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Here is a funny headline from the CBS Sports website: "Hawks will not cancel 'Magic City' event despite Luke Kornet's public plea." Dang! My faith in Luke Kornet's power to halt the promotional machinery of multibillion-dollar professional sports franchises with mildly worded blog posts may never recover from this. They just ignored his plea! Let's back up. The Atlanta Hawks announced, a little over a week ago, that their March 16 home game against the Orlando Magic would also be "Magic City Monday," honoring what the official press release calls the "iconic cultural institution" Magic City, which the official press release carefully does not identify as, but which is, a famous Atlanta strip club, open since 1985 and closely associated with the city's hip-hop scene. Also, Drake (infamously regarded as a culture vulture to that scene) once reportedly had an armored car deliver $100,000 in cash to the club. That is just a fun factoid of dubious provenance and not relevant to this story. It is not mentioned in any of Luke Kornet's pleas. Magic City is associated with the NBA too, in a funnier way. During the COVID-19 pandemic and abbreviated 2019-20 season, Lou Williams, then with the Los Angeles Clippers, was granted an absence from the locked-down Orlando bubble so that he could attend funeral services in Atlanta; during that absence, photos showed up on Instagram of Williams in a largely empty Magic City, in the middle of an afternoon, with the rapper Jack Harlow. Williams, who later admitted that "as far as the public safety issue goes, I probably could have made a better quality decision," explained that he'd just stopped by the club—"properly masked [...] socially distanced [...] doing everything that I thought was appropriate"—to pick up some takeout food on his way back from the wake, and happened to bump into Harlow while there.

Of all the trade deadlines, the NHL's is the best because it is the most active and most chaotic. How chaotic, you ask? Try this. The St. Louis Blues traded defenseman Colton Parayko to the Buffalo Sabres, a big deal given the fact that, in a reversal of traditional fortunes, the Sabres are among the best teams in the league. The two sides agreed to a deal, and then … ONLY THEN, we tell you, did the Blues ask Parayko if he would waive his no-movement clause and accept the deal. And Parayko said no. You would think this would have been done in the opposite order just out of simple logic. "Colton, can we trade you to a team that could win the Stanley Cup?" "No. Piss off." "OK, cool. Tell the Sabres we can’t deal.” But there you go. A player exercising his contract provisions is somehow a surprise because they declined to ask ahead of time. It's not been a particularly good deadline. When the day began, TSN's Trade Centre (yeah, Centre) had a promotion from one of the gambling consortii for an over/under of 18.5 trades on the day itself, and it took until 10:30 a.m. to get the first one, and then another hour and change before the second. You be the general manager? No, you bet on human movement futures and find out that the whole league has a no-trade deal today and you're on the chair-bottom end of it. Even the lack of action makes it worthwhile, because everyone has to back and fill with other rumors that don't come off. And because the actual deadline doesn't mean the end of the news—all trades have to be filed with the league office, which then sifts through the details to see if the money and other provisions work. That means you can get an announcement on a trade hours after the end of the trade deadline, so it's not a deadline as much as a last call.

