Letting Go of 2021

/86 Comments/in /by

It’s been a rough few weeks in so many ways, on top of a really rough year.

We’ve reached the limits of patience, fortitude, and resources in so many ways. In part because of the pandemic and manufactured barriers created by disinformation and willful destruction, in part because of frustration with systems damaged over time by those who refused to believe in cooperative, collaborative, collective effort, and in part because time simply has its way with us, we’ve experienced pain and loss over and over again.

I’ve lost several heroes I looked up to in a handful of weeks — feminist author bell hooks, writer Joan Didion, attorney Sarah Weddington, and now actor/comedian Betty White, all gone ahead to higher ground.

With former senator Harry Reid‘s passing we’ve lost a fighter who taught so many younger Democrats how be effective.

The Trash Talk crowd here lost someone who surely entertained them many times since the 1980s with former coach and commentator John Madden‘s death.

There are so many more brilliant people to whom we’ve had to say goodbye, including many of the 822,914 COVID-19 dead. It just plain hurts.

Making resolutions seems wholly useless against this barrage of loss.

~ ~ ~

Author and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about making your own ceremony for ending the year. Her tone in 2014 when she wrote this post was so hopeful; it seems surreal now, looking back, to think we were all so glib about embracing the future.

We’ve had a trial by fire since then, a long conflagration which has torched all our illusions. What political monstrousness didn’t destroy a pandemic and time have finished.

And in some cases, literal incineration thanks to the mounting climate emergency.

Gilbert’s suggestion seems fitting, then, to say goodbye to this year with flames — write down things we want to get rid of with end of this year, write down the things we ask into our lives in the year ahead, and then burn these wishes, tossing the ashes into water to both release the past and summon the future.

Perhaps you won’t need the symbolism and the ritual of ceremony, but the exercise is still worthwhile to take measure of what we’re leaving and consider what lies ahead.

What will you let go of with the ending of this year and the passing of yet more of our figureheads?

What will you welcome at the stroke of midnight and the coming dawn of the new year?

~ ~ ~

Scottish poet Robert Burns is credited with writing the traditional song, Auld Lang Syne, which will be sung this evening where people meet in spite of the pandemic.

But Burns did little of the writing; he collected older bits and pieces of traditional Scots’ songs and molded them into the tune we know now.

One of the earlier versions based on the older verses was published in a Scottish newspaper in 1711 by James Watson.

I’m very fond of one old verse in particular, which rings clearest this evening for me:

My Heart is ravisht with delight,
when thee I think upon;
All Grief and Sorrow takes the flight,
and speedily is gone;
The bright resemblance of thy Face,
so fills this, Heart of mine;
That Force nor Fate can me displease,
for Old long syne.

For Old long syne my Jo,
for Old long syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
On Old long syne.

Goodbye and farewell, 2021. Hello and welcome, 2022.

Best wishes to you all for a better year ahead.

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86 replies
  1. ducktree says:

    Madden and Reid were pikers compared to Betty White, who shuffled off today at 99 yo, three weeks before her 100th, in anticipation of 2022.
    Talk about playing it as it lays . . .

    Nevertheless, Happy 2022!!!

    • Peterr says:

      From Gracie Allen to Lucille Ball to Betty White , , ,

      Do NOT undersell the power of the women to both confront the structures arrayed against them and to knock them down before the PTB even realized what had happened.

    • graham firchlis says:

      Jackie Speier has advice for living she’s
      often given. I have it written down and put up on the fridge for affirmation:

      “Life should not be a journey to the end with the intention of arriving in a well-preserved body. It should be totally used up…totally worn out…chocolate in one hand and a martini in the other.”

      Speier is retiring this term, as bmaz mentioned in some other thread, well deserved after more than 40 years of public service in the public interest. One of the smartest, kindest, most genuine and truly heroic people I’ve encountered. For inspiration read her autobiography -Undaunted.

  3. Benji says:

    Another Auld Lang Syne indeed…

    [FYI, link removed and replaced with image; if possible, could you please obtain more information about origin for attribution? Thanks. /~Rayne]

    • Benji says:

      Thanks Rayne, and apologies. Spur of the moment post.

      Long time lurker here, and I remember Firedoglake, however that was between the two periods of political and social awareness where I was in full WTF mode. I am back.

      Being a knuckle dragging construction worker with a keen sense of justice and having to hear otherwise semi intelligent grown ups prattle their anemic squitter about the dual injustices of masking/vaccines and stolen elections makes me want to say bad words.

