Now that’s how I’m going to think of them all the time

The perfect abbreviation doesn’t exis…

Also, sorry everyone — I’ve been swamped lately. This was supposed to be my semester with a slightly lighter teaching load, but now it’s been increased by about 50% (just for this term, fortunately), and I’m going slightly insane. Add to that that the spiders are suddenly impressively fecund, and I have to do a lot of lab maintenance. Quickies are all I can manage.

Snow day, sort of

We got word yesterday that the University will have “reduced operations” for a few days, all because of a little snow. Are we not Minnesotans? We can handle this!

Coursework should move to distance/online learning between 8 a.m. Wednesday and 12 p.m. Thursday. If your course cannot be delivered via distance, it should be canceled. Faculty and instructors should be in touch with their students as soon as possible to inform them about how to connect to distance learning or to determine how missed classes or related assignments may be made up. Students who have not heard from their instructors are encouraged to reach out for more information.
Only designated “essential on-campus” employees must report to work on campus while we are in reduced operations. Managers and supervisors have identified affected employees and should promptly notify them about scheduling. A number of employees are necessary to maintain our campus’ 24-hour operations and we greatly appreciate their service. We urge managers to work with essential on-campus employees to ensure they are taking proper safety precautions.

Yeah, I know, heavy snowstorm, blizzard conditions, yadda yadda. On the one hand, I agree: if you have to travel to get here, it’s going to be hazardous, stay home and stay safe. On the other hand, the weather news has been playing up this storm for days, talking about two feet of snow, etc. I’ve gotten used to discounting these predictions — I’m going to estimate we’ll probably get about 10 inches, because I tend to cut all the predictions in half. That’s not nothing, but it’s nothing to panic over.

This is Minnesota, and we’re equipped to handle this stuff. The snow plows were out in force overnight, we’ve got a snowblower, we’ve got a pantry with supplies to keep us well fed for a week or two (although meals will get boring by the end), our house is snug and warm, I’m not at all worried by this storm.

I’m reminded of my grandfather telling stories of growing up in northern Minnesota. They had to tie a rope from the house to the outhouse so they wouldn’t get lost and freeze to death on the way to relieving themselves. Now we have something better than a rope — it’s called indoor plumbing.

The Onion is thriving

I think one sign that you’re in a dystopia is when satire really takes off — so many targets! So much mindless evil to ridicule! The Onion is in that niche right now.

Following a series of transphobic comments by the Harry Potter author, the nation’s top evangelical leaders announced Monday that J.K. Rowling had finally become bigoted enough to make it okay for kids to read about witchcraft. “While I always appreciated Ms. Rowling making the greedy banker goblins a thinly veiled stand-in for the Jews, it is only with her assertions that trans women aren’t women that I’ve finally come around to allowing children to read her books,” said evangelist and Focus on the Family president Jim Daly, explaining that while he still did not approve of the satanic imagery embedded throughout the Harry Potter series, Rowling’s consistent dehumanization of people who are different from her had prompted him to reconsider. “I understand that her tacitly justifying slavery though the depictions of house elves was meant as an olive branch, but now, with her steadfast commitment to demonizing trans people, she has finally won us over. And look, I’m not thrilled about the idea of my children potentially learning spells, but I’m willing to overlook that considering one of the only Asian characters in the entire franchise is named Cho Chang.” At press time, Harry Potter received a full-throated endorsement from evangelicals for introducing an entirely new set of bigoted slurs to explain half-magic and non-magic people.

I guess JK Rowling has also slithered down into a comfortable niche for herself, as well: beloved bigot.

Thanks for clearing up that reasoning

If you haven’t noticed, the whole Republican raison d’etre has been distilled down to one thing: ramping up the culture war. Once it was semi-benign because it was stupid (the War on Christmas, for instance), but now it’s escalated because their target isn’t a mythical being, it’s real humans, and specifically, the “T” in LGBTQ. We can thank a Canadian for spelling it all out for us. It’s religion. Here’s Jordan Peterson telling us he thinks the male and female distinction is more fundamental than up and down, and tracing it all back specifically to the book of Genesis, where God created us, male and female.

Transphobes have a divine transcendent value now. Like god-soaked Peterson, they are going to be justifying their bigotry with the Bible, and they’re going to be increasingly blatant about it. I made a mistake backing away from the atheist movement, since right now it’s clear that trans rights are an atheist issue. (I’m going to get so much hate mail from atheists for saying that.) And Peterson is a fundamentalist fanatic.

Also, the stupid, it burns. Seriously? Using “up” and “down” as an example of a categorical binary? Think, guy, if you can with your drug-addled constipated brain.

IOKIYAR

I fell for another tease. Remember Matt Grossell, the Minnesota state representative who was a sullen drunk picking fights in hotels and bars and hospitals when he got arrested for being falling down snockered? Here’s a non-update.

There was talk at the time about taking him off his committee assignments. Surprise: they did not. The Democrat in charge of that sort of thing is sill waffling. Worse yet, this bozo has a history of this sort of behavior.

Grossell had previously been arrested in 2019 on charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing after a drunken incident at a hotel bar in St. Paul.

The House Democratic leadership stripped Grossell of his committee assignments following his 2019 arrest. Part of the reason was that after he got out of jail he walked into St. Paul police headquarters and announced to officers that he was a state representative and that there would be “hell to pay.”

His committee assignments have since been reinstated. Grossell is a member of the public safety, judiciary and capital investment committees.

He’s done this before? He got a little temporary slap and was then reinstated? I think we can guess how this is going to go.

I did learn something in this non-update.

Alcohol is a factor in more than a quarter of Minnesota traffic deaths each year, according to state data, and drunk driving costs the state more than a quarter billion dollars annually. But neither the lawmakers getting arrested on alcohol-related charges, nor the voters who keep sending them back, seem to care a whole lot.

Yeah, you learn fast that going for a drive on these remote rural roads late on a Friday or Saturday night isn’t a great idea.

Fooled again

Dammit. I haven’t been to the movie theater in months, and I succumbed to temptation and went out last night. Unfortunately, it was Marvel movie time.

This one is about people shrinking into the “quantum realm,” which the writers interpreted to mean like a teeny tiny kingdom full of weird stuff and ants. It’s basically 100% CGI. It’s a Marvel movie, so the conclusion involves saving the multiverse with a punchy-kicky hand-to-hand fistfight.

I couldn’t enjoy it because the whole time I was watching the subatomic-sized people running around I couldn’t help but wonder, “what are they breathing?”

Someday I’ll learn that these movies aren’t worth anyone’s time.