florida — Page 4

→ September 11, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 9/11/22.

I pushed this post back a day so I could file another post for the Athletic, so you had two from me in the last 48 hours – a scouting post on some top Guardians and Nationals prospects, and a second edition of my looks at September prospect callups. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Next Station: London, a great new flip-and-write game with a route-planning mechanic that makes it a sort of a puzzle – the choices you make early in the game constrain your choices later. This is definitely the year of the roll/flip-and-write.

My guest on this week’s episode of the Keith Law Show was Wingspan game designer Elizabeth Hargrave, talking about her next big game, The Fox Experiment, now on Kickstarter (and already 500% funded in five days). You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The New Yorker looks at how Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and the Ottawa County police department have worked together to turn rape victims into defendants, putting one of their own on trial for accusing a cop – who has been accused by at least two other women of sexual assault – of coercing her into sex.

A column denying the extent of racism in Canadian society led to a successful effort to unionize the country’s conservative paper the National Post, securing gains for BIPOC employees in the process.

A Fox producer warned execs to stop Jeanine Pirro from airing her election-denial views, according to documents revealed in the Dominion Systems lawsuit against the right-wing juggernaut.

Billionaire Barre Seid has used his money to fund climate-change denialism and fight Medicaid expansion (that is, health care for our poorest citizens), while also funding a law school to churn out archconservative future judges, according to records unearthed by ProPublica.

One Alabama prison has been holding pregnant women there for weeks or months, in what appears to be a violation of basic Constitutional rights, to protect the fetuses from drug use.

David DeWitt of the Ohio Capitol Journal writes of the intolerable cruelty of Ohio’s total ban on abortions, including the suffering already of pregnant women needing essential medical care.

Nature’s editors write of the need for greater protections for scientists and researchers from threats and abuse, pointing at lawmakers and the executives running social media sites.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, introduced a new “Commitment to America” that is short on ideas and long on Trumpian insanity, according to Alex Shephard of the New Republic, pointing to the lack of details for how it will achieve vague goals, emphasis on truly counterproductive policies (like increasing fossil fuel production), and kowtowing to election deniers.

Oxford scientists may have developed an effective malaria vaccine. Malaria has long resisted traditional approaches to vaccine development because it’s caused by a parasite, rather than a bacterium or virus, and the parasite changes form once inside the host’s body.

Count me among those Duolingo users who hate the app’s total redesign, as it has removed most of the flexibility the old structure gave users to set their own pace; I used the app to try to keep my Spanish skills fresh, but wouldn’t do those lessons at the same speed or rate as those of Welsh, which I was learning from scratch. The founder’s comments don’t give me much hope, as they betrayed a real disdain for their customers.

I knew Florida state Rep. Randy Fine in college, and am not surprised to see the person he’s become as an adult or politician – he was one of the most vocal Florida officials to rail against “woke” Disney, but is also happy to spend thousands of dollars on the company’s cruises and products.

An 18-year-old student was elected to the Boise School Board, in no small part because his opponent refused to denounce an endorsement from a far-right extremist group that arrives armed with AR-15s to public events, supports book banning, and refers to undocumented immigrants as “illegals.”

As many GOP candidates across the country are trying to scrub anti-abortion or other hard-right rhetoric from their campaign sites, Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano is leaning harder in that direction, becoming “Trumpier than Trump” in the words of Axios’ Jonathan Swan.

Lots of board game Kickstarters etc. this week, starting with the solo-only game Legacy of Yu from Shem Phillips, designer of Raiders of the North Sea and the North Sea and West Kingdom series of games.

Disney is introducing a new Magic: the Gathering-style collectible card game called Lorcana, and Polygon has images of some of the superb art.

Keith Matejka, designer of the Roll Player games, has a new title on Kickstarter called Dawn of Ulos, a tile-laying game for 1-5 players set in the Roll Player universe.

25^th Century Games has a Gamefound campaign up for expansions to its Prehistories and Space Explorers games.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: abortion, alabama, board game news, florida, idaho, Languages, links, longreads, metoo, ohio, pennsylvania, social media, stick to baseball, unions, vaccines

→ September 4, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 9/4/22.

One new post for subscribers to The Athletic this week, looking at some of the more significant or interesting September callups from the last seven days. Some other good names, like Triston Casas, came up after I wrote it.

