I have a new boardgame review at Paste, covering the card-drafting game Skyward. I also had two Insider posts go up earlier this week, one previewing some potential offseason trade targets, the other ranking the top 50 free agents this winter. And I held a Klawchat on Thursday.
Feel free to sign up for my free email newsletter, which I send out … I guess whenever I feel like it. I aim for once a week, although I’ve gone as long as two weeks between issues when I haven’t had much to say. You can see past issues at that link.
Also, don’t forget to buy copies of Smart Baseball for everyone on your Christmas list! Except for infants. They might eat the pages. Get them the audiobook instead.
And now, the links…
- Longreads: You probably saw this remarkable New Yorker piece by Ronan Farrow on how Harvey Weinstein used PIs and former spies to track and harass his accusers. If he could do that, think of the other rich, powerful men who stand accused (or have yet to be accused) of sexual harassment and assaults, including a former president and a current one both accused of similar acts. They’ve probably done it too.
- This 2015 piece from the Guardian details a failed effort to turn the Comoros into a citizenship-for-sale destination for Bidoon, stateless Arabs living in wealthy countries without actual citizenship or even documentation. The Comoros are a desperately poor island country between Madagascar and mainland Africa, beset by repeated coups since they became independent of colonial France in 1975. Needless to say, the plan didn’t work out well for the the tiny nation.
- ProPublica details how right-wing trolls harassed three of its reporters via low-cost methods like filling their inboxes with subscriptions to newsletters.
- James Bridle went very long on algorithm-driven kids’ videos on Youtube and more, arguing that such pablum is damaging our kids. (I would also suggest that parents not give their kids unfettered access to any part of the Internet, but that’s just me.)
- Scientific American gives us Journey to Gunland, on how more guns do not mean less crime, even though many Americans believe the opposite. The more guns in a state, the more violent crimes, including shootings and rapes. They also ran a rebuttal from a pro-gun social scientist they mentioned, and then (scroll down from there) a rejoinder from the original author.
- Are American private colleges and universities making inequality worse as tuition increases and income gaps in the population of potential students grow?
- Roy Moore, who believes gays should be jailed or killed and Muslims banned from Congress, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in 1979 and behaved inappropriately with several other women in their teens. Several leading Republicans called on Moore to withdraw from the Senate race if the allegations are true.
- David French of the National Review cautions conservatives not to dismiss or ignore the allegations. David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times about the cowardice of the “if true” admonitions, which leave the speakers a perfect out.
- Utah Representative Rob Bishop is close to his goal of “invalidating” the Endangered Species Act.
- Trump’s voter “fraud” commission, which is itself based on a fraudulent premise that pervasive voter fraud exists, has been sued by one of its members, alleging violation of transparency laws and other malfeasance by the Republican members.
- A Trump nominee for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench who was unanimously ranked “not qualified” by the American Bar Association was approved in a party-line vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. The judge referred on his blog to “Hillary Rotten Clinton” last year and pledged support for the NRA. If you have a Republican Senator from your state, this would be yet another good reason to call and ask him/her to vote against Talley’s confirmation from the full body.
- The swamp is so swampy that minor imbroglios like, say, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lying about $2 billion in personal wealth just sort of slip under the radar.
- They did, however, force one unqualified nominee to withdraw: Michigan state legislator Tim Kelly has his nomination pulled after it was revealed he wanted all Muslims banned from air travel. He’s also said that women aren’t interested in STEM careers, and efforts to encourage girls to pursue such careers are a waste of money. This leaves unanswered the question of what the hell his home district in Michigan is thinking.
- One of my Senators, Chris Coons, is demanding an explanation for the ‘resignation’ of U.S. Attorney Dana Boente just days before Robert Mueller announced the first criminal charges in his investigation of the President’s campaign ties to Russia. Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked for Boente’s resignation in late October.
- A Kansas City Star investigation led Antonio “Rico” Soave to end his campaign for Congress, as the story uncovered multiple instances of graft while Soave was the state’s Commerce Secretary – and forced Kansas Governor Sam Brownback to admit he’d fired Soave in June.
- A fungus called coffee rust threatens the world’s arabica crop, exacerbated by climate change that extends the fungus’ active season.
