the swamp — Page 8

→ December 14, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 12/14/19.

I was busy these last two weeks, with numerous reaction pieces for ESPN+ subscribers.

I also held a Klawchat, probably my last of 2019, on Friday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the new small-box game Ankh’or, which plays up to four but works nicely with two, and wrote up the best games I saw in two days at PAX Unplugged (before my daughter got sick and we had to skip day three #sadface).

My second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, comes out on April 21^st, 2020. You can pre-order it here, and I have tentative appearances for that week at Politics & Prose (DC), Midtown Scholar (Harrisburg), and One More Page (Arlington, VA).

My free email newsletter will return in the next few days – sorry, I got sick, then the winter meetings happened – and you can sign up here.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This New York Times piece on two woman artists, Celia Paul and Cecily Brown, is devastating in multiple ways as it explores divers forms of misogyny in the art world.
Former major-league pitcher Bobby Jenks opens up about years of substance abuse and pitching through pain.
A GP writes in the Guardian about things he’s learned from his suicidal patients, with a discussion of the death of Frightened Rabbit lead singer Scott Hutchison.
The Verge reveals the toxic work environment at the trendy luggage maker Away.
Multiple researchers and publishers worked together to try to come up with a definition of predatory publishers.
Nouns in romance languages have genders, and when a plural noun refers to a group of people that includes men and women (or any non-men), the default is to use the masculine plural. So a group of 100 teachers, 99 of them women and just one a man, would still be “los profesores.” Teenagers in Argentina are fighting to change that in favor of gender-neutral language.
I love The Monster at the End of this Book, having read it many times to my daughter (complete with my Grover impression), so of course I enjoyed author David Burr Garrard’s essay on how that book opened his mind to the world of literature.
Deposed Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has been busy pardoning murderers who contributed to his campaign, as well as pardoning a man convicted of beheading a woman and a teacher convicted of possessing child pornography.
The Washington Post looks at Israeli people trying to escape Ultra-Orthodox communities, which keep their members in cult-like isolation from the outside world.
David J. Roth, formerly of Deadspin, writes about the Astros’ McKinsey connections and mentality. McKinsey’s business practices are under scrutiny elsewhere as well, such as how they charge U.S. taxpayers $3 million per year for the work of a recent college graduate.
France has mounted an extensive information campaign to fight vaccine hesitancy in a country with some of the highest levels of vaccine stupidity … er, distrust in the world. One side note in the article describes two families, one from France and the other from the U.S., bringing unvaccinated kids carrying the measles into Costa Rica. If I’m Costa Rica, or any other country, I would start demanding vaccination records for idiot travelers from rich western countries with vaccination rates below the herd immunity threshold (95% for measles), and making it a crime to bring an unvaccinated child into a country and putting my local populace at risk.
“Samoa buries its children as measles outbreak worsens.” I think that says it all.
That measles outbreak is what happens when anti-vaxxers win, according to this LA Times editorial.
Anti-vaxxers hate your children. Dead kids don’t bother them; they’re so obsessed with their fantasies of vaccine ‘injuries.’
Aung San Suu Kyi stands accused of deliberately saying nothing while the Burmese government massacred the Rohingya people in an International Court of Justice trial over the genocide.
A first-grade teacher in Alameda County, California, teaches his students about race, class, and privilege.
If you missed the Thanksgiving Twitter backlash over a now-deleted Scientific American editorial that (in my view) was just a hit piece on Dr. Jen Gunter, Slate offers one balanced take on the situation, while the American Council on Science and Health called out SciAm’s embrace of “anti-medical” pseudoscience. The piece’s author, Jennifer Block, maintains that she did nothing wrong, despite hiding her conflict of interest in the matter.
Climate change deniers love to argue that past climate models have been wrong … but that’s not true.
House Democrats have passed nearly 400 bills that Mitch McConnell refuses to even consider in the Senate. I’m reasonably certain that this is not how the Framers intended for our legislature to work.
My alma mater screwed up, again, this time denying a popular and highly regarded Latina professor tenure. Harvard President Lawrence Bacow could do something about it, but says that’s just not how we do things around here. Why does it matter? Because the rejection may push other minority professors and grad students out of academia.
If you live in or near Clarksburg, Maryland, there’s an indie bookstore that needs your help. The owner has Parkinson’s disease and is struggling to keep the store afloat.
If you’re not constantly on Twitter, you may have missed this video of British citizens aghast at how expensive health care is in the United States. Basic health care is a right, not a privilege for the wealthy or the employed.
Board game news: Dire Wolf Digital’s app version of Reiner Knizia’s Yellow & Yangtze, a sequel/reimplementation of his hit game Tigris & Euphrates, is now live for iOS, Android, and Steam.
Z-Man Games has a bunch of mini-expansions for Stone Age, Cacao, First Class, NMBR9, and the Voyages of Marco Polo.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, climate change, france, harvard, israel, links, longreads, mental health, myanmar, stick to baseball, the swamp, vaccines

→ November 23, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/23/19.

For ESPN+ subscribers, I discussed the baseball case for trading Mookie Betts, and looked at the Yasmani Grandal and Will Smith signings. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Watergate, a great and well-timed new two-player game where you play either as Nixon or as the journalists trying to uncover the scandal. For Ars Technica, I reviewed the social deduction game Game of Thrones Oathbreaker, a game with team & individual components that I think is too unbalanced.

My new book, The Inside Game, will be out on April 21, 2020, and you can pre-order it now. Stand by for news on store events, including Politics & Prose in DC and Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg.

I’ll send out the latest edition of my free email newsletter later today, talking a little about the philosophical debates I’m having with myself over this year’s Hall of Fame ballot.

