8, 2024

Before Moms for Liberty, before MAGA, before the Tea Party, there was a relatively small but vocal movement whose members were generally recognized – except by themselves – as residents of the loony far right: the John Birch Society.

83. - Friday, March 8, 2024

84. Lawmakers fault Defense Secretary Austin for a failure of leadership over his secret hospital stay - Friday, March 1, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin faced pointed bipartisan criticism at a congressional hearing Thursday for his failure to promptly notify President Joe Biden and other U.S. leaders about his hospital stay last month. Republicans demanded to know why no one has been disciplined.

85. Another Ogles in Washington? It could happen - Friday, March 1, 2024

The question to be resolved by some Tennessee voters this election year: How many Ogleses do we need representing us in Congress?

Thanks to legislative larceny, we already have one. Andy Ogles was elected in the 5th District after a partisan redrawing by the General Assembly’s Red supermajority made it numerically inhospitable for Democrats, ending their run of more than a century.

86. - Friday, March 1, 2024

87. Nothing funny about losing your fave comic strip - Friday, February 23, 2024

All things must pass, as George Harrison tunefully observed. So fare thee well, Arlo and Janis. It was fun while it lasted.

Some Tennessean readers might know what I’m talking about. As of a few weeks ago, Arlo and Janis, along with a bunch of other comics, has been booted from the lineup.

88. - Friday, February 23, 2024

89. Double-dip bill does right thing for wrong reason - Friday, February 16, 2024

Graciousness is not a quality of aggrieved Republican legislators; payback is their stock in trade. Like their pachyderm symbol, they never forget. And in the partisan street fight that Tennessee politics has become, they’re the ones with brass knuckles and switchblades.

90. - Friday, February 16, 2024

91. Senate Republicans block bipartisan border package, then scramble to find support for Ukraine aid - Friday, February 9, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wartime aid for Ukraine was left hanging in the Senate Wednesday after Republicans blocked a bipartisan border package that had been tied to the funding, then struggled to coalesce around a plan to salvage the aid for Kyiv.

92. Biden determined to use stunning Trump-backed collapse of border deal as a weapon in 2024 campaign - Friday, February 9, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — How it began: President Joe Biden was urgently seeking more money from Congress to aid Ukraine and Israel. He took a gamble by seizing on GOP demands to simultaneously address one of his biggest political liabilities — illegal migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

93. Senate Republicans block bipartisan border package, scuttling deal they had demanded from Democrats - Friday, February 2, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan border package Wednesday, scuttling months of negotiations with Democrats on legislation intended to cut back record numbers of illegal border crossings.

94. No, we can’t let legislators pick our US senators - Friday, February 9, 2024

Like the proverbial bad penny, bad ideas have a way of turning up again and again in the General Assembly.

A couple of years ago, I mentioned a bill by Sen. Frank Niceley that would have given Tennessee legislators the power to appoint Republican and Democratic candidates to the U.S. Senate. I called it pointless and noted that it would take power away from voters.

95. - Friday, February 9, 2024

96. ‘The people’ need other ways to be heard in Tennessee - Friday, February 2, 2024

Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg of a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Do we have that in Tennessee?

“Of the people,” I guess maybe so. There’s no proof that the legislative pool includes any species other than human, though a few occasionally demonstrate the mental acuity of livestock.

97. - Friday, February 2, 2024

98. Entrepreneurial spirit or snow job? Maybe bit of both - Friday, January 26, 2024

Three enterprising young lads presented themselves at our front door recently offering a fee-for-service transaction. They proposed to remove the snow that had accumulated on our walkway, and perhaps also the snow on our front sidewalk, for a mutually acceptable price. To be determined.

99. - Friday, January 26, 2024

100. Better to honor books, writings than ban them - Friday, January 19, 2024

Mark these words well, because this is the first – and quite likely last – time you will see them from me: Kudos to State Rep. Gino Bulso.

Bulso, a freshman Republican from Brentwood, has compiled an impressive record of legislative malpractice in his short time in office. More about that coming soon. But for now, the positive: Bulso has introduced a bill to designate Tennessee’s official state book.