      David Brooks over at Mother Jones put it well: “Ignorance and anger is a lethal combination.” So when I get done saying bad words because of their ignorance and anger I pop in here for a dose of sanity. Can ignorance be cured with knowledge? Will anger then diminish?

      Also being a simple Master Electrician I am way out of my depth in commenting on such in-depth legal discussion – but I thank you all for being something of an anchor in these trying times. I hold no hope for the future based on the noise machines blaring 24/7/365 but will continue to try to help the younger folk I interact with understand the process of filtering out the provable lies they are prone to spout in Pavlovian fashion.

      Thanks again to all here for your insight and clarification, and for breaking down complex ideas into bite sized chunks. There is quite a difference between law and justice as much as I dislike the notion. Plus you folks are cheaper than a Bartender or a Therapist – I feel better already!

      The best to you all in this upcoming New Year.

  4. matt fischer says:

    Thanks to you and others in the EW family who we lean on to keep us sane in insane times. Wishing all of you good health and much joy in the new year!

  5. earthworm says:

    Archbishop Desmond Tutu comes immediately to mind. His death leaves a gap in the realm of morality and justice. i hope he and his life are remembered as role models to aspire to.

    • Rayne says:

      Oh nuts — I meant to add Tutu to this post, too. We lost someone who had no problems being blunt about social injustice; his legacy is already being whitewashed.

      We lost E. O. Wilson the same week as well. ~sigh~

  6. Leoghann says:

    Thank you, Rayne.

    As I mentioned in bmaz’ Christmas thread, I celebrate the outgoing and incoming years at the Solstice. And, since I quit the “party lifestyle” 39 years ago, December 31 tends to be just another night. But we do have a change in calendar to look at.

    This past year, I’ve been enjoying watching three of the younger members of my family whom I’m especially close with grow up–not physically, that’s already done–but emotionally. Last year, my nephew, who’s like a son to me, married and bought a house (sobriety is very good for him). Three weeks ago, they discovered that they’re pregnant, and that portends great developments in the coming year.

    I have a few consultations with specialists scheduled for next week, and have hopes that 2022 will mark a time that solutions were found to end the damage from arthritis I’m dealing with. Getting old has some pretty sucky physical side effects, but I’m bound and determined not to let them pull me down.

    Although the evenly-divided Senate has created a good deal of frustration this year, I’m very aware that, had it not been for human powerhouse Stacey Abrams and all her allies, things would be much, much worse. I’m not forgetting the Arizona Democrats and all the hard work they did, especially to get the native vote out, which helped elect another blue Senator. This coming year, we all have much, much more hard work to do, not only to see to it that newer voters, and newly-organized voters, continue with their progress, but also to overcome the negativity of the “Dems in Disarray” and “Red Landslide Ahead” major-media press.

    Along those same lines, this coming year will be another one that is ended by election results. I’m ending this year with hope for change in the coming year, but am very aware that things may begin to look very different politically in the near future. We may finally see the prosecutions of some of the corrupt officials and grifters who have proliferated over the past half decade. But whether or not that happens, by this time next year, we will either be celebratory or resigned. I’m hoping that all of us of a certain political persuasion will commit to ending their resignation, so that we will have reason to celebrate.

    And finally,
    #fuckcovid and
    #fuckcancer,

  8. Doctor My Eyes says:

    Thanks for the heartfelt post, Rayne. This really resonated with me. In fact, I had mentioned to my family the same notion of writing down the things from 2021 that we wanted to disappear and burning the paper. In keeping with the tone of this post, they expressed little hope that our troubles will not follow us into the coming year. Both my daughter and my wife are doctors, the latter retired, and through them awareness of much physical suffering has come my way this year. I believe that, in addition to Covid, stress is partially responsible for a rise in health problems. My ob/gyn daughter tells me that this year every patient she has asked how things are going has responded with weariness and resignation that things are not going well, that the world is screwed up. Not one patient has told her that things are fine.

    Harold Pinter closed his haunting Nobel Prize Speech with the lines:

    “I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

    If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.”

    As much as any source I know, this site helps in attempting to determine the “real truth of our lives and our societies.” Pessimistic as I am, I try to avoid being a downer, but here at the end of 2021 I will confess that I see continuing troubles in the coming year. I say this in order to share that, in light of this outlook, my resolve is to do what I can to hold on to human dignity. In my case, I commit myself to singing with my local (and outstanding) choir and generally to continue to appreciate and to make music no matter how down I feel, how hungry I become, how unsettled I am by the likes of politics and climate change.

