Losing My Perspicacity August 30, 2024

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Happy Free Friday and welcome back to Losing My Perspicacity, the newsletter that is now obsessed with wheelchair rugby. Have you seen this sport??

As always, a reminder that this newsletter is entirely funded by premium subscriptions from readers like you, and is also currently my sole source of income. If you like what you see, please consider upgrading to a premium subscription to get LMP in your inbox five days a week.

Today: Pat McAfee is a complete doofus; A Paralympian calls out her teammates for bullying and harassment; We may have found the world’s worst co-workers; Tom Brady appears to have a massive conflict of interest; I now have a favorite wheelchair rugby player; And all hail our American queen.

Let’s get to it:

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Death, Taxes, and Pat McAfee being indignant about journalism

I’ve gotten to the point where, if I don’t hear something about Pat McAfee being complete clown shoes every couple of weeks, I start to worry. Whether he’s giving his pal Aaron Rodgers free reign to spout medical misinformation and harass Dr. Anthony Fauci or calling Caitlin Clark a “bitch,” he and his ever-present armpits haunt my time on the treadmill at the gym and my nightmares.

For me, the most maddening thing about McAfee is his “aww shucks, I’m just a regular guy who didn’t know any better!” routine. (That and the constant presence of his armpits, as previously mentioned.)The thing is, though, that Pat McAfee is not a regular guy. He’s a guy who has an enormous platform, one who was given $85 million by no less than ESPN to carry his show, which is inescapable if you go anywhere that certain kinds of men are present. Either you take that responsibility seriously, or you don’t. Either you determine that you show has such a huge reach that you vow to make sure the information you get to your audience is correct, or you just want to make all your buddies who come on happy.

It didn’t go without notice that, when McAfee referred to Clark as “a bitch,” not one of the four or five men standing around the studio called him out on it. Bros don’t call out bros on McAfee’s show.

Which brings me to why I’m writing about McAfee (again) today.

From Deadline:

Here’s the problem with what McAfee is saying: It’s not slander, libel, or character assassination if what is being said is true. What McAfee has been criticized for is 1) paying Aaron Rodgers for a weekly appearance on his show and 2) allowing Rodgers to make all sorts of outlandish claims about COVID vaccines and Dr. Fauci with little to no pushback from McAfee, who is the one asking the questions. None of that is character assassination; that is the media critiquing you for being bad at your job. If you can’t handle public criticism, you need to find another line of work, as the bros loved to tell me during my time in sports radio. Plenty of other people would love a shot at having a show.

The NFL season is starting, and we all know the most dangerous place in the world is between Aaron Rodgers and a place where he can spout whatever asinine idea he picked up from Jordan Peterson any given week. At a time when COVID is surging again (I just returned 10 minutes ago from getting my updated vaccine), expect Rodgers to be back on McAfee’s show with free reign, once again.

Meanwhile, West Virigina canceled classes ahead of McAfee’s show being on-campus for the WVU - Penn State game.

Can I opt into a different timeline or parallel universe?

US Paralympics swimmer Christie Raleigh-Crossley calls out ‘harassment and bullying’ on live TV

It was pretty clear from US Paralympic swimmer Christie Raleigh-Crossley’s hit on Peacock yesterday afternoon that she is going through a lot right now. During what started off as a routine pool-side interview after Raleigh-Crossley broke the world record for the S9 50M free Thursday morning and then won silver in the afternoon, Raleigh-Crossely pivoted from talking about swimming to talking about her experiences since arriving in Paris.

While I haven’t been able to find the interview online as of the time I’m writing this, Raleigh-Crossley said she’s been subjected to “bullying and harassment” by other paralympians, as well as calling out “abelism” within her community. She was clearly distraught and upset as she implored the USOPC to stand behind her.

