{"id":10108,"date":"2023-12-16T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10108"},"modified":"2023-12-16T15:29:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T20:29:59","slug":"stick-to-baseball-12-16-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/16\/stick-to-baseball-12-16-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 12\/16\/23."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We\u2019re getting busy over on the hot stove front, and this week I wrote about <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/5127468\/2023\/12\/11\/shohei-ohtani-contract-analysis-dodgers\/\">the Shohei Ohtani signing<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/5132871\/2023\/12\/12\/jung-hoo-lee-seth-lugo-deal-analysis\/\">the Lee Jung-hoo signing<\/a> (plus two Royals signings and the Yanks-Dodgers trade), <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/5136420\/2023\/12\/14\/ronny-mauricio-endy-rodriguez-injury-outlook-mets-pirates\/\">the impact of the injuries to Ronny Mauricio and Endy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/5139055\/2023\/12\/15\/tyler-glasnow-dodgers-rays-trade-analysis\/\">the Tyler Glasnow trade<\/a> for subscribers to the Athletic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At Paste, I ranked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/games\/best-of-2023\/the-best-board-games-of-2023\">the ten best new boardgames of 2023<\/a>. It was a hard list to make, with probably 20 games I played this year that I liked enough to include, and at least five more I know that I would probably like enough but haven\u2019t played yet. To give you a little more context, a game like Emerge, which I mentioned in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/games\/board-games\/the-best-board-games-we-played-at-pax-unplugged-2023\">my PAX Unplugged writeup<\/a>, is absolutely fine and I think a lot of casual players would enjoy it. It didn\u2019t stand a chance of getting on this list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/keithlaw.substack.com\/\">My free email newsletter is alive and well<\/a>, and more than a hundred new subscribers have joined the list in the last three weeks since I switched platforms, so thank you and welcome. I\u2019m hoping to keep this up as a weekly endeavor again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And now, the links\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Longreads first: The <em>New York Times<\/em> had two outstanding longreads this week. The first is by graphic designer Giorgia Lupi, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2023\/12\/14\/opinion\/my-life-with-long-covid.html\">who has been struggling with long COVID for three years<\/a> and describes the disorder in prose and graphics that make it one of the most remarkable pieces I\u2019ve read all year. As a companion, you might read Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist\/author Ed Yong on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/11\/opinion\/long-covid-reporting-lessons.html\">how covering long COVID has made him a better writer.<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The second is also an interactive story, about a 1973 expedition to the summit of Aconcagua <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2023\/12\/09\/world\/americas\/aconcagua-mountain-expedition-photos.html\">that left two Americans dead on the mountain while six others returned<\/a>, with the truth about how the two died still mired in uncertainty. The story resurfaced literally this year as climate change led to the withdrawal of a glacier that exposed one of the dead climber\u2019s cameras.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The testimony of three university presidents to Congress a few weeks ago that led to the ouster of Penn\u2019s Liz Magill and calls for Harvard\u2019s Claudine Gay to resign has devolved into claims that Ms. Gay \u201cplagiarized\u201d parts of her dissertation. The <em>Harvard Crimson<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecrimson.com\/article\/2023\/12\/14\/gay-new-plagiarism-allegations\/\">looks at these claims<\/a>, line by line, and contacts the authors whose work Ms. Gay allegedly stole. (Spoiler alert: This is a bad-faith argument by right-wing trolls.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>ProPublica looked at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/westforth-sports-gary-indiana-chicago-guns-illegal-sales\">one gun store in Indiana that does little to nothing to avoid contributing to the illegal gun trade<\/a>, and how it impacts communities in Chicago and beyond.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Intercept obtained a document showing <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/12\/10\/india-sikhs-leaked-memo-us-canada\/\">India\u2019s Hindu nationalist government was specifically targeting Sikh separatists<\/a> in the west, including Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whom the Canadian government says was murdered by Indian intelligence agents in June.