Month: November 2020

It’s 2020 and our presidential race was between an old white dude and another old white dude. That glass ceiling is still hovering over our heads. It might be cracked, but it hasn’t been shattered yet. A blast from the past photo went viral for showing us some of the attitudes that are impeded in the foundation of that glass ceiling – and one skinny little crack from an unlikely source.

Twitter user @natepentz posted a photo of a 1763 Minneapolis Star Tribune article in which readers were asked, “Would a woman be a good president?”

Of the five respondents, four (including two women) gave a firm “no,” backed up by whatever weird logic they used to justify their sexism. “No. Today their mind is one way and the next day, it changes,” said Frank Kampa. “No. A man is more responsible. Women have enough problems without being president,” said Maureen Mellum.

But the lone “why not” has been getting a lot of attention now, 57 years later. Vern Hause’s answer was simple, “”She couldn’t do any worse than some we’ve had.”

The response went viral, and Hause got praise for being a low-key feminist at a time when “The Future is Female” t-shirts didn’t exist.

Other Twitter users thought Hause’s response was kind of lame – that he had no faith in the government, but no faith in women either.

Hause’s response wasn’t the only response to grab attention. Some people commented on how weird Mr. and Mrs. Romanowski’s responses were. Mr. Romanowski answered, “No. I don’t have much faith in women to let them run the country.”

Mrs. Romanowski’s answer was worse, and also kinda hinted that there might be something going on in her marriage. “No. A woman is too likely to give in. They might not stand their ground when they should,” Mrs. Romanowski, who apparently doesn’t have a first name of her own, said. Maybe she was speaking out of her own experience? Although, 1963 might have been before women were allowed to have opinions.

But as far as we’ve come since 1963, some Twitter users pointed out that not much has changed. In some ways, these responses from 1963 could be given now, although the sexism might be less overt.

While newspapers don’t really go around asking weird questions like this anymore, in some ways, society is still asking itself that question. At least now we have plenty of people who will boldly answer, “Why is this even a question???”

“It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there indefinitely. When our government argues in court against giving those children toothbrushes and soap. When President Trump uses family separation as a weapon against desperate mothers, fathers, and children seeking safety and a better life. When he threatens massive raids that would break up families who have been in this country for years and targets people at sensitive locations like hospitals and schools. When children die while in custody due to lack of adequate care.

Trump has waged an unrelenting assault on our values and our history as a nation of immigrants.

It’s wrong, and it stops when Joe Biden is elected president.”

These are the opening lines of the Biden campaign’s immigration platform, and for fans of compassionate—or even just basically decent—immigration policies, they are a soothing balm for the soul.

Of the many things to take issue with over the past four years, the Trump administration’s cruel immigration policies surely rank toward the top. There was no excuse for the zero tolerance family separation policy that tore children—babies, even—from their parents arms without even putting into place a plan to reunite them. There was no good reason to slash our refugee ceiling to historically low levels when the world is facing a historically large refugee crisis and when study after study shows that refugee resettlement is actually good for the country economically. There was no reason for Dreamers to fear being sent back to countries many of them don’t even remember, when they have lived their lives as Americans and had no say in their parents’ actions.

Immigration is not a simple issue, but some aspects of it should be a no brainer. You don’t traumatize children on purpose, no matter who they are or where they come from. You help as many people as you reasonably can when the need is great. You don’t punish people for choices their parents made when they were kids. You treat human beings like human beings, balancing wisdom and security with kindness and compassion.

Biden says he is committed to a “fair and humane” immigration system. That doesn’t mean unsafe or insecure, but rather smart and strategic in addressing threats while also maintaining our identity as a nation that welcomes immigrants with open arms.

Take the “big, beautiful” wall, for example. Super expensive and not very effective. As the Biden website states, “Most contraband comes in through our legal ports of entry. It’s estimated that nearly half of the undocumented people living in the U.S. today have overstayed a visa, not crossed a border illegally. Families fleeing the violence in Central America are voluntarily presenting themselves to border patrol officials. And the real threats to our security–drug cartels and human traffickers–can more easily evade enforcement efforts because Trump has misallocated resources into bullying legitimate asylum seekers. Trump fundamentally misunderstands how to keep America safe because he cares more about governing through fear and division than common sense solutions.”

