Happy Mediocre Thanksgiving Grading Day, or whatever


I hope you’re all celebrating by staying in place and not seeing friends and family, and may your holiday be quiet and boring and just like every other day in this endless dreary pandemic. Get used to it. You can use today to practice for the upcoming Dreary Christmas holiday.

My plan is to stay home, plod through a lot of grading, and then this evening fix a nice dinner for my wife and me. That’s kind of it. Black Friday: more grading, although I will be going into the lab to feed the spiders. This weekend: grading. Next week: I’ve opened myself up to my class for Zoom Q&As about their grades while I’m waiting for the final exams to come pouring in next Friday, when the torture grading will resume.

After that, I’ll party! At home, alone.

Comments

  1. birgerjohansson says

    Thank you for your concern. I plan to load up with a lot of good science fiction for the next month
    (BTW I promise that if I get Ebola or some other weapons-grade pathogen, I will hug and kiss the f*ckers who are determined to make the Biden presidency as crappy as the Dubya presidency. Fight pathogens with pathogens)

  2. hemidactylus says

    As part of the tradition the Cowboys will be playing the unnamed team from D.C. that used to be called something derogatory to Native Americans. Some sort of progress. Our views of cowboys and the West too are warped by Hollywood.

    I anticipate Sunday Tom Brady (the greatest QB ever) will have some trouble with another team named for Native Americans who appropriated the somewhat inappropriate fight chant from the Seminoles of FSU. We have Brady but are sputtering. Sometimes hot. Sometimes not. At least no Infamous Jameis to cringe over and we are doing better. And Brady is no longer with Belicheat. Sunday could be a horror show.

    I wonder if the days of FSU being called Seminoles are also numbered. The name, the tomahawk chop, the chant, the Osceola pregame horse and spear ceremony. The team is a shadow of its former self. The way FSU portrayed Native Americans in the past was more horrific, though the more recent Osceola stuff is supposed to be more dignified. It has some support from Seminoles in Florida, but Oklahoma Seminoles not so much.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osceola_and_Renegade

    When you root for a team it’s easy to take this stuff for granted and fail to reflect. Will Washington’s NFL team name change reverberate through pro and college sports? Chiefs, Braves, Seminoles, Utah Utes…

  3. whheydt says

    Re: davidc1 @ #3…
    He’s talking about American football and referring to some specific teams. And, no, even as an American I don’t follow the sport either. I don’t follow any sport, though I take occasional interest in America’s Cup (aka Royal Yacht Squadron 100 Pound Cup…maybe some day you’ll get it back) races.

  4. davidc1 says

    @4 Moss ,what are you like .
    @5 Yeah Sport ,pah .After being forced to partake of proper British Football when at school ,i vowed never to take part ,or watch any sport ,ever ,ever ,again.
    And was it the America’s Cup that was taking place in August 2012 in San Francisco ? Trying to get over one of the bridges ,i asked a guy why there was a Traffic Jam ,he said that was the cause of it .

  5. birgerjohansson says

    An idea. -If you are getting bored out of your mind during lockdown, this is a perfect opportunity to read Eric Kurland’s book “Hitler’s Monsters” about the complex relationship between supernatural beliefs and nazi ideology.
    .
    Re. the death of soccer superstar Maradona: he was in a hospital before his death but signed himself out against the advice of his doctors.
    Ignoring the advice of your lawyer or your doctor is NOT a good idea.
    .
    As for those who think they intuitively know better than those who spent many years learning medical science….. let them ponder the fate of Maradona and wossname, those Republicans that died of COVID19.

  6. birgerjohansson says

    Turkeys?
    I recommend a Christian film about a drug addict who turns into Gregor Samsa, only morphing into a turkey instead of a cockroach!
    Turkey on more levels than one….
    “God Awful Movies 68 Blood Freak” – what happens when religion meets frustrated cinematic ambition
    (apologies for going off on a tangent, I just had to share it :-) )

  7. unclefrogy says

    being no longer a believer, and being some what removed from conventional society for a long time (my choice) my feelings around “the Holidays” is also some what altered from what it was in my childhood.
    As with most things they have been rather co-opted by commercial interests and branded with political and patriotic trappings. Even the ones that have been converted from one religion to a new one have suffered the same translation into proforma events. If I am not mistaken the thanksgiving celebration feast while the story about the pilgrims and Indians is kind of made up of pieces the day was declared a national day in the middle of the US Civil War and not very much connected to harvest unless you consider the dead on the battle field rough harvest.
    I have years ago let go of the learned obligation to follow the traditional obligatory procedure for myself. I do how ever enjoy the holidays and the social gatherings well enough but in some sense I have the same feelings or reverence every day and do not fell the overwhelming need on restrict it to any particular day. So the social distancing and the other restrictions imposed by these times are a bother but Ido not feel oppressed by them, I do find the extra precautions mildly disruptive.
    happy feasting with those you care about and those you do not form a some what holiday curmudgeon
    uncle frogy

  8. René says

    I’ll contribute as many dollars as FtB bloggers entice me to read before the week ends, whatever the subject.

  9. KG says

    birgerjohansson@7,
    I second your recommendation of Eric Kurland’s “Hitler’s Monsters”, and suggest Derek Hastings’ Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism, and Timothy Ryback’s Hitler’s Private Library: The Books that Shaped his Life for further reading! In brief, Hitler’s early inspiration, and specifically the roots of his extreme antisemitism, lay in South German Catholic Nationalism (Hastings), but his later beliefs were closer to those of “New Age”-like mysticism, occultism and pseudoscience (Ryback).