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Tennessee Offers Scholarship to Bullied Young Man
Adam Rittenberg, writing for ESPN, has a positive sports story that I definitely needed.
Tennessee announced Thursday that it has extended an offer of admission and a four-year scholarship — for the Class of 2032 — to the elementary school student in Altamonte Springs, Florida.
The university will cover the cost of the boy’s scholarship if he chooses to attend the school and meets all admission requirements.
The boy’s story drew national attention earlier this week when Laura Snyder, his teacher, detailed on Facebook how the boy had been bullied after clipping a piece of paper with a “UT” design to an orange T-shirt for “college colors day” at the school.
The power of social media made this happen.
Pugwash
I’m a huge fan of power pop. I usually like a bit more crunch a la Cheap Trick, but the Romantics, Gin Blossoms, Honeymoon Suite, the Knack, and more all have amazing power pop songs. I mean, technically, the Beatles were the first power pop band.
Last summer, I stumbled upon a post at Eclecticity Light about a singer/songwriter/band called Pugwash. I took a listen and found a mashup of the Beatles, ELO, and the Beach Boys and it was wonderful.
The Decline and Fall of the Modern Nerd
Rob Bricken, writing his Nerd Processor column on Medium, has decided fandom has been transformed from being about love and diversity into hate and intolerance. As usual, he’s full of shit.
There are an increasing number of things I used to enjoy that feel tainted by the hate other so-called fans feel for them, and it’s getting harder and harder to separate the two.
I’m sorry, but you have control over how you feel. It’s not hard to separate what assholes say and what you think. Who is more important? According to Bricken, it’s everybody else’s opinion.
Studios have given nerds power, and power has corrupted us. By acknowledging these fans so much, and catering to them to wholly, they’ve given nerds a wholly unjustified sense of equality with those making the entertainment. Worse, when studios do try to placate fans by bowing to their wishes, it confirms what these fans have always felt in their hearts — that these franchises belong to them.
People who make the entertainment do not cater to fans or placate fans. They are creating their art, and if fandom loves it or hates it, it doesn’t matter. Do you think a creator spends time thinking about what an audience wants and then caters to them? I’m not saying that aren’t thinking commercially, but they are also thinking creatively, and what makes them creatively fulfilled.
I don’t give a shit what some rando on the Internet thinks about Star Wars, Game of Thrones, or any other entertainment I enjoy. You feel tainted by their vitriol. Ignore them, and you take away the oxygen they feed on.
I can still express my opinion without also going on a crusade to convince people who love it that they’re wrong, because these are the people who remember that being a fan of something is about loving it.
Write about this next time. This is what you want to have a thousand words on. This.
The Final 16
Bernie Miklasz, writing for 101ESPN, tries to ease Cardinals fans fears as meaningful September baseball is about to be played. I like his way of seeing things.
The Cardinals will play 10 of their final 16 games against the Brewers (three) and Cubs (seven.) That might unnerve some folks, because the Brewers and (especially) Cubs can launch direct attacks on the Cardinals and cut into the lead. But I guess I see it the other way: if you’re holding a four-game lead, and have the stronger position, then you should be excited to have a straight-on shot to weaken, wobble or knockout your rivals.
If the Cardinals fear playing seven vs. Chicago and three against molten-hot Milwaukee, then they’re missing competitive fiber. And I don’t believe that’s true. I decline to insult them by conjuring up — or assuming — some worst-case scenario.
One thing I don’t think is happening to the Cardinals team is a lack of “competitive fiber.”
The Resentment of Joker
After reading David Edlestein’s review in Vulture of Joker, I’m even surer I’m going to hate everything about this film.
It tells me everything I need to know about the movie in one simple sentence.
The downside to the performance is the downside to the movie: It’s one note played louder and louder.
I don’t need that in my life. In fact, I have zero desire to watch this film. As Edelstein points out, it’s obvious what director Todd Phillips is going for here: a pastiche of a better director’s (Martin Scorsese) movies (obviously King of Comedy and Taxi Driver). Of course, he stunt casts Robert De Niro.
Although Phillips and the screenwriters sought to make Joker more realistic than its DC Comics predecessors, it exalts its protagonist and gives him the origin story of his dreams, in which killing is a just — and artful — response to a malevolently indifferent society. Arthur/Joker might be repulsive, but in a topsy-turvy universe, repulsive is attractive. I’m not arguing that Joker will inspire killings (it might, but so might a lot of other things), only that it panders to selfish, small-minded feelings of resentment. Also it’s profoundly boring — a one-joke movie.
