PicoBlog

Before each MLB season, I like to scan through various indicators for teams that seem primed to be better— looking at factors such as the differential between their actual and Pythagorean record (i.e., the record predicted by run differential), second-half improvement, farm system quality, team age, offseason moves, changes to payroll, long-term franchise trajectory and more. The Chicago Cubs didn’t check off all of those items going into 2024, but they looked promising in enough of them — especially the Pythagorean luck factor — that I called them a “no-brainer pick” to improve on their 83-win showing in 2023, particularly after the team re-signed the resurgent Cody Bellinger to a new contract right before Spring Training.

I absolutely loved it! Not as harrowing as I thought it was going to be. It’s not often the victim is portrayed as taking at least some responsibility for what has happened to them, which makes it refreshing. 👏👏👏 Sent from iPhun. Expand full comment ncG1vNJzZmirpK65prDBsqynmV6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6wn7JlkpavunnRnqCnnJWav2610maYp2WZor2wvtOapa1nk6S6rrHNrao%3D

Today in my series on the managerial issue at Chelsea, I want to explore exactly the difference the right and wrong managerial appointment can make. I’ve publicly been very critical of the Chelsea co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart and their poor team-building and lack of leadership and culture setting since they came into the club in January 2023. To me the lack of leadership, poor signings and poor team building are all on them.

This article below is a reprise from 2018, when I first began addressing the ways that classical schools sometimes try to do too much of a good thing. It is an understandable temptation—Here have another helping, it’s soo good. Still, it is a temptation we are wise to resist. If you like this article please share it! Share Over the years, a question has continued to rise before me like a puppy on alert after hearing a strange sound.

Day One is the best simple, easy-to-use, free app for digital journaling. Apple is launching its own new app, Journal, this fall. Other similar apps abound. Day One, though, remains my recommendation if you’re starting a new journal. Read on for five of Day One’s most valuable features, along with its limitations and alternatives. Bonus: read my new Medium piece on 9 distinct approaches to journaling, which I wrote to accompany this post.

“It’s OK, it’s good to let it out,” said the weeping American hugging me tightly. Initially aghast, like a true Brit, I wanted to wriggle free but within seconds I was reciprocating her embrace. I had told myself I would not cry, I would not blub, I would not sob. But I foolishly hadn’t factored in the unbearable sight of Diana’s coffin right in front of me. Aloft on a gun carriage, draped in the Royal Standard and bedecked with three wreaths of white flowers (lilies and roses) and, as I discovered later, William and Harry’s letter to ‘Mummy’.

The Jewish holiday of Sukkot (Tabernacles) just ended. The biblical reading for the holiday contains the famous scene where Moses shatters the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.  This act emanated from his anger at his people’s worshipping of the golden calf. In trying to make sense of this text, the Jewish sages asked a poignant question. What happened to the shattered tablets? Did they just remain on the edge of Mount Sinai?

The majestic and formidable species in strength and magnitude, stands at the head of the whole class of Woodpeckers…His eye is brilliant and daring; and his whole frame so admirably adapted for his mode of life and method of procuring subsistence, as to impress on the mind of the examiner the most reverential ideas of the Creator. — Alexander Wilson, circa 1790. HOW CAN IT BE that wildlife is disappearing when many wild animals like raccoons, white-tailed deer, crows, and even alligators seem to be thriving?

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded in 1920 with the aim of promoting international cooperation and preventing future conflicts. However, it ultimately failed to achieve its objectives for several reasons: United States non-participation: The League of Nations was proposed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson as part of his Fourteen Points for peace after World War I. However, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and join the League, largely due to concerns over national sovereignty and potential entanglements in foreign conflicts.