That is absolute garbage. You can’t smash through a player from behind. To over turn that penalty is more evidence of VAR continues to ruin everything about the game.

Not even a card issued for Curtis Jones taking studs to the knee is peak VAR stupidity. I’m surprised Jones didn’t get booked for getting in the way.

“VAR is taking a look,” only adds a Kafkaesque quality to the game. Some fool in a booth complete insulated from the game making soulless technocratic decisions that make everything a little bit worse.

VAR is a complete joke. It is ruining the game a little bit more the longer it continues to used.

@heymrsbond.com Just read the NPR piece you where you were featured. Congratulations. I hope you were happy with the piece. As a journalism teacher, I appreciate your willingness to talk to the press, as well as your take on the topic. Plus, the pictures were great.

That’s a penalty. Troussard dives in and doesn’t get the ball, colliding with Wirtz. The quality of refereeing in the Premier League continues to be an absolute joke. It’s only gotten worse since adopting VAR too.

In a game of margins this fine, neither Konate nor Gravenberch have been good enough today for #LFC, especially in providing cover for Bradley. That said, Doku has been other-worldly today.

That was a performance to mark a turning point for #LFC if there was one. Fluid going forward, solid defensively and gritty everywhere on the pitch.

This has to be the best #LFC have played in weeks. A result would be a major solidification of this seeming turnaround

That is the hardest of #LFC defeats in this brutal run. The opponent, moment, and manner all sting. So many individuals struggling with form at the same time, questionable decision-making all over the shop. It’s not for lack of trying, but everything seems completely out of synch.

Another #LFC half with a weak ref who’s afraid to call fouls to let the game flow, letting everything escalate, but quick to punish the Reds for getting fed up with it.

Unreal finish by the #LFC teenager! The moment, the composure, the placement. Absolutely stunning!

This referee isn’t half helping the home side, which has thrown everything completely out of synch for #LFC. Reds have to absolutely knuckle-down, ride out this storm, and find a foothold.

#PoemADayJuly Been away for a time but back for this poem, one I use often with students. I’ve paired it with some other poems & short stories that show generational connections, especially grandmother and granddaughter. Revealing the disconnect between the experience of the elder and the young.

Day 15 #PoemADayJuly A prose poem with punch and power. José Olivarez’s “Ars Poetica“ lands blows against the cultural landscapes of his familial migration, so far, rising above toxicity to celebrate the loved people, safety, and survival. Let me try again: a poem that celebrates the struggle.

Day 13 #PoemADayJuly First take, a small moment between father and daughter with flowers and an unexpected turn. Why does the young girl pull away? There is so much possibility in that suspended moment. Yet, the promise “I will never give you a fist full of wasps” is full of humor and love.

Day 11 #PoemADayJuly First take, the breadth and vastness “Telescope” is a window to the night sky and true relation of the nature of things. “There is a moment after you move your eye away / when you forget where you are” but “You see again how far away / every thing is from every other thing.”

Day 10 #PoemADayJuly First takeaway, the sense of loss. Loss of who instructed “Not alone — never alone” and showed the speaker how to “Look!” Also, the who likely hurt by the speaker’s inattention. So, multiple lessons are learned about loss, despite the who having left the speaker.

Day 9 #PoemADayJuly Another powerful, poignant poem that remains resonant despite it being slightly dated. This masterful stuff by Naomi Shihab Nye. What strikes me first is the tone and nature of how the speaker addresses a young girl lost, Jamyla Bolden. There is such tenderness and care.

Day 8 #PoemADayJuly Wow. So poignant, powerful, punctual a poem. First read of “Running Orders,” the specificity of detail loaded in lines so vivid but brief build a tension only occasionally released with a longer line. It sent me looking for more Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. What a discovered delight.

Day 7 #PoemADayJuly What jumps out to me is the power of “Dayside anger” in contrast to the nightside tears, and the weight and massiveness of it all being in a tanka titled Jupiters.

Day 6 #PoemADayJuly First impression is how much I love poems that appeal to senses beyond visual. It’s impossible not to breathe in smells reading this poem from the first line’s “dank.” Cellar might’ve been enough, but dank summons a string of stinks even before Roethke suggests they “congress.”

That is terrible refereeing in PSG v Bayern, anywhere else on the field, a kick that high is a foul. Anywhere else, no matter if the defender touches the ball first! It’s a foul. It’s a reckless and dangerous challenge under any circumstance. Even worse, VAR screws it up as well. Clown show!

I know time was limited, with two-man advantage, Joshua Kimmich cannot launch it forward there. Work the ball up the field and make them chase. Two terrible decisions down the stretch and Bayern gets absolutely punished for them.

That PSG goal lies entirely at the feet of Harry Kane. Dwelling on the ball when there were two free, running to his left on a counter with half his opponents behind him. Chokes it up, and they concede.

Day 5 #PoemADayJuly This is a knotty poem for me, the kind that really requires multiple readings. First thing that stand out to me are the religious/spiritual reference points that almost serve as punctuations of experience juxtaposed with “despite my disbelief.” There is loss and it remains.

Day 4 #PoemADayJuly I’m not sure I’m fully prepared to take on this poem today, perhaps later. Yet, I will share I adored Langston Hughes immediately. He is my first poet, like a first love, as Jericho Brown says introducing his persona poem “Langston Blues.” poets.org/poem/langsto...

Langston Blue

O Blood of the River of songs

poets.org

Day 3 #PoemADayJuly First noticing of Alberto Ríos’ “When Giving Is All We Have” is how the poem moves through three parts, roughly lines 1-6 (why we give), 7-12 (what giving looks like), & 13-17 (the gift of giving).

The way “look” is used strikes me as a subtle, hopeful appeal to “See what the news is going to be tomorrow” or even today, linking to Brooks’ poem more intimately. While Brooks seems concerned with patience and time, Gay seems interested in how that time might be spent – noticing. #PoemADayJuly

I wonder how much this poem might have also served as a balm for Brooks, as well as any young person. There is even a cheeky part of me that wonders, “What must that preceding winter have been like?”