#geoff boycott

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Julian Adorney, Mark Johnson and Geoff Laughton

Published: Jan 18, 2025

Unlike the Civil Rights Movement, which chose sympathetic figures like Rosa Parks, SJFs have lionized individuals whose actions repel most Americans.

Social Justice Fundamentalism (SJF) is doomed.

How can we say this so confidently? And why do we believe that SJF ideology will meet its demise relatively quickly now that the tide is beginning to turn?

For one thing, in their zeal to oppose the out-group that they deem responsible for all oppression, many SJFs have adopted an anything-goes mentality. Threats and violence are justified, they claim, as long as they target the “correct” people. This creates truly terrible brand ambassadors. For example, SJFs have lionized Luigi Mangione, the man suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson with one post on X garnering over 36,000 likes that compared him to Nelson Mandela, stating, “They called Nelson Mandela a ‘terrorist’ too, Luigi. You’re in good company.” Similarly, many SJFs leaped to defend Christian Cooper, the black man a white woman reported to the police in 2020, even after evidence emerged that he had threatened her and her dog. Furthermore, following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israeli civilians, a survey showed that 51 percent of respondents aged 18-24 believed that “the Hamas killing of 1200 Israeli civilians in Israel can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians.”

Contrast this with the Civil Rights Movement. When Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies opposed the Montgomery Bus Boycott, they chose Rosa Parks as a brand ambassador. Why? It wasn’t because Parks was the first black person to refuse to sit in the back of the bus. It was because she was a woman of noble character with a flawless background. Civil rights protestors, aware of the uphill battle they faced against a prejudiced nation, needed an ambassador whose plight would evoke sympathy in the hearts of fellow Americans. If a woman like this could be arrested under Jim Crow, the nation must be encouraged to reconsider the justice of segregation.

But there’s nothing sympathetic about Mangione or Cooper. There is nothing sympathetic about killing a husband and father in cold blood, simply because he was the CEO of an unpopular company; or about a man telling a woman out walking her dog that he would do “something” to her and her dog that “she was not going to like.” There is nothing sympathetic about the brutal rapes and murders of teenaged civilians that characterized Hamas’ October 7 attack. When SJFs prop up these characters and act as if their threats and violence are heroic, they lose the goodwill of most decent Americans. There’s a reason that the far-left’s rabid anti-Semitism in the wake of Hamas’ attack turned so many Democrats and progressives away from SJF.

However, it’s not just that so many SJFs endorse an anything-goes mentality against their so-called enemies. It’s also that, sooner or later, everyone becomes an enemy. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, “Believe all women” became a popular slogan. That is, until 2020, when a few women were accused of racism for calling the police on black men (with some justification, in many cases). Then “Believe all women” shifted to “white women need to shut their mouths and stop lying!” Black men were celebrated on the left until it came out that many didn’t support Kamala Harris, at which point they were accused of being “white-adjacent” (by MSNBC’s Joy Reid) and sexist (by Barack Obama). Even sexual assault survivors and progressive transwomen are getting pilloried for failing to support SJF ideology. For many too-online SJFs, nothing short of absolute obedience to the party line will suffice. This is self-destructive even in the best of times, but it becomes downright political suicide when the party line is also constantly shifting.

We've seen this throughout history: common-enemy identity politics collapse in part because such movements inevitably eat their own. During the Cultural Revolution in China, Mao’s Red Guards were initially unified in attacking the targets that Mao assigned them (the bourgeoisie and the “Four olds”). But Xi Van Fleet, a commentator who lived through the revolution, explains how at a certain point the Red Guards “start[ed] to fight each other.” They had dismantled their other enemies, leaving a power vacuum; and so they started forming into factions to seek their own power. The resultant violence, as factions of Red Guards attacked each other, was awful: Van Fleet compares it to a “civil war.” Nor was the infighting relegated to just the Red Guards. Mao had created and unleashed them, but at a certain point, Van Fleet says, he decided to get rid of them. He “killed tens of thousands of Red Guards,” and then exiled their leaders to the countryside for hard physical labor. The revolution wasn’t destroyed by violence from without; it consumed itself in an orgy of internal violence that no-one could forget.

Most SJFs lack the brutality and desire for violence that characterized the Red Guard. However, the lesson is the same: because common-enemy identity politics requires an out-group to unite against, its members will eventually turn on one another, transforming former allies into the new out-group.

As a result, many SJFs struggle to form stable coalitions. In 2022, The Intercept published a long story about why progressive organizations were spending all their time and energy gripped by internal turmoil instead of successfully mobilizing and fighting for legislative change. The scope of the problem the authors documented was enormous:

…the progressive advocacy space across the board…has, more or less, effectively ceased to function. The Sierra Club, Demos, the American Civil Liberties Union, Color of Change, the Movement for Black Lives, Human Rights Campaign, Time’s Up, the Sunrise Movement, and many other organizations have seen wrenching and debilitating turmoil in the past couple years.

