Hi @AbeGreenwald I appreciate your thoughtful post about sports fandom. It makes a lot of sense. For me, it transcends the game & money. Today, I received a birthday package from my adult son. It was a Milwaukee Brewers ball cap. Last year, he sent me a t-shirt with hall of famer “Rockin’” Robin Yount who played 20 seasons for our team & was a source of fun & pride for our small franchise. I think Daniel Stern’s character in City Slickers put it simply in this bit of repose (see clip). You’re right, it’s always been a moneymaker for the corporate conglomerates. But it’s also a source of commonality in a crazy world. Again, I do appreciate your thoughtful take. https://t.co/RwLBPjt84J
"For most of my life, I’ve been baffled by sports fandom. I don’t have any problem with it other than that it makes no sense to me. What are the stakes? Local pride? Hometown teams have almost nothing to do with their hometowns. Fans are rooting for corporate conglomerates or publicly traded companies that employ athletes from around the globe."--From today's newsletter
I humbly request that all speakers of English root up and throw aside the phrase “Does that make sense?” from all subsequent conversation or presentation. It’s a subconscious repellant against meaningful feedback which reached peak banality some time ago. Thank you.
@jimgeraghty@GregCorombos If there can be ‘hypothetical’ supreme leaders, there’s hope for ‘hypothetical’ pols like Irving Schmidlap (see Times of Israel headline)
Underrated life advice: Stop trying to reason with someone who's operating from emotion. Logic doesn't work on feelings. Wait for them to calm down. Then talk. Or don't talk at all. But arguing with emotion is losing before you start.
Eight o’clock AM on Saturday. Sitting on the back patio. Shorts, bare feet, and T-shirt belie the fact it’s January in the Florida Panhandle. It’s a humid 71° Fahrenheit, the kind where thick droplets drape the furniture, mailbox, and trash bins. It like they’ve been at the gym all night. The bird song rings more loudly than usual, not that I’ve sat here at this time of day for a while. The sun is about to creep over the next house and the pines to the east. Directly north beyond the lot line, a bobwhite suddenly thunders off the forest floor northward. Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal alight on a nearby tree. A cold front is due at midday. Its wind and rain will knock us back to normal morning temps soon enough. For now, feeling that clammy humidity, hearing robust bird song under the thin gray noise from Highway 98, I’m thankful for small, January barefoot pleasures like