My one post on The Athletic last week was a long scouting notebook covering Vahn Lackey, Joseph Contreras, Liam Peterson, and other players I saw in a week in South Carolina and Georgia.
Over at the AV Club, I reviewed Catan on the Road, a new portable Catan game that loses the map – and thus the competition for space – but keeps the resource-trading mechanic and even tweaks the rules to encourage players to trade more.
I sent out another issue of my free email newsletter late last week. You should subscribe.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: The New York Times has another exposé on how Harvard professors and administrators were happy to take Jeffrey Epstein’s money, even after his initial conviction. Three more professors found their names included in the latest files that the Times reporters reviewed: Howard Gardner, Anne Harrington, and Andrew Strominger. All are still active faculty members.
- The New Yorker investigates how the Trump Administration has made locking up immigrant infants and children a core part of its strategy.
- Upward Bound is a bestselling novel written by nonverbal, autistic author Woody Brown using the discredited communication technique called Rapid Prompting. His mother may be the actual author.
- A group chat started by the secretary of Miami-Dade’s Republican Party was filled with racist slurs and antisemitic comments by FIU students, but so far the school has yet to take any action against them. One of those students, Ethan Ratchkauskas, is suing the school on First Amendment grounds after saying someone had to “swiss cheese that professor,” later clarifying that he meant shooting them full of holes.
- Courtney Williams was one of the whistleblowers who spoke to a journalist about sexual harassment and discrimination at Fort Bragg in the 2010s. The Justice Department just arrested her, claiming she revealed sensitive information.
- The BBC goes through all of the insider trading allegations against Trump, his family members, and his Cabinet.
- Most of the stories about former Virginia Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax (D)’s murder of his wife and subsequent suicide were about him. CNN profiled Cerina Fairfax, the victim in his case.
- Also in the Times, Michael Jackson’s estate is hoping the upcoming hagiography Michael will help restore some of the disgraced singer’s image and thus boost their profits. Of course, if you’ve seen Leaving Neverland, you know exactly why this whole endeavor is disgusting.
- Good riddance to Eric Swalwell, whose downfall came about due to the efforts of many women (including some of his victims) who organized themselves online, as detailed by NPR.
- Oh, hey, another person President Trump pardoned has gone on to be convicted of sex crimes against children.
- The Lancet has an editorial beseeching readers not to forgive people like Jay Bhattacharya and Marty Makary, ostensible scientists who sold their souls to Trump and have peddled misinformation that will set public health efforts back for decades.
- It appears that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which traces its origins to 1786, will continue publishing after all, as the nonprofit institute that owns the Baltimore Banner is buying the paper. Block Communications, owned by the Block family, had decided to shut the paper down rather than abide by federal labor court rulings against their unfair labor practices.
- The same white supremacist behind the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that knocked down affirmative action in college admissions is now targeting the Congressional Black Caucus’ scholarship program for Black students. Hell isn’t hot enough for people who want to roll us back to the days after Reconstruction.
- A worker died during his shift at an Amazon warehouse in Oregon earlier this month. His co-workers were told to ignore his body and keep working.
- Mother Jones details the Trump Administration’s potential ‘nuclear bomb’ to stop all gender-affirming care for trans youths. I’m not sure if Monday’s federal court ruling vacating the Kennedy Declaration changes what’s in this story.
- Senegal just passed a law doubling the penalty for same-sex relationships, while also criminalizing “promoting” or “financing” LGBT relationships. The bill passed the West African nation’s legislature with no votes against it.
- The Texas A&M professor who was told by that fake university’s Board of Regents that he couldn’t teach a portion of Plato’s Symposium because of the school’s new censorship regime spoke to The Chronicle of Higher Education about his decision to resign.
- Traffic to publishers from social media is plummeting, particularly from Facebook and Twitter.
- AI-driven accounts promoting Trump and/or conservative politicians are popping up all over TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube.
- A Missouri cop who killed a 2-year-old girl while working as a SWAT team sniper is now a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper. Keaton Siebenaler has never faced any consequences for firing at a silhouette during a hostage situation, which is how he ended up killing Clesslynn Crawford during a standoff between her father and police.
- Quined Games’ reprinting of Rudiger Dorn’s Goa is up on Gamefound right now. I owned it, and played it, but it didn’t quite do it for me – at least not to the level of its reputation.
“In the broadcast, Mary says: “To finally be in the room where learning was happening, I felt like I was in heaven.” But Woody’s finger seems to say: Tobgdhi nvza.”
I LOL’d. Top tier reporting (despite it being a sad situation where a vulnerable individual is likely being exploited for $).
Courtney Williams was brave to share the horrifying details of her time at Fort Bragg, and fuck the Justice dept and JSOC for getting revenge on her now instead of doing anything to better the indefensible behavior she spoke of. Everyone should be ashamed of the lawless psychopaths on base there, and the atrocities we’re all paying them to commit on a regular basis.
I couldn’t be happier that Texas A&M has found its way onto your shit list recently. That place sucks SO BAD, and the only things worse than the “Ball 5” chants and dumbass “Whoops” are the racism, jingoism, and homophobia.
Swalwell still feels like a political hit to me.
Not that he isn’t guilty; I assume he is – and sure, good riddance. But because it’s just coming out now.
What I’ve been reading is that there were rumors swirling about him his whole time in Congress, but reporters for one reason or another (“women’s issues” not my beat, no corroborating evidence, etc.) never dug into it. Then all this happens in a rush when he’s a problem in the governor’s race. NPR doesn’t address that, but I would bet money that the timing isn’t an innocent coincidence. Someone’s been feeding people dirt.
I think that’s important, because it makes you wonder how many more there are whom reporters aren’t touching, just because no one’s decided to stick a political knife in them.