I wrote about this coach's brave quest to get himself fired, and enduring appeal of bad, false choices. https://t.co/MyGG2IaQDQ
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) October 16, 2021
I corrupted my online history (or at least my credit card’s) with a Defector subscription, solely for the purpose of supporting, in a small way, one of my favorite writers:
On Sunday, I watched maybe 40 angry people walk down my street in the rain. Most of them were on the sidewalk, and so from my vantage point disappeared under construction scaffolding and then reappeared where it ended. A few others—the one with the Blue Lives Matter flag and the one with the Gadsden flag, the handful of women with megaphones—walked in the street. A half dozen police cars escorted them, lights rolling. A protest that wouldn’t otherwise have significantly congested the sidewalk was therefore able to slow traffic in both eastbound lanes to the speed of this particular distractible crowd. Another half-dozen police officers surrounded the pod, projecting even from a distance the sort of aggrieved and wary boredom that only police officers can.
It was clear what these people were on about; stickers had gone up around the neighborhood decrying Medical Apartheid, and overall it just seemed like we were due. The protests that made their way through these streets in the summer of 2020 had not just a more defined and infinitely more righteous purpose than this much smaller one, but also an identifiable cadence and cohesion and shape. People were there for different reasons, but they were at the very least more or less capable of getting on the same page for a “no justice, no peace” chant because they all more or less believed it. This was not that, and not just because of how discordant and unfocused it was. This furious orchestra consisted entirely of lonely soloists; they were each very much on their own march…
When the light changed and the pod crossed the avenue, they became indistinct. The police lights bloodied the buildings; the megaphones issued strange and now incomprehensible challenges at closed windows; the surly sum of them crept towards their little march’s end, not so much looking for a fight as casting their inarticulate challenges and collective noise out onto the flat surface of the city in the hope that someone, anyone, might rise to the hook.
* * *It is not quite true that Washington State head football coach Nick Rolovich has been trying to get fired for several months now, but he has been very actively trying to figure out what he can get away with. In July, Rolovich released a terse statement on social media explaining that he had “elected not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine for reasons which will remain private” and saying that he would not be discussing that decision—one he took care to say, as such people reliably do, was every individual’s decision to make—any further…
If Rolovich were a bigger name or a better coach, this might be a bigger story. If he gets fired, it might yet become one. There is a reflexive media fetish for binaries, which has unhelpfully created the idea that there are two viable sides to the question “is it good to take collective and individual action against a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans?” And rightwing media, which has been desperate to create the appearance of massive martyrdom campaigns against mandates in the absence of any such thing, is forever looking for victims of this purported overreach so that they might be instrumentalized as part of their ongoing campaign of base-infuriation. That this is never anything but cynical—the dissidents these efforts spin up are always one-and-done players in the Fox News Cinematic Universe; the (vaccinated) politicians and demagogues propping and pumping up this sham resistance quite obviously value those refusing as nothing more than culture war cannon fodder and plainly regard them utterly disposable rubes—doesn’t make it much less believable to those inclined to believe it.
To see it for what it is would, for those enlisted in the movement, require that these people see themselves as not just something other than the heroic main characters of reality, but as part of a world in which other people live lives that are not just meaningful but real. The rest of this worldview simply would not and simply could not endure that; the cruelty and heedlessness upon which it is built could not survive that realization and still be justifiable. There’s just no giving it up…
(Purely personal dilemma: I very much want to make a similar small contribution to keeping Julia Ioffe employed. However, doing so would unlock not only her columns but a wealth of smarmy media-centric self-pleasuring by her ‘publisher’ at Puck. Not to mention encouraging the careers of a couple of her fellow ‘columnists’, and I’m not sure I can bear to be suspected of paying to read, e.g., Dylan Byers… )
Phylllis
I sprang for the Defector non-commenting subscription from one of the stimulus payments. Well worth it; since I’ve gotten a tidy raise at work, I’m going to upgrade to Pal status.
Yutsano
Ugh. Rolovich. Should just cut the bait and move on.
Benw
David Roth is awesome.
RSA
I’m a commenting subscriber at Defector, mainly for Drew Magary’s writing, though Roth and others are also excellent. I followed this crew from Deadspin; they’ve made some good acquisitions (at least, writers I didn’t know about earlier) since.
Feathers
Julia has been disappointingly centrist lately. I got her solo newsletter. It was sad to see her sucked into the village groupthink after Biden’s victory. Those Democrats can’t be trusted to govern, amiright?
Sure Lurkalot
This is some very fine writing. Another sports writer I like is Dave Zirin.
Interstadial
I think I may have figured out what people mean by having ‘done their research’ on issues like COVID, masks, vaccines, etc. They’re researching health and science questions on the internet the same way they’d research which auto shop or restaurant to patronize, or which dishwasher or car to buy. They may even be savvy about how those kinds of consumer-oriented results may be biased by fanboys, paid reviews, or by the tendency of the disgruntled to be particularly motivated to leave reviews.
However, none of that knowledge is adequate for dealing with issues that are highly technical yet politically fraught. On these kinds of issues, search results and popular pages are strongly affected by political echo chambers, amplified fringe views and conspiracy theories, foreign disinformation campaigns, the need for ones identity to be validated by having certain beliefs, algorithms that drive people deeper and deeper into paranoid rabbit holes, etc.
The situation is optimized for a massive Dunning-Kruger effect, where highly uninformed, scientifically illiterate, yet passionate views that push the right buttons of fear and identity are given far more credence than the views of people who know literally thousands of times as much about the subject in question.
Along these lines, the idea that you can’t ever trust governmental authority (except when it’s firmly in the hands of the right kind of (perceived) conservative, i.e. the Trump White House but not some subordinate bureaucracy) has been used with great success by Republican politicians. However, it’s also tailor-made for misuse by foreign governments that seek our national weakness and downfall. I think we’re seeing this with the COVID situation in this country.
Anne Laurie
I blame her new employer for that, frankly.
On the other hand, you have to admit that her takedown of Bob Woodward was a masterpiece!
RaflW
Dang.
JAFD
I’ve been thinking about the people writing on the intertubes whom I’m seriously willing to plunk down money to hear what they’ve got to say.
On the one hand, am old man, remember when $50 a year would have subscribed you to half the news stand.
OTOH, having spent a month in nursing home, recovering from heart attack, with basic cable and a couple of hundred books in their library, appreciate the world connected to my smartphone.
So, am likely to be subscribing in near future to the weblications of Brad Delong,, Noah Smith, and Adam Tooze, and the Patreon of Brad Devereaux.
If you have suggestions to add to these, pleas let me know.
Another Scott
Kinda the opposite of good writing, from FTFNYT, from 1964…
LATimes:
Why it’s as if FTFNYT is garbage. And has been for far, far too long.
Grrr….
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
phdesmond
@Sure Lurkalot:
i like Dave Zirin too.
SpaceUnit
Apparently I now have something in common with the Fox News blowhards because I also believe these people to be utterly disposable rubes. Imagine that.
Gin & Tonic
I, too, have done my own research and can report that the Trappist monks of Spencer, MA have got this Belgian-style ale thing down quite well.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: ETA, the context is:
Cheers,
Scott.
Ksmiami
@Feathers: the Virus doesn’t care about their feelings…
Ksmiami
@SpaceUnit: chef’s kiss
Geminid
Since we are talking Sunday Sports, people watching the Braves and Dodgers might be interested to know what happened when Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts did his own research on newly acquired pitcher Max Scherzer, a very intense competitor (Scherzer pitches tonight).
In Scherzer’s first start for LA, Roberts made a common gesture of encouragement by lightly tapping Scherzer on the butt as he went out to pitch the third inning. When Roberts did this again for the fifth, Scherzer muttered something as he walked to the mound. “Hey Doc,” another player told Roberts, “he doesn’t want to be touched!” Roberts was not sure what he had heard Scherzer say, so once Scherzer came out after seven innings and cooled down, Roberts asked him, “did you just say ‘Don’t fu#king touch me’?”
Scherzer replied: “Yeah, and I gave you the most tempered, respectful way I could say it, because pitching is my job. I don’t need any kind of congratulations or support because it’s my job.”
Scherzer is known to be a convivial clubhouse presence except on the nights he pitches, when everybody gives him his space now.
SpaceUnit
@Ksmiami:
Merci !!
prostratedragon
@JAFD: I usually find at least one article of interest in The New York Review of Books. And, it’s not horribly expensive, currently $80 for 20 issues. Comes out irregularly, averaging maybe every 3 weeks. With a subscription comes access to the complete archive and a phone app.
Examples from the current issue:
Frances Wilson, “The Double Bookkeeper” about Patricia Highsmith;
Sue Halpern, “The Human Costs of AI;”
Jonathan Stevenson, “Not So Great Britain” on post-Brexit agita;
Adam Shatz, “Coltrane’s New ‘Love Supreme’” which is a good introductory biography.
Betty Cracker
From the linked Roth piece:
True, and that binary fetish explains a lot of horrid political takes too, IMO. With a few notable exceptions, I don’t think the majority of Beltway media drones set out to be Republican shills. The incurable binary fetish makes de facto shills of them. Same with Jon Stewart, who should go away.
oatler
@Another Scott:
“For a long time Pierce had stopped taking that immense wad of newsprint; he had become convinced that what gave Sunday the particular character it had for him-a character it retained in all seasons in every kind of weather, a headachy, dreary, dissipated quality- was not Jehovah claiming his own day and poisoning it even for nonbelievers, not that at all but a sort of gas leaking out from that very Sunday Times, a gas with the acrid smell of printer’s ink, a narcotizing, sickening gas.”
