- If you haven't read Tyler Dunne's longform evisceration of the Packers, you should. Especially if you are a Packers fan. It's brutal, but Dunne is credible and the only way forward for this franchise and its fans is to understand the past.
- There's been a lot of buzz about Pete Buttigieg, who at first glance appears to be freshest fresh face among the approximately 7,492 Democrats currently running for president. But is Mayor Pete any good at his current job, which is mayor of South Bend, Indiana? Daniel Greenfield takes a look and you should, too.
- I've removed a few links from the sidebar. In most cases, they are sites I can no longer in good conscience recommend.
Thanks for your continued support of this feature. I do appreciate it!
9 comments:
Interesting read on the new poster child in the DNC presidential sweepstakes. He offers an interesting choice for the progressive movement. Who will be president first a woman or a homosexual (although the later may have already held the position, his orientation was not publicized)?
Continued best wishes for a new opportunity.
A nice companion piece to the Packer saga is the article in The Athletic last week that described the lead-up, the secret negotiations, the announcement, and the subsequent reactions of the Jay Cutler trade from the Broncos to the Bears in 2012. Fascinating reading, but behind the Athletic's paywall (though, IMO, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better value these days. The Athletic's writing staff is first rate).
You've got to wonder how many teams that would otherwise have been really great have fallen on hard times because critical people get full of themselves and don't do their jobs. Makes one wonder how the long time greats--guys like Bobby Knight at Indiana, Krzyzewski at Duke, Izzo at MSU, and the like--keep things going.
Regarding Buttigieg, I grew up an hour from South Bend and while everybody knew that the closing of Studebaker hit the city hard, it was never a rival to Gary. Thanks to Democrats, that now appears to be closer to reality. Scary gut check; looking with Google Maps on the east side of town along highway 20, I'm seeing the same telltale "holes" in the pattern of missing houses/buildings that you see in Gary, Detroit, and the South Side of Chicago.
Regarding Buttigieg, I grew up an hour from South Bend and while everybody knew that the closing of Studebaker hit the city hard, it was never a rival to Gary. Thanks to Democrats, that now appears to be closer to reality. Scary gut check; looking with Google Maps on the east side of town along highway 20, I'm seeing the same telltale "holes" in the pattern of missing houses/buildings that you see in Gary, Detroit, and the South Side of Chicago.
I've only been to South Bend once, for a wedding, close to 30 years ago now. The Notre Dame campus is lovely and there was a nice hotel downtown, but the rest of the town looked like Rockford, Illinois or worse. So it doesn't surprise me that it's not looking great.
Correction; the side with the holes is the west side. East side is fine. It's always been a workingman's town (yes like Rockford or Joliet or Waterloo), hit hard when Studebaker went under, but when I was a kid, you felt safe. I'm guessing you don't anymore, especially west of Notre Dame. I remember being more concerned about Fort Wayne way back when.
(for reference, Rockford has a few "holes of disaster", not quite what I saw on the west side of South Bend)
I drive through Waterloo a lot; that's a town that's definitely seen better days.
as a Bears fan, i really enjoyed the packer story. may there be several more chapters to come.
as a Bears fan, i really enjoyed the packer story. may there be several more chapters to come.
I think the truth lies between the Dunne story and the vehement denial that Rodgers gave yesterday. Rodgers is a cold dude for sure, but my biggest problem with Dunne's account is that he relied quite a lot on Greg Jennings, who is a very unreliable narrator. Rodgers, and the Packers more generally, get a chance to start over. I don't know if Rodgers is capable of getting his mojo working again or not -- he's getting old now. Still, there isn't a team in the division that scares me much.
I'm thinking, as another Bears fan, that there are innumerable numbers of those stories in various degrees in Halas Hall.
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