Every four years, it’s a new memory. — One of my most vivid sports memories involves Uruguay’s 2–1 win over England in the 2014 World Cup. This is widely considered one of the most crushing losses in England World Cup history, but that’s not why I remember it. I remember it because it happened on June 19, 2014…

I’m running out of people in my own life. — After avoiding Covid-19 for more than two years — first by isolating and masking, then getting vaxxed and masking, then by getting boosted and moving on with my life — I finally contracted Covid-19 last June. About a month after that, the President of the United States got Covid, and…

You have to keep pulling the lever for the guy. — Later this morning, I, a Georgia resident, will be (early) voting for Raphael Warnock in his runoff election for the United States Senate against his Republican challenger Herschel Walker. The race is the one remaining, lingering race from the 2022 midterms, thanks to Georgia’s (historically sinister) laws that require a…

At last. — Last Thanksgiving, I joked, at our annual family gathering, that the first person to bring up politics — in any capacity — had to eat outside. Though I’m pretty sure the fact that mentioned it at all means that I probably should have been eating outside myself. Talking politics at…

He might beat him. But he might not. — The general consensus, in the wake of former President Donald Trump announcing Tuesday night that he would be running for the office again in 2024, was: Yawn. News organizations fell all over themselves showing how much “tougher” they’d be on him this time, cable stations (including Fox News) cut away…

It’s still hugely important! — The midterms on Tuesday, for many people, were a massive relief. Maybe your party didn’t win every election, maybe some people you didn’t like didn’t win, maybe there were some Pyrrhic victories. But on the whole: The crazy people lost. Election deniers, Trump henchmen, people screaming on Newsmax … almost…

It’s not that complicated. — I think sometimes politicians, and the media who cover them, underestimate just how truly weird the average American considers all of them to be. It really doesn’t make much sense to be a politician: Their lives seem pretty miserable. You’re away from your loved ones all the time; you make…

It’s all been batshit since then. — If you’ve never watched it, I highly recommend the Netflix documentary Mitt, which follows 2012 Republican nominee for President Mitt Romney around in the final days of that campaign. It is the most humanizing portrait of a Presidential candidate I’ve ever seen, showing Romney at his most relatable, goofy, awkward…

A parental story of victory. — Like any parent, I am constantly making mistakes, screwing things up, struggling to figure out the right way to both support my children when they need my help, to praise them when they have done well, to correct them with they haven’t. It’s an impossible job, but you do your…