The Days’ Reading, July 7–9, 2017
I woke up with a 101-degree fever on Friday. Not super fun. It’s all been uphill since then.
Courts
Gerard N. Magliocca, Balkinization, Gunner Gorsuch (July 6, 2017)
Jonathan H. Adler, The Washington Post, D.C. Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown to step down (July 7, 2017)
California
Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times, Authorities say the 2009 killing of a prominent L.A. lawyer could be linked to another slaying in Whittier (July 7, 2017)
Javier Panzar, Los Angeles Times, Democrats protest outside Rep. Steve Knight’s office with an eye toward 2018 (July 7, 2017)
John Myers, Los Angeles Times, Political Road Map: Here’s how aging baby boomers will change the impact of Prop. 13 (July 9, 2017)
D.J. Waldie, Los Angeles Times, How Angelenos invented the L.A. summer — in the beginning was the barbecue (July 9, 2017)
Maya Lau, Los Angeles Times, Another longtime lawman joins race for L.A. County sheriff (July 8, 2017)
Madeleine Davies, Jezebel, WHY’D IT HAVE TO BE SNAKES??? (July 7, 2017) — a house with a pool! That’s nice! And alligators. And snakes.
TV
Goodbye
Kara Brown, Jezebel, I Can’t Believe They Let Me Do This (July 7, 2017)
Unions
Andrew Tillett-Saks, Jacobin, Labor’s Last Chance for Solidarity (July 7, 2017) — The article in four words: We have to fight.
Patrick M. Quinn, Labor Notes, Book Review: Organizing America’s Anti-Union Movement (July 6, 2017)
Benjamin Sachs, On Labor, Pope Francis’ Union Message (July 8, 2017)
Miriam Berger, The Nation, In Israel, a New Tide of Labor Activism Is Fighting Inequality (July 7, 2017)
Basketball
Kristian Winfield, SB Nation, Grizzlies retire Zach Randolph’s number with tear-jerking open letter (July 6, 2017) — they’re retiring his number while he’s still in the league????
Harrison Faigen, Silver Screen & Roll, Kyle Kuzma showed why the Lakers were doing backflips about drafting him in loss to Celtics (July 8, 2017)
Kevin Pelton, ESPN, Top takeaways on Lonzo Ball, Jayson Tatum, more in Lakers-Celtics (July 9, 2017)
Tom Ley, Deadspin, Andre Roberson, Bad Tipper, Roasted By Teammates (July 7, 2017)
Michael Pina, Vice Sports, The New Orleans Pelicans Have Every Right to be Excited About Cheick Diallo (July 10, 2017)
Chris Thompson, Deadspin, Lonzo Ball And Jayson Tatum Gave Us A Cool Lakers-Celtics Summer League Contest (July 9, 2017) — I’m the first to make fun of Summer League Overreacters, but dang if I’m not having small palpitations over Ball’s jumper
Lauren Theisen, Deadspin, Pistons Take Advantage Of Danny Ainge’s Bind, Get Avery Bradley (July 7, 2017)
Hector Diaz, SB Nation, Magic Johnson thinking face is the first meme of NBA Summer League (July 7, 2017)
Music
Ian Cohen, Pitchfork, Conway: Reject on Steroids (July 8, 2017)
Publishing
Agatha French, Los Angeles Times, The LA Review of Books and USC undertake a summer publishing workshop (July 8, 2017) — money grab?
Dummies
Jason Torchinsky, Jalopnik, A Vlogger Is Getting Rid Of His Tesla Because It Needs New Tires (July 8, 2017)
Vidgames
Eric Van Allen, Compete, This 8-Hour Run Of Final Fantasy VII Is A Masterwork Of Planning (July 8, 2017)
Baseball
Jay Jaffe, Sports Illustrated, Three Strikes: Dodgers walk off to seize MLB's best record (July 9, 2017)
Susan Slusser, San Francisco Chronicle, A’s set post-break rotation; what about Chris Smith? (July 9, 2017) — #nospoilers
Rob Mains, Baseball Prospectus, Flu-Like Symptoms: Flirting With Disaster? (July 7, 2017) — on the possibility of a disastrous HBP
Matthew Trueblood, Baseball Prospectus, Rubbing Mud: So You’re Dead Set on Fixing the Cubs (July 7, 2017) — no, let’s leave them, it’s more fun this way
Matt Sussman & Sam Fels & Nathan Bishop, Baseball Prospectus, Short Relief: The King of NES Baseball, An Unimportant Homer, and a Love of Chaos (July 7, 2017) — Star Tropics!