My podcast returned this week with Dan Pfeiffer, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama and author of the new book Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The New Yorker looks at the roots of Justice Samuel Alito’s crusade to make America an explicitly Christian nation, regardless of the Constitution’s protections against this.
Multiple women have accused Arcade Fire co-leader Win Butler of sexual misconduct, as reported by Pitchfork.
This long Vanity Fair profile of Washington Post executive editor Sally Buzbee sure makes it sound like she’s going to both-sides our political moment.
Not sure if I linked this previously, but this study in Science should be (have been) the final nail in the “lab-leak” hypothesis, which is now just a conspiracy theory pushed by cranks and grifters in the face of such strong evidence for a zoonotic origin.
NBC News’ Ben Collins pulls back the curtain on Kiwi Farms, a message board where trolls dox their targets, mostly LGBTQ+ people and women, leading to at least two suicides and substantial real-world harassment, including swatting attacks. After the article ran, Kiwi Farms’ trolls doxxed Collins and threatened further attacks and even violence, so Cloudflare, their caching and DDoS protection provider, finally dropped them as a free client.
Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, is the best tool we have to help self-harming and suicidal teens, but it’s widely underused, in part because it’s expensive and insurance carriers often deny coverage.
A secular activist sent signs saying “In God We Trust” in Arabic to Carroll ISD in Texas, because the theocratic state has a policy saying any such signs must be displayed in a “conspicuous” place, but of course the district is refusing to display them, as well as signs that say it in rainbow-colored letters.
Having a miscarriage or stillbirth in Alabama can land you 18 years in prison if a jury decides that you used drugs and those caused the loss of the pregnancy.
Ginni Thomas, the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice, tried to get lawmakers in both Arizona and Wisconsin to nullify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 Presidential election.
The Council for National Policy has long operated in secret while helping conservatives try to take over multiple levels of the U.S., state, and local governments, but a recent leak has given us a glimpse at how the clandestine group works.
Philadelphia chef Jim Burke died early last month at 49 due to a rare lung cancer. He’d previously worked at James and Wm. Mulherin & Sons. I met him briefly last winter, as he was involved in several projects down here in Wilmington as well.
The Houston Chronicle’s editorial board writes that the U.S. had eradicated polio, but anti-vaxxers have brought it back.
Here’s yet another study showing that COVID-19 vaccines reduce infectiousness – that is, if you’re vaccinated and still get the virus, you are less likely to spread it.
California lawmakers approved funding to keep the state’s only nuclear reactor running well into the future, a key component of reducing our emissions of CO2 and other gases that contribute to climate change.
Mississippi, a state so poorly run it can’t even provide running water to residents of its capital and largest city, also may have paid $70 million in federal welfare funds to various cronies do things like give motivational speeches, including over $1 million to Brett Favre – who never even made the speeches for which he was paid. One party has controlled every aspect of the state government of Mississippi since 2012.
New Hampshire libertarians calling themselves Free Staters are trying to dismantle the state government from within, notably attacking public schools, as part of their goal of forming an independent “libertarian utopia.”
The New York Times is running nine editorials asking ‘what are schools for?’ Guess how many slots went to teachers.
The ridiculous but still concerning lawsuit that tried to stop bookstores from selling the YA book Gender Queer has been dismissed. The plaintiffs, a couple of homophobic men from Virginia, claimed the book met the definition of obscenity.
If you’re seeing book bans enacted or proposed in your area, here’s an editorial on how to fight back from the Washington Post.
Florida, meanwhile, is trying to force public-school teachers to indoctrinate students with conservative ideology (video).
Brock Turner, who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman but got just six months in prison (and served only three) because the judge didn’t want to ruin his life, is now running around bars in Ohio.
Brittany Aldean, the wife of country music singer Jason Aldean, posted a shitty transphobic joke on her Instagram page, and now claims she was taken out of context.
Candace Buckner, also of the Washington Post, writes about John Wall’s recent comments about his depression and thoughts of suicide.
Board game news: You can pre-order Clank! Catacombs, a new version of Clank! with a modular board and some new elements brought over from the legacy game, and read some of the designer diaries.
The Kickstarter closed but you can still download the free version of the print-and-play game Sunshine City (and I’m sure there will be a way to just buy the whole $5 package).
Cartouche, a game from the co-designer of the upcoming game The Fox Experiment (alongside Wingspan designer Elizabeth Hargrave), is on Pledgemanager for $39 and up, although I don’t see an end date for the campaign.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, coronavirus, first amendment, florida, links, longreads, mental health, mississippi, Music, psychology, scotus, social media, stick to baseball, texas, vaccines

→ July 9, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 7/9/22.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I wrote another scouting blog, looking at some Phillies, Orioles, Nats, and White Sox prospects, including the four big arms the Phillies had at Jersey Shore; and did a quick breakdown of some of the highlights and omissions from the Futures Game rosters. I’ll have an updated, final Big Board for the draft on Sunday, and then a new mock draft on Monday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Ouch!, a fun, silly game for kids as young as five, and pointed out why it works where games like Candyland, my bête noire among children’s board games, fail.

My guest on the Keith Law Show this week was Eric Longenhagen, for an extensive conversation about this month’s MLB draft. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I found my voice again and sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter this week. Also, my two books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, are both available in paperback, and you can buy them at your local independent book store or at Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The New England Journal of Medicine has a long story on vaccine hesitancy and how we might combat it.
Inside Higher Ed looks at the Great Resignation in academia, as even tenured professors leave their universities due to burnout, lack of institutional support, or greater financial opportunities elsewhere.
New York talks about how NYC Mayor Eric Adams (D) has shown no evidence of a clear philosophy of governing.
Jessica Luther, co-author of Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back, wrote for Vox about the myth of “fairness” in sports and how transphobes are using it to further their anti-trans agenda.
Two law professors wrote on LawFareBlog that Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony changed their minds on whether former President Trump should be indicted.
The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik reviews Daniel Levin Becker’s new book on rap and rhyme, called What’s Good, and writes in praise of the variety of forms and styles of rhyming.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong writes in the Atlantic that we have stopped caring about the pandemic, and that leads to our inevitable defeat, where SARS-CoV-2 will kill hundreds of thousands of people a year and nobody will do anything to stop it.
Vanity Fair has the story of the great video game heist of 2019, where a collection estimated to be worth over $1 million was stolen and eventually recovered, but where many of these extremely rare Nintendo games were badly damaged by the incompetent thief.
The Washington Post ran an excerpt from the new book American Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry, detailing parts of the lobbying campaign to keep the DEA from shutting down opioid suppliers.
The Verge’s Nilay Patel interviewed the TSA’s Chief Innovation Officer, asking some insightful questions about PreCheck and the relationship between data privacy and increased security. Patel also used one of my favorite phrases, security theater, which also applies to the metal detectors that are ubiquitous now at major sporting events.
U.S. road fatality rates are rising. One big reason is the increase in distractions in your car, or as this article puts it, “The problem is asking the brain to do too many things at once.”
What is the point of Sunday political news shows? They’re little more than propaganda vehicles, putting profit over accuracy.
The Internal Revenue Service didn’t notice that 76 registered charities all shared the same mailbox. Needless to say, it was all a scam.
An evangelical pastor who used to lead a religious right organization has bragged about wining and dining three current SCOTUS justices, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia, to try to sway their views on issues like LBGTQ+ rights and abortion. Above The Law has more on this story, pointing out that the same group that prays with these justices also files amicus briefs with the court.
Jonathan Chait wrote about Blake Masters, who is running against Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for the latter’s Senate seat, calling Masters “Nazi-adjacent” and another sign of the GOP’s trend toward extremism.
The New Republic called Pamela Paul’s latest op ed for the New York Times her version of Great Replacement Theory, with an amalgam of anti-trans talking points common to the right and to gender-critical feminists.
Brynn Tannehill, author of American Fascism, called Paul’s column and those like it part of the right’s plan to demonize trans people the way the Nazi Party demonized Jews.
At the Raw Story, Thom Hartmann writes that the SCOTUS majority is planning to “pre-rig” the 2024 election.
Herschel Walker hid his two secret kids from his own campaign staff.
The Harvard Business School’s site posted a breakdown of the implosion of artisan ice cream maker Ample Hills. The founders expanded too soon, both in scale and geography, and didn’t pay attention to short-term cash flow.
Leon County School District near Tallahassee passed its own don’t-say-gay “guide” for teachers, which requires parental notification if a student who is “open about their gender identity” is in their child’s PE class or on an overnight field trip. So the school will be outing kids to the entire community.
Also in Florida, the state’s Florida Healthy Kids Board kicked off a pediatrician for taking a public pro-vaccine view, which puts her in line with (checks notes) every major medical and scientific body in the world.
A Detroit police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty, and the Police Chief said there is too much gun violence in the city.
Texas’s soi-disant “Freedom Caucus” is threatening companies that help employees travel out of state for medical procedures.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Brashear released emails about President Biden’s plan to nominate an anti-abortion judge to a lifetime district court appointment in that state.
My editor at Paste wrote about the Hyperspace Lounge, a cocktail bar on a Disney cruise ship with a $5000 drink on the menu.
You do not, in fact, have a constitutional right to have dinner.
A particle physicist wrote about the possible discoveries in Run 3 of the Large Hadron Collider.
I haven’t seen a good link on this yet, but Alea/Ravensburger have announced a new version of the board game Puerto Rico called Puerto Rico 1897, which tries to eliminate the rather questionable elements of the original game, not least the use of “colonists” who, in historical terms, were slaves, and who in the game were unfortunately represented by dark brown discs.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: academia, detroit, disney, drugs, florida, frauds, heists, kentucky, links, longreads, physics, scotus, stick to baseball, texas, trans rights, vaccines, video games

