georgia — Page 2

→ 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

→ November 20, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/20/21.

I had two new posts for subscribers to The Athletic this week, one on the Noah Syndergaard signing and one on the Eduardo Rodriguez signing.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Genotype, the latest boardgame from Genius Games, a company that creates games that incorporate real math/science concepts into its titles so they’re educational as well as fun. I think this is their best effort yet.

No podcasts this week, but my show will return next week. I did send out a new edition of my free email newsletter earlier this week. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists

And now, the links…

Longreads first: New York has the inside story of reporter Felicia Sonmez’s lawsuit against her employer, the Washington Post, with some damning details about the now-retired executive editor Marty Baron, one of the heroes of Spotlight.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) pardoned Dontae Sharpe, who was wrongfully convicted of a murder he didn’t commit and served 26 years for it, even though a key witness recanted her testimony just months after his trial.

Sugar companies burn the fields as part of the harvest, which may be causing respiratory ailments in the south Florida communities around the sugar fields.

The New Yorker looks at how little the Southern District of Georgia does for indigent people charged with federal crimes, and where judges have undue influence over the public defender’s office.

Coffee, and specialty coffee in particular, is a Yemeni product, but the Yemeni people have not benefited from its explosion into a high-end product consumed around the world. Some Yemeni entrepreneurs in Brooklyn are trying to change that, with coffee shops that use Yemen-grown coffee – no mean feat given the chaos and devastation of seven years of civil war there.

A Latino police officer in Joliet, Illinois, leaked official video that showed a colleague choking and slapping a suspect who was dying of a drug overdose. The police union’s response was to kick him out, and the DA has filed criminal charges against him.

Law professor Dorit Reiss breaks down the Court of Appeals’ stay of President Biden’s vaccine mandate for large employers, saying the decision is based on dubious legal arguments.

Could Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) lose in 2022, either in the primary or to independent challenger Evan McMullin?

Cry me a river: People buying fake vaccine cards are getting scammed by fraudsters. What if, instead, they just got the safe, effective vaccine?

Masks are the most effective non-pharmaceutical intervention at preventing the spread of COVID-19, according to a new meta-analysis published in the BMJ.

Conspiracy theorists are moving from COVID-19 denialism to climate denialism. Once you’ve decided that evidence doesn’t matter, you can be convinced of anything.

Wisconsin Republicans are trying to decertify the 2020 election and take over the state’s elections infrastructure. If you live there, are you okay with this?

Meanwhile, Ohio Republicans in the state House have passed a ban on vaccine mandates. I thought Republicans opposed excessive government interference? I must be thinking of some other brand of Republicans.

How should we deal with racism in popular children’s books?

Remember that NYU economics prof who claimed only 500 Americans would die of COVID-19?

Science fiction writers rejoice as a new study claims it might be possible to traverse great distances through space via wormholes.

Board game news: iello, publisher of King of Tokyo, Decrypto, and this year’s Khôra, suddenly cut ties with its U.S. distributor iello USA.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, climate change, coronavirus, denialism, environment, georgia, longreads, metoo, north carolina, physics, stick to baseball, utah, vaccines, wisconsin

→ March 15, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 3/15/21.

I have one new post up for subscribers to the Athletic, looking at prospects I can’t wait to see when minor league games resume. I also held a Klawchat last week.

On the Keith Law Show last week, I spoke with Cleveland right-hander Triston McKenzie about his development as a pitcher and his experiences as a Black ballplayer. On this week’s episode, I spoke with film critic Tim Grierson about his new book This is How You Make a Movie, the Oscar nominations, and his Cardinal fandom. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Amazon, and Spotify.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the new game Holi: Festival of Colors, played on a 3-D board that’s immediately striking and that lends itself to some novel strategies, with almost no random elements at all.

For more of my writing, you can subscribe to my free email newsletter. Also, you can still buy The Inside Game and Smart Baseball anywhere you buy books; the paperback edition of The Inside Game will be out in April.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: ProPublica’s look at some of the mental health costs borne by teenagers during the pandemic is a long, grueling read, and while it might go a little too far in blaming the lockdown for teen suicides, it’s as balanced a look at this as I’ve seen. The piece pairs well with the New York Times’ stunning gallery of artwork from teenagers using multiple media to show how the pandemic and lockdown have affected them.
Ann Patchett has a lovely essay in the New Yorker about letting go of one’s stuff, which she refers to by the euphemism of ‘practice.’
The Atlantic profiles Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), now the front-runner for the Senate seat coming open in 2022, including a look at an incident that took place while he was mayor of Braddock that will probably become a major issue in the campaign.
Bloomberg takes aim at racial inequity in the property tax system, where Black-owned properties are overvalued in tax assessments in cities like Detroit, Chicago, New York, Baltimore, and St. Louis.
Jelani Cobb asks if the Republican Party is destroying itself by focusing so heavily on white men, a declining portion of the electorate, to the point that “voter suppression becomes the only viable strategic option.” I wouldn’t underestimate the role that dark money can play in keeping them in power, whether through voter suppression or by targeting Latinx populations as they did in 2020.
“In Georgia, Republicans Take Aim at Role of Black Churches in Elections.” Why do Republicans hate Christians?
Related: At least 250 new laws have been proposed in 43 states to make it harder for people to vote. It’s about gaining and clinging to power at all costs. Stacey Abrams detailed some of those bills in a Twitter thread.
Facebook is finally, belatedly cracking down on anti-vaccine content, but it’s having a very hard time because it started so late and makes it too easy for users to share false information. One thing they could do, however, is focus on the small group of users having the greatest impact on others’ vaccine doubts. Meanwhile, those anti-vaxxers are pushing the lie that the vaccines cause cancer.
Also in “what took you so long,” the FDA warned quack Joseph Mercola to stop hawking fake COVID-19 treatments. He’s been pushing pseudoscience and outright anti-science for at least 25 years, all in the service of selling his supplements.
A new research study, published in Nature, found evidence of higher mortality rates from the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 variant, which is now the predominant strain in Texas, Florida, and Georgia.
James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, explains why he thinks the NFT bubble is destined to pop.
The Cleveland Plain-Dealer‘s editor wrote a column defending the paper’s decision not to cover a fringe Republican candidate’s outlandish statements, calling him a “nobody begging for people to notice his tweets.”
In a victory for people who remember the First Amendment, Des Moines Register journalist Andrea Sahouri was acquitted of bogus charges stemming from her coverage of police activity during a BLM protest.
Oklahoma’s lower house passed a bill protecting drivers who hit protestors from prosecution, as long as they say it was an accident.
Pakistan is turning a blind eye to the problem of child marriages involving kidnapped Christian, Sikh, and Hindu girls, forced to convert to Islam and marry under threats of violence to them or family members.
A writer with autism watched Sia’s execrable movie Music and wrote about its awfulness for Slate.
This Irish Times editorial on the Meghan-and-Harry interview is a marvel of excoriating humor.
Norton Juster, the author of The Phantom Tollbooth, died last week at age 91.
Board game news: Asmodee acquired Plan B games, yet another notch in the former company’s acquisition spree, but also notable because Plan B was founded by Sophie Gravel, who sold her last company, F2Z (which included Z-Man Games and Plaid Hat), to Asmodee in 2016, then left and starter Plan B, which also includes the imprints Next Move and eggertspiele.
Some Kickstarters of note include the dice-game version of Baseball Highlights 2045; the new roll-and-write game Three Sisters, from the designers of Fleet: The Dice Game; and two new expansions for Everdell.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, coronavirus, first amendment, georgia, links, longreads, oklahoma, pennsylvania, pseudoscience, stick to baseball, vaccines

