An oral history of the demise of the Southwest Conference, 25 years later. I was there for that Rice-UH game, with the MOB as always. In fact, it’s one of the rare times when I wasn’t playing in the band but doing something else. The halftime show was basically a funeral, and I was tapped to be in the casket that was brought out onto the field as part of the show. I was dressed in a Brunhilde costume, and at the designated moment I emerged from the casket to portray “the fat lady singing”, thus signifying the end. (I had a stunt double who did the actual singing, into an off-stage microphone. I was just there for the visual.) Anyway, it’s a good trip down memory lane.
“Thawing permafrost is releasing microorganisms, with consequences that are still largely unknown”.
“If you want to see a close-knit cabal of self-styled experts picking our economy’s winners and losers by subsidizing their favorite unprofitable firms, which then drive more efficient competitors out of business by selling products at a loss — all while substituting their judgement for the judgments of millions of investors, making decisions without proper vetting, embracing fads, spending promiscuously, ignoring warnings from impartial experts, and handing economic power to charismatic liars — don’t look to Washington, D.C., in the age of Obama, but to Silicon Valley in the age of Adam Neumann. Or, more simply, to see how privatized central planning works, consider WeWork.”
“AI has cracked a problem that stumped biologists for 50 years. It’s a huge deal.”
“At almost every step of this pandemic, we have failed magnificently as a country. And in ways that we just really didn’t need to fail.”
“The crisis threatening the republic goes far deeper than bad acting lawyers. But a central threat to our public institutions is the lack of stigma which attaches to sowing public distrust in the electoral system or even trying to throw out or alter the results of election results you don’t like. We are all glad these efforts aren’t making much progress for this election. But the very attempt is an assault on our public institutions and our republic. For a democracy, willfully sowing doubt about integrity of an election is the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater.”
“The only thing Biden will have real control over is his administration and what it does. And his North Star, his organizing principle, should be doing as much good on as many fronts as fast as possible. Blitz.”
Dionne Warwick is your new queen of Twitter.
“But I know a little something about Grover Cleveland. And Donald Trump, you’re no Grover Cleveland.”
“Magic Castle, the exclusive club for magicians in Los Angeles, is facing accusations of sexual assault, harassment, discrimination and racism leveled against its management, members and performers.”
RIP, Chuck Yeager, US Air Force officer and test pilot who first broke the sound barrier.
RIP, Dick Allen, MLB great who played for the Phillies and White Sox and belongs in the Hall of Fame.
RIP, Fred Akers, former UT football coach who succeeded Darrell Royal.
“The battle against pathogens reshaped the inner working of buildings, too. Take that familiar annoyance for New Yorkers: the clanky radiator that overheats apartments even on the coldest days of the year. It turns out that the prodigious output of steam-heated buildings is the direct result of theories of infection control that were enlisted in the battle against the great global pandemic of 1918 and 1919.”
RIP, Ray Perkins, former coach of the NY Giants and the University of Alabama.
RIP, Karl Kilian, owner of the Brazos Bookstore and co-founder of the Inprint literary non-profit.
“Over 80% of [restaurant] workers (83%) report that their tips have declined during COVID-19. This decline is severe: nearly two thirds (66%) report that their tips have declined by at least 50%.”
RIP, Deb Price, first nationally syndicated lesbian newspaper columnist. IIRC, her column ran in the Houston Post.
RIP, Sigmund Jucker, Holocaust survivor and co-founder of the iconic Three Brothers Bakery in Houston.
RIP, Charley Pride, first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Congratulations, you can still make the Elf table read to support Georgia Democrats in the Senate runoff.
The pre-Big 12 Big Eight was not the SEC, but … per Barry Switzer’s comment to / about Frank Broyles that the SEC had five Texases in it, never understood (other than $$$) why Broyles didn’t look at the Big Eight.
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Dick Allen does not belong in the Hall of Fame. Stop being an ESPN “big hall” person. Less than 60 WAR for someone primarily at 1B/DH isn’t even close.