Uncategorized
- Giving up several top prospects, including Dylan Carlson, Matthew Liberatore, Nolan Gorman, Ivan Herrera, and likely many more.
- Manage a contract with an opt-out after one season, and if he stays, pays nearly $200 million over six years.
- Aaaaaand get Arenado to waive his no-trade clause
-
not be aligned with either Democrats or Republicans;
-
employ a Fairness Doctrine-inspired approach that discourages groupthink and requires at least occasional explorations of alternative points of view;
-
embrace a utilitarian mission stressing credibility over ratings, including by;
-
operating on a distribution model that as much as possible doesn’t depend upon the indulgence of Apple, Google, and Amazon.
The March Of The American Kooks
David Roth, writing for Defector, matches old-school dumbshits to the new era dumbshits.
Here is the synchronicity that binds old-fashioned American kookery’s longstanding suspicions and signature fantasies to the person Donald Trump, and which sent them charging into the Capitol last month ready to commit murder in his service, and which has them still standing back and standing by to advance a fantastical and self-invented agenda of retribution and exterminative violence. Trump’s inexcusable celebrity and singularly rancid self are the irritant around which this weird pearl has formed, but the process was perfectly natural.
Without social media, Trump himself is a spent force, just another podgy golf asshole griping in a country club. But also he is airborne, now.
He is alive in all the Americans who are not just blinkered and baffled and vain enough to consider wearing a mask into a supermarket somehow the same thing as dying in the Holocaust, but who also believe that their confrontations with the tyranny of The Door Guy At Trader Joe’s must be streamed someplace where people can throw it some hearts, or likes, or fuming devil faces, or money. Social media is bad for people like this in the ways that it’s bad for everyone, but there is no more intoxicating or deranging a gift for a person who is already like this than something that looks and feels so much like a megaphone.
Ultimately, Roth equating Steve Carlton to the QAnon folk is… probably right.
Foo Fighters Wanted to Rule Rock. 25 Years Later, They’re Still Roaring.
Jeremy Gordon has a terrific profile of arguably the best rock band working today, the Foo Fighters.
“I just want to stay alive and play music, especially after Nirvana,” he said. “When Kurt died, I truly woke up the next day and felt so lucky to be alive, and so heartbroken that someone can just disappear. I decided to take advantage of that, for the rest of my life.”
Thank goodness he did.
Nolan Arenado, St. Louis Cardinals Third Baseman
The St. Louis Cardinals have acquired five-time All-Star third baseman Nolan Arenado from the Rockies. I can’t believe it. Seriously, I can’t believe the deal they got.
Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and president of baseball operations John Mozeliak made a deal for Arenado that seems impossible. No one thought a deal could be made because there are just too many things that would have had to happen, including:
It just didn’t seem like a move the head office of the Cardinals would put together.
And they didn’t.
The final deal sends Arenado and roughly $50 million to St. Louis for a package of Austin Gomber, Tony Locey, Jake Sommers, Elehuris Montero, and Mateo Gil to Colorado. Most importantly to me, none of the major prospects were part of the deal. The Cardinals get an eight-time Gold Glove winner, five-time All-Star, and owner of four Silver Slugger awards. My mind is blown.
Plus, after next season, the Cardinals aren’t going to be paying Dexter Fowler, Matt Carpenter, Carlos Martinez, and Andrew Miller. Well, I guess a couple of those guys might still be playing for the Cardinals, but maybe not, and that’s something like $60 million in payroll available.
The Cardinals have added a new star to their lineup, increased their chances of winning the Central and the National League, and turned the baseball world upside down.
Works for me.
Your Big Idea
Seth Godin on big ideas:
It’s probably not completely original.
It’s probably not breathtaking in scope.
It’s probably not immediately popular.
But… it’s definitely worth pursuing, consistently and persistently for years and years.
If you care. If it’s generous and helpful and worth the journey.
All the big ideas that made a difference follow this pattern.
What’s your big idea?
No one Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
Bradford Doolittle, reporting for ESPN:
No player on the Hall’s 2021 Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot reached the 75 percent threshold needed for enshrinement in Cooperstown. The results of the voting were announced by Hall of Fame president Tim Mead on MLB Network on Tuesday night.
The leading vote-getter was controversial pitcher Curt Schilling, who was named on 71.1 percent of the ballots, 16 votes shy of the minimum needed for selection. Schilling was followed by all-time home run leader Barry Bonds (61.8 percent) and 354-game winner Roger Clemens (61.6) in the voting.