One specific change Biden has committed to is raising our refugee ceiling back up to 125,000, which is around the number we had been resettling prior to Trump’s election. In the past four years, Trump has dropped that number more than 80%—completely unprecedented—and there were rumors that a second term would drop the number to zero.

Biden’s site also explains briefly how the humanitarian crisis we’ve seen at our border during the Trump administration could be tied to his administration freezing the funds that a bipartisan aid package for Central America secured during the Obama administration was designed to curb:

“Critically, the Obama-Biden administration recognized that irregular migration from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America cannot be effectively addressed if solutions only focus on our southern border. The better answer lies in addressing the root causes that push desperate people to flee their homes in the first place: violence and insecurity, lack of economic opportunity, and corrupt governance. As Vice President, Biden spearheaded the administration’s efforts in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras–bringing high-level attention to these issues and securing bipartisan support for a $750 million aid package to help the Northern Triangle countries implement critical, concrete reforms. These efforts were beginning to deliver results and reduce migration rates until Trump froze the majority of the funding, began his campaign to terrorize immigrants and assault the dignity of the Latino community, and created the current humanitarian crisis at our border with his irresponsible and inhumane policies.”

The site includes a summary of policies that Biden will “forcefully pursue” which will “safeguard our security, provide a fair and just system that helps to grow and enhance our economy, and secure our cherished values.”

He will:

– Take urgent action to undo Trump’s damage and reclaim America’s values

– Modernize America’s immigration system

– Welcome immigrants in our communities

– Reassert America’s commitment to asylum-seekers and refugees

– Tackle the root causes of irregular migration

– Implement effective border screening

It’s refreshing to not only to see a reasonable, humane approach to immigration, but also to see paragraphs of detail about Biden’s approach. The Trump campaign’s one-page bullet list of a second-term agenda briefly addressed immigration, and only in terms that were entirely negative and fear-based. The contrast could not be more stark.

It will be wonderful to again see America as welcoming home for people from around the world, who help make our society so richly diverse. With immigration policies based in fairness and decency over fear and distrust, we will renew that aspect of our national identity with pride.

While coronavirus cases are soaring across the United States and exponential, uncontrollable spread of the virus is feared for a third major wave in 2020, having a dinner party under any circumstances seems like a pretty questionable idea. Which is why the idea of the US Congress throwing one for new members in an enclosed dining space drew outrage on social media.

NBC News reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell shared a photo of the gathering on Friday, which was quickly quote tweeted into oblivion by people who were furious not at her, but at the nation’s leaders who apparently feel hosting a large indoor dinner while a pandemic rages out of control is a good idea.

Though Pelosi was quoted as saying the event was “very spaced” and ventilation was improved for the event, any large gathering indoors is a bad idea with uncontrollable spread of COVID-19 infiltrating basically every aspect of American society. College football is on the verge of collapse, college basketball is struggling as well and Americans are being asked to pare down Thanksgiving gatherings and avoiding travel in several states as new restrictions on public life are coming back across the country.

Couple that with the advanced age of many people in congress — putting them squarely in the population particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 — and it was safe to say that the image did not go over very well on social media. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes was particularly unhappy.

Dan Rather wasn’t happy about it, either.

Billy Eichner called it “terrible” and “embarrassing” for everyone involved.

Chelsea Clinton pled with government officials to cancel the event.

There were a lot of good points made about the message it sends about the elite in America and what normal human beings living through the worst health crisis in decades may take from the symbolism here.

There are, quite literally, thousands and thousands more reactions to this image. Many are disbelief, shock, anger, or a combination of those emotions. Hopefully the event goes off safely and no one gets the wrong idea from hosting a gathering like this, but in a year where Americans have longed for proper guidance and aid from their government in a time of crisis without recent compare, this wasn’t a move that helped or made anyone feel better about anything at all.

Grammy-nominated musician Tayla Parx is an expert at juggling projects. The singer is an accredited writer on Ariana Grande’s recently-released Positions and even appeared in the title track’s video. On top of that, Parx is just a week away from releasing her sophomore album Coping Mechanisms. Offering fans one last taste of the record’s honest-yet-euphoric sound, Parx debuts a new song alongside a 70s-inspired visual.

