Jaime

a person.

[autist @litteralyme0]

Growing up hearing “Wikipedia isn't a valid source” and then entering a workplace where people say “just ask ChatGPT” is a surprisingly strange timeline

[Daman Rangoola @damanr]

"Wayne Ellington calls timeout for the Heat"

[Daman Rangoola @damanr]

LeBron James, Laker Champion

LeBron James’ Lakers tenure has ended at 8 seasons, his longest stretch with a single team in his career. That meant eight offseasons and eight trade deadlines — sixteen transaction cycles of news, excitement, chaos, and exhaustion. It feels almost impossible to take a breath and step back, but I’ll try.

The one thing that I think has absolutely been forgotten is the state of the Lakers when LeBron James arrived. Lakers ownership had just finished firing the owner’s brother, hiring a first time President of Basketball, a first time GM, had a roster full of young, but unproven talent - and most importantly, they were absolutely rudderless. Let’s be very clear here: the Lakers were on their way to being a decade-long mediocrity. LeBron James didn’t go the Kawhi route and demand a trade for a co-star, he just signed with the team, and for that I will be forever grateful. He WAS the franchise savior, there is no other way to view that.

Now, the Klutch angle. The Lakers may bristle at being “pushed around” to do things like trade for Anthony Davis. But look at what the Lakers were doing that same offseason. They insulted and low-balled Ty Lue. Then, on the day they introduced Frank Vogel — the guy who had originally agreed to be the lead assistant — Magic Johnson went on television and trashed everything about the organization. So yeah, you got pushed around by Klutch to trade for AD, and thank god for that.

LeBron would go on to carry the franchise to a championship, the same year that he carried them through the untimely death of Kobe Bryant, followed by a global pandemic. I was asked on a podcast appearance I did the day LeBron signed about my expectations as far as championships, my answer: Set the over/under at 0.5. LeBron hit the over. Mission accomplished, end of story.

Were there lows that followed? Was the Russell Westbrook trade the worst trade of all time? I think so, and I think it’s stupid to pretend that LeBron didn’t push for that either - of course he did, it was a mistake, and it ended the title window for the team. But LeBron didn’t make the trade himself, I’d be much more amenable to the fact that LeBron James and Klutch were some overbearing pains in the asses if the organization actually had their own basketball principles and philosophies to fall back on. To date, I have seen no evidence of that.

I find myself defending LeBron today and his legacy as a Laker, but at the same time I don’t blame anybody for the relationship ending today. This was a relationship that had its ups and downs and both sides find themselves at a crossroads where saying goodbye is the most logical outcome. The Lakers have to build their franchise around their next centerpiece in Luka Doncic, and while LeBron James gave Luka the space to be himself, LeBron’s stature is too large for this team to not take it’s cues from him - it is time for the franchise to become Luka’s, fully and unmistakably. For LeBron, whether it’s commuting to San Francisco, or ending his story book career where it started, I can appreciate how those options just feel better to him today.

LeBron’s Lakers tenure was messy, political, dramatic, and eventually exhausting. But that cannot be separated from what came before him: a franchise with no direction, no credibility, and no obvious path back to relevance. He chose the Lakers without demanding a co-star first. He made them matter again. He helped deliver Anthony Davis. He won a championship. Everything after that can be debated, but the central fact cannot: LeBron James came to Los Angeles and did the job.

LeBron James, Laker Champion

[Van Lathan Jr @VanLathan]

The DSA momentum isn’t about the DSA, it’s about people.

I see all the quibbling and bickering, but not a lot of understanding.

People in NY cast votes for candidates they think actually care about what they’re going through. Same way they did for Mamdani.

But instead of reflecting, the establishment continues to project. We’ve seen it before, it’s partly how we got here.

I don’t imagine that what happened in New York could happen in Baton Rouge … yet. And when I say yet I mean YET. If a people first, economic liberation movement finds its political stride in South, its curtains.

It’s hard for a lot of Black southerners I know to critique the Dems, an elder of mine recently told me she votes Democrat OUT OF RESPECT FOR DR KING.

(I told her Dr. King might’ve been DSA, because he held some very strident anti-capitalist/anti imperialist views. She then told me to worry about my weight and not about Dr King’s legacy. That actually happened 😂😂😂😂😂😂)

I’m not saying that’s going to change, but I am saying those same people I talk to (particularly the ones under 45) aren’t frustrated. They’re tired. Frustrated needs a rally. Tired needs a change. They’re ripe for new voices.

The best outcome here would be a meeting of the minds. It would Robin reminding Batman of the ideals he started with, and Batman educating Robin on the structural realities of the world we live in, and how we make allies in that world. They then shake hands and vandalize the Joker’s reflecting pool.

That won’t happen though. Political intractability is by design. Politicians fight for their existence while forgetting about yours.

You do not matter. Threats to power matter. Threats to systems matter. They built it the way they wanted it, they’ve been milking it for years. They want their milk cheap while yours gets more expensive.

We say politics is a beauty pageant, but in actuality, it’s a slaughterhouse. You think you’re the butcher, when really, you’re the cow.

But man. Somewhere there’s a candidate that just wants you to have a living wage and healthcare. Just wants your kid not have to die in a foreign war. Maybe they can’t even get it done, but that’s sincerely what they want.

I hope you get to vote for them.

[Zito @_Zeets]

As a lifelong Mexican, I’m so happy to see our national team back to their best

[Jade Law @jadel4w]

Microslop

[Zito @_Zeets]

Buy companies, saddle them with debt, layoff the staff, destroy the service completely, pay yourself handsomely, and then kill it off. Rinse and repeat.

Private Equity won’t stop until they have turned drained the life out of every service and industry.

[Zito @_Zeets]

All the ChatGPT commercials are like “help me find the best path to the store” and it’s so deeply insulting to human beings and brains, but people have completely accepted that they can’t think or do simple shit on their own anymore.

[Nekias (Nuh-KAI-us) Duncan @NekiasNBA]

Luka Doncic what on EARTH

[claire de lune @ClaireMPLS]

do the people who take umbrage w/ their taxes contributing to snap benefits know how much the average billionaire gets in tax write offs / kickbacks every year from the govt & the orders of magnitude more money that goes to the latter? or are they just sycophants for billionaires

[Mia Agraviador @MiaAgraviador]

NBA fears

[Zito @_Zeets]

At some stage, you have to also have to ask what the point of a country being so wealthy is when it can’t feed, or really help out its people in a substantial way, but it has all the money in the world to build weapons and terrorize people here and abroad. Is that all there is?

[Modern Rome in Freefall 🇵🇸 @ljmontello]

Millennials riding through their 4th once in a lifetime economic collapse by age 40...

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Every motherfucking thing this gentleman said. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥👇

[zellie @zellieimani]

SCREAMING 🤣🤣

[Zito @_Zeets]

It’s the most remedial way of thinking about art. You can argue for why diversity is necessary — because art is essential to human life and you can’t represent the full human imagination and creativity otherwise — without thinking like a child who must identify with everything.

[🦖 Black Big Lebowski 🦖 @LaJethroJenkins]

The most jarring part of getting older is realizing how fast time moves. 10 years used to seem like a long time. Now, a decade moves so quick. I remember 10 years ago like, yesterday. Memories that feel so recent that it’s seems impossible they were that long ago.

[☔ @Whotfismick]

"haven't seen you in a while, what u been up to?"

me: