So, ESPN, which is the World Wide Leader in Sports, plans to change you. Just so you know.

Instead of dinner, drinks, and sex ESPN literally is banking on you watching college tackle football.

?

Starting tomorrow and for the eleven New Year's Eves-es after that the Espnoids will be telecasting the two semi-final national championship games, one to begin at 4 pm Normal People Time, one at 8.

“This will change habits. There’s no doubt that for true fans this will change behavior.”

"No doubt." "NO DOUBT," says "Artie" "Bulgrin," ESPN's "senior vice president for global research and analytics"(lol).

Artie and Disney/ESPN have 7.3 billion reasons to really want you to change your disgusting habits.

The New York Times says Artie's probably right!

Hoo-doggie.

I want the New York Times to try this out on Mrs. New York Times before they spout off.

There are some ideas you hear about that make you want to slap yourself on the forehead and go "Why didn't I think of that!" There are others that make you want to slap the shit out of yourself. Most ideas are slap-free. This is one of those for me. I didn't immediately think it was a bolt of genius nor the dumbest thing I ever heard. However,-true story-as I read the Times article I had "Steven Sinofsky" pop into my head.

You don't want to have Steven Sinofsky pop into your head during contemplation of a business idea-or during contemplation of sex! ESPN is becoming the Worldwide Leader in bleeding money, they have had a lot of Windows 8 ideas, in their business it's called "live sports programming," and so, yeah, by the time I finished reading the Times article Artie Bulgrin had become Steven Sinofsky.

Professor Dikotter's much-anticipated book on the Cultural Revolution will be released May 3, 2016. It has already been pre-ordered by moi on Amazon. Can't wait to read it.

Year in Review: U.S. State Department.

What a wonderful year it has been and how grateful we are to the State Department for:

Bringing Peace, Security to Syria.#2015in5words

http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2015/12/24/year-review-pivotal-foreign-policy-moments-2015

These post hits "Now," i.e. in the last three hours mean something to me because the posts mean something more than usual to me, especially the first one. I thank whomever checked on them.

Entry	Pageviews
Swords Against the Mountains. Aug 2, 2014	2
"Secretary of State Kerry Breaks Leg in Bike Crash... May 31, 2015	1
Obama Address to Nation on Terrorism. Dec 6, 2015	1
Add Democrats to the list of people President Oba... May 12, 2015	1
Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals.-William H. Arms... May 30, 2015	1
Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals: Humphreys, in t... May 30, 2015	1
There are some things in life you are not permitte... May 30, 2015	1
May 13, 2015	1
...we just agree to disagree. Right? That's how th... May 12, 2015	1
A Soldier's Life for Me! Shoes, Iron Bedstead, Sil... May 27, 2015	1

Who read those posts? The honest answer is I don't know. However, it seems we can correlate it pretty convincingly by the countries of readers over the same three hours.

Pageviews
Russia	18
Australia	2
United Kingdom	2
United States	2
Taiwan 1

The odds are overwhelming that some Russian readers read those posts. This is not the first time I have seen Russian clicks on posts which are personal to me. I don't know why a Russian would click on "Swords Against the Mountains" and I am always ready to jump to conclude that where there is a Russian there is mischief. Maybe they despise me, as I despise them, and are finding out as much as they can in this blog. But I don't think so. This is something of a pattern now and I prefer to conclude, and I do conclude, that they find those stories of some interest. And that makes me much less despise them and...Oh, I don't care if they despise me. "It is good to have enemies" I have written frequently and Russians are particularly good to have as enemies. 

"Swords Against the Mountains" was part of a series that was purely personal but which I tried to make into something writ large, biblical even, the human experience with some elementary forces of nature: water, mountains, land, fire. I tried even to write in a not too transparent KJV style. We humans don't win those contests with nature much and nature definitely won those I wrote about. The human swords drew nature's blood, and its wrath, and left scars, but the swords were beaten and dulled and were left rusted carcases and the humans fled, the battlefield, as it were, in defeat, crushed and ruined and three times didn't leave at all but were drowned dead.

"You can never go home again," Thomas Wolfe wrote, and I found it difficult and disconcerting, a bit painful, to write about Barnesboro and Cambria County Pennsylvania and the writing was difficult and I didn't want to go home anymore and I stopped. But I wrote what I wrote in the manner I wished to write it, that is the Russian Tolstoy, and I am grateful that somebody still occasionally reads those posts and if a Russian, I am very touched and I thank you.