Part of the problem, the authors argued, was that bad-faith actors were using the “language of social justice” to “smuggle through standard grievances” about the workplace, such as wanting more time off and easier schedules. However, much of the turmoil that gripped these institutions came in the form of circular firing squads: unless the organization was perfectly representative and lived out every tenet of SJF completely, it shouldn’t be allowed to function. “If your reproductive justice organization isn’t Black and brown it’s white supremacy in heels co-opting a WOC movement,” read a typical message.

To illustrate what this looks like, consider the case of Dr. Lindo Bacon. Bacon is an SJF nutritionist who published a (deeply-flawed) book called Health At Every Size (which we reviewed here). Despite its scholastic shortcomings, Bacon’s book became a bestseller and put the Health at Every Size movement and the Association For Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH) on the map.

However, when Bacon proposed publishing a 15th anniversary version of his book to bring more visibility to the cause, ASDAH leaders rebuked him. They suggested that instead of publishing a 15th anniversary edition, Bacon should let his book go out of print “so that new voices who are deeply impacted by fat hatred could be ushered in.” They lectured him about his privilege and urged him to consider “passing this opportunity along to any of the fat, BIPOC, disabled, lower socioeconomic status, etc folks who are doing this work and whose voices need to be centered and uplifted.” If he refused their suggestions, they warned, he would be “perpetuating harm by centering the experience and perspective of a relatively affluent, thin/straight-sized, white person.” Following further exchanges, ASDAH cut ties with Bacon explosively, instructed him not to write or publish an updated version of his book, and then published the entire email exchange in a blog titled “Holding Lindo Bacon Accountable for Repeated Harm in the Fat Liberation & HAES® Communities.” It makes for a truly remarkable read, illustrating why many SJFs struggle to form coalitions: because everyone possesses some kind of privilege, individuals and groups can engage in severe conflicts under the guise of addressing privilege and advocating for social justice.

(Of course, not every SJF behaves this way, and many genuinely desire to collaborate in pursuit of a more inclusive society. However, what happened to Bacon is not uncommon. As a movement, SJFs experience a disproportionately high amount of infighting).

This leads to the final reason that SJF is likely doomed: the unpopularity of its ideas.

Many of SJF’s biggest causes remain deeply unpopular with the American people. For instance, many SJFs consider Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel as justified, but most Americans disagree. A 2024 Pew survey found that 66 percent of respondents considered “the way Hamas carried out the Oct. 7 attack” to be “completely unacceptable,” compared to just 2 percent who found it “completely acceptable.” Another foundational cause of this ideology—defunding the police—also lacks mainstream support. In 2021, three times as many Americans wanted increased police funding (46 percent) compared to those who wanted it decreased (15 percent). Similarly, on transgender issues, 68 percent of adults opposed giving puberty-blocking medications to so-called “transgender children” aged 10-14, and over 60 percent of Americans believed that transgender women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports. The term “LatinX,” is found offensive by 40 percent of Hispanics and is used by only 2 percent. On issue after issue, SJF ideas and policy positions are wildly unpopular.

But the problem isn’t just that many SJF ideas are unpopular; after all, previously unpopular ideas like gay marriage and the civil rights movement have become mainstream. The real issue is that many SJFs fundamentally reject the idea that they can—or should—persuade their fellow Americans of the merits of their ideas. For many SJFs, the rest of us are viewed as irredeemably prejudiced or as oppressors, incapable of being reasoned with. If we’re white, they claim, we oppose SJF ideas to preserve our privilege; if we’re black or brown, we do so due to “internalized oppression.” In either case, our criticism doesn’t really count because, according to SJF scholars, our criticisms are not coming from a sincere place.

In lieu of persuasion, many SJFs have tried to guilt, browbeat, and shame the rest of us into adopting their ideas. The problem, from a marketing standpoint, is that this only works in the short term. Initially, being labeled a racist might lead someone to feel remorseful and ask the SJF insulting them what they can do better. But by the tenth time that the charge is leveled—especially when directed at minorities who don’t toe the SJF line—it loses its sting. You can only bully people for so long before they stop putting up with it.

An already unpopular ideology that depends on guilt and coercion rather than persuasion is likely to become increasingly unpopular over time.

So, if SJF is on the decline, what should we do?

Firstly, we must continue fighting to expose the broken ideas at the heart of SJF ideology. SJF ideology might be doomed, but it can still do a lot of damage in the meantime; therefore, we should work to shorten its lifespan. The Cultural Revolution only lasted 10 years, but in that time it wreaked immense havoc. Had critics been willing and able to stand up and speak against the revolution so that it ended in five years instead of 10, they could have saved many lives.

