Good News Friday: A very promising Alzheimer’s blood test is on the horizon. A teddy bear brings closure to a woman and her deceased Mom. And a 4-year-old girl lectures boys on manners, hilariously

And a Happy Friday to you all out there. It’s August tomorrow so of course I’m over-the-moon excited for Stanley Cup playoffs hockey, as I always am on August 1st.

Wait, what???

Yeah the world is upside down. Couple quick things before I get to the good news for this week: First, if you haven’t already seen it, Barack Obama’s eulogy at John Lewis’ funeral Thursday was, as the kids say, straight fire. I do wish Obama had been this forceful at times during his Presidency, but I don’t want to get into that today. He gave a magnificent tribute, and if you haven’t seen it yet, watch it here.

And second, on the same topic, wanted to point you to this great column written by Lewis just a few days before he died, that was printed in the New York Times Thursday. Terrific, stirring words here.

OK, onto the good news: First up, a very promising story came out this week about Alzheimer’s disease.

No, it’s not a cure (that would be trumpeted in 100-point headlines), but researchers have announced a new blood test for Alzheimer’s disease,  which measures abnormal changes in the biomarker tau, can detect Alzheimer’s 20 years before cognitive problems with memory and thinking typically show among people with a rare genetic mutation.

It’s been proven effective and is much cheaper and less invasive than previous tests.

According to this story: “The research suggests blood tests are more accurate than memory and thinking tests. And they also could be a less expensive alternative to brain scans and spinal taps – the only methods that can reliably detect Alzheimer’s before symptoms present. Those tests, which measure spinal fluid, are not always covered by insurers and can be difficult to access.

“There is an urgent need for simple, inexpensive, non-invasive and easily available diagnostic tools for Alzheimer’s,” said Maria C. Carrillo, the Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer. “New testing technologies could also support drug development in many ways. For example, by helping identify the right people for clinical trials and by tracking the impact of therapies being tested.”

Researchers found blood tests can accurately distinguish Alzheimer’s from other forms of dementia in 89% to 98% of cases.”

This is outstanding news. As I’ve mentioned here previously, Alzheimer’s research is very important to me, as my family lost my grandmother and my great-aunt to this awful disease. Over the last few years I’ve been so encouraged by Alzheimer’s breakthroughs, and this is another important one.

A teddy bear carrying the audio of a dying mother's final message to her daughter has been safely reunited with its owner. Mara Soriano played the recording after getting the bear back on Tuesday. https://t.co/NKsxkjkfLR pic.twitter.com/DfyuzVbtUs

— CBC British Columbia (@cbcnewsbc) July 29, 2020

**Next up today, this is a pretty remarkable story, from British Columbia: A teddy bear with a recording of a dying mother’s final message to her daughter was stolen, but has now been safely returned to its owner.

From the CBC’s website: “After a four-day disappearance that caught the attention of locals, celebrities and international media craving a happy ending, a teddy bear with a dying mother’s final message to her daughter has been safely returned to its owner.

Mara Soriano said two strangers found the stolen, plush toy, which contains an audio recording her mother made before she died of cancer last year, and brought it back to her late Tuesday.

The custom Build-A-Bear, which she named Mama Bear, was in “perfect condition” aside from missing its signature square glasses.

“She’s home,” said a beaming Soriano, 28. “I didn’t think she would come back, but she did.” Soriano squeezed the bear’s paw, heard the sound of her mother’s voice and cried.

“Mama Bear’s home,” she said.

Pretty remarkable story, and another reminder to cherish the time we have with our family. So glad Maria got her mother’s voice back.

**And finally today, a 4-year-old girl named Delilah had an experience with a boy at a park recently, and well, it didn’t go so great.

So Delilah filmed a message to all you boys out there, and it’s adorable and oh so true.

Manners, people. Manners!

 

This Attorney General is as big a partisan hack as we’ve seen in decades. An old “Wheel of Fortune” clip is amazing. And the Emmy noms are out, Rhee Seahorn got snubbed, and I’m furious

I know the bar is pretty high when trying to declare the current occupant of the office of Attorney General of the United States the worst we’ve had.

I mean, we’ve had some doozies.

A. Mitchell Palmer, who served as Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson from March 1919 to March 1921.  Palmer initiated the  “Palmer Raids”, also known as the “Red Scare”, in which thousands of people suspected to be Socialists or Communists were rounded up and jailed. The prisoners were often denied their basic civil rights and writ of habeus corpus and detained for months before they were finally released.

