Formula Joe Biden race series?

As previously noted, the Miami F1 event featured a race in which drivers who weren’t as good as the F1 drivers were nonetheless featured due to a personal characteristic (gender ID). How about a series in which a different personal characteristic is used to restrict who may compete: age? For drivers who are at least 80 years old… Formula Joe Biden (FJB). Because Joe Biden loves the 1967 Chevrolet Corvette (photo below is from “Joe Biden and Colin Powell drag race their ’67 and 2015 Corvettes”), the FJB series would put every driver into a C8 Corvette. Some of the drivers might suffer from slow reflexes, so the Corvettes would be restricted to “teen driver mode”.

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Miami Grand Prix experience (the “Heat Stroke F1”)

Formula 1 is an all-day three-day event. Consequently, a seat in a grandstand will become more like a prison after a while, unlike if you were attending a 2-hour game. In Las Vegas (see Nine minutes of Formula 1 glory at the Las Vegas Grand Prix) our ticket gave us access only to a small area where we could get food, use the waterless porta-potties, or walk to the grandstand. In Miami, a standard ticket gives the holder access to an entire campus (albeit only one grandstand) and thus there is a lot more to see and do. having the massive football stadium at the center of the campus is valuable because it is possible to ride an escalator up to the third floor of the stadium, walk around, see the track from above, eat from a non-temporary kitchen, use a non-temporary bathroom, etc. (Even the temporary rest room facilities in Miami, unlike in Vegas, were water-based and had water for handwashing.)

Despite my fears of being roasted and steamed to death, the weather forecast for the weekend was highs of 83 degrees and partly cloudy.

Given the inevitability of traffic and high-cost parking, the obvious way to get to the event is Lyft/Uber to the front door. However, it turns out that these services dump people a 20-minute walk from the stadium on big event days and may not be easy to find afterwards. I paid $84 for a resale Saturday-only parking ticket on the north side of the stadium, of which $25 was in SeatGeek fees:

I told my companion “I guarantee that, after parking, we will walk by businesses and individuals selling parking for less than half of what we paid.” Sure enough, the modest neighborhood to the north of the stadium had families selling driveway parking for $35-50 (see below). Lot 34 still ended up being a good choice because they open an exit at the NW corner. Although we left at the precise peak time, right after the final qualifying round, we didn’t wait to get out of the parking lot and suffered through no more than about 10 minutes of additional traffic compared to a best-case scenario.

It was a 20-minute walk to the entrance gate from Lot 34. If one were headed back toward Miami, probably the smart thing to do would be independent parking on the south side of the stadium (lots of businesses there with big lots) and, if departing at a peak time, stop at a restaurant for dinner before heading out on the road.

Security check (no bags or food allowed, basically, and we heard some vague mumbling about camera lenses no longer than 6 inches) and ticket check was quick. Bring in a sealed bottle of water and then there are free refill stations all over the venue. Also bring earplugs for the Porsche races and for the F1 qualifying (you can just put your fingers in your ears as the pack of cars goes by in an F1 race).

I was instructed to pick some drivers to root for. After hearing their biographies, I decided that my loyalties are to Logan Sargeant, a 23-year-old Floridian who drives for Williams, Yuki Tsunoda, a 23-year-old from Japan who drives for Red Bull’s second team (“RB”) because I love Japan, and Max Verstappen, the 26-year-old champion who reminds me of my Dutch friend Max (he’s against big government and low-skill migrants).

The “West Campus” features about 15 restaurants and a popular F1 merchandise store. People actually waited in line for the chance to buy $75-100 T-shirts:

The shopper in the middle photo told me that everything is cheaper online and, in fact, the orange T-shirt above for which people were paying $75 at the event was quoted at $42, not on sale, on the official F1 store web site. The $80 black shirt, however, wasn’t available online when I checked, so maybe that’s why people are desperate to shop at the event. The truly great hat shown below wasn’t for sale:

There was quite a bit of shaded seating for eating and drinking. My Twitter post, which nobody thought was funny:

Here’s a view of the grandstand taken from the 3rd floor of the stadium:

Our Turn 18 grandstand seats ($180 resale plus a forest of fees) weren’t all that interesting. We never saw a change in position, an accident, or anything else other than people decelerate (far away) and then come slowly out of tight turn (close). Row M is the best in this grandstand due to being shaded and yet just in front of the columns that hold up the shade structure. Later in the day, at least six rows below M will also be shaded on the west side of the grandstand. Here are photos at noon showing that L and M are shaded followed by two photos at 4 pm showing that the west part of the grandstand has a much more favorable angle than the east part (by 2 pm, even row I was shaded on the west side):

The aviation story for the event is a temporary flight restriction from 0-1000′, which is perhaps just as well considering the proximity of 1050′-high towers right next to the stadium.