Parx sings of being truthful about her emotional baggage amid a sparse studio backdrop in her “Fixerupper” video directed by Joe DeSantis. Speaking about the song’s meaning, Parx notes: “’Fixerupper’ marks a moment of growth. It came after I ended up meeting my next love. I recognized the need to get over some situations, be patient, and understand there are some bandages necessary to fix me up.”

About her musical inspirations on Coping Mechanisms, Parx said she hopes to inspire listeners to be kind to themselves: “I’m ever-changing. I’m unwilling to let my creative side die — ever. I’m a businesswoman, I’m a brand, and I’m a human. I’m working on being a better one all the time too. I’m going to allow myself to continue to evolve. My message is, ‘It’s okay to not be okay sometimes.’ It’s also okay to be better than okay other times. Be nice to yourself. Go through those growing pains, because they enable you to become who you’re meant to be.”

Watch Parx’s “Fixerupper” video above. Coping Mechanisms is out 11/20 via Tayla Made/Atlantic. Pre-order it here.

Tayla Parx is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Given the unique time frame in which NBC’s hit family drama “This Is Us” takes place, actor Mandy Moore has been able to explore the various stages of life as a mother.

Moore is now in her fifth season of playing Rebecca Pearson, the mother of the “Big Three,” Kevin, Kate, and Randall Pearson on the show. With the use of clever makeup, viewers have witnessed most of Rebecca’s life from being a teenager to her final moments on her death bed.

We’ve also seen her journey as a mother from being pregnant with twins to raising three teenagers. The show also touches upon the final stages of the character’s life when her children are forced to care for her as she battles dementia.

Now that Moore is pregnant for the first time at 36, she believes her experience playing Rebecca has taught her more than a few things about being a mother.

Mandy Moore Talks About ‘This Is Us’ And How She’s Getting Ready For Her Baby Boy | TODAY

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“It’s funny, I mean having played a sort of matriarch of a family for the last five years and getting to sort of see children at various different chapters and stages, I feel like I’m as pseudo-prepared as I can be,” she told Hoda Kotb on Today.

“I’ve had babies and toddlers and I have adult children, so I’ve kind of gotten a pretty good taste and lay of the land.”

Even though she’s learned a lot by playing Rebecca, she’s totally open to parenting advice. Although, she’s going to get plenty of it whether she wants it or not. “Everyone wants to give you unsolicited advice,” she said. “I’m all for it. I will welcome anything because I know nothing.”

Moore is excited to raise a child with her husband, Taylor Goldsmith, so they can share their passion for music with the next generation.

“My husband is a musician, and so the idea of being able to have music be this throughline in his life is really exciting — to be able to bring him on the road with us is an exciting prospect,” she said.

Goldsmith is a singer-songwriter who’s the guitarist, and chief songwriter of American folk-rock band Dawes.

“This Is Us” is still filming its fifth season and Moore says she’s not exactly sure how they’re going to hide her pregnancy from the cameras but is glad it’s not her responsibility.

“Very conspicuous costumes, I guess, to hide stuff,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll see Rebecca carrying a lot of laundry baskets and oversized purses, god knows what, for the next couple of months.”

“I’ve also heard that they can sort of go in and digitally change things, if need be, but I’m guessing it’ll be a lot more shots of sort of less full body, probably just like what we’re seeing today,” she said. “Chest up.”

If Moore follows the lead of her character, she should so well as a mother. Rebecca once explained the job of a parent mother to her daughter, Kate, and it’s something any parent will understand.

“It’s my job to keep standing there with my arms wide open, waiting for you to maybe someday fall inside if you needed it,” she told Kate. “And if you do, I’ll love you. And if you don’t, I’ll love you, too — because that’s what it means to be a parent. You’ll see one day.”

Remember Rocky? This is exactly like that. Kind of.

