Three links

It is sort of funny...the last two nights, I've noticed, I really didn't have anything to do... no meetings, no stuff to plan for; I was able to catch up on articles to read, paperwork, the episodes of "Endeavour" I needed to catch up on... now I can blog.  It is sort of nice, in all honesty...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/

I thought this was interesting...I need to check the books out, like I need more to read... More seriously, though, it does raise points...I've always read about the large cities of Meso-America and wondered about places like Cahokia; all of these cities needed people to plant crops and feed them...where did they come from and live?

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/10/11/17962146/bullpenning-starting-pitcher-protagonist-cost

I found this one to be interesting as well...it seems to me that the way we train pitchers is casing this as well; people don't learn as many pitches as they used to, and maybe that is fine, but now, once a guy learns someone else's repertoire, you can see the third-time-through-the-order penalty really go up...  learning a few pitches that look alike, to me, would help reduce this, because then you can not necessarily fool, but make hitters swing at something that isn't quite what they want, and that's how you get harmless contact.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/11/trump-prison-reform-892163
This to me is yet another example of how the President is affecting himself with the constant shit show... if you think about it, GOPers -- especially this one -- run into trouble with their bases by doing this, but President Trump can stress -- of all people, perhaps, -- that this is a business-friendly thing in that it lowers costs, saves prisons for criminals, frees up resources for a wall, etc...  and, if they can peel off some support from the monolithic black vote....