The Swamp

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.

Pruitt wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2020 10:24 pm Inside eBay’s Cockroach Cult: The Ghastly Story of a Stalking Scandal

One "WTF?!" after another.

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.”

Pruitt wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:27 am ProPublica Looks At Juvenile Justice in part of Tennessee

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.

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.

L-Jam3 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:26 am That James Dolan is too busy assassinating the dreams of Knicks fans for the past 20 years.

HEY-YO!

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.”

L-Jam3 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 10:35 am I just read that headline to “Yellow Submarine”.

The Sybian wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 11:08 am

L-Jam3 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 10:35 am I just read that headline to “Yellow Submarine”.

I didn't even realize it until I read your post, but I did too!

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.

Loving Lies:
Stephen Glass, the most notorious fraud in journalism, decided he would live by one simple rule: Always tell the truth. Then he broke that rule

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.”

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.

Sabo wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 7:26 pm The Webb Space Telescope Will Rewrite Cosmic History. If It Works.

(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.)

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.

DaveInSeattle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 05, 2022 2:16 pm Fascinating story about a 'polyglot'...and guy who can speak many different languages:

The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages.

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.

DaveInSeattle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 05, 2022 2:16 pm Fascinating story about a 'polyglot'...and guy who can speak many different languages:

The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages.

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.

brian wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:45 pm This story about a North Korean who defected twice is amazing.

Pruitt3 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 6:31 am

brian wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:45 pm This story about a North Korean who defected twice is amazing.

Yes it is.

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.