#and Todd Lose it During a Podcast| TAKE A LISTING PODCAST

[prospectsplus]

Best of Real Estate Bloopers 2: Lisa, Jim, and Todd Lose it During a Podcast| TAKE A LISTING PODCAST

[rewolfaekilerom]

why reread books?

//NOTE: This was originally posted to Wordpress on 04.24.2021//

I didn’t write last week. Whoops. I could come up with an excuse, but I don’t need to. I spent 7 years in grad school, and some 17 years before that in regular school; this blog is my way of reconditioning myself to love writing for the sake of writing and not to write out of some obligation or feeling that I’m not doing enough.

I work 40 hours a week, and most of that’s with writing in some way, shape, or form. I’m doing plenty.

So, today’s post.

I started reading P. D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley today. (I promise I’ll write about the Sookie Stackhouse series. I finished it last week and have so many thoughts, but I’m not quite ready to share them.)

The first few pages of Death Comes to Pemberley (this is about as far as I’ve made it) are a clever retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, because that’s what James’s book is based on. I read Austen’s novel ages ago–probably as a teenage and probably next to a pool. I think I was made to get a PhD because one of the challenges I set myself one summer as a teenager was to read all of Austen’s novels. I think I got through most of them, but I don’t really remember. I was a bit of an oddball and a nerd. My dad and I would go to the public library every weekend, and I went through a phase where I’d take out a stack of poetry books just . . . to read in study hall. Like I said, weird kid. I thank my parents for indulging my love of books, even if it meant that I was an overgrown child in grad school for too many years and filled their lives with sympathy stress.

Anyway. I think I mentioned in my previous post that I like to reread books. What I mean by this is a few different things, actually–or, rather, this rereading can come in a few different forms.

I, of course, mean it in the straightforward sense. I’ve reread Rebecca many times, and I’ve reread Barbara Michaels’s oeuvre many, many more times than I’d ever be willing to admit.

But by “I like to reread books,” I also mean “I like to reread books–sometimes immediately after I’ve finished them.”

I’m definitely not proud of this, but I reread both the After series by Anna Todd–you know, the One Direction fanfic that’s actually a really gross (in every sense of that word) depiction of a tremendously abusive and toxic relationship–and the To All the Boys… series by Jenny Han immediately after I finished them. Ironically, I wouldn’t have ever picked either series up if it weren’t for a podcast I started with two friends that will likely never see the light of day. In any case, Han’s series is genuinely good; I relate to Lara Jean’s character in the sense that she’s quite similar to how I was as a teenager; there’s a comfort there that’s coupled with a forced humility–I like laughing at myself, even when someone else is also laughing at me. And Todd’s series is . . . trash, which is probably what makes it compelling. It’s not a series you read to feel good about yourself or other people; it’s a literary car wreck, something you want to look away from because it’s terrible and you know it’s bad for you, but you also feel some inexplicable compulsion to stare it directly in the eyes and engage.

For all my bravado, I’m usually pretty good at picking my battles and not engaging, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t help but engage (and reengage) with the After series. Maybe I’ll delve into that in another blog post, though I’m thinking that’ll have to be something akin to a therapist visit, and it’ll most certainly be something I’ll have to work through repeatedly.

The most straightforward reason I can give for why someone might immediately reread a book is that they feel like they devoured it too quickly the first time so they need to go back and pay closer attention. I’ve done this with a few mystery books–Tana French’s The Witch Elm, for instance–because I’ve finished the book feeling a bit like I didn’t read closely enough and so missed out on some of the author’s brilliance. I immediately begin rereading in hopes of really appreciating what the author has to say and how they’ve said it.

I might also immediately reread a book because I feel like the ending came too soon–like I maybe didn’t get to spend enough time with the characters or in their world, like maybe I’m not ready to leave that fictional universe or to let go of that story. I think this is fairly relatable. I’ve read heaps of tumblr posts and heard from many friends that sometimes finishing a book is a sad experience because, as with any ending, there’s a certain degree of mourning that has to happen for the thing that has been lost. In the case of finishing a book, you might feel compelled to mourn the loss of a particular experience, world, space, or set of characters. Those things still exist on the pages of the book–hey, we write about literature using the present tense because those things continue to exist even after we’re finished with them–and they also exist in our minds. But the thing about finishing a book is that, though the memory of that reading experience stays with us, the experience of being guided through that fictional world ends. The author is, of course, our guide through their fictional world; when we finish a book, we lose that guide. Depending on how we feel about the author’s voice–or, perhaps more appropriately, the narrator–we may feel a greater or lesser sense of loss.

I don’t really Elizabeth Bowen’s or Alix Harrow’s writing styles (these are honestly the first two authors who came to mind; I know they’re very different–so, see, I’m well read!), so I don’t feel a great sense of loss when I leave their fictional worlds, however compelling they might be. But I do tend to like the types of narrators Emily St. John Mandel, Octavia Butler, or (the Janus-faced–multi-faced?) Carolyn Keene offer readers (again, it’s like I’m trying to pick completely unsuitable pairs, but I swear I’m not), so I feel a sense of loss when I’m forced to separate from those narrators because I’ve finished experiencing their physical manifestations–the bound collection of pages on which they live their finite lives.

Someone might argue that those narrators can live on in the reader’s mind just as the fictional world they inhabit gets taken up and finds new life in the reader’s imagination. I like that argument, but I think it overlooks the simple fact that the narrator’s voice isn’t all that matters here. That narrator is a puppet, and the author is the master puppeteer who directs what the narrator does, says, and conveys–that is, how the narrator guides us, the readers, through the story. So, again, when we finish a book, we lose our guide through–sometimes even our friend in–the fictional world.

To wax poetic for a second, when we finish a book, we get to move forward in time while the narrator is stuck back in time. There’s something so sad about leaving someone behind, and it’s especially sad when we have to leave someone in a not-so-pleasant world–even if it’s fictional. It’s the reason a story like Peter Pan is so sad–Peter is a nasty little tyrant, but we (or maybe just I) can’t help but feel bad for him because he’s left behind while everyone he loves and who loves him grows up, because that’s the natural course of action. As one of my grad school peers once pointed out, Barrie’s narrator begins the book by marking Peter as exceptional–as the exception–because he’s the only child who doesn’t grow up.

So, to get back to my point, when we reread a book, we’re trying to recapture and reunite with that guide, that friend, who we’ve had to leave behind because of the simple fact that we outlived them. After all, our lives continue to go on after theirs have ended. The operative word in that first sentence, though, is “try.” There’s a saying about how you can only experience something for the first time once, and I think that’s very true for reading a book. You can only be fully immersed in a narrator’s present moment and fully subject to the will of a narrator one time, and that’s the first time you go through their story with them. In every subsequent journey, you have the advantage (or disadvantage?) of knowing exactly where the story will take you, and so a bit of the mystery–or helplessness, or naiveté, or whatever–is gone.

That said, though, I’m not sure I’d go so far as to argue that you can only experience the story “as it’s truly designed to be experienced” one time–that first time. I’m sure this perspective has something to do with some deep-rooted prejudice I have against attributing meaning or intention to an author. I don’t want to probe that prejudice too much at the moment because I suspect it’s coupled with layers of anxieties that are all somehow connected to four years of graduate coursework spent feeling a bit like the dumbest person in the room.

I’ve read a lot of books (#humblebrag), so, naturally, I’ve read books in a lot of different environments, for a lot of different reasons, and in a lot of different states of mind. I like to think of myself as generally a pretty “good” reader–that is, in the sense that I’m able to appreciate stories for what they are and to suspend my disbelief, sometimes while a very distracting “real world” goes on around me. Again, that’s probably partially because of my training. I’ve read in silent libraries, backseats of cars and on crowded buses, at pools, in bed, in fields, at busy airports, in cabs, at bars and coffee shops, at house parties–and those are just physical places. I’ve also read in diverse situations, including while immensely happy, having just had a fight, while crying, because it’s assigned reading, while heartbroken, while trying to also keep a conversation going, during class, because this book reminds me of something else, while anxious, when very tired, during the middle of an argument, out of curiosity, while waiting, and the list goes on. The sheer volume of reading one has to complete (or at least try to complete) to keep up with a grad-level literature course means that one has to be okay with reading whenever and wherever. I’ve literally carried a book with me on a date and to the grocery story “just in case” I had some extra time.

To get closer to my point, this is all a very long way of saying that there are so many circumstances that can affect our reading experience that it’s impractical for an author or a reader to think that there’s only one way to read a story. Take a relatively broad circumstantial reading category like “beach reading.” There are so many different beach scenarios that an author–even one who’s willing to settle for a very broad interpretation of “beach reading” like “reading near a large body of water with some level of distractions but in a generally relaxed mood”–can’t attempt to predict. I’d honestly be surprised to hear that an author aiming to write “beach reading” would even try to get more specific than that. After all, we don’t really have categories like “tropical beach vacation with friends reading” or “rocky Maine beach on a solo vacation reading.” I doubt an author would attempt to get that specific because, after all, writing is a career and those who do it need to create a product that will be marketable to enough people to make it worthwhile and to secure a living. And for an author who isn’t writing professionally, it hardly seems worth it to even attempt to take the time to try to predict the circumstances that might surround their audience’s experiences with the finished story. There are simply too many variables, so the goal must be, to some degree, at least, to write a story that conveys something to someone in whatever circumstance they happen to be in at the moment they’re reading. That’s a monumental task. An author might, then, have an “ideal” reader in an “ideal” scenario or state of mind or whatever, but they can’t ever write to that “ideal” alone–and that’s even if they’re writing for themselves, since they don’t know what frame of mind they’ll be in when they experience the story again (unless, of course, they don’t intend to experience the story again, in which case nothing matters except the present, which is pretty interesting in itself but not what I’m talking about right now).