-John Crowley
Roger Moore
@Interstadial:
Sure. And one of the key things to understand is that for many of these decisions, they’ve already made up their minds, and their research is just to convince themselves that they’ve made the right decision.
Nicole
Defector is a great site and trying to do right- owned by the writers themselves, WUT. I have very little interest in the game of sports and I still subscribed as soon as they announced. Deadspin, before they were told by the higher ups to stick to sports, was a daily visit for me and I was really bummed when it was spoiled. I’m so glad the band found a way to get back together.
joel hanes
@oatler:
Maybe my favorite author.
Usually recommend _Gain_ as a starting point for people who have never read any of his work.
But Little Big and the Aegypt books are amazing.
Kristine
Hey AL—I tried emailing you a .docx with embedded photos for a garden post, but it apparently didn’t get through. Error message stated that recipient server did not accept requests to connect. Gmail will keep trying. I’m able to access the site just fine.
Steeplejack
@JAFD:
Maybe Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo? I bumped into the paywall there often enough that I decided I would spring for a low-end subscription.
I hope your recovery goes quickly and smoothly.
Steeplejack
@Kristine:
I would recommend sending a “vanilla” Gmail message containing the text, with the photos as attachments.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
Paywall.
Kent
Washington resident here, but UW grad, not WSU.
What the state should do is Kyrie Irving his ass. All the stadiums in WA have mandatory vaccine requirements to enter the stadium. I was at the UW-UCLA game yesterday and we had to present our vaccine cards and get a wrist band before entering the stadium.
Just do the same thing with fucking Rolovich. He can keep his job but he just can’t enter the stadium during game day. Let him head coach the game via zoom from this living room.
ronno2018
Rolo is a nutter and needs to be canceled. End of story. LOL.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: It worked fine for me, but I guess that I haven’t hit the counter limit. Sorry.
Does going there from the tweet work?
https://mobile.twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1449863229224755207
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Interstadial
@Roger Moore:
Maybe everyone else figured this out a long time ago.
I thought all along that it was a combination of naivete about the nature of evidence, lack of critical thinking (thank our education system), disinformation, manipulation by algorithms, and often a search for confirmation bias and identity confirmation.
What finally crystallized it for me was making the comparison to other kinds of consumer internet ‘research’ where the stakes are usually far lower and the well nowhere near so poisoned. One set of methods that may be regarded as ‘good enough’ in one arena doesn’t carry over to the other arena, but a lot of people using these methods don’t seem to understand that.
None of this negates the other important factors we’ve been discussing.
Kristine
@Steeplejack: I’ll try that. Thanks.
Sister Golden Bear
They’d rather die than admit other people are more than non-player characters.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Another Scott:
Huh, works from the tweet. Thanks.
Anne Laurie
@prostratedragon: I second New York Review of Books (nybooks.com) as a subscription choice for the omnivorous reader! Keep your eyes out for one of their frequent sales, and be sure to sign up for the weekly newsletter. (Or sign up for the newsletter *without* subscribing, and see exactly what you’re missing & whether it will be worth your dollars.)
Bonus, if you’re a paper-hoarder like me — they’ve finally started offering a digital-only sub, which gives you access to everything without the growing pile of guilt-inducing newsprint…
Ten Bears
Time flies, aeh? Probably ten years ago I made the observation the “tea baggers” were nothing more snot-nosed middle school-yard punks and bitches who didn’t have the balls to stand up and protest in the sixties and seventies today living out their adolescent fantasies. Seems that for all the hoopla, the strum and dumb, we’re come full circle, wobbly as it may be, and are back to that point.
Re “football”, which I generally boycott though already this year have momentarily suspended a couple of times to make pithy observations: the coach, fire him. Supposed to be a leader, an example for our youth; fuck him, fire him, no golden parachute and no honored contract. Re the game: I’m not big on predicting the weather much more than an hour or two out but, ahhhh … I’ve been ’round the block a few times, down the road, over the mountain and up the river and I’m seeing the end of “football” as the powerhouse phenomenon we have come to know. May not see the end of it, but as with all else we’ve over-produced and over-consumed, that perpetual motion machine bound by all the laws of man, gods and science to fail we’ve been feeding ’til we’ve run out of things to feed it, it’s gonna’ fail, collapse if not implode. We literally don’t have time for this crap.
Like the boundaries of “nation/states”, our changing atmosphere, the thin layer of no longer potentially toxic gases we live in that envelopes the only ball of rock we know of we can live on, does not give a flying fig about “football”, “football” teams, who takes the knee or dances in the end-zone.
[biggest post here … ever]
S. Cerevisiae
I subscribe to the Athletic mostly for Michael Russo’s coverage of the Wild, he is the best hockey beat reporter out there.
I have to admit when I saw David Roth my first thought was the original frontman for Van Halen.