Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Dodgers Take World Series In Five After Yankees Cough Up Five-Run Lead

 

Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman celebrate when the Dodgers rallied in the fifth inning. @Dodgers.


The Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series after they erased a five-run deficit in Game 5, to beat the Yankees, 7-6, on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Books: "WAR” By Bob Woodward


WAR

By Bob Woodward

Simon & Schuster; hardcover, 448 pages; $32.00

Bob Woodward is the renowned reporter who uncovered the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein at the Washington Post, which led to the resignation of President Nixon in 1974. Since then, Woodward has authored 22 bestselling books, 15 of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers, on presidents from Nixon to Biden. His three books on President Trump - Fear (2018), Rage (2020), and Peril (2021) were all #1 Times bestsellers. 

War is Woodward's first book on President Biden's time in the White House, an intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in political and American history. As he does with the titles of his books, he zeroes in on a word to describe what dominated a leader's time in office.

That is because President Biden's term has been dominated by two wars that began since he took over. The war in Ukraine, which began when Russia launched an invasion in February 2022, is the most significant land war in Europe since World War II, and it is still raging, with support for Ukraine wavering among the political establishment along partisan lines in the U.S. The war in Gaza, which began with Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and has dominated the past year.

Woodward takes you inside the White House, with President Biden and his top advisers engaging in tense conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.

Former President Donald Trump has also lurked over Biden's Presidency, as he sought to run a shadow government in his aim to regain political power. They were set for a rematch in this year’s election until this past July, when Biden dropped out of the race, and was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris. Wooodward examines how Harris has tried to embrace the Biden legacy and policies while also charting a path of her own in this presidential race, which concludes next Tuesday.

Naturally, this book opens in the transition period after Biden bested Trump in the 2020 election, and the bloody aftermath that followed, in which Trump never conceded and incited the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. 

Woodward reports on the role that Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the House at that time, played on the day of the attack, urging Trump to tell his supporters to get out of the Capitol. He told Trump shortly afterwards that, "You need to call Joe Biden and you need to do it today," and after he relented and was obviously trying to get off the call, McCarty asked him, "What do you think your grandchildren are going to think of you if you don't do this?" 

Not surprisingly, the phone call between the outgoing and incoming Presidents never happened, but, Woodward writes, "on his last night in the Oval Office, January 19, 2021, Trump hand-wrote a two-page letter to Joe Biden. He finished it at 10:00 p.m., signed it Donald J. Trump and placed it inside the desk. Biden would later tell his White House press secretary Jen Psaki it was 'shockingly gracious.'"

Six months into Biden's presidency, Trump was still convinced that if audits of the election were completed in Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and other key states, he would return to the White House. This, Woodward writes, was Trump tapping into the real power of instilling doubt, which brought him back to how he was told by the then-candidate in 2016, "Real power is, I don't even want to use the word, fear."

Woodward reports that Senator Lindsey Graham was one of the most forceful voices telling Trump to drop it, that he lost Arizona because he feuded with their longtime, beloved Senator, John McCain. Graham was also mindful that the focus had to be on the 2022 Midterm election, and fielding the best House and Senate candidates. 

Instead, Trump pushed Republicans, in June 2021, to support his reinstatement as President. He called up one Republican representative, in Alabama, Mo Brooks, and asked that he call for a special election. Brooks, who was running in the Alabama Senate race, had Trump's endorsement - until he refused the outlandish request, and he went on to lose the Republican primary.

This, of course, was a massive distraction for Biden, just as he and his team were grasping what Russian President Vladimir Putin was up to, especially with the cozy relationship he had with Trump. That went up to the point, as news reports on this book have cited, that Trump made sure Putin got Covid tests in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020.

The new President, along with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, was set to take a different approach, as Woodward writes, "President Biden and Sullivan had debated what the administration's Russia policy should look like. Biden was clear.

"'I'm not looking for a reset,' Biden said during his first weeks as president. 'I'm not looking for some kind of good relationship, but I want to find a stable and predictable way forward with Putin.'

"But so far the relationship with Russia was neither good, stable, nor predictable. From their first days in office, Biden and Sullivan had been responding to various acts of Russian aggression. The near fatal poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, Russian interference in the 2020 U.S. elections, suggestions that Russians may have paid the Taliban to kill Americans in Afghanistan, and the massive SolarWinds cyberattack on more than 16,000 computer systems worldwide, including U.S. government departments, and key private industries. It was one of the worst data breaches in U.S. history."

Sullivan discovered in April 2021 - just three months since President Biden took office - that Putin had amassed 110,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine. Sullivan likened it to "Chekhov's gun," the theory that the 19th-century playwright Anton Chekhov wrote that, if a pistol appears in the first act of a play, it is there for a reason and will be used at some point.

Russia and Ukraine had been fighting in the eastern Ukrainian region, the Donbas, of which it controlled nearly a third, since 2014, when Russia also seized Crimea. Sullivan thought it was possible that Putin was going to use the troops to seize more territory of that region, which has sizable coal reserves.

Soon after this revelation, Woodward reveals, Biden gathered together a group of Russian experts. This included a well-respected figure who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama as an intelligence analyst specializing in Russian affairs, Dr. Fiona Hill. 

When President Trump took office, Dr. Hill served on the National Security Council and was his chief Russia expert. She was surprised with the informality when President Biden called about gathering a group to assess his thoughts on Putin and get a feel for what he was thinking. 

Woodward writes that this gathering stood out, as "Hill had experienced the 'I'll take that under advisement,' when in reality a president has already made up their mind. But here, Biden had gathered together a group of experts with very different views on Russia. He wanted a debate.

"The last time she had been in the Roosevelt Room, President Trump had spent the entire briefing glowering at a picture of Teddy Roosevelt's Nobel Peace Prize on display, unable to concentrate. 'Trump hated it,' Hill thought. Did he think it was unfair? Did he think he deserved his own?"

Biden had a phone call with Putin on April 13, 2021, and then a meeting at Villa La Grange, an 18th-century French-style Manor on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland a couple months later. Biden departed from Trump's meetings with Putin by having advisers in the room for the summit, which included his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. It also was a highly-scripted affair, unlike the free-wheeling discussions his predecessor had with Putin. The leaders also held separate press conferences afterwards, with Putin going first so Biden's national security advisers and Russia experts could hear what he said before Biden responded. 

On July 12, 2021, just around a month after the Geneva summit, Putin released a starkly personal and aggressive 5,000-word diatribe in which he argued that Ukraine had never existed as an independent country. 

As Woodward reports, "Sullivan read the Russian president's manifesto as a declaration of the inner Putin, who he was and what he wanted to do. 

"'Russians and Ukrainians are one people - a single whole,' Putin began. 'Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians are all descendants of ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe.' And since the 9th century, he continued, Kyiv was considered 'the mother of all Russian cities.'

"'The formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state,' Putin said, 'is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.'

"His tone self-righteous and academic, Putin erased the existence of Ukraine as a separate country, a people with their own history, beliefs, culture and language.'”

U.S. intelligence reporting also showed that Putin was changed by the isolation of the pandemic, and he had surrounded himself with a group of people he trusted who shared the same outlook marked by nationalistic views. Those who wanted to see Putin had to quarantine for weeks, and he was physically and metaphorically separated from Russian society for almost three years.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on what you will learn in War,  one of the most valuable books you will read before Election Day, as he captures the role one country, Ukraine, played on two Presidents, and which future you want for the country and the world.


Yankees Stay Alive As Offense Breaks Out

 

Austin Wells watching his home run. @Yankees.


The Yankees, backed by big nights from Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells, rolled to an 11-4 win over the Dodgers in Game 4 on Tuesday night to stay alive in the World Series.

Monday, October 28, 2024

NYCFC Shutout In Cincinnati To Open Playoffs

 

Santi Rodriguez looks for position. @NYCFC.


New York City Football Club lost a heartbreaker in the opening game of the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs Round One, 1-0, at FC Cincinnati.

Dodgers Come Thisclose To Shutout Of Yanks To Pull This Close To Title

 

Will Smith tagging out Giancarlo Stanton in the fourth inning. @Dodgers.


The Los Angeles Dodgers, led by five shutout innings from Walker Buehler and another home run from Freddie Freeman, beat the Yankees, 4-2, in Game 3 of the World Series on Monday night at Yankee Stadium.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Books: "Lucky Loser" By Buettner & Craig, Of The NY Times , On Trump's Illusion of Success

 



LUCKY LOSER: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success 

By Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig

Penguin Press; hardcover, 528 pages; $35.00

Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig are investigative reporters at the New York Times, and since 2016, their reporting has focused on the personal finances of former President Donald Trump. These articles revealed the fortune that Trump inherited from his father, Fred, and the record of business failures found in twenty years of tax returns they examined. Their articles received a Pulitzer Prize and two George Polk Awards. Buettner, who has been with the The Times since 2006, was also a finalist for a Pulitzer in 2012 for articles with Danny Hakim highlighting abuse and neglect in New York's care of developmentally disabled people. Craig joined The Times in 2010, and before this reporting, she covered Wall Street and was the Albany bureau chief.

