u/otter78

What's up with the broadcast tonight? The cneterifeld camera in Coors is bouncing like a beach ball.

The Side Stories inteview with Alyssa Greenfell was awful. Henry constantly talked over the guest acted like he knew more about mormonism than she did.

I love the boys, but they need to be more professional during interviews.

One thing I've noticed about Marcus is that he's often drawn to broad, single-factor explanations for really complex historical trends. The best example is the leaded gasoline theory that childhood lead exposure helped drive the explosion in violent crime and serial killers from the 1960s through the early 1990s.

To be clear, I don't reject that theory. I think the evidence that lead exposure affected aggression and impulse control is compelling. What I question is whether it can explain most of what happened during that period.

The rise and fall of violent crime and serial killers seems much more multifactorial than that.

For example, the postwar explosion of automobile ownership and the interstate highway system made it much easier for offenders to travel long distances, target vulnerable victims, dispose of bodies far from the crime scene, and remain anonymous across jurisdictions.

On the other side of the equation, the decline in serial killers probably has a lot to do with advances in DNA forensics, computerized records, cameras, cell phones, and the general expansion of surveillance. It's much harder today to disappear into anonymity than it was in 1975.

More broadly, America's cities also went through enormous economic and social upheaval during the same era. Deindustrialization, the loss of manufacturing jobs, concentrated poverty, the crack epidemic, changing policing strategies, incarceration policy, and demographic shifts all affected crime rates in ways that are difficult to separate from one another.

Lead exposure may be an important piece of the puzzle, but I'm skeptical that it's the explanation. History rarely has a single cause. Usually it's the interaction of many forces that produces outcomes as dramatic as the crime wave of the late 20th century.

Curious what everyone else thinks. Is the lead hypothesis being overstated on the show, or do you think it really deserves to be the primary explanation?

One of the best developments of the season is that Henry Itkin has stopped wearing his obnoxious MAGA hats to home games, at least as far as I can tell. Anyone else notice that?

I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to doubt if Dylan Crews will ever break through and become the star player we expected. He does many things well except hitting. His exit velo is strong, but he does not barrel the ball often. Lots of GBs, fouls, and weak pop flies.

How long will the Nationals wait for him to figure it out at the plate?

I'm trying to find the name of a Donovan song mentioned by Marcus to Ed during an episode. I think it had something to do with aliens or atlantis or some similar very LPOTL topic. Please help. #TOMT