{"id":7705,"date":"2019-06-29T13:32:31","date_gmt":"2019-06-29T17:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=7705"},"modified":"2019-06-30T16:01:50","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T20:01:50","slug":"stick-to-baseball-6-29-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/29\/stick-to-baseball-6-29-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 6\/29\/19."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had two ESPN+ pieces this week, my annual look at <a href=\"https:\/\/klaw.me\/2KFfBVz\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the top 25 players under 25<\/a> (which has an error in it around German Marquez&#8217;s contract status, sorry) and a scouting blog post <a href=\"https:\/\/klaw.me\/2IPZNwT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on Grayson Rodriguez, Deivi Garcia, Alec Bohm and more<\/a>. I also held a <a href=\"https:\/\/klaw.me\/2YjIdqC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Klawchat<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>This piece went up a little while ago but I waited to post it until some small editing mistakes were corrected: I listed <a href=\"https:\/\/caavo.com\/pages\/keith-law-must-see-noir-films\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eight of my favorite noir and neo-noir films<\/a> for Caavo and my friend Desi Jedeikin.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be at the MLB Futures Game in Cleveland on July 7th, and I&#8217;m staying in the area Monday night to give a talk and sign books <a href=\"https:\/\/engagedpatrons.org\/EventsExtended.cfm?SiteID=3850&amp;EventID=366612&amp;PK=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">at the Hudson Library and Historical Society at 7 pm<\/a>. I hope to see many of you there.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll send out the next copy of my free email newsletter this weekend, so <a href=\"https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/keithlaw\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">feel free to sign up<\/a> for more of my words.<\/p>\n<p>And now, the links\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Longreads first: Deadspin had a peculiar story on <a href=\"https:\/\/deadspin.com\/the-man-who-walked-his-life-away-1835620495\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a man in 19th century England who became a professional pedestrian<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Grub Street has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grubstreet.com\/2019\/06\/serious-eats-oral-history.html\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an oral history of Serious Eats<\/a>, a site that went from a collection of very niche blogs to the go-to destination for dedicated chefs interested in a science-based approach to cooking.<\/li>\n<li>The President of the United States was credibly accused of rape \u2013 again \u2013 and his response was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2019\/06\/25\/not-my-type\/?utm_term=.59a65da927d5\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">that his accuser was not his &#8220;type.&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Why is it always Alabama? Well, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.al.com\/news\/birmingham\/2019\/06\/woman-indicted-in-shooting-death-of-her-unborn-child-charges-against-shooter-dismissed.html\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alabama woman who was shot has been charged with manslaughter<\/a> for the death of the fetus she was carrying, while the shooter was not charged at all.<\/li>\n<li>Why is it always Alabama? Well, after a Covington County Sheriff lost a bid for re-election, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/covington-county-alabama-sheriff-spending\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">he went on a spending spree with public funds<\/a>, with tens of thousands of dollars of equipment or cash now missing \u2013 on top of the over $100,000 of military equipment that went missing during his tenure. (And why the fuck does a rural county sheriff need a hundred grand worth of military equipment?) ProPublica found nine incoming sheriffs across Alabama who reported similar experiences with their predecessors looting public funds.<\/li>\n<li>The argument over whether to call the active concentration camps on our southern borders &#8220;concentration camps&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/jewish-news-and-politics\/286852\/wasting-time-arguing-about-concentration-camps?fbclid=IwAR2IQv4xhVIfVIOIqjR4Wf24e3RVJJMavUr2Tp9uZnDXsXa1HA9kGKdVCgg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">is a counterproductive distraction from the actual harm being done in the concentration camps<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Four scientists tried to replicate a frequently-cited research result from a paper published in <em>Science<\/em> in 2008, but failed to achieve the same results. <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/technology\/2019\/06\/science-replication-conservatives-liberals-reacting-to-threats.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Science<\/em> refused to publish their new paper<\/a>, arguing that the &#8220;field had moved on,&#8221; rather than accepting that, hey, sometimes a single study turns out to be wrong.