College Football: FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll - Week 9

 



In the FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll for Week 9 of the 2024 college football season, Oregon claimed the top spot for the second straight week, after they rolled past Indiana, 38-9.

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Yankees Squander Another One Late As Dodgers Take Two In LA

 

Yoshinobu Yamamoto. @Dodgers.


The Los Angeles Dodgers, backed by a superb outing from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, beat the Yankees, 4-2, to take a 2-0 lead in the World Series.

St. John’s Takes Care Of Towson In Preseason Finale

RJ Luis Jr. drives the lane. @StJohnsBball.


The St. John's Red Storm closed the preseason with a solid 64-46 win over Towson at Carnesecca Arena on Saturday afternoon. 

Friday, October 25, 2024

Dodgers Find A Way To Beat Another New York Team To Open World Series

 

Freddie Freeman celebrates his game-winning grand slam. @Dodgers.


Friday night at Dodger Stadium began with the Los Angeles Dodgers honoring a hero of their 1981 World Championship team, Fernando Valenzuela, who died on Tuesday, it ended the way the 1988 World Series began for them.

Books: "The Boston Globe Story of the Celtics" By Chad Finn

 



The Boston Globe Story of the Celtics: 1946-Present: The Inside Stories and Acclaimed Reporting on the NBA's Banner Franchise

By Chad Finn

Black Dog & Leventhal; hardcover, 464 pages; $32.00

The NBA season is upon us, and like many times before, the Boston Celtics are the defending champions. It was their league-leading 18th championship, and first since 2008, and like all their ones before, Boston's landmark newspaper was there to chronicle it.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

World Series: The Managers Speak

 

The finishing touches being put on the field at Dodger Stadium. @Yankees.


The World Series between the Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers begins on Friday night at Dodger Stadium. 

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

St. John's At Big East Media Day

 

St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino joins his Big East colleagues in the annual Media Day portrait. Photo by Jason Schott.


The Big East Conference held its Basketball Media Day at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday morning, and St. John's Head Coach Rick Pitino, and players Kadary Richmond and Zuby Ejiofor were on hand for the official start of the season.

Big East Preseason Poll: Two-Time Champs On Top; St. John’s Fifth In Stacked Conference

 

Photo by Jason Schott.


The Big East Conference held its basketball Media Day on Wednesday morning at Madison Square Garden.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Books: Simply The Best Writing On A Variety Of Subjects In 2024

We have reached the time of year when collections of the best writing of the year become available, either for your own library or as perfect holiday gifts. The Best American series was launched in 1915, and it is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected, and popular, in this genre.

In this review, we will examine three of them: The Best American Essays 2024, edited by Wesley Morris and Kim Dana Kupperman; The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2024, edited by Padma Lakshmi and Jaya Saxena; and The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024, edited by S.A. Cosby and Steph Cha.

Books: "Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret" By Congressman Mike Waltz

 


Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret

By Congressman Mike Waltz, U.S. Army Special Forces (Ret.)

St. Martin's Press; hardcover, 288 pages, includes one 8-page color photo insert; $30.00; available today, Tuesday, October 22nd

Congressman Mike Waltz represents Florida's 6th Congressional district, and he is the first Green Beret to be elected to Congress and a former White House and Pentagon policy advisor. He graduated from Virginia Military Institute, served over 25 years in the U.S. Army, and is a retired U.S. Army National Guard Colonel. After he was commissioned as an Army lieutenant, Congressman Waltz graduated from Ranger School and was then selected for the elite Green Berets, and he served worldwide as a decorated Special Forces officer with multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa. He was awarded four Bronze Stars, and two with valor, for his action in combat. 

Books: 'The Arizona Triangle" By Sydney Graves

 


The Arizona Triangle: A Jo Bailen Detective Novel

By Sydney Graves

Harper Paperbacks/HarperCollins Publishers; paperback, 304 pages; $18.99; available today, Tuesday, October 22nd

Sydney Graves is a pseudonym for Kate Christensen, an Arizona native and the author of eight novels, with the most recent Welcome Home, Stranger. Her fourth novel, The Great Man, won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She has also authored two food-centric memoirs, Blue Plate Special and How to Cook a Moosewinner of the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Memoir.

Monday, October 21, 2024

Mendoza On Mets: "We Raised the bar"

 

Mets Manager Carlos Mendoza during one of his press conferences during the NLDS. Photo by Jason Schott.


