#this a current wrestling headlines about things that really happened

[mrfunnyinthebank]

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been criticized for a Tiktok Live he filmed in the parking garage after the debut of Raw on Netflix.

The video features a tender moment between the Final Boss and the American Nightmare Cody Rhodes in which the old friends share two shots of tequila.

Minutes later, The Rock gets into a truck, buckles his seatbelt, and drives away as the video ends.

[ddanthedumbass]

"PSA: Johnny"

Call Me Karizma

May 25th, 2018

Another school shooting happened today, one will probably happen again next week and the week after that. I'm no politician, I'm not a lawmaker, or a judge, or a person of authority. I am no longer a student, I'm not a teacher or a parent. I'm an artist, and I believe my job as an artist is to create music to open the listeners' mind in the few minutes that they're hearing my song. I don't promise to always say the right things or to be politically correct, I don't know enough about guns or what laws might prevent the next murder of an innocent child. There are millions of these people already protesting our current lives so I decided to speak on something I'm more familiar with that hopefully opens up a dialogue to go hand in hand with gun violence talks

A topic I'm familiar with is mental illness. Right now, it is a devastating crisis affecting our youth. I've struggled with mental illness since I was young, I just thought I was the crazy kid. I kept to myself so others wouldn't know about my issues. I luckily learned to battle my illness by writing songs, it was my escape from it all. Unfortunately, in the last decade, since I was in middle school, I guess, I've seen our situation become incredibly worse. I can't go a few days without seeing a tweet or a Facebook post saying "my friend killed themselves today". As a society, we have ignored countless signs of mental illness and blanketed these issues with prescription pills and stigmas that only polarize these kids who need help the most. Then we sit on our couches and see headlines reading "Record high teen suicide" and "Kid brings a weapon to class" then act shocked and make it seem like they're just born quote/unquote crazy. These kids need way more than a handful of fucking Xanax

I'm not here to excuse or condone any violence but just to shed a light on society's passive role in creating a mind inside a kid to do such horrific things to their peers. Now, this is not a letter about a racist, radicalized adult walking into a school and killing children, or shooting up a church, or a Denny's. There is no fucking excuse for that. There is no helping someone who wants to hurt innocent people and they should never be forgiven. I'm writing this because today on the news I saw that a twelve-year-old boy walked into a class and shot at his fellow students. No one was killed but I turned off the TV and really asked myself: at twelve what was I doing? Was that wrestling practice? Was I playing on my Gameboy? Maybe working up enough courage to talk to a girl in gym class? One thing that never crossed my mind was hurting myself or others. That doesn't mean that other kids don't go through these things and have these feelings. I think we need to take a step back and wonder what is really driving a boy who should be at band practice to want to die and take innocent classmates with himI was advised not to speak in my song "Johnny" on this matter. I told my management team I was gonna write it anyway. And I want to say a few things

Johnny is a twelve-year-old boy, some of that you may know but have no idea what is going on in his head

Johnny could be a girl who comes home with cuts in her arms but her parents tell her it's a phase and she's gonna grow out of it

Johnny could be your son that starts posting weapons on social media but you just say "boys will be boys"Johnny could be your friend who gets called a slut and tell you she wants to die every day but you ignore the signs

I'll say it again there's no apologizing for a school shooter but no boy hardly yet through puberty who would ever do what Johnny did without being mentally ill and drastically affected in a negative way by our society

I was told that writing a song that speaks more from the shooter's perspective could be taken the wrong way and that is why I wouldn't change a fucking word to this song. As a society in America, we have to understand that our job is to put our youth first and not to measure mental health on a crazy scale. Everything shouldn't be easy listening and viewing. Sometimes we need to know what could happen if we don't do something. I am no saint and I'm just as guilty as the next when it comes to turning a blind eye to this epidemic. We need to learn to talk with our kids and realize that regardless of what politicians put into law we can make a difference without them. A difference that can change the impact of one or one thousand lives, maybe more. Something as simple as "How's your mental health today?" or "I saw your tweet, are you doing okay? Let's talk about it"This song was meant to cause a stir, it was meant to upset people, it was really meant to pressure on us as a society to combat mental health starting from preschool onward. I didn't have someone in my school to talk about my feelings and I was afraid to talk to my friends about it. I want that to end. I want there to be unlimited resources available in every public school for kids to let it all out and to know it's okay to be sad but it isn't okay to give up. Most importantly I wrote this song without a happy ending because there is no happy ending without us making a change. Before any law is put in place or before any therapist is put into our schools a shooting will happen again

I end this letter by saying this. I'm no politician, I'm not a lawmaker, or a judge, or a person of authority. I'm no longer a student, I'm not a teacher nor a parent. I'm a human being and I wrote this letter to hopefully bring us together to civilly and quickly put our kids first and make illness a priority. I will make no apologies for this song. If it pisses off a million people but helps one kid know that their mental health is fucking important and their society is here to support them through it all then it's worth every bit of hate. I'm gonna do my best from here on out to listen

Your friend, Riz

[thistledropkick]

I haven't been keeping up with the Junior Heavyweight tag league, but Okamoto of Tokyo Sports posted an article he wrote about Umino and his backstage comments to twitter recently, and the replies are absolutely brutal.

The article covers Umino's backstage comments from 11/2, with the headline "Umino Shota requests a one-on-one fight with his master and AEW World Champion Moxley. 'Perhaps the time has come'" The excerpt from the article that people seem to be reacting most strongly to is towards the end. NJPW has translated it on the official subtitles, but I'll translate it myself here too. Umino says, "I absolutely don't approve of your way of doing things. But I know how to heal you. First of all, send me a message. Since our IWGP match in America, I haven't gotten a message, a phone call, or heard anything from you at all... Perhaps the time has come."

Japanese wrestling twitter is usually more positive than English-language wrestling twitter. (That may not be saying much given the state of English-language wrestling twitter in general, but it is generally the case.) But the replies to Okamoto's tweet are overwhelmingly negative, to a degree that really shocked me. As I went through and read them, I only saw a few scattered positive replies mixed in among almost universally negative ones.

Many of these negative comments reflect the issues that many people seem to have with his character - that his influence from Moxley feels shallow and surface-level, that he seems to be a mix of influences rather than his own man, that he isn't understanding or taking in the reason the crowd is booing him in the first place, and that he keeps being given way too many chances without having the results to justify them. And there are still some comparisons between him and Stardust Genius Naito, as well. Besides these criticisms, there are also a lot of replies that are just heckling, or are outright mean.

I think Umino is in a really tough situation right now, and I'm not even sure how they can get him out of it. Out of the "Reiwa Three Musketeers", Umino is the only one who has had zero results - Tsuji Youta has held the IWGP 6 man tag belt and won the New Japan Cup, and Narita Ren has held the IWGP 6 man belt and is the current World TV champ. Umino has had many chances, but he has won no tournaments and no belts.

Because of this, it doesn't make sense to me that they'd give him yet another match against Moxley. I don't feel like Umino's at a place where it would make sense to have him win against Moxley in a fair singles match right now - as it stands, Umino's coming to this from a string of losses, although he does have his match with Sanada coming up soon. But even if Umino wins that match, I don't know that it would make him feel like he's at a high enough level to get a victory there.

And also, while I don't watch AEW or follow it at all, I know that Moxley is a wrestler who only rarely takes a pin. I decided to look up the stats, and it seems that he's only taken one pin in all of 2024 - to Naito, for the IWGP HW belt, in a situation that was completely unavoidable because NJPW needed their belt back eventually. And that pin was to Naito, who is unquestionably the most popular wrestler in NJPW.

Given those things, I can't imagine that Umino will get a win over Moxley if this match happens. But why set him up for a match against Moxley just to have him lose again? That would make him look even worse. But a win at this point wouldn't feel right to me, and I don't think it would feel right to the crowd either.

And putting all that aside, if Umino does win over Sanada and then tries to use that to challenge Zack for the belt for 1.4, I think the crowd is going to revolt. I really do think they'll have another Naito situation on their hands, where the crowd will rally for some other match to take the main event spot. But if they're trying to make this play out like Naito's story did, I don't know how successful that's likely to be - Stardust Genius Naito had a much more established career and fan base than Umino did, and he's also just a different person than Umino is. I don't know that that's something that can be intentionally repeated.

I can't stop thinking about this Umino Shota situation, so I'm gonna write about it.

Umino has been in a very weird position for quite a while now, when it comes to his character, his booking, and his crowd response. I feel like it has finally hit some kind of breaking point at the recent KOPW show.

When Umino walked out to challenge for the IWGP HW belt, he didn't just "get booed" - he got a mix of cold silence, some scattered booing, and some overt heckling from people in the crowd shouting "Go home" at him. That wasn't even the kind of booing you want in pro wrestling - it was an outright rejection of him by the crowd.

(You can hear the heckling starting at about 3 minutes in during this video - people in the crowd start shouting "Kaere!" "Go home!" This mix of scattered booing, icy quiet, and heckling is not the kind of response NJPW goes for even for actual heel wrestlers.)

It was also absolutely not the response that anybody there had planned for or anticipated. Umino looked legitimately upset, Zack immediately took action to calm down the crowd before things got ugly, and then Takagi came out to keep things moving when it was clear the crowd was not going to change their tone. If any of this response had been planned, they would've encouraged it instead, or at least given it a little more space to play out.

In his backstage comments afterwards, Umino addressed the comparison that fans have repeatedly been making between himself and Stardust Genius era Naito. Umino rejected that comparison.

(Personally, I agree that the two situations aren't identical, but for a different reason - Naito was a much more well-established wrestler when the crowd turned on him, while Umino has never even held a title.)

In any case, the fact that Umino is directly addressing the comparisons that fans keep making, rather than ignoring them, was noteworthy to me.

Today, an article about the situation was released in Tokyo Sports. Tokyo Sports is a kayfabe magazine, and anything published there is generally done to forward the intended story of the wrestlers involved.

The headline reads: Umino Shota - "Booing = Big Shot" Proof of his decision to fight for the IWGP "Even Tanahashi-san himself said, I'm leaving it to you, Sho-chan"

This is... not helping to counter the feelings of the fans that Umino is being given a spot he doesn't deserve, to say the least. And quoting Tanahashi calling him the cutesy nickname "Sho-chan" isn't helping either.

With this being addressed directly in the kayfabe ToSpo, I have to believe it means they'll be addressing it directly in the storyline as well. And it's very easy to imagine some scenarios where they could repeat the infamous fan vote that eventually turned Naito ungovernable. But with the differences between Naito's situation and Umino's, I'm not sure how well this will actually work if they do end up trying it...

As for my own feelings about all this - I don't like or dislike Umino as a wrestler right now - more than anything, I feel like he hasn't solidified as a wrestler enough for me to have much of an opinion on him yet. But this whole situation has been fascinating to watch as it plays out.

[hopelesshawks]

Physical Fatality Part 11- Pettiness

18+ Hawks x fem, pro hero!reader

Summary: You’re a rising star in All Might’s agency. Hawks is the darling of Endeavor’s. By virtue of your job descriptions, the two of you are supposed to hate each other, or at the very least be cautiously neutral. For a long time that’s exactly what the two of you did. You stayed out of each other’s way and formed little opinion of the other. One fateful night at an HPSC gala changes all that. Based on the album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom by Halsey.

If you don’t want to see Physical Fatality content blacklist #hopelesspf

This story will have multiple NSFW parts so it is 18+ ONLY minors dni

Masterlist

Ever since your removal from the task force both All Might and Endeavor have decided to be more involved in it on a managerial level. Which is really just a nice way of saying that the two are micromanaging and Hawks has never wished so hard for two people to just fucking retire already. Let Midoriya and Shoto take over and let the agencies finally enter a new fucking era without the ridiculous pettiness. “Hey bird boy,” a voice singsongs.

Speaking of petty...

“Has the fact you’re almost single-handedly ruining her career affected you and (y/n)‘s relationship yet?” Monoma asks Hawks cheerily.

He, Hawks, and Bakugo are standing on a rooftop staking out a nearby building not far from the downtown area that’s suspected as being a new base of operations for the group responsible for the attempted terrorist attack. Midoriya, Todoroki, and Tokoyami are at a different building on the other side of town. This is a perfect example of why Endeavor and All Might’s micromanaging is only making the task force’s job more difficult. The two of them had insisted on choosing the teams and somehow neither of them had considered how bad an idea it was to put your ex fiancé on the same team as your current boyfriend. Brilliant. Truly fucking brilliant. Monoma has made petty jab after petty jab since the moment they left the office and it is starting to really grind away at Hawks’ nerves.

Hawks has been trying to be the bigger person, he really has. Things are finally in a good place with you again and he really doesn’t want to fuck that up, regardless of how much of an ass Monoma is being. He should really be given an award for the immense amount of patience and restraint he’s been showing. But that particular jeer? That particular jeers rings a little too close to home. Because yes things are finally good with you, but the fact your career hinges so much on your relationship now is an undeniable dark shadow being cast upon it. Another reason, Hawks might add, that he couldn’t wait for Midoriya to take over for All Might. “Feeling tongue tied?” Monoma needles again. “Say something worthwhile and I just might fucking respond,” Hawks fires back. “Ah so he does speak! Just admit things aren’t all rosy and perfect in ArteHawks land.” “ArteHawks?” “Your perfectly perfect couple name for everyone’s favorite perfectly perfect star-crossed lovers.” “Don’t call us that.” “Call you what?” “Star-crossed lovers.” “Aww why not? Are the fates themselves not telling you your relationship is doomed?” “Our relationship isn’t doomed.” “Sure it isn’t,” Monoma scoffs and something snaps in Hawks.

It only takes a moment for him to grab Monoma and slam him down against the rooftop, pinning him there. “Watch what the fuck you say,” Hawks threatens. “Hey ease up. I’m not enjoying his bullshit any more than you are but just ignore him,” Bakugo warns. “Yea Hawks, ease up,” Monoma smirks up at him. “Listen here you little-“ “Hawks! I said ease up. If you fuck up and get a bad headline it reflects on (y/n) too remember?” Bakugo cuts Hawks off before he can finish his sentence. Hawks looks over at Bakugo and then back down at a smirking Monoma. God he wants to punch that stupid, smug look off his face. But Bakugo has a point. So Hawks takes a calming breath that does very little to actually calm him down before forcing himself to release Monoma and go back to observing the building across the street; however, the peace is only momentary. No sooner has Hawks returned to his post does Monoma stand back up and ask “So when all this inevitably blows up in your face, how long do you think it’ll take for (y/n) to come running back to me to fix her reputation again? A week? A day?”

There’s only a split second between Hawks registering what Monoma has said and his reaction. He whirls around, fist connecting with Monoma’s face, causing the other man to stagger backwards with the force of it. He rears his fist back to land another one but Bakugo catches his arm and yanks him back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Bakugo demands. Hawks wrestles himself free of Bakugo’s grip and redirects his gaze to the younger man. He should calm down, objectively he knows he should, but Monoma’s words are floating through his head and Bakugo had prevented him from fully venting his ire so it continues to burn through his veins. “What’s wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you? You just gonna let him talk about (y/n) like that?” Hawks spits back. “He’s obviously trying to get a rise out of you idiot. So stop giving him the satisfaction,” Bakugo scoffs. “Oh so he can just say whatever the fuck he wants and you won’t react huh? Won’t defend your supposed best friend,” Hawks replies and he knows it’s unfair but he’s pissed and so much stress and tension has been building since the moment he told Endeavor about the two of you’s relationship that he needs an exit for it. It was supposed to be Monoma but now Bakugo has stepped into the crossfire. “What the fuck are you implying bird brain?” Bakugo asks, his voice low and lethal as he steps closer to Hawks in warning. “I’m not implying anything. I’m just saying you’re a fucking coward,” Hawks replies, wings subconsciously puffing up to make him appear larger. “Don’t you fucking dare call me that. Motherfucker don’t play with me,” Bakugo warns. “I’ll say it again. You’re a fucking coward.”