But something I’d also like to note is the simple fact that sometimes stories are better–more interesting, more effective, more whatever–the second time we read them. I’ve read books with perfect focus–in a quiet library, for instance–and not found them all that compelling; I’ve also gone back to those books later–once I’m in a slightly different place (mentally, physically, emotionally, without the pressure of reading for class, whatever)–and genuinely enjoyed them. I’ll readily admit that sometimes I’m just a better reader, and sometimes I’m a better reader of a particular type of book than I might be otherwise. As humans, we’re perpetually in flux. Books are more or less stationary objects that don’t really change. We’re what changes, so we might be in a better position to appreciate a book at one point in our lives than at another point.

So, I might reread a book to recapture that first reading experience. But I might also reread a book to have a different reading experience, to meet the narrator when I’m a slightly different person. My goal might be to relearn or refresh myself of the lessons I learned through reading that particular story, but it might also be to gauge how I’ve changed. Each time I reread a story, I have a different reading experience: I notice different things; I feel different feelings; I appreciate different characters or appreciate the same characters differently; I take away different ideas about my current world based on not only how my current world compares to the fictional world but also how my current world compares to the current (now past) world I lived in the previous time(s) I experienced the fictional world.

Oy, that was a lot. And I could complicate this all further by delving deeper into why we read at all–why we sign on to read a story, what we how to get out of the reading experience, and what reading actually does for us. But I already wrote a dissertation, so I’m not going to do that again. Also, we all read for different reasons and we each read different types of stories for different reasons, so there are so many variables that it’s hardly worth it to explore that topic in a really broad sense. Maybe a narrower sense would be more productive, but I’ve already written enough for today.

What I want to say is that I’m definitely not alone in rereading stories. There are ample reasons to reread stories, the most straightforward of which being that it can just be enjoyable to do.

And to think that this post grew out of the idle thought that I’d like to reread Pride and Prejudice. And I’m still only three pages into Death Comes to Pemberley! Well, okay, onward.

xoxo, you know.

[hurlumerlu]

top 5 podcasts, fantasy books, DC characters, fictional settings, ice cream flavours

That’s a lot of of top five (tops five ?) !

Top five podcasts :

5) The Magnus Archives : Took me a while to get into it because monologues make me lose focus and most episodes don’t scare me as much as I wish they would ? But it has an engaging plot, excellent voice acting, and Gertrude. 4) You’re Wrong About. It’s probably weird to call it a comfort show, especially in the middle of all these fictionnal podcasts, but it is a comfort show for me. I particularly recomand their episode on the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and the four episodes on the DC Snipers. 3) The Penumbra podcast. Do I always love the voice acting ? No. Do they miss the mark sometimes ? Yes. But they had me at “Gay Space Noir” and secured me at “Horny Heroic Fantasy”. Also I love Juno Steel with all my bi, chronically depressed, whump-loving heart. 2-1) Wolf 359 OBVIOUSLY ! It’s so, so good from start to finish, like maybe some season 4 episodes were slightly weaker but honnestly I don’t think any podcast compares ? Strong plots, great dialogues, engaging themes, amazing characters... and the music ! I love this show so much. 2-1) I don’t know if Critical Role counts as a podcast but you can listen to it as a podcast and it would be ridiculous if I didn’t mention it given the sheer amount of time I spend watching it, talking about it and thinking about it. Also it really is very good.

Top five fantasy books :

5) Ash : A Secret History. Is it Fantasy or Sci-Fi ? Who Knows ? Either way, it’s good, you can feel that Mary Gentle has studied 15th century France extensively, I love all the battle scenes, the weird plot, Ash the female Mercenary Captain with more bravery than brains... it’s too bad it’s so weirdly het sometimes but I’ll take it because I love basically everything else. 4) Okay I’m allowing myself one slot for Dudebro Fantasy That Makes Me Go “Seriously, Dude ?!” At Its Author but I can’t chose between Berserk and Gagner la Guerre. 3) Discworld. Particularly the witches books but Night Watch will always have a special place in my heart. 2) The Gentleman Bastard sequence. I’m always a slut for heists and elaborate cons, but the books are also very well plotted and fun and suspensful and, and... *starts crying about the Gentlemen Bastards*. 1) The Lord of the Rings, duh. They were so formative and they still strike a chord few books manage to struck. (I stayed into the “aesthetic that’s firmly in the past” fantasy but if I were to branch to Urban Fantasy, Rivers of London would definitely be on that list)

Top five DC characters : 5) Duke Thomas 4) Stephanie Brown 3) Cassandra Cain 2) Jason Todd 1) Dick Grayson

Top five fictionnal settings : as in, in general, or specific ones ? In general, and in no particular order : A sailing ship, A deep forest, A secluded mansion during a hunting party, a city of narrow streets and treacherous rooftops, a very very long road. (okay none of these are fictionnal but they’re great places to set a story in)

Specific ones (also in no particular order) : The London of the Julian Lynes and Ned Mathey series, Ankh-Morpok, the world of the Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Redwall and its surroundings, Sherwood Forest (again, this one is not fictionnal but you know what I mean).

Top five ice cream flavours :

1) The ewe milk ice cream from that slightly fancy ice cream parlor in Toulouse. 2) Häagen Daz’s Macadamia Nut Brittle ice cream. 3) Vanilla ice cream with pecan. 4) Really good raspberry ice cream. 5) Coconuts is always a safe choice : when it’s not very good it’s pleasant, and when it’s truly good it’s delicious. And that concludes this long list of top(s) five. I will not take constructive criticism on the DC characters one. Thank you for all those questions :D

[faithfulnews]

New podcast: Faith-based colleges face coronavirus crisis (and hard identity questions, too)

What is going to happen on college and university campuses this fall?

That’s a huge question, right now, and nobody knows the answer yet. Parents and students want to know. Football fans want to know. Trustees want to know since, in the end, they’re the people who will end up trying to handle the financial fallout of the coronavirus crisis (including predictions of a second wave hitting with the flu-season in November).

But there is more to this story than COVID-19, if you have been paying close attention to higher-education trends in recent years. Leaders in higher-ed were already bracing for the year 2025 — when the enrollment surge linked to the massive millennial generation would be coming to an end.

Now, look past all of those state-funded schools — big and small. How will these trends hit private schools, including faith-based private schools. Many have been facing rising tides of red ink, and that was before the arrival of the coronavirus.

“Crossroads” host Todd Wilken and I talked about all of these issues, and more, during this week’s podcast (click here to tune that in). The hook for this discussion was my “On Religion” column for this week, which included this crucial passage:

… The coronavirus crisis is forcing students and parents to face troubling realities. A study by McKinsey & Company researchers noted: "Hunkering down at home with a laptop … is a world away from the rich on-campus life that existed in February."

What happens next? The study noted: "In the virus-recurrence and pandemic-escalation scenarios, higher-education institutions could see much less predictable yield rates (the percentage of those admitted who attend) if would-be first-year students decide to take a gap year or attend somewhere closer to home (and less costly) because of the expectation of longer-term financial challenges for their families."

This could crush some schools. In a report entitled "Dawn of the Dead," Forbes found 675 private colleges it labeled "so-called tuition-dependent schools -- meaning they squeak by year-after-year, often losing money or eating into their dwindling endowments." While it's hard to probe private-school finances, Forbes said a "significant number" of weaker schools are "nearly insolvent."

How many of America’s truly faith-defined private colleges are in that “Dawn of the Dead” list? It’s hard to know, but you know that there are a few.

That means there are news stories to cover linked to this trends — local stories in multiple zip codes from coast to coast.

Like I said, faculty and administrators on these faith-defined private campuses already knew that there was pain ahead, linked to demographic trends and the rising number of legal and academic challenges coming from their critics (think LGBTQ strategists involved in sports, accreditation boards and internship supervisors in public-school systems).

It’s hard to make strategic plans and (#GULP) budget cuts when — in many cases — faculty and trustees differ on key issues of theology, morality and other forms of academic politics.

The good news, for schools with strong denominational ties, is that they have loyal churches, alumni and parents who are committed to helping them. The bad news? Well, some of those churches are in decline. Some of those parents have budget problems and are looking for less-expensive options for their children. And key players in some of those churches believe that their colleges are getting a bit too uppity and/or progressive on matters of doctrine.

There are story hooks all over the place in these dramas.

But sometimes reporters simply need to follow the money. Here is a rather remarkable example, which arrived in my email box this week. The headline: “Franciscan University to Cover 100% of Tuition Costs for Fall 2020 for New Students.”

