Paste published my ranking of the top ten new boardgames of 2015 this week, as well as my review of 7 Wonders Duel, the new two-player game based on 7 Wonders.
I wrote a lot for Insider this week, reviewing signings and trades. Here’s the full list:
• Jason Heyward to the Cubs
• The Bethancourt/Kelly trade
• The Brett Lawrie trade
• The Walker/Niese trade
• The Kenny Giles trade
• The Adam Lind trade
• The Cubs’ moves with Zobrist and Castro
• The Shelby Miller trade
• The Jay/Gyorko trade
• The Carson Smith/Wade Miley trade
• Hisashi Iwakuma to the Dodgers
• Jeff Samardzija to the Giants
• Zack Greinke to the Diamondbacks
And of course, there was a Klawchat this week.
And now, the links…
- In a series on America’s most violent police department, the Guardian details deals made to buy off women sexually assaulted by police, often for as little as $1500.
- One woman details how she nearly died of the flu after childbirth and didn’t get to hold her infant for over a month, all because she fell for a vaccine denier hoax and didn’t get her flu shot.
- An Australian vaccine-denier’s baby was hospitalized with whooping cough. Do you think that scared the mom straight? Her delusion even trumped her desire to protect her child.
- We love all things Hugh Acheson around here, and the James Beard winner for Best Chef (Southeast) gave a presentation recently for the Beard Foundation, making his sweet onion soup with caraway and croutons (with a brief video). And oh, hey, that recipe is in his newest cookbook, The Broad Fork, which made my annual cookbook recommendations list.
- People who are gluten-sensitive but not celiac or allergic to wheat may have a valid medical explanation – their bodies produce a protein called zonulin in response to gluten in the body, according to a new research study out of Europe. That still makes your hipster gluten-free diet a dumb idea, though.
- On Stockholm’s rise as a “unicorn factory,” an incubator for a disproportionate number of tech startups. I think it offers a lot of lessons for other cities looking to boost such entrepreneurship, although the fact that university educations are free in Sweden is a huge part of their success.
- A July op ed piece from Al-Jazeera America argued that anti-abortion extremists are domestic terrorists. And, like Islamist terrorists, anti-abortion extremists are driven by an ideology that convinces them that their violence and murder are justified.
- Can Chipotle recover from food poisoning? I think the answer is more clearly “yes” than this author does, but also, I don’t agree with the premise that buying local or from small farmers reduces the risk of such food-borne infections.
- Spring training-relevant link: The ten best new restaurants in metro Phoenix according to the Phoenix New Times.
- The longread of the week comes from the Washington Post, which profiled one of the survivors of the mass shooting in Oregon. You know, the one this October, not the one in December 2012 or the one in June 2014 or the one in May 1998.
- Two links (provided by readers) coming from somewhat different sides of the gun-control debate. Sam Harris, better known for his writings on atheism and morality without religion, has a long, scientific look at the “riddle” of gun control. The Guardian debunks the NRA’s oft-repeated claim that guns make us safer, when the evidence says they don’t.
- Former radical Islamist Maajid Nawaz has a long op ed in the Wall Street Journal on how to defeat IS and end Islamism, one that calls for engagement across multiple spheres.
- An all-girl K-Pop group called “Oh My Girl” (get it? OMG?) was detained at LAX on suspicion of being sex workers.
- I’m old enough to remember when SNL’s commercial spoofs were a near-weekly highlight – Colon Blow, Quarry, First Citywide Change Bank, and of course, Bad Idea Jeans – so their tone-perfect parody of those pompous Nespresso commercials was a big hit with me. (Also, there’s no way those guys drink such shitty coffee.)
- Tweet of the week:
um? pic.twitter.com/tYFIRR0GN2
— jennifer magdalene (@someofmybest) December 4, 2015
Man, I just don’t remember that book well at all.