Remember social events?

There is this meme floating around Facebook — sorry I can’t show it to you, because I don’t care — that puts up four movie franchises, like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, & Marvel, and asks you to pick only three. I enjoyed seeing all of them once, but sheesh, enough, I don’t particularly want to rewatch any of them, I’m not particularly interested in seeing any of them continued, I don’t need any spin-offs or alternative universe series (Star Trek did that, hated it, Marvel is apparently planning to play games with the time line, I hate that too). Give me something fun and creative that does not expect me to get invested in the next movie that will come out. That’s all I ask. I have simple tastes. Show me a monster from outer space eating spaceships, I’ll contentedly buy a ticket and eat my popcorn. I don’t need to know there will be a monster from outer space eating spaceships II. It’s actually a bit of a turn-off because I know executives somewhere are drooling over piles of cash and planning more without concern for the quality, and by the time we get to monster from outer space eating spaceships VII it’s going to be dreck intended to shear the sheep still lining up to see it. Or, inevitably, it will be bought by Disney. So just stop. Please, for the love of gods, I don’t need to see another Spider-Man or Batman origin story, OK?

But I do love going to the movies. Always have. I’ll go see whatever is playing at our local movie theater, which I hope manages to weather the pandemic. It’s been closed for a year now! I’ve had my vaccination, which will kick in with full immunity in about 6 weeks, and once the theater reopens I’ll be there every week, and I won’t care much what is playing. This video ramped up my nostalgia.

The drone pilot is really, really good, but it’s also a great perspective on just going to the movies. Also, it was recorded in Plymouth, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis — I’ve been there, but not to that particular theater. Now I want to go to the movies, any movies.

The same pilot also made a similar video of Bryant-Lake Bowl — I have been there, multiple times. I even gave a talk in the little auditorium attached to it, and I’ve been there for one of Rebecca Watson’s quiz shows, which were held as part of Convergence. It’s a great place, a center of community, where people get together to relax, have fun, drink beer, and talk.

I want that back. I want it back sensibly and safely, though (note all the mask-wearers). I’m not an extrovert, but I still would like to hang out in communities of my fellow ape-creatures, quietly, just sitting back and savoring the vibes.

By the way, we’re slowly coming back. I see that Convergence is planning an in-person con in Minneapolis on 5 August, which should be OK — we’re all supposed to be vaccinated by then. I might still be a little nervous about attending, so I’ll play that one by ear. Skepticon is playing it safe and will be an entirely on-line con on 13 August, which is reasonable — they would have had to book the venue at about the time the pandemic was peaking (which does make me wonder where Convergence acquired all that confidence).

Why not both?

What a strange headline: “Cuomo accusations split Democrats between wanting an investigation or a resignation”. How about an investigation, which prompts a resignation? Why not have him resign, and follow through with an investigation? Or do both simultaneously? I don’t care. Andrew Cuomo is a rolling disaster. Stop him now.

It’s not just that he hid nursing home deaths and mismanaged the pandemic for the most vulnerable populations. It’s that he runs the state as a smug patriarch and fosters a patronizing culture of sexism. Totally familiar. This crap is everywhere, and no one ever seems to take any steps to bring the abusers back in line. Listen to this woman who worked with him.

I never thought the governor wanted to have sex with me. It wasn’t about sex. It was about power. He wanted me to know that I was powerless, that I was small and weak, that I did not deserve what relative power I had: a platform to hold him accountable for his words and actions. He wanted me to know that he could take my dignity away at any moment with an inappropriate comment or a hand on my waist. (The Cuomo administration has declined to comment.)

It’s not that Cuomo spares men in his orbit from his trademark bullying and demeaning behavior. But the way he bullies and demeans women is different. He uses touching and sexual innuendo to stoke fear in us. That is the textbook definition of sexual harassment.

The message is that as long as you don’t rape or molest a woman, you can get away with all kinds of demeaning behavior. Go ahead, let all the apparatchiks in your orbit sneer at women. No crime, no foul.

Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t just the culture of the Cuomo administration I had to survive in New York’s capital. If it wasn’t Cuomo putting his arm around me, it was a drunken state lawmaker propositioning me at a bar or a guard repeatedly denying me access to the Senate chambers or a male colleague in the press corps refusing to accept his own complicity in what was happening. Whether the governor resigns or finishes out his term or is reelected or runs for another office, his eventual departure alone will not end the legacy of sexual harassment in Albany. As a former colleague recently tweeted, it’s “as pervasive as air.”

I know, who cares? Isn’t that women’s role, to look pretty and be nice toys to touch?

I supported the eviction of Al Franken from congress for the same reason: nothing he did was criminal, but it was disrespectful and sent a message that women are appropriate targets for demeaning jokes. Sorry, Al, you did good work but are a necessary casualty of an important shift in our social environment. Meanwhile, Cuomo is a colossal arrogant asshole who bungled his way through the pandemic and has no redeeming characteristics to cause us any doubts. So why are we debating whether he ought to resign?

The day after

I had my shot of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday. Today, I’m feeling it: my arm is sore, my limbs in general feel like lead, and my brain seems to be running at half speed. This must be the possible lethargy they warned us about. It’s nothing too bad, and even if I’d known the specific effect ahead of time, it wouldn’t have dissuaded me in the slightest.

Fortunately, as an early anniversary gift, I bought us a larger coffee maker, which helps a little. Also, it’s not as if professoring takes much brain power, right?

Spiders not having sex

I tried. I put the young male spiders with the young female spiders, and the females cringed and refused to move while the males wandered around pretending to be busy. You don’t even have to watch the movie, the full story is in the title.

I’ll plump them up and try again in a few weeks.

What is a “day off”?

I arranged my schedule this semester to have no classes on Friday — I knew it was going to be a rough term, and having that extra free day to get caught up was going to be useful. Except…having no scheduled commitments meant that Fridays were going to be a magnet for all the other little events that turned up. So, today, my “free day”, is booked up with student appointments all morning and into the early afternoