G:TB's Official Ryder Cup Preview

Team USA takes on Europe's best in the biennial Ryder Cup competition starting on Friday at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club northeast of Rome. They make take away my passport for saying this, but the Euros are the far more likable of the two sides, and I'd say that even if Brooks Koepka wasn't wearing an American kit over the weekend.

Luke Donald's lads include Rory McIlroy, who's impossible not to like, Tyrell Hatton, a volcanic eruption waiting to happen and then laugh at himself, Shane Lowry, a pudgy, effusive Irishman, the shy boys next door in Matt Fitzpatrick and Tommy Fleetwood, and young Ludvig Aberg, who made the team after being a pro for less than four months.

And they've got my favorite current Tour player. Dubbed the Norwegian Forest Cat by sportswriter (and former PGA TOUR caddy) Brian Mull, Viktor Hovland is playing some of the best golf of his young life. Hovland won the 2023 TOUR Championship and FedEx Cup championship in late August by closing with a 63 to win by five strokes over Xander Schauffele and cash a check for a cool $18m. The win came one week after Hovland shot a final round 61 to chase down Scottie Sheffler and win the BMW Championship in the season's penultimate event.

The 26 year-old Oslo native is youthful-looking, strong as an ox, and unflappable on the course. The Washington Post called him a "friendly 'assassin'" in a Cup preview. Baby-faced, mellow, smiling. And a huge metalhead.

“That’s not even music. That’s horrendous.”

Viktor Hovland's @RyderCupEurope teammates couldn't believe the metal music he listens to 😂pic.twitter.com/PJAnsPVu5j

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 27, 2023

The band in question is Vildhjarta, a Swedish prog-metal outfit. The song is 'Dagger' from their 2011 debut record, Måstadden.

The Americans have The Zac Brown Band and Darius Rucker. Hovland's got Swedish death metal. I don't like our chances.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

I don't know Mike Walsh, but I like the way he thinks. And I think the way he thinks is gonna change the way a lot of thinks are thunk.

Walsh is the Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communications and Business Development at Boise State University. Among other things, his duties include oversight of revenue innovation. According to a recent report by Front Office Sports (FOS), Walsh is taking that part of his job seriously. 

Like most schools that play FBS football in leagues that aren't part of the Power Five (soon to be four) conferences, Boise State is on the outside looking in when it comes to exposure and revenue, fighting for the table scraps that come with being one of the Group of Five leagues in a world that looks more and more like it's heading to a single mega-conference that boxes out the majority of the nation's top-flight collegiate programs.

Enter Mike Walsh, who's apparently been watching soccer (and staying up late).

Rather than trying to jump to a new conference and keep up with the Joneses, Walsh proposes something radical for American sports: promotion and relegation for college football. As reported by FOS, Walsh developed a presentation that calls for the study of the creation of a new 24-school football-only entity based in the Western half of the U.S. that would be split into three tiers. The champions of Tier 2 and Tier 3 would move up a tier for the following season, while the last-place teams in Tier 1 and Tier 2 would move down.

In other words, can't join 'em, beat 'em. In this case, that's not a recipe for on-field wins, but for a system that would create a different kind of season-long excitement, and enable schools to manage travel-related expenses for non-football sports (it would work even better in the East, where travel distances are considerable shorter). 

For the sake of argument, assuming Washington State and Oregon State don't find Power Five homes (which is a reasonable assumption), Year One of New Conference might look like this:

Tier One

• Washington State
• Oregon State
• Boise State
• U.S. Air Force Academy
• Colorado State
• Fresno State
• UTEP
• San Diego State

Tier Two

• New Mexico
• New Mexico State
• Wyoming
• Utah State
• San Jose State
• UNLV
• Tulsa
• Rice

Tier Three:

• UT San Antonio
• Nevada
• North Texas
• Idaho*
• Stephen F. Austin*
• Montana*
• Montana State*
• Eastern Washington*

* Current FCS program

It is rare and refreshing to see someone from inside the current intercollegiate athletic structure propose something so unique. It's also a sign that at least some minds in the game understand that the current system is untenable. 

