The news is doing nothing for me today, so here is something I have done once or twice before. The following are 14 propositions that I believe to be true. Or at least, I think I do. Each is intended to be fodder for disagreement. Feel free to say “Amen, brother” or “You can’t be serious” in the comments. If this gets a good reception, maybe next time I will offer my really controversial opinions. Here goes:

1. This season’s baseball rule changes (banning the shift and adding a pitch clock) will benefit the game, but not as much as if umpires called the strike zone that is in the rule book.

2. Country music started going downhill when the likes of George Strait were succeeded by the likes of Luke Bryan.

3. Boxing is to MMA as horse racing is to slot machines.

4. Today’s super-hopped IPAs are close to undrinkable.

5. Tender Is the Night is Fitzgerald’s best novel, much better than The Great Gatsby.

6. There are some pretty funny comedians working these days, but none as funny as Jack Benny.

7. An important moment in civilizational collapse was when they replaced live action Saturday morning kids’ shows (The Lone Ranger, Sky King, Fury, The Cisco Kid) with cartoons.

8. Today we listen to Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, not to mention the Beatles, but fifty years from now no one will listen to today’s rap.

9. Air travelers who put their seats back should be exiled to Pago Pago.

10. Aaron Rodgers’ stint with the Jets will be a disappointment, just like Brett Favre’s.

11. The Kinks are rock and roll’s most underrated band.

12. If we all went back to dressing like people did in the 1940s and 50s the world would be a better place.

13. Notwithstanding a few worthy practitioners like Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism was basically a mistake.

14. The NBA has joined professional golf and curling as an unwatchable sport.