The Mets' season that felt like it would never end concluded on Sunday night when they lost Game 6 of the NLCS, 10-5, to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Dodgers Take NL Pennant, Leave Mets Grimacing

 

Tommy Edman celebrates his home run with Mookie Betts. Photo by Jason Schott.


The Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the National League pennant on Sunday night, as the routed the Mets, 10-5, in Game 6 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium.

College Football: FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll - Week 8

 



In the FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll for Week 8 of the 2024 college football season, Oregon claimed the top spot, while last week's No. 1,Texas, dropped five slots after losing to Georgia.

Boone On Finally Taking Yankees To World Series As Skipper: "Just really proud of this group"

 

The Yankees celebrate after the final out. @Yankees.


The Yankees clinched a spot in the World Series on Saturday night with their 5-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians in 10 innings in Game 5 of the ALCS, winning the series four games to one.

Saturday, October 19, 2024

Yankees World Series Merchandise Available Sunday At Stadium

 

Yankee Stadium. Photo by Jason Schott.


The Yankees are back in the World Series after they clinched the American League pennant on Saturday night with a 5-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians.

Soto The Straw That Stirs The Drink For 2024 Yankees

 

Juan Soto connecting on a home run on May 18 at Yankee Stadium. Photo by Jason Schott.


Juan Soto hit the game-winning home run for the Yankees on Saturday night in Game 5 of the ALCS to beat the Cleveland Guardians, 5-2, in 10 innings to go to the World Series.

Stanton, Soto Send Yankees To World Series

Juan Soto watches his home run in the 10th inning. @Yankees.


The Yankees won the American League championship on Saturday night in a thrilling 5-2 win in 10 innings over the Cleveland Guardians in Game 5 of the ALCS on Saturday night.

NYCFC Drop Regular Season Finale; Off To Cincinnati For Playoffs

Santiago Rodriguez looks for position on Saturday night. @NYCFC.


New York City Football Club was shutout, 2-0, by CF Montreal in their regular season finale on Saturday night.

Books: "The Why Is Everything" By Michael Silver

 


The Why Is Everything: A Story of Football, Rivalry, and Revolution

By Michael Silver

W.W. Norton & Company; hardcover, 448 pages; $32.50

Michael Silver is an award-winning sports journalist and television analyst who is currently a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He has been a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, a columnist for Yahoo! Sports, and an analyst for the NFL Network. He is the author of All Things Possible, Walk on the Wild Side, Golden Girl, and Rice.

Friday, October 18, 2024

Yankees Now On The Brink Of Pennant No. 41

Austin Wells rounding the bases on his home run. @Yankees. 


The Yankees, backed by home runs from Juan Soto, Austin Wells, and their new Mr. October, Giancarlo Stanton, outlasted the Cleveland Guardians, 8-6, in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series on Friday night.

Mets, Powered By Pete, Send Series Back To LA

 

Pete Alonso connecting on his first-inning home run. @Mets.


The Mets entered Friday's Game 5 of the National League Championship Series needing a win to avoid seeing the Los Angeles Dodgers clinch at Citi Field, and one of their leaders made sure early that was not going to happen.

Books: "The Great Black Hope," By Louis Moore

 


The Great Black Hope: Doug Williams, Vince Evans, and the Making of the Black Quarterback

By Louis Moore

PublicAffairs; hardcover, 304 pages; $30.00

Louis Moore is a historian of African American history and sports history, and his work has appeared in USA Today, Sports Illustrated, and the New York Times. His research was cited in Brian Flores' landmark lawsuit accusing the NFL of racial discrimination. 

Thursday, October 17, 2024

St. John's Comes Back To Outlast Rutgers In Charity Exhibition

 

Simeon Wilcher goes up for a layup on Thursday night. @StJohnsBBall.


The St. John's Red Storm beat No. 25 Rutgers, 91-85, on Thursday night, the second straight year they have been them in a charity exhibition game in support of the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund and the V Foundation.

Yankees Appeared To Be On The Brink, Then Bullpen Buckled

 

Yankee Stadium. Photo by Jason Schott.


The Yankees went out to Cleveland with a 2-0 lead in the American League Championship Series, after they beat the Guardians handily at Yankee Stadium to open the series.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

St. John's Anticipates Another Big Season In Year 2 Of Pitino Regime

 

Rick Pitino working the sidelines during a game at Carnesecca Arena last season. Photo by Jason Schott.


The St. John's Red Storm men's basketball team held its Media Day at Carnesecca Arena on Tuesday, as the second season of the regime of Head Coach Rick Pitino commences.

