When my then-girlfriend agreed to be my wife, I told her it was time to have the discussion about her converting. She said, "Don't worry, I've already talked to the rabbi and started the process of becoming Jewish. I know our kids will be growing up in a house without a Christmas tree and I'm okay with that." But that wasn't the conversion I was talking about. I explained to her that our kids would be growing up in a house without Windows-based PCs. I've been using Macs since there were just a few of us. We'd see each other at small, dank Mac stores and wonder why the rest of the world didn't see what we could see. Then Steve Jobs came back to Apple. And slowly, as the new iProducts came, Steve and I converted more and more of my friends and family. One by one they all came over. Those old faces from the corner Mac stores were now joined by millions in lines outside of grand Apple stores. The iPhone came out just about the time my first child was born. So he's never really had my full attention. Around the same time, I decided to bet on Apple stock. Apple has monopolized my time and my portfolio ever since. So it doesn't come as that much of a shock that, according to the Justice Department, Apple has monopolized more than that; news I received in an alert on my iPhone and am now sharing via my MacBook Air. The Verge: US sues Apple for illegal monopoly over smartphones. According to the antitrust division of the DOJ, "For years, Apple responded to competitive threats by imposing a series of ‘Whac-A-Mole' contractual rules and restrictions that have allowed Apple to extract higher prices from consumers, impose higher fees on developers and creators, and to throttle competitive alternatives from rival technologies." The focus is on messaging (the green bubbles), digital wallets, switching costs, and streaming apps. CNN: Green bubbles, Apple Pay and other reasons why America says Apple is breaking the law. Maybe this would the right time for Apple to finally acquire America. The user experience would be improved, as Apple's competitors can attest, the borders would be airtight, the economy would be unbelievable, the citizen/user happiness levels would soar, and there's no way the design team would let Donald Trump onto the platform.

Shohei Ohtani is possibly the greatest baseball player we've even seen and is among the most famous athletes across the globe. So a story about him paying off his interpreter's So-Cal bookie to the tune of $4.5 million was going to be big news. But it also came just as baseball season is starting. And even in the first few hours, the story changed. Somehow it went from being a bailout to a theft by Ippei Mizuhara, "the longtime friend and interpreter for Ohtani." ESPN: Dodgers fire Shohei Ohtani's interpreter amid allegations. "Initially, a spokesman for Ohtani told ESPN the slugger had transferred the funds to cover Mizuhara's gambling debt. The spokesman presented Mizuhara to ESPN for a 90-minute interview Tuesday night, during which Mizuhara laid out his account in great detail. However, as ESPN prepared to publish the story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara's account and said Ohtani's lawyers would issue a statement. 'In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft.'" (Someone might mention the insane hypocrisy of having betting scandals in sports when professional sports leagues are the biggest pushers of sports betting.)

+ Defector: Shohei Ohtani's Interpreter Gives Two Different Stories. Will we ever get to the bottom of this story? There's a lot of money and a lot of PR at stake for the MLB. Hell, I love it when bad things happen to the Dodgers and even I like Ohtani.

+ WaPo (Gift Article): Who is interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and what was his relationship with Shohei Ohtani?

"When a parent loses a child, the nights are the worst. Thoughts come crashing into the mind: every missed medical clue, every pleasure needlessly denied, every word of impatience, every failure of insight and understanding. Like seasickness, the grief ebbs and surges, intervals of comparative calm punctuated by spasms of racking pain. I don't want to wake my wife, who has a grief schedule of her own, so I slip out of our bed and into the one Miranda used when she stayed with us in Washington. When I do that, Ringo will climb up to sleep at my feet, just as he slept on Miranda's that one last time." Beautiful and painful piece—about loss, memories, and a dog—by David Frum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Miranda's Last Gift.

"After a harrowing death march from Auschwitz, followed by a freezing train transfer to Buchenwald, Max was finally freed in the spring of 1945. General Eisenhower himself toured the camp, unaware that a teenage prisoner there would one day become his tailor." An incredible life. NYT (Gift Article): Martin Greenfield, Tailor to Sinatra, Obama, Trump and Shaq, Dies at 95. "In a testament to his longevity, Mr. Greenfield dressed the early 20th-century comedian Eddie Cantor as well as the actor playing him decades later on "Boardwalk Empire."

