Just a quick note from me this week for subscribers to The Athletic, looking at the Angels’ trade for Hunter Renfroe in exchange for three fringy reliever types, with notes from Sam Blum as well. I did do my annual livestream where I take your questions while I spatchcock a turkey, although the video quality appears to be terrible. I blame Twitter.
For Paste, I reviewed Splendor Duel and Botanik, two new small-box two-player games from the publisher Space Cowboys. Splendor Duel is a strictly two-player spinoff of the wonderful game Splendor, adding direct player interaction and special powers on the cards that make it more than two-player solitaire, which can be true of the original.
I sent out another issue of my free email newsletter last week. I’m on a bunch of wannabe Twitter replacement sites, including Post.news, Hive (keithlaw), and Counter Social, plus the usual Facebook and Instagram links. Also, you can buy either of my books, Smart Baseball or The Inside Game, via bookshop.org at those links, or at your friendly local independent bookstore.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: ProPublica leads the way again, with a story on how a woman’s 911 call when her baby died was used to convict her of killing him, thanks to the police’s use of an evidence-free technique called “911 call analysis.”
- The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has issued a lengthy rebuttal to a recent New York Times article that claimed harm from puberty blockers that isn’t supported by available research. The report also questions whether the authors of the Times article misquoted some sources.
- A sheriff in a rural county in northern Minnesota has been accused of misusing corporate funds given to his office, arresting protesters against a water pipeline on tar sands in the county, and now retaliating against lawyers seeking to subpoena him
- The head of the Autism Science Foundation writes about the need to recognize profound autism as a distinct diagnosis from or within that of autism spectrum disorder, arguing that the people advocating for autistic rights represent just one type of autism diagnosis.
- The most likely GOP nominee for President in 2024 hosted white nationalist antisemite Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago this week.
- Anti-vax accounts are pretending to be legitimate by buying the blue check mark, allowing them to spread misinformation more widely, as Twitter appears to have given up on moderating content on its site.
- They’re also pushing a bullshit documentary called Died Suddenly that claims many people died suddenly after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine – some of who are, in fact, not dead – and are harassing those people’s loved ones online, claiming they’re part of some sort of cover-up.
- This spike in militant anti-vaccine activity is leading to rises in measles cases, as measles is extremely contagious but depends on a pool of unvaccinated hosts, since the MMR vaccine is one of the most effective we have.
- Meanwhile, some former Twitter employees expressed their dismay at Twitter’s decision to reinstate twice-impeached former President Trump’s account. Of course, there are a lot of former Twitter employees these days.
- The New Republic examines Elon Musk’s implied anti-trans agenda, given his moves so far.
- The Washington Post interviewed dril about the state of Twitter. I admit it wasn’t quite as funny as I’d hoped it would be.
- The Atlantic wins for the best headline of the week, with Trump’s Terrifically Stupid Return to Twitter.
- Georgetown history professor Thomas Zimmer posted an interesting if disturbing thread on Musk’s lurch to the right and his embrace of an anti-democratic worldview, arguing as well that Twitter’s demise will be bad for democracy across the globe.
- A Christian (Baptist) preacher in Washington state said the massacre of five LGBTQ+ people at a club in Colorado Springs was “a good thing.”
- And it’s a vicious cycle, as the flood of anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech coming from the right leads to more violence, which spurs on more hate speech, and so on.
- The same far-right is now attacking the hero who stopped the Club Q shooter, calling him a “groomer” and a slur for gay men, led by the same troll who started the bogus Pizzagate conspiracy.
- Republicans are now trying to pass laws restricting investment firms from pursuing climate change-friendly policies, like divesting in fossil fuel producers, calling them “anti-boycott” laws.
- Government officials and candidates have visited Trump’s properties over 500 times, even continuing to do so in the wake of the January 6th insurrection.
- The Post’s Philip Bump argues that the Supreme Court has lost any justification for its claims of being above the partisan fray, with the news that Samuel Alito leaked a decision back in 2014 just the latest in a series of moves showing how polluted the institution has become.