How boring. But then, I’m not a selfish incel with “small-minded feelings of resentment.” If I want to watch a “killing is just” movie, I’ll watch Keanu Reeves gun-fu through the John Wick movies. I’m sure I’ll be way more entertained.
Just who is this movie for anyway? I mean, fans of the DC Comics version of the Joker aren’t going to care about this approach. If you loved Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance, this isn’t going to make you love the character more. If you hated Jared Leto’s take on the character, I’m sure Phoenix’s version will be even more wrong.
My fear is the controversy surrounding this movie will push audiences to go see the film and make those in charge of DC movies incorrectly believe that creating individual, non-universe connecting movies is the way to go. It isn’t.
I don’t see many movies anymore. My life is busy. However, it seems obvious to me that the movie is a pastiche of Taxi Driver and King of Comedy with DC Comics intellectual property sprinkled in. I’m actually tired of these types of approaches to comic book movies. There is no joy here. Of course, movies can be depressing, but most of the time, I don’t want a movie to depress me. I expect Joker will be depressing.
Maybe even one note.
Imagine if Marvel decided to make a movie called Dr. Doom. It’s a story about a beautiful and smart peasant boy, Victor Von Doom, living in the made-up country of Latveria. He gets an opportunity to attend a prestigious university in the United States, leaving the woman he loves to a cruel prince. A freak accident scars his face and creates havoc with his vanity (and sanity). He melds the occult teaching of his mother and futuristic science to create a mask to hide his face and a powered armored suit, He returns to Latveria as Dr. Doom to take back the love of his life and ultimately become dictator of Latveria.
No Fantastic Four, no Avengers. No Iron Man. It might be an interesting story, and with a charismatic lead, it might generate excitement, but it’s a movie that will never, ever get made. Why? Because Marvel movies don’t work that way. Good comic book movies don’t play well that way in the theater. It may make a lot of money, but it derails the train in the process. It kills sequels and merchandise tie-ins
Kevin Feige understands this. I have no idea if Walter Hamada does.
The DCU is focusing on individual stories and not an interconnected universe. When will they ever learn this is the wrong approach?
The Best Gift
Patrick Rhone on plans -
The best gift one can give to any plan is time. The more time given, the more sure the plan. The more sure the plan, the better the work. Plan the work. Then, work the plan.
A Glimpse of Freedom, in Glittery Heels
Sara Luterman, writing in Slate, has an uplifting story about people with Down Syndrome dressing in drag and putting on a show. The obvious villain of the piece is a Republican who doesn’t understand it and never will.
The name of the group is perfect.
The First Game of the Rest of Our Lives
Nate Jackson, writing for Deadspin, has a 9/11 story I’ve never heard before. It would make an excellent movie.
The Falling Man
Today I was reminded of a story that resonated with me ever since I read it.
I remember the image. It haunts me each year.
I will not post it, but I will direct you to the story by Tom Junod in Esquire.
It is enough.
Denied
The AP has a report out today outlining why the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied Ohio State University’s trademark filing on the word “The.”
The patent office cited the trademark appears to be used for “merely decorative manner” and as an “ornamental feature” that doesn’t appear to function as a trademark that would differentiate the items from others.
This was so dumb.
Are Cubs at Risk of Becoming MLBs ’85 Bears?
Will Leitch, writing for mlb.com, outlines a fear I think most Cubs fans have-the 2016 Cubs are basically the 1985 Bears.
It is possible that the most famous NFL team of the last 40 years and the most famous baseball team of the last 40 years both are from Chicago. The 1985 Bears … well, the 1985 Bears are so famous that just typing their name right there got you humming the “Super Bowl Shuffle,” or thinking about your old G.I. Joe Refrigerator Perry figurine, or both. They were recently selected as the greatest NFL team of all time. They’re as large a part of Chicago as the skyline. They’re Da Bears.But the 2016 Cubs may live on just as long. No franchise and its fanbase in American sports had suffered for as long or for as brutally as the Cubs had, from the Billy Goat to the ball through Leon Durham’s legs to poor Steve Bartman to Sammy Sosa’s bat to all of it. The Cubs winning the World Series for the first time in 108 years felt like an impossible cosmic event, like a wormhole opening in time, or someone inventing cold fusion. And yet it happened, and it happened in the most dramatic way imaginable, in the rain, in Cleveland, in extra innings, after Jason Heyward’s big speech, giving generations of Cubs fans a joyous release they never thought would come. Even this lifelong Cardinals fan cannot deny how moving it was to see Cubs fans writing the names on the Waveland Avenue wall of loved ones who never lived to see the day. It was the biggest story in sports this whole decade. It’s still amazing that it happened.
