Unbelievable, But Believe It!

I read this over breakfast, and by 10 AM workout time, had seen it broadcast on 3 different shows.

America Brought to You by Bad Bunny by Charlotte Clymer

(image credit: Apple Music)

What is the biggest American cultural event?

There’s only one rational answer to this question. It’s the Super Bowl. Nothing else comes close. Not in size or grandeur or symbolism or global resonance.

This past February, for the first time, as many Americans watched Super Bowl LIX as those who watched the Apollo moon landing in 1969, long considered the biggest live audience draw in U.S. broadcast television history.

Neil Armstrong walking on the lunar surface was once indisputably the most-watched live event by Americans. This year, it officially had competition for that title. By 2030, it may not even crack the top five.

What will the top five otherwise be by then? All Super Bowl broadcasts. Right now, if you exclude the moon landing, the top ten live American television broadcasts are all Super Bowls, and the top three are all from the past three years.

Maybe you’re not into sportsball. Maybe you can’t stand the NFL. Maybe you have fond memories of watching the live series finales of M*A*S*H or Cheers or Seinfeld or Johnny Carson’s final Tonight Show appearance, and you’ll recall that it felt as though the entire country were watching those, too, at the same time you and your family were glued to the tube.

But those days are long gone. Network television has been cannibalized by satellite and streaming over the years. If a scripted network series draws ten million viewers for any given episode, it’s more than enough to take the crown over its competitors.

The Oscars draws 20 million. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade does better at 30 million. Trump’s inauguration in January had 25 million viewers, nearly ten million fewer than Pres. Biden’s in 2021.

There is no American cultural event that comes within shouting distance—much less spitting distance—of the Super Bowl. When you walk around today, wherever you are—at work or a café or a park or your kid’s school—keep in mind that, on average, at least a third of the adults around you were all watching the Super Bowl at the same time this year.

Consider the global audience: the Super Bowl is the most-watched live annual television event around the world. The Men’s World Cup Final draws as many as 1.5 billion live viewers, but that’s every four years. The Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony is capable of drawing half that, but it’s also every four years. The Super Bowl draws 200M live viewers globally every year.

No annual live television event in the world is bigger than the Super Bowl, and no other country can lay claim to having a live broadcast of this size that is so inextricably bound with a celebration of its culture.

The Super Bowl is a distillation of all things America: sports and celebrity and military pageantry and unabashed patriotism and unapologetic commercialism all being slammed together, and in terms of annual events, more human beings on this planet watch it live, together, than anything else.

And it’s because of all those elements that most American conservatives perceive it as a showcase of American exceptionalism. It’s not that it’s inherently conservative or that non-conservatives don’t watch it; it’s that the sheer scope of the Super Bowl combined with all the patriotic bits make it a crown jewel in their argument for American cultural hegemony.

That’s why when Apple Music and the NFL announced last night that Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny—Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio—is headlining Super Bowl LX this upcoming February, my jaw dropped.

For those unfamiliar, Bad Bunny is one of the biggest entertainers in the world. Were you to remove Taylor Swift and Beyoncé from the metrics conversation, he’s easily the biggest. He led global streaming charts from 2020-2022, and he’s still among the top three even now. His Un Verano Sin Ti world tour in 2022 dominated that year, and only Taylor Swift has surpassed his touring numbers since.

Based on both merit and marketing, Bad Bunny is an obvious choice to headline the Super Bowl.

But he’s also an outspoken LGBTQ ally, particularly on trans rights. He has been consistently critical of Trump, especially in regards to immigration. Earlier this month, he announced he would not include any U.S. dates for his 2025-2026 Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour out of fear for his fans given the fascistic crackdown by ICE. He notably endorsed Vice President Harris last year after Puerto Rico was mocked at Trump’s infamous Madison Square Garden campaign rally.

Oh, and he performs solely in Spanish. That’s right: he does not rap or sing in any language other than Spanish. He does speak English, but he’s not a “crossover” Latin artist as an intentional choice. He has made it clear that he wants Spanish-language music to be normalized in the global marketplace, and so, he only produces work in Spanish.

