Losing My Perspicacity May 17, 2024

Good morning and happy Free Friday! Thanks for checking out Losing My Perspicacity. This newsletter is entirely funded by readers, and if you like what you see, I hope you’ll consider becoming a Premium Subscriber, which means you’ll get LMP in your inbox five days a week. This week, I’ve written about Texas’ refusal to follow the Biden administration’s new Title IX regulations, how AI is poised to ruin the internet, Harrison Butker’s brain-dead comments during a commencement speech, and the latest lawsuit against the Chicago Blackhawks.

I don’t add anyone (outside of family) to the subscriber list, and I don’t import or scrape emails from elsewhere, so if you are getting this email, it’s because someone signed you up.

In today’s issue, Tom Brady thinks we’re all fools, the WNBA audience is skyrocketing, Diana Taurasi was kind of right, CNN is confused by “corporate greed,” and the nuns are coming for Harrison Butker.

Tom Brady is bad at this

Earlier this week, I noted that I found the Tom Brady roast on Netflix to be largely fueled by sexism and too often aimed at the mothers of Brady’s children, Gisele Bündchen and Bridget Moynanan. I also took issue with Brady jumping up only once to defend someone’s honor — and that “someone” being Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Over at WaPo, Sally Jenkins had much the same take and said much of what I was thinking more eloquently than I could have.

Brady, who is the executive producer of the whole Netflix Great Roast of All Time series (God help us, there are going to be more of these things), must have seen a lot of the criticism because he’s now claiming that he regrets being roasted. Observe:

Okay, let’s just… (pinches bridge of nose, sighs deeply)

Tom Brady is a 46-year-old man. Surely, he did not take on the role of executive producer of a SERIES OF ROASTS without knowing what a “roast” looks like (Brady was also the EP for 80 for Brady and Man in the Arena, which all share the common theme of “Tom Brady”). He has lived his entire adult life in the spotlight and, on the off-chance he made it to middle age without knowing what a roast is, he certainly has a team of advisors around him that can explain such matters to him. As I said, the only thing Brady seemed to object to in the moment was Jeff Ross’ joke about Robert Kraft.

It’s no secret that Brady’s decision to return to the NFL for one more season, only two months after he announced his retirement, seemed to be the last straw in his marriage, though Gisele has said the uncoupling was more complex than that. And let’s not forget that Brady also invited Antonio Brown, a man accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, to live in his home (Brown denied the claims, and no charges were filed against him), all in the name of getting another Super Bowl ring. Brown then proceeded to post a fake nude photo of Gisele on Snapchat and fan the flames of unfounded gossip that Gisele cheated on Tom. Surely, Brady’s children were affected by that, as well.

My point is that this isn’t the first time Brady has seemingly put his own interests above those of his family. To think that Gisele and the divorce wouldn’t come up at his roast was either unbelievably (literally) naive, or this is Brady’s way of doing damage control now that everyone has noticed the way he sat there and sipped his drink while comedians made cracks about his ex-wife, then only jumped up to defend the octagenarian billionaire who was charged with soliciting sex (the charges against Kraft were eventually dropped when a Florida judge refused to allow audio and video surveillance of Kraft’s actions at trial).

My best guess is that either 1) Brady has spent so long in the golden glow of sports fandom that it never occurred to him that comedians (most of whom, it seems, had never met him before the roast), would actually, you know, roast him by assuming anything in his personal life was fair game, or 2) Brady thinks we’re all dumb enough to believe that he didn’t consider the consequences of deciding to be the first guest of honor in a series that he is producing. Comedian and roaster Nikki Glaser (who I honestly never need to hear from again after this week), didn’t seem to buy Brady’s naivete, either. “I think it’s kind of a thing you say after the fact,” Glaser said. “It’s impossible to me that he didn’t consider what could’ve happened.”

Then there’s this:

Kinda seems like whenever Brady said, “No Robert Kraft happy ending jokes,” he also could have mentioned, you know, not going after his exes. Alas.