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Those stories you saw a year or so ago about the ten-figure toll of organized shoplifting gangs? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2023-12-14\/column-retail-lobby-confesses-it-lied-about-organized-shoplifting-rings\">It was all a lie<\/a>, cooked up by the retail industry\u2019s lobbyists.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ben Collins, who spent several years on what he called the \u201cdystopia beat\u201d of online hate and disinformation, writes about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2023\/12\/the-cable-news-kayfabe-is-dead\/\">how the farce of cable news has reached the end of its lifespan<\/a>, as younger audiences aren\u2019t falling for the fake debates and dichotomies required by CNN, Fox, and their ilk.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cameron County, Texas, located at the state\u2019s southernmost tip, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texasobserver.org\/prosecutors-wont-drop-charges-against-brownsville-isd-honor-student\/\">prosecuting an 11-year-old boy who was arrested and put into solitary confinement for reporting his principal for bullying<\/a>. Principal Marta Garza has a history of retaliating against any parents or children who cross her, including calling CPS after one district grandparent challenged the goals set for her 5-year-old grandchild.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2023\/12\/kate-cox-nonviable-pregnancy-judicial-control-abortion-texas.html\">The lie of abortion bans was made very clear<\/a> with this past week\u2019s ruling in Texas against Kate Cox, a pregnant woman whose fetus was nonviable but was denied an abortion under the state\u2019s bogus \u201cto save the mother\u2019s life\u201d exception.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <em>Washington Post <\/em>is <a href=\"https:\/\/eugenelmeyer.com\/2023\/12\/13\/its-striking-buyouts-the-washington-post\/\">laying off experienced journalists<\/a> \u2013 but expanding its increasingly reactionary editorial board, which led to a one-day strike on December 7<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Meanwhile, former <em>Post<\/em> reporter Felicia Sonmez\u2019s lawsuit against the paper reached the DC Appeals Court, where the judges will have to determine whether its editors\u2019 decision to take Sonmez, a sexual assault survivor, off coverage of #MeToo and related stories <a href=\"https:\/\/objectivejournalism.org\/2023\/12\/dc-appeals-court-ponders-how-far-newsrooms-can-go-to-promote-image-of-objectivity\/\">was discrimination or was a step to maintain objectivity<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>First-time author Cait Corrain had her book canceled by its publisher after it came out that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/12\/books\/cait-corrain-goodreads-reviews.html\">she\u2019d review-bombed numerous other authors on Goodreads with various sock-puppet accounts<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A pastor in the United Church of the Kingdom of God was caught on film <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-67592961\">trying to rid a 16-year-old of \u201cevil spirits,\u201d<\/a> while another former parishioner said the church tried to convince him to use prayer to become heterosexual when he was 13.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Missouri Rep. Sarah Unsicker (D) has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.riverfronttimes.com\/news\/rep-sarah-unsicker-quits-missouri-attorney-general-race-41447357\">dropped out of the race for the state\u2019s attorney general post after some bizarre behavior<\/a>, including having a \u201cbasil lemonade\u201d with right-wing troll Chuck Johnson and claims that at least one of her opponents is actually an agent of the Israeli government.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Vivek Ramaswamy has now become <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2023\/12\/vivek-ramaswamy-great-replacement-theory\/676329\/\">the new(est) face of the racist, xenophobic Great Replacement Theory<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re getting busy over on the hot stove front, and this week I wrote about the Shohei Ohtani signing, the Lee Jung-hoo signing (plus two Royals signings and the Yanks-Dodgers trade), the impact of the injuries to Ronny Mauricio and Endy Rodr\u00edguez, and the Tyler Glasnow trade for subscribers to the Athletic. At Paste, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1300,1162,939,956,190,961,851,1105,870,477],"class_list":["post-10108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion","tag-coronavirus","tag-harvard","tag-india","tag-links","tag-longreads","tag-media","tag-missouri","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-texas","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10110,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108\/revisions\/10110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}