Search Keyword today:

-what is a superfecta? what is a trifec...

A superfecta is when Chris Christie eats four boxes of donuts at one sitting and in the exact order of: 1. Sugar 2. Chocolate covered 3. Cream filled 4. Strawberry filled. A trifecta is the same with three in exact order.

It's over at Power Plant Park. Your Manchester City "Angels" nil, the Lester "Foxes" nil. Good value for the money.

3m3 minutes ago

Gergely Polner ‏@eurocrat

The cost of acquiring the starting XI players tonight: #Leicester - £18m #ManCity - £292m

0-0 in the 30'.

LeBron James ‏@KingJames  Dec 26

Even in defeat and even playing horrible(personally) nothing like playing in atmospheres like @OracleArena vs @StephenCurry30 @Money23Green

LeBron James ‏@KingJames  Dec 26

and the rest of them boys on Xmas day! All about the competition from start to finish. Can't take those moments for granted. #Blessed

Lol. Last two tweets, by the way, those are his last two tweets.

'Stubborn' Elephant Seal Over 500 Pounds Keeps Trying to Cross Busy California Highway-ABC News.

Seeking the Soul.

"I just had a hard talk with them, that's all," Blatt said to cleveland.com. "That was a tough loss against Portland. And honestly in the grand scheme of things, I understand where it came from. It was a huge emotional letdown after the game before [in Oakland].

This is key, it seems to me. Cleveland played the Oakland, California-based "Warriors" on Christmas Day and lost, then went to Portland and got blown out by a dreadful team. Blatt calls the "Warriors" loss a "huge emotional letdown." If you believed what Cleveland's players said publicly before and immediately after that game it was not an emotional game, it was just one of eighty-two equally important games and championships are not won in December.

The truth is that Stephen Curry and the "Warriors" have put doubt into LeBron James' soul. It bothered James that he did not win the most valuable player award last year, nor win the Finals' MVP award, after all he had done to get Cleveland within two games of a championship. It bothers him that Stephen Curry did win the mvp awards when James was the best player in the world and a championship. It bothers him that the "Warriors" are 29-1, that,

Stephen Curry has mostly, but not totally, been getting the better of LeBron James lately-cleveland.com, December 26.

And this bothers James:

And yet there is no real relationship between James and Curry, even though they were both born in Akron, four years apart. There was a time or two where James offered Curry advice as a younger player, but those days are gone.

"We don't talk but we've got a lot of respect for one another," James said.

James has bff relationships with star peers Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony.

You are not supposed to win a championship the way the "Warriors" won last year's, not in your first attempt, not with a team anchored by a slightly built shooting guard, not a team that plays "joyful" basketball. Winning a championship is supposed to be hard, that is what LeBron James learned from Pat Riley; playing for a championship is supposed to test your soul. Not put doubt into it. 

LeBron James doubts. 

Seeking the Soul.

Before the Cleveland Cavaliers broke their two-game losing streak by defeating the Phoenix Suns 101-97 on Monday, they had a team meeting in the morning, league sources told cleveland.com.

Head coach David Blatt called for the meeting before the team took the court for shootaround, sources said. Concerned about the psyche and spirit of his guys, Blatt used the time to address his team instead of going through the usual pre-shootaround film study.

-Chris Haynes, cleveland.com

Mr. Haynes goes on to write that the players went on to have a good shootaround. But after that they went on to have a "mediocre" (McMenamin's word) game against Phoenix. A game in which LeBron James displayed tell-tale body language.

Something is not right in the soul here.

Seeking the Soul.

The Cleveland "Cavaliers" won last night, beating a bedraggled Phoenix team in Phoenix. The win snapped a two game losing streak. Cleveland's record is a stellar 20-9, third best in the NBA. Still...

...not only was it a far-from-dominant effort against a downtrodden opponent, but Cleveland simply is not in sync the way most teams with championship aspirations would want to be nearly 30 games into the season.

It was a less-than inspiring night from James, as he finished with 14 points, seven assists, four rebounds, two steals and a block. His numbers weren’t as troubling as his body language, which vacillated between disinterested and upset for most of the night -- getting into a couple of brief back-and-forth spats with teammates over failed defensive execution.


...a continuation of the process the Cavs have been through for months to try to recapture that magic cohesiveness that carried them through the second half of last season.

