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July 24, 2021 at 3:07 pm in reply to: Cleveland’s baseball team changes name to the Guardians #131071
ZooeyModerator
ZooeyModeratorwould gurley even want to come back?
Dunno, but he has to have faced reality by now. The Rams didn’t screw him. They are the reason he has as much money as he has, and he has to know it was because of his knees, and he hasn’t exactly proven them wrong in their diagnosis.
So I bet he can be lured back with a chance to play again for McVay in a reduced role, and take a shot at a Super Bowl.
ZooeyModeratorOkay, Gurley makes sense.
Not to replace Akers, but to help. He knows the offense, he’s a good blocker, and a good presence in the locker room, and he’s a free agent. He doesn’t have to be the bell cow. Just make a few blocks, catch a few balls. Makes sense.
ZooeyModeratorNot a good record for RBs with this injury.
ZooeyModeratorThis is pretty bad. None of the veteran names being floated look like a good idea to me. Gurley, Gore, Peterson…no, thanks. Hopefully they can find a CJ Anderson out there.
ZooeyModeratorThey seriously don’t include Chris Massey in the Top 10. Just… Wow.
ZooeyModeratorI;m not providing much in the way of analysis. Just blunt “IMO” reactions. But it really is my feeling that the desire to find some kind of underground affinity between the left and magas is not very compelling. Something similar happened before Trump’s election. I detected a bit of “how bad could he be” sentiment, and frankly I found it disturbing. My line at the time was that he is even worse than you can imagine. My point of reference is that in Maine, the governor was a pre-Trump Trump-like type (LePage). He was freaking gawdawful and was very damaging. That’s what we get with these people.
That’s how I see it anyway. That’s just my own little vote.
…
I don’t think that there is an affinity between the left and maga, or that we are in any way “allied at heart.” My use of the term “common ground” was a poor choice.
I am interested in how they put together their pieces of the puzzle, but I am not moved to applaud them. They do see that the system is corrupt, and that they are outsiders, but as Billy said, they completely lack awareness of the fact that they hold allegiance to the worst part of the system, and participate in it themselves.
ZooeyModeratorI know you know this, Zooey, but even their idea of “the Establishment” is all wrong.
Yes, I agree with all of that.
And whether we try to appeal to these people, or fight them, or a combination of both, it’s important to understand how they see the world, even though it’s largely fictional.
ZooeyModeratorThat’s all too vague and over-generalized for me, Z. And they’re wrong about things like Maddow being a mere shill. A real critique is that the mainstream liberal media is okay on a certain limited spectrum or range of issues.
Magas are racist pro-fascists and parsing what we presumably have in common with them is to me both misleading and a waste of time.
Sure, and calling them all racist pro-fascists is also over-generalized. That’s kind of the movement zeitgeist, no question about it. But that’s not all that’s going on there.
ZooeyModeratorI don’t agree with this idea that the Trump world sees the corruption and systemic problems we see and objects to them.
I think they are racists who believe the establishment sold them out for “PC values.”
In fact I think the entire “they see the real issues too” take on things is completely off track. They don’t see it at all.
…
Well… I think they sort of have the Evil Twin of the right answers to some stuff. And some of their “answers” have some truth to them.
They see that the media is unreliable. It isn’t doing its job (if it’s job is to shed light on the truth). They see that the media is Manufacturing Consent, and obfuscating what’s really going on. But they have latched onto the part of the media that is least accurate, and most full of propaganda, and are suspicious of MSNBC and CNN and WaPo and NYT (as they should be), but they have mischaracterized what is actually wrong with those media outlets. However, they plainly see that Rachel Maddow is a shill, and that MSNBC is the propaganda arm of the DNC. So they have a little bit of that right. They see that the media is untrustworthy, and that they should be highly skeptical of it. So they see that the media is a gamed system that isn’t telling them the truth. They are just completely wrong about the nature of that gamed system. It’s like they have the correct answer to a math problem, but the work is completely wrong getting to that answer…so it can’t really get credit for being right.
They see that the establishment is working to thwart their ambitions, and destabilize their livelihoods. But they don’t accurately understand what forces are at work in that reality, what their objectives are, and how and why they do what they are doing. They think it’s a bunch of dumbass liberals trying to take the fruits of their labor and give it to various undeserving minorities out of some misplaced morality. They see clearly that the establishment is not working to help them and protect them. They’ve just completely misdiagnosed the causes.
It’s all kind of like their Covid response. They see the coughing and fever. They are right that they’re sick.
They just think it’s the flu.
It’s like…even when they’re right, they’re wrong.
ZooeyModeratorI see this more-or-less the same way WV does.