We’ve had John Mitchell, who served 19 months in prison for shenanigans performed in service of Richard Nixon.  And let’s not forget John Ashcroft, who approved the use of torture after 9/11 and spied on American citizens whenever he saw fit.

So, yeah, I know the bar is high. But if William Barr, the current Trump stooge/campaign surrogate who testified before the House Tuesday, isn’t the worst AG we’ve ever had, he’s gotta be in the photo.

Barr has done nothing at all in his time in office to give ANY indication he’s impartial in any way, shape or form. He has politicized the office in ways few ever have, from completely lying about the Mueller Report’s conclusions, to talking about the Democrats as pushers of the “Russia hoax” to of course in recent months, absolutely having a double standard about protesters, allowing ones in Michigan to carry guns and Confederate flags into statehouses and threaten lawmakers, but suddenly having a big problem with peaceful demonstrations against law enforcement.

Barr is such an unmitigated stooge, an absolute embarrassment that he is the top law enforcement officer in America right now.

Just a few quick highlights from Wednesday:

— Barr argued that “when people resist law enforcement, they’re not peaceful,” referring to what’s going on in Portland. Somehow, all the militant protests at statehouses and other local offices in recent months has slipped his mind.

Anyway, the highlight for me was absolutely this three-minute haranguing of Barr by Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, laying it all out there. I defy you to tell me where she’s wrong:

"When white men storm a government building with guns, there is no need to [Trump] to activate you. But when black people & people of color protest, then you forcibly remove them with armed federal officers…because they're considered terrorists by the president." — @RepJayapal pic.twitter.com/BHW5BJ85sq

— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) July 28, 2020

–Barr insisted that Trump “told me from the start that he expects me to exercise my independent judgment to make whatever call I think is right,” when asked about his repeated intervention into cases involving Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.

That is hilarious, isn’t it?

**Next up today, I came across this clip on Jimmy Traina’s excellent daily column on SI.com the other day when I was looking at Regis Philbin obit stuff, and it is fantastic. Regis was a clue on “Wheel of Fortune” a few years back on a military-themed episode, and, well, it didn’t go that well.

I’ve honestly never seen this many misses on one clue. Truly amazing.

 

**Finally today, let me preface this by saying that of COURSE there are more important things to be upset about in the world right now; there always are. But I want to rant for a few minutes about the Emmy nominations that came out Tuesday, specifically about a HUGE, offensive omission.

Yes, the Emmy committee gave some love to shows that I love, including “Schitts Creek” (more on that show in a few days, we’re a few episodes from finishing it), “Dead to Me,” and “Better Call Saul.”

But the absolutely unfathomable omission of Rhea Seahorn, the female lead and powerhouse performer in this past season of “BCS” is just insane. It’s as ridiculous as the snubbing of “The Wire” and “The Americans” was when those shows were in their prime.

Seehorn was AMAZING this season, as her character Kim Wexler married Jimmy/Saul, then slowly watched him completely embrace the darker side of representing the drug cartel. Seehorn carried the last few episodes of the season, with her powerhouse speeches, small moments with Jimmy/Saul, and the stunning ease in which she started to transform from moral, ethical attorney to something less so.

Of course I don’t watch every show and I’m sure the actresses nominated for best actress in a Drama Series are great in their own right.

But Seehorn was so phenomenal this season, in moments big and small, that I can’t believe she wasn’t nominated. It’s just a silly awards show, but I’m mad.

Here’s the great Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone on the Emmy noms overall, and here’s a whole list of the nominations.

Saying goodbye to the great Regis Philbin, who had one hell of a life and career. Another brilliant “Lincoln Project” Trump video. And the stupidest NBA player in the bubble award has been won: Lou Williams goes to a strip club

It was a wild weekend in the news and sports worlds. We had baseball teams kneeling during the national anthem, a whole bunch of them, actually. We had my Jets making what I at first thought was a stupid, stupid trade of their star defensive player Jamal Adams, until I calmed down and was convinced otherwise by friends and family, and we had morons all across America still refusing to wear masks.

But today I want to start with a small tribute to a man who had one of the most amazing, long-lasting careers in Hollywood of anyone, ever.

Regis Philbin died over the weekend at age 88, after a 60-plus year career in radio and TV.

“Reege” as so many called him, was an irrepressible talent, a man who was fast with a one-liner, often directed at himself and someone who never took himself too seriously.

David Letterman called Regis “the best guest we ever had,” because Philbin always had stories to tell, always was up for whatever game or joke anyone wanted to play, and always came from a place of warmth and goodness.

