Gheorghemas Day Two: Megagheorghasbord

On the second day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Two Types of Stories
and a Bald Guy with Two Pupp-ies

This most festive of periods is an opportunity for us to turn inward, towards family and friends and away from, as George Will called it today, "a sickening moral slum of an administration" and all it's wrought. (Look at me quoting George Will. That was *not* on our Bingo card.) 

And while that's tempting, before we look on the bright side of life, we're gonna shine leaven it with some bullshit. Forthwith, the rants of the season.

By dint of my position as a leader of one of the DMV's largest youth soccer clubs, I had the occasion today to participate in an event our Club hosted celebrating a very cool organization that helps kids from underserved communities have access to organized soccer programs. I won't mention the organization by name, 'cause they wouldn't want to be associated with the next thing I'm going to say.

The World Cup draw takes place at the Kennedy Center in D.C. on Friday. Because of that, there are a number of FIFA officials in and around the region, and two of them attended the event at our Club. Ostensibly, part of FIFA's mission is to spread the game around the world, and the fellas I met today were lovely and gracious.

Unfortunately, where FIFA spreads the game, corruption and graft usually follow. Since our nation's leadership has become synonymous with those evils, it's natural that FIFA's greed-feathered flock has come together with it. To wit, the world's soccer governing body plans to award a first of it's kind FIFA Peace Prize during the draw ceremony. 

Per FIFA, the new award will be presented each year to a person who has "taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace" and "united people across the world." The notoriously thirsty President* of our country will be in attendance at the ceremony, and FIFA President Gianni Infantino has repeatedly sucked up to him in shameless ways. Y'all, Trump's getting the prize. 

Consider this G:TB's official renunciation of Gianni Infantino and FIFA's leadership**. I only wish he would've been at our event today so I could offer that sentiment in person.

** To be clear, I'm still a sucker for the World Cup, and I'll watch as much of it as I can. I just won't give one red cent to FIFA to do it.

Onward to our next topic.

Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian and loud critic of the corruption of the modern world economy. His online presence is worth seeking out - he's smart, clear in his thinking, and unsparing in his commentary. Too unsparing for the BBC, it seems. 

During a recent radio address he gave as part of Radio 4's annual Reith Lectures series, Bregman said, "Our elites live-streamed the fire and monetised the smoke. Immorality and unseriousness: those are the two defining traits of our leaders today. And they’re not accidental flaws, but the logical outcome of what I call the survival of the shameless. Today, it’s not the most capable who rise, but the least scrupulous.”

All worth noting, but the BBC cut out a sentence from Bregman's lecture out of what must only be a fear of consequence. The remarks included Bregman's assertion that Donald Trump is "the most openly corrupt president in American history”. Only the listeners didn't hear that part. 

And finally, one more grievance before we get to the good stuff.

Garrett Graff is a terrific writer. I'm working on his oral history of The Manhattan Project, "The Devil Reached Towards the Sky", courtesy of the OBX Dave Book Club. His blog, Doomsday Scenario, is a well reported, and more than frequently depressing summation of current events. 

He recently posted a piece on the checks and balances implied in our system, and how they're failing us at the moment. The nut sentence: "Once you elect or appoint someone who has no moral core — who then appoints people with no moral core and fires those who do — nothing else in the system of checks-and-balances turns out to matter." 

I mean, if you put it that way.

Okay, you've made it this far. Now you get some treats!

FIFA may combine football with fraud, but kids who get to meet their heroes don't care one bit about that. Check out USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps with an overwhelmed admirer after this week's friendly against Italy:

This is what it’s all about ❤️ 🎥 @uswnt.ussoccer.com

[image or embed]

— The Women's Game (@womensgamemib.bsky.social) December 2, 2025 at 9:28 AM

Legendary playwright, author, and screenwriter Tom Stoppard passed away last week. Amidst the outpouring of plaudits for his work, a single letter to the editor stood out and outlined one of the untold ways art has real-world impacts.

The letter, written to the Times of London by Michael Baum (Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, University College London), explained how Stoppard's play Arcadia inspired a cancer research breakthrough:

Someday, hopefully far into the future, I'd appreciate if one of you could pen a similar message to the Loudoun Times-Mirror about G:TB's impact on humanity.

And finally, hope y'all enjoy some comedy with your farce. Deep into a thoroughly-reported ESPN story about Lane Kiffin's departure from Ole Miss for LSU, comes this:

Bodacious Ignatius, it turns out, is more than just a pretty name. The 8th-grader can play some hardball - apparently he's a pretty decent little second-baseman. So while this is the first time you will have heard of him, we're betting it's not the last.