DL Open Thread: Sunday, April 13, 2025

Gonna start with a story with no political implications, just because I found it fascinating:

Colts veteran offensive tackle Braden Smith missed the final five games of last season because of a personal matter.

Now, he’s detailing just how intense the situation was.

Smith, in an interview with the Indianapolis Star published Tuesday, said he has a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder that prompted him to spend 48 days in a treatment facility and to ultimately turn to a psychedelic drug that he believes helped save him.

“I was physically present, but I was nowhere to be found,” Smith told the newspaper. “I did not care about playing football. I didn’t care about hanging out with my family, with my wife, with my newborn son. “I was a month away from putting a bullet through my brain.”

Smith, 29, said he was eventually diagnosed with a condition known as religious scrupulosity. According to the International OCD Foundation, religious scrupulosity differs from the healthy practice of religion because it is driven by anxiety over engaging in actions that might offend God or be seen as blasphemous. This creates obsessive behavior — including constant prayer or repeated repentance — that can begin to dominate a person’s daily life.

“There was only one person that was ever perfect, and that was Jesus,” Smith, a second-round pick in 2018, told the Star. “When you’re trying to live up to that standard, actually live that out, it’ll drive you nuts.”

Psychedelics to the rescue:

He later turned his attention to a psychedelic called ibogaine, which is not legal in the United States but has shown some promise in treating mental health in scientific studies. Smith traveled to Mexico to undergo treatment with the substance. (I wish I could like to the Indy Star article, which is much more complete.  But, I read it once, then couldn’t access it again.)

“I don’t do compulsive prayers at all anymore,” he told the newspaper. “I don’t do the replacing the good with the bad. If I have a bad thought, it’s just, like, OK, that’s one of many thoughts. I’ll just move on with my day and don’t let it affect me. I used to spend like 3 to 5 hours a day in my head, doing compulsions. It was so exhausting.”

Let that be a lesson to us all.  Drugs, not prayers.

We Need AI Because–It’s Really Tasty On Steak?  Some things I can’t make up:

McMahon, 76, made the mix-up on April 8 while speaking at the ASU+GSV Summit, an event focusing on educational innovation.  The former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) initially referred to the acronym for artificial intelligence correctly, saying, “You know, AI development – I mean, how can we educate at the speed of light if we don’t have the best technology around to do that?”

Things got sticky as McMahon’s speech continued: “A school system that’s going to start making sure that first graders, or even pre-Ks, have A1 teaching in every year. That’s a wonderful thing!”

“Kids are sponges. They just absorb everything,” she added. “It wasn’t all that long ago that it was, ‘We’re going to have internet in our schools!’ Now let’s see A1 and how can that be helpful.”  (Couldn’t too much A1 in pre-K cause, oh, I don’t know, hyperactivity?)

A.1. Sauce capitalized on McMahon’s blunder by posting an Instagram post on their verified account saying, “You heard her. Every school should have access to A.1.”

People online have even joined in on poking fun at McMahon, with one X user saying, “Education Secretary Linda McMahon keeps referring to AI as A1 and talking about how it will help ‘students at all levels.’ But how can we get those kids to drink it? Linda added, ‘The smarter kids can move up to Thousand Island Dressing.'”

I realize that I’ve likely exceeded ‘fair use’ doctrine here.  But, if I have to go to prison, ensuring that A1 Steak Sauce remains in the limelight will have been worth it.

Idle Thought: DOGE ‘enforcers’ are the new Hitler Youth.

Idle Question: This is not a gotcha question, although it is posed to the defenders of Israeli policy on this board:  How do you feel about Trump using ‘anti-semitism’ as a cudgel to basically force Columbia University and other academic institutions to grovel before him?  It strikes me as utterly perverse when one considers that Trump equates Judaism with whatever Netanyahu wants to do.  It’s a serious question, not designed to accuse or embarrass you.   BTW, I’m not sure, but I don’t think there’s a single Jew in Trump’s cabinet.  It’s a cabinet almost exclusively comprised of ignorant white folks.

What do you want to talk about?