He is an avatar of Latin excellence in a moment when the U.S. government is violently hostile toward Latin people.

The biggest American cultural event—with massive global influence—is about to be headlined by an unapologetically proud Latin trans ally who can’t stand Trump and performs solely in Spanish.

Based on all this, the NFL selecting him to headline the Super Bowl is pretty damn surprising and may indicate no small measure of intended protest by those involved in the process.

What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall during the discussions that took place between the NFL and Apple and Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation—which advises the league on entertainment—in choosing Bad Bunny for the greatest entertainment gig in the world.

I suppose I’ll have to settle for Bad Bunny’s instantly iconic hint posted on social media just prior to the announcement last night:

“I’ve been thinking about it these days, and after discussing it with my team, I think I’ll do just one date in the United States.”

Goddamn. I love this guy.

Now the questions become: what does Trump do? Is there an online meltdown incoming? Will he attempt to pressure the NFL to cancel Bad Bunny? If he does, how will the NFL respond?

Trump may not want this fight. This may be one of those rare moments he wisely chooses to avoid controversy. His poll numbers are terrible, the Midterms are next year, and his party will need every vote they can get. Alienating young and Latin voters would be a massive, unforced error.

I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, we’re about to be treated to a hell of a show. (snip)

TV Alert:

Josh Johnson is on tonight’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, at whatever time and channel you receive Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC affiliates.)

That is all.

Chief John Ross Writes U.S. Congress, Wobblies Indicted, Danish Jews Moving To Safety, Constance Baker Motley Passes; In Peace & Justice History for 9/28

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september28

What Think You?

Keynote Address: Unscripted — Introducing Intergender Dynamics and Reframing Gender-Type Prejudice by Richard Hogan, MD, PhD(2), DBA

Read on Substack

🇨🇦 Richard Hogan PhD (Mathematics) · MD (Neuroscience) · PhD (Ethics) · DBA (HRD) Architect of IGD & IBT | Rewriting the language of gender justice Essays, theory, and verse from the post-binary frontier

Keynote Address: Unscripted—Introducing Intergender Dynamics and and Reframing Gender-Type Prejudice

Good morning.

It is an honor to stand before you today—not to echo what has already been said, but to challenge what we’ve long accepted. To offer not just a critique, but a new vocabulary. A new lens. A new way forward. I hope you are ‘not toned deaf’.

For decades, we have used the term misogyny to name and confront systemic prejudice against women. It has served us well in many ways. But today, I ask you—academics, legal scholars, educators, and clinicians—to consider this: What if the language we use to fight injustice is now limiting our ability to understand it?

We are living in a post-binary world. Gender is no longer a fixed category—it is a spectrum, a performance, a negotiation. And yet, our frameworks remain tethered to binary logic. Misogyny is one such tether. It is gender-specific. Directionally fixed. It presumes a hierarchy that no longer reflects the lived realities of our students, our patients, our communities.

So today, I introduce a new term: Intergender Dynamics , or IGD .

IGD refers to the patterned, reciprocal, and often asymmetrical interactions between individuals and groups across the gender spectrum. It is not just about identity—it is about relationship . It is about how we perform, police, and punish gender roles in our daily lives. It is about the emotional labor we assign, the authority we grant, the empathy we withhold.

And this is not just a sociological insight—it is a medical one.

Recent research in gender-affirming care has shown that transgender and gender-diverse individuals face significant barriers in accessing health services, often due to systemic bias and relational discomfort within clinical settings. Studies have also revealed that patients with dynamic or evolving gender identities experience distress not only from institutional exclusion, but from interpersonal dynamics—how they are spoken to, validated, or dismissed by providers.

