My newest column for the Athletic was pushed back to Monday, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, I did hold my first Klawchat in a while on Friday.
On the Keith Law Show this week, I spoke with Dr. Sian Beilock, author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, an intangible that is actually both tangible and mutable. You can train your brain to do better in high-pressure situations. You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and Spotify. I also appeared on the Athletic Baseball Daily show again on Friday.
We’ve cleared over $800 raised to help Afghan refugees resettle in this area, money I will donate to Jewish Family Services of Delaware when I receive it. You can buy your “I’m just here for the #umpshow” T-shirt here to support the cause.
I’ll resume the email newsletter this weekend, now that things are calmer and less COVID-y around the house. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The New York Times Magazine looks at how one Dominion Voting Systems employee became the bogeyman for the election deniers, destroying his life in the process.
- A fringe medical group calling itself the Frontline Covid Critical Care Alliance is the major reason a bunch of American morons have started eating horse dewormer, even in the face of every major scientific and medical body saying it doesn’t work. Marisa Kabas investigated the group for the Huffington Post.
- A new paper in Nature Immunology examines better communication techniques to boost vaccine acceptance.
- Right-wing dark money groups’ next target? Local school boards, using fears of critical race theory to try to get their puppet candidates elected. Even if you live in an area where you think this couldn’t happen, make sure you pay attention to your next school board election.
- Hey, there’s a pre-print out with the results of an RCT that shows that masks are an effective mitigation strategy against COVID-19. They’re best when used with other mitigation strategies, such as vaccines, but they do help. That sound you hear is anti-maskers moving the goalposts.
- Ah, Texas, or should we just call you Gilead? NPR and Teen Vogue look at the state’s effort to turn back the clock 50 years, including the deleterious effect the state’s de facto abortion ban will have on women’s health. Plan C is trying to spread the word about how to get abortion pills online. The Nation points out how the right is concern-trolling everyone with bogus eugenics objections, when this is really about making religion into law. An enterprising programmer wrote an iOS shortcut to spam the Texas Right to Life group’s whistleblower site with junk reports, while GoDaddy is telling them to find another hosting service.
- The NY Times has an oral history of Y Tu Mamá Tambien, twenty years after the film, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring a terribly young Gael García Bernal, was first released.
- The Alabama coal miners strike continues to get very little mainstream media coverage, but one independent journalist has been on the ground with the strikers for several months.
- Why did Louisiana use forced prison labor to fill sandbags before Hurricane Ida hit – and then return those prisoners to their cells rather than evacuate them?
- Board game news: First watch this Shut Up & Sit Down review of the game 1819 Singapore, and then read this for more information.
- WILD: Serengeti looks like it has incredible artwork, if nothing else, and it’s on Kickstarter now.
- Also, The Price of Coal, a game about labor rights, is funded but is still on Kickstarter. I backed this one because I love the theme and concept.