→ November 29, 2020
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/29/20.

I had one piece this week for subscribers to the Athletic, on the Reds-Rockies trade and Atlanta’s two free agent signings, as well as a piece last week on what we can learn from the various pro leagues’ approaches to the pandemic. I held a Periscope video chat on Thanksgiving day while I spatchcocked the turkey.

Over at Paste, I ranked the ten best deduction board games, including Coup and this year’s The Search for Planet X.

I held off on sending the next issue of my free email newsletter until after the holiday so I could write up the trade and signings, but I’ll get one out in the next 48 hours. You can sign up for free here.

My first book, Smart Baseball, got a glowing review from SIAM News, a publication of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. You can buy Smart Baseball and my second book, The Inside Game, at any bookstore, including bookshop.org via those links, although Smart Baseball has been backordered there for a while. You can check your local indie bookstore or buy it on amazon.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This GQ article, about the author’s parents and a promise each made to never put the other spouse in a nursing home, is just heartbreaking.
The New Yorker details the underground network (with many Korean-Americans) trying to topple the North Korean government.
NiemanLab details the moral and business cases for increasing diversity in the newsroom, although with newspapers dying it may be a bit of a lost cause.
The Justice Department is now looking into the questionable stock trades by Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) that I mentioned in a link last week. If you’re still voting for this crook – who still refuses to debate Jon Ossoff, his Democrat opponent – I really don’t know what to tell you.
The logic of COVID-19 restrictions is falling apart, because they’re determined by economic factors, not by science.
SCOTUS’ decision last week on COVID-19 restrictions, written by “scientifically illiterate judges,” will cost Americans’ lives, writes economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs.
YouTube finally suspended the feed of the nationalist One American News Network for spreading bogus information on the pandemic – not for spreading bullshit about the election.
A coffee brand that had capitalized on its conservative political leanings ran into trouble when it (rightfully) declined to support accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse.
Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, discussed how to make higher education less overtly racist in an online talk with Radcliffe and Harvard College Everywhere.
From 2010, Ed Yong, who has written some essential pieces on the COVID-19 pandemic for The Atlantic this year, wrote about a woman whose amygdala was so damaged that she can no longer experience fear.
The Wall Street Journal profiled the conservative social media network Parler, but the real revelation here is that it’s backed by the Mercer family, whose views are about as neo-Nazi and white nationalist as it gets.
Anti-lockdown twits like to point to Sweden as some sort of success story, but so far there’s no evidence herd immunity is working there – and they’re faring much worse than their Nordic neighbors.
Greg Burton writes for the Arizona Republic about how the modern environment has made it more dangerous for journalists to do the most routine tasks for their jobs.
On Tuesday, December 1^st, the Welsh Rugby Union is hosting a free community talk on autism and the autism community in Wales. (I’m friends with one of the scheduled speakers.)
Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff locked students out of remote class sessions if they failed to get required COVID-19 tests. Getting tested isn’t just about you, but it’s a responsibility to your community.
Several board game publishers have Black Friday sales going on right now, including Renegade, Capstone, Floodgate, and Japanime.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, autism, board game news, coronavirus, georgia, longreads, science, stick to baseball, sweden

→ November 22, 2020
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/22/20.

I had one post this week for subscribers to The Athletic, about what lessons we can learn from MLB, the NBA, and the NHL (and other pro leagues) after they completed seasons during the pandemic. I spoke to numerous epidemiologists about the leagues’ approaches, from the full bubble of the NBA to MLB’s more open approach with all US-based teams playing at home, and of course the hoaxers were in the comments before the electrons were dry on the article.

Over at Vulture, I wrote about eleven board games you can play over Zoom while you can’t (or shouldn’t) see your friends and family, which seems more relevant with potential lockdowns looming in most of the country.

My guest on this week’s episode of The Keith Law Show was Bill Baer, talking with me about the state of baseball and what he hopes the Phillies will do with their front office openings. My podcast is now available on Amazon podcasts as well as iTunes and Spotify.