→ June 11, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 6/11/22.

I had one post for subscribers to the Athletic this past week, on Kumar Rocker’s 2022 debut for the independent Tri-City Valley Cats. (I tried to go see Reading/Altoona this week, but got rained out after I parked but before I even got into the stadium.) My current writing schedule has one more draft blog post coming after I see Carson Whisenhunt’s official 2022 debut on Sunday night, and then an updated Big Board on Thursday, June 16^th.

My guest on the Keith Law Show this week was film critic (and Cardinals fan) Tim Grierson, talking about the logistics of film festivals and their similarities to scouting showcases, plus our thoughts on The Godfather trilogy as the first film marks its 50^th anniversary. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I do send out a free email newsletter about twice a month. My two books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, are both available in paperback, and you can buy them at your local independent book store or at Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Kathryn Schulz, author of the wonderful memoir Lost & Found, writes about the world of sunken shipping containers and the detritus that washes up on shore from them. I would guess the occasional meeple shows up among the flotsam and jetsam.

Land in the Chicago area promised for public housing, undeveloped for twenty years, is now going to house a practice facility for the MLS’s Chicago Fire.

LA Eater looks at the changing of the guard in southern California’s doughnut shops, as the children of the mostly Cambodian immigrants who founded those stores take over from their parents.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen writes in support of reading challenging books and against removing them from school libraries and curricula.

Steve Kirsch, one of the inventors of the optical mouse and a serial entrepreneur, has become a massive proponent of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and false cures. McGill University’s Jonathan Jarry looks at how Kirsch got from A to B.

The Daily Beast reports on two twins who are college students in Texas and who are “pushing transphobic campaigns” at their respective schools, the University of North Texas and Baylor.

The Tampa Bay Rays’ account tweeted several facts about gun violence in the United States, after which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blocked state funding for a new player development facility in Pasco County.

Writing for DAME, attorney & counsel to the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center Madiba Kennie asks if Supreme Court reform is even possible.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg writes about the complexity and contradictions of the investigation into the release of the Supreme Court draft opinion that will overturn Roe v. Wade. Speaking of the Supreme Court, Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, emailed 29 Arizona lawmakers to urge them to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory in that state.

A 13-year-old Baltimore middle school student died suddenly on a school field trip in Cecil County, Maryland. There’s still no indication why he died or details on what happened, five days later. What a nightmare for his family.

More families are suing Texas over the state’s investigations into parents who provide gender-affirming care to their trans kids. A district court judge ruled on Friday that the state must suspend these investigations.

Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh tweeted this week that gender reassignment surgery should be illegal for everyone, regardless of age.

A Baptist preacher in Texas said to his congregation that all gay people “should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head … That’s what the Bible says.” (The Bible does not say that.)

Sen. Rick Scott’s “plan to save America” denies the existence of trans people. In her newsletter, Parker Molloy explains how his proposed policies, and existing policies in places like Ohio, just make life more difficult for trans and intersex people.

Belgium’s King Philippe spoke about the damage his great-great-uncle, Léopold II, did to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo through colonization and exploitation of its people and natural resources. For a harrowing but essential read on the topic, I recommend King Léopold’s Ghost, recommended to me a decade ago by one of you, which details the awful period where Africa’s largest country was a personal colony of the Belgian king, and explains why the DRC has been unstable for its entire history since independence.

An 8-year-old boy who was on vacation with his family in South Carolina was shot and killed by a resident who was shooting at passing cars.

An Uvalde pediatrician who treated victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary testified before Congress about the state of the bodies he saw.

The Washington Post has fired writer Felicia Sonmez. I won’t even attempt to summarize this in a sentence or two – the article (from The New York Times) has the details.

A Catholic group is urging followers to “hide the pride” by going to libraries and hiding books with LGBTQ+ content.