Will Leitch, Sports on Earth, Schmidt Way Off Base On Herrera (June 6, 2017) — Leitch charitably points to Schmidt’s history, pointing out that e.g. in 1981, he only had two Latino teammates. (The uncharitable explanation is that he’s just a run-of-the-mill bigot.)
Jared Wyllys, Vice Sports, Imperfect Game: Inside the Amateur Baseball Industrial Complex (July 7, 2017)
Robert O’Connell, The Classical, Power, Expectation, And Chris Davis (May 9, 2017) — this is a nice piece about watching Chris Davis
Aaron Gleeman, Baseball Prospectus, Transaction Analysis: Big Sexy’s Last Call (July 8, 2017) — Bartolo to Minnesota
Trump
Rachel Vorona Cote, The Slot, Is Mike Pence Quietly Preparing for His Own Political Campaign? (July 9, 2017)
Laurel Raymond, ThinkProgress, After repeated clashes with Trump, Government Ethics Director abruptly resigns (July 6, 2017)
E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post, Trump has done a big favor for small-d democrats left and right (July 9, 2017)
Callum Borchers, The Washington Post, Donald Trump Jr.’s stunningly incriminating statement to the New York Times (July 9, 2017)
Zack Ford, ThinkProgress, Trump returned to Twitter to defend his meeting with Putin. It didn’t go well. (July 9, 2017)
Cleve R. Wootson Jr., The Washington Post, Trump suggested a cybersecurity pact with Russia. Lawmakers say they were ‘dumbfounded.’ (July 9, 2017)
John Wagner, The Washington Post, Podesta calls Trump ‘our whack job’ president in response to error-filled tweet (July 7, 2017)
Ice Cream
Patrick Dubuque, Cold Takes, The Ice Cream Man (June 30, 2017)
Movies
Simon Abrams, Roger Ebert.com, Our Time Will Come (July 7, 2017)
Godfrey Cheshire, Roger Ebert.com, The Confessions (July 7, 2017)
Matt Zoller Seitz, Roger Ebert.com, The Rehearsal (July 7, 2017)
Will Leitch, Paste, Baby Driver (June 25, 2017)
Pockets
Tom Ley, Deadspin, Jeff Fisher’s Futile War Against Pockets Now Has Dialogue (July 7, 2017)
Travel
Hamilton Nolan, Fusion, How to Exit an Airplane Like You’re Not an Idiot (July 7, 2017) — it’s always valid to stretch your legs, though. We spend too much time sitting as it is
Theater
Samuel Bernstein, Stage and Cinema, Theater Review: THE ANDREWS BROTHERS (Glendale Centre Theatre in Los Angeles) (July 9, 2017)
Samuel Bernstein, Stage and Cinema, Theater Review: THE PRIDE (The Wallis in Beverly Hills) (June 15, 2017)
Erin Conley, On Stage & Screen, Theater Review: The Pride at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (June 18, 2017)
Dany Margolies, Los Angeles Daily News, There’s much to be proud of in ‘The Pride’ at the Wallis in Beverly Hills (June 22, 2017)
Daryl H. Miller, Los Angeles Times, Where’s ‘The Pride’ in love? The way we’ve pursued it then and now (June 15, 2017)
Lisa Fung, Los Angeles Times, Can this man save the Pasadena Playhouse? (July 7, 2017) — not if he doesn’t even have a half-apology for the Al Pacino fiasco
Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, Oh, the dreaded intermission: Long plays at a time when shorter is sweeter (July 7, 2017) — I would hope it’s obvious to everyone involved that length isn’t the same as quality, and that intermission should ideally be as artistically useful (for reflection, for pondering where things are going) as it is helpful for physical relief
Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, Love, trickery and the drama of uncertainty: It’s ‘Heisenberg’ at the Taper (July 7, 2017) — we’re seeing this in a few weeks
Healthcare
Paul Waldman, The Washington Post, The dumbest criticism of single payer health care (July 6, 2017) — “it’ll raise taxes by trillions!” Yeah, dummy, and those taxes will replace insurance premiums you’re currently paying. (I do wish Randy Bryce had given a better answer on this, i.e. he’d given the answer Waldman gives here. His answer wasn’t bad, in that he took the opportunity to point out that taxes are skewed toward the wealthy and we could still raise a lot of revenue without touching the working class, but it didn’t point out that the whole concept is taxes replacing premiums.)