I sent out the latest edition of my free email newsletter on Monday, and hope to send another one before the holiday.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Cal Newport, the author of the superb book Deep Work, writes in the New Yorker about the problems with personal productivity in the age of the knowledge worker. Our business world is very poorly built for the current environment of remote work and associated challenges like child care and remote schooling.
Also from the New Yorker, Shane Bauer looks at how a violent police force ruled Vallejo, California, killing residents (usually people of color) with impunity.
The Guardian describes how the Colombian army killed thousands of innocent civilians and claimed they were insurgents, a scandal known as falsos positivos (false positives) that have turned a former military hero into a villain.
Rebecca Solnit argues that Democrats should not meet those who advocate racism, misogyny, homophobia, and authoritarianism halfway. When the LA Times turned its editorial page over to letters from Trump supporters – under the disingenuous claim that we hadn’t been “listening” to those voices – Fox News and the Federalist did not and were not pressured to give time to Biden supporters.
Jezebel looks at how the online wellness community, already pushing various forms of woo, has latched on to the hoax conspiracy theory QAnon.
There’s a new study out of Denmark that deniers and other anti-mask loons have been citing as evidence that masks don’t work against COVID-19, but they’re completely – and deliberately – misinterpreting that study’s methods and conclusions. Among other things, the study didn’t even look at whether wearing a mask prevented transmission to other people, which has long been the main reason cited for mask recommendations.
Sen. David Perdue (R), fighting Jon Ossoff for re-election in a January 4^th runoff, made tens of thousands of dollars by helping a defense contractor in which he owned shares via a bill that directed Navy funds to the contractor.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is accused of multiple abuses of power, including an ongoing indictment for securities fraud charges that is now five years old, but impeachment is very rare in the Lone Star State.
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State says fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, have been pressuring him to exclude legal ballots. The whole party appears to have gone down the same bottomless pit.
Christian nationalists are becoming a more important voting bloc, backing Donald Trump and Republicans in huge numbers in 2016 and 2020. My own hypothesis is that as overall religiosity continues its decades-long decline, the percentage of religious Americans who identify with these authoritarian beliefs will increase.
Trump’s foreign policy people are reportedly trying to set as many “fires” as possible so that Biden’s Administration is hamstrung the moment they take office, unable to push new initiatives because they’re trying to put those fires out.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs tweeted about death threats she and others in her office have received in the wake of this year’s election, where Joe Biden and Mark Kelly, both Democrats, won the majority of ballots in her state.
Raw Story spoke to a neuroscientist about how Americans can recover from the harm four years of Trump has caused. I think he said something along the lines of “Lock him up.”
Ian Millhiser points out just how undemocratic the United States Senate is, where a minority of the population controls a majority of seats.
LA Times food critic Patricia Escárcega tweeted about how she lost a grievance over the fact that she’s paid less than her male colleague who does the same job that she does. Both were hired in the wake of the death of their legendary food critic Jonathan Gold. UPDATE: she just tweeted another thread in response to the LA Times‘s public statements about the case.
A new marine sanctuary around the archipelago of Tristan da Cunha in the southern Atlantic will be the world’s largest.
A peer in the United Kingdom’s House of Lords referred to Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris as “the Indian” in a tweet, but won’t be sanctioned for it.
Defector has the dope on Bill Simmons’s efforts to thwart the Ringer’s union, while the New York Times looks at how the Ringer is using contractors to reduce the importance of full-time employees.
Donald Clarke of The Irish Times asks why all these terrible films are being called classics, citing Hocus Pocus and The Family Stone.
McSweeney’s presents Olivia, the COVID-19 era American Girl doll.
BBC Radio 1 announced they will no longer play the original version of the Pogues’ Christmas song “Fairytale of New York,” which includes a homophobic slur.
Morrissey claims he was dropped from his record label due to “diversity,” not because he’s a racist, Islamophobic asshole.
Zach Hayes explains the case against Curt Schilling for the Hall of Fame on PitcherList.
The Chicago Public Library eliminated fines for overdue books last year, and saw missing materials return while patronage increased.
The BBC has a primer on the brewing civil war in Ethiopia, where Tigrayan and Oromian people have been at odds since the fall of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.
A wrongful death lawsuit claims that managers at a Tyson Foods plant in Iowa placed bets on how many workers would contract COVID-19 after those employees were ordered to report for work even in unsafe conditions.
My former employers at Disney have been accused of withholding royalty payments to author Alan Dean Foster for books he’s written in the Star Wars universe.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, baseball, colombia, coronavirus, disney, ethiopia, georgia, links, longreads, religion, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp

→ November 14, 2020
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/14/20.

For subscribers to The Athletic, I wrote about the major rule changes in MLB in 2020 that might stick around, and which ones might be worth keeping. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed The Search for Planet X, a deduction game that is one of the best board games I’ve played all year.

My guest on this week’s episode of The Keith Law Show was Fangraphs managing editor Meg Rowley, talking with me about the state of baseball, free agency, and some recent managerial hires. My podcast is now available on Amazon podcasts as well as iTunes and Spotify.

I’m due for another edition of my free email newsletter, this weekend, I hope.

