While Louisville obsesses over a golfer being arrested for apparently breaking through a police emergency stop, the reason for the stop, the death of 69-year-old John Mills, has been largely ignored while the public debates whether the golfer or the cop was right.
The PGA released a statement about the death of Mr. Mills without naming him, “This morning we were devastated to learn that a worker with one of our vendors was tragically struck and killed by a shuttle bus outside Valhalla Golf Club. This is heartbreaking to all of us involved with the PGA Championship. We extend our sincere condolences to their family and loved ones. - PGA of America”
John Mills was a retiree working as security at the Valhalla golf course, and the fact that the tragedy of his death has been mired by the chaotic conversation around whether or not a rich man or the cops is telling the truth about a traffic stop is a great example of how distraction works in American public conversation.
A similar issue happened this past week in Congress when the House Oversight Committee Chair Kentucky Republican James Comer lost control and found himself looking foolish (again) in a hearing that he’s supposed to have the reigns to.
It is not unusual these days for Republican behavior to veer off into absurdity. Still, on Thursday, May 16, Comer should have kept his party in line and corralled his party member Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her bad behavior. Because he didn’t and allowed her interruptions, tangents, and insults to continue throughout the hearing, Greene and Comer came away looking like fools with Greene, in particular, being deftly handled by Texas Democrat Jasmine Crockett.
The interactions should be a conversation about committee etiquette, and yet it has become a discussion of Greene’s obvious racial dog whistling with her “fake eyelashes” comment about Crockett and Crockett’s alliterative comeback which is now famous and has been remixed into songs certainly much to the embarrassment of Greene.
Greene is an easy target. She’s a loudmouth, not very smart, and not particularly attractive by any measure, but it is her nastiness in Congress that makes it worse. Not all of us can be “beautiful” but to be racist and nasty, and live in a cracking glass house of a persona, made this “read” by Crockett a devastating blow.
But again, what should the topic be? It should be about appropriate behavior and the work of the people who elected these people.
We’re all guilty of being distracted by nonsense because it is sensational, funny, or outrageous but, most simply, I am writing this to ask that while we are poking fun, laughing, or debating rich men vs. cops, we also remember that there are some real and serious issues beneath these surface-level conversations. A man was killed on a rainy morning amidst the chaos of a golf tournament that it appears Louisville was ill-equipped to handle, and, in our government, we are letting spectacle get in the way of the work of the American people including allowing a candidate who is under four indictments on 88 charges be at the top of a ticket to return to office where he used the American taxpayer as his bankroll. It’s wild.
Our doom is calling from inside the house and we’re following nonsense to our demise.
The PGA released a statement about the death of Mr. Mills without naming him, “This morning we were devastated to learn that a worker with one of our vendors was tragically struck and killed by a shuttle bus outside Valhalla Golf Club. This is heartbreaking to all of us involved with the PGA Championship. We extend our sincere condolences to their family and loved ones. - PGA of America”
John Mills was a retiree working as security at the Valhalla golf course, and the fact that the tragedy of his death has been mired by the chaotic conversation around whether or not a rich man or the cops is telling the truth about a traffic stop is a great example of how distraction works in American public conversation.
A similar issue happened this past week in Congress when the House Oversight Committee Chair Kentucky Republican James Comer lost control and found himself looking foolish (again) in a hearing that he’s supposed to have the reigns to.
It is not unusual these days for Republican behavior to veer off into absurdity. Still, on Thursday, May 16, Comer should have kept his party in line and corralled his party member Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her bad behavior. Because he didn’t and allowed her interruptions, tangents, and insults to continue throughout the hearing, Greene and Comer came away looking like fools with Greene, in particular, being deftly handled by Texas Democrat Jasmine Crockett.
The interactions should be a conversation about committee etiquette, and yet it has become a discussion of Greene’s obvious racial dog whistling with her “fake eyelashes” comment about Crockett and Crockett’s alliterative comeback which is now famous and has been remixed into songs certainly much to the embarrassment of Greene.
Greene is an easy target. She’s a loudmouth, not very smart, and not particularly attractive by any measure, but it is her nastiness in Congress that makes it worse. Not all of us can be “beautiful” but to be racist and nasty, and live in a cracking glass house of a persona, made this “read” by Crockett a devastating blow.
But again, what should the topic be? It should be about appropriate behavior and the work of the people who elected these people.
We’re all guilty of being distracted by nonsense because it is sensational, funny, or outrageous but, most simply, I am writing this to ask that while we are poking fun, laughing, or debating rich men vs. cops, we also remember that there are some real and serious issues beneath these surface-level conversations. A man was killed on a rainy morning amidst the chaos of a golf tournament that it appears Louisville was ill-equipped to handle, and, in our government, we are letting spectacle get in the way of the work of the American people including allowing a candidate who is under four indictments on 88 charges be at the top of a ticket to return to office where he used the American taxpayer as his bankroll. It’s wild.
Our doom is calling from inside the house and we’re following nonsense to our demise.
