{"id":7755,"date":"2019-07-20T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-20T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=7755"},"modified":"2019-07-20T00:33:02","modified_gmt":"2019-07-20T04:33:02","slug":"stick-to-baseball-7-20-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/20\/stick-to-baseball-7-20-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick to baseball, 7\/20\/19."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No new ESPN+ pieces this week but I expect to have several next week. I held a <a href=\"https:\/\/klaw.me\/2GfA53i\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Klawchat<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Over at <em>Paste<\/em>, I reviewed <a href=\"https:\/\/klaw.me\/2Ydj9Vs\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Century A New World, the end of the Century trilogy<\/a> that began with Spice Road and continued with Eastern Wonders.<\/p>\n<p>If you read <a href=\"https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/keithlaw\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">my free email newsletter<\/a>, you learned at least two interesting things this week, one of which is that I&#8217;ve backed away from Twitter by logging out of it on my phone. I find the entire atmosphere on the site too toxic for my tastes, which even continued on Friday as I checked it on my laptop to find someone angry I didn&#8217;t tweet about a particular story that broke yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be at the Under Armour Game at Wrigley Field on Monday, a great event that showcases many of the high school players who&#8217;ll be drafted in the first round next June. It&#8217;s free to attend; you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballfactory.com\/ua-baseball\/all-america-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">request tickets ahead of time<\/a> or just get them at the ticket windows that day. The game starts at 2 pm and I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n<p>And now, the links\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Longreads first: If you enjoyed <em>Fleabag<\/em>, nominated for a slew of Emmy Awards this year, as much as I did, you&#8217;ll probably enjoy this <em>GQ<\/em> interview <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gq-magazine.co.uk\/article\/phoebe-waller-bridge-tina-fey-interview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with star\/creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, conducted by Tina Fey<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>Guardian<\/em>&#8216;s The long read feature looks at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/food\/2019\/jul\/16\/the-rise-and-fall-of-french-cuisine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the rise and fall of French cuisine<\/a>, long considered the backbone of a culinary education, but now seen as stuffy and dated in many quarters.<\/li>\n<li>I hate my lawn, other than the modest pleasure of mowing it (I listen to the Grierson &amp; Leitch podcast, which correlates quite well with the time required to mow, and I use the cuttings in my compost pile), and I&#8217;m losing the battle to various native weeds. <a href=\"https:\/\/longreads.com\/2019\/07\/18\/american-green\/\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lawn care in the U.S. is a $40 billion a year business<\/a>, and it&#8217;s all a disaster for the environment. Maybe it&#8217;s time to turn away from grass; I&#8217;m faced with a decision this fall, as too much of my lawn has lost out to large and smooth crabgrass, a sign that my soil isn&#8217;t providing the real grass with the nutrients it needs, and don&#8217;t get me started on spurge.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>Guardian<\/em> looks at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2019\/jul\/13\/listen-up-rise-of-audiobooks-steven-poole\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the rise in audiobook sales, asking if it&#8217;s good, bad, or both<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>I read &amp; recommended Ed Yong&#8217;s book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/2nNb8jE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I Contain Multitudes<\/a><\/em> about a year and a half ago; in the book, he described nascent efforts to combat mosquito-borne illnesses by using a <em>Wolbachia<\/em> bacterium to naturally sterilize mosquito populations in the wild. One such experiment in China <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-019-02160-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has nearly eradicated <em>Aedes albopictus<\/em> from two islands<\/a>,<\/li>\n<li>For Athletic subscribers, I highly recommend the great Peter Gammons&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/1078020\/2019\/07\/18\/gammons-how-good-can-this-kid-be-fernando-tatis-jr-s-supernova-start-is-a-thing-to-behold\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">profile of the majors&#8217; best rookie this year, Fernando Tatis, Jr.