He got famous here in New York in the 1980s hosting “Regis and Kathie Lee,” and even though I loathe Kathie Lee Gifford as much as I have ever disliked a TV personality, I watched sometimes because Regis was so damn funny.

He was on “Letterman” so much (150 times) he was like part of the furniture on the set, and he rose to a whole ‘nother level of fame when he hosted “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” on ABC from 1999-2002. That show was a freaking phenomenon when it first aired, drawing unheard of TV ratings, and part of it was because Regis was such a smooth host.

Here’s the famous clip from  “Millionaire” of a man winning the big prize for the first time, and calling his Dad to tell him about it:

When thinking Sunday night about what qualities made Regis special, I kept coming back to: Watching him just made you feel good, you know? He was pleasantly cranky (Dana Carvey’s impressions of him were fantastic and spot-on) and funny and just exuded kindness.

Regis Philbin was a TV legend who will be missed. I’m sure somewhere in heaven he’s telling Saint Peter a great story about what he saw on TV last night, or the time Frank Sinatra told him to go away in 1958.

R.I.P., Regis.

pic.twitter.com/3kh81WYNTu

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 24, 2020

**Next up today, this new video from The Lincoln Project, the group of Republicans helping to take down the awful President Trump, made me laugh out loud several times.

It is spoofing the now-infamous boast our “fearless leader” made on TV last week about his cognitive abilities, and how he can remember the five words “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV” in a row.

This is hilarous.

**And finally today, I could not stop laughing at the stupidity of the NBA player in this story.

Lou Williams, 33, is a veteran NBA player currently with the Los Angeles Clippers, a team expected to contend for the championship when the season resumes later this week. Like all NBA players right now, Williams is living in the NBA bubble in Orlando’s Wide World of Sports Complex.

Williams, though, got permission from his team to go to Atlanta late last week to go a funeral for a longtime family friend.

Except, well, after the funeral and viewing, Williams was photographed by a rapper friend of his, Jack Harlow, at an Atlanta strip club on Thursday night, and Harlow, Rhodes scholar that he is, posted the pic on Instagram.

Harlow then deleted it the next morning, saying it was “an old pic of me and Lou.” Except Williams was wearing his NBA-issued mask the league gave the players this month when they arrived in Orlando!

Even more hilariously, Williams claimed he was only in the strip club because it’s his favorite food spot in Atlanta, which is ludicrous. Trust me, I’ve been in these gentlemen’s clubs a few times, ain’t nobody ever left there talking about how good the food was.

Ah Lou, Lou, Lou. The NBA has now ordered Williams into a 10-day quarantine and he’ll miss a few games of the season re-start.

I love stupid people sometimes.

 

Good News Friday: A “Hamilton” tribute to Dr. Anthony Fauci is fantastic. A small piano store, a random customer, and a beautiful act of kindness. And Steve Hartman with a heartwarming police/citizen encounter

https://twitter.com/aalkermd/status/1285561215117340673

Happy Friday, Earthlings! Hope you all are safe and healthy wherever you’re reading this, and I want to give a special shoutout to my dear friend Mary M. today, whose husband underwent open heart surgery this week and is ICU as I write this. Praying and sending good vibes, Mary.

As I try to contemplate the President of the United States bragging on national television this week that he was able to remember and recite five words in order, I bring you three stories that hopefully will bring you joy this week.

First off, I know I’ve featured “Hamilton” stuff a lot lately but this was particularly genius. One of the Pentatonix guys, Scott Hoying, made a parody of the song “Alexander Hamilton” for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the heroic man who’s being ignored by the Trump administration right now.

Seriously, these lyrics are brilliant. By the way, Fauci threw out the first pitch at the Nationals-Yankees season opener Thursday night.

PIANO MAN: A Massachusetts antique shop owner tracked down the mystery musician who went viral for his impromptu performance of "Don't Stop Believin’” and gave the 23-year-old student a $3,000 Steinway to call his own. @DavidMuir reports. #AmericaStrong https://t.co/PQKMLf5zrV pic.twitter.com/lajoEKhmsW

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) July 23, 2020

**Next up today, this is a sweet little story from ABC News World News Tonight. It’s about a small antique music shop in Massachusetts, a customer who just wandered in and started playing the piano, and the unlikely relationship that formed, topped by a wonderful gesture from the owner.

Really sweet stuff.

**Finally today, the great Steve Hartman of CBS News brings us this wonderful story of a man who has every right to hate the police, saving an officer’s life.