Over the past few years, a brawl has been underway in the fast-food space over which plant-based food brand would dominate the market and become America’s plant-based meat of choice. In terms of accessibility, Beyond Meat shows a lot of promise — solidifying itself as a menu staple at chains like A&W, Bareburger, BurgerFi, Carl’s Jr, and Del Taco. But Impossible Foods has the Impossible Whopper, and that’s a pretty massive uppercut. Meanwhile, McDonald’s slipped a jab this week by announcing that the company will be making its own plant-based burger rather than relying on Beyond or Impossible (which sent Beyond Meat’s stocks tumbling).

With Impossible getting better reviews and McDonald’s developing its product without help from the two front-runners, it’s not crazy to call Beyond Meat the scrappy underdog with a one-in-a-million shot at the plant-based title belt. See? Just like Rocky.

Look I’ve been told before, “Not everything is Rocky.” But this really is just like Rocky. Impossible Foods holds the big title, they’ve got the King. Who might be reasonably be called the “King of Sting,” aka one of Apollo Creed’s many nicknames. And guess where Beyond Meat is headquartered? Phila — okay, that’s not true, the company is located in California. But guess where the company’s founder is from? Okay, also not Philadephia. Dammit. And from what we can tell he’s not Italian either. But this can still be a Rocky story because while things are looking down for Beyond Meat and their eye is all busted up and they’re seeing triple and the old man on the side of the ring is yelling about how he’s gonna stop the fight, they’ve just landed a Balboa-esque punch that has delivered them a fighting chance —

The Beyond Meat Italian Sausage pizza from Pizza Hut.

Plant-based burgers, tacos, meatballs… all of that is fine and good, but pizza? We’ll take a slice of pizza over a burger any day of the week. And while every pizza place has a whole range of vegetarian-friendly options these days, nothing quite completes a pie like a hearty serving of meat. So if you’re the type that likes to pile on the meat-based toppings but you’ve given up meat for health, environmental, or moral reasons, come sit ringside while I review Beyond Italian Sausage.

Hey, Italian Sausage… Italian Stallion???? See it? We told you this was a Rocky story!

The Taste Test:

In my opinion, Pizza Hut’s regular Italian Sausage is not only the chain’s best topping, but it’s also the best sausage topping out of all of the big national pizza chains. I’m pretty fond and familiar with the topping as Meat Lovers is my favorite Pizza Hut pie — so I was interested in how this pizza would match the experience.

Visually, the Beyond Meat Italian Sausage Pizza is a dead ringer for the real thing. It looks right. The smell isn’t quite there, though. Instead, this just smells like a cheese pizza. That won’t matter once you add other toppings on the pie, but it’s a little striking when you know the savory smell of Pizza Hut sausage as well as (I’m a little ashamed to admit) I do.

Beyond Meat and Pizza Hut’s culinary experts teamed up for this project to capture the flavor of Pizza Hut’s sausage topping and I’m happy to report that they’ve done a great job. One of the hallmarks of Pizza Hut’s sausage is the fennel seed seasoning and that’s very evident in the Beyond Italian Sausage. Plus you get a hefty dose of garlic, a tinge of onion, and some paprika for color and smokiness to approximate the flavor of real sausage. In terms of mouthfeel, this is indistinguishable from the real thing, which — together with the visual similarity and flavor — provides the same sensory experience I’ve come to love about biting into a slice of sausage pizza.

Except…

The thing that eating an all plant-based meat pizza for the first time taught me is that what I love about meat on pizza isn’t just the meat itself. It’s the greasy flavor that sausage, pepperoni, and bacon produce when they’re thrown into a super hot oven. The way they mix and mingle with the cheese, crust, and tomato sauce and morph into the type of umami bomb that can only be washed down with an equally sinful swig of ice-cold soda.

At the end of the day, the Beyond Meat Italian Sausage Pizza is just a little too dry to truly match what I love about sausage pizza. The sausage never gets greasy and it comes out a bit burnt on the edges. But if the idea of an orgy of meat grease seeping into salty mozzarella sounds disgusting to you (or off-limits for one of the reasons mentioned above), the Beyond Italian Sausage pizza might be just what you’re looking for.

The Bottom Line:

Not a knockout punch, but maybe a TKO.

A great stand-in for vegetarians who have a hard time enjoying pizza without meat. While we probably wouldn’t eat it as a solo topping, mixed in with some veggies the Beyond Meat Italian Sausage supplies a lot of savory flavor with echoes of the spicy oven-roasted sausage that inspired it.

