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The most emphatic victory during Saturday’s early college football slate came in the heated rivalry game between the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners. While the Sooners came in as the winners of six of the last seven, the Longhorns went out and made a statement in Dallas this year, picking up an lopsided 49-0 win.

It wasn’t just that Texas won by that many points — they outgained Oklahoma by nearly 400 yards, had 25 more first downs, and made it clear that the Sooners had a long, long way to go under first-year head coach Brent Venables. To add insult to injury, Kevin Durant took to Twitter during the game to talk some trash about the game.

Unsurprisingly, this drew some ire from Oklahoma fans — you may have heard that Kevin Durant used to play his professional basketball in the state back in the day, and his departure from that franchise did not go over especially well among folks in the Sooner State. But because his college football team scored forty nine points and the other college football team scored zero points and the other college football team just happens to be his college football team’s biggest rival, well, the high road was right there for the taking.

The Golden State Warriors have a big, big problem with the video leaking of Draymond Green punching Jordan Poole during a practice. It’s already been reported that the team is going to look into how the video made its way to TMZ, and in his press conference where he announced he is taking a leave of absence, Green made clear that he had an issue with the clip of the incident making its way into the public several days after it was originally reported.

That sentiment is shared by Steve Kerr, who met with the media on Saturday afternoon. Kerr spoke at length about the video getting to TMZ, why it is important to keep these sorts of things internal, and how he’s disappointed this sort of thing keeps happening to the defending champs.

“Everything is internal, so my answer to that is we’ve had those discussions with individuals with the team, and those discussions will stay private as long as nobody leaks those conversations,” Kerr said when asked whether or not the video becoming public changed the situation at all.

Kerr was later asked if there’s still a state of shock around the team, and brought things back to the fact that the video of the punch leaked.

“This is why it’s so crucial to keep things in-house,” Kerr said. “I’ve been in this league for 30-plus years, I’ve seen all kinds of crazy stuff. When things are kept internally, it’s really, almost easy to handle them. It’s just so much cleaner and smoother and you can move forward. As soon as things are leaked, now all hell breaks loose, and that affects every single player, coach, especially the players.

“Because of that, because everything is out there, the players are now having to deal with all of this stuff, having to answer all those questions, and puts us in a very difficult spot, everybody in a difficult spot,” Kerr continued. “Because it’s like if you had a camera in your family, and there was a family dispute, would you really wanna discuss it in the world? No, of course not. You wanna handle it internally. So, that’s always the goal, and for whatever reason, we’ve had leaks in this organization. This is not the first time, so that needs to be cleaned up, and that’s a big part of the issue.”

Jon Stewart is very good at grilling people the way few serious journalists do. He famously took down Tucker Carlson during the Bush II era, effectively banishing him to the wilderness for over a decade (only for him to rise again). After the economic crash of 2008, he eviscerated Jim Cramer with surgical precision. Now he’s taking on a political leader partly responsible for anti-trans policies.

Stewart talked to Leslie Rutledge, attorney general of Arizona, whose state enacted a ban on gender-affirming health care for children in 2021. In a six-minute excerpt from the interview, aired on the most recent episode of The Problem with Jon Stewart, the former Daily Show host calmly dismantled Rutledge’s arguments. For one thing, he points out that the decision “overrides” guidelines laid out by health care professionals. Rutledge, meanwhile, simply claims that some experts thought otherwise, though she couldn’t even name the groups that said so.

At one point, Rutledge mentions that the doctors that supported the ban claimed that “98 percent of young people” who have gender dysphoria “are able to move past” it once they “have the help that they need.”

“Wow,” Stewart replied. “That’s an incredibly made-up figure.” He added, “That doesn’t comport with any of the studies or documentation that exist from these medical organizations.”

Stewart has a history of preparing for hard-hitting interviews, and his expertise was met with praise.

Others, however, argued that this kind of interviewing — calmly and forcefully questioning those in power, exposing the weakness of their arguments — should be the norm, not the exception.

But it’s just another example of Stewart using his clout — and his relentlessness — to do what those in power won’t.

You can watch The Problem with Jon Stewart on Apple TV+.

Draymond Green will step away from the Golden State Warriors in the aftermath of his altercation in practice with teammate Jordan Poole. In a video released by TMZ earlier this week, Green and Poole got into it with one another, and after Poole shoved the former Defensive Player of the Year, Green responded by throwing a right hook that caught the side of Poole’s face.

