{"id":4984,"date":"2016-07-16T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-07-16T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=4984"},"modified":"2016-07-16T10:15:21","modified_gmt":"2016-07-16T14:15:21","slug":"stick-to-baseball-71616","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/16\/stick-to-baseball-71616\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 7\/16\/16."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Busy week for me over at the four-letter, with my <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/2a0Oe6W\" target=\"_blank\">updated ranking of the top 50 prospects in the minors<\/a> going up on Thursday, four days after I watched and <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/29rSeZF\" target=\"_blank\">wrote about the Futures Game<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I wrote up <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/29Hogk1\" target=\"_blank\">Boston&#8217;s trade for Drew Pomeranz<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/29z3h5X\" target=\"_blank\">their trades for Brad Ziegler and Aaron Hill<\/a>. And I held a <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/29zoPN8\" target=\"_blank\">Klawchat<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not writing up the Yuliesky Gurriel signing <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/29XTyIB\" target=\"_blank\">but Chris Crawford did<\/a>, with a tiny bit of help from me.<\/p>\n<p>I also appeared on Alex Speier&#8217;s 108 Stitches podcast, discussing <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/108-stitches-the-podcast\/ep-8-making-sense-of-the-drew-pomeranz-anderson-espinoza-deal-with-espns-keith-law\" target=\"_blank\">the Pomeranz deal and the Red Sox&#8217; farm system<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And now, the links&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s a measles outbreak in Arizona that started in a prison <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/bad_astronomy\/2016\/07\/11\/measles_outbreak_in_arizona_biggest_of_2016_so_far.html\" target=\"_blank\">and spread because of unvaccinated employees<\/a>. They&#8217;re a bunch of idiots. Vaccinate your kids, now. Vaccines are safe but measles kills.<\/li>\n<li>The Hannah Poling case, long touted by anti-vaxxer morons as &#8216;proving&#8217; something or other about vaccines being bad, <a href=\"https:\/\/leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk\/2016\/07\/08\/court-clarifies-hannah-poling-case-does-not-afford-any-support-to-the-notion-that-vaccinations-can-contribute-to-the-causation-of-autism\/\" target=\"_blank\">does not afford any support to the notion that vaccinations can contribute to the causation of autism<\/a>. Full stop. That&#8217;s from the Special Masters in the court who oversaw the decision. <\/li>\n<li>The first major lawsuit against California&#8217;s eminently sensible, thoroughly constitutional mandatory vaccination law <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skepticalraptor.com\/skepticalraptorblog.php\/california-sb277-lawsuit-updated-baseless\/\" target=\"_blank\">looks like a baseless hunk of garbage<\/a>. Try not to have a heart attack and die from that surprise.<\/li>\n<li>The Ringer \u2013 I swear I&#8217;ve heard of this site somewhere before \u2013 has an outstanding profile\/history of <a href=\"https:\/\/theringer.com\/return-of-bloom-county-berkeley-breathed-b92f32fecb64#.7oc0csh8s\" target=\"_blank\">the most important comic strip ever, <em>Bloom County<\/em><\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Turmeric is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/society\/everyones-tuning-in-to-turmeric\/\" target=\"_blank\">the trendy new ingredient<\/a>, in part because it may some unproven anti-inflammatory properties. It can also irritate your stomach and cause heartburn, so, you know, don&#8217;t overdo it.<\/li>\n<li>A superb piece from Roth Cornet, departing editor of Hitfix, on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hitfix.com\/the-dartboard\/finding-dory-and-my-secret-shame\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Finding Dory<\/em> and her own experiences with dyslexia<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Turkey is in turmoil; here&#8217;s why <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-13746679\" target=\"_blank\">the deposition of Recep Tayyip Erdogan isn&#8217;t a bad thing<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The Brickyard in St. Albans (in the UK) has <a href=\"http:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2016\/04\/19\/every-bar-and-restaurant-should-copy-the-brickyards-policy-on-tinder-dates-5826620\/\" target=\"_blank\">a fantastic safety-first policy for female patrons posted behind the bar<\/a> (although I assume they&#8217;d do the same if a male patron had a similar problem). Every bar or restaurant should have the same \u2013 perhaps even with a code word (ask for a specific name that would tip off the bartender that this is a distress call) to make it clear.<\/li>\n<li>Writer and comedian Jessi Klein says pregnant women should just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/07\/10\/opinion\/sunday\/get-the-epidural.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">get the epidural<\/a> and she&#8217;s right. The counterarguments are nearly all variations of the appeal to nature fallacy. Science is good. Medicine is good. Pain, though \u2026 pain sucks.