That’s bold. And this is a conservative — but not “traditionalist” — Catholic school that has, in recent decades, made a name for itself by producing flocks of new priests and nuns. I have spoken there several times and the atmosphere on campus is kind of like an evangelical school, only with monks. Here is a chunk of that press release:

STEUBENVILLE, OHIO — In response to the unprecedented economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, Franciscan University of Steubenville will cover the remainder of tuition costs, after scholarships and grants have been applied, for the fall 2020 semester for all incoming full-time undergraduate students enrolled in its on-campus programs. The president and Board of Trustees unanimously approved Step in Faith, a COVID-19 response plan, at their April 18 meeting.

President Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, said, “As a University, we feel called by God to ease the burden for students, so they can experience the irreplaceable value of a Franciscan University education. We’ve heard from many students whose concerns over the pandemic are making the decision to leave home for college more difficult. Also, many families and students have seen their ability to pay for college evaporate due to the economic impact of the coronavirus. We hope this unique response will help them to overcome these obstacles and uncertainties and step out in faith with us.”

The idea of using some of the University’s reserves to cover tuition costs came forward after Father Pivonka asked faculty and staff to join him in prayer for “fresh, creative, Holy Spirit-inspired ideas” for addressing the challenges Franciscan University and its students were facing due to the pandemic.

Tapping into the university’s “reserves”?

Yes, that’s what he said. There are some private-college leaders who can’t use that word, these days.

Meanwhile, here is another angle on these stories, care of an interview — published by Rod “Benedict Option” Dreher — with theologian David Whidden of Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University, or FranU, in Baton Rouge, La.

This is a small, no-frills commuter school — annual tuition is about $10,000 — that combines the basics in Catholic thought with programs for pre-med and nursing students. The key is that the school is small and has low costs. Here is a chunk of that interview:

All the things that used to be disadvantages for us are suddenly advantages. We have no dorms, no Greek life, no sports, and not even a cafeteria, so we haven’t had to return any money to students. And let me add that while the lack of those things might have seemed like a disadvantage before the pandemic, I never considered them to be a disadvantage, because when I walked into a classroom I knew my students had only one reason to be there, which was for an education (for instance, the day after the national [LSU football] championship game I had my first class of the semester at 7:45 am and only had two out of 29 students absent).  Most of our budget is spent on what is supposed to be the main mission of higher education, which is to teach and support students, not on things that are secondary to the university.  … Our other secret weapon is that we have a niche in healthcare degrees, so most of our students are enrolled in undergraduate programs like nursing, respiratory therapy, radiologic technology, physical therapy assisting, biology (pre-med or pre-physicians assistant), and the like.  As the pandemic has made clear, there is an ongoing need for students with those degrees.  But their education all takes place in a Catholic and Franciscan context that forms them to be not just technically proficient, but also deeply human in their approach to their vocations. Next year we are launching a program that will allow us to make sure that all our students are also properly formed with regard to healthcare ethics, which is something that we have also seen a need for in the pandemic.  I like to say that we have majors that matter, and that has never been more clear than in the last month. …

 Also, our classes are small, usually capped for undergraduates at around 32, so we know our students by name. And we are a Catholic college that actually treats the Catholic intellectual tradition with respect, not as a burden to be avoided, but as a gift to be shared.

Clearly, this is not the normal business model for a Christian private school. But it appears that smaller may be better, and it helps to have a clear focus on service to the local community.

Will others follow that path? The battles on many campuses are going to be sad and brutal, at the same time.

Enjoy the podcast.

Go to the article

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to The Good Place: ��Dance Dance Resolution”

Eleanor’s Moral Continuity

The Setup: Find our reaction to the season 2 premiere of The Good Place here.

SPOILERS for episode 203 below!

KRIS: 

Well, that escalated quickly. (Said the guy who’s never seen Anchorman.) In The Good Place’s Chapter 16 — written by noted pun enthusiast Megan Amram (also on Tumblr) and directed by executive producer Drew Goddard (a Lost alum and excellent writer in his own right, who ran the first half of the first season of Daredevil and wrote the screen adaptation of The Martian) — Adam’s prediction about an alliance proves largely correct, Liz’s and my theory that Eleanor was actually retaining her ethical/spiritual growth proves (sadly) incorrect, and Eleanor and Chidi are confirmed as soulmates, even if Michael didn’t know it. PLUS: the returns of lava demon Todd, the Medium Place, and — thank you, universe — Janet’s reset button!

“Is that possible, Janet? Can you just chill out a little?”

“Dance Dance Resolution” goes Groundhog Day (I haven’t seen that, either, but I have seen the terrific Edge of Tomorrow) with an accelerated/abbreviated chronicling of Michael’s hundreds of attempts to engineer a perpetual torture machine that Eleanor won’t far-too-quickly outsmart. He hits rock bottom when the epically stupid Jason solves it first (“Yeah, this one hurts”). Eventually, when all the other demons go on strike and Vicky (f.k.a. Real Eleanor) brings him a list of their demands, Michael finds himself reduced to seeking advice from a man who died because he locked himself in a safe and thought he could still breathe because he brought a snorkel.

Meanwhile, in what might actually be the episode’s B-story (how did the rest of you read it?), Eleanor and Chidi overhear the truth from some of the striking demons on a smoke break, and flee to the Medium Place, where Mindy St. Claire is really tired of Eleanor and Janet showing up on her doorstep with various combinations of the other doomed souls. We get good gags out of Mindy being the only one who remembers any of the 14 previous visits, and hear a few of Eleanor and Co.’s failed plans to outmaneuver Michael. But this episode’s emotional power comes from Mindy’s revelation that Eleanor and Chidi have not only slept together several times, but once even confessed their love to each other. (“It’s like anti-porn.”) Shaken, Eleanor — who has just been really mean to Chidi, even for her — rallies the team for the 700-somethingth time (we see some versions where Michael gives up after just a few seconds) and delivers an ultimatum to Michael… but thanks to that aforementioned advice from Jason, he’s (still) one step ahead of them. He wants to team up. This seems to mean that Tiya Sircar’s Vicky has just become our season villain, which is a pretty glorious reversal of the dynamic she originally had with “Fake Eleanor.”

Surprising no one, I’m now even more invested in learning more about Janet, who is clearly so essential to the operation of afterlife neighborhoods that even through 801 resets Michael could never fully control her. (Does this mean that in “Tahani Al-Jamil,” Janet’s wild personality swings were also to some degree unintentional? I’d love that. They weren’t essential to making Chidi despair over the awfulness of his book and pushing him out of his comfort zone.)

Anyone have hopes, fears, favorite moments (I think I can guess one of Liz’s), or a lead on some coke for poor Mindy St. Claire? As a former fledgling Nietzsche scholar, I’m pretty happy that William Jackson Harper delivers what I’m convinced is only the third or fourth time an American TV show has correctly pronounced “Nietzsche.”

Click through for sports analogies from Adam, a philosophy digression from Kris, and a quality Twitter recommendation from Miri:

MIRI:

Well I’m officially done trying to predict The Good Place. (This is a lie, and I’m not even sorry. Feel free to mock me for how wrong I am in future.) We knew they would twist us again soon, but not this big this quickly. Damn, Schur & co. Just damn.

I have questions about Janet’s level of self-awareness. Or I guess accumulation/memory of previous resets? Her conversation with Michael as he’s about to reset her suggests she knows somewhat what has happened in the past. That may be due to him explaining it to her over the course of that attempt, but I’m not sure. Does Janet have the capacity to retain change even if she loses memories? Clearly Eleanor and co can, but Janet is not human. But is she a being? Does she have the ability to grow? (Sidebar: Perpetually in love with D’Arcy Carden’s performance. That sequence of falls!)

I genuinely love The Good Place’s relationship to absurdity. When you run 800+ scenarios, you’re going to get to some weird places and a two second farm reality joke is exactly what I never knew I needed from a tv show. They have a damn clam chowder fountain, which is insane but they play it as if it isn’t and that is what works so beautifully. Everything they’re doing is bonkers, but if enough people do the same bonkers thing with a straight face, it’s very hard to question it. That’s what worked in the demons’ favor in the first season, and I think what will work in Eleanor, Michael, etc.’s favor this time around. (I told you I was lying about the no predictions thing.)

Jumping back to the chowder fountain for a moment: Manhattan clam chowder would be more demonic to have around than New England clam chowder in general, but a (proper) dairy based chowder is more horrifying to have in a public fountain, so I believe they made the right call on that.

A few smaller thoughts to wrap up:

JUST realized that Mike Schur and Michael the demon have the same name and I don’t know what that says about Schur or about what Shur thinks of himself. It’s a good name in general, though.

I’m quite excited to see more from Vicky. She’s a really volatile mixture of blind enthusiasm and legitimate shrewdness, plus Sircar is just a joy to watch. 

How high is the demon to bad person ratio, y’all? Is it really this skewed or is this a gross misallocation of resources?

Highly recommend this delightful twitter

ADAM: 

A slight disclaimer: I have been a little busy with the move and without internet living like some early 90s sap. I'm currently at my local Starbucks writing this (Spectrum hooks everything up later today). Now back to the show.