We should also advocate explicitly for common-humanity identity politics, as aptly described by Pauli Murray in 1945: “When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them.” There’s a real danger any time a destructive ideology begins to lose its power: those of us harmed by it might seize control and try to punish its followers. This can feel like justice, but in practice it’s just vengeance. We end up directing our anger not at those who wronged us but at anyone associated with the same group as those who wronged us. This perpetuates an endless cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation.

Instead of turning the tables, those of us who oppose SJF ideology should rise above. We should offer the hand of fellowship and brotherhood to the SJFs we know. Many have noble intentions and an ability to see forms of prejudice that society has historically turned a blind eye to. Where these insights align with common-humanity identity politics, we should welcome them.

SJF ideology is on its way out because the most toxic components of the ideology are also the least palatable to ordinary Americans. That’s good news. Now is not the time to beat those who subscribe to SJF ideology; it’s the time to win them.

[scotianostra]

Mike Denness was born 1st December 1940, Bellshill, North Lanarkshire.

Denness is the only Scottish born person to have captained the full England cricket team, I would like to point out the two famous cricketers who captained England are sometimes classified as Scots, Douglas Jardine and Tony Greig both had Scottish parents, but Jardine was born in Mumbai and Greig in South Africa.

He was born in Bellshill, but the family moved to Ayr when he was young. With the Denness home situated adjacent to Ayr Cricket Club’s Cambusdoon ground, the young Mike gravitated towards that game.

He was not solely a cricketer. At Ayr Academy, he was a member of the legendary unbeaten rugby XV which included two other future national captains: Ian Ure, who captained the Scotland team in a non-cap international against Israel during the 1967 world tour, and Ian “Mighty Mouse” McLauchlan, who captained Scotland on a record number of occasions.

While he was a good enough rugby player to go straight into the Ayr RFC 1st XV on leaving school, he was a far better cricketer, winning his first Scotland cricket cap when still at Ayr Academy. His promise attracted the attention of Kent, where he made his debut in 1962, recommended to the county by another Scot to have played for them, Jimmy Allen, then a team mate at Ayr. He played more than 700 first-class matches and List A matches over his 22-year first-class career. He was a right-handed bat, either an opener or going in first wicket down.

Few contemporary batsmen were more stylish than Mike Denness at his peak, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Tallish and slim, well-balanced, immaculately dressed on and off the field, possessed of a fine array of strokes and an excellent cover fieldsman to boot, Denness looked a model cricketer in every way. It was his misfortune that when those qualities won him the England captaincy, after Ray Illingworth's dismissal, he lacked the support of one of the players on whom he was most dependent.

Geoff Boycott, who made no secret of how acutely he coveted the captaincy himself, played only the first six of Denness's 19 Tests as captain, which fatally holed England's prospects against Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in Australia in 1974-75.

Deposed when Australia won the first Test of 1975 at Edgbaston, Denness took his medicine with typical graciousness. He later became an ICC match referee but, at Port Elizabeth in 2001-02, his decision to sanction six Indian players, including Sachin Tendulkar, caused such a furore that the Indian and South African boards barred Denness from officiating in the next match, at Centurion. The ICC responded by withdrawing Test status from the game.

Mike Denness died in April 2013 after a battle with cancer during his final days as president of Kent.

[mojaverose199999]

Game Awards Hot Take 1

This is one of my opinions on the 2024 Game Awards. It revolves around the Best Fighting Game category and it might be controversial so please don't attack me. These are just my opinions. You're free to disagree with me, just be civil. At the end of the day, these are just games and it's just a game awards show. Here goes:

The Marvel vs. Capcom Collection shouldn't be nominated for Best Fighting Game.

I'd also say that Multiversus also shouldn't be nominated, not cause of any technical qualifications, I just think it's a terrible cash grab. I can already hear the fighting game community gathering their torches and pitchforks, so I'll just make one thing clear. It's not that they're bad games, they're all time classic fighting games, and I always wanted to play them. The reason I say they shouldn't be nominated is because they're not games from 2024, they're a bunch of older games in a single package. I definitely see the argument that the Silent Hill 2 Remake is nominated for several awards and that's true but it's a whole new game with a story and elements from the original, the fighting collection is just a bunch of ports. For those of y'all that don't know here's a helpful picture I found that explains the difference:

Silent Hill 2 is a remake, a whole new game built from the ground up that tries to emulate the original. The Marvel vs. Capcom collection is a bunch of older games moved to modern consoles. It’s moving them from the PS2 to the PS5 essentially. It also wouldn’t be fair to the games as games from the 90s and 2000s are competing against games from 2024 that had better tech. Though, there is still a way that the Marvel vs. Capcom series could be honored. In the spike game awards, the predecessor to the current game awards also ran by Geoff Keighley, there was a video game hall of fame one year. The Legend of Zelda franchise was inducted. I know there's a seperate hall of fame from the game awards. Maybe they could bring that hall of fame back, put them in the show and bring them up whenever they induct a game. I could definitely see one of the MvC games ending up in there eventually.