Monday, October 14, 2024

NLCS: Lindor Leads Mets To Leave L.A. Even

 

Francisco Lindor connecting on his first-inning blast. @Mets.


The Mets evened the National League Championship Series with a 7-3 win over the Dodgers in Game 2 on Monday afternoon in Los Angeles.

Sunday, October 13, 2024

College Football: FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll - Week 7

 


In the FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll for Week 7 of the 2024 college football season, Texas remained in the top spot for the second straight week with their resounding 34-3 win over Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry. 

Thursday, October 10, 2024

The Celebration Is On At Citi Field As Mets Magical Ride Continues

 

The celebration lingered until well after an hour after the game ended at 8:23 p.m. Photo by Jason Schott.



The celebration was on at Citi Field after the Mets clinched the National League Division Series on Wednesday night with their 4-1 won over the Philadelphia Phillies. 

The Mets won the series three games to one, and since the game ended at 8:23 p.m., thousands of fans were able to hang around and take part in the celebration.

NLDS Game 4: Mets Finish Off Phillies

Jose Quintana pitching to Kyle Schwarber in the third inning. Photo by Jason Schott

The Mets clinched the National League Division Series with a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 4 on Wednesday evening at Citi Field.

Books: "How Do You Feel?" By Jessi Gold, MD, MS

 


How Do You Feel? One Doctor's Search for Humanity in Medicine

By Jessi Gold, MD, MS

Simon Element; hardcover, 288 pages; $28.99

Psychiatrist Jessi Gold, MD, MS, is the Chief Wellness Officer of the University of Tennessee System and an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Tennesee Health Science Center. In her clinical practice, she sees health care workers, trainees, and young adults in college. Dr. Gold is a dedicated mental health advocate whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, InStyle, Slate, and Self.

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

NLDS GAME 3: Manaea, Mets Crush Phils In Citi Return

 

The lineups being introduced before Game 3. Photo by Jason Schott.


In their long-awaited return to Citi Field, the Mets beat the Phillies, 7-2, in Game 3 of the National League Division Series on Tuesday evening.

Books: New Novels From Anna Rasche & Phoebe Morgan

 


The Stone Witch of Florence

By Anna Rasche

Park Row; hardcover, 368 pages; $30.00; available today, Tuesday, October 8th

Anna Rasche lives in Brooklyn and is a historian and hematologist who has previously worked in the jewelry collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and as a curatorial fellow at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Monday, October 7, 2024

Mendoza "Can't wait for tomorrow" & Says Mets Have "Tremendous opportunity"

 

The massive video board is ready. Photo by Jason Schott.


The Mets were back at Citi Field on Monday for a workout day ahead of Game 3 of the National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday evening at 5:08 p.m.

Sunday, October 6, 2024

Mets End Magical Mystery Tour


Mark Vientos connecting on this third-inning home run. @Mets.


The Mets got a taste of their own medicine, as it was the Philadelphia Phillies who mounted a late comeback to take Game 2 of the National League Division Series, 7-6, on Sunday evening.

College Football: FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll - Week 6

 



In the FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll for Week 6 of the 2024 college football season, Texas has taken back the top spot, as Alabama dropped six spots down to No. 7 after their crushing 40-35 loss to Vanderbilt.

Saturday, October 5, 2024

Mets Magic Continues As They're Making A Habit Of Late Rallies

 

Francisco Alvarez connecting on a hit in the eighth inning. @Mets.


The Mets' magical week continued on Saturday evening, as they staged another late rally to stun the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2, in Game 1 of the NLDS.

Thursday, October 3, 2024

Pete Powers Mets To Move On After Winning In Milwaukee

 

The Mets celebrate in Milwaukee. @Mets.


Pete Alonso has done everything possible in his time with the Mets, starting with when he won the Rookie of the Year award through climbing the Mets all-time lists with 226 home runs, but he needed that one signature moment in a massive spot to define it.

Books: "I Once Was Lost" By Don Lemon

 


I Once Was Lost: My Search for God in America

By Don Lemon

Little, Brown and Company; hardcover, 224 pages; $30.00

Don Lemon is a Brooklyn College alumnus who had a respected tenure on CNN as the anchor of Don Lemon Tonight, where he was a trusted voice covering the Sandy Hook school shooting, war-torn Eastern Europe, and the riots of 2020. He now is the host of The Don Lemon Show, which streams on all platforms. His book on race, This is the Fire, was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

I Once Was Lost: My Search for God in America is Lemon's follow-up to his acclaimed first book, as he faces a test of his faith through some of America's toughest moments, and how he had to compartmentalize his feelings while covering them in his role as a reporter. 

