Monday Medley

What we read after Carlos Beltran’s “foul ball”…

• A Met finally threw a no-hitter! Mike Vaccaro of the NY Post pulled the old columnist’s trick of driving to the ballpark after the fifth inning (worth it) while Brian Costa told the story inning by inning. Faith and Fear in Flushing puts Santana’s no-hitter in perspective. Joe Posnanski offers his views on the matter.

• Last week’s New York Times story on President Obama’s “Kill List” caused quite the controversy, particularly its revelation that the Obama Administration considers all military-aged males combatants. Harper’s also has the accounts of the inevitable unintended victims of this administration’s drone policies. Of course, liberals get very upset when you say negative things about Obama sending killer robots to other countries.

• The best part about watching the Stanley Cup Finals (GO DEVILS!) is listening to Mike Emrick, sports’ master of verbs.

• Chris Hayes, who was one of those attacked for criticizing Obama’s drone wars, got in trouble from the other side of the spectrum for daring to question whether all soldiers are heroes. And on Memorial Day!

• Jeff Pearlman chats with Shawn Green about what retirement from baseball is like. Can you guys believe Shawn Green once hit 49 homers for the Dodgers?

• This Week in Oral Histories: Maxim uses the tenth anniversary of the premiere of The Wire to look back at the greatest series in television history.

• In other TV news, Christina Hendricks discusses Joan’s controversial decision from last Sunday’s Mad Men.

• 100 years of Woody Guthrie.

• The sad state of Conan. 

• Andy Samberg is officially leaving SNL. Is Taran Killam the next big thing?

• Some of history’s most powerful photographs.

Monday Medley

What we read while eating a variety of fried foods in Rick Parry’s tent…

• Heaven isn’t too far away for Jani Lane of Warrant now, who passed away this weekend at 47. Chuck Klosterman puts the passing of a glam icon in perspective.

• Klosterman also put this season of Louie in perspective, joining its chorus of praise.

• Did Conan pull a Jay Leno on George Lopez? (Not really)

• In other TV news, the end of Breaking Bad is sadly in sight. Meanwhile, Matthew Weiner’s recent deal for Mad Men may be wreaking havoc on other AMC shows.

• Dan Uggla’s recently snapped hitting streak inspired a couple of pieces by Joe Poz.

• Cato Unbound has a discussion on the rise of women, and fall (?) of men.

• An intriguing online law journal, The Journal of Things We Like (Lots).

• More tax-the-rich garbage from that famous class warrior, Warren Buffet.

• Every villain has an origin story, and Michele Bachmann is no different.

• This is the story of a wealthy family who lost everything…

Monday Medley

What we read while Dallas finally made up for killing Kennedy…

• Grantland.com debuted last week, just in time to cover the Miami Heat loss. Also run during the site’s first week: Chuck Klosterman on DVR mechanics, Dave Eggers on Wrigley Field, and an oral history of The National.

• Speaking of those Heat, remember The Decision? We sure do, as it was a popular topic of conversation for us last summer. Tim started it out by defending The Decision (although he’d like to point out the significant caveat within that piece that reads “so long as he doesn’t curiously choose Miami”). John S defended The Decision even after it took place while Tim expressed disappointment in LeBron’s view of championships. John wondered why everyone claimed James was being selfish and then told some of his most well-known critics to shut their mouths. Finally, he took on the infamous Nike commerical, “Rise.”

• Over at The A.V. Club, Dan Harmon breaks down every episode of Community‘s second season. Meanwhile, did South Park air its series finale last week?

• The NY Times discovers hashtags – outside of Twitter. #so2010 #maybeeven09

• Keith Law reviews Fight Club, at long last.

• Why the “College degrees don’t mean much” stories are wrong — and always have been.

• Some interesting and controversial state appellate rulings this week in statutory rape and child pornography.

• North Korea’s Global Happiness Index. Sort of like Cooley Law School’s law school rankings.

• Continuing the trend of comedian commencements, Conan gives Dartmouth’s Commencement Address.

• Nick Offerman wanted Oprah (who had some choice words about her old show) to play his ex-wife on Parks and Recreation. And a slideshow of Ron Swanson emotions!

• You still have time to catch up on Breaking Bad before the fourth season starts next month!

• A sixth season of The Wire??? Probably not.

• What Carlos Beltran hears in his bats.

The Return of Conan

If you haven’t been paying attention to this blog for the last 11 months, then you may not have realized that I was looking forward to last night’s premiere of Conan on TBS. I haven’t even minded all the commercials and the endless promotion during the baseball playoffs.

The main reason for the excitement wasn’t just that a great comedian was returning to television, but that the return represented a chance to finally move on. Conan O’Brien has been active since he lost The Tonight Show to Jay Leno in January: He got a new job, he went on a live tour, he grew a beard, he appeared on 60 Minutes, and he even got on Twitter. What has been frustrating, though, is that the most common subject in his comedy during this interregnum has been Conan himself—namely his departure from NBC and his new job on TBS.