As the holiday season approaches, I’ll remind you every week that my books The Inside Game and Smart Baseball make excellent gifts for the baseball fan or avid reader in your life.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: In Arkansas, tenants who fall behind on their rent can end up in jail, because apparently that state is still operating like the setting of a Dickens novel. The law dates back to the turn of the last century and even prosecutors say it’s probably unconstitutional. ProPublica examines the law and cases where people, often women and people of color, have been further victimized by it. Arkansas voted overwhelmingly red this month, giving Trump, his sycophant Sen. Tom Cotton, and three of their four Representatives at least 60% of the vote, while elections in the two chambers of their state legislature went more than 3 to 1 for Republicans.
An extensive disinformation campaign run by Russian and Syrian intelligence agencies led to the suicide of the founder of Mayday Rescue, best known as the group that helped create Syria’s White Helmets.
Scientists may have solved the information paradox of black holes, which was first described by Stephen Hawking. Black holes appear to be able to ‘shed’ information, rather than simply absorbing (and thus destroying) all information that enter them. This goes against Einstein’s theory of general relativity, instead relying on quantum gravity.
From September of 2019, this Washington Monthly story profiles a far-right Youtube hatemonger whose rise in popularity has been a nightmare for establishment conservatives – yet they have no problem courting that audience’s votes come elections.
Protocol has a brief history of Discord, the popular social media app for gamers (which I’ve used several times to demo board games with publishers), although it’s still not really clear how the company can monetize this large audience.
Taiwan’s 2014 Sunflower Revolution led to a change in how its democracy works, powered by a new platform called vTaiwan that facilitates discussion of policy matters and encourages consensus rather than the chaos typical of social media.
Rev. Raphael Warnock is a Democrat running against Sen. Kelly Loeffler in one of the two runoff elections in Georgia in January, and Republicans are attacking him for a 2002 arrest for obstruction of justice … which was for objecting to police interrogating minors without a lawyer or guardians present. The investigators later apologized.
Meanwhile, multi-millionaire Sen. David Perdue (R), facing Jon Ossoff (D) in the other runoff, is a climate change denier who owns a beachfront mansion in a neighborhood that has taken extensive steps to protect itself from rising sea levels.
And major GOP donors are pouring money into the state to try to preserve the GOP’s advantage in the Senate.
Several State Senate candidates in Florida were fake candidates funded by dark money to confuse voters into not voting for Democrats – such as an Alex Rodriguez running against the Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez in a district the Republican won by just 31 votes.
This was published the day before the election, but Vox described some activist groups’ plans to fight back when Trump refused to concede the election, some of which we’ve seen already in action.
A Republican firm run by a top aide on Trump’s campaign sent out mass, unmarked tests to Philly supporters urging them to protest vote-counting in the city.
From Nate Silver: Joe Biden won pretty convincingly in the end.
Jennifer Rubin (writing in the Washington Post) writes that changing demographics spell trouble for the Republican Party going forward as their path to the Presidency gets narrower.
The same paper reports on the shift of Latinx voters in the Rio Grande valley towards Trump, even as the state as a whole moved towards Biden, underscoring the diversity of the Latinx population, especially when it comes to what issues and policies matter to each voter, and the Democrats’ messaging failure in that region.
Roxane Gay wrote for the New York Times that the continued support for Trump is a disgrace, but that she’s energized and ready to fight for a better future. I don’t understand how 70 million Americans can see (gestures wildly around self) this and say they want four more years of it.
This Twitter thread undercuts any arguments in favor of the Electoral College, asking whether its defenders even understand what they’re defending.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito went on a steeply partisan rant while speaking at the Federalist Society. Not for nothing, but the house impeached SCOTUS Justice Samuel Chase in 1804 on grounds that he was too partisan.
Public health experts and scientists say Utah’s government is ignoring their calls for action to stop the state’s COVID-19 surge, with an infection rate of 1.17, 81.3 daily new cases per 100,000 residents, and less than 25% of their ICU beds available.
Meanwhile, Florida hired an unqualified, conspiracy theory-touting sports blogger for its COVID-19 task force. He showed up in my mentions one time with some bullshit about masks being ineffective (fun fact – they are, and the CDC just updated their recommendations to say that masks offer the wearer more protection than previously believed).
WHYY’s The Pulse podcast looks at the ongoing efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and the upcoming battle to get people to trust it.
Have you seen the claim that suicides are up 200% due to the lockdown, often cited as an argument against a second closing of the economy? It’s false, and it’s gross to try to use suicide, a very real problem, to fight policies designed to reduce the spread the coronavirus.
The Cut looks at several youngish Americans who are ignoring the pandemic and guidelines for limiting its spread by traveling around the world without regard to the consequences of their selfish actions.
High Street on Market, my favorite restaurant in Philadelphia, has closed temporarily but plans to relocate and open again in 2021. Their sibling restaurant Fork is still open, with outdoor seating, as they had a different lease and landlord.
Geneva now has the world’s highest minimum wage, about US$25 an hour, to allow the many service workers in its city to pay their rent and feed themselves without having to rely on public assistance or food pantries. It’s the same problem facing low-wage earners in many U.S. cities like San Francisco – they can’t afford to live in or near the city where they work.
Chris Archer wrote on the Players Coalition site about how absurdly hard it was for him to vote.
Vogue offered a quick appreciation of Stacey Abrams’ role in turning Georgia blue – which may matter even more in those upcoming runoffs. You can volunteer to help the Democrats try to win those seats or donate to Abrams’ Fair Fight.
VICE explores the history of the Great Barrier Hotel, once floating near the reef of that name but now moored and disused on the coast of North Korea.
Sarah McBride became the highest-ranking trans elected official in the U.S. when she won election to the state Senate here in Delaware this month.
This Inside Hook article on The Strand bookstore is the most balanced look I’ve seen at the controversy around the store’s actions this year with its workforce and PPP loan. (The owner’s purchase of shares in Amazon is a red herring, mentioned to get an emotional reaction but logical for any high net worth investor during a pandemic.)
The New York Times‘ nepotista Maggie Haberman has made a career out of normalizing and excusing Donald Trump and many of his supporters; Drew Magary skewers her, the Times, and the paper’s bizarre decision to run a profile of her in its own pages.
The Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas has failed in its response to dozens of claims from women that they were manipulated or sexually abused by men on that certification body, which certifies Sommeliers and Master Sommeliers in the U.S. and Canada. They’re on their second apology already.
Philadelphia was prepared for post-election violence, but street protests turned into dance parties. That was no accident, but was the result of planning efforts by the Working Families Party, a pro-labor, semi-progressive political party mostly active in the northeast.
Board game news: Asmodee introduced Connect and Play, guides for playing some of its games over Zoom or other remote communication services, including Just One and Dixit.
Satish Pillalamarri, one of the co-founders of North Star Games (publishers of Evolution and the Quacks of Quedlinburg), passed away this month at the age of 42 due to cancer.
Quined Games, a European publisher of primarily mid-weight to heavy games like Agra and Keyflower, announced that the new game Carnegie will hit Kickstarter on November 23^rd. It’s from the designer of Carson City and co-designer of Troyes.
Z-Man Games has released Pandemic Legacy: Season 0, the final installment in this trilogy, this one a prequel to the other two games and thus not a continuation of that storyline.
Evolution, which has been out for Steam and tablets since late 2019, is coming to Nintendo Switch in December.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, florida, georgia, links, longreads, philadelphia, physics, social media, stick to baseball, syria, taiwan, utah, voter suppression

