Thread by @JoshuaCypess

64.01/ Week sixty-four, Oct. 2-8, 2021, thread begins here.

Week 63 below.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1442141293270945792

64.02/ I blink & it's October which means 80% of people I follow change their names to something spooooky. That's when I need to put my anthropologist hat on because I just don't understand the whole macabre thing. Gimme Purim's clowns, puns and defeat - not embrace - of horror.

64.03/ For the #ALWildCard, like all red-blooded Americans, I'm rooting for a 4-way tie. This requires the Red Sox & Yankees lose and the Mariners & Blue Jays to win. Why? Uh... love of the game?

64.04/ Rough day in sports. Mets lose last game of their season, no playoffs. Steelers lose ugly; they look like they won't win again. Ravens win, Browns win, the Yankees make the playoffs. Now I have to contemplate either the Patriots vs. Brady. Uncanny.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1444784779170287616?s=20

64.05/ Breaker birb-site this here's Red Rabbi. Happy #TalkLikeATruckerDay, a special GenX holiday. 10-4.

Played "Convoy" for my kids this morning & surprisingly I was able to give a live commentary (it's about worker solidarity vs. unjust state force)

64.06a/ Oh boy, it's #NobelWeek! These are the nerd Olympics & I'm a big fan of recognizing academic & humanitarian greatness (even if it's from blood money). Winners are now getting to be my age, which I didn't expect for a while.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1313115250867216385?s=20

64.06b/ Medicine today and I was told on high authority that it would be David Weissman for work on mRNA (ya know, COVID vaccine). I was skeptical and oops, it's David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian instead. (Maybe the vaccine will get Peace?)
nytimes.com/2021/10/04/hea…

64.07/ I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook purposefully went down to show their importance, given the whistleblower exposure of their bottomless nihilism. TBH, FB has given us a taste of the upcoming robot apocalypse - a soulless algorithm killing with malice instead of gray goo.

64.08/ I feel bad for Rojas because IMO it's a classic Peter Principle problem. He was extremely good at player development in the minors. But his in-game decisions were atrocious & he had no urgency down the stretch. I really do wish him well. #LGM

https://twitter.com/TheAthleticMLB/status/1445108469577682956?s=08

64.09/ I hope Beutler's assessment of Sinema's tarnished image is correct; the rest of the analysis seems sound. Her tenure feels like a prank to me & angled for an audience outside her constituency. Another vice fueled by social media's allure?

https://twitter.com/brianbeutler/status/1444688677133770760

64.10/ #NobelWeek marches on, today Physics: Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi for demonstrating global warming's human causes.

As per my checklist (see below), Dr. Manabe is from @Princeton (after my time tho)

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1313115252075237376?s=20

nytimes.com/2021/10/05/sci…

64.11/ Have to admit, I'm an autumn fan. Because of #RoshHashanah, I associate the season with new beginnings. And the weather allows me to emulate my style icons: Will Eisner's Spirit + Bogart in Casablanca (Suit, hat, scarf, gloves, longcoat. All black).
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.…

64.11b/ OK, the above was RT by @WillEisner which is a little spooky (is Eisner like the Spirit and just, uh, mostly dead?). In any case, the bot also RTed this awesome picture of Spirit meeting Gaiman's death. His outfit is a scarf short of perfect.

https://twitter.com/mikedeodato/status/1445373005593513994?s=20

64.12/ CMR Context: I don't like equating the demon baby-killer with feminism (Devorah & Yael are my heroes in that arena) but I was reading up on Lilith - cf. people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shoke… - while reading infuriating op-eds like this:
jewishlink.news/letters/46049-…

https://twitter.com/MuppetRabbi/status/1445519171408760832?s=20

64.13/ Insightful thread by Marshall about the inherent toxicity of Facebook and similar online services and how they compare to tobacco - the product is lucrative because it's so destructive. This is part of what I was alluding to in 64.07.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1445212518503358469?s=20

64.14/ Oh my gawd! The Survivors is free on Prime! Drop everything to watch this if you haven't seen it already (and if you have, you've left already after the first sentence). The best Robin Williams film outside of Aladdin.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survi…

amazon.com/gp/video/detai…

64.14b/ OK, I admit I did pause the movie to go watch the last two innings of #NYYvsBOS and it's gratifying to see the Yankees lose. BE"H it will be a good omen for all my teams (if the #Mets hire Theo Epstein over Beltran (a Red Sock over a Yank) then I'll presume this was why).

64.15/ #NobelWeek Chemistry: David W.C. MacMillan and Benjamin List for green-tech enzymes (noticing a theme here). These guys are almost my age! Dr. MacMillan is a Scottish immigrant and another @Princeton professor. Sadly for my tally, no women yet.
nytimes.com/2021/10/06/sci…

64.16/ Thank goodness for the details about remuneration because this was WAY too plausible for the academic market now. (And it's excellently done)

https://twitter.com/sanjanacurtis/status/1445380663729799170?t=cED11tU1MbAc3aL6cqLH5Q&s=03

64.17/ My wife is giving a lecture for the Piteå School of Music which is part of the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. Thank God for zoom. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pite%C3%A…
Her musical/historical work allows her to teach about awesome images like this:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jan_…

64.18/ #NobelWeek's Thursday prize is for Literature and I literally know nothing about the author, Abdulrazak Gurnah. Good for him.

nytimes.com/2021/10/07/boo…

64.19a/ #NobelWeek pinnacle (and the reason why the inventor of TNT made the prize in the first place): peace. Thank goodness it's for actual good people (not always the case): Maria Ressa and Dmitri A. Muratov. The first woman, too.
nytimes.com/live/2021/10/0…

64.19b/ Would've been nice to recognize the incredible achievement of Stacey Abrams, but that's my USA-centric blinders. BHO's prize skewed my expectations; even though Biden actually ended the war! Maybe next year (if the Dems actually win this civil war)

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1324736934502191104?s=20

64.20/ At this point, I'm avoiding the whole kidney story out of principle. Not my rodeo not my clowns. I'm already in enough of a bizarre Venn discourse in the frum/academic/sports worlds. In behooves me to avoid the ethical vapors of writers/artists & "cultural" liberals.

64.21/ OTOH this topic is right in my wheelhouse - the nexus of Sociology of Religion & Health.

NB: ethically, religious exemptions for medical care extend only as far as that person & not when it will hurt others. There's no moral way to spread plague.

https://twitter.com/chick_in_kiev/status/1445411182114914305

64.22/ Two teams in every sport, even MLS, and no champions. Possibly it's because of sample-size fallacy; or because NYC teams don't need to be successful to make money. Or it's just hard to do, ya know?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLS_Cup
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNBA_Fina…

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1446192773074456577?t=eU0uuqrigH35x4ueg1BRmQ&s=03

64.23/ This is very true (re: prophets, Jeremiah, etc.)

This idea has an application for many aspects of piety. The only mitzvah we accept bragging about is tzedaka, because there and only there the ends justify the means.

https://twitter.com/maimonides_nutz/status/1446145447089766402?s=20

64.24/ It's parshat #Noach so you have about 15 minutes to sell/short on the NYSE before 4pm.

(There's an urban legend that the stock market takes a dive - underwater, as it were - around Parshat Noach time...)

64.25/ Chapelle has Boomer Moral Cruise-Control Syndrome (BMCCS? Bumax?): he was considered liberal when he was out of power but doesn't bother uplifting & empowering others after he's made it. Yet still thinks of himself as the underdog as in his youth.
usatoday.com/story/entertai…

64.26/ My son told me that Randy Arozarena stole home and that's just a wonderful sentence. It also reminds me of this song:

Stealing home ranks above a grand slam and below a triple play in the Baseball Awesome But Rare index.

https://twitter.com/MLBStats/status/1446307768189825062?s=20

64.27/ Time has flown this week while I've been digging out of the Chagim Hole (chol?). Please stay safe everyone and may your boosters come speedily in our days.

@threadreaderapp please unroll.

@threader_app please compile.