Conclusion

It's a great game series but I don't think the collection should be nominated due to the year it was released, and the fact that it's not a new game like the other nominees. Once again, this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree. If you voted for the fighting game collection, more power to you. (When people say "we can disagree and still be friends", this is the kind of stuff they're talking about, not human rights.)

Disclaimer and Donation:

This doesn't mean that I like Marvel or Disney as companies. The BDS movement representing Palestine asked for a boycott of Marvel due to featuring Sabra, a character representing the settler-colonial state of Israel, in the new Captain America movie. A lot of the cast members that work at the Disney Parks are also poor and some are even forced to sleep in their cars. Nobody that works at a multi-billion dollar company should be wondering when they'll get to eat next. Marvel Studios overworks the CGI artists on their movies to the point where several cry and have anxiety attacks. They're notorious for making last minute changes on their projects. The VFX artists are overworked and underpaid. There are plenty of reasons not to give Marvel or Disney your hard-earned money. Instead, I would encourage you, if you have the funds available to donate to Motaz and Huda, two Palestinians living under the occupation. They have both been vetted by @gazavetters, their number on the list is 325. They need money for their baby, and to improve their living conditions under the occupation and bombings. I'd also ask you to donate so they can eventually have the privilege to talk about silly, unimportant stuff like this.

https://gofund.me/cd14d440

Other Ways of Getting the Game:

If you still want to play the games in the collection, I'd encourage you to emulate the individual games in the collection or get a physical copy of the whole collection on eBay. You could also find physical copies of some of the individual games in the collection on ebay. The games weren't made by corporations like Disney, Marvel, or Capcom. They just gave them the characters and paid them to do it. The games were made by talented artists, writers, programmers, actors, and many more types of people that can't be listed here.

Future:

I’ll share one more hot take about the game awards, that one will be a doozy. Here’s a hint, it’s about the sports category.

Sources:

https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-captain-america

https://thegameawards.com/nominees/best-fighting

[read-alert]

September Wrap Up! 📚📖🍁 Full titles under the cut!

My favorite of the month was The Name-Bearer, and I checked off two more countries for my Read the World Challenge with The Immortals and Dreaming of You covering Haiti and Guatemala!

King of the Rising by Kacen Callender- 3.5⭐️

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex ed by Nat Smith and Eric A Stanley- 5⭐️

There is a Rio Grande in Heaven: Stories by Ruben Reyes Jr- 4⭐️

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights by Omar Barghouti- 5⭐️

The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice- 2.5⭐️

Dawn by Octavia Butler- 5⭐️

Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories ed by Sandra Proudman- 5⭐️

Self Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by AM McLemore- 3.5⭐️

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology ed by Shane Hawk and Theodore C Van Alst Jr- 5⭐️

You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue trans by Natasha Wimmer- 4⭐️

The Immortals by Makenzy Orcel trans by Nathan H Dize- 4⭐️

Batman: Gates of Gotham by Scott Snyder et al- 3⭐️

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie- 4⭐️

The Name-Bearer by Natalia Hernandez- 5⭐️

Teen Titans vol 2: Family Lost by Geoff Johns et al- 3.5⭐️

Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology ed by Sarah Rafael García, Matthew David Goodwin, and Alex Hernandez- 4.5⭐️

Ghost Squad by Claribel A Ortega- 4⭐️

Dreaming of You: A Novel in Verse by Melissa Lozada-Olivia- 4⭐️

Frizzy by Claribel A Ortega and Rose Bousamra- 5⭐️

Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva- 5⭐️

[redeyedroid]

The young Jamaican has an easy grace about him, even at a full sprint. He glides across the parched Oval turf silently, almost as if he isn’t touching the ground at all. The softness of his stride and the speed and hostility with which he bowls give him one of the great sporting nicknames. Michael Holding, 22 in the summer of 1976, becomes known as Whispering Death. The 14 wickets for 149 runs he takes in this, the fifth and final match of the series – still a record for a West Indian bowler in test cricket – cap a summer where the whole West Indies took it very personally.

There is a history of South Africans leaving home and playing international cricket for other nations. Traditionally, the destination of choice has been England, though today there are exceptionally talented South Africans playing for Australia and New Zealand. There are lots of reasons why they do this – Kevin Pietersen ended up playing for England because of conflict with administrators in South Africa, for instance – but in the 1970s, it is because apartheid South Africa is banned from playing internationally. Tony Greig, England captain in 1976, is one such player and commits a profound mistake when, the day before the series starts, in his Afrikaner accent, he announces his intention to make the West Indies, a team of black men, descendents of slaves, grovel.

