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times in the first piece, but I will mention again that I’m a little uncomfortable with this information, which is outdated but would still be classified as trade secrets, getting out to the public.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.