Scott Lemieux, Lawyers, Guns & Money, But Then They Went Too Far (July 9, 2017) — on Senators bailing on Trumpcare
Scott Lemieux, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Rats Nervously Eye Lifeboats (July 8, 2017) — ibid
Books
Alice Bolin, Los Angeles Review of Books, One Mystery Will Solve Another: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich’s “The Fact of a Body” (July 9, 2017) — this is great. If you only read one thing from this list, read this.
Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, “Who Is Rich?” and the Literature of Infidelity (July 7, 2017)
Justice
Lydia Moland, The Paris Review, For Our Cause Is Just (July 7, 2017) — on Lydia Maria Child’s letters
Quacks
Timothy Burke, Deadspin, Look At This Fucking Shit (July 8, 2017) — don’t DNA test your babies to find out whether they are elite athletes
Doggos
Patrick Redford, Deadspin, Report: More Coke Dogs (July 7, 2017) — the poor pups
Tech
Elizabeth Stinson, Wired, The Sideways Elevator of the Future Is Here, and It’s Wild (July 9, 2017) — maglev elevators!
Alex Cranz, Gizmodo, Amazon’s Kindle Is King–Why Would I Buy This Other E-reader? (July 7, 2017)
War
Robin Wright, The New Yorker, Mosul Falls: What Is Next For ISIS? (July 9, 2017) — answer: don’t breath easy, and keep working to address root causes; military victory only gets you so far
Elections
Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, Obama returns to political fray for a Democratic Party cause (July 9, 2017) — an answer to the Koch Bros.-funded redistricting strategy, it seems
Kurtis Lee, Los Angeles Times, Former Ohio official who accidentally released Social Security numbers is on Trump’s voter fraud panel (July 9, 2017) — it doesn’t matter why you’re famous; that you’re famous is good enough to get a job under Trump.
Tennis
Patrick Hruby, Vice Sports, Bernard Tomic’s Only Sin Was Being Honest About His Job (July 6, 2017) — The reaction to this was very “only in sports.” Patrick does a nice job being sympathetic and reasonable.
David Waldstein, New York Times, A Wimbledon Win in 4 Minutes 14 Seconds, if You Don’t Count Friday (July 8, 2017) — Querrey and Tsonga suspended play at 6–5 in the fifth set, Tsonga to serve to even it up. Given how the rest of the set had gone, I thought Tsonga would get to 6–6 and then we’d be into Wimbledon Fifth Set Magic. Then Querrey came back the next day and broke him. (Querrey had offered to play one more game the day before, but Tsonga hadn’t wanted to. In retrospect maybe he should have served out that one last game because it felt like his service games were going quite well for him.)
Movement-Building
Matt Hartman, The Awl, Against Personal Politics (July 6, 2017) — Hartman is sympathetic to those who speak more of (personal) experiences and feelings than movement-building, because we keep losing, but I think he’s right that politicizing the every-day is how we have to move forward
Media
Tom Ley, Deadspin, SB Nation Blogger Removed From Masthead Following Deletion Of Bad Post (July 6, 2017)
Poetry
Andrew Ridker, The Paris Review, Queer Bubbles (July 6, 2017) — on CAConrad
Venezuela
E.A. Crunden, ThinkProgress, Things in Venezuela have gone from bad to worse (July 6, 2017)
Sexting
Josie Thaddeus-Johns, The Awl, Don’t Sext Me In The Present Tense (July 6, 2017)
Lauren Theisen, Deadspin, Horny Italian Soccer Official Wants New Stadiums To Have Lap Dancing (July 6, 2017)
Crime
Hailey Branson-Potts, Los Angeles Times, After more than 10 years on the run, suspected L.A. hospital molester is captured in Guatemala (July 6, 2017)