The outcry is instantaneous. The retribution prolonged. The series is 5 matches long, across 11 weeks of the English summer. An angry and extremely motivated West Indies win 3-1 and it goes down in history as the beginning an era of unmatched dominance in international sport. Viv Richards scores 829 runs at an average of 118, Gordon Greenidge 592 at 66. Holding and Andy Roberts take 28 wickets each - 56 of the 100 available English victims. The team takes every opportunity to revenge themselves on the English.

In the end, it is Greig who on the field of play, performatively drops to his hands and knees in front of his opponents.

In 1981, Mikey Holding begins a test in Bridgetown, Barbados with a stunning, never bettered over to England opening batter Geoff Boycott – a famously terrible person. The 6th and final ball sends Boycott’s stumps flying. It’s doubtful whether he sees the first five deliveries at all. Boycott will claim that this over, and by extension himself, makes Holding – by now the best fast bowler in the world – famous.

6 weeks later, Holding is playing club cricket against amateurs in Lancashire. The league features quality international players turning out amongst bank managers and estate agents. Roberts plays for another team. Kapil Dev, one of Indian cricket’s gods, is there, too.

Mikey doesn’t do well. Injuries, weather and a desire not to hurt players far less talented than him keep him from fully dominating, but he shows flashes of his capabilities. In an act of staggering racism and stupidity, a player from an opposing team turns up for a match wearing a monkey mask "as a joke." Mikey takes 9 for 13 that day, clean bowling 7.

He retires in 1987 having played 60 tests and taken 259 wickets, low in today’s numbers. The West Indies are the best in the world and will remain so well into the 90s. In 1984 they beat England 5-0 in England – celebrated than and now as the Blackwash – and repeat the feat in 1986 when England tour the West Indies. By now the Barbadian, Malcolm Marshall has inherited Mikey’s crown as the greatest fast bowler of all. They win 4-0 in England two years later, Marshall taking 35 wickets in the 5-match series.

Their rule is not preordained. There is outcry over their bowlers. It is said to be unfair to bowl that fast, to target players the way the West Indians do. It is dangerous. They will kill people. Left unsaid is that nothing they do is against the rules. Nothing is said about similar bowlers from other countries like the lauded Australian duo of Thompson and Lillee. Rules are changed. More and better safety equipment is introduced. Helmets become universal. Viv Richards is one of the last to still wear a soft cap when facing fast bowling. The West Indies adapt and continue to win.

Through the 80s there are a number of tours of South Africa made up of players willing to take money to break the ban on playing there. Most rebels receive multi-year bans. The careers of many are effectively ended. Many others are welcomed back with open arms. Graham Gooch, for instance, will go on to captain England after leading on team on a tour in 1981-82.

Two of the tours are made up of West Indians. Those who travel are either talented players not quite good enough to break into the team, or older players coming to the end of their careers. The South Africans try to get the best West Indians to come, too. Richards, at this point the biggest star in the sport, is told that if he comes he will be considered an honourary white man, exempt from the rules of apartheid. He turns down the blank cheque he is offered. Those who go are banned from playing for the West Indies and many are ostracised socially and professionally over their willingness to take money from the apartheid regime.

Today, South Africa's test captain is Temba Bavuma.

Michael Holding becomes a commentator. His fast bowling mindset provides an alternative to the procession of former batters who sit beside him. Over the years, Mikey's baritone Jamaican twang becomes beloved in the same way Richie Benaud’s soft Australian burr was before him.

Cricket commentary is often relaxed and eccentric - a test match has 8 hours of play a day over 4 or 5 days - and the commentary team will chat about many things during the day. There is much time to fill, and sometimes they do it with meandering conversations about pigeons, or buses, or cakes. And sometimes with more important and vital subjects. During a rain break during a match between England and the West Indies three years ago today Mikey delivers his most profound and important address when he and Ebony Rainford Brent talk about the racism they have experienced in their lives. While the UK is in covid lockdown, the US is gripped by Black Lives Matter protests and Mikey’s monologue and the TV interviews that follow go viral. He writes a book afterwards, Why We Kneel, How We Rise, discussing the effects of racism through the prism of sport, his own experiences, and those of other stars, including Michael Johnson, Naomi Osaka, and his countryman, Usain Bolt. It wins many prizes.

He retired in 2021. The excellent Indian commentator, Harsha Bhogle described him as “cricket in rhythm,” but this is a disservice. Mikey Holding, Whispering Death, ended up using the eloquence and rhythm he played with for far more than just cricket.

