“When people say “must be nice” to have lived around this time period, it is often said with disdain, like somehow we should all feel guilty for having briefly believed we weren’t all doomed.” - Yes! Geez.
I mostly ignored the OJ story at the time. I do recall watching a few minutes of the Bronco ride.
I had to look up March 11! There wasn’t one day for me. I was aware before everyone else and had already stuffed my pantry before then, and was wondering why nobody else seemed to realize what was happening. I’d driven three hours to help my daughter — she and her two young kids were sick and all camping out in the living room, too ill to handle stairs. Was it Covid? Who knows? It was something horrible and pukey. I went to the store and everything was gone. She hadn’t stocked up and had to make do with the few items I could get. I told her I’d help with the kids if they closed the schools — she thought that was far-fetched, and the next day they closed the schools. I got sick and stayed sick. There were no tests. My husband and son, who still lived at home then, didn’t catch whatever it is. Toward the end of my illness, a weird rash covered my trunk.
Mr. Leitch, great stuff as always. One quibble: your statement that things may actually be a little worse now. By what empirical measure? I think it's easy to forget how extremely poor much of the world was 30 years ago. China had a GDP per capita of $300 USD; now its $12K. Other examples containing billions of people abound. Even in US, GDP per capita is up over 40% in real dollars, poverty is down, and the uninsured rate is down almost 40%. We went from two women Senators in 1992 to 25.
Even people--the middle 70%--are much better. Compare support for interracial marriage, same-sex marriage, and level or increased immigration--they are all much higher now than then. We've gone from Democrats wailing about superpredators to Newt Effing Gingrich earnestly and successfully pushing for sentencing reform. Why? Because that's where the public is.
"But Trump!" I'm a very liberal Democrat who vets my kids'caregivers to make sure they don't have a problem with my trashing of TFG, but the only way to say that he is the worst is to argue that norms are more important than lives. Because Clinton and Bush 41 both killed more; Reagan and Dubya killed orders of magnitude more. Woodrow Wilson killed way more and screened "Birth of a Nation" at the WH. I'm receptive to that argument, but (a) we need to make it honestly; and (b) even if true, we have to avoid overselling it. He sucks the oxygen out of everything to such an extent that the last three biennial elections have been referenda on him, and he's lost decisively each time.
Your newsletter today gave me lots to remember and mull over. You see, at 83, I really have seen a thing or two and my memory of some of our country’s best and worst days seem as if they happened yesterday. What saddens me about this time in our history is that I thought we were better than this. I don’t have rose colored glasses about the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, etc. But, there often was a filter on what people said and did that the Trump presidency ripped right off. What we are left with is chaos, violence, and rule by a tiny, whacko group in Congress who have only one goal and that is to stay in power. No, I do think this may well be the worst time in our history. I mean the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green holding, what amounts, to all the power in the House of Representatives. Good lord, what have we come to?
Great piece. My Gen X list of holy shit moments is a little different though. The first one was Dec 8, 1980 when John Lennon was shot. I remember Howard Cosell announcing that on Monday Night Football. March 11, 2020 means nothing to me, possibly because I was living in Austria and we experienced COVID a bit differently. But is that a date other Americans now share or just your personal „holy shit“ realization?
I think he did it, but he was found not guilty of murder, then lost his civil trial and owed the victims families tens of millions of dollars. Criminal/civil trials are a different process, I get that, but it makes little sense.
Klosterman is a fantastic writer. "But What If We're Wrong?" is my favorite book of his, but you're correct in that they're all great.
I don’t know much about Baseball (though weirdly I discovered Wil through his baseball writing, much like Cricket does in my country, I find Baseball is the American sport that leads to the best sportswriting, wonder what it is about stick and ball sports that make that so, but I digress) but I was curious to find out how often players directly steal 3rd Base
As is the case with most things these days Google was a complete waste of time so I tried ChatGPT and it said 300-400 a year for the whole league in an average season
That would be 10-15 per team for the whole season by my maths, so one every 10 games or so for each team, does that ring true to the actual baseball fans here or is ChatGPT just making things up again?
“When people say “must be nice” to have lived around this time period, it is often said with disdain, like somehow we should all feel guilty for having briefly believed we weren’t all doomed.” - Yes! Geez.
