My second mock draft went up this week for
subscribers to the Athletic; I think it was a lot better than my first one,
which went up two weeks ago, based on the feedback I got from sources after it
was posted. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday to take your questions
about it. I’ll do another mock plus a draft ranking this upcoming week, then a
final mock on June 10th, the morning of the draft.
Over at Paste, I reviewed Azul: Summer Pavilions, the third game
in the Azul series (Azul and Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra). If you liked
either of the first two Azul games, you’ll probably like this one as well,
which offers the same tile-selection mechanic but new ways to place and score.
Here on the dish, I reviewed La Isla, a midweight game from the designer of
Castles of Burgundy and Carpe Diem.
My podcast this week featured Dr. Claude Steele, a psychology professor at Stanford and the author of Whistling Vivaldi, who spoke to me about stereotype threat and how players and evaluators might cope with it in sports. You can also listen on Apple, Stitcher, or Spotify. I also appeared on the Romantic About Baseball podcast to discuss my new book The Inside Game, the draft, and other issues in baseball.
The Inside Game has garnered several recommendations from major publications as a Father’s Day gift or for summer reading, including from Forbes, The New York Times, and Raise. My thanks to all of you who’ve already bought it; if you’re looking to pick up a copy, you can get it at bookshop.org or perhaps at a local bookstore if they’re reopening near you.
And now, the links … many of which are from the Washington Post this week, which wasn’t deliberate.
- Longreads first: The Daily Beast looks at the questionable fundraising efforts of Shaun King, sometimes known to his detractors as “Talcum X,” who has a history of not really accounting for funds he’s raised.
- The Salt Lake Tribune has a very useful, practical guide to how the coronavirus spreads in various public spaces, so you can assess the risk of various activities.
- We haven’t heard much about “draining the swamp” recently, have we? Trump is now appointing watchdogs beset by ‘preposterous’ conflicts of interest, like the one who is now responsible for investigating his own actions.
- Why do people often support or vote for narcissists in times of trouble? Professor Charles O’Reilly at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business explains that and how narcissistic leaders destroy from within.
- Meanwhile, Twitter finally took a very modest step to rein in Trump’s lies on their site, and Trump had a tantrum over it.
- Many African nations have had more progressive – and, to date, more successful – approaches to slowing the spread of coronavirus than the U.S. has, including aggressive lockdowns and bans on international travel.
- My colleague at the Athletic Marcus Thompson wrote about the murder of George Floyd and what it means to be in a rage all the time.
- NPR reviewed federal records showing that the Trump administration killed a federal rule that would have protected health workers in case of a pandemic.
- I found the maps on the COVID Policy Responses tracker site to be both useful and mesmerizing.
- COVID-19 may become endemic, even with a vaccine, and we need to prepare for that possibility (but we aren’t).
- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) pleaded with anti-mask twits to act reasonably and stop this stupid culture war.
- A trio of Penn professors suggest three things we can do to persuade more people to wear masks.
- The Washington Post‘s Max Boot writes about the three reasons why conspiracy theories are especially dangerous right now: social media, higher stakes, and a President who spreads them like they’re butter.
- Also from the Post, a new study tries to explain why some kids are experiencing massive, Kawasaki disease-like reactions to COVID-19 – a cytokine storm.
- Here are five things those of us not in underrepresented groups can do to help those who are in our workplaces.
- Board games: Asmodee has issued a bunch of print-and-play expansions and modules for existing games you own, such as the one that lets you play 7 Wonders Duel as a solo game.