Daylan McLee is a 23-year-old African-American man who spent a year in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, and has been pulled over countless times by police, often for no traffic violation at all, he says.

Still, he doesn’t hate the police, and last month he had a chance to do something extraordinary. Watch and realize how many good humans there are in this world.

So much more good than bad. So much.

I want to tell you about two awesome TV shows I’ve been binge-ing during the pandemic. And the Portland Moms protesters are so freaking awesome

Like many of you, I’ve been spending way more time watching TV than usual during this insane time in the world, and especially with no sports to watch my wonderful wife and I have watched WAY more TV together than usual (10 more days until hockey’s back, whoo-hoo!).

I want to write about two shows in particular that I’m absolutely loving, and am mid-binge on both of them (is that a word, mid-binge? If not, it should be.)

First, let me talk about the immense pleasures we are getting watching “The Good Place.” It finished up its four-season run on NBC in January, and it always seemed like a show I would enjoy, if I had the time and gave it a chance.

Critics loved it, fans loved it, and even though I wasn’t a fan of creator Michael Schur’s “Parks and Rec” show, this one sounded great.

The basic premise is this: Ted Danson’s character Michael is the architect of a heaven-like neighborhood called “The Good Place.” It’s inhabitants all went there after they died because they had lived a virtuous, charitable or in some other ways praise-worthy life, and now they get to spend the afterlife in a state of nirvana, with wonderful food, great activities, and a chance to live with the soulmate the universe has chosen for them.

Eleanor (Kristen Bell) is amazed to be in The Good Place when she arrives, because she knows she’s lived an awful life: Mean, sarcastic, awful to friends and strangers alike, and making her money at work by selling fake drugs to senior citizens.

So Eleanor quickly realizes there’s been a huge mistake, that she doesn’t belong there but wants to stay anyway, and most of Season 1 is spent on that conundrum.

I won’t give anything more than that away, but let me just tell you the show is magnificent. It’s clever, the acting is top-notch (Danson in particular looks like he’s having a wonderful time), and just when you think you’ve figured out what’s going to happen, things get turned a different way.

We’re midway through Season 2, and the radical twist Schur and Co. threw in at the end of Season 1 is finally making sense. The show is visually gorgeous, it’s funny as all hell (one character makes more Jacksonville Jaguars and Blake Bortles references than have ever been on television, anywhere), and at 22 minutes per episode, it’s very easily binge-able.

Highly, highly recommend “The Good Place,” streaming on Netflix now.

**OK before I get on to my next show, have you seen what’s been going on in Portland the last few nights? You probably know about the Department of Homeland Security‘s “secret” police force that, in unmarked vehicles and without any identification, has been arresting protesters. It’s a stunning abuse of federal authority, most likely illegal, but it has been happening.

In response, predictably, the people of Portland have been coming out in force to protest even further, and a group of “Portland Moms” has been so impressive.

Here, in a voice only Moms could do, they sing a lullaby to these federal officers. I think it’s awesome.

**And finally, I want to talk about a little-known show you’ve probably never heard of, but is thoroughly enjoyable.

“Brockmire” has been airing on the IFC channel for the past four years, and also like “The Good Place,” finished up its run this year after four seasons (maybe I’m watching two shows that have four-year runs hoping it will be a pre-cursor to the end of a four-year Presidential term? Yeah I’m reading too much into that.)

The story of a former major-league baseball announcer named Jim Brockmire (played, brilliantly, by Hank Azaria) who had an epic on-air meltdown about his ex-wife’s cheating a decade ago, and has been banished to the far reaches of the globe since, is hilarious and filthy, tender and sincere.

When we meet Brockmire (nobody calls him Jim) he’s finally back in baseball, but working for the independent league, sad-sack Morristown Frackers in Morristown, PA. The team owner (an always-excellent Amanda Peet) brings him in for some publicity, and Brockmire sees this as a foot back in the door, but of course tons of complications ensue.

From the pilot episode, when Brockmire calls a home run by saying “that ball cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery, because it just got tattooed!” this show had me laughing, hard, in just about every episode. Brockmire is a mostly functional alcoholic, Peet’s character Jules is, too, and for comic relief we have Charles, a 17-year-old computer whiz who knows nothing about baseball but is a perfect sidekick for the crazy Brockmire.

