Matt Kaul

I’m not interested in the decision of the Facebook “oversight board” on Trump. A foregone conclusion from an inconsequential body.

I’m more interested in the decision of the general public to reject Facebook and Twitter entirely. Not a foregone conclusion, but one I hope for.

I’m no management guru, but my takeaway from the drama at Basecamp is “Don’t confuse your management and your marketing.”

Perhaps if the policies hadn’t been communicated so publicly, not so much trust and goodwill would have been lost. As an employee, I wouldn’t feel good about my company making my workplace an example in the latest culture war—regardless of which side of that war I was on.

Of course, up till now Basecamp’s marketing has been basically all about revealing their management secrets. The consequences seem only now to be catching up with them.

The European Super League™️ Sponsored by JPMorgan Chase® is an affront to soccer fans around the world. I certainly won’t watch it.

And I’m glad I don’t support a team that is joining it—because I’d have to seriously reconsider my support for that club. ⚽️

Continuing on the theme, here’s Pierre Manent on why conversion can seem so objectionable to us moderns:

The only truly unforgivable human action is what one used to call “conversion." There is no longer any legitimate ground for change because there is no longer any legitimate ground for preference.

Two interesting pieces on conversion:

A review of Neil Price’s history of the Vikings, Children of Ash & Elm, that wonders how a people as fierce as the Vikings came to convert to Christianity.

Ross Douthat on the conditions of our meritocracy’s disbelief, and what conversion requires today (NYT).

Conversion is a fascinating concept, whatever form it takes (religious or otherwise; conversion or de-conversion): what would it take for you to embrace a dramatically different vision of reality? Can you imagine yourself a convert?

Minnesota United’s new striker, Ramón “Wanchope” Ábila is an old friend of our superstar midfielder Emmanuel Reynosa. The two played together at Boca Juniors, the Buenos Aires club I supported when I studied abroad there.

Ábila’s nickname is apparently a reference to the Costa Rican striker Paulo Wanchope, who played for West Ham & Manchester City (& even scored twice in 12 appearances for the Chicago Fire).

The original, Costa Rican Wanchope played for Rosario Central of the Argentine first division for a season, in 2006 (the year after I lived in BsAs). At the time, Ábila was coming up through the youth program at Instituto, a team from Córdoba that typically plays in the Argentine second division. I haven’t yet figured out how Ábila wound up being nicknamed after Wanchope.

Notably, Ábila scored a goal against Boca’s arch-rival, River Plate, in the 2018 final of the Copa Libertadores (the South American Champions League).

This match is infamous for the attack on the Boca bus by River fans after that first match. For safety reasons, the second leg of the tie had to be moved from BsAs to a neutral venue… in Spain. So yeah, that was probably Ábila’s most memorable goal.

A fantastic story in Tablet about how the organization abandoned long-held principles in pursuit of relevance:

The embrace of political partisanship, the dropping of standards, the buckling to donor demands at the expense of long-held principles—[former director Ira] Glasser says all of these developments have rendered the ACLU unrecognizable from the group he once led.

The organization known as the ACLU is now led by people beholden to an ideology purporting that the essential function of the Constitution has been to serve as a blueprint for white supremacy, and that its broad free-speech protections are not a tool of emancipation for society’s underdogs but rather the handmaiden of their oppression.

Freddie deBoer’s Substack has been excellent lately. From a recent post of thoughts for new writers:

For a long time now media has been overtaken by a cult of expression which forbids any style or mode other than contemptuous blank irony.

Busy morning on the river

A fascinating essay in the NYT on the Charthusian monks, brewers of Chartreuse: “An Elixir from the French Alps, Frozen in Time”. It’s filled with amazing quotes & quips like:

The days pass very quickly when you’re immersed in the shadow of eternity.

Or, from the president of the Charthusians' business:

I am very scared always. Only three of the brothers know how to make Chartreuse — nobody else knows the recipe. And each morning they drive together to the distillery. And they drive a very old car. And they drive it very badly.

They’d be capable of writing a business-strategy book that even I’d love to read:

When you have roots this deep, it allows you to forget the short term and project your vision far in the future.

And if I was ever forced to get a tattoo, I’d probably choose their motto:

Stat crux dum volvitur orbis

In English: The cross is fixed while the world is turning.