    Our choir is working on Frostiana, a setting of seven Robert Frost poems, for our next concert. We were scheduled to perform live in mid January, then switched to making a recording to be streamed, then last week we suspended in-person rehearsal until Omicron passes. These are disappointments upon disappointments, but we gather via Zoom to discuss the music and to keep our connection. We will record or perform the music we have been working so hard on, we just don’t know when. This evening I read a fascinating analysis of Frost’s poem “The Road Not Traveled”. Teetering as we seem to be on the brink of dissolution, we can choose to maintain our dignity, to participate in the most dignified activities of our species, of which unblinking awareness and music are two examples.

    In case anyone is interested, here is the link to David Orr’s fascinating discussion of “The Road Not Taken”: https://lithub.com/youre-probably-misreading-robert-frosts-most-famous-poem/

    Thanks to everyone here. Keep on plugging.

      • Doctor My Eyes says:

        The work is exquisite. It took me a while, though, to appreciate it. It’s so cool because it’s just like Frost’s poetry, seemingly simple and straightforward yet sophisticated and complex.

    • bmaz says:

      Hey, you should discuss your choir and musical work with Ed Walker! He has long been involved in the same, including opera. Bet you would find a lot in common.

      • Doctor My Eyes says:

        I didn’t know that. My wife sings opera, but I’m not even close. Strictly backup here. All the best in 2022.

      • Chirrut Imwe says:

        I sing in the chorus with our regional opera company. Here’s hoping our production of Carmen scheduled for May is not waylaid by Covid. Singing masked this fall and winter has been interesting…

  10. Hopeful says:

    Nearing my New Year in California, I am also very saddened by the passing of the people mentioned in this posting to Emptywheel, a site I read religiously every day.

    I should really call this place a sanctuary, where I go to learn and be challenged by the hosts’ (and contributors’) insights that encourage me to dig a little deeper to differentiate between words written or spoken and their underlying meaning and purpose. (and to try to solve puzzles a la Clue).

    And…..I want to be hopeful, for the future. I want to really enjoy those who are still with us, who inspire us to be better.

    The other day I saw a Twitter posting by Eric Alterman of a song by Patti Smith, where she sang People Have the Power with a choir of New Yorkers in 2019 (I wish I could figure out how to post it).

    Very inspiring.

    Happy New Year!

  12. Ten Bears says:

    I can see where a dinner-hour viewing of Don’t Look Up could become a “New Year’s” eve tradition. That we’re ten days into the “New Year” is moot in the generally accepted vernacular, though perhaps an apt metaphor …

  13. CF says:

    I think continually of those who were truly great.
    Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
    Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns,
    Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
    Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
    Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song.
    And who hoarded from the Spring branches
    The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

    What is precious, is never to forget
    The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
    Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
    Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
    Nor its grave evening demand for love.
    Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
    With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit.

    Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
    See how these names are fêted by the waving grass
    And by the streamers of white cloud
    And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
    The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
    Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.
    Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun
    And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

    Stephen Spender, “The Truly Great” from Collected Poems 1928-1953. Copyright © 1955 by Stephen Spender. Reprinted by permission of Ed Victor Ltd.
    Source: Collected Poems 1928-1953 (Random House Inc., 1955)

    • David says:

      This, like this site in general, is a lovely way to start off the day, and the New Year. Thanks for posting it and to everyone who contributes to creating an essential oasis here

      • bmaz says:

        Hi David! Very nice to see you here live at Emptywheel, and welcome. Come and contribute to the sanity oasis more often. One suggestion, we try to have people with common names differentiate them slightly so everybody can tell which David they are talking to at any given moment. Maybe “DavidT”?

  14. Bay State Librul says:

    Thanks for your eye-opening perspective on 2022.

    This year I need to replace “beer me” from my refrigerator door and tack on Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone’s definition of politics:

    “Politics isn’t about big money or power games; it’s about the improvement of people’s lives”

    As an aside, I had completely forgotten about Wellstone, it’s been nearly twenty years since his ill-fated plane crash. “So it goes,” as Vonnegut would say.
    …

        • Eureka says:

          Eagles fans have a _long fucking day_ tomorrow, bmaz, and will have to meter from noon-to-night accordingly.

          [**Checks clock, borrows some of BSL’s metaphorical magnets**]

          And yet who’s to say tomorrow is not already today?

  15. emptywheel says:

    I feel, on top of Mother Nature’s revenge, COVID has become a way of making visible all our governance failures. That doesn’t mean we can overcome them — but because GOP areas have such a higher fatality rate than Democratic areas (because of COVID denialism) — it may force some rethinking.

    But it may also force some rethinking about the capitalist policies that exacerbated the problem.

    • posaune says:

      Thank you, EW. I’m thinking that such things are more visible now.
      and thanks to you and all at empty wheel for being such a sustaining force. First thing I turn to each morning.
      Happy New Year to all!

    • gmoke says:

      Or “Have the contradictions become clear enough yet, comrade?”

      Unfortunately, I believe that the contradictions will never become clear enough for some or our comrades, the ones who would say “Who you calling comrade?”

  16. Pete T says:

    Happy New Year to all.

    The job is not yet done soft 2022 I predict EW and we cast of characters will not be able to close up shop or turn exclusively to more genteel discussions. Well – the occasional genteel or humorous discussion/posting, as in the past, is of course welcome.

  17. dimmsdale says:

    I suppose I’m coming at 2022 as what the screwball comedies called a “cockeyed optimist,” and a large part of that is the expected trajectory of omicron. I am foreseeing all sorts of possibilities for public gatherings and both casual and intimate human contact that have been constrained or impossible literally for years. I’m seeing these possibiities in both personal and political contexts—enabling a kind of coming-together that fuels REAL forward momentum (again, both personal and political) much more viscerally than zoom meetings do.

    And my hope is that the 1/6 insurrection brings home to us all (not so much the folks here, who are hardly strangers to the idea) the notion that citizenship requires tireless, hands-on involvement. (I’m speaking here as someone whose view of our governing instututions was shaped by the New Deal, the Eisenhower years, and a time when American democracy seemed like an atomic clock—it just ran, and automatically brought some amount of incremental progress while requiring little maintenance.) But it’s clear that the 1/6 insurrection is ongoing right this second at the most grass-roots local levels, it’s literally all around us, and it’s down to US to beat back the insurrectionist onslaught against our school boards, BOEs, local judiciary etc. Coasting is no longer possible (if it ever was).

    We now know what the job IS, and I take that (perhaps foolishly) as cause for hope. And we hopefully see how wide the battlefront is—virtually everywhere. And we fully appreciate (thanks to COVID perhaps) the value of our artists, our healers, as well as our activists, in maintaining balance, heart, and sanity. (Again, I say “we” while recognizing how many commenters and mods at this site have always been up to speed on the subject. Maybe I just mean “me”.)

    As for me, I hope to travel. I hope to play music in live ensembles again. I hope to acquire personal transportation (2 wheels or 4). I hope to love in person instead of virtually. I hope to be able to dip in here, for depth and perspective that I find nowhere else, for a good long time to come.

    Thanks, all, and happy 2022.

    • Christopher Rocco says:

      It seems appropriate at this moment to quote Max Weber: “Politics is the long slow boring of hard boards.” It applies to the tasks ahead, both for civil society and DOJ.

  18. Zinsky says:

    I consider this blog/website to be an invaluable resource for national security/legal/intelligence information and analysis that really has no peer. Marcy’s work on the January 6th insurrection has been stellar and I hope earns her even more accolades. The only advice I have for the New Year is a phrase I stole from Nancy Pelosi: “Don’t agonize – organize!”

  19. Krisy Gosney says:

    Thank you all for your research and reporting and comments this past year. I treasure this blog.

    My wife and I were marveling at this from our lives- her family was either executed or fled the Nazis in Europe, now here we are being legally married and having both our names listed on our newborn’s birth certificate (born in TX). That’s progress that steadily, perhaps too slowly, marches on and won’t stop. It’s beautiful. I am deeply grateful.

    • posaune says:

      Congratulations to you and your wife on your new baby!
      Enjoy these years, sleep deprivation and all. It goes SO fast.

  20. josap says:

    Happy New Year. Thank you all for being here, for sharing your knowledge, for the consistent work and efforts. I read almost every day.

    Thinking of what stone to put down as 2021 fades away. I will put down stress. I will let it go. The plague just is, for now. Maybe for the rest of my life span. It is. I know the drill.

    This coming year I will ask what I can change and what I can not change as I read about our ever-diminishing governmental democracy. I will remember this is a republic, although we may not keep it.