An AStar (“Airbus H130”) flew tight maneuvers, often substantially sideways, over the more important races. I’m surprised that this made more sense than using drones to get dramatic aerial footage of the race. A drone operator on top of the stadium would have been able to see the aircraft at all times and a camera operator could have manipulated the camera angle. Maybe the camera in the ball underneath the AStar can be heavier, but is a huge sensor and lens necessary for taking pictures under the bright Miami skies? A Robinson R44 also flew over the course from time to time and the Hard Rock’s Sikorsky S-76 ferried VIPs in and out. I’m sure the folks in the AStar got some better images that we did from our seats! iPhone at “3X”:

I’m not sure why Ferrari wants to participate in Formula 1. Isn’t the main take-away “A beverage company makes faster cars than we do and, also, quite a few cans of energy drinks”? Also, the Ferrari team is now sponsored by HP, which leads to a color clash and confusion in my brain. Why do tech companies get so much value out of F1 sponsorship? Shouldn’t it be consumer products companies that could get the most return on investment? How many people at a Formula 1 event are in the market for something from Oracle, Cisco, or HP? Who decides to use Oracle instead of SAP or SQL Server because Oracle sponsors the Red Bull team?

The restricted-by-gender-ID “F1 Academy” race was more exciting than the standard F1 open-to-all-genders events. The drivers all have the same car model and, therefore, nobody has a technical advantage. This makes it tougher to forecast the winner in advance. The lack of experience among the female-identifying drivers also makes the race more exciting. In the 13-lap race that we saw (drivers who fail to identify as “women” are forced to race for 19 laps (sprint) or 57 laps (full F1 race)), there were stalls during the start (failure to use manual transmission properly), sideways departures from the track in curves, and at least one crash against the side wall (nobody injured, fortunately). Despite the low level of experience among the drivers, big companies such as Cisco and Google pour in sponsorship money. The announcers give the drivers credit for every action, even if the action is a mistake, and note that “they’re learning so much.” Chloe Chambers, age 19 and born in China, was given credit for being adopted and also for living in a “multi-racial” family. Wikipedia says that in an all-gender Formula 4 contest she finished #26 (perhaps she was the top driver who identified as “female”?). Drivers who don’t identify as “female” at the Formula 4 level would be lucky to enjoy 100 spectators at an event, but the “F1 Academy” race was watched by tens of thousands, sandwiched as it was between all-gender F1 events.

The lines for food seem to get long from 1-3 pm as fan hunger overpowers resistance to paying $30 per person for lunch. Here’s the line for $23 personal-size pizza:

Frosted lemonade was $12, a burger $20, and tacos were $10 each. As noted above, the ability to walk around inside the stadium is valuable and offers fun views of racing and the fan zones:

Some car dealers brought their wares. Here’s a Koenigsegg:

Some porn for Californians from the drive back… gasoline at $3.46/gallon right next to the Palm Beach International Airport:

It was a good day and wasn’t too brutal for either sun or noise, but I wouldn’t have wanted to go back the next day for the real race (better to watch on TV). Although the crowds were managed well, it was still a crowded environment from the moment you left your car to the moment you got back. One day wasn’t quite long enough to explore all of the fan areas, but it was still enough for one year. Maybe I would feel differently if they used a Honda Odyssey as a pace car.

The Apple Watch’s summary of the event:

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Meet at the Miami Grand Prix (F1 race)?

Who wants to meet at the Miami F1 race, sort of, on Saturday, May 5? This is one day before the “big race” that rich people are desperate to see. There are a lot of events throughout the day, including a spring race, the F1 Academy (from which 73 genders recognized by Science are excluded and this exclusion is the epitome of social justice), and some Porsche racing.

The official F1 site sells only 3-day tickets. A lot of buyers, however, don’t want to show up on Friday and Saturday. Individual days thus show up as verified resale on Ticketmaster. A “campus pass” that lets you walk around is about $120 and a ticket in a grandstand is $200-300 (this also includes the right to wander).

Given the often-brutal Miami heat and sun, I picked tickets in the Turn 18 grandstand. This has its back to the sun and rows beyond about N are shaded (our tickets are in Q). [Post-race update: M is the best row! It is in front of the columns that hold up the shade roof but is still completely shaded. Some of the rows below M also are well-shaded, particularly on the west side of the Turn 18 grandstand, as the afternoon develops.] It has views of cars braking out of the longest/fastest straight and then navigating a couple of turns. The one knock against this grandstand is that it might be a long walk to the Fountains and Promenade areas. The Marina grandstands might be better for taking that one perfect photo of a race car in front of boats, but I don’t think the cars are moving as fast in this area.

It looks as though parking passes are sold on SeatGeek and VividSeats. I’m thinking that traffic won’t be terrible on Saturday because people will arrive gradually and also leave gradually depending on which of the events they’re interested in. On Sunday, by contrast, there is literally nothing on the schedule after the 6 pm finish of the Grand Prix per se (which I’d rather see on television so that I would have a chance of understanding it) and, therefore, there will be a mad rush for the exits.

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The Heat Stroke World Cup (TM) in Miami 2026?

The mostly corruption-free folks at FIFA say that seven World Cup 2026 matches will be played in Miami (source):

How will this work given that the World Cup is set for JULY? All the games will be at night? They’ll accept a 70 percent player attribution rate due to heat stroke? My bet is that the games are scheduled for 8 pm in Europe, which means 2 pm in Miami. This will maximize TV viewership.

(Miami isn’t actually hotter than many northern cities in July, but the humidity is reliably close to 100 percent. In fact, the New York Times says that Floridians are constantly on the verge of “extreme danger”. See Floridians brave Extreme Danger heat levels (July 2023), for example. And, as a loyal follower of The Science, I wouldn’t pay to sit outdoors on a summer afternoon in Miami and watch soccer, Taylor Swift, or anything else that people pay big $$ to watch. The Formula 1 spectators apparently don’t care. The Miami race is held in May during the hottest hours of the day and sells out.)

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For whom do we root in the Super Bowl? A Pfizer COVID vaccine shill or a whole city of coerced vaccination, forced masking, and school closure?

Today is the Super Bowl. On one side we have junk vaccine profiteer Travis Kelce, paid a reported $20 million to promote Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines (recently shown to have zero effect on death rate among those who’ve previously made it through a SARS-CoV-2 infection; see “Effectiveness of a fourth SARS-CoV-2 vaccine dose in previously infected individuals from Austria”). On the other side we have a team from San Francisco, renowned for its muscular 1.5-year public school closures, forced masking, coerced vaccinations (meekly accepted by everyone except In-N-Out), etc.

“We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government,” Arnie Wensinger, [In-N-Out’s] chief legal and business officer, said in a statement. “It is unreasonable, invasive and unsafe to force our restaurant associates to segregate customers into those who may be served and those who may not.”

Our neighborhood is having a party on the green where the kids play every afternoon. The HOA will run a couple of cables from the clubhouse/gym and project the game on an inflatable outdoor screen.

For whom should an anti-coronapanic and anti-Covidcrat American root?

Related:

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New York-based journalists identify the world’s best soccer player

“She Was the World’s Best Player. Now She Won’t Play Soccer Again.” (WSJ, January 19, 2024):

The Wall Street Journal reporter and editors determined that this player was, prior to the unfortunate injury, a better player than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Here’s the reporter’s biography:

Related:

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Nine minutes of Formula 1 glory at the Las Vegas Grand Prix

This is a report on the spectator experience at the Thursday evening Formula 1 practice session in Las Vegas 2023.

My friends had $1,500 three-day tickets in the West Harmon bleachers (the cheapest seats; the average price paid was, supposedly, $7,000). One week prior, I bought a Thursday night resale ticket for $180 plus $35 in Ticketmaster fees, managing to get into the same row as my friends.

The obvious hotels were Planet Hollywood, Paris, and Horseshoe, which are walking distance from the West Harmon entrance. These were available in the $100/night range (plus fees!). However, I was concerned that my flight from Burbank, California might be late and didn’t think that it would be possible to get from the airport to a hotel inside the track after 7 pm. (In fact, we saw cars and taxis going in and out continuously. There is at least one temporary bridge that was built over the track to allow access to hotel-casinos inside the track.) I booked a Hilton near the convention center for a slightly higher price and took the monorail with my friends.