There have been rumors that Poole’s attitude in camp on the verge of a lucrative contract extension has rubbed teammates the wrong way, even though Steph Curry has pushed back against this. In the days since, we’ve heard from plenty of folks around the Warriors, and on Saturday, it was Green’s turn to address the situation.

Green went on to say that he’ll take an indefinite leave of absence from the team, which is scheduled to begin its regular season on Oct. 18 against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Green also addressed the fact that a video of the incident was made public by TMZ, saying that “it was bullsh*t that it leaked” but conceding that the video “looks even worse than I thought it was.”

The team is in the midst of an investigation to discover the source of the leak.

This article originally appeared on 03.03.20

When polarization starts to feel like a defining characteristic of humanity, sometimes we need a reminder that people really are capable of coming together as one.

Watching a stadium full of Green Day concertgoers bust out their best “Bohemian Rhapsody” when it came over the loudspeakers is just such a reminder.

As the person who uploaded the concert footage to Reddit noted: “For almost 6 minutes, the equivalent of a small city sang, with one voice, the beautiful song of a man who has been dead for decades. If you can do this, you’re not just a famous person, you’re a legend.”

What could be more palette-cleansing than hearing thousands of people breaking into song together for an entire six minutes? What’s more unifying than a piece of music being so beloved and well-known that a whole stadium knows every note and word and sings it in unison with all their heart?

via GIPHY

As one commenter on Reddit wrote, “Ever notice how one crowd singing together always sound the same as other crowds, as in has the same tambre [sic] and sound quality? It’s like the recognizable and familiar voice of humanity. Regardless of how different the people in the crowd are, the crowd always sounds the same. I think the idea that we are listening to humanity’s voice when hearing a crowd sing is a beautiful concept.”

Listen to the voice of humanity. It’s truly a beautiful thing.

www.youtube.com

This article originally appeared on 12.03.19

Madeleine Albright once said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there’s research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. “Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination,” Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It’s like having a road map for your goals.

​It’s interesting to note that women in leadership positions who lacked this style of support system didn’t make as much as the women who did. “While women who had networks that most resembled those of successful men (i.e., centrality but no female inner circle) placed into leadership positions that were among the lowest in authority and pay,” Uzzi writes. Men and women have different needs, and that even extends to their tribe.

But it’s not just in the workplace. A 2006 study found that women who had 10 or more friends were more likely to survive the disease than women who lacked close friends. The study found socially isolated women were 64% more likely to die from cancer, and 43% more likely to have a breast cancer reoccurrence. Friendship is literally the best medicine.

Never underestimate the power of a group text with your girlfriends. Having a place to commiserate over sexism and support other women with goofy gifs when someone succeeds can enrich your life on all fronts.

It’s interesting to note that women in leadership positions who lacked this style of support system didn’t make as much as the women who did. “While women who had networks that most resembled those of successful men (i.e., centrality but no female inner circle) placed into leadership positions that were among the lowest in authority and pay,” Uzzi writes. Men and women have different needs, and that even extends to their tribe.

But it’s not just in the workplace. A 2006 study found that women who had 10 or more friends were more likely to survive the disease than women who lacked close friends. The study found socially isolated women were 64% more likely to die from cancer, and 43% more likely to have a breast cancer reoccurrence. Friendship is literally the best medicine.

Never underestimate the power of a group text with your girlfriends. Having a place to commiserate over sexism and support other women with goofy gifs when someone succeeds can enrich your life on all fronts.

One of college football’s best rivalry games is taking place on Saturday, as the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners are going toe-to-toe in the Red River Showdown. Unlike previous years, Oklahoma is the team that enters the game in a state of turmoil, as the Sooners have lost back-to-back games to Kansas State and TCU.

Of course, this is a strange year for Oklahoma, as Lincoln Riley left to take the USC gig and longtime Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables is in his first year in charge. Still, there are high expectations in Norman that just have not been met, and as of this writing, the Sooners face a 28-0 halftime deficit against their rivals.

This included what might be the worst pop pass in college football history. The idea behind the play is pretty simple: you show that the QB on a given play is running, someone sneaks behind a defense, and they catch the ball. It usually happens on the goal line as a way to get a touchdown, but Oklahoma ran one on its own 20 on a first-and-10. It … did not go especially well.