→ August 15, 2020
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 8/15/20.

I had one column this week for subscribers to The Athletic, looking at the demotion calculus in a short season with no minor leagues, plus notes on Spencer Howard, Ryan Castellani, and Luis Basabe. I held a Klawchat on Thursday.

My podcast guest this week was Dr. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, discussing concepts from her book and how baseball scouts and executives might apply them – and how to avoid the pitfalls of using “intangibles” as a cover for more insidious biases. You can buy Grit here via bookshop.org.

You can also buy my new book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us about Ourselves, which came out this April, via the same site. I’ll send out the next issue of my free email newsletter as soon as my fall board game preview comes out over at Paste.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Carina Chocano spent hours taking MasterClass sessions and wrote about the product for The Atlantic, asking what it is they’re really selling since they’re not selling actual education.

At Slate, William Saletan lays out the timeline of how Trump’s bad decisions have led to over 171,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19.

Current Affairs’ Nathan J. Robinson points how, increasingly, verifiable information is behind paywalls while alt-right bullshit is free, and looks at the consequences of that dichotomy.

Novelist Chimamanda Adichie suffered a concussion earlier this year, and wrote about the experience, including the introspection that came with the temporary loss of part of her brain function.

The World Health Organization has created a one-stop shop for correct answers to common myths about COVID-19.

The Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association made the correct decision to delay fall sports until February. Some parents are pushing a petition to demand they reverse this, and the comments from parents in that article drip with ignorance and privilege.

A Florida church leader has been arrested for pushing the fake cure known as “miracle mineral solution” (MMS), which is really just bleach.

Mom influencers on Instagram are spreading anti-mask propaganda. Instagram is owned by Facebook and neither site seems willing to clean up their own shit.

Almost a third of elite sportswomen reported harassment or trolling on social media according to a survey by BBC Sport.

The opposition to masks is beyond belief at this point. You probably read about the sheriff in Marion County, Florida, who banned masks in his offices, and banned his deputies from wearing them. He eased those restrictions slightly after the backlash, but really, why is anyone objecting to mask mandates at this point other than ignorance or selfishness?

Putting more healthful, nutritious foods into school lunches appears to have improved health outcomes like obesity for children who receive them – so of course the Trump Administration’s USDA has rolled back those changes.

A major Iowa Republican donor who ‘somehow’ won a no-bid contract to provide PPE from China to the state is now under investigation for prostitution and possession of child pornography.

The Massachusetts Democratic Party helped a college group orchestrate a campaign to entrap and smear a local Democratic candidate for the state’s 1^st Congressional District.

That Georgia high school that suspended a student for taking a picture of all of the maskless kids packed in the halls as they resumed classes? They had to shut down for several days due to an outbreak.

Reproductive rights took a huge hit this week at the Supreme Court thanks to John Roberts’ conservative majority and their decision to allow several anti-abortion and outright misogynistic laws in Arkansas to stand.

There’s a massive oil spill in progress on the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius.

A telling comparison of the different speaker lists at anti-vaxx and pro-vaccine conferences.

We watched season one of Perry Mason on HBO and I agree with everything Alan Sepinwall said about it.

Board game news: There’s an Umbrella Academy card game in the works, for fans of that Netflix series.

I’ve never played Arkwright given its length and complexity, although it’s pretty highly regarded. Now there’s a simpler version coming as a card game, on Kickstarter this week.

I enjoyed Elizabeth Hargrave’s Designer Diaries around her newest game, Mariposas, due out later this month.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arkansas, board game news, coronavirus, florida, georgia, iowa, links, longreads, massachusetts, reproductive rights, stick to baseball, tv, vaccines

→ November 2, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/2/19.

This isn’t quite new, but I put out a formal announcement this week that my second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, will be out on April 21, 2020. You can pre-order it now on HarperCollins’ site.

On the board gaming front, I ranked the top 25 board games of the 2010s for Paste this week, and also wrote about some recent programming games, where players issue instructions as if they were writing code, over at Ars Technica. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

