Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: why I would like the Democrats to fight back, a cheer to House Democrats for starting the discharge petition process for the national debt ceiling, the Biden Administration may finally try to help Vice President Kamala Harris improve her standing with voters, introducing the people who will lead Biden’s re-election campaign, Peter Thiel discovers Republicans care about the culture wars, Senator Patty Murray reaches a milestone, roadside drug tests are junk science, the first moon landing was much closer to ending in disaster than I had thought, there’s a cool graphic of a space elevator, figuring out the economics of Succession, and a New Jersey Little League has an innovative idea to address umpire abuse.

Leading Off

I participate every couple of weeks in a virtual coffee club with other members of the Lamorinda Democratic Club. I learn something every week—and the most valuable conversations expose my potential political and policy blind spots.

In our most recent gathering, I ended up expressing frustration about how Democratic leaders are still acting like both parties are following the norms to which we had become accustomed in the post-war period.

I wanted to know when Democrats were going to fight back against the anti-democratic efforts being demonstrated by the Republican Party leadership in Washington, D.C., and state capitals.

Why aren’t Democrats talking about the Republicans who supported election denial and the January 6 insurrection? Where was the political accountability? Why wasn’t this an issue in every interview and in every hearing?

Why isn’t every mention of investigating Hunter Biden met with a reply about a potential subpoena for Jared Kushner or Ivana Trump?

Why aren’t conversations about the corruption at the Supreme Court a reason to remind voters that the Senate Republicans had broken all of the norms to steal two seats?

Republicans demonstrate nearly every day that they are willing to break any norms to ensure ensure they have the power to implement an agenda unpopular with the American people.

Republican political leaders expelled Democratic legislators in Tennessee. In Montana, they suspended a legislator from being able to speak or even make an appearance on the legislative floor. Governors in Florida and Texas are discussing removing locally elected district attorneys if they use their prosecutorial discretion to avoid targeting pregnant people seeking abortion care. Republicans in several states are discussing raising the threshold for voters to pass a proposition—or to ban certain subjects from the ballot altogether.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are still allowing Republicans to block judges and justices using the blue slip tradition that requires both Senators from a nominee’s home state to consent to the confirmation process moving forward. The Senate Judiciary Committee refuses to use its subpoena power to require the Supreme Court Justices to explain their actions (and that situation is complicated by the lengthy absence of Senator Dianne Feinstein D-CA).

Things are not normal. I want to see more of a recognition of the realities of this political moment. It is not the job of reporters to raise this issues on their own, as much as some may wish they would. It is the job of Democrats to force the conversations about these dynamics through debate, events, and actions.

So I am happy that we are finally seeing some action on the national debt ceiling calamity. Earlier today we learned that my Member of Congress, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) had introduced a bill at the start of the session that now will be used to see if five Republicans will join the Democrats in forcing a vote on a clean debt ceiling increase through a discharge petition.

I don’t think this bill is going to pass any earlier than the deadline for a breach of the debt ceiling. But at least something now exists. Democrats can talk about it. Democrats can ask why so-called moderate Republicans won’t sign on to a clean increase to the national debt ceiling when the other alternative is the extreme House Republican bill.

The national debt ceiling situation is a dangerous one for our country, made worse because it is entirely unnecessary. Democrats should have eliminated it when they had the power to do so because they have seen how it was used to hold the nation hostage.

But at least the Democrats showed a bit of fight on this one issue today. I hope Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) can take some inspiration from the example.

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Quick Pitches

California

• Legislation seeking to address California’s housing crisis has created a split within organized labor.

  CalMatters’ Ben Christopher explains what the legislation is attempting to achieve and how the debate has led to a public disagreement within the State Building and Construction Trades Council: “Two affiliates of the trades council defected, throwing their weight behind a housing bill that the parent organization had been fighting for months. It’s a surprising and surprisingly public break that could help shift the political balance long defining California housing policy.  
  The bill in question would make permanent a 2017 state law that expedites affordable housing construction in many parts of the state. Under the reauthorization proposal, developers who make use of the law would be required to pay union-level wages — a standard that some in the building industry say still makes construction untenably expensive in many parts of the state. But it scraps a provision that mandates the hiring of union members for some projects.” (Ben Christopher, CalMatters)

• California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis (D) became the first candidate to announce that she is running for governor in 2026. By announcing early, Kounalakis is following the example set by current Governor Gavin Newsom when he announced his intention to seek the top job soon after beginning his second term as Lt. Governor. (Christopher Cadelago, Politico)
• Just a few hours after Kounalakis’ announcement, former State Controller Betty Yee (D) announced that she also intended to run for governor but didn’t intend to formally file until later this year. (Sophia Bollag, San Francisco Chronicle)

Politics

• The Biden Administration finally appears to have a plan to try to improve Vice President Kamala Harris’ political standing. It’s long overdue. (Alex Thompson, Axios)
• Here are the people President Biden has tasked with being the senior campaign staff for his re-election campaign, starting with Campaign Manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez. (Matt Berg, Politico)
• Several people who would have been plausible National Finance Chairs for the Biden re-election campaign are unavailable because they currently serve as U.S. Ambassadors. So how might Biden handle the situation—and might the national fundraising ambassador prove to be Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg? (Theodore Schleifer, Puck)
• Tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who donated millions to back former President Donald Trump in 2016 and successful U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R-OH), is telling people that he plans to sit out the 2024 cycle. Apparently, Thiel has just discovered that GOP legislators are serious about focusing on fighting a culture war rather than tech innovation. This has been obvious for a couple of decades, so it’s great to see the tech elite catch up a bit to reality. (Anna Tong, Alexandra Ulmer, and Jeffrey Dastin, Reuters)
• U.S. Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-WA) recently became the first woman to cast 10,000 floor votes in the United States Senate, joining a list including 32 men. (Jacob Knutson, Axios)
• Former prisoners at the Guantánamo prison camp have accused Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) of observing and covering up the torture of inmates when he was assigned as a navy lawyer there. (Julian Borger and Oliver Laughland, The Guardian)
• “A Nebraska state lawmaker and mother to a trans child is being formally investigated over a potential conflict of interest for opposing restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors, a move that several senators from both parties were quick to denounce.” Given our experience with such issues, I doubt that as many lawmakers will denounce the next effort to silence a colleague. (Grace Moon, The Washington Post)
• We are all quite fortunate that all Jack Douglas Teixeira attempted to do was leak classified documents. Some of his classmates thought he was dangerous enough to potentially be a school shooter.

  As Natalia Antonova writes: “Teixeira’s stupidity means we all got lucky. If he was smarter, this could have been much worse. He could’ve fled before he was apprehended. If he was crazier, this could have been much worse as well. He could’ve barricaded himself in with a bunch of hostages.” (Natalia Antonova, Natalia Mitigates The Apocalypse)

• Roadside drug tests often used to convict people have been found to indicate many false positives.

  “For years, these tests have had this unjustified scientific veneer,” said Des Walsh, founder of the Roadside Drug Test Innocence Alliance, which advocates for the use of more accurate testing technology. “Finally, we believe the tide is turning with this dawning awareness of the unacceptably high rate of false positives.”

  The National Registry of Exonerations records 131 instances of drug convictions being overturned after more accurate tests reviewed the evidence and found no illegal substances. Judges should not allow prosecutors to use this kind of junk science as a critical piece of evidence in their courtrooms or to make plea deals. (Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica)

• Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito says he knows who leaked his draft opinion in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, but he won’t share what he knows. He’s also angry that people question his judgment and the current Court majority’s authority. None of this should seem normal. (Jonathan Chait, New York Intelligencer)

Abortion, Contraception, and Reproductive Rights

• In Oklahoma, Jaci Stratton discovered that she had a molar pregnancy, where the fetus would not survive and the tissue had become cancerous. This put her life at risk. But the strict abortion bans meant doctors felt they could not legally act to help her.

  “They were very sincere; they weren’t trying to be mean,” Statton, 25, says. “They said, ‘The best we can tell you to do is sit in the parking lot, and if anything else happens, we will be ready to help you. But we cannot touch you unless you are crashing in front of us or your blood pressure goes so high that you are fixing to have a heart attack.’”

  They had to wait until she was crashing in front of them. That is a monstrous outcome. Stratton had to go to a different state to get the health care she needed. But this is an example of the real-life implications of the strict and confusing abortion bans Republican legislatures are passing. (Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR)

• So-called abortion ban exceptions may help Republican politicians in their efforts to hide their extremism from voters, but they won’t help women and pregnant people access needed reproductive health services. We should never forget that the exception laws are written to ensure they are almost impossible to use. (Carter Sherman, Vice)
• Ten states have relaxed child labor protections recently. A new proposed federal law would allow 16 and 17-year-olds to work dangerous jobs in the logging industry. This is one way to fill jobs while continuing to suppress wages. (Michael Sainato, The Guardian)

Science

• NASA launched Voyager 2 in 1977, but the spacecraft has continued to send back data even as it has reached interstellar space. While its power supply will eventually go out, scientists now have plans to use a small battery backup to extend its data-gathering lifetime. (Joshua Hawkins, BGR)
• “Doctors, scientists and researchers have built an artificial intelligence model that can accurately identify cancer in a development they say could speed up diagnosis of the disease and fast-track patients to treatment.” (Andrew Gregory, The Guardian)
• I didn’t realize until reading this story over the weekend just how close Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin came to being stranded on the moon. Thankfully Aldrin was able to use a felt tip pen to address a broken circuit breaker switch whose function was required for the two astronauts to lift off from the moon. (Lesley Kennedy, History)
• Neal Agarwal has created an animated simulation of using a space elevator to go from the Earth’s surface into space. You can explore Earth’s atmosphere, wildlife, and planes as you scroll up on your web browser. Space elevators are an actual idea scientists have suggested to transport people and materials to and from space. (Neal Agarwal, Neal.Fun)
• The penumbral lunar eclipse coming on May 5 won’t be visible in North America, but you can watch it online. “The last time a penumbral eclipse was visible from the contiguous U.S. was on Nov. 30. 2020, and the next time such an event will be visible from this region of the globe will be on March 25, 2024.” (Robert Lea, Space.com)

Technology

• A bipartisan group in Congress plans to introduce legislation to ensure any decision to launch nuclear weapons is made by a human—and not artificial intelligence. The law would reinforce current policy, but if there’s one thing we should have learned over the past few years, it’s that enacting or repealing laws to ensure policy outcomes is wiser than relying on policy or precedent. (Kadia Goba, Semafor)
• The Wall Street Journal’s technology columnist tested artificial intelligence-generated video and audio tools to see how they would do replicating her. She was able to fool members of her family and the voice-generated security features of her bank. (Joanna Stern, Wall Street Journal)

Culture

• A new book from the late Georgia Tech History Professor Kristie Macrakis, Espionage: A Concise History, discusses the secret communication methods used by agents over the centuries. This book excerpt is a fun review of some of the ways agents have tried to send private messages since the ancient Greeks. (Kristie Macrakis, MIT Press Reader)
• Belgium customs authorities ordered that 2,352 cans of Miller High Life beer be emptied and crushed after the French committee for the protection of Champagne took issue with the beer’s “the Champagne of Beers” slogan. (Emma Bubola, The New York Times)
• The Financial Times tried to figure out the economics of the main plots we are seeing on Succession. While there are discrepancies, I was surprised by how well it all holds up. (Louis Ashworth, Financial Times)

Sports

• Major League Baseball has told the Atlanta baseball team to stop celebrating home runs using an oversized hat after complaints from New Era, the official on-field hat supplier to MLB. Wow, look at that quick action! But I do wonder when MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred will get around to dealing with that franchise’s offensive team name and its fans’ use of the tomahawk chop. (Joon Lee, ESPN)
  

• Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner held her first press conference since her release in a prisoner swap after serving 294 days in Russian prisons. She is preparing for her 10th WNBA season. (Cindy Boren, Washington Post)
  

• The Argentina Football Association, home to the defending Men’s World Cup Champions, is targeting the United States market for expansion, including building a national training facility in Miami. This will give Argentina one more national training facility in our nation than the United States Soccer Federation. (Felipe Cardenas, The Athletic)

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The Closer

A New Jersey Little League has come up with an innovative way to try to prevent parents and fans from abusing its umpires, as USA Today’s Steve Gardner reports:

“A new rule this season in the Deptford Township Little League requires spectators who seem to think they could do a better job than the volunteer umpires on the field to come out and prove it. 

Anyone in the stands who confronts an ump during a game must themselves umpire three games before they’re allowed back as a spectator.”

I hope we find out more about how this experiment goes.

Many sports leagues are now dealing with a shortage of referees and umpires. It is hard to convince people who are volunteers are low-paid to put up with the abuse some people wrongly think they have the right to share as a spectator.

A shortage of game officials now will lead to increased problems over time, as the potential pool of professional game officials is limited because so many people give up early in their careers or never even try.

I get frustrated at officials’ decisions. But I try not to react to any game official below a professional level—and abuse is never okay.

If we want high-level sports to work, we need umpires and referees who are competent and whom we can trust. We should be making it easier for more people to try.

Post-Game Comments

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Things I Find Interesting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: we should not be surprised by the attempts to ban contraception, Substack launches Notes, California law enforcement agencies edit shooting videos in ways that obscure the truth, a law professor explains what’s at stake as Idaho criminalizes interstate travel for abortion care, the pharmaceutical and biotech industries realize a radical conservative court ruling could harm their industry, the FBI warns against using public chargers, why tipping delivery drivers is still vital, and a preview of the 32 teams preparing for this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Leading Off

It would be wise to heed Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian’s warning in a recent column: 

“Mark my words: Contraception is the next front in the war on women. And we can’t say we haven’t been warned.”

Abcarian highlights what forced-birth activists have been saying about contraception in recent years. They are not hiding their goals. Given what happened to abortion rights, we would be wise to take seriously their statements about their desire to ban contraception. 

“Here’s how Gabrielle Jastrebski of FEMM Health explained it in 2019 as she discussed the evils of hormonal birth control at an annual conference of Students for Life, one of the largest antiabortion youth organizations in the country:

“Contraception and abortion are inextricably linked to one another, OK?” she said. “Contraception can really be seen as sort of the beginning of the road to abortion. … We are told that in order to be pro-women, we need to be pro-contraception. This is absolutely false.”

(FEMM Health, funded by Catholic antiabortion financier Sean Fieler, sows doubt about the safety of hormonal birth control while concealing its antiabortion ties, according to a Guardian investigation. Its app helps women monitor their menstrual cycles and hormones to control fertility, and the organization says it has been downloaded more than 400,000 times.)

The idea that abortion and contraception are two sides of the same coin is not a fringe view in right-wing Christian circles. And it’s why women of childbearing age in the United States should be very, very afraid.”

As Abortion, Every Day’s Jessica Valenti reminds us, reporters often quote representatives from Students for Life in stories without noting the organization’s extreme views equating contraception with abortion. That context would help more people understand the stakes involved in these debates. 

We must be alarmed. We need to understand that there is an organized effort to ban contraception in this country. I hope we take it seriously before another red state legislature or Supreme Court decision leads to another horrible result. 

Also in the latest edition of Abortion, Every Day: coverage of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signing into law a six-week abortion ban that will impact a sizable part of the country, states supporting abortion rights react to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s abortion medication ruling, 2024 candidates trying to figure out their positions, and the incredible work of the Online Abortion Resource Squad (OARS). 

Things I Find Interesting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Substack Notes

I have been using Substack Notes for the past few days, and would love for you to join me there! Here’s one of my recent note posts:

Notes is a new space on Substack for us to share links, short posts, quotes, photos, and more. I plan to use it to highlight Substack newsletters I find particularly interesting, other notes from the community, and quick thoughts I am having throughout the day. While I am still using Twitter for my curated lists of subjects and for live sports reactions, Elon Musk’s decisions since taking over the site have significantly degraded its usability. So I am glad there are alternatives like Substack Notes and Post.

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How to join

Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to Things I Find Interesting, you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around!

You can also share notes of your own. I hope this becomes a space where every reader of Things I Find Interesting can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we’re reading on Substack and beyond.

