Happy 250th birthday America! Notable quotables from this hot hot hot holiday week ready for swiping. This week includes stories about hot chicken, AI and musicians, hemp farmers, bats (animal, not baseball), and an investigation into Tennessee’s lethal injection program.

Tennessee’s ban on hemp products that produce marijuana-like effects took effect this week and farmers are looking to pivot on their crops. A group of Republican state senators wants Gov. Bill Lee to commission an independent, broad-ranging investigation into Tennessee’s lethal injection program. It wouldn’t be the first time; Lee commissioned one in 2022 after learning the Department of Correction had been failing to test its lethal injection drugs for potency or contaminants.

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A new Alabama Shakes song actually titled “American Dream” begins with visionary front woman Brittany Howard lamenting, “I thought we wanted the same things,” over the band’s ominous, lumbering groove.

At the forefront of Howard’s mind, reports Jewly Hight, was her troubling awareness that many in her country are living in precarity: “I can’t separate myself from what’s happening in my society.”

Jewly has been on a quest to document artists’ efforts to expand how we view American identity during our America 250 celebrations.

There’s the defiant approach of Black, queer, Southern pop maximalist Houston Kendrick. His new song “American Trash” roasts American triumphalism, cheekily reframing it as “American drag.”

The Cowgays took their first band photos in front of a sizable American flag. “We wanna push for a better America. So why can’t that flag stand for our values?”

Lizzie No produced the album Outlaws’ Almanac and says: “I believe in telling the stories of my people and my neighbors and celebrating folk storytelling. And this is an occasion when people`s ears might be perked up to what the American people have to say and in particular what folk musicians might have to say.”

Swipe to listen and follow along for more from Senior Music Writer Jewly HIght.

Photos: Brittany Howard by Izzy Lux, Houston Kendrick by Luke M. Rogers, Pynk Beard photo by Dez Wright, Lizzie No photo by Dan Russel-Pinson, Cowgays by Ford Fairchild

Tennessee has influenced American history in critical ways over the last 250 years, through presidents, Supreme Court cases and amendments to The Constitution.

The influence has also ocurred in surprising ways: Did you know a Tennessee incident triggered major changes in airport security?

Get more of the state’s historical backstory at wpln.org/backstory.

Photo credits: @tnlibarchives, newspaper clippings from The Washington Evening Star and The Knoxville News Sentinel

The Backstory received funding from the Tennessee Commission for the United States Semiquincentennial.

“There’s not a person in this industry that didn’t know this day was coming,” says Bill Corbin, a farmer based in Springfield.

Marianna Bacallao (@ba.marianna) reports that as of July 1, you can’t grow or sell THCA in Tennessee, and that’s forced hemp farmers to pivot. In Corbin’s case, he’s turning to a different variety of hemp, with fibers used to make rope, packaging and even car parts like seatbacks and dashboards.

Others, like Lee Crabtree, are now growing food instead. On his farm in Readyville, east of Murfreesboro, Crabtree has sweet corn, blackberries, tomatoes, and sunflowers. “I’m not making the money that I would have been making back when CBD was huge there for a minute,” Crabtree says. If his new crops don’t sell, he’ll be out of a job.

A recent estimate put the total value of Tennessee’s hemp market at $1.7 billion, but that stands to take a hit in the absence of “full-spectrum” CBD products, or those with THC. Corbin says he`s relied on them for his arthritis, and he worries for others who use such products medicinally.

Those folks are a huge part of the market, says Frederick Cawthon, head of the Hemp Alliance of Tennessee. “A lot of people think it’s the young generation — no,” says Frederick Cawthon, head of the Hemp Alliance of Tennessee. “The data shows it’s your grandmother, it’s your auntie, it’s the church lady, actually.”

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Photos by Marianna Bacallao

Same-sex sexual behavior has been documented in more than 1,500 species. Many animals also have the ability to change their sex, and some species have a combination of sexes.

In Tennessee, red foxes commonly engage in homosexual mating with multiple partners outside the breeding season: Males typically display equal preferences for female and male partners, but female foxes are more oriented toward same-sex relationships. Female black bears co-parent cubs together. Male southeastern blueberry bees mount each other, and eastern bluebirds engage in ritual exchanges of food gifts with all genders.

Across the planet, female bonobos are more likely to have homosexual encounters. Male bottlenose dolphins form lifelong relationships with other males. Clownfish can change sex, while some butterflies and beluga whales can be a combination of sexes. Female Laysan albatrosses in Hawai’i share nests, engage in sexual behavior and raise their young together.

Scientists now think it may be rare to find a species that does not exhibit some form of queer behavior.

“Being a purely heterosexual species is the exception,” Josh Davis, a science writer at London’s Natural History Museum, wrote in the book “A Little Queer Natural History.”

Tap link in bio for the full story from environmental reporter Caroline Eggers.

Photos: Fox family: Jeremy Hynes/Unsplash, Black bears: Ben Owen/Unsplash, Lone fox: Zetong Li/Unsplash, Bee: iNaturalist user jill1004, Bluebird: Patrice Bouchard/Unsplash

While Pride remains popular with the community, it’s become less popular with corporate sponsors. Many long-time donors have pulled funding.

WPLN’s Marianna Bacallao (@ba.marianna) reports it’s a problem for Pride festivals across the country. Nashville Pride’s Brady Ruffin has commiserated with other organizers from Atlanta to San Francisco.

“Costs are rising all around … Entertainment costs, production costs, security costs,” Ruffin said.

Going into this year, Nashville Pride wrestled with a $250k budget hole. The group turned to the community to fundraise, but it fell around $100,000 short. That meant scaling back this year’s Pride from a weekend to a one-day event. This shift has sparked a debate: Should Pride me more of a celebration or a protest?

“Especially in Tennessee, where LGBTQ+ folks are consistently facing political attacks and harmful rhetoric, I think that joy is not separate from protest,” says Nashville Pride’s Brady Ruffin. “For many people, joy is how we resist.”

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Photos: Marianna Bacallao