Thunderstruck // What's Good: Jul. 28, 2023
Money, basketball, and fanfic.
Hello, good evening, happy Friday. I’m still awake. We’re counting it. It is storming something awful outside.
I shut down the Brewpub tonight for the first time in… quite a while, to be honest! I met a new bartender who extremely rules, I sat by a series of folks who enjoyed my various recommendations, and I generally just had a blast. I really like that spot for how it brings people together, but I’m especially grateful for the incredible staff there. All of them, truly, but a special shout-out to everyone who was working tonight. It was nice to feel so welcomed and appreciated tonight.
I am so close to finishing Persona 5 Royal. I am so excited. Maybe this weekend?
For me but not for thee
What does it mean to pursue justice? Leonard Leo has some ideas, allegedly:
The individual who has had the largest impact on the federal judiciary is probably Leonard Leo, the man behind the Federalist Society. FedSoc has a goddamned chokehold on conservative judicial candidates. All of the GOP-nominated Supreme Court justices are current or former members of the organization, and the organization has been actively curating lists of judicial nominees that specifically align with a host of right-wing political goals.
…
In the New Yorker, Jane Mayer details a new lawsuit that alleges Leo directed the police in Mount Desert Island, Maine, to arrest a man that called Leo a “fucking fascist.”
Whose bill is it anyway
Unfortunately, it seems to be ours:
The City spent at least $3.25 million on the 2023 NASCAR Chicago Street Race, according to a preliminary analysis by the Weekly. That figure includes more than $2.1 million spent on repairs to the streets that made up the racecourse and an estimated $1.1 million in police overtime associated with the race. The final tally, which could include additional costs such as traffic management, will likely be even higher.
So much for being a good deal for the city!
First as tragedy
Elon Musk's rebrand of Twitter is in full swing as a giant X sign appeared on the roof of the former Twitter headquarters in Downtown San Francisco on Friday.
But the Department of Building Inspection, which regulates construction in the city, confirmed with The Standard it has opened a complaint and initiated an investigation into the erection of the X sign at 1355 Market St.
Nothing but net
This is actually kind of cool, I think:
Last Thursday, a young New Yorker named Jack Teitelbaum showed up at a municipal basketball court in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, where he grew up. He brought with him zero expectation that by day’s end, his image would be circulating around the internet, as a participant in one of the most talked about basketball matchups of the summer.
Not long after Jack and his buddy Teddy rolled up to the court (after they’d realized their usual spot, the bustling court on West 4th known as “The Cage,” was clogged up with summer tournaments), they spotted another New Yorker on the court: Adam Sandler, whose presence amused Teitelbaum but didn’t necessarily surprise him. He’d seen footage online of the Sandman, a known basketball nut, playing on this court before. He would soon learn that Sandler was waiting for his pal, actor Timothée Chalamet, who’d possibly stopped to pick up some new basketball sneakers at a Foot Locker on the way.
Ex post facto
Talk about rigging the game:
Since 1870, the Augusta judicial circuit has been home to the criminal justice system of a three-county area on Georgia’s border with South Carolina. In that time, no African American has been elected district attorney of the circuit – until 2020, when a Black lawyer named Jared Williams upset a conservative, pro-police candidate with just more than 50% of the vote.
But that historic win was short-lived. The day after his election, a lawyer and state lawmaker in the area proposed something unusual: that the circuit’s whitest county separate itself from the Augusta circuit, creating a new judicial circuit in Georgia for the first time in nearly 40 years.
Save the fanfic
FOSTA was awful, this seems bad too:
Fan fiction writers aren’t just penning alternate universe reimaginings of the Barbie movie, or steamy scenes featuring Marvel superheroes. This week, they’re writing letters to their senators, expressing their concerns that the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) could change the internet forever.
Despite its appealing name, KOSA has been met with a flood of opposition from a variety of internet communities, from fandom Tumblr to digital privacy watchdogs. In particular, detractors worry that the bill could restrict queer kids’ access to affirming online resources, or make it easier for local governments to surveil abortion seekers.
“I don’t want to have to be forced to attach everything I do online to my real life identity,” said @omarsbigsister, an omegaverse fan fiction writer who has used her platform of 100,000 TikTok followers to advocate against the bill.
You deserve some good animal content
https://twitter.com/twperritos/status/1684998154448486400
https://twitter.com/DontShowYourCat/status/1684987977674436611
https://twitter.com/ShouldHaveCat/status/1684960522007977994
https://twitter.com/ShouldHaveCat/status/1684564817867309056
https://twitter.com/benegotherit/status/1683847257123069955
https://twitter.com/HourlyLizards/status/1685158685142626304
https://twitter.com/RedPandaEveryHr/status/1685149513000820736
https://twitter.com/twperritos/status/1685136241522507777
https://twitter.com/tiktokanimaIs/status/1685109539736080384
https://twitter.com/ContextBirds/status/1685095415140466688
Have a good weekend.
Addendums
Milwaukee woman dies after being accidentally run over by a Greenfield police squad. Subway Offers Free Sandwiches That Come With a Lifetime Commitment. Elon Musk’s Rebranded Twitter Cuts Ad Prices. Hedge Funds Seek to Cut Off $1 Billion Meant for Opioid Victims. Microsoft Faces Mounting Scrutiny Over China-Linked Email Hack. Most of Florida work group did not agree with controversial parts of state's new standards for Black history, members say. On New York’s First 110-Degree Summer Day, What Will Break First?