By now you know it’s not possible to look cool on Zoom. We’ve accepted it, moved on. But then, here’s Becky Hammon, leaning back in her chair with an arm flung casually over its top and behind her. She is at once sedate and with a laser focus that is still inquisitively pinning off-court and nearly a continental landmass away. A smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. She is waiting for you to unmute yourself.

Hammon is the subject of two new pieces of creative work resting at opposite ends of the scale spectrum. One, a three-story mural by French-American artist Sebastien Boileau in San Antonio’s Lincoln Hills neighborhood, portrays a young Hammon looking up at her future self, the words “Never Stop” a bold banner over her head. The other, a minute-long short centered around the same motto, by 60 Second Docs. While both aim to showcase Hammon’s relentless drive and habitual resiliency, two qualities that you accept to be facts if you are peripherally aware of pro basketball, the six-time WNBA All-Star, one of the WNBA’s top-15 players of all time, Olympian, and assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs is still navigating a career marked largely by firsts.

She was the first female All-Star coach, first female Summer League coach, and has been fixed as a barrier-breaking mainstay in the oft-cyclical and increasingly tiresome conversation around NBA head coaching jobs since she was hired by the Spurs in 2014. Tiresome because as a conversation it has worn itself thin, so perennially stuck on the question of “when” that it has fallen behind its own intention of furthering the discourse or, to borrow a favorite term of Hammon’s, moving the needle. Every season that looms with this recurrent debate around Hammon’s capacity for head coaching now rhythmic to the league’s pre-season calendar as the Draft or free agency, and then starts without Hammon in a head coaching job, feels as rote as a fire drill, its purpose the preparedness instead of the event.

It is one thing to stay ready knowing you are moving tangibly and steadily toward a goal, but when does it shift from progress to a method of self-preservation, a requirement of longevity not needed by your predominantly male peers? There is an inherent exhaustion in always being marked by firsts instead of the achievements gained from over two decades in pro basketball arenas, to be marked by the expectation of what you’re still, a little mythically, ordained to become instead of who you have made yourself into or the body of work you stand on.

“Obviously when you’re first there’s no blueprint for it, right? Over the course of my career I think I’ve encountered so many obstacles and let downs and no’s, that it’s kind of built resiliency in me. I think I was made to be tough,” Hammon says with a soft laugh, “and strong in my approach. Really, I think I’m an optimist, at the core of me. I’m always hopeful that there’s a better way.”

Hope, foresight, and courage are the other qualities that don’t often get named as commonalities to women’s professional paths in the NBA, or any professional men’s league. When there haven’t been people before you whose footsteps you can look for, you need to become adept at making your own way. Then, you must backtrack and start over when that way gets into the weeds. Hammon has, and she paints a lucid analogy of that process.

“I liken it to going through a rainforest and there’s no path, so you’re just kinda swingin’ your machete,” she says, swinging an invisible machete. “Trying to figure out which direction to go in next to move this, to move the pieces forward. Not only that, but to create a path for the next generation that will come behind me.”

As a woman navigating a non-linear path, a fan, or just as a person in this world, to think of Hammon guiding you through a morass of the unknown “taking nicks and bruises and scrapes trying to forge that path forward” with a machete is a comfort, and she acknowledges men in the league are navigating new territory, too, but generally, she thinks “people are over the optics of it.”

“They’re used to seeing me on the sidelines now,” she says. “If I miss a game it’s kind of like, ‘Where was Becky?’ We want to get to that normalcy, where it’s normal to see a woman out there … I think society conceptually can start to see this happen, they can see it in their minds, but until as society we’re moved in our hearts and we really believe it down in our gut, in our soul, the needle won’t move. We’re inching along. We need to be taking steps, instead of inching.”

The oscillation between lauding each move made by a person in Hammon’s position, keeping her firmly tethered to “firsts,” and normalizing successes so the work can speak for itself is essentially a tightrope walk. Tip too far in either direction and you quit making any progress at all. It’s why Hammon and other women in coaching positions in the NBA, like Hammon’s friend Jenny Boucek, have occasionally veered away from titles like “trailblazer.”

