{"id":4559,"date":"2015-12-19T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-12-19T13:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=4559"},"modified":"2015-12-19T08:51:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-19T13:51:22","slug":"stick-to-baseball-121915","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/19\/stick-to-baseball-121915\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 12\/19\/15."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For Insiders this week, I wrote about the <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1YbOsdt\" target=\"_blank\">Giants signing Johnny Cueto<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1m8400q\" target=\"_blank\">Todd Frazier three-team trade<\/a>. I also held my usual weekly <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1RUkyFK\" target=\"_blank\">Klawchat<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here on the dish, I compiled lists of my <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1NzuUp3\" target=\"_blank\">top 100 songs of 2015<\/a> and my <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1JbPSsl\" target=\"_blank\">top 15 albums of 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Folks have been asking about my year-end gift guides, so here they are, once more:<\/p>\n<p>&bull; <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1iWV10k\" target=\"_blank\">Top 80 boardgames of all time<\/a><br \/>\n&bull; <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1OCNJu9\" target=\"_blank\">My 2015 gift guide for cooks<\/a><br \/>\n&bull; <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1IbHicy\" target=\"_blank\">My updated cookbook recommendations<\/a><br \/>\n&bull; <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/klaw102\" target=\"_blank\">My all-time top 100 novels<\/a> (from February 2013)<\/p>\n<p>And now, the links&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That $10 Mast Brothers chocolate bar you bought along with your single-origin pour-over coffee at Blue Bottle? Well, <A href=\"http:\/\/qz.com\/571151\/the-mast-brothers-fooled-the-world-into-buying-crappy-hipster-chocolate-for-10-a-bar\/\" target=\"_blank\">it&#8217;s bad chocolate<\/a> and might not even be what they claim it is.<\/li>\n<li>Restaurant chain Fig &#038; Olive, which had a salmonella outbreak in the fall, was caught <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtoncitypaper.com\/blogs\/youngandhungry\/2015\/12\/15\/investigation-finds-fig-olives-kitchen-relies-on-pre-made-meal-components\/\" target=\"_blank\">using previously frozen food<\/a> prepared at a central &#8220;commissary&#8221; and shipped to their individual locations.<\/li>\n<li>What kind of person <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thetrace.org\/2015\/12\/sandy-hook-mass-shooting-hoaxers\/\" target=\"_blank\">calls a mass shooting a hoax<\/a>? Fortunately, Florida Atlantic has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fau.edu\/newsdesk\/files\/statement-regarding-james-tracy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">moved to terminate that nutjob professor<\/a>, who has to be suffering from some kind of mental illness to so thoroughly believe these delusions he preaches.<\/li>\n<li>Ah, the <em>National Review<\/em>&#8216;s climate change graph was a big joke, and the <em>Washington Post<\/em> gives a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-fix\/wp\/2015\/12\/14\/why-the-national-reviews-global-temperature-graph-is-so-misleading\/\" target=\"_blank\">concise explanation of why<\/a>. I <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1I7naY6\" target=\"_blank\">reviewed<\/a> a book called <em>Proofiness<\/em> in June that talks about how organizations like NRO distort and manipulate stats to mislead the public.<\/li>\n<li>Meanwhile, the <em>New Yorker<\/em> talks about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/daily-comment\/how-not-to-debate-nuclear-energy-and-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\">how not to talk about nuclear power and climate change<\/a>. Nuclear power can be a big part of the solution to both climate change and ocean acidification, but it&#8217;s already under a renewed attack from people who should probably know better.<\/li>\n<li>Hate crimes against Muslims are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/12\/18\/us\/politics\/crimes-against-muslim-americans-and-mosques-rise-sharply.html?smid=tw-nytimes&#038;smtyp=cur&#038;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">surging over the past few weeks<\/a>. It would be nice if we didn&#8217;t have an entire traveling circus competing to demonize this entire demographic group.<\/li>\n<li>This <i>Times<\/i> review of the new book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1Qv0VVx\" target=\"_blank\">Lactivism<\/a><\/em> by Courtney Jung details <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/12\/20\/books\/review\/lactivism-by-courtney-jung.html\" target=\"_blank\">how unscientific and aggressive the anti-formula movement<\/a> has become. There are even &#8220;ban the bag&#8221; movements to try to force hospitals to stop supplying bottles and other free equipment to new mothers \u2013 even though there&#8217;s little to no evidence to say breast-feeding is better for the baby.<\/li>\n<li>A wonderful piece from the <em>Times<\/em> on the founder of the company behind the Hinge dating app <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/29\/fashion\/when-cupid-is-a-prying-journalist.html\" target=\"_blank\">going after the one who got away<\/a> before it&#8217;s too late. (I&#8217;m also fairly sure I went to college with the author&#8217;s sisters.)<\/li>\n<li>CTE isn&#8217;t just a problem affecting NFL players \u2013 Vice has the story of a D2 college player who <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/how-football-pulled-the-trigger-zack-langstons-family-reflects-on-his-tragically-short-life\" target=\"_blank\">died of it at age 26<\/a>. This is the crux of my argument over Brandon McIlwain&#8217;s decision to enroll early at South Carolina: Not only did he pass up a guaranteed payday in June \u2013 actually, he passed up the mere chance to have someone offer it to him \u2013 but he&#8217;s entering an extremely dangerous profession for which he will not be paid for the next three years of his labor.<\/li>\n<li>This isn&#8217;t new, but I just came across it this week: McSweeney&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcsweeneys.net\/articles\/im-comic-sans-asshole\" target=\"_blank\">imagined letter from Comic Sans<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>My former residence of Arizona may be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ozy.com\/fast-forward\/whats-turning-this-red-state-blue\/62428\" target=\"_blank\">shifting from red to blue<\/a>, thanks to the Latino vote \u2013 although I imagine the influx of engineers to work at Intel will contribute as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Insiders this week, I wrote about the Giants signing Johnny Cueto and the Todd Frazier three-team trade. I also held my usual weekly Klawchat. Here on the dish, I compiled lists of my top 100 songs of 2015 and my top 15 albums of 2015. Folks have been asking about my year-end gift guides, [&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":[341,828,190,870],"class_list":["post-4559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chocolate","tag-climate-change","tag-links","tag-stick-to-baseball","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559","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=4559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4562,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions\/4562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}