Monday Medley

What we read while never watching replays again…

• The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two same-sex marriage cases. You may have noticed the effects on Facebook and Twitter. It’s worth revisiting how opinion has evolved on the issue (though Justice Scalia not so much).

• In honor of Opening Day, a fantasy draft of fantasy baseball players.

• Speaking of baseball, FanGraphs and Baseball Reference have finally put an end to this divisive WAR. Meanwhile, what do baseball stadiums do to housing costs?

• An oral history of one of March Madness’ defining moments.

• Buzz Bissinger is a shopaholic. Yes, that Buzz Bissinger. He’s in rehab.

• Is spring break an economic boon?

• The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy is facing a court challenge. Don’t worry, though, they’ve got plenty more programs aimed at harassing disfavored ethnic groups!

• On the appalling consequences of three strikes laws in America’s vast prison system. Of course the courts do go easy on some people….

• If you’re not following @Cmdr_Hadfield on Twitter, you’re missing some amazing shots from the International Space Station.

• Jay Caspian Kang on another school shooting.

• David Berman’s yearbook page. 

• Is Garfield even supposed to be funny? And memorable lines from a comic strip that was.

• In search of people who actually hate Jennifer Lawrence, Vice called hate groups.

Monday Medley

What we read while preemptively forgetting old acquaintances…

• David Wain reviews Les Misérables, and Michael Schulman ranks the cast’s singing. Why has the story stayed relevant for 150 years?

• The greatest comedy writing staff you’ve never heard about. And David Letterman talks about Jay Leno.

• The FISA wiretapping laws were renewed again, with little opposition and bipartisan support. Jacob Appelbaum talks about the surveillance state in America. Spiegel Online examines the woes of an American drone operator.

• Speaking of the civil liberties violations, New York City Mayor Bloomberg credited the stop-and-frisk program for the city’s lowest murder rate in history.

• The LA Times looks at the perception of gays in sports, including an unfortunate take from Torii Hunter.

• Does a new showrunner for The Walking Dead mean something for the rest of TV?

• An old SI profile of John Wooden. One of Wooden’s greatest players, Bill Walton, was the focus of Richard Deitsch’s SI media column after he returned to announcing.

• A list of the top 100 lists of all time.

Monday Medley

What we read while picking the worst day to skydive from only 23 miles up…

• It was a rough weekend to be a Yankee fan, as the team dropped two games to Detroit and Derek Jeter broke his ankle and missed the first playoff game of his career. Joe Posnanski pondered life without Jeter, and also wrote about A-Rod’s struggles. He also hung out with Pete Rose.

• A revealing video on the abuses of NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy.

• What happens when sportswriters turn into celebrities?

• There was a Vice Presidential debate last week, but what topics weren’t covered? Just like the first Presidential debate, key issues were ignored by the candidates and moderator, such as the Drug War, which Gary Johnson (who has been excluded from the debates, of course) wrote about last week.

• Speaking of silenced opinions, what is happening to free speech?

• George Saunders short story!

• Reflections on last week’s holiday.

• An interview with the new showrunners of Community.

• A story on the weird deal between T. Boone Pickens and the Oklahoma State Athletic Department.

• Frontline‘s excellent piece on high school dropouts is available online. PBS is so much more than Big Bird.

Monday Medley

What we read while hiding safely in a midnight showing of Ice Age 3…

• Friday’s tragedy in Aurora, CO has the town and the rest of the country mourning. One of the victims narrowly avoided a similar tragedy just over a month ago. The shooting has also reawakened the debate on gun control. As NYC Mayor Bloomberg said: “Expressing sympathy is nice…but somebody has to do something about this.” James Fallows says that more shootings are a certainty–Will Wilkinson even wonders why we don’t see more of them. Of course, the odds of anything really changing are small.

• Antonin Scalia and his working relationship with Bryan Garner, the subject of David Foster Wallace’s famous essay on English usage.

• Speaking of Justices, some interesting memoranda from Chief Justice Roberts’s days in the Reagan administration (more than one involve Michael Jackson).

• Quite the interactive graphic detailing the use of stop-and-frisks in NYC.

• BuzzFeed offers the best response to a McSweeney’s parody ever.

• The weird relationship between Chris Christie and Bruce Springsteen.

• How much money is actually kept in offshore bank accounts?

• The use of drones… in North Dakota.

• On the implications of the A/B test.

Monday Medley

What we read while President Obama’s position on gay marriage was intelligently designed…

• Twitter tried to stand up for a user’s privacy, but was blocked by the courts. Speaking of Internet policing, a look at Anonymous, the online hacker collective.

• The Intelligence Squared debate on banning college football is worth watching, if only for the spectacle of Buzz Bissinger.

• In case you weren’t paying attention: On the heels of North Carolina’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and rights for gay couples, President Obama announced his personal support for gay marriage (just as John S predicted he would do three months ago). This is one of Obama’s better flip-flops. Posner and Becker opine on gay marriage.

• The NYPD released troubling numbers on its “Stop and Frisk” policy.

• Roger Ebert likes women.

• A DFW link to more DFW links!

• How did Wall Street kill Dodd-Frank?

• NBC surprisingly renewed all of its low-rated but well-regarded comedies. One of them, Parks and Recreation, aired its season finale last week. Showrunner Michael Schur broke down the season with Alan Sepinwall. Presumably, noted sabermetrician Schur would love this spinoff.

• Brewers’ closer John Axford sums up all postgame interviews in a note.

• Mad Men paid a small fortune for the rights to air a Beatles song last week, as I’m sure John Lennon would have wanted…