“The term trailblazer,” she shakes her head, “I’ll repeat what I’ve said in a thousand interviews, I try not to think about it. I understand the significance and the importance of it, but more important is my body of work.”

There’s an underlying sense of frustration Hammon acknowledges with where importance has skewed in favor of progressive terminology over occasionally very simple, actionable changes.

“I recently had a management person from the Spurs [ask], ‘What can we do to make it better?’” she recalled. “And I was like, take something as simple as a sign on a door in one of the arenas that we play in. It says, ‘Female Coach.’ I told our group that quite frankly it’s insulting. What if you put, ‘Black Coach,’ or ‘Straight Coach,’ or ‘Gay Coach,’ or ‘Short Coach,’ or ‘Tall Coach’?” She holds her hands like bookends to every absurd label, eventually dashing each to the side, before stating, “instead of ‘Coach.’ So, learn the names, or keep it simple and put coach. Because at the end of the day what I want you to see me as, yes I am a woman, but I want you to see me as a coach. And my body of work in the basketball arena.”

To be wary of titles, or to outright reject them on occasion, also makes sense when someone with the experience Hammon has, a basketball background many of her contemporaries would pale against, is continually asked to prove herself only to have that proof accompanied by a caveat.

“I want it to get to the point where we don’t have an asterisk next to our work as women. The bottom line is, I played sixteen years in the WNBA and there is an asterisk next to my name because it was not in the NBA,” Hammon says. “And so, the goal here is that a person’s journey is valued just as much as any other person’s journey. And to open up these conversations when we’re talking about equality, we’re far behind from what we practice and what we preach. What we practice is not there, what we preach is there, we got a lot of mouth service about equality. But to see true, meaningful change we as women are still pushing that envelope. That being said, I’m willing to push the envelope.”

What makes Hammon such a sharp and incisive basketball mind, at ease in an exacting a system as the Spurs, is her resolve as much as a kind of vacillating persistence. In not shying away from what is difficult but in fact veering harder toward it, when coaching, as much as when talking about coaching and the frustration in having the same conversations to facilitate progress, she is still never going to be the first person to quit.

“I don’t know if I’m the one to walk through and be the first female head coach of a major professional sports league or not, I don’t know. Maybe I’m a person that knocks and pushes [enough] for somebody else to walk through. But I’m in the fight, and I’m willing to fight for that opportunity and that push through.

“I think the hiring of women all across professional sports whether it be in football, baseball, women’s voices need to be heard. Bottom line is, half of the population’s minds have not been tapped,” she says firmly. “Their experiences have not been tapped. And I think there’s a real, not only need to tap this resource, but the symbolism of it for the next generation has a ripple effect and impact that I don’t think can be calculated.”

Pressing toward action and its potential conflict is not necessarily aggressive, only habitual when you are accustomed to gaining ground in this way again and again. You become your own best resource as much as replenisher of an internal energy reservoir. In a sport that is so much about readiness and timing, whether that means job opportunities or all of the correct, cosmic things aligning for a team to win a championship, staying power is its own skillset. For Hammon, it’s routine.

“Well that’s the goal of everyday, to be ready,” she says with a slight shrug. “When the time comes, when the opportunity comes, I will be ready to walk through that door to take on those challenges and with the understanding that I’m signing up for a lot more than winning basketball games. I’m signing up for a lot of criticism whether I do it all right or all wrong, it’s the nature of the job. And being that there is a lot of hidden misogyny, subtle misogyny that exists, not just in men’s minds but in women’s minds as well.”

Working alongside Gregg Popovich, whom she calls “arguably the greatest basketball mind of our generation,” Hammon says every day is prep observing and learning while bringing ideas to the floor and contributing as a “meaningful part of the program.” Whether you consider the Spurs a dynasty in decline or simply going through a period of necessary retooling, Hammon is familiar with all the veins running through it. The pockets that could give out, what might yet yield gold, her survey of the team’s shifting landscape is storied.

