How to Relax Your NBA Friends at Parties

People making jokes about LeBron's new mask seem to be missing out on the deepest well of potential material.

Are You Fucking Kidding Me?

Confidential to anyone calling the third presidential debate for Romney: You're arguing that someone should be president WHO DOESN'T KNOW THAT IRAN HAS A COASTLINE.

Set yourself on fire.

Why Don't You Listen?

Contra seemingly everyone, I thought Martha Raddatz was mediocre, at best, last night. She framed every question from the point of view of Beltway conventional wisdom, which is is just a long way of saying that she got her facts wrong. The two most egregious:

• In asking about unemployment, she cited an administration statement that, with the ARRA, the rate would fall below 6%. The administration, of course, made that statement before the scale of the recession was known--unemployment is after all, a trailing measure. Once the full impact of the recession was known, the administration revised the number. So, basically she misled everyone watching the debate, forced Biden to respond to something inaccurate, and framed an issue in a way favorable to Ryan.
• She actually asked about SocialSecurityandMedicare. They're not the same thing, and their financial issues are completely different. As has been well documented basically everywhere, Social Security is funded for another 20 years and could be funded indefinitely with a minor increase in the tax that funds the program. Increasing the eligibility age, cutting benefits, etc. isn't necessary. It's just a way of punishing working people and denying them the benefits that they paid for. Equally well documented is that Medicare's problem is the increasing cost of medical care. That's all that needs to be fixed. Every proposed reform is also a means of punishing working people. And confidential to Marth: neither can go bankrupt; Social Security in particular can't because of the formula for calculating benefits.

And one more thing: why was the only question about abortion framed as an issue of what religions and men will permit? It's frankly dispiriting that even a female moderator can't make women the subject of a question about ESTABLISHED CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS and the kind of autonomy over medical decisions that men take for granted.

Another great victory for the American press corps!

How the Dead Enjoy Irony

Was Sully so labile in the 90s? It's hard to believe that he ever possessed sufficient focus to play such a significant role in killing health care reform. I wonder if the the millions who've died since then because they couldn't get adequate access to care find it at all funny that a dude with the emotional stability and focus of a drunk kitten contributed to their untimely demises.

"Actually" Innocent

It's probably past time to acknowledge that, generally, Americans enjoy killing people.

Do Not Answer, Lest You Reveal Yourself

New ad from LeBron, Nike, and Wieden & Kennedy:



There are so many things to like about this ad. Obviously, it's slick, so props to all the folks who conceived, wrote, shot, edited, etc.

But it's also LeBron's attitude. It's defiant and introspective without being apologetic or self-pitying. (I don't know what the fuck Dwyer is talking about, as usual when he starts moralizing about players instead of describing games. At no point in that ad does LBJ try to make anyone feel sorry for him.) It's completely aware that the audience will offer up, at best, new versions of the same thing that everyone spent the summer saying; most of them will just say the exact same things again, as demonstrated in comments sections throughout the 'tubes.

Of course, there is no answer to a rhetorical question, just as there was no right thing to do or right way to announce The Decision. There is only what was done and the way it went down. LBJ is no more defined by a single act than any of us. This isn't about second acts or making amends or cleaning slates. If we're doing it right, we are each of us inventing ourselves in every moment. Reflecting upon the past isn't about fixing it; it's about creating new paths into the future. Depicting all of the things that might have been isn't about those things; it's about imagining all of the things that might be. It's not an ad about the what could have been; it's a conjuring of possibility and a contemplation of how those possibilities might unfold.

And so, to answer Shoals, I don't think that saying at the end, "Should I be what you want me to be," is removing LeBron from the equation or blaming the viewer. The viewer in this ad is almost irrelevant, because he's not really addressing the viewer. He's ultimately addressing himself in the form of a viewer and asking who he wants to be. Thus, the implication isn't that the viewer is to blame for what happened, because the ad doesn't concede that anything blameworthy occurred. The implication of the question is that, having reviewed the possibilities of the past, the interlocutor now has clearer vision of both himself and of the possibilities of the future. The question is a hook.

Two other things that I really like about the ad. First, it's the evolved version of The LeBrons. In those ads, LBJ displayed different facets of himself. That continues in the new ad, articulated through each of the "careers" displayed: actor, poet, cowboy villain, construction worker. I'm kind of fascinated by the continuing theme of LeBron as unfinished product still figuring out himself as he figures out the game.

Second, I think there's a sly implication of the notorious tweet, "Don't think for one min that I haven't been taking mental notes of everyone taking shots at me this summer. And I mean everyone!" There was a lot of speculation about what he meant. Apparently, at least one thing he meant was that he was going judo a lot of the comments in this ad. Plus, the dig at Barkley is classic.

"Muslim Garb"

What the fuck is that?

Juan Williams sure as fuck doesn't know. No one at Fox News does either.

If you're going to simultaneously claim that you're afraid of something, and that you're not a moron bigot, you have to at least be able to define the thing itself.