World Series 2026 prediction

September 28, 2026 by Leave a comment

Having started out by being swept at home by the Yankees, my San Francisco Giants wrapped up a thoroughly underwhelming season by being swept at home by the Dodgers, so I’m more than ready to forget all about baseball until next year, but I still feel obligated to offer some sort of forecast for the postseason; in fact I’ll throw caution to the wind and try to pick the whole bracket.

For the National League wildcard round I’ll take the Braves over the Phillies and the Cubs over the Padres; for the division the Dodgers over the Braves and the Cubs over the Brewers; for the championship the Dodgers.

In the American League I’ll go Astros over White Sox and Red Sox over Yankees in the wildcard; Guardians over Astros and Red Sox over Rays for the division; Red Sox for the championship.

And for the World Series? The LA Dodgers.

My bookie is offering generous, though not quite astronomical, odds on this outcome, and I’ve wagered a modest sum, so I may yet have some reason for autumnal celebration…

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September 11th 2026

September 11, 2026 by Leave a comment

We marked this date back in 2021 with a post musing on the interrelation of personal experience and history, and how one’s perspective on that changes as one grows older, while lamenting the modern-day tendency to view historical events through a contemporary lens, without a long-term perspective.

I still mostly hold the opinion that ahistorical analysis is problematic, but, remembering the tragedy of September 11th 2001, and reflecting on what I recall of the emotion of the time, and how that resonates to this day, it is clear that there are some things that touch upon our common humanity in a way that transcends temporal boundaries. One might think that such a bond would prevent us reenacting the disasters of the past, and while the last quarter-century would seem to belie this notion, it does give me some hope for the future.

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Super Bowl LXI prediction

September 10, 2026 by Leave a comment

It’s been evident for a few months that the Giants were not going to win the World Series, but now that they have been definitively eliminated I guess it’s time to turn my attention to the NFL, and put my reputation on the line with a forecast of who will come out on top when the football season concludes in Inglewood next February.

I’m going to stick with the team from San Francisco, despite their less-than-ideal preseason, featuring catastrophic injuries, a literal car wreck, and that tawdry incident in Ohio, and notwithstanding the fact that actual professional sports writers have more or less dismissed their chances of even reaching the playoffs.

They’ve had to travel 12,000 kilometres to Melbourne for their opening fixture tonight, so I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to read into the result, but a victory might go some way towards restoring my confidence in my powers of sporting prognostication…

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Gloria Steinem RIP

September 4, 2026 by Leave a comment

Looking back at the numerous obituary-themed posts we have featured over the years, I see that only three have had a female subject – Elizabeth Windsor, Margaret Thatcher, and Ruth Ginsburg – and none of them were even really about the woman herself, but rather used her demise as a jumping-off point for some other observations.

This is of course shameful, for a blog that links to think of itself as progressive, especially at a time when the struggles championed by Gloria Steinem are more relevant than they have been for years, as reactionary forces seek to roll back the gains won by the women’s movement in the last half-century.

Perhaps a relevant observation on Steinem’s life and work is to note that she was always aware of her own relative privilege, and leveraged that in support of those more marginalised. Certainly an example we could benefit from following…

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