Dr. Who

I talk to myself all the time, too.

That sort of institutional malpractice is unfortunately more the norm than a contemptible outlier. Imagine actually loving literature and discerning the many different elements of poetics that create the complex structures and artistry necessary to convey the unique meaning of a work that has genuine merit, and then finding that educators reject all that as guilty of all sorts of unjust privilege. Besides, kids raised on screens have micro-attention spans and can't read at what woulld have been grammar school level in 1960. Film can be worthy of discussion and analysis, obviously, but it is also inherently a form that is taken in passively. You don't have to use your imagination to construct a world from the author's words. Likewise, one does not have access to the interior revelations, (or distortions if the narrator is unreliable,) that writing permits. The skill of interpretation which is part of the value of literary learning is replaced with a director's vision and a musical score. But we've long ago abandoned the liberal arts for transferrable skills and conformity to whatever ideological norms are deemed necessary for social acceptance and success. I know you weren't asking for this level of response. I'm a novelist and have a PhD in Literature, so it provoked my wrath.

I liked the kachina sweaters. Given the relentless injury and sickness news, it sure would be sweet if some of the young fellas stepped up and kept the season from spiralling into the pit. Lot of folks wrote this guy off as an AHL ceiling player. Maybe not.

Happy Terry Pegula weekend.

The margins for error are too narrow. The WR room is a joke, and criminally neglected by Beane. Neither coordinator is good. Brady's ceiling is competent. Babich is bad. McDermott's scheme is tired and decoded. If the owner wasn't the sort of chap he is, there would be consequences.

From the players to the coaching to the GM to the dim owner, count on lack of rational response to any concrete situation. Prudence is a virtue that has learned wisdom to the point that there is a natural "feel" for the proper response to the particulars of a situation. You'd think there'd be some of that with Ruff, but the pervasive fog of imbecility seems nearly invincible.

You know they sure as hell won't.

And don't forget we had the advantage of losing Bryson early.

Because he's a Sabres' fan, God help him?

The roster construction is not good. Beane has missed a lot, and his FA acquistions generally are misses as well. McDermott's scheme is tired and exposed. The WR room is terrible. Josh Allen is now pressing and getting beat up, because there aren't any easy buttons. We win when we don't turn it over at all and the defense gets timely take aways. It's not Sabres' bad, of course, but in the world of sports, what is?

Good for them, if so. But does anyone have any reason to think that even by random change the chucklehead silent owner would luck into smart hockey folks? The dim leading the dim isn't working, and Captain Yacht doesn't want anyone who will tell him he's a dunce.

All the same, no one is as predictable as a dead man. And investors like predictable. The Sabres are a sure thing that way. Even the fans of the Sabres are more and more like ghosts who are forced to think about events decades in the past if they want to recall a time when the team had a semblance of hope.