I suppose it's good to still be interested in a range of subjects. If the usual range of subjects:

• Adam Gopnik on the legacy of Hugh Hefner, who died this week at the age of 91: “The anxious adolescent coyness that the enterprise never escaped—in part because anxious adolescent coyness was Hefner's true signature emotion, a silk dressing gown and a pipe being exactly an anxious adolescent's idea of sophistication—was essentially anti-sex, replacing the real thing with a synthetic substitute.”
• How horrible has Neil Gorsuch's first half year been on the U.S. Supreme Court? Pretty damn horrible, says Jeffrey Toobin. He's making enemies—including possibly the court itself.
• I never watched “Thomas the Tank Engine” (I was in college when it started) but that's a good thing, if Jia Tolentino's take on its “authoritian, repressive” soul is correct. “The Sad Story of Henry” alone would've given me nightmares. 
• This week, Patricia and I saw the touring production of “Something Rotten!” at the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. What fun! What talent! Here's a taste. 
• I don't know Dallas sports reporter Dale Hansen, but his no-holds-barred take on the idiot National Anthem controversy (or how Donald Trump ruined football for everybody) has justifiably gone viral, and is one of the sharpest I've heard: “”I served in the military during the Vietnam War, and my foot hurt, too—but I served anyway. My best friend in high school was killed in Vietnam, and Carol Meyer will be 18 years old forever and he did not die so you can decide who is a patriot and who loves America more.“
• I'll take Bob Costas on the subject, too, particularly his thoughts on the conflation of sports, the flag, and the miltary. 
• Then there's Jelani Cobb and how ”ungrateful“ has become the new ”uppity." 
• The Daily Show's Trevor Noah expands on the gratitude discussion by asking: Black people should be grateful ... to whom?
• Here's a baserunning play you'll probably never see again—or how the Reds' Billy Hamilton went from being caught in a rundown between first and second to scoring. Love the pop-up, too. 
• The good news of the week? Besides Billy Hamilton? The GOP's attempt to trade our OK health-care coverage for REALLY SHITTY health-care coverage failed again. Thanks in part to this guy. But they'll be back. They're assholes.