In pediatric and adolescent medicine, clinicians are now trained to recognize how gender-role expectations affect mental health, emotional development, and access to care. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health and The Endocrine Society have emphasized the importance of relational sensitivity—not just diagnostic accuracy—in improving outcomes.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that IGD is not just a theoretical tool—it is a clinical imperative . If we want to reduce disparities, improve mental health, and foster trust in care, we must understand how gender prejudice operates not only in policy, but in conversation. In tone. In silence.

To complement IGD, I also propose Intergender Bias Theory (IBT) —a framework for analyzing the structural architecture of gender-type prejudice. IBT examines how laws, curricula, and institutional norms enforce rigid roles and marginalize deviation. Together, IGD and IBT offer a dual lens: one that captures both the macro-level scaffolding of bias and the micro-level choreography of interaction.

Let me be clear: retiring the term misogyny is not an act of denial. It is an act of evolution. It is a recognition that our language must grow with our understanding. That our frameworks must reflect the complexity of the world we now inhabit.

So I call on you:

Academics , to revise your syllabi, your research, your theories.
Legal scholars , to expand your statutes, your protections, your definitions.
Educators , to teach emotional literacy, role deconstruction, and relational justice.
Clinicians , to recognize IGD in patient care and to train for relational sensitivity.

Let us move from naming contempt to understanding connection. Let us shift from binary blame to systemic insight. Let us unscript ourselves—and write a new language of liberation.

This is not the end of a conversation. It is the beginning of a movement.

Thank you.

(snip-To read in Latin, French, Spanish, or Arab, click through to the Substack)

In Our Interests

Introducing Medscape.com: Across Disciplines for the Public by Richard Hogan, MD, PhD(2), DBA

Read on Substack

Vigilance Across Disciplines for the Public

I am sharing the Medscape resource that follows only because of misinformation arising from via Robert Kennedy and President Donald J. Trump (week of 9/22/2025)

Medscape.com is not merely a medical resource—it is a threshold of discernment for you, a corridor of clinical clarity.

For physicians, yes—but also for advocates, poets, policymakers, and stewards of care.

It offers daily rites of insight: peer-reviewed updates, diagnostic tools, and the pulse of global medicine.

I introduce it not as a site, but as a ceremonial scroll—for those who dignify care across disciplines, and who recognize that health is not confined to hospitals, but lives to support you, policy, poetry, and the architecture of belonging. (snip-graphic and comments on the page)

Bee, Joan Baez, & Nicholle Wallace

Hope Is A Muscle

“There may be a subset of people pissed off that Kimmel is back on Sinclair’s airwaves, but you can bet even more would be pissed if they couldn’t watch LSU play Ole Miss on Saturday. That would hurt Sinclair’s real primary principle: always maximize profits.”

Sinclair Backs Down, Will Resume Airing ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on Local Stations

The outrage machine has moved on.

By AJ Dellinger Published September 26, 2025

In a classic Friday news dump move, Sinclair announced that it will end its unofficial boycott of Jimmy Kimmel and will once again broadcast the comedian’s late-night show, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live,’ to its ABC affiliate broadcast stations, ending its completely principled and not at all politically motivated stance to pre-empt the show after all of two days.

“Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” the company said in a statement. “We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming.”

Sinclair—which operates 30 ABC affiliate stations in 27 markets, including cities like Portland, Baltimore, and Minneapolis—announced last week that it would choose to air “news programming” in place of Kimmel’s show, which returned to the air Tuesday after a brief hiatus. The program, which was briefly suspended by ABC after Kimmel made a frankly pretty innocuous comment about the political ideology of the person who allegedly shot and killed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah earlier this month.

Sinclair, along with fellow media conglomerate Nexstar, announced they would pull Kimmel’s show from the air following a statement from Federal Communications Commission head Brendan Carr, who warned broadcasters, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and said, “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Both companies currently have business in front of the FCC and are pretty motivated to show fealty to the Trump administration to ensure their deals get pushed through—not that they need that much motivation, considering both companies are owned by conservative-aligned media magnates. Sinclair CEO David Smith has been shifting its editorial coverage to the right for years, and Smith reportedly told Trump in 2016, “We are here to deliver your message.” Likewise, Nexstar chairman Perry Sook has repeatedly praised Trump and poured money into the coffers of GOP groups.

