Losing My Perspicacity September 4, 2024

Hello and Happy Wednesday.

Today, Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei is fighting for her life; Someone come get Joanne Rowling and put her to bed; The White Sox are so bad; Down with whoever is keeping me from watching prime-time tennis; And Jay Cutler may never recover from this burn.

Here we go.

Rebecca Cheptegei is fighting for her life

Just a few short weeks ago, we watched Ugandan distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei compete in the Paris Olympics. I remember her specifically because of her name — the same as Joshua Cheptegei, the most decorated runner in Ugandan history. It was also one of those names that just feels good in your mouth, much like I used to love saying “Mesopotamia” in school. Today, the 33-year-old marathon runner is in critical condition in western Kenya after a former boyfriend doused her with gasoline and set her on fire.

This isn’t the first time a high-profile female athlete has been attacked in Kenya.

I’ll be honest: I don’t know what to say about the attack on Cheptegei, but it feels important to say something, to not just let it pass by as yet another woman whose former partner tried to kill her.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 47,000 women worldwide were killed by intimate partners or other family members in the year 2020, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the United States. In 2022, “Africa recorded the highest absolute number of female intimate partner and family-related killings with an estimated 20,000 victims.” No matter how you slice up the data — in the US, in Africa, pregnant women, women who have left a partner, etc. — there’s no denying that violence against women is rampant around the world.

No one, anywhere, is doing enough about it.

If you or someone you love is experiencing intimate partner violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) to get free and confidential support. Or you can reach out to me and I can help. juliedicaro (at) outlook (dot) com.

Somebody hold Joanne Rowling’s pearls

A trans woman competed in the Paralympics in Paris this week, which, of course, sent Joanne Rowling (who no longer gets the benefit of using a gender-neutral pen name now that she’s up in everyone else’s gender) into conniption fits. For someone who made billions off a story about a school for wizards, she sure has a lot of time on her hands to police the trans women of the world and their participation in sports. If I were worth a billion dollars, I’d spend my time on the beach sipping mai tais and not harassing women on Twitter. Maybe go write something else, Joanne. Not that I would buy it.

Of course, when Rowling became aware that Valentina Petrillo, a trans woman, was competing in Paris, she felt the need to let the entire world know, once again, of her tenuous grasp on biology and her garbage opinion on trans women in sports, labeling Petrillo “a cheat.” Of course, the inaccurate basis for all these claims is that no woman who is assigned female at birth could ever beat a trans woman.

Well.

Much like Lia Thomas finished fifth in the swimming race you don’t hear about and has already had her records at Penn broken, and much as other women have beaten Imane Khelif, Petrillo didn’t even make the final. Good try though, Joanne.

As I will never stop reminding people, at least one recent study has found that trans women are actually at a disadvantage compared to cis women in certain categories, including lower body strength and lung capacity, both things that seem important for sprinters.

Aside from completely ignoring the science, I can’t get past the cruelty of Rowling’s crusade. To be one of the most famous people in the world, and to use all your resources and influence, not to mention your considerable platform, to harass and demean people who are already marginalized from society is something I can’t wrap my head around. And I’m pretty sure Minerva McGonagall would agree.

I can’t believe what has happened to the White Sox

It wasn’t that long ago, probably 2019-ish, that I was regularly telling White Sox fans on my radio show to come in off the ledge, that they had one of the best farm systems in the game with some of the most promising young players, and that in a few years they were going to be on their way to the promised land.

Fast-forward to 2024. Most of those players are now gone or regularly injured. The Sox have a miserable 31-109 record (with a month to go in the season!) and are only 49 games out of first in their division and 44.5 games out of the Wild Card. Yikes.

You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this. It’s because of this play tonight.

How did they ever win 31 games?

Down with DirecTV

So today Taylor Fritz beat accused domestic batterer Alexander Zverev, which was awesome, and now Francis Tiafoe is currently beating (knocks on all the wood) Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, and I’m unable to watch either match, thanks to this stupid dispute between Disney and DirecTV, which is enraging.

I don’t even care who is to blame, I just want to watch prime time tennis matches.

Speaking of down with things, down with this kind of behavior towards ball kids at the US Open.

Afterward, Putintseva apologized for her treatment of a literal child on a galactically large stage. I hope the kid wasn’t too upset.

Ouch, Jay Cutler

Until he went full MAGA, I used to really enjoy Jay Cutler. He was always very nice to me when I interacted with him as part of the media, and I thought his attitude with some of the press, as well as his turn on the highly-entertaining first season of Very Cavallari was hilarious.

But I’m not sure he’ll ever recover from this public burn by his famous ex, Kristin Cavallari.

I would feel bad for Jay, but again — MAGA.

Have a great day today!