Whether she stays and earns the head coaching job she has worked for or moves on will be her decision. Hammon has as much staying power as she does determination to do things her own way. In 2008, when she wasn’t invited to U.S. Olympic tryouts, Hammon became a naturalized Russian citizen and went on to earn a bronze medal in Beijing. Amidst the fallout, Hammon was reprimanded for taking a road less traveled because it went through Russia. There was plenty of criticism in form of jingoistic rhetoric, but then, when many athletes determined to make the Olympics would follow the same circuitous path, the road ceased to raise ire, became a highway. To presume Hammon has stopped making roads because she may now be waiting would be to forget the analogy she used about the machete.

Still, in the insular world of head coaching jobs in the NBA, bad fits marked by short stints or volatile team breakdowns happen. And while the men who go through these caustic circumstances typically come out unscathed, maybe even with a higher profile for it, Hammon, the marker of her being first again a mantle on her shoulders, risks not be given the same shrugging grace of circumstance.

To that end, and after so much time spent in preparation, when is it best to say no to an opportunity, even a held out for one?

“Katie, that has always been really easy for me cause I’ve had so many doors slammed in my face I’m pretty sure I know when I’m being told no.” She is deadpan but breaks into a laugh, “but my approach to being told no is just to look for a window. It’s not just about the pieces fitting, bottom line is you have to be the right person for the job. There’s also a side that you can’t take things personal. If you’re not a right fit, you’re not a right fit. The reasons why you may or may not be a right fit, that’s a different story.”

In basketball, as in life, we’ve gotten very good at assigning aspirational qualifiers when plain language would do. In basketball, players are never fearful, they get rattled, jittery, or off their game. In life, what we attribute to being relentless in drive or personality can be a precursor to deep psychological burnout. Hammon’s determination is genuine, she wouldn’t be twenty years and counting deep in a career as tested and subsequently durable otherwise. But there were times where, in order to keep going, she had to stop and regroup.

“Success is easy,” she says. “You’ll have successes. When I’ve learned the most, when I’ve had to redirect, are during the failures. Those are when you learn the most about yourself and how you respond. And I think when you’ve been hit, or you get knocked down, you’ve taken a step back or you’ve had a door shut in your face, there’s a skillset to being able to redirect, recalibrate, regroup. And that’s part of the reason we’re having this conversation, is that skillset right there, to be able to regroup and come up with innovative ideas and other routes. The door’s shut? Let’s go look for another door, let’s go look for a window. Because ultimately, like I said, I’m an optimist, I’m a dreamer, and I’ve fallen on my face before. I’ve failed, I’ve not made teams, I’ve been cut, but I’ve also had great successes.”

The thing about Becky Hammon is that she’s already there, and has been there for so long now that it’s the league in its performative language and the narratives we’re guilty of enforcing in our projections onto her, that need to quit or catch up. To stay ready is one thing but to be asked to maintain a steady state of almost is exhausting, impossible for most, but Hammon has persevered. When she talks about finding a better way we’re reminded that in her career she has, many times, and it’s been through.

Confessionally, at the end of our call, I tell her that I hope she kicks down every door from here on out. She leans back in her chair again and smiles, “I plan on wearing some steel toed boots, so we’re good.”

Disney+ is in early development on a reboot of a classic Disney afternoon cartoon, Darkwing Duck. Considering the character has appeared in episodes of the popular reboot of Disney’s DuckTales, the news of a Darkwing revival might not come as a total surprise, but the creative talent will probably sound unexpected. Longtime writing partners Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will reportedly be executive producing the new reboot with their Point Grey Pictures production company, which is also behind the hit Amazon series The Boys (talk about working on completely opposite ends of the superhero spectrum). Via Variety:

The original “Darkwing Duck” was created by Tad Stones and ran from 1991-1992 for three seasons and 91 episodes. It originally aired on The Disney Channel and ABC while also airing in syndication. The series followed the titular duck superhero, who lived an ordinary suburban life under the secret identity of Drake Mallard. He is assisted in his crime fighting by his sidekick and pilot Launchpad McQuack. He is also sometimes assisted by his adopted daughter, Gosalyn.

The Darkwing Duck reboot shows signs of a pattern for Rogen. Over the summer, it was announced that he’d be involved in a reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, another popular children’s cartoon from the ’90s. However, that project will be an animated movie instead of a series, and according to Rogen, it will lean heavily into his strongest skillset: making teenage movies. The Ninja Turtles movie will be made with Nickelodeon, so all that’s missing from Rogen’s portfolio is a project for Cartoon Network, and he’ll be the stoner king of children’s entertainment.

