Stick to baseball, 7/15/17.

For Insiders, I’ve got my midyear top 50 prospects update, a breakdown of the Jose Quintana trade, and a recap of Sunday’s MLB Futures Game, followed by a Klawchat Thursday afternoon where I focused on questions about the top 50.

MEL magazine’s Tim Grierson, whom you might know from his film reviews or his indispensable podcast with Will Leitch, interviewed me in a wide-ranging conversation that touched on Smart Baseball, pop culture, social media, and other non-baseball topics too.

Thanks to everyone who’s already bought Smart Baseball. I’ve got book signings coming up:

* Harrisburg, Midtown Scholar, July 15th (today!) at 3 pm
* Berkeley, Books Inc., July 19th, 7 pm
* Chicago, Standard Club, July 28th, 11:30 am – this is a ticketed luncheon event
* Chicago, Volumes, July 28th, 7:30 pm
* GenCon (Indianapolis), August 17th-20th

And now, the links…

• Longread: How tech startups like Airbnb are causing the spread of a similar, sterile, bland style aesthetic across the world, euphemistically referred to as “the harmonization of tastes,” less kindly described here as “Every coffee place looks the same.” (It’s my one complaint with Blue Bottle; I love their espresso, but I feel like I’m drinking it in a hospital waiting room.)
• Bill Shaikin of the LA Times looked at the declining presence of people of color atop baseball organizations, an inevitable outcome of the industry trend of privileged young men with Ivy League or comparable backgrounds who can afford to take low-paying or unpaid entry-level jobs in front offices.
• The Senate Judiciary committee advanced the nomination of John K. Bush, a judge who used the word “f—-t” and supported the Obama birther hoax, for a federal judgeship. He’s expected to win confirmation on the Senate floor, of course, but maybe call your Senator on Monday and express your feelings on whether someone who refers to gays by that term is suitable for the bench.
• Arkansas, the only state I’ve never visited, has become increasingly hostile to women and to LGBT residents in the last few years, but this is a new low – a law that would require all women, even abuse or rape victims, to get the permission of the man who impregnated them before they could have an abortion. To be clear: A woman who got pregnant as the result of a rape would have to ask her rapist’s permission before she could abort the fetus.
• Utility-industry lobbyists are rolling back laws designed to encourage rooftop solar panel installations.
• FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon employee who wants to destroy net neutrality. Broadband Internet is a public utility; lacking access to it puts people at a significant economic disadvantage, especially in the job market.
• The anti-GMO movement, which has put many academics in science on the wrong side of the facts, had an embarrassing moment this week when forty-five professors (and others) endorsed a letter criticizing a film they hadn’t seen, a letter whose author didn’t disclose her own relationships with anti-GMO organizations.
• A new research paper published in the National Academy of Sciences’ journal shows a correlation between pertussis outbreaks and states that allow nonmedical vaccine exemptions. I worked with my state rep to tighten Delaware’s nonmedical exemption rules, although (according to him) the Republicans in our legislature wouldn’t approve eliminating religious exemptions entirely.
• EPA Chief Scott Pruitt wants scientists to debate climate change on live TV. Yes, please.
• Longtime Iowa baseball coach Marty Gehen is entering his final season at the helm as a hereditary disease robs him of his vision.
• Gwyneth Paltrow’s woo site GOOP has become legend for selling overpriced bullshit to people who embrace the irrational, but even they sunk to a new low when they attacked an actual doctor who pointed out how dangerous their “vagina jade eggs” could be. GOOP may have gotten something right, though, if you want to credit them with the placebo effect.
• The Denver Post looks at a group of loonies who claim they’re being persecuted for believing the earth is flat. I think the part that bothers me most is that they’re teaching kids this nonsense.
• The headline is a little misleading but this National Review post does detail some real issues with organic foods that aren’t really organic. Knowing your farmer or source is more important than just buying something labelled “organic.”
• Three Boston-area teenagers discovered that the Boston Garden has violated terms of the law that funded its construction and may owe the city hundreds of tens of dollars in restitution to help build public sports facilities the public can actually use.
• TV critic and friend of the dish Alan Sepinwall wrote about the frustration of the “it gets better after six episodes” phenomenon of TV series in an era where none of us really has the time for that kind of investment.
• The New York Times described the scourge of alternative Oreo flavors. There was nothing wrong with the original. Nothing.
• Why do men remarry faster than women after the death of a spouse? This piece was spurred by the news that Patton Oswalt is engaged to actress Meredith Salenger, who, by the way, lived one floor up from me during my sophomore year in college.
• A Montana woman who was targeted by neo-Nazis who called her house and left death threats is suing the man who runs the Daily Stormer website for launching the harassment campaign. Also weird: The guy who runs the white supremacist site claims he lives in Lagos, Nigeria, a city of 16 million-plus people, nearly all of whom are black Africans.
• Airbnb, VRBO, and other online short-term rental companies are causing landlords to convert apartment buildings into de facto hotels, reducing the supply of housing for middle-class (and below) residents in many tourist towns.
• The President keeps referring to his friend “Jim,” whom the AP reports may not even exist. I’m not really OK with a President who keeps and constantly refers to an imaginary friend as if he’s real.
• An actual feel-good story: Beachgoers on the Florida panhandle formed a human chain to rescue a drowning family who’d been caught too far from shore.