The Missouri Library Association is urging the Wentzville, Missouri, school board to stop removing LGBTQ+ books from school libraries.

The Guardian explains “greenwashing,” when companies contributing to climate change run ads, such as on podcasts that tell stories about climate change and the fight against it, implying that those companies are aligned with the show’s aims.

The Kickstarter for Bark Avenue, a quick pickup-and-delivery game from a new publisher in New York, ends in just two days.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, environment, florida, guns, lgbt rights, links, longreads, misinformation, stick to baseball, texas, vaccines

→ June 4, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 6/4/22.

No new articles from me this week at The Athletic, but that will change over the weekend after I see Kumar Rocker on Saturday night.

On my podcast, I spoke with Sports Illustrated’s Emma Baccellieri about the “sweeper” slider, Brett Phillips, the Mets, and being Italian-American. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Three Sisters, a fantastic new roll-and-write game from the designers of Fleet: The Dice Game.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: A fake story about an Illinois high school supposedly using “race-based” grading went viral even though it was generated by a pink-slime news site, getting shared by Josh Kraushaar of National Journal, Andrew Sullivan (who doesn’t seem to have admitted his error), and the abhorrent Libs of TikTok account. This is what the death of local news gives us: planted news stories, just credible enough to fool people who’ll gladly spread them around, and once they’re out of the can you’re never getting them back in.
My friend Zabe Bent wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Review of Books imploring Americans, especially those of us who are white, to fight more to change the pattern of police murders of unarmed Black people.
Emily Oster was named to the TIME 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, but her writing to the COVID-19 pandemic has not been evidence-based – and has earned her financial support from Charles Koch and Peter Thiel.
Two great retrospectives on The Wire on the twentieth anniversary of its premiere, from Alan Sepinwall at Rolling Stone and from James Poniewozik at The New York Times.
Also in Rolling Stone, how director Cary Fukunaga used his power to pursue and harass young women on his film sets.
Tim Grierson wrote about Al Pacino’s breakout performance in The Godfather for the fiftieth anniversary of that film’s premiere. It’s quite something to see an understated Pacino before his woo-ah! days.
BBC Food profiles the Kigali, Rwanda restaurant Meza Malonga, whose chef-owner Dieuveil Malonga owns two farms and traveled to 48 African countries to learn about the continent’s many regional cuisines.
Vladimir Putin is increasingly relying on private mercenaries from The Wagner Group, and the U.S. has had little luck in stopping the company’s spread even after reports of human rights violations in Syria, Ukraine, and the Central African Republic.
The New Yorker looks at how Uvalde’s local newspaper covered the massacre at their elementary school, where the victims included the daughter of the paper’s receptionist.
Meanwhile, the town’s police chief, who was sworn in as a city council member in a secret (and probably unconstitutional) ceremony, is refusing to talk to investigators about the cops’ failure to stop the killer.
If you’re unsure about the need for reforming our gun laws, I strongly recommend you watch this two-minute video.
Russia has already set up disinformation outlets in Ukraine to push its propaganda, including false claims of Nazi supporters and Ukrainian atrocities.
The executive producer of the revival of Queer as Folk wrote for Variety about Republicans’ use of trans panic and the need for greater queer representation in media.
A peer-reviewed journal chose to publish a falsehood-filled editorial written by a COVID-19 denialist. Skeptical Raptor debunks the piece, but we don’t know why the journal’s editors would let such nonsense pass.
Florida threatened to fine the Special Olympics over $27 millionfor imposing a vaccine requirement on its events this weekend. The organizers backed down.
Ohio Republicans passed a bill that calls for genital examinations of “suspected” trans athletes. Mad your kid lost in the hurdles? Embarrass the winner by demanding the officials check their gonads!
The Atlantic’s Katherine Wu writes that we are all likely to get COVID-19 repeatedly now that the virus has become endemic and we’ve pretty much all given up on mitigation methods.
Reynolds American, the giant tobacco company owned by British American Tobacco, donated nearly $6 million to political candidates, PACs, and ballot initiative committees during 2021, 80% of it to Republicans or conservatives.
A right-wing militia member shot and killed a retired judge in Wisconsin and had a hit list that included the names of other politicians, including Governor Tony Evers (D).
Christian nationalism is on the rise, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R) making it explicit in comments this week (if you oppose Christian nationalism, in her words, you’re a “domestic terrorist”), and the media has been very late to cover and call out these seditionists, even though the movement has been building for decades.
The Council for Economic Accountability is trying to mobilize to fight public funding for a new stadium for the Washington Commanders.
The BBC profiled Jessica Cisneros, who may be about to lose her primary challenge to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). Cisneros should be part of the future of the party – she’s a woman of color, pro-union, pro-choice, pro-immigrant – but the Democratic powers that be chose to back Cuellar, who opposes abortion rights, labor rights, and immigration reform.
Board game news: BGG’s Designer Diaries series has an entry from Tom Lehmann, designer of Res Arcana, on his latest game, Dice Realms, which just came out last month from Rio Grande. It clocks in at $120 due to the customizable dice at the heart of the game.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, christian nationalism, florida, guns, hoaxes, lgbt rights, links, longreads, metoo, movies, ohio, police, stick to baseball, texas

→ May 14, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 5/13/22.

For subscribers to The Athletic, I posted a minor league scouting notebook, with comments on players from the Red Sox, Orioles, Rays, and Nats systems. My first mock draft for 2022 will go up on Thursday, May 19^th, and I’ll do some sort of chat or Q&A around it that afternoon.

At Polygon, I reviewed Ark Nova, the best new game I’ve played so far this year, a more complex title that draws heavily on Terraforming Mars but with streamlined rules and better art.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter yesterday, and I have to thank all of you who’ve sent such kind replies. I mentioned the possibility of an in-person event in London in August, and it looks like we’re going to be able to make that happen, with the help of a reader who works at a bookshop there. Speaking of books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game are both available in paperback, and you can buy them at your local independent book store or at Bookshop.org.