We're on record here in favor of decoupling football from the rest of the athletic programs for major college football. In that linked piece we called for an 80-team top tier. But Walsh has us thinking bigger. Or, actually, better.

If pro/rel would be exciting for a new league in the West, it'd be boffo on a national level. Feast your brain on this: Two tiers of power conference football, with 40 teams in each organized into four 10-team conferences. Each team would play every other team in its conference and three non-conference games for a total of 12 regular season contests.

The top two teams from each conference in the Premier League equivalent would meet in an eight-team tournament each year to determine who wins the national title. The bottom two teams in each conference would be paired into an eight-team bracket to see which four teams get relegated to the second division. At the same time, the top two teams in each of the Second Division conferences would play off to see which four get promoted. 

Broadcasters would have significantly more inventory at year end, and every in-season game would matter - top teams would be fighting to get into the tournament, middling teams would be fighting to stay out of the relegation playoff. Imagine, if you will, fans of, say, JMU doing this at the end of a long fight for promotion:

Get a load of this setup, and salivate at the potential:

	Tier One
	East	Central	Midwest	West
1	Florida State	Iowa	Oklahoma	USC
2	Clemson	Ohio State	Kansas State	UCLA
3	UNC	LSU	Oklahoma State	Oregon
4	Miami	Alabama	TCU	Utah
5	Georgia	Texas A&M	Michigan	Washington
6	Florida	Texas	Michigan State	Stanford
7	Tennessee	Auburn	Wisconsin	Cal
8	Penn State	Mississippi	Notre Dame	Boise State
9	South Carolina	Kentucky	Nebraska	BYU
10	West Virginia	Louisville	Northwestern	Texas Tech
	Tier Two
	East	Central	Midwest	West
1	Duke	Tulane	Kansas	Air Force
2	NC State	Pittsburgh	Iowa State	Fresno State
3	Wake Forest	Virginia Tech	Cincinnati	Colorado
4	Georgia Tech	Syracuse	Purdue	Washington State
5	UCONN	JMU	Indiana	Oregon State
6	Boston College	SMU	Memphis	Arizona
7	UCF	Arkansas	Minnesota	San Diego State
8	Maryland	Mississippi State	Tulsa	Arizona State
9	Rutgers	Vanderbilt	Illinois	Houston
10	Navy	Army	Missouri	Baylor

It would be something, indeed, if after all the true believer gnashing of teeth amongst the American soccer cognoscenti the advent of promotion and relegation in U.S. sports was born in college football. I'm giddy over the prospect.

I probably need to get a(nother) hobby.

Crowdsourcing: Next Step, Profit

Warning: the following blog post contains homework for readers. Turn away now should you wish to not do any work.

Among the many things I've done to occupy my brain during this existence period (hat tip: Richard Ford) is write. Blog posts, LinkedIn articles, a poem or two, and as you may know, two whole children's books. The latest of those books was inspired by the daily walks I take with my dog through our little pedestrian-friendly home town.

It occurred to me that there are probably people who visit historic towns like mine and poke around in the various shops that would be willing to pay for quirky local color. And since that notion popped into my brain while I was walking my dog, it turned into an idea for a series of histories of little towns with some dog-centric angle. And so was born "The Adventures of JoJo the Small-Town Hound".

This is where the homework comes in. The following is the draft text of "Volume 1: Leesburg, Virginia and the Curious Case of Dog Money". Your job is to critique it and tell me how I can make it better. My wife has given me some notes, including adding more JoJo-specific adventuring. I'd welcome yours. In exchange, I'll credit you in the Acknowledgements and buy the first round at the publishing party. 

The Adventures of JoJo The Small Town Hound 

Vol. 1, Leesburg, Virginia and the Curious Case of Dog Money

This is JoJo. She’s a friendly pup with a unique hobby. She loves touring small towns, meeting their people and learning their history. (Her humans think she just likes to eat treats, but that’s just how she gets them to take her places.)

JoJo was born in Mississippi, but she lives in Virginia now. She asked me to write this book so she could share one of her favorite places with you.