Hawks should’ve listened.

The punch to his face is not unexpected and he almost immediately follows up with one of his own. But one punch isn’t enough and the fight starts escalating. One minute they’re trading blows and the next he’s shoving Bakugo off the roof and the other man is dragging him over too. Hawks quickly engages his wings to avoid falling and by the time he lands on the street Bakugo is doing the same, having used a few well timed explosions to control his fall. The fall hadn’t cleared either of their heads though and as soon as they make eye contact Bakugo is surging forward with his palms sparking, crimson eyes rage filled. Hawks sends a few feathers his way but it doesn’t slow the other man down so he pulls out his two large feathers ready to wield them as blades.

On the other side of town Midoriya mutters under his breath as he takes notes on the movements inside the building opposite the one he, Tokoyami, and Shoto are stood on. “Some things never change,” Shoto comments as he goes to take a seat next to his friend. “What? Oh! Yes I guess so,” Midoriya admits bashfully. “How has (y/n) been doing?” Shoto asks. “Better since she and Hawks made up but still difficult. All of the events are driving her up the wall since they take time away from actual hero work,” Midoriya explains. “I wish I could offer some encouragement but my father is just as bad as All Might. Overheard him demanding Hawks invite his plus one to the bullshit agency-only cocktail party he’s having tomorrow,” Shoto replies. “Honestly I’m surprised (y/n) hasn’t killed him and All Might yet,” Tokoyami interjects as he joins the conversation. “Trust me, she’s thought about it. Repeatedly,” Midoriya comments. “Anyway, what do you say Midoriya can we confirm it’s this building?” Shoto asks, veering the conversation back to the task at hand. Midoriya nods, “Yep, I’m certain of it. We should notify the others.” “About that.... we have a problem,” Tokoyami sighs as he shows Midoriya and Shoto a photo Monoma’s just sent him of Hawks and Bakugo locked in combat.

Hawks should stop.

He knows he should stop.

He wants to stop.

But somehow he can’t stop until he wins.

His wings are a fraction of their usual size, his ribs ache, he’s heavily bruised, and there are burn marks where Bakugo has caught him with one of his explosions a few times. Granted Bakugo isn’t looking that much better, equally bruised and bleeding in several places where Hawks has managed to cut him. This all started so pettily but neither he nor Bakugo is willing to back down. They’re both too proud. Both feel as if they’re fighting for your best interest and, as such, admitting defeat would in some way be letting you down. One massive fight that at its core is just two men’s horribly misguided attempt at defending you. The sheer irony of the fight is something both men will come to realize once the dust has settled but for now their minds are far too clouded to consider that what’s happening is exactly what Bakugo had been warning Hawks against. So instead of stopping like he knows he should, Hawks continues to grapple with Bakugo, the two of them locked into close proximity tumbling over each other until finally Hawks has Bakugo pinned beneath him, a feather pressed to the other man’s throat.

That moment it’s like all the air gets sucked out of the area. Hawks has never and will never needlessly kill someone, especially not an innocent or fellow hero. But with Bakugo pinned underneath him, both their chests heaving with exertion and Bakugo’s eyes burning with defiance and a refusal to back down or submit even with his life in Hawks’ hands, Hawks is struck by the realization that he could. He could kill Bakugo right now if he wanted to and that’s a sobering thought. “Shit,” he huffs out and the next word out of his mouth is about to be an apology when suddenly he’s being ripped backwards by an unseen force and Bakugo is being similarly yanked away. As Hawks finds himself suspended in air he finally takes in his surroundings for the first time since he and Bakugo started exchanging blows.

There’s a massive crowd of people around staring and whispering in an attempt to figure out what exactly is going on. He spots with growing dread a news van and several reporters all taking pictures of the scene, including some of the collateral damage to the street. Thank god none of the buildings themselves were damaged. Then finally he finds the source of the unseen force holding him in the air.

In the middle of everything stands you.

And man, oh man do you look pissed.

Author’s Note: Men are ✨dumb✨ but we’ll see how (y/n) reacts next chapter. This is the chapter with the least connection to the associated song which meant leaning more heavily on the overall album’s inspiration (Romeo and Juliet if y’all couldn’t tell lol) for this particular chapter and more trying to have the vibe of the chapter match the vibe of the song.

Taglist [open]: @akkaso @cathy8taffy @eeppff @iikillerkitteh @pixelwisp @pokesosa @lildockel @bread0nhead @lavender-moon13

[pendragonfics]

Housebound

Paring: Victor Creed/Reader

Tags: gender-neutral reader, past Jean Grey/Logan, current events, quarantine, angst, angst with a happy ending, brotherly love, light fluff, alternative universe - modern & no powers

Summary: You and your boyfriend Victor are stuck at his brother's house during a quarantine lockdown.

Word Count: 1,611

Current Date: 2020-03-30

Requested by: @queengiuliettafirstlady​ 

The nation-wide call for a lockdown happened at the worst time. Well, it could have been worse - well, a lot worse. Yeah, it was unwise to visit Victor’s brother, all things considered. It wasn’t Logan’s fault that he’d found his wife had been cheating on him. It wasn’t his fault that the affair had happened since the 2016 election and that she wasn’t at tennis with her teacher at all.

Now you three were stuck in a flat.

“Of all things…” Logan cracked open another beer. At the rate he was going at, there’d be no liquor in two days, let alone the projected lift on the ban.

“Look, she’ll get what’s coming for her. You know, karma and all that,” you tell Logan, meaning it. When he doesn’t respond, you lean forward and take the bottle.

Quite unhelpfully, Victor has been staying out of all of this. While he’s not the best negotiator, he’s Logan’s brother and knows him better than you. Throughout lunch, he’d been quiet, near-brooding, patting Logan’s back when he sighed, passing things when he asked for them, grunted in response when conversation asked it of him. You’re not sure if this is because he’s mad that you insisted on helping Logan in this tough spot, or because he’s never really liked his brother, or perhaps, it’s your fault that you’re both stuck here in the one-bedroom flat in the poorer area of town.

“________,” Logan growls. “Give it back.”

Victor swipes the beer and returns it to his brother’s hand. “Let the man grieve,” he wrestles Logan to the couch, moving to the TV for something nonsensical to change the mood. “C’mon, bro. Save some beer for the rest of us.”

You sigh and push yourself up onto the bench. Outside the tiny kitchen window, the streets are bare, and there’s no traffic at all, except for the stray emergency vehicle. You can hear the start-up tone for Netflix as you begin to think of your lonely houseplants.

---

Come ten o’clock when everyone’s eyes felt like sandpaper, Logan retired to the bedroom. With the taste of unusual toothpaste in your mouth, you and Victor looked to the second-hand couch for respite. A couch that had lived a prolific life of stains and tears in its time, spills and thrills from the living rooms it had spent time in. Not counting the night that just had been, it must have lived for years off the arses of its owners. You looked at it with a distaste, thinking how Victor and Logan had spent hours watching something with subtitles that you didn’t catch the name of.

Victor wasn’t particularly chatty since Logan left the room. Not that he was any time, but anything to break the eerie silence would have been preferable. Thankfully, you had your phone charger with you, and your smartphone was a lovely distraction.

“You heading to bed?” Victor broke the silence.

Over your mobile game, you nodded. “I’ll take the floor.” You offered.

“Nah,” Victor rebutted, “You never know what Logan’s tracked into the carpet.”

Quietly, you agreed and took the couch. When the light was switched off, it felt less intimidating. Perhaps darkness was the best reveal of true strength, or maybe the anxiety of it all had caught up with you. Either way, you felt exhausted, but not too tired to reach for your boyfriend’s hand in the dark.

“What are you doing?” he grumbled, following the sound of him turning over.

“I -,” you stop, backtracking, “um. Good night.”

---

There’s nothing fresh left to eat after, other than the health food that was slowly turning to mould in the bottom of the fridge. Logan hadn’t stocked up a lick of anything, except for the beer, and frozen chips and gravy. Maybe homemade poutine was his comfort food, but it wasn’t something sustainable for any of you three.

Thankfully Jean had apples that were days away from turning bad, and with what ingredients you could find in the pantry, it was clear that there was only one way to make best of a bad situation: and that was by making apple pie. While Victor scrolled on new sites for any updates to the world news, Logan was watching through his boxset reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond. Leaving you to your messing around in the kitchen, complete with your headphones playing your favourite music to block out any negative thoughts.

By midday, you’d crafted pastry by hand. Lumpy, but pretty good for your first ever attempt at that sort of baking. By five, the apple pie was warm on the bench, growing colder beneath the window.

Quietly, you unplug your earphones and look around the apartment. The boys have moved since you last saw them, and tired, you trudge to the bathroom for a long shower to commemorate your success. Maybe, if you’re lucky, Logan’s cheating wife would have left some nice shampoo and body wash for you to filch.

You’ve been away from yours and Victor’s shared place for two days now, and it feels strange. It feels like you’re stuck at a sleepover, or it’s like that bit between Christmas and New Years’ Eve, or something else liminal. By the time you get out the shower and change, you go back out to check on the pie.

It’s still there. But, minus a sixth.

---

When Victor asks what’s wrong, you ignore him. Partly, that’s because you know there’s a chance that he’s the one who robbed your pie. Partly, it’s because lately, he’s been distant with you, and some part of you, a petty part of you, wants back at him. Logan doesn’t notice the pie, and Victor doesn’t talk about it. You’re silent, waiting. But it’s not brought up.

If you hadn’t already taken a shower, you’d go back in there and cry under the showerhead for a solid five minutes unhindered.

But when Logan makes his cheese-less poutine for dinner, you three all eat in silence in front of the seven o’clock headlines. When everyone’s ready for sleep, you wait. You know you’re the last awake when both brothers’ snores are reverberating in the room, and it’s then when you finally let it out.

At first, it’s just about the pie. You’re upset that one of them took from you without asking and didn’t bring it up or apologise at all. You’re upset that Victor isn’t talking to you. You’re upset that you haven’t slept in your bed in so long, and you miss your things. But then, you realise that you’re worried about the goings-on in the world. The unknown of it all. The fact that there’s no idea of what’s going to happen other than what you know -

“Babe are you crying?” you hear Victor murmur.

Sniffling, you wipe at your eyes, even though it’s dark, you try to roll away. But you feel Victor’s arm on yours, and suddenly he’s holding you in his arms. You’re caught by surprise, and the next sob comes out a little louder, but he’s holding you tight, and you cry into the crook of his shoulder, feeling the negativity come out.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he says after a while.

“Everything is -,” you stop to cry some more, “I don’t know what’s happening! Logan’s not talking to me, and you’re distant and my pie -,”

Victor tilts your head with his hands, and in the darkness, you can barely see his face. But he kisses you, his lips dusting your face with the tears that had already fallen. While your boyfriend is never the most communicative, you could always rely on him, especially when life got you down.

“Logan’s Logan. He’ll get over himself. I’ve been packing up Jean’s stuff with him, and it’s…not easy for him.” Victor explains quietly. In the next room, you can still hear Logan’s snores reverberating through the shared wall. “and I’m sorry I’m distant. I pick up other people’s feelings, you know that.”

“You’re a nightmare to bring to a funeral,” you reminisce, sniffling.

“And Logan took your pie slice. He did it and felt bad, but he’s the worst at owning up, so hold it against him so we have leverage for next time he does you wrong, okay?” Victor snorts, and you chuckle back in response.

“I don’t want to blackmail him,” you moan. “I…I just want you to be proud I made a pie.”

“According to Lo, it’s the best pie he’s ever had,” Victor cheers you. A beat passes, and he kisses your cheeks once more. There are fewer tears there now, and his smooches are less watery. But they’re tempered, well-placed, and soon enough, your breathing is almost normal, and the tears have almost stopped falling. “and the thing is, babe…nobody knows what’s happening,” he whispers. “in the world.”

“Nobody?” you ask.

“Yeah. But that’s okay.” He exhales, and you lean closer.

You wrap your arms around him, bringing him close to you. The authorities have said to stay apart, but you’re a unit. You live together, even when you’re not at his brother’s house. You’ve been with him for years, and years and there’s no way you can part now.

“Yeah?” you prompt.

“Yeah.” Slowly, Victor takes you from the couch and lowers you onto the floor where he’s set up to sleep. You pull the comforter you had off with you, and together, you snuggle in each other’s arms. “…I mean, the world is big, but we’re all in this together.”

“Are you quoting High School Musical to me?” you ask him.

Victor’s arms around you are warm and comforting. “I’d do nothing less for you.”

[wrestlingisfake]

G1 Climax 31 preview

The G1 Climax is an annual heavyweight tournament in New Japan Pro Wrestling. It's typically one of the top events in Japanese wrestling, because the biggest stars in the biggest company try to deliver their best performances. The tournament runs from September 18 to October 21.

All 19 shows (!) will stream live and on-demand at njpwworld.com for 999 yen ($9 US) per month. Because of the billing cycle, you have to pay for 2 months to see it all as it happens, or you can wait till October 1 and try to catch up in one month. Watching all 91 tournament matches (!!!) can be kind of grueling (especially if you're trying to keep up with other wrestling at the same time), so it's not for everyone. But there are bound to be some highlights worth going out of your way to check out.

The G1 is a round-robin tournament, with 20 wrestlers separated into two blocks. Each man wrestles everyone else in his block, and the one with the best win-loss record is the block winner. The winner of A Block then meets the winner of B Block in a final match to decide the winner of the tournament. The winner of the G1 Climax receives a trophy and a contract for an IWGP world heavyweight title match at Wrestle Kingdom 16 in January 2022.

Ordinarily the G1 would be meticulously planned out to ensure the most marketable main event at Wrestle Kingdom, so only a handful of guys have any real shot at winning the tournament. However, the pandemic has thrown off a lot of New Japan's plans. Also, since Wrestle Kingdom has expanded to a multi-day event, more and more wrinkles have been added to the traditional "#2 guy wins the G1 to challenge the #1 guy for the belt" formula. So this year's G1 has a lot more potential to surprise us--whether such surprises will be good or bad remains to be seen.

A Block

Shingo Takagi - The reigning IWGP world heavyweight champion. If he wins the tournament, he'll have the right to choose his opponent for Wrestle Kingdom. If there was ever a year to book the champion to win the G1, this might be it. Amid some tumultuous booking this summer, Takagi came from out of nowhere to capture the title, and they've put a lot of effort into making him look worthy of the honor. So it might be cool for him to run through the field, and choose a challenger that couldn't be here, such as Will Ospreay. However, the smart money is on Shingo losing two or three matches to fall short of winning the block and to set up challengers for other shows.