<\/li>\n<li>A deranged ex-soldier gets a gun, executes a bunch of cops sniper-style, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/the-silence-and-violence-of-the-n-r-a\" target=\"_blank\">the NRA&#8217;s message is unchanged<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The great short story writer George Saunders <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2016\/07\/11\/george-saunders-goes-to-trump-rallies\" target=\"_blank\">went to Trump rallies and painted a real portrait of his base<\/a>, without resorting to caricature or dismissal. They come off more as bad libertarians with a case of xenophobia.<\/li>\n<li><em>Popular Science<\/em> makes the case that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/top-5-worst-mike-pence-quotes-on-science\" target=\"_blank\">Trump&#8217;s VP choice Mike Pence is strongly anti-science<\/a>. Not mentioned is that Pence&#8217;s office opposed a state bill to try to increase Indiana&#8217;s vaccination rate against HPV, or that he <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20010519165033fw_\/http:\/cybertext.net\/pence\/issues.html\" target=\"_blank\">supports so-called gay &#8220;conversion&#8221; therapy<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of which, Atul Gawande weighs in on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/the-mistrust-of-science\" target=\"_blank\">the increasing mistrust of science<\/a>, especially among conservatives.<\/li>\n<li>Why are police all over the country <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2016\/07\/12\/after-dallas-shootings-police-arrest-people-for-criticizing-cops-on-facebook-and-twitter\/\" target=\"_blank\">arresting people for criticizing cops<\/a>? Isn&#8217;t at least some of this protected speech?<\/li>\n<li>A new study of hostile sexist behavior in video gaming shows <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0131613\" target=\"r_blank\">men who harass women online are &#8220;low status&#8221;<\/a> in the first place. In other words, they are literally the worst.<\/li>\n<li>Phillips Exeter Academy punished a student who sexually assaulted another student by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/metro\/2016\/07\/12\/phillips-exeter-academy-under-fire-again-for-its-handling-sexual-misconduct-allegations\/UlfO1FgtbFEvWAQcEK7grN\/story.html#comments\" target=\"_blank\">making him deliver bread to her once a week<\/a>. Yeah.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2016\/jun\/20\/microfibers-plastic-pollution-oceans-patagonia-synthetic-clothes-microbeads\" target=\"_blank\">Microfibers are poisoning the planet&#8217;s waters<\/a> according to a study funded by Patagonia, the clothing manufacturer responsible for putting some of those microfibers into circulation.<\/li>\n<li>Consumer demand for organic and non-GMO foods <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/07\/15\/business\/paying-farmers-to-go-organic-even-before-the-crops-come-in.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">is leading Big Ag to pay farmers to go organic<\/a>. This is sort of good; industrial organic is better than traditional industrial agriculture, but still isn&#8217;t as sustainable as what you might call &#8220;true&#8221; organic, which involves less spraying of anything and more focus on soil health. Organic farming can still include dumping a lot of chemicals on the soil, but they&#8217;re natural (e.g., no synthetic nitrogen from petroleum) so people assume they&#8217;re less harmful and\/or the food is more healthful.<\/li>\n<li>Baylor is <a href=\"http:\/\/deadspin.com\/baylor-has-figured-out-how-to-bury-its-scandal-1783741314?utm_medium=sharefromsite&#038;utm_source=Deadspin_twitter\" target=\"_blank\">burying its scandal by avoiding any paper trail<\/a>. The important thing for us to do here is to make sure they can&#8217;t forget it by continuing to talk about it, for people like Jess Luther and Dan Solomon to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texasmonthly.com\/article\/silence-at-baylor\/\" target=\"_blank\">keep investigating and reporting<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The show <em>Roadies<\/em> made a <a href=\"http:\/\/variety.com\/2016\/tv\/opinion\/roadies-sexual-assault-rainn-wilson-1201810951\/\" target=\"_blank\">whole episode depicting sexual assault as funny<\/a>. In 2016.<\/li>\n<li>People with autism <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/people-with-autism-can-read-emotions-feel-empathy1\/\" target=\"_blank\">can, in fact, read emotions and feel empathy<\/a>, contrary to the popular stereotype.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Busy week for me over at the four-letter, with my updated ranking of the top 50 prospects in the minors going up on Thursday, four days after I watched and wrote about the Futures Game. I wrote up Boston&#8217;s trade for Drew Pomeranz and their trades for Brad Ziegler and Aaron Hill. And I held [&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":[821,190,889,883,799,870,807],"class_list":["post-4984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anti-science","tag-links","tag-organic-agriculture","tag-rape-culture","tag-science","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-vaccines","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984","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=4984"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4988,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions\/4988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}