On The Keith Law Show, I got the band back together with Eric Karabell for a show last week. I was on the move most of this week (and then traveled again Thursday night) and didn’t have a recording window until Thursday morning morning, so I recorded next week’s episode with guest Jonathan Higgs of Everything Everything.

And now, the links…

The New York Times ran a multi-part series on how Tucker Carlson became the king of cable ‘news’ by leaning into white nationalism.
Far too many police departments are using far-right trainers to help teach their cops.
An Alabama OB/GYN explained what will happen to women’s health when the state’s theocrats finally get their wish and make abortion illegal, including a lot more maternal deaths, just like Jesus wanted.
AIPAC is working with the GOP to pour money into Democratic primary races to target anyone who might possibly at some point say something nice about Palestinian rights. You can support the progressive candidates they’re attacking here.
One of the more toxic figures in the board game (and sci-fi) worlds, Jon Del Arroz, was accepted as a member by GAMA, the Game Manufacturers’ Association and group that organizes the annual Origins board game convention in Columbus, and was immediately called out for his history of sexist and transphobic commentary. GAMA suspended him from their Facebook group, and now he’s threatening to sue them, as he’s done in other cases (including winning one suit where a group called him ‘racist’). It does remind me of a certain MLB pitcher’s tendency to sue or threaten to sue everyone…
The New Yorker looks at the strange life and disappearance of mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, one of the most important figures in the creation of the field of algebraic geometry.
The COVID-19 outbreaks in U.S. meatpacking plants in 2020 were the result of years of corporate safety violations and a coordinated effort with the Trump administration.
This 2019 piece looks at ethical and economic questions around a maize plant discovered on indigenous land in Mexico that can fix its own nitrogen (with the help of a symbiotic bacterium), which could be a massive boon to the global food supply. Who actually shares in this potential wealth?
I reviewed Honorée Fannone Jeffers’ incredible debut novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois earlier this week, and in the book she mentions “The Weeping Time,” a large slave auction held in Savannah in 1859 that was especially cruel to its victims. I wasn’t familiar with the story and found this 2014 Atlantic story on the largely forgotten tragedy.
Ticks are spreading across the U.S., abetted by increased (human & animal) mobility and climate change, and bringing new diseases with them.
The 2021 experiment where a biotech firm released genetically modified mosquitos in the Florida Keys has been a success, although proving its effect on long-term health outcomes will be difficult.
Amanda Makulec writes in the New York Times about how anti-vaxxer assholes used the death of her 3-month-old baby to try to claim the COVID-19 vaccines caused it so they could discourage pregnant women from getting these safe, effective vaccines.
The Tennessee nurse who was convicted of criminally negligent homicide after she accidentally adminstered the wrong medication to a patient received three years of probation but no jail time. Hundreds of nurses who were outside the courthouse protesting the prosecution cheered the decision. Prosecutions for medical errors are extremely rare, and criminalizing them is a dangerous precedent.
The women’s lacrosse team from Delaware State University, an HBCU in Dover, was racially profiled and threatened by a couple of good ol’ boy cops in Georgia. The school is filing a civil rights complaint.
PBS reports on the rise in lawn alternatives to grass, which requires a lot of water and chemical treatment to maintain.
Now Italy is investigating whether commentators on its news programs are being paid by the Kremlin to spread disinformation.
Marjorie Taylor Greene may have used campaign funds to buy herself a luxury car, according to FEC records. The grift goes on till the break of dawn…
Why do so many people think Amber Heard is lying? And why would any woman risk coming forward with stories of abuse given the treatment she’s received?
Margaret Atwood on how the Supreme Court is trying to make The Handmaid’s Tale a true story.
Derek Thompson writes about the death spiral of our culture wars.
Sounds like David Simon’s new limited series We Own This City is worth watching.
A brand-new third edition of Reiner Knizia’s classic game RA is already funded on Gamefound.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: abortion, board game news, environment, florida, food science, georgia, links, longreads, math, metoo, police, science, social media, stick to baseball, tv, vaccines

→ April 30, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 4/30/22.

For subscribers to The Athletic this week, I offered my first “overreaction theater” post, looking at the first three weeks of games from players who made their MLB debuts this month. I also held my first Klawchat in a while on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the game Skull Canyon: Ski Fest, which combines a Ticket to Ride-like mechanic with extra rounds where you go get bonus cards that help you rack up more points or do more things with each turn. It’s quite good.

On The Keith Law Show, I spoke with Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, author of the fantastic book How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (which you can buy here). You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I sent out a new issue of my free email newsletter yesterday. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: You’ve probably seen it by now, but the Washington Post‘s Taylor Lorenz revealed the identity of the woman behind the noxious LibsOfTikTok account, which has been doxing teachers and others who might dare to offer views in support of pro-LGBTQ+ rights.

Why is the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) holding its convention in Budapest, home to Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, an anti-Semitic Putin adherent? Maybe because they agree with his views – and perhaps are trying to find new funding sources now that Russia’s spigot is off.

A school superintendent in North Texas has vowed to get rid of any books in school libraries that mention LGBTQ+ themes, including transgender people. It may not be constitutional. It’s certainly pandering to a religious minority. And it mirrors battles going on across the country in public library systems.

New York has a “Ferguson problem,” where many localities in the state use fines and fees to boost their revenues, with disparate impact on the poor and on residents of color.

The New York Times, which owns my employer, has been twisting crime statistics to support an argument that the city needs more policing, according to FAIR.org.

It is way past time that the U.S. end its military support for the Saudi war on Yemen.
Michigan State Senator Tom Barrett (R) is running for the U.S. House, and sent out a fundraising text that appeared to ask recipients to confirm their child’s “gender reassignment surgery” appointment. This is incredibly vile, but also, it’s fearmongering bullshit. There is no gender reassignment surgery for children. If you want to support his likely opponent, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI-8) is running for the same seat after redistricting, and you can donate to her campaign here.

Speaking of Michigan, State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D) gave an impassioned speech against Republicans’ hateful “grooming” rhetoric aimed at LGBTQ+ people.