Kota Ibushi - The winner of the last two G1 Climax tournaments, in 2019 and 2020. Few wrestlers have won the G1 three times, and no one has done three in a row. But if anyone can do it, it's Ibushi. He was crushed by losing the world title right after he unified it, and he's clearly in Shingo Takagi's sights (they'll square off on October 3). If he doesn't win the block, I expect him to get very, very close.

Tetsuya Naito - He won the tournament in 2013 and 2017. Naito started 2021 by losing the IWGP heavyweight and IWGP intercontinental titles to Ibushi, who unified them into the current world title. Since then, he's been on the back burner; if he's going to be back on top in 2022, this is where we'll find out. He's the leader of Los Ingobernables de Japon, and Takagi is a member, so their match on September 26 will be particularly interesting.

Zack Sabre Jr. - One of the IWGP heavyweight tag team champions, Dangerous Tekkers. Sabre's technical wrestling presents a challenge for any opponent in the G1, so he can easily play spoiler, but he's probably going to finish in the middle of the pack. I'm particularly looking forward to Sabre vs. Yano on October 13, because their match in last year's G1 was a fun mix of chain wrestling and dirty tricks.

Tomohiro Ishii - One of the NEVER trios champions. Ishii is never going to win the whole thing but he reliably delivers solid performances throughout the tournament. His matches with Ibushi (September 18), Ibushi (September 23), and Naito (October 9) should all be must-see for hard-hitting, what-the-fuck intensity.

KENTA - He can go, but he relies heavily on stalling and other cheap heel tactics to slow down the action, so it's hard for me to get into his matches these days. I'm sure he'll really cut loose for some of his block matches, but it's hard to guess which ones. My main interest is in seeing him go up against his Bullet Club teammates Yujiro Takahashi (September 23) and Tanga Loa (October 13).

Great-O-Khan - This is his first G1, after doing a run-in last year to help Will Ospreay and form the United Empire faction. O-Khan's got an interesting look, but his in-ring work hasn't been blowing anybody away. This should be the clearest test of his upside--if New Japan thinks he can be a serious headliner, he should pick up at least five wins, and maybe even six or seven. I'm not confident that will happen.

Toru Yano - The KOPW 2021 champion. Ordinarily Yano is the comic relief guy, whose block matches are built around silly spots so that the other participants each a get sort of a night off. However, Yano's recent feud with Chase Owens seems to have reawakened the brawler gimmick he had years ago, so it's not clear which Yano is going to show up for the tournament. Either way, I would expect Yano to pull of some key upsets to throw off everyone's predictions.

Tanga Loa - Loa is making his G1 debut. Since joining New Japan in 2016, he's been almost exclusively a tag team guy. It's not unusual for tag teams to compete in the G1, but Loa and Tama Tonga seemed determined to stay out and focus on the tag division. So his appearance here is a little surprising, and probably indicates that New Japan didn't have a lot of other options. He should do well in the ring, but some guys are going to finish 4-5 or worse, and I think he'll be one of them.

Yujiro Takahashi - Yujiro went 1-8 in last year's tournament, because somebody's gotta lose a lot, and that's his role. He's almost certainly going to to do the Bullet Club bit where either Kenta (September 23) or Loa (October 3) will talk him into laying down for the good of the team, but then he'll refuse at the last second. The most interesting thing about Yuje right now is he's a part of the "House of Torture" subgroup emerging within Bullet Club, but I don't expect that to matter much in his block matches.

B Block

Kazuchika Okada - The winner of the 2012 and 2014 tournament. Okada hasn't held a championship in nearly two years, and that's unlike him. So he's an easy pick to win this block and perhaps win the whole G1. The only problem is that he's got some stiff competition from other favorites like Hiroshi Tanahashi (September 19) and SANADA (October 4). He probably needs to win at least one of those two matches to make it to the finals--if he loses both, I'm not sure a 7-2 run is enough.

Hiroshi Tanahashi - The IWGP United States champion, and the winner of the G1 in 2007, 2014, and 2018. This will be his 20th appearance in the tournament, so he's got the decisive edge in experience. Tana is always going to be presented as a strong contender to win the block. But the only reason to have him win the whole thing would be to do an "aging legend makes one more run at the top" story, and they already did that three years ago. So look for him to have good matches, but don't count on him making it to the finals.

SANADA - He was the runner-up in last year's G1, which was a little baffling because I felt his booking that year was designed to build to a huge victory. He's felt like an afterthought since then. Will New Japan give him a lot of wins to remind everyone he's still a rising force? I'm really not sure.

EVIL - On paper, he's a big deal because he betrayed Los Ingobernables de Japon to win the IWGP heavyweight and intercontinental titles last year. But after Evil lost those belts his stock dropped. New Japan still trots him out like he's a major threat to the top champions, but he just does a bunch of low blows and then loses anyway. I think they'll protect him, because they're going somewhere with this "House of Torture" stuff. But I can't believe he'll win the block, except possibly to troll the audience.

Taichi - One of the IWGP heavyweight tag team champions, Dangerous Tekkers. I was always down on Taichi but he grabbed my attention with his weird kicking contest against Kota Ibushi last year. Since then he's been more fun to watch, although that's mainly been in tag stuff. If he's truly set aside the boring stalling tactics, then his block matches this year could be fun. But he's probably going to wind up right around that 5-4 or 4-5 range.

Jeff Cobb - Cobb should be a big deal, but he's basically the #3 guy in the United Empire (and there are only four guys in the group), and he hasn't had a lot of chances to score big wins. By the time he got to beat Okada a couple of weeks ago, I'd kind of lost interest. This is his big chance to remind everyone he's a beast. It'd be cool as hell if he went to the finals, but I'm not holding my breath on that.

Tama Tonga - This is his first G1 in three years, and before that he always seemed to be over the whole thing, so it's kind of weird to see him back here. Even when he wasn't focused on tag team wrestling, he was always a 4-5 guy, and I don't foresee a big singles push changing that this time.

Hirooki Goto - One of the NEVER trios champions. Goto's career arguably peaked when he was the runner-up to Kenny Omega in the 2016 G1. He should have good matches with everybody in the block, but he's not a game changer, and I don't see him getting to 5-4.

YOSHI-HASHI - One of the NEVER trios champions. Yoshi has always been a loser, to the point that winning the trios title (which has always been kind of a joke) was actually a huge deal for him. Goto, Ishii, and Yoshi have managed to defend the title nine times over 400 days, so it feels like Yoshi is finally on track. But there's a big difference between that and doing well in the G1, against top guys like Okada, Tanahashi, Evil, and Sanada. He could very easily go 2-7 in the block. Just getting to 3-6 would feel like a major milestone, honestly.

Chase Owens - The self-proclaimed "Texas heavyweight champion," for some reason. Owens has been the bottom guy in Bullet Club for years. I don't know if they decided it's time to push him a little, or if they literally had no one else to put in this thing. Not that it matters, since he's in the same "lose a lot" spot as Yujiro. The difference is that Yujiro might win a match to justify putting him in next year's field. Chase might actually go 0-9. So at least it'll be kind of fun wondering when (if) he can post his first win.

[emptymanuscript]

(CNN Business)--If President Trump comes out and prematurely claims victory on Election Night, what will television networks and social media websites do? The scenario -- undemocratic and unthinkable in the past but a very real possibility with Trump seeking to stay in power -- is causing media and tech executives to debate potential responses

https://www.fark.com/goto/11007245/www.cnn.com/2020/11/02/media/tv-networks-election-night-victory/index.html%3Futm_source%3Dfark%26utm

As much as Fox News and Breitbart style propaganda gives me the red hot rage fury, this propaganda gives me the cold seething anger fury.

Because this is propaganda. Insidious, difficult to catch propaganda, that most people, even Breitbart loyalists would just let fly. The left will say yes, Trump is unprecedented. The right will say this is evil and trying to portray Trump as bad. And both sides will ignore the actual propaganda statement that CNN just issued on behalf of itself, Fox, and all the rest of journalism as a whole that this scenario was “unthinkable in the past.”

Bullshit.

That scenario literally happened in 2000. Fox did it instead of Bush Jr. but that absolutely did happen. The election was a tossup and everyone was calling it as a toss up until Fox declared Bush the winner. At which point, to not be scooped, everyone else called for Bush as well. And because AT THAT TIME is was unthinkable, Gore assumed they knew what they were talking about and and conceded. When it then quickly became clear that the result was not in fact clear, he took it back. And the disaster rolled on. In the years that have followed, it has become clear that if Gore had refused to concede for another 24 hours he would have won without the recount and all the other troubles. It was close but not that close, he won the popular election by enough that he would have won the electoral college. But even he admitted by the time what actually happened got going he wouldn’t have been able to govern because the numbers were less important than the perception.

There were a lot of thoughts and prayers, I’m sorry: “soul searching,” well there were pundits talking about soul searching anyway. Because the media realized what happened. They had picked the president. Not the voters. Unthinkable and undemocratic. And everybody but Fox vowed to do better.

Fast forward to right now and it is still undemocratic. But to portray it as unthinkable is straight out pardoning themselves retroactively for the crime they already committed. For institutions like CNN, it was the equivalent of manslaughter. I think it is a completely fair conclusion that they had zero intention to do any of it. They just didn’t want to lose the ratings. It’s not a good reason but it is extremely different than what was most likely Fox’s murder one version. Fox absolutely knew what everyone else knew, absolutely favored Bush over Gore, and just when the poll results started to tip toward Gore instead of way too close to even dream of calling, Roger Ailes and George W. Bush’s cousin who was in charge of election coverage for Fox (not at all a conflict of interest), decided that Fox should announce Bush had won. It is not possible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were trying to shift the election results but the circumstantial evidence is pretty good. Which is why they get hot anger and CNN gets cold anger from me. Fox tries to commit crimes. CNN tries to escape culpability.

And that’s exactly what this tiny, little, insignificant phrase is doing. It’s escaping culpability. It’s escaping culpability in a way that everyone will brush over and have an easy time agreeing with, while it cements itself in thought that that is the way it really is. When nothing could be further from the truth. CNN has had 20 years, 20 YEARS!, to wrestle with this problem. To figure out what to do, to come to terms with the role it played, to institute reforms to make sure they are equipped to handle this. And the truth is, they probably spent a work week worth’s of effort and called it good enough. Until the problem came up again this year.

The real reason I favor reading 538 instead of most other news outlets for numbers and election results is because if you actually READ the stuff instead of just snatching the headlines and quotes is because they’re the only institution I know of that actually does grapple with this problem regularly and with vigor. They are it. This year, with the problem come round again, they made a special page just to try and specifically explicate that you CANNOT call an election before the votes are actually counted. Everything they do is an estimation with variables and margins of error. Because they actually see it as their job to give information, and make sense of that information, instead of just following some narrative.

I love Nate Silver’s currently favored explanation of it being like roiling a die. Right now, it’s 1d10. Being as I played a whole lot of Vampire the Masquerade, and other WoD rpgs, that works real well for me. I know the feel of a d10. I know how it feels to crit fail and roll that 1 even though the odds are that I shouldn’t. I had one game where I rolled 7 critical fails in a row. Which was ok because I was GMing and not a player but it happens. That Trump is unlikely to win doesn’t mean he can’t win. You can always crit fail. When you’re only rolling 1d10 the chances aren’t even that low. And if you play a lot of any rpg, you know that. This metaphor is new because 538 is very aware of the problems from the 2016 election and has actually gone the extra mile to make sure they fix what wasn’t even their mistake.

Because I remember my friends (we were all political junkies) apologizing to me because I was actually deep reading 538 and kept worrying that Trump was going to win, while they were all, nah. They have always been good about stating that what they are dealing with are probabilities and uncertainties, it’s just that people don’t like that. They want answers and narratives.

Which is often where the real propaganda happens. It’s not the pretty posters I love. It’s the grand statements from the bully pulpit. The propaganda that digs deep is the plain language of “factualness.” What is stated so that it cannot be disagreed with in a way that the audience will just accept it and move on. Until it is simply part of how we all think because it’s not an elephant you have to swallow whole, it’s the poison fed to you one mL at a time until you’re inured to it and then it is a part of you and then you’re spitting it out on others. One mL at a time.

That Trump will do anything he has to to win is not unthinkable. We’ve known that for years. Longer than he has president. That he is a liar is the same. That he does not care for the rule of law is the same. That the right wing media will aid and abet him in all that is not unthinkable because we have watched it unfold. That elections can be shifted by the judicious use of media is well known. As undemocratic as all of this may be, the idea that it is unthinkable is just a way to say either A) we weren’t paying attention or B) it’s not our fault.

CNN shouldn’t be allowed to say either of those things.

/rant

[emblem-333]

Rebooking WrestleMania 35

What stays the same:

Kofi beats Bryan

Whatever else I didn’t care enough about to mention.

Brock Lesnar retains vs Seth Rollins

Why: Is Brock a good champion? No. He works very few dates and his best in-ring days are long gone. But give me him over Rollins as a Babyface. Rollins is a fine wrestler, one of the best in the WWE. However, his microphone skills are nonexistent and his feuds subsequent winning the strap from Lesnar have either been uninspiring or downright pathetic.

Still, there was a groundswell of support from fans eager to see the Universal Championship around the waist of a full timer once more. The secondary WWE title has had many misadventures. It’s inaugural champion Finn Balor suffered a legitimate shoulder injury and relinquished the belt the day after winning it at SummerSlam. WWE held a fatal-4-way match on Raw a week later between Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, Big Cass, and Seth Rollins - the winner being Owens. He went on to hold the belt for nearly 200 days, but his reign came to a screeching halt when Goldberg returned and steamrolled him.

Since Owens ate a Goldberg spear, the belt spent nearly two-years around the waists PF part-timers. Frankly, I’ve forgotten it’s existed at points. To be honest, I was glad to see Rollins win initially for these reasons alone. Then came the night after ‘Mania, Rollins is in the middle of the ring out comes Triple H, his former rival who tried to derail his career... and they hug. THEY HUG. Instantly I get this feeling Rollins is a corporate backed champion packaged as a Babyface. While every WWE champion is a corporate champion at the very least give me the veneer Rollins isn’t a suck up behind the scenes by making him one during the show.

But the WWE is infatuated with themselves. They were so satisfied to have pulled off the angle and believed to have gotten Rollins over as a Babyface they couldn’t help but rub it in for all of us to see.

Lesnar, in hindsight, needed to remain champion. Rollins simply wasn’t the guy. But Vince McMahon isn’t going to put over someone like Samoa Joe- and let’s be honest, neither is Triple H or Stephenie. Whoever beats Lesnar has to be a creation of the WWE laboratory. If not Rollins, then there’s nobody on the Raw roster worth giving a look at.

If I was booking the WWE, I’d have Kurt Angle’s last match be against Lesnar and call it a night.

Sasha Banks and Bayley retain vs The IIconics, Nia Jax & Tamina, Beth Phoenix and Natalya

Why: The Women’s Tag Titles are the offspring of Bayley and Sasha’s constant lobbying. It is odd the women’s division does not have a tag championship in the first place. For all this talk of a “Women’s Revolution” and the idiotic elevation of “The Four Horsewomen” as if on par with “The Four Horseman,” the whole thing proves to be a farce despite the wrestlers being insanely talented and effective.