    I will do what I can within the limits of my age and medical abilities. Still advocate, still phone bank, still talk to/with others in an effort to keep/improve the way forward.

  21. rosalind says:

    thank you, rayne, for this post. and thank you wheelies for providing the smartest commentariat around, and the EW crew for once again giving us “Today’s news yesterday”.

    2021 became a year to forget, and i gladly leave it behind. i had a good friend staying with me recently and she teased me about how much i was on twitter, saying it was such a downer site. i defended it and me, and told her i would find her a positive comment to share. i scrolled up through dozens of tweets and aside from the occasional cute animal video, there was not one tweet that i could characterize as positive. it was a sobering moment.

    twitter is a very valuable tool, but boy howdy i had to face what i’m feeding myself on a daily basis. i’m gonna pare down who i follow, and be more conscious of what it is i choose to put out into the world.

    • Rayne says:

      Thanks, rosalind, always lovely to see you at emptywheel.

      Good Twitter experience is definitely a matter of editing; I have several accounts following different crowds for different purposes and I’ve found active editing for content followed as well as the use of lists makes all the difference.

      Accounts I follow for more artful and/or esoteric content which might help change things up in your Twitter feed:
      https://twitter.com/womensart1
      https://twitter.com/rabihalameddine
      https://twitter.com/inthemoodfortw
      https://twitter.com/archaeologyart
      https://twitter.com/LettersOfNote
      https://twitter.com/scifri
      https://twitter.com/WholesomeMeme
      https://twitter.com/buitengebieden_
      https://twitter.com/Futura_Noir
      https://twitter.com/oneperfectshot
      https://twitter.com/whatisemerging
      https://twitter.com/quokkaeveryhour (because who doesn’t need a quokka?)

      • Molly Pitcher says:

        I really appreciate your perspective Rayne. I have not seen that version of Auld Lang Syne before, nor did I realize that it existed before Burns version.

        I have already eliminated a lot from my baggage this year. I had to, it was time to detox from the previous administration.

        Marcy said “COVID has become a way of making visible all our governance failures”, but since we are a government of, by and for the people, what it is really showing is our failure as people. The thing I cannot shake is my disappointment with such a large percentage of our population as human beings. I always knew there were selfish, frightened and cruel people among us, I just didn’t think there were this many of them.

        The recent departure of so many exemplary people underscores the necessity for us all to step up and fill the void. I think we have a challenging year ahead. I plan to work to support Congressional candidates in any way that I can so that we maintain control of Congress.

        And I have to be hopeful, there is a baby being born in May, I have to make sure there is a safe country for him, his sister and his parents to live their lives in.

        The quokka every hour will definitely be a bright spot in the New Year, thanks for the link !!

    • punaise says:

      Never did twitter, but I have no regrets about stepping away from social media this year.
      I finally ditched Facebook: whistleblower Frances Haugen‘s revelations were the last straw. I don’t really miss the oversharing of old high school chums, but I kind of miss posting mostly nature photos of outings and travel.
      (OK, I still look at IG to follow The Onion…)

    • P J Evans says:

      I deal with twitter by not following anyone, and having people bookmarked that I want to read (including ew!)

    • Eureka says:

      I’m with you on the toxicity swerve (negativity being a predominant variety). So what I’m about to suggest might initially sound contrary, but a ~ biweeklyish/ monthly dip of

      https://twitter.com/AITA_online/

      can be refreshing. If you catch a good one, it can restore faith in a shared humanity (while showing how myopic bubble-ruts are truly blinding wrt any one’s problems. Or “problems”).

    • Ed Walker says:

      I’ve cut my feed to get rid of everything annoying, and made liberal use of the block and mute functions. S I see a lot of people with whom I agree, and learn to think more carefully about my own ideas and about issues I care about.

      I quit watching cable news and won’t sart again. I subscribe to a couple of newsletters, on medical issues, for example, and the morning Guardian summaries. That’s plenty of news, and leaves lots of time for reading.

      I’ve also changed the focus for my writing. That helps me just ignore stuff I can’t fix.

      I can’t emigrate, as I want to, but I can tone down the amount of the detritus of disintegration I absorb.

  23. James Sterling says:

    May this year bring us before it has flown all we would have wished for had we only known. – Gary Johnson, ” Another Year” Thanks for this site. It keeps me grounded, and looking forward.

  24. Literay says:

    There is the general superposition of all possibilities. But once the self is measured as separate from other, it resolves to: it matters not where you are or what you are doing, you are either getting along with your surroundings or not. And, you have some influence in the matter.

  25. Greenhouse says:

    I don’t post here very much, never have except on occasion, this being one. I’ve followed Marcy ever since sweet judy blew lies. Rayne’s posts are always a light in the fog. Bmaz helps to clarify and righteously call out the bullshit. Merry Gringle and Happy Goo Year!

  26. Tom says:

    This coming year as I embark upon my eighth decade here on planet Earth, I plan not to lapse quite so often into wistful reveries about times past, not to fret overmuch why my body has started to betray me in various ways these last eighteen months, or wonder where the snows of yesteryear have gone (because they always come back next winter), and stuff like that there. I remind myself that these are my good old days to enjoy right now, when I can still live independently, drive a car, work on my house, shovel snow, cut down trees, eat my lunch … you know the rest.

    Also looking forward to seeing what wonders the James Webb Space Telescope might reveal to us this summer, as well as the new Fledermaus-Mann movie coming in March which will also feature Katze-Frau.

  27. Zeno says:

    Never commented before, but wanted you all to know my gratitude for this site, where intelligence and humor help me keep grounded .
    I have lost my husband, then our home to wildfire, so it’s too easy to feel self-pity, which is so annoying in other people!

    Thank you all and let us hope for justice and laughter in 2022.

    • Rayne says:

      I’m very sorry for your losses. There’s little to offer as consolation except that you are not alone. We are all learning a new language at the same time — how to openly acknowledge and share loss, how to grieve them, how to carry on.

      I hope this year will offer you happiness in spite of the challenges you’re facing. Remember Black feminist writer Audre Lorde’s words: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.” Do care for yourself and seek joy.

  28. Stephen Calhoun says:

    Thanks to everybody for everything here on the unique and essential EW. This post (I’m responding to) encompasses all of EW’s strengths.

    Bell Hooks: Toward a Worldwide Culture of Love, here: https://www.lionsroar.com/toward-a-worldwide-culture-of-love/

    The one thing I hope this year brings: a successful positioning and alignment and first round of test photographs from the Webb Telescope.

  29. Eureka says:

    Dan Snyder via his entities is going to get his ass sued. Who knew the usual weekly pre-(or in-)-game photos (even the sewage!) of decrepit FedEx would be topped by an assassination attempt on my QB.

    https://twitter.com/MikeGarafolo/status/1477746031014076423

    Just now on sports radio a young gal witness reports pragmatic details that FedEx staff knew the sidewalls of the stands around the tunnel were not safe prior to the collapse and that after the collapsed fencing was put back in place, stadium workers zip-tied it to the adjacent piece.

    Hopefully Jalen Hurts, who helped up the toppled fans and did photos with them after his quick-reaction dodge of the falling pile, etc, isn’t now full of fresh hot COVID.

    Cards: was gonna say yesterday that I’d heard Budda Baker might be out (not good) and that we need you to beat the ‘Boys by a little, rather than a lot, so as not to disturb their implosion-oscillations too much. We need that scheduled roll out the next couple weeks, let’s not have them rebound too soon. Then all I hear in the early part of the game is Budda Baker Budda Baker Budda Baker and well look at the score.

    Newsflash for BSL: Zora Neale Hurston has some collected essays coming out January 18th. Some never published, some not published for 60 or more years.

    • Eureka says:

      OK well that suddenly became a much closer game. Yay Cards, tho, for the win. Kliff K > Mike McCarthy.

      Am LOLing at ‘Boys fans bitching about the no-call fumble (with no timeouts to challenge) because the Eagles today had to endure Clete “no clear recovery”** jobbing the daylights out of us _the whole game_ today. It was both torture and clearly designed to produce an outcome closer to the betting line so Eagles wouldn’t cover.

      —
      ** “No clear recovery” refers to the 2018 Eagles at JerryWorld game where FIVE EAGLES were on a fumble recovery (and at first they tried to claim it wasn’t a fumble…UGH). Twas one of many momentum-altering ref plays. Bitter then-(post-)season (seeding)-altering memories.

  30. P J Evans says:

    In letting 2021 go: Tampa Bay is saying that AB won’t be back after today’s tantrum. (He shed his jersey, pads, and gloves and tossed at least some into the stands before walking off the field via the tunnel.)

    • Molly Pitcher says:

      AB is exhibiting all of the signs of CTE, and a lot of former players are expressing great concern for him. Brady, with whom AB lives is asking people to take it easy on him.

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