How could hotel rooms during this event have become so cheap? Las Vegas has roughly 150,000 hotel rooms. “F1 claims a healthy 315,000 fans attended the grand prix over four days” (ESPN). That’s only about 100,000 people on any given day. If the predicted traffic and hassles scared off non-F1 tourists, the inevitable result was a lot of empty rooms.

The F1 hype began at the airport:

Our ticket enabled us to go in at 6 pm and begin eating the included Wolfgang Puck food and drinking the included non-alcoholic beverages. We arrived just after 7 pm to poke around the fan environment. A big screen displayed a pre-race TV show. There were a few fun activities for fans, but most had long lines. The food options included a weak hot dog, too-far-from-the-grill grilled cheese, a strange dry ramen box, chicken and waffles (cultural appropriation? they were good in any case), a purportedly Chinese-style chicken salad (more cultural appropriation), cider donuts (terrible), and churros (did not try). Lines for food were reasonable to non-existent. There were huge lines at the store until quite late:

Our bleacher seats had a good view, but the legroom was tight for anyone over 5’6″. The temperature was about 55 degrees. Here is what it looks like (1) walking up the stairs (note portapotties in the background; they really needed people to perform hourly cleanings on what became disgusting environments), (2) the (distant) environment for the rich and famous, and (3) the view of the track from near the top of our bleachers (we were actually sitting quite a bit closer).

When the cars began zooming by at 8:30 pm, it was impressive to see the showers of sparks from cars scraping minor bumps in the road in front of us. At around 8:39, however, the race was halted because, we were told, a manhole cover’s concrete frame had failed. I was deeply confused by this because the course is on a public street. If trucks drive over the manhole daily and don’t break it, how could an 1,800 lb. F1 car, even with a downforce multiplier, break it? I haven’t figured out the full story. The F1 folks say that a concrete frame failed, but not whether it was a new concrete frame installed for the race or the standard frame put in some years ago by the city. I think that the answer to the “why didn’t it fail when a truck drove over it a week ago?” question might be that the F1 car broke the cover/frame with force in the opposite direction. I.e., the cover was sucked up rather than pushed down. This is a force direction for which manhole covers aren’t normally engineered.

The second practice was scheduled for midnight. Quite a few people stayed to drink $12 beers and $39 LED-lit trophy-style glasses of booze:

We walked out to the nearby Horseshoe casino (formerly Bally’s) and relaxed. Even with the track being hot, people were getting in/out via taxi:

My friends went back to their apartment around 11 pm. They were unconvinced that the midnight practice would happen on schedule and were planning to return for Friday and Saturday. I decided to reenter the fan zone. The monitors displayed messages saying that there would be an update soon. There was no longer a line for podium photos, so I got a picture to take credit for winning the race on the damaged track via rugged Honda Odyssey:

At 12:30 am, the monitors promised that the next practice session would start at 2:00 am. I bailed out because I needed to get on an 11:20 am flight from LAS. What happened to the diehard fans who stayed? The organizers kicked them out of their seats at 1:30 am, then ran the practice beginning at 2:30 am with no spectators. It was like a CIA torture scheme in which the enemy is kept awake for hours and then denied what was promised.

I’m glad that I didn’t buy anything at the store because everyone received a follow-up apology email from the F1 folks with a $200 coupon for merchandise as compensation for the missed hours of racing action. Which two hats will I be able to get with this $200 coupon plus $50 for tax and shipping?

The next day I went past the Greenspun College for Urban Affairs and very nearly found the DEI gates:

Inside the terminal, I found Sainz’s car after the manhole cover encounter:

Would I go back? Even with the monitors provided, it was much more confusing to try to follow the race live compared to watching on TV and having things explained. For Jho Low types who don’t mind spending $10,000+ on a three-day ticket, I’m sure that the luxury zone with pit tours is fun and comfortable. It’s a permanent building so probably they have some decent bathrooms at least. I guess it would be worth it if you’re plugged into the international set of other people to whom $10,000 is pocket change and the event would be a chance to see a lot of your friends.

For everyone else, perhaps a last-minute ticket to the Friday evening event would make sense followed by watching the main race on TV in order to (a) save money, and (b) learn what was happening. It is straightforward to go in and out by monorail. If there is a long gap between races, it is easy to go out of the event, find a relaxing place to sit at a restaurant or in a casino bar, and then return.

Readers: Who understands the mechanism via which the manhole cover failed? Also, who enjoyed watching the race on TV?