But if there’s another thing that both those teams’ championships had in common, it’s that each was supposed to only be the beginning. The Bears were heavy favorites to win again in 1986, and the Cubs, famously, were thought to be building a dynasty. The 1985 and 2016 seasons were the launching pads, not the culminations. But those 1985 Bears never did win (or reach) another Super Bowl, something Bears players at the time still argue about. (Dan Hampton says the Bears would have won multiple titles with Jay Cutler as quarterback, which seems unlikely considering he was three years old at the time), and it has always felt like a disappointment: That team was too good not to have won more.
And if they’re not careful: Those 2016 Cubs might just suffer the same fate.
I would argue it’s already happened. Sure, the next three weeks will show where the Cubs go this post-season. However, I don’t think anyone has any flights of fancy that the Cubs are World Series bound again nor favorites to win.
At the risk of karma bitch slapping me in the face, I think the Cubs will fade and maybe not even make the playoffs this year. If that happens, the northside is going to explode.
Trump is Not Well
Peter Wehner, writing in The Atlantic, states the obvious. Trump is not well.
Donald Trump’s disordered personality—his unhealthy patterns of thinking, functioning, and behaving—has become the defining characteristic of his presidency. It manifests itself in multiple ways: his extreme narcissism; his addiction to lying about things large and small, including his finances and bullying and silencing those who could expose them; his detachment from reality, including denying things he said even when there is video evidence to the contrary; his affinity for conspiracy theories; his demand for total loyalty from others while showing none to others; and his self-aggrandizement and petty cheating.
It manifests itself in Trump’s impulsiveness and vindictiveness; his craving for adulation; his misogyny, predatory sexual behavior, and sexualization of his daughters; his open admiration for brutal dictators; his remorselessness; and his lack of empathy and sympathy, including attacking a family whose son died while fighting for this country, mocking a reporter with a disability, and ridiculing a former POW. (When asked about Trump’s feelings for his fellow human beings, Trump’s mentor, the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, reportedly said, “He pisses ice water.”)
The most recent example is the president’s bizarre fixation on falsely insisting that he was correct to warn that Alabama faced a major risk from Hurricane Dorian, to the point that he doctored a hurricane map with a black Sharpie to include the state as being in the path of the storm.
Wehner goes on to talk about the incredulity he faces whenever Trump says something ridiculous.
Even now, almost a thousand days into his presidency, the latest Trump outrage elicits shock and disbelief in people. The reaction is, “Can you believe he said that and did this?”
To which my response is, “Why are you surprised?” It’s a shock only if the assumption is that we’re dealing with a psychologically normal human being. We’re not. Trump is profoundly compromised, acting just as you would imagine a person with a disordered personality would. Many Americans haven’t yet come to terms with the fact that we elected as president a man who is deeply damaged, an emotional misfit. But it would be helpful if they did.
Among other things, it would keep us feeling less startled and disoriented, less in a state of constant agitation, less susceptible to provocations. Donald Trump thrives on creating chaos, on gaslighting us, on creating antipathy among Americans, on keeping people on edge and off balance. He wants to dominate our every waking hour. We ought not grant him that power over us.
It might also take some of the edge off the hatred many people feel for Trump. Seeing him for what he is—a terribly damaged soul, a broken man, a person with a disordered mind—should not lessen our revulsion at how Trump mistreats others, at his cruelty and dehumanizing actions.
Nor should it weaken our resolve to stand up to it. It does complicate the picture just a bit, though, eliciting some pity and sorrow for Trump.
But above all, accepting the truth about Trump’s mental state will cause us to take more seriously than we have our democratic duty, which is to prevent a psychologically and morally unfit person from becoming president.
That’s the thing that most people who are educated already knew: he’s not a psychological normal human being. He’s an “emotional misfit.” It’s the non-educated who think he’s doing great things. They are clueless. They are so ignorant they have no idea how woefully ignorant they are. A few are willfully ignorant not wanting to see or hear about how unpopular, inhumane and corrupt he is. I feel anger and pity for these people.
The Scale of Corruption
Heather Digby Parton, writing for Salon, has a story beginning to outline the full extent of the lies and corruption at the heart of the Trump administration.
It’s a tired thousands words that everyone who’s paying even the slightest attention already knows. They either find this corruption endearing or horrifying. Nothing is going to change until Democrats have control of the Presidency and both houses of Congress. I’m not even sure that’s going to happen in 2020.