I will never get this. It’s pretty obvious Bonds and Clemens should be added to the Hall. No one cares about the PED crap.
The others are borderline and, of course, Schilling is an asshole which makes it difficult for voters to put him in while he’s still being an asshole. I mean, I’m 100% positive Pete Rose is getting into the Hall of Fame, but not until he passes away. I’d bet hard-earned money next year’s class will include Bonds, Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez.
Doomscrolling at Scale
Michael Lopp, writing at his site Rands in Repose, had an interesting experience with real-time news. He was trying to follow the storming of the Capitol via Twitter and quickly learned a valuable lesson about the social media platform.
As it became clear the domestic terrorists were breaching the Capitol, I was glued to Tweetbot, my favorite Twitter client, looking for the latest developments. Years ago, Twitter put limits on their API, effectively lobotomizing third party clients. This meant within Tweetbot, I had to sit and wait for slow manual refreshes of the latest tweets on the insurrection. And there were a lot of tweets. It was a rapidly developing, incredibly well-documented event, and it was clear I was missing content as I sat there glued to Tweetbot waiting for my horrifically slow insurrection updates.
The obvious answer was to move either Twitter’s mobile client or move to their website. As I was at my desktop during this failed coup, I moved to Twitter’s website and remembered what I learned years ago: their website is hot garbage.
I smiled when I got to that section of his post because I thought, “If he’d just switch to Tweetdeck, he’d be much happier.” Lo and behold, that’s exactly what he did.
The revelation was upon him, and he went on to explain what he did and how he’s using the platform now.
My doomscrolling has calmed since the inauguration. Nothing is fixed, but we are heading in the right direction. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve noticed the tone has been uncharacteristically political. That’s not changing. One of the many lessons I’ve learned over the past four years is the seductive power of lies. I’ll be using every tool at my disposal to remind everyone of the power of the truth.
You’ve been warned.
Haven’t we all.
Apple Watch Series 7 Rumored to Feature Blood Glucose Monitoring
MacRumors has posted, well, a rumor that the next Apple Watch will have a blood glucose monitor that eliminates the need for fingersticks, testing strips, and a separate glucose monitor.
Apple is said to have secured patents around blood glucose monitoring, and the company is now purportedly “focusing on securing reliability and stability prior to commercialization of the technology.” The Apple-designed optical sensor is believed to be a skin-top continuous monitoring solution that does not require an implant.
Rumors suggest that Apple has been interested in adding blood glucose monitoring to the Apple Watch for some time. The company reportedly established a team of biomedical engineers and consultants specifically working on sensors for non-invasively monitoring blood sugar levels in 2017, and work on the sensor reportedly progressed to trials at clinical sites in the San Francisco Bay Area. Apple CEO Tim Cook has even been spotted testing what was believed to be a prototype glucose monitor connected to his Apple Watch.
This is the holy grail of features on a smartwatch. I do not have an Apple Watch, and I might consider getting one if this was available. If consumers could move away from the ecosystem of diabetes management, including needles, strips, readers, etc. and just wear a watch, it would put so many companies out of business. It’s a quantum shift game changer if the information it provided is reliable and accurate.
The Enemy Isn’t Republicans. It’s Liars.
William Saletan, writing in Slate, has some smart insight on “right vs. left.” He says it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not right versus left or conservative versus liberal. It’s “people who care about basic facts vs. people who don’t.”
Trump and his acolytes don’t just spin facts; they completely disregard them. They repeat fantastic lies about election fraud, and when they’re confronted with contrary evidence, they’re not even embarrassed. If we don’t get control of this — if we don’t reestablish an ethic of respect for facts — nothing else will be solved. We can’t extinguish the virus if tens of millions of Americans insist it’s a hoax and refuse to be vaccinated or wear masks. We can’t restore public faith in election results and put down insurrectionism if half the population refuses to believe anything the media report. Repairing the consensus that facts must be respected won’t settle our debates on spending, education, or criminal justice. But without that consensus, the crisis we’re in will get much worse.
It’s going to get worse. There has to be a price to pay for being wrong. I’m not talking about morals or politics. I mean “the sky is red, not blue” wrong. If we all can’t get to basic facts being basic facts, then we will be in an ever-changing hellhole of “alternative facts” and other bullshit. Lying under the previous administration was catastrophic for thousands, if not millions, of people. They have to be held accountable.