Like I said, the whole thing was sexist and often unfunny, and then we had to watch guys like Gronk and Kevin Hart act like these were the funniest cracks they’ve ever heard in their lives. And there are still so many guys yapping on social media about “The Greatest Roast Ever.” I mean, I wasn’t alive for the old Dean Martin roasts, but I’m pretty sure Brady would have shriveled up and died under the comedic scrutiny of, say, Don Rickles or Redd Foxx. In fact, that’s a roast I’d actually be interested in watching because there is no way Don Rickles is going to ignore the fact that Tom Brady got a million-dollar PPP loan just days after buying a multi-million-dollar boat or his pushback against COVID protocols.

Anyway, Tom, stop whining already; no one believes you. Just enjoy the fact that Greg Olsen, possibly the best analyst in the game right now, is taking a huge pay so your unproven ass can join the A Team on FOX.

Terrible decision by FOX, IMHO.

The WNBA is red hot… at long last

Meanwhile, in Atlanta…

And in Minnesota:

Honestly, I don’t just want to keep posting tweets, but it’s remarkable to open up social media and see such great news for women’s sports over and over and over. I’m firmly from the generation of women who remember playing our varsity matches on the boys’ practice fields, so seeing the entire world embrace women’s professional sports to this extent is nothing I thought I would see in my lifetime. My generation didn’t aspire to play women’s pro sports because, outside of tennis and golf, there were none. What a seismic shift in the sporting landscape.

The irony of all this is that, with so much of the focus being on Caitlin Clark, the Fever rookie has, as Diana Taurasi predicted, struggled a bit in her first two games. The Fever have gotten shellacked by Connecticut and New York out of the gate, with Clark scoring 20 points (not too shabby) and 9 points (less great) in the losses, respectively.

The good news is that the veterans have stepped up to show the new arrivals exactly how exciting this league can be. Breanna Stewart dropped 31 on the Fever last night, and Alyssa Thomas had a triple-double in the WNBA opener. Arike Ogunbowale led a late 14-0 run to seal the Dallas Wings victory over the Chicago Sky and rookie Angel Reese. Rhyne Howard led the Atlanta Dream with 25 in their win over the LA Sparks, despite Cameron Brinks' 11 pts and a combined 43 from Dearica Hamby and Kia Nurse. The hope was that people would come for the rookies, and stay for the veteran talent. And it looks like that’s exactly how it’s shaking out.

It’s a privilege to witness it.

CNN seems confused by the word “greed”

I spotted this yesterday and I had to share it here. It’s such a great example of the gaslighting readers too often get from big media companies.

You might think corporations raising the prices on things just because they can is the reason for inflation, but you’re wrong! CNN explains:

So we’ve got cars, gas, “other goods,” repairs, “general merchandise,” laundry, personal care, and “other services.” Those are the only things that corporations are gouging us on — everything else is fine! I don’t know about you guys, but I’m struggling to think of anything I spend money on that doesn’t fall into one of those categories. Maybe house plants? Tarot cards?

Just because you jerks finally noticed the corporate price gouging doesn’t make it new! If you wanted to complain about it, you should have noticed it years ago!

I don’t know how an article like this gets written, much less posted on a site as venerated as CNN. And that’s leaving out the fact that the first paragraph I quote above absolutely does not match the headline. They should have titled it, “Yeah, corporations are gouging you, but calling it ‘corporate greed’ isn’t very nice.”

Even the nuns are dragging Harrison Butker

I won’t lie, it’s been an absolute delight watching the women of the internet absolutely body Chiefs’ kicker Harrison Butker over the course of the last 48 hours regarding his he-man-women-haters commencement speech. To be fair to Butker, the speech was also homophobic and anti-democratic.

But you know you’ve stepped in it when the nuns who founded the college at which Butker offended a huge portion of the world are coming for him:

In a related story, we now all understand why Patrick Mahomes (who is a co-owner of the NWSL’s KC Current, along with his wife, Brittany) made it clear that he never, ever talks to Harrison Butker:

Meanwhile, here’s what Mahomes had to say about women on the same day that Butker made his remarks:

I know I complain about how often Mahomes’ face is on my TV screen, but I recognize a real ally when I see one. Still hate his team, though.

Finally,

I had to share this video that popped up on my IG feed the other day, I’m still crying about it 48 hours later:

Compare it to this video, which captured the biggest reaction I’ve ever seen Jokic have to anything, including winning the NBA Championship:

As I’m writing this, Jokic has 22 points and looks like he’s about to fall asleep.

Have a great weekend! See you all on Monday.