-Dave McMenamin, ESPN.

...his body language, which vacillated between disinterested and upset for most of the night...

That has always been the canary in the coal mine on LeBron James teams. It happened in Cleveland in his first stint and he left for Miami; it happened in Miami in a Finals game and he left, went back to Cleveland.

Really: Ramadi Retaken By Iraq from Islamic State.

Qru.

Search Keywords

-max sala

Presidential candidate. Pretty sure he's a presidential candidate. Or Leicester's leading scorer.

Lionel Messi to Manchester City?

Barcelona to triple Neymar's salary as Manchester City target Lionel Messi-ESPNFC



















Taylor Twellman– Verified account ‏@TaylorTwellman





Willing to bet anyone that Messi will be part of this @MCFC makeover?! #ChineseOwnership400Million #Pep #MCFC http://www.bavarianfootballworks.com/2015/12/23/10661798/pep-guardiola-manchester-city-bayern-munich-contract …


Bavarian FB Works






Pep Guardiola to sign massive three year €75 million contract with Manchester City




Pep Guardiola is set to join Manchester City for INSANE money.






View on web






The ambition of City Football Group is unprecedented. As is the commitment. Their goal is world dominance of football.

Elephant seal repeatedly tries to cross California highway-Fox News.

Chris Christie. Pretty sure that's Chris Christie.

No rest for the weary, of body or soul.

Doesn't sound like there was a lot of derring do at Old Trafford! 0-0 FT. Mark, your Crystal is safe as Steel.

It was 2-0 to the Arsenal last time I checked.

In The Battle of Wounded Psyche #16 Chelsea are at #6 Manchester United. #16...and #6...My oh my. Does either club "dare" to play football today? Doesn't look like it: 0-0 right before halftime.

Mark Steel
‏@mrmarksteel
I'm hoping Man Utd don't beat Chelsea, because Palace will stay ahead of both for New Year. There, I just thought I'd enjoy writing that.

At the Highbury Library Arsenal lead ShakenNotStirred 1-zip.

Leicester, you're pissing me off. They posted on their official twitter account, "Been some great goals in LCFC history. A few more tomorrow?"

First of all, Lester, great goals in your history? Like when was that? Did you beat Huddersfield Town to escape the Third Division or something?

Second, they play Manchester City tomorrow at the King Power Point Field of Dreams. City reposted on their website as bulletin board material.

Upon further review it was MCFC who posted that on their own twitter account, "We have scored some great goals at LCFC. Will we add a few more tomorrow night."

Apologize for any inconvenience. SHIT!

Message on marquee of my favorite liquor store:

Nothing for us to lose
Muslims don't do booze
Okay to be irate but
We just don't do hate.

Guy's a fucking political philosopher.

"Sanders Sees Trump Backers as His Allies."-Wall Street Journal.

Senator Sanders' point is that Trump's supporters are angry, Senator Sanders supporters-and Senator Sanders-are angry and...he sees anger as a, uh, point of commonality...a bridge of anger...No. That is a bad point. There is insufficient commonality in anger. Islamic State is angry! Maybe Bernie wants to try some community outreach to them, too. Bad point, gives more credibility to Trump. No matter how hare-brained the idea, the idea should never pop into a Democrat's head to encourage a break-out of Trump support. It's 30%-40% of the Republican Party, the smaller of the two political parties. Contain it there, don't cause political Ebola to spread. Jesus Christ, Sanders.

So, there's this mall in Louisville, Kentucky, Mall St. Matthews, named for a Christian saint.

Last night, the day after the worldwide celebration of Christ's birth, "up to 2,000" kids, ages 13-22, were involved in a spontaneous wilding. A fight broke out and some sort of primal chain reaction started and kids just began fighting for no reason at all except for being American teenage mutants. The whole fucking mall had to close!

If you google "mall st. matthews fight" or  "disturbance" the first image that comes up is a still of a fight that happened on November 28! So apparently, this is just what these idiots do! Below, search results filtered for the last 24 hours, is the only thing I could find.

"Iraqi Forces Poised to Retake Key Western City of Ramadi"-NBC News.

Oh hell. Wrote too soon again. Dammit.

Betsey Trotwood is one of my favorite characters in all of Dickens' oeuvre. Some renditions of Miss Trotwood:

Much too severe.

Much better.

