The Far Middle episode 146 highlights two contrasting transformations—the first positioned the NFL to become the league it is today, while the other transformation finds New York City on the precipice of ruin.

This installment’s sports dedication goes to visionary NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle. Earning the job at age 33, Nick looks back on Rozelle’s role in transforming the NFL into the immensely popular financial success it is today.

Rozelle’s leadership on revenue sharing and new television contracts not only increased the league’s revenue and exposure but also made football America’s number one sport. Rozelle shaped the NFL into a cultural and economic powerhouse. “Rozelle is someone who transcended sport and represents what America has to offer, no matter what your profession or cultural interests,” says Nick.

That powerhouse’s headquarters, New York City, connects to this episode’s focus, which is the myriad challenges facing the Big Apple largely due to years of leftist policies from the city’s leadership.

Nick recounts a trip last month to New York and delves into the city’s decline over the past few years, exacerbated by pandemic policies. While only in town for a couple of days, “I made it a point to talk to as many residents and businesspeople and workers and business owners as possible,” says Nick, proceeding to summarize the concerns and frustrations of those he spoke with along with personal observations.

Nick first addresses crime, describing the city’s vibe as tense and on edge, followed by a discussion on the controversial leadership of Mayor Eric Adams as he’s “suffering from a host of issues.” Those issues span affordable housing to corruption allegations, but most notably a migrant crisis.

That crisis made disturbing national news just before Nick’s visit, after a recent assault by migrants on New York Police officers in Times Square and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s ensuing response. “D.A. Bragg made a mockery of the entire justice system,” says Nick.

Nick also examines once again the city’s transportation mess, from the deteriorating condition of the subway to the implementation of the regressive tax that is congestion pricing.

Concluding his observations on the headwinds facing New York City, Nick shares troubling insights evidenced from a lunch at a friend’s Little Italy restaurant. And visible from that lunch was the mysterious and windowless Long Lines Building in Tribeca, which serves as an intriguing close for Far Middle episode 146.

Episode 145 of The Far Middle begins with a sports dedication that continues a recent theme of honorees and tributes whose stories transcend beyond sports. Professional baseball pitcher, and longtime Pittsburgh Pirate, Dock Ellis is remembered in this installment. Nick describes Ellis’ intriguing story as one that’s reached urban legend status, but one that’s also sad and tragic.

Nick looks back on Ellis’ career, specifically recounting Ellis’ infamous no-hitter from June 12, 1970, which Ellis accomplished after taking LSD earlier in the day. Ellis “was a personality, an advocate for causes, an addict, an individual, a lightning rod, and in many ways, he epitomized much of the late 1960s and 70s,” says Nick, paying respect to Ellis and his “wild ride.”

Born and raised in Southern California, Dock Ellis signed with the Pirates on Jan. 14, 1964, as an amateur free agent and debuted in the big leagues in 1968. (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)

Dock Ellis posted his best big league season in 1971, starting the All-Star Game for the National League en route to a 19-9 record while helping the Pirates win the World Series. (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)

Dock Ellis pitched for the Pirates, Yankees, Athletics, Rangers and Mets during his 12-year big league career. (Doug McWilliams/National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)

Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter against the Padres on June 12, 1970, and later claimed he was under the influence of LSD during that game. A cap and ball from that game are preserved at the Hall of Fame. (Milo Stewart Jr./National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)

Transitioning from Ellis, Nick notes the geopolitical instability during Ellis’ playing days, and how those trying times—from the Vietnam War to the Cold War—resemble many of the myriad threats and “wall of worry” we face today. And amongst the multi-faceted wall of worry spanning the globe today, Nick delves into his greatest concern, which is China and its potential attack on Taiwan.

Nick proceeds to examine a China-Taiwan analysis led by Mark Cancian (Colonel, USMCR, ret.), which looked at “what would happen if China attempted an amphibious invasion of Taiwan?”

Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) International Security Program, alongside co-authors Matthew Cancian and Eric Heginbotham, “developed a wargame for a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan and ran it 24 times. In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost.”

After reviewing the CSIS China/Taiwan wargaming report, Nick considers several follow-up questions. Including:

• How effectively do the Chinese and American militaries fight?
• If China invades Taiwan and is left vulnerable, will the U.S. attack Chinese military locations on China’s mainland?
• Will the Taiwanese fight, or will they fold and collapse when confronted with the brute force of a Chinese invasion?
• Will public opinion in the United States be able to stomach the level of losses likely to be suffered to save Taiwan?
• How will the conflict end? Does China go all in resulting in a global conflict?

If the worry of a potential China-Taiwan conflict is keeping you up at night, Nick has an appropriate 1983 film directed by John Badham for you…shall we play a game?

Episode 144 of The Far Middle falls just after Presidents’ Day 2024. Accordingly, Nick notes a few U.S. presidents that are underrated, overrated, and a pair he continues to enjoy learning about.

Connecting from Presidents’ Day to this installment’s sports dedication, Nick revisits President Jimmy Carter spearheading the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. Nick examines the many geopolitical dynamics of the boycott that resulted from the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Interestingly, the boycott—a move to force the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan—came just after the U.S. beat the Soviets in Lake Placid in the “Miracle on Ice,” which you can hear more about in prior Far Middle episode 80.

