Weekly Reading (6/7/24)

I always have a big backlog of links for you, and I definitely do not have the capacity to go back to posting them daily right now, but maybe I'll start doing some random extra posts when I have the time/inclination. We'll see!

Mexico elects its first female president (NPR)

This is also important and getting missed in a lot of the headlines: Mexico's first female president is also its first Jewish president (NBC News)

‘Kharkiv Is Unbreakable’: A Battered City Carries On (NYT)

Inside Israel’s Bombing Campaign in Gaza (The New Yorker)

Europe’s centre left struggles to hold back surge from right (BBC)

What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise (NYT)

Mass deportations, detention camps, troops on the street: Trump spells out migrant plan (The Guardian)

Arizona’s Split Reality: Ground zero for the rigged-election conspiracy, the border state could decide both the fate of the Senate and the presidency. (Intelligencer)

Texas’ S.B. 4 Is Worse Than You Think (Slate)

The Truth About Organic Milk (The Atlantic)

I love him: How Cleveland’s Austin Hedges learned to stop worrying (about hitting) and love his job (The Athletic)

Why New Englanders are nuts for Teddie peanut butter (WBUR)

Weekly Reading (5/31/24)

4 takeaways from the historic felony conviction of Donald Trump (NPR)

The Infinite Dignity of Transgender Existence (Slate)

To Battle Wartime Hunger, Gazans Turn to a Humble Leafy Green (NYT)

HIV is no longer a death sentence. But states still have laws targeting people who live with it. (The 19th*)

‘They are breaking the law’: inside Amazon’s bid to stall a union drive (The Guardian)

Can Chicago Manage Its Migrant Crisis? (The New Yorker)

The massive change sweeping through MLB coaching: ‘What took us so long?’ (The Athletic)

Don Winslow Reflects on Writing His Final Novel (CrimeReads)

What Are Lineups Made Of? (Baseball Prospectus)

Advertising as Art: How Literary Magazines Pioneered a New Kind of Graphic Design (LitHub)

Ancient Skeletons Give Clues to Modern Medical Mysteries (NYT)

Inside ballplayers’ secret Uber identities (MLB)

Weekly Reading (5/24/24)

Happy long weekend!

When Home Is Now the Front Line (NYT)

GOOD: Michael Schumacher’s family win case against publisher over fake AI interview (The Guardian)

Folks who use they/them pronouns are less likely to get jobs – especially in red areas (LGBTQ Nation)

The Fight to Restore Abortion Rights in Texas (The New Yorker)

Arctic region of Norway asks EU Commission for 26-hour day (Politico)

What Is Left? Rebecca Solnit on the Perennial Divisions of the American Left (LitHub)

A Tantalizing ‘Hint’ That Astronomers Got Dark Energy All Wrong (NYT)

They Grow Up So Fast (Baseball Prospectus)

10 Queer Crime Novels to Check Out This Week (CrimeReads)

How Braves ace lefty Max Fried continues to win at a historic rate in the majors (The Athletic)

Figure skating wants ice princesses. Amber Glenn said, ‘Screw it.’ (WaPo)

Please Tread on Me: The Story of Cleat Cleaners (FanGraphs)

Weekly Reading (5/17/24)

Israel’s Military Campaign Has Left Gaza’s Medical System Near Collapse (NYT)

Extortion, threats, fear, traitors: How Russia recruits Ukrainian spies (WaPo)

Trump-linked dark-money group spent $90m on racist and transphobic ads in 2022, records show (The Guardian) 

You’ll Never Guess Which State Court Just Approved Religious Exemptions From Abortion Bans (Slate)

Resigned. Why Is The Left So In Love With The Politics of Refusal? (A Sigh of Relief)

Ocean Heat Has Shattered Records for More Than a Year. What’s Happening? (NYT)

The Past is a Fairy Tale: On Remembering and Forgetting in Modern Ireland (LitHub)

The Shuttle Program (Baseball Prospectus)

In the Kitchen with the Grande Dame of Jewish Cooking (The New Yorker)

Why Yankees’ Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole approve of new analytics whiz in dugout (The Athletic)

How real is Shōgun? (Vox)

Has Anyone Ever Hit the Target Field Target? (FanGraphs)

Weekly Reading (5/10/24)

Happy Friday! Sorry for the radio silence last week, I was traveling and had some family stuff going on and time got away from me.

The “Picture of the Year” That Violates the Humanity of Its Subject (Slate)

Trump may sound moderate on abortion. The groups setting his agenda definitely aren’t. (Vox)

Red states threaten librarians with prison — as blue states work to protect them (WaPo)

Did One Guy Just Stop a Huge Cyberattack? (NYT)

Yay Vermont! Vermont poised to become first US state to charge big oil for climate damage (The Guardian)

Biden’s new Title IX rules protect LGBTQ students and sexual assault victims. Transgender athletes aren’t mentioned (PBS)

What Exactly Do the Christian Nationalists Want? (TPM)

This was fascinating: Deb Haaland Confronts the History of the Federal Agency She Leads (The New Yorker)

An Utterly Misleading Book About Rural America (The Atlantic)

What Tommy John surgery looks like today: Revision surgeries, internal brace procedures (The Athletic)

A Frozen Pond and a New Way to Experience an Ancient Jewish Ritual in Maine (NYT)

The DH Is Universal, but Good DHs Are Rare (The Ringer)

Weekly Reading (4/26/24)

A note - you'll start seeing "gift link" in some places, which means it's a link you should be able to access even if you don't have a subscription to the publication..