<\/li>\n<li>An app appeared briefly this week that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/kzm59x\/deepnude-app-creates-fake-nudes-of-any-woman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">allowed users to create fake nudes of nearly any woman<\/a> by using a type of neural-networking algorithm that works similarly to that behind &#8220;deepfake&#8221; videos.<\/li>\n<li>Above the Law points out that <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2019\/06\/moving-the-rays-to-montreal-half-the-year-is-dumb-but-at-least-its-also-an-impossible-legal-nightmare\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the proposed two-city solution for the Rays is a legal impossibility<\/a>, based in part on this piece Sheryl Ring wrote for Fangraphs <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.fangraphs.com\/the-legal-ramifications-of-the-two-city-rays\/\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about the Rays&#8217; obligations<\/a> to St. Petersburg.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecut.com\/2019\/06\/vaccine-skeptic-just-means-anti-vaxx.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&#8220;Vaccine skeptic&#8221; just means anti-vaccine<\/a>. So does &#8220;pro-safe-vaccine.&#8221; Don&#8217;t let denialists&#8217; obfuscations confuse you: These people are pushing dangerous misinformation that will worsen the health of the general public.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2019\/jun\/21\/help-the-planet-work-a-four-day-week\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A four-day workweek would go a long way to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere<\/a>, more so than popular but low-value solutions like banning plastic straws. (Also, banning plastic straws hurts people with certain disabilities; encouraging people to use them less often is a better idea.)<\/li>\n<li>I had no idea that sand mining was a thing, or that sand, critical to much of the world&#8217;s construction industry, was a scarce resource, but in India, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/environment\/2019\/06\/inside-india-sand-mining-mafia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">it&#8217;s a corrupt industry rife with labor abuses, causing massive environmental damage<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Employees at one location of Seattle third-wave coffee purveyors Slate Coffee <a href=\"https:\/\/seattle.eater.com\/2019\/6\/25\/18758600\/baristas-at-slate-coffee-shop-resign\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">resigned en masse in response to a &#8220;toxic&#8221; work environment<\/a>. The owners of Slate responded to the story on Instagram (included in the link).<\/li>\n<li>Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/sara-gideon-announces-susan-collins_n_5d0b6d28e4b0e560b70f03b7?5y4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">now has a challenger in Democrat Sara Gideon<\/a>, currently speaker of the Maine House. Gideon appears to be explicitly targeting Collins over her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh after the justice was accused of sexual assault.<\/li>\n<li>I didn&#8217;t watch the debates among the ninety-four candidates vying to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2020, for the same reason I almost never watch debates: They reward the pithy and superficial, and they treat political discourse as if it were a sporting event. Jeb Lund argues much the same, and says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/gy49gw\/this-kind-of-presidential-debate-is-literally-how-we-got-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this structure and mindset helped put Trump in the White House<\/a> in the first place.<\/li>\n<li>Board game news: Dire Wolf has two new titles out \u2013 the social deduction game <a href=\"https:\/\/www.direwolfdigital.com\/news\/oathbreaker-update\/\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Game of Thrones: Oathbreaker<\/a> and the expansion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.direwolfdigital.com\/news\/upper-management-pack-now-available\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Clank! Upper Management Acquisitions Incorporated pack<\/a>, which comes with four characters from the Penny Arcade universe that you can use in the dungeon crawl board game Clank!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had two ESPN+ pieces this week, my annual look at the top 25 players under 25 (which has an error in it around German Marquez&#8217;s contract status, sorry) and a scouting blog post on Grayson Rodriguez, Deivi Garcia, Alec Bohm and more. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday. This piece went up a [&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":[964,84,956,190,961,799,807],"class_list":["post-7705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alabama","tag-coffee","tag-india","tag-links","tag-longreads","tag-science","tag-vaccines","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705","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=7705"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7709,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions\/7709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}