If you miss questions on a test, you are wrong. There is no “alternative answer” to 2+2=4. You are wrong. It’s the same thing across the board in our everyday lives and the sooner there is accountability for those who are lying, the better.
Meet the Ansel Adams of Liquor Store Photography
You’ve probably heard of Patton Oswalt. He’s an actor, stand-up comic, and voice actor. His brother, Matt, is a writer and photographer. Over at the Daily Beast, he put together a showcase of sorts of his most recent photos highlighting his new coffee-table book, Liquor Stores and Detours. They are really stunning.
This bit about a secret world behind these liquor stores made me laugh.
I have an irrational theory that the reason LA liquor stores continue to thrive despite the onslaught of online sales is that they’re all fronts for a shadowy crime network. A certain purchase at a certain time of night is like a key that opens a secret world where anything is possible. Buying a snack cake is like a signal you need a gun professionally cleaned, or asking the clerk you’re desperate for a bottle of Löwenbräu is the code for getting a body disposed of. Can’t get the covid vaccine? Just buy a Zagnut bar.
But seriously, don’t sleep on your local liquor store.
I might have to buy this book.
The Hill We Climb
Amanda Gorman read her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at the Inauguration, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The words were wonderful. Her eloquence was on full display. The power of her poetry was inspiring and moving. I had to learn a bit more. There’s Anderson Cooper’s interview with her and the New York Times story tells us a bit more about this amazing young woman.
I was sent a text of the poem the next day, and I’ve added it below because it needs to be read far and wide.
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain.
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Utterly brilliant.
The Unlamented Man
John Scalzi, on his personal site, has a few words about the ex-president. He starts off hard and doesn’t let up.
First and always, a liar.
Then a con man, a thief, and a grifter. A man who never saw a venture he couldn’t make fail, which is why he was always starting new ones: It was easier to jump to a new ship than stay with the sinking one. A cad, a harasser, allegedly a rapist. He treated women like they were disposable vessels for anxious manhood and was loved by the “family values” contingent for it, because they see women the same way he does. A racist, a bigot, a white supremacist. He saw neo-nazis march in Charlottesville and some part of his brain knew then that he had found his shock troops for an insurrection. A bully, a boaster, a braggart. He looked up to the worst leaders in the world because he wanted what they had: To be unquestioned, feared, and obeyed.
A bad man, a bad human, a bad person. And a bad president.
Not just bad, of course: In fact, the worst. A recitation of his moral failures and actual probable crimes would have us here all day, so let’s pick just one: 400,000 dead, so far, from COVID during his presidency. He is not responsible for the virus. He is responsible for denying its seriousness; for choosing to downplay it because he thought it would make him look bad; for making something as simple and useful as wearing a mask a political issue; for bungling a national response to it and then the distribution of medical supplies and, later, vaccines; for spreading misinformation and lies about it; for, fundamentally, not caring about his fellow Americans, and viewing the pandemic through the lens of him, not us. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who are now dead would be alive under a better president. Their deaths are on his hands, and he simply doesn’t care. He never will.
Good riddance.
Onward
Donald Trump was the worst president this country has ever had.
You may disagree, but you’d be wrong. Who do you suggest is worse? I guess James Buchanan, who let the country slip into the Civil War, is up there. Still, Trump is worse because he would have loved for the country to fall into a Civil War and was actively pursuing ideas and throwing them out into the world that would mean a Civil War. Buchanan was ineffectual, but Trump was active.
I can’t accurately state that James Buchanan loved his country, but I can tell you for a fact Donald Trump did not and does not care about the United States of America. At all. He does not care about the American people or our founding principles or our Constitution. He only cares about himself and his utterly desperate attempt at not being exactly who he is: a loser.
Not one thing can change Trump being labeled a loser. The country is profoundly better off now that he’s gone. This petty, small man is ensconced in his Florida estate, and America and the world finally have let out a sigh of relief. The rest of us have so much to do and so much to fix.
To not have to think about him and what incredibly stupid thing he has done now is freedom. We have endured him.
Go away and never come back.
Onward, President Joe Biden.
Paul Stanley’s Soul Station
I’m not sure how I feel about Paul Stanley covering “ O-O-H Child.”
The idea of Stanley turning into Rod Stewart-doing-the-American-songbook era of his career is oft-putting. I don’t dislike what he’s doing here, it just isn’t something I’d actively go out and purchase or even be remotely excited about. I’m not also all that fond of the song and much prefer his version of “ Ohh Ohh Baby.”
