Things I love: Timothy Egan's NYT 'Outposts' blog
If you don't read "Outposts," Timothy Egan's blog for The New York Times, give a shot. His entries are crisp portraits of American life - politics, the economy and sports, of course - and issues from the viewpoint of an American who has spent considerable time outside our borders. (lormagins, this is so you.)
Here's a bit from a recent entry about the recent rash of mass shootings:
In a month of violence gruesome even by our own standards, 57 people have lost their lives in eight mass shootings. The killing grounds include a nursing home, a center for new immigrants, a child’s bedroom. Before that it was a church, a college, a daycare center.
We hear about these sketches of carnage between market updates and basketball scores - and shrug. We’re the frogs slow-boiling in the pot, taking it all in incrementally until we can’t feel a thing. We shrug because that’s the deal, right? That’s the pact we made, the price of Amendment number two to the Constitution, right after freedom of speech.
Also, while I spend all my working hours at a network dedicated to sports, they don't speak too much about the social implications, Colin Cowherd aside. Egan writes about class resentment using, of all things, baseball player Richie Sexson:
Richie Sexson was a first baseman for the Seattle Mariners, earning $50 million over four years. In 2007, he hit barely .200 for the season and struck out more times than all but a handful of players. It’s possible that never in the history of the game had so much been paid for so little production.
At first, fans didn’t seem to care what Richie was getting, so long as he swatted enough homers among his strikeouts. But during his freefall, that $8 hot dog and $10 beer did not go down so easily. He was booed out of the game in ever-polite Seattle.
Read him, and enjoy.
Here's a bit from a recent entry about the recent rash of mass shootings:
In a month of violence gruesome even by our own standards, 57 people have lost their lives in eight mass shootings. The killing grounds include a nursing home, a center for new immigrants, a child’s bedroom. Before that it was a church, a college, a daycare center.
We hear about these sketches of carnage between market updates and basketball scores - and shrug. We’re the frogs slow-boiling in the pot, taking it all in incrementally until we can’t feel a thing. We shrug because that’s the deal, right? That’s the pact we made, the price of Amendment number two to the Constitution, right after freedom of speech.
Also, while I spend all my working hours at a network dedicated to sports, they don't speak too much about the social implications, Colin Cowherd aside. Egan writes about class resentment using, of all things, baseball player Richie Sexson:
Richie Sexson was a first baseman for the Seattle Mariners, earning $50 million over four years. In 2007, he hit barely .200 for the season and struck out more times than all but a handful of players. It’s possible that never in the history of the game had so much been paid for so little production.
At first, fans didn’t seem to care what Richie was getting, so long as he swatted enough homers among his strikeouts. But during his freefall, that $8 hot dog and $10 beer did not go down so easily. He was booed out of the game in ever-polite Seattle.
Read him, and enjoy.