My friend Jessica Scarane is mounting a primary challenge to Delaware Senator Chris Coons; Coons is a centrist Democrat who, among other things, thought Nats fans were wrong to boo President Trump, and who regularly works with the GOP. You can donate to Jess’s campaign on her website.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: My colleague Kevin Arnovitz describes how a Sacramento Kings exec pilfered $13 million from the team before he was caught.
A Newsday investigation found evidence of steering and de facto redlining in the Long Island real estate market.
This New Yorker profile of the 47-year-old Park Slope Food Co-Op is fascinating, by turns a paean to a community effort to make people and the planet healthier, and a portrait of how insufferable other people can be.
The Atlantic‘s Sarah Zhang detailed how a few Internet sleuths helped identify a Jane Doe murdered 13 years ago.
NPR reports on how the federal government is depriving U.S. territories of Medicaid funding, which may result in half or more of Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands residents losing their coverage, and Puerto Rican residents losing dental and prescription drug coverage. I should also point out that citizens of these territories do not vote for President and lack any representation in Congress.
MLB.com’s Joe Trezza has a thorough overview of how Mike Elias has reshaped the O’s baseball ops department.
Lindsay Gibbs of the Athletic wrote in her newsletter this week about Malcolm Gladwell’s betrayal of sexual abuse victims with his Penn State trutherism and misquoting of Michigan State victims. In addition to his own podcast, Gladwell was a guest on ESPN’s 30 for 30 podcast about the L.A. Clippers just three weeks ago, well after he’d started this weird campaign.
Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins wrote an editorial urging mayor Jim Kenney to consider transparency and accountability when choosing the city’s next police commissioner. The city’s police union issued a juvenile response, calling him a “nonresident washed up [sic] football player,” which Jenkins simply called a “distraction.”
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Wharton/Penn Law professor Natasha Sarin point out that improving the IRS’s auditing capabilities and resources should be the first step in any tax reform proposal because (according to their research) every $1 spent on auditing would yield $11 in increased revenue. That obviously can’t continue indefinitely – the ratio will decline with increased auditing, as the easiest targets are made to pay up and other tax scofflaws improve their compliance to avoid getting caught – but they refer to this as “low-hanging fruit” that also should be politically popular.
A former writer for The Simpsons explains how the “attempted crime isn’t a crime” defense of Trump comes from that show, where Sideshow Bob asked how attempted murder could be a crime.
Also in the Washington Post, two editorial writers described this week how Gordon Sundland’s testimony made the Trump/Ukraine scandal much bigger.
Should the Parthenon (“Elgin”) Marbles be returned to Greece? I mean, of course they should, but Mary Norris argues in favor as well. Also, they’re marble statues, not, like, actual marbles.
A mother explains why she chose not to use car seats.
Why has Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent, retracted paper on vaccines and autism been cited over a thousand times? The reasons are complex but one key takeaway is that the system of citing breaks down when the cited papers are partially or fully retracted.
Board game news: Alder Quest, a new area control game for 1-4 players, just hit Kickstarter this week.
A new game from the publishers of Ragusa (which I demoed but haven’t actually played), Venice is now on Kickstarter as well, with a very cool-looking board of streets and canals in the soon-to-be-underwater city.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, board game news, links, longreads, philadelphia, taxes, the swamp

→ November 16, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/16/19.

I wrote this week, but nothing has been published quite yet. Some of it will be in bookstores on April 21st of next year, though, as I work on the first edit for The Inside Game, my new book combining baseball decisions and cognitive psychology. I also am tentatively scheduled to appear at Washington, DC’s, Politics & Prose on April 24th, with other events likely in that first week. If you’re with a bookstore and interested in arranging an event, feel free to reach out to me in the comments and I’ll connect you with my publicist.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The legal battle over a 7-year-old trans girl in Texas could have substantial implication for trans rights of children in that state and across the United States.
The Guardian looks at the big-data approach to history and projecting the future, a new field of inquiry reminiscent of the psychohistory of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels.
Vanity Fair details the theft of 550 Bitcoin-mining computers in Iceland. The authorities know who stole the machines, but not where the machines are.
A New Jersey high school baseball coach ended up sued after he told a kid to slide, and the kid ended up with a horrible leg injury.
A woman who’s worked in the board game industry came out with her story of how designer/publisher JR Honeycutt manipulated and abused her across a months-long relationship. BoardGameGeek immediately removed him from a panel where he was supposed to speak at BGG.Con this month.
Deval Patrick wants to run for President. He helped a Republican billionaire make millions through foreclosures while he was Governor of Massachusetts.
Restaurant critic Adam Platt – you may have heard of his brother, Oliver – writes about what it’s like to be targeted by a chef whose food you’ve reviewed.
ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz writes about the silence that follows the NBA’s and Daryl Morey’s China/Hong Kong controversy. I may be showing my age, but can you imagine a similar blowback in the 1970s-1980s if an athlete or GM had voiced support of Solidarity or the Helsinki Watch Groups?
Dignity Health stuck one of its own employees with a $900,000 bill for medical care for her daughter, born three months premature, by trying to use a loophole around a missed deadline. This ProPublica piece points out that “Dignity is also a religious organization that says its mission is to further ‘the healing ministry of Jesus.'”
“I was an astrologer – here’s how it really works, and why I had to stop.”
Anti-vaxxers are now targeting minority groups with their dangerous misinformation.
The Daily Beast got basic anti-vaccine ads approved by Google and Facebook despite those companies’ claims that they wouldn’t run such false or misleading advertisements.
A woman who’s active in promoting vaccine safety and accurate vaccine information on Twitter went to a screening of Vaxxed 2 and tweeted her thoughts.
The head of the Nutrition Department at Harvard’s School of Public Health weighs in on how much meat we should eat and on the new plant-based meat alternatives.
The founder of a site called NoFap, which is – and I’m not making this up – trying to tell men to stop masturbating, is suing a prominent sex researcher because she said masturbation isn’t bad and that porn addiction isn’t real.
Health officials fighting the Ebola outbreak in the north Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo will now have a second vaccine to try in the city of Goma, which hasn’t yet been hit by the outbreak. Over 2000 people have died already in the year-long Ebola flare-up, which has spread rapidly due to locals’ mistrust of government and NGO personnel.
The current way we use antibiotics to fight routine bacterial infections may be out of date, and contributes to drug resistance.
The lower house of the Ohiobama legislature passed a bill saying that teachers can’t grade students’ incorrect science answers as wrong if the answers reflect the students’ religious beliefs. Imagine paying your tax money so the public schools in your district could fail to teach kids basic science.
Deadspin’s last (interim) editor-in-chief Barry Petchesky wrote for the New York Times about being fired for refusing to stick to sports.
The United States talks about fighting global terrorism, but the country is now seen as a leading exporter of white supremacist terrorism, spreading to violence across the western world.
The Saudis are not our friends. They hacked into the phones of Twitter users critical of their dictatorial regime and extorted them into tweeting state propaganda.
A MediaMatters survey found that just 3% of news reports on the California wildfires pointed out the role of climate change in the conflagration.
Leaked emails show Trump consigliere Stephen Miller empathizes strongly with white nationalists.
Peter Nicholas writes in the Atlantic that Trump’s strategy of attacking his adversaries may not work given how many people are on the opposite side of the impeachment inquiry.
President Trump continued to funnel tax dollars to his friends as his administration hired $380-an-hour outside consultants to handle work ordinarily assigned to government employees, leading to nearly $750,000 in gains for Trump’s allies.
As many as 90% of domestic violence victims report possible traumatic brain injuries, according to two researchers writing for Scientific American.
A new outpost of Pizzeria Bianco, my #1 pizzeria in the United States, will open in Los Angeles in the space formerly occupied by Tartine Bianco.
Board game news: The designer and publisher of the role-playing game Gloomhaven, which costs $120 and comes in a 20-pound box, announced a streamlined version called Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, which should cost around $50 and hit retail in Q3 in 2020.
Calliope Games is reissuing the 2004 game Station Master (Kickstarter link) with new artwork.
Next Move announced Azul: Crystal Mosaic, an expansion to the 2018 Spiel des Jahres winner that will include overlays to keep your tiles in place and new double-sided player boards.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: africa, anti-science, basketball, climate change, health, lgbt rights, links, longreads, nutrition, pizza, pseudoscience, stick to baseball, the swamp, vaccines

→ July 13, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 7/13/19.

I had two ESPN+ pieces this week: my midseason ranking of the top 50 prospects in baseball and my Futures Game wrapup. I held a Klawchat on Thursday.

I’d planned to send a newsletter out yesterday but I’m so backed up on life things from being sick for ten days (I’m recovered now, just dealing with a mild cough). I’m going to try to do that in the next few days, though, and you can still sign up here.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Author David Epstein argues for generalization, not specialization, against the current trope that experts in any endeavor need 10,000 hours of experience or practice to reach that level of competence. This is good for me as I do not have the discipline or attention span to do anything for 10,000 hours other than sleep.
The BBC looks at how NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo went from a stateless migrant to a Greek icon, including the racism he faced growing up and even after he was drafted by the Bucks, and how he’s helped ease the path for migrant children born and educated in Greece.
The Washington Post dives into how Sandy Hook parents are fighting back against hoaxers who claim the massacre was faked.
The Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory, widely pushed by Fox News personalities, was in fact a hoax planted by Russian intelligence, according to an investigative report from Yahoo News.
The Huffington Post reports that “progressive” baby boomers are fighting affordable housing projects in cities, a rather blatant “not in my backyard” mentality that masks both self-interest (preserving artificially high real estate values) and racism: Just look at the photo of Orange County, California residents fighting the placement a sober living facility.
Justin Gest, an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at George Mason, proposes an evidence-based overhaul of immigration policy, one that considers factors both economic and humanitarian.
Biotech executive Michael Becker is dying of neck cancer at age 49, and is using his remaining time to urge parents to get their teenagers vaccinated against HPV. While HPV causes nearly all cervical cancers, it’s also responsible for many other cancers, including more than 70% of oropharyngeal cancers in the United States.
ICE has just opened three new migrant detention centers, flouting limits placed by Congress in February. They’re run by private prison companies, who, of course, profit the more we lock people up in their facilities.
“Healing crystals” are pseudoscientific bullshit. They’re also the new “blood diamonds,” often mined in war-torn areas or mined by children as young as seven.
Harvard just suspended economist Roland Fryer for two years and closed his lab in response to sexual harassment claims.
The Miami-Herald‘s Julie K. Brown, whose investigative reporting helped lead to the re-arrest of alleged child rapist & human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and resignation of Alex Acosta from the Cabinet, writes that more than a dozen additional victims of Epstein have come forward since his latest arrest.
Mashable tries to explain the cult of Wawa. I don’t think they really get at just how much people in the mid-Atlantic love the chain of convenience stores, including their coffee and sandwiches.
Yet another new tick-borne disease, the Bourbon virus, has shown up in the United States, thanks to climate change and global travel.
Virginia state Senator Amanda Chase (guess) said in a comment on her office’s Facebook page that rape victims were naïve and unprepared. She’s only barely backed off of the comments since then, using them instead to justify carrying a firearm in public.
Veterans’ rights activist Paul Rieckhoff, himself a veteran of the Iraq War, posted an excellent tweet thread about the invective and outright racism hurled at Kamala Harris, which came his way after he said he agreed with Harris’s statements on Trump’s ridiculous July 4th display. He singles out Laura Ingraham for her role in fomenting the racist and misogynist commentary.
An extreme right-wing gubernatorial candidate in Mississippi denied a woman reporter access to his campaign because of her gender, and then played white nationalist bingo on Twitter to defend himself, citing the “liberal left,” “socialism,” and “putting men in women’s bathrooms.” I think the answer is simple: don’t cover him. He just played the media and got exactly what he wanted: free coverage of his theocratic worldview.
The Kingston Whig-Standard posted the first of a three-part series on the impending global water crisis. The BBC’s The Inquiry podcast looked at the same topic through the lens of the water shortage happening now in Chennai, a city that relies on monsoon rains for its water supply.
A Nebraska midwife faces homicide charges after delivering a baby who died two days later. The midwife actually did not have a certification to practice as one, and even if she had, state law prevents midwives from delivering babies at home. The newborn in this case was born breech and died from oxygen deprivation during the delivery. Hospitals seem like good places for births, but that’s just me.
Remember how the GOP tax bill was supposed to boost our economy? The deficit just jumped 23% in the last year even as GDP growth is slowing.
This tweet is from October but rather nicely sums up conservatives’ claims of “censorship” on social media.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: climate change, harvard, hoaxes, links, longreads, migrant crisis, pseudoscience, the swamp, vaccines, water

→ May 30, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 5/25/19.

