{"id":10598,"date":"2025-01-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10598"},"modified":"2025-01-25T12:33:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T17:33:22","slug":"stick-to-baseball-1-25-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/25\/stick-to-baseball-1-25-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 1\/25\/25."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I had two posts for subscribers to the Athletic this week, on the signings of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6076231\/2025\/01\/20\/blue-jays-anthony-santander-signing-analysis\/\">Anthony Santander<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6084902\/2025\/01\/23\/jurickson-profar-atlanta-signing-analysis\/\">Jurickson Profar<\/a>. My ranking of the top 100 prospects in baseball will go live on Monday morning; the content is all written but I am still tweaking the final order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At Paste, I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/games\/board-games\/forge-your-own-path-in-the-board-game-gnome-hollow\">reviewed the game Gnome Hollow<\/a>, a medium-weight family game of tile placement, set collection, and some market selling, along with gnomes. I liked it but I would say I didn\u2019t love it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I did send a short newsletter out to subscribers earlier last week; <a href=\"https:\/\/keithlaw.substack.com\/\">you can subscribe here for free<\/a> and get the next one, which I hope will go out Monday\/Tuesday to go along with the unveiling of the top 100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the social media landscape has lurched to the right, I\u2019m posting links on several sites but only posting other content or answering people <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/keithlaw.bsky.social\">on Bluesky<\/a>, so if you want to interact with me that\u2019s the spot.<\/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: Molly White writes in her newsletter, [citation needed], <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citationneeded.news\/elon-musk-and-the-rights-war-on-wikipedia\/?\">about Elon Musk\u2019s and the right\u2019s war on Wikipedia<\/a>, a source of information they can\u2019t easily control.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An independent journalist <a href=\"https:\/\/prismreports.org\/2025\/01\/14\/alissa-azar-portland-trial\/\">is going to trial over her coverage of the police response<\/a> to a pro-Palestine protest at Portland State University. Alissa Azar has already been convicted once for her work, as the police claim she\u2019s not a journalist, but \u201cantifa.\u201d How convenient for them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Joe Kahn, the executive editor of the <em>New York Times<\/em>, said that defending democracy would amount to \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/presswatchers.org\/2024\/05\/new-york-times-editor-joe-kahn-says-defending-democracy-is-a-partisan-act-and-he-wont-do-it\/\">abandoning its central role as a source of impartial information<\/a>.\u201d His comments, made to a former colleague of his now at Semafor, didn\u2019t go over well.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Just days after a (so-called?) cease-fire in Gaza, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/israel-launches-major-iron-wall-assault-jenin-days-after-gaza-ceasefire\">Israel launched a major offensive against Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin<\/a>. La plus \u00e7a change.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I hate to link to the dumpster fire that is Politico, but they have a good piece on how RFK Jr. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/01\/24\/rfk-jr-allies-child-vaccinations-00200364\">might try to remove vaccines from the market entirely<\/a> if he\u2019s confirmed as HHS Secretary. And his buddy Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpri.com\/news\/politics\/whitehouse-seen-as-potential-vote-for-rfk-jr-due-to-long-friendship\/\">might vote for him<\/a>. If you live in Rhode Island, you need to call Sen. Whitehouse\u2019s office on Monday morning.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Florida has benefited from net positive migration for years because of its weather, cheap real estate, and general economic growth. <a href=\"https:\/\/prospect.org\/environment\/2025-01-23-is-floridas-migration-tide-turning\/\">That may be changing<\/a>, as more people left Florida in 2023 than any other state but California. Climate change and the state\u2019s hard-right shift are likely causes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>My former colleague at the Athletic Lindsey Adler has a newsletter of her own now after she left the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>, and her latest issue, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/lindseyadler.substack.com\/p\/ten-years-in-a-crumbling-industry\">Ten Years in a Crumbling Industry<\/a>,\u201d is an excellent look at her decade in (mostly) digital media and what it\u2019s been like to work in a field that\u2019s imploding around you like the Hamptons sequence in <em>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Character.AI has been in the media more for problems with its software, including one user\u2019s suicide after he became obsessed with a chatbot modeled after Daenerys Targaryen, than for anything good about the product. So <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/character-ai-seeking-partnerships-despite-lawsuits\">why would any media brand want to partner with them<\/a>?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Jeb Lund writes at Truthdig that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/articles\/aoc-28-starts-now\/\">AOC \u201928 needs to start now<\/a> \u2013 not necessarily because she\u2019ll win, but because she is the right person to stand front and center as the leader of the opposition to the President. And I agree. I don\u2019t think concerns about \u201celectability\u201d are even relevant any more; Trump should have been the most unelectable candidate ever, and he just won his biggest victory yet.