Three new pieces this week for subscribers to the Athletic: Some thoughts on Shohei Ohtani’s free agency in the wake of his torn UCL; a post mortem after the White Sox fired Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn; and why college conference realignment is probably bad for college baseball.
At Paste, I reviewed the board game Hickory Dickory, which has a very cute theme and some clever mechanics but I think might just be overdesigned in the end. I do like it, just with reservations.
On the Keith Law Show, I spoke with Joe Posnanski about his upcoming book Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, which comes out on September 5th. You can listen & subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: Quillette has a lengthy explanation of the failed lab-leak hypothesis around COVID-19’s origins, and the people who still refuse to accept its failure.
- Vanity Fair gives the previously untold story of a Texas mom who was abducted by a serial killer in 1981 and talked him into letting her go by leaning on her deep religious faith.
- Writing in the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow has an unflattering profile of Elon Musk and the billionaire’s increasing influence over public policy.
- ProPublica provides the coda to their coverage of Illinois student Amara Harris, who was given a ticket by police when she was accused of stealing a fellow student’s AirPods. She won her case when a jury in Naperville determined that she did not knowingly take the AirPods (she thought they were hers and returned them when approached), and the story highlights the use of police in schools for incidents that could be handled first by school officials.
- The man who shot a California store owner for flying a Pride flag was a far-right conspiracy theorist who followed the religious zealot Matt Walsh and espoused false-flag hoaxes and climate change denial.
- Oppenheimer left out a key part of the history of nuclear weapons: the exploitation of Congolese people who mined the uranium ore by hand, including a massacre of workers who tried to bargain for higher wages in 1941.
- This 2022 article from Vice explains productivity cafes, a Japanese trend of coffee shops and bars where you tell the employees the task you’re trying to finish when you enter and they won’t let you leave until you’ve finished (e.g., writing a chapter).
- FIFA just temporarily suspended Luis Rubiales, the President of the Spanish football federation, after he kissed Spanish player Jenni Hermoso on the lips without her consent and subsequently claimed that she did consent in the wake of calls for him to resign.
- A Maine hospital is threatening to sue a 15-year-old college student for defamation over his petition calling for increased patient safety at their facility. FIRE has stepped in to demand that Northern Light retract the threat, citing Maine’s anti-SLAPP law.
- Guitar legend Carlos Santana went on a bizarre anti-trans rant during a recent concert in Atlantic City.
- A goal that seemed impossible just a few years ago is in sight – we might be able to eradicate wild polio in the wild, which would make it just the third disease we’ve eradicated after smallpox and rinderpest.
- Delaware has joined the growing list of states and cities prohibiting restaurants from using polystyrene containers, which don’t break down in landfills and can leach chemicals into the water supply.
- The Baltimore Banner once again calls out Orioles owner/failson John Angelos for how his antics are overshadowing the team’s incredible season. We’re now over seven months past his promise to open the team’s books.
- Tiny forests of native flora can help increase biodiversity and grab some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, growing even on spaces that might seem too small to support this kind of horticulture.
- One version of a single gene may increase your chances of developing long COVID after infection.
Can I sign up to get this email to me or do I just watch Twitter?
The whole Spanish football federation story is wild. You can really go down a rabbit hole if you read about all the scandals prior too.
Well, at the risk of sounding insensitive, the reason that Oppenheimer left out that story is because it just didn’t fit in with the narrative of the story being told.
The Angelos stuff must be maddening to O’s fans. Here you have this likable group of young stars who are built for a few years and a member of the lucky sperm club is complaining about the money he might have to pay Rutschman, Gunnar, etc in 2026 and 2027. The Orioles didn’t drop prices when their payroll went from $120 million to roughly $60 million over a three or four year stretch. All that’s changed is he figured out he could make more money from having a lower payroll and he wants to continue make that extra money even when the team starts to bring in more revenue. If he wants to claim poverty, he can live up to his promise that he’d open up the O’s books over a year ago. I’m guessing there’s a reason he hasn’t done so and it’s because he doesn’t want people to see how much the O’s have been making between revenue sharing and the MASN deal with the Nats.
The Fire regularly does the sneaky “moderate” right-wing thing of lying by omission. I know nothing about that specific case, but I would generally take their word with a grain of salt.
Keith, your continued defense of China in attempting to deny the lab leak theory is puzzling. From Day One, China has refused to cooperate in investigations of their lab and the possibility of a lab leak. If the Chinese lab was truly innocent of wrongdoing, or at the least of a tragic accident and mistake, then why not cooperate and provide all assistance and transparency as part of a thorough investigation?
More than some obscure web site like Quillette, I would trust far more heavily the work of Marty Makary, a respected doctor and professor at Johns Hopkins (a fairly prestigious place for medical research, as I recall). Makary has made several convincing arguments in favor of the lab leak theory. (See the link below.)
At this point, there is no 100 percent clearcut answer about the origin of COVID. But the evidence, even if it is circumstantial, seems pretty heavily tilted toward the theory that this did leak from a lab.
And without a definitive 100 percent determination of cause, why exactly would we give the Chinese government the benefit of the doubt on anything?
https://www.newsweek.com/covid-lab-leak-theory-no-brainer-house-committee-johns-hopkins-1784667
Weird that you consider an objective evaluation of facts to be a de facto “defense of China.” It’s almost enough to make one suspect that your embrace of lab leak is motivated by anti-China sentiment and not an honest search for the truth!
Bruce, your link doesn’t provide any evidence other than arguments that some folks have varying levels of confidence in a lab leak. I don’t think that anyone who says it’s a “no-brainer that it [SARS-CoV-2] came from the lab” is really considering the evidence or the probabilities of zoonotic spillover. Spillovers of coronaviruses have happened twice in the recent past (SARS and MERS), and coronaviruses are expected to be among the most likely culprits for global pandemics (which is why scientists in China and also around the world are working to understand the biology of these viruses). In my (scientific) opinion, the origins of SARS-CoV-2 are unknowable without new information. Lab leak proponents cite circumstantial evidence without considering evidence in favor of (more common historically) zoonotic spillover. I think governments should be pushing for public health policies that reduce the chances of accidental lab leaks (carefully scrutinizing whether gain-of-function experiments are worth the risk (very usually not) and increasing biosafety requirements for organisms with pandemic potential), and zoonotic spillover (curtail live-animal markets, try to reduce human encroachment into areas with wild-animal vectors). Instead, unserious actors are using this as an opportunity to attack China and Fauci for political gain.
Hi Bruce. You seem terribly confused. Allow me to help.
1. I never mentioned China. This appears to be your sinophobia at work.
2. Quillette is not “some obscure web site.” The Columbia Journalism Review referred to it as “highly influential.” It’s a right-leaning libertarian site. It also does not matter if the site is obscure. All that matters is whether the facts and arguments are valid.
3. You fell for one of the most obvious fallacies in the book by citing Marty Makary’s employer – the appeal to authority. Where he works has zero bearing on the accuracy or relevance of his arguments.
4. Makary is a fraud. He’s an oncologist with zero relevant experience in epidemiology or virology. He said in January of 2021 that we’d have herd immunity by that April, a prediction that failed, then denied that he was wrong while falsely downplaying the omicron surge even as more children died of the omicron variant than of previous ones. He’s also an anti-vaxxer. He’s been wrong about everything on COVID-19. I don’t know why you think his opinions on the origins of the virus – a field in which he has zero background or expertise – should matter to us when they contradict all available evidence.
5. But the evidence, even if it is circumstantial, seems pretty heavily tilted toward the theory that this did leak from a lab. This is false. You are denying the evidence, which that Quillette article outlined.
I hope this helps you learn to think more critically.
Thanks, Keith for the links about Makary. It’s hard to keep up with all of the hucksters.
Keith, you seem incapable of making arguments without resorting to insults. You condescendingly refer to me as “terribly confused” and call me sinophobic, without any evidence for such a claim. These kinds of insults don’t help your argument if your goal is rational and reasoned discourse and discussion. You claim that Makary is a fraud, because he doesn’t specialize in epidemiology, but you ignore the fact that many doctors have wide swaths of knowledge that often extend beyond their areas of specialization.