Blinken Lights: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday the U.S. has submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council that calls 'for an immediate ceasefire' in Gaza that's 'tied to the release' of hostages held by Hamas." A high profile move like this by Blinken is a hint that the parties could be getting close to a deal.

+ Rape as a Weapon: "Survivors have reported that foreign objects were inserted in their bodies, that their children were murdered in front of them, that they were forced into sexual slavery, starved and intentionally infected with H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted pathogens. One victim recalled being told that she was being raped because "a Tigrayan womb should never give birth." Some survivors are now taking care of children fathered by their rapists. Others are likely becoming new survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, with little hope of recourse from the government. Unfortunately, the women of Tigray are not alone. Conflict-related sexual violence remains a persistent issue across the Horn of Africa." NYT (Gift Article): Looking Away From an Epidemic of Rape. The world has looked away, and at times look askance, at the issue as it relates to October 7. Hamas hostages in Gaza are still enduring sexual violence. Believe the survivors.

+ Reddit's Green: "Reddit shares jumped as much as 70% in their debut on Thursday in the first initial public offering for a major social media company since Pinterest
hit the market in 2019." The company is 19 years-old. That's a long wait for an IPO for a tech co. That's not the only unusual part of this story. It's rare when a tech company's good fortune benefits an old media co. NYT (Gift Article): Condé Nast's Owners Set to Reap a $1.4 Billion Windfall From Reddit.

+ Sieze Matters: "The New York attorney general's office has filed judgments in Westchester County, the first indication that the state is preparing to try to seize Donald Trump's golf course and private estate north of Manhattan, known as Seven Springs." New York Attorney General takes initial step to prepare to seize Trump assets. (When you're an Attorney General they just let you do it. You just seize the assets.)

+ Cleaning Up in Aisle 1: "Some firms seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further hike prices to increase their profits, and profits remain elevated even as supply chain pressures have eased." NYT (Gift Article): Large Grocers Took Advantage of Pandemic Supply Chain Disruptions, F.T.C. Finds. (This seems worse than not letting a messaging app interact seamlessly with Android.)

+ Stutter Gutter Wingnutter: "But then she did something surprising: She reached out and grabbed my arm in a maternal fashion. 'And I feel what you're—I feel what you're saying,' she said, acknowledging my own stutter. 'People that are unkind to people with disabilities, it's shameful. It's awful. Absolutely disgusting. And I guess I understand that, like, in an election, you know, it gets ugly, and elections get competitive, and people say things, people do things.' I unlocked my phone and showed her a video of Trump's stuttering impression. She turned her focus to the mainstream media in general. She said that 'for the press to inflame and use disabilities to get people riled up is exactly what they want.' Nothing would stop her from voting for Trump." The Atlantic (Gift Article): What Trump Supporters Think When He Mocks People With Disabilities.

+ Character Building: M. Emmet Walsh, unforgettable character actor from ‘Blood Simple,' ‘Blade Runner,' dies at 88. I first became a fan after watching him give the "Richard, your life is no longer manageable" line in Clean and Sober with Michael Keaton. But there's no shortage of movies one could chose from.

+ Not Milk? "We pitted dairy milk against plant milk to see how the beverages compare in various categories, including nutrition, cost, environmental impact and even how well they make frothy coffee." WaPo (Gift Article): Dairy vs. plant milk: Which is better? Be careful how you answer. As I reported a couple weeks ago, Milk is at the center of the culture wars.

"Bill likes to look and see how big their ass is when they get down in a 40-yard stance because he wants to sign the biggest-assed defensive linemen he can sign.'" A ‘high butt factor' might be an NFL Draft prospect's most prized asset.

+ "Ottawa Impact, a far-right fundamentalist group created in 2021 by 'parents' rights advocates' Joe Moss and Sylvia Rhodea, captured a majority of the 11-member county board in August 2022." And in 2024? Satanists set to give opening prayer for Ottawa County Board. (Be careful what you pray for...)