- Climate change is killing farm workers around the world, contributing to the rise of a deadly kidney disease or disorder of unknown cause. I heard about this from a reader who saw in my email newsletter that I like Flor de Caña rum; he mentioned to me that working conditions for their sugar harvesters are abysmal, and they’ve had a rash of deaths due to this disorder.
- Also from the Guardian, those supposedly financially disciplined folks in Congress destroyed an expensive Arctic ice probe rather than pay to store it … because the probe would facilitate research on climate change. You read that right: They threw away a major investment because they didn’t want further proof we are warming the planet.
- Louis C.K.’s film I Love You, Daddy has been pulled from distribution before its release due to revelations of his past sexual harassment of women. Meanwhile, Mel Gibson’s latest movie is out in theaters, even though he’s a pretty terrible human being too.
- Paste calls on all comedians repped by 3 Arts’ Dave Becky to drop him as their manager, as he is accused of facilitating Louis C.K.’s sexual harassment of other comedians.
- Tom Colicchio wrote a widely-praised open letter to male chefs urging them to do more to change the culture of restaurant kitchens, which he argues accept harassment as standard operating procedure and thus stymie the efforts of young female (or, I’d imagine, LGBT or nonbinary) chefs to advance in the industry.
- Some baseball links: Fangraphs’ Jeff Sullivan asks if the pitch-framing market efficiency is closing.
- Baseball America‘s Teddy Cahill looks at increasingly early college commitments from teenaged players, a practice everyone dislikes but no one wants to address.
- Lindsey Adler (at Deadspin) had the best piece I saw on the Baseball Prospectus writer who didn’t exist. Ryan Schultz was the online persona of a girl, who started the act at age 13 and is now 21, who catfished numerous readers and writers via social media and later multiple sites.
- Mike Tanier writes on Bleacher Report that the NFL has passed the point of no return with Colin Kaepernick as teams give quarterback jobs to vagrants grabbed off the streets rather than call the principled former 49er.
- The World Health Organization is now advising farmers to avoid using antibiotics in healthy animals, given the practice’s contribution to the evolution and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
- Why hasn’t California cracked down on anti-vaccination doctors? These quacks are exploiting “medical exemptions” rules, but so far, none has been charged with any form of fraud. If you live there, call your state rep or senator to demand real action on this, before there’s another measles outbreak.
- There’s a new shingles vaccines that is vastly more effective in older patients than any previous vaccine. It uses a new type of adjuvant that might change how vaccines, especially those for patients over 50, are developed.
- Michigan Republicans are pushing forward bills to allow concealed carry in churches and schools.
- Cincinnati politicians are trying to gift FC Cincinnati team owners with a publicly-funded stadium in the town’s Oakley neighborhood. Call your local reps and tell them you know what a colossal waste this is.
- I agree with President Trump! The federal government needs to revoke the Church of Scientology’s tax-exempt status. It’s a real-estate holding company running a long con on members, and harassed its way into this status in the first place.
- Is vermouth making a comeback? Sales are on the rise, largely due to the wine’s use in certain cocktails, like the Negroni and the Manhattan, which are seeing revivals as well.
- A Macallan 1878 bottle reported to be worth $300,000 has been exposed as a fake, likely produced between 1970 and 1972.
- Astronomers have discovered the first known star to survive a supernova, eventually exploding five separate times over a two-year period.
- Mental floss looks at how the death of a chemist in 1996 changed how labs handle dangerous chemicals forever.
- Five tips for helping your anxious child (or yourself). They check out for me at least.
- Anti-abortion activists are very successful on Twitter, says a pro-choice writer for DAME magazine. Much of what she describes here, like hashtag hijacking, reflects a flaw in the machine, exploited well by one side.
- Necessity breeds invention: Food shortages in North Korea have boosted a black market in privation foodstuffs, many of which are made from soybeans.
- The 7 Wonders app, in development for at least two full years, will be released for iOS this Tuesday, November 14th, with an Android release coming on December 20th.
- An English reporter who happens to be black interviewed white supremacist Richard Spencer on camera, and he let the racist show his true colors. If anything, I wish Younge had let Spencer keep talking; he’s hardly the well-groomed intellectual he pretends to be.