For ESPN+ subscribers, I posted my 2019 MLB draft Big Board, ranking the top 100 prospects in this year’s draft class. I’ll tweak that before the draft but this is the last complete re-ranking. I also held a Klawchat on Friday.

I’m behind on just about everything else these days, but I’ll have a fresh game review up for Paste this upcoming week, and I swear there will be a new email newsletter issue soon. Really. I promise. Mostly.

And now, the links…

I tweeted about this story this week, but the report that set me off was Brandy Zadrozny’s article for NBC News about parents giving their kids bleach as a (fake) autism cure. The so-called MMS “cure” is just a fancy name for a toxic dose of chlorine dioxide, which is used to bleach wood pulp and paper.
The Washington Post examines how one right-wing activist has helped pack the nation’s courts with conservative judges. Why should any one person, regardless of political bent, have this kind of power over this branch of government? It’s likely to take decades to roll back the damage done to the country’s judiciary when it comes to fundamental issues like civil rights.
The Atlantic explores Sesame Street‘s introduction of a Muppet who lives with foster parents, and how the show’s writers try to teach viewers about dealing with traumatic events.
The editorial board of prestigious British medical journal The Lancet wrote this week that all doctors must fight to protect women’s rights and keep abortion safe and legal.
Anti-vaxxer activists are now working to spread their disinformation within communities suffering from measles outbreaks, including encouraging the orthodox to use (bogus) religious exemptions to skip mandatory vaccinations.
ProPublica shines a light on how the family of New Jersey political boss George Norcross benefited from over $1 billion in tax breaks, obtained through pressure on state officials that extended to one family lawyer helping write legislation to specifically benefit the Norcrosses.
Violence against trans people appears to be on the rise, so in response, the Administration is trying to roll back very basic protections for trans people, allowing homeless shelters to turn away people for being transgender and healthcare providers to freely discriminate against them.
Far far-right Arizona Rep. Kelly Townsend is trying again to pass a bill banning political speech in the classroom in a direct attempt to retaliate against teachers who fought last spring for higher pay and better working conditions in the #RedForEd movement.
Other far-right politicians attended a rally in Spokane to create a Christian state called Liberty State out of eastern Washington and northern Idaho. I’m sure the old Aryan Nations folks would be thrilled.
Deadspin’s Albert Burnenko writes that the idea that Trump wants to be impeached is absurd.
Trump entered office with more debt than any President in history, and last year added even more. So many of the core values that underpinned our democracy have died quiet deaths since his election; the failure to require Trump to divest from all his businesses feels like the worst of all the new precedents we’ve set.
Quentin Tarantino did not handle it well when asked a fair question about the limited dialogue for Margot Robbie in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The Division 3 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is kicking out St. Thomas after 100 years of membership for being too good.
Lindsey Adler asked a number of Yankees players about the time each came closest to quitting baseball (subscription required).
Over at Baseball America, J.J. Cooper looks at what happens in pitching-poor drafts like this year’s when you choose to draft a pitcher. The short answer: it’s not good.
Alabama continues to roll back the clock as fast as they can, as Alabama public television refused to air an episode of Arthur that showed a same-sex wedding.
A Methodist pastor in Alabama had some strong words for forced-birth Republicans, but more importantly, doesn’t he look a lot like David Ross?
Britain’s Labour Party made this tremendous video arguing against UKIP’s politics of exclusion as part of its Labour Voices series.
Board game news: Pre-orders are up now for Era, the newest game from designer Matt Leacock (Pandemic, Forbidden Desert).
Asmodee announced a new division, Gamegenic, to design and sell accessories for games, items like card sleeves, playmats, and storage boxes.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: alabama, arizona, baseball, board game news, lgbt rights, new jersey, pseudoscience, stick to baseball, the swamp, vaccines, white nationalism

→ April 6, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 4/6/19.

No ESPN+ content from me this week, although I have a draft blog post to file tonight that will cover what I saw at NHSI this week as well as potential first-rounder George Kirby of Elon. I did hold a Klawchat on Tuesday.

Meredith Wills helped me do some of the research that went into Smart Baseball, and, in addition to being an astrophysicist and general baseball expert (who realized that a change in the thickness of the baseball’s laces likely explains the current home run surge), she’s also a knitter and generally quite crafty. She’s disassembled many baseballs to look into their construction and is now selling crafts made from the leather on these baseballs, repurposing material that would otherwise go to landfills.

And now, the links, with a note. I didn’t get through all the longer reads I’d saved this week, so I may post a bonus roundup tomorrow or Monday. We’ll see how my weekend goes.