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>I finally got to Razza in Jersey City this week, about a year and a half after the <em>New York Times<\/em> food critic said it was the best pizza in New York City. He recently revised that statement after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/06\/04\/dining\/una-pizza-napoletana-review.html\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Una Pizza Napoletana returned to Manhattan<\/a> after several years in San Francisco. I went shortly before the move, and it was spectacular.<\/li>\n<li>One of my favorite restaurants in the Phoenix area, Scottsdale&#8217;s Pig &amp; Pickle, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/entertainment\/dining\/2019\/07\/11\/scottsdale-restaurant-pig-and-pickle-closed\/1695741001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">closed suddenly this week<\/a> in what sounds like a dispute with a new landlord.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s an underreported scandal going on in Malaysia right now: ousted Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife are on trial for corruption, and prosecutors showed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/jul\/16\/800000-spent-jeweller-one-day-najib-razak-credit-cards-malaysia-court-hears\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his wife racked up $800,000 in jewelry charges<\/a> on a credit card linked to a state-owned investment fund. President Trump welcomed Razak to the White House in 2017, when the embezzlement scandal had already become public but Razak had yet to be voted out of office.<\/li>\n<li>LGBT rights are under attack in Poland too, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/europe\/polands-right-wing-ruling-party-has-found-a-new-targetlgbt-ideology\/2019\/07\/19\/775f25c6-a4ad-11e9-a767-d7ab84aef3e9_story.html?utm_term=.6f2edaf79ccf&amp;wpisrc=nl_most&amp;wpmm=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the right-wing party in power is cheering on towns creating &#8220;LGBT-free zones&#8221;<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>An Arizona newscaster <a href=\"https:\/\/www.phoenixnewtimes.com\/news\/fox10s-kari-lake-calls-new-times-20-year-old-dopes-11327644\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dropped an f-bomb on air after the <em>Phoenix New Times<\/em> wrote that she joined a far-right social networking site<\/a> that has attracted several overt racists banned from Twitter. An <em>Arizona Republic<\/em> editorial wrote that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/opinion\/op-ed\/ej-montini\/2019\/07\/16\/kari-lakes-right-wing-f-bomb-rant-help-her-ratings\/1749501001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">it&#8217;ll probably make her more popular<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>A Philadelphia pediatrician wrote about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/health\/measles-vaccine-preventable-deaths-philadelphia-pediatrician-20190515.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">her attempts to empathize and reason with &#8220;vaccine-hesitant&#8221; parents<\/a>, even though the best solution is to fire them into the sun.<\/li>\n<li>Lots of board game news as we approach Gen Con (I&#8217;ll be there as usual): Ravensburger announced Villainous: Evil Comes Prepared, the second expansion to last year&#8217;s Disney&#8217;s Villainous. <a href=\"goto.target.com\/NvdOv\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">You can pre-order it<\/a> exclusively through Target right now.<\/li>\n<li>Dire Wolf is taking its free-to-play digital card game Eternal to tabletop, releasing a physical version of the game in August; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.direwolfdigital.com\/store\/#\/product\/4064b333-cd3c-4e5e-9ec6-231b5069d081\" target=\"_Blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">you can pre-order it<\/a> through Dire Wolf&#8217;s site.<\/li>\n<li>Renegade Game Studios announced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.renegadegamestudios.com\/paladins?mc_cid=909e9d8b3f&amp;mc_eid=554c3f460b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pre-orders for Paladins of the West Kingdom<\/a>, the second game in Shem Phillips&#8217; West Kingdom series and his fifth in the series of Viking-themed games that began with Raiders of the North Sea.<\/li>\n<li>The role-playing game Gloomhaven is coming to Steam and <a href=\"https:\/\/steamcommunity.com\/games\/780290\/announcements\/detail\/1610517267364360928\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">just entered Early Access<\/a> this week.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No new ESPN+ pieces this week but I expect to have several next week. I held a Klawchat on Thursday. Over at Paste, I reviewed Century A New World, the end of the Century trilogy that began with Spice Road and continued with Eastern Wonders. If you read my free email newsletter, you learned at [&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":[566,49,1083,1112,907,870,807],"class_list":["post-7755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arizona","tag-baseball","tag-board-game-news","tag-lgbt-rights","tag-social-media","tag-stick-to-baseball","tag-vaccines","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7755","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=7755"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7758,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7755\/revisions\/7758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}