Same actress but no, Miss Trotwood did not smile sweetly like that.

Better still.

The quintessence of Betsey Trotwood is a loving, caring person beneath a hard shell, a type, it seems to me, of a strong British woman whom it should be easy, it seems to me, to find, or to "act up" to depict. Miss Trotwood had pain in her life which should be present about her eyes, which is not present above, in the best character portrayal of her I could find. There is, however, in the image immediately above, the care in her character; perhaps I see it in her intent expression of listening. Miss Trotwood did a lot of listening and a lot of thinking. Perhaps if her mask dropped a bit, as when she rubbed her nose when she was vexed, and her soft underside showed through a little, you'd have the Betsey Trotwood as Dickens wrote her and which I have in my mind's eye.

How much better David Copperfield would have been had Dickens not written Dora in as David's wife; had written any other "type" in at all, or never married David off. Dora is superfluous to the story and perversely superficial as a character. Dickens kills her off and has David marry Agnes later in the book. Dora asks him to call her his "child-wife." Perverse. She is child-like emotionally and mentally. Dickens calls his later wife, Agnes, "sister." Perverse. I believe Copperfield was serialized; if so, I wonder if the Dora character was so criticized that Dickens killed her off. 

Charles Dickens' writing of Dora in David Copperfield is unbearable. It is cruel; and the more painful for being unconsciously cruel.

Iraqi Army Re-Takes Ramadi from Islamic State.

That is being reported with some qualifiers by all major media. "Iraqi army declares victory" is Reuters'; "Iraqi forces push ISIS out of government compound" is CNN's; Curiously, the least committed is The Quasi-Official New York Times, whose reporting last night, received skeptically here, has been proved correct, spin and all: "IS Puts Up Heavy Fight to Slow Iraqi Troop Advance on Ramadi."

The qualified headlines are nonetheless too consistent to warrant any conclusion other than Ramadi has fallen, hence the headline here. This is a major victory in the fight against IS and a major vindication of President Obama's strategy.

What a nice editorial on Lindsey Graham. What a nice thing for the Washington Post editorial board to do:

The Post's View
A sad goodbye to Sen. Graham


LINDSEY GRAHAM was always a long shot for the Republican presidential nomination, but the departure of the South Carolina senator from the race ought to be lamented. It is distressing that a candidate with his record of service, thoughtful views and humanistic approach to politics could never get any traction with the GOP base. That he is sidelined while Donald Trump — with his easy answers and appeals to anger and bigotry — seemingly soars should prompt real worry within the Republican Party, not to mention the country at large.
...
...he commanded attention with his smarts, his quick wit and his willingness to identify and speak out on critical issues such as the danger of isolationism and the need for entitlement reform. We didn’t always agree with Mr. Graham, notably on social issues including same-sex marriage and abortion, but we respected his principled approach to public office.

He didn’t shirk from staking out positions that put him at odds with the Republican Party extremes that have outsized influence in the primaries. That made him the voice of reason about the need for comprehensive immigration reform, the reality of climate change and trying to work with Democrats to solve problems. He was politically courageous in arguing that the United States would have to deploy ground troops in Syria to defeat the Islamic State; he may yet be proved correct.

Most admirable of all was Mr. Graham’s fearlessness in confronting Mr. Trump and the serial bigotry — toward women, immigrants, the disabled, Muslims — that has become a trademark of his unfortunate campaign. When other candidates held back and bit their tongues for fear of incurring Mr. Trump’s wrath, Mr. Graham did not hesitate to do or say the right thing.

Like many others (ourselves included), Mr. Graham was befuddled by Mr. Trump’s popularity and his sustained position as presidential front-runner. “Crazy as hell” was his blunt assessment. “If he is the voice and face of the Republican Party, I think our allies are shaking their heads and our enemies are licking their chops,” he said.

So while Mr. Graham has pledged to support the Republican nominee, whoever it is, we hope he continues to show the principled leadership that marked his failed campaign and draws the line if it comes down to Mr. Trump.

The Telegraph (UK), "goads," and Fox, "taunts," put a nearly opposite spin on Islamic State's leader's message from that of Official Washington.

That was a nearly incoherent sentence. Take Two:

Al Baghdadi "goads" the West says the Telegraph (UK); "taunts" is how Fox puts it. Those spins are 180 degrees from that of Official Washington and The Quasi-Official New York Times.