The best thing I read this week, one with particular relevance to me and many people close to me, is the New Yorker‘s piece on Laura Delano and the poorly-understood challenges of going off psychiatric drugs. I take one of those drugs, escitalopram (Lexapro), at the lowest ‘therapeutic dose’ of 10 mg/day, to help manage my anxiety.
Irin Carmon, now of New York magazine’s Intelligencer, writes of how the Washington Post, including famed editor-in-chief Marty Baron, spiked her work (with Amy Brittain) revealing that 60 Minutes boss Jeff Fager had a history of sexual harassment. CBS and Fager barraged the Post with threats of lawsuits and implied that they’d leak information to sink the story and some individuals’ careers, so the Post excised Fager’s story from their exposé of Charlie Rose; Ronan Farrow eventually published these allegations last July, leading to Fager’s belated firing.
The BBC looks at the murder of Iraqi Instagram star Tara Fares, part of what appears to be an increasing campaign to silence “liberal” women with significant social media profiles in the country.
Two of the links this week are very difficult reads about the deaths of children. The Washington Post goes deeper on the story of the grieving mother Susan Stevens, whose daughter’s death by overdose been used by Trump as ‘evidence’ we need a border wall, but whose story is far more complicated, with abuse and sexual assault possibly contributing to her daughter’s drug use.
The second is a photo essay on NPR covering the life and death of 12-year-old Lola Muñoz from a brain tumor, documented by photojournalist Moriah Ratner, who spent over a year with Lola and became very close to her subject before Lola’s death one year ago.
Vox asked fifteen experts about what modern practices or beliefs will be “unthinkable” in fifty years; I thought Lux Alptraum’s answer on sex work and its possible decriminalization was particularly insightful. When we turn sex workers into criminals, we are often revictimizing the people we charge with crimes.
The Anti-Defamation League called out anti-vaxxers for misappropriating the Holocaust-era Star of David badge to try to make themselves into some sort of victims.
The HPV vaccine has led to a dramatic drop in cervical disease, referring to the precancerous cells found in cervixes as a result of HPV infections.
I may have included this once before, but Undark’s profile of 18-year-old Ethan Lindberger, who was unvaccinated until he gained his majority and whose mother is still off in cloudcuckooland when it comes to vaccines, is worth your time.
From McSweeney’s: “I’m Vaccinating my Child the Natural Way – With Measles.“
The Administration is draining that swamp by letting pork producers have more control over inspections. Getting food-borne illnesses to own the libs?
Texas billionaire and Trump ally Andrew Beal is trying to get courts and regulators to stop California’s clean energy goals so he can profit, with zero apparent concern for the effects on our environment. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be born without a soul.
The Fifth Circuit Court’s recent ruling in Gibson v. Collier abandons the rule of law so the majority could weigh in against trans rights, according to plaintiff’s attorney Max Kennerly.
Probiotics do little to nothing for your overall health; they may even be bad for your immune system. Want a healthier gut? Eat more fiber.
The Atlantic has a fun interview with songwriters Norm Stiles and Chris Cerf, who wrote many of Sesame Street‘s most famous songs and later co-created Between the Lions. I do dispute the writer’s assertion that Sesame Street‘s best-known tune is “Put Down the Duckie.” That’s not even the show’s best-known song about a rubber duck; “Rubber Ducky” was so popular it hit the top 20 on Billboard‘s pop singles cart in 1970.
In a video essay for the New York Times Venezuelan-American writer Joanna Hausmann says the American Left is wrong to glorify Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro, and that protests against U.S. action in the collapsed South American state seem to ignore the wishes of actual Venezuelans. She also points out that Venezuela’s economy collapsed due to decades of corruption, with Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez looting the state for personal gain.
BuzzFeed writers have unionized, but the company is refusing to even recognize the union. You can see the union’s open letter to management on its Twitter feed.
Political science professor Leah Stokes looks at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s claim that corporate money, not public opinion, is the real opposition to the Green New Deal, and finds evidence to support it.
Wine Enthusiast has a guide to amari, potable bitters, mostly from Italy that I’m seeing more on dessert menus at fine restaurants. The piece mentions my two favorites for drinking straight – Meletti and Montenegro.
Nationals pitching prospect Sterling Sharp is running a pledge drive to benefit youth baseball in Detroit where you can donate a flat amount or do as I did, pinning your donation to the number of groundball outs Sharp records this year.
Renegade Game Studios announced pre-orders for two upcoming titles, Artsee and the trick-taking game Time Chase.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: climate change, depression, food safety, links, liquor, longreads, mental health, the swamp, vaccines

→ March 9, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 3/9/19.

No new ESPN+ content this week, but that will change now that I’m in Florida to see a little spring training and at least two potential first-rounders while I’m here. I did hold a Klawchat on Thursday and a Periscope video chat on Friday.