Heading into the eight women tag match the “Boss ‘n Hug Connection,” the inaugural champs had held the belts for 49 days. While their defense wasn’t something to write home about the whole point of their run was supposed to add legitimacy and mystic to the strap. Yeah, the IIconics are solid heels, but after winning the titles their reign didn’t last long either ending in 120 days before dropping them to Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross, who later lost it to the current champions Asuka and Kairi Sane after their heel turn. (Why are the tag titles primarily held by heels?)

Just let Bayley and Sasha keep the belts. Since ‘Mania, Bayley’s won Money in the Bank, cashing in on Charlotte Flair and is still the champion today. Holding the belt for 197 of the last 202 days. The interim period occurred when Flair beat Bayley at Hell in a Cell. On the following Smackdown, Bayley returned for her rematch with a new look and a new attitude. The lovable hugger with a back bone became a chicken shit heel over night. Instantly undercutting months of booking. While she did get a main event slot at pay-per-view at Survivor Series, she was treated as an afterthought by many inside and out of the company. The morning after Shayna Baszler made Bayley submit, the WWE twitter account reminded fans that Baszler didn’t beat “The Man” a.k.a the champion they actually care about. (https://twitter.com/wwe/status/1198805122681147392?s=21)

It’s a damn shame how Bayley’s been booked. A complete waste of her character and even from the standpoint of solely caring about making money, WWE circumvented an avenue of revenue by turning her heel. Bayley’s whole character is designed to appeal to young kids, girls in particular. Changing her to someone who makes them cry is a fun thing to do on paper, but in actual practice is awful.

Batista def. Triple H

Why: Triple H is 46. He sucks as a Babyface and is a fraud. He should retire. He does the same goddamn thing every year where he wears a suit, acts as an authority figure and then takes the suit off because things have gotten serious. This happens every year. It’s beyond annoying.

Bobby Lashley retains vs “The Demon” Finn Balor

Why: Poor Finn. Never able to find his footing on the main roster. Such a big star at NXT putting on clinics against Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens. Ironically, neither of them have been properly booked since their NXT days came to a close. WWE has a habit of restraining their talent. Balor fell prey to this and his run as Intercontinental Champion wasn’t relevant and later would lose it to fellow roamer of purgatory Shinsuke Nakamura.

I don’t see a reality where Balor as I.C champion works out. He was a lukewarm, forgetful player on the main roster. It’s good he’s back at NXT. They let their talent express themselves a little more than WWE. Best thing for him.

The Main Event:

The main event between Ronda, Becky and Flair was.. okay. Nothing special. I was happy for Becky. Initially booked to turn heel after SummerSlam in 2018, her promo the night after Flair stole her title made her a star overnight and plans changed to have her turn Babyface and keep Flair heel. Despite numerous attempts by WWE to make Lynch a heel fans simply weren’t allowing it just so Flair could win another title. That didn’t stop them from giving Flair titles, but at least it won’t be at Becky’s expense anymore.

Why did this culmination of months long storytelling feel so underwhelming in its conclusion? Simply put, it wasn’t a good story. Every participant was an absolute fool and the WWE doesn't remember how to book Babyfaces anymore. Becky failed at the Royal Rumble losing to Asuka clean. Then hijacks the No. 30 spot in the rumble when there were more deserving candidates available. What makes matters worse is Asuka would have the rug pulled out from under her a week before WrestleMania losing the belt to Flair. So why bother having her retain against Lynch and making things more complicated?

Following the rumble, Flair and Lynch battled for the right to go to WrestleMania. Despite being cleared to compete weeks before the PPV she still entered the ring on crutches and got the crap beaten out of her before Rousey inexplicably crashed the party, got Flair DQ'd and doubled the chances of her losing her title making the match a triple-threat.

The main event of WrestleMania didn’t need to be a triple-threat. It didn’t need Charlotte. And most certainly didn’t need to have both belts on the line. You had an actual fighter in Ronda Rousey and someone from the wrestling world who took an actual punch to the face, broke her nose and suffered a concussion so both participants had credibility entering.

In my eyes, the WWE could’ve done the following, dominate the headlines for their inclusivity, make everyone who needed to look good look good, and not marginalize Asuka in the process:

Becky Lynch def. Asuka for Smackdown Women’s Title at the Royal Rumble, Flair wins the rumble:

Asuka submits to the “Dis-Arm-Her” and Lynch is once again on top of the world after being unceremoniously knocked off by Nia Jax. Flair wins the rumble, and demands both belts are on the line to prove she’s the “Queen.” Both parties oblige and volià! There’s your WrestleMania main event done without unnecessary detours.

Or

Asuka retains vs Becky Lynch, faces Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville in a triple-threat for the title; Banks wins vs Rousey, Ronda is the one to enter No. 30 into the rumble and turning heel in the process.

Pushing Flair to the side here. She’s had enough moments in the spotlight and she’ll have tons more. Being omitted from me, WrestleMania isn’t the end or the world. This year belonged to Becky and Ronda. Let them have the spotlight.

I kind of think a Ronda heel turn would have worked if they paired her up with Paul Heyman. Would’ve made sense since she isn’t much of a talker and is from the ultimate fighting background as Lesnar. But that’s far too simple! And we can’t forget about The Queen. Heavens, no!

Sasha Banks wins vs Rousey; Flair wins the rumble. Lynch vs Rousey has no belt on the line. Banks vs Flair for ‘Mania:

Oooh, this is probably my worst take, but c’mon the Becky Two Belts story didn’t really lead to anything besides Bayley’s revival when a simple win over whoever was champion at the time would’ve done the trick.

Sasha Banks and Ronda had a very nice battle for the Raw Women’s Title. Perhaps the best match of Ronda’s one year stint in the WWE. If anyone doubts Banks’ in-ring capabilities, tell them to look at how she guides the green Rousey through the match. Booking Banks to win the title is a risky proposition. Ronda built a mystic of being unbeatable. A real fighter. Not a fake entertainer pumping ‘roids. Beating her essentially undos all of that. I guess Banks’ could have turned heel here and used a chair when the referee is unconscious and smashed it over Ronda’s head knocking her out of commission for a couple of weeks.

Anyways, Banks defends the title versus Flair. Asuka defends vs Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose; Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey have an old fashioned grudge match settled at ‘Mania. How’s that for inclusivity? Why aren’t I working for the WWE? Is it because my ideas suck and have no basis in reality? Probably.

[thesportssoundoff]

“A great card on the 4th Of July weekend? Feels good man” UFC 239 Preview

The UFC PPV schedule rarely gives us goodies back to back but we all have to admit that UFC 238 and UFC 239 may be on paper the best back to back cards since December when we got Ortega-Holloway and all the madness under it with a pretty damn good Jones-Gus headlined show. As is becoming the case, the UFC has stacked yet another Jon Jones card as our International Fight Week festivities come to a close with the stupendously intriguing fight card. The headliner pits the greatest fighter of all time vs the most violent fighter of the modern era in a fight that'll be weird and wacky if nothing else, the co-main event could in theory be a fight to determine who the greatest women's mixed martial artist of all time is and while this card clearly has been dinged by losing JDS vs Ngannou, it's hard to argue with Diego Sanchez vs Michael Chiesa, Jan Blachowicz vs Luke Rockhold and even Jorge Masvidal vs Ben Askren should be pretty intriguing. The prelims are neither good nor bad; they feel like a mix of proven veterans (Gil Melendez and Alejandro Perez) testing potential future something's (Song Yadong and Arnold Allen) plus Marlon Vera  fights are never boring. Throw in Randa Markos vs Claudia Gadelha and some intriguing prelim stuff and it's a damn fine card. Let's take a fightin' journey together.

Fights: 12

Debuts: Julia Avila

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 3 (Sean O'Malley OUT, Neholin Hernandez in vs Marlon Vera/Francis Ngannou vs Junior Dos Santos MOVED/Melissa Gatto OUT, Pannie Kianzad IN vs Julia Avila)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 12 (Jon Jones, Thiago Santos, Holly Holm, Amanda Nunes, Jorge Masvidal, Jan Blachowicz, Luke Rockhold, Diego Sanchez, Michael Chiesa, Gilbert Melendez, Randa Markos, Claudia Gadelha)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 1) (Gilbert Melendez)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 7 (Jon Jones, Diego Sanchez, Thiago Santos, Edmen Shahbazian, Arnold Allen, Yadong Song, Amanda Nunes)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 26-12

Jon Jones- 2-0 Thiago Santos- 8-1 (!!!!!!!) Amanda Nunes- 3-0 Holly Holm- 2-2 Jorge Masvidal- 2-2 Ben Askren- 1-0 Jan Blachowicz- 4-2 Luke Rockhold- 1-1 Michael Chiesa- 1-2 Diego Sanchez- 2-2

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Welterweight- 3 (38) Light Heavyweight- 2 (27) Women’s Bantamweight- 2 (10) Bantamweight-  2 (33) Women’s Strawweight- 1 (18) Middleweight-  1 (21) Featherweight- 1 (30)

Lightweight- (42) Heavyweight- (18) Flyweight- (8) Women’s Flyweight-  (18) Women’s Featherweight- (6)

2019 Number Tracker

Debuting Fighters (17-39)- Julia Avila, Nohelin Hernandez

Short Notice Fighters (16-23)- Nohelin Hernandez, Pannie Kianzad

Second Fight (38-12)- Ismail Naurdiev, Pannie Kianzad, Ben Askren

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (12-23)- Holly Holm, Luke Rockhold, Gilbert Melendez

Undefeated Fighters (24-26)- Ben Askren, Edmen Shahbazyan

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (9-8)-

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (17-13)- Holly Holm, Luke Rockhold, Pannie Kianzad

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- Two of the UFC's biggest title fight "upsets" on paper happened on the big July PPV with DC KO-ing Stipe and Weidman KO-ing Silva. That's not even to account for Nunes finishing Meisha where Nunes was a slim underdog on paper. Can Santos or Holm find some magic in those numbers?

2- So how fun does Jon Jones want this to be necessarily? Make no mistake the path to victory for Jon Jones is versatile but the easiest one involves Jones wrestling Santos against the fence, making him pay with dirty boxing, taking him down, getting to mount and going for the rear naked choke or hellbows. The reality though is that Jones is not the same super explosive freak of nature athlete and while he may have slowed somewhat, he's probably never been more cerebral and calculated in the cage. He doesn't have those big offensive explosions anymore and he has decided to take things slowly and pick his shots. Removing the DC head kick KO where Jones had a fair bit of trouble and had to adapt in a grueling fight, all of Jones' fights since 2014 or so have been paced so much better where he allows his range and reflexes to shut down an opponent's offense while relying on a long jab and some of MMA's best footwork to punish them from a safety zone. HE chooses to operate methodically and force an opponent to will him out of that. So how fun does Jones want this to be? Will he take his time or will he try to be flashy?

3- One of the weirder knocks I've read recently about Jones is the idea that he's not exciting anymore. While I can agree he's more methodical, I find it hard to believe people could assume he's "boring" now. Either way I wonder if the UFC picked Santos over other fighters (Dom Reyes namely) because they figure Santos win or lose will bring a fight to Jones and they'll have something to talk about.

4- Holly Holm vs Amanda Nunes is interesting in large part due to the dueling narratives at play. If you're a Holly fan, so much of Nunes' vulnerability (cardio, the ability to fight with tempo deep into a fight, her adaptability) will be tested by Holly Holm. Holly always comes in with a pretty solid gameplan and I'd imagine they have plenty of Amanda's tendencies down pat heading into this fight. A win over Nunes and Holly Holm If you're a Nunes fan, Amanda Nunes could in theory be the first woman in the UFC to KO Holly Holm which would only cement her legacy further. Finish victories over Holly Holm, Cyborg Santos, Germaine De Randamie and Meisha Tate would pretty much make her in the running for greatest mixed martial artists ever and as previously discussed elsewhere, she'd have wins over six former UFC champs (Cyborg, Valentina Shevchenko, Holly Holm, Ronda Rouse, GDR and Meisha Tate) with a win over Holm.  It has the makings of a kinda blegh fight on paper since Holm tends to be in those kinda fights but it's such a significant fight for both women.

5- I feel like so much of this fight revolves around who does what first; how quickly does Holm start to circle aimlessly because she has no entrance offensively vs how quickly is Nunes fading back against the fence looking for counter opportunities because she's flummoxed/hurt/stunned?

6- Is Luke Rockhold under more pressure than any other fighter here on this card? A win and Rockhold is probably the #1 contender since Dominick Reyes is MIA currently, Jones just dusted off Anthony Smith and Corey Anderson is never going to get a title shot by virtue of being the decisionator. If Rockhold beats Jan then he's probably got a clear runway lane for a title shot. Conversely if he loses, Rockhold would be 1-3 in his last four fights with soul crushing losses in back to back fashion in TWO weight classes. That's the end of the line for a dude who can go be a model, right?

7- I know it's exciting for a lot of people but you can't convince me Askren vs Masvidal isn't going to be like Maia vs Masvidal aka a very long way to go for a 29-28 split decision where Jorge Masvidal feels like he was robbed.

8- Michael Chiesa looked really good at 170 lbs and it's a bit of a shame he didn't get a really important step up in competition for his encore performance. Instead Chiesa gets Diego Sanchez who is coming off two wins BUT both of those wins were pretty limited in terms of opposition. This is still the same guy who gets smelted by any sort of striker with frequent-ish regularity so I'm imagining that Chiesa has a round or two to find Diego's chin and pick up a big time win on the biggest show of the year thus far.

9- The ESPN prelims have two fights with some intriguing upside potential on paper if you're the rambler gambler type. Claudia Gadelha is a healthy favorite over Randa Markos but there's two factors at play that I'd be concerned about; 1) Claudia Gadelha's rapid decline and 2) Randa Markos' weird ability to win fights she shouldn't win. On the other hand as good as Yadong Song has looked in his fights, he did struggle somewhat down the stretch vs Vince Morales when Morales began to go to the body more often. Alejandro Perez is one of those dudes who stays just active enough to be a high profile spoiler and this has some spoiler potential on it.

10- CHITO VERA IS BACK!

11- Is this the last time we ever see Gilbert Melendez in the UFC? I'd imagine Coker would happily do Chandler vs Melendez, right?

12- Ismail Naurdiev is the guy who basically survived the Michel Prezares clusterfuck and lived to tell the tale about it. He's back vs Chance Recountre in what HAS to be a showcase fight.

[nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany]

2:00PM Water Cooler 7/31/2019

Digital Elixir 2:00PM Water Cooler 7/31/2019

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Trade

“Trump’s Bid to Dismantle Global Trading System Poised for a Win” [Industry Week]. “Thanks to a U.S. veto on new appeals judges, the WTO’s dispute arm is expected to start slipping into the institutional equivalent of a coma at the end of this year. That has set off a scramble by the European Union, Canada and other countries to set up a temporary alternative allowing the use of arbitrators rather than three-judge panels to hear appeals. But by creating that system, WTO members may be giving Trump and aidesーwho, like him, have deep-rooted skepticism of multilateral institutionsーthe very thing they want. Arbitration would above all provide the flexibility the U.S. is after, Vaughn said. It would see disputes treated as individual cases, avoiding the precedent-dependent system the WTO appellate body has become.”