You can get more of me by signing up for my free email newsletter, which I send out irregularly but definitely not often enough to bother you.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: A ProPublica investigation found billionaire Dan Gilbert got a huge tax break with the help of the Trump Administration after making large donations to Trump’s campaign. The tax break in question involved “opportunity zones,” incentives aimed at spurring new development in disadvantaged urban areas – not, as in Gilbert’s case, for investments already made.
One dollar of every $10 spent on AmazonBasics products is spent on batteries. One writer tried to track where those batteries come from and what their impact is on the environment. She found a few answers, but not enough, and a lot of opacity from a company that is already under fire for labor concerns, climate impact, and its logistics operation’s effect on road safety.
Allie Conti, writing for VICE, describes discovering a vast, nationwide hosting scam on AirBnB that costs unsuspecting guests hundreds of dollars and leaves them without a place to stay.
The well-titled article “The Fight Over a Shitty Rock” has a very serious point: There’s a dispute roiling over Rockall, a tiny and uninhabitable islet in the North Atlantic claimed by the United Kingdom, and whether the islet extends the UK’s fishing rights against the wishes and claims of Ireland.
The chocolate industry has already been criticized for its use of child labor and even slaves; now the Washington Post points out that cacao farmers in West Africa are decimating forests, accelerating climate change, while western chocolate producers talk about sustainability without addressing this issue at all.
Spotify’s dominance in the streaming industry is still tenuous and hasn’t led to consistent profits, which explains in part the company’s acquisition of podcast producers Gimlet Media.
Anti-vaxxer nuts send racist, violent threats to people who post pro-vaccine messages, and Facebook does absolutely nothing about it. The people running these sites – Twitter is no better – talk a big accountability game when it comes to abuse and harassment, but they don’t back it up with actions.
Facebook also lets right-wing propaganda site The Daily Wire violate its rules by using sock puppet accounts to promote its content. Again, Facebook does … nothing. And they blocked pro-vaccine ads while letting anti-vaxxer ads run. It’s okay if we’re still getting paid.
Anti-vaxxers love to claim that measles is ‘benign,’ but there’s growing research on just how harmful a bout of the viral disease can be in the long term. New evidence shows that causes ‘immune amnesia’ in survivors, whose immune systems must relearn how to fight infections because measles wiped out 11% to 73% of antibodies already present in that person’s blood.
The anti-vaxxer faux-documentary Vaxxed has a sequel, but the producers aren’t saying where it’s playing for fear rational people will try to stop it, so keep your eyes open, rational people, and demand any theater near you that tries to show Vaxxed 2 pull their screenings.
An evidence-based technique called motivational interviewing is proving useful in addressing vaccine-hesitant parents. It involves one-on-one conversations between parents and trained counselors who don’t tell the parents what to do, but “simply talk through parents’ fears and goals, and let them decide what to do.”
Louisa Thomas wrote of the ‘stories’ the Houston Astros have told, which don’t always align with reality, in the New Yorker. I know of at least three more departures from their baseball operations department in the last few months, only one of which, longtime Jeff Luhnow lieutenant Oz Ocampo, is public.
Michael Stipe and Mike Mills spoke to the BBC about their album Monster on the 25th anniversary of its release.
Writing for Paste, Annie Merkley writes about what it’s been like as an American in the midst of the protests in Chile, a piece that also explained to me what the protests have been about.
It’s from June of 2018, but John Pavlovitz’s “Now You Want Civility?” post seems apropos after all the pearl-clutching over Nationals fans booing President Trump last Sunday. And, by the way, one of the clutchers was Delaware Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat I’m hoping gets primaried the next time he’s up.
VICE asks if sex addiction is real, or a misidentification of people who have sexual habits or preferences that might vary from the median.
A Spanish court acquitted five men of rape because the victim was drunk, so they didn’t have to use force. This is separate from the “Wolf Pack” rape case that led to protests earlier this year.
A legislator from Cobb County, home of your Atlanta Braves, is trying to make it a felony for trans kids to get gender reassignment via surgery or drugs. In two thousand and fucking nineteen, we are still doing this. This isn’t ‘protecting kids,’ as she claims; it’s going to do nothing but increase suicides.
Deep sleep may help protect the brain against Alzeimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases by triggering electrical pulses, according to one new study.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: chocolate, climate change, frauds, georgia, lgbt rights, links, longreads, sleep, social media, stick to baseball, vaccines

→ December 29, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 12/29/18.

I’ve had several ESPN+ pieces in the last two weeks, including my Hall of Fame ballot and explanation, my analyses of the Jurickson Profar trade and that huge Reds-Dodgers trade, and a post that covered the Michael Brantley and Wilson Ramos signings. I held a Klawchat here on the 20th.

On the board game front, my year-end articles went up two weeks ago – my top ten games of 2018 for Paste and my best games by category for Vulture.

Here on the dish, I posted my top 100 songs of 2018 and top 18 albums of 2018 that same week.

My free email newsletter will resume next week. Join the five thousand other satisfied customers who’ve already signed up for occasional goodness.

And now, the links…

Longreads first, as always: Marc Randazza, a lawyer who represents or has represented several major neo-Nazi and white nationalist figures in lawsuits, has a very long history of legal misconduct, much of it dating from his time working for gay porn producers, but has only received a slap on the wrist from the Nevada Bar for his misdeeds, detailed in this lengthy Huffington Post piece.

Former U.S. Marine Lyle Jeremy Rubin writes in the Guardian about what he learned about America while serving in Afghanistan. “For me the empire is rooted in the barbarism it pretends to oppose.”
Amazon’s Marketplace is enormous and part of why the company controls half of the U.S. retail market, but The Verge reports on the byzantine process of suspensions and how sellers use it to attack rivals on the site.
The Athletic looks at the disastrous two-year reign of Mike Piazza in Reggio Emilia, where he bought a Serie C soccer club and ran it into the ground (subscription required).
Katie Prout writes about her brother’s longtime alcoholism and her own mental health struggles over at Longreads.
ProPublica investigates the banana republic that is Louisiana, where former legislators turn into lobbyists or take jobs in the executive branch and continue to wield outsized power to line their own pockets, often in ways that harm the populace.
A study published in the Journal of Science Communication found that scientists who engage in debates with deniers may do more harm than good (PDF link) to the causes they support, such as climate change or evolution, because such beliefs are immovable especially when founded in religious beliefs.
Natalie Wood’s final film, Brainstorm, deserves a better legacy than it’s received, according to Popular Mechanics. I’d never heard of the movie before this piece, and I am old enough to remember Wood’s death and thus the time this film hit theaters.
Shirley Wang’s piece on her late father’s surprising friendship with Charles Barkley went viral last week for good reason.
This unrolled Twitter thread highlights one investigative journalism piece from each of the 50 states this year, including an item in the Delaware News-Journal about courts banning people from entering the city of Wilmington for trivial infractions like loitering or panhandling.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found that Bryan Kemp (guess) used a real warning of voting database vulnerability into a political attack against Stacey Abrams that may have tipped the Georgia gubernatorial election into his favor.
Detained migrants are being used as slave labor in private prisons funded by taxpayer dollars.
Texas is one of many states that has ignored the First Amendment and passed laws prohibiting state employees from supporting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) efforts against Israel – similar to efforts used, perhaps with some success, against the apartheid regime in South Africa in the 1970s to early 1990s. A Palestinian-American speech pathologist in Texas lost her job for refusing to sign a pro-Israel oath, which, if I may say so, is utterly fucking terrifying: You should never have to sign an oath to hold a job in the United States. She’s suing, and I hope Texans realize they’ll foot the bill for this lawsuit with their taxes.
The University of Utah and local police were warned six times in ten days by Lauren McCluskey that her ex-boyfriend was threatening her, but they did nothing. He killed her on October 22nd.
Eater has an excerpt from the forthcoming book You and I Eat the Same on how just about all of us love fried chicken.
New York‘s Intelligencer has two great pieces on the awful state of online right now: how so much of what happens on the Internet is fake, and why Youtube star PewDiePie can make anti-Semitic/pro-Nazi jokes and still thrive. It’s all generally bad news for society in general, and for those of us who make our livings online in particular.
The Obama Administration tried to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, exposure to which leads to serious neuromuscular problems in humans and may lead to cancer over time, but former EPA head Scott Pruitt denied the application to ban it; the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that the EPA must ban all sales of the chemical within 60 days of its ruling. In the interim, however, millions of pounds of chlorpyrifos were dumped on U.S. crops, one of many examples of how the Trump Administration’s rollbacks of environmental regulations have harmed U.S. workers.
OUT looks at Ruth Coker Burks, who helped care for hundreds of gay men dying of AIDS in a piece from 2016.
The Cut points out that the attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez derive from fear that women of color might start to wield real power, the kind only white men have had in our country’s history to date.
New Jersey Democrats tried to gerrymander the state to protect incumbents and thus the party’s control of the legislature, but pressure from their own supporters led them to drop the plan. It’s funny how that hasn’t happened in other states, like Wisconsin or Michigan, where Republicans have similarly tried anti-democratic efforts to retain power.
You’ve likely seen by now that Michael Cohen’s cell phone was in Prague around the time of a meeting with the Russians, yet more circumstantial evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin government – plus more hard evidence Cohen lied. But what I found most notable is who broke the story: McClatchy Washington Bureau, the DC arm of former Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy’s publishing empire.
An award-winning German reporter who garnered praise and hardware for his dispatches from Trump-voting areas of the United States fabricated nearly all of his stories.
The news that a federal judge in Texas ruled the ACA’s mandate unconstitutional, a ruling widely criticized by legal experts across the political spectrum, was symptomatic of a larger problem: Our federal judiciary has been packed with arch-conservative judges, and removing or replacing them will be difficult if not impossible.
An Australian woman whose 32-day-old infant died of pertussis has some things to say to anti-vaccine lunatics. Australia cracked down on vaccine denialists with its “No Jab, No Play” policy, ending all non-medical exemptions for schoolchildren; it’s high time the United States does the same.
Scientists may have discovered the brain circuit that causes seasonal depression in 20% of people, a discovery that also supports the use of light therapy as a treatment.
The Atlantic‘s Amanda Mull looks at the rising popularity of “anxiety baking,” although I tend to think of it as just “baking,” where the anxiety dictates how much I eat afterwards.
The Washington Post‘s media columnist Margaret Sullivan writes that news outlets need to stop booking Kellyanne Conway.
Sinclair Broadcast Group fired a reporter who was on sick leave with bone cancer, although the company disputes that version of events.
The cold season in Arizona has warmed by 3.5 degrees in 50 years due to climate change, one of many facts in this Arizona Republic wrapup that should disturb residents of the state. Phoenix experienced a 119-day dry spell this year, and in mid-July 97% of the state was experiencing “severe drought” conditions.
The New York Times investigates claims that Planned Parenthood has discriminated against pregnant employees. The headline likely overstates the case, since one issue is failing to offer benefits that the company says they can’t afford, but other aspects are definitely troubling.
Former Runaways bassist and sexual assault survivor Jackie Fuchs (f.k.a. Jackie Fox) recently had a five-day winning streak as a Jeopardy! contestant. She’s also a fan of heavy Eurogames.
Your 30-day trial with Black Patience has expired.
Deepwater Gaming announced the early 2019 release of Claim, a two-player trick-taking game that is already out in Europe.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: climate change, delaware, denialism, environment, fried chicken, georgia, italy, links, louisiana, mental health, new jersey, soccer, stick to baseball, texas, utah, vaccines

→ November 10, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/10/18.

I didn’t have any new ESPN+ posts this week, with my free agent rankings going up on November 2nd and my trade market overview due to run this upcoming Monday. I did hold a Klawchat on Thursday, and did a Periscope video chat on Wednesday (and even played a little something on guitar).

My latest board game review for Paste covers the cute, competitive, asymmetric game Root, where cuddly forest creatures fight battles for control of the forest, and each player has unique pieces, abilities, and paths to victory. It’s quite clever.