I sent out the latest edition of my free email newsletter on Friday, this time discussing a hypothesis I have on how some teams handle low-ceiling teenaged prospects; you can sign up here and maybe I’ll send you something too.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: I have four pieces in this week’s roundup from the New Yorker, including two longreads. I subscribe to their site – I signed up right after I cancelled my New York Times subscription – and, if you have the disposable income, I recommend it. The first is Jane Mayer’s incredible, horrifying piece on the transformation of Fox News into a Trump propaganda network, the closest thing we’ve ever had to state TV in this country.
The second longread profiles kaiseki chef Niki Nakayama, a pioneer here in a niche cuisine dominated by men.
Ben Lindbergh and Rob Arthur received a large file of thousands of scouting reports from the Cincinnati Reds from 1991 to 2003 and wrote up some of what they found from global analysis and looking at specific players in a three-part series. I’m quoted several times in the first piece, but I will mention again that I’m a little uncomfortable with this information, which is outdated but would still be classified as trade secrets, getting out to the public.
The Verge looks at popular Twitter user & activist Dr. Eugene Gu, who has been accused of sexual assault and of misrepresenting portions of his resume.
There’s been a lot of very bad writing in the last week over Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her comments on Israel and AIPAC. I thought this Politico piece contrasting Omar’s place on the policy continuum with that of fellow Rep. Dean Phillips, who represents a district that borders on Omar’s, was one of the few good pieces. Omar ended up in the news again for her candid comments on President Obama’s tenure, including his decision to continue the drone strike program started by his predecessor, and for her comments that questioned whether some people have “allegiance” to Israel, the latter being taken completely out of context and used as more evidence of anti-Semitism. It’s not, as you can see from this transcript of her remarks. AIPAC is a powerful lobbying group, and AIPAC is not Israel is not Judaism.
A Florida massage parlor owner has been selling access to President Trump at Mar-a-Lago. I’m not sure how this isn’t a bigger story.
The framing here isn’t great but this New Yorker piece on the risk that we become so overwhelmed by climate change’s dangers that we give up is still worth a read. I haven’t run into this sentiment anywhere online or in the real world, at least not yet.
The New Yorker‘s Masha Green looks at why measles is “a quintessential political issue” of 2019, drawing parallels to Michael Cohen’s testimony while excoriating our public-health system.
Dorit Reiss writes in the San Francisco Chronicle that non-vaccinating parents should be liable for damages when their kids start outbreaks. This would put a stop to some vaccine refusals – plenty of wealthy or high-income parents are vaccine deniers, too – but even marginal increases in vaccination rates will boost herd immunity.
For example, many of you already saw the story of an Oregon boy, aged 6, who nearly died of tetanus and racked up about $1 million in hospital bills. One, the parents should lose custody; they subjected their son to an entirely preventable, prolonged period of physical suffering. (It’s described in detail in the article. Imagine putting your kid through that.) Two, those costs, which don’t include the opportunity costs of that helicopter or the associated doctors being unable to take care of other patients, are the result of the parents’ active decision not to vaccinate. They should be liable for all of it.
A Chicago man who wasn’t vaccinated as a kid, then caught measles at age 30 and nearly died from it says parents have “no excuse” for deciding not to vaccinate.
UK Health Minister Simon Harris has warned social media companies over anti-vaccine ads ($).
The Sackler family’s role in fueling the opioid epidemic to further enrich themselves represents a significant policy failure, according to the Washington Post‘s Charles Lane.
It looks like Big Tobacco and now its partners in the vaping world may have helped push FDA head Scott Gottlieb out of his job. He was a rarity in this Administration, an official who took a tough stance on regulating harmful products in the name of the public interest.
The era of easy recycling is over as China is no longer interested in our recyclables. Add this to your Green New Deal proposals: we need more reduction and reuse, and easier access to composting. I have had a working compost pile for five years now, and it makes a noticeable difference in reducing my trash, but even that isn’t enough to take all of my compostable plant-based items, and I can’t compost meat or dairy scraps or even most paper materials in there because it’s not big enough. (I have composted a few cotton shirts, though.)
Writer/producer Amy Berg posted a Twitter thread explaining the Writers Guild of America’s conflict-of-interest complaint that the major talent agencies representing them, which could lead to some pretty drastic action as soon as the end of this month. (Full disclosure: I am represented by WME.)
Steven Spielberg wants to ruin the Oscars out of spite. Well, the Oscars aren’t so hot anyway, but he wants to make them worse by ensuring that Netflix titles and, as a secondary consequence, other indie films have a harder time qualifying for the awards. Spielberg went on to yell at several clouds that he said looked too much like the amazon logo.
Drew Magary – back from the brink – goes goes General Sherman on Barstool Sports in the wake of the latter’s aggressive legal tactics to try to get away with copyright infringement.
Jane Coaston explains right-wing grifter Jacob Wohl, recently banned from Twitter for admitting he’s made and continues to make fake accounts to try to influence elections and/or get gullible conservatives to send him money.
Parker Molloy shows how conservative outlets and commentators use “Mister Gotcha”-like claims of hypocrisy against Democratic politicians or candidates to derail actual debate over policies.
An Alabama court ruled that an aborted fetus’s biological father had some say in whether the pregnancy was terminated while ruling the fetus had legal standing to sue, a huge step backwards for women’s rights and for secularism.
This video clip from INSIDER explains why white savior movies are bad for Hollywood and for viewers.
A new, deluxe edition of the Martin Wallace classic Age of Steam is now up on Kickstarter. The new version includes brand-new artwork and a better color scheme.
A roll-and-write version of the great tile-laying game Lanterns called Lanterns: Dice in the Sky is available for pre-order, with May delivery expected.
Game designer Rich Gain, who worked as an operations manager at Japanime Games until just a few months ago, lost his fiancée and infant son in a car accident last week; there’s a GoFundMe running on his behalf in the wake of the tragedy.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, boardgames, japanese cuisine, links, oscars, social media, the swamp, vaccines

→ February 23, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 2/23/19.

Just one ESPN+ piece this week, looking at the Padres’ deal with Manny Machado. I held a Klawchat on Friday since my afternoon game in Texas was rained out.

I sent out the latest issue of my free email newsletter this week, complete with Obscure Music Reference as the subject. I nearly always tailor those song quotes to the subject of the email, although I think this week’s might have been a bit too obscure.

For the next five Mondays, High Street on Market, my #1 restaurant in Philadelphia, will host “sandwich battles” in the evenings, featuring area chefs and personalities in a competition to build the best sandwich using High Street’s phenomenal artisan breads and a mystery ingredient each week. Tickets are $25 apiece and you might see me in the crowd one night.

And now, the links…

The chefs from Montreal’s acclaimed restaurant Joe Beef discuss their kitchen’s culture of excess and the process of getting sober, and how that changed the whole restaurant. I thought it was interesting that people in rehab are told to avoid working in food service, since there’s booze everywhere.
The gaming world has moved quickly to banish writer Zak Smith after multiple women accused him of assault/abuse, including his ex-wife. Gen Con, the tabletop convention I attend every August and where I spoke on writers’ panels the last two years, has canceled his planned appearance and fully banned him from the con.
I generally find those “stop using your phone!” guides and self-help articles to be both patronizing and unrealistic; I use my phone more than I should, or want to, yet using it 75% less or not using it at all is impractical. That said, this New York Times piece on the topic is actually helpful and acknowledges that the same devices that distract us also provide essential services to us in life and at work.
A viral video of a white Delaware police officer pulling his gun on a black motorist has sparked controversy and calls for the officer to be disciplined or fired. I haven’t seen any more than that video but thought this was interesting – a lawyer who’s sued the Delaware State Police before in other cases argues that the officer may have been overzealous but wasn’t wrong to draw his weapon. The Attorney General’s office has said they are not investigating the case right now.
Vanderbilt has denied tenure to a neurology professor who spoke out against a professor who was later put on leave after he was accused of drugging and raping a student. If you believe such things matter – I’m not sure they do – you can sign a petition urging Vanderbilt to reconsider.
Measles, that “benign childhood disease,” has killed over 900 in Madagascar in an ongoing epidemic.
A British Columbia measles outbreak started because one idiot father took his three unvaccinated sons to southeast Asia, where they caught the virus and then brought it home. He gives the bullshit autism story as his explanation, just one more reason Andrew Wakefield should be denied the right to even enter the United States or Canada by our respective governments. He’s a terrorist.
Facebook lets advertisers, including anti-vaccine groups, target users interested in “vaccine controversies,” according to a Guardian report. BuzzFeed also reported on how one anti-vax community built its following on Facebook. Cool cool cool.
The Charlotte Observer‘s editorial board writes that North Carolina needs to crack down on vaccine-denier parents.
This New York Times piece on a couple of bibliophiles who connected over their shared love of books … except that, for reasons the author sort of explains, she’d almost totally stopped reading when they met.
There’s a GoFundMe with an explanation worth reading for the abused ex-wife of David Sorensen, who is now suing her for defamation (but not the Washington Post, which printed the story, since they have the resources to fight back).
Is ‘Oumuamua actually material from a nearby, newly formed star? That seems more plausible than the claim that it was some sort of real-life Rama.
The Inspector General is investigating FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for improper conduct in pushing for Sinclair’s takeover of Tribune Media’s local TV assets.
The News & Observer published a timeline of the investigation into fraud in NC-9, where the Republican candidate seems to have suddenly remembered having two strokes that harmed his memory.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: astronomy, delaware, links, metoo, north carolina, stick to baseball, the swamp, vaccines