The reason I posted it is that it does offer a coherent worldview (albeit with several tablespoons full of backasswardness) that articulates pretty well the vision of the country from where they’re sitting in the auditorium. They see that the institutions are corrupt and self-serving, and hardly in service to “truth.” I think they are right that the establishment didn’t want Trump in the first place, and did what they could to undermine him in 2020. Why wouldn’t they? Trump was a criminal fool with a strong tendency to chaos. In D&D terms, Trump is Chaotic Evil. Biden is Lawful Evil. From a business point of view, Lawful Evil is better. So I think that’s just true.
Now, as zn pointed out, they plain old have some shit upside down. Especially about the protests. Media coverage hardly “cheered it on,” and more to the point, it was the police and agitators who were responsible for most of the violence. This guy Cooper doesn’t know that. None of the right wing media consumers know that because they didn’t see the endless cellphone footage from encounter after encounter. And Cooper REALLY goes off on the deep end when he equates the BLM protests and the attempted coup. Like “If BLM can steal toasters from Target, then it’s a double standard to arrest MAGAs for trying to overthrow the government.” I mean…wut?
So the common ground is simply that both the Left and MAGA see that there is a colossal cabal of Insiders who use all kinds of shady tactics, including media manipulation, to keep the Outsiders outside. But as Billy points out, MAGA is not interested in equality for all. They want Hillary and Hunter prosecuted, but not Donald and Ivanka. They want good-paying jobs for themselves, but not for brown people. Etc.
ZooeyModeratorMeet @aykacmis, @degismece, @anlamislar, @aykacti, @kayitlii, and @donmedim, a sextet of blue-check verified Twitter accounts created on June 16th, 2021. None has yet tweeted and all have roughly 1000 followers (and mostly the *same* followers).
cc: @ZellaQuixote pic.twitter.com/V82Wtu0SNr
— Conspirador Norteño (@conspirator0) July 12, 2021
ZooeyModeratorThread. People don't understand the corruption connected to civil forfeiture. I once had a client arrested for marijuana. The cops used civil forfeiture laws to take his car. The officers would then drive around my client's neighborhood mocking him from his own car.
— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) July 10, 2021
ZooeyModerator
ZooeyModeratorThe Lions biggest problems had nothing to do with Matthew Stafford. That is obvious.
Looks to me like another sports journalist trying very hard to stake out original territory in order to stand apart from the herd. I don’t buy it. We see good teams with poor QBs all the time. They are good teams with poor QBs.
That isn’t the Lions.
ZooeyModeratorGood to see you, Jim.
I hope your operation cures your posting inhibition.
ZooeyModeratorDavy and Goliath. Nice.
ZooeyModeratorWhen the Los Angeles Rams made the blockbuster trade for Matthew Stafford, both the quarterback and coach Sean McVay were famously in Cabo. Another key NFLer was also in the area but had a different take on the trade of his division rival: Kyle Shanahan.
With the San Francisco 49ers milling around the possibility of trading for Stafford, Shanahan was studying up on the 32-year-old QB.
Shanahan was recently on the Flying Coach podcast with McVay and Peter Schrager. McVay ribbed Shanahan, asking the Niners coach how he liked the Rams’ new addition.
“You don’t want to get me started, dude,” Shanahan responded. “That was frustrating. I was in Cabo. I was studying it all. … I remember looking through it because everybody was telling me it was a possibility. Stafford’s the man. I studied him hard coming out of college, and you always play against him, so you know how good he is. But to know he might be available and to spend two weeks really watching him, Sean, yeah, he’s better than I realized. He was the man. He’s actually underrated to me. I know how good of a guy you got. I know how good he is at play-action. I know how smart he is. Not only does he just have a big arm, but he’s got touch, he knows where to go with the ball. So I was trying to get involved in it.
“… I remember Saturday I was so stressed out and finally we talked to someone, it was seven at night, and they’re like, ‘No, nothing’s happening (with a trade) at the earliest until tomorrow, so you can finish your night.’ So I’m like, alright, I’m done. I put my phone down, talk to Mandy. I’m like, alright, ‘Let’s go out to dinner, let’s have some drinks.’ Half an hour later, my buddy calls me and is like, ‘I’m just telling ya, if you want Stafford, you need to get a hold of him right now.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? We just talked to people. I can sleep on this. We’ll talk to them tomorrow.’ ‘I’m just telling you, you need to talk to him right now.’ And then it was all over.”
“If it makes you feel any better, it came together faster than I thought, too, Kyle,” McVay replied.
“The fact I was in Cabo, man, I would have been there, and I would have made it really awkward on you two to enjoy it,” Shanahan bantered back. “You would have had to tell me to leave.”
A couple of asides:
Apparently, you should go to Cabo in January/February because you might bump into an NFL coach or star.