Fragile white alumni of the Virginia Military Institute are fighting to roll back the school’s diversity initiatives.

Florida Republicans are saying farewell to free speech, according to the notoriously left-wing periodical (checks notes) the National Review. Florida might be the least free state in the country at this point, between their war on math and their campaign to cleanse libraries. The New York Times examined 21 of the math textbooks Florida rejected.

Meanwhile, the state is only approving math textbooks from one firm, which Virginia’s race-baiting Governor Glenn Youngkin used to run.

A beautiful response: A Florida resident is circulating petitions to ban any mention of the Bible in public schools there, which has a lot more basis in our Constitution than the state’s attempts to criminalize any mention of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s stunt at the border turned up no drugs and no migrants, but it will cost the state $4.2 billion. I thought the Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility? How is any taxpayer there okay with this much money, about $425 per Texas household, being thrown away?

He’s also sending busloads of migrants to Washington, D.C., using people as objects – which, I suppose, is in line with Texas’ history prior to 1865. You can join me in donating to this GoFundMe to help these immigrants travel to their ultimate destinations or provide them with other needed items.

All the progress we’d made on reducing exemptions to childhood vaccination mandates is eroding, and we’re going to end up worse than where we started as religious zealots seek to further expand those exemptions (even though no major religion opposes vaccinations).

Employees at the firm that provides QA to the software developer Bioware are trying to unionize.

How did Barnes & Noble become a tentative ally of independent bookstores? Via a common enemy.

Board game news: Well, not news, but watch this wonderful 1982 BBC mini-documentary on tabletop gaming.

Autobahn, a heavy economic game from the designer of Merv and Ragusa, is now on Kickstarter.

Eagle-Gryphon introduced a pair of new games from Portuguese designers, Lisbon Tram 28 and Porto.

A school in Uganda is bringing back its annual board game convention for kids for the first time since 2019. They posted on Reddit, looking for funding help, but since I saved this link they’ve actually reached their goal.

Paradox Interactive, which makes video games and has co-published board games based on several of those titles, announced dates and info for PDXCON 2022. I attended this event in 2018, at their invitation & expense, and enjoyed it quite a bit, although I stuck to the tabletop stuff.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, florida, links, longreads, michigan, new york, police, stick to baseball, texas, unions, vaccines

→ April 10, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 4/10/2022.

I had two posts for subscribers to the Athletic this past week, my annual MLB season predictions post, which never fails to rile up people who don’t read the intro despite all the disclaimers I issue, and a draft scouting notebook that covered a slew of likely first-rounders, including Brooks Lee.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the trick-taking game Shamans, which is semi-cooperative, as at least one player in every round is a saboteur working against the others. I think it’s a better version of The Crew, a straight cooperative trick-taking game that won the Kennerspiel des Jahres award a few years ago.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter this past week. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org. My podcast will return shortly – travel has made it difficult for me to find windows to record the last couple of weeks.

And now, the links…

A former assistant attorney general in Arizona has spent decades helping that state craft some of the most punitive laws against people convicted of crimes, including drug offenses and other non-violent crimes, even though he’s never held elected office. Arizona’s population isn’t this conservative as a whole, but the far right has the state government in a stranglehold.
Brett Favre used his name and influence to steer Mississippi state welfare funds to his pet projects, and may have profited from one.
This New Yorker review of Fintan O’Toole’s new book We Don’t Know Ourselves looks at how Ireland freed itself from the pernicious influence of the Catholic Church. We could learn from them.
Humans are one of the only species that menstruates, but there’s relatively little research and treatment for the pain and discomfort it causes. That may be changing, along with a new hypothesis on why we’re one of the very few species to experience it.
The ivermectin grift has completely fallen apart after more studies showed it’s useless against COVID-19, although the grifters haven’t given up just yet.
More idiots on the right keep falling for the myth of “furries” in schools.
The Justice Department has finally told states that they shouldn’t deny gender-affirming medical care to trans kids. These hateful laws, pandering to the religious right, are just going to increase suicide attempts among kids who are already at higher risk for it.
The Chief of Adolescent Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital estimated that Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law may lead to 4000 new suicide attempts per year in that state alone. Now more red states are pushing these bigoted bills. If you live in any of these states, have you called your state rep and senator, and the governor, to express your views on the bills?
Abigail Disney wrote an editorial urging her grandfather’s company to stand up for love and acceptance.
Entrepreneur Rhian Beulter shared a personal story of acceptance from her childhood.
Sending social workers rather than cops to low-level mental health or intoxication-related 911 calls in Denver has kept police out of over 2000 such incidents. It saves money and it saves lives.
The mass of the W boson may be higher than theory predicted, which would require changes to the standard model – although this new result isn’t final.
25^th Century Games will publish a new (third?) edition of Reiner Knizia’s classic game Ra, launching on Gamefound in the next few weeks.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, board game news, disney, florida, ireland, lgbt rights, links, longreads, mental health, mississippi, police, stick to baseball

→ March 19, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 3/19/22.

I had a surprisingly busy week, writing five pieces for The Athletic about some of the big trades and signings since the lockout ended

My podcast guest this week was old friend Joe Sheehan, talking about the CBA and what transactions had already taken place at the time we spoke on Monday afternoon. Listen via The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Over at Paste, I reviewed MicroMacro Crime City, the Spiel des Jahres winner for 2021, a mystery game that asks you to solve a series of 16 cases by examining a giant map and answering a set of questions. It’s fun and novel, but it’s one-and-done – once you finish the 16 cases, you’ve completed the game.