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If you encounter any issues, you can always refer to the Notes FAQ for assistance. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Quick Pitches

California

A California law requires law enforcement agencies to release video recordings after police shooting incidents. But the videos are often edited to present the police actions in the best possible light. “Critics allege that the problem with the condensed, heavily-edited version of the body camera footage released by law enforcement agencies is that they shape public opinion about a person’s death or injury at the hands of the police long before the department in question releases all the facts in the case or the full, raw video.” (Nigel Duara, CalMatters)

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One out of five California schools are located in areas of high or moderate flood risk, creating the potential for huge problems as the state deals with the potential flooding from melting this year’s record snowpack. (Thomas Peele, Emma Gallegos, and Daniel J. Willis, EdSource)

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The state’s utilities (and, to be clear, electricity customers) will have to spend billions on upgrading the transmission lines required to carry renewable energy if California is going to meet its climate emergency mitigation goals. (Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times)

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Peet’s is now part of the world’s largest coffee company. (Julie Zigoris, San Francisco Standard)

Politics

Thor Benson talks to UC Davis Law Professor Mary Ziegler about the new Idaho law that criminalizes taking minors to another state to get abortion care. More states will pass similar legislation, and while they may start with minors, I have no doubt we are going to see attempts to restrict such interstate travel regardless of age. (Thor Benson, Public Notice)

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U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s radical attempt to ban mifepristone has awakened a potentially significant new opponent: the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. If Kacsmaryk’s opinion stands, opponents of any pharmaceutical product—including vaccines—could use its reasoning. After decades of trying to stay neutral, the threat to its profits appears to have gotten the attention of industry leaders. (Mark Joseph Stern, Slate)

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Two recent interviews demonstrate the stark differences in how some members of our media elite perceive the goal of their jobs. If our democracy is to survive, we need more Medhi Hassans and fewer Lesley Stahls. (Parker Malloy, The Present Age)

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Right-wing terrorists are targeting the power grid amid a rise in accelerationist movements. “This apocalyptic brand of extremist rhetoric — and the focus, specifically, on targeting substations — is part of a growing phenomenon that has captured the attention of both the far right and law enforcement. The trend has resulted in a dramatic rise in attacks that have left tens of thousands of people without power. Experts have attributed the wave to the digital spread of right-wing accelerationist ideology, which aims to hasten societal collapse, and materials like this magazine that encourage and provide instructions for targeting the grid.” (Hunter Walker, Talking Points Memo)

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Former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig explains why he believes the Supreme Court will reject the Independent State Legislature theory. I would be more confident if the conservatives on the court were as consistent in their philosophy as the author of this article. (J. Michael Luttig, The Atlantic)

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This is good life advice for people who have genuinely earned the Dingus of the Week: “What you don’t need to be doing is defending billionaires who collect Nazi memorabilia. No one is making you defend a billionaire who collects Nazi memorabilia. No one is asking you to defend a billionaire who collects Nazi memorabilia. In fact, no one needs you to defend a billionaire who collects Nazi memorabilia. He has billions of dollars. His money is his protection. His money fluffs up his comfy little pillow and lets him sleep at night. He doesn’t need you. He doesn’t love you. He loves himself, Hitler, and Clarence Thomas. And not necessarily in that order.” (Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me)

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The Tennessee House Speaker who thought it was a good idea to expel Democratic members for a protest doesn’t appear to live in the district from which he was elected. Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) may regret how his unprecedented partisan expulsions created a national focus on his activities. (Judd Legum, Popular Information)

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The self-proclaimed Taliban 20, the coalition of MAGA Republican Members of Congress who forced concessions from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy before he was able to take the gavel, are unimpressed with current budget proposals as we get closer to the national debt limit deadline. “There’s no reason for the 20 to negotiate against what was already agreed to,” Gaetz told me, regarding the grab bag of promises they extracted in exchange for supporting Kevin McCarthy’s speakership in January. “We shouldn’t have to pay twice for the same hostage.” (Tina Nguyen, Puck)

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“Homes constructed in flood plains, storm surge zones, regions with declining water availability, and the wildfire-prone West are overvalued by hundreds of billions of dollars, recent studies suggest, creating a housing bubble that puts the U.S. financial system at risk. The problem will get worse as sea level rises and storms dump heavier rains and if unwise building practices continue.” (Jeff Masters, Yale Climate Connections)

Science

Here is a breakdown of the flawed science (and lies) that U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk used in his ruling to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. (Lauren Weber, Laurie McGinley, David Ovalle, and Frances Stead Sellers, Washington Post)

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The human population could peak just short of nine billion in 2050. This story explains why and what the impact could be for the planet. (Rebecca Dyer, Science Alert)

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Apps people use to identify plants have accuracy rates as low as four percent. This situation could put people seeking edible plants at risk and see endangered plants misidentified as weeds. (Matthew Sparkes, New Scientist)

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The records kept by medieval monks of their observations about the night sky are now helping volcanologists accurately date some of the biggest volcanic eruptions that happened during one of the most volcanically active periods in the planet’s history. (University of Geneva, Phys.org)

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Scientists from Australia and Japan set a record for the deepest ocean fish ever photographed after taking a photo of an unknown snailfish species at a depth of 27,349 feet. (Laura Baisas, Popular Science)

Technology

Elon Musk decided to make a change to Twitter that has shut down potentially life-saving accounts that automatically announced weather and other public safety alerts. No individual should have such power without an election. That’s one reason I believe every billionaire is a policy failure. (Matt Binder, Mashable)

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The FBI recommends that people avoid using public chargers in airports, hotels, and malls because of the risk of “juice jacking.” The problem is that hackers can install malicious code into public charging stations. The FBI recommends you use your own charger, cord, and a wall outlet or a portable battery. (Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac)

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Fortune cookie writers may be losing their jobs to artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT. (Sabrina Medora, Food & Wine)

Culture

People are not tipping delivery drivers as generously as they did during the pandemic. Perhaps the financial success of drivers should not be so reliant on tips, but that’s the model these businesses are using. I have strong opinions about this partly because of some of my current work. But I hope everyone reading this understands how vital tips are to the people delivering your food, groceries, cannabis, and other supplies. (Kellen Browning, New York Times)

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While promoting his movie Knives Out, director Rian Johnson revealed that Apple has a policy that forbids villains from using its products during movies or television shows. So fans of the television show Succession noted which characters were using an android phone during last week’s landmark episode “Connor’s Wedding.” (Brian Galindo, BuzzFeed)

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This profile of Rupert Murdoch and his family reads like a script from Succession. Also, that may be why he insisted in his divorce agreement with Jerry Hall that she not provide story ideas to the program’s writers. (Gabriel Sherman, Vanity Fair)

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We should have a conversation about the scientific studies that indicate consuming ice cream has health benefits. (David Merritt Johns, The Atlantic)

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The company that makes Tupperware warned it faces bankruptcy. (Rob Wile, NBC News)

Sports

Here’s the story describing how Head Coach Gregg Berhalter’s stomach illness after the United States Men’s National Soccer Team’s final game at the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup led to a series of events that created the still unresolved crisis within the team and U.S. Soccer Federation. (Henry Bushnell, Yahoo Sports)

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The Guardian rates the 32 nations preparing to compete in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. This article is a quick way to start getting acquainted with the teams that will begin competing this July in Australia and New Zealand. (Suzanne Wrack and Sophie Downey, The Guardian)

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A St. Louis sports columnist writes a letter to his daughter after interviewing U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Captain Becky Sauerbrunn. “She’s Captain America. She’s constantly battling opponents, fighting the good fight. She stands up for what’s right — that being the rights of women and African Americans and the LGBTQ community. She believes in a world that is fair and equal and loving and kind. She knows that soccer can be a gateway to this. Alas, she also knows that sometimes soccer is a microcosm of society, marred by inequities.” (Benjamin Hochman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

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The National Football League and its players’ union have approved a new helmet designed to help prevent quarterbacks from suffering concussions. (Associated Press)

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The climate emergency is having a measurable impact on the number of home runs hit in the Major Leagues. (Laura Baisas, Popular Science)

The Closer

Did you know about the typo on the Lincoln Memorial? (Dan Lewis, Now I Know)

Post-Game Comments

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

Things I Find Interesting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: a new book explores how innocent people end up in prison, why there is no center to find when it comes to abortion rights, we should have no tolerance for racism and homophobia from law enforcement officers, and other stories from California, politics, science, technology, and sports.

Leading Off

Justin Brooks, a criminal defense lawyer who is the Founding Director of the California Innocence Project, has written a new book with a blunt title that should serve both as a warning and a call to action: You Might Go to Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent. 

I have been looking forward to reading this book since I saw an announcement on Brooks’ Twitter feed about it a few months ago. It tells several important stories, as the book’s promotional materials explain: 

“Putting readers at the defense table, this book forces us to consider how any of us might be swept up in the system, whether we hired a bad lawyer, bear a slight resemblance to someone else in the world, or are not good with awkward silence. The stories of Brooks’s cases and clients paint the picture of a broken justice system, one where innocence is no protection from incarceration or even the death penalty.”

The National Register of Exonerations lists 3,298 exonerations since 1989, amounting to more than 29,000 years lost by innocent people in jails or prisons. 

Each of the book’s ten chapters goes into detail about one of the ways people find themselves convicted of crimes they did not commit based on Brooks’ experience with clients: 

• You Hired the Wrong Lawyer (Pleas with No Bargain)
• You Live in the Country or the City
• You Are in a Relationship and Live with Someone Who is Murdered
• You (Kind of) Look like Other People in the World
• You Get Confused When You Are Tired and Hungry, and People Yell at You
• You Have or Care for a Sick Child.
• You Got a Jury That Was Blinded by “Science”
• You Work with Children or Let Them in Your House
• Someone Lies about You
• You Are Poor and/or a Person of Color

You can get more details about these ten reasons from the book’s website. I would be surprised if any reader were not covered by more than one of these possibilities. 

Throughout the book, Brooks explains how flawed procedures, junk science, police and prosecutor misconduct, and human bias can lead to innocent people spending decades in prison.  

Brooks also lays out the reforms needed to reduce the possibility of future wrongful convictions. We should prohibit the use of deception during police investigations, limit the length of interrogations, ensure courts no longer allow junk science techniques, ensure that identification efforts follow scientific procedures, provide defense attorneys with more resources, and ensure people can access the courts when new science or new evidence indicates they have been wrongfully convicted. 

I wish this book had existed when I faced my experience of being falsely accused. Thankfully, I listened to my attorney. 

As Brooks makes clear, however, the criminal justice system is broken. We should take the steps suggested by Brooks and the Innocence Projects around the country to reform our criminal justice system to prevent more innocent people from being sent to jail or death row. 

The Good Listener podcast interviewed Brooks about his book. You can find that interview on YouTube or Spotify. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

There Is No Center When it Comes to Abortion

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. 

The bad news around the country continues to grow, even beyond Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s appalling ruling last week that seeks to ban a drug that has safely ended pregnancies for over 20 years. In this column, Valenti explains how this ruling is the latest example of misogynist payback against women and other people who do not want to answer to white men over how they live their lives. (Slate Legal Analyst Mark Joseph Stern also explains why “Kacsmaryk’s ruling is indefensible from top to bottom and will go down in history as one of the judiciary’s most shocking and lawless moments.”)

These kinds of decisions have real-life consequences. 

Valenti leads one of her daily newsletter roundups with the story of Samantha Casiano from Texas. As Valenti explains, Casiano “found out at 20 weeks that her fetus had anencephaly—part of her brain and skull were missing—but was forced to carry to term because of the state’s abortion ban. Samantha Casiano tried to find abortion care in other states, but the time, travel and money required made it impossible: “So she braced herself for five more months carrying a pregnancy that would end in a funeral.”

…

The response from Texas Alliance for Life? “Texas laws are working as designed,” Amy O’Donnell, director of communications, said. At least they’re being honest, I suppose. As more and more of these stories come out, anti-abortion activists and legislators have continually blamed doctors or claimed that their laws actually allow for the kind of care these women were denied. Now they’re just shrugging their shoulders and admitting that this was the point the entire time.”

I think it is essential for people to understand how these forced-birth laws are actually working and how they harm people. I still see too many pundits and Democratic politicians trying to seek compromise about this issue. But, as Valenti correctly assesses, that is not possible. Moreover, given all of the electoral victories of those seeking to protect abortion rights, those efforts are politically stupid. 

“Yet both Democrats and Republicans seem intent on misunderstanding what these results really mean. Women are furious. Young people are terrified. And all of America can see the harm and suffering abortion bans cause. 

These votes are absolutely smoking with rage, but for some reason politicians and activists on both sides of the issue are catering to a rapidly-evaporating middle. Conservatives are adding empty exceptions to their abortion bans in order to convince voters that they’re willing to compromise, while Democrats push for the restoration of Roe and nothing further—hoping that supporting restrictions on later abortion will help them avoid accusations of extremism.

But what’s happening with abortion has nothing to do with the middle. There’s nothing moderate about women in the ICU with sepsis, there’s no compromise to be made with those who would force raped 10 year-olds to give birth. 

The ‘center’ on abortion disappeared the first time a woman underwent a hysterectomy because it was the only legal way for doctors to end her life-threatening pregnancy.”

Democrats should do everything possible to ensure Republicans own the damage their radical forced-birth policies create daily. There are, sadly, so many examples to highlight. 

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

Are some school districts using involuntary transfers to lower their expulsion rates? The impact on students is similar, but the practice could be hiding the actual state of the situation facing students from required reporting to the state. (Tara García Mathewson, Hechinger Report)

We should have no tolerance for this kind of activity by law enforcement officials. “In a move that deepened the scandals engulfing the Antioch police department, a Contra Costa County judge on Friday released the names of 17 city police officers accused of using racist slurs, jokes and memes in text messages over a period of more than two years. The names include the president of Antioch’s police union, as well as five officers already under investigation by the FBI for alleged crimes. The judge also named 11 other Antioch officers — at least eight of whom have been put on leave over the group texts, which reportedly included frequent use of racial slurs as well as racist memes.” (Nate Gartrell, East Bay Times)

Class action lawsuits have been filed seeking to end the obscene price markups changed to inmates in county jails. The initial lawsuits target Los Angeles and San Diego Counties but are likely to spread. It is wrong to target inmates and their families with these incarceration taxes. (Keri Blakinger, Los Angeles Times)

Public transit agencies in the state are facing a fiscal cliff as federal pandemic-related aid starts to run out. (Sameea Kamal, CalMatters)

Politics

You can register for free to hear ProPublica reporter Joshua Kaplan and Editor-in-Chief Steve Engelberg discuss their investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ acceptance of gifts from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow. The event takes place on Tuesday, April 11, at noon Pacific. (ProPublica Events, Clarence Thomas’ Secret Life of Luxury) 

I was concerned when I learned that Jeffrey Zients would succeed Ronald Klein as President Biden’s Chief of Staff. I doubt the Biden Administration’s rightward policy lurch in recent weeks—on oil drilling, immigration, and the D.C. criminal code repeal—is coincidental. I don’t think this is a successful way to prepare for re-election. (Alexander Sammon, Slate)

“University of Wisconsin–Madison researcher and assistant professor Nick Buttrick studies the psychological relationship that millions of Americans have with their guns. Buttrick’s research builds on the historical record to show that in the U.S.—the only country with more civilian firearms than people—white Southerners started cultivating the tradition of the home arsenal immediately after the Civil War because of insecurities and racial fears. During the rest of the 19th century, those anxieties metamorphosized into a fetishization of the firearm to the point that, in the present day, gun owners view their weapons as adding meaning and a sense of purpose to their lives.” (Sara Novak, Scientific American)

The Wall Street Journal profiles the United States Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Roger D. Carstens. A law gave this Ambassadorial-level position its own office in 2020. It will be Carstens who will take the lead on seeking the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich once Secretary of State Antony Blinken officially declares that he has been “unlawfully or wrongfully detained” by the Russian government. (James T. Areddy, Aruna Viswanatha, and Nancy A. Youssef, The Wall Street Journal)

The Washington Post talked to friends of Evan Gershkovich to profile his journey from high school, college, and reporting in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. (Timothy Bella, The Washington Post) 

In his one season playing men’s soccer for my alma mater, Bowdoin College, Gershkovich scored the deciding goal in a penalty shootout to lead the Polar Bears over Amherst College in a 2010 NCAA Division III sectional final playoff match. (Bowdoin College Sports Information)

In the wake of his sliding polling numbers and missteps in New Hampshire, some major Republican donors are starting to suggest that it would be wise for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) to sit out 2024 and wait for 2028. (Tara Palmeri, Puck)

Science

Astronomers saw the brightest Gamma Ray burst ever recorded last October. “While the burst (its formal name is GRB 221009A) is probably not the brightest to ever occur, it is “likely the brightest burst at X-ray and gamma-ray energies to occur since human civilization began,” said Eric Burns, an astrophysicist at Louisiana State University a co-author of the study, in a University of Sydney release.” (Isaac Schultz, Gizmodo)

Nokia is sending a 4G internet service to the moon. An expected November launch will take the initial system to the Shackleton crater. (Nikki Main, Gizmodo)

Plants stressed by a lack of water, or in other ways, make an ultrasonic crackle that some animals may be able to hear. (Emma Harris, Scientific American)

Technology

“Antenna television is back. In recent years, millions of cord-cutters have rediscovered antennas as a reliable way to watch broadcast networks like ABC, NBC, and FOX, all for free — and now, broadcasters are eager to get the rest of us hooked. They’ve been marching ahead with the deployment of ATSC 3.0, a next-generation broadcast format that supports 4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos audio, and even interactive apps over the air, no cable or streaming subscription required.” (Janko Roettgers, The Verge)

Did someone use one of the new artificial intelligence chatbots to create a winning entry in the New Yorker cartoon contest? It may be a coincidence, but there is evidence of the possibility. (David Friedman, Ironic Sans)

Culture

The community name Riverside appears in the most states: 46. Only Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Oklahoma fail to have one. (United States Geological Survey Frequently Asked Questions)

An author wonders why his novel has been so successful in Italy after not getting a single major review after its release in the United States. (Erik Hoel, The Intristic Perspective)

Here’s an excerpt from the poet Maggie Smith’s upcoming memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, focusing on how her marriage split apart because her ex-husband could not handle her success after her poem Good Bones went viral in 2016. (Maggie Smith, The Cut)

Spotify has introduced an artificial intelligence deejay based on a real person’s voice. “Xavier “X” Jernigan is a real person, Spotify’s charismatic head of cultural partnerships. And the AI, which Spotify calls just “DJ,” is using his voice. The company says it trained the voice model on his cadence, inflections, and slang.” (Thomas Germain, Gizmodo)

Here is a video that includes clips of the most popular song in the United States for each month from January 1980-December 2022. We start with the Buggles and end with Bad Bunny. And there’s about a decade in here for which I appear to have no recollection. 

Sports

I am quite excited by this news: the National Women’s Soccer League announced an expansion franchise for the Bay Area. A $125 million investment by Sixth Street is the largest institutional investment ever in professional women’s soccer. That total includes a record $53 million expansion fee. The bid is also led by four former United States Women’s National Team players—Aly Wagner, Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, and Danielle Slaton—who also played for Santa Clara University. (Jeff Carlisle, ESPN)

The Men in Blazers Raven Newsletter also features a short interview with Aly Wagner by Roger Bennett (see point 7). (Men In Blazers, The Raven)

The history of sports teams visiting the White House is more complicated—and for many sports, not as long—as I had assumed. (Molly Knight, Vulture)

A newish way of throwing the changeup—focusing on using the air currents created by seam-shifted wakes—seems to be catching on. It certainly looks more comfortable than how the wrist and arm need to be pronated to throw the pitch traditionally. (Noah Woodward, The Advance Scout)

Roger Goodell has made more than $500 million as the Commissioner of the National Football League. He is quite the expert at managing the league’s 32 owners. (Joe Pompliano, Huddle Up)

The Closer

Clayton Rose, the president of my alma mater, Bowdoin College, sent a message to the college community last week after the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled Representatives Justin Pearson (Class of 2017) and Justin Jones. 

“Since I became president of Bowdoin in July 2015, there have been more than 3,500 mass shootings in America—that’s well more than one shooting a day, and the pace is accelerating. In that time, hundreds have died and thousands have been injured. It is hard to imagine how, as a civilized society, we tolerate the murders of such innocents in this way. Justin, Mr. Jones, and Ms. Johnson were imploring their colleagues to address the issue. The response was an attempt to silence them, one that appears to have backfired badly.

Justin has devoted himself to serving the common good, and he is making a difference. I am proud of him, and I hope you are as well.” 

I am, indeed.

Post-Game Comments

Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:

“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”—Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780), Commentaries on the Laws of England 

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: the Washington Post illustrates why the AR-15 is so lethal to the human body, supporting abortion rights wins elections, Russia detains a reporter, and other stories from California, politics, science, technology, and sports.

Leading Off

The Washington Post released a visual report this week illustrating how an AR-15 bullet creates especially lethal wounds to a human body. 

The image above is a screenshot from one of the 3D renderings included in this feature. The blue area is the wound created by a 9-mm handgun. The larger orange area is the wound made by an AR-15. 

I do not think it is easy for people to understand just how much more destructive an AR-15 is compared to a handgun unless a person has military experience, is a medical professional, or has witnessed an AR-15 massacre.

I found the images in the article, which are just 3D renderings, disturbing. But I think that feeling is necessary to understand better just how much more effective an AR-15 is at killing people.  

Washington Post Editor Sally Buzbee wrote a letter to readers explaining why the paper chose to publish this feature: 

“The catastrophic damage the bullets from AR-15s cause inside human bodies is rarely made public in detail. News organizations do not generally publish graphic autopsy or crime scene photos because the images could be viewed as dehumanizing, exploitative and traumatizing, or could inflict further pain on the families of victims. As a result, the damage AR-15 fire can do to a human body — a great deal more than handguns — is not widely understood.

When we set out to chronicle the story of the AR-15 in America, we searched for ways to illustrate that effect on bodies in an unflinching but respectful manner. We recognize that this presentation may disturb readers, but we determined the information it contains is critical to the public’s knowledge.

Two principles shaped our approach: to show the impact on a body with precision and to share our findings through visualizations that meet our ethical standards. To accomplish that, we decided it was essential to document and depict actual mortal wounds to actual victims, using animated illustrations that show the entrance and exit wounds in human figures.”

The Washington Post’s N. Kirkpatrick, Atthar Mirza, and Manuel Canales explain what the feature includes: 

“The first part of this report is a 3D animation that shows the trajectory of two different hypothetical gunshots to the chest — one from an AR-15 and another from a typical handgun — to explain the greater severity of the damage caused by the AR-15.

The second part depicts the entrance and exit wounds of two actual victims — Noah Pozner, 6, and Peter Wang, 15 — killed in school shootings when they were struck by multiple bullets.

This account is based on a review of nearly 100 autopsy reports from several AR-15 shootings as well as court testimony and interviews with trauma surgeons, ballistics experts and a medical examiner.”

The families of Pozner (killed at Sandy Hook Elementary) and Wang (killed at Stoneman Douglas High School) consented to the use of their children’s representations in the piece. While they declined an opportunity to see the images in advance or to participate in an interview for the report, the Wang family submitted a statement explaining why they provided their consent to the Washington Post:

“Peter’s parents want people to know the truth,” said Lin Chen, their niece and Peter’s cousin. “They want people to know about Peter. They want people to remember him.”

James Fallows also discusses this Washington Post feature in an article that draws upon his over 40 years of experience writing about the AR-15. 

He explores the weapon’s history, how civilians came to own more of them, and why debating the AR-15 issue matters: 

“The AR-15 matters because more of them are in U.S. civilian hands than any other rifle. No one knows the exact number. But within this country, estimates of the AR-15 total start at around 20 million. In the rest of the world they are rare except among government forces, criminal gangs, or some regulated hobbyist or security groups.

The AR-15 matters because it has been used in the majority of recent U.S. mass shootings—which are most of the world’s mass shootings. Here is an illustration from the recent WaPo coverage:

The AR-15 matters because it frightens law enforcement agents. The police in Uvalde did not attack the school murderer because they were “afraid” of his AR-15.

The AR-15 matters because of the particular damage it is able to inflict, as the Washington Post feature illustrates…”

We all should know the truth. We need to see it. And I hope we continue to work every day to hold those who refuse to vote for bans against these weapons of war accountable. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Abortion Wins Elections

New York Magazine’s Rebecca Traister makes a case for Democrats making abortion rights a centerpiece of their 2024 campaigns. 

For decades, Democrats have allowed Roe v. Wade to do the work, hoping to avoid the issue in campaigns and focusing on “choice” when forced to take a position. Republicans, of course, were much more aggressive about the issue and created a bench of radically conservative lawyers ready to become judges and justices. Those efforts culminated in the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe last year with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. 

Traister notes that Democrats, as a result, do not have much muscle memory about discussing these vital issues in legislatures or on the campaign trail. But voters are pushing them about this issue, a trend I suspect will accelerate when more people and families experience the tragic impact of abortion bans on the health and lives of women and people who can become pregnant. As Traister explains:

“But Dobbs also catalyzed a revolution in the politics of abortion. And now it’s not just some loud activists and marginalized lady pols telling Democrats to move quickly and assertively to figure out how to make abortion available again across the country: It’s voters. Voters who just saved the Democratic Party during a midterm year in which inflation and gas prices should have meant a drubbing for the incumbent president’s party but instead resulted in a historic success for Democrats, who retained control of all their state legislatures, flipped Republican chambers in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and, at the federal level, gained a Senate seat and kept House losses to the single digits.

Multiple factors, including a slate of ghoulish right-wing candidates, helped Democrats, but there is no question that abortion was the preeminent issue for voters. “Democrats should have gotten wiped out,” said the pollster Tom Bonier. “But they overperformed. When you look at where they overperformed, it’s in places where choice was most present in the election, either literally on the ballot, like Michigan and Kentucky, or effectively in terms of the perceived stakes and the extent to which the candidates were talking about abortion, like Pennsylvania.”

“I don’t think Democrats have fully processed that this country is now 10 to 15 percent more pro-choice than it was before Dobbs in state after state and national data,” said pollster Celinda Lake.

The Democrats, in other words, are the bewildered dog that has caught the bus. A motivated base has turned to them for leadership on abortion while they are staring down a Republican House majority, a Senate filibuster, and an obdurate Supreme Court. Upon hearing that I was writing about their party’s plan to tackle abortion post-Dobbs, more than one Democratic staffer, and at least one elected official, silently mouthed to me, “There is no plan.”

What Democrats have is incentive: One of their most urgent policy issues has just shown itself to be their most politically effective. And they are undergoing a generational turnover that has already started to reshape the party and its approach to the battle — a dawning, in the midst of cataclysm, of a new era of political possibility.”

As an example, Traister profiles Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the new Democratic leadership in that state. Michigan has moved towards the Democrats during the last couple of election cycles, and Whitmer and her colleagues have transformed the state’s politics while emphasizing their position on abortion. 

One of my political rules is that doing the right thing on behalf of your constituents should always be the preferred strategy. It is a huge bonus when doing the right thing is also politically popular. 

And I hope the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Tuesday provides another positive example of this dynamic. 

Russians Detain Wall Street Journal Reporter 

I learned about the Russian arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges after receiving an email sent to all college graduates from Bowdoin College President Clayton Rose. 

Gershkovich is a 2014 graduate of Bowdoin, where he wrote for the Bowdoin Orient, the student weekly newspaper, and helped to found the Bowdoin Review. He has also been active as a mentor for Bowdoin students interested in journalism, and the latest edition of Bowdoin Magazine that arrived at my home yesterday included a short message from him.  

The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw have published a profile about Gershkovich and his reporting in the country:

“Mr. Gershkovich, 31 years old, is the American son of Soviet-born Jewish exiles who had settled in New Jersey. He fell in love with Russia—its language, the people he chatted with for hours in regional capitals, the punk bands he hung out with at Moscow dive bars. Now, espionage charges leave him facing a possible prison sentence of up to 20 years.

His employer, colleagues and the Biden administration all deny Russia’s claim that he was spying on behalf of the U.S., and have called for his immediate release. Diplomats and legal experts see little hope Mr. Gershkovich, a reporter accredited by the Russian foreign ministry, will immediately be freed, given that espionage trials in Russia are conducted in secret and almost always end in a conviction.”

Puck’s Julia Ioffe shares what sources have told her about Gershkovich’s arrest and why Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have been directly involved. She writes:

“Another well-placed Moscow source pointed to the speed and harshness with which Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s mustachioed spokesman, commented on Gershkovich’s arrest. Usually, Peskov stalls for time and, when pressed about such cases, says that the president’s office has nothing to do with it, that it would be best to seek comment from the relevant agencies, like the courts. This time, however, Peskov said Gershkovich had been “caught red-handed.” It implied that the decision to arrest Gershkovich had been made at the very, very top, by Putin himself, who likely also approved of the messaging: Gershkovich is a spy, guilty before any opportunity to prove himself innocent.

Then there is the question of motive. Russia has already been “banking hostages,” as F.S.B. chronicler Andrei Soldatov has said. Just look at Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan, and other Americans who have been held in Russian jails. The goal is often to trade them for Russian spies arrested in Western countries—and there have been a lot of those of late. 

Which brings me to why this happened at all. The arrest of an American journalist in Russia has not happened since 1986, before the fall of the Soviet Union. Western journalists—who had to be accredited by the Russian foreign ministry to be in the country—were monitored and occasionally harassed, of course. Several were kicked out of the country. But none had ever been arrested, not even under Putin.”

I fear this ordeal will not be short for Gershkovich. My thoughts are with his family and friends and the people in the United States government and at the Wall Street Journal who will be working for his release. 

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

Governor Gavin Newsom scored a victory over the oil industry as the legislature passed his proposal to allow the state’s Energy Commission to have more powers to receive gas price data and potentially cap the industry’s profits. While this legislation was not Newsom’s original plan announced after the price spikes last fall, he demonstrated a new cooperative strategy with legislators to get a proposal passed over the objection of one of the state’s most prominent industries. (Jeremy White, Politico)

All of the rain and snow could lead to the restoration of Tulare Lake, which at one point was the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi before dams and levees diverted its sources. (Andrew Freedman, Axios)

Introducing Bembidion Brownorum! 🪲

news.berkeley.edu/2023/03/27/rar…

— Jerry Brown (@JerryBrownGov) 7:55 PM ∙ Mar 27, 2023

Politics

The United States foreign policy establishment is having trouble discerning what the Biden Administration’s Ukraine strategy will be after the expected spring offensive against Russia. “It turns out that Washington’s foreign policy set has grown increasingly frustrated with the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy. What is it, exactly? On one hand, the administration has been consistent in its line on Ukraine: Ukraine must win, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, this must not turn into World War III, and we must defend and strengthen the rules-based (and American-designed) international order. But what does any of that really mean? What does winning in Ukraine even look like?” (Julia Ioffe, Puck)

Will the IRS finally create an easy-to-use, no-cost tax reporting service, or will the tax preparation industry’s lobbyists win again? (Don Moynihan, Can We Still Govern?)

Here’s the story behind the Florida school that banned a movie about Ruby Bridges based on the objection of one parent. (Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information)

Science

Durham University astronomers have discovered an ultramassive black hole about 30 billion times the mass of our Sun. (PA Media, The Guardian)

A new study from the Club of Rome says the world’s population will peak earlier and at a lower level than previously anticipated. That will have benefits for the environment but create pressures in aging societies. (Jonathan Watts, The Guardian)

Technology

A new study from Common Sense Media explores the impact of social media usage on teenage girls. While there are obvious downsides, the teenagers surveyed also noted how mindful use can have a positive impact. (Carolyn Jones, EdSource)

Here’s the secret list of VIPs getting special boosts on Twitter over other users. Yes, Elon Musk is among them. (Zoë Schiffer, Platformer)

One of my favorite technology reporters and podcasters, Kara Swisher, is the subject of a Vanity Fair profile. “Beyond On, Swisher, 60, also hosts Pivot, a twice-weekly podcast with brash NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway; is writing a memoir about her beat-reporting days covering the dawn of the web; is working on a fictional TV show with another veteran Silicon Valley journalist; is advising Post News, a social platform she hopes will be a Twitter competitor; and is raising four kids, two of whom are toddlers. “She has a coffee before bed every night, after midnight,” Semafor’s Ben Smith texts. “This seems somehow emblematic to me. (In a good way.)” (Charlotte Klein, Vanity Fair)

I was one of the people fooled by the AI-generated fake image of Pope Francis in a stunning white puffer jacket. Here’s the story behind the person who went unexpectedly viral. Figuring out what’s real on the internet is going to get much more difficult. (Chris Stokel-Walker, BuzzFeed)

Culture

X-Files creator Chris Carter says that the show is getting a reboot under the direction of Black Panther director Ryan Coogler. (Keiran Southern, The Times of London)

Students from Adolfo Camarillo High School in Camarillo, California, broke a Guinness World Record when they crafted a charcuterie board measuring 204.7 feet long. (Ben Hooper, UPI)

Greenland won’t be falling back, as the semi-independent territory will remain on Daylight Savings Time from now on. (Associated Press)

The change from cable television to streaming is disrupting how the media industry makes its money. That dynamic, and the possible challenges to writers that artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT create, could lead to a writer’s strike this summer. (Tim Goodman, Bastard Machine)

Who killed penmanship? And who are the people trying to revive the practice? (Isabella Paoletto, New York Times)

Sports

I’ve listened to Men in Blazers, the soccer podcast hosted by Roger Bennett and Michael Davies, since one of its first episodes in 2011. I finally got to see them live in San Francisco during their nationwide tour last December during the Men’s World Cup. Now, they are expanding their coverage (yes, I am excited about all of these developments), looking to support the growth of soccer fandom in the United States, and here get the Hollywood Reporter profile treatment to explain the journey. (Julian Sancton, Hollywood Reporter)

Here’s a quick primer explaining how some of baseball’s most popular advanced metrics work without using any math. Now you can know all about WAR, barrels, sprint speed, catcher blocking, swinging strike percentage, and called strike percentage. (Joe Posnanski, Esquire)

Caitlin Clark is doing amazing things on the basketball court in leading Iowa to the National Championship game. For example, this remarkable stat.

Caitlin Clark has 161 points and 52 assists in this NCAA Tournament.

Since 2000, it’s one of six instances of a player having 150 points and 50 assists in ANY 5-game span.

All six of those belong to Caitlin Clark.

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) 5:24 AM ∙ Apr 1, 2023

The Closer

I have a lot of respect for the understated way he chose to respond, given the context. 

Well, that’s certainly a statement.

— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellNY) 9:48 PM ∙ Mar 30, 2023

Post-Game Comments

Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:

“Baseball is like this intersection of life and math where you can predict anything except the moments that change everything.” (Eden, as portrayed by Jassey Kris, to Jim Brockmire, as portrayed by Hank Azaria, in the Brockmire television series episode “The Hall”)

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: Ben Barnes’ delay in revealing what he knew about the 1980 October Surprise harmed our democracy, the rise and threat of white Christian nationalism, California Supreme Court reminds the state’s prosecutors and Attorney General of their responsibilities in turning over evidence to defendants, progress toward California producing its own insulin, Clara Shortridge Foltz deserves more credit for creating public defenders, the rate of stillbirths in the U.S. is shockingly high, TSA says peanut butter is a liquid, Oreo cookie science, floppy disks carry on, the stresses faced by professional soccer referees, call him Sir Brian May, monks create the first powered beer, and a hat tip to Sergio Romo.

Leading Off

Ben Barnes recently told the New York Times about his role in efforts by supporters of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign to ensure Iran would not release the American hostages that country was holding until after the election. As Peter Baker writes: 

“History needs to know that this happened,” Mr. Barnes, who turns 85 next month, said in one of several interviews, his first with a news organization about the episode. “I think it’s so significant and I guess knowing that the end is near for President Carter put it on my mind more and more and more. I just feel like we’ve got to get it down some way.

Mr. Barnes is no shady foreign arms dealer with questionable credibility, like some of the characters who fueled previous iterations of the October surprise theory. He was once one of the most prominent figures in Texas, the youngest speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and later lieutenant governor. He was such an influential figure that he helped a young George W. Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard rather than be exposed to the draft and sent to Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson predicted that Mr. Barnes would become president someday.”

I guess it is never too late to tell the truth. 

But it should not have taken an announcement about a former president entering hospice to explain what happened in 1980. American citizens were kept prisoner longer than necessary to help a candidate win a presidential election. Barnes owed the nation a response years ago—best, he should have done it in real time. 

Barnes’ decision to keep his role a secret—even as there was a Congressional investigation and statements by other elected officials and governments confirming parts of the story—harmed our democracy. It also contributed to a climate where Republican campaigns are willing to take the risk of acting with foreign governments in ways designed to impact our elections.

Because 1980 was not the first time such a thing happened. 

As the 1968 election drew near, Richard Nixon was concerned that outgoing President Lyndon Johnson was going to cut a deal with the North Vietnamese. In Nixon’s estimation, such a deal would have boosted Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey in a close election. 

So Nixon and his supporters worked behind the scenes to scuttle that potential deal, prolonging the Vietnam War and the deaths of tens of thousands of people on both sides of the conflict. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch explains: 

“On Nov. 17, 1973, Richard Nixon stood before a room of newspaper editors in Orlando and said, famously, that “people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”

But people didn’t know the full story. The 37th president was indeed a crook, and the Watergate scandal he was addressing that night wasn’t even the worst of it.

It’s taken nearly a half-century to unravel the 1968 campaign tale of Nixon and all the future president’s men, their go-between Anna Chennault, and their dirty dealings with the South Vietnamese to put the kibosh on LBJ’s push for a speedy peace deal in Southeast Asia. Experts think such an agreement would have kept the soon-be-be-disgraced Republican out of the White House. But more importantly, an early peace also would have prevented the horrific deaths of more than 20,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese that occurred after Nixon took office.

Even for the Watergate caper, cover-up, and conspiracy, which led to criminal convictions for 48 others, Nixon escaped real justice. Emboldened by his 1974 pardon from successor Gerald Ford, he even had the gall to tell interviewer David Frost that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” But even more outrageous than Nixon’s statement is that decades of high crimes and misdemeanors at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seem to have proved him right.”

Bunch also reminds us that former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and other members of that Administration never faced consequences for the lies they told before the invasion of Iraq. 

Given this lack of accountability, we should not be surprised that people connected to Nixon, Reagan, and Bush would later work with Russia on behalf of former President Donald Trump. What consequences could they fear?

Barnes owed the country an explanation long before now. I fear our democracy will not survive the authoritarian trends his silence helped to foster. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

White Christian Nationalism’s Rise and Threat

I recently learned that the actor and political activist George Takei had started a Substack. One of his initial posts proved to be one of the best summaries I’ve found about one of the threats to our democracy that worries me the most—the rise of White Christian Nationalism. 

Takei and Todd Beeton explore the tenants of White Christian Nationalism, who supports the philosophy, and how we see the worldview in the Republican Party’s attacks against abortion rights, LGBTQ people, and people of color. As Takei and Beeton write: 

“Indeed, there is a movement afoot to make an American theocracy a reality, and while it may still sound far-fetched to many today, it has earned the support of an alarming percentage of the country, particularly in red states led by Republican legislative majorities and governors.”

… 

And a 2022 Pew Research Center survey found 68% of American Christians (and 67% of Republicans) agree the Bible should have “a great deal or some influence on U.S. laws.”

Now, a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution confirms Christian nationalism is a uniquely Republican phenomenon.

54 percent of Republican voters either indicated they are adherents to Christian nationalism (21 percent) or sympathizers (33 percent) of such a movement, as defined by several values-based criteria including:the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nationU.S. laws should be based on Christian valuesGod has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society”

I previously discussed that study in Issue #33 of this newsletter. But the danger these results highlight requires more conversations, so I welcome the opportunity to return to it. 

As Takei and Beeton note, “To Christian nationalists, The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t a cautionary tale at all—it’s an aspirational one.” These are the stakes in all of our elections in the near future—from the April 4 Wisconsin Supreme Court election to the upcoming elections in state legislatures, Governors, Congress, and the Presidency. 

We will have to work hard to have any chance to prevent our nation’s descent into such a dystopian future. 

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

The California State Supreme Court overturned a woman’s manslaughter conviction because the prosecution failed to disclose evidence that could have supported the defendant’s claim that she acted in self-defense. Newly confirmed California Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote in a unanimous ruling that prosecutors and the Attorney General had “an ethical duty to make timely disclosure to the (defense) petitioner of all evidence or information known to the Attorney General that was available but not disclosed at trial that the Attorney General knows or reasonably should know tends to negate the guilt of the petitioner, mitigate the offense, or mitigate the sentence.” It should not have taken a court ruling for the California Attorney General to understand this idea. (Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle)

Governor Gavin Newsom (D) announces a $50 million contract with a nonprofit generic drugmaker as the next step in the state’s efforts to produce its own label of insulin. (Taryn Luna and Emily Alpert Reyes, Los Angeles Times)

Newsom skipped the traditional State of the State address in the State Capitol to tour the state to highlight his 2023 priorities. Here is a look at what Newsom emphasized—helping the unhoused, reforming prisons, mental health, and health care—during his four-day tour of the state. (Sameea Kamal and Alexei Koseff, CalMatters)

The Democrats of Rossmoor in Walnut Creek, California, have been fortunate enough to host the three major Democratic candidates in the race to succeed U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. Here’s an article examining how the candidates did and all of the work the club does to elect democrats. Several of the club’s members subscribe to this newsletter, and I am glad to see them get this kind of recognition. (Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle)

Assembly Member Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) has authored legislation to require social media companies like Meta and Google to pay publishers for selling advertising adjacent to news content. The bill is based on successful legislation implemented in Australia in early 2021. (Jaimie Ding, Los Angeles Times)

Older Toyota Prius models are the top targets for catalytic converter thieves, and victims of this crime then find themselves waiting more than six months before a replacement becomes available. (Laura Nelson, Los Angeles Times)

Politics

Clara Shortridge Foltz doesn’t get the credit she deserves for inventing the idea of public defenders—or forcing the California governor at the time to sign a bill allowing women to become attorneys. (Emily Galvin Almanza, Teen Vogue)

Lyz Lenz discusses how Jessa Duggar Seewald, one of the conservative Christian members of the family made famous by the show 19 Kids and Counting, received an abortion procedure to manage her miscarriage, something that is not possible for far too many women and people who can become pregnant today as red states enact bans on the medical procedure. “But the reality is doctors in states with abortion bans with health exceptions are refusing women life-saving care out of fear of violating the restrictive laws.” (Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me)

Why won’t reporters and editors discuss the radical religious conservative background of the Trump-appointed judge who may try to overrule the Food and Drug Administration? “In coverage of a case that could take a crucial abortion medication off the market, more than half of the leading mainstream newspapers and news wires neglected to explain that the anti-abortion plaintiffs hand-picked an anti-abortion judge who has a history of working for the religious right to increase their chances of getting a favorable ruling.” (Jasmine Geonzon & Audrey McCabe, Media Matters for America)

Two mothers sued the New Jersey hospitals where they gave birth for taking drug tests without their consent. Medical privacy is also a problem in so-called blue states. (Erum Salam, The Guardian)

The Transportation Security Administration has ruled that peanut butter is a liquid that falls under its security theater recommendations. So get those small jars for travel. Whew. I feel safer already. Now when can we discuss how having large bins for dumping and mixing excess liquids adjacent to the crowded security checkpoints is a good idea? (Natalie B. Compton, Washington Post)

Science

Scientists could not find a perfect way to twist an Oreo cookie made in the United States to ensure both sides get some of the creme filling. As with so many things (hi, Cadbury chocolate), the European version of the cookie appears to be manufactured differently (better?), making it possible to get filling on both wafers. (Aylin Woodward, Wall Street Journal)

A new study concludes that the stillbirth rate in the United States is unacceptably high. “The National Institutes of Health report, titled “Working to Address the Tragedy of Stillbirth,” mirrored findings of an investigation by ProPublica last year into the U.S. stillbirth crisis, in which more than 20,000 pregnancies every year are lost at 20 weeks or more and the expected baby is born dead.” (Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica)

Technology

The floppy disk won’t die, as businesses ranging from small embroidery businesses to airlines needing to apply critical software updates to older planes still need to use what’s left of the world’s supply of 3.5-inch floppy disks. (Jacopo Prisco, Wired)

Last year, vinyl record sales surpassed compact disk sales for the first time since 1987. (Bethany Biron, Business Insider) 

The lie detector was never very good at identifying whether or not a person was telling the truth. It’s time to stop using this junk science in our courts and security reviews. (Amit Katwala, Wired)

The San Mateo County Board of Education added Meta to its lawsuit against social media companies for allegedly addicting students and contributing to a mental health crisis. (Joel Rosenblatt, Bloomberg News)

Culture

King Charles III knighted Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May as a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in recognition of his service to the music industry and charity. (Jeff Spry, Space.com)

“A monastic brewery in East Germany says it’s created the first powdered beer. Just add water, and it’ll froth up, complete with a foamy head and full flavor. The result promises massive savings on transport, because it can be shipped at 10% of the weight.” (Loz Blain, New Atlas)

Scooter’s Coffee in Omaha, Nebraska, broke a Guinness World Record by assembling an 848-pound cake ball in celebration of its 25th anniversary. (Ben Hooper, United Press International)

This is quite a lede: “Bulgarian authorities said Thursday they were investigating a painting seized by police that could be a little-known work by the American abstract artist Jackson Pollock. Clues indicate the roughly six-foot-tall painting may have been a gift to Hollywood star Lauren Bacall — and could have been held in the extensive private collection of Romania’s former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.” (AFP via CBS News)

Sports

I learned quite a bit about the stresses of professional officiating in this story about English Premier League referees. It is such a demanding job, and The job inevitably leads to criticism, and the leagues and fans must do more must be done to stop the abuse from the grassroots level through the professional ranks. (William Ralston, The Guardian)

As we prepare for Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, here’s a history of presidential first pitches. Thank you, President Taft. (Andrew Sharp, Here’s The Pitch)

The Closer

Here’s a tip of my hat to how well the San Francisco Giants and Sergio Romo handled the pitcher’s retirement announcement. 

Every time a kid asked Sergio Romo for an autograph in spring training he asked them to sign his hat first. He wore this to the mound tonight:

— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) 5:19 AM ∙ Mar 28, 2023

Post-Game Comments

Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new ones rise.” (Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

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Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: remembering how pundits got the Iraq invasion wrong, Martin Santillan exonerated after serving more than 25 years in prison, how close to death does a woman need to be to get an abortion in Tennessee, this isn’t a time to end water-use restrictions despite California’s improved drought situation, why the Wisconsin Supreme Court election is important, Taylor Swift’s fantastic opening to her Eras Tour, TikTok ban debates avoid the real problem with consumer data privacy, the World Baseball Classic has an amazing finish, and Tucker Carlson demonstrates remarkable self-knowledge.

Leading Off

President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago this week.

It may be difficult to recall just how intense the rush to support the invasion was in the wake of the September 11, 2001, al-Queda terrorist attacks against the United States. 

As Sam Seder often reminds his listeners during his Majority Report podcast, news networks at the time were willing to book on their programs only a very select few who were against the invasion. Those who did go on air to question the Bush Administration’s pivot to Iraq faced a vicious reaction. Seder’s then-Air America co-host Janeane Garofalo faced some of the worst of it because she was so compelling and fearless. 

Far too many reporters and pundits allowed themselves to fall for the Bush Administration’s framing that opposing the Iraq invasion was equivalent to attacking the troops. But, as Garofalo explained to the New York Times then, the anti-patriotism charge was designed to “shut down debate and thwart First Amendment rights…We are extremely supportive of the troops,” she said. “Anyone who says yes to peace and diplomacy is saying yes to the troops.”

Because of its hubris, the Bush Administration wasn’t interested in tolerating a debate about the invasion of Iraq. They held those who questioned them in disdain. They believed they were acting at a new level of politics, strategy, and history.  

In October 2004, reporter Ron Suskind shared a telling quote about this mindset in a New York Times Magazine story profiling Bush and his team prior to that year’s general election. Suskind quoted a senior advisor to Bush (who many, including me, guess was Bush Senior Advisor Karl Rove) reacting to those opposing the war preparations two years earlier:

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Talk about getting high on one’s own supply. Too many pundits took his dreck as received wisdom at the time. 

The Present Age’s Parker Malloy went back and read what pundits had to say about the Bush Administration’s case for war in 2002-03. Malloy writes:

I distinctly recall being astounded by the certainty of both reporters and pundits. Things like whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or the capabilities to create them) were treated as foregone conclusions by many in the news, and opposition to the invasion was openly talked about as being “anti-American.”

Malloy reminds us of what some of the most prominent writers had to say at the time in support of the Iraqi invasion. She features articles written by Fareed Zakaria, Matthew Yglesias, Anne Applebaum, Jeffery Goldberg, David Remnick, Richard Cohen, Bill Keller, Leon Wieseltier, Anne-Marie Slaughter, David Brooks, and Jonathan Chait.

But the pièce de résistance, for me, is what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman shared to justify the invasion on the May 29, 2003, Charlie Rose Show:

“What they [Islamic extremists] needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house—from Basra to Baghdad—and basically saying:

Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?: You don’t think we care about our open society? You think this [terrorism] fantasy [you have]—we’re just gonna let it grow? Well, suck. on. this. That, Charlie, was what this war was about. We coulda hit Saudi Arabia….We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.”

As awful as that statement was, it was at least closer to the truth of the war’s rationale than the lies Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and others said about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. 

But, tellingly, this objectionable reaction didn’t hurt Friedman’s career even as Iraq’s situation worsened. He is, of course, still a New York Times columnist to this day (talk about a job that should have term limits). Most of the people quoted by Malloy have prospered despite being wrong about one of the most consequential debates of our lifetime. 

We failed to reckon with the lies told by the Bush Administration. We haven’t held those who lied to us accountable. We didn’t elevate the people who were correct in their analysis of the situation. 

So many people were killed and injured because of the Bush Administration’s lies and zealotry and the failures of our reporters and other politicians to question Bush’s assumptions. But, hey, at least Bush and all of those reporters had a chance to get some laughs out of the situation. 

George W. Bush ‘joked’ about weapons of mass destruction at the #WHCD

Where was the outrage then?

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) 1:43 AM ∙ May 1, 2018

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Martin Santillan Exonerated After DNA Evidence Review

Dallas County District Court Judge Audra Riley declared Martin Santillan innocent of a 1997 murder for which he served 25 years in prison. 

The Dallas Morning News’ Krista M. Torralva reports about the case, the wrongful conviction, and the exoneration hearing: 

“Recent DNA testing led investigators to a man in Colorado who they believe shot [Damond] Wittman in the early morning of July 14, 1997.

In a news conference after Wednesday’s hearing, Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said that man was a juvenile at the time of the crime and state law prevents the release of his name. The suspect was detained this year in Colorado and will face court proceedings in Dallas County, Creuzot said. He could be certified to stand trial as an adult, at which point his case would become public, the DA added.

The case against Santillan rested on a sole eyewitness who picked him out of a six-person photo lineup on his second time viewing the photos with Dallas police, according to court records.

Santillan insisted he was innocent and provided an alibi, but a jury found him guilty of capital murder on March 5, 1998. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Five witnesses testified at trial that they were with Santillan at a different nightclub about 12 miles away on the night of the shooting, according to court records. One of the witnesses was a security guard, according to The News archives.

Prosecutors were wrong to take the case all the way to trial, [Dallas County District Attorney John] Creuzot said.

“Today, we would not have taken it to trial,” he said.”

And that is a point worth emphasizing—this case should never have gone to trial. 

This case also provides another example demonstrating the importance of District Attorney elections. Prosecutorial misjudgments like the one this case highlights (from a previous DA, Cruezot was elected in 2018) lead to innocent people going to jail. 

Torralva also reports about how difficult it was for Santillan and his attornies with Centurion (a national nonprofit dedicated to helping the wrongfully convicted) to get the DNA test required to clear him of the crime. 

It should be easier for people in prison to access the courts for reviews of their cases when new evidence comes to light. The goal should be to find the person guilty of the crime, not just to get a conviction at trial. 

How Close to Death Must a Woman Be to Get an Abortion in Tennessee?

Yes, this is an actual question we must confront in the wake of the radical conservative U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last summer to end the federal right to abortion. While Tennessee’s abortion ban is the strictest in the country, other conservative states appear likely to enact similar restrictions. 

The Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner explains what is happening in Tennessee as lawmakers debate whether to add exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. 

“Now a political debate over how to change the law is centered on questions that would have been considered unthinkable before last June’s reversal of Roe v Wade: like how close to death a woman must be before a doctor may legally treat her if it means terminating her pregnancy, and whether women should be forced to carry embryos with fatal anomalies to term.

Will Brewer, the powerful lobbyist of Tennessee Right to Life, a Christian anti-abortion group that wrote the current ban, has been accused of waging a campaign of intimidation against lawmakers who he has said are seeking to “weaken” the law. In public testimony and private meetings, Brewer has said women should only be offered terminations if they are facing acute emergencies – such as when they enter an emergency room “bleeding out” – and suggested some complications can “work themselves out” without medical intervention.

Speaking last week before the West Knoxville Republican Club, Brewer also questioned the veracity of medical diagnoses involving what is known as lethal fetal anomalies.

“Who’s to say with any kind of certainty what a medically futile pregnancy is or a fatal fetal anomaly, which is some condition with the baby that will not allow it to live outside of the womb?” he said.”

Doctors, you bleeping vermin. Doctors can say. 

To be clear, the proposed exceptions won’t help people who can become pregnant access care—but they may mislead voters into thinking these forced-birth Republicans are being more reasonable. We should not fall for the ruse in Tennessee or any other state. 

Also, we can expect the situation to continue to get worse, based on what almost happened in Oklahoma this week. 

The Oklahoma Supreme Court came one vote away from letting the state ban abortions that are necessary to save a patient’s life—under the theory that states have a right to favor the life of the fetus over the woman. slate.com/news-and-polit…

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) 9:08 PM ∙ Mar 21, 2023

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

The amount of rain and snow California has received from a series of bomb cyclones and atmospheric rivers has dramatically changed the drought situation in the state over the past six months. The graphic in this story includes a slider illustrating the changes. (Harriet Blair Rowan, Bay Area News Group)

But while things are better with California’s water storage system, I think it is insane that parts of the state are already lifting water use restrictions. The changing weather patterns created by the climate emergency should lead to constant caution about water use going forward. (Ian James, Los Angeles Times)

Politics

Former President Donald Trump is holding a rally in Waco, Texas, this Saturday. This event will fall during the 30th anniversary of the siege against the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, an event that has become symbolic for the far-right in this country. Trump is being as subtle here as Ronald Reagan was when he launched his 1980 general presidential campaign with a “states’ rights” speech in the same community where the Mississippi Burning murders of three civil rights workers occurred 16 years earlier. (Will Carless, USA Today)

The April 4 Wisconsin Supreme Court election could be the most important one of the year. That court has had a conservative majority since 2008, but a victory by Janet Protasiewicz would create a 4-3 liberal majority. “While state Supreme Court races have historically been overlooked in the wider electoral landscape, their composition has widespread ramifications for voting rights, civil rights and a slew of other state policy implications. State Supreme Courts are also often the final arbiters of election disputes, as demonstrated in the 2020 election cycle. Given Wisconsin’s swing state status and the looming 2024 presidential election, the outcome of this Wisconsin Supreme Court race will have impacts not only on the state, but the entire country as well.” (Ellis Champion, Democracy Docket)

We can’t make this point often enough: people who are angry about so-called “wokeness” are just doing what people with their beliefs did when they used political correctness as an epithet years ago. “To say that traditional hierarchies are just and good, well, that’s simply conservatism. It has been since the 18th century. And to say that those hierarchies do not reflect justice and that people should be equal under the law—all the people, not only propertied white men—well, that’s more or less just liberalism. But if you don’t like it, you’d probably call it woke.” (Adam Serwer, The Atlantic: h/t to Stacey Greer for sharing the article)

“You might think that any American judge would be severely penalized for tormenting an innocent child in open court, but you would be wrong. Federal judges, protected by life tenure, can mistreat people in their courtrooms, including spectators, with near impunity and little fear of meaningful punishment. That is just what happened last month in San Diego, when senior Federal District Judge Roger Benitez committed what can only be described as a blatant act of child abuse.” Judge Benitez ordered a defendant’s 13-year-old daughter handcuffed as he threatened her. There is no excuse for this abuse. In a sane world, Benitez would resign or be impeached and removed from office. (Steven Lubet, Slate)

Here is the story of the day a sitting president, Ulysses Grant, was arrested for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage. (Martin Pengelly, The Guardian)

How is this okay?

Brett Kavanaugh sent Trump a personal note saying Kavanaugh “respected” Trump after Kavanaugh signed onto an opinion that went against Trump. Totally normal stuff and why shit like this doesn’t become a scandal is beyond me

— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) 5:58 PM ∙ Mar 23, 2023

Science

Mysterious streaks of light seen in Sacramento last week were likely created by the re-entry burning of Japanese communications equipment that astronauts jettisoned from the International Space Station in 2020. (Jennifer McDermott, Associated Press)

The United States maternal mortality rate rose significantly in 2021. I believe the abortion bans that came into force in 2022 will lead to further increases. (Jacqueline Howard, CNN)

Rolls-Royce will receive funding from the United Kingdom’s Space Agency to build a nuclear reactor for astronauts to use on the moon. (Anmar Frangoul, CNBC)

Most movie theatres have red seats because of how our eyes react in low-light situations. Red is the first color we lose the ability to discern as the lights dim, known as the Purkinje effect. “As the lights dim in the theater, the seats — and the walls and curtains, which are also often red — quickly fade into darkness. That helps our eyes focus their attention on the screen, making the movie-viewing experience more enjoyable.” (Dan Lewis, Now I Know)

Technology

I want to emphasize this point that explains how banning TikTok won’t fix the privacy problems created by technology. “We’ve noted for a while now how the great TikTok moral panic of 2023 is largely a distraction. It’s a distraction from the fact we’ve refused to meaningfully regulate dodgy data brokers, who traffic in everything from your daily movement habits to your mental health diagnosis. And it’s a distraction from our corrupt failure to pass even a baseline privacy law for the internet era. Most of the folks crying the loudest about TikTok were the same people that created the policy environment that lets TikTok (and anybody else) play fast and loose with consumer data in the first place.” (Karl Bode, Techdirt)

Microsoft announced a new artificial intelligence addition to its applications, Copilot, based on the new GPT-4 from OpenAI. (Tom Warren, The Verge)

I don’t think we should be surprised to learn that there was a significant rise in antisemitic tweets on Twitter after new owner Elon Musk restored the accounts of antisemitic people. (Cristiano Lima, Washington Post)

Culture

The Ringer’s Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard take a deep dive (IYKYK) into the first weekend of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour from Swift City, Arizona (the city of Glendale temporarily changed its name) in the latest installment of their Every Single Album podcast. Forty-four songs over three hours, with no intermission, surpassing what Bruce Springsteen and Prince did in their legendary concerts. I did enjoy checking out some of Swift’s performances via TikTok live streams. 

Also, what future NFL Hall of Famer J.J. Watt said: “You can tell when somebody does something at the top of their game.”

44 Songs.
3 Hours and 15 Minutes.

So much respect @taylorswift13

When your fans pay for a ticket, they are getting their money’s worth and some.

Touché.

#TSTheErasTour

— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) 10:37 PM ∙ Mar 19, 2023

The Bay Lights art installation of lights on the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were turned off earlier this month while fundraising continues to install a new and improved version. Somehow, though, some of the strands of lights turned themselves back on a week later. That required Ben Davis of Illuminate, the nonprofit that creates public works of art, to join a team from CalTrans to literally pull the plug from a room in the bridge’s center anchorage. A reporter joined them for the trip that included the need to overcome several complications. (Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle)

The 2022 World Nature Photography Award winners are as remarkable as you’d expect them to be. The top honor went to “Jens Cullmann of Germany for his arresting image of a crocodile camouflaged in caked mud, only one of its bright yellow eyes looking directly at the camera.” (Rebekah Brandes, Nice News)

Sports

Japan went undefeated to win the 2023 World Baseball Classic, finishing the job with a 3-2 win over the United States. The final matchup of the championship game featured Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels pitching against teammate Mike Trout. You couldn’t script a better finish. 

Trout vs Ohtani lived up to the HYPE! #WorldBaseballClassic

— World Baseball Classic (@WBCBaseball) 2:52 AM ∙ Mar 22, 2023

But now let’s move this tournament in 2026 to November so players can recover from the inevitable injuries during the offseason. 

Also, Ohtani deservedly made the All-World Baseball Classic Team both as a pitcher and as a designated hitter. He is achieving things no previous player has accomplished. 

MLB just announced the All-WBC Team, which includes DH Shohei Ohtani and P Shohei Ohtani

— Emma Baccellieri (@emmabaccellieri) 3:55 AM ∙ Mar 22, 2023

The 2026 Men’s World Cup Final may have to move from Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium because the field is not wide enough to host a soccer game without taking away too many seats and therefore reducing the potential attendance below current FIFA requirements. The stadium’s owner, Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke, also owns Arsenal of the English Premier League, so I am unsure what excuse he’d have for such an oversight. (Neil deMause, Field of Schemes)

What’s Coach Beard reading? While we have to wait a week between new episodes as we progress through season three of Ted Lasso, you could use some of that gap to read this analysis of every book reference from Season 2 of the show. (Danika Ellis, Book Riot)

The Closer

We have to give Tucker Carlson credit for self-knowledge. 

Tucker: How do you convince a strong country like ours to do that? It’s pretty easy. You take a collection of dumb desperate people hoping to keep their stupid tv jobs.. and they just repeat the lies for you

— Acyn (@Acyn) 12:19 AM ∙ Mar 23, 2023

Post-Game Comments

Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:

“If one of the miseries of being human is that happiness can be snatched away at any moment, one of the joys is that it may be restored equally unexpectedly.” (Robert Harris, Dictator: A Novel of Ancient Rome)

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

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Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: we should pay attention when a former Vice President warns us about the dangers posed by a previous President, sports administrators fail, Sidney Holmes exonerated after serving 34 years in prison, anti-abortion bans targeting supportive friends, California to renovate San Quentin based on a Scandinavian model of rehabilitation, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate won’t answer whether he supports democracy, librarians struggling as book bans expand, I want to visit the Misalignment Museum in San Francisco, the history of Ted Lasso the character, Frenchies take over, and the New York Yankees won’t pay for in-flight wireless internet. 

Leading Off

Yes, I am a bit surprised to type that headline for this newsletter. But, as The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols explains, we should pay attention when Mike Pence is trying to warn us to take seriously his warnings about the danger former President Donald Trump represents. 

Pence has gotten more attention for a disgusting and homophobic joke aimed at Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during the Gridiron Dinner than what he had to say about Trump’s responsibility for the January 6 insurrection against the government of the United States. As Nichols explains: 

“Make no mistake, the joke was stupid and disrespectful, but perhaps we might zero in on the more important point: Pence told us something horrifying this weekend about the condition of our democracy. The national underreaction to his comments, however, is a warning that we have all become too complacent about the danger my former party now represents.”

This point is critical to understand. I cannot fathom why Democrats and others who wish to defend our democracy are unwilling to highlight what Pence said about Trump. A former Vice President of the United States said in a public venue that, “I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

I wish I could share Pence’s optimism. How will history hold Trump accountable if we aren’t willing to talk about what the former president did—and continues to do—to harm our democracy? 

Nichols explains how numb so many in our country have become about this extensional crisis. 

“To put into perspective how numb we’ve become, let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine, for example, if Hubert Humphrey, after the riots that broke out in 1968 at the Democratic National Convention, said later, “Lyndon Johnson encouraged those anti-war protesters and put me and hundreds of other people in danger. History will hold President Johnson accountable.” Those two sentences would have shaken the foundations of American democracy and changed history.

But not today. Instead, we’ve already moved on to whether Pence should apologize for a clumsy and offensive joke. (He should.) This, however, is the danger of complacency. What would have been a gigantic, even existential political crisis in a more virtuous and civic-minded nation is now one of many stories about Donald Trump that rush past our eyes and ears.”

I don’t plan to stop talking about how the foundations of American democracy have been shaken. We have to do what we can to influence what history will say about the aftermath.

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Sports Adults Behaving Badly

I encourage you to read this story by Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke to see another example of the harm created when sports administrators insist they need to follow the letter of their rules in extraordinary situations. 

