On the other hand, there’s this exercise by Chuck Klosterman:

1. Lew Alcindor (UCLA, 1966-1969): This, I cannot deny, is a form of cheating that even Sam Gilbert would find egregious. Obviously, Alcindor changed his name in 1971 and had a decent pro career; one could make the argument that perceiving “Lew Alcindor” as a separate entity from “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar” is essentially a question about the definition of personhood. But here’s the rub — I suspect Jabbar himself would argue that he is not the same Catholic stickman who showed up at Westwood in 1965, and it was that pre-Kareem who remains the most jaw-dropping college player to ever walk the planet. The fact that UCLA won the national title during all three seasons Alcindor played is merely the third-most interesting detail of his college career; the fact that the NCAA outlawed dunking due to his dominance is probably second. But to me, the thing that will always be most unfathomable about Alcindor was his very first game, played when he was an ineligible freshman: UCLA was coming off back-to-back national championships. As an exhibition, the Bruin varsity — ranked no. 1 in the nation — opened the season by scrimmaging the freshmen team. Alcindor had 31 points, 21 boards, and eight blocks. The freshmen hammered the varsity by 15 points; the no. 1 team in the country could not beat a player who could not yet play. As an ineligible 18-year-old, Alcindor was (at worst) the fourth or fifth-best basketball player in the world. So I guess talent does matter, sometimes.

I get why there are people who hate Bill Simmons. For one thing, the Venn Diagram of his fandom and Dane Cook’s would probably show an unseemly amount of overlap. For another, he has a schtick. It’s really, really good schtick. But it’s still schtick.

That said, I’ve always kind of liked him and there’s one thing I really admire about him: Unlike nearly every other sportswriter in America, Simmons actually cares about the writing. And, even more important, he has intellectual and writerly aspirations. That’s why he geeks out over Malcolm Gladwell and why he hired Tom Bissell and the Masked Man at Grantland. Look: I’m not trying to make Simmons into William Shawn here and goodness knows, Gladwell isn’t the platonic ideal of intellectual sophistication. But at the same time, it’s impossible to imagine that anyone else in the sports-writing business–say, Peter King or Michael Wilbon–would even know who any of those guys are.

In other words, Simmons may not have the perfect aspirations, but at least he aspires to something higher. And that’s kind of awesome.

It’s what’s made Grantland such an interesting place for the last couple months. It’s not warmed-over sports columnist bluster. It’s not internet dick jokes. It is, first and foremost, a collection of the kinds of essays Simmons would want to read. Which is probably the best way to design any publication.

That is, until today, when Grantland ran this Mark Harris piece arguing that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should fire Brett Ratner. Here’s Harris:

after a screening of Tower Heist, the film’s director Brett Ratner dismissed a question about his process by saying, “Rehearsing is for fags.” . . .

What I do care about is what the Academy does, which should be either to ask for and receive his resignation from the show or to drop him as the producer of a show that is supposed to represent the best the industry has to offer. There’s not really a long, nuanced debate to be had about this. If he had used an equivalent racial or religious slur, the discussion would go something like, “You’re fired.” Apology or not. The same rule applies here. You don’t get a mulligan on homophobia. Not in 2011.

And there we go. Grantland is now a repository for political axe-grinding. Harris’s essay isn’t really about anything. It’s just a little nugget, barely a few hundred words long, about something that really pisses him off. And has absolutely no bearing on anything.

But the real giveaway here is how lazy it is as a written piece. No jokes. No art. No incisiveness. I suspect you could find nearly the same rant sketched out in the comments sections of dozens of blogs this week. How lazy is it? Harris charges Ratner with “homophobia”–which isn’t at all his offense. “Homophobia” has become so imprecise a term as to be basically useless. Ratner isn’t afraid of, and seems not to hate, gays. Maybe using such an offensive vulgarity ought to be a firing offense, but saying “rehearsing is for fags” is no more “homophobic” than saying “rehearsal is for pussies” would be “gynophobic.”

The fact that Harris was allowed to toss off such a lazy piece of writing suggests that Grantland is willing to let its aspirations slide. So long as its for the right cause.

Coming Soon: The Bourne Training Day

The forthcoming Chuck Pfarrer book on Neptune’s Spear (the mission to get Osama bin Laden) sounds like it differs quite a lot from the account in the New Yorker. For instance, Pfarrer claims that the SEAL helicopter crash inside the compound after the mission had concluded while it was attempting to take off. The details are so divergent, actually, that one of these reporters is very wrong. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out in the reconciliation.

But leaving aside the discrepancies, the most intriguing bit leaked from the Pfarrer account is that the SEALs were using “Stealth Hawks”–a modified quiet Black Hawk–but that those helos are not state-of-the art. Pfarrer says that there are Ghost Hawks, which are even better. And have a “whisper mode.” In a quickie search, I can’t find very much (anything, actually) written about Ghost Hawks. (Other than the VTOL version.) If you’re into military porn and know more, please share.

Even if Pfarrer is all wet about everything else, I’d love to believe we have something like a Ghost Hawk.

Leafing through the latest Costco supplement, I came across these two products:

(1) A tub of ARK meals, enough to supply a person with 2,100 calories a day for a month. (15-year shelf life.)

(2) A system with enough food to provide 2 people with 2,000 calories a day for 3 months.

Now maybe Costco has been selling this stuff for years and I just never noticed. But I’m pretty sure that these kinds of items have never appeared in the company’s circular–which is premium space.

Over at the Standard a short piece on last week’s 7-billion-people population hysteria.

Galley Reader M.C. sends along a Film Drunk link with this insanely great Bay Infographic:

Two items:

(1) Hot Air features a video of an interview of a woman from one of the OWS working groups. She seems to be some sort of spokesperson. I don’t know who she is, but someone should hire her, now, because she’s better than about 70 percent of the people who do media relations duties professionally. She has a firm grasp of the subject, aside from her hippie affect, she speaks very clearly and concisely. She’s candid and calm. And it all has the effect of conveying OWS’s most serious complaint against the NYPD and Mike Bloomberg–which is that they have either (a) let the camp become a no-go zone or are (b) actively encouraging problems at the camp. She’s kind of awesome.

(2) Megan McArdle’s essay this morning on the real socio-economic schism of OWS is, for my money, the single most incisive thing written about the protest to date. I won’t quote it, because you should read it in full..