by John Walters
Libertine University
You know what’s perfect? When the president of an ultra-right Christian university (yes, that is an oxymoron but we’ll let it go for the moment) may have to step down, resign, due to a sex scandal (or three). And if you were wondering if Jerry Falwell, Jr., is an ordained priest, no, he’s not.
He’s a lay man. So to speak.
For us, the perfect way to kick off the Republican National Convention. Isn’t this the same guy who told the Pope to shut up when His Holiness dared to criticize the then-Republican candidate’s speech about Mexican immigrants back in 2016?
Falwell doesn’t want to step down. Perhaps someone could persuade him to become a Season 2 character in The Righteous Gemstones.
I Don’t Want It
Donald Trump, Jr.’s “You Can Have It” rant (“a perfect family?” Isn’t this the guy who cheated on his wife—I know, I know, it’s a family condition) extolling hard work was sort of funny coming from a man who never earned anything on his own in his life.
In tone and message, he was basically ripping of Shia LaBeouf’s famous “Do It” rant from a few years back. Another Trump RNC speech, another case of plagiarism.
Week 1 Is A Weak One
Eight months ago, Week 1 of the college football season, taking place over the latest possible Labor Day weekend, looked pretty sweet. College GameDay was going to head overseas for the first time to be there for Notre Dame-Navy in Dublin. Alabama was taking on USC. Michigan at Washington! Georgia vs. Virginia. TCU at Cal. West Virginia at Florida State.
Now? None of those games are happening. There will be eleven (count ’em, 11!) games during Labor Day Weekend, the highest profile of which will be BYU at Navy. Will College GameDay head there? Will the panelists wear masks? Will 84 year-old Lee Corso be on hand? Will it be anathema to use the term “spread offense” in a post-pandemic world?
Executive producer Lee Fitting has said that the show will go on. Just how, though, no one seems to have figured out yet.
After All, The Turf Is Blue
The fastest-growing city in the United States? Boise.
The lovely town in southern Idaho is experiencing a major infusion of Silicon Valley tech types who cannot afford to live in the Bay Area and are able to work remotely. Boise’s population has mushroomed 30% in the past few years, due to Californication, with property values spiking.
We visited Boise at length in 2005 (longtime resident Heather Cox gave us a quick tour) and found it utterly charming. A good town to be a runner, hiker, outdoors person. Boulder without as much topiary growth. It even has a small river running through the heart of town. Loved it.
Oh, well. It may already be too expensive (but this is why Billings Bighorns, my idea from a few years ago, is not only good but also inevitable…though it may be Boise Bighorns).
So what’s happening? You’ll see white flight to Idaho and Montana, but also tech types moving there, who may diversify the demo. Could Idaho, the state with the famously blue football field, turn politically blue? Stay tuned.
Is Exxon Out Of Gas?
As recently as 2011, when Elon Musk was probably still stewing over student loan payments, Exxon was the world’s largest company. Not “One of”. But THE.
Today Exxon is being booted out of the Dow Jones, the 30-stock index that seeks to best exemplify the U.S. economy by posting the prices of 30 signature companies. The irony of this is that Apple’s impending 4-for-1 stock split was going to make the tech sector look less represented among the averages, so the Dow is moving Exxon out (after nearly 100 years) and replacing it with Salesforce.
If you love the planet, or even feel like maybe you and the planet should go out on a few more dates and see where this is heading, you have to be thrilled about this. Reducing the influence of oil will not only help save the environment but it will curtain the influence of two of the world’s most dangerous groups: radical Middle East plutocracies and Texans.
I always find it funny when people base their opposition of immigration arguments on the idea that the United States is at full capacity. Those same people have never driven from the Mississippi river to California.
Instead of trying to inhabit Mars, we should try inhabiting Nevada! Or Montana. Or Wyoming.
I used to live in Colorado – on the front range. We’d often take drives into the mountains. We’d often take route 24 West. Along the drive there’s a bunch of hills (no kidding), but at the top of one of them was one of the most beautiful valleys I’ve ever seen. It was absolutely wide open with almost nothing there at all. I always imagined that it would make for a great metropolitan city. I wondered what it would take to make a city there and imagined how cities like Chicago, New York, L.A., etc. became what they are. No real point to this, except to say that I agree – there are lots beautiful, inhabitable places in the U.S. we just haven’t utilized yet.
It makes economic sense to me to inhabit these rural locations, but as I think more about this it would also suck a lot. Humans suck at preserving the beauty that Nature gives to us. In 50 years, it’d just look like San Francisco: Beauty shadowed by crime, income inequality and human waste.
Denver is my favorite city in the US (also a shout out to Seattle and Chicago), but I’m afraid it will lose much of its beauty because of the influx of people.
Mankind is a virus.
—The Matrix
Lived in Boise during the 1990s during high school and college, when the town was booming and a democratic governor, Cecil Andrus. Very white, heavily Mormon (more so than Salt Lake per capita). Still have family there and visit every year. Very red with average house of $400,000 pricing out the locals. Lovely setting but the sprawl is overwhelming…
I KNEW you would hoot about Exxon exiting the Dow! I’ve never invested in that company but back in the day, its dividends allowed quite a few visits to the toy store courtesy of my Aunt. 🙂 I’m not shocked that a Big Oil company was kicked out, but why PFE (which I do own)?
Apparently, the wife of Falwell, Jr (Bambi? Becky?) was on TV a year or two ago espousing “FAMILY VALUES” with one of the Trump wives. According to the “pool boy”/lover, Mrs Falwell had been partaking in EXTRAMARITAL relations for several years prior & at that time. It seems that “family values” is far more LIBERALLY interpreted at Liberty University than at the ‘school of susie b’.
I would think Corso would be skyped/zoomed into College Game Day. I guess the others can take a private jet to & from & ‘socially’ distance each other as the TNT NBA guys do, with the added help of plexiglass partitions. But how they stay safe before & after the shows will be a challenge. Especially for the TV production crew.
How many players can test positive for COVID before that team has to forfeit? And are they allowing the individual schools to do the testing & control the results? Instead of the idiotic parents that were protesting the delay of the B1G, Pac-12, etc seasons, I’m amazed several parents have not yanked their sons OUT of the schools that are determined to play ‘Trump Roulette”. Of course, I’m guessing that Clemson thinks they’ve developed the mythical “herd immunity” since so many of their players (37? 50? more?) already tested positive weeks ago. Guess the, er, “sick” joke will be on them if it becomes clear you can get the virus MORE than once.
Falwell’s fall from grace? He’s coming in hot and headed for a hard landing.
For what I gathered near me is that most of the Californians flocking to Idaho are the right wing people who want to feel that they aren’t scorned for their beliefs.
@SusieB – The odd thing will be when Kevin Warren’s son plays a down for Mississippi State this fall.