It's hard God Damn work being this right all the time! I mean I figured that the team up storyline would happen later, but well played Mike Schur for just getting to the point (more on that in a minute). I watched the episode at a Holiday Inn Express in Kingman, AZ and I'm pretty sure Kris could hear me patting myself on the back from his apartment in Hollywood. It is a good feeling when you just nail a plot development or future storyline. I mean some could liken my figuring out the plot twist to Jason figuring out that everyone is was in the bad place. Okay, enough of the gloating time for more serious talks because I've got great news for everyone, especially Mindy St. Claire, I didn't forget the cocaine!

I will say that even though I called the team up angle, I did not expect it to happen at the end of episode two. The Michael storyline of nothing working and being blackmailed by fake Eleanor (or whatever you want to call her) did have a mid-season or end of the season storyline to it. After letting everything settle in now, however, it makes sense that Schur would pull something like this-this early on. If you look back to the end of season 6, and all of season 7, of Parks and Recreation he takes massive time jumps. Leslie had triplets and we never saw them except for short moments. He essentially did the same thing with “Dance Dance Resolution.” He showed that we can keep doing the same thing over and over again (ala case of the week) seeing how everyone figures it out. In a recent podcast interview he did with Andy Greenwald, he explained how he likes to dig himself a hole and figure a way out. This episode shows that he's crazy like a fox and like "The Good/Bad Place" anything is possible to happen. I like the fact that with this Groundhog Day kind of episode that Schur and Co. are saying that no matter the different variables that the outcome is the same. Ergo, even though these might be bad people they can still learn and grow to be good. Which then leads to the question of: What really makes a bad/good person? Kris, since you are the philosopher I look to you to answer that question. I will say that with the team up now happening that Eleanor and Co. will grow attached to Michael and vice versa (a bit of a stretch).  

Disclaimer: This portion is going to be heavy with sports analogies.

Eleanor, Chidi, and Janet have some very funny moments in this episode showing that they are getting more freedom to handle more of the comedy on their own (I touched on this last episode). The episode, however, truly belonged to Michael. “Dance Dance Resolution” felt like Ted Danson was playing iso ball. We never really truly got to see him shine, except only during last season's finale. This was his moment and he did not disappoint. He was essentially LeBron barreling down the lane where no one is going to stop him. His ability to set others up (his interactions with Janet and then Jason in particular) so they get their moment is great. How he can work in the scene is great and his comedic timing is on point that it just seems so effortless. I am curious to know how much direction is given to Ted Danson or if it's just give him the ball and get the hell out of his way.

I would say to Kris and Liz that you are both correct that Eleanor keeps her ethical and spiritual growth. The reason is that even though yes she does lose her memory every time there is a reset, if you look at every reset she still does the same thing. She seeks out Chidi for spiritual/ethical growth. While she may not remember what happens she always tries to do the responsible or ethical thing. The question may be that instead of wondering what Janet retains with every reset, we might want to start asking what Eleanor and Co. retain with every reset. The characters’ memories are wiped, but how much are they truly retaining? Even when Eleanor and Chidi visit Mindy St. Claire for the 50th or whatever time, she explains to Eleanor that that is the first time Eleanor has told Chidi that she loves him. Even though they have had sex dozens of times before she never said told Chidi that she loved him. That would mean that even though their memories keep being erased their connection continues to grow stronger. This is going to be a storyline that Eleanor and Chidi are going to continue to grapple with throughout the show because with them trying to fool everyone Eleanor and/or Chidi is going to get jealous (or try to make the other jealous) while they are with their "soulmates." I mean let's be real it will be Eleanor trying to make Chidi jealous by hooking up with her "soulmate" and Chidi trying to get back at her, but failing in a miserable yet funny way. I really hope they stay away from a Will They Won't They sexual tension between Chidi and Eleanor.

Finally, I would have to disagree with the notion of Janet knowing and or retaining information. I think that Janet is just an actual computer trying to understand how the world works. I think that with every reboot I would compare it to a hard reset if someone formatted their computer. In the season one finale Michael says they stole a good Janet and reprogrammed her. She may have a backup drive that Michael does not even know about, which then, said backup drive will eventually be used against him by Shawn to retire Michael. I would also like to see Tahani get some more run. She hasn't had as much space to play as the rest of the co-stars. She has mainly just been involved in the B, sometimes C plot or the occasional runner.

KRIS: 

Since now two of you have asked, my leanings as a former-almost-philosopher are Aristotelian, which is to say that A) I’m generally more interested in character traits — virtues and vices — than in hard universal rules or in what you could call the “moral math” of utilitarianism/consequentialism; and B) I tend to think one’s character is shaped by one’s actions (as Chidi has explained to Eleanor), and that therefore one’s moral sense can be — indeed, must be — trained. As my existentialism professor Iain Thomson once phrased this view, “Aretē is a technē. Virtue is a skill.” (The Greek root of the word “technology” is “technē,” which can translate roughly to “skill,” but also to “science,” or even to “art” in the sense that (an) art is a practice. Which is why the website name Ars Technica is a little strange.)

Virtue ethics, then, may be the main ethic of The Good Place as a show. It’s worth nothing, though, that in “Dance Dance Resolution,” Chidi for the first time identifies himself as a specialist not in virtue ethics but in deontology, i.e., ethics based on rules and duties. (This explains his interest in contractualism and Scanlon’s What We Owe to Each Other, and also why he was so excited to have meals with Immanuel Kant.)

Appropriate response to a Kant superfan I’M KIDDING (mostly)

I’m not yet totally sold on Adam’s read of what I’m going to call Eleanor’s moral continuity, but I like it. (I literally applauded alone in my studio apartment when Adam’s prediction came true.) This brings me to my biggest… I don’t know if “concern” is the right word? But like I said last week, I’ll miss watching Eleanor grapple with her past dirtbaggery, which wasn’t just hilarious but often moving, and often a mirror. Think of when Eleanor’s boyfriend wanted to boycott that coffee shop. Dirtbag-Eleanor decided that because perfectly aligning all of one’s actions with one’s principles is impossible, we shouldn’t bother trying. As a specific scenario, this is something we all struggle with. And in general, the theme of “How Do I Be(come) a Good Person?” is creepy-targeted-Facebook-ads-level Pandering to Kris.

Vox’s Caroline Framke observed that this season reminds her of how Community changed a lot in its second season, shifting from a show “about college” to something supremely strange and toweringly ambitious, all for the better. I definitely don’t object to The Good Place undergoing a similar change, as seems to be the case not only in this episode’s structural ambition but in the increased focus on Danson/Michael. But while I do love Danson (who is everything Adam says he is), maybe because this is actually the first thing I’ve seen him in, I’m less invested in TGP as a Danson Delivery Mechanism than I was in its being — by circumstance if not by design — a show about women and people of color trying to find (or make) their place in the universe.

More importantly, the increased Michael focus is also what signals that TGP is no longer primarily about being a good person — though the team-up suggests it may still be about building a good community. And that’s a Schurian theme I love, partly because it’s an antidote to the distinctly American ethos of radical individualism: Americans like to believe in superheroes, in the Great Man theory of history, in “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” as the answer to everything, in the power of a single person to change the world through sheer will. But that’s not how the world works. It takes a village. This is indeed the point of Aristotle’s ethics, and of Aristotle’s Ethics, by which I mean the book Nicomachean Ethics, whose last chapter all but explicitly sets up his Politics, a work about how we organize communities to serve the ends of human happiness. An old classmate thought it was insane that political theory students read the Politics without necessarily reading the Ethics, and something like the reverse is also true: the goals established in the Ethics cannot be achieved without politics.

In The Good Place, Eleanor can’t become better if the world around her doesn’t provide conditions that make striving for goodness feasible. A key idea in philosophical ethics is that “ought implies can.” If a moral framework is going to make sense as a human project, and as something that can be enforced, following it has to actually be possible. In life this is what discouraged Eleanor from even trying to be conscientious about how she spent her money, and in afterlife it’s what Chidi agonizes over when Mindy reveals they’ve all been here before: “We are experiencing karma, but we can't learn from our mistakes, because our memories keep getting erased. It’s an epistemological nightmare!”

(For a much cleaner, sharper take on where this may all be going in a larger thematic sense, read Todd VanDerWerff on how he sees The Good Place as a self-conscious repudiation of Parks and Recreation’s optimism.)

ADAM: 

I think TGP is still about being a good person though. While yes there is a team up there still is the suggestion about what characters, mainly Eleanor, will do to figure out how they are good. Everything Schur has created deals with the optimism within not just people, but a community as a whole. This optimism is then brought forth by a conduit (Leslie Knope in Parks and Rec, Terry Jeffords in Brooklyn Nine-Nine) that shows everyone around them that they can either make a difference or can learn to be less selfish. 

Do you think that because Eleanor might retain some sort of "Goodness" that she then tries to make the neighborhood good? Do you think the Eleanor does retain some of the goodness that she has learned from all the resets (hence my theory on her telling Chidi that she loves him for the first time) that she, in fact, will help both Michael and the rest of the neighborhood become good? I don't see TGP as a repudiation to Parks and Rec's optimism, I see it as the optimism shining through the chaos within. Not to belabor the point, but even after all the 800+ resets Eleanor always seeks Chidi out to learn ethics/morality, as she feels guilty that she is not supposed to be in the "Good Place." She never deviates or goes down a different path. Couldn't you say that even in the chaos as a whole Eleanor and Co. still show resolve and that good can still shine through all through the chaos?