Sinclair attempted to get in front of the obvious criticisms that it would face as a result of both its initial decision not to broadcast ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ and its latest call to bring him back to the airwaves in Sinclair markets.

“Our decision to preempt this program was independent of any government interaction or influence,” the company said. “Free speech provides broadcasters with the right to exercise judgment as to the content on their local stations. While we understand that not everyone will agree with our decisions about programming, it is simply inconsistent to champion free speech while demanding that broadcasters air specific content.” It apparently took the company a solid week to remember that commitment to free speech, but it got there.

The reality is that Sinclair was going to back down eventually, if only for legal reasons. As a broadcast executive explained to Deadline, local affiliates contractually can only preempt a program so many times before it breaks the contract and loses the ability to broadcast the show entirely. Sinclair’s “principled stance” was destined to last for exactly as long as it didn’t actually cost them anything and likely not a second longer.

Once word started spreading that Disney might threaten to withhold live sports broadcasts from affiliates who pulled Kimmel, it was only a matter of time before Sinclair suddenly found its unwavering belief in “free speech” again. There may be a subset of people pissed off that Kimmel is back on Sinclair’s airwaves, but you can bet even more would be pissed if they couldn’t watch LSU play Ole Miss on Saturday. That would hurt Sinclair’s real primary principle: always maximize profits.

“Welcome in Winter “

Rough-legged Hawk

Some News In Kansas

This story came first, then the second article. It’s interesting, because it’s not a protest, or anything, it’s simple local ordinance. (Ordinances = the law here.)

Federal government accuses Kansas town of ‘aggressive and unlawful’ interference with CoreCivic

By:Morgan Chilson-September 23, 20255:39 pm

TOPEKA — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday joined a private prison company in its legal fight with Leavenworth city officials, accusing the city of “aggressive and unlawful” interference with immigration enforcement.

The DOJ filed a statement of interest in the case in U.S. District Court, signed by the assistant U.S. attorney general’s office.

“The United States has a strong interest in countering state and local efforts to harass federal contractors, in the proper application of the Constitution and its Supremacy Clause, and in the foundational principles that protect the Federal Government from unconstitutional state and local interference,” the filing said.

A statement of interest authorizes the U.S. attorney general to become a non-party in a suit pending in any court in the country, the filing said.

CoreCivic and the city of Leavenworth have been fighting in court for months over the city’s requirement that CoreCivic go through its development process to receive a special use permit before reopening its prison facility at 100 Highway Terrace.

Nashville-based CoreCivic announced in March that it would reopen the prison facility, which closed in 2021, to house Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.

CoreCivic and the city have a hearing scheduled Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Topeka as part of an appeal of a Kansas court’s decision barring CoreCivic from housing ICE detainees while the case about the development permit is being heard.

CoreCivic has alleged in multiple filings that Leavenworth officials are violating the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution and interfering with the operations of the federal government. That clause sets federal laws as supreme over state laws.

The U.S. government’s statement Tuesday pushed that argument forward, saying that it is “especially true” in relationship to immigration.

“Defendants have violated the Supremacy Clause by attempting to stymie the Federal Government’s immigration-related operations at 100 Highway Terrace,” the federal filing said, citing multiple cases to support its arguments that federal contractors are free from state control.

“This well-settled principle has been consistently applied to invalidate state and local laws that impose requirements on federal contractors,” the filing said.

The city’s efforts to prevent CoreCivic from housing immigration detainees at its prison, recently renamed the Midwest Regional Reception Center, is an attempt to regulate the federal government’s efforts to house detainees at that facility and violates the supremacy clause, the filing said.

=====

Kansas town to continue legal push against CoreCivic, despite federal involvement

By:Morgan Chilson-September 24, 20254:45 pm

TOPEKA — Leavenworth officials aren’t backing down from holding private prison company CoreCivic accountable to development regulations even after the U.S. Department of Justice jumped into the case Tuesday.

