As the daughter of a Hall of Fame baseball player, Willow Johnson learned at a young age about the sacrifice and commitment needed to compete at the highest level of sports.
Her father, the left-handed pitcher Randy Johnson, demonstrated that over a brilliant 22-year career, rarely taking time off from perfecting his craft. But his career rarely asked him to travel farther than Canada.
Willow Johnson, an elite volleyball player, didn’t have that luxury. Until recently, there was no pro league for women in the United States, forcing her overseas to find opportunities to play professionally. Last summer, she went to western Turkey to be the right-side hitter for Nilufer Belediyespor in one of the top women’s leagues in the world, where the expectations for players are every bit as demanding as those in professional baseball.
Kind of a non-sequitur, but I remember an old story about Randy "The Big Unit" Johnson. A writer commented on the fact that he was very well-dressed for an evening out with teammates after a game. He replied, "Well, of course. You never know when you are going to meet the future Mrs. Unit."
Yeah, the Pod Save guys referenced that in running down the CPAC event... The fact that she wasn't even there and was barely a blip in the straw poll says a lot.
You really can't have it both ways with Trump, which is a good thing.
You can lead a horse to fish, but you can't fish out a horse.
I'm not generally a big Vox reader, but this series they've begun is right up my alley:
The Purity Chronicles - A series that looks back at the sexual and gendered mores and values of the late ’90s and the 2000s, one pop culture phenomenon at a time.
Now if that sounds like something that everyone is doing, your right - and the author talks about that in this introductory piece.
But while the modern re-examining of Brittany Spears and Monica Lewinsky and other women of the time has been presented as true tragedies, what I liked was that for the first piece, it revisits the Paris Hilton phenomenon, and specifically the sex tape. I mean has there ever been a person so universally mocked and loathed in a pop-culture context? I think this piece works because it's angle isn't that Paris Hilton is actually a misunderstood good person (she probably isn't), but why it was so acceptable for her to be treated how she was treated, regardless. Because her reputation is so unanimously agreed on, there's lots of points the author brings up that are introspective moments for pretty much all readers.
The investigation also found that former CEO Wenig had made “inappropriate communications” but did not have advance knowledge of the harassment and stalking. Wenig, who was not charged, was allowed to resign in September 2019 with a compensation package worth $57 million; the Steiner scandal was a “consideration” in his departure, the company has said.
Wenig’s lawyers, Martin G. Weinberg and Abbe D. Lowell, said in a statement to the Globe: “An independent investigation confirmed that Devin Wenig had nothing to do with and no knowledge of any of the activities alleged in Mr & Mrs Steiner’s Complaint. Although he is an inviting target as the former CEO, he did not know of, approve, or authorize the conduct and regrets what the Steiners experienced.”
So I just found that article and came here to post it, only to see that's why this thread was bumped recently. I'm sick to my stomach after reading it, especially with where everything stands now.
How do you all get your death notices since I left?
HaulCitgo wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:27 pm
Juvenile court is impossible. Like mental health. No answers. Just terribly depressing and it wears on anyone involved for any period of time.
Some things are possible. Like, not arresting 8-year-olds for things that aren't crimes. That seems like an answer. Did you even read the damn thing?
How do you all get your death notices since I left?
His name was James Dolan, same as mine, but everyone called him Doc. He’d been in and out of my life since I was a boy, but when I was in my early 30s, Doc and I reconnected. His life as a gangster, I’d learn later, brought him into the orbit of criminal organizations around the country, including Jack Ruby’s circle in Dallas. But long before I realized my father’s connection to the JFK assassination, I was just happy to have him back in my life.
That day he told me about his wife, Julie Hilden, who had early onset Alzheimer’s disease. He didn’t mention that he was engaged in a new lie, one that he would later describe as “the biggest lie of all.”
DaveInSeattle wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 11:45 am
Very interesting story about Stephen Glass, the guy who was busted for fabricating stories for the New Republic.
That day he told me about his wife, Julie Hilden, who had early onset Alzheimer’s disease. He didn’t mention that he was engaged in a new lie, one that he would later describe as “the biggest lie of all.”
Jeebus. That's an incredible "update" to that guy's life.
You can lead a horse to fish, but you can't fish out a horse.
PICTURE YOURSELF NOT in a boat on a river but instead on a sectional sofa in a sunken living room in a majestic $9-million-dollar Point Dume mansion overlooking the Pacific. Here, the tangerine trees are actually whispering eucalypti, and the marmalade skies are a deep and comforting blue. Still, it’s pretty trippy.
