Freddie deBoer on Jackie Robinson. Olivia Reingold on the New York mayor’s race. Should the postal service be privatized? The group chat from hell. And more.
How is it that other countries groove on "soccer," while Americans prefer football and baseball? It's because Americans want to sit for hours and focus on the beer and hot dogs, without having to look at the field too often. Other than basketball (which has been further speeded up by recent rule changes) Americans are interested in the players, not the game.
Baseball: It's spring in D.C. & the air is full of perfume. The Boys of Spring are back. "Play Ball"; I'm 8 & my father teaches me to throw, pitch, catch fly balls & grounders. I learn to bat. He buys me a glove & a Louisville slugger. I go to Griffith Stadium & watch the "Nats/Senators" perpetually lose. They are always in last place, except for 1952. There was Mickey Vernon, Pete Runnels, Jim Busby & Eddie Yost & later Jim Lemon, Roy Sievers, Harmon Killebrew, Pedro Ramos, Camilo Pascual, Bob Allison. We all knew they were going to win the World Series & they did but as the Minnesota Twins. In those lean years we watched the Hated Yankees but saw the magic of Bauer, Berra, Whitey Ford, Howard, Don Larson, Rizzuto, Skowran & earlier DiMaggio, Mize & later Mantle & Maris. We soon had a replacement team owned by Bob Short who ultimately sold & moved a losing team to Texas to become the Rangers. This was followed by decades of having no team because the Orioles owner refused to permit a team in the Nations Capital. We satisfied our lust for baseball by attending several Old Timers games at RFK stadium. Some followed the "Hated" Baltimore team. A miracle out of nowhere magically appeared in 2005 & Baseball was back. I never in my wildest dreams ever imagined a Washington Baseball team winning the World Series. It was 2019 & I cried tears of joy.
People complain about the pace of the game. They're impatient & want instant gratification. One goes to a ball park to take in the ambience, the sounds, the nuances of the game, keeping score, reminiscing about the Briggs hotdogs at Griffith stadium. Watching the magic of the Boys of Spring. I still have my 1960's "W" baseball hat, Louisville slugger & Nellie Fox glove.
Today it's all about money, owners & players, whose only loyalty is to their agents & the dollar. Baseball has become its own worse enemy.
Non the less today, opening day, I'll be watching the Nationals play the Phillies. PLAY BALL!
I find TFP’s use of the term “suicide” in relation to terminally ill persons electing, with full and lucid awareness, to limit their own and their loved one’s suffering with competent assistance (known both philosophically and legally as medical aid in dying (MAiD)), to be illiterate, lazy and common.
In the case of MAiD dying is given with the timing of death unresolved, the latter being what MAiD seeks to address to mitigate both the physical and psychological suffering of the dying person. Ethically, MAiD is sovereign and purely volitional. Medically it is a mere setting of a clock; the intervention as such changes nothing about the outcome.
Standing in stark contrast to "booking" an inevitable and proximate end of life is the depriving of life when no evidence of its terminus is lurking, much less medically confirmed. This is broadly defined as killing, and suicide is its self-inflicted form (from the Latin sui- “of oneself” and -cidium “a killing”). TFP positions itself as an instrument of sense-making in confusing times, and generally I find Bari and Co. do a much better job than most, but on this issue a pretty low bar - distinguishing between suicide and other ways for life to end - has yet to be cleared.
(Among such other ways, I would hope it goes without saying that (in the US at least) introducing the topic of euthanasia (mercy killing, in its most charitable conception) to such discussions betrays an even more inflamed illiteracy. MAiD presumes the full agency of the dying person to the last moment of life, whereas to euthanize, indeed, to evince mercy, presumes total and final agency over the person on whom it is to be applied.)
Nearly 30 years ago The American College of Legal Medicine fled an amicus brief before SCOTUS which rejected the characterization of “a metal competent, though terminally ill, person who wishes to be aided in dying” as suicidal, and subsequently adopted this same position by resolution. Today there is no sense to be made of conflating MAiD and suicide, other than to keep the gyre of fruitless debate spinning while discouraging freedom in the extremity of life.
Lot of definitions (bit pedantic really), a misspelling ("metal"), and a lot of work being done to push a certain view. Ok. The Christian view is that arranging one's own death (suicide) is sin. Suffering here on Earth is not the worst suffering. Lot more could be said, of course.
Regarding “almost 1/2 the cars sold in the US are foreign made”: I think you mean final assembly takes place outside of the US. In reality the parts and semi-assembled components come from a plethora of countries & in the case of North America cross the border several times. Is a BMW made in Kentucky foreign? A Honda made in Ontario? This is a cluster of a poorly designed policy.
Minimum parts content from economically similar countries that allow freed trade in cars. Canada ok, EU needs to remove US car tariffs. Mexico needs to bring up labour rules. Places like China?…..
All those Founding Fathers who wrote it into the Constitution did, in fact, want some to pay for others. Who woulda guessed they were, secretly. Lib-er-als…
Regarding the Signal screw-up; This makes the Tic Tock risk irrelevant. These idiots running our world policy efforts have no appreciation for the fact that their discussions on any App will live on in recorded history forever, even if they were not including the press for a ring-side seat. Digital is always available for recall when someone wants to revisit.