“Inside the lose-lose trade fight between Japan and South Korea” [Nikkei Asian Review]. “[There is a] growing ‘Boycott Japan’ movement spreading across South Korea. South Koreans have also stopped buying cars, beer, cosmetics and just about anything else bearing the label ‘Made in Japan.’ Some are even canceling their summer holidays…. Well-organized protests are not uncommon in South Korea, and they tend to pass relatively quickly. But these boycotts — which in South Koreans’ minds are tied with the emotionally-charged issue of wartime labor and a sense that their most successful companies are under attack — may be different. The movement kicked off shortly after the decision by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration on July 4 to tighten controls on exports of three chemicals essential for making semiconductors and flat panel screens used in smartphones and TVs. By choking off supplies of the chemicals — Japan’s market share for two of them stands at more than 90% — the Abe administration was essentially taking aim at the engine that powers South Korea’s high-tech economy.”

“USDA gave almost 100 percent of Trump’s trade war bailout to white farmers” [New Food Economy]. • Deceptive headline erases class: “The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has documented that the program has disproportionately helped wealthy landowners and a recent analysis by Donald Carr, a senior advisor for EWG, argues that the MFP has deepened the disadvantages of black and minority farmers.”

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

“2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination” [RealClearPolitics] (average of five polls). As of July 30: Biden continues rise at 32.2% (32.0), Sanders flat at 16.2% (16.2%), Warren up at 14.3% (14.0%), Buttigieg flat at 5.6% (5.5%), Harris up at 10.8% (10.5%), others Brownian motion. Sanders opens a little daylight between him and Warren, for the first time in two weeks.

* * *

2020

Delaney (D)(1): Naughty, naughty:

so someone edited John Delaney’s Wikipedia page

pic.twitter.com/dFMHiz15XD

— Sarah Flourance (@BookishFeminist) July 31, 2019

Gabbard (D)(1): “Tulsi’s Last Stand?” [The American Conservative]. “Gabbard has been perhaps the most interesting Democrat running for president and Wednesday night could be her last stand. She gets to share the stage with frontrunner Joe Biden, like Hillary Clinton a vote for the Iraq war. There is no guarantee she will get another opportunity: the eligibility criteria for subsequent debates is more stringent and she has yet to qualify…. Gabbard has so far been unable to penetrate this madness despite being young (she’s 38), attractive, telegenic, a military veteran, a woman of color, and an articulate, passionate opponent of the regime change wars that have brought our country so much pain.”

Warren (D)(1): The liberal Democrat enforcers are coming for Warren:

Maybe Warren really believes that single-payer is the only way; if so, I’ve misjudged her policy acumen. Either way, that was a bad night for someone who should be leading the progressive charge 7/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) July 31, 2019

The Debates

“Sanders, Warren battle centrists in testy debate” [The Hill]. “But on Tuesday night, the moderates came out swinging at Medicare for all with grave warnings about the electoral consequences.” • Oh.

“The Centrists Did Not Hold” [Jeet Heer, The Nation]. The Deck: “Both the moderators and centrist Democratic candidates failed in their attempts to gang up on Sanders and Warren during Tuesday’s debate.” • So we’ve normalizes the idea that the moderators are not refs but players? One more reason to get the networks out the debate business. More: “The fusion of entertainment with politics continued apace with CNN orchestrating the Democratic primary debates as a professional-wrestling donnybrook. Led by Jake Tapper, the CNN hosts consistently tried to get the two factions to attack each other, while bizarrely elevating John Delaney for much of the debate.

“The Middle Ground Did Not Fare Well in the Democratic Debate” [Jacobin].

“‘Do or die:’ The pressure is on struggling 2020 Democrats to break through at Detroit debates” [McClatchy]. “With the leading candidates increasingly separating themselves from the rest of 2020 Democratic presidential primary field, this week’s second set of debates are shaping up to be most crucial for the bottom half of the pack who are dwelling in single digits and struggling to raise money. It’s those campaigns that are preparing to take a more aggressive posture in Detroit as they fight for survival ahead of a traditionally slow summer fundraising period and stiffer requirements to qualify for the next debates in the fall…. The next debates aren’t until September, when polling and donor requirements for entry will tighten. Seven candidates have indicated they’ve already crossed the necessary thresholds, with at least two others claiming they are close to doing so.” • Hence, beyond ideology, the aggressiveness of Hickenlooper, Delaney, et al., and the relative quiesence of Buttigieg and O’Rourke, who have already made it to the the next debate round. I would expect the same dynamic to be in play in tonight’s debate as well.

2019

“California Aims to Make Trump Release Taxes by Requiring It for Primary Ballot” [Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine]. “California governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation making disclosure of five years of income-tax filings a condition for appearing on the state’s presidential-primary ballot, beginning next year.” • Here the Constitutional qualifications and requirements for the Presidency. Article II, section 8:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

I don’t see the grounds on which California gets to add additional qualifications for a Federal office. Further, the additional qualifications are blatantly aimed at a political enemy of the California Democrat power structure (California is a one-party state). What happens a tit-for-tat struggle begins with states dominated by Republicans? We won’t have national elections any more. Back to the article:

But the latest bill passed on a strict party-line vote, and Newsom signed it on the grounds that because of its size and stature, California had a “special responsibility to require this information of presidential and gubernatorial candidates” (it will apply to candidates for Newsom’s own job after 2024).

This is a 21st century states’ rights argument, except only for large states. Where is it written that any state has “special responsibilities”?

Realignment and Legitimacy

“DSA Members, America’s New Left” [New Left Review]. “But the five dsa members, all from California chapters—and spanning a range of positions, from neo-Kautskian electoralism to libertarian party-building—offer a vivid sense of the debates agitating the group’s membership base. How will dsa convert its newly acquired supporters into political organizers? What fields of activity should it bestow its (still limited) resources upon? Most pressingly, how should it relate to the Sanders 2020 campaign, and to the Democratic Party as a whole? Can the long-term goal of building an independent working-class party be reconciled with dsa’s current practice of running candidates on Democratic ballot-lines?” • Interviews with five DSA members. Interesting!

“No, Professors Aren’t Discriminating Against Conservative Students” [Pacific Standard]. “The idea that left-wing college professors are both brainwashing undergraduates and discriminating against conservative students has emerged as one of the most consistent right-wing lines of attack against American higher education over the last few decades. While conservative undergrads, like many types of students, may often feel isolated, a new working paper led by a public policy professor who tells me he’s a ‘lifelong Republican’ suggests that any evidence for bias in grading against conservative students is at best minimal and most likely absent.”

Stats Watch

Chicago Puchasing Managers Index, July 2019: “[T]he lowest reading in 4-1/2 years” [Econoday]. “New orders sank deeper into contraction with employment falling into contraction for the first time in nearly two years and to its deepest level of contraction in nearly 10 years… Though conclusions are difficult to draw based on uncertainties over the make-up and size of Chicago’s sample, the drop in this report could reflect trade-tension issues.”

ADP Employment Report, July 2019: “ADP estimates that private payroll growth in Friday’s employment report for July will rise 156,000” [Econoday].

Employment Cost Index, Q2 2019: “Wage pressures are flat and will not stand in the way of a Federal Reserve rate cut that is expected this afternoon” [Econoday]. “The lack of acceleration in employment compensation readings hints at available capacity in the labor market.”

State Street Investor Confidence Index, July 2019: “Global institutional investors continued to reduce their exposure to equities and were even more risk averse in July” [Econoday].

Tech: “Privately Owned Scooter Companies Don’t Have a Future” [Jacobin]. “Nearly two years ago, dockless e-scooters started appearing on the sidewalks of major cities across the United States, eventually fanning out to Europe, Asia, Australia, and beyond. In most American cities, the companies didn’t bother getting permits or checking their services would be legal; they just dropped off their scooters.” • Scooter economics seem quite similar to ride “sharing” economics, i.e. not and never going to be profitable.

Manufacturing: “The CEO of one of the world’s largest airlines said Boeing needs to get its ‘s— together’ as the ongoing 737 Max crisis hits the carrier’s profits” [Business Insider]. “The CEO of one of the world’s largest airlines said that Boeing needs to get its “shit together” as the ongoing grounding of its 737 Max planes extends beyond predictions and the carrier’s profits take a hit…. Ryanair, the biggest low-cost carrier in Europe, had ordered 135 of the 737 Max planes, with the first 58 of those planes due to arrive by summer 2020. The airline was the fifth-biggest in the world by seating capacity in 2018, and is the world’s largest airline by number of routes.”

The Biosphere

“Whose fault is plastic waste in the ocean?” [Deutsche Welle]. “Because plastic is so tough, it can last for centuries without breaking down. That means plastic made in the past, mainly in richer nations, has accumulated, often in the ocean. Experts say this, along with the lack of data on plastic from marine and other sources, makes blaming individual regions for ocean plastic unhelpful.” •

“Geoengineering is very controversial. How can you do experiments? Harvard has some ideas.” [MIT Technology Review]. “For years, several Harvard climate scientists have been preparing to launch a balloon capable of spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere, in the hopes of learning more about our ability to counteract global warming…. ‘It’s an extremely high-profile institution that’s decided they don’t want to wait for the regulatory regimes to greenlight this,’ says Wil Burns, co-director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University.”

Health Care

“The Plausible Path to Medicare for All” [The American Prospect]. “The flailing second-tier Democrats in the presidential debates who attack Medicare for All and its sponsors are indeed doing the work of Republicans. It is indeed possible to get to universal coverage under the auspices of Medicare, without bankrupting the public treasury or increasing net costs to the middle class. And the coverage would be better, more reliable, and more cost-effective than even the best insurance that people now get from their employers. Today’s employer-provided insurance is riddled with deductibles, co-pays, denials of reimbursement, limits on which doctor or hospital you can use, and loss of insurance when you change jobs. Sanders and Warren are right about all that. But the transition problems are far from trivial. The biggest problem is that the people who will save money when they no longer pay premiums are not the same people who will likely pay more in taxes*. So the sponsors of Medicare for All should recognize that a better transition strategy may be the best way to disarm critics, among centrist Democrats, Republican attackers, and the press; and to reassure the electorate and make Medicare for All the big winner that it can be. The best of the transition approaches are those proposed by Jacob Hacker, with a close legislative counterpart in the Medicare for America Act co-sponsored by Representatives Rosa DeLauro and Jan Schakowsky.” • I would be more sympathetic to Kuttner if TAP and its ilk hadn’t, through unremitting effort, themselves created the need to “reassure the electorate.” I also remember the fantastically destructive role played by Hacker in the liberal Democrat bait-and-switch operation against single payer in 2009-2010. I know this is the genetic fallacy, but it’s very hard for me to believe that TAP and Hacker are operating in good faith. NOTE * So #MedicareForAll is a downward transfer of wealth? And this is a bad thing?

Black Injustice Tipping Point

“Whites get half of mortgages in Detroit, nation’s largest majority black city” [Bridge]. “Home loans are heating up in Detroit after years of a frigid lending market, but a majority of loan dollars now go to whites, who comprise just over 10 percent of the population. African-Americans, who still make up fourth-fifths of the city, are now far more likely to buy homes in the suburbs than Detroit. The findings come from a Bridge Magazine analysis of hundreds of thousands of federal mortgage records from 2007 to 2017.”

Class Warfare

“The Roepke Lecture 2019: ʺWar, capitalism, and the making and unmaking of economic geographiesʺ [Erica Schoenberger, Johns Hopkins]. Worth a listen over a cup of coffee:

(I owe a hat tip to an alert reader for this, but I can’t find the comment where the suggestion was made.O)

“The tyranny of productivity” [The Week]. “More than 100 years ago, states began listening to workers’ demands and limiting the hours employers could make people work. Later, in the 1930s and ’40s, the federal government did the same thing on the national level. And governments didn’t just guarantee people the free time to pay attention to things one might deem “unproductive” — they also helped them find unproductive things to do. Indeed, early 20th-century political leaders made playgrounds and public spaces a priority. Teddy Roosevelt, who helped create the national parks system, ensuring Americans’ access to wild and beautiful places, frequently described the power of nature in decidedly non-instrumental terms. ‘There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm,’ he once wrote. Later, during the depths of the Great Depression, workers hired by the federal government built some of the country’s most gorgeous public architecture — including, as Odell notes, the Oakland rose garden she so enjoys. But, in the second half of the 20th century, government increasingly shied away from policies aimed at anything as unproductive as beauty and pleasure and devoted itself to economic growth, instead.”

“IBU strike shuts down Alaska ferries” [Alaska Public Radio]. “In Ketchikan, approximately 30 picketing ferry workers stood on the sidewalk outside Alaska Marine Highway System terminal where the ferry Columbia was set to depart for Bellingham, Washington…. The union had warned the night before that a strike was imminent if it didn’t get a contract deal. It’s been negotiating for the past three years. An impasse last week led a majority of members to vote to authorize taking direct action.”

“These Are the Wealthiest Towns in the U.S.” [Bloomberg]. Handy map:

News of the Wired

“Daemons are the programs that run the internet. Here’s why it’s important to understand them.” [The Conversation]. “Internet daemons optimize how computers actively manage systems toward certain goals or highest-efficency states. Optimization is another way to understand algorithmic governance. It is at once a way of thinking and a way of doing. To optimize is to calculate optimal states that solve social and political problems. Optimization also involves ways to actualize these states…. The technical connotations of optimization obscures its social and political implications. For example, an optimal amount of news to include in Facebook’s NewsFeed or shorter passenger wait times on Uber are technical decisions and business ones.” • Optimization is not neutral!

“Behold, the most (intentionally) poorly designed website ever created” [Ars Technica]. • Here it is. Looks like Twitter’s designers examined this site closely.

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (Re Silc):

Re Silc writes: “My 3-year-old bristly locust love southern vermont.”

* * *

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So, I redesigned the image to emphasize one-time donations, while still enabling smaller monthly donations. And if you’ve been waiting for a good excuse to contribute, perhaps last night’s debate coverage will provide an excuse!

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2:00PM Water Cooler 7/31/2019

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[whirlybirbs]

TAKE IT SLOW -- #bittercoffee

this is a stupid little smutty drabble i want you all to have as a thank you for being so patient with the next chapter of #bittercoffee. 

here we have some stupid, early-relationship sexual tension culminating into something other than dry humping. consider it a little tease for the real deal, which will inevitably happen in later #bittercoffee chapters! 

beware, a little smut below the cut!

“You’re distracting, you know.”

One hand is under the back of your shirt, ghosting along your spine and raising goosebumps with each tender pass. His other is occupied with his phone — he’s been trying to figure the contraption out these last few weeks and with the newest discovery of the Instagram explore page, Bucky is waist deep in cat videos and bad DIYs.

His attention is pulled from his phone and he gives a little grin, sitting up and pressing a warm kiss into the curve of your shoulder.

“It’s late, doll.”

His voice is soft.

You huff, dragging your eyes up from the scattered papers across your comforter before letting your shoulders sag. Bucky’s hands continue to scale up and down your back until you finally give in, pushing your glasses back up your nose. He smiles, tight lipped and tired.

“You’re right,” you mumble, gathering your thesis notes and your laptop before standing, “Probably won’t memorize anything at this hour anyways.”

Buck hums in agreement and flops back down into the pillows. 

Bucky likes watching you. It’s not a secret — he’s obsessed with the way you tiptoe across the bedroom, the way you bend and stretch and tug your hair up. He can hardly tear his eyes away from a brief flash of your midsection or a peek of your bottom. It’s incredibly difficult when he’s so damn enamored with every part of you. He tries to hide his apparent staring behind his phone.