KRIS:

I'd like Lemon and/or Miri to take a crack at these questions, and I'll maybe come back to Eleanor when I close this out tomorrow morning, but I'll venture briefly that there's a distinction between the optimism of Parks -- Change for the better is inevitable, we're on the winning side of history -- and the specific, America-in-2017 brand of hope (or maybe that's not even the right word, but something hope-adjacent) that can be read into TGP, in which you try to change things for the better without assuming that you're going to succeed. In the case of Eleanor and Co., it's not like it can get any worse; there's nowhere to go but up, and thus nothing to lose by fighting even an unwinnable battle, but there is a toll on the conscience for giving up.

MIRI:

Point of clarification (because it matters to the questions Adam brought up, not just because I'm a pedantic ass)—I'm pretty sure this was not the time Eleanor said she loved Chidi. Mindy was showing her tape of another time. They overheard the striking demons only a few days into this reset, so they barely know each other this time. Which is why Eleanor was horrified to learn of the love—she doesn't feel that way about Chidi. Yet. And I think that goes to an important point—Eleanor's progress is not a straight line. She's evolved as a person overall, but she's still somewhat who she used to be and has her old memories. The circumstances of each reboot affect how she reacts somewhat. And that's realistic—no path to self improvement is simple or linear. She's going to have backslides and incremental progress. (Also I'd argue that she goes to Janet for help staying under the radar for her own safety and Janet brings her to Chidi. Eleanor doesn't go directly to him out of love or guilt. BUT she does find her way to him and is willing to learn from him over and over and over, which is what matters to me.)

I think that Eleanor's character has improved and that she retains some of that, but that the job is far from done—and that is the most important part. Each time she must choose to do better (not for the best reason to start, but still) and then work at it. Being good in a vacuum is easy and not particularly worthy of commendation. Eleanor is still on her climb out of dirtbaggery, she's just a bit farther along than in the first season.

Also: IT DID NOT OCCUR TO ME until Kris pointed it out that literally none of the non-demon protagonists are white dudes. That's amazing. I have come to expect Fremulon shows to actually look like the world (women, people of color, many things are garbage but not ALL things, etc). But damn, that is worth taking a moment to appreciate.

Also also, I would like to [again] direct you all to the twitter @nocontexttgp because it is a damn delight on my twitter feed and we all deserve that.

KRIS:

I wonder how much we should consider the question of Eleanor's moral continuity in the light of the sitcom "law" that your characters can't really change. Mike Schur and his collaborators (Dan Goor on B99, Greg Daniels on Parks) have pushed this law to its limits, but have they ever really broken it? Jake Peralta has grown up enough to be a worthy partner to Amy Santiago, but he's still definitely recognizably the Peralta of the pilot. Even the increasingly Woke Peralta is seen in season 1, when he punches out guest star Stacy Keach's old school detective for being homophobic. Leslie Knope started out kind of as a hapless Michael Scott clone, but she was never as outright awful a human being, and Poehler's sunniness lent itself to a different direction, so that Leslie became a hypercompetent moral authority, but she also retained her Too Much-ness and her blind love for and faith in her friends.

From the beginning Schur has been clear that The Good Place is intended as a heavily serialized show, so Miri's observation that Eleanor and Chidi seem to flee to the Medium Place relatively early into version 802 gets at a big question I have that this week's inevitable twist will probably prove I'm overthinking BUT STILL: Are we supposed to assume that Eleanor v802 has had roughly the same amount of moral maturation as version 1, that she’s had roughly similar experiences to what we saw last year? It seems like we have to say no, right? And if that's the case, this is on one level a pretty interesting commentary about network sitcoms: in a way it really doesn’t matter what happens to these people week-to-week, as it really didn't matter exactly who Joey was dating or exactly what Monica was yelling about on any given episode of Friends. But more specifically to the serialization of The Good Place, who/what exactly are we rooting for, if not for the Eleanor whose trials we followed last season? This reminds me, weirdly, of one of the big problems of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, in which the lead character was a repeatedly reset blank slate and we spent far too long knowing much more about her world than she did. (Echo actually figured out the truth by the end of the original pilot, but Fox wanted more weekly sexploitation, and forced the show into a procedural rut which eventually saw Eliza Dushku in bondage gear for like 30 seconds, apparently just for the hell of it.)

If Adam is right, then Eleanor's situation is something like "10 steps forward, 9 steps back" in every reset, and maybe last season did "matter" in-universe. But if Adam is wrong, then I guess what we're rooting for has to be in Eleanor's nature rather in her nurture -- maybe her fierce insistence on setting her own course, driven home as a fundamental drive with last season's revelation that Eleanor emancipated herself from her parents as a teenager -- and/or the very notion of moral perfectibility itself. Not perfection, but the potential for it. That is, we're rooting for Eleanor not because she becomes better but because deep down she wants to. I could live with that.

This isn’t relevant to my point, I just really wanted to include it

Lastly: I mentioned last week that I’m a little down on twist-driven storytelling as a concept or approach, but part of the reason it works so well here is that by going to the team-up so early — despite, as Adam said, having the feel of mid-season significance — the show is telling us it’s not “really” about the twist. Whereas something like Westworld builds really slowly and deliberately to a revelation that’s supposed to be earth-shattering, here the twist seems to be a means to a character-driven end, rather than the end in itself.

We’ll try to keep this up all season!

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[realestatedigitalsales]

Real Estate - Home-Flipping Millennials Are Losing Their Shirts Amid Regional Housing Slowdown

Real Estate - Home-Flipping Millennials Are Losing Their Shirts Amid Regional Housing Slowdown

Real Estate - Home-Flipping Millennials Are Losing Their Shirts Amid Regional Housing Slowdown

by Tyler Durden   Real Estate - Inspired by home-flipping reality shows and a thriving culture of newfound 'experts' in late state bubbles, young real estate investors in the Bay Area and Seattle are getting hammered amid a slowing housing market combined with payments on high-interest "hard money" loans, according to Bloomberg.

Sean Pan One such young investor, aerospace engineer Sean Pan, got into property investing after reading Robert Kiyosaki's financial advice book Rich Dad, Poor Dad - then scouring online investment forums and meetup groups to expand his network. Sean Pan wanted to be rich, and his day job as an aeronautical engineer wasn’t cutting it. So at 27 he started a side gig flipping houses in the booming San Francisco Bay Area. He was hooked after making $300,000 on his first deal. That was two years ago. Now home sales are plunging. One property in Sunnyvale, near Apple Inc.’s headquarters, left Pan and his partners with a $400,000 loss. “I ate it so hard,” he says. -Bloomberg As rapid price gains fueled a new crop of home flippers (2005 redux), young investors in areas which got 'too hot' are experiencing their first housing slowdown - and have been forced to take losses from properties sitting on the market too long. As we noted in April, housing starts and permits came in cooler than expected - with starts experiencing their largest drop in 8 months in March, then falling 0.3% MoM (against expectations of a 5.4% rebound).

It was the weakest level of starts since May 2017...

The decline was broad-based: Northeast: -28.3% Y/Y Midwest: -28.0% Y/Y South: -4.1% Y/Y West: -19.5% Y/Y Both Multi- and Single-family Starts dropped... with the latter at its lowest since Sept 2016

St. Louis Fed In Q4 2018, around 6.5% of property sales in the US were flips - or homes sold within 12 months of when they last changed hands, the highest seasonally adjusted share going back to 2002, according to CoreLogic. "It’s even higher than during the last boom, when there were more newly built houses for buyers to choose from," notes Bloomberg. Such deals were particularly attractive in Western markets such as Northern California and Seattle, where prices climbed by double-digit percentages annually. But some areas got too hot, and prices are flattening or falling. Fourth-quarter losses for flippers who sold within a year were the highest since 2009, according to a CoreLogic analysis that looks at buying and holding costs, but not rehab expenses. In the San Jose area, 45 percent of flips lost money. -Bloomberg

"Flipping only works in an appreciating market where homes move quickly," says Denver-based Fairview Commercial Lending COO Glen Weinberg. "Those factors are now in flux, and that’s what’s going to lead to the demise of a lot of flippers." Fairview is one of many firms tightening its lending standards for real estate investors, according to the report. Hard money loans are compounding matters for home-flippers who bought 'fixer-uppers' that needed costly upgrades. These high-interest / low down payment loans from private investment groups and investment banks typically include renovation costs, sort of like a student loan that covers room and board - except dischargeable in bankruptcy. Unlike the last decade’s housing crash, in which speculators bought simply to resell, many of today’s flippers sink money into fixing up properties. Their hard-money loans, which come from private investment groups, often have high interest rates and low down payments. The loans also are bigger because renovation costs are folded in. -Bloomberg Goldman Sachs and Blackstone Group have gotten in on the hard money loan craze, helping drive interest rates down on some of the loans to below 10%. In response to slowing markets, some lenders "are easing capital requirements and lengthening loan terms because it’s taking longer to flip homes," according to Todd Teta, chief product officer at real estate tracking firm Attom Data Solutions. ...the latest boom has also lured people such as Rachelle Boyer in Seattle, who got into property investing after attending a $25,000 real estate coaching program. The course taught her to think big, stay positive, and never quit. In 2016 she left a six-figure job and started flipping houses. When demand slumped last year, she fell behind on hard-money loan payments for two houses languishing on the market. She has one more to get rid of. “We will get through the dip. Things are already perking up a bit,” Boyer says. Nevertheless, she’s reconsidering the wisdom of reselling rehabs. Her goal now is to buy 25 houses in Pittsburgh, a cheaper, less volatile market, with a strategy of holding on to the properties as rentals. -Bloomberg