Azaria, who does a million voices on “The Simpsons,” is so perfect in this role, as he speaks all kinds of X-rated stuff in “baseball announcer” voice. I’m early in Season 3 of this show (there are only eight episodes per season, so you can blow through it pretty quick) and the mix of humor, sincerity and darkness as we explore how low Brockmire can go are just fantastic.

It’s streaming on Hulu, and it’s absolutely fabulous. Just, uh, make sure there are no young ears listening while you watch.

Remembering John Lewis, a true American hero. The best political ad of the year, by Lindsay Graham’s opponent. And a “pandemic sport” involving beer cans that’s wildly impressive

We don’t have that many civil rights icons left anymore, but losing John Lewis hurts. It hurts a lot.

Because among civil rights icons, and there are so many, Lewis was a giant. This was a young man whose words and rhetoric were so bold and inflammatory at the 1963 March on Washington, that Martin Luther King Jr., and other leaders took him aside once they saw his text and said, basically “Whoa, now, you can’t say all that!” (One line they had him remove was “In good conscience, we cannot support wholeheartedly the administration’s civil rights bill, for it is too little and too late. There’s not one thing in the bill that will protect our people from police brutality.”

John Lewis, who passed away late Friday night at the age of 80, lived an extraordinary life. From being beaten within an inch of his life while protesting in Selma, Ala., to marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge (he was a freaking KKK Grand Dragon, by the way, maybe we ought to re-name that bridge now, huh?) and to going on to a great career as a Congressman from Georgia,

Lewis lived every moment in pursuit of equality and justice, and risked his life countless times so millions of others would be able to live theirs better.

At the end of the day, is there any higher compliment you can give a person?

Lewis lived a life that began when America barely acknowledged the rights of African-Americans to vote, and lived long enough to see a black man get elected President. Of course we still have so much further to go, but that’s a hell of a thing.

The great Charlie Pierce of Esquire had, not surprisingly, the best Lewis obit I read over the weekend. The whole thing is here, but here’s an excerpt:

He was the bravest man I ever met. Heroes in war, most of them, know that the country will embrace them when they come home. They have that to sustain them in the worst circumstances. They already know they have a country worth fighting for. When John Lewis was riding buses, and using forbidden washrooms, and walking across the bridge, he didn’t have that on which to rely. In that violent, freighted time, he was a man without a country. His courage came from a different place.

It came not from being a man without a country, but from being a man demanding a country, and he wanted this one. It was the same fire that burned in the Founders, in the 54th Massachusetts on the beach before Battery Wagner, in the Tuskegee Airmen over Europe, and in the 183rd Engineers when they walked, horrified, into Buchenwald to liberate the survivors. It was the same fire that illuminated the Civil Rights Movement when he was young, and the new one that rose in the years before his death. It is the most American of desires to demand this country for your own, and to demand it fulfill the promises it made to the world. John Lewis had the most American soul I ever saw.

Saturday night, Shelley and I  watched the film “Glory,” which she had never seen and which is one of my all-time favorites.  It was a coincidence we watched it a few hours after Lewis died; I’d picked it a week earlier for Saturday night.

But it was impossible to watch it and not see, as Pierce alluded to, that there was a straight line from the 54th Massachusetts brigade immortalized in the movie, to John Lewis, marching across that bridge and fighting for freedom.

He was an incredible American hero. And he will be missed.

Our newest ad. If you don't cry, you don't have a soul. If you do, please donate! We MUST defeat White House Lindsey this November! https://t.co/jHnaFyWxTY https://t.co/TFEMVvJosA

— jimmy williams (@Jimmyspolitics) July 14, 2020

**Next up today, there hasn’t been a ton of mainstream media focus on Senate races in 2020 yet, because obviously coronavirus and police brutality/Black Lives Matter protests have eaten up most of the coverage, understandably.

But as usual there are going to be some fiercely-contested Senate battles, and maybe the hottest is in South Carolina, where an African-American named Jaime Harrison is running to take down the Trump toady to end all Trump toadies, Lindsay Graham.

This new ad from Harrison is just phenomenal. Tugging on the heart-strings and as inspirational as they come.

I am riveted pic.twitter.com/Z9FfSU0BMc

— Jason Brough 🙁 (@SadClubCommish) July 14, 2020

**And finally, I don’t know what to say about this video, except to say most gyms and fitness centers are closed, people are bored, and they’ve got to get their leg work in somehow.

This is damn impressive. It’s not a sport or maybe not even athletic, but it’s impressive.

I counted 47 cans he crushed in a row, with no slip-ups. I am in awe.