Leesburg, Virginia is in the northeast part of the state, near both the Maryland and West Virginia borders, and about 40 miles northwest of the Nation’s Capital. It’s the county seat of Loudoun County, complete with a courthouse. JoJo wants me to tell all her canine friends that the Law Library in the courthouse complex always has dog treats available for four-legged visitors.

The town was established officially by the Assembly of Virginia in 1758, meaning that there are more than 250 years of smells for good dogs to sniff. It also means that the town has experienced American history in a number of interesting ways.

During the American Revolution, Loudoun County was home to the largest militia in Virginia, with more than 1,700 residents taking up arms. Later, as the British threatened Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812, the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence were hidden in Leesburg to keep them safe.

JoJo was happy to learn those things about the town, but she really perked up when she heard about Dog Money. 

Because of its location on the border between the South and the North, the U.S. Civil War was a complicated time for Leesburg. As a town in Virginia, it was a part of the Confederate States of America, but like much of America, the townspeople’s loyalties were divided, with some serving in the Union Army and others in the Confederate Army.

Leesburg changed hands more than 150 times between 1861 and 1865 as the warring armies battled against each other. Among other things, this made it very complicated for townspeople to know which kind of money to use, depending on who was in control of the town. So the town got creative and made up its own money.

A man named Martin Casey designed Leesburg’s new currency. The town paid him $50 for his services,which would be worth $1,736 in 2023 dollars. He must’ve really liked dogs, because the money he printed featured a large, shaggy, very good American Water Spaniel at the top of each bill. People liked the design, and soon started calling it Dog Money.

Eventually, more than $93,000 worth of Dog Money was printed and distributed in Leesburg during the Civil War. If you ever make a trip to the town, you can see actual Dog Money bills at the Loudoun County Museum or the Thomas Balch Library. Both of those places are really close to Jock’s Exxon, another place in town JoJo likes to go to get dog treats from the friendly proprietor.

And that’s the story of the Curious Case of Dog Money. JoJo’s pretty sure your hometown has some fun stories for her to discover - so keep the treats out and maybe she’ll come for a visit!

If you’d like to learn more about the Town of Leesburg and its history, visit these websites (or better yet, visit the town itself!):

https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=tbl/viletbl00069.xml

https://www.leesburgva.gov/departments/thomas-balch-library/research-reference-services/research-guides-book-indices/history-of-leesburg

https://historyimagined.wordpress.com/2018/03/09/leesburg-vas-dog-money/

What say you, Gheorghies? How would you make this better?

Be a Luddite

I seen him smash things
Watched Ned Ludd chill out

It's a cliche to point out the fact that the accelerating pace of technological innovation has us spinning, societally speaking. People (generally, but not entirely younger folks) who grasp the capabilities and impact of new tech sprint forward creating new ways to communicate, to work, to travel and live. Those (again, generally, more mature - at least chronologically) who feel overwhelmed by the dizzying waves of change resist at the risk of being called out as Luddites.

Turns out the Luddites might've been onto something.

Here's how Brian Merchant, author of new book entitled "Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech" started an opinion piece he penned earlier this week in The Washington Post:

"I test drove the first-generation Tesla Roadster. I once lived on Soylent powder shakes for a month. My Twitter account is almost old enough to drive. I wrote a book about the iPhone.

Also, I’m a Luddite."

If you're like me, beyond being dead handsome, witty, and humble, you associate the word "Luddite" with backwards, regressive fear of the modern. Merchant sees a different perspective, one that he first encountered in reading a relatively obscure 1989 academic work by a sociologist at The Sorbonne named Raymond Boudon entitled "The Analysis of Ideology". 

First, a bit of historical table-setting. The Luddites came to prominence in the early 19th Century in Nottingham, England. They were not, as we might've been taught, idiots who feared modern technology. Rather, they were skilled and sophisticated textile artisans who made comfortable middle-class livings by weaving any number of high-quality goods using traditional methods. As the Industrial Revolution gained traction ndustrialists realized they could churn out greater volumes of product (generally lower-quality) using cheaper labor. All of which threatened the Luddites' livelihoods.