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Getting into an elite college via fencing

I was recently sentenced to being a spectator at the USA Fencing October North American Cup, held in Orlando’s convention center (America’s 2nd largest, after Chicago’s). In épée, one scores a point by touching one’s opponent anywhere. The tip of the sword responds to pressure. You could score a point by touching the ground or your own foot, for example. Each competitor’s épée is attached to a retractable wire tether. The competitors go back and forth on a conductive mat. If the sword tip is touched to the mat, that does not register a point (but touching just to the side of the mat, unless the ref notices, will score a point). If you think that your friend has just scored a point, having advanced dramatically with sword pointed at the opponent’s body, almost surely he/she/ze/they has just lost a point.

My friend refuses to accept the limitations of age and was mixing it up with college students. He was thus eliminated after a few hours. His main reason for traveling to Orlando, however, was for the kids, both in high school. The event was packed with Chinese- and Indian-American families anxious to get their cherished offspring into elite universities. What are their chances? “A boy needs to be ranked in the top 20 nationally to get into a decent college,” my friend said, “while a girl can get in by being anywhere in the top 40.” Why the difference? “A lot of colleges have women’s fencing programs, but not men’s. This is so that they can keep their Title IX balance when they have a football team, for example, for which only men are good enough.” He cited Tufts, Brown, and Cornell as examples of schools with no men’s fencing (a larger list). Here’s an excerpt of a federal form:

(Note the gender binarism on parade! Athletes count only if they identify as either “men” or “women”.)

Reflecting the sport’s center of gravity being in the Northeast, USA Fencing went all-in on forced masking and forced vaccination. They formerly required proof of Covid-19 vaccination and then proof of booster shots for the fit teenagers who were competing (at a time when the injections were not FDA-approved, but only emergency use authorized) and also for the middle aged parents who wanted to enter the venue as spectators. Everyone within the venue had to wear a basic mask and competitors had to wear masks under their fencing masks. Coronapanic was great for my friend’s kids. While their competitors lost a year due to fencing clubs being shut down, they were being trained in their 3-car garage by their dad, a world-class fencer in his youth. (Coronapanic also helped their relative academic ranking. Their education continued uninterrupted while comparatively poor kids in big Democrat-run cities lost 12-18 months.)

Despite masks now being optional, I was able to find an example of dressing to defend oneself against a virus armed with a sword:

Note that #Science told this fencer to wear a full beard in addition to the (now-voluntary) mask.

Although everyone at the competition whom I met resided in the U.S., those who were immigrants from foreign countries would usually have a country affiliation other than “USA” on their back, e.g., “MAR” for Morocco (Maroc). Players from The Country That Shall Not Be Named were required to sign papers denouncing Vladimir Putin and the Russian military in order to compete. They would then appear without a country affiliation on their backs.

Circling back to the college admissions angle, think about the parental investment required for this gambit: years of driving to a local fencing club several times per week and weekends devoted to competitions multiple states away. All in hopes that one’s son can reach the Top 20 or that one’s daughter can reach the Top 40. Note that a non-Asian athlete will usually have an advantage over an equally-ranked Asian fencer. Coaches have found that a lot of the pushed-hard-through-high-school Asian kids quit fencing early in their college careers, saying “my parents want me to focus on getting into medical school.” The non-Asians have been more likely to stick with the sport.

How about getting your flu and Covid-19 vaccines at the event? Nothing could have been easier. The event had been going for about 16 hours when I stopped to check. Given a crowd of people with a track record of doing absolutely anything that the government tells them to do, the pair below had injected… two people (one every 8 hours).

What else was happening? I stopped on the way up at Bok Tower Gardens, a truly magnificent

We were staying at the Hilton next to the convention center, so I took my friend, pumped full of Advil, to SeaWorld across the street as a cultural experience.

You can celebrate Pride together with Shamu:

SeaWorld reminds visitors that immigrant lionfish are “disruptive” and the term “non-native” is used in a pejorative manner.

(I’m not sure that it can be blamed on the mass immigration of lionfish, but Interstate 4 between Disney World and Orlando was subject to traffic jams at all hours of the day and night (e.g., at 10 pm). Congested as the roads are with 2.7 million people in the metro area, the population is expected to grow by 75 percent between now and 2060.)

I also took my fencing friend to Disney Springs. The M&M store:

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Meet in Orlando at the big fencing tournament?

Who would like to meet in Orlando at the big fencing tournament? I expect to be in Orlando on Thursday and Friday (26 and 27). Watching the competition is free. SeaWorld and Disney may also be involved! (Those are neither free nor immune from the inflation that the government assures us does not exist.) A friend’s kids are competing. If you haven’t had your mRNA COVID-19 booster and your flu shot (prevents all flu symptoms except for hospitalization and death), you can get that mistake corrected at the same time:

What if Ron DeSantis comes down from Tallahassee and says something unkind about the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community? Just text “CRISIS” to Dr. Shannon Jolly, the Sr. Manager – Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging for USA Fencing.

Potentially confusing:

USA Fencing encourages everyone to be mindful of others’ pronouns and gender identities. When in doubt, ask politely, and use the pronouns people share with you.

In the first sentence, people are merely “encouraged”. In the second sentence, however, people are ordered to use specified pronouns. Also, what do they mean by “when in doubt”? Are they suggesting that gender identity can be inferred from surface appearance?

Please email philg@mit.edu if you want to get together!

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How did the crippled-by-Long-Covid Swedes beat the American soccer world champions?

We are informed by the New York Times and CNN that Long COVID is (a) crippling, and (b) almost inevitable for those who reject Faucism. Sweden is renowned for letting SARS-CoV-2 rip through its younger-than-70 population while the elderly hid (excess mortality data by country). The Swedish women’s soccer team doesn’t contain anyone over age 73 and, therefore, must necessarily be riddled with Long COVID. How do we explain “Knocked out. Sweden bounces top-ranked U.S. out of the Women’s World Cup in penalties” (state-sponsored NPR) then?

It can’t be that the world champions are also Covid-plagued. From summer 2020, “Megan Rapinoe one of three internationals to withdraw from NWSL Challenge Cup” (BBC):

Forward Christen Press and midfielder Tobin Heath will not play because of “uncertainty” caused by the virus.

“Megan let us know that she has decided not to play,” said Bill Predmore, chief executive of Rapinoe’s team OL Reign.

“Like all NWSL players, she was given the option to participate … but we understand and respect her decision.”

The tournament, being played in empty stadiums, starts on Saturday in Utah and will last for one month.

Star players also cowered in their bunkers in the fall and winter of 2020… “NWSL star Megan Rapinoe says she won’t play in fall series” (CBC):

Two-time World Cup winner and OL Reign midfielder Megan Rapinoe is opting out of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) fall series starting next month, the Washington-based franchise said in a statement.

No reason was given for her decision but Rapinoe, 35, also skipped the NWSL Challenge Cup tournament in June, which was played in empty stadiums due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Rapinoe sang the praises of lockdown in the Journal of Popular Studies:

Megan Rapinoe on Quarantine Life with New Fiancé Sue Bird: ‘It’s Been Such a Gift’

“Because we’re athletes, we’re constantly on the go and we never get to spend this much time with people that you love,” Megan Rapinoe tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue

So… the soccer players who were out and about in 2020, exposed every day to dangerous levels of SARS-CoV-2, beat the soccer players who wisely cowered in place and thus were protected from Long Covid and the even-more-dangerous Medium Covid. How can this fact be squared with Faucism?

Loosely related… an open-to-all-genders single-city team of 14-year-olds beat the world champions prior to coronapanic (CBS):

Also… “Djokovic Heads Hard-Court Leaderboard” (from the gender-neutral ATP Tour, 6 days ago):

Novak Djokovic has dominated the ATP Tour’s hard courts throughout his career, and the past 52 weeks are no exception for the 36-year-old.

Across a run that includes titles at the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals and the 2023 Australian Open, the Serbian has posted a tour-leading 91.9 per cent win rate (34-3) on the surface during that span. He also won hard-court titles in Tel Aviv and Astana last year as well as at the Adelaide 1 event to start the current season.

How is it possible for someone who was infected with SARS-CoV-2 without a previous vaccination to be the world’s best hard-court tennis player?

Also related, “The social justice of coronashutdowns” (January 2021), in which a friend who lives in a $9.6 million house (pre-Biden money) disagrees with my assertion that “[school] shutdowns are ordered by people who live in mansions (governors) and supported by rich white people who live in 4,000+ square foot suburban houses” and therefore don’t consider “a single parent in a 2BR public housing apartment with three kids” and “what benefit the shutdown is delivering to a 30-year-old single mom and her 10-year-old kids”.

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