Good News Friday: The most promising coronavirus vaccine set for final stage of testing. A human teaches a dog to communicate in an awesome new way, And a quick video of a baby, doing cute baby things.

And a pleasant Friday to all of you out there in Internet-land, where it’s always steamy, not just in July (I have no idea what that means.)

We are a mere two WEEKS away from sports nirvana for someone like me, the beginning of August, when we could have (covid-19 please allow for this) NBA and NHL playoffs, MLB season, and the U.S. Open all happening in that blessed month.

In the meantime, thoughts and prayers to all who are suffering through the Covid-19 epidemic, all nervous parents like me who see the school year approaching and are apprehensive, and especially to people in Georgia, whose governor overruled mask ordinances this week in his bid to be the biggest horse’s ass governor in the South, passing Ron DeSantis of Florida.

We start GNF today with some very exciting, positive coronavirus news, for once. I know it’s probably too early to get too excited about this, but dammit, it IS good news, and I am excited: Moderna and the National Institutes of Health announced this week that their Covid-19 vaccine is ready for the the final phase of trial testing after getting positive results from its second phase.

According to this CBS News story, “The experimental vaccine, developed by Fauci’s colleagues at the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., will start its most important step around July 27: A 30,000-person study to prove if the shots really are strong enough to protect against the coronavirus.

Tuesday, researchers reported anxiously awaited findings from the first 45 volunteers who rolled up their sleeves back in March. Sure enough, the vaccine provided a hoped-for immune boost.

Those early volunteers developed what are called neutralizing antibodies in their bloodstream — molecules key to blocking infection — at levels comparable to those found in people who survived COVID-19, the research team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.”

This is outstanding news. To even get to this level, the final level of testing, this fast on a vaccine is unheard of. Now of course Moderna has to see how the final stage testing goes, but if it goes well over the next several months, there could be a vaccine widely available to the public by early 2021.

Wouldn’t that just be freaking amazing? Fingers crossed, people. But this news this week was an excellent step forward.

 

**Next up today, this story about the capability of what a dog can do is pretty amazing.

A sheepadoodle named Bunny has been taught by his owner to communicate with humans by using a specially-made 45-word sound board.

According to this story from the Good News Network, Bunny was introduced to the specially-made communication pad as soon as he was adopted by his owner, Alexis Devine, back in September 2019.

Devine built her own canine sound board after being inspired by speech language pathologist Christina Hunger and her dog Stella. In addition to Hunger being renowned for using augmentative and alternative linguistic resources to help nonverbal people communicate, she was also one of the first people to use the sound boards with dogs.

Dogs are so damn smart. Except when they eat their own feces. Then, not so much.

https://twitter.com/akkitwts/status/1283738074736783361

**And finally today, a cute baby showing their parent how to appropriately flip a bottle.

Just because it’s adorable.

Have a nice weekend. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Some thoughts on the Washington NFL team finally changing its name, a few decades too late. Another hilarious “Family Feud” moment. And an airline gives people sick of quarantining a unique “travel” experience

We here in New York think we’ve got the market cornered on the title of “Worst Owner in Pro Sports.”

And while James Dolan, boss of the Knicks and Rangers, has made a very strong case for that honor, it’s possible that real WOPS champ lives in our nation’s capital.

Let us count the many, many ways Dan Snyder is awful: He’s a horrendous judge of people, hiring and firing more coaches than you can count on all your fingers and toes, many times over; he’s proven to be awful at community and fan relations, alienating longtime season-ticket holders, longtime employees, and just about everyone else who cares about his football team. He is thin-skinned, he’s a cheap SOB despite being a billionaire, and oh yeah, he’s been adamantly against changing the nickname of his team, a nickname many find offensive.

The Washington Redskins name is long past overdue for retirement, but no matter how many Native American groups asked for a change, no matter how many times Snyder and the team were told that the name is incredibly offensive to a large number of people, Washington’s owner was defiant.

“Over my dead body” seemed to be his position, and there was no reason to ever think he would ever show an ounce of decency and common sense on the matter.

But… we live in revolutionary times these days. Extraordinary, world-changing times. Times when a major corporation can have a major effect on someone like Dan Snyder. Federal Express, which owns the naming rights to the Redskins’ home stadium, recently “expressed” dissatisfaction with the name and asked the team to change it, and if there’s one thing Snyder pays fealty to, it’s money.

Between that, and mounting pressure from Nike and others, Snyder finally cracked.

Monday the team announced that it was retiring the “Redskins” name and would soon choose another.