Drawing on themes and issues surrounding the 1980 Summer Games boycott, Nick moves to present day and explores the contrasting views of “elites” versus those of average Americans on several economic, social, and political issues.

Nick first highlights a comment from Jamie Dimon, who recently called out the insulated progressive elites in a CNBC interview, before next analyzing the results of a sobering poll by RMG Research for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.

That poll, “Them vs. U.S.: The Two Americas and How the Nation’s Elite Is Out of Touch with Average Americans,” offers interesting to shocking to frightening insights on America’s elite demographic.

Of those many insights, Nick calls out that “almost 50 percent of elites believe that America provides too much individual freedom. And meanwhile, 60 percent of voters believe that there’s too much government control. That’s what you call contrasting views.” He also highlights elites’ views of climate change, restating a frequent Far Middle topic that “climate change policies have nothing to do about atmospheric levels of CO2, and they’ve got everything to do with control of the individual across society and economy.”

Unfortunately, the poll results offer a validation of the themes and arguments Nick makes in Precipice: The Left’s Campaign to Destroy America.

“Although I wrote that book years ago, looking at where the minds of elites are today and how they are driving Western societies, they serve as proof points for the hypothesis laid out in Precipice…I wish Precipice would have been a false alarm, but instead, what’s going on in America, is definitely not a drill,” says Nick.

Referencing his discussion on the broken state of college and academia described in Precipice, Nick connects to academia’s unwillingness to reform, using Henderson State University in Arkansas as an example. This leads to a broader look at the societal value of a four-year college degree today, which “has never been worth less.”

Moving from elites in academia, Nick discusses elites in bureaucracy, specifically former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, who “was as bad as it got when it came to running over science and individual rights to justify draconian pandemic policies.”

In closing, Nick flips the conversation to a positive side, telling the story of Pittsburgh’s Paul Mawhinney, his record store Record-Rama, and his three-million-plus record collection.

The Far Middle episode 143, released on Valentine’s Day 2024, begins with a darker reflection from the holiday’s history: the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929.

Nick then begins this installment’s connections, shifting from “illegal gangland Prohibition-era fights, with blood flowing and bullets flying on the streets, to another form of tough competition—the legally sanctioned NBA with blood in the paint.” Nick fast-forwards 73 years later to Allen Iverson’s legendary “practice” interview.

Nick examines the rest of the story behind Iverson’s interview and explains how it’s “a great example of how media can morph things to fit their desired narrative for whatever reason or for whatever motive.” Incidentally, Allen Iverson joins a select group of repeat Far Middle sports dedication honorees, checkout episode 92 for more.

The theme of morphing the narrative then encompasses the episode’s focus as Nick counters many so-called experts’ claims that inflation has been tamed and run its recent short-lived course. Nick’s analysis is an extension from his recent essay, “20 Reasons Why the Worst is Yet to Come with Inflation.”

Those 20 contributors of inflation—and their many underlying dynamics—can be broadly categorized into government spending and regulation, monetary policy, and geopolitics. A few of the inflationary drivers include:

• The growth of the regulatory state making everything more expensive.
• The impact of languishing worker productivity continuing to increase the costs of goods and services.
• Higher taxes and fees at every level of government escalating the cost of everything, everywhere, every day.
• Climate policies fueling energy scarcity and raising energy costs, and more.

“Each of these individual factors are their own contributors, but all of them together, that helps drive an incremental step-up of inflation, a cumulative effect that occurs when they all manifest together,” says Nick.

In closing, Nick makes one more connection to February 14, as he remembers Richard Stanley Francis. The British champion jockey and author passed away today, 14 years ago.

In The Far Middle episode 142, Nick once again starts the discussion with a sports dedication honoring an athlete whose accomplishments extend beyond sports. This installment’s honoree is the late Pat Tillman.

While recognizing Tillman’s football achievements, Nick focuses on Tillman’s service and principles. Nick describes Tillman as an exemplar of a great American doing exceptional things throughout his very unique life.

Nick then shifts the discussion back to his recent video series, “A Rational Thinker’s Guide to Climate Change and Related Policies.” Nick brings home his commentary spanning the prior two Far Middle episodes, and further examines his arguments from the concluding chapter of the series, “Forces Driving Present Climate Policies.”

Those forces driving climate policies today can be best categorized as external and internal; with external coming from outside the United States, and internal being pressures and influences within the United States and West.

Examining external forces, Nick covers OPEC, dynamics between Russia and Europe, Venezuela’s aggression towards Guyana, and of course, China who “clearly is the biggest single example of who benefits the most with respect to climate policies and net zero journeys to really bad places.”

Then there’s the internal driver of present climate policies. And the “best way to define it is as the Left within the West itself, whether it’s the United States or Europe,” says Nick. “The Left at the end of the day, more than anything, despises the individual and specifically disdains the freedom of the individual to choose for themselves.”

Nick proceeds to highlight several trends that are justified as “tackling climate change,” but at their core, they’re about curtailing individual rights and greater control over individual choice. Examples today span what you can eat and drink, driving and EV mandates, 15-minute cities, and climate policy bleeding into government use of emergency powers.

Nick rambles on with a final music segment, as he pays tribute to Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin II album. Led Zeppelin II would mark the band’s first UK No. 1 album—a milestone occurring today, 34 years ago. For more Led Zeppelin commentary, check out Nick’s reflection on Led Zeppelin IV and Physical Graffiti.