@Ottis - [a] "...the Signal screw-up... makes the Tic Tock risk irrelevant. ... [b] their discussions on any App will live on in recorded history forever....
Well, Ottis, a couple of points occur to me: a) comparing Signal to Tic Tok is wholly inappropriate--"apples to oranges," as it's said, and b) no one knows how long recorded history will last, and upon what technologies said history will depend, but I bet this little chat we're having won't exist, in any retrievable form, well before the end of recorded history (for which I won't trouble you to provide a definition, but do think about it).
Since The Free Press is commenting on the stock market more. You should be aware of one market behavior. The stock market bounces like a rubber ball. A big drop one day is very often met with a little jump the next day. I remember one time there was an article commenting the market rose because of some states reason when the market was responding to the drop from the day before.
I don’t think it’s correct to say Wall Street is hungering for junk debt. I’ve analyzed banks before like CCB that engage in that kind of junk lending. If Wall Street was trying to make money off of it you would need to check and see if they are securitizing the debt and selling it off. I don’t think CCB was doing that if I remember correctly. They did have a synthetic risk transfer that shoved the risk of credit default back onto the merchant. Again, making it more about pushing sales than dealing in junk debt.
Of course baseball sucks, at the Major League level. The minors and the baseball and softball leagues are great for communities, kids, adults, and people. Of course, that can be said for the NFL,
NBA, but not for the NHL. It still has the charm, excitement and has not sold out as much for MONEY.
One might argue that there are several minor league teams in the majors…
It’s fun to watch tip top professionals in any sport. But I’ve seen many exciting games in the minors and below. When the kids were young, and we went on road trips to a vacation destination, we had secondary objectives on the way - hot dog stands, BBQ, and minor league games.
As a boy, I lived at a boarding school. Boys who played sports were my heros. Watching high school baseball games (and getting to be a batboy) was the breeze of coming summer.
Baseball should be reserved for primary school children. It's not a sport for adults.
How is it that other countries groove on "soccer," while Americans prefer football and baseball? It's because Americans want to sit for hours and focus on the beer and hot dogs, without having to look at the field too often. Other than basketball (which has been further speeded up by recent rule changes) Americans are interested in the players, not the game.
Free agency ruined baseball for me. Pick a team to root for , and it’s different the next year. Rich man’s game full of prima donnas
Free agency ruined baseball for me. Pick a team to root for , and it’s different the next year. Rich man’s game full of prima donnas
Thank you "Canary Mission" for forwarding this Hamas agents information to ICE. The charges are breathtaking.
https://canarymission.org/individual/Rumeysa_Ozturk
Troll.
Well, well, well....isn't THIS interesting....
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/03/donald-trump-news-ice-immigration-student-rumeysa-ozturk.html
Elise Stefanik to stay in House of Representatives
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/3361333/white-house-elise-stefanik-un-nomination-pulled-gop-math/
Baseball: It's spring in D.C. & the air is full of perfume. The Boys of Spring are back. "Play Ball"; I'm 8 & my father teaches me to throw, pitch, catch fly balls & grounders. I learn to bat. He buys me a glove & a Louisville slugger. I go to Griffith Stadium & watch the "Nats/Senators" perpetually lose. They are always in last place, except for 1952. There was Mickey Vernon, Pete Runnels, Jim Busby & Eddie Yost & later Jim Lemon, Roy Sievers, Harmon Killebrew, Pedro Ramos, Camilo Pascual, Bob Allison. We all knew they were going to win the World Series & they did but as the Minnesota Twins. In those lean years we watched the Hated Yankees but saw the magic of Bauer, Berra, Whitey Ford, Howard, Don Larson, Rizzuto, Skowran & earlier DiMaggio, Mize & later Mantle & Maris. We soon had a replacement team owned by Bob Short who ultimately sold & moved a losing team to Texas to become the Rangers. This was followed by decades of having no team because the Orioles owner refused to permit a team in the Nations Capital. We satisfied our lust for baseball by attending several Old Timers games at RFK stadium. Some followed the "Hated" Baltimore team. A miracle out of nowhere magically appeared in 2005 & Baseball was back. I never in my wildest dreams ever imagined a Washington Baseball team winning the World Series. It was 2019 & I cried tears of joy.
People complain about the pace of the game. They're impatient & want instant gratification. One goes to a ball park to take in the ambience, the sounds, the nuances of the game, keeping score, reminiscing about the Briggs hotdogs at Griffith stadium. Watching the magic of the Boys of Spring. I still have my 1960's "W" baseball hat, Louisville slugger & Nellie Fox glove.
Today it's all about money, owners & players, whose only loyalty is to their agents & the dollar. Baseball has become its own worse enemy.
Non the less today, opening day, I'll be watching the Nationals play the Phillies. PLAY BALL!
I find TFP’s use of the term “suicide” in relation to terminally ill persons electing, with full and lucid awareness, to limit their own and their loved one’s suffering with competent assistance (known both philosophically and legally as medical aid in dying (MAiD)), to be illiterate, lazy and common.
