{"id":3990,"date":"2015-03-28T09:10:01","date_gmt":"2015-03-28T13:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=3990"},"modified":"2015-03-28T09:48:51","modified_gmt":"2015-03-28T13:48:51","slug":"saturday-five-32815","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/28\/saturday-five-32815\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday five, 3\/28\/15."},"content":{"rendered":"

My Insider posts this week covered:<\/p>\n

* Masahiro Tanaka, Rafael Montero, and Mike Foltynewicz<\/a>
\n* Potential #1 overall pick Dillon Tate<\/a><\/p>\n

This week’s Klawchat transcript<\/a> is up as well.<\/p>\n

\"saturdayfive\"<\/a>I’ve read a few books lately that I just won’t have the time or patience to review in full, but this seems like as good a place as any to mention them. I was very disappointed in Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald’s Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, which takes a very narrow look at its topic and lacks enough prescriptive measures for readers who want to correct their own biases. The authors focus on implicit biases, truly just subconscious prejudices based on race, gender, or age, without expanding in any way to discuss such unknown (to ourselves) biases in all aspects of our lives. While I understand that their research was limited to those interpersonal prejudices, the cognitive processes behind those and behind other biases \u2013 entrenched opinions on groups or classes that skew the decisions we make \u2013 are probably related, if not identical, and I would have appreciated a broader take on how to identify and correct biases in my own thinking.<\/p>\n

I also read two anthologies in the last few weeks, one of which I recommend highly: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, edited by Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket). The book runs the gamut of writing, from essays to short stories to poetry (most of it terrible) to comics, with many of the works amazing and creative and unlikely to have come across my desk (or lap) in any other form. My favorite piece was Nathaniel Rich’s \u201cThe Man Who Saves You From Yourself,\u201d about cult deprogrammer David Sullivan, who died one day after the piece was first published in Harper’s<\/i>. The anthology also includes a superb interview with Mona Eltahawy, a clever and haunting short story from Pulitzer Prize-winner Adam Johnson, and the delightful comic \u201cHave Tea and Cake with Your Demons\u201d from Yumi Sakaguwa.<\/p>\n

I was less entertained by The Best American Travel Writing 2014<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, which included far too many ponderous pieces that put the author ahead of the subject or the destination. The two standouts were Amanda Lindhout’s Twelve Minutes of Freedom<\/a>\u201d and Gary Shteyngart’s \u201cMaximum Mumbai<\/a>,\u201d the first harrowing and emotional, the second witty and charming.<\/p>\n

Lots of links this week and this wasn’t even everything, just what I remembered to post:<\/p>\n