I remember individual seasons of Survivor by and for their "mood." This is a nebulous bit of recall, because "mood" (or "vibe," if you will) is both subjective and insufficient; distilling roughly twelve hours of programming into one word is inevitably going to leave a lot out. But this is how my brain works, and so we're all just going to have to roll with it. Some seasons are chaotic [derogatory] (Gabon) and others are chaotic [complimentary] (Cambodia — Second Chance). Some seasons are dark (Island of the Idols, Caramoan), and others are brutal (Kaoh Rong with its three medevacs, Africa with the poop water). It's easy to love the ones that can be filed under the "epic" label (Heroes vs. Villains, Winners at War), and most everyone who cares about the show does. But, in my heart of hearts, I think I love Survivor most when it's just "silly." While it normally takes most of the season to decide upon a corresponding mood, the second episode of Survivor's ongoing 50th season, "Therapy Carousel," has made it very clear that this is going to be an extremely foolish season. Again, that is not a bad thing, and it is also not an all-encompassing designation; there have been plenty of thrilling strategic and physical moments already; you've got Cirie swiftly dictating her tribe's votes away from herself and from her ally Ozzy Lusth in back-to-back episodes for the former; anything Jonathan Young has done in challenges for the latter, as much as it pains me to say that. And there was a real bummer of an ending in episode one, as season 48 winner Kyle Fraser had to be pulled from the game after rupturing his Achilles tendon. (He seems to be taking it all in stride.) Survivor is a bloated game, and season 50, with its 24 initial players, couldn't help but avoid the "something for everyone" temptation. It's unclear to me as yet whether that's [derogatory] or [complimentary]. All that being said, wow did episode two really lean into both the intentional and unintentional comedy that's inherent in the show's ridiculous premise. Putting this many people into the wilderness with minimal supplies and food eventually drives everyone more than a little crazy, and while that sometimes manifests in uncomfortable ways, it also opens everyone up to a healthy dose of insanity. Oh, and also gastrointestinal distress, which is how episode two kicked off: Christian Hubicki was simply chatting with tribemate Joe Hunter when he made the same face a baby might make when they fill their diaper. He did this because that's essentially what happened. Christian, a robotics professor and one of the most intelligent and likable contestants to ever play Survivor, fully shat his pants on day four.

When old guys who played for Lou Holtz talk about him, from my experience, they don’t bring up schemes or X's and O’s. They bring up speeches from the crusty but legendary coach, TV pundit, and rah-rah guy who died Wednesday at 89 years old. No, not loathsome political speeches. Football speeches. "That guy could talk," said Bruce Hanson. He played for Holtz at William & Mary from 1969 through 1971, his first three seasons as a college head college coach. Hanson remembers that Holtz, even as a 32-year-old rookie who’d previously held only assistant jobs at W&M, Iowa, Connecticut, South Carolina and Ohio State, was already as great a motivator as the game had ever seen.   "When he was done with his pregame speech, you woulda wanted to go beat the Chicago Bears," Hanson said. 

Last Thursday, the Kansas State legislature passed SB 244, overriding a veto by Governor Laura Kelly and enshrining anti-trans law as unhinged in its fury as it is disheveled in structure. Here at Defector, we are committed to explaining incredibly stupid shit so that it can be comprehended by smart people such as yourselves. As a Defector subscriber, you likely hold a law degree, but that won't really help you understand this mess. To aid the process, please doff your thinking cap and replace it with this tasteful Kansas City Chiefs hat. Oh dear. Well yes, you do look ready to understand this now, just go ahead and ... Oouughhhh, my head hurts. So, uh, what exactly is this law trying to do? This law essentially functions as a wishlist for a Republican party that has a super-majority and a thoroughly busted local democratic process. The spirit of it is that anyone who had trans'd their sex on their driver's license would have their license instantly invalidated, and also that nobody can use a public bathroom except for the one that corresponds with their "sex at birth." The latter would be enforced by deputizing citizens to act as genital-investigator (or dick-dick, if you prefer) toward anyone in the bathroom with them that they feel ought not be there, and paying said dicks for convictions. If these snitches fail to secure the conviction bag, or find their suspected bathroom bandit on private property, this law would still also empower the rat fucks to sue in civil court.

