Scott Eric Kaufman,
blogger at Acephalous,
contributor at Lawyers, Guns, and Money,
has died. I’ve been reading his stuff for almost as long as I’ve been blogging, and have always appreciated his humor, his openness, his humanity. And now suddenly he’s gone.
2016 has not been a kind year.
This thread is for talking about whatever doesn’t fit into the other categories. Caine is your curator.
You know I filter the comments here and have a fairly extensive block list — it’s necessary. Especially now. You wouldn’t believe the crap people are trying to post here now, emboldened by this recent election. I’ll just put one particularly ugly example from someone calling himself sinceretrupsupporter
below the fold. You might want to skip it. I find it useful to remind myself from time to time what we’re fighting.
I’ve been grading furiously, still plowing through newly accumulated piles. Who knew that all this work wouldn’t get done if I took the weekend off?
Wait a minute…how did I end up in a job that has me working nights and weekends all the time for a lower middle class salary? There are times I wonder about that. Maybe it has something to do with being so unaware that I willingly allow work to pile up, and just accept it as normal.
Speaking of slow death by acceptance of declining expectations…
This has been going on for a long time. It’s been going on during Obama’s administration. But we just go along with it until, suddenly, a large group of people discover they’re living under intolerable conditions, and everything snaps.
Only this Thursday has got an extra topping of jetlag and lack of sleep! May die. Gotta get through one more class so I can…go to a dentist’s appointment. The joy is making me delirious. Or is that nauseous? Can’t tell today.
I may be able to post something after my last meeting of the day, after 7. Or not. I may just set fire to the whole day and crawl into the flames.
This opinion is now confirmed in this comic about Sweden visiting Iceland for nefarious purposes. Sacrificing a Dane to a volcano is a small price to pay for victory.
I took a fair number of photographs on my China trip, but I’ll spare you the majority. I’ll put a few below the fold to let you get a hint of where I went.
That one on the top right is a symbol that was all over the Summer Palace: it’s the Chinese character for a long life, with an image of a bat, a symbol of happiness.
I’m on my way back! I’ve been completely out of touch for the last few days — it turns out that China has completely blocked Google, Twitter, YouTube, and…FreethoughtBlogs (I think that last one is an accident of our google adserver code), so I’ve had no access to email or FtB since Thursday. You don’t have to wag a finger at me, since my daughter has “tsk, tsk”ed me already for failing to set up a VPN before I left.
But aside from that one little deficiency, I have had a wonderful time in China. I was blown away by Chinese hospitality, and got so much good food, and got to tour the Forbidden Palace, the Great Wall, and the Summer Palace — it was a terrific experience, and I want to do it again.
At least you had a couple of slymepitters around for a little low quality entertainment — one of them made 107 comments all by his little self. It’s kind of sad and pathetic.
I’ve done a little cleanup, now that I’ve left Chinese airspace, but you’ll have to wait a bit for more substantive posts. I expect I’ll arrive home in Morris around 2am, and I have to get up bright and early to teach a 9am course.
I’m at the airport, about to clamber onto a plane that will drop me off on the other side of the planet, and I’m not sure when I will emerge again in a conscious and coherent state, so I leave this thread to you all. I also know that the cowardly trolls always take advantage of my absences to crap on the site, so just be aware: I will prune threads ruthlessly as soon as I get a moment and am back on the Internet. Rather than engaging with the idiots, just leave a note that comment #X must die. Keyword: rochambeau.
See you on the other hemisphere!
