{"id":4849,"date":"2016-05-07T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2016-05-07T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=4849"},"modified":"2016-05-07T10:03:03","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T14:03:03","slug":"stick-to-baseball-5516","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/07\/stick-to-baseball-5516\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 5\/5\/16."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My one Insider piece this week was a draft blog post on <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1T3p9bl\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Manning, Nolan Jones, Blake Rutherford, and more<\/a>, with all three of those guys possibly going in the top ten picks next month. Eric and I will post a top 100 ranking on Wednesday and my first mock will go up the following week. I also held my regular <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1XaJhs7\" target=\"_blank\">Klawchat<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve signed up for <a href=\"https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/keithlaw\" target=\"_blank\">Tinyletter<\/a> and you can subscribe to my newsletter \u2013 which I think will be mostly links to my work \u2013 via that link.<\/p>\n<p>And now, the links&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Thomas Friedman isn&#8217;t always my bag but his piece on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/04\/opinion\/trump-and-the-lords-work.html?smid=tw-share&#038;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">potential self-immolation of the Republican Party<\/a> is measured and compelling, parceling out some blame to the other side as well.<\/li>\n<li>OZY has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ozy.com\/provocateurs\/the-modern-master-of-sex\/67782\" target=\"_blank\">a profile of geneticist Eric Vilain<\/a>, who studies the relationship between our genes and our sexual orientations and identities. His conclusions are controversial and not always in line with the modern\/progressive conventional wisdom, such as the claim that &#8220;while some gender-nonconforming boys later identify as trans women, the vast majority \u2014 more than 80 percent \u2014 outgrow their gender dysphoria by puberty, identifying as gay men.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>This is disturbing: A representative of the American Family Association, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that they&#8217;re <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/content\/anti-lgbt-activists-testing-target-sending-men-womens-rooms\" target=\"_blank\">sending men into women&#8217;s restrooms at Target<\/a> to &#8220;test&#8221; the store&#8217;s transfriendly bathroom policy, but the AFA issued <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AMERICANFAMASSC\/posts\/10154023806942860\" target=\"_blank\">a curiously-worded denial<\/a>. It seems like they&#8217;re saying they&#8217;re not &#8220;encouraging men&#8221; to do this, but the statement doesn&#8217;t deny they&#8217;ve sent members into women&#8217;s bathrooms, right?<\/li>\n<li>My friend and colleague John Buccigross was the subject of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/01\/sports\/hockey\/ties-after-three-periods-send-the-fans-to-twitter.html?smid=tw-nytsports&#038;smtyp=cur\" target=\"_blank\">a <em>NY Times<\/em> profile<\/a> that focuses on his #bucciovertimechallenge idea, which has already raised six figures for hockey-related charities. John also has excellent taste in music, by the way.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m actually not a fan of James Baldwin&#8217;s signature work, <em>Go Tell It On the Mountain<\/em>, but I still recommend this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/2016\/05\/12\/james-baldwin-fear-of-a-nation\/\" target=\"_blank\">profile of the influential gay African-American writer and poet<\/a> from the <em>New York Review of Books<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Five things you can do to <a href=\"http:\/\/qz.com\/626482\/neuroscience-says-these-five-rituals-will-help-your-brain-stay-young\/\" target=\"_blank\">help your brain &#8220;stay young,&#8221;<\/a> or at least to try to keep it plastic as you age.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/em> has become a farce of a newspaper, as <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@stephaniegrimes\/why-im-out-at-the-las-vegas-review-journal-641fc42e1bd4#.4h8tyj7uf\" target=\"_blank\">the recent dismissal of Stephanie Grimes<\/a> indicates.<\/li>\n<li>I linked to this on Twitter in the aftermath of the Chiefs drafting Tyreek Hill, who beat and choked his pregnant girlfriend while at Oklahoma State, but it&#8217;s worth reposting: Women who&#8217;ve been strangled by their abusive partners <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/ohio-strangulation-felony_us_56153530e4b0fad1591a36bf\" target=\"_blank\">are seven times more likely to end up homicide victims<\/a>. Strangulation is not a felony crime in twelve states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania; if you&#8217;re in one of those states, contact your local legislator and see if you can help get the law changed. <\/li>\n<li>Meanwhile, two hosts at WHB 610  in Kansas City, including Danny Parkins (on whose show I&#8217;ve appeared many times), set up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/rosebrooks\" target=\"_blank\">a fundraising page for a local domestic violence shelter<\/a> that has already raised over $12K.<\/li>\n<li>The U.S. Department of Transportation is starting a program to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.citylab.com\/commute\/2016\/05\/dot-every-place-counts-challenge-anthony-foxx\/481008\/?utm_source=SFTwitter\" target=\"_blank\">try to help communities isolated or left behind by infrastructure improvements in their areas<\/a>. When communities aren&#8217;t adequately served by transportation systems, their local economies suffer.<\/li>\n<li>This is fun for geography junkies: an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nyudri.org\/research-index\/2016\/politicalregimes\" target=\"_blank\">interactive map of world regimes by type from 1816 to 2011<\/a>. The good news is that the global trend toward greater democracy is still going strong. And if you look at the red (least free) countries, you&#8217;ll find several of the worst economies on earth, and maybe you&#8217;ll wonder why the fuck <a href=\"http:\/\/beta.foreignassistance.gov\/explore\/country\/Swaziland\" target=\"_blank\">we&#8217;re sending $43 million a year in aid to Swaziland<\/a>, especially since that country&#8217;s highly corrupt dictatorship has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/swaziland-government-ignores-its-starving-people-sell-donated-food-cash-1140505\" target=\"_blank\">sold donated food for cash<\/a> before.<\/li>\n<li>A quality longread from the <em>NY Times<\/em> on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/08\/magazine\/should-prostitution-be-a-crime.html\" target=\"_blank\">whether prostitution should be a crime<\/a>. It&#8217;s a difficult question even if you get beyond the morality of it, since prostitution is often less than consensual, but one thing that I think is clear is that the sex workers should not be charged with crimes for their actions, as they&#8217;re very often victims themselves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My one Insider piece this week was a draft blog post on Matt Manning, Nolan Jones, Blake Rutherford, and more, with all three of those guys possibly going in the top ten picks next month. Eric and I will post a top 100 ranking on Wednesday and my first mock will go up the following [&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":[31,870],"class_list":["post-4849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-african-american-literature","tag-stick-to-baseball","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849","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=4849"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4856,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions\/4856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}