Gotta drop some Beasties to
celebrate Whit's birthday

The Luddites, named for the apocryphal Ned Ludd, who was said to be the first to smash an industrial loom, demonstrated their resistance to mass-market technology by destroying locality-specific types of machinery they deemed threatening to the traditional way of doing things. Ultimately, the movement was suppressed by the government, who deployed more than 12,000 troops to quash it, in ways both bloody and jurisprudential. 

In his discussion of Luddism, Boudon asks the reader to examine its rationale not from the perspective we get from modern history books (the irrationalist view, as he calls it, or fear of modernity) but from that of the Luddites themselves. Bit of victors write the history books thing going on, says Boudon. The Luddites themselves were rational actors, busting up mass-market looms because of the threat to their livelihoods, and only doing so after they failed to reach any kind of agreement with wealthy industrialists about an equitable distribution of profits. As Boudon writes, "Luddite workers tried to oppose the introduction of machines because they were a clear threat to their jobs and the means to live. From their own viewpoint, machines seemed to be a[n] undisputed cause of unemployment."

So it turns out the Luddites weren't radical anti-technologists at all. They just sought the means to integrate new technologies in ways that were fair to workers. And that sounds fairly familiar as we turn back to our own age where AI threatens jobs from copywriting to journalism, where Amazon runs shipping centers that create inhuman stresses on its employees while grinding local retailers to fine dust, where CEO pay reaches stratospheric levels in comparison with the workers who make their products and enable such compensation. 

As Merchant writes in comparing the time of the Luddites to our modern era, "Then, as now, leaders dazzled by unregulated technologies ignored their potential downsides."

Like Merchant, I dig modernity and technology. I would've been terrible at living in the 19th Century. I like my phone, and podcasts, and Wordle, and streaming soccer matches. But as an observer of the world, it's impossible to ignore the inequities that grow larger and larger as global society becomes more and more advanced in so many ways. In fact, we may inhabit a world where economic inequality is as great today as it was during the Industrial Revolution. And that, friends, seems unsustainable if not grossly unfair.

Merchant closes his piece in The Post with these words, "The clothworkers of the 1800s had the right idea: They believed everyone should share in the bounty of the amazing technologies their work makes possible.

That’s why I’m a Luddite — and why you should be one, too."

I'm not Spartacus. But I'm definitely Luddite curious.

Summer's Over, But We Don't Care

Running over some old ground here, but with a ridiculous addition.

Les Coole and the Cukes have been quiet lately, but the side project The Adliberators -- well, now... we've been pretty quiet, too. We have two official singles to our name, with two more in development. 

But with audio giving way to video since 1979, that's the trend we're finally catching up with in 2023!

As we preface it:

Some of you have had the unique pleasure of meeting our old acquaintance Baja Benny, and many more of you have simply seen him roaming around the shores of Sandbridge and the North End of Virginia Beach - or any beach near you, possibly. Good ol’ Benny. His career pathway has had many twists and turns… surfer, scientist, entrepreneur, artist, musician, bartender, barfly, beachcomber, burnout, sage, historian, legend. 

The Adliberators caught up with him recently to profile him in our first music video. Just a day in the life of Baja Benny. Take a peek. And the next time you’re paying for beach parking and see that familiar face, throw him a smile. 

And maybe a cold one.

Summer's Here! Right in time for autumn. Enjoy the ridiculousness...

Craft Works

On Dec. 27, 1598, a Scottish architect named William Schaw, an advisor to King James VI of Scotland, gathered a group of stone masons at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh for, essentially, a sales pitch. 

The masons had been at the forefront of a building and construction boom in the country for several years, but Schaw wanted to take it further. He appealed to their knowledge and expertise and said their work could incorporate elements of both Classical architecture and thought. He envisioned them engaged in Renaissance-era advancement of building and ideals, which he assured them conformed to the king’s own grand vision. 

His appeal took hold and in the ensuing decades a couple dozen groups of organized masons emerged all over Scotland. From those modest roots sprang a worldwide movement that enlisted millions of members and influenced nations and politics and policy for the next 400 years. 

