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Top Comments: the May 2020 Top Comments update edition

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An update on some old stories of mine, after the jump ...

But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, or by our KosMail message board. Please indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.

Earlier this year, I noted the story of the NYC restaurateur Jimmy Neary— who entering his 90th year was still going into his Manhattan establishment Neary’s Pub every day, greeting patrons individually, even helping to serve food and bus tables at peak times, with a dedicated clientele who don’t mind that the menu (other than nightly specials) never changes … in fact, they love going to a place that is consistent-to-a-fault (with some even visiting daily). That story is here.

Now …... an update.

As you can imagine, this is not a happy time for him during the lock-down (besides having to be closed on St. Patrick’s Day). He originally went along with a take-out/delivery mode as many of his surf-and-turf dishes would (I imagine) lend themselves to this better than some other places. Yet at the end of March, he abandoned the practice, citing health reasons (I imagine his kitchen is fairly cramped). Even when he re-opens, I suspect he won’t be able to shake the hand of everyone who dines there, to his chagrin … though I suspect he’ll shoulder on.

Jimmy Neary - hoping he’ll still be smiling

Last September, I wrote about the college admissions scandal Varsity Blues— and noted that 95% of the coverage was about the two female TV stars, leading many to assume this was yet another “Hollywood” scandal. Numerous businessmen who were more financially involved were glossed-over, and some reports did not even mention the mastermind behind the entire operation, William “Rick” Singer— the founder and CEO of the California company The Key: a “Private Life Coaching and College Counseling Company”  — which played into the hands of the right-wing tabloid media. You can read the original diary at this link.

Now …... an update.

Today, the second of the two female TV stars (along with her husband) decided to plead guilty and serve jail time (which may not actually occur, due to Covid-19) with the other star having settled her case at the outset. I scanned some online news reports …. and sure enough, some did not mention the mastermind of the scheme, others did so only to cite Singer’s own notes that seemingly showed that “agents had urged him to lie in order to implicate parents”. Interestingly, the one that did talk about Singer at-length was … the Murdoch Fox network, of all places.

College fraud: mastermind

In December of 2018, I noted the ever-evolving case of Annie Dookhan— the Massachusetts crime lab chemist who falsified drug lab tests over a long period of time (while raising few red flags by working all sorts of hours and not putting in for all of the overtime hours she could have, nor driving expensive cars). She was sent to prison and at the time of my writing: over 21,000 convictions had to be vacated due to her involvement. My original essay can be found at this link.

Now …... an update.

My original essay ended with the tale of another crime lab chemist who ran afoul (this time on the western end of Massachusetts, and on a smaller scale) named Sonja Farak— and a recent four-part Netflix series entitled How to Fix a Drug Scandal focused on the two of them (well worth watching).

And just last week Rachel Rollins, the district attorney for Suffolk County (Boston) asked the Massachusetts Supreme Court to vacate the guilty pleas of an additional sixty-four cases… even though neither Dookhan nor Farak had tested any of their samples. This is because they pleaded suspecting-the-worst, and their samples were (much later) found not to be illegal drugs … and though they were released after the test results, their guilty pleas were never expunged (in part due to the lack of the two chemists’ involvement in their cases).

Tried .. to be a Superwoman

Finally, a story that I covered in 2010 (albeit not in a Top Comments diary) was a tale about the precarious position that the National Basketball Association found itself in before the 1954-55 season. Teams were frequently holding the ball in the second half to preserve a lead, resulting in no action (or endless free throws) and as this league only came into existence after WW-II: it did not have a long shared history to sustain it, and attendance was floundering (with some teams folding).

And then the owner of the Syracuse Nationals (Danny Biasone) came up with a way to calculate how often teams would be required to shoot (which amounted to an algebra formula, in my mind) rather than just pick a number at random. And so he was credited with the development of the 24-second clock that saved professional basketball, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame posthumously in the year 2000. You can see the original diary at this link.

Now …... an update.

In recent years, stories have emerged that while team owner Danny Biasone had pushed for some sort of time clock (and presented it to the league owners) it was his general manager Leo Ferris who worked with him on the concept, and actually did the mathematics on the idea. Yet Ferris resigned in December, 1954 (after squabbles with Biasone and the team board) and was not around to see the Syracuse Nationals win the NBA title (in some sort of poetic justice) in the spring of 1955, their only title. And thus he was not around when discussions centered on the idea’s genesis, years later. (The Syracuse Nationals were sold in 1963 to a group of Pennsylvania businessmen after the Philadelphia Warriors moved to San Francisco — and they re-christened the Nationals as the Philadelphia 76ers).

His family is now working to have Leo Ferris recognized alongside Danny Biasone.

  Leo Ferris (1917 — 1993)

Let’s close with a song written by Lyle Lovett, God Will…. performed here by the Canadian jazz pianist/singer Holly Cole.

Now, on to Top Comments:

From Holgar:

In the diary by Alonso del Arte (about the panic attack of you-know-who regarding the mailing of applications for absentee ballots in Michigan) — this comment from oscarsmom may explain much. Even if it doesn't, it definitely deserves recognition.

From belinda ridgewood:

Hunter had a diary today about Trump going to Michigan to NOT wear a mask while touring a ventilator factory. Obviously deeply moved, angry marmot offered a reading from the Book of Vulgarians.

Highlighted by geekydee:

In the front-page story about the two FedEx contract workers fired due to an angry white customer threatening them — so much this comment by nelsons.

And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........

In the diary by bktzoo about the denials being made by the new GOP nominee for the US Senate seat from Oregon that she tried to scrub her support of QAnon—  wesmorgan1 detected a more honest explanation of her motive, made in a different place.

TOP PHOTOS

May 20th, 2020

Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo.

(NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.)

And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:

22) and I cry. by zenvegan +70


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