I had a fourth mock draft go up Saturday morning for subscribers to The Athletic and then updated it on Sunday (same URL), following one I published just this past Tuesday. I also wrote up short capsules on fifty more players who might be drafted this week, beyond those on my top 100. I recapped Saturday’s Futures Game with notes on the standouts and a couple of disappointments. And I wrote up a scouting notebook on some guys I saw in triple A and high A games the previous week, including Cam Schlittler and Konnor Griffin.
At Endless Mode (formerly Paste Games), I reviewed the light tile-laying game Flower Fields, which reminded me a bit of Patchwork, but less tense and for up to four players rather than just two.
I really meant to get a newsletter out last week but never had time enough to write up the first half (the part that matters). Anyway, sign up here for free and I’ll try to do one after the draft dust settles.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The Hollywood Reporter describes the celebrity-impersonation scams that proliferate on social media, and how those celebrities may be the best hope for fighting back against this scourge.
- Anas Baba, NPR’s producer in the Gaza Strip, described the horrendous conditions there in a story on how difficult it is for Gazans to secure food from one of the few distribution centers. Meanwhile, the IDF bombed a queue of mothers and children lining up to receive nutritional supplements in Gaza, and it appears that Israeli ‘settlers’ in the West Bank beat an American citizen visiting family there to death. I’ve seen no comment or demand from our federal government about his murder yet.
- The New York Times has an in-depth story on a woman who kidnapped her daughter after her divorce, because in the 1970s courts would not award custody to mothers if they were gay. The piece focuses on the child, who has very mixed feelings about what her mother did and how it altered the course of her life forever.
- The family of a Northwestern University Professor who killed herself during a (dubious) federal investigation into whether she was some kind of spy for China is suing the school for contributing to her declining mental state.
- The author Gary Shteyngart visited the country of Georgia and wrote about its food and sights for Condé Nast Traveler.
- A few months ago, Texas Republicans voted down a bill to improve local disaster warning systems, such as tornado and flood sirens.
- The Guardian’s Margaret Sullivan asks why The New York Times appears to be trying to take down Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, focusing on the paper’s recent story about what she calls a “made-up scandal.”
- I included a link on John Wilson, who was running for executive of King County (WA), getting arrested for stalking and violating a restraining order, in the links a week or two ago; this week, charges were dropped, but he also ended his campaign.
- Rare good news on the vaccine front, as NBC News reports on some states, mostly blue ones, trying to end the fake ‘religious exemptions’ to school vaccination requirements.
- That’s important because, as this BMJ piece notes, the vaccine-denial movement is threatening global health.
- Texas AG Ken Paxton (R) loves to talk about what a strong Christian he is, and has attempted to bring religion into government since he took office a decade ago. His wife announced this week she’s filed for divorce because he keeps cheating on her. Thou shalt not, or something like that.
- Paste explores how AI-generated content is drowning the publishing industry in slop.
- The Intelligencer explains how a combination of changes at Google, Twitter’s self-destruction, and AI have led to a traffic apocalypse for media companies.
- The Guardian has a story on just how dangerous choking during sex is, even as the practice seems to be becoming more prevalent – and it’s almost always women being choked, of course. The whole story made me feel very old and creeped out.
- Libraries in Kent, England, have been instructed by the Reform-led council there to remove any trans books from their shelves if they might be seen by children. There are many problems here, but the most fundamental one is the idea that books about trans people – or other LBGTQ+ people, or Black people, or Jewish people – are inherently inappropriate for children. They’re not.
- Some board game Kickstarters of note: Allplay has one for Sail Legacy, a legacy version of the cooperative two-player trick-taking game; and Restoration Games has one for a storage solution for players of their Unmatched card-game series.