I’m shocked. Truly, I never thought Snyder would do the right thing, even if he’s doing it now for the wrong reasons (he’s afraid of losing money).

I don’t care if they name the team “Red Tails,” “Red Wolves,” or my personal favorite, the Washington Generals (opponents could pull down its quarterback’s shorts instead of sacking him! Defensive backs could throw a bucket of confetti in the receivers’ face as he’s about to catch the ball! The possibilities are endless!)

The Redskins are the first domino to fall; the Cleveland Indians are now looking at changing their name, too.

Good. Long, long overdue. Finally, Dan Snyder is doing the right thing, even if it’s at (metaphorical) gunpoint.

Bruce Smith with the Family Feud answer of the year, Steve Harvey's reaction is everything 😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/MaYOSYXV59

— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) July 13, 2020

**Next up today, you can always count on “Family Feud,” and Steve Harvey, to give us some humor every now and again.

The famous game show came through again the other night during an episode featuring NFL Hall of Famers. Putting aside the ridiculousness of the question you’re about to hear in this clip, Bruce Smith’s answer, and then Steve Harvey’s delayed reaction, is just comic gold.

Hey, Smith’s answer is as good as any other!

**And finally today, while I sit here trying to fathom the President of the United States nodding along to medical advice given by Chuck Woolery, I bring you this bizarre story from “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.”

At Taipei’s Songshan Airport, citizens who are locked down by the government because of coronavirus are being offered a tour of the new airport called the “Pretend to Go Abroad” package.

You are given a fake itinerary where you check in, go through passport control and security and even board the aircraft. You just, as the Eagles song says,
never leave.

According to this story, around 7,000 people applied to take part in the tours, with 60 winners chosen at random. More fake flight experiences will take place in coming weeks.

“I really want to leave the country, but because of the epidemic lots of flights can’t fly,” said Hsiao Chun-wei, 38, who brought her young son.

The passengers got boarding passes, and proceeded through security and immigration before boarding an Airbus A330 of Taiwan’s largest carrier, China Airlines, where flight attendants chatted to them.

Man, people are REALLY desperate to leave. I can’t think of too many less-fun things than schlepping to the airport, going through the whole rigamore

As school re-openings inch ever closer, millions of parents (me included) are far from feeling safe. A Wimbledon memory after a weekend bereft of its usual glory. And a great story about the last news reporter covering a small town

We sit here in the middle of July, knowing a few things and a few things only about millions of students, grades K-12, and their likelihood of returning to in-person learning in a few weeks:

— That no one has any idea if returning to the classroom is “safe,” and no one will for months. Anyone who says they “know it’s safe” or “know that it’s NOT safe” is lying.

— That all of these “they MUST return to the classroom” people, led by our “President” and his minions in government, are only thinking about students, who are considered very low-risk for being infected with coronavirus, and thinking about the economy, which will certainly get a boost if parents are able to get back to work full-time, and not giving a hoot about TEACHERS, you know, like usual.
Teachers, school librarians, nurses, all personnel who make that school your kids goes to run smoothly, or at least passably? They’re not kids. They’re grownups just like you. And they absolutely could get infected from an asymptomatic carrier like a 7-year-old.
It is disgusting how Trump, Pence and so many others have spared not even a thought for teachers, but that’s normal, they never give a damn about teachers. Unless they run a family planning class that teaches kids that abortion is a sin, or a class in the differences in types of firearms.

— One thing we know for certain, and this been known for years, is that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is one of the biggest morons walking the face of the Earth: A person both stupid, AND evil, and yet in a position of power. Exhibit 4,323 of her “genius.”

https://twitter.com/la_louve_rouge_/status/1282344581455998976

— Another point I want to make, which I’ve seen elsewhere, is that school re-opening is an evolving situation, very fluid and not set in stone.

If most school districts believe starting out with remote schooling in August and September is the right thing to do, it doesn’t mean they won’t transition to in-person schooling as we learn more about the virus, and as it hopefully settles down. Everything can change, and just because the school year might start with kids at home doesn’t mean it will END that way. Way too many absolutist voices out there shouting it’ll be a “disaster” if kids don’t get a full school year in the classroom.

— Finally, look, I’m a parent, and I’m worried. I’m worried about my kid getting sick, I’m worried about his fabulous teachers and staff at his elementary school getting sick, and I’m worried about his social, emotional and academic development being stunted by more online-only learning.

But I think it would be a very big mistake to rush back into classrooms just because some short-sighted politicians don’t want to “give in” to the virus. Everything about the last five months has been unprecedented. We don’t know what will happen next.