It’s all outlined in “The Craft: How The Freemasons Made The Modern World,” an interesting read that dives into Freemason history and key episodes and characters. Author John Dickie, a British university professor and researcher who also wrote a couple of well-regarded books on the Italian mafia, lays out how the Freemasons evolved from an artisan guild into a fraternal order bound by ritual and secrecy that provided a template for conduct and everyday life. Among Freemason members were 14 U.S. Presidents starting with George Washington, five English kings, Mozart, Henry Ford, Winston Churchill, Arnold Palmer, Rudyard Kipling, Duke Ellington, Walt Disney, South African diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes, astronauts John Glenn and Buzz Aldrin, Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Harpo Marx, former Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies, James Naismith, the founding father of the Ringling Brothers circus and all seven of his sons, 19th-century Italian patriot and national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi, boxer Sugar Ray Robinson and chicken tycoon Col. Harland Sanders. 

Membership has dipped in recent decades, but estimates still peg the number of Masons worldwide at approximately six million, with 400,000 in Great Britain and 1.1 million in the U.S. Freemasonry’s broad appeal rests in the fact that it wasn’t limited simply to building and construction techniques. Though Masonic lodges sprang up all over the world, the order became more a hall of ideals and rested on a code of brotherhood, religious tolerance, democracy, equality before the law, and the striving for betterment among members, who often refer to it as “the Craft” and themselves as “Craftsmen,” hence the book title.  

It’s steeped in peculiar initiation and advancement rituals, a code of strict silence until very recently, and symbols out the wazzoo, some of which are traditional tools of the stone mason’s trade: squares and compasses, aprons, gloves, trowels. The most identifiable symbol is the square and compass surrounding the capital letter G – which stands for both God and Geometry – that signifies unity. 

There are only three levels of membership – apprentice, intermediate and advanced, basically – though the traditional Scottish Rites have 33 levels, and some lodges contain many more. Maybe the best explanation for that is a bunch of bros in a secret society already teeming with special handshakes and invocations and rituals can’t help themselves but to create even more arcane stuff. 

Members and advocates point to Freemasonry’s tenets for individual conduct and the group’s philanthropic and charitable ventures. Critics often say, if the fraternal order is so good and beneficial, why all the secrecy? 

Indeed, Freemasonry has had detractors almost since Day One. As it worked its way through Great Britain, Europe and by extension through the British Empire, it ran afoul of the Catholic Church and various monarchies, and later authoritarian regimes, who were suspicious or downright hostile, persecuting and even murdering those identified as members. The church was antagonistic because Freemasons were by and large faithful but didn’t adhere to one religion. A multi-national organization was dangerous, according to ruling powers. 

Mussolini’s Italy and Gen. Francisco Franco’s Spain were particularly harsh. Hitler was every bit as contemptuous, but he believed the Jews were a more easily identifiable target. Freemasonry has been tied to everything from the French Revolution, the unification of Italy, a Zionist plot to create a New World Order, either a front for or the driving force behind Communism, the Spanish defeat by the U.S. in 1898, and the 1985 NBA Draft Lottery that permitted the Knicks to land Patrick Ewing. 

OK, that last one I made up. But Freemasonry is viewed by some as a trigger for modern day conspiracy theories. Dickie writes that for all the good and progress within Freemasonry and its members, it also fed imperialism and the subjugation of entire populations, war, dictatorships, religious fanaticism and the building and breaking of states. He also points out the ethical and logical contradictions of a group that preaches brotherhood and tolerance that regularly excluded women, Jews, Blacks and non-Christians for membership. Women still aren’t permitted in some lodges. The U.S. has a branch of the Craft called Prince Hall Freemasonry, named for the abolitionist who founded the country’s first Black lodge in Boston in the late 1700s. Black Freemasons still aren’t recognized by some lodges, particularly in the South. 

I can’t necessarily recommend the book to everyone. Dickie goes into the weeds about some episodes and characters within the order that bog down sections, but overall it’s a pretty accessible read. He didn’t get into how the Freemasons and Paul Finebaum fueled the Alabama football dynasty for the past 15 years, but perhaps that’s for another book or an American author.

