Brian Windhorst is barely able to contain his contempt. I wish he would just join Substack already so I could pay him to absolutely unload his venom, as he is clearly aching to do.
Find myself thinking about the lack of nuance in the world today. Everything seen as black or white, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.
Case in point - saying X is not a democratic country when you don't like decisions of democratically elected leaders. Nope, you just don't like the current government.
How Canada is no longer a democratic country, a BLM activist got bailed out after an assassination attempt, the russiagate narrative collapsed, and the MSM ignores it so no one cares. Maybe we’ll get another war in Ukraine to distract everyone!
I'm mildly amused by this article and the general failure that the all star weekend has been so far (by all second-hand accounts, since I've been rendered into a casual by this terrible product).
People won't admit Ethan, but they're coming round to your views. I know Bomani is quite nuanced and hard to place but Howard Beck saying something that isn't avowedly pro-player is one that I did not expect. In fairness to the players, the terms of sports legacy debates have been framed in overly simplistic (and borderline toxic, if I recall some of what Lebron had to deal with in the first half of his career) terms by the media. Short run spamming of that strategy definitely worked, but we're now seeing how it has debased the product for all stakeholders involved (players, owners, fans and media partners) in the long-run.
Daryl Morey is a clandestine subscriber to House of Strauss who talks about every NBA-related article with Colin Cowherd. After the Sixers win the championship with 2022’s version of Shaq and Kobe, Morey will grant a podcast request from House of Strauss that will (a) get Adam Silver fired , (b) convert the NBA season to 58 games with a one-and-done playoff format and (c) get Adrian Wojnarowski banished from the Game Of Zones.
If you think these Covid lockdowns were bad, just wait until climate changed is used as a pretense for more and more authoritarian behavior. It will also be used to force folks to accept a lower standard of living (already happening but CC will be used to accelerate this).
Everything changes.I keep read diverse thought about the city of San Francisco. Can you write a column telling your subs your thoughts about San Francisco today?
Hottest of hot: Robert California is hilarious and I very much enjoyed when he was a part of The Office (even if he seemed to be coming in from a different show)
Arden & Trudeau have portrayed them selves as these emphatic leader. Yet the have made the 5% of there country 2nd class citizens. Which has resulted in the occupation of the capital cities of both leaders. There response shows a complete lack of empathy. There treatment of unvaxed people at this point of pandemic is troublesome. Considering the only thing that we can say for certain about the Vax at this point is it reduces your chance of ending up in hospital. So the only reason for a mandate is to lessen hospital load. Seems to me a crazy reason for a mandate.
Are we in a weird jeopardy/better help era of sports media personalities. They think they are smarter then everyone, can’t be wrong but also “tired” and in therapy. It comes through in the media and writing. It comes across to viewer/readers as mild brain worms.
Chris Brown had a daughter, stopped savagely beating up women and then stopped making great music. Bill Simmons had a daughter, stopped writing interesting stuff and turned into a boring basketball historian. Having daughters is correlated with men turning into pious pumpkins who are insufferable boors. Causation, not correlation!
Except Joe Rogan for some reason. Somehow, Mr. Rogan escaped that trap.
On Bill Maher last night, the Editor of the nation Said the problem with America today is the media and that the media has an agenda. In the next breath she said that Americans should vote for Bernie Sanders and that he is the only person who speaks the truth to Americans. What am I missing here?
I know more people, relatives and friends who just will not acknowledge or admit that this is not how liberal democracy works. They should watch old Merv Griffin episodes. He had on civil rights activists, celebrities, and even those who broke with traditional outlooks- no one was rude enough to call for censorship. Back then it was considered the heights of backward thinking because it is.
Can someone explain why MSM critics are so positive about Russia not invading Ukraine? I saw Taibbi calling the invasion prediction a ‘faceplant’ but I’m not sure what he’s talking about. When he’s criticizing reporting, it’s hard to follow exactly what he takes issue with. If he found a more coherent way to express himself, more MSM defenders may listen.