I Was Caroline Calloway
Natalie Beach, writing The Cut, has an extraordinary story to tell.
When I was a sophomore in college, I took a creative-nonfiction workshop and met a girl who was everything I wasn’t. The point of the class was to learn to write your own story, but from the moment we met, I focused instead on helping her tell her own, first in notes after workshop, then later editing her Instagram captions and co-writing a book proposal she sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It seems obvious now, the way the story would end, but when I first met Caroline Calloway, all I saw was the beginning of something extraordinary.
It’s a fascinating read about two people I’m not sure I’d ever want to be friends with. The whole story is a bit of a train wreck of using one another, riding coattails and poor me.
It will probably make a great movie.
Who Is Your #GUNSAFETYPRESIDENT?
2020 candidates agree: We must do more to protect our kids from gun violence. Watch the first video in our new #GunSafetyPresident series with @JoeBiden, @CoryBooker, @PeteButtigieg, @KamalaHarris, @AmyKlobuchar, @BetoORourke, @BernieSanders, and @EWarren. https://t.co/frfrgwCFNj pic.twitter.com/eBuATyYI30
— Giffords (@GiffordsCourage) September 9, 2019
Representative Gabby Giffords set up this video.
We deserve a president who listens to the American people, not the NRA. We deserve a president who takes bold action to make us safer, not one who tweets thoughts and prayers then does nothing. We deserve a president who fights for stronger gun laws, not gun lobby profits. 2020 Democratic candidates are vying to be that leader.
Pretty powerful stuff.
How to Be More Intelligent
Nicholas Bate has a cheatsheet to be more intelligent. How many of these have you done or currently do?
Sick
Warren Ellis is sick.
I am sick. But I won’t be sick forever. This too will pass, and I’ll be left with just the usual medical issues and hitches and scars and aches and pains that come from having survived on this weird little rock for half a century. But, not only is it better than the alternative, but in between all the bad points and the agonies and horrors, there has been more than enough joy to make a footnote out of all the pain, and there will continue to be joy. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, and, no matter what today and tomorrow look like, one day you will feel the same way. Hold on tight. Joy is always on the way back.
I’m also sick. Been sick for about ten days now with a viral sore throat that won’t go away.
Typewriter and Publisher
M. G. Siegler, writing at his site 500ish, takes us through his experience with iPad OS and in particular Safari.
Now that this Safari is just like the desktop Safari — like real Safari — we’re all good.
No, I don’t know what took Apple so long to make this change either.
While all of this may seem like a relatively small thing, it’s massive to me. Because it means I can further cut the laptop out of my life. And, of course, I have aspirations, as always, to write more. And while the small hurdles I mention above shouldn’t really have slowed me down much, even just the cognitive load always did. Knowing that I would have to save to publish later, when I got back to my desk, as it were.
I’ve long hoped to get back to a more casual form of blogging. And I do think this will help. Again, it’s silly, but even just typing on this iPad and knowing I can hit publish, makes it feel more informal to me.
The iPad can be my typewriter and my publisher.
This makes me want to bite the bullet and just get an iPad Pro and a keyboard and make it my main machine. I’d still have to keep the old MacBook Pro tethered as a desktop machine when I need it, but that’s okay.
NOAA Staff Warned Against Contradicting Trump
Andrew Freedman, writing in The Washington Post, outlines a story that should make everyone mad.
“This is the first time I’ve felt pressure from above to not say what truly is the forecast,” the meteorologist said. “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around. One of the things we train on is to dispel inaccurate rumors and ultimately that is what was occurring — ultimately what the Alabama office did is provide a forecast with their tweet, that is what they get paid to do.”
His fragile ego can’t stand someone telling him he’s wrong. I can’t wait until someone tells him he’s wrong to his face and he can’t do a damn thing about it.
How M.I.T. Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
Ronan Farrow, writing in The New Yorker, has a damning expose on Jeffrey Epstein, Joi Ito of M.I.T., and Bill Gates.
Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors, soliciting millions of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations, including the technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black. According to the records obtained by The New Yorker and accounts from current and former faculty and staff of the media lab, Epstein was credited with securing at least $7.5 million in donations for the lab, including two million dollars from Gates and $5.5 million from Black, gifts the e-mails describe as “directed” by Epstein or made at his behest. The effort to conceal the lab’s contact with Epstein was so widely known that some staff in the office of the lab’s director, Joi Ito, referred to Epstein as Voldemort or “he who must not be named.”
Probably not something J. K. Rowling wants her creation to be associated with in the least.