Lemon always had a complicated relationship with God, as he cherished the Southern Black church he grew up in, but struggled with the fundamentalist rejection of his right to exist as a gay man who wanted to marry his longtime love in a church wedding with all the traditions.

Throughout his years on CNN, Lemon proved to be one a deep thinker, and with this book, that proves it more than ever. He deftly handles melding his feelings on the church to what it has been like for him in a United States that has had an emboldened right wing led by former President Donald Trump, whose supporters use the flag for their own means.

"Those of us who believe in the teachings of Jesus made a terrible mistake allowing right-wing Evangelicals to co-opt His name over the past fifty years. It's equally egregious for loyal citizens of the United States to allow election deniers and insurrectionists to alienate us from our Stars and Stripes. It's profane for them to carry the flag of the United States alongside the flag of the Confederacy, just as it is profane for an Evangelical church to hang a cross next to a sign that says GOD HATES F**S.

If the cross is shorthand for Jesus, displaying it should be a declaration of love. If the flag is a symbol of unity, flying it should be a declaration of our willingness to go together even if we don't match. If it's a symbol of belonging, it belongs to all of us - the multitudes within us - and we defend it by declaring our individuality.

Bold on bold on bold.

I've known for a long time exactly who I am, but I was so good at reading the room, I didn't always let the room read me, the United States of my own diversity as a gay, Black, Christian, American journalist.

In many unexpected ways, the process of thinking through, writing, and revising this book has given me my God back. Now I want my flag."

Lemon details some of the biggest stories he covered, starting with the Sandy Hook school shooting on December 14, 2012. He was at the Washington bureau that Friday morning, and got on the first Acela  he could to get to Stanford, Connectictut, before heading to Newtown. While he goes into how tough it was to cover that excruciating painful event, he writes how, after covering a press conference by the CEO of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, he gave an impassioned speech on-air about gun violence, and the backlash that followed on Twitter.

Then, nearly ten years later, there was another school shooting, in Uvalde, Texas, at Robb Elementary School, and Lemon also got there as soon as possible to cover the tragedy. One moment he writes of was covering a memorial service at the sanctuary at Primera Iglesia Bautista (First Baptist Church), and how he maintained his professional stance, which was being severely tested with all the raw emotion and heartbreak in the air. 

"When the congregation started singing," Lemon writes, "I didn't understand the Spanish lyrics, but I recognized the melody and sang the hymn I'd known since I was a child.

I once was lost but now am found..."

Lemon forthrightly admits that the gun issue really tests his objectivity, as he sees those wanting more God in schools want more guns in them as well, that the issues of religion, freedom, and security are fused together. He also sees a country that drastically changed between Sandy Hook and Uvalde, that outrage has turned into acceptance, and that anyone can become a gun violence victim anywhere. He sums it up thusly, "Because freedom means gun, and security means gun."

In this discussion, Lemon admits that he has been a gun owner himself, but clarifies his feelings on being a well-regulated, responsible one and those who see it as a larger meaning of love for the country. Along with that, Lemon also writes of how he was a Young Republican, and how the party had a much-different platform in the mid-1970s than it does now, while a Democrat in Louisiana meant "Dixiecrat" and were stocked with racists still debating the Civil War. The switch in party identity happened soon after, in the early 1980s, as the Moral Majority, led by Evangelical Christians, began to dominate the Republican party.

One constant in the book, which gives it a real poignancy, is Lemon's relationship with his older sister, Leisa, who he leaned on while covering brutal moments like Sandy Hook and how she always looked out for his interests.

Leisa died tragically in 2018 in a fishing accident, as she drowned in a lake near her home. In processing her untimely death, he thought of religious axioms that he leaned on in tough moments, and their surprising origins.

In this excerpt, Lemon writes of the services he and Leisa grew up with, and what stuck with him: "I first ran a foul of the Holy Ghost on a sweltering summer evening in 1969 at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Port Allen, Louisiana. Sunday night service was in full gospel swing. I was about three years old, restless and grumpy on my grandmother's lap, worn out by a long day of trying to be good. My mom, Katherine, and my grandmother, Ma'me (pronounced like the Cajun mah-MEE) dragged me and my sisters, Leisa and Yma, to Southern Baptist services every Sunday morning at 7:45. After church was fellowship and family time with cookies in the church kitchen and over-the-top Sunday soul food at my aunt's house. Then we went to Sunday school. There was some respite in the afternoon, but in the evening, we went to another revival-type service that thundered into the night, with Reverend Isaiah Warner exhorting righteousness and the choir singing salvation.