Here's one my friends and I are debating and have put money on. So "cancel culture," CRT and "woke" were all borrowed from black culture (two items of good-natured slang, one academic obscurity). And as they've been borrowed and weaponized by the right, there's been a natural progression from one to the other: cancel culture --> CRT --> woke. And as they get weaponized, it doesn't take long for them to lose meaning. Jeff Zucker is cancel culture? lol. Removing Michelle Obama's biography from school libraries is fighting CRT? whatever. And I think reasonable people can agree that "woke" is starting to lose the thread: https://twitter.com/adamhillscomedy/status/1495425302729797642 (etc, etc.) There's probably a smart point to be made here about the elasticity of language, especially when brought into the political sphere as a tool, but that's beyond my reach. Mostly I want to go on record with what I think the next one will be. So mark my words, in two months, you're going to hear political types decrying "vibes." School boards calling out questionable vibes; GOP presidential hopefuls saying "America today ... you can feel it: it just has bad vibes."
That's my prediction. My friend thinks the right is going to weaponize "mood" next ("Ted Cruz is a big mood!" "This country needs a mood change") but I like my pick.
Abolish interviews with players immediately after they win a Championship. I want to watch Aaron Donald celebrate with his teammates, not explain to a reporter that it's nice to win the Super Bowl.
Matt's silence is interesting. Similar to Woj, wouldn't it just be good to put your hand up and say 'got this one wrong'? No one can bat a thousand.
Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi
·
Feb 21
The news outlets that published that baseless and embarrassingly incorrect invasion prediction gave Putin a big international PR win last week. And I’m the one carrying water for him?
There’s a real lack of American-born Latinos playing in the NFL and NBA… but no one really talks about it.
Brian Windhorst is barely able to contain his contempt. I wish he would just join Substack already so I could pay him to absolutely unload his venom, as he is clearly aching to do.
Find myself thinking about the lack of nuance in the world today. Everything seen as black or white, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.
Case in point - saying X is not a democratic country when you don't like decisions of democratically elected leaders. Nope, you just don't like the current government.
How Canada is no longer a democratic country, a BLM activist got bailed out after an assassination attempt, the russiagate narrative collapsed, and the MSM ignores it so no one cares. Maybe we’ll get another war in Ukraine to distract everyone!
Stray observations.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/61yMavalT4KBJfVPcMre1D
The second segment is excellent.
https://www.si.com/nba/2022/02/20/nba-superstar-empowerment-disruption-trades
I'm mildly amused by this article and the general failure that the all star weekend has been so far (by all second-hand accounts, since I've been rendered into a casual by this terrible product).
People won't admit Ethan, but they're coming round to your views. I know Bomani is quite nuanced and hard to place but Howard Beck saying something that isn't avowedly pro-player is one that I did not expect. In fairness to the players, the terms of sports legacy debates have been framed in overly simplistic (and borderline toxic, if I recall some of what Lebron had to deal with in the first half of his career) terms by the media. Short run spamming of that strategy definitely worked, but we're now seeing how it has debased the product for all stakeholders involved (players, owners, fans and media partners) in the long-run.
Comedy that ages well isn't meaningful or good.
Daryl Morey is a clandestine subscriber to House of Strauss who talks about every NBA-related article with Colin Cowherd. After the Sixers win the championship with 2022’s version of Shaq and Kobe, Morey will grant a podcast request from House of Strauss that will (a) get Adam Silver fired , (b) convert the NBA season to 58 games with a one-and-done playoff format and (c) get Adrian Wojnarowski banished from the Game Of Zones.
If you think these Covid lockdowns were bad, just wait until climate changed is used as a pretense for more and more authoritarian behavior. It will also be used to force folks to accept a lower standard of living (already happening but CC will be used to accelerate this).
Definitely a stray observation/question. Who's the artist and song for the intro/outro? Shazam really letting me down.
At this point the NBA would be better off if Lebron retired
James Harden represents everything that’s worst about the NBA. I would pay 5000$ in cash, right now, if it would ensure he never win a championship.
Everything changes.I keep read diverse thought about the city of San Francisco. Can you write a column telling your subs your thoughts about San Francisco today?