And then there is another habit of yours; if someone disagrees with you, you like to refer to them as “frauds” or “grifters.” We should all be so “fraudulent” as Dr. Makary, who has won multiple awards for his research and teaching accomplishments. He has also been invited to serve as a visiting professor at numerous medical schools throughout the country. You believe that his background and place of work are irrelevant, but a person’s accomplishments should always be considered part of the equation.
As for claims that Makary is an anti-vaxxer, that is patently false. When the vaccine was first produced, he was a huge supporter of the vaccine and remains in favor of the vaccine for certain parts of the population, mostly older people and those who already have major illnesses. He is against vaccine MANDATES (very different from being an anti-vaxxer) particularly those that involve children and younger adults.
“We should all be so “fraudulent” as Dr. Makary, who has won multiple awards for his research and teaching accomplishments. He has also been invited to serve as a visiting professor at numerous medical schools throughout the country. You believe that his background and place of work are irrelevant, but a person’s accomplishments should always be considered part of the equation.”
I don’t care if Makary literally cured cancer, it doesn’t make him a public health expert in any way shape or form. And no, a person’s unrelated accomplishments should not “be considered part of the equation”, whatever that was supposed to mean.
whatever that was supposed to mean.
It means Bruce has no idea what he’s talking about, and rather than thinking critically, he’s just parroting things he’s read or heard.
There is no evidence to support the lab-leak hypothesis. It has failed. The evidence we do have supports the zoonotic spillover hypothesis. That is all that matters.
Makary looks to be an award winning oncologist. Saying we should listen to him about public health is bit like when the NFL employed a rheumatologist to be their expert on brain injuries/concussions. Or sayiing since Keith is an award winning baseball writer, The Athletic should have him go write about NASCAR.
One other point: you claim that Makary has been wrong on everything since the pandemic began. That is another exaggeration, of course, but what medical professional hasn’t been wrong about something during the pandemic? Let’s start with Dr. Fauci, who has been wrong on multiple occasions and has contradicted himself so many times that it’s difficult to keep track.
There’s a difference between contradicting oneself and changing one’s opinion based on newly available evidence.
Keith, who would you vote for in the 2024 if it was between Kennedy and DeSantis? They are both polling in second place in their respective parties, so hypothetically, where would you cast your vote?
I think this is the second or third time you’ve asked this nonsense question, Steve. If Biden couldn’t run, for whatever reason, there would be plenty of Democrats that would get the nomination over RFK Jr, including the current Vice President.
It’s the second time, but “Steve” hasn’t produced a single real comment – everything is trolling, going back to this time last year. He’s done.
Steve, if Biden is unable to run; the nominee will not be RFK Jr. It’d be someone like Kamala, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg or JB Pritzker.
Here’s a novel answer – how about, NEITHER OF THEM.
God forbid people consider not voting for one of the two major party candidates.
There’s always an inanimate carbon rod to vote for instead.
To pile on, there’s a huge difference between polling second in an open primary and polling second against an incumbent President (where serious candidates do not want to challenge). It’s conservative wishcasting. I may want the least MAGA and most liberal Republican to win the GOP primary, but at least I don’t pretend that it’s plausible.
Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.
Frank:
That is dumb. Kang is much the better candidate!
Salty Scientist –
Just out of curiosity – who would that be? Are there any mainstream rational liberal-leaning (to whatever extent) GOP candidates? Asking as a serious question, because I really don’t pay much attention to what the GOP does, since there is pretty much zero chance I will ever vote for any of their candidates.
Christie seems to be least MAGA and probably to the left of the rest of the field (though not liberal). For me, he’d be the least bad option. He’s not nearly as palatable to liberals as Kennedy is for conservatives, so the comp does break down. He does have that zero chance thing going for him though.
Good point. Is it odd that I might find Christie more appealing to vote for than RFJ Jr, not that it would ever actually come to that?