To be perfectly honest, I hope he got all of this out of his system and can focus on creating a new KISS album. He always says he’s not really “feeling” a new KISS record, nor does he want to tarnish what was done before.
If I were the KISS manager, Doc McGhee (I’m not), I’d be pushing to get the band into the studio to cut a new album and generate some buzz for the resumption of the KISS End of the Road tour as well as figuring out how to reacquire the master recordings to all of their music and rights to their videos. It seems obvious to me it’s time for the band to start taking the reigns outside of working with a traditional label or partners.
On the other hand, I am a sucker for behind-the-scenes recording/making of documentaries. Again, I’m not totally sold on this era of his career, but he is having a great time, and he surrounded himself with the best musicians in the business.
One thing’s for sure, Paul’s voice sounds really strong with this type of music. “ I Do “ sounds great.
Wake Up Call for Republicans
This video from Matthew Cooke is an excellent and succinct plea for Republicans and Trump supporters to come back to reality. It won’t happen, but it is an amazing video.
Illini manager Bobby Gikas brings ‘juice’ from the bench
Joey Wagner, writing for the Illini Inquirer, has a fantastic story on Bobby Gikas, one of the basketball managers for this year’s Fighting Illini Basketball team. The story behind “juice” is the best.
The Illini had a shiny, top-10 ranking and — though Underwood has since heaped praise on Ohio which is 7–5 and №122 in KenPom — should have won handily but instead were on upset alert. The Bobcats were loud and did everything on the bench short of bringing in a strobe light to start the party. Illinois? Not so much. Something had to change.
“That was, I think, the most pivotal moment of our season so far because we’re down to Ohio, a team we should be beating, then I look over to our bench and everyone was sad and down and not saying a word,” Gikas said. “I’m like, ‘All right, well, this is not how I want to start my senior year.’”
Illinois ended up winning and, in the process, “juice” was born. Underwood had told his team that they’d have to “bring their own juice” this season. Gikas took it to heart.
Next up was a game against №2 Baylor in Indianapolis and Gikas noticed an extra dry-erase board. He grabbed a hold and simply wrote one word: “Juice.”
That board hasn’t gone away, though it can’t be a permanent fixture near the court or it will lose its meaning. It’s intended to create a spark, to quill a big run by the opposing team or to kickstart one of their own.
“Reading that word right there makes us play harder and keep going and if you’re on the bench it makes you be louder and bring more energy,” Curbelo said. “That’s definitely a great thing. If I could advise managers on other teams, they should be looking at Bobby because he does a really good job in always taking care of everything so we’re ready to go. By him doing his job and coming to the court for the game and bringing all that energy, I think it’s great. I’m really, really happy I know that guy and I’m really happy he’s our manager.”
Love everything about this.
The Future of Superhero Movies Is the Multiverse
Miles Surrey, writing for The Ringer, has a few thoughts on the recent trend of multiversal superheroes showing up.
The biggest issue with DC and Marvel going full multiverse isn’t a financial consideration, but more of a creative one: a superhero movie landscape shaped by myopia. These cinematic universes aren’t just doubling down on superheroes, they’re doubling down on the ones that “work.” Instead of embracing more obscure heroes like, say, the Guardians of the Galaxy, we’re going to be subjected to several iterations of Batman and Spider-Man, who have already been through countless on-screen reboots in the past three decades. (Lest we forget, the list of Batman alums also include Christian Bale, Val Kilmer, and George “Bat Nipples” Clooney.)
The creative reason is the only reason to do this. It also could mean more financially in the long run, but the “anything-goes” creativity this should spark is what’s drawing actors, directors, and, you know, writers.
We Need a New Media System
Matt Taibbi is one of those writers that makes me think about things in a new way. I don’t always agree with his ideas, but I admire his thoughtfulness in what he writes. In his Substack, he outlines the problems with the traditional news media today and outlines how a new type of media would ideally work.
We need a new media channel, the press version of a third party, where those financial pressures to maintain audience are absent. Ideally, it would:
Innovations like Substack are great for opinionated individual voices like me, but what’s desperately needed is an institutional reporting mechanism that has credibility with the whole population. That means a channel that sees its mission as something separate from politics, or at least as separate from politics as possible.
The media used to derive its institutional power from this perception of separateness. Politicians feared investigation by the news media precisely because they knew audiences perceived them as neutral arbiters.