The animal kingdom is ruled by open sexual relationships. Bats, beetles, and bonobos all have multiple partners over a season or a lifetime. Barnacles and barracudas don't even get to pick their partners, simply spewing their eggs and sperm into milky clouds underwater. But it's much rarer to be a nonmonogamous bird. An estimated 90 percent of birds are socially monogamous, meaning they choose partners with whom they cohabitate and raise young, albeit usually without the bounds of sexual exclusivity. For many birds, monogamy just makes sense. Their tiny, naked chicks are essentially helpless, and the round-the-clock care they require is an easier job for two. The expectations for each bird parent are clear, and as such caregiving often follows a set script for each species. The small and skittish white-faced plover is one such monogamous bird. Pairs of white-faced plovers switch off the incubation of their nests. The females sit on the nest by day, and the males take over at night. Around noon, when temperatures are hot, both parents will pitch in to cool the eggs. This simple routine clearly works, and has for thousands of years for the many white-faced plovers scuttling around the shores of eastern Asia. All of them, it seems, except for this guy. Well, not this guy specifically, but a guy who looks like him.

CALGARY, Alberta — The Germans are famous for squishing words together to form useful new compounds. But Calgarians perfected the art when they came up with "Saddledome." You look at it, and you say, Yup, that's a Saddledome. The building occupied by the Flames since 1983 is unlike any other in the NHL. Even from a distance at night, the curved red line that lights up the Saddledome's profile makes it unmistakable. The world's largest cowboy could straddle that roof and feel right at home. If you consider the $1 billion renovation of Madison Square Garden the de facto creation of a brand-new building (and I will), the Flames have played in the Saddledome for a decade longer than any other NHL team has called their respective rink home. As someone who gets nostalgic about old arenas, loves Canadian hockey, and had never been to Alberta before, I'd known for a long time that I wanted to catch a game under its iconic parabola before it closes for good next year. Since time was starting to run short on that dream, after a delightful 48 hours in Calgary (I saw Les Mis!), I climaxed my visit with Senators-Flames. It might have been a low point for the franchise, but not for me. Certain people (N. Murray Edwards) have been trying to bump off the Saddledome for over 10 years, and when the Flames drop the puck on the 2027–28 season, it'll be in a new arena—at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars contributed by the city, the province, and their taxpayers. You can see the bones of the new building right next door, and when you walk south from downtown to a game, the construction site looms over the ol' saddle. The trick of perspective can't help but feel threatening. You will be destroyed because of me.

The trick with every Formula 1 season is to believe, at the start, that it will be exciting. Fortunately, if last year's preview was any indication, sports fans tend to be quite good about doing this. But this year, this year really, there is a lot to be excited for. There's a massive regulations overhaul that is shrinking the cars, if just by a little, and dramatically changing how they operate. There's a whole new team on the grid, with not-so-new drivers. Even if there aren't so many new rookies as last year, there is one (a teenage non-pay driver, at that!), plus a lot of sophomores to watch develop. There is already a disaster story on the horizon, for those who enjoy schadenfreude. Because this is F1, there is also plenty to be wary of. The American broadcast rights have been moved to Apple TV; what this will mean for the sport's popular streaming product, F1 TV, and overall broadcast quality, is unknown. The new regulations may very well be a huge dud that will produce poor racing. Who knows?

President Donald Trump did not fire multiply radioactive Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday, a day after members of Congress grilled her over agents of her department murdering American citizens, her having viciously slandered those murdered Americans, obvious graft and corruption in the awarding of federal contracts by her department, and her (and her department's) inappropriate relationship with Trumpworld creature Corey Lewandowski. She has been replaced as DHS head by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin—but she has not been fired! Do not put in the newspaper that Kristi Noem has been fired by Donald Trump! No indeed, in a post to his busted social network Trump says that Noem is being reassigned to the—to, ah... to... hm, let me see here... The current secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at "Homeland."

You think about difficult things when you're stranded: dark thoughts of vanishing horizons, daunting ifs and thens, promises made to yourself on sleepless nights. And so it was for me last week, when a blizzard delayed our return home from a vacation long enough for me to miss recording the podcast. "If I ever make it home to my podcasting setup again," I swore to myself from the extremely comfortable hotel room that my wife and I wound up staying in for two delightful nights longer than expected, "I pledge that we'll have Spencer Hall on the podcast." These are the sorts of promises you make when you don't know if you're good for it, at moments when you don't know what a promise is worth. But look: