Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Buster Posey, 26. Oh, and with ~300 games, he's easily the all-time San Francisco Giants catcher, no?

The good stuff:

1. I know those of you who are not political scientists may not be interested, but I'm going to keep linking to items about the funding fight. The latest: Peter Hanson on the next steps. Also, Seth Masket has four examples of actual political science research.

2. Josh Putnam on Iowa/New Hampshire -- and what the parties are actually concerned about.

3. James Pethokoukis on Amity Shlaes.

4. Alyssa Rosenberg on gender roles and what's wrong with romantic comedies these days.

5. And Matt Yglesias on Star Trek episodes. Have to disagree with him on "Chain of Command." That's the Next Generation Cardassian torture epsiode, and I find it unwatchable; it's exactly that kind episode that Next Generation is easily mocked for. Torture is something that the other guys (and not even other humans, but evil aliens) do, and guess what? It's bad. Also, typical of a more important flaw in that series, which was that few of the two-parters had a payoff that was worth it. I'd recommend Darmok instead.

9 comments:

  1. I like Alyssa's article very much. The counterpoint to the dreadful romcom's is the brilliant "There's Something About Mary," in which the hero must compete with many other rivals to convince the perfect woman that he is the one for her, by reassuring her that he won't try to take her from her responsibilities. "The Forty Year Old Virgin" has similar overtones.

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  2. I disagree on Chains of Command. What's important isn't that the Cardassians tortured, it was why. It wasn't to get information, it was just to break Picard, just sadism. But the commander wasn't outwardly sadistic, he was charming and likable.

    Voyager had a good guys torture episode later on, when Janeway threatened to sic angry aliens on a suspect who had information they wanted.

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    1. Yeah...but all that charming and likable was undermined by being Cardassian, especially since at that point Cardassians are just generic evil enemies. I guess we'll just disagree.

      OTOH...isn't that the episode where Troi is finally told to put on a proper uniform? That makes up for a lot of sins, I suppose.

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  3. Buster's competition for that title is pretty thin. Bob Brenley? Tom Haller? I'm having trouble even coming up with anyone else who played more than a season or two at an above average level.

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    1. Don't forget that Dick Dietz had an amazing season in 1970, and overall was quite good, albeit not for long.

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    2. Well, that's the problem with catchers, isn't it? It'll be interesting to see how long the Giants let Posey stay behind the dish.

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    3. Benito Santiago was pretty great, and deserves a mention just for that time he stole 3rd base against the Dodgers. Plus, he looked like Ice-T!

      But yeah, Buster's the best.

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  4. Romances are written for women. Most women fantasize about being objectified and dominated by a sexy man. This is why the 50 Shades series has sold 70 million copies. Alyssa Rosenberg is projecting her current ideology onto others, but I bet that when she was younger (and marginally cuter) that she was a lot more interested in jerks than this article makes it seem.

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