PicoBlog

“I have been a fan of Jessica Adams for many years. Her astrology is always smart, insightful and eerily accurate. If you want to know what life themes may be occurring - not only for your personally, but also worldwide - then I highly recommend subscribing to Jessica's newsletter and website.” ncG1vNJzZmiilajAqq%2FAmpuapaNjwLau0q2YnKNemLyuew%3D%3D

Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a former pop star shares the perfect blind item, a former talk show host renews her vows, and Reese Witherspoon makes a bold fashion choice.  This week, paid subscribers got an in-depth look at Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde’s “friendly” custody battle. You can subscribe to read that here.  It’s been two years since Jessica Simpson dropped one of the greatest celebrity memoirs of all time, Open Book.

I wrote a longer version of this piece in 1999 for Salon.com. The professional surfing world went ape for it, and I got to fly to Hawaii to meet a bunch of my surf heroes. It was one of the best experiences of my writing life. This particular edit came from a shortened version that appeared in SURFER in 2015. Since I wrote it, the great Andy Irons has passed away, but not before eventually gaining my total respect.

We’ve seen a few clips from Season 4 of The Chosen in recent months—usually in the form of rough cuts that are shown at the tail end of livestreams, and are then deleted a day or two later. We’ve seen Jesus reminisce with Thaddaeus and Little James about the early days of his ministry—when it was just the three of them hanging out together, before Mary Magdalene and the fisherman joined their cause—and we’ve seen Jesus chastise his disciples for competing with each other to see who is the greatest of them all.

Hi friends, This week marks ten years since my very first book Jesus Feminist was released into the world. Ten years! To celebrate, this week’s Field Notes newsletter shares a few of your stories and testimonies, my gratitude for a formative friendship, behind-the-scenes memories from that season, throw-back photos of tinies(!), my own evolving journey and even regrets, and much more. I know it’s a bit navel-gaze-y or self-indulgent, but you know what, sometimes we can get so busy in our lives, we don’t just stop to look around now and then and give thanks.

(Gong Li and Chow Yun-fat in Curse of the Golden Flower, a mediocre film about bad rulers of a Chinese kingdom in 930 CE who are decadent & incompotent. Reminds me of Jia Sidao…) In Part 1, the Sage describes Jia Sidao’s background, his father, his mother, and his dissolute life after both his father and uncle died in 1237. In Part 2, the Sage gave a summary of Sidao’s actual history.

From December 20, 2011 until sometime in the 2022 season, the Astros front office was defined by—and its decisions made by—its general managers. This period starts on December 20, 2011 because that is the date when new owner Jim Crane hired Jeff Luhnow as his general manager. For the next eight seasons, the Astros were defined by the choices and methods of Luhnow and his front office: the choice to tank in the early part of the decade in an effort to build up draft capital; the deep embrace of analytics; the early adoption new technology like high speed cameras; and the integration of technology into minor league coaching.

Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no: drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. -William James From 1964 to 1973, more than 2 million American men were drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. The conflict left an estimated 2 million civilians and 1.1 million Vietcong soldiers dead. US casualties surpassed 200,000. History books say it all started on August 4, 1964. Captain John Herrick, patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam, reported that the North Vietnamese had attacked American ships.

The Marine Corps taught me that there are 14 leadership traits and the way you remember them is JJ DID TIE BUCKLE: Judgement, Justice, Decisiveness, Integrity, Dependability, Tact, Initiative, Endurance, Bearing, Understanding, Courage, Knowledge, Leadership, Enthusiasm. I will do a series digging into each of them but for now here is some context. These are the ideal traits that all leaders should embody or strive for (so sayeth the Marine Corps).