The DOJ filed a statement of interest in the U.S. District Court case between Nashville-based CoreCivic and Leavenworth, arguing the city was violating the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution.

“The federal government’s filing does not change our view of the case or the approach we plan to take,” said W. Joseph Hatley, a Kansas City, Missouri, attorney representing the city of Leavenworth. “The arguments in that filing mirror arguments CoreCivic has previously made, without success.”

The clause says federal laws are supreme over state laws, and in its filing, the DOJ said Leavenworth is interfering in the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts.

Leavenworth Mayor Holly Pittman has said the city’s fight over reopening CoreCivic’s prison isn’t driven by politics, despite repeated outcry from Leavenworth residents against housing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.

She said the city is concerned about holding businesses accountable to their development regulations, which would require CoreCivic to apply for a special use permit.

Earlier this year, CoreCivic announced it planned to reopen its prison facility in Leavenworth to fulfill an ICE contract that would pay the company $4.2 million per month. But Leavenworth officials contend the company must follow the city’s revised development process and apply for a special use permit.

In court filings, the city’s attorneys highlighted issues with CoreCivic’s operation of its previous prison, which closed in 2021, including failing to cooperate with Leavenworth police and failure to report the death of an inmate for six days. Leavenworth officials have said a special use permit would allow them to address such problems.

U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse on Wednesday set a hearing on a CoreCivic motion for a preliminary injunction for 3 p.m. Nov. 25, Hatley said.

CoreCivic is appealing a Kansas district court decision to stop the company from housing ICE detainees as the legal disagreement with Leavenworth goes through the courts.

I Feel Kinship.

I’m Not Crazy by Jeannine Lawall

A story inspired by “Crazy Train,” by Ozzy Osbourne Read on Substack

person diving on body of water — Photo by Julian Paul on Unsplash

I’m Not Crazy

People say I’m crazy. I don’t really know if I am; I just know that my brain doesn’t work like most people’s… so if that means I’m crazy, then I guess maybe I might be.

I was happily married, once upon a time, but it soured fast, and he didn’t stick around very long. Not that I can really blame him. I know that I’m hard to live with, but it hurt, because I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong.

Like the last time I wound him up: It was the day he left. I guess he couldn’t take it any longer. He marched out, screaming, “You’re driving me insane,” just before he slammed the front door… the very last words I would ever hear from his lips.

You know, he really should have known better than to have made me watch the election results that night. He knew how I hated politics, all that jibber jabber that makes no sense. People should be learning how to love, but instead the world is filling with hate. Crazy, crazy talk! I know now that it was wrong to throw the television out the window, but I’m sorry, I just snapped.

I mean, the television was evil. It blathered on and on, and millions of people just sat there, staring, drinking up whatever the media spooned out. So, yeah, it had to go. And Harry followed right after the telly — though he didn’t go flying out the window, he just slammed the door and walked away.

No, I’m not crazy! Our generation has inherited a nuclear arsenal that could easily destroy the world many times over. So yeah, I’m worried about it, but I figure that that’s a perfectly appropriate defense response. If you were to tell me that you’re not worried, I would figure that you’re mad, drunk, or lying… or maybe that you’d become just plain numb to everything.

Life isn’t fair. I can’t unknow what I’ve learned, and what I’ve learned has destroyed my faith in everything. It’s all lies. I know that I’m going off the rails, but there’s nowhere else to go. No. No, there’s no hope for me. My mind was too fragile and was cracked by watching evil people rule the world. But you… maybe your mind is made of sterner stuff. Please, listen to me. Please, help. We need to teach the world to love… before it’s too late.

Well I guess that’s it. Thanks for listening. I gotta go. The orderly is telling me that it’s time to go back to my room because it’s television time… and I’m not allowed near televisions anymore. And please remember: When you tell the others about this, make sure you tell them… I’m not the one who’s crazy. (snip-a bit more on the page. This writer is talented!)