You turn after shutting your desk lamp off, dropping your glasses to the table, before taking a moment to admire the supersoldier currently taking up three fourths of your bed. 

He’s reclined against the pillows, blue eyes following you. He really is something out of a dream — you watch his chest rise and fall with each breath, the bare skin there scattered with scars and reminders of his past. His abdomen jumps when you chew your lip.

“What?” he asks, a coy amusement heavy in his voice. He drops his phone to the bedside table with a heavy thwunk.

Your eyes dart down his thighs, boxers bunched messily there. Bucky kicks his feet a bit, tugging back the sheets. 

“You done ogling?” he chides, cheeks a bit pink, “Staring is rude, you know.”

“You stare all the time,” you murmur, “Just let me admire Bucky Barnes for once.”

“There’s not much to admire,” he grudges out, rolling his eyes and scrolling on his phone again, “I have a nice set of baby blues, but they’re up here.”

He raises his brows, catching your eyes rake up from his waist. You laugh a little, tugging your hair back as you crawl into bed. You’re not embarrassed about it anymore — not really. The staring has become second nature. Mutual pining.

“You do have a nice set of baby blues,” you says, crawling over his legs and settling across his waist. You straddle his hips, hands smoothing against the rigid planes of muscles across his stomach. Bucky huffs. You grin, “You have a nice set of everything, if y’know what I mean.”

You shoot him an overly flirtatious look. He laughs — it’s genuine and throaty and bright. He smiles when he does it and you love it. You duck down, quick to kiss the smile with your own tilted lips before Bucky’s hands scale up the front of your shirt. His fingertips crawl up the skin there and you hum, enjoying the sensation of being touched. It’s enough to quiet you down and you tuck your head into the curve of his neck as his ministrations round the back to your spine.

“You’re beautiful,” he mumbles, pressing a kiss to your temple, “And smart. Kind... I’ll let you have ‘funny’, this time, too. I’m feeling generous.”

You laugh, chest quaking as you speak. “I am funny!”

“Funny lookin’.”

“Whatever you say, Grandpa.”

It’s his turn to laugh. “I’m not as bad as Steve.”

“No,” you laugh, sitting up and shaking your head, “You are so much worse!”

His face lights up, laughter shaking his shoulders. His hands fiddles with your own that’s splayed across his chest, “What, just because I didn’t know what Pinchagram was?”

“Instagram!”

“Same thing.”

“I can see the headlines now,” you muse, slipping from his hips to lay beside him, “Winter Soldier seen fumbling with iPhone.”

“Listen,” he prods at your hands in the air, “Back in the day —“

“Oh no,” you mumble, rubbing your face, “Here we go...”

Buck rolls his eyes, moving to press his weight partially on top of you in retaliation. You make a mock-pained sound, squirming slightly. He has you pinned. 

“You’re a brat,” he chides, fingers tugging at your waist. You squeak, trying to get away from the pokes.

“Whatcha gunna do about it, Buck?”

There’s a moment of pause between the both of you — Bucky knows how this is going to end, but still he’s drawn in like a magnet. All it takes is one challenging look and his lips find yours in a flash, hands pushing your own above your head as you grin against his mouth. There’s nothing sweet about the kiss, it’s all lust and passion and pent-up feelings that you’ve both been battling these last few weeks.

They come in waves — you both feel a little bit like teenagers, making out at inopportune times and grinding against one another like it’s a dying wish. You were both adamant about taking it slow, and Bucky was adamant about being careful; mostly since he had no idea if he even had enough self control to keep himself together during sex.

So, you both happily settled on sloppy make-out sessions and calculated touches through jeans or leggings or whatever happened to be in the way.

But, nothing felt slow about this.

His lips meet the column of your throat and he bites a deep pink mark into the skin there. You sigh. His hips rocks against your own. The thin fabric of his boxers doesn’t leave much to the imagination. It’s sinful. You wrestle out of his hold, nails scaling his back as Bucky’s mouth dips to your jaw.

“We,” he starts, breaking from another kiss as you tug his hair, “We always do this.”

“I’m not complaining,” you sigh, stomach tensing as his hands scale the skin there. He tugs your shirt up and off without a word, mouth dipping to bite a gentle trail up your sternum. You whine.

“I... We shouldn’t,” he mumbles, large hands skimming the curve of your breast. His eyes are dark, “We shouldn’t.”

“Probably not,” you breath, head dipping back as his stubble grazes the soft skin there, “Not with Marissa home.”

“I... I won’t be able to—“

“Control yourself? Me neither.”

“And this should be special —“

“Mhm,” you mumble, nails grazing his scalp, “When the time is right —“

But his movements don’t stop, not until his hand settles between your legs and two metal digits push against the wet fabric there. You’re quick to hammer a hand over your mouth, smothering the yelp of surprise as you writhes against the sheets. Your other hand darts out, catching his wrist as Bucky grins. You urge him onwards, hips bucking  against the cold metal as he laughs quietly and drags himself downwards for a kiss.

“I think I could settle with this, though.”

It’s dark and whispered into your ear before his mouth trials lower, stubble grazing the skin of your collar bone as he bites dark marks into your décolletage.

He’s never done this before.

This is so not dry humping.

You whimper against your own hand, eyes screwing shut as he sets a pace, fingers dancing against the fabric there. The touch is cool. You tighten your grip on his wrist.

Bucky smiles, peeking up at you as his mouth dances against your breast. He leaves another mark there. Your back arches. You try and work out a sentence with some sense of coherency.

It’s nearly impossible.

“I th-thought you said...”

“Forget what I said,” he whispers, other hand gripping your jaw as he kisses your cheek, ��This is plenty.”

“At least let me touch you —“

You whine, chewing your lip as you try and touch him — anything would help, but his other hand catches your fingers and intertwined them with his own. Bucky grins. You swear you’ve died and gone to heaven. His fingers brush a particularly wonderful spot and you gasp, moans smothered by a languid kiss.

His stubble pricks.

“I’m feeling generous, remember?”

You come apart rather quickly after that, mouth pressed to his and hips rocking against his hand. It knocks you back, mind going a bit hazy as the white hot build of an orgasm washes over you like the break of a tsunami. Everything is Bucky -- he’s warm and strong and his stubble is really starting to tickle. Your nails dig into the muscles of his back as he watches, smug, eyes half-lidded -- you’re an angel pressed into the sheets, face hot and limbs slack. 

He sits up, only to tap your hip -- a signal to move your leg -- and settle back in bed beside you.

You pull your eyes open after a moment, face flushed and brain a little mushy.

 Bucky’s face soften. “You alright?”

“Better than alright,” you mumble, “I think it’s your turn --”

Bucky shoos your hand away from his hips, rolling slightly to pepper kisses across your face. “It’s late. You have class early tomorrow morning. I think it’s bed time.”

You groan, limbs heavy the post-orgasm high. “Buck...”

“I was serious when I said I was feeling generous.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Mhm,” he hums, kissing your nose, “I sure am.”

He’s not. If anything, he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

#BITTERCOFFEE TAG LIST:

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[flauntpage]

Daniel Bryan is No Longer Fun and That's Just How He Wants It

Up until a month ago, current WWE champion Daniel Bryan had a big problem. The greatest wrestler of his generation, the man who headlined maybe the greatest WrestleMania of all time nearly five years ago, had grown terribly stale.

This wasn’t entirely Bryan’s fault. The story is well-known, but a brief recap is welcome: WWE’s doctors discovered lesions on Daniel Bryan’s brain after the closure of his legendary underdog story arc at WrestleMania XXX, the result of a high impact style of head first dives and his willingness to take just about any bump someone could think up. He lingered in the background for a couple of years, then tearfully retired in one of the most heartrending pro wrestling moments in recent memory.

He was cleared to return this year, and he did, but it wasn’t the same. To be clear, he still got cheers and some nights he was even the most over guy on the show, still. How could you not cheer Daniel Bryan, the everyman of average looks and average physique, with an aw shucks smile and as normal a domestic life as you can get when it’s two pro wrestlers—his wife is Brie Bella—raising a family together? What monster couldn’t root for him after the concussions and tears, when he’d given so much to wrestling and fought so hard to return to it?

You couldn’t. But you could develop a wandering eye, cheering just a little less than before. Bryan’s style was a little slower, so maybe that was it. Or it could’ve been his character work, which was trapped in a sympathy story which never changed. Match after match played on this, with Bryan taking a hard bump to the skull or neck before him rolling around clutching his scientifically proven to be broken head, leaving the crowd to wonder whether they were about to watch a man die in the ring.

Bryan was trapped. His injuries were too well known to ignore and relegated him to an object of sympathy, sometimes even pity. His style was too flashy to boo. The cheers died down and, outside a brief flash during a too short feud with The Miz, he spun his wheels.

So a month ago, he did what everyone figured he couldn’t do: he turned heel and made everyone hate him.

The initial turn was simple enough: he kicked A.J. Styles square in the balls to win the title on an episode of SmackDown Live. Even that wasn’t enough to get the boos really rolling in. He was still too beloved, his story too well-known, to hate him. A heel nobody hates isn’t really a heel, but pro wrestling still needs heels, a conundrum WWE hasn’t figured out. WWE claims that there are no more heels or babyfaces, but this is mostly a reaction to the fact that its heels are all cool and smart, while their babyfaces are all corny and stupid; if they’re cheering people you want them to boo, just claim that you meant it to be like that all along.

To get around the confused moral landscape of WWE’s storylines, Bryan did the simplest, most unfashionable thing and simply berated the audience. It was slow at first—standard “it’s not me, it’s you” promos—but took a turn which wounded the audience deeply, judging from just how lustily he got booed. He called the fans fickle with who their support, with the mostly unstated coda that they were dumb enough that any nimble indie guy from the 00s would do, since his recent opponent A.J. Styles became the hottest commodity on SmackDown.

Bryan’s rhetoric about the way the crowd felt entitled to his body slowly ramped up over the past couple of weeks until it reached a crescendo in a promo before Sunday’s TLC pay-per-view. It’s worth watching. The entitlement of the crowd becomes a vector for criticizing modern consumer capitalism. He rails against the WWE branded sweaters the interviewers are wearing after ranting about how bad social media is. He talked about the planet dying due to consumption and how the pressures of being a brand are corrosive. Then he declared that he was replacing the leather strap on the World title with a vegan alternative.

A few things are obvious. One is that—to some extent which we can't pinpoint beyond "more than none"—Daniel Bryan believes some of these things. He is left wing in his politics, is mostly vegan, and has always seemed ambivalent about the excesses of pro wrestling. Like most good character work, Bryan’s promo cuts deep because it’s "him." Another thing is that most of what he said was true. The planet is getting ready to wipe us out and when it happens it will be because of a capitalist system which cannot and will not declare itself sated.

Where the trick happens is in the preachiness of it all, a long staple of pro wrestling promos. It’s not what he’s saying, but how. It hasn’t ever mattered whether the one doing the heated lecture is a right wing preacher character, a left wing hippie, or a somewhere in between straight edge punk rocker, nobody likes to be yelled at. For it to come from someone who was once one of the most loved wrestlers in history, however briefly his peak was, stings all the more.

Mostly, Daniel Bryan no longer seems fun, which is exactly what he wanted. His match with Styles at TLC was a masterclass. It had all the psychology and athleticism you’d expect, but Bryan very smartly pumped the brakes sometimes. He’d walk away at an opportune moment, grinding the match to a standstill. He begged off, Ric Flair-like, towards the end and, when he won, it’s wasn’t through an exciting move or even cheating, but a small package, the most vanilla of moves.

It was glorious, a mix of stuff he’d done before—ask Bryan aficionados about his initial run as Mr. Small Package in ROH—turned into an anti-WWE gimmick, in the sense that he doesn’t talk or wrestle the way they want anymore, but it matters because he’s Daniel Bryan. Even the announcers, who usually mess up even the simplest storylines, clicked into place, telling the home audience that it wasn’t just consumerism Bryan was going after, but capitalism.

Nobody else does this sort of thing like Bryan. The way the no-fun ringwork matches the no-fun promos, while never actually being boring, is remarkable on its own. But it’s also the way Bryan creates questions which linger that makes him one of the greatest to ever do it. Why are we booing a guy saying not to destroy the planet? Is it possible we did just make a new Daniel Bryan for ourselves, in A.J. Styles, once the old one was used up? What do the implications of the answers to those questions say about how we think of people and products, or is there any distinction at all anymore?

It’s no sure thing that this is the best Daniel Bryan we’ve ever seen—he’s had too many brilliant runs, and the sheer euphoria of his magical 2013-14 run eclipses so much other work. But it’s certainly up there and watching a master at work is such a rare treat that we should enjoy him while he’s here.

Daniel Bryan is No Longer Fun and That's Just How He Wants It published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[beowulfs-booty-call]

Professor Willow for that character challenge

Me, currently about to go writing another field journal report: Plz don’t judge me Arceus. You MADE him like this.

Sexuality Headcanon: Honestly all professors are gay end of story. waioesjdfi I’m gonna say gay. Simply because there isn’t anything straight about him too like have you seen the way he dressed himself? Literally gay athlete who douses himself with the sports bottle he carries with him.

Gender Headcanon: Male. Just your average guy who dedicated himself to Pokemon and has been traveling the world to stretch his research internationally. (Probably was a Gen 1 fan at first seeing as Oak is his mentor) What an icon™

A ship I have with said character:

Willow and the GO™ trainer (Aka all of us awfesdg)

Willow and his star field researcher! (I have yet to, but I’m gonna be drawing up a series of like one shots between me and him because Y E S)

A BROTP I have with said character:

Oak / Willow = “Wow dad you’re so old.” “Look in the mirror smartass” The two are... Well, one may be the teacher, but both are rivals in the way they’ve studied Pokemon. I’d say Willow is more than eager to surpass his old teacher and learn more, but Oak’s still on the cusp of teaching him that knowledge and wisdom comes with both age and experience, not just talent.

Willow / Sycamore = Sycamore teaches him how to flirt but all he can say in French is Omelette du fromage. Sycamore just gives him a thumbs up and nods. Also likes to talk to Willow about his thoughts on Lysandre and other presumptions of Mega evolution. Currently, the professor has been researching it with me!

Willow / Kukui = Nut Oil 

The two are super super close in terms of being pretty darn compatible! One likes to trek the world, the other likes to TAKE Pokemon moves front and forward. I’d say they’d both pull up at the gym to compare research before getting down to it (Don’t think like that, ya nasties. Unless you DM about it so I can die with you on it.)

I’d say because they’re the most newest professors to be “here”, they’re more than eager to prove their work, but once the Professor told me that he’s worked in Alola for a short while to get a better understanding of Z moves... I wonder if he has a Z ring..? I heard those are WAY special, even for a regular guy like me!

Willow / Juniper = Can you imagine if Willow like, had a past with her / knew her when he was younger and they had a “thing”? Like, maybe not BF / GF but like, openly flirting with each other but neither actually taking a step. They’re close friends regardless and do like to chat when free... But I think internally, Juniper’s greatest “regret” would be similar to Agatha: She never really had time for romance or for being “a simple person” since she’s always gonna be Professor Juniper: Woman extraordinaire. And I don’t mean this in a bad way at all, what I’m getting at is: Juniper is the pillar of stability for Unova as a professor, so, she doesn’t have time devoted to being anything else but that. I like to think that she and willow have that in common; The desire to be unique, yet... Also the desire to be a normal person too. 

