Den här går ut till Tim

Tim Russert 1950-2008

Tim Russert var en av väldigt få personer som jag verkligen gillade på kabelnyheternas politiska talkshows. Som en felande länk mellan Helen Thomas och John Candy.

Remnick:

”Countless cubic feet of hot, polluted air are regularly unleashed into the national atmosphere by politicians and commentators on the networks and the cable stations, making life almost too easy for our most acute press critic, Jon Stewart.
There would be no “Daily Show” without Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and the (not quite so big anymore) Big Three. And yet Tim Russert, who died Friday at the age of fifty-eight, was a gifted and cunning Sunday-morning interrogator who, while never quite disturbing his genuine persona or television’s conventions, used his outsized position on “Meet the Press” to rattle many more politicians than any of his on-air rivals did.”

Här är en Russert-klassiker: John McCain säger emot sitt eget citat.

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Härligt att se att Obama börjat läsa mina krönnor.

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I dessa tider av Zlatan och Celtics/Lakers känns det här relevant: en Jonah Lehrer- text om hur våra hjärnor faktiskt tror att vi är de idrottsmän vi håller på:

”I’d like to propose a cellular mechanism for fandom: mirror neurons. I know this circuit of cells in the pre-motor cortex has become tragically hip in recent years, having been associated with everything from autism to empathy. But I still find mirror neurons to be an elegant explanation for why my brain is so riveted when I watch someone else run around on a court.

/…/ these peculiar cells mirror, on our inside, the outside world; they enable us to internalize the actions of another. They collapse the distinction between seeing and doing.

This suggests that when I watch Kobe glide to the basket for a dunk, a few deluded cells in my premotor cortex are convinced that I, myself, am touching the rim. And when he hits a three pointer, my mirror neurons light up as I’ve just made the crucial shot. They are what bind me to the game, breaking down that 4th wall separating fan from player. I’m not upset because my team lost: I’m upset because it literally feels like I lost, as if I had been on the court.”

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Michelle Obamas ökända ”whitey”-video har äntligen läckt (sorry, kunde inte låta bli).