→ December 15, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 12/15/18.

This week’s MLB winter meetings weren’t great, but I did write up a few moves: Cleveland’s trades for Carlos Santana & Jake Bauers, the signings of Joe Kelly and Jeurys Familia, the Lance Lynn signing & Tanner Roark trade, the Rays’ signing of Charlie Morton, and the Phillies’ signing of Andrew McCutchen.

On the board game front, I wrote up every game I tried at PAX Unplugged for Paste, and reviewed the Terraforming Mars app (on Steam) for Ars Technica.

I resumed my free email newsletter this week, after a longer break than I wanted due to those same stupid meetings and stupid prospect calls getting in the stupid way, but you should join the over 5000 current subscribers for even more of my words.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: At the Hardball Times, Stephanie Springer writes about scouting makeup in an era where some teams are eliminating scouting jobs. I’m quoted in the piece.
The Washington Post details how the Bradford pear tree became an invasive species after its sterile fruit became fertile through proximity to callery pear trees.
The Atlantic‘s George Packer asks how the Republican Party got so corrupt, doing whatever it possibly can to maintain power even after crushing electoral losses last month.
Attorney and former federal prosecutor Ken White wrote that “Individual 1” is in grave (legal) danger, based on the contents of memos released by the Mueller investigation on December 7th. Womp womp.
A Baylor student drugged and raped a woman but was allowed to plead guilty, paying a $400 fine, without having to register as a sex offender. Meanwhile, Cyntoia Brown, a Tennessee woman who was trafficked and killed the man who ‘bought’ her as a sex slave, must serve 51 years in prison for the killing. Do you feel safer?
Prion diseases, including “mad cow disease,” are terrifying enough. Now scientists have learned that these nearly indestructible proteins seed victims’ eyes. Prions aren’t alive, but they can self-replicate, and the diseases they are known to cause are all incurable.
An archaeology team working in Azerbaijan found a 4000-year-old board game carved into the earth.
Food52 writer Eric Kim discusses how an annual trip from NYC to Maine helps him deal with his depression.
Scientists are examining the ice core on remote Bouvet Island to learn about the past wind patterns and sea ice extensions from Antarctica, in part to figure out if man’s actions are changing them.
Yet another study has shown that GMOs do not cause cancer, part of a €15 million response to a junk study published in 2012. The resulting years of further research has wasted time, money, and the lives of thousands of rats.
One major reason I sold my house in Arizona and moved back east was my belief that climate change and profoundly stupid state & local governments would lead to serious water shortages in the not-too-distant future. Well, the Phoenix City Council justified my fear by voting down a modest hike in the city’s low water rates, the proceeds of which were supposed to go to improving infrastructure and allowing the city to draw more water from existing ground supplies, rather than the depleted Colorado River.
Speaking of the profoundly stupid local governments in Arizona, the Phoenix City Council was also set to subsidize the Phoenix Suns’ arena renovations before public outcry set in and they delayed their vote. You may have seen 90-year-old Greta Rogers tearing into the Suns’ owner as she spoke at a public hearing on the deal; the Phoenix New Times then interviewed her, and it’s wonderful.
Democrats are trying to further gerrymander New Jersey in a naked power grab that would fit with the current Republican playbook in Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina. There’s at least some pushback within the Democratic Party, but not enough so far to stop this antidemocratic effort.
West Virginia voted for Trump in 2016, but their economy has gotten much worse under his reign, including a spike in the state’s already high poverty rate.
The Trump Administration wants to make it easier for corporations to pollute waterways and destroy wetlands, because fuck the planet.
The EPA is now supporting that effort by circulating an editorial from a newspaper owned by climate-denying GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, whose wife just happened to get a Presidential Medal of Freedom last month. I’m sure that’s all coincidental!
North Carolina’s 9th District election, plagued by electoral fraud committed by a GOP operative, is such a mess that both parties may agree to hold a new election. The question will then be whether the Republican who won the tainted poll, Mark Harris, would be allowed to run again, even though the allegations – the operative appears to have illegally collected absentee ballots and then failed to submit them to try to suppress votes for Harris’ opponent – are connected to his camp.
We all know Fox & Friends operates in some sort of alternate universe when it comes to facts, but claiming Obama paid off mistresses just like Trump did seems like a new low. (To be clear: He didn’t.)
Russian spy Maria Butina pled guilty on Thursday to conspiracy charges, and her partner, a GOP operative, suddenly registered as a foreign agent, as did a former colleague of his who’s on the NRA’s board of directors.
An Irish TD (legislator) has proposed a bill that would ban ads telling cancer patients that medical treatment is unnecessary so they can sell those patients quack treatments instead.
Americans use way too many paper towels.
Bread is just not bad for you, unless you’re among the ~6% of the population with celiac disease or a wheat allergy. Anyone claiming it causes “wheat belly” or “grain brain” does so in contravention of the available scientific research on bread consumption. And whole grain breads are good for you.
The flailing New York Times tweeted a request for travelers’ stories of experiencing crime in London, but dry Brit wit hijacked their futile endeavor.
The Department of Homeland Security posted a message in favor of the border wall that was strangely devoid of definite or indefinite articles, as if the message had first been written in, say, Russian.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, boardgames, bread, environment, gmos, links, science, stick to baseball, the swamp, west virginia

→ December 8, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 12/8/18.