[cricketfun]

Geoff Boycott Calls For Australia To issue A Public Apology Over Carey-Bairstow Stumping Former England opening batter Geoff... #usa #uk

[rajrag66]

The Bazball Hypothesis

No one could have predicted that the term 'Bazball' would take the game by storm when it was coined a year ago. Comparisons with the infamous Bodyline (coincidently another B word) used more than 90 years ago may feel inappropriate. But there has been no other strategy since Douglas Jardine invented the leg theory which threatens to overshadow the main Ashes contest.

The ambit of Bazball which started as just a brand of aggressive, positive cricket is constantly expanding. The umbrella field employed by Ben Stokes, his audacious declaration when Root was destroying the Aussie bowling and the left field selection of Moin Ali from test match oblivion are all now considered to be part of Bazball. Even a fairly orthodox batsman like Joe Root got caught up in this new buzz word. The bizarre reverse ramp shot attempted of the very 1st ball of day 4 from Pat Cummins and his dismissal jumping down the wicket to Nathan Lyon in the 2nd innings were completely out of character

Australia which chose a more conservative approach seemed to be playing a different game than their opponents. The fields Cummins set were over defensive and the batting was for a large part cautious right until the end of the match. The Aussie captain finally decided to take the fight to the opposition with some aggressive hitting against Root's part time spin.

Ultimately Australia's decision to stick to the basics won them the game. The old fashioned virtues of occupying the crease and grinding the bowling paid rich dividends to Khawaja, who was arguably the best batsman on either side in the match.

While Bazball has undoubtedly succeeded in generating unprecedented interest in test cricket, it still remains a hypothesis that needs to be fully tested before it becomes a blue print for other teams to follow. What better way of doing this than during an Ashes series. The question which has been on everyone’s mind is whether this new ultra aggressive style of batting will succeed against the formidable Australian bowling.

There are already rumblings from traditionalists like Geoff Boycott who think that England has got too caught up with Bazball and are in danger of reducing the Ashes to an exhibition. Unless results in the rest of the series go England's way, there will be others who jump on the bandwagon of criticizing England's new strategy. What ultimately matters is who has possession of the famous little urn at the end of the series. The jury is therefore still out on Bazball, we will soon know the verdict. Until then, we hope to see more nail-biting finishes. 2.1 million viewers tuned in to Sky Sports to watch the 1st test live, in addition to packed stands at Edgbaston. At a time when test cricket is facing an existential crisis, this is a victory in itself.

[my-little-kraken]

Selection of Patrick pics found on ebay

[themaninthegreenshirt]

"I've known people with exceptional talent - and some have wasted it. Ambition spurs a man on." 

Geoff Boycott, with David Gower, Graham Gooch and Mike Brearley, Edgbaston, 12th July 1979.

[go-21newstv]

IND vs ENG: Geoffrey Boycott Urges England Batsmen To Follow Virat Kohli's Lead On Playing Spin | Cricket News

IND vs ENG: Geoffrey Boycott Urges England Batsmen To Follow Virat Kohli’s Lead On Playing Spin | Cricket News

IND vs ENG: Boycott said England could use Indian conditions to their advantage by learning from Kohli.© Twitter Geoffrey Boycott has told England to learn from the example of India captain Virat Kohli when it comes to batting on spin-friendly pitches. England were twice dismissed cheaply on a Chennai pitch offering considerable turn, as hosts India won the second Test by a huge margin of 317…

[vilaspatelvlogs]

क्रिकेटर्स के जन्मदिन से भी जुड़े हैं दर्जनों रिकॉर्ड, जानिए ये 6 खास बातें

क्रिकेटर्स के जन्मदिन से भी जुड़े हैं दर्जनों रिकॉर्ड, जानिए ये 6 खास बातें

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नई दिल्ली:क्रिकेट की दुनिया में हर बात रिकॉर्ड बुक से तय होती है. जुलाई का ही उदाहरण लिया जाए तो भले ही इस महीने में इंग्लैंड को छोड़कर दुनिया के किसी देश में क्रिकेट की गहमागहमी नहीं रहती है, लेकिन फिर भी रिकॉर्ड बुक में जुलाई माह का वजन अपने जन्म लेने वाले क्रिकेटर्स की बदौलत बेहद भारी दिखाई देता है. क्रिकेटर्स के जन्मदिन किस कदर रिकॉर्ड बुक में किसी दिन का वजन बढ़ा देते हैं. आइए जानते…

[scotianostra]

Mike Denness was born 1st December 1940, Bellshill, North Lanarkshire.

Most of you wont know the name but Denness, was and still is the only Scottish born captain of the English Cricket team.

