I had three pieces for subscribers to The Athletic around the trade deadline, wrapping up the Padres’ three moves, the Blue Jays’ and Mets’ moves, and five other trades in separate columns. I also had two new episodes of The Keith Law Show this week, one featuring Jessica Luther and Kavitha Davidson, authors of the new book Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back (which you can buy here), and another one with Will Leitch, which we posted Friday morning so you’d have it before the holiday weekend.
On Friday night, September 11th, I’ll be hosting a live talk with author Chuck Palahniuk about his new book The Invention of Sound through Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg. It’s a ticketed event, and with your purchase you’ll get a signed copy of the book as well as a link to the talk. (I just started reading the book about an hour ago.)
At Paste, I reviewed the tile-laying and set-collection game Succulent, and then ranked the five best tile-laying games I’ve played, which should include a few titles familiar to longtime readers.
I sent out a fresh edition of my free email newsletter on Friday, describing how I went from someone who hadn’t run in any meaningful way since 1985 to running 5 km without interruption in about four months.
And now, the links…
- In a story since confirmed by other outlets, including Fox News, the Atlantic reported that President Trump referred to soldiers killed in action as “losers” and “suckers,” which, in a rational world, would end any support he received from current or former members of the U.S. military.
- We will need a vast, coordinated effort to convince Americans of the safety of an eventual COVID-19 vaccine, or we will have too few people getting it to stop the pandemic. This assumes that Trump doesn’t coerce regulators into approving one before it’s adequately tested, and that very possibility is why we are where we are.
- Kuli Kohli was born with cerebral palsy, and in the village in India where she was born her parents were encouraged to drown her. They eventually moved with her to the UK, where she’s now a poet, a mother, and a mentor to other women writers.
- Daniel Thompson, the only full-time Black journalist at The Kenosha News, resigned his position to protest the paper’s use of an incendiary quote that cast protesters in an inaccurate light.
- Larry Flynt wrote a “final farewell to the Falwells,” and it’s a more nuanced and thoughtful note than you might expect, with kind words about Jerry Falwell, Sr., with whom Flynt waged a very public battle over his First Amendment rights, and damning words about Falwell’s hypocritical son.
- How did T. Denny Sanford, the richest man in South Dakota and a major Republican donor, get out of an investigation into his alleged possession of child pornography? ProPublica is asking for possible sources to come forward.
- Online hoaxes, like the myriad ones about COVID-19, are making doctors’ jobs harder – and the blame falls primarily on Facebook and other sites that have let this misinformation fester.
- Ars Technica reports that Facebook’s “plan” to combat election misinformation is the same as its plan for pretty much everything else that goes wrong on its site – doing nothing at all.
- Philly Inquirer columnist Will Bunch says that Trump’s “reelection scheme of a civil war” is kicking into high gear as the election approaches. I was always skeptical of those who said Trump wouldn’t leave office willingly, but my view is shifting as his rhetoric changes, and the rest of his party continues to enable him.
- Jean Guerrero, author of the new book Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda, writes about how writers and critics have questioned whether she, as a Latina journalist, is ‘qualified’ to write a book about a white man. It’s another example of the longstanding white-centric and male-centric views of mainstream publishing.
- The American Academy of Sleep Medicine called for the elimination of Daylight Savings Time, citing a large body of evidence showing that DST is harmful to our health.
- If you’re looking for an alternative to dairy milk, but are also concerned about the environmental damage wrought by almond production, the Guardian says oat milk is your best choice.
- Three mathematicians have solved a longstanding question about straight paths on the dodecahedron, one of the five Platonic solids and the only one for which this question remained unsolved.
- Board game news: Climate Crisis, a cooperative game with an educational goal, is about to end its Kickstarter run tomorrow.
- The Days of Wonder crossover game Small World of Warcraft is now out in stores and online.