There is no excuse for what the sports adults did after Cerritos College Coach Russ May put Kade West into the game for the last 1:39 of a blowout. This story should have been pure inspiration about the power of athletics.

Instead, May and West’s teammates are the only people who deserve our admiration. As Plaschke writes: 

“West shot out of his seat. He raced into the action. He sprinted up and down for those final moments while working up the sweat of a lifetime. He took one shot, and missed it, but by the time Cerritos had finished off an 81-60 victory, he was being cheered by the tearful Porterville fans, hugged by everyone in sight, and celebrated for representing all that is right about this increasingly cold world of sports.

“I know the rules, but the human part of me took over,” said May. “It was an incredible moment.”

Followed, sadly, by a series of even more incredible moments.

May was suspended for a game. Cerritos was ordered to forfeit the victory. And West was temporarily stripped of his uniform.

The extra loss cost the Falcons a first-round bye in the postseason tournament, where they distractedly lost that opening game to lower-seeded Copper Mountain in double overtime, their sterling season collapsing under the weight of the kindest of gestures.

The CCCAA had dropped the hammer, Cerritos College had administered the blow, and what was once so beautiful became broken.”

California Community College Athletic Association Commissioner Jennifer Cardone, Cerritos College Athletic Director Rory Natividad, and every member of the CCCAA Board of Directors should have already resigned after the exposure of their decision to defend a rule over what was best for a student-athlete. The next best time for them to resign is today. Right now. 

And then, they should go to see West and humbly apologize for causing him distress due to their failures in this situation.

Sidney Holmes Exonerated

In April 1989, Sidney Holmes was convicted of being a getaway driver for two men who committed armed robberies. While the two people who committed the robberies remain unidentified, a judge sentenced Holmes to 400 years in prison.

Holmes was exonerated and set free last week after serving over 34 years in prison. CBS News’ Aliza Chasan writes:

“During CRU’s [State Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit] review of Holmes’ case, it determined eyewitness identification of Holmes during the initial investigation was likely incorrect and that there was no evidence connecting Holmes to the robbery outside of the flawed identification.

An investigation launched by the brother of one of the victims also found that Holmes’ car was likely misidentified at the time and that key differences between his Oldsmobile and the one used by the robbers were overlooked, Pryor said.”

I have questions about the original trial and that sentence (400 years for being a getaway car driver, seriously?). But for today, I am glad Holmes has been set free and has a chance to reclaim some of the life taken away from him. 

Anti-Abortion Laws Targeting Friendship

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern explain the ramifications of a Texas case where a man is suing three friends of his ex-wife for communicating with her as she decided whether to have a self-administered medicinal abortion. Lithwick and Stern write: 

“Imagine being so afraid of the father of your two daughters that—having told him you’re divorcing him, and then subsequently suspecting you are pregnant—you feel you have to take the pregnancy test at work. As you later confess to two friends, via text: “I trashed it in a big can at work like outside in a bag. I didn’t take that home.” Imagine that the man who’d gotten you pregnant was such a bully, one of your friends would text back: “I just worry about your emotional state and he’ll be able to snake his way into your head.”

Imagine deciding that you must terminate this pregnancy, and you must do so while the father of your daughters remains unaware. You tell your two friends, and they caution that “you need to remove yourself from him,” because if he finds out about the pregnancy, he will “try to act like he has some right to the decision.” The sentiment is articulated by one of your friends, but shared by you, so thank goodness that you have both of them to help you understand your legal situation and eventually help you access a medication abortion that safely terminates your pregnancy.

And now imagine that your now-ex-husband—having discovered all this—decides to align himself with some of the most powerful opponents of reproductive rights in the country in order to punish you.”

Abortion, Every Day’s Jessica Valenti has been warning us for months that this is one of the ways the forced-birth fanatics were going to try to keep people from helping their friends as they face these difficult decisions. That abusive men were going to weaponize these laws as another way to control and terrorize their partners. If text messages can lead to a $1 million penalty, how many people will not be willing to send a reply? How many people will not be willing to seek help and put their friends in such a situation?

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

The California Legislative Women’s Caucus and the California Future of Abortion Council announced their 2023 bill package—including 17 bills—on reproductive justice and abortion rights. (California Legislative Women’s Caucus Press Release)

The California Department of Finance Bulletin for March 2023 reported that the state’s General Fund revenues were $1.4 billion below projections. For the 2022-23 fiscal year, revenues are now $4.7 billion (4.1 percent) below Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) January budget projections. The state budget debate is getting more challenging. (Jason Sisney, #CABudget Info)

A major expansion of California’s higher education financial aid programs set to go into effect in 2024 is now in jeopardy because of the lower state revenue projections. (Michael Burke, EdSource)

As part of the state tour he took in place of the typical State of the State Address, Newsom visited San Quentin to announce that the prison will be transformed using Scandinavian methods into the largest center of rehabilitation, education, and training in the California prison system. “The plan for San Quentin is “not just about reform, but about innovation,” a chance to “hold ourselves to a higher level of ambition and look to completely reimagine what prison means.” (Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times)

My two favorite states—Maine and California—are locked in a legal battle over the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s decision to include lobster on its “red list” of seafood to avoid. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is leading a defamation lawsuit against the Aquarium because of the negative impact the listing has on the lobster industry. (Patrick Whittle, Associated Press)

Politics

Axios fired Ben Montgomery, one of their local Florida reporters, after Governor Ron DeSantis’ (R) media team publicly targeted the journalist with public criticism. Such fear and capitulations by media institutions are one way authoritarians win. (Hunter Walker, Talking Points Memo)

The most important election of 2023 is taking place in Wisconsin for a seat on the state’s Supreme Court (see this Dan Moynihan piece I featured in Issue #37 of this newsletter for more details). The stakes came into even more focus when the conservative candidate, Daniel Kelly, refused to complete a survey about his support for democracy. (Matthew Chapman, Raw Story)

Speaking of democracy, the conservative Federalist Society is hosting discussions about whether they want to defend leaving lawmaking to legislatures through judicial restraint now that radical conservatives control the Supreme Court. “That approach made sense for conservatives when they still saw the federal judiciary as a liberal force dragging the country to the left. But now that conservatives have secured a solid majority on the Supreme Court — and voters in several red states have soundly rejected hard-line positions on abortion — a spirited debate is underway within the Federalist Society about the wisdom of deferring to democratic majorities as a matter of principle.” (Ian Ward, Politico)

Librarians are struggling with the attacks they face as authoritarian Republicans pass bills to ban books from school libraries and classrooms. “Nearly every tumultuous movement in American politics has coincided with a call to ban books. “This piece of it is nothing new to librarians,” Allison Grubbs, the director of the Broward County Libraries in Florida, told me. “What I think is new is some of the pathways that people are choosing to take.” Protests in and outside libraries and library board meetings have become more dramatic. Online, in Facebook groups such as “Informed Parents of California” and “Gays Against Grooming,” the language is more and more incendiary. And the librarians themselves are being personally attacked.” (Xochitl Gonzalez. The Atlantic)

We must not accept the framing that bills recently introduced to make child labor easier are required because of a labor shortage. There isn’t a labor shortage. It’s just another example of corporate greed seeking to keep worker wages artificially low. (Adam Johnson, The Column)

Science

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to have ramifications in science. In President Biden’s 2024 federal budget request, NASA included a request for funds to develop a new space tug to safely deorbit the International Space Station over the open ocean when its operational life ends. The plan had been to use Russian cargo vehicles, but it is clear an alternative strategy may be necessary. (Mike Wall, Space.com)

A new study indicates another risk we may face as global heating melts permafrost. “A team of climate scientists from France, Russia and Germany has found that ancient viruses dormant for tens of thousands of years in permafrost can infect modern amoeba when they are revived.” (Bob Yirka, Phys.org)

Technology

HP is facing criticism after firmware updates prevent users from using third-party ink cartridges. (Scharon Harding, Ars Technica)

I need to find time to get to San Francisco to visit the Misalignment Museum. “The concept of the museum is that we are in a post-apocalyptic world where artificial general intelligence has already destroyed most of humanity,” said Audrey Kim, the show’s curator. “But then the AI realizes that was bad and creates a type of memorial to the human, so our show’s tagline is ‘sorry for killing most of humanity,’” she said.” (Julie Jammot, Science Alert)

Culture

Here’s how Ted Lasso went from a character three friends (Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis, and Joe Kelly) developed while living in Amsterdam to becoming the award-winning series on Apple TV+. (Joe Pompliano, Huddle Up)

The American Kennel Club announced that the French Bulldog is the most popular purebred dog, breaking a 31-year streak for Labrador retrievers at the top of that list. (Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press)

Despite its connection to the British, the origin of the “stiff upper lip” actually lies in the United States. (Isti Bhattacharya, JSTOR Daily)

Sports

The New York Yankees are estimated to be worth $6 billion, the highest value in Major League Baseball. But they make their players pay for in-flight internet as they travel. (Stephanie Apstein, Sports Illustrated)

Diamond Sports Group, the company that controls the regional sports networks for 42 teams in Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and National Basketball Association, filed for bankruptcy. This could be an early move in a transformation of the way professional sports teams are paid for the broadcasts of their games as streaming becomes more prominent. (Alden Gonzalez, ESPN)

The Closer

Yeah, the new baseball rules appear to be working as intended.

Landon Knack throwing an entire half inning vs. Pedro Báez throwing 1 pitch.

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) 10:08 PM ∙ Feb 27, 2023

Post-Game Comments

Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection: “Tell me what you remember, and I will tell you who you are. Tell me what you are allowed to remember, and I will tell you who rules you.”—Timothy Snyder, Belarus (2/5): Nation Next

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: 

Leonard Leo begins revealing how he will spend the largest-known political advocacy donation in U.S. history, President Biden wrongly capitulates to conservative pressure over the D.C. crime reform bill, a new map allows us to see just how difficult it is for many people to access reproductive health services, why Fox News viewers don’t care about the lies, a sunset on Mars, scammers are now using AI voice imitation technology, the impact of local news deserts, and a famous doctor was in the house. 

Leading Off 

Despite never holding elected office, Leonard Leo has been one of our country’s most influential political activists over the past 20 years. As a long-time leader of the Federalist Society, Leo helped to create an effective network of conservative lawyers and judges. 

Leo’s great achievement, though, is the current radical conservative supermajority on the United States Supreme Court. Greg Olear explains how in his Prevail Substack newsletter: 

In the 50 years since Roe v. Wade, many individuals played a role in the fascistic assault on safe, legal abortion—not least the odious Supreme Court Justices who ignored popular opinion, medical science, and stare decisis in issuing the abominable Dobbs decision.

But if we pull back a little, we see that the reversal of Roe is largely the work of a single man. His name is Leonard Leo. He is a staunch—and, in my view, a radical—Catholic. He is the master of puppets behind the Federalist Society, the Judicial Crisis Network, Becket, the 85 Fund, and other dark money groups. As Trump’s “judge whisperer,” he is responsible for the installation of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, where they joined his radical Catholic chums Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and John Roberts.

And, as Olear explains later in his post, Leo has also made out quite well financially while doing this unpaid advisory work for Trump. Interesting how often that happens. 

Leo now has even grander ambitions to remake the country, and thanks to the largest known political advocacy donation in U.S. history—worth an estimated $1.6 billion—he has the resources to try to build on his judicial success. ProPublica’s Andy Kroll and Andrea Bernstein joined together with Documented’s Nick Surgey to report on how Leo has started to spend that money:

“Now, Leo declared in a slick but private video to potential donors, he planned to “crush liberal dominance” across American life. The country was plagued by “woke-ism” in corporations and education, “one-sided journalism” and “entertainment that’s really corrupting our youth,” said Leo amid snippets of cheery music and shots of sunsets and American flags.

Sitting tucked into a couch, with wire-rimmed glasses and hair gone to gray, Leo conveyed his inspiration and intentions: “I just said to myself, ‘Well, if this can work for law, why can’t it work for lots of other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right now?’”

Leo revealed his latest battle plan in the previously unreported video for the Teneo Network, a little-known group he called “a tremendously important resource for the future of our country.”

Teneo is building what Leo called in the video “networks of conservatives that can roll back” liberal influence in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, among authors and academics, with pro athletes and Hollywood producers. A Federalist Society for everything.”

Liberals ignored the Federalist Society until it was too late. Obama’s first Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, infamously told a group of activists he didn’t “give a fuck about judicial appointments.” 

Yeah, that didn’t work out so well. 

Hopefully, we won’t make the same mistake with what Leo is now trying to do with Teneo. He has started to explain what he plans to do. Will any liberal donors step up to help fight back?

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Biden’s Appalling D.C. Law Capitulation

President Biden last week announced that he had changed his mind and would now sign legislation pushed by Republicans to overturn the District of Columbia’s attempt to update its criminal codes. 

So much for D.C. home rule!

Conservative activists have been lying about what the bill would do. But rather than fight back, Biden capitulated and handed the Republicans a win. Biden also hurt Democratic members of the House because he announced his change of heart after they had already voted to support D.C.’s reform effort. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern outlines what was at stake: 

“In a single tweet, the president reversed more than two years of staunch support for home rule—abandoning his principles the moment they became politically inexpedient. Biden announced that he would sign legislation nullifying the modernization of D.C.’s criminal code. His action will, perversely, make the District less safe, preserving an outdated 122-year-old criminal code whose ambiguities actually make it harder for prosecutors to charge violent crimes.

Just as importantly, Biden’s decision will empower congressional Republicans to continue overriding D.C.’s democratically enacted legislation, including progressive laws expanding the rights of immigrants, abortion providers, LGBTQ people, and other vulnerable groups. The president has, in effect, declared open season on the District’s democracy.”

In a January 2023 Slate article, Stern went into even more detail to explain the Republican lies about this effort to update D.C.’s legal code:

“The legislation that D.C. passed in January is not a traditional reform bill, but the result of a 16-year process to overhaul a badly outdated, confusing, and often arbitrary criminal code. The revision’s goal was to modernize the law by defining elements of each crime, eliminating overlap between offenses, establishing proportionate penalties, and removing archaic or unconstitutional provisions. Every single change is justified in meticulous reports that span thousands of pages. Each one was crafted with extensive public input and support from both D.C. and federal prosecutors. Eleventh-hour criticisms of the bill rest on misunderstandings, willful or otherwise, about its purpose and effect. They malign complex, technocratic updates as radical concessions to criminals. In many cases, criticisms rest on sheer legal illiteracy about how criminal sentencing actually works.

The D.C. bill is not a liberal wishlist of soft-on-crime policies. It is an exhaustive and entirely mainstream blueprint for a more coherent and consistent legal system. “

This effort was worth supporting, even beyond the need to support D.C. home rule as part of efforts to get D.C. statehood.

And you know what? Republicans are still going to lie about crime issues in the upcoming election. Biden’s reversal just made that easier. 

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Abortion, Every Day

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. 

I wanted to highlight a new map that shows how difficult it is for many women and people who can become pregnant to receive reproductive health care services. As Valenti writes: 

“Middlebury College economics professor Caitlin Myers put together an epic analysis of abortion access, mapping things like travel time and distance to clinics from anti-choice states. FiveThirtyEight put together an interactive using her work and it’s an amazing tool that visualizes just how far patients will have to go in order to get care.”

Using this map, you can also see how much worse the situation could become if more states—like Florida or North Carolina—ban abortion access. On average, counties are 87 miles away from their closest facility. But people in Cameron County, Texas, are about 831 miles from the nearest facility. It is hard in the south and parts of the midwest. 

Also, Valenti’s This Week in Abortion features provides a quick recap of last week’s developments. Here you can catch up on stories, including California Governor Gavin Newsom revoking a contract with Walgreens after the pharmacy announced it would not distribute abortion medication in red states, Florida’s new six-week abortion ban proposal, and a Texas man who is suing three friends of his ex-wife because he claims they helped his ex-wife get abortion services. 