(Via Variety)

Lil Pump enraged many of his supporters several weeks ago when he endorsed Donald Trump for reelection just days ahead of election day. Much like 50 Cent’s short-lived Trump endorsement, Pump declared his support for the president was due to a disdain for Joe Biden’s proposed tax plan, which could potentially increase taxes only for those making over $400,000 a year. While Pump’s viral Trump-supporting antics turned many heads, it has now come to light that the rapper reportedly didn’t even vote come Election Day.

Pump was personally invited on stage by Trump himself at a MAGA rally in Michigan just hours before polls opened on November 3. But despite his avid support, the Florida rapper did not participate in swaying his home state to red because according to a new report from The Smoking Gun the rapper wasn’t even registered to vote on Election Day — and still isn’t.

Pump is only 20 years old, meaning this year would have been the first time he was eligible to participate in a presidential election. But because Florida has specific voter laws, the deadline for Pump register to vote in the state was 29 days before the election, or October 5. That means the rapper had already missed his chance to cast a ballot when he originally endorsed Trump and later showed up at the Michigan rally.

The rapper’s ineligibility to vote didn’t stop him from voicing his political opinion, however. In the days following the election, Pump continued to sport a MAGA hat in Instagram photos, and even changed his bio name to Lil Pimp, which is what Trump mistakenly referred to him as during the Michigan rally.

Back in the before times, when you could go to a public place filled with strangers and mill about all aimlessly and whatnot, Donald Trump hung out with Vince Vaughn at a college football game. Months later, Vaughn would like to clear the air about that incident, which you probably forgot about because, well, a lot has happened since January 13 of this year.

The incident dates back to the college football championship game between LSU and Clemson, which was the last college football game before a pandemic made that whole thing extremely weird. This was, you may recall, a triumph or sorts for the president, who in Atlanta got a decent ovation from college football fans after the good people of Washington booed him heavily at a World Series game along with chants of “lock him up.” And Trump’s good fortunes continued when he was seen on camera cheerfully interacting with noted Average Joe Vaughn.

As The Guardian noted at the time, Vaughn was caught chatting with Trump and shaking his hand, which drew ire on social media from many who wondered if the noted libertarian was effectively endorsing Trump by being so chummy. But Vaughn, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times for his new movie, Freaky, said he’s not particularly a fan of Trump and that the incident was overblown on social media:

Vaughn insists the episode was overblown. “In my career I’ve met a lot of politicians who I’ve always been cordial to; I’ve met Nancy Pelosi and was cordial to her as well,” he says, noting that at that same football game he also greeted Democratic strategist James Carville, who had a cameo in “Old School.” “It was the only time I’ve ever met him. We said hello. He was very personable.” He laughs. “I didn’t get into policies.”

“I think people are more charged than ever about these things,” he continues. “But I don’t think most people take that stuff as seriously as the small percentage that’s making noise about it. I was raised with the idea that you could have different likes and beliefs and you should respect and defend that in other people, not shout it down. The people you disagree with the most, you should stand up for their right to do that.”

Vaughn has clearly dismissed the “noise” people made about the incident, as well as those who criticized his politics in the aftermath of the meeting. But he made it clear his only endorsement is for another failed presidential candidate, and that he is unaffiliated in all of this:

“The only candidate I ever supported is [former Libertarian presidential nominee] Ron Paul… I don’t have a party that I support and endorse. In fact, for me sometimes it’s difficult to find a candidate that you feel is philosophically consistent and not just going along with whoever is funding their particular party. That’s as much as I’ll get into it at this point.”

It’s worth noting, of course, that Vaughn’s defense here is not a rebuke of Trump as much of an admission that he will shake any politician’s hand while not in the middle of a pandemic. He spent zero time in the piece actually criticizing Trump for anything that’s happened in the last four years nor expressing regret for how the incident played out publicly. But as he said, he’s just having a hard time finding reason to support or not support a politician in the modern political landscape, which seems, yes, unusual, but he doesn’t wish to discuss it.

(Via LA Times)