I read most of the YouTube kids article. For starters, I think the writer didnhimself a disservice making ut as long as he did. He DEEPLY buried the lede and I initially gave up when it seemed he was focused on algorithm generated drek. Only when i went back at someone’s urging did I find the real issue.
But I ultimately come down where you do: monitor your kids’ media consumption.
At a faculty committee meeting this week, figures were shared that showed we are attracting more applicants and more qualified applicants. They never really discuss if such applicants are also “more qualified” economically, but it’s safe to assume that there’s not a huge number of low income, highly qualified applicants in a socioeconomic system that is completely biased against them.
My school is a regional comprehensive public institution, so it’s fair to say that state schools are also contributing to an increase in inequality. All schools want and celebrate getting “better-prepared students,” though 1)it’s impossible for every school to always be getting better students and 2)I’d argue such a goal goes against the mission of public institutions, especially ones that aren’t premier research institutions. While many faculty problematically desire to work with “better students,” the real cause for this shift in student populations at 4-year state institutions is the large decrease in state funding for higher education. We don’t value paying taxes to fund opportunities for those less fortunate than we are, and this is what results.
That’s not to give private institutions a pass on their contributions to inequality.
Malcolm Gladwell did several podcasts -Revisionist History- on this topic which should interest you. One of the main points I remembered is talented poor students don’t even make it to the application stage.
Glad to see you post Mike Tanier’s column; I think he’s the best football writer in the country. My own team, the Denver Broncos, have probably hurt themselves the most by not bring Kaepernick in before the season. Unfortunately John Elway is a Trump supporter, so Kaepernick will never be called. Exacerbating the problem is that, for a Hall of Fame QB, Elway seems to possesses an untrained eye for drafting QBs.
After reading the ProPublica article, I was wondering if you knew if TinyLetter had any protections against someone using your letter, and others it hosts, as part of a mass subscription email attack. Just a thought.
Tinyletter is run by Mailchimp, so I think the answer is no.
Huh? When you sign up, you have to confirm your e-mail address. So, the most that could be done would be to send one unwanted e-mail.
It’s not a problem with Keith’s email, it is with TinyLetter/Mailchimp. Someone could write a script to send confirmation emails from all TinyLetter subcription services to a single email address and potentially bringing down their email server. Keith’s letter would simply be one of thousands that would send the email.
My 2 year 10 month old daughter just had a massive panic attack last night, and ended up throwing up it got so bad. She’s had a few panic attacks before, so pretty sure we are in for a lifetime of dealing with anxiety. Thank you for the link!
What does a toddler panic attack lok like?
A trailer for that CK movie played before The Florida Project, which I saw on Friday (it was excellent). I don’t think we’re missing much. It looks like a bad Woody Allen knockoff.
Florida Project is playing in our local art theatre in a few weeks. Can’t wait to see it.
It was really really excellent. A beautifully shot and emotionally challenging film.
I just saw The Florida Project today. Really wonderful film, great performance by Dafoe, and very surprised to hear that so many of the other actors weren’t really professionals, because they were all pretty terrific.
The film also resonated with me because I just got back from Disney World last week, and so I was trying to imagine what it would be like to live in the shadow of that place. The last scene alone was pretty powerful, and would have been more so if I hadn’t let my recent visit take me out of the film for a moment by questioning the logistics. But I don’t want to say anymore lest I spoil it.
One of my friends was studying chemistry at Dartmouth during the time of Dr. Wetterhahn’s illness and death; it was devastating to the department, and my friend spoke of her often. It’s awful that it takes a tragedy for people to revisit PPE.
The Trump “aide” who claimed they were going to take away the tax exemption is his former party planner. I doubt she & he had long discussions about tax policies when doing the seating arrangements. She probably just told a celebrity what she wanted to hear in order to get an autograph.
Unfortunately, in this administration that’s about as reliable a source as you can find. We truly are through the looking glass.
Keith,
Thank you as always for an interesting list of links. And thank you in particular for sharing Tom Colicchio’s open letter, which I otherwise would probably have missed. In a list full of the antics of Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., Mel Gibson, Roy Moore, the NFL owners and Wilbur Ross (and their enablers), it’s nice to read a piece which provides a small slimmer of sunshine in an otherwise dreary week.
Might be a good time to remind people in Cincinnati that Paul Brown Stadium comprises of about 16% of Hamilton County’s operating costs each year.