An Appreciation

A decade or so ago - the exact timing escapes me - I sent an email on a whim to Bob Boilen. My oldest had begun to show an appreciation for music that's only gone and blown up and I was trying to find ways to expose her to live stuff. My email to the genius behind Tiny Desk Concerts was an inquiry: any way I can bring my kid and come watch a show?

To my very pleasant surprise, Boilen emailed me back quickly and invited us to join him and the staff at NPR headquarters. And to my great chagrin, something that's lost to the fog of time came up and we were unable to attend. Our great loss.

Boilen announced his resignation from NPR after 35 years in which he built a formidable and influential music program effectively from scratch. In addition to Tiny Desk, he was the driving force behind All Songs Considered, which is an excellent and eclectic ongoing review of new tunes. He and his colleagues dove deep at South by Southwest, encouraged new artists, and generally celebrated music of all kinds.

As even casual readers of this blog know, I love Tiny Desk. We've dropped 13 posts featuring Tiny Desk shows, ranging from Juvenile to the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet to Jason Isbell to Tash Sultana - just a taste of the diversity Boilen programmed. But the program aired more than 800 live performances, and there's no way I'm qualified to choose the best, so I checked with the experts. Herewith a very partial compilation of terrific tiny shows.

Dua Lipa's 2020 home-based performance holds the top spot in terms of number of views, but the show that led those stats before she took it is widely lauded as the best ever:

I've long been partial to these guys:

And these dudes are a G:TB standby:

Great band, and they recorded this at 10:30 am the morning after a show:

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings:

Most of the cognoscenti dig this Anderson.Paak performance:

Another one from the G:TB Wheelhouse:

And another:

Crazy

As you obviously know, Car Seat Headrest is from my home town here in the Virginia Piedmont. And you doubtlessly are aware that the legendary Patsy Cline hails from just over the mountain in Winchester, VA, same as Danimal and a bunch of other FOG:TB. Looks like we've got one more talent to add to the list of locals made good.

Jake Kohn is - literally - a kid from Winchester. The Sherando High School student recently made his first appearance at The Grand Ole Opry, singing his own original stuff. Check this out:

And this:

Would you believe me if I told you that voice was coming from a 16 year-old kid? Makes a soul think of Deco from The Commitments, when a similarly-aged Andrew Strong played a lead singer with a voice far ahead of its years.

Kohn just signed his first recording contract. Watch this space for the come up.

The Tigers Win the Pennant!

The Hanshin Tigers clinched the Central League title for the first time in 18 years by beating their arch rival the Yomiuri Giants!  Hopefully no one jumped into the Dotonbori River.  I assume all of you are making plans to stream the Climax Series.

Throw Back Thursday: Wordle O.G.

Wordle has officially taken the world by storm. Annoyingly so, but then again, I still do it every day. And share it with a few gheorghies.

But before there was Wordle, there was Wordle. A Word Picture. Where robots scan a document or website and produce a graphic image featuring the most prominent words, with those most recurrent showing largest. 

Thanks to the folks at WordArt, you still can!

So I plugged in our sister site Sentence of Dave. And it's about what you'd think. At first blush, you'd believe that Dave is very high on himself. It's just that every post has "Sentence of Dave" in it, plus he's self-referential a lot. 

Plus Dave is very high on himself. 

But here you go!

Click on it to enlarge. As usual. Enjoy.

"Arnold" Explains the Origins of Many Things I Dislike

Netflix's "Arnold" miniseries describes Arnold Schwarzenegger's life in three one-hour segments detailing his experience as the world's best bodybuilder, the most famous actor in America, and a two-term governor of California.  It also explains how a bunch of stuff I don't like came to be.

Like big watches.  Wristwatches should be 34-40 mm in diameter and they used to be that size, in part because it's hard to make a small, accurate movement so a smaller watch means the movement has more craftsmanship.  Arnold likes things to be big and he popularized way-too-big watches, like 55 mm Jacob & Co. monstrosities and 60 mm Panerai eyesores.  

