Hey, it’s Christmas. So if that’s your bag, Merry Christmas to you and yours. If not, I hope it’s been a pleasant Friday.
Okay, so, for those of y’all who can unhook yourself from the news – yet for some reason, read this nonsense – let’s talk about what happened in Nashville this morning. Something heavy indeed went down and it was done on purpose. We’ll go over what we know and then puzzle on what we don’t know.
Sometime around 6 a.m. residents around Second Avenue and Commerce Street heard gunshots. For reference, that’s about two blocks away from Broadway where most of country music’s main tourist traps are located. About a 10-minute walk from Robert’s Western Wear, Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, and Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop if that helps at all. Reports are still sketchy – about everything – but reports are saying that several shots from what sounded like a semi-automatic fire. The police were called and were on the scene.
About ten till, a recording of a female voice announced “Evacuate now. There is a bomb. A bomb is in this vehicle and will explode.” This was coming from an RV parked near an AT&T data center right around there. As this was going on, a countdown from 15 minutes started.
Around 6:30, the RV exploded. This shattered windows up and down the street and caused a few nearby cars to catch fire. The exact damage is still being figured up but no one was seriously injured. Three people were sent to the hospital with minor injuries – for example, one of the officers responding to the gunshot reporters suffered hearing loss – but no one was killed. AT&T customers in east Tennessee and south Kentucky saw their service disrupted, flights into and out of the Nashville airport were canceled, and the area around the scene of the explosion had a curfew called on it. It’ll be under that curfew until 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
So that’s what we know. The city police and local FBI are calling the explosion “intentional” and there are unconfirmed reports of organic matter found near the site of the explosion that could be human. However, as best I can tell, that’s still “off the record” so it could be anything or nothing at all.
Beyond that, we know bupkis and anyone who says differently is lying. The Twitter experts have been restrained so far, no doubt because of the holiday, though a couple of dingbats who’re sure AntiFa is Joe Biden’s secret police are already blithering. However, I want to emphasize: we know nothing. The fuzz isn’t even saying for certain it was intentional, just that all the evidence points that way. It was briefly thought the RV exploded for non-nefarious reasons and the warning announcement was initially thought to come from the police, but that just goes to show how the official line changes as more info comes in.
And that’s where we are right now. We should be mostly grateful no one was killed and no one was put out of their living space. Beyond that, keep an eye on the news – local news, since you obviously have the internet – and wait for more information to come in. Hell, for all we know, it could’ve been done by someone being weird about 5G.
On a personal note, I’ve never hidden my love for country music and I have a particular affection for the big names on Broadway near the Ryman like Tootsie’s. And while country music radio isn’t for me anymore, my heart still bears in three-quarter time and I’ve always been fond of Nashville. A $30,000 reward is being offered for information.
Okay, moving on. After Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s bluff on the COVID relief bill – giving a hearty “hell yes” to the suggestion the stimulus checks be upped to $2,000 from $600 – Mitch McConnell pitched a snit and the president himself went to Mar-A-Lago to golf and sulk. As of right now, the bill still hasn’t passed so you’re still not getting anything. Furthermore, if McConnell can’t get his thumb out of his ass, the government is facing a total shutdown of operation due to lack of funding. Since pretending he gave a shit about the people he serves, Trump hasn’t said anything except to complain more about people not being fair to him.
All of this comes on the heels of reports of a new strain of the virus that originated in England and has already found its way to France. This doesn’t mean the recently released vaccines won’t work, per se, but it does mean that we’re still nowhere near home and dry on this matter. More deaths could come
So, well done, everyone.
Dear Y'all 