That defensive player could have called a fair catch here on what will surely go down as the easiest interception of his career.

If you think it’s shocking that too few people are going to see Billy Eichner’s Bros, then wait till you hear about the latest pro-Trump rally at the Capitol. As per The Daily Beast, a group of MAGA heads once again congregated at the site of the Jan. 6 riot, but looked more like a gathering than an assemblage. That’s because only 27 people showed up.

On Friday afternoon, only about two dozen people showed up for what was called the “Stop the Tyrants & Unite for Freedom” rally. Among the attendants were defenders of the roughly 2,000 people who stormed the Capitol, as well as a Steve Bannon podcast regular, a MAGA fashion designer, and, of course, someone dressed up in Colonial garb. There weren’t many of them, and that low turnout number includes two private security guards.

Those who showed up were treated to speakers on a miniature stage who were sometimes drowned up by five liberal activists who kept blowing whistles. At one point, a speaker tried to defend the police officers who he said were getting “hearing damage” from all the whistling, perhaps forgetting about all the Capitol officers who were violently assaulted on Jan. 6.

Why the low turnout? One speaker, rightwing lawyer Deborah Weiss, blamed it on scheduling, with the event taking place during a weekday afternoon. She also accused mysterious leftwing forces of making it hard to send out emails about the event.

The latest pro-Trump rally bomb comes a mere two weeks after one that only did marginally better. On September 24, what was billed as the “biggest J6 event to date” instead only drew a “few dozen” attendees. Meanwhile, a rally for Doug Mastriano, the MAGA candidate running for governor of Pennsylvania, did slightly better than both, wrangling in about sixty (60) people. But, as the fashion designer speaker at Friday’s rally said, “it doesn’t matter the size of a crowd.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Keanu Reeves has never worked with Martin Scorsese, beyond the two chatting in 2012’s celluloid-vs.-digital documentary Side by Side. That was about to change, sort of: The beloved actor was set to be one of the leads in the long-in-the-works adaptation of The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson’s bestselling non-fiction tome from 2003, which is being executive produced by Scorsese and his frequent collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio. Alas, this union was not to be.

As per Deadline, Reeves has suddenly departed the adaptation, which is slated to be a limited series for Hulu. A reason has yet to be given. Perhaps he’s a little busy, what with him returning as nicotine-addicted occult detective John Constantine. It would have also been Reeves’ first stint leading a TV series.

Whatever the reason, it’s yet another setback for The Devil in the White City, which has had quite the epic journey to the screen. Tom Cruise was the first to show interest, but his attempt floundered in 2004. DiCaprio snatched up the rights in 2010, with Scorsese slated to direct. That also fell through, but the director and actor have stayed on as executive producers.

The Devil in the White City tells of two historical figures: David H. Burnham, a visionary architect who made his name at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and Dr. H. H. Holmes, who is considered the first serial killer. Reeves was to play Burnham. The Hulu adaptation is still on, with a prospective release in 2024.

(Via Deadline)

An altercation at a Golden State Warriors practice this week made headlines, as Draymond Green punched Jordan Poole in the face. There were plenty of questions that remained after reports of the fight started circulating, and then, TMZ published the video of the incident, which showed that the two went chest-to-chest at a practice, Poole shoved Green, and Green responded by throwing a right hook.

Thanks to TMZ, we now know what is alleged to have happened — and what was said — between the two in the lead-up to the punch being thrown. While Steve Kerr and Steph Curry both stressed that Poole’s attitude has not caused headaches during camp, TMZ claims that Poole’s expected big-money contract extension led to him carrying himself “in a cocky manner” in the days leading up to the altercation. This rubbed a number of teammates, including the extension-eligible Green, the wrong way.

When practice rolled around on Wednesday, TMZ reports that Green called Poole a “b*tch” on several occasions due to Poole calling fouls while the team scrimmaged. Then, they got into it over some chirping between the pair.

Things escalated when Poole allegedly said, “You know what it is, Draymond.” — seemingly bragging over the contract situation — and Draymond got in Poole’s face, allegedly saying, “No I don’t know, what is it?”

The Warriors have already launched an investigation to figure out the source of the video leaking to TMZ.