My one Insider piece this week was a draft blog post on Donny Everett, Mike Nikorak, and first-round rumors, and I’ll have a similar post up within 24 hours on two Vanderbilt prospects and more gossip. I held my Klawchat on Wednesday, and I have a new boardgame review up for Paste on the X-COM boardgame adaptation, which seems to be true to the spirit of the video game, but which I found excessively complicated.
And now, the links… 
- Yet another study showing vaccines don’t cause autism. How much research time and money has been wasted because of one disgraced doctor’s fraud? And how many children have suffered because their parents bought into the vaccine deniers’ lie?
- The BBC has a 25-minute Inquiry program on the true causes of the conflict in Yemen, and why it matters for the rest of the world. It’s an essential story that’s barely covered in the U.S. right now, even though we’ve had a hand in it and are poised to come out big losers once again.
- Does a US child go missing every 90 seconds? No, of course not, but that won’t stop people from repeating a bad statistic that gets clicks.
- It’s full of spoilers, but I enjoyed the NY Times‘ recap/review of the Broadchurch season finale. My review of season two is mostly spoiler-free.
- Are hospitals doing all they can to prevent Clostridium difficile infections? Not yet, according to a terrifying new study.
- How Dodgers fans are using tech tricks to evade the TV blackout. This isn’t a black-and-white issue; viewers getting screwed by a legally sanctioned monopolist are resorting to illegal methods to access content for which they would and do pay. MLB can solve this quickly by ending local blackouts, or Congress could force cable companies to open their infrastructure to competitive carriers, and please stop laughing now.
- Earlier this month, a federal court upheld New Jersey’s ban on gay “conversion” therapy, leading to calls for a national law doing the same. The Human Rights Commission has some links on the harm such therapy inflicts, as well statements from major medical associations against the practice. It’s abhorrent and cruel.
- My friend Wendy Thurm waxes on the Islanders’ departure from Nassau Coliseum. I grew up an Islanders fan and still remember hanging the Newsday cover with the headshots of everyone on the Isles’ roster after they won their fourth straight Stanley Cup, as well as the cover the following spring with the headline “Deprived of Five.” (Damn you, Gretzky.) But the Coliseum is a dump and it was never easy to get to in the first place. That said, if you play in Brooklyn, you’re no longer allowed to be called the “Islanders.” You can be the Hipsters, you can be the Tip-Tops, you can even be the Bums, but once you crossed the county line into Queens you ceased to be Islanders.
Finally, apropos of nothing, I’m just going to leave this here:
PSA: #evolution is not an synonym for atheism. It is a scientific explanation for biological diversity with wide acceptance amongst Xtians
— Zoology Guy (@EvolutionQA) April 19, 2015
Keith, RFK Jr. was on Bill Maher’s show last night to talk about vaccines. It was super enlightening, as you would imagine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24IZ4uwiflk
Re: Nassau Coliseum
Six times from 1980 to 1982 I visited the Coliseum to watch the New York Arrows play. It wasn’t the cleanest of venues – I had been to the Glens Falls Civic Center several times to see the Adirondack Red Wings, a Gordie Howe led New England Whalers game in Springfield, and a Rangers/Knicks doubleheader at MSG. I thought it was supposed to be a major league facility, but it was far from it.
I, for one, will not miss it, though I do wish the Long Islanders had been given a new arena.
I went there for the Isles, Arrows, Saints, and probably some other events like the circus or the Globetrotters. My memories of the events themselves are great, but you can have the arena.
My dad (a Brooklynite) and me (grew up mostly in MA but we lived in Suffolk County on Long Island for a few years when I was a kid) disagree on the “Islanders” thing. He, like you, insists that LI is Nassau and Suffolk, and therefore Brooklyn does not count. I side with what I believe to me the more practical geographic argument that Brooklyn is still part of the island, even if culturally it’s not really considered as such.
If you’re from Brooklyn, you would never say you’re from Long Island. You’d say you’re from Brooklyn. Or B’klyn.
Love that evolution tweet. I express that sentiment to my Christian friends all the time. They think I’m falling away from the faith.
My only issue with the tweet is this…if you believe in evolution, most likely you’re either implicitly or explicitly saying you don’t believe in the Bible’s creation story. This may, in and of itself, be fine…there any many biblical issues that are worth of debate among Christians that should not be a cause for division.
But if “Christians” are free to pick and choose the parts of the Bible they believe, at what point do they no longer get to call themselves “Christians”? At some point there has to be a line that you can’t cross and still be a believer. I’m not saying creation/evolution is that line per se, but simply saying “many Christians believe in evolution” doesn’t really mean anything. I’m sure there are many self-described Christians who don’t believe in the resurrection either…
Well said.
Interesting point, but you’d also have to consider that the vast majority of Christians probably aren’t familiar with even half of what the Bible contains. The King James version has close to 800K words.
Not a terribly strong argument, in my view. There is a very big difference between literary and doctrinal questions. It is entirely possible to interpret significant portions of the Bible as being allegorical or otherwise symbolic. One can read the stories of Jonah or the Garden of Eden or the Flood or Lot’s Wife as containing larger truths, even if they are not literally true. It would similarly be possible to read the resurrection as metaphorical. This way of reading things is supported by the fact that Jesus himself spoke in parables.
By contrast, when one starts rejecting core doctrines—it’s ok to kill! it’s ok to steal! I don’t have to “do unto others”–then one is beginning to reject the religion itself.
In response to CB, I think the Apostle Paul said it better than I ever could:
“And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” 1 Cor 15:14
That’s pretty clearly a doctrinal statement.
The resurrection is the piece that gives authority to the other commands in the Bible…”thou shalt not..” is no better than any other set of ideas or laws without the deity of Christ.