MATJAZ SLANIC/iStock Fairview's Weinberg - the hard money lender, has become "increasingly selective with borrowers and deals," requiring flippers cough up a 40% down payment on a house. That said, he's competing with lenders who are handing out loans like mardi gras beads - with rehab costs included and a tiny (or no) down payment. Flippers can "can go in with no money, his pockets just blowing in the breeze," said Weinberg, adding "The lenders are going to be left holding the bag." Bay Area software engineer Bryan Pham has also been flipping houses on the side - purchasing four during the slowdown. After last year's downturn, he paid $47,000 extra in loan extensions so that he could pull three homes off the market in the hopes of a housing pickup down the road. He thinks he'll take a $50,000 loss on one home he had listed for $1.1 million and took a month to go under contract. "I’ve seen people make foolish decisions in the past and still make money," says Pham. "Now you have to be conservative." Sean Pan, the aerospace engineer is pressing on - and has even started a blog and podcast about flipping homes. He plans to quit his job and focus on flipping full time. He says his biggest lesson came last year after trying to flip a home in Sunnyvale, California. He thought he got a “sweet deal,” negotiating the $2 million asking price down to less than $1.8 million. He and his partners decided to go all out on the remodel. The project took longer than expected, and then the market went soft. Pan couldn’t afford to wait for a rebound. The holding costs alone for three properties he was trying to dump totaled $30,000 a month. The home sold for less than $1.7 million, or more than $80,000 below what he paid for it. -Bloomberg "When you buy these houses, you never think you’ll lose money," said Pan. "I fixed it up. It should be worth more, but things change." Read more https://global.goreds.today/real-estate-scammers-are-increasingly-targeting-real-estate-transactions/ Read the full article

[theconservativebrief]

In 2018, an astonishing number of self-described white nationalists (including a former president of the American Nazi Party) ran for local, state, and national office in states from California to North Carolina — with the vast majority running as Republicans.

Most of these candidates, like Paul Nehlen and Patrick Little, fell far short of getting to the general election. (Little, for one, decided to refocus on a nationwide campaign of anti-Semitism, including chanting “expel the Jew” outside of the White House). But many far-right candidates either with ties to white supremacists or with white supremacist views of their own made it to the general election.

The good news? The most virulent white nationalists running in 2018 — from Holocaust deniers to one candidate who believes a New York children’s hospital was making kids sick on purpose — lost.

But several candidates with ties to white nationalists — including Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who faced mounting pressure for his own past comments and links to far-right groups — won their races.

Loser: Arthur Jones, Illinois’s Third Congressional District

Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier and former leader of the American Nazi Party, got on the ballot by going door to door to gather signatures without mentioning his long ties to neo-Nazi groups or his own anti-Semitic views. (For example, his campaign website features a lengthy essay on “The Holocaust Racket” and photographs of him protesting outside an event held in honor of a Holocaust survivor.)

The Illinois GOP disavowed his campaign, and national Republican figures like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) even urged voters to choose the Democrat over the avowed anti-Semite.

Jones lost on November 6, finishing with roughly 25 percent of the vote behind Democratic incumbent Dan Lipinski, but still receiving more than 44,000 votes. As I wrote in July, Jones’s candidacy was more a GOP failure than indicative of the viewpoints of Illinois voters:

State Assembly member David McSweeney, a Republican, spoke with me about what Jones’s run could mean for his party. “The guy is a complete jerk and a nutcase,” he said, adding, “it’s politically harmful to have a jerk and a nutcase like this associated with the party.”

McSweeney is mad at Republicans in Illinois for failing to take Jones seriously at every turn: They said nothing as he gathered signatures to run, they didn’t challenge the signatures when he submitted them, and they didn’t try to run an alternative write-in candidate in the primary. Then, just two weeks ago, they missed an important filing deadline to get a third-party candidate on the ballot.

Loser: Russell Walker, North Carolina state House District 48

Russell Walker, who ran to represent District 48 in the North Carolina House of Representatives, argues on his personal website that “God is a racist and white supremacist”; he was disavowed by both the Hoke County Republican Party and the North Carolina GOP.

In response to his disavowal by the Hoke County GOP, Walker left County Party Chair Hal Nunn a threatening voicemail, saying he would force foreclosure on Nunn’s home and cars. (“I’ll put liens on your house, every goddamn car I can find and everything else.”) He also said, “You don’t know where Jews come from,” and was ultimately served with a no-trespassing notice by the North Carolina Republican Party.

On Tuesday, Walker lost his race to Democratic candidate Garland Pierce, an African-American Baptist minister.

Loser: John Fitzgerald, California’s 11th Congressional District

John Fitzgerald ran for Congress for one specific reason: to expose the Holocaust as, in his words, “a fabricated lie.” In appearances on podcasts with avowed neo-Nazis, Fitzgerald has argued that the 9/11 attacks were part of a Jewish plot to force worldwide regime change. (Both of these things are obviously not true.)

He ran for office twice previously, doing so as a Democrat because he was “just trying to get in the system.” And on his campaign website, he wrote that diversity was “NOT a natural or organic evolution for the betterment of society, but a well-financed, orchestrated and premeditated AGENDA to eventually destroy all ethnic groups with the exception of the most powerful and wealthy of JEWS who are purposely promoting it for their own benefit!”

Despite losing support from the California GOP for his extreme anti-Semitism, he finished second in June’s top-two primary to advance to the general election. But he lost on Tuesday, losing, with 29 percent of the vote, to Democratic candidate Mark DeSaulnier.

Loser: Steve West, Missouri state House District 15

After Steve West won the Republican primary for the Clay County seat in the Missouri House, the Kansas City Star revealed he had a lengthy history of making anti-Semitic and homophobic comments, alongside wild conspiracy theories, on his radio show, including arguing in January 2017, “Looking back in history, unfortunately, Hitler was right about what was taking place in Germany. And who was behind it.”

West also believes, incorrectly, of course, that St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in New York is making children sick on purpose (“through vaccines”) “all for a little PR for the Jewish Cabal,” and that conservative Jewish people are “grooming America, just as a pedophile grooms his victim.” Two of West’s three children publicly urged voters not to pick their father, calling him a “fanatic,” and the Missouri GOP condemned him.

On Tuesday, West lost to the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Jon Carpenter.

Loser: Seth Grossman, New Jersey’s Second Congressional District

Seth Grossman, a heavily pro-Trump former Atlantic City Council member who is running in a district Donald Trump won in 2016, lost support from the House Republican fundraising apparatus after his past history of racist comments emerged.

This included his decision to share an article from a racist website on Facebook arguing that black Americans “cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well” as white Americans and “are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.” Grossman commented on the article: “Oy vay! What so many people, black, white and Hispanic, whisper to me privately but never dare say out loud publicly.”

He also stated in an April video, “The whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap and un-American,” and posted racist remarks on Facebook like, “Blacks were not enslaved by whites. They were enslaved by other blacks and then sold to whites. … I do know of many Africans who wish their ancestors had been taken to America as slaves.”

On Tuesday, Grossman lost his race against Democrat Jeff Van Drew.

Loser: Corey Stewart, US Senate for Virginia

Corey Stewart has reportedly been attempting to moderate his Senate campaign in recent weeks, but he has long ties to both the alt-right and white supremacist neo-Confederates in Virginia. In 2016 he claimed, “I was Trump before Trump was Trump.” Though Stewart is a native of Minnesota, he relied extensively on Southern motifs in his campaign, including an all-out embrace of the Confederacy. As I wrote earlier this year:

With Trump has come an all-out embrace of neo-Confederate viewpoints and the alt-right. In 2017, he attended the “Old South Ball” in Danville, Virginia, and gave a speech saying Virginia was the state of “Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson,” adding that the Confederate flag “is our heritage, it’s what makes us Virginia, and if you take that away, we lose our identity.”

At another campaign event in 2017 hosted by an avowed secessionist who attended the disastrous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Stewart again defended the Confederacy, saying, “Virginians, we think for ourselves. … And if the established order is wrong, we rebel. We did that in the Revolution, we did it in the Civil War, and we’re doing it today. We’re doing it today because they’re trying to rob us of everything that we hold dear: our history, our heritage, our culture.”

Stewart also had high praise for Jason Kessler, the organizer behind the alt-right Unite the Right rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, and DC. He’s appeared with Kessler at multiple events and receiving Kessler’s endorsement for his failed gubernatorial bid in 2017.

And he’s endorsed anti-Semitic House candidate Paul Nehlen, whom Stewart described in 2017 as a “hero” for challenging House Speaker Paul Ryan. Stewart also paid to use Nehlen’s email list and hired a former Nehlen spokesperson to consult on his campaign.

On Tuesday, Stewart lost to Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine.