In reality, it’s probably Willow who reminds her that everyone can be that too: Self care’s important as if you don’t take care of yourself... How the hell you gonna take care of anybody else can I get an amen?

It’s that reasoning that causes Juniper to take Bianca as her assistant: not just to give her help round the lab but to help Bianca form her identity like she wanted to with the help of the BW protagonist as we see in her Dreamlink battle.

Willow / Elm = He... Doesn’t know Elm much since Elm’s more than happy to take time to simply work on Pokemon breeding and abilities, but the two get along alright. In reality, Elm was the one who gave Willow advice / basics of Pokemon eggs and helps him develop theorems based on what eggs can hatch what Pokemon we have now! TBH, I’d say if given the chance, Willow is literally the “Cool guy” at the party and Elm is the “Hey I’m just here for the dog” dude. They both bond over Candela’s growlithe who was hatched out an egg and had ice fang as a move.

Willow / Masked Royal = Willow keeps a poster of him in his lab! (I had to REALLY get him to get me one too, god, so lucky!) He’s a fave of the professor and even Willow has been “trying” to wrestle! Tho, given how much he’s had to be bandaged afterwards, and Kukui prolly told him how he once got guillotined by a Vikavolt I don’t think it’s a good idea... That said one time the professor showed up to alola to see a match and the Masked Royal invited him to fight against him and boy oh boy I STILL wanna hear what happened! Supposedly the joint said it was one of their biggest events yet! The headliner? 

“Rag-tag wannabe Wrestler sizes up the comp. with the Masked Royal! Blow to blow and and Pokemon to Pokemon, there is no competition without motivation!”

Willow and the other assistants = 

Spark: “Thanks so much for Mcdonalds dad!”

“Dad?”All three, eating a McFlurry in summer ‘17: “Dad.”

Honestly Willow trusts them a great deal and it’s obvious he’s the guiding hand to their exploits and understandings of their own journeys. Blanche learns about the power of emotion and trusting in others, Candela learns about taking things easier and letting go, and Spark understands the essence of both knowledge and power: He still walks the middle path.

He sees aspects of himself in each of them, but I’d say that’s his favorite thing about them: it reminds him he’s still growing and journeying on his own too!

A NOTP I have with said character:

Child characters as a whole

A random headcanon: Willow once tried out to be a Pokemon ranger, but in regions and times where Rangers aren’t “very well used” globally aside from Fiore and certain other places, Willow dedicated himself instead to research as he was more so interested with reading his Styler’s bestiary rather than to simply befriend Pokemon alone.

Because of this, he can still USE a capture styler, and he’s a fairly good ranger, but in spite of the effort to BE a ranger, he’s much more better and tossing curve balls and getting an “Excellent” on a jigglypuff!

General Opinion over said character:

Daddy of my ass

And the coolest professor thus far! There’s a lot of things unsaid about him but man... I’m totally here for him! And not JUST because he’s cute as fuck. He’s always a caring character who watches your trainer grow and motivates you to keep on going forward! 

It’s hard not to like that when you’re playing the game and incorporating that in your daily life! 

I think unconsciously I also still have that big dad issues thing where that when I have a father figure in life, I WANNA do things to make them proud because of the little to no relationship with my own father. I’ve done that with my high school teacher, and I’ve cried when I saw that in Lisa’s Substitute from the Simpsons. It reaches into that for Willow to be so welcoming and a breath of fresh air, it’s turned into a “I wanna do this not JUST to be praised for it. I wanna do it because it’s for ME.” instead. I mean, I’ve grown from the person I was, but there’s still the need for wanting to make someone proud and to see that Willow is pretty big now on measuring your journey now with these daily tasks, I think that sorta makes me idk more grateful for a character like that?

My feelings for the dude as a whole started out as thirst, but it’s become more of a psychoanalysis of my own relationships with men and my “types” as a whole. I quite like that, since he isn’t so “detailed” as it stands. It gives me more of a chance to make him out to be instead something I want to be, rather than what I just find ideal.

Pfftt, sorry, it sounds rather complicated, but really saying? Willow is kinda like the new beginning I wanna start for myself for a long time. I’ve reached it, but it’s the fact that he’s such a cool character that it’s really just me projecting wanting to be that cool on a character that COULD really be amazing. I’d say I’ve reached that coolness now, being myself. So, only thirst remains.

[thesportssoundoff]

“A tremendous title fight, a buncha old dudes and moral dilemmas” UFC 237 preview

Joey

May 8th, 2019

In many ways, UFC 237 is a unique card and yet it is, in many ways, a throwback card. This is the sort of show the UFC tries to pull off when it knows what the main event is and it knows that it needs some serious protection. In the old PPV era, this would be the kind of card where your mileage would vary depending upon how hooked up to a nostalgia drip you are. Nowadays with them getting a guaranteed payout before a PPV even sees the air, this kind of card feels retro. It's got a competent title fight with a bevy of names you'd recognize who fall on the spoiled side of their MMA expiration dates. It's like a Mighty Mouse card (albeit with a far more compelling main event) in a market that still has pings and feels for a show like this. Brazilians want to see their heroes and so the company is trotting out the likes of Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, Lil Nog, Thiago Alves and a whole host of familiar names and faces potentially for the last time. It's Brazil vs the world (for the most part) with just enough good vibes and fair matchmaking to give the fans potentially one big feel good moment. I just also know that this card is for a very niche audience which you might not be in there.

Fights: 13

Debuts: Viviane Araujo, Carlos QuirLoz, Luana Carolina

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 4 (Wu Yanan OUT, Priscila Cachoeira IN vs Luana Carolina/Jessica Rose Clark OUT, Melissa Gatto IN vs Talita Bernado/Said Nurmagomedov OUT, Carlos Quiroz IN vs Raoni Barcelos/Melissa Gattoo OUT, Viviane Araujo IN vs Talita Bernardo)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 11 (Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, Rose Namajunas, Jessica Andrade, Thiago Alves, Francisco Trinaldo, BJ Penn, Clay Guida, Big Nog, Bethe Correia,Priscila Cachoeira )

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 2 (BJ Penn, Priscila Cachoeira)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 7 (Jessica Andrade, Rose Namajunas, Alexander Volkanovski, Jose Aldo, Carlos Diego Ferreira, Irene Aldana, Raoni Barcelos)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 25-11

Rose Namajunas- 3-0 Jessica Andrade- 4-1 Anderson Silva- 1-1 Jared Cannonier- 2-3 Jose Aldo- 2-2 Alexander Volkanovski- 5-0 Thiago Alves- 2-2 Laureano Staropoli- 1-0 Francisco Trinaldo- 2-2 Diego Ferreira- 3-0

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Lightweight-  3 (30) Women’s Bantamweight- 2 (5) Welterweight- 2 (29) Women’s Strawweight- 1 (12) Women’s Flyweight-  1 (14) Light Heavyweight- 1 (17) Featherweight-  1( 21) Middleweight- 1 (15) Bantamweight- 1 (24)

Heavyweight- (15) Flyweight- (7)

2019’s Records We Keepin’ Track Of:

Debuting Fighters (11-30):  Carlos Quiroz, Melissa Gatto, Luana Carolina

Short Notice Fighters (13-15): Melissa Gatto, Carlos Quiroz, Priscila Cachoeira

Second Fight (30-7): Ryan Spann, Laureano Staropoli, Thiago Moises

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (10-18): Bethe Correia, Rose Namajunas

Undefeated Fighters (16-22): Melissa Gatto

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (6-6): BJ Penn

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (14-9): Kurt Holobaugh

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- If this show was on traditional PPV, how many buys would it get? Is 125K satisfactory given the conditions?

2- Rose Namajunas vs Jessica Andrade IS in all honesty a compelling title fight. It pits pretty much the division's top finisher (Rose Namajunas) against the division's top pressure fighter (Andrade) with the champion opting to face the champion on HER home turf, creating for a pretty compelling narrative to be told. They have more similarities offensively than people give them credit for; both Rose Namajunas and Andrade do their best work coming forward, pressuring albeit in different ways. They're cardio machines, cutting a pace early and dictating both the range and the tempo of the fight. For Rose, she's long enough and creative enough that its a pick your poison type affair. You can fight her at range, get picked apart from a distance with kicks and her really good straight shots OR you can blitz her, clinch with her and hope you're strong enough to win inside consistently. Andrade offers you no choice but to fight her fight for however long it goes. She cuts a relentless pace, has Mr. X level pursuit and while I think her power shouting vs Karolina was more of a perfect shot, she hits hard enough to break just about anybody. Even against Joanna, she still did her thing (pressure, come forward, blitz like a mad woman) which Joanna having the ability to win behind a tremendous jab and superior footwork. Rose CAN follow Joanna's gameplan of kicks + jab + circling for twenty five minutes, flustering Andrade from a distance but I'm not sure if she can do that while dealing with the pressure of Jessica Andrade for 25 minutes. Even against the likes of Tecia Torres and Joanna, Rose had those lapses in concentration where it felt like she stopped fighting her fight and needed to be reminded by her corner to mentally check back in. You have to be there every single second of an Andrade fight because she is a momentum creature.

3- Given how hard Andrade pressures and how long Rose is, I wonder if takedowns are going to be apart of the gameplan for Namajunas. Andrade's build and her wrestling normally prevent attempts but Rose is the better grappler by far who can probably score a finish in a variety of spots on the ground. Being underneath Andrade's ground and pound is a miserable endeavor BUT she's also reckless enough that limbs and necks get left out there for experienced enough submission artists. Could/Would Rose pull guard?

4- If Max Holloway is going to fight in Anaheim as he's suggested (Late August for those curious),  you have to assume that Volkanovski vs Aldo is a pseudo #1 contender fight. So what happens if Aldo wins? Is that where the UFC blows the dust off of Frankie Edgar?

5- Does anyone truly believe Anderson retires after this fight with Jared Cannonier?

6- Looking at this card on paper with its host of "legends" bound to generate some buzz in Brazil, it's a bummer they couldn't of found a way to get Johnny Walker on the card. Would've been a great rub for him with guys like Aldo and Silva on the show.

7- At some point Francisco Trinaldo is going to buck the conventional wisdom and fight like his age, right?

8- I don't know if it's the fact that they're both elder statesmen who fight younger than they are but look older than their birth certificates claim or the fact that both basically cut their teeth carving up mid tier dudes in their respective divisions but Francisco Trinaldo and Cowboy Oliveira sure seem to have a lot in common. Both are really aggressive somewhat limited guys whose limitations show up when they attempt to make the long march to the top of their division. Both Oliveira and Trinaldo rely on brute force strength with so-so fight IQ but a surprising wealth of ways to be violent if they so choose them. Trinaldo faces Carlos Diego Ferreira who burst onto the scene with the UFC and then just kinda stalled out in no small part due to injuries and one of those supplement suspensions. Carlos is coming into his own based off back to back wins vs top competition and while I don't know if he'll ever be a consistent top 10-15 lightweight, there's light at the end of the tunnel for him. This fight should be insanely violent in spurts.

9- Worth noting that if she beats Bethe Correia, Irene Aldana will be on a three fight winning streak which should put her on the short list for women to potentially challenge Amanda Nunes. Especially since beating Bethe seems to be one of those secret passageways to a title shot.

10- I've never seen a more desperate attempt to milk out a win for a guy than Lil Nog vs Ryan Spann. Even in his faded borderline decrepit form, Lil Nog should have very little issue taking a W here.

11- Thiago Alves vs Laureano Staropoli has some sneaky FOTN potential. Laureano is an all action pressure forward fighter who like most guys out of non-Brazil South America has no idea what he's not supposed to do. As such, anything is on the table and AS such he fights like a guy who has a penchant disregard for his well being. Thiago Alves is no longer the kind of guy who can casually eat up the Staropoli types of the world and his last few fights have basically been him trying to be a sharpshooting counter striker who throws power shots at will. It should be a fun fight at the very least.

12- And I guess we gotta end negatively with BJ Penn. There's no reason for this fight to be happening from a pure actual fighting standpoint. I read someone elsewhere mention how "frail" BJ Penn looks as a fighter and I truly lack an actual better description for it besides that. He looks weathered. He looks old. He looks like a guy who knows how to only do one thing and he can physically no longer do it at any rate of success. Whatever you think of the legacy of BJ Penn or however you feel about his right to compete, it shouldn't be happening anymore and at the very least not at this level. This doesn't even account for the fact that he has so much turmoil in his life and while allegations can sometimes be just that, we've got a whole forrest fire worth of smoke telling us something is wrong. We all just recently read Babalu discuss the problems he's facing currently in his life after a long career of fighting. It should make us all stop and reconsider whether there needs to be such arbitrary lines of when enough is enough and how we can find the bridge for these guys when the time has come. BJ Penn isn't fighting because the UFC thinks he can do it; he's fighting because if not here then somewhere else and because there's always going to be a market for seeing your "heroes" compete. There are BJ Penn fans who watched the third Edgar fight thinking he could pull it off, there are BJ Penn fans who watched thinking he'd turn back the clock vs Dennis Siver. The UFC gave him the SAFEST possible match up in a guy they didn't think would hurt him and it still ended in disaster.

And yet on the same card, we have Anderson Silva who is 44 years old coming ooff of multiple surgeries, a career that includes some truly violent spectacle fights in his earlier days who has been rocked or KO'd in four of his last six fights. He was apart of one of the more violent gym cultures in the history of MMA. His family apparently asks him to retire after every fight, now running on what feels like four years worth of it. So if Penn's gotta go then shouldn't Anderson go? Even if my eyes tell me that he's got more in the tank, we're still comparing two guys who are clearly either firmly out of gas or running on E. Is it the fact that Anderson Silva by all accounts is a well adjusted guy who isn't in trouble? I mean wouldn't that make you more likely to want him to hang it up so he can preserve the way he is? I don't have all of the answers and so much of this is just emotion. All I know is I hope that this card is very much the last of its kind; a farewell to a lot of guys who made a special time in MMA with also a promise to do better by them in the future.

[splashmommy]

Ronda Helped Me

Guys, I just ran two miles in the freezing fucking cold. Full disclosure, I speed walked them. Also it was only one mile, I just checked my pedometer because I have major OCD and can’t stand being inaccurate. So here’s the accurate story, I spent the last three solid hours of this afternoon laying on my couch eating pretzels, chugging coffee, and slowly crawling to the end of Christine (a Stephen King book which I’m ashamed to admit has taken me almost two months to finish. Sorry, there was just a lot of football and mechanics to push through in the beginning before the love triangle kicked in). Believe you me, I did not want to get off that couch. I could have continued sitting there in my five year old christmas jammy pants for, at the very least, another eight hours, and I would have, had it not been for Ronda Rousey.

Y’all. I watched wrestling again last night for the first time in a long time. Let me set the scene for you. I had just gotten home from a long day of work and I wanted nothing more than to microwave a Kashi meal and dive deep into The Tank (this is what I call Shark Tank) to see what disparaging things Mr. Wonderful had to say about Barbara or the retail industry as a whole while I dug deeply into some Chimichurri Quinoa. I had yet to change and unwind fully from my work day when my life partner, Craig, dropped the bomb. He told me that the WWE Royal Rumble pay per view that had been blaring from the living room was about to close out with a Women’s Main Event Royal Rumble. Wait, hold the fuck on, you mean the ladies are closing the show? HEADLINING AN EVENT?!

