How is everybody’s weekend going? Thanks for spending a portion of it with the Sunday Six.
Great news hit before the weekend…we have baseball! Owners and the union agreed to terms Thursday. The maddeningly thing about the entire standoff? Nothing happened that we didn’t know from the beginning would happen.
Both sides met in the middle. Couldn’t they have done that in January or February?
As Joe Posnanski wrote in his excellent Joe Blogs newsletter:
I could go into all the details of how things finally settled, how the players’ executive committee voted unanimously against the deal (??), how four high-profile teams (the Mets, Yankees, Cardinals and Astros) voted against the deal (??), how the two sides essentially met in the middle on everything, which is both predictable and infuriating since the owners could have saved all this angst and damage to the game by just meeting in the middle two months ago.
The game still has its problems. Much to fixed over the coming seasons.
But it’s the middle of March. Basketball will be over soon.
It’s time for baseball. And now we’ll get it, and a full 162 game season.
Can’t wait.
Let’s proceed with the Six.
Most of us reading saw the “Freedom Convoy” posters floating around social media the past few weeks. I was actually going to attend a pit stop scheduled for Gurnee, IL and cover it for the newsletter, but the group got re-directed and never swung up to Lake County. Well, the convoyers – inspired by the Canadian trucker saga – are still out there circling the country. The story linked here mostly all video and tells the story of the convoy from coast-to-coast. The video is 27 minutes long, but a compelling piece of journalism from TK News.
First Day As a Ukrainian Refugee: Cursing Putin.
Every day, the news cycle cranks out content on the events unfolding in real time in Ukraine. Here, in the United States, the war is not on our soil, the impact almost entirely economic. I’m drawn more to the human interest stories, one of them being this article from The Washington Post. The reporter provides boots-on-the-ground details on the lives of families forced to flee Ukraine into neighboring countries in the wake of Russian invasion.
Here’s the premise of this piece from Texas Highways is this: the grandpa of the author tells her an eye-popping story about being given a box of Hershey bars, as a little boy, by the famed bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde while they laid low in his family’s barn. “Grandpa Chuck” has Alzheimer’s so is this wild story true? Who knows? Either way, the author’s trek in pursuit of Grandpa’s tall tale sure is a fun read.
Evanston School District Teaches Gender and Race Propaganda.
School curriculum is a major talking point as we head into the 2022 mid-term elections. “Equity based” teaching in public schools has become a particularly divisive topic, and when it becomes as pervasive as this article explains, easy to see why. A school district in Evanston, IL, has carved out three months of its curriculum for “the study of oppression-based lessons.” Some troubling details in this story from The Post Millennial.
Losses and Gains Of the World’s Most Influential Stunt Dieter.
I’m a long time subscriber to Men’s Health magazine. The workouts they publish are well designed and they always have good tips on diet and nutrition, regardless of age. This piece is more human-interest oriented – a trainer, Drew Manning, promised to gain and shed 60 pounds as a way to empathize with his clients. In this story, the author explores the traps around diet and weight loss plans and the hijacking of our perception of what’s considered “healthy.” A good read for anyone who has tried weight loss gimmicks (pretty much all of us).
Top Photos of the Day from Reuters.
Every day, the news service Reuters publishes its best images of that day. This batch is particularly captivating – from Women’s Day events in Mexico, to Ukrainian refugees, a tight shot of a slide tackle at a soccer match in Liverpool and a super close up of an evacuated bear (not attacking…just a long, brooding stare). A good mix of pictures on what’s happening in the world on that particular day.
Thanks for reading everybody and enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Have a suggestion for the Sunday Six? Send email to jon@jonjkerr.com
The Getaway Driver is a gem. Thanks for sharing.