Opinions

Victor Wembanyama Is Already Losing the Plot Here’s the thing about generational talents: we’re so busy genuflecting at the altar of their potential that we forget to ask whether they’re actually, you know, winning. Victor Wembanyama is a freak. Seven foot four, moves like a guard, blocks shots like a paranoid goalie, shoots threes like he’s got a personal vendetta against gravity. The Spurs drafted him and everyone collectively agreed: finally, San Antonio’s rebuild is over. Gregg Popovich will mentor him. The basketball gods have smiled upon us. This kid will carry a franchise. ...

The Washington Monument Shooting and Why We Keep Getting This Wrong A guy opens fire near one of America’s most recognizable landmarks, and within hours the story becomes a Rorschach test for whatever you already believe about guns, security, or the state of things. Officers respond. Someone gets shot. The machinery grinds on. And I’m sitting here in Burbank thinking: we’re still not asking the right questions. Here’s what we know—or think we know. A man discharged a weapon near the Washington Monument. Secret Service and other officers returned fire. The situation ended. The standard beats get played: Was he a threat? Were the officers justified? Is security adequate? These are the questions that get asked at the dinner table, on cable news, in your group chat. ...

The Last Voice of a Dead Medium John Sterling died, and I genuinely can’t decide if that’s sad or merciful. Forty years. Forty years calling Yankees games on the radio. Not TV—radio. Which means Sterling spent four decades doing something that barely exists anymore, doing it brilliantly, in a medium that the entire world has collectively agreed to pretend died sometime around 2008. He was 87. He’d already outlived the thing he was famous for. ...

The Six-Figure Trap: Why We’re Selling Graduates a Gorgeous Lie Right. Let’s have a butcher’s at this NPR headline and talk about what’s actually happening here, because it’s brilliant marketing disguised as hope, and I’m absolutely knackered by it. The story goes like this: kids graduate, land six-figure salaries, work themselves into the ground. Brilliant! Except—and this is the bit everyone’s dancing around—that’s not actually a success story. That’s a hostage situation with better catering. ...