Services began in the parking lot. That's where the congregation did their congregating. We all gathered outside while the piano and organ players warmed up in the sanctuary. This was an era of musical genesis: the traditional music of the American Black Church had given birth to this fresh, distinctive thing called funk, and funk returned the favor, bringing its raw energy home again. You'd hear gospel standards like 'Jesus on the Mainline' alongside Billy Preston's 'That's the Way God Planned It." The driving rhythms and infectious harmonies were built for inclusion. Everybody in.

The matriarchs of Shiloh gathered under the muggy southern sky, wafting paper fans printed with pictures of Mahalia Jackson, JFK, or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They were voluminous dresses that looked and smelled like flower gardens, and most of them had white lace doilies bobby-pinned on top of their stiffly sprayed hairdos. As they nodded and greeted one another, those doilies bobbed like white lilies on the breeze.

Ma'me wore a hat with tulle netting and alligator shoes that matched her purse. Mom was always dressed to the nines: Lena Horne audacity meets Chanel boucle. Her tailored suit would be covered by a choir robe as soon as she got inside, but out in the parking lot, ladies would elbow Leisa and Yma and say, 'Girrrrl, your mama! You know she can rag.'

When the deacons opened the door, Mom went off to join the choir. Ma'me collected her program and led Leisa, Yma, and me to our usual pew up front, close to the choir side so Mom could see us from her place in the alto section and shrivel us with harsh looks as needed."

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Mets To Hold Watch Party At Citi Field Thursday For Game 3

 


For the first time ever, there will be a watch party at Citi Field on Thursday night, as fans can watch the Mets' Game 3 of the Wild Card Series against the Milwaukee Brewers on CitiVision, the massive video screen above center field.

Yankees To Renew Rivalry With Royals, Who Ousted O's

 

Cole Ragans pitching in Wild Card round Game 1 for Kansas City on Tuesday. @Royals.


The Yankees learned who their opponent will be in the American League Division Series starting Saturday night at Yankee Stadium, and it will be a renewal of one of their biggest rivalries from nearly half a century ago.

Books: "On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything" By Nate Silver

 


On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything

By Nate Silver

Penguin Press; hardcover, 576 pages; $35.00

Nate Silver is a preeminent polling and data expert who founded FiveThirtyEight, and he writes the Substack Silver Bulletin. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Signal and the Noise, in which he examined how forecasting would define the age of "big data."

In the new, engrossing book, On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, Silver investigates "the River," which is a vast ecosystem of like-minded people that has everyone from low-stakes poker pros to crypto kings, blue-chip art collectors, and venture-capital billionaires. It is a distinct culture because those involved share a way of thinking and a lifestyle whose mastery of risk allows them to shape, and ultimately dominate, a lot of modern life.

The River is not very well known, but Silver feels it should be, as while most involved aren't rich and powerful, those who are tend to be Riverians more than the wider population. The traits commonly found in the River are you need a high tolerance for risk, appreciation of uncertainty, and an affinity for numbers. Along with that is a distrust of conventional wisdom and a competitive drive that can border on irrational.

This is why some of the main figures in it that Silver examined are professional poker player Doyle Brunson, former CEO of PayPal Peter Thiel, Open AI CEO Sam Altman, and Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Those big names are representative of where Silver went to deeply research this book, as he goes behind the scenes at the casinos and venture capital firms, and the inner sanctum of FTX, as well as meetings of the effective altruism movement.

Understanding their mindset, which includes the flaws in their thinking, is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy, as those in the River have increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society. He did this by interviewing over 200 hundred people, most of whom are people who he describes as being in the River, but also outside observers.

Silver acknowledges that in the time he wrote this book, a lot could have affected their sphere of influence, from poker cheating scandals to the spectacular collapse of Bankman-Fried and FTX to Elon Musk transforming himself from a rocket-launching renegade to taking over Twitter and remaking it into X, and changing his identity along with it. Despite all that, the River is still winning, with Silicon Valley and Wall Street accumulating more wealth and Las Vegas taking in more and more money.

A professional poker player from 2004 to 2007, Silver is able to identify with this way of thinking, which is also related to what he does with FiveThirtyEight. He also delves into the differences when dealing with probabilities for elections and sports, the differences inherent in analyzing each, and which one he gets more grief over.

In this excerpt, Silver writes of how his thinking of the River evolved, "I'm one of those people with a mediocre memory for names - don't bet on me to recall the name of your puppy on the first try - but a good memory for places. When I'm stuck on a knotty problem, I need to get up and take a walk. So in thinking through the material for this book, I've been making a mental map of the landscape of the River.

When I first pitched this project, I had a different name for this metaphorical place: the Pool. I thought this was cute. Poker players and other gamblers love metaphors involving water (a bad player is called a 'fish'), and 'pool' itself is a gambling term, as in a betting pool. 

But the Pool implies some kind of exclusive membership, like a pool at a gym or a country club, when instead gambling is a relatively democratic institution. Imagine that you and your buddies could enter a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, and the first game you played was against LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Luka Doncic. In poker tournaments, that's exactly what you can get. Pay your buy-in, and you can literally play against the best players in the world - or against a celebrity that you'd never have a chance to meet otherwise. At one event at the 2022 World Series of Poker, the player seated one seat to my right was Neymar, the Brazilian great who is one of the best soccer players in the world. (Neymar got much too aggressive with a mediocre hand and I won a big pot off him. He's also scored seventy-nine career goals for the Brazilian national team and I've scored zero.)

So in my mental map, the River is not one discrete place so much as an ecosystem of people and ideas. Residents in different parts of the River don't necessarily know one another, and many don't think of themselves as part of some broader community. But their ties are deeper than I expected when I began working on this project. They speak one another's language with terms such as expected value, Nash equilibriums, and Bayesian priors. 

I think of the River as having several subregions. Let's start with the one that will require the most explanation: Upriver. I imagine Upriver as being like Northern California with its major research universities, rolling hills, and ocean views - but also eccentric and aloof, not quite fitting in with the rest of the country. The clearest manifestations of Upriver today are in two related intellectual movements, rationalism and effective altruism...Although EA ostensibly has a narrower focus, taking a data-driven approach toward altruism and philanthropy, in practice both EAs and rationalists have a catholic appetite for involving themselves in all sorts of controversies...

EAs and rationalists have close ties to the tech sector, and many of the leaders of the movement are based in Northern California. And in recent years, some EAs have become less concerned with traditional philanthropy and more interested in the development of artificial intelligence. Many EAs and rationalists believe that AI is an extremely high-stakes problem, one of the most important developments in the history of civilization. Some also believe that AI, if it sufficiently powerful, could end or profoundly harm civilization and pose an existential risk to humanity. So it has been an interesting time to write about these movements. Between their catastrophic association with Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) on the one hand, and the astonishing progress of AI tools like ChatGPT on the other hand - progress that was well predicted by some EAs - it is vital to understand their mindset.

Further downstream, you'll find what I call Midriver, which I picture as having lots of tall, angular buildings, as Manhattan does. This is where people apply the EV maximizer skill set to make lots of money, such as through venture capital and hedge fund investing. There's more in this book on Silicon Valley than on Wall Street, though. The Silicon Valley guys are more of an open book, happier to flaunt their Riverian weirdness and show the middle finger to the East Coast establishment, and more explicitly aligned with movements like rationalism. But make no mistake: Wall Street is making money hand over fist from EV maximilization, too.

Then there's Downriver, the region we've talked about the most so far. I imagine Downriver as Las Vegas meets New Orleans: lots of tourists and lots of gambling. It's Downriver where the term 'edge' comes from (as in the title of this book). 'Edge' means having a persistent advantage in gambling - consistently making +EV bets. Against 99.99 percent of customers who set foot on a casino floor and the very large majority in a sportsbook, the house has the edge, but that doesn't stop Riverians from dreaming of being in the 0.01 percent."


Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Books: "The Dichotomy of Leadership" By Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

 


The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win

By Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

St. Martin's Press; hardcover, 336 pages; $30.00; available today, Tuesday, October 1st

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin served as U.S. Navy Seal Officers in the toughest urban combat mission in the history of the SEAL teams. Their task unit is to this day the most highly-decorated special operations unit from the war in Iraq. When they returned home, Willink and Babin founded Echelon Front, a leadership training and consulting group that teaches others to build and lead their own winning teams using lessons learned from the battlefield. They also are the authors of Extreme Ownership, which is a #1 New York Times bestseller. Willink has also authored numerous books, including Final Spin (click here for our review from November 2021), and he hosts the top-rated podcast titled Jocko Podcast.

Books: "Bad Reputation" By Emma Barry

 


Bad Reputation

By Emma Barry

Montlake; paperback, 297 pages $16.99; Kindle eBook, $5.99; available today, Tuesday, October 1st

Emma Barry is an acclaimed romance novelist, teacher,  former political staffer, and recovering academic. She is the author of Funny Guy and Chick Magnet, as well as the Political Persuasions Series, whose books include The One You Want, The One You Need, The One You Hate, and The One You Crave.