In the case of MAiD dying is given with the timing of death unresolved, the latter being what MAiD seeks to address to mitigate both the physical and psychological suffering of the dying person. Ethically, MAiD is sovereign and purely volitional. Medically it is a mere setting of a clock; the intervention as such changes nothing about the outcome.
Standing in stark contrast to "booking" an inevitable and proximate end of life is the depriving of life when no evidence of its terminus is lurking, much less medically confirmed. This is broadly defined as killing, and suicide is its self-inflicted form (from the Latin sui- “of oneself” and -cidium “a killing”). TFP positions itself as an instrument of sense-making in confusing times, and generally I find Bari and Co. do a much better job than most, but on this issue a pretty low bar - distinguishing between suicide and other ways for life to end - has yet to be cleared.
(Among such other ways, I would hope it goes without saying that (in the US at least) introducing the topic of euthanasia (mercy killing, in its most charitable conception) to such discussions betrays an even more inflamed illiteracy. MAiD presumes the full agency of the dying person to the last moment of life, whereas to euthanize, indeed, to evince mercy, presumes total and final agency over the person on whom it is to be applied.)
Nearly 30 years ago The American College of Legal Medicine fled an amicus brief before SCOTUS which rejected the characterization of “a metal competent, though terminally ill, person who wishes to be aided in dying” as suicidal, and subsequently adopted this same position by resolution. Today there is no sense to be made of conflating MAiD and suicide, other than to keep the gyre of fruitless debate spinning while discouraging freedom in the extremity of life.
Lot of definitions (bit pedantic really), a misspelling ("metal"), and a lot of work being done to push a certain view. Ok. The Christian view is that arranging one's own death (suicide) is sin. Suffering here on Earth is not the worst suffering. Lot more could be said, of course.
Regarding “almost 1/2 the cars sold in the US are foreign made”: I think you mean final assembly takes place outside of the US. In reality the parts and semi-assembled components come from a plethora of countries & in the case of North America cross the border several times. Is a BMW made in Kentucky foreign? A Honda made in Ontario? This is a cluster of a poorly designed policy.
Minimum parts content from economically similar countries that allow freed trade in cars. Canada ok, EU needs to remove US car tariffs. Mexico needs to bring up labour rules. Places like China?…..
How should it be designed?
“The USPS doesn’t have to be profitable; it just has to get my mom’s birthday gift to her house.”
Typical liberal attitude, expecting some to pay for others.
All those Founding Fathers who wrote it into the Constitution did, in fact, want some to pay for others. Who woulda guessed they were, secretly. Lib-er-als…
The most succinct and spot on point today!
Regarding the Signal screw-up; This makes the Tic Tock risk irrelevant. These idiots running our world policy efforts have no appreciation for the fact that their discussions on any App will live on in recorded history forever, even if they were not including the press for a ring-side seat. Digital is always available for recall when someone wants to revisit.
@Ottis - [a] "...the Signal screw-up... makes the Tic Tock risk irrelevant. ... [b] their discussions on any App will live on in recorded history forever....
Well, Ottis, a couple of points occur to me: a) comparing Signal to Tic Tok is wholly inappropriate--"apples to oranges," as it's said, and b) no one knows how long recorded history will last, and upon what technologies said history will depend, but I bet this little chat we're having won't exist, in any retrievable form, well before the end of recorded history (for which I won't trouble you to provide a definition, but do think about it).
As I have said stupid and incompetent and I am a very strong MAGA supporter.
Since The Free Press is commenting on the stock market more. You should be aware of one market behavior. The stock market bounces like a rubber ball. A big drop one day is very often met with a little jump the next day. I remember one time there was an article commenting the market rose because of some states reason when the market was responding to the drop from the day before.
I don’t think it’s correct to say Wall Street is hungering for junk debt. I’ve analyzed banks before like CCB that engage in that kind of junk lending. If Wall Street was trying to make money off of it you would need to check and see if they are securitizing the debt and selling it off. I don’t think CCB was doing that if I remember correctly. They did have a synthetic risk transfer that shoved the risk of credit default back onto the merchant. Again, making it more about pushing sales than dealing in junk debt.
Good thoughtful comment
Of course baseball sucks, at the Major League level. The minors and the baseball and softball leagues are great for communities, kids, adults, and people. Of course, that can be said for the NFL,
NBA, but not for the NHL. It still has the charm, excitement and has not sold out as much for MONEY.
One might argue that there are several minor league teams in the majors…
It’s fun to watch tip top professionals in any sport. But I’ve seen many exciting games in the minors and below. When the kids were young, and we went on road trips to a vacation destination, we had secondary objectives on the way - hot dog stands, BBQ, and minor league games.
As a boy, I lived at a boarding school. Boys who played sports were my heros. Watching high school baseball games (and getting to be a batboy) was the breeze of coming summer.
100% in agreement!
Regarding UK assisted suicide: What's wrong with "compassionate death" AND saving money for NHS?
Nothing as far as I am concerned.
Baseball is life and for me, life doesn't suck...
Maybe not baseball but professional baseball for sure sucks.