And now, the links:

Koch Industries, whose owner, Charles Koch, is probably the biggest dark-money donor in U.S. politics, is refusing to cease doing business in Russia. This is the same Charles Koch who funds all kinds of astroturfed efforts against LGBT rights and CRT in schools so he can keep his taxes low and regulation to a minimum.
The completion of a highway in the western Amazon, first started in the 1970s to connect the otherwise isolated Manaus (2.2 million people) to Porto Velho (539,000), is leading to deforestation and now killings of residents by those seeking to profit from the construction.
As Florida’s death-loving Governor claims you shouldn’t vaccinate kids against COVID-19, the evidence and the experts agree that this advice is wrong.
David Gorski takes on DeSantis and the Great Barrington Declaration grifters by pointing out that there’s a long, dark history of this kind of thinking, rooted in eugenics.
One-third of all U.S. child COVID-19 deaths came during the omicron surge this winter, in case you’re still on the fence about vaccinating your kids.
We have yet more evidence that ivermectin doesn’t help COVID-19 patients at all.
State government health policies are driving increasing gaps in health outcomes, notably in the varying state responses to COVID-19.
Duchess County, New York, decided to spend $12.5 million in federal COVID-19 aid funds to renovate the Hudson Valley Renegades’ stadium.
Netflix cancelled The Baby-Sitters Club after two seasons, with the first season taking seven Emmy nominations and two wins. Vulture spoke to one of the show’s executive producers about the service’s decision. Slashfilm did as well, with more focus on the loss it represents for female audiences.
Tennessee State Rep. Gloria Johnson (D) tweeted through a list of some of the alarming, hate-filled, anti-science bills coming in that state.
Like the law in Texas preventing schools from talking about race, a bill that was designed to stop the teaching of critical race theory even though it wasn’t actually being taught anywhere.
Board game news: Birdwatcher, a fast-playing competitive game from first-time designer Zakir Jafry, is available for pre-order. I’m going to have a hard time not thinking this was at least inspired by Wingspan, though.
The Villainous game universe will get its first set of Star Wars villains this summer. I’m slightly disappointed at the absence of Cad Bane, though.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, brazil, coronavirus, florida, links, longreads, new york, stick to baseball, tennessee, texas, tv

→ February 19, 2022
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 2/19/22.

My prospects ranking package is now all posted for subscribers to the Athletic. Here’s the complete rundown of everything that ran:

The top 100 prospects
The prospects who just missed the top 100
The ranking of all 30 farm systems
The org top 20s:

Baltimore	Houston	Chicago Cubs
Boston	LA Angels	Cincinnati
NY Yankees	Oakland	Milwaukee
Tampa Bay	Seattle	Pittsburgh
Toronto	Texas	St. Louis
Chicago White Sox	Atlanta	Arizona
Cleveland	Miami	Colorado
Detroit	NY Mets	LA Dodgers
Kansas City	Philadelphia	San Diego
Minnesota	Washington	San Francisco

I also did two Q&As over at the Athletic, one the day the farm rankings went up and one the day the top 100 went up.

Since my last stick to baseball post, I’ve reviewed several board games over at Paste as well, including Nidavellir, one of my favorite games from 2021; Equinox, a new version of Reiner Knizia’s game Colossal Arena; The Rocketeer: Fate of the Future, a two-player game based on the 1991 cult classic; and Wilson & Shep, a cute bluffing game for players as young as five.

I’ve done a bunch of podcasts and radio things related to the top 100, including the Seattle Sports Union; the Update with Adam Copeland (talking Giants prospects); Press Box Online (Orioles); Sox Machine (White Sox); and Karraker & Smallmon (Cardinals).

