I had two posts this week for subscribers to The Athletic – a breakdown of the Michael Busch trade for prospects and another of the Cubs signing Shota Imanaga. Somehow, this brought the Matt Mervis stans back out off hiding.
At Paste, I published a full review of the game The White Castle, my top new game of 2023. Fries are extra.
I also sent out a fresh edition of my free email newsletter earlier in the week. You should sign up, as I’m posting less to Twitter these days, although you can also find me on Threads, Bluesky, and Spoutible.
A light week for links, probably because I was on the phone so much working on prospect stuff that I was offline more than usual (at least twice because my eyes hurt from so much screen time)…
- This fantastic episode of The Hidden Brain talks about persistence and uses R.A. Dickey as one of its core examples – and gets his story right.
- In Nyack, New York, sex abuse claims against a former high school baseball coach have resurfaced in an attempt to get the name of the head coach (who is not the accused abuser) removed from the school’s field. Several former players have accused assistant coach Peter Recla, who coached at Nyack High School in the late 1990s and early 2000s, of grooming and sexual abuse. The district settled a lawsuit with some of the victims in November.
- Nigerian megachurch leader TB Joshua, who was not a drag queen, tortured, raped, and abused many of his worshippers until his death in 2021. A BBC investigation found cases of all of the above as well as forced abortions and cult-like control spanning twenty years.
- Now Florida schools are pulling dictionaries and encyclopedias from shelves because they may have “objectionable” content like … facts.
- Following the lead of Iowa, Mississippi has withdrawn from a free federal program providing funds to states to feed underprivileged schoolchildren over the summer, part of a new Republican drive against the “welfare state.” I don’t understand why this is minor news, but a rat-shaped hole in Chicago gets coverage in national papers.
- Meanwhile, a third of the current Representatives and Senators are election deniers. This just isn’t compatible with democracy as a going concern. It’s one or the other.
- Are fast-food prices really going up, and if so, is it because of rising wages? It’s not that simple, according to this story on Vox. Input prices have gone up substantially in the last few years as well. Also, the $18 Big Mac story that went viral was about a McDonald’s at a rest stop with a captive audience.
- This NY Times story explains a new type of streaming fraud, where copycats steal obscure artists’ songs and repackage them under fake artist names. What’s interesting here is that Warner ended up distributing some of the bogus tracks.
- Birmingham Children’s Hospital in England is inundated with measles cases because anti-vaxxers convinced enough parents not to vaccinate their children against the incredibly contagious and dangerous virus.
- Paste profiled SPRINTS as the Irish punk band released their first full-length album Letter to Self.
- If you live in Ohio and are concerned about the recent anti-trans law passed by the state’s heavily gerrymandered legislature over Gov. Mike DeWine (R)’s veto, here are some things you can do to help the cause.