Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to J. August Richards, 40.

Ah, yes, the good stuff:

1. Adam Serwer on one of the more awful reactions to the Obama years from (some in) the conservative press.

2. Seth Masket: media coverage matters for making congressional elections work well.

3. And Ben Lindbergh on Jeter's defense. Fascinating, on a subject I would have thought was long since played out.

12 comments:

  1. Would you consider Masket's graph a good argument against gerrymandering?

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    1. No, not really. Gerrymandering, of any kind, isn't a significant factor in why House districts and media markets don't match up the way that "works", per Seth.

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  2. The problem for me, in relation to this piece, is that a gerrymandered district will never be very congruent with a media market. The gerrymandering promotes a situation where voters get poor information.

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    1. Districts aren't going to be congruent because of the basic math: most media markets aren't about the size of House districts. It really isn't about gerrymandering.

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  3. Regarding the Serwer piece, one wonders if conservatives genuinely don't understand what made the Trayvon Martin case different from the vast majority of killings in this country, or if they're just being dishonest about it. I honestly don't know.

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    1. ...one wonders if conservatives genuinely don't understand what made the Trayvon Martin case different from the vast majority of killings in this country, or if they're just being dishonest about it.

      Conservative media figures: the latter

      Conservative rank-and-file: the former, but they're pretty comfortable in their somewhat racist right-wing media cocoon.

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  4. I loved Buffy, but wasn't really able to get into Angel. I did like the supporting cast, but I guess it was the himself and his plot arch which never really did it for me.

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    1. Yeah, as I've said before, Angel is my least favorite of the Whedon shows.

      I do wonder if I'll still be saying that in a few months...

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    2. I really enjoy the last few seasons of Angel. The last one in particular is really good.

      I can't stand the hype Jeter has gotten over his career. I can't argue he isn't a HOFer at SS. But the whole "Captain Clutch" and "He's a great winner" thing are annoying as hell.

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  5. Fun piece on Jeter.

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  6. Not to contest that Jeter is a poor defender, but I think but his detractors sometimes overlook is that a bad defensive shortstop is still insanely valuable (if he can hit). When you factor in the positional adjustment, Jeter as a fielder has cost about 23 runs over his career. Jim Thome, who's fielding CV includes being a slightly poor first baseman and replacement level DH, cos almost 200 runs over his career.

    The positional bonus comprises a fairly large part of Jeter's value. I've never been a huge Jeter or Yankee fan, fortunately, and I do get a little bit peeved at the Jeter worship, but let's not undersell him as an incredibly valuable player over a very long stretch.

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    1. No question about it. Jeter is a legit HOFer because a SS, even a terrible one, who hits like him is a great player. If he had moved to LF in 1996 and done a fine job fielding the position, and his hitting was unchanged, he would be a far less valuable player.

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