Quick Pitches

California

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the state filed a lawsuit against the City of Huntington Beach after its city council passed several ordinances to defy the state’s housing laws. The result of this standoff will have a statewide impact and could determine whether California can force cities to deal with their share of the state’s housing emergency. (Taryn Luna, Hannah Wiley, and Hannah Fry, The Los Angeles Times)

California’s income tax receipts were 25 percent below projections in February because of a combination of larger-than-expected refunds to corporations and smaller-than-expected personal income tax withholding receipts. Legislators will also have a more difficult time knowing just how significant the revenue shortfall is because of the tax filing extensions many Californians have received because of the severe weather that has impacted the state. (Jason Sisney, #CABudget Info)

Will any prominent Republican run for the seat now held by retiring U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein? Even if they found someone, it’s clear that the candidate won’t receive significant financial assistance. (Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times)

This new profile about former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger makes clear that he is looking for a meaningful final act for his career. In a rational political universe, California Republicans would at least ask him to consider running for a U.S. Senate seat no other leading Republican seems to want. Also, this profile has a great lede. (Mark Leibovich, The Atlantic)

Politics

Why won’t Fox News viewers hold Tucker Carlson and other opinion hosts responsible for the lies exposed in the legal filings from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit? Because Fox News viewers like being in on the lie. “Carlson has learned something since he sent texts following the 2020 election questioning whether viewers were prepared to believe that Hugo Chavez was manipulating the nation’s election results from the grave: The right-wing viewership of Fox is willing to believe even the most obvious and absurd lies — as long as those falsehoods support their belief that they are on the side of righteousness and their adversaries on the left are evil.” (Aaron Rupar and David Lurie, Public Notice)

Author Jodi Picoult reacts to 20 of her books being banned in Martin County, Florida, by a school board implementing the authoritarian laws pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R). “Most of the books pulled do not even have a single kiss in them,” Picoult told us. “They do, however, include gay characters, and issues like racism, disability, abortion rights, gun control, and other topics that might make a kid think differently from their parents.” So the law is working just as DeSantis intends. (Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman, The Washington Post)

The ACLU is currently tracking 409 bills that have been introduced in State Legislatures targeting the rights of LGBTQ people. That number continues to grow. (American Civil Liberties Union)

Science

During its 45th flight, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter captured a sunset over the Jezero crater. We shouldn’t take for granted our ability to get such a photo from a helicopter on another planet. (Josh Dinner, Space.com)

A newly discovered comet could appear as bright as a star in our night sky by the fall of 2024. “Astronomers estimate that the comet orbits the sun only once every 80,660 years. This trip around, the comet will make its closest approach to the sun — known as perihelion — on Sept. 28, 2024, according to EarthSky.” (Stephanie Pappas, Space.com)

Technology

Scammers are using artificial intelligence technology to imitate the voices of loved ones in schemes targeting the elderly. “Card, 73, and her husband, Greg Grace, 75, dashed to their bank in Regina, Saskatchewan, and withdrew 3,000 Canadian dollars ($2,207 in U.S. currency), the daily maximum. They hurried to a second branch for more money. But a bank manager pulled them into his office: Another patron had gotten a similar call and learned the eerily accurate voice had been faked, Card recalled the banker saying. The man on the phone probably wasn’t their grandson.” (Pranshu Verma, The Washington Post)

Meta is building a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates leveraging its Instagram user base. I have agreed with those like Casey Newton, who saw an opportunity for Meta here to take advantage of the degradation of Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover. (Casey Newton, Platformer)

The BBC Monitoring Disinformation Team reviewed 1,100 accounts that Elon Musk restored after taking over the social media company. More than a third of these accounts are spreading disinformation or promoting hate and violence. (BBC Monitoring)

Elon Musk plans to build a town outside of Austin, Texas, that his team is calling Snailbrook. “In meetings with landowners and real-estate agents, Mr. Musk and employees of his companies have described his vision as a sort of Texas utopia along the Colorado River, where his employees could live and work.” Those elections should be fun to watch. (Kirsten Grind, Rebecca Elliott, Ted Mann, and Julie Bykowicz, The Wall Street Journal)

Culture

Nieman Lab explores how Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the nation, has destroyed newspapers nationwide after its 2019 merger with what was then the second-largest newspaper chain. It has cut more than half of the reporting jobs that previously existed, and circulation has dropped by nearly 67 percent. This result has real consequences in communities. “When the local paper stops reporting, there’s often no one else to take its place. Everyone gets a little less informed about the world around them. And Gannett has increased local ignorance at a scale no other company can match.” (Joshua Benton, Nieman Lab)

That Nieman Lab report notes that Gannett should consider thanking Alden Global Capitol because the latter’s mismanagement of newspapers is better known and has helped to protect Gannett from criticism. Alden, though, is responsible for gutting the newspapers in the East Bay community where I live, creating a local news desert where coverage of what happens in city councils and school boards is now incredibly rare. Craig Lazzeretti, who used to write for the East Bay Times (one of the newspapers owned by an Alden subsidiary), explains how news deserts negatively impact communities. Lazzeretti focuses on a current situation where a lack of local issues coverage has made it difficult for people living in Martinez, California, to find out about the significant health ramifications created by a “spent catalyst” accident that occurred at a local refinery last Thanksgiving. “For many residents, however, this was all news to them, and it serves to underscore what many of us have been saying about the demise of local news in recent years, not just in Martinez but across the country: Residents (due to no fault of their own) are increasingly left in the dark about events that directly impact their quality of life and well-being, and there’s only so much well-meaning government officials can do to get the word out amid this information vacuum…” (Craig Lazzeretti, Martinez News and Views)

“Toblerone, the chocolate bar known for its distinctive triangular peaks, is losing the Matterhorn mountain from its logo after falling afoul of strict marketing rules on “Swissness.” (Rachel Pannett, The Washington Post)

Sports

Here’s the story about the growth of Gatorade and how the four scientists who created it became billionaires after a few twists and turns. (Joe Pompliano, Huddle Up)

FIFA, the global soccer organizing body, appears to be backtracking on its decision to allow Saudi Arabia to sponsor this summer’s Women’s World Cup. Numerous athletes—and representatives of the host nations of Australia and New Zealand—noted that a country known for violating the human rights of its women was not an appropriate sponsor for a women’s championship event. “If this hasn’t already sent a message to Fifa, it should: underestimate the power of these players at your peril. This is not the men’s game, where heads stay lowered beneath the parapet for fear of upsetting the paymasters. In the women’s game, participants feel a greater sense of ownership and harbour an inbuilt protectionism of their sport. Here, it really does feel like the game of the people, for the people. This is their tournament, not the sponsors’.” (Daniel Storey, iNews)

U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team player Tim Ream does a great thing here. 

Fulham captain Tim Ream takes the pitch wearing noise-canceling headphones, as show of solidarity with child he’s accompanying. 🎧🤍

— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) 2:12 PM ∙ Mar 12, 2023

The Closer

When perhaps the most famous doctor in America happens to be in the house. Thankfully, the woman who needed help here was fine and could stay for the rest of the event. 

Last night at the Gridiron Dinner in DC, maybe 10 feet from me and @sarahagruen, a woman collapsed, hit her head on a table, and was laying on the floor without moving.

People gather trying to help, but no one is sure what to do. Someone goes to find a doctor.

They found one.

— Chandler Dean (@chandlerjdean) 4:01 PM ∙ Mar 12, 2023

Post-Game Comments

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: 

Leading Off

One of my favorite writers, Joe Posnanski, takes a detailed dive into the Major League Baseball rule changes designed to bring more action and a faster pace to the game. 

I have often been a baseball traditionalist, slow to accept changes like the Wild Card. There are changes I still do not like, as this shirt that I purchased during the 2020 pandemic shutdown to support Nisei Lounge, my favorite Wrigleyville bar, demonstrates.

Ahem. 

But I find myself all in on these new baseball rules. My favorite sport needs more action and a faster pace. Desperately. As Posnanski writes: 

See, changes are coming to baseball in 2023 . . . and beyond. Big changes. Game-altering changes. Why now? Well, baseball has finally decided to draw a line in the sand. The issues facing the sport have long been in the news. Attendance has gone down over the past ten years. Surveys show that baseball keeps losing ground to basketball and soccer, especially among young fans. Baseball’s shrinking television ratings are a more complicated story than many make them out to be—local television ratings are still strong—but it is simply true that the 2022 World Series was the second lowest rated since they began tracking the numbers five decades ago, ahead of only the Covid World Series in 2020.

Even more to the point: Baseball’s ever-slowing pace and the rapid increase in strikeouts have come to exasperate even hardcore fans. They have been adamant in every survey that MLB has done: “Give us more action!”

And now, yes, MLB reacts. Finally.

So all at once, we will get a pitch clock, larger bases, and restrictions on defensive shifts. 

I used to hope that the game would return to balance by itself. That managers and players would find ways to deal with the defensive shifts (will someone please bunt down towards that open area where the third baseman used to be before he shifted to short right field). That batters would figure out how to improve against a seemingly endless parade of 100-MPH-throwing relief pitchers. Eventually, we would see more hits, not just the three true outcomes of strikeouts, walks, and home runs. But, as Posnanski explains, that hasn’t happened. 

That’s the thing that MLB did not anticipate: Keeping the rules the same did not prevent baseball from rapidly and substantially changing. It only prevented MLB from having any say in what those changes would look like.

That’s why these changes are necessary. Major League Baseball has to retake control of the game before it loses a generation of fans to other sports that understand this dynamic. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Power of Radical Acceptance

Exoneree Amanda Knox recently shared a thread on Twitter about an epiphany she experienced while in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder and being publicly shamed globally. 

The thread is a wonderful description of the power of radical acceptance. As Knox writes: 

My epiphany was this: I was not, as I had assumed for my first two years of trial and imprisonment, waiting to get my life back. I was not some lost tourist waiting to go home. I was a prisoner, and prison was my home.

I’d thought I was in limbo, awkwardly positioned between my life (the life I should have been living), and someone else’s life (the life of a murderer). I wasn’t. I never had been.

The conviction, the sentence, the prison cell—*this* was my life. There was no life I *should* have been living. There was only my life, this life, unfolding before me.

Knox describes in the thread how this understanding allowed her to build a meaningful life in prison while she continued to work toward exoneration. She focused on the things within her power—staying healthy, helping other prisoners, and doing anything to make each day worth living. This reality may have been sad, but it was better than wishing for something she did not have. 

It was a sadness brimming with energy beneath the surface, because I was alive with myself and my sanity, and the freeing feeling of seeing reality clearly, however sad that reality was.

I was slowly and deliberately walking a tightrope across a bottomless foggy abyss, with no clue where I was going and nothing to hold onto but my strong, instinctual sense of balance.

In many ways, though I’m now free, legally vindicated, a woman with a career in the arts (as I’d always dreamed), an advocate for justice (which I never dreamed), a wife with a loving husband, a mother with a joyous child…I’m still walking that tightrope.

The abyss never leaves. It’s always there. And anyone who’s stared into it, as I have, knows the strange comfort of carrying it with you.

Indeed. 

Knox concludes her thread by demonstrating why, as Philip Larkin wrote in his poem The Mower:

We should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   

While there is still time.

This is a picture of me in the prison yard in the thick of all of this. Everyone is going through something, even when they’re smiling. If that sounds like you, I hope reading this helps.

— Amanda Knox (@amandaknox) 6:09 PM ∙ Feb 24, 2023

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

Here’s where California’s reservoirs levels stand after the recent rain and snow we’ve experienced. The situation is better, but we still need to be careful about our water use. (Danielle Echeverria, San Francisco Chronicle)

This better be only an initial step. “A civilian oversight commission has called on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to ban deputy gangs and the tattoos that mark a deputy’s membership.” (Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times)

Last week a Los Angeles judge declared Maurice Hastings “factually innocent” of a murder for which he had served 38 years in prison. A DNA analysis cleared him of the crime last year. Hastings sought the DNA analysis in 2000, but prosecutors refused the request. (Associated Press)

Assembly Member Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) has authored a proposed Constitutional Amendment that would give the Governor the power to appoint the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. My experience working for one—and the past 30 years of state budget decisions—have convinced me that this is a necessary reform if we ever hope to see the California Department of Education receive the funding it needs to help our teachers and students effectively. (Diana Lambert, EdSource)

Fox News’ lies about the 2020 election continue to have real-world consequences. The new radical conservative majority on the Shasta County Board of Supervisors has voted to end its contract with Dominion Voting Systems. This decision will cost Shasta County, which is already facing financial difficulties, hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra expenses. I suspect this will come up in Dominion’s current defamation lawsuit against Fox News. (Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times)

California’s workplace safety rules do not currently cover domestic workers. A new bill by Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) would eliminate that exclusion and codify recommendations by an advisory committee of workers, advocates, domestic worker employers, and occupational safety experts. (Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters)

Politics

A Ukrainian postage stamp released to mark the first anniversary of the Russian invasion features a mural drawn by Banksy on a demolished wall in a town northwest of Kyiv. It also includes the phrase “FCK PTN” in Cyrillic. I hope someone mails a message to the Kremlin. (Jason Kottke, Kottke.org)

A court in Belarus has sentenced Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ales Bialiatski, a leading human rights activist, to ten years in prison. Bialiatski founded the Viasna Human Rights Centre, which has documented the jailing and torture of prisoners by the regime of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko. The right to protest a government is fragile. (Oliver Slow, BBC News)

The Supreme Court last week handed down a decision with an unprecedented 5-4 split that saw Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson join Justice Neil Gorsuch in the majority against a dissent written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Yes, that’s a sentence containing a few surprises. “What does it all mean? On the surface, not a lot: Bittner is a minor case about civil penalties for people who fail to disclose their foreign accounts to the IRS. Dig deeper, though, and the decision suggests a certain libertarianism in Jackson’s jurisprudence that may distinguish her from the two other progressive justices. That trait does not map neatly onto the left–right divide that emerges in so many cases, as Tuesday’s ruling demonstrated. Instead, it points toward a skepticism of government power that should cheer civil libertarians across the political spectrum.” I look forward to seeing how this develops. (Mark Joseph Stern, Slate)

Are Democrats finally ready to take on Fox News after depositions in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems show that the network knowingly deceived its viewers about the 2020 election because it feared losing viewers? It’s long past time for Democrats to take action—including asking why it is still the default network on televisions on far too many military bases—but I’m skeptical they will follow through. (Greg Sargent, Washington Post)

Speaking of Fox News and Dominion, Aaron Rupar interviews Media Matters Senior Fellow Matt Gertz about the ramifications of Rupert Murdoch’s stunning deposition. “I was heartened by Biden’s refusal to do a Super Bowl interview with Fox News,” Gertz said. “I think that’s the right call and it has been absolutely vindicated by these filings, which show how deceitful Fox News is and that it’s a fundamentally political actor.” (Aaron Rupar, Public Notice)

Senator Elizabeth Warren is right to call out the overreach of Roberts and his conservative colleagues during the oral arguments of the student debt relief lawsuit. “When Justice Roberts asks about fairness rather than focusing on statutory interpretation or constitutional issues, he’s becoming a super legislator. That’s not his job,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told TPM. “It is not the role of the United States Supreme Court to make those judgements.” I’m old enough to remember when Chief Justice John Roberts claimed during his nomination process that “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them.” What’s the point of having these nomination hearings of the judges are just going to lie through them? 

Japan has discovered 7,000 more islands than it previously claimed, thanks to advances in mapping technology and volcanic eruptions. (Nikki Main, Gizmodo)

Science

Professor Ronald Mallett pursued a successful career as a theoretical physicist, drawing inspiration from the early death of his father to a heart attack. “A year after losing his father, Boyd, at the age of 10, Mallett picked up a copy of HG Wells’s The Time Machine and had an epiphany: he was going to build his own time machine, travel back to 1955 and save his father’s life.” (Daniel Lavelle, The Guardian)

Five months after the Double Asteroid Redirection Test successfully collided with the asteroid Dimorphos, a new study shares more details about the results of this potential planetary defense strategy. (Sharmila Kuthunur, Space.com)

Technology

David Friedman wanted to recreate the feel of reading comics in a newspaper, seeing a group of them all at once. But he doesn’t know how to write code himself. Here’s the story about how he asked ChatGPT to do the coding for him with surprisingly good results. (David Friedman, Ironic Sans)

A group of Boeing engineers used their expertise in aerospace engineering and a passion for origami to set a new Guinness World Record by throwing a paper airplane 290 feet. (Mychaela Kekeris, Boeing News Now)

The next stage in AI surveillance technology will not just identify you—but also who your friends are. It would be great if state or federal lawmakers would try to protect our privacy rights before it is too late. (Noah Bierman, Los Angeles Times)

Society

The border between the United States and Canada—the longest in the world—spans 5,525 miles. There is one remaining land border dispute between the two nations, as both claim Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine (or Grand Manan, New Brunswick). Here is the story about how one U.S. family has kept the border dispute alive since one of their Quaker ancestors, Tall Barney, traveled there in an attempt to avoid service in the Civil War. (Cara Giaimo, Atlas Obscura)

A new study by WordFinderX concludes that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has the most words per minute of any television show (176.2). (Sharon Knolle, The Wrap)

Dictionary.com has added 313 new entries, including self-coup, latine, rage farming, petfluencer, nearlywed, hellscape, talmbout, cakeage—and a favorite of many soccer fans—tifo. (Nick Norlen, Dictionary.com)

TURKEY EARTHQUAKE TIFO 🇹🇷❤️Fans of Turkish club Trabzonspor unveiled this remarkable TIFO ahead of today’s game with Basel in honor of emergency workers who are still sifting through the rubble of an earthquake that killed 42,000 some 10 days ago.

— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) 7:44 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2023

A Tennessee court has blocked the expansion of Jack Daniel’s whiskey warehouses because the “angel’s share” ethanol vapor emanating from whiskey barrels is leading to the spread of a black whiskey fungus coating the neighborhoods near the distillery. (Ed Pilkington, The Guardian)

Back to the Future: The Musical will open on Broadway this summer and has cast Casey Likes as Marty McFly. (Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly)

Here are five legendary lost cities that have never been found. (Ancient Origins Unleashed)

Sports

A recent NAIA-level softball playoff game featured a wonderful moment of fair play. Grand View University catcher Kaitlyn Moses hit a go-ahead grand slam but collapsed while approaching second base because of an injury. Under the game’s rules, Moses would have been called out if any of her teammates helped her finish her home run. But there is no such restriction for the other team. Two Southeastern University players carried Moses around to touch second, third, and home plate to give Grand View the lead in a game they would win 7-4. 

GVU wins game 1, 7 to 4. This game was not about the win but about the amazing sportsmanship shown by SEU softball players. After a grand slam by Moses and injury, SEU players carried her to touch each base to allow her run to count. @NAIA_SB @AthleticsViking

— Grand View University Softball (@GVU_Softball) 8:33 PM ∙ Feb 25, 2023

The NWSL’s Orlando Pride are switching to black shorts for their away kit in recognition of player comfort concerns while menstruating. Momentum seems to be building toward women’s sports teams ending the practice of featuring white shorts in their uniforms. This is a long-overdue change. (Jason Anderson, Pro Soccer Wire)

During spring training, New York Mets pitcher Max Scherzer has aggressively tested the limits of the new pitch clock rules. In his last start, he thought he had an inning-ending double play. But it was a strikeout instead because of a pitch clock violation Scherzer helped to force. Then things got weird, as Molly Knight recaps: “Well, uh. Here’s what happened next. With one out, CJ Abrams grounded out to first. Had Adams’ double play stood, the inning would have been over with no runs scored. But that’s not what happened. The next eight hitters went: single, homer, error, double, single, double, double, HBP.” This is precisely the kind of chaos we should see in spring training so the players can figure out what they can do when the games start to count. (Molly Knight, The Long Game)

Sonoma County’s 98-year-old Art Schallock is the oldest surviving Major League Baseball player. He won three World Series as a pitcher for the New York Yankees. Fun fact: to make room for Schallock on the roster when they signed him, the Yankees had to send a struggling rookie back to the minors—future Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle. (Austin Murphy, Sonoma Press Democrat)

The Closer

XKCD’s Randall Munroe is warning you. 

As Now I Know’s Dan Lewis explains: “A warning before you read today’s email any further: I’m going to show you something annoying that you may have never noticed before. But once I show you, you’ll start noticing it here and there — not everywhere, thankfully! — and it’ll bother you every time. It’s not gross. It’s totally safe for work. It’s G-rated. It’s just annoying.

It’s called “kerning.” That’s a typographical term — it means, basically, “the spacing between letters.” And this is your final warning before it becomes a minor point of frustration in your life.”

Oh, it’s not a minor frustration, as more than a few of my friends have experienced while hanging out with me. And seriously, the Seattle Mariners need to do something about their navy uniforms. 

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: 

Leading Off

Jonathan Katz published an outstanding biography about General Smedley Butler last year. In Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, The Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire, Katz chronicles the career of the Fighting Quaker who played a role in so many of our nation’s empire-building efforts—from Guantanamo Bay to the Philippines, Panama Canal, China, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Mexico. 

But those experiences actually soured Butler on what the United States was doing overseas. He would explain later that he was “a racketeer for capitalism.” The people behind the Business Plot of 1933, a proposed coup against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, didn’t understand Butler’s real feelings about the political situation when they offered him the dictatorship of the United States. Instead, Butler exposed the conspiracy. 

It’s quite a life, and Katz’s book is one of the best I’ve read recently. Learning about Smedley Butler provides much context about our nation’s post-Civil War history. Given how the Business Plot echoes in today’s politics, I am sure we will return to Butler’s story in the future. 

After reading that book, I researched Katz’s career. I learned that Katz first came to prominence as the Associated Press correspondent in Haiti during the aftermath of the January 12, 2010, earthquake that ended up being the deadliest ever in the Western Hemisphere. 

After surviving the earthquake, Katz began reporting on the devastation. Through that reporting, he learned that the United Nations peacekeepers had caused and were covering up a cholera epidemic that added to the horrors the Haitians faced. 

Katz and other reporters followed this story, uncovering more and more evidence while dealing with denials and lies from United Nations staff. As Katz explains: 

A decade ago, I traced a deadly epidemic back to a politically explosive source. It was the fall of 2010, and Haiti was reeling from a massive cholera epidemic. Rumors flew that the outbreak was caused by United Nations peacekeepers. Some variations on these rumors were extremely far-fetched. Many were politically motivated. But within the rumors was a testable hypothesis: that a specific group of U.N. soldiers at a specific base had introduced the disease in a specific way—by dumping infected sewage into the country’s main river system. 

Now I could have written a story based on the rumors alone. I could have done a meta-analysis over whether we were “allowed” to have the debate over cholera’s origins at all. But I was a journalist living in Port-au-Prince. So I went to the base — a riverside outpost of recently arrived soldiers from Nepal — and found the first hard evidence implicating the U.N. That first story kicked off years of research by myself, epidemiologists, and others. It was not easy: The U.N. and its partners in the U.S. government covered up and fought us every inch of the way. But in the end, we established an evidentiary timeline showing when, where, and as close as we could get to how the U.N. introduced cholera to Haiti. Six years later, I extracted a grudging admission from the U.N. Secretary-General.

Given his expertise in this area, I was hoping Katz would write about the Covid Lab Leak theories that escalated in the national conversation following a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded that a lab leak was the most likely origin of Covid-19, albeit with “low confidence.”

Thankfully, Katz did share his analysis of the situation in a post that explains why the questions are legitimate and important, but that the conclusions people are reaching are more explosive than informative. Katz writes: 

Given that experience, you might think I’d have been among the first to buy into the allegations of the “lab leak” origin of COVID-19. Indeed, I’ve heard through the grapevine that some of my old Haiti cholera crew are buying the hype. But I’m not. At least not yet. That is because the lab leak is still missing the key element of the U.N. cholera story that made it more than just a bunch of rumors: an actual, coherent theory of the case that could be refuted or confirmed.

When you peel back the label, it seems “lab leak” is a jaunty alliteration that papers over a variety of wildly different, often mutually exclusive, ideas. It isn’t a theory but a bundle of loose hypotheses that contradict each another on basic facts: the nature of the virus in question, the timeline of introduction — even the identity of the lab at which the alleged leak occurred.

Now, even those contradictions in and of themselves are not necessarily disqualifying. Science famously evolves, and multiple competing ideas can exist at once. But I can’t help but notice that whenever one of these myriad “theories” gains cultural currency, even proponents of directly contradicted hypotheses claim vindication. It is as if they don’t actually care what happened, so long as it affirms their notions of who was wrong and whom the guilty party should be. It’s maddening to watch—especially as someone who thinks that finding the origins of an epidemic is important.

Katz takes us through the reported claims in the Energy Department report, the reactions of people on the right and the left who were quick to point fingers, and the existing evidence. 

Take, for example, the hospital at the center of the Energy Department’s story, according to sources who spoke to CNN. As Katz points out, if you aren’t careful, you may not notice that the Energy Department based its conclusion on research at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control in Wuhan, China. As Katz explains:

Take a closer look at the name of the lab in that quote. If you have been reading anything about the lab leak for the last three years, or even just looking at the pictures, you will no doubt recognize the name Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Well, it may interest you to know that the Chinese Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention] is not the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is, in fact, an entirely different institution — nine miles away, on the other side of Wuhan, across the Yangzi River. 

That’s an important detail and one of the reasons the multiple lab leak theories contradict each other. 

We should undertake all possible efforts to determine the origin of Covid-19. It is exceptionally problematic that the Chinese government refuses to cooperate with international investigations. 

But as Katz makes clear, we also need to be careful about how we discuss the competing theories about Covid-19’s origin. This investigation shouldn’t be about dunking on political or ideological enemies. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

GOP Undoing Democracy to Ban Abortion

Abortion, Every Day’s Jessica Valenti explains how Republican legislators across the country are dismantling democracy to protect abortion bans. Valenti writes: 

Republican legislators across the country have been working overtime to prevent Americans from having a say on abortion rights, no longer bothering to hide their obvious disdain for democracy. In states like Ohio, Missouri and Florida, for example, they’re working to raise the standards on ballot measures to require a much higher percentage of voters to pass. (In Ohio and Missouri, they want 60% of the vote instead of a simple majority; in Florida they’re trying to raise it to nearly 67%.) 

Republicans in those states, however, at least have had the good sense to pretend the issue isn’t abortion—instead claiming they’re simply trying to protect their states from well-funded special interests. But the Mississippi GOP didn’t get the memo, and happily told reporters yesterday about their desire to fuck over voters without the least bit of shame or smidge of a cover story. 

It would be great if Democrats could at least do more to ensure voters understood what was happening and who was behind it. 

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond has created a hotline for people to report schools that disproportionately discipline students of color or disabilities. (Diana Lambert, EdSource)

The Little Hoover Commission, the state’s independent citizens commission, will hold a series of hearings about the controversies surrounding the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). (Little Hoover Commission Press Release)

Politics

Rachel Maddow’s latest podcast series, Ultra, does an outstanding job of telling the story of a plot by more than a dozen Members of Congress to assist Nazi Germany in its efforts to keep the United States out of World War II. It is fascinating to see how the conspirators used the Congressional franking privilege that allows zero-cost communication with constituents as one part of their efforts to spread their propaganda. But her podcast stops before telling the entire story of Representative Hamilton Fish III (R-NY), who went from being a key figure in the Nazi conspiracy to becoming one of Ronald Reagan’s significant supporters in 1980. (Jon Schwarz, The Intercept)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) traveled to northern Idaho in February to address the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee. Her speech provided a glimpse into the type of country she seeks to create. “The event may be the closest thing yet to Greene’s vision for the GOP, which she has urged to become the “party of Christian nationalism.” The Idaho Panhandle’s especially fervent embrace of the ideology may explain why Greene, who has sold T-shirts reading “Proud Christian Nationalist,” traveled more than 2,300 miles to a county with fewer than 67,000 Republican voters to talk about biblical truth: Amid ongoing national debate over Christian nationalism, North Idaho offers a window at what actually trying to manifest a right-wing vision for a Christian America can look like — and the power it can wield in state politics.” (Jack Jenkins, Region News Service)

Finland’s parliament approved legislation allowing the country to join NATO, as the nation leaves behind decades of military non-alignment after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Whether Sweden can overcome objections from Turkey to join at the same time is still an open question. (Jon Henley, The Guardian)

Republican election deniers are taking over party organizations nationwide, from the precinct level up to winning state party elections. The danger to our democracy remains acute. (Kaila Philo, Talking Points Memo)

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is about to sign legislation into law banning drag shows in the state despite photos allegedly showing him dressed in drag during his high school days. (Gloria Oladipo, The Guardian)

We need to take efforts to overturn marriage equality seriously. The dynamics we saw with the steps to overturn Roe v. Wade are present today in efforts to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges. As Digby says, opponents are once again playing the long game. (Digby, Hullabaloo)

Tucker has information about which I’m unaware. 

I am always saying this

— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) 1:41 AM ∙ Mar 1, 2023

Science

A new study projects that ice sheet collapses at the North and South Poles will start sooner than anticipated. (Tessa Koumoundouros, Science Alert)

NASA Astronaut Josh Cassada posted photos of auroras as seen from his vantage point on the International Space Station. (Mike Wall, Space.com)

Technology

Elon Musk’s Twitter has disabled the function ProPublica used to track tweet deletions by politicians, perhaps ending the Politwoops project. (Derek Willis, ProPublica)

There are efforts to rehabilitate the Luddites, who have been smeared by history. “The Luddites were a 19th century guerrilla movement that smashed textile machines, burned factories and threatened their owners. But they were not motivated by a fear of technology, and they were not irrational. Rather, the Luddites — who took their name from the mythological General Ned Ludd, whose legend included the smashing of weaving-frames — were engaged in the most science-fictional exercise imaginable — asking not what a technology does, but who it does it to and who it does it for.” (Cory Doctorow, Medium)

Society

Some philosophers believe alcohol is the reason humans decided to develop agriculture and created civilizations. “This is a provocative thesis, and one that might upset Puritans. Yet it has some serious adherents, including philosopher Edward Slingerland. Singerland believes alcohol may have helped shaped human evolution from the very beginning, and continues to have positive benefits for society — beyond providing a socially acceptable form of euphoria.” (Troy Farah, Salon)

Wikenigma is a wiki-based resource that compiles “the scientific and academic questions to which no-one, anywhere, has yet been able to provide a definitive answer.” You can check by category, review the entire A-Z list, see the latest updates, or take your chances and request a random article. (Wikenigma: An Encyclopedia of Unknowns)

Early versions of the character Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain at the beginning of this year, which is why we could be treated to the horror film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Here’s a list of more famous characters about to enter the public domain. (Michael Grothaus, Fast Company)

American cars are getting too large for the parking spaces they are supposed to use. (Jason Kottke, Kottke.org)

Sports

The Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team is fighting for equal pay and funding transparency with its national federation leadership. It’s atrocious, and the Gold Medal winners deserve much better. (Megan Swanick, Moving the Goalposts)

Is this going to be the year of the catcher back-pick (when a catcher throws to a base behind the runner), given Major League Baseball’s rules changes? I love them, so I would approve. (Noah Woodward, The Advance Scout)

These are in my calendar. 

It’s never too early to mark your calendars and set those alarms ⏰

— U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (@USWNT) 9:39 PM ∙ Mar 1, 2023

My Cubs do things the right way.

frozen margs in a baseball bat.

@Cubs y’all are crazy

— Jordan Cicchelli (@jordancicchelli) 8:55 PM ∙ Mar 2, 2023

The Closer

Manchester United and England International Mary Earps won the Best Women’s Goalkeeper in the world honor at the FIFA Best Awards. She almost quit the sport a couple of years ago. But then the newly appointed England manager Sarina Wiegman showed belief in her, and Earps decided to play on.

In addition to her amazing efforts with Manchester United, Earps became the goalkeeper for England’s 2022 European Champions. It was quite a journey, and she gave one of the most moving awards acceptances I’ve seen. 

Sarina, I run out of words to say thanks to you for the opportunity you’ve given me to chase my wildest dreams and for believing in me the way you have. 

This is for anyone who has ever been in a dark place, just know that there is light at the end of the tunnel – keep going. You can achieve anything that you set your mind to.

Sometimes, success looks like collecting trophies, sometimes it’s just waking up and putting one step in front of the other. There is only one of you in the world and that’s more than good enough. Be, unapologetically, yourself.

Congratulations, Mary Earps. I look forward to watching you tomorrow morning against Leicester City.

Such beautiful speech Mary 🥹🫶🏼

— wosoarmy (@wosoarmy) 8:50 PM ∙ Feb 27, 2023

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com. 

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription. 

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.