Hottest of hot: Robert California is hilarious and I very much enjoyed when he was a part of The Office (even if he seemed to be coming in from a different show)
Granted it’s a nice problem to have, but I’m over remote work. I miss seeing people / hate bringing work energy into where I’m supposed to relax
Arden & Trudeau have portrayed them selves as these emphatic leader. Yet the have made the 5% of there country 2nd class citizens. Which has resulted in the occupation of the capital cities of both leaders. There response shows a complete lack of empathy. There treatment of unvaxed people at this point of pandemic is troublesome. Considering the only thing that we can say for certain about the Vax at this point is it reduces your chance of ending up in hospital. So the only reason for a mandate is to lessen hospital load. Seems to me a crazy reason for a mandate.
It’s time to retire Seinfeld and classic Simpsons references. That stuff is 25+ years ago.
Are we in a weird jeopardy/better help era of sports media personalities. They think they are smarter then everyone, can’t be wrong but also “tired” and in therapy. It comes through in the media and writing. It comes across to viewer/readers as mild brain worms.
Chris Brown had a daughter, stopped savagely beating up women and then stopped making great music. Bill Simmons had a daughter, stopped writing interesting stuff and turned into a boring basketball historian. Having daughters is correlated with men turning into pious pumpkins who are insufferable boors. Causation, not correlation!
Except Joe Rogan for some reason. Somehow, Mr. Rogan escaped that trap.
On Bill Maher last night, the Editor of the nation Said the problem with America today is the media and that the media has an agenda. In the next breath she said that Americans should vote for Bernie Sanders and that he is the only person who speaks the truth to Americans. What am I missing here?
I know more people, relatives and friends who just will not acknowledge or admit that this is not how liberal democracy works. They should watch old Merv Griffin episodes. He had on civil rights activists, celebrities, and even those who broke with traditional outlooks- no one was rude enough to call for censorship. Back then it was considered the heights of backward thinking because it is.
Can someone explain why MSM critics are so positive about Russia not invading Ukraine? I saw Taibbi calling the invasion prediction a ‘faceplant’ but I’m not sure what he’s talking about. When he’s criticizing reporting, it’s hard to follow exactly what he takes issue with. If he found a more coherent way to express himself, more MSM defenders may listen.
Do you think Jeffrey Epstein was murdered?
Here's one my friends and I are debating and have put money on. So "cancel culture," CRT and "woke" were all borrowed from black culture (two items of good-natured slang, one academic obscurity). And as they've been borrowed and weaponized by the right, there's been a natural progression from one to the other: cancel culture --> CRT --> woke. And as they get weaponized, it doesn't take long for them to lose meaning. Jeff Zucker is cancel culture? lol. Removing Michelle Obama's biography from school libraries is fighting CRT? whatever. And I think reasonable people can agree that "woke" is starting to lose the thread: https://twitter.com/adamhillscomedy/status/1495425302729797642 (etc, etc.) There's probably a smart point to be made here about the elasticity of language, especially when brought into the political sphere as a tool, but that's beyond my reach. Mostly I want to go on record with what I think the next one will be. So mark my words, in two months, you're going to hear political types decrying "vibes." School boards calling out questionable vibes; GOP presidential hopefuls saying "America today ... you can feel it: it just has bad vibes."
That's my prediction. My friend thinks the right is going to weaponize "mood" next ("Ted Cruz is a big mood!" "This country needs a mood change") but I like my pick.
Abolish interviews with players immediately after they win a Championship. I want to watch Aaron Donald celebrate with his teammates, not explain to a reporter that it's nice to win the Super Bowl.
Ethan will keep complaining about the ceaseless mask rules in the Bay Area and will never pack up and move to Nevada.
Matt's silence is interesting. Similar to Woj, wouldn't it just be good to put your hand up and say 'got this one wrong'? No one can bat a thousand.
Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi
·
Feb 21
The news outlets that published that baseless and embarrassingly incorrect invasion prediction gave Putin a big international PR win last week. And I’m the one carrying water for him?
Quote Tweet
George Hackenschmidt
@ETT
Love your work. Saw you on Fearless with Jason Whitlock, are you by chance looking for writers or people to do research for you?
I would really appreciate Ethan's take on the MLB lockout situation
Describe what you think the NBA looks like 5 years from now.
Loved your conversation with Freddie. He's my favorite Marxist! He's also an immensely talented writer.
Comedy films are primed for a theatrical comeback, but only if they are at least as funny as Jackass Forever.