My Tuesday column this past week announced that Kris Bryant is my 2014 Prospect of the Year, a piece in which I mentioned a dozen other guys, including the player with the best pro debut by a 2014 draft pick. I also held my regular Klawchat on Thursday.
I’ve been stepping up the boardgame reviews again, reviewing Valley of the Kings for Paste magazine, and Seasons and Spyrium here.
EDIT: Codito/Sage Board Games have a new iOS boardgame app bundle, which takes $1 off each of the games you haven’t bought. Tigris & Euphrates and Le Havre are both excellent, if you don’t already own them.
And now, to the links – seven this time, since I didn’t post last Saturday and had a few extras saved up:
- The most important link I’ve ever posted, I think: Leslie Morgan Steiner on why domestic violence victims don’t leave. She’s a survivor herself, and what she says will help educate people who ask this question.
- From the BBC World Service, an interview with one of the biologists who sequenced the coffee genome. That was part of a program, which you can download directly here, that also included a segment on aquaponics efforts in London and NFL cheerleaders fighting for better wages.
- From Salon, “Finally, Wall Street Gets Put on Trial.” But is that really what the case here means? Will it have any lasting effect – hell, is there even any reason to think this ruling will extend beyond this one court?
- From the NY Times, What we’re afraid to say about Ebola. I don’t know – I think people are rather duly freaked out by the whole thing, including the very scenario the author outlines.
- From Vice, We Should All Be Eating Animal Fat. This won’t convince any vegans, but he makes the case that carnivores shouldn’t be shy when it comes to the fat of the animals we eat. And yes, I do render and use fat from much of the meat I cook – both pork and poultry fats.
- From NPR, on the pleasure of bitter flavors, with a recipe for turnip ice cream.
- I tweeted this last night, but it’s worth repeating – a high school in Bucks County, PA, suspended the school paper’s student editor and faculty advisor because they refused to print the school’s team nickname, the same racist term the NFL team in Washington clings to in the face of mounting scorn and criticism. What a great way to teach kids about censorship and vulgar displays of power.