Back in January, when The Tonight Show essentially became about its own future, it was refreshing to see an unleashed Conan mercilessly go after his own bosses at NBC. Unlike Jay Leno, who played dumb during the whole process, Conan wasn’t afraid to be honest and hilariously vicious. Unlike Jimmy Kimmel, who had nothing to lose by being vicious, and David Letterman, who played the role of elder statesman throughout, Conan’s attacks were also endearingly honest and personal, since he was going through the ordeal himself and had something to lose by attacking his employer.

Monday Medley

What we read on our 48-hour sabbatical from MSNBC…

• The long wait for Conan O’Brien’s new show ends tonight, with the premiere of Conan on TBS. Jay Leno will probably not be a guest. Speaking of Leno and late-night TV, October saw The Daily Show beat its network rivals in the ratings, while Leno fell behind Letterman. I wonder if Dick Ebersol will call Leno an “astounding failure” now.

• Zach Galifianakis, in his early years, was sort of skinny. Also, a fascinating look at Woody Allen’s early years, including his stint on Candid Camera. Erik Voss at SplitSider, meanwhile, wonders if there’s ever a justification for a comedian to steal material.

• Tim wasn’t the only one spending some time on The Simpsons‘ Treehouse of Horror. In the spirit of Tim’s top nine, IO9 had its top 10 and 11 Points did its top 11.

• Speaking of Jews, one of the “numerous future” New York Times Articles comes to life.

• So, there was an election. Post-Citizens United Narrative Failure # 1: Democrats outspent Republicans on TV ads in House Races (and possibly in everything as well). Perhaps the most redeeming aspect of election coverage is Nate Silver’s incorporation into the mainstream media. He shows how unreliable and systematically biased (towards Republicans) Rasmussen Polls were during the campaigns. Oh, and Buzz Bissinger was clearly responding to John’s argument with this tweet.

• Speaking of fraud, comedian Bruce Baum has some pretty compelling evidence that Bruce Marder and Jerry Seinfeld are unjustly failing to attribute to him co-authorship of the hilarious Letters to a Nut series.

• Joe Posnanski had an even better week than usual, with posts on the weakest World Series winners of all-time, the currently active “certain” Hall of Famers, and the late Sparky Anderson.

• Why nobody can compete with the evil behemoth that is Ticketmaster.

• Zadie Smith offers a thoughtful new entry in the rapidly growing genre of “Distinguished Person Over 30 Complaining About Social Media’s Impact On Culture And Society.”

• The CFL–you’ve got to love it.

Monday Medley

What we read while waiting for the first Chilean miner book…

• Speaking of Conan O’Brien, he had an announcement about Andy Richter’s status on his new show this week (as well as some unfortunate news about Max Weinberg). Richter talked about the new show, as well as a guest appearance of his on Will Arnett’s Running Wilde.

• The first BCS standings came out this week, and Don Borst thinks that BCS critics ought to be rooting for Boise State and TCU. Last month John S made the exact opposite argument.

• It’s posts like this that make us love Joe Posnanski (even if we sometimes disagree with him).

• Also in the world of great sports stories, ESPN breaks down the famous Fifth Down play from twenty years ago.

• In the world of not-so-great-but-not-all-that-surprising-sports-stories, a former agent details giving thousands of dollars to college athletes.

• Esquire‘s Scott Raab follows Philip Roth back to Newark, where the prodigious author says, among other things, that “life is one long BP spill.”

• A real-life version of Hans Moleman presents, “Man Getting Hit by Football.” Starring Brett Favre.

• The New York Times Magazine‘s Education Issue was a few weekends ago, but it brought back some memories of Josh and Tim’s Symposium on Handwriting (starting with Josh, on to Tim, back to Josh). One feature on the Livescribe smart pen seemed to suggest handwriting might not be dead while a second on the significance of video games in classrooms includes a teacher saying, “Handwriting? That’s a 20th-century skill.”

• Louis C.K. and Marc Maron break down their lives and careers in a two-part podcast.

• A haunting story about someone who preyed on on the suicidal and may have caused dozens of deaths. At least we know it isn’t T.I.

• Former Simpsons writer Bill Oakley has been sharing some old documents he came across via Twitter, including this early script for “$pringfield,” the first draft of the immortal luncheon between Chalmers and Skinner in “22 Short Films about Springfield” (which Tim has written, shall we say, extensively about), the original story pitch for what became “Two Bad Neighbors,” one of whom was George H.W. Bush, and finally, leftover story ideas and pitches.

• It’s officially been another year since the greatest series ever played…

Don’t Throw Twitter Down the….

There is a lot of good scholarship out there on the history of invention and technology. What is not as well documented, however, is the history of peoples’ reactions to technology. If recent history is any indication, this is how certain technological developments were greeted:

—The wheel? God, your generation just doesn’t know the art of carrying heavy loads across long terrains.

—Why would anyone ever need a phone? What do you need to say to someone who isn’t there? Don’t you have more important things to do?

—How big of an ego do you have to actually own a car? What do you need to do that can’t be accomplished on foot?

Twitter is the latest luddite lightning rod. People don’t really understand Twitter: What is it for? Why do you need to know what other people are doing CONSTANTLY? What can you say in 140 characters?