This may be a bit hard to read, but it's really important: The Rape Denialists: Why has it proved so hard for so many on the left to acknowledge what happened on October 7? (The Atlantic - gift link)

Miscalculation Led to Escalation in Clash Between Israel and Iran (NYT - gift link)

As Florida restricts treatment for trans adults, one clinic presses on (WaPo - gift link)

‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets (The Guardian)

Trump has set up a perfect avenue for potential corruption (Vox)

On the Problem of Rooting for the Women to Fix This (Slate)

Report: TikTok’s efforts to silo US data are ‘largely cosmetic’ (The Verge)

A unionized Volkswagen plant in Tennessee could mean big things for workers nationwide (Vox)

Prominent MLB team physician sounds alarm on pitching injuries (The Athletic)

A teacher promised his 1978 class an eclipse party. He just hosted it. (WaPo - gift link)

This is very sad because I, um, do: MLB Doesn’t Have Much Appetite for Innings Eaters Anymore (The Ringer)

How Jewish Soldiers Celebrated Passover in the Midst of the Civil War (Smithsonian)

Weekly Reading (4/19/24)

If you only read one of my links this week, please make it this one: The Antisemitism Post (tm) (Life Is a Sacred Text)

Related: The Jews Aren’t Taking Away TikTok (The Atlantic)

Secret Russian foreign policy document urges action to weaken the U.S. (WaPo)

This is bad! The Supreme Court effectively abolishes the right to mass protest in three US states (Vox)

The Giant Threat Lurking Behind Florida’s November Abortion Vote (Slate)

This is what you're falling for when you talk about voting third party/independent: Trump Allies Have a Plan to Hurt Biden’s Chances: Elevate Outsider Candidates (NYT)

With AI, anyone can be a victim of nonconsensual porn. Can laws keep up? (The 19th*)

!!! Legendary Yankees radio voice John Sterling retires: 'I leave very, very happy' (MLB)

We must find a new way to fund investigative sports reporting (CJR)

As MLB’s uniform issues persist, Nike searches for solutions to sweat stains and mismatched greys (The Athletic)

Pompeii: Breathtaking new paintings found at ancient city (BBC)

In Praise of Reading Le Carré’s Entire Oeuvre In Order (CrimeReads)

Conductors Had One Job. Now They Have Three or Four (The New Yorker)

Weekly Reading (4/12/24)

Inside the ruins of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital (WaPo)

This story is wild: Top Israeli spy chief exposes his true identity in online security lapse (The Guardian)

Arizona upholds an 1864 ban on abortion — making it illegal in the state (The 19th)

‘Catastrophic,’ ‘a shock’: Arizona’s abortion ruling threatens to upend 2024 races (WaPo)

I Spent a Weird, Unsettling Night With RFK Jr.’s Die-Hard Supporters (TNR)

U.K. Lawmaker Admits Giving Out Colleagues’ Numbers in ‘Honey Trap’ Scandal (NYT)

Good news: Democracy won in Senegal. Here’s why it matters. (Vox)

Pitchers are buckling and breaking across baseball. What is to blame? (WaPo)

Oakland Ballers sign Kelsie Whitmore, who would be first woman to play in Pioneer League (The Athletic)

How Soccer Learned to Embrace Ramadan: From Faked Injuries to Bespoke Diets (NYT)

Bound for Sacramento, Will the A’s Find an Appropriate Ballpark There? (FanGraphs)

Taking the Long Count (Baseball Prospectus)

Weekly Reading (4/5/24)

Biden’s Increasingly Contradictory Israel Policy (New Yorker)

This isn't the first time the U.S. and Israel have disagreed over Gaza (NPR)

Ugandan Court Upholds Draconian Anti-Gay Law (NYT)

The astonishing radicalism of Florida’s new ban on abortion (Vox)

How the imagery of White women victims is being used to stoke anti-immigrant fear (The 19th*)

But this is great! US immigration adds third gender option to paperwork (LGBTQ Nation)

The Church of Trump: How He’s Infusing Christianity Into His Movement (NYT)

New Hampshire towns are lagging on providing accessible voting machines. This bill could help. (NH Bulletin)

Mosques in NYC struggle to house and feed an influx of Muslim migrants this Ramadan (PBS)

Patrick Bailey Is a Unicorn Pitch Framer (FanGraphs)

Stone age wall found at bottom of Baltic Sea ‘may be Europe’s oldest megastructure’ (The Guardian)

The Gig Pitcher (Baseball Prospectus)

Weekly Reading (3/29/24)

Supreme Court seems skeptical anti-abortion doctors can challenge abortion drug mifepristone (The 19th*)

House passes bill barring trans girls from middle school, high school girls’ sports teams (NH Bulletin)

Inside Pyongyang, North Korea’s Capital of Control (Atlas Obscura)

This is fascinating: A Reporter’s Journey Into How the U.S. Funded the Bomb (NYT)

!! Introducing StuffPro and PitchPro (Baseball Prospectus)

I love him: [Atlanta's] Opening Day starter Spencer Strider: Dominant, smart, funny, ‘kind of weird’ (The Athletic)

Rarely has an article been so exactly attuned to my interests: Ground Control to the Pentagon: Assessing the Names of MLB’s Proprietary Databases (FanGraphs)

Drinking with Agatha Christie (CrimeReads)

Is Baseball a Renewable Resource? (Baseball Prospectus)

The Early Universe Was Bananas (NYT)

The Sweet Jewish History of Hot Chocolate (The Nosher)

Why the Padres partnered with a local university to create a biomechanics lab (The Athletic)