Corey Stewart will now join the likes of Todd Akin, Roy Moore, Richard Mourdock, Christine O’Donnell, & many others by being an albatross around the neck of GOPers in Virginia & beyond. Republicans were never going to beat Kaine, but it could always get worse, & it has #VASen

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 13, 2018

Winner: Steve King, Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District

Steve King has a long history of nativism and racism: He’s endorsed a white nationalist for mayor of Toronto, conducted interviews with alt-right outlets, attended events alongside far-right European groups with Nazi ties, and even kept a small version of the Confederate flag on his desk for years. (Iowa was, of course, a Union state during the Civil War.)

As I wrote in June, King’s all-out embrace of white nationalism has separated him from other conservative Republicans:

In 2016 King filed an amendment to block efforts to place the image of abolitionist luminary Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill: He criticized “liberal activism on the part of the president that’s trying to identify people by categories, and he’s divided us on the lines of groups.”

And in a 2017 interview, speaking about upcoming demographic changes whereby nonwhite Americans would surpass white Americans in population, he said, “I will predict that Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other before that happens.” (During that same interview, he recommended right-wight strategist Steve Bannon’s favorite and extremely racist book, The Camp of the Saints.)

King’s extremism has had real ramifications for the Congress member: He lost major corporate support following the Tree of Life synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh, and Rep. Steve Stivers, the head of the House Republican delegation’s official campaign arm, condemned his tweets and statements on October 30.

But on Tuesday, King beat his Democratic challenger, J.D. Scholten, by 3 percentage points.

Winner: Steve Scalise, Louisiana’s First Congressional District

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise once reportedly described himself as “David Duke without the baggage,” referencing the former Ku Klux Klan leader. And in 2002, Scalise spoke at a gathering for white supremacists known as EURO, the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, originally founded by Duke.

Scalise said he didn’t know the event’s background, to which one conservative commentator responded, “How do you show up at a David Duke event and not know what it is?” But he eventually apologized for speaking at the gathering. Though some conservatives called for him to step down from the role of majority whip, he maintained support from then-Speaker of the House John Boehner and other Republicans.

On Tuesday, Scalise won his reelection campaign, defeating Democrat Lee Ann Dugas by nearly 140,000 votes.

Winner: Ron DeSantis, Florida gubernatorial race

Ron DeSantis, who ran against Democrat Andrew Gillum for the role of governor of Florida, leaned hard on his pro-Trump bona fides during the campaign. But he also had a personal history of ties to conservative pundits with white nationalist histories, and received support from white nationalist groups.

As my colleague Andrew Prokop wrote in October:

DeSantis did talk at a conference held by a man with white nationalist views. DeSantis did take money from someone who called President Barack Obama a racist slur (although he condemned the comments and said he will no longer take money from the contributor). He has been reportedly supported by a white supremacist group from Idaho through racist robocalls (which the DeSantis campaign, for its part, called “appalling and disgusting”).

And the first controversy of the campaign came when DeSantis said voters shouldn’t “monkey this [election] up” with a vote for Gillum, though DeSantis denied any racial intent and claimed he was just using a common phrase.

On Tuesday, DeSantis defeated Gillum.

Original Source -> How white supremacist candidates fared in 2018

via The Conservative Brief

[newsintodays-blog]

NFL notebook: Giants, OBJ reportedly making progress

New Post has been published on http://newsintoday.info/2018/08/24/nfl-notebook-giants-obj-reportedly-making-progress/

NFL notebook: Giants, OBJ reportedly making progress

The New York Giants and Odell Beckham Jr. have made progress recently on what is expected to be a record-breaking extension, according to an ESPN report Thursday.

Aug 1, 2018; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. looks on during training camp in East Rutherford. Mandatory Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com via USA TODAY NETWORK

Per the report, “there is reasonable optimism from both sides” that a deal can be reached before the Sept. 9 season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Beckham, 25, is scheduled to make just under $8.5 million in 2018, on the fifth-year option of his rookie contract. The league’s highest paid wideout is Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown at $17 million annually, while Tampa Bay’s Mike Evans holds the record for guaranteed money ($55 million).

Beckham has yet to play in a preseason game as he works back from a broken ankle that ended his 2017 campaign after four games, but he has ramped up his intensity in recent practices with an eye on getting in game shape.

—Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley will not play at all this preseason, and quarterback Jared Goff might not play either, head coach Sean McVay told reporters.

There had been no expectation that Gurley would play in Saturday’s dress-rehearsal preseason game against the Houston Texans, but McVay had previously indicated Goff would play versus Houston.

That likelihood has shifted with the health of starting offensive linemen Andrew Whitworth and John Sullivan, who will miss Saturday’s game. Right tackle Rob Havenstein also could miss the game with an ankle injury, which could leave Goff with unproven protection against J.J. Watt, Jadeveon Clowney & Co.

—Tennessee Titans wide receiver Rishard Matthews and defensive end Derrick Morgan are each recovering from knee injuries, and Morgan could miss regular-season games, according to NFL reporter Paul Kuharsky.

According to the report, Matthews is working his way back from an early August procedure to repair a torn meniscus and could come off the physically unable to perform list as early as next week. The report adds that Morgan suffered “a similar injury” in the team’s second preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday and could be out four to five weeks.

That would leave Morgan unlikely to play in the Titans’ season opener at the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 9 and perhaps a question mark for Week 2 versus the Houston Texans and Week 3 at the Jacksonville Jaguars.

—Green Bay Packers wide receiver Randall Cobb is not on the trade block.

One day after former NFL personnel man Mike Lombardi said Cobb was known to be available via trade in league circles, NFL Network countered to the contrary, reporting Cobb will be in Green Bay this season to play out the final year of his contract.

Speaking on The Ringer’s GM Street podcast Wednesday, Lombardi said many teams around the league are looking to add a receiver, and the Packers appear willing to move Cobb.

—Running back Adrian Peterson will debut with the Washington Redskins in Friday’s preseason game against the Denver Broncos.

Peterson, 33, signed with the team on Monday amid a rash of injuries at the position, including rookie second-round pick Derrius Guice. Head coach Jay Gruden said his appearance Friday will be essential to test Peterson’s comfort in the system and knowledge of the playbook.

“I’d like to see where he is after contact,” Gruden said. “I want to see the explosion in the hole, his vision, all that good stuff. I don’t think he’s going to lose that, but it’s just a matter of taking the hits, play after play after play and see where he stands as far as stamina goes.”

—San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman announced that he is launching a fantasy sports site, Daily Number.

The site will feature paid contests in 23 states, according to ESPN.

Sherman has co-founded the business with CEO Tom McAuley, and the cornerback will appear in an upcoming ad campaign. He is believed to be the first NFL player to have a stake in a fantasy game from the start.

—The lawyer for Cleveland Browns rookie wide receiver Antonio Callaway said he is working to get charges of marijuana possession against his client dropped.

A hearing on the matter had been set for 8:30 a.m. Thursday, but Spellacy instead faxed his request for a continuance. The hearing was rescheduled for Sept. 20 in Strongsville (Ohio) Mayor’s Court.

Callaway was cited for marijuana possession and driving with a suspended license early Aug. 5, according to a police report.

—One prominent member of the Pittsburgh Steelers said he is in the dark when it comes to Le’Veon Bell’s next step.

“I wish I knew,” center Maurkice Pouncey told ESPN. “He’s kind of kept to himself about it.”

Bell is not with the team because he doesn’t want to risk injury playing under the franchise tag. He will earn $14.5 million in 2018 but isn’t under contract until he signs the deal. The two sides couldn’t reach an agreement on a long-term contract. The same thing happened last August, and Bell reported and signed his one-year franchise tender at the start of Week 1.

—The Steelers signed Pro Bowl kicker Chris Boswell and inside linebacker Vince Williams to extensions.

Boswell’s deal is for five years, putting him under contract through 2022, while Williams signed a four-year deal.

Terms were not disclosed, but multiple reports peg the value of Boswell’s contract at $19.7 million ($3.94 million annually). Williams’ deal is worth $20.6 million ($5.3 million annually), according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

—The Steelers have built four two-story pillars to hold a tarp that can be raised to obscure the view of one of their practice fields from prying eyes.

The Steelers’ facility, which is shared with the University of Pittsburgh’s team, is visible from a number of nearby buildings, including a taller building that was recently constructed. The area, between the Monongahela River and East Carson Street, is relatively commercialized.

“You know how it is, man,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “This is interesting times, drones and so forth, you know? We do what we got to do to prepare and be ready to play — and play on a level, fair, competitive playing field.”

—The San Francisco 49ers traded outside linebacker Eli Harold to the Detroit Lions for a draft pick, both teams announced.

The specific pick was not disclosed, but multiple reports said it is a conditional seventh-round pick. Per ESPN, the pick will be conveyed in 2020 if Harold is on the Lions’ roster for at least four weeks.

Harold, 24, has played in all 48 games in his career and started 24 over the last two seasons, tallying 71 tackles and 5.0 sacks. A third-round pick in 2015, he was pegged as a pass rusher coming out of Virginia, but he has just 5.0 sacks and 14 quarterback hits in his career.

—The Tampa Bay Buccaneers placed running back Charles Sims III on injured reserve.