After his family moved to Ayr, he was educated at Ayr Academy, where he played rugby with Ian Ure and Ian McLauchlan and played for Ayr Cricket Club. Scotland did not have a representative international team at the time of Denness' career, so he could only play for England at Test and One day International level. Scotland did have a team but it was not recognised the way it is nowadays and Dennes did play for them for 8 years, gaining his first cap against another of the minnows, Ireland, while he was still at school.

Dennes has been described as a stylish batsman with a fine array of strokes and an excellent cover fieldsman, in fiver years as captain of Kent he won 6 "first class" trophies, and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1975. He moved to Essex in 1977, helping the club to win the County Championship and Benson & Hedges Cup in 1979. He retired after the 1980 English cricket season.

Denness's international career began in 1969 against New Zealand, he was made captain in 1973, after Ray Illingworth's dismissal, he lacked the support of one of the players on whom he was most dependent. Geoff Boycott, who wanted the captaincy himself. Denness played in 28 test matches, and was captain on 19 occasions, winning six, losing five and drawing eight matches. He was deposed when Australia won the first Test of 1975 at Edgbaston, Denness was said to have taken his medicine with typical graciousness. He later became an ICC match referee.

He passed away in April 2013 after a battle with cancer during his final days as president of Kent Cricket Club. He was an inaugural member of the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame and was a member of the Scottish Cricket Hall of Fame.

I would like to point out the two famous cricketers who captained England are sometimes classified as Scots, Douglas Jardine and Tony Greig both had Scottish parents, but Jardine was born in Mumbai and Greig in South Africa.

[dirbenaffleck]

non spoiler 🦇 review

overall 7/10? good film, great soundtrack, not for me tho, like I Love the vibe, but i have a ot of problems with just a lot of the mythos and liberties, which doesn’t really take away from the film itself, just takes me out of it as a bat fan, does lend more to re-watching 

but over all still, like man you really can’t beat batfleck, i just this isn’t a critic in itself cause i guess thats the vibe they were going for with this bruce and this batman but like....he’s not as compelling to me? 

there’s no synergy or electric vibe to it so he’s not for me, there’s build ups tho,t here’s moments so i am curious how he’d do more or better in future movies 

but also my biggest take away is how im fucking amused with virginal bruce

but also to my anti geoff folks MAN if you really want to boycott wb i don’t suggest watching these cos there’s so much earth one influence intot he movie HE’S ABSOLUTELY getting residuals 

aLSO IDK i feel like my expectaitons for the fight scenes were too high? i was expecting some really hard hiting sequences but they didn’t really feel all too special to me

AND omg i absolutely came out loving COLIN as the Penguin that was a wild gmae, im really excited to see more of him even tho idgaf about oswald

I do have a few favorite shots and overall i dont think matt did a bad thing but im not overly hyped yeah

[read-alert]

September TBR! Full titles under the cut!

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex ed by Nat Smith and Eric A Stanley

King of the Rising by Kacen Callender

Dawn by Octavia Butler

The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

Self Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by AM McLemore

Dreaming of You by Melissa Lozada-Olivia

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano

The Immortals by Makenzy Orcel trans by Nathan H Dize

Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories ed by Sandra Proudman

BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights by Omar Barghouti

The Name-Bearer by Natalia Hernandez

Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldanado

Hestia Strikes a Match by Christine Grillo

King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender

Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology ed by Sarah Rafael García, Matthew David Goodwin, and Alex Hernandez

Ghost Squad by Claribel A Ortega

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bacteria trans by Sarah Moses

Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue trans by Natasha Wimmer

Ander and Santi Were Here by Johnny Garza Villa

Our Shadows Have Claws: 15 Latin American Monster Stories ed by Amparo Ortiz and Yamile Saied Mendez

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology ed by Shane Hawk and Theodore C Van Alst Jr

The Art of Star Trek by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Teen Titans vol 2: Family Lost by Geoff Johns et al

Batman: Gates of Gotham by Scott Snyder et al

The Old Guard Book Three: Tales Through Time by Greg Rucka et al

[set-wingedwarrior]

Why you should watch RWBY legally

Before I even begin, I want to clarify that it's not my intent to start a fight, guilt-trip, nor force anyone to do anything they don't wanna do. I am merely here to state the facts, as far as I know, and share with you all the reasonings that brought me to my decision. The goal here is to give you all the pieces of information for you to make yours as well.

That said, let's begin.

RT has been awful, employees deserve better, you're angry on their behalf, and I get that because I am too. But I still want and will support the RWBY through Crunchyroll, and here's why:

Pirating is going to hurt CRWBY much more than it will hurt RT. That's the simple truth, in this cases it's always the bottom line that gets the worst of it, so if your goal is to help the employees pirating this isn't the way to go.

Strictly tied to the first one, if a boycott was needed and useful, then they would have told us so. We're not there, we don't know specifically how this stuff works, so deciding to go on a mass protest in their behalf withouth their consent would probably just backfire and put them in even worse conditions. If they'll ever ask that out of us, I will, but for now that's not the case.