And big cars.  Most Americans (probably including many of you readers!) have been tricked into believing that they need an SUV.  You don't.  The profit margin on SUVs is greater than on cars, especially the gargantuan seven-passenger SUVs, so car companies have Jedi mind-tricked you into them.  The trunk in most seven-passenger SUVs is pathetically small, and the shape of them is often impractical (the floor is small but the walls are high so you have to stack your groceries).  And five-passenger SUVs offer no benefit over station wagons--some people prefer the high "command seating" position but this also raises the center of gravity and sacrifices handling.  Modern SUV proportions would make Malcolm Sayer weep.  Many look like an SUV stacked on top of another SUV.  Here's the rear end of an Escalade, for example.

Doesn't this look better?

It works from the side too.

Anyway, Arnold popularized the wildly oversized SUV when he convinced AM General to sell military-grade Hummers to the general public.  According to Top Speed, "The pollution from the H1 was so severe that it was 25 times more polluting than the most pollutive automobile before it, the Chevrolet Impala."  Great!  Now he heads up the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative, through which he touts his decades of environmentalism without even a hint of irony.

He also set the blueprint for politicians like Donald Trump.  

Schwarzenegger's first foray into politics was a run for the highest office he could hold.  He heavily leaned into his status as the most famous entertainer in the country.  He overcame a story about his habit of groping women that broke on the eve of the election.  The National Enquirer used a "catch and kill" approach to help cover up one of his affairs.  He relied on "schmäh" which Schwarzenegger translated as "bullshit" and which Wikipedia says means "gimmick," "trick," "swindle" or "falsehood" in Austrian German.  Oh, he was down with Nazis too.  He normalized low character in politicians.  Thanks Arnold!  

Moving Along

Lacking inspiration of my own, I give you something from the Teej that's taken directly from the G:TB brand manual. Do enjoy some whimsy to start your week:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mylo the Cat (@mylothecat)

 

Give the People What They Want

Since Dan Snyder's ignominious and widely-welcomed departure from the Washington Commanders owner's suite (and from the entire U.S. of A., if rumors are true), the broader DMV sporting community has breathed deeply of the fresh air that comes with a deep cleaning of decades of accumulated scum. There's almost a whiff of...hard to place really...maybe...hope?

The new ownership group led by Josh Harris has been present, active, and available. Harris himself sat in the stands at the Commanders' first home preseason game. Sure, the seats were primo, but there's no chance in hell the last guy would've been seen amongst the rabble. Probably because they would've thrown garbage at him, but still.

We're clearly still in the honeymoon phase of the Harris era, and Ron Rivera's team is going to have to perform on the field to help the cautious green shoots of renewal find purchase. But for the first time in over two decades, folks are letting themselves believe.

They're also seizing the momentum to offer ideas for the future. Harris and company have been circumspect about the prospects of changing the team's name for the third time since the franchise retired its long-standing and racist moniker. Harris partner and long-time fan of the team Mitchell Rales said this week that "That ship has sailed" when asked about a possible return to the old name. He added (and this is the kind of thing that's getting fans in the area hopeful), "We’re going to look at everything come the end of the year and think about a lot of different things and do a lot of testing and see what people think. And we’ll learn. The beauty is we have the time to look at all of this stuff intelligently and make fan-based decisions.”

Somewhere, Little Danny Starfucker is asking, "What's a fan, and why should I care about them?"

Colin Fowler is a fan. And based on what he's put together, I'd love to see the Commanders ownership look intelligently at his stuff. Fowler is a graphic artist and designer who group up in Maryland rooting for the local team. Upon Snyder's ouster, he set out to develop a new brand concept for the the franchise. Friends, it's awesome. I give you the District Hogs:

Fowler's work goes far deeper than a name and a singular logo. His concept includes a bespoke font honoring Chuck Brown, a color palette based on local geology and history, and a story that connects the past to the future. As he explains in the mission portion of the website he's developed to display his concept, "In order to...respect the past, repair the present, & redefine the future... we will...Honor, Heal, & Hone."

Dig these other images, and check out the whole thing. I'm of the belief that folks in this area would go hog wild for that rebranding. I said what I said.