My own podcast returned in late January, with three episodes since my last roundup: Michael Schur, author of How to Be Perfect and creator of the show The Good Place; the post-punk band Geese, an episode where I answered a bunch of reader questions on the top 100 too; and union labor lawyer Eugene Freedman, who gave his thoughts on the MLB lockout. You can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: There is no evidence that wearing masks in school harms children’s mental health or educational development. None. I’ll repeat: There is no fucking evidence, people. Every one of those anti-mask grifters you see on Twitter hawking their $80 a year substack is full of shit.
In 2003, a woman in Australia was convicted of smothering all four of her babies to death. Several researchers believe she is innocent, and that a mutant gene was the real cause of the tragedy.
MIT Technology Review has a very long piece on the scientist at the center of the lab-leak conspiracy theory.
The scourge of private equity is now causing rapid inflation in housing prices, with PE firms buying up apartment buildings, hiking rents, and skimping on or even forgoing basic services to tenants.
WIRED looks at how personal finance apps are making phone scams even easier.
The Harvard Gazette ran an excerpt from Kevin Birmingham’s 2014 book on Ulysses’ long and tortuous road to publication. I reviewed The Most Dangerous Book back in 2016.
MEL gives us the subterfuge behind the surprise pop hit “Tubthumping,” and how the anarcho-communist band Chumbawamba used its success for their own ends.
Are you getting cardboard shipping boxes from U-Line? Not only does the family that owns U-Line fund the far-right site The Federalist, they’ve given millions to other right-wing extremists, including some of January 6^th terrorists. If you use U-Line in your business, find another vendor. If you get a package in a U-Line box, contact the shipper and ask them to use someone else for their boxes.
Space elevators are a staple of hard science fiction novels and stories, but if one breaks, it’s a massive and potentially fatal disaster. The plot of Green Mars includes the sabotage of a space elevator, and while I don’t care for the novel, Kim Stanley Robinson does a reasonable job of getting the science right on what happens when the broken cable hits the ground.
REI sent this union-busting email to all of its employees, then published a podcast full of dubious rationalizations for its anti-union efforts.
The Washington Post profiled the woman who led the first successful effort to unionize a Starbucks store.
COVID-19 becoming “endemic” doesn’t mean it’s becoming harmless.
In fact, there’s evidence that the claims that the omicron variant is less severe than prior ones are due to greater population immunity, not to any reduced ability of the virus to cause serious illness. Also, there’s a subvariant of concern, too, although once again, vaccination confers substantial benefits.
COVID denialists on the right seem to think the virus is actually a person – at least in the language they use to minimize it.
Right-wing pundits, including Jordan Peterson, were up in arms because a Boston hospital denied a heart transplant to a man who refused the COVID-19 vaccines – but such rules are routine to increase the likelihood of the patient’s survival.
Anti-vaccine loon Christiane Northrup has become a major donor to Maine Republican candidates, including former Governor Paul LePage.
Two Long Island nurses have been charged with selling fake vaccine cards and entering the false information into vaccination databases, taking home $1.5 million in the process. But what happens to the people who bought them?
An inevitable consequence of all of this anti-vaccine misinformation is that now measles vaccination rates are falling in the UK.
Meanwhile, Republicans in 14 states are pushing bills that would block medical boards from censuring doctors who spread misinformation; in Tennessee, the Know-Nothings in the state legislature even pressured the medical board into removing language from its website discouraging such doctors.
Speaking of foundations of misinformation, Fox News was happy to talk to an anti-vax state trooper … until he died of COVID-19.
A New Jersey police officer was driving drunk when he struck a pedestrian … and then put the body in his car and drove home with it. He didn’t call 911. He now faces a dozen felony charges.
The story about the Los Angeles train robbery a few weeks ago, which made news across the country and even in Europe, is really about how Union Pacific laid off 4/5 of its security force – and how the mainstream media increasingly just buys whatever corporations are selling.
This is horrifying: San Francisco police used DNA from a woman’s rape kit to identify her as a suspect in another crime. And we wonder why women don’t come forward to report their assaults. I’ve already reached out to two state Senators in Delaware, and to the Attorney General, to see what can be done to make sure this does not occur here.
Over 650 Philly cops who claim they’re too sick or injured to work are fine holding down other jobs.
A tax cheat and father of a child murderer has bankrolled a right-wing streaming network that has given Steve Bannon a platform again. It’s available through most major streaming platforms, too.
A tremendous piece of local journalism led to the resignation of the police chief of Brookside, Alabama, who had set up a racket that scammed drivers out of over $500,000 a year in fines and forfeitures – often when they were no closer to the town than the local interstate.
A Republican state senator in Texas has sworn in a declaration that the state’s Republicans violated federal voting rights laws in a recent redistricting.
Minneapolis police insisted on a no-knock warrant in a predawn raid – raid, a word that should be reserved for war, or perhaps when there’s a lost ark involved – on an apartment in the city. They ended up murdering an innocent civilian sleeping in that apartment.
Spokane district attorney Larry Haskell is under fire, again, for his wife’s long history of racist and white nationalist comments online. It’s more disturbing that voters keep electing him.
Families in West Virginia are suing a school that held a Christian revival on campus during school hours, with some teachers forcing students to attend. This isn’t the first such incident in this school district.
I liked Encanto, and assume it’s going to win the Oscar for best animated film, but I noticed the script glossed over the weird power dynamic between the Madrigals and the townsfolk. Jim Vorel wrote about that very topic for Paste.
Hannah Keyser has a great piece at Yahoo! Sports asking why people get so mad over Hall of Fame voting. The abuse was worse than ever this year.
Ohio’s extreme gerrymandering leads to more extreme laws from legislators who don’t have to worry about re-election, even though the laws are often opposed by a majority of Ohio voters.
The mayor of Ridgeland, Mississippi, a suburb of Jackson, decided to order the city’s libraries to remove all LGBTQ+ materials before he’d release their funding. The city’s leaders are denying this is what’s happening, but a local nonprofit group has raised all of the missing funds from donations.
This feels like old news now, but McMinn County, Tennessee, banned Maus, the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its school curricula because there are naked mice in it.
Who’s behind all the book-banning movements? Major conservative dark-money donors, of course.
And they’re also pushing educational gag orders across the country, with over 120 such bills introduced in the last 13 months.
Like the one in Florida, supported by the death-loving governor there, that wants to force LGBTQ+ kids back in the closet. (DeSantis can’t even bring himself to condemn a neo-Nazi rally in Orlando.)
Or the laws targeting the chimera of critical race theory in schools, which threatens teachers’ livelihoods and even their freedom.
LZ Granderson writes about the extreme illogic of Michelle Tafoya leaving the media to campaign against racism education, when she herself lives in a town that has become majority white thanks to racial covenants in housing contracts.
The British government recently moved to make something called “virginity repair” surgery illegal. I didn’t know this was a thing, but it is clearly founded in some seriously deranged religious beliefs.
Matt Walsh, espouser of misogynistic and homophobic views under the guise of Christianity, tried to trick a bunch of trans people into participating in a documentary attacking trans rights.
This is from before the Oscar nominations were announced, but the LA Times‘ Justin Chang implored the Academy to nominate Drive My Car for Best Picture – which they did.
Craig Calcaterra continues to expose New Albany, Ohio, school board member Philip Derrow as a science-denying history-ignorant turnip.
Is a building at Florida State University causing cancer in the people who work there? Cancer clusters are often matters of chance, but in this case, there’s evidence of actual carcinogens in the air ducts, and the school has closed the building to investigate.
Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt courted snitches among parents opposed to mask mandates, setting off a series of pointless, expensive battles that probably did way more to harm kids than wearing a mask ever could.
Instagram is doing nothing to suspend or block accounts promoting hate speech.
I don’t often agree with Jennifer Rubin’s editorials in the Washington Post, but I think her take here is correct: The only way Democrats can hope to fight Republican voter-suppression efforts is to change the venue to local elections and referenda, taking the message directly to voters – and even that may not be enough.
I can’t love this tweet enough.
Board game news: I saw a prototype of Earth, a tableau- and engine-building game from Inside Up Games, at PAX Unplugged, and from what I saw it looks right up my alley. It’s on Kickstarter now.
So is Trekking Through History, the third Trekking game (following Trekking the National Parks and Trekking the World) from Underdog Games.
And so is Rolling Heights, the new roll-and-write game from the designer of Mystic Vale.
Tiwanaku, the game previously known as Pachamama, will relaunch on Kickstarter on March 9^th.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, board game news, coronavirus, dark money, florida, free speech, links, mississippi, missouri, movies, Music, philadelphia, police, san francisco, science, stick to baseball, texas, unions, vaccines, voter suppression, washington state, west virginia

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