- Meanwhile, Amy Coney Barrett, who isn’t even one of the two most conservative justices on the court, has yet to recuse herself from a case involving LGBTQ+ rights given her own membership in a religious group that practices the same sort of discrimination.
- The BBC reports on the kenari nut, a crop that may be about to boom as a possible dairy substitute, while also potentially driving economic growth in Indonesia.
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette co-owner Allan Block and his wife Susan responded to a question about why he won’t settle with striking workers with a “fuck you” and a slap (video included). You can support the strikers in several ways, including reading their strike paper at Union Progress.
- Board game news: Z-Man Games announced Mists over Carcassonne, a new cooperative spinoff of Carcassonne, due out in January.
- Holy Grail Games has a Kickstarter going for Copan: Dying City, a worker-placement game where resources get scarcer as the game progresses and the city of the title collapses.
Even without the likely leak by Alito in Hobby Lobby (and very likely Dobbs), the Times would’ve been bad for the SC’s credibility. It painted a very close relationship between certain justices and groups that had very specific interests in the results of cases like Hobby Lobby. Alito and others having dinner with very wealthy donors to conservative interest groups makes it very hard to believe that they can be impartial in any way. Combine that with the Ginni Thomas issue and several conservative justices attending Federalist Society events along with several controversial decisions and it’s not hard to understand why there’s been such an erosion in trust by the public. If John Roberts is the institutionalist that he claims to be, he really needs to start telling the public what steps if any he believes should be taken to restore trust. One simple thing would be requiring the SC to have a stricter COI and ethics policy. Roberts’s legacy is really at stake here if you take how he views the Court at face value. Otherwise he’ll be known as the Chief Justice who looked the other way while the conservatives on the court were making a mockery of the institution and this has nothing to do with their rulings.
With regard to the Pro Publica article about the woman being convicted of killing her baby based on a 911 call, don’t forget the role of the jury, which by definition must have voted unanimously to convict her.
Law enforcement can use whatever bogus methods they choose….but the responsibility lies with the members of the jury to reject such methods if they don’t hold water.
Except people are always going to be more inclined to believe the prosecution’s “star expert”. People by nature want to believe the police especially when they can pretend there’s a science behind their methods.
The average jurist is not a scientific expert and is ill equipped to adjudicate whether or not the expert witnesses are engaging in pseudoscience (see also burn pattern, bite mark, and hair fiber analyses). Pseudoscience in forensics is a huge problem–one of the major contributors to the estimated 5% false conviction rate in the US. I appreciate ProPublica investigating and debunking this particular piece of pseudoscience, but a quick google search pulls up a bunch of articles about forensic pseudoscience over the past decade, including ones from leading scientific organizations (like AAAS). Unfortunately, the US at large doesn’t seem to care enough about wrongful convictions to actually do something political to help prevent them. Instead we have to rely on organizations such as Project Innocence to fight on a case-by-case basis, where even victories usually mean years and years of wrongful imprisonment.
The WPATH agrees that “less vitriol, more science” is needed when discussing transgender youth care, but then implies that the NY Time article can be used by others to justify violence. A stance like that, where essentially any opinion at odds with the WPATH on a topic with extremely thin, unsettled science is said to possibly lead to violence, sure won’t lead to less vitriolic debate.
That’s a narrow reading of what they said, and the topic does not have “extremely thin, unsettled science.”
Children’s hospitals are being hit with bomb threats from people who believe, incorrectly, that gender affirming care is harming (or mutilating) children. This article isn’t helping matters by presenting one side of the story, and the side with inferior evidence to support it at that.
The evidence base for studies on puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender youth is sorely lacking, so I’m not sure why it would be treated as settled. Presenting one side to that isn’t leading to violence just because some right-wing nut latches on to whatever they can.
