FORTY SEVEN days until classes resume. These aren’t tears, these are drops of pure plasma oozing from my eyeballs.
Happier countdown: TWENTY TWO days until Skepticon. That’s better. I’ll try not to think about how I’ll only have 25 days to get my teaching act together when the meeting starts.
I hope you’ll all be joining me there. The con has put out a call for workshops, so you can participate too! Go ahead, apply, it’s not like I’m looking forward to my talk, I want to hear what everyone else has to say.
Also, you can still (until 15 July) get a discounted room rate at St Louis’ Union Station Hotel using the code SKP22. Do it soon! Like right now!
If you can’t go, but do want to support a progressive conference, especially at this time of regressive politics, you can just DONATE to keep it going.
Speaking of which, I have received email from a couple of people who say they want to go and would be willing to go, except they’re not going to spend money in a horrible Republican state like Missouri. I sympathize, and respect that decision. All I can say is that Skepticon is a beacon of light in a very dark part of the country that needs all the illumination they can get. Unfortunately, the organizers are local to St Louis, so I can understand why they would build the event there, in their home. Maybe we can persuade them to relocate to a more liberal midwestern state (like, say, Minnesota, hint hint) in the future.
One last important and virtuous note: the con requires attendees to have proof of vaccination and to wear masks. Yay! It makes no sense that so many events other than this one are for plague rats.
That’s in Cori Bush’s district, just as good as Ilhan Omar in Minneapolis. (For whatever it’s worth, in the 2020 election, Bush actually got 78.8% of the vote, while Omar only got 64.3%.)
And you were just saying it’s “a beacon of light in a very dark part of the country that needs all the illumination they can get,” so you don’t actually want to persuade them out of that … right?
Also, dude, “liberal” is not the preferred nomenclature.
Like I said, several people have raised that objection to me — they’re not going to contribute to tourism in Missouri. I was joking that I’d love to have a con like Skepticon closer to me.
Liberal is the best I can do. I live in a part of the state that is kind of the opposite of Cori Bush’s district, and our governor, despite some good ideas, also campaigned on his support from the NRA. So I can’t bring myself to call Minnesota truly progressive or left wing.
So I’ll be seeing you in St Louis then?
OT
The actor James Ha en has died. He was 84.
Spell check substituted the name of Caan for a Swedish phrase.
Anyway, he played in classic films like The Godfather.
No, but have a nice trip.
If I got to be your weird, unpaid travel agent, I would probably make stops at (1a) the chess club and (1b) hall of fame, (2) BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, (3) Seoul Taco, and (4+) some random museums or things of that ilk, possibly the zoo since you like all that biology stuff. The arch? Well, there it is, can’t miss it — not sure if it’s worth it to go up top.
However, the chess club would be a better choice later on, since it will be hosting several big tournaments, one after another, as is tradition now. (Alas, the US Junior and Senior championships are happening now and will end on the 16th.) There is always the hall of fame, though. The symphony orchestra would also be nice (yet unaffordable for me), but it’s not doing live shows at that time either.
See you there! Driving down from Buffalo, Minnesota.
I’ll be there, too, and I’m greatly looking forward to it.
If the modified anti-omricon vaccine is available by then, för chrissake get it.