This is the home of Brandee and Damien Sabella—the unofficial first couple of Southern California psychedelia—a sprawling compound that feels like a five-star commune. Two sentinel-like guard dogs patrol the property as a couple of the Sabella’s older children (they have five, ranging from 19 months to 14) load surfboards into a souped-up Sprinter van. There’s a small fleet of luxury SUVs in front and a professional-grade skate park in back with a massive half-pipe, several crescent-shaped ramps, and grind rails. Inside the house, nannies and assistants putter about.
Damien, 36, is the scion of a powerful Hong Kong real estate dynasty who now works in the music industry. His hair is pulled back in a man bun, and he has dark, piercing eyes and a coiled, muscular frame, possibly explained by his hobbies: hunting elk with a bow and arrow, surfing giant waves in Tahiti, and competing in ultra marathon races. Brandee, 41, is tall and lithe, with warm, inviting brown eyes. Patchouli-soaked hippies they are not. They’re articulate, attractive, and artfully tatted out. And they do lots and lots of drugs.
There is something to be said about a truly disastrous meal, a meal forever indelible in your memory because it’s so uniquely bad, it can only be deemed an achievement. The sort of meal where everyone involved was definitely trying to do something; it’s just not entirely clear what.
I’m not talking about a meal that’s poorly cooked, or a server who might be planning your murder—that sort of thing happens in the fat lump of the bell curve of bad. Instead, I’m talking about the long tail stuff – the sort of meals that make you feel as though the fabric of reality is unraveling. The ones that cause you to reassess the fundamentals of capitalism, and whether or not you’re living in a simulation in which someone failed to properly program this particular restaurant. The ones where you just know somebody’s going to lift a metal dome off a tray and reveal a single blue or red pill.
(And to be honest, this is one of the best pieces of science journalism I've ever read. The author's ability to take very complex questions and make them understandable to the lay person is pretty remarkable.)
(And to be honest, this is one of the best pieces of science journalism I've ever read. The author's ability to take very complex questions and make them understandable to the lay person is pretty remarkable.)
A lot of people are going to be holding their breath on Dec. 22nd
The Schoharie tragedy was the deadliest transportation disaster in the U.S. in almost a decade, including plane crashes. It was one of the worst single-car wrecks in the history of the automobile, comparable only to accidents involving buses or trucks that caught fire, sank, or fell off cliffs. But the story would likely have faded from awareness, as car crashes invariably do, if not for one factor: Nauman Hussain’s father, Shahed, the owner of Prestige Limousine, was a longtime confidential informant for the FBI and one of the most notorious operatives in the agency’s history. In upstate New York, where a pair of federal terrorism investigations had left Muslim communities seething and in despair, many people gasped when they saw his name connected with the Schoharie crash.
He is still underselling his abilities. By his count, it is actually 37 more languages, with at least 24 he speaks well enough to carry on lengthy conversations. He can read and write in eight alphabets and scripts. He can tell stories in Italian and Finnish and American Sign Language. He’s teaching himself Indigenous languages, from Mexico’s Nahuatl to Montana’s Salish. The quality of his accents in Dutch and Catalan dazzle people from the Netherlands and Spain.
He is still underselling his abilities. By his count, it is actually 37 more languages, with at least 24 he speaks well enough to carry on lengthy conversations. He can read and write in eight alphabets and scripts. He can tell stories in Italian and Finnish and American Sign Language. He’s teaching himself Indigenous languages, from Mexico’s Nahuatl to Montana’s Salish. The quality of his accents in Dutch and Catalan dazzle people from the Netherlands and Spain.
He is still underselling his abilities. By his count, it is actually 37 more languages, with at least 24 he speaks well enough to carry on lengthy conversations. He can read and write in eight alphabets and scripts. He can tell stories in Italian and Finnish and American Sign Language. He’s teaching himself Indigenous languages, from Mexico’s Nahuatl to Montana’s Salish. The quality of his accents in Dutch and Catalan dazzle people from the Netherlands and Spain.
I missed this before. What an amazing story. I wanna meet this dude (and have him clean my nasty carpets).
Sally Jenkins has a long piece in the Post today about the long friendship/rivalry/friendship between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova that is very good.
They have known each other for 50 years now, outlasting most marriages. Aside from blood kin, Navratilova points out, “I’ve known Chris longer than anybody else in my life, and so it is for her.” Lately, they have never been closer — a fact they refuse to cheapen with sentimentality. “It’s been up and down, the friendship,” Evert says. At the ages of 68 and 66, respectively, Evert and Navratilova have found themselves more intertwined than ever, by an unwelcome factor. You want to meet an opponent who draws you nearer in mutual understanding? Try having cancer at the same time.