I mostly ignored the OJ story at the time. I do recall watching a few minutes of the Bronco ride.
I had to look up March 11! There wasn’t one day for me. I was aware before everyone else and had already stuffed my pantry before then, and was wondering why nobody else seemed to realize what was happening. I’d driven three hours to help my daughter — she and her two young kids were sick and all camping out in the living room, too ill to handle stairs. Was it Covid? Who knows? It was something horrible and pukey. I went to the store and everything was gone. She hadn’t stocked up and had to make do with the few items I could get. I told her I’d help with the kids if they closed the schools — she thought that was far-fetched, and the next day they closed the schools. I got sick and stayed sick. There were no tests. My husband and son, who still lived at home then, didn’t catch whatever it is. Toward the end of my illness, a weird rash covered my trunk.
Mr. Leitch, great stuff as always. One quibble: your statement that things may actually be a little worse now. By what empirical measure? I think it's easy to forget how extremely poor much of the world was 30 years ago. China had a GDP per capita of $300 USD; now its $12K. Other examples containing billions of people abound. Even in US, GDP per capita is up over 40% in real dollars, poverty is down, and the uninsured rate is down almost 40%. We went from two women Senators in 1992 to 25.
Even people--the middle 70%--are much better. Compare support for interracial marriage, same-sex marriage, and level or increased immigration--they are all much higher now than then. We've gone from Democrats wailing about superpredators to Newt Effing Gingrich earnestly and successfully pushing for sentencing reform. Why? Because that's where the public is.
"But Trump!" I'm a very liberal Democrat who vets my kids'caregivers to make sure they don't have a problem with my trashing of TFG, but the only way to say that he is the worst is to argue that norms are more important than lives. Because Clinton and Bush 41 both killed more; Reagan and Dubya killed orders of magnitude more. Woodrow Wilson killed way more and screened "Birth of a Nation" at the WH. I'm receptive to that argument, but (a) we need to make it honestly; and (b) even if true, we have to avoid overselling it. He sucks the oxygen out of everything to such an extent that the last three biennial elections have been referenda on him, and he's lost decisively each time.
Your newsletter today gave me lots to remember and mull over. You see, at 83, I really have seen a thing or two and my memory of some of our country’s best and worst days seem as if they happened yesterday. What saddens me about this time in our history is that I thought we were better than this. I don’t have rose colored glasses about the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, etc. But, there often was a filter on what people said and did that the Trump presidency ripped right off. What we are left with is chaos, violence, and rule by a tiny, whacko group in Congress who have only one goal and that is to stay in power. No, I do think this may well be the worst time in our history. I mean the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green holding, what amounts, to all the power in the House of Representatives. Good lord, what have we come to?
Really was serendipitous that you got to that Sopranos episode this week of all weeks for the title 😊
lol I do remember saying "must be nice" a lot in the 90s!
Great piece. My Gen X list of holy shit moments is a little different though. The first one was Dec 8, 1980 when John Lennon was shot. I remember Howard Cosell announcing that on Monday Night Football. March 11, 2020 means nothing to me, possibly because I was living in Austria and we experienced COVID a bit differently. But is that a date other Americans now share or just your personal „holy shit“ realization?
I, for one, believe that OJ got screwed.
I think he did it, but he was found not guilty of murder, then lost his civil trial and owed the victims families tens of millions of dollars. Criminal/civil trials are a different process, I get that, but it makes little sense.
Klosterman is a fantastic writer. "But What If We're Wrong?" is my favorite book of his, but you're correct in that they're all great.
I don’t know much about Baseball (though weirdly I discovered Wil through his baseball writing, much like Cricket does in my country, I find Baseball is the American sport that leads to the best sportswriting, wonder what it is about stick and ball sports that make that so, but I digress) but I was curious to find out how often players directly steal 3rd Base
As is the case with most things these days Google was a complete waste of time so I tried ChatGPT and it said 300-400 a year for the whole league in an average season
That would be 10-15 per team for the whole season by my maths, so one every 10 games or so for each team, does that ring true to the actual baseball fans here or is ChatGPT just making things up again?
You got that right about the back pain!
Oh, and that headline: "The Juice Is Loose." Ouch! Must be painful to look at now.....