Then he told me that there were rumors that Ronda Rousey might surprise debut during the match.

Fuck. And yes.

So I sat my ass down, right there, on our grey cat scratched couch and proceeded to fall deep, deep into the world of, what we now call the WWE Women’s Division. Now full disclosure again on me here, I’m not what you would call a “lifelong wrestling fan”. I have dipped my toe in and out of the ring over the last decade since falling in love with a massive self-proclaimed monday night rasslin’ nut (Craig’s still got it!). I’ve been to Monday Night Raw two or three times. I attended Wrestlemania in Atlanta in 2011 (although honestly I slept through some of it because, again full disclosure, it was kind of a weird time for me). My husband and I once yelled “BAZINGA!” while waving a hot yellow hand made sign that said “BAZINGA!” at Daniel Bryan while we jumped up and down over a fence in the backlot of a Raleigh arena. He was getting inside his truck to leave, he did a little chuckle and an eye roll when he saw us before pulling out of the parking lot. It was pretty neat. We have since referred to this moment as “The time we bazinga’d Daniel Bryan.” We are still very proud. 

Now that I think of it, there was also this brief period in the late nineties where I got really into The Wolf Pack. I had a crush on a new kid in my sixth grade class at church named Jonathan who talked a lot about the NWO. I tentatively watched a couple of matches with my big bro, initially just so I could understand my crush a little better and have something in common to talk about if I ever got the courage to speak to him. I kept watching it after I was over him though, because there was something silly and really cathartic that I liked about watching magnetic people beating the fake crap out of eachother. I also liked recreating the moves on my older brother.

At this point I feel like I need to mention that the WWF Superstars performance of “If You Only Knew” from the 1987 Slammy Awards is my favorite thing on the internet. I literally dare everyone to try to watch it without getting up off the couch to side step shuffle.

So you could say I’m a casual, medium-rare-to-medium wrestling fan. My interest has waned in the past due to personal issues I have with bad storylines, uninteresting characters, negative stereotypes, and just the over-all regressive awfulness that’s been associated with the empire Vince McMahon built. However as I’m not an expert in the field, I’m going to kick my soapbox to the side and let you guys form your own opinions of the franchise/network that is Wrestling Entertainment. I’m just here to say that once that Royal Rumble match started, my ass was glued to that couch for fifty-seven solid minutes. Guys, I had to pee. I wanted that hot Kashi when I sat down but once the match set in and that buzzer started sounding I was hooked like an addict. 

It was more than just the lure of landing a possible crossover Superstar like Ronda Rousey, although yes that was a major pull. The thing that had me transfixed was the women duking it out on screen. They looked real. There was diversity in their style, shapes, sizes, personalities, presence, moves, motivation, and attitudes. They were kicking eachothers asses, but that wasn’t the thing that was surprising me. What really got me giddy was hearing the announcers commenting on their individual training, hobbies, stats, and accomplishments as wrestlers and people. It felt like I was watching the cast of GLOW acting out a live in ring performance, as if the Royal Rumble had somehow morphed into a real life extension of my favorite Netflix show. Y’all before I get on my feminist soapbox here, which yes admittedly I’m already standing on, can I just say one word that might make everyone understand where I’m coming from? Here goes,

Divas.

Jesus, without going into the full history let me just say that the WWE’s decision to evolve what was referred to as the Divas Division into the WWE Women’s Championship, thus rebranding “Divas” as “Women Superstars/ Superstars” is phenomenal. I mean, is the term “Superstar” phenomenal? No not really, it’s super corny. But that’s what they call the guys, so at least it’s equal. That’s what I dig. Equality. Equal playing ground for badass, ripped AF, war-painted, teeth baring, rage-fueled, gladiatrices who don’t give a fuck about spray tans. That’s what I mostly saw, and loved on my TV screen two nights ago.

I thought I had had my fill. My just desserts. I was nibbling on a secret stash of maple fudge couch-side at this point to celebrate. I thought it was all over. I got up, went into the kitchen, searched the freezer, only to figure out that I was totally out of Kashi Chimichurri Quinoa (BUMMER), and was about to ransack the cupboards when I heard Craig yell, “ABB GET IN HERE SOMETHING’S HAPPENING!”

So I ran. As I was crossing over from kitchen to living room I heard it. “I don’t give a damn ‘bout my reputation…” I was air guitaring now. “Never been afraid of any deviation” full on running in place. “A girl can do what she wants to do and that’s what I’m gonna do,” at this point I did my famous mid-air spin kick and which shook our living room furniture so hard that Craig yelled at me and told me I needed to calm down. “An’ I don’t give a damn ‘bout my bad reputation!”

No. No. No. No. FUCK ME!

Dude. Y’all. Guys. I LOVE RONDA ROUSEY. I’M IN LOVE WITH RONDA ROUSEY AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT.

Seriously though folks, I nearly collapsed from exhaustion after running/dancing/karate-chopping my couch and cats in excitement over this empowering series of events. First off, we have this whimsical beast named Asuka win the whole thing, we all think it’s over, then wham-bam-thank-you-MISTRESS we get a surprise pop-in from the Queen Boss herself, former everything weight champion, Ronda Rousey. I ran in place for the entire segment. I shook the furniture. I ignored Craig’s pleading. Naturally I spent the following morning reading the entire Rousey wikipedia and her full Reddit AMA. Naturally I am obsessed, inspired, and stoked that my interest in a fandom that I’ve been hot and cold is officially rekindled. Oh it’s more than just rekindled- it’s ON FIRE!

I was on the WWE website looking up tour dates first thing this morning. I ordered an officially licensed “Hot Ronda” ladies tee shirt off the WWE website.You can check my search history. Wait. No, don’t check my search history (at least give me like five seconds before you check it). I considered watching The Expendable 3 and Furious 7. Seven. Just to catch a glimpse of my muscle-bound muse. I already mentioned my soap box earlier, so I’m not gonna spend any more time than I need to up here. I do need to say though, that after reading up on Ronda Rousey’s life it’s safe to say that she’s tough as nails and authentic as fuck. She’s lived through shit, pushed past difficulty, and carved a place for herself in the universe with her own two, very powerful hands. She’s also beautiful and I want to smell her hair. In a respectful way.

Thinking about Ronda Rousey, reading about Ronda Rousey, and getting jazzed on life in general as a result is what got my ass up off the couch today. Sometimes I think about the main girl from the third Child’s Play movie doing push ups during that military camp scene when I need yoga motivation, today it was pure Women’s Division. Pure Rousey. I’m glad I got out there and hit the pavement today. I’m glad Ronda’s back and I’m beyond ecstatic to see where this new era of women’s professional wrestling entertainment will lead. Wait, we haven’t even talked about the fact that there’s an actual steampunk women’s wrestler currently on the roster. Her name is Becky Lynch, she travels through time, I just checked. While checking, I noted that the term “diva” was still in use on the official WWE website. Guys, I realize that not everything can or will change all at once. I’m just grateful that we’re moving full speed ahead and with Ronda Rousey on our side.

[sinrau]

Tristan Harris, former Google design ethicist and co-founder of Center for Human Technology, appears before Congress in “The Social Dilemma.” (Netflix)

Picture, if you will, a high-tech voodoo doll of you on a server somewhere. Probably more than one server.

While the makers of that reverse-engineered avatar might not be sticking literal pins into it, in “The Social Dilemma,” filmmaker Jeff Orlowski makes a fine case that in mining data from your onscreen interactions, they are constructing a predictive version of you and trying to prick your interests and put a spell on your attention in historically unprecedented ways. (“The Social Dilemma” began streaming on Netflix this week.)

The quotes Orlowski begins his wake-up call of a documentary with — and peppers throughout — aren’t easy to top. There’s Sophocles’ “Nothing vast enters the world of mortals without a curse.” And this from sci-fi giant Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And this wry quip from data-visualization guru Edward Tufte: “There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.”

Yet, here’s one to add: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” It may not be as elegant as the others, but it represents the tone taken by the tech leaders interviewed by the Boulder-based director who investigated the extraordinary problems wrought by big-tech behemoths, particularly the ones that have entangled so many in the vast web of social media: Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Among the documentary’s smart and personable talking heads: Justin Rosenstein, co-inventor of Facebook’s “like” button; Tim Kendall, former president of Pinterest and former Facebook director of monetization; and Shoshana Zuboff, author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” (That book’s subtitle: “A Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.”)

Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google, became notable for writing an early internal and legendary document questioning the addictive tendencies of smartphone tech. Think Jerry Maguire’s manifesto after his dark night of the soul. Harris caused a buzz and then, well, crickets. He went on to co-found the Center for Humane Technology, a non-profit promoting the ethics of consumer tech.

RELATED: Watch this very real Netflix doc about a man who welded himself inside a “killdozer” and destroyed half of Granby

These days, Silicon Valley is referred to in much the way we talk about Hollywood or Washington: It is a global economic force, a wielder of spectacular power, somehow exemplary, too, of some more honorable ideals. Orlowski went to one of its feeder schools.

“I was class of ’06 at Stanford. When we all graduated, that was (around) the birth of the iPhone and the birth of apps. So many of my closest friends went directly to Facebook, Google or Twitter. Multiple friends sold their companies to Twitter for exorbitant amounts of money,” Orlowski said on the phone before his film’s world premiere at January’s Sundance Film Festival.

The project came out of conversations with those friends “who were starting to talk about the problems with the big social media companies back in 2017, at the birth of the tech backlash that we’ve been seeing. Honestly, I’d heard nothing about it, knew nothing about it.”

So many of his creative, thoughtful friends were working in new tech that Orlowski wondered, “How’s it a problem?” A fan of long-form journalism, he set out to answer that question and a few others. “For me, this process was two years of being an investigative journalist. (Of doing) first-hand research with the people who make the technology and trying to understand what the hell is going on.”

Director Jeff Orlowski attends the World Premiere of “The Social Dilemma,” an official selection of the Documentary Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. (Azikiwe Aboagye, provided by the Sundance Institute)

He is not alone in trying to wrap his brain — and ours — around that. Orlowski was among a cluster of storytellers at January’s Sundance Film Festival, posing timely questions about societal costs of seemingly free platforms — quandaries that have been reflected in a deluge of headlines about big tech’s role in our lives, in civil discourse, in democracy. (The film’s final cut includes a few recent images of news footage hinting at the rough tango between our lives and the Twittersphere around COVID-19.)

Two other high-profile projects that should prompt a rethink were Shalini Kantayya’s “Coded Bias,” about the MIT Media Lab, where research uncovered just how racially biased facial recognition software is. It’s a searing yet inspiring look at what happens when the people making tech’s design choices, and building its algorithms, create for people who look exactly like them. Co-directors and Karim Amer and Guvenc Ozel’s vivid virtual-reality living-room installation, “Persuasion Machines,” depicts with its jaw-dropping environment the data-mining excesses of a “smart home.”

There have always been concerns about the amount of private information that customers seem so willing to cede with little regard for security. But social media is proving itself a voracious beast. It’s less about identity theft than the potential for manipulation on a mass scale. Advances in AI and machine learning have added a special — arguably dystopian-courting — wrinkle.

It’s little surprise, then, that Orlowski is asking urgent questions. He’s forged a place in the documentary vanguard. He first made a splash when he trailed environmental photographer James Balog around Greenland, Iceland and Alaska. With stunning images, Balog documented the calving of ice shelves, the receding of glaciers, and Orlowski documented him.

The resultant work, “Chasing Ice” (2012), was gorgeous and chilling — in all the wrong ways. It was a different kind of climate change doc, not a screed but a nature film that made a compelling case that there are seismic — likely irreversible — changes afoot. It won an Emmy. (Traveling through Denver International Airport, you may have stopped to watch Balog’s mesmerizing time-lapse video for his Extreme Ice Survey work.)

Orlowski’s 2017 follow-up, “Chasing Coral,” won an Emmy for Best Nature Documentary.

“This is the beginning of a decade of films about technology and the consequences of technology,” Orlowski said of the company. “There’s so much at risk and so much at scale, the way technology is designed.”

In both “Chasing Ice” and “Chasing Coral,” he worked to make concepts starkly or strikingly visual. He faced a similar challenge with “The Social Dilemma. “We were trying to think of ways to show people what’s happening on the other side of their screens that’s invisible,” he said. “How do you show people something that is literally impossible to see? You can’t see what’s happening on the servers, right? You can’t even see the servers. But how are the algorithms designed and what are they doing that control 3 billion people?”

The number is not far off: According to German data-statistics tracking company Statista, there are currently 3.5 billion smartphone users.

For “The Social Dilemma,” Orlowski weaves a narrative tale about a multiracial family wrestling with the role of tech in their home. Think of it as a dramatization of concerns. The strategy evolved out of his own response to the news he was hearing from his Silicon Valley friends and their worries around the industry’s overreach.

“Because of the way they were describing it, every time I looked at my phone, I kept seeing a manipulative machine on the other side trying to puppeteer me. For the year I was on Facebook, I thought, ‘I’m being used.’ And it gave birth to this narrative storyline we figured out this way to interweave with the documentary.”

As a filmmaker, it was a chance to direct actors. Vincent Kartheiser of “Mad Men” plays the three-yammering embodiments of AI, dialing up the needs, nudging impulses and commanding the attention of Ben. Skyler Gisondo portrays the increasingly distracted high schooler. Helping create this intricate dance between the interviews and narrative was Oscar-winning editor Davis Coombe, a local filmmaking luminary. (He also co-wrote the doc with Orlowski and Vickie Curtis.)

“I really loved doing all that,” said Orlowski. “The writing, the shooting, the directing. All of the narrative stuff was really fun and brought, I hope, a different dimension.”

Ben and his family are intended to represent the ways many of us interact with the technology, not as designers but as Instagrammers and Tweeters, friends and over-sharers, TikTok-ing kids and their aggravated parents.

Of course, recanting can be a tricky thing. We admire people who see the flaws — even corruption — in a system and alert us to the dangers. But we can also be suspicious of their declarations. Indeed, there is an undercurrent of quiet hubris intermixed with the insider cautions of a number of Orlowski’s experts.

An intentionally witty moment comes early in the movie when, after a few of them have reflected on the unintended consequences of tech, and the sense that it was meant to help not harm. Although each had been a chatterbox of insights and perspectives, every one of them grows silent, looking for all the world stumped by the simple question that Orlowski asks: “So what’s the problem?” More than once, an interviewee reminds us that one of the tools to address the hyper-speed amassing of power and profit is rather old-school: regulation.

Even more illuminating than confessing their own addictions to email, or push notifications, or Twitter are the moments when these engineers, software designers, marketing whizzes share their own practices for themselves — or their family’s rules for their children — about social media.

“I’ve uninstalled a ton of apps from my phone that I felt were just wasting of my time … and I’ve turned off notifications,” said Rosenstein.

“Never accept a video recommended to you on YouTube. Always choose. That’s another way to fight,” said Jaron Lanier, one of tech’s most innovative minds turned most trenchant critics.

“We’re zealots about it. Crazy,” said Allen, asked about social media and his children. “We don’t let our kids have really any screen time.”

And perhaps the most timely advice: “Before you share, fact check,” said Renée DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. “If it seems like something designed to push your emotional buttons, it probably is.”

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A Boulder filmmaker’s new Netflix documentary will make you want to delete social media forever