All CRWBY, former or not, has been nothing but excited to share their work with us. They want the show to succeed, to keep going and grow, and they're working so hard to achieve that; it just doesn't feel fair to deny them because of someone else's bad actions.

Crunchyroll is the best half-way if you want to support the show without supporting directly RT. Even if I don’t know how the deal works, I’m pretty sure that considering CR doesn’t care about anything else RT might have to offer, any money sent to them would be specifically for the show to continue (and possibly improve)

CRWBY litterally asked us to support them. We can see that on Geoff Yetter's post,

on A.G. Nonsuch's tweet that Kerry liked (and that even if he didn't I would still trust, because since she did work with RT and met CRWBY, I'm pretty sure she knows better than us)

and Arryn's (animator) explicit answer when someone litterally asked how to support RWBY withouth supporting RT (also, if you check their twitter page you'll find multiple likes and retweets or posts sharing the same sentiment)

Again, this isn't to force anyone to do anything they don't want to. I just want you to have all the information, think about what you goal is and act accordingly. Sadly, we can either support CRWBY or hurt RT, with Crunchyroll being the closest thing to get both.

Now, I know that a lot of people might want to support but can’t afford Crunchyroll (or simply don't see it worth it because they don’t watch any other anime). That’s completely fair and understandable but, if you want, I might have a couple of solutions to offer:

Share the account with someone else. It will cut costs, and for just a couple of months it should be bearable.

See if you know someone who already has one and is willing to let you temporarely use it.

Wait until all episodes are released and then make an account; CR offers a 14 days free trial for their premium subscription, and you could use it to binge the volume and still give it views (you don’t have to abstain yourself from watching the episodes as they air, you just need to give CR these views in the end, and if you don’t want to rewatch you could just let them autoplay).

In case someone is wondering, CRUNCHYROLL DOESN’T COUNT THE VIEWS BASED ON THE ACCOUNTS ALONE.

What I mean is that they count rewatches as views of their own, so if you share an account with multiple people and you’re all watching the show, all the views from each of them will be counted, and it will still support it (if you’re wondering how I know, I maild their Support and asked them directly).

That’s all about Crunchyroll. Technically, no one stops you from waiting a year and watch it on RT's platform; they'll be accessible with FIRST accounts only at first, then become free with ads later as usual. I doubt any of you would want to do that, but a lot of people seemed not to get that it won't stay behind a paywall forever so I thought it was worth sharing. I did say I wanted you to have all of the information after all.

And that’d be all, I guess. As I mentioned, this isn’t meant to guilt trip anyone: everyone is entitled to their feelings and what they feel is right. You do you. But as for me, I’d rather accidentally benefit some assholes in the process of helping someone who deserve it than having innocents get hurt because of the actions of some assholes higher ups.

RWBY is a unique show that deserves to live, and CRWBY (and I mean all the people, past and new) has been working so hard, for so long, to get to tell their story and make their dream come true. I don't want all of their work and struggle to be in vain as much as I don't want to lose my favorite show. So, I will listen to them and help them the way they ask me to. That's my goal.

Find what your goal is, and act accordingly.

[killa-trav]

here is who seb is up against tomorrow, under the cut i have gone into a little depth about whose who and my opinions on the panel selection

(if u have any further questions lmk n i will answer to the best of my abilities)

the last time braverman was on question time, she avoided questions about britain and russia’s relationships with oligarchs not once but twice 

here is what she had to say about the uk immigration policy too

so i am quite surprised she has agreed to come back on

i have done some research on shabana mahmood and her wiki page doesn’t offer all that but she was one the first female muslim mps to be elected in the uk, she also was involved with controversy early in her career as she attended protests calling for the boycotts of israeli goods

miatta fahnbulleh is an economist who im sure has been selected to discuss the current rising inflation crisis going on in the uk at the minute, again i dont know much about her but here is what happened last time she was on question time

and lastly geoff norcott a pro-bexiteer who is a conservative and a regular on question time, i dont know much about him but if u google his name and question time there are plenty of clips available 

it is interesting that this is the panel they have chosen when clearly none of them seem to be too heavily involved with climate change the way seb is so im not really too sure what he will be able to contribute to discussions although who knows, its question time, its going to be tough and anything can happen

its also interesting that there is no lib dem representative despite them gaining the most seats in the local elections and not losing a single one lowkey annoyed about that cos wtf???? but its the bbc so im not surprised

it will for sure be interesting to see if seb can be added to the list of ppl who have made braverman crumble (fingers crossed he can)

like ive said before, it will not be easy for seb at all n the chosen panelists only confirms this but i hope he bodies everyone on there icl