Suggested Readings -- and Listenings
A Few of the More Interesting Pieces from the Week
I have a lot of grading ahead of me today, so I won’t belabor this. This week’s suggested readings come in a variety of shapes and sizes, focusing on a broad array of topics.
Dave Sheinin. “The NBA is facing an analytics-fueled crisis. MLB can relate.” The Washington Post, March 4.
First, I want to call attention to a fine piece in The Washington Post on the impact that the three-point shot is having on interest in the NBA. The league is hoisting threes at a record level, and while the shot can make the game more exciting — no lead is safe — it also has led to some boring basketball at times. The league is struggling with the same issues, the story points out, as baseball has.
Analytics drove baseball to an increase in strikeouts, walks, and home runs — often described as the three true outcomes. They are considered efficient on both sides of the ball, but they also minimize actual play. Simply, they are boring.
The three-point revolution has created similar dynamics — players are discouraged from shooting mid-range shots as teams attempt to increase “efficiency.” Three-pointers, because they are worth more, are highly valued, along with dunks and layups because they are made at a higher percentage. In practice, this approach has altered the NBA skill set at a time when players are more athletic than ever before.
Jeffrey Rudolph. “Weimar’s Lesson: It’s the Violence, Not the Speech.” Informed Comment, March 5.
It’s not so much what they say, but what they do. Yes, we have to be careful not to allow certain ideas to become normalized, but Rudolph is more concerned with the impact of a normalization of political violence.
The rise of Hitler and the Nazis was not the result of Weimar’s failure to punish hate speech. Instead, it was the futile attempt to suppress such speech while not acting effectively to curb political violence that allowed the Nazis to rise and gain power.
The comparison with Nazi Germany is overblown in most cases, but that does not mean we cannot glean important incites by looking back to other rightwing movements.
Aviya Kushner, “As Trump targets Zelenskyy, a frightening reminder of taxes Nazis and Romans levied on Jews." The Forward, March 4.
On a similar note, Kushner considers the Trump-Vance gang-up on Volodymyr Zelenskyy through the lens of Jewish history.
Her argument that
Once victims are painted as those who must pay the price for their own torment, Jewish history tells us that the moral and ethical consequences are limitless. So, too, are the financial consequences. As the stock market craters and commentators breathlessly observe the behavior of American leadership, it’s worth thinking about victims, aggressors, and how Jewish history intertwines with world history.
This incite is an important one in Ukraine, and it could be a useful when judging what is happening in Gaza — though I would argue she draws the wrong conclusions about who is being victimized there. The sheer loss of Palestinian life and the demolition of the Gaza Strip (after decades of brutal occupation in both Gaza and the West Bank) make it clear that Israel — which was victimized on Oct. 7 — is now the aggressor, the one with the power. And it is Israel that needs to address this power imbalance and begin the rebuilding process.
“What Man’s Man Politics is Doing to America.” NY Times Opinion podcast, March 3.
This conversation between Patrick Healy, deputy editor of Times Opinion, and columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom gets at the central role that gender played in boosting Trump into office and in understanding the base of his current support. Gender — which covers both the question of trans-rights and women’s changing roles in society — is the main flashpoint, even more central than questions of race.