The debate in this country is dominated by two sides currently – those that think no one suffers from gender dysphoria and all care to address that should be banned, and those that think the US health system’s approach to the care is entirely rigorous and 100% backed by science. It’s possible to argue that there are kids that sorely need the appropriate care and that in many cases, our healthcare professionals have been way too cavalier in their approach to this.
That’s a complete strawman. Nobody is arguing that the US system’s approach is “entirely rigorous and 100% backed by science.” One side is trying to ban gender affirming care for kids – and sometimes for adults too – and the other is saying that the best approach based on current evidence is to permit this care as appropriate.
Skip the bothsidesism, please.
Where’s the strawman? The NY Times article said nothing about banning gender affirming care and just raised some points about the risks and concerns as it applies to youths receiving that care; risks and concerns that apparently can’t be discussed without leading to violence as the WPATH rebuttal hinted at.
The problem is that your whole line of “questioning” is ignoring the reality at hand. There is a small but real cadre of people who simply put want trans people dead, a political party that fully supports their aims, and a liberal media apparatus that repeatedly “just asks questions” to run cover for them. Just look at the comments to the NYT article to see all the seemingly well-meaning commenters casually parroting right-wing talking points as a result. What this means is that “questioning” like that in the NY Times article directly benefits those who wish violence on trans people and must be rebutted as the bad faith trash that it is.
I don’t dispute any of what you said wrt extremists on the right, but that doesn’t mean you don’t ask the questions that deserve asking. If there are significant complications from providing puberty blockers and/or hormone treatments to children, we need to know how prevalent that is and what the long-term risks are. And the fact is we just don’t because the research has not been great. We can’t ignore tough questions because of one broken political party. Journalists like Jesse Singal, who unequivocally supports trans rights, has raised these questions and is labeled a hateful transphobe as a result. It’s not exactly conducive to civil, liberal discourse.
The research is fine and Jesse Singal does not support trans rights whatsoever
Singal is a transphobe. GLAAD has a list of his journalistic misdeeds, many of which amount to “just asking questions” or making assertions without evidence. He seems to have little interest in civil discourse, given his history. The fact that transphobes love him should also be a clue.
If you think Singal is a tranphobe, then you very clearly have never fully read anything he’s written nor listen to anything he’s had to say. Trying not using a group with a completely distorted viewpoint of anything he says or writes. Point to one thing that shows he’s a transphobe.
Mike, the research is not fine. The research on treatment for children is sorely lacking. I’d love to see links to the contrary.
Au contraire. I’ve followed Singal’s career as a trans issues dilettante since he criticized the firing of Kenneth Zucker. His writings are harmful to trans people and to trans rights as a whole. Here’s one takedown of Singal’s work.
Here is Singal like one day after the shooting concern trolling a guy advocating for trans people. If you think he’s an honest interlocutor or in any meaningful way supports trans people, I have a series of bridges to sell you.
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/controversial-take-its-bad-to-put
That’s a takedown? One Jezebel writer’s opinion of his articles that offers nothing in the way of substance?? Ok. This whole thread basically proves the point that you can’t question anything about gender affirming care for adolescents in any constructive way. One side is deranged and uses any discussion to enact awful legislation to ban the needed care and the other way just decides no questions can be asked despite the very real, open medical questions.
No, not their opinion, but the links they provided.
I think this discussion proves something very different from what you think it does. You’re rejecting any comments that don’t support your initial claims.
The links mostly reference back to Jesse’s work. I don’t mean to keep this going, but the NY Times was a very nuanced article. Jesse Singal is an intellectual honest writer who’s work is extremely well researched. Whether or not you agree with Singal or the NY Times, their stances are not out of the mainstream and the questions they raise are not beyond the pale. If the response to both is to label Singal a transphobe (again when no evidence at all points to that) and imply the NY Times article may lead to violence, then all trans advocates are doing is turning off people they need to support their cause. Trashing anyone and everything to the right of the left most position sure as hell isn’t a winning strategy.