1. I forget – was the release of the three million or so pages of the Epstein files (still only part of the whole and thus still not compliance with federal law) that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump is a pedophile who would likely not last three hours in prison before the other inmates fed pieces of him into a shower drain supposed to distract us from the continuing Fascist occupation of Minneapolis by poorly trained jackbooted ICE thugs who have kidnapped and trafficked citizens and immigrants alike, tried to arrest cops for being Brown In Public, actually did arrest multiple journalists because apparently the First Amendment only counts if you’re supporting the government, and publicly executed two American citizens in the streets while being filmed and then tried to lie about it both times or was that the other way around? Are both of these things supposed to distract us from the fact that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump still talks about invading a NATO ally even though he “negotiated” a deal to get us exactly what we already had in Greenland before he decided to do Putin’s dirty work? Is all of that meant to distract us from the fact that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, lackeys, cronies and slaves are openly calling for the federalization (read: “partisan control”) of American elections in direct violation of the US Constitution? It’s hard to keep track. Are we great yet?
2. The madness of these times is exhausting, but we press forward because there is no other option. Fuck those clowns. It’s my country. They can’t have it.
3. So … yes, but aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
4. One of the strangest disconnects in my life right now is the simple fact that we are all living in the Worst Timeline Ever while at the same time my personal world is actually going along pretty well. Yes, this creates an obligation to use that privilege in the service of creating a better timeline in general and I do my best to fulfill that. But on a day-in, day-out basis, things are going well in my little corner of the world.
5. The semester is going along pretty well so far, a week and a half into it. My Zoom class is asking questions and seems engaged with the material so far – they’ve already asked me a couple of questions that I couldn’t answer, which I regard as the hallmark of a good class. Most of my advisees are enrolled though there are a few stragglers who apparently enjoy filling out forms to try to do that sort of thing after the deadlines have passed. And I seem to have found myself on a hiring committee where the candidates are all pretty good so I think we’ll be okay there. So far, so good.
6. I’m still not managing to read much, even though the book I’m currently working through is really good. I get to it when I can focus.
7. In these parlous times you just have to do things that make you happy no matter how ridiculous they are, and that is why there is a 5lb block of Cooper Sharp cheese in the fridge in the basement now, waiting for me to take it to one of the local supermarkets to be sliced. I am a happy Philadelphian.
8. I am currently avoiding the OS updates that Apple is pushing out to both my phone and my computer because from what I can tell both of them are poorly designed interfaces full of useless AI and I’m waiting until a) they figure out how to make updating at least not a step backward and/or b) I have no choice because they break the older OS that I’m using enough that I can’t do anything anymore. I have already noticed that the login shortcuts for both devices only work sporadically these days. We’ll see how it goes.
9. It’s getting back to more normal winter temperatures here – yesterday we nearly hit the freezing point, and it’s nice to have temperatures with real square roots – which means that the snow and ice melts a bit during the sunshine and that’s lovely but it also means that the salt on the roads gets picked up by the now-liquid water and splashed about by every car on the road and now both of our cars are white. I’m trying to think of it as camouflage.
10. The other day Kim and I were driving through Our Little Town when we noticed that there was a turkey sitting on the streetlight. This seemed odd. We took photos. And then we noticed the second turkey on top of the building behind the streetlight. As Les Nessman once noted, “It’s almost as of the turkeys were … organized.”
2. The madness of these times is exhausting, but we press forward because there is no other option. Fuck those clowns. It’s my country. They can’t have it.
3. So … yes, but aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
4. One of the strangest disconnects in my life right now is the simple fact that we are all living in the Worst Timeline Ever while at the same time my personal world is actually going along pretty well. Yes, this creates an obligation to use that privilege in the service of creating a better timeline in general and I do my best to fulfill that. But on a day-in, day-out basis, things are going well in my little corner of the world.
5. The semester is going along pretty well so far, a week and a half into it. My Zoom class is asking questions and seems engaged with the material so far – they’ve already asked me a couple of questions that I couldn’t answer, which I regard as the hallmark of a good class. Most of my advisees are enrolled though there are a few stragglers who apparently enjoy filling out forms to try to do that sort of thing after the deadlines have passed. And I seem to have found myself on a hiring committee where the candidates are all pretty good so I think we’ll be okay there. So far, so good.
6. I’m still not managing to read much, even though the book I’m currently working through is really good. I get to it when I can focus.
7. In these parlous times you just have to do things that make you happy no matter how ridiculous they are, and that is why there is a 5lb block of Cooper Sharp cheese in the fridge in the basement now, waiting for me to take it to one of the local supermarkets to be sliced. I am a happy Philadelphian.
8. I am currently avoiding the OS updates that Apple is pushing out to both my phone and my computer because from what I can tell both of them are poorly designed interfaces full of useless AI and I’m waiting until a) they figure out how to make updating at least not a step backward and/or b) I have no choice because they break the older OS that I’m using enough that I can’t do anything anymore. I have already noticed that the login shortcuts for both devices only work sporadically these days. We’ll see how it goes.
9. It’s getting back to more normal winter temperatures here – yesterday we nearly hit the freezing point, and it’s nice to have temperatures with real square roots – which means that the snow and ice melts a bit during the sunshine and that’s lovely but it also means that the salt on the roads gets picked up by the now-liquid water and splashed about by every car on the road and now both of our cars are white. I’m trying to think of it as camouflage.
10. The other day Kim and I were driving through Our Little Town when we noticed that there was a turkey sitting on the streetlight. This seemed odd. We took photos. And then we noticed the second turkey on top of the building behind the streetlight. As Les Nessman once noted, “It’s almost as of the turkeys were … organized.”
No comments:
Post a Comment