Proceeding cautiously, as so many states right now are seeing huge spikes in coronavirus cases, has to be the only way to go.

It’s the sensible thing. Which is why, given our current leadership, I am certain it won’t be what’s done.

**Next up today, this is normally the day after the magnificent Wimbledon Championships have ended, and a day which I am happy and sad.

Happy because we’ve just had a wonderful fortnight of tennis, but sad because it’s over.
Myself and millions of other tennis addicts did not, of course, get Wimbledon this year, and that made me sad. I felt better Sunday night watching this magnificent Wimbledon memory, the epic fourth-set tiebreak from 2008, as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal battled in the best men’s match I’ve ever seen.

Just magnificent. Yeah, I needed this. See you next year (I hope), Wimbledon.

**And finally today, I thoroughly enjoyed, even while ultimately despairing at the subject’s conclusion, this profile of a journalist named Evan Brandt, the last news reporter at a newspaper in Pottstown, Pa.

As the paper’s owner has made cut after cut, it’s fallen to Brandt to keep the town’s news afloat; he’s the only one reporting on school board meetings and local legistation; high school basketball triumphs and orchestra concerts.

He works out of his attic, he’s so beautifully dedicated to his town, and as a former ink-stained wretch who will ALWAYS be a newspaper reporter in my blood, I love this man.

“Evan is the voice of the voiceless,” said Johnny Corson, the president of the local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. “He speaks for the little people. If we lose him, we’re in trouble.”

Just a really wonderful job of reporting and writing by the NYT’s Dan Barry here.

Good News Friday: The Negro Leagues turn 100, and there’s a whole lot of love being shown. A woman is joining the Army Special Forces for the first time ever. And an absolutely wonderful video of a “Black Lives Matter” mural being painted

Happy Friday, y’all! It’s 8,000 degrees outside here in New York City but that’s OK, our President (hey, we might finally see those tax returns, eh Donnie Boy?) said heat will kill coronavirus, so I’m sure it’ll all go away soon.

Lots to get to on this beautiful July day (which should’ve been the men’s semifinals day at Wimbledon, always one of my favorite sports days of the year, sniff, sniff), but I want to start with a fantastic idea put in motion by sportswriter Joe Posnanski and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

The year 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro Leagues, the criminally-underappreciated and too-often overlooked baseball league that existed because Major League Baseball was too racist to let African-Americans play.

Maybe you’ve heard of some of the Negro Leagues legends, like Cool Papa Bell, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson, but there were so many more.

To honor the Negro Leagues, Posnanski and the Museum came up with a simple idea: Get as many people, famous and not, to tip their cap to the Negro Leagues. A very easy gesture, and one that’s now been done by four Presidents, a ton of celebrities, and even an astronaut in space.

CBS News, among many others, did a story on “Tipping Your Cap,” and it’s worth watching.

Makes me smile to see so many of these legends getting their due, from so many.

Members of the exonerated Central Park Five help paint #BlackLivesMatter on the street in front of Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue. pic.twitter.com/Cw2AB2zhb9

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) July 9, 2020

Next up today, oh man do I love this small piece of video, for reasons big and small.
Thursday in New York City, a Black Lives Matter mural was painted in front of Trump Tower. Which is wonderful and symbolic enough.

But then … organizers got members of the Central Park 5 to help paint it. The Central Park 5, of course, were the five African-American kids wrongly accused, convicted and imprisoned on charges of raping a white woman in Central Park in 1989.

The men were eventually exonerated, there have been fantastic documentary films made about them, and Donald Trump for decades has claimed they should’ve been executed, and still believes they’re guilty.

So for these guys to help paint a BLM mural in front of Trump Tower… I mean, it makes my heart so happy to see.

**And finally today, a wonderful piece of American military history happened

An Army National Guard soldier graduated Thursday from Special Forces training in North Carolina and became the service’s first female Green Beret.

The woman received the Special Forces Tab and donned her green beret alongside fellow graduates of the 53-week Special Forces Qualification Course, U.S. Army Special Operations Command said in a statement.

“Thankfully, after today, our Green Beret Men and Women will forever stand in the hearts of free people everywhere,” Army special operations commander Lt. Gen. Fran Beaudette, who presided over the graduation ceremony, said in the statement.

The woman’s name wasn’t released, which sadly given our toxic culture these days, is probably for the best.

But what an awesome accomplishment. Girls, man, they rule the world. Or at least they should.