Gosh darn it, it would be the funniest political race ever!

All eyes would be focused on Minnesota if Michele Bachmann tried to challenge Al Franken for his senate seat. Franken knows how to do the sober statesman with the occasional pointed barb just perfectly, and would be an excellent foil for the often deranged Bachmann — I also think Franken’s personality meshes very well with the electorate in this state, while Bachmann is a weirdo who only fits her exquisitely gerrymandered House district…which she came very close to losing in the last election.

Bachmann would go splat against Franken, and the big bonus: she’d lose her House seat as well.

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Cafe Scientifique tonight!

I was up early this morning and just got off the radio, where I told you the whole story. Were you listening? KKOK/KMRS out of Morris, Minnesota? You get it every day with the weather and the farm report?

Oh, OK, I’ll repeat myself. Tonight, Tuesday the 26th of February, at 6pm in the Common Cup Coffeehouse, Sylke Boyd will be talking about “Sundogs and Halos and Pillars—oh my”. This is an informal, casual conversation about science — she’ll talk about what causes these strange atmospheric phenomena, and also be showing lots of lovely pictures of the strange skies above Morris, Minnesota.

Come on down, everyone!

For my birthday? You shouldn’t have!

I just learned today about @MoFems and that they’re having a local conference on 9 March (yes, my birthday!): the F-Word Conference: What Role Do You Play in Redefining Gender and Culture?. I should probably look around my own neighborhood more often.

Speaking of local events…this weekend, starting today, is the Prairie Gate Literary Festival, and on Wednesday the 27th we have Barry Finzel visiting to give the honors lecture on Structural Biology and 3-D modeling, and on Tuesday the 26th Sylke Boyd will be telling us about sun dogs and northern lights and other exotic phenomena at Cafe Scientifique. This place is happening — I hope we can get more locals to stop on by.

Cafe Scientifique tonight, in Morris!

You Twin Cities folk will have to drive like maniacs to get here in time, but you can do it: I hear the roads are slick as glass so you can just slide all the way here. At 6pm we’re doing another science for the community event, this time with Michael Ceballos talking about biology and biofuels. I’ll be heading over in a little bit to set everything up — I get to be the emcee. It does mean I’ve got a long evening ahead of me, though, and I haven’t had a nap.

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Café Scientifique in Morris on Tuesday evening

We’re bringing it back! If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by tomorrow night to learn some cool student-centered physics research.

Summary: Students from the Experimental Physics class will present “Results from Experimental Physics” on Tuesday, November 27, at 6 p.m. at the Common Cup Coffeehouse. This is the first Café Scientifique of the academic year.

Students from the Experimental Physics class at the University of Minnesota, Morris will present “Results from Experimental Physics” on Tuesday, November 27, at 6 p.m. at the Common Cup Coffeehouse (501 Atlantic Avenue, Morris, MN 56267). This is the first Café Scientifique of the academic year. All are welcome to attend, and audience participation is encouraged.

The event will showcase the results—including pictures, temperature, pressure, acceleration, measurements of the jet stream, and cosmic ray counts—from balloon flights conducted by the class. The balloons reached altitudes of 85,000 feet or higher and gathered data from the troposphere and lower stratosphere.

Café Scientifique is an ongoing series that offers a space where anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology for the price of a cup of coffee. Meetings take place outside of a traditional academic context and are committed to promoting public engagement with science. Additional information is available online. Interested audiences can look forward to additional discussions in 2013.

Café Scientifique is supported in part by a grant to the University of Minnesota, Morris from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute through the Precollege Science Education Program.

Minnesota election news

Suspend your ebullience over Obama’s election last night, and consider instead the more depressing summary of the Minnesota state election results. It’s not all bad; we have a little bit of good news.

  • Our Democratic-Farmer-Labor party senator, Amy Klobuchar, won re-election handily.

  • The DFL retook the state house.

  • The DFL retook the state senate. We now have a DFL governor and legislature.

  • The constitutional amendment that would have required voters to show a photo ID failed. One more Republican attempt to restrict voter rights has been defeated.