The fifth-year player injured his knee Saturday as he blocked on the opening kickoff at Tennessee.

The Bucs picked Sims, who turns 28 next month, in the third round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He signed a one-year contract to stay with the team in April as an unrestricted free agent.

—Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and former Dallas Cowboys personnel man Gil Brandt have been named the two contributor finalists for the Hall of Fame Class of 2019, the entity announced.

Each will now require 80 percent approval from the 48-member selection committee on Feb. 2, one day before Super Bowl LIII, to gain induction to Canton.

—Safety Obi Melifonwu, a second-round pick in 2017, was waived/injured by the Oakland Raiders.

Melifonwu will be subject to waivers. If he goes unclaimed, he would revert to the Raiders’ injured reserve list. It is unclear if the team would release him with an injury settlement in that scenario or keep him and give him a chance to make the roster in 2019.

As a rookie, Melifonwu started and finished his rookie year on injured reserve with a knee injury and hip injury, respectively, each of which required surgery. He played in five games (one start) in the middle of the season, making six tackles on 34 defensive snaps.

—The status of running back Marlon Mack for the Indianapolis Colts’ season opener remains uncertain as he recovers from a hamstring injury.

Mack, 22, is the odds-on favorite to start for the Colts after veteran Frank Gore left in free agency. A fourth-round pick in 2017, he had 358 yards and three touchdowns on the ground as a rookie, as well as 21 catches for 255 yards and a score through the air.

—Buffalo Bills linebacker Keenan Robinson has chosen to retire, a month after he signed with the Bills as a free agent, the team announced.

Robinson, who turned 29 on July 7, signed a one-year deal with Buffalo on July 24 worth a reported $835,000.

—Field Level Media

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[todaynewsstories]

NFL notebook: Giants, OBJ reportedly making progress

The New York Giants and Odell Beckham Jr. have made progress recently on what is expected to be a record-breaking extension, according to an ESPN report Thursday.

Aug 1, 2018; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. looks on during training camp in East Rutherford. Mandatory Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com via USA TODAY NETWORK

Per the report, “there is reasonable optimism from both sides” that a deal can be reached before the Sept. 9 season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Beckham, 25, is scheduled to make just under $8.5 million in 2018, on the fifth-year option of his rookie contract. The league’s highest paid wideout is Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown at $17 million annually, while Tampa Bay’s Mike Evans holds the record for guaranteed money ($55 million).

Beckham has yet to play in a preseason game as he works back from a broken ankle that ended his 2017 campaign after four games, but he has ramped up his intensity in recent practices with an eye on getting in game shape.

—Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley will not play at all this preseason, and quarterback Jared Goff might not play either, head coach Sean McVay told reporters.

There had been no expectation that Gurley would play in Saturday’s dress-rehearsal preseason game against the Houston Texans, but McVay had previously indicated Goff would play versus Houston.

That likelihood has shifted with the health of starting offensive linemen Andrew Whitworth and John Sullivan, who will miss Saturday’s game. Right tackle Rob Havenstein also could miss the game with an ankle injury, which could leave Goff with unproven protection against J.J. Watt, Jadeveon Clowney & Co.

—Tennessee Titans wide receiver Rishard Matthews and defensive end Derrick Morgan are each recovering from knee injuries, and Morgan could miss regular-season games, according to NFL reporter Paul Kuharsky.

According to the report, Matthews is working his way back from an early August procedure to repair a torn meniscus and could come off the physically unable to perform list as early as next week. The report adds that Morgan suffered “a similar injury” in the team’s second preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday and could be out four to five weeks.

That would leave Morgan unlikely to play in the Titans’ season opener at the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 9 and perhaps a question mark for Week 2 versus the Houston Texans and Week 3 at the Jacksonville Jaguars.

—Green Bay Packers wide receiver Randall Cobb is not on the trade block.

One day after former NFL personnel man Mike Lombardi said Cobb was known to be available via trade in league circles, NFL Network countered to the contrary, reporting Cobb will be in Green Bay this season to play out the final year of his contract.

Speaking on The Ringer’s GM Street podcast Wednesday, Lombardi said many teams around the league are looking to add a receiver, and the Packers appear willing to move Cobb.

—Running back Adrian Peterson will debut with the Washington Redskins in Friday’s preseason game against the Denver Broncos.

Peterson, 33, signed with the team on Monday amid a rash of injuries at the position, including rookie second-round pick Derrius Guice. Head coach Jay Gruden said his appearance Friday will be essential to test Peterson’s comfort in the system and knowledge of the playbook.

“I’d like to see where he is after contact,” Gruden said. “I want to see the explosion in the hole, his vision, all that good stuff. I don’t think he’s going to lose that, but it’s just a matter of taking the hits, play after play after play and see where he stands as far as stamina goes.”

—San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman announced that he is launching a fantasy sports site, Daily Number.

The site will feature paid contests in 23 states, according to ESPN.

Sherman has co-founded the business with CEO Tom McAuley, and the cornerback will appear in an upcoming ad campaign. He is believed to be the first NFL player to have a stake in a fantasy game from the start.

—The lawyer for Cleveland Browns rookie wide receiver Antonio Callaway said he is working to get charges of marijuana possession against his client dropped.

A hearing on the matter had been set for 8:30 a.m. Thursday, but Spellacy instead faxed his request for a continuance. The hearing was rescheduled for Sept. 20 in Strongsville (Ohio) Mayor’s Court.

Callaway was cited for marijuana possession and driving with a suspended license early Aug. 5, according to a police report.

—One prominent member of the Pittsburgh Steelers said he is in the dark when it comes to Le’Veon Bell’s next step.

“I wish I knew,” center Maurkice Pouncey told ESPN. “He’s kind of kept to himself about it.”

Bell is not with the team because he doesn’t want to risk injury playing under the franchise tag. He will earn $14.5 million in 2018 but isn’t under contract until he signs the deal. The two sides couldn’t reach an agreement on a long-term contract. The same thing happened last August, and Bell reported and signed his one-year franchise tender at the start of Week 1.

—The Steelers signed Pro Bowl kicker Chris Boswell and inside linebacker Vince Williams to extensions.

Boswell’s deal is for five years, putting him under contract through 2022, while Williams signed a four-year deal.

Terms were not disclosed, but multiple reports peg the value of Boswell’s contract at $19.7 million ($3.94 million annually). Williams’ deal is worth $20.6 million ($5.3 million annually), according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

—The Steelers have built four two-story pillars to hold a tarp that can be raised to obscure the view of one of their practice fields from prying eyes.

The Steelers’ facility, which is shared with the University of Pittsburgh’s team, is visible from a number of nearby buildings, including a taller building that was recently constructed. The area, between the Monongahela River and East Carson Street, is relatively commercialized.

“You know how it is, man,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “This is interesting times, drones and so forth, you know? We do what we got to do to prepare and be ready to play — and play on a level, fair, competitive playing field.”

—The San Francisco 49ers traded outside linebacker Eli Harold to the Detroit Lions for a draft pick, both teams announced.

The specific pick was not disclosed, but multiple reports said it is a conditional seventh-round pick. Per ESPN, the pick will be conveyed in 2020 if Harold is on the Lions’ roster for at least four weeks.

Harold, 24, has played in all 48 games in his career and started 24 over the last two seasons, tallying 71 tackles and 5.0 sacks. A third-round pick in 2015, he was pegged as a pass rusher coming out of Virginia, but he has just 5.0 sacks and 14 quarterback hits in his career.

—The Tampa Bay Buccaneers placed running back Charles Sims III on injured reserve.

The fifth-year player injured his knee Saturday as he blocked on the opening kickoff at Tennessee.

The Bucs picked Sims, who turns 28 next month, in the third round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He signed a one-year contract to stay with the team in April as an unrestricted free agent.

—Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and former Dallas Cowboys personnel man Gil Brandt have been named the two contributor finalists for the Hall of Fame Class of 2019, the entity announced.

Each will now require 80 percent approval from the 48-member selection committee on Feb. 2, one day before Super Bowl LIII, to gain induction to Canton.

—Safety Obi Melifonwu, a second-round pick in 2017, was waived/injured by the Oakland Raiders.

Melifonwu will be subject to waivers. If he goes unclaimed, he would revert to the Raiders’ injured reserve list. It is unclear if the team would release him with an injury settlement in that scenario or keep him and give him a chance to make the roster in 2019.

As a rookie, Melifonwu started and finished his rookie year on injured reserve with a knee injury and hip injury, respectively, each of which required surgery. He played in five games (one start) in the middle of the season, making six tackles on 34 defensive snaps.

—The status of running back Marlon Mack for the Indianapolis Colts’ season opener remains uncertain as he recovers from a hamstring injury.

Mack, 22, is the odds-on favorite to start for the Colts after veteran Frank Gore left in free agency. A fourth-round pick in 2017, he had 358 yards and three touchdowns on the ground as a rookie, as well as 21 catches for 255 yards and a score through the air.

—Buffalo Bills linebacker Keenan Robinson has chosen to retire, a month after he signed with the Bills as a free agent, the team announced.

Robinson, who turned 29 on July 7, signed a one-year deal with Buffalo on July 24 worth a reported $835,000.

—Field Level Media

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