Stick to baseball, 12/26/15.

I only wrote one new Insider piece this week, on Mike Leake contract with St. Louis, although I got a nice response from readers on my 2009 article on the shameful, insidious exclusion of Tim Raines from the Hall of Fame.

And now, the links…

  • Lots of vaccine-denier bullshit out there this week, like the mom in Texas who hosted an infection “party” for unvaccinated kids and said the illness is “meant to eliminate the weak.” Aside from how callous this is – one would presume she thinks her own kids are not among the weak – meant by whom, exactly? Did God send us the measles to wipe out a bunch of toddlers?
  • Meanwhile, a nurse and other vaccine-deniers in Australia have been ripping down vaccination posters in hospitals. If you catch someone doing this, stop them. Report them to security. Do whatever it takes. Idiocy like this breeds faster when rational people stay silent.
  • Some vaccine-denier tried to “argue” with me by citing the so-called “fourteen studies” on vaccine safety, a site and claim that originates with Jenny McCarthy. Well, as you might have guessed, it’s science-denying doggerel.
  • The Washington Post tried to name the country’s ten best food cities by sending its food critic to 30 20 13 cities this year. Yeah, I get that travel is expensive, but this would be like me listening to 108 songs and then giving you my top 100 for the year. Also, the list itself has a lot of very dubious opinions in it – the author goes out of his way to dump on New York City, which has about 8.5 million people in it, and dwarfs almost every other good food town in the country on sheer quantity. I asked the author on Twitter what he had at the amazing Cosme that didn’t impress him, but he hasn’t responded. If you don’t like Cosme’s food – the prices are another matter, but that’s Manhattan for you – I absolutely question your taste.
  • Iceland has an awesome Christmas tradition: giving and reading books.
  • The title of this thinkpiece, “We Are All Martin Shrkeli,” is rather clickbaity, but the message within, about how the modern pharmaceutical industry and its pricing structure deny critical medications to the poor and sick around the world.
  • The new Netflix series Master of None, starring Aziz Ansari and co-created by Ansari and Alan Yang (“Junior” of FireJoeMorgan fame, and MouseRat’s bass player), is phenomenal: funny, sweet, insightful, and different. One episode dealt with racism in Hollywood, and Ansari penned an editorial last month expounding on the same topic.
  • Slate has a somewhat scary piece on the evolution of creationism bills in state legislatures. If you live in a state where this garbage is legal, get active. Creationism and its Trojan horse of intelligent design are not science, and teaching them in any fashion in a public school violates the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the Constitution.
  • Boy does the Guardian ever do a number on Sepp Blatter and his corrupt fiefdom.
  • Speaking of corruption, the Las Vegas Review-Journal is embroiled in a scandal that combines plagiarism and a conflict of interest, which has led to more than one situation like this, where a longtime reporter has quit over these ethical violations.
  • Another thinkpiece, but a worthwhile one: What the Mast Brothers scandal really means to those of us reveling in it. I’m only in agreement with the author to a point; even if the victims are rich, or stupid, or both, does that make a particular fraud any less of a crime? It may color our opinions of the people who perpetrated it, but the nature of the fraud itself – in this case, Mast Brothers’ likely lie about how and where they sourced their chocolate – is unchanged.
  • The Atlantic discusses the schism within the Republican Party in a balanced way, without exulting in the party’s potential for self-immolation.
  • The New Yorker looks at the rise and ongoing fall of for-profit colleges, which takes advantage of our already horribly broken student-loan system.
  • Via a reader, Quartz gives us (and fixes) the most misleading charts and graphs of 2015.
  • My adopted hometown of Wilmington called in the CDC to help stem the gun violence epidemic. Of course, the CDC’s ability to help is limited because the NRA has essentially bought budget clauses that prevent the CDC from researching this topic too heavily or promoting anything that might lead to tighter gun control.
  • Tweet of the week – enjoy these fake yet highly credible thinkpiece titles:

Comments

  1. Keith,

    Here’s wishing all of your readers and you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thanks for all of the content you provide.

    • Thank you! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you as well. Thanks for being such a loyal reader for all these years.

  2. Doug Thompson

    unfortunately she is correct about weeding out the weak. you deny natural selection? it really is the only way for the human species to progress forward.

    • If you think that natural selection is somehow “restored” by skipping vaccines, you’re a moron.

      To take but one example: There is no evolutionary advantage to having a seven-figure salary, a penthouse apartment, and a Lamborghini. And yet, a man with those things will have no trouble finding a woman to propagate his genes.

    • I do think you misunderstand natural selection and evolution. There is nothing inherently “forward” about the process.

  3. Thanks for doing this. Your Saturday list is a must read for me even if I have perpetual fright by all the vaccine denier articles.

  4. Keith, I’m glad people are catching onto Ansari’s Master of None. It is probably the smartest and most insightful comedy I have seen in quite some time.

  5. * What was the criteria for ranking the food city list? Was it based on reputation? Variety? Value for money? Of course, there were several good food cities missing from the list. Miami, Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, Boston, Kansas City, Seattle, Milwaukee, etc. It just screamed “Get a top 10 list out and have it be somewhat controversial so it will be passed around social media.”

    * More and more, some factions of the Republican Party are reminding me of the Know Nothing Party of the 1850’s.

    • Your first bullet point matches my suspicions. And even at that he did a crap job.

  6. Doug Thompson

    at present gene proogation seems to mostly successfully achieved in the poorest world regions. as they seek 1st world wealth the planet ecosystem is being crushed. overall in the long view of history – the back death was tremendous positive for the development of western civilization. it lead to great positive social change and relieved overpopulation. the arc of historical progression is often nasty business.