Gathered Up

-- Apparently the players of the National Basketball Association would like the next season to begin in January 2021. Team owners, though, are worried about the potential revenue loss if they start after Christmas. That loss wouldn't necessarily happen on the front end but during the playoffs and finals (which amount to the only real part of the NBA season anymore anyway), when they would compete with the rescheduled Summer Olympics. The situation prompts two thoughts: 1) When you're worried your league will lose viewers to the Olympics, whose 2016 ratings fell anywhere from nine to 25% from the ratings of the 2012 games, you may have bigger problems than scheduling. And 2) I hope it happens and the billion dollars is a wild underestimate. Until the league realizes that the people being oppressed by the Chinese government are people before they are a revenue stream I hope it loses money by opening the door and turning on the lights in the office.

-- Tomorrow is the election. There may not seem to be much for which to be thankful but I am glad I live in a state that eased its ballot access laws a few years ago, so when the major parties come to me and say, "Pick your poison," I can say, "I'll just have water." Sure, water that has foreign policy ideas that made more sense in 1920 than 2020 and a running mate who may be an actual anarchist, but still, it's better than poison.

-- Writing at Real Clear Education, Mike Sovo highlights a resource called iCivics, which he says can "help students make sense of the 2020 election." iCivics was founded by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and although she was definitely a sharp and intelligent person, I think "making sense of the 2020 election" asks more of iCivics than it -- or maybe anything less than Holy Writ -- can do.

-- Reading the Variety obituary for Sean Connery, who passed this weekend at 90, is a reminder that he was both a larger-than-life action star and a top actor. Perhaps towards the end of his career he was in some ways just showing up onscreen and being Sean Connery the way that John Wayne spent most of his last dozen or so movies just being John Wayne. Even so, his presence gave weight and entertainment value to some pretty dull movies that would have never been heard of without him in the billing, and his uncredited cameo in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood movie showed that sometimes he didn't even need the billing.