Hunter Dickinson is a college basketball player, and an outstanding one. He played for the Michigan Wolverines for three years. This year, he will be playing for the Kansas Jayhawks. This is how it is in college sports now — it’s like the pros. I think this new world is weird, and barely comprehensible, but knowledgeable people tell me it’s for the good.

Anyway . . .

A headline grabbed my attention: “Hunter Dickinson Calls Michigan ‘Fake Midwest,’ Says Kansas Fans are Nicer.” Geezum. The article quotes Dickinson as saying, “The people are super-, super-welcoming. Super-nice. Definitely get those Midwest vibes.”

The young man continued, “I feel like at Michigan, they weren’t as nice. They were nice people, but not as nice. I feel like Michigan is like a fake Midwest. Kansas is actually like a Midwest town. I loved my time in Michigan, but the people here at Kansas are especially nice.”

Huh. There are many things to say here. But maybe I could just tell one story. “I’m a Midwesterner,” I once remarked at a gathering. (I am indeed.) A former editor and boss of mine said, “No, you’re not. You’re from Ann Arbor!”

Okay, one more thing. Growing up in Ann Arbor, I often heard the University of Michigan fight song, which ends, “Hail, hail, to Michigan, the champions of the West.” This confused me as a boy. Weren’t we in the Midwest? Wasn’t the West . . . well, Arizona, California, Oregon, and all that?

Eventually, one learns about an expanding frontier.

• Let’s pause for a language note. In long years as a writer and editor, I have noticed that people often fail to capitalize “is” in a title. That’s because the word is short. People think it’s a preposition or something. But “is” is a verb, like “discombobulate.” No one would ever think not to capitalize “discombobulate” in a title.

The headline I quoted, above? The headline-writer has put the word “are” down. (“Hunter Dickinson Calls Michigan ‘Fake Midwest,’ Says Kansas Fans are Nicer.”) I think I know why he did that: because “are” is short — and yet it’s just as much a verb as “discombobulate.”

• Let’s pause again for another language note. Reading the item I had written about Hunter Dickinson, I noticed that I had made an error. I meant to say, “A headline grabbed my attention.” For some reason, I had typed, “A headline grabbled my attention.” “Grabbled”! Makes me think of a sound that chickens make.

But get this: My spell-check had not flagged “grabbled” as an error — which told me that it must be a true word. A word I didn’t know. I looked it up — and lo: “To grabble” is “to search with the hand,” or “to lie or fall prone.”

The things you learn (as with expanding frontiers).

• Let me turn to something grave. For many years, I have relied on Cuba Archive, the project and website of Maria Werlau. It gives you dependable information. Note a recent bulletin: “21 Extrajudicial Killings in Cuba since July 2021.” The website gives you photos, to go with the names — the names of the victims. It is important that their lives, and deaths, be documented, and somehow remembered.

Great thanks to Maria, and all her colleagues, and all of those who perform such terrible, necessary work.

• Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, were election workers in Georgia. I have written about them several times (here, for example). What Trump forces did to them, in the wake of the 2020 election, was repulsive. Here is the latest: “Rudy Giuliani concedes he made ‘false’ statements about Georgia election workers.”

The subheading of the article reads, “The Trump ally’s acknowledgment came in a filing Tuesday related to the 2020 election workers’ lawsuit about baseless claims of fraud that he made against them.”

I hear Republicans say, “Don’t criminalize political differences!” I agree. But also, people are subject to the law. No one is above the law — even politicians. Even the rich and powerful.

Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss are “little people.” Giuliani is a VIP. But even Giuliani is subject to the law, which he must have known, way back.

• I have been reading about RFK Jr. and what he says about Ukraine and Russia. It is commonly observed that Kennedy is a “kook” — on vaccines and other matters. But let me ask: When does kookery end and lying begin? And vice versa? Do these things get jumbled up?

People are entitled to their quirks and problems. At any rate, they have them. But not everyone asks to be president, and not everyone receives serious attention from the nation’s various media.

• The Left has a lot to answer for — not least, for this: For years and years, they have called conservatives and classical liberals “fascists.” I have had the F-word attached to me many a time. So now that actual fascists are on the rise, in different countries, we are deprived of the word, because liars and ignoramuses have rendered it nonsensical.

(We could also talk about “racist” and other designations.)

Think of it this way: If you called Reagan a fascist, and the Bushes fascists, and Romney a fascist — whaddaya got now?

• Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah) tweets under “@BasedMikeLee.” What does “based” mean? I resort to Dictionary.com:

Based is a slang term that originally meant to be addicted to crack cocaine (or acting like you were), but was reclaimed by rapper Lil B for being yourself and not caring what others think of you — to carry yourself with swagger.

A little more:

The re-invented based, as a signal of power and swagger, was picked up by the alt-right/white nationalist community online in the 2010s. . . . Since then, referring to alt-right or right-wing conservative figures as based has become a sign of approval in online social-media forums like the pro-Trump subreddit, r/The_Donald.

So hard to keep up. For the full definition, or explanation, from Dictionary.com, go here.

Here is a sample of @BasedMikeLee, i.e., the senior senator from Utah:

People complained that Orrin Hatch was square. Well, I’ll take it.

• In Belarus, political prisoners die routinely. Of old age? That would be unusual. It would be unusual in Russia, China, Cuba, and any other nasty dictatorship.

For the New York Times, Alex Williams has written an obit of Ales Pushkin, a dissident artist, who has died in prison at 57. He called himself a “holy fool.” He was always kicking against the dictatorship, no matter what it led to. Some people are like that. They are just fed up and can do no other.

Another Ales is in prison, as you know: Ales Bialiatski, the human-rights activist, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year. He is not the first political prisoner to receive that prize, in absentia. Carl von Ossietzky was a prisoner of the Nazis; Liu Xiaobo was a prisoner of the Chinese Communists. Both of those laureates died in prison.

Will Bialiatski?

• It seems wrong to turn to sports — to return to it, that is — after things so serious. But I will do so regardless. I was impressed with Joe Burrow, the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals. He does not have a contract yet. But he reported to training camp anyway. As this article says,

Holdouts are a familiar tactic in NFL negotiations. In many cases, they are effective.

Burrow did not consider that route.

Here is what the young man said:

“Personally, I feel like, in my position, I don’t want to waste these days. I have to get better. I’ve wasted enough days the last two years with injuries and appendicitis, and COVID the year before that. I don’t want to get out of camp wishing that I had seven more days that I could have got better. So that’s the reason I’m here.”

Marvelous. Un-modern. Terrific.

• The adjective “Ruthian” should be used sparingly and justly. But have you looked into Shohei?

Flabbergasting, and historic.

• Brian Harman, an American golfer, was in the lead at the British Open. Some of the Brits in the gallery didn’t like that very much. As Harman himself reported, “A guy, when I was passing him, said, ‘Harman, you don’t have the stones for this.’ That helped.” Harman went on to win the tournament. He had the stones, and then some.

Love it.

• I have many, many more items for you, of various kinds. But you should probably get to your weekend. Let me end with something cultural — pop-cultural. I know that nostalgia is a vice (or it often is). I also know, or think I know, that plenty of excellent things are going on now. But our culture, back when? It was something.

Behold Art Carney, in 1975, playing some of Chopin’s Prelude in C minor, then going into “My Blue Heaven,” with Cher: here.

Later, y’all.

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