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>At Slate, Dan Kois <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/culture\/2025\/01\/david-lynch-dead-movies-the-straight-story.html\">writes about <em>The Straight Story<\/em><\/a>, David Lynch\u2019s most conventional film, and an absolute fucking masterpiece.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Outgoing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/biden-commutes-sentence-leonard-peltier-native-american-activist-impri-rcna188331\">President Joe Biden commuted the sentence Leonard Peltier<\/a>, who spent nearly 50 years in prison for a murder he says he didn\u2019t commit. The federal government withheld a ballistics report that showed the fatal shots did not come from Peltier\u2019s gun, and no witnesses identified him as the shooter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Support our troops! But don\u2019t give them houses! <a href=\"https:\/\/www.koco.com\/article\/oklahomas-homeless-veterans-into-housing-scrapped\/63460810\">Oklahoma scrapped a plan by the Veterans Community Project to build tiny homes for homeless veterans in Oklahoma City<\/a> after neighbors objected. I bet they stand for the anthem, though!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Elon Musk made a Nazi salute at the inauguration, twice. We know that\u2019s what it was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/neo-nazis-love-elon-musk-nazi-like-salutes-trumps-inauguration\/\">because neo-Nazis online said so<\/a> \u2013 and they loved it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Greg Sargent of the <em>New Republic<\/em> says that Trump allies are conceding <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/190433\/suddenly-trump-allies-quietly-admit-may-not-huge-mandate\">they don\u2019t have a huge \u201cmandate\u201d after all<\/a>. I\u2019m not sure this means much if no one is willing to stand up to him.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The New England Patriots set up a Bluesky account and <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/nfl\/new-england-patriots-bluesky-shut-down-account.html\">the NFL told them to shut it down<\/a>. Then the league announced a new partnership with Twitter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <em>Columbia Journalism Review<\/em> has a story on how the White House press corps is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cjr.org\/political_press\/white-house-press-corps-gears-up-second-trump-term-lahut.php\">looking forward to a second Trump term<\/a>. It\u2019s the most effective way I can think of to make someone hate the media. The people they spoke to do not care who\u2019s hurt or what the long-term effects on the country might be, as long as their individual jobs are easier.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One of Trump\u2019s barrage of executive orders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/trump-order-s-trying-push-trans-people-back-closet-rcna189045\">tried to erase the existence of trans people<\/a>. It is cruelty for cruelty\u2019s sake. No one benefits from this \u2013 certainly not the very women who such orders are supposed to protect, not as their rights to basic medical care are also under assault.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Another order <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/trump-hits-nih-devastating-freezes-meetings-travel-communications-and-hiring\">froze pretty much all business at the NIH<\/a>, which is going to seriously impact critical scientific research on things like cancer treatments and disease prevention. NIH, NSF, and other federal agencies fund all kinds of research into medicine, mental health, and other areas of science that have helped keep the American economy among the world\u2019s strongest and driven continued improvements in global health. That\u2019s all at risk now.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The American Association of University Professors put out a statement called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/news\/against-anticipatory-obedience\">Against Anticipatory Obedience<\/a>.\u201d Do not comply in advance. It\u2019s not hard to remember.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We have a new Fabio Lopiano (Merv, 3 Ring Circus) game up on Kickstarter, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/alleycatgames\/baghdad-the-city-of-peace\">called Baghdad: The City of Peace<\/a>. I love Lopiano\u2019s games \u2013 they\u2019re medium-heavy but manageable \u2013 and this one looks like it\u2019ll have great art similar to that of Merv, which I own and have played just once but kept because it\u2019s so gorgeous.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had two posts for subscribers to the Athletic this week, on the signings of Anthony Santander and Jurickson Profar. My ranking of the top 100 prospects in baseball will go live on Monday morning; the content is all written but I am still tweaking the final order. At Paste, I reviewed the game Gnome [&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":[1429,1083,1432,134,190,961,215,590,1197,1102,1106,799,907,870,1239,807],"class_list":["post-10598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-board-game-news","tag-fascism","tag-football","tag-links","tag-longreads","tag-movies","tag-oklahoma","tag-police","tag-portland","tag-rhode-island","tag-science","tag-social-media","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-trans-rights","tag-vaccines","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598","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=10598"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10600,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598\/revisions\/10600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}