McVay asking Shanahan about his new toy is something only good friends can get away with — “Hey, you like my new yacht? Bigger than the last one!”
Ultimately, the Rams shipped two first-round picks and Jared Goff to Detroit for Stafford, who L.A. believes can put them over the top after sputtering the past few seasons.It’d been reported that the Niners were interested in trading for Stafford but never made an official offer after the bidding escalated. Shanahan lamenting all that studying on Stafford only to watch him go to a rival underscores that San Francisco intended to find an eventual replacement for Jimmy Garoppolo. Instead, they ended up trading three first-rounders for the No. 3 overall pick to snag Trey Lance.
At least the film study Shanahan went through in Cabo won’t go to waste now that he has to face Stafford twice a year in the NFC West.
ZooeyModeratorJames Laurinaitis was kind of the little engine that could. He wasn’t a great player, but he was very good, especially taking into account his measurables. He played “over his head.”
ZooeyModeratorI wish they’d make a series out of it. HBO, Netflix, etc.
Oh, btw, Billy…
Television adaptation
In February 2021, it was reported that Netflix was developing a television adaptation of the novel. It will be executive-produced by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Hugh Jackman.[7]ZooeyModeratorFlawed, a bit too long, but brilliant and important.
Yes. I think you nailed it in that sentence.
The knowledge he has is impressive. He knows a lot about trees, and seemed personally familiar with all the locations of the book. That is not a novel that some guy made up off the top of his head. He knows a hell of a lot, and the delivery method he used to unfold his knowledge of trees, as well as his philosophy, on the reader was brilliant. The way the narrative actually parallels the section headings (Roots, Trunk, Crown, Seeds) was interesting, and I thought it “worked.”
ZooeyModeratorWow, zn, that is a beautiful place to live. And the Lombardi Trophy in your garden is a special touch.
I have a nice piece of property in a still-small, gold rush town, but I would be happier if I lived in a place even more rural. I’d like to live among more wildlife with less pavement and more bugs. Less light pollution. A place where you can’t hear any traffic most of the time.
ZooeyModeratorI missed this conversation, probably on purpose, since I had never heard of the book in 2019. My son loved it so much, I started reading it in December. Finally finished a couple of weeks ago.
I grew impatient with the book. It seemed to drag a lot, (though I feel I take some of the responsibility for that since I took an unusually long time to read it). However, I don’t have any idea whatsoever what could be trimmed out.
Dorothy and Ray are indispensable. The book closes with Ray providing the “self-defense” argument which is certainly intriguing, and I would love it if that argument was actually used in real life by somebody. And I think Neelay (computer whiz kid) provides the possibility of transferring all life into virtual existence. I took that as a nod to the idea that we might all be living in a computer anyway. I don’t know if I misread that or not, but if that isn’t what Powers was going for, but if it wasn’t, I have no idea what function that character had. Pretty much that’s the only thing he did in the book, and his break from his company board is over the issue of making his game exactly the same as real life instead of some fantasy world where – in the end – nothing one does actually means anything. So whether you like those three characters much or not, practically the entire book’s meaning rests on them. They are far more important than the other characters in terms of the Final Takeaways. I agree, though, that they were the three Least Interesting characters.
ZooeyModeratorI think he’s been busy becoming the Poet Laureate of twitter.
ZooeyModeratorWorth a listen.
"Let’s be clear — what you are doing is not about climate action or responding to an emergency. It never was. This is communication tactics disguised as politics."
Yesterday I adressed the #AustrianWorldSummit along with Angela Merkel, António Guterres, Alok Sharma and others. pic.twitter.com/vuD4T0vjfd
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) July 2, 2021
ZooeyModeratorAs someone who has written for decades about corporate crime, I was reading the Trump O/Weisselberg indictment going, "Yah, ok..hmm..yah..ok..Wait..HOLY SHIT!" The Trump Org is in deep, deep trouble. And not because of the criminal charges. Because of its bank loan covenants…/1
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 1, 2021
ZooeyModeratorThe torture memo signed by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/2/02, authorizing 20-hour interrogations, removal of clothing, the use of phobias, and stress positions for up to 4 hours.
Note his handwriting at bottom: "However, I stand for 8-10 hours A day. Why is Standing limited to 4 hours" pic.twitter.com/F34zbkJ5HQ
— George Zornick (@gzornick) June 30, 2021
ZooeyModerator
ZooeyModeratorHave I ever mentioned how much I hate this planet?
ZooeyModeratorSome news from Maine:
Maine's Democratic governor just vetoed seven of her own party's bills, including one to close a child jail and another to stop companies with foreign ownership from bankrolling state ballot initiatives. This after voters increased her party's Senate majority in 2020.
— Aren R. LeBrun (@proustmalone) June 24, 2021
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