Now there are no major commercial outlets not firmly associated with one or the other political party. Criticism of Republicans is as baked into New York Times coverage as the lambasting of Democrats is at Fox, and politicians don’t fear them as much because they know their constituents do not consider rival media sources credible. Probably, they don’t even read them. Echo chambers have limited utility in changing minds.
Media companies need to get out of the audience-stroking business, and by extension the politics business. They’d then be more likely to be believed when making pronouncements about elections or masks or anything else, for that matter. Creating that kind of outlet also has a much better shot of restoring sanity to the country than the current strategy, which seems based on stamping out access to “wrong” information.
This is smart, but how would it be funded?
The Atlantic Stole My Work
On his personal site, freelancer Dean Sterling Jones, accuses The Atlantic of stealing his work and denying him credit and compensation for the work. Jones said in his post that Atlantic editors have declined to give him credit in spite of “whole sentences and paragraphs from a freelance pitch” he sent to Natasha Bertrand.
Personally, I’m a little confused by the word “stealing.” He sent her the story and the research. He was subsequently credited in the story and linked.
The story was published later that day without my byline, although the Atlantic did eventually agree to credit me within the text of the article (albeit reluctantly and without offering an apology or an explanation for axing me from the story). I didn’t realise my work had been lifted until October 2020, when I was inspired to reinvestigate by the Atlantic magazine’s 800-word correction — and subsequent retraction — of a story by freelance journalist/serial fabricator Ruth Shalit Barrett.
As I told Bertrand in an email, the Atlantic’s refusal to add my byline to the story hurts both of us. I lost out on a writing credit and freelance fee; as a result, her name now sits atop an article that contains copied material.
Being a freelance journalist has its ups and downs, but getting stomped on by a big publication like the Atlantic deserves to be called out, hence this item.
Maybe next time don’t send a fully researched story to a publication without getting a proper contract from an actual editor?
The Assault On The Capitol Wasn’t A Coup, It Was A Warning
John DeVore, writing on his site on Medium, echoes a lot of what I think about the event at the Capitol.
It wasn’t a coup. It was more like a “fuck you.” A half-ass uprising fueled by revenge and hysteria. A theatrical production of Les Miserables KKK. There are photos of armed men dressed for battle. These men are not anchored in reality. They are fools. Dangerous, volatile fools.
Right. They were hooligans. They were not some sort of organized coup attempt. It wasn’t even a protest because they didn’t even have a position other than keep Trump in office, I guess?
They were loyal Trump supporters doing what they were told to do, which was to cause a ruckus and maybe scare a liberal. Look at the faces of these people. They’re having a good time. It’s a vacation. Burning down democracy is fun. Their king gave them permission to live a consequence-free life and they ran with it.
DeVore has a hard time trying to describe the mob.
No. This wasn’t a coup. Nor was it a protest. I’m reluctant to call it a riot. A riot is a bit more spontaneous than this shitshow. But I still don’t think these mobs breaking into the Capitol were organized. It was pure emotion. A stampede. A herd of beasts electrified by privilege and power and rage. Maybe it was a half-riot. A half-riot, half-melee.
I also don’t think this was terrorism, either. Terrorists usually have goals. Even Bin Laden or McVeigh had messages. This malignant mass panic attack was abuse. The only goal here was to maybe bully a few people into thinking “maybe if I had voted for Trump this wouldn’t be happening!” The only message a muddled demand to speak to the manager or else.
Trump, obviously did not think any of this through.
He didn’t plot a coup. He told a bunch of suck-ups and laidback turncoats to defend his honor and fight a hopeless battle. They answered his weak call. He blushed and thanked them. But nothing changed except, I suspect, turning more weary Americans against the MAGA cause.
Aside from the fact that there were several people there who actually wanted to kill members of Congress and the Vice President, it mostly was a fine example of white privilege.
We are lucky it was not worse.
When the President of Mediocrity Incites an Insurrection
Rebecca Solnit, writing in the Literary Hub, has one of the better truth bombs I’ve seen lately.
One of the indigestible facts of this country is that most of its terrorism and nearly all its mass shootings are committed by mostly conservative-leaning white men, conservative here meaning those most earnestly committed to their white supremacist-misogynist identity politics, from the unending terrorism of the Klan and other racist groups and the anti-abortion murders of the 1990s to the present-day mayhem.
It is all identity politics. All of it.