Feel free to sign up for that free email newsletter I keep talking about and occasionally remember to send out.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Undark exposes the conservative groups fighting climate chance education in Florida classrooms, as well as how they wage this war and their efforts to bring it to other states. The irony of failing to teach the reality of anthropogenic climate change in a state that might be the most adversely affected by it should not be lost on you.
Working conditions in the Tesla factory would make Upton Sinclair blush; medical staff are “forbidden from calling 911 without permission,” and five former clinic employees told The Center for Investigative Reporting’s writers that the on-site clinic’s practices are “unsafe and unethical.” One source was fired in August by the clinic, which she says is because she raised concerns about the clinic’s treatment of workers. Tesla’s pricing starts around $35,000 for its model 3 sedan to over $140,000 for its Model X P100D SUV.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was still working in a Manhattan Taqueria when she began her campaign for Congress, and Bon Appetit spoke to her there about the intersection between food and politics. She points out that food is intertwined with climate change, minimum wage laws, immigration, health care, education, and more (I’d add trade policy/protectionism, other environmental regulations, and water rights to the list.)
Anti-vaccine PACs helped shape this week’s midterm ballots, as those groups fought to defeat Republicans who weren’t sufficiently anti-vax during primary races. Dr. Paul Offit, who helped develop the rotavirus vaccine, wrote about how he’d like to answer anti-vax loons who still argue that vaccines cause autism.
Ninety-eight year old Roger Angell penned this wonderfully angry essay on the power of voting for the New Yorker, which ran it the day before Election Day.
The deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Post writes that new acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is a crackpot.
Wisconsin Republicans are trying to strip the incoming Democratic governor of much of the office’s power right now, which is particularly sad given the mess the outgoing Scott Walker leaves in the state’s education budget. Most notable is that he gave Taiwanese company Foxconn up to $4 billion in subsidies and tax breaks, a deal that would have resulted in the state paying about $230,000 per job created … if it had even created the number of jobs promised, which it hasn’t. That money would have filled the education budget gap and then some.
If Brian Kemp wins the gubernatorial race in Georgia, his victory would need an asterisk, according to Prof. Carol Anderson, who has written a book on voter suppression called One Person, No Vote. I said in my Periscope chat this week that when leaders in less-developed countries steal elections, the citizens take to the streets in peaceful protests and workers strike. I never thought we’d need that here, but that may be the only response Georgians have here.
The Kansas City Star exposes the overconfidence and disorganization that sank Kris Kobach’s campaign and gave Kansas its first Democratic win for a statewide office in 12 years.
The Houston Chronicle has had to retract eight stories written by Austin bureau chief Mike Ward after discovering that he’d fabricated dozens of people he quoted in those articles.
Adam Serwer writes in the Atlantic that America’s problem is not tribalism, but base racism, given how one of our two major parties seems to rely on race-baiting and trafficking in stereotypes to rally its base. And it works.
Trump mouthed off last week about making the Federal Reserve less independent; Venezuela’s experience demonstrates why that’s a foolish notion. Of course, Trump also blamed the three eastern Baltic nations for starting the war in Yugoslavia, so I don’t think we’re dealing with the brightest bulb in the chandelier here.
A giant supernova named Cow appeared without warning in June and has given scientists a rare look at the birth of either a black hole or a neutron star.
Oakland chef Charlie Hallowell, whose restaurant Pizzaiolo I visited and really enjoyed, is trying to come back to his old life after more than a dozen women came forward to say he sexually harassed them. He’s facing some backlash, but also getting frankly unwarranted support from other men in the business who seem to gloss over his behavior. The landlord for his newest restaurant, Western Pacific in Berkeley, is Lakireddy Bali Reddy, who pled guilty to human trafficking, bringing underage girls from India to the United States so he could have sex with them.
A mob of protesters gathered outside Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s house and threatened his safety. Reason argues it’s not just wrong, but actively harmful to the cause. I have zero sympathy for Carlson, who has chosen this life of fomenting bigotry for profit, but I agree with the column. Don’t threaten him or his family. You want to make him stop? Go after his advertisers. Cut your cable subscription. Ask public places you frequent to stop showing Fox News. But threatening journalist won’t help … although one protester says the reports of threats are highly embellished.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford continues to face death threats, moving four times this year, while the man who assaulted her gets to sit on the Supreme Court and decide how the rest of us can live our lives.
A fake doctor in California who promises a “miracle cure” for cancer using baking soda was sued by a patient and hit with a $105 million judgment. The money seems tangential – the point here is that these charlatans prey on the desperate, and the law seems too slow or simply unequipped to stop them.
Dr. Devah Pager died earlier this month of pancreatic cancer at age 46. Her work helped demonstrate that being black in the job market was, in effect, as big of a negative as having a felony conviction was
Comedian Patrick Monahan (no, not the Train guy) wrote about Louise Mensch’s legendary tweet about Steve Bannon possibly getting the death penalty for New York magazine’s The Cut. I take no pleasure in reposting this.
New York beverage director, author, and bitters expert Sother Teague writes about how he uses his role to espouse important causes, as with his NYC bar Coup, where proceeds go to groups fighting the worst policies of this administration. I appreciated this quote in particular: “Diminishing language such as ‘stick to sports’ holds no place and only serves to display the ignorance of those who say it.”
In the last two years, two mental health professionals in Monterey County have taken their own lives, including David Soskin, who drove off Highway 1 at Hurricane Point in June. Less than two years previously, a colleague with whom Soskin had clashed, Robert Jackson, took his own life, having left his job with the county after accusing Soskin of creating a hostile work environment.
This (unrolled) Twitter thread shows the bonkers elections in Alaska from Tuesday, with ties going back 40-plus years. Don Young won re-election yet again; he’s been Alaska’s at-large Representative since 1972, before I was born, after losing the election but taking the seat because his opponent died before election day. Young is still just the fourth Representative in the state’s history, even though he refuses to hold town halls and holds many views best left in the 19th century.
My employer did a nice thing for longtime employees, shutting down the Magic Kingdom for a night to allow Disney cast members of 40-plus years of service to enjoy the park for themselves.
Finally, this magic trick won for the best close-up trick at the International Federation of Magic Societies’ 2018 World Championship of Magic, and it’s dazzling:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: astronomy, climate change, disney, education, florida, frauds, georgia, journalism, kansas, links, metoo, stick to baseball, the swamp, vaccines, voter suppression, wisconsin

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