While it’s probably not helpful to speculate about why Raleigh-Crossley feels targeted by her teammates, I did find this article in the NYT about her disability. If you’ll recall, I canceled my subscription for shitty journalism, so I can’t see the entire piece, but it seems that Raleigh-Crossley’s disability comes as a result of a tumor that was “killing her brain” and that causes her to use a forearm crutch to walk some of the time, but she used a wheelchair other times. In that piece, Raleigh-Crossley talks about her “invisible” disability, saying that others don’t always consider her disabled and/or ask her lots of questions about how, exactly, she’s disabled. She’s also been in two car accidents, one of which resulted in temporary partial paralyis of one side of her body.

From NBC 4:

If there’s one thing that comes out of the Paralympic Games, I hope it’s people learning that 1) not all disabilities are visible; and 2) the kind or extent of someone else’s disability is none of anyone else’s business. If you see someone parked in a handicapped spot that looks “fine,” to you, just trust that if they have the disability placard or license plate, they have a disability and go about your day. It’s not your business.

Here’s to hoping that someone gets to the bottom of whatever’s going on with other swimmers, because it sucks to hear this on Day One of the Paralympic Games.

You think your coworkers are bad?

Earlier this week, I wrote about the coworkers who abandoned one of their colleagues on their “team-building” quest to hike up to the summit of a mountain, leaving him stranded overnight. Search and rescue had to track him down the next day.

We may have just found an office with worse vibes than that on, though, because these people didn’t notice that their coworker was dead for four days.

Okay, I’ll grant that some of this time was over the weekend, but that still leaves all day Friday, all day Monday, and some part of Tuesday before they noticed anything was wrong. It sounds like something that would happen to Milton in Office Space.

The takeaway here? Be loud and annoying to your coworkers as often as possible. That way, at least they’ll notice when you haven’t been around.

(Also, condolences to Denise Prudhomme’s family.)

Speaking of journalistic integrity…

One of the last places I’d expect to find at least a cursory adherence to journalist ethics is NFL on FOX, but people will surprise you!

Okay, okay, I kid. This is actually bout NFL teams being wary of Brady (who, after all, spent most of his career under Bill Belichick) having access to information teams don’t want a team owner to have than any concern for ethics in journalism. I would hope it goes without saying that Brady should not be allowed to take part in broadcasting Raiders games, either.

The thing about this restriction is that, if you know anyone who works on a typical broadcast, play-by-play announcers and analysts (as well as sideline reporters, the hardest working reporters all them all) get a lot of what they use during the broadcast from hanging out with players and coaches during practices the week ahead of the game. So, I guess we’re just going to rely on what Tom Brady has heard through the grapevine? Or comes up with in the heat of the moment while on the air? That’s a lot to ask for a first-time broadcaster.

This is a pretty egregious conflict of interest on Brady’s part (if he winds up buying some part of the Raiders), and one that probably shouldn’t be allowed. But the last 10 years have convinced me that very few people involved in the NFL seem to care about things like, you know, ethical reporting and doing the right thing for the good of the public.

At least he’s not making us watch his shitty roast again.

My favorite wheelchair rugby player

Meet Sarah Adam:

The US doesn’t have a women’s wheelchair rugby team, so any woman who can make the men’s team is allowed to compete with the men, much like many of us played boys sports in junior high and high school, only at a much higher level.

Adam, the first woman to play on a US wheelchair rugby team, also became the first woman to score for the US in wheelchair rugby and helped lead the US to a 51-48 win over Canada. Adam spoke about her teammates not treating her differently because of her gender — how refreshing is that to hear? Team captain Chuck Aoki (who everyone should follow on social media because he’s a blast) said, “She has fit in perfectly There’s no other way to put it.”

Hooray for kick-ass women and the men who embrace them.

Speaking of kick-ass women

Congrats to our queen of rugby, fire-engine red lipstick, and women with no thigh gaps, Ilona Maher, for making Sports Illustrated!

I’d like to see the assholes on social media try telling her she looks like a man now.

Solidarity

That went even worse than the donut shop.

Have a great long weekend, and I’ll see you all on Tuesday!