Animals,
One of the top privileges of being in charge of The Keendawg Show is getting to choose who the most powerful person in the world is every week.
With that as prologue, let me summarize the news that is forming this week’s brawl for Top Dog:
- A Hollywood mega-merger is challenging streamers like Netflix’s ascent to the top of the entertainment industry
- The MacArthur Foundation has basically pivoted from providing Genius Grants to Justice Grants and is officially more woke than a 40-year-old white woman living in a gated community
- The city of Philadelphia has ruined Eli Manning’s life again
- Germany is about to have a new Chancellor
- The FBI has said that pretty much everyone in America was either murdered or involved in murdering someone last year
Here are the nominations for Most Powerful Person in the World This Week:
OLD HOLLYWOOD IS BACK—Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
CAA, the mega-agency that controls half of Hollywood’s A-list talent, has announced a merger with ICM Partners, another representation superpower.
Basically, this is the Hollywood equivalent of the US Army merging with the British to fight-off a common enemy: streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu that have invaded Hollywood and are pushing down wages for the actors, writers, and directors that CAA represents.
The gauntlet has been thrown-down: it’s people who get laid (movie stars) vs. people who get paid (tech bros).
We’ll see who wins this round.
THE TERM “GENIUS” GETS WOKE
One of the things that rich people enjoy doing the most is claiming to own stuff that is clearly not theirs.
For example, the beach in front of their vacation home, a patent on a product that their company doesn’t even make, or the vote of a senator who they greased early on.
Which brings us to the MacArthur Foundation and its $7 billion endowment.
The MacArthur Foundation claims to own the term “genius” due to the fact that each year, it hands out 25 “Genius Grants” to people who are at the top of their fields.
This year, a Genius Grant was worth about $600,000.
But something interesting happened with this year’s class of MacArthur Fellows: the criteria for “genius” was heavily weighted towards being an evangelist for Woke causes.
In fact, 17 of the 25 “geniuses” were full-time social justice warriors, with only 7 fellows coming from hard sciences.
Clearly, the Foundation has defined “Genius” as public intellectual focused on depicting America as a bad place.
Well, another place we remember fondly has been conquered by the Woke Mob.
Are these “Genius” grants or “Justice” grants?
Laugh all you want. But owning either of these words is a serious power, especially when you get to put $600,000 in the pockets of people who want to make the world over in their image.
PHILADELPHIA SPORTS FANS RUIN EVERYTHING (AGAIN)
Reasonable people can disagree about what constitutes “genius,” but no human being who has not been lobotomized would ever accuse the Philadelphia Eagles of encouraging fans to behave in a civilized way.
On Monday night, the Dallas Cowboys were blowing the Eagles out (as usual).
But no one is talking about that.
Instead, people are massively triggered that Eli Manning flipped 2 middle fingers at ABC’s cameras in order to demonstrate how he was treated every time he played in Philadelphia.
Now, Eli is the bad guy – not the losing Eagles with their lunatic fans.
Is there any city that exerts more authority in professional sports by losing, having terrible sportsmanship, and encouraging fans to behave like a subhuman species?
No, that only happens in Philadelphia. And that, my friends, is power of its own kind.
OLAF SCHOLZ IS ON TRACK TO REPLACE ANGELA MERKEL
To be honest, having to be the German Chancellor who replaces Angela Merkel is a big task. That is like being Jesse Usher & Liam Hemsworth attempting to fill Will Smith’s shoes in Independence Day 2. It is just more work than any single human can do.
But Germany remains one of the most powerful nations in the world and is central to many of the modern era’s struggles: how to keep Putin at bay, integrating a society with waves of migrants from the developing world, and rebuilding an export economy during a pandemic.
Then there is the fact that a German Chancellor’s time in power tends to be about as long as a German Shepherd’s time on earth – easily north of 10 years.
So by default, we gotta give Olaf the nod.
Is he the most powerful person in the world this week? Or is he just a chump standing in the long shadow of this century’s greatest democratic leader, Angela Merkel?
FBI DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY STEPS UP TO SOLVE AMERICA’S MURDER PROBLEM
Animals, we should not joke about murder.
But the fact is that everyone in America is doing it.
FBI Director Christopher Wray greenlit his agency to release some very damning data that shows the national murder rate climbing faster than it ever has.
On top of that, the data also shows that both the victims and perpetrators are disproportionately black.
This is a huge problem for a million reasons.
And it’s sure to disrupt the highly emotional debate America has been having over crime and policing in recent years.
The good news is that the first step to solving a problem is admitting that we have one.
For that, Director Wray should get some snaps.
But the true power will be in making the difficult decisions that get this crime wave under control.
Hopefully, we’ll be back in a few months patting Director Wray on the back for a job well-done.
Who do you think the most powerful person in the world is this week? Here’s the full conversation with Pratik and Arya: