We\u2019ll do some links today since I can\u2019t seem to get my latest Reader\u2019s Notebook entry finished, nor come to any thoughts worth sharing on other subjects.<\/p>\n
Guess I haven\u2019t posted any links in a few weeks because the first is a few weeks old. Hell, it was old when I talked about it with friends in KC two weeks ago. My bad.<\/p>\n
The intro to this piece made me laugh out loud, because it is very true. For many, many years each time I flew I would have some kind of KU\/Lawrence\/KC shirt on. I figured I should always be representing.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s almost an unwritten law of civic pride if you grew up or spent any significant time in metro Kansas City (which straddles Kansas and Missouri): \u201cIf one is traveling away from Kansas City, one must wear a T-shirt or other piece of clothing identifying oneself as a Kansas Citian.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u2019Ted Lasso\u2019 makes me homesick for Kansas City. I called his mom to ask why<\/a><\/p>\n
\nI must admit I didn\u2019t know much about Charlie Watts, other than how he looked, before his death. These are some fine little anecdotes that will shed some light on who he was.<\/p>\n
14 Charlie Watts Stories That Prove He Was the Rolling Stones\u2019 Rock<\/a><\/p>\n
\nI missed Sunday\u2019s six-hole playoff between Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay, but apparently it was must-see TV. A tense affair that seemed to feature some real bad blood between the two. When I first started paying attention to golf again three years ago, I was fascinated by DeChambeau. He seemed to be what I begged golfers to be for years: bring a different perspective to the game. Like many, though, I was eventually turned off by his needy behavior, by his total lack of self-awareness, and his whole \u201cI\u2019m the smartest guy in the room\u201d act. An act that regularly was proven to not be so smart. It\u2019s kind of amazing how quickly he has morphed into the most hated golfer in the game.<\/p>\n
Nothing about the Bryson DeChambeau experience is easy these days<\/a><\/p>\n
\nI was floored when I heard how much Amazon was spending both to acquire the rights to and make a new series based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Especially since they would be mining material that was far less known that his Hobbit<\/em> and The Lord of the Rings<\/em> stories. And then I read this piece, which makes it seem crazier.<\/p>\n
What the Tolkien estate sold was the rights to the Second<\/em> Age, but reportedly not<\/strong> the parts of those stories told in the books primarily about the First Age (the Silmarillion<\/em>, etc.) At the same time, Amazon cannot contradict<\/strong> those stories either. Amazon\u2019s series will have to be consistent with the Tolkien canon, while at the same time drawing on the vaguest, least detailed portion of it: genealogies, a few outlines of stories, and not much more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I guess there\u2019s an audience out there for this, especially given how huge Game of Thrones<\/em> was. But seems like if you\u2019re going to, likely, eventually, spend over a billion dollars on a project you should have more leeway in how you create the final product.<\/p>\n
Tolkien and Amazon\u2019s Fight for a Franchise<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSpeaking of Amazon\u2026our home is as guilty as anyone for being sucked into making it our first, and often only, stop when shopping. Reading this piece, which details how difficult it can be to sell your good on Amazon and how equally tough it can be to not<\/strong> sell your stuff there, makes me want to use it as more of a starting point from which I branch out and eventually click buy on the site of the actual producer of whatever I\u2019m buying.<\/p>\n
As Demand For Bikes Surged, Amazon Got In The Way: A bike parts company ditched Amazon to support indie shops instead<\/a><\/p>\n
\nWhat\u2019s going on in Afghanistan is obviously an absolute mess, one that President Biden will pay the political price for despite his three predecessors being the ones who created it.<\/p>\n
Phil Klay, who has written a lot about the wars we\u2019ve been fighting for the past 20 years, provides some perspective.<\/p>\n
9\/11 unified America. It overcame partisan divides, bound us together, and gave us the sense of common purpose so lacking in today\u2019s poisonous politics. And nothing that we have done as a nation since has been so catastrophically destructive as what we did when we were enraptured by the warm glow of victimization and felt like we could do anything, together.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n