The team has completed another edition of the Mufreesboro Pulse. Enjoy!

Thanks to Sarah! The Queen of Kerning, the Lady of Leading, has done it again.

She has been there for me through this whole journey, 16 years, professionally and personally, through the ups and downs—from graphic design to diaper duty to domicile cleaning to digging in the flower beds. I do not take the significance of finding this person, the gift I have been given and the dependability she has built, lightly. Thanks for designing all of the pages and ads and being my business partner and loving wife and mother to my children.

Thanks to the whole Pulse team—it really does takes a village.

To everyone who has written for the Pulse, placed advertising within it, ever picked up a copy at one of our hundreds of distribution points throughout Murfreesboro and surrounding areas, helped us with copy editing, delivery or facilitating relationships with our advertisers, sent us information for our event calendar, subscribed to our newsletter—you are part of what it takes to keep this little community publication going.

Come out to the Boro BBQ Fest on May 7 and stop by the Pulse booth if you like; following that, find the Pulse and many other local small businesses represented at the Small Business Fair at the Walnut House on May 19.

Look for the Mayos at other parks, restaurants, concerts, car shows and events around town this spring.

I continue to observe, time after time, when an individual or an organization hurls an insult at someone else, when they make an accusation against another, when they resort to name-calling and cut-downs, more often than not, nine times out of 10, it seems, the insult could apply more fittingly to the person who said it than the intended target.

Most of us have seen or heard about the slap at a certain awards show (which may or may not have been a publicity stunt to stay relevant and get attention to begin with).

It was mildly entertaining; I probably would be more likely to watch awards shows if more fights broke out, but we can watch rasslin’ to satisfy that entertainment hankerin’, really.

What struck me was the Hollywood response to “violence” and the mob turning against the slapper.

The Hollywood filmmaking community is against violence?

Come on! Ha.

How many movies have these people been a part of that do not contain fights, people getting shot, death, blood, war, violence, explosions and destruction? For those involved with Hollywood pictures to say that they stand against violence is laughable.

It seems many of these in the movie community who are so quick to condemn someone for a (comparatively mild) act of violence must have some subconscious guilt, the thought that “these movies I participate in may actually help perpetuate a lot of the violence and misery in the world. I should take a strong, self-righteous and virtuous stand against this easy target and deflect my own involvement in violence onto someone else while I have a good chance.”

Facebook takes such a strong stance against “spreading disinformation” . . . ? Ha! It is a current mission of your organization itself to spread disinformation.

Now, generally, when someone calls someone else “racist” or “fascist” or whatever, it alerts me that the person saying such things most likely harbors some “racist” or “fascist” beliefs themselves, but has the desire to deflect that onto others to compensate, to project the idea that everyone else must be worse than they, that putting others down somehow elevates themselves.

“Insults are often motivated by anger surrounding issues of status insecurity,” according to Psychology Today.

Keep that in mind as you observe insults and name-calling. It can be insightful. Examine those who display a strong desire to label other people or ideas as “crazy,” or “dangerous” or “hateful” or an “inconsiderate jerk,” “selfish,” “lazy” and so on.

“We will insult others to distance ourselves from the thought ‘Maybe this will happen to me,’” behavioral health professional Scott Bea said.

In Tennessee during this legislative session, an issue of free speech and election transparency brewed.

The General Assembly considered a bill that would require some not-for-profit organizations seeking to influence elections to make public their sources of funding.

It seems like a good, fair idea, with “dark money” and Political Action Committees funneling money to certain candidates to aid in getting them elected to public office without having to divulge to voters the source of those funds. As you may have noticed, there seems to be some manipulation and deception in politics, and for some reason, many voters have this desire to know what is going on and who is pushing which viewpoint and agenda.

Neither Tennessee Stands nor Tennessee Right to Life seemed to care for the idea of the new rule, though, calling it an assault on free speech.

No, no one is limiting anyone’s speech or dictating what they can or cannot say. The measure is intended to let voters know in a transparent way who are the parties behind election campaigns, organizations and ideas.

The organizations turning it into a free-speech issue are effectively saying they would rather remain silent than have to operate out in the open, that their message is not important enough for them to say it if they had to say it in an honest and transparent way. And it makes me even more curious who exactly is behind their organizations.