My Insider content from this week’s activity in San Diego, which was the best setup I’ve ever seen for the winter meetings and resulted in more trades and signings than any meetings I can remember covering:
* The Jimmy Rollins trade
* The Mat Latos and Alfredo Simon trades
* The Matt Kemp trade
* The Rick Porcello/Yoenis Cespedes trade
* The Wade Miley trade
* The Howie Kendrick/Andrew Heaney trade and Brandon McCarthy signing
* The Dee Gordon trade
* The Jon Lester signing
* The Francisco Liriano re-signing
* The Miguel Montero trade
* The Jeff Samardzija trade (and David Robertson signing) and Oakland’s return
* The Jason Hammel signing
* The Brandon Moss trade
Outside of ESPN, my review of the boardgame Concordia is up at Paste. I’ll have my top ten games of 2014 up for them next week.
Here on the dish, I posted my top 100 songs of 2014 and top 14 albums of 2014, as well as this week’s Top Chef recap.
And now, this week’s links…
- Slate on sexism and elitism at Wikipedia, starting with a story about an editorial dispute that saw one side sanctioned while the other, despite committing the same offenses, was merely warned.
- From the Washington Post: When my son survived a serious accident, I didn’t thank God. I thanked Honda. A rumination on the miracles that science creates.
- Are fiction readers more empathetic towards others than other readers? I’d like to think so, given how much my own reading skews toward fiction, including what the research calls “literary fiction.”
- NPR’s The Salt talks about trendy vegetables for 2015, although I think only the kale-Brussels sprout hybrid is actually new.
- Scientists, led by Bill Nye, Lawrence Krauss, and James Randi, are asking the media to stop calling climate-change deniers “skeptics.” The actual letter is here, and makes clear the distinction between skeptics, who use evidence to support their views and demand it from those who make extraordinary claims, and deniers, who refuse to hear contradictory evidence to their preconceived notions.
- The Los Angeles Times had the investigative journalism piece of the week with their exposé of exploitation of tomato farm laborers in Mexico. That’s one good reason to buy American – workers here generally experience less exploitation, and have better success in the courts when they are being abused.
- I don’t agree with all of the points in this Vox piece, Nine things I wish people understood about anxiety, but points 5, 6, and 8 are good reading for anyone not currently facing anxiety and trying to understand it.
- Finally, Drew Magary had me cracking up over at Deadspin with his Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog, in which people with too much money are asked to waste it on crap they don’t need.
Boy, Keith, that’s a lot of baseball content. Are the Winter Meetings fun for you or are they just another day at work? If you were the GM of the Phillies, would you hold out for Boegarts or Betts for Hamels? If you were the GM of the Red Sox, would you part with Boegarts or Betts for Hamels?
I enjoy the winter meetings for the networking and the social aspect. Plus I ate well. I’d demand one of those guys if I were RAJ, but I’d have a hard time giving one up.
Hi Keith – what was different about this year’s setup? Did I miss a post somewhere about it? Thanks!
@glue: San Diego? Great hotel, well laid out, easy to get where you needed to go (no long walks from room to media room or BBTN set). Downtown, so lot of stuff was walkable or under 10 minutes’ drive. And great weather.
Have you listened to the NPR podcast “Serial?” It is really good.
From the NPR article on veggies:
“But it’s not the same as genetic engineering. “It’s just cross-breeding,” says Bouzari. “It’s horticulture.””
Thoughts on this? Is cross-breeding different then genetic engineering/modifying in any sort of meaningful way? If I remember your position correctly, you are not opposed to GEOs/GMOs but favor their labeling. Do you feel similarly about cross-bred plants?
@Kazzy: Aren’t almost all of the plants we eat cross-bred? That seems like a bizarre distinction. Genetic modification introduces genes outside of the genus or family, which isn’t possible via cross-breeding.
Thanks. I’m a total dunce when it comes to biology which is why I figured you were a good person to ask. I’m curious, though, does genetic modification necessarily introduce genes outside the genus/family? Or are there some organisms nowadays that previously could have been created via cross-breeding but which are now “genetically modified” because it is a more efficient/controllable process? And, if so, would you see that as failing into the GE category or the cross-breeding category?
These are genuine questions, mind you. I ain’t trolling. As I said, I’m a dunce with biology and am trying to educate myself on these topics as they become increasingly visible but no less opaque… to me at least.
And I should note that my personal, amateur opinion is this: As I understand the scientific consensus, GMOs do not concern me from a health standpoint but I am unsure of their impact from an ecological/biodiversity standpoint and hope we moderate their use until this is better understood. There is also an extent to which *some* of the harping about them seems very much a first world problem. If GMO products can stop poor kids around the world from going blind and dying, you’ll need to show me some pretty dire effects to make me oppose them in those situations. I recognize that distribution tends to be a bigger issue with regards to malnutrition than production is, but unless/until we can solve that problem, my default answer is whatever ends up in fewer dead kids.
And no apology necessary if you do not want to indulge this particular can of worms.