Yesterday, I took advantage of the university health clinic to get both my flu shot and my COVID shot. The important part is that I got my sticker.
Today, my right arm (flu shot) is fine, but my left (COVID) hurts like heck, and I’m feeling a general malaise…but it’s not as bad as previous COVID vaccinations. Maybe my body is getting accustomed to them. It’s still going to be a good day to take it easy.
I’m surprised that Siouxsie Wiles has had to fight with her own university — after she’d been fighting the good fight for science for so many years and striving against the ignorance of anti-vaxxer. The University of Auckland failed in it’s obligation to protect and support its employees, and that’s not just my opinion, since the courts definitively agreed with her.
Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles‘ employer breached its contractual obligations to protect her health and safety in the wake of harassment she experienced as a result of her work, an Employment Court judgment today has found.
The long-awaited judgment comes around two-and-a-half years after she and then University of Auckland employee Professor Shaun Hendy initially filed their claim with the Employment Relations Authority in January 2022.Dr Wiles alleged the university failed to protect her from a “tsunami of threats” she received for her public commentary on the Covid-19 pandemic. She said she had raised concerns to the university about her safety since April 2020, shortly after the pandemic began.
The university has denied unjustifiably disadvantaging Wiles, breaching their agreement or its statutory obligations. It said it had also acted in good faith towards her. However, the Employment Court’s judgment does not agree.
She won! Unfortunately, as I know from ugly past experience, trials are absurdly costly. She won…but what she won, in addition to a moral victory, was $400,000 in court costs. Rebecca Watson is rallying her followers to help her out.
I’ll join in that call! Go to this site to donate to Siouxsie’s court costs!
Minnesotans will be prowling the farmlands with rifles this weekend through 23 November. I think I’ll stay home, not just because of all the people with guns, but because who knows when the deer will have had enough?
via Mastodon
I just noticed that this tree in our front yard that usually drops boring brown leaves every fall has had an upgrade to brighter colors this year.
I am vindicated!
It was only by accident, though — the video above is about Conservapædia, and you may recall that there was a period over ten years ago that Andy Schlafly was obsessed with me. It still counts!
I made a quick run to St Cloud today, to visit Spirit Halloween after Hallowe’en, when they are busy dumping everything left over at half price. Get out there quick! Like any mysterious fantasy shop, it’s going to vanish, leaving only a dusty empty space off an abandoned alleyway — our local stores disappear on November 3rd. I stocked up on weird fake spider crap for next year’s celebration.
More importantly, my wife sent me on a mission to get a new vacuum cleaner, because our old one is busted.
It’s Hallowe’en. It’s a dark and rainy night. I’m home all alone. The trick-or-treaters have been sparse — I’ve only had twenty kids all night, so I’m handing out great fistfuls of candy to each. You know what that means…
It’s time for Rocky Horror!
I’ve turned the sound way up and am soaking up the vibes. I’d put on fishnet stockings if I had any.
This movie is right there in my happy place. I’ve been watching it yearly since about 1976.
Uh-oh. The elevator scene just started. Bye.
My granddaughter has become Hornet from Silksong. Give her lots of candy if she comes to your door!
Just in case you wanted to wear an ugly costume every day, here’s a bluesky thread about where Jordan Peterson gets his suits.
I wouldn’t mind getting a free suit, but I’d turn down those ugly-ass freak suits. They’re made by a guy who doesn’t know much about tailoring — he just takes your measurements and outsources everything to machines in India, after adding his weird tastes to the mix.
I do wonder what kind of suit Mr Peterson has picked out to be buried in, once his fevered brain disintegrates.
A beer ad caught my attention this morning, and I watched the whole thing. That’s good advertising! Except for the fact that it didn’t motivate me to buy any beer at all. It’s titled “The Most Washington Man in the World,” and some of it was true.
I remember refusing to own or use an umbrella, but it was more because I was going to get wet no matter what…but later I learned it was probably more because Washington rain was a continuous gentle drizzle. Midwestern rain is about getting pelted with fierce wind-blown drops, and you need shelter. Worse, I experienced southern rainstorms along the gulf coast, and no way can you ignore that and amble along.
The stuff about beer in the ad is nonsense. When I was growing up, the only debate was between two mass produced cheap beers, Rainier and Oly, and I didn’t care much about either. I was drinking coffee from an early age, though, and yeah, we grew up with Sasquatch lore and would look for him in the woods. Never found him. Also, I-5 is a hellish choke point.
Otherwise, though, the scenes of misty fog and big trees on steep hillsides and seastacks off the coast did make me a little bit homesick.
It’s an odd phenomenon. I lived near Seattle from birth to age 22. I’m 68 now, which means I spent 46 years living in Oregon, the Midwest, Utah, and Pennsylvania, and none of those places made the impression on my identity and self that the Pacific Northwest did. I suspect that if we asked my kids, my oldest might have a strong connection to Philadelphia, but the other two are Minnesota kids. There is such a thing as a sense of place that get fixed in our brains at an early age.
