by John Walters
Feliz Cumpleanos, Aylin Mujica!
Starting Five
“Highway to the danger zone…”
1. Turkey Shoot*
*The judges will also accept, “Cold, Turkey” and “Land Baste Weaponry”
Dig: During Thanksgiving week all of your turkey news should be a lower-cased “t.” Instead, Turkey shoots down a Russian fighter jet because it claims that it warned the pilot 10 times that he was flying over Turkish air space and that he ignored the warnings (or perhaps he didn’t speak Turkish?). That’s called “Putin your planes where they don’t belong.”
Rule No. 83: “Never play chicken in Turkey.”
Related: Russia now claims it was flying not in Turkey but in Turducken. Sounds acceptable. And like a former Soviet republic, no?
2. Ches King
Ches: Threepeat after me!
For the third consecutive year, Oregon’s Edward Cheserek wins the NCAA Men’s Outdoor Cross Country championship (if there’s an Indoor Cross Country championship, it should take place entirely in Tom Brady’s California mansion). Cheserek crossed the tape for the 10K in 28:45, nearly 26 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. That is kind of sick.
Two men had previously won three individual NCAA XC individual titles, but they did so over a 4-year span: Henry Rono of Washington State (1976, ’77 and ’79) and the immortal Steve Prefontaine (who obviously was not) of Oregon (1970, ’71 and ’73).
Cheserek and Rono were Kenyan-born. Pre was from Coos Bay, Oregon.
Rice, who barely stood 5’5″, was known as “Little Dynamo.” He later gave birth to a son named Tony who led Notre Dame to a national title in football (wait; I’m going to fact-check that one)
Incidentally, Molly Seidel of Notre Dame won the women’s race. No other Notre Dame female had even won an individual title, but Greg Rice of Notre Dame won a pair of titles in 1937 and ’39. Rice never competed in the Olympics due to World War II, but he was a five-time champion in the 5,000 meters in the USATF championships and once won 65 races in a row over a three-year span. Not bad.
3. The Shot Seen ’round the World
Today marks the 52nd anniversary of the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. The man who took this photograph, Bob Jackson, would win the Pulitzer Prize for this. Before snapping this photo, Jackson felt like a failure because two days earlier he was six cars behind JFK when the first shot rang out. The problem? Jackson was between rolls of film in his camera.
According to this story, Jackson actually looked up to the Texas Book Depository after hearing the second and third shots and saw a rifle being pulled inside, but had no way to take a photo of it. If he had, think of all the gained man-hours from the dearth of conspiracy theories.
The man in the cowboy hat, Jim Leavelle, was a homicide detective who was in the 13th year of a 25-year career with the Dallas P.D. He is still alive at the age of 95 years (so is Jackson, by the way; he’s 82).
4. The Daily Harrumph! Mom’s Basement Tapes
Spencer Hall: The early years
In this corner: The 20th century, hard-copy, hard deadlines, writing to a specific word count, a travel budget, “Your credentials will be at will call,” and hand-to-hand combat journalism.
And in that corner: Millennials, the internet, “I filed this story 20 minutes ago, why isn’t it on the home page yet?”, writing “for exposure” (read: no pay), hot takes, “Why do you need to travel? The game’s on TV,” a lack of accountability with the people you write about, and a very poor career choice (if you ever hope to own a home car or start a family — unless your wife has a good job).
Who’s right in the entire Wilbon vs. The New Mean Bloggers debate? Both of them, of course. Wilson (and Tony) have a point that young writers think they should be able to fly before they learn how to walk, and those two started by working beats. On the other hand, the jobs, they are sparse, and the internet does not care about quality or proof-reading or even objectivity, it only cares about page views. I mean, “Is Joe Flacco a elite quarterback?”
5. T-Swizzle Stick
At the risk of the PC Police coming down on me and hard for body shaming, isn’t our favorite pop starlet looking a little thin? (If I were crass, I’d write, “There’s a ‘Blank Space’ and it’s inside your stomach.” Fortunately, I’m not crass.).
I’m worried about Taylor. Please give yourself some time off and get healthier. Lecture over.
Music 101
Whenever God Shines His Light
I’ve already posted a Van Morrison tune here before, but some artists bear repeating. This is yet another Van the man song that would be just as welcome in a house of worship. Nothing like an Irishman with a strong sense of spirituality. This 1989 tune never made it to the Billboard charts; it’s just too damn good for such a secular rating.
Remote Patrol
LoLakers at Warriors
TNT 10:30 p.m.
Kobe, Curry. Curry, Kobe. Do you realize that four of the major characters in this game –those two, plus Klay Thompson and Luke Walton — are all 2nd-generation NBAers? Some day everyone in the NBA will be the progeny of an NBA player. It’ll be an entirely different sub-species.
No one will ever mistake me for a swizzle stick, but both Taylor Swift and Gwen Stefani seem to be stretched a little thin lately. In their circles, that’s also known as glamorous.
Happy Thanksgiving! Have yourself a second helping of pumpkin pie.
The Internet, and especially Twitter, have taken away the high platform of mainstream media. Everybody has a microphone, and you play a huge role in how many people want to hear what you want to say. You can build a following so many ways — but two key and distinct paths are who you work for and the quality of what you have to say. Those two things can work in tandem, but either can exist in the absence of the other.
I know people in the mainstream media who have long since stopped deserving the large audience they command daily. I know people who are completely unaffiliated, have no access to players or coaches and yet and offer more insight than many people armed with direct contact with the people they write about.
I hesitate to paint with too thick a brush on this — I’ve had a blog for 10 years and have cultivated an audience daily, but did so with the help and backing of a major news outlet. In doing my job today, I’m constantly helped by information gleaned from both national outlets and independent bloggers who have minimal if any revenue from their writing.
As with anything, I’d encourage people to like people and dislike people individually; to write off either the mainstream media or the wisdom of nontraditional writers is to take away great sources of daily reading.