I had five pieces for ESPN+ subscribers this week, on the Robinson Cano trade, the Paul Goldschmidt trade, Washington signing Pat Corbin, the Yan Gomes trade, and the Jean Segura trade. I did not hold a chat this week due to other demands on my time.

I have updated my annual posts of recommendations of cookbooks and gifts for the cooks in your life. My top board games of the year columns for Paste and Vulture should both go up next week; I’ll post my year-end music rankings here the week of the 17th.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The New York Review of Books looks at the plight of undocumented farm workers in California, under the increased pressure to deport them going back more than ten years, even though these workers are the reason we have affordable (or, more accurate, artificially underpriced) food on our tables.
The Guardian ran an excerpt from a 2016 book called The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell, a fascinating story of a master sergeant in the Air Force who decided to try to sell thousands of pages of classified documents to the governments of Iraq and Libya.
GQ ran a long tribute to the late Anthony Bourdain.
The New York Times‘ Ross Douthat wrote a column lamenting the loss of our ruling class of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men that would have been funny were it not so utterly ignorant; Splinter’s Libby Watson had the best excoriation of the column I saw.
As bad as the Times‘ regular editorial writers are, their investigative journalists continue to churn out good work, like the revelation that Trump employs illegal immigrants at his golf course in New Jersey, including the Guatemalan woman who made Trump’s bed.
Jane Coaston explains the Jeffrey Epstein case, and how he got away with serial rapes of underage girls, over at Vox.
Jennifer Rubin writes in the Washington Post that we’re now seeing the “Trump economy,” and it ain’t good. The President inherited a strong economy, and his advocacy of protectionist policies in particular is helping to weaken it.
There’s an actual voter fraud case going on in North Carolina right now, and the perpetrators are – in a shocking twist! – Republicans. The Washington Post has pieces on the operative with a criminal history at the heart of the scandal and on the old-fashioned investigative reporting that has helped uncover it.
Slate’s Jamelle Bouie looks at Republicans’ lame-duck power grabs in Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina. The national party’s tacit support of these moves should tell you all you need to know about its moral rot.
Author David Neiwert posted a long Twitter thread on the history of the Aryan Nations and related white supremacist groups, in part a response to convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza’s regular claims that “liberals are the real Nazis.”
New York has a piece arguing that Uber’s business model is unsustainable and probably unfixable.
Adminstrators and faculty members at Temple University wanted tenured professor Marc Lamont Hill fired for his advocacy of statehood for Palestine, specifically for using the phrase “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” which some groups use as a code for the destruction of Israel.
The Philippines may be on the verge of a measles outbreak, the result of anti-vaxxer disinformation and conflict between the state and Islamist rebels in the archipelago.
Italy’s pseudoscience-spouting health minister sacked the board of the country’s main committee of scientists, who advised the government on health policy. Giulia Grillo has opposed mandatory vaccination laws and supports the “Five-Star Movement,” which also opposes those laws and has pushed quack ‘cures’ for cancer.
The Weekly Standard‘s David Shabtai argues that vaccine denialists are hurting efforts to protect ‘religious freedom’ by using it as a backdoor way to avoid mandatory vaccinations. There’s a simple solution to this: Ban all nonmedical exemptions to childhood vaccination requirements.
The simplest way individuals can fight climate change is to stop wasting so much food. Food waste is the #1 contributor to landfills, and landfills contribute 14% of U.S. methane emissions. (Methane is a far more potent contributor to climate change than carbon dioxide.)
Climate scientist Michael Mann pre-empted an attempt by a coal industry front group to obtain his emails from the six years he spent at the University of Virginia by releasing them all himself.
New Jersey taxpayers paid $18 million to build a beautiful minor-league ballpark in Camden that was supposed to host an independent league team, which folded a few years later after they couldn’t agree to a new lease. Now taxpayers will spend another $1 million to tear the stadium down.
Parker Molloy explains in the New York Times why Twitter’s ban on deadnaming trans people will promote free speech rather than hindering it.
Utah Representative Chris Stewart (guess) defended the state-sponsored murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by saying “journalists disappear all the time,” which is a hell of a way to encourage people and governments to kill or just ‘disappear’ reporters who are bothering them.
This won’t make anyone mad: A Yale psychiatry professor says Trump supporters exhibit emotional patterns most children outgrow by age five, notably the “might makes right” mentality, which I’d argue also defines most of U.S. foreign policy of the last hundred years. There’s actually a lot more in this piece about how demagogues like Trump manipulate their bases to attain and hold on to power.
A man thought he would put one over on advice columnist Amy Dickinson and the #MeToo movement in general, but he forgot that Dickinson would get the final say, and she drags him appropriately.
The Good Place‘s Jameela Jamil wrote an op ed for the BBC arguing that airbrushing in adverts should be illegal.
The Cut’s “I Think About This a Lot” series is back with a piece by Karen Geier on the parody account PrinceTweets2U’s epic response to Time Warner Cable.
Board game news: Dire Wolf announced the fall 2019 release of Clank! Legacy Acquisitions Incorporated, a joint development with Renegade (publishers of Clank!) and Penny Arcade.
CMON announced a seven-day Kickstarter for a digital adaptation of their game Blood Rage, and it has funded at 1000% already through day five.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: boardgames, climate change, food waste, free speech, links, north carolina, stick to baseball, the swamp, vaccines

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