  • The constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman only was defeated. Minnesota has no gay marriage ban.

  • Oh, yeah, Minnesota’s 8 electoral votes are all going to Obama.

But there was tragic news, as well.

  • Minnesota’s 6th district (not mine!) re-elected Michele Bachmann to congress.

Dammit.

Oh, well, it was a very close race. She’s showing signs of weakness, and we’ll give her the boot next time.

The campaign of lies is gearing up

Here’s what we Minnesotans get to look forward to on our TV screens for the next month, an ad against gay marriage.

So their only argument is this “But they’re redefining marriage!” nonsense? Why should we care? If the law specified a thousand more special cases, it wouldn’t affect my relationship with my wife in the slightest.

As for their argument that they just want to give the people the right to decide…that doesn’t fly either. Civil rights, especially granting equality to a minority, is not a matter to be decided by a majority vote.

I might just have to keep my TV off until November.

(via Joe. My. God.)

The same old bad argument against gay marriage

Riley Balling, patent attorney, is certain that gay marriage will affect his marriage. Why? Well, he splutters on in a long op-ed in the Star Tribune, but all he manages to say is the children, because…the children, that’s why.

For many of us who favor traditional marriage, marriage is about raising children in a healthy environment. Thus, any change to the definition of marriage affects our marriage. Our “traditional” marriages and the children they produce are our greatest source of happiness, and we desire that our children will live in a world that will promote their ability to make the same choices that brought us happiness.

Shorter Riley: “I have defined marriage, and marriage is defined this way, and therefore changing the definition of marriage changes marriage by definition. Oh, and my marriage is all about pooping out kids, therefore your marriage damn well better be too.”

[Read more…]

Mazinaatesijigan Gekinoo’amaadiwin

Free movies on the UMM campus, open to all!

Watch out for the woo, but you’ve got to appreciate the fact that oppressed peoples are expressing themselves in their own words about their lives and the destruction that has been wreaked on them.

Mazinaatesijigan Gekinoo’amaadiwin Film Series (Films with Knowledge)
For much of the 20th century, American Indian identities were shaped, at least in popular culture and public imaginations, by advertising imagery, photographs, and wild west shows. In the past few decades, American Indian artists and filmmakers have extracted their own image from these external forces, challenging the established codes of representation. The goal of the Mazinaatesijigan Gekinoo’amaadiwin Film Series is to challenge participants to examine and discuss how film impacts Indigenous culture, identity, politics, and stereotypes.

Dakota 38 (2011, 78 min., Smooth Feather Productions)
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
7:00 p.m., 109 Imholte Hall
In the spring of 2005, Jim Miller, a Native spiritual leader and Vietnam veteran, found himself in a dream riding on horseback across the great plains of South Dakota. Just before he awoke, he arrived at a riverbank in Minnesota and saw 38 of his Dakota ancestors hanged.

Finding Our Talk (2009, 72 min., Mushkeg Media)
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
7:00 p.m., 109 Imholte Hall
Every fourteen days a language dies. By the year 2100 more than half of the world’s languages will
disappear. This film examines three indigenous communities struggling to preserve their languages: The Rapid Lake Anishinaabe from Quebec, the Wahpeton Dakota Nation from Saskatchewan, and the
Guovdageaidnu Sami from Norway.

Star Dreamers, Part One: The Indian System, Featuring Filmmaker Sheldon Wolfchild (2012, 72 min., 38 Plus 2 Productions)
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
7:00 p.m., 109 Imholte Hall
By 1862, the system had brought the Dakota living on reservations in Minnesota to the brink of starvation, offering them little option other than dying of hunger in war. The system made war inevitable. his is the first of a three-part documentary series on the origins of the Dakota War.

Independent Indigenous Film & Media Shorts Featuring Filmmaker Missy Whiteman
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
7:00 p.m., 109 Imholte Hall
A compilation of short films :
Coyote Way (2012, 5 min.)
Nawa Giizhigong (2012, 7 min.)
Indigenous Holocaust (2008, 5 min.)
Neinoo (Mother) (2007, 3 min.)
Walk in Shadows (2004, 7 min.)