will continue to
reflect profoundly stupid
and ugly present
Based on the article, Will hordes of influencers, weed smokers and mid-point talkers bring down the US Open? by Aaron Timms at Flushing Meadows (The Guardian, 9/7/2026), where Mr. Timms writes:
People have been complaining about the volume of the New York crowd for decades. But this year the noise at the US Open feels different. This year noise at the noisy slam has become A Problem.
How bad are things really, though? It’s true that the grounds at the US Open this year have felt at times oppressively crowded. But the shoving obliviousness of the fans – the constant staring at phones, the almost universal lack of spatial awareness, the inconsiderate jostling in the interminable lines for the courts and the drinks and the $38 French dip sandwiches and the tiny free canisters of Dove deodorant – reflects nothing more than the poisonous effect of tech and commerce on culture at large. The tournament is drenched in commercial influence: more than it is a series of tennis matches, the US Open is a showcase for brands shilling everything from yogurt to $100,000 cars.
Changing the crowds at the US Open would mean changing society – throwing away the phones and the chatbots and the Bluetooth microphones, rejecting the delusions of the attention economy, saying once and for all that no, in fact, you will not “get ready with me”. It would mean embracing a life of community and human contact and non-screen-mediated concern for each other. But until the distant day when that happens, we’re stuck, I fear, with more of the same – and the US Open will continue to reflect our profoundly stupid and ugly cultural present.
It would mean throwing away the phones and the chatbots and the Bluetooth microphones.
It would mean rejecting the delusions of the attention economy.
It would mean saying once and for all that no, in fact, you will not “get ready with me”.
It would mean embracing a life of community and human contact and non-screen-mediated concern for each other.
But until the distant day when that happens, we’re stuck, I fear, with more of the same.
It means US Open will continue to reflect our profoundly stupid and ugly cultural present.
In church yesterday, the sermon was about Jonah and God given second chances.
Jonah got a second chance and followed God’s commands to go to Nineveh.
Ninevah?
The Bible refers to it as a Great City.
A city great in wickedness.
A city, according to what God says as recorded in the Book of Jonah, where there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left.
Profoundly stupid.
People who cannot tell their right hand from their left.
Boy howdy!
Welcome to Nineveh!
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