Learning more about Russia than I expected

Today, I have ended up in Wisconsin, just for the day, and I thought it was going to be time to play with a 3-year-old. But hey, here’s an interview with Stephen Kotkin that I thought was a solid overview of the Russian perspective. And it turns out my daughter Skatje is a moderator for r/russian, and knows a fair bit about the language. I should have expected that, since she’s working on a PhD in computational linguistics and specializes in the Russian language. Russian is close enough to Ukrainian that she can read that, too.

Anyway, I’m busy for a day. Three year olds are not that interested in Russian politics.

Russia has wacky conspiracy theorists, too?

If you spread kooky nonsensical ideas, you’re likely to be infected with them too.

I’m having a tough time pitying them now.

It’s “SPRING” BREAK!

I get a whole week off! I’ll use that time to catch up on grading and get a few lectures ahead, of course. It’s not like I’m going to be frolicking in the sunshine.

-17°C right now. I wasn’t wearing enough layers this morning and really felt it.

We are going to do one thing fun, though: we’re driving east today, stopping for a brief while in St Cloud to visit Eldest Son, then off to Wisconsin to visit Youngest Granddaughter for a day. I may overdose on cuteness for the weekend.

Oldest Boy is adorable. Granddaughter is pretty sweet, too.

Don’t forget the pandemic, you all!

I know it’s easy to do — so many distractions! And the powers-that-be are eager for you to cast all caution to the winds! — but this is an ongoing, world-changing catastrophe. So here’s a refresher.

The global COVID-19 death toll may be three times higher than official tallies suggest, according to a systematic analysis of excess mortality during the pandemic.

From Jan. 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2021, global deaths directly attributed to COVID-19 reached 5.9 million, yet estimates put excess deaths during this period at a staggering 18.2 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 17.9-19.6), Haidong Wang, PhD, of the University of Washington in Seattle, and the COVID-19 Excess Mortality Collaborators reported in The Lancet.

India had the highest number of excess deaths (4.07 million, 95% UI 3.71-4.36), an estimated eight times higher than its 489,000 reported COVID-19 deaths, which was followed by the U.S. (1.13 million, 95% UI 1.08-1.18), where the official count reached 824,000 by the end of 2021.

Just remember, human beings, we can deal with more than one problem at once. It’s hard, but problems don’t disappear when a new one rises up.

Sixty Five (65)

I wish to register a complaint. I have now reached the age when my employer is supposed to hand me a gold watch and a fat pension, and then I retire to my rustic cabin on the scenic lake with my beautiful wife, and then I spend my golden years fishing and dandling grandchildren on my knee. I got the beautiful wife, but the rest of it ain’t happening. What went wrong?

For that matter, this whole dang timeline stinks. Wars and pandemics? No sirree, that weren’t on the retirement pamphlet. I’ve been sold a bill of goods here, and I want my money back.

I’m going to keep on doing the same things over and over again, until I get a refund or a complete timeline reset and I get my goldang idyllic, peaceful retirement. How’s them apples?

I might just keep on writin’ like a crotchety ol’ geezer rockin’ on the porch, occasionally hawkin’ up a wad into the spittoon. That’ll teach ya. Remind me to pick up a spittoon next time I take the buckboard into town.

Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb

There’s a new movie in town. Batman! The first Batman movie I saw was the 1966 version with Adam West. I thought it was wonderful. Still do.

Will this new one be as good? The second one I saw was in 1989, with my 5 year old son in tow.

The boy liked it, I enjoyed it, despite the controversy over casting Michael Keaton, he was excellent. It was grimmer, though.

There have been many Batman movies ever since, and they seem to demonstrate a terrible entropy, getting darker and grimmer and less enjoyable. It seems to be a trend.

I think I’m going to skip this one. The other movie playing in the Morris Theater is something called Dog. It looks rather less gritty and dark and grim and bleak. I might just go see that.

Better to suffer with Shaun than with any more Rowling

Whoa, this is a long video, an hour and 45 minutes long. It’s worth it, though, and it’s not so much a video as a monologue, so you can just plug in your earbuds and listen as you get other work done, like I did.

Anyway, it’s Shaun talking about the Harry Potter universe. I’ve never much cared for Potter — I appreciated that it got my kids reading — but I struggled myself to get through just the first couple of books, before they got so long and even more tedious. I also only got through the first few movies before giving up, and found them awfully unforgettable. It sounds like Shaun had the same impression of the stories that I did, but to research the video, he read all the books, watched all the movies, including that terrible Fantastic Beasts crap. Only then did he dig into this analysis.

The basic message: Rowling is inherently conservative, opposed to any kind of systemic change, a neoliberal Blairite, and it shows in her stories. The most telling point is that she created a fantasy world with slavery, and none of the ‘heroes’ even try to change it, except for Hermione, who is treated as an obsessive joke. In fact the whole arc of the whole series ends with the status quo preserved, only different players in charge.

Well, now I know why her books left me so cold, and I’m glad I didn’t push on to try and read them all. Poor Shaun.

A new Minnesota state flag would be welcome

Minnesota has a state flag, and it is hideous. They stuck the state seal on a blue background and called it done, so it’s this horribly busy smear with a farmer and a fleeing Indian and flowery glop and a bunch of dates on it. It’s tasteless and ugly.

Ick. Not that the flag is particularly important, but could we at least have one that isn’t embarrassing?

A few people are lobbying for a new flag, an effort that doesn’t have a high priority right now, but they’ve definitely got some better designs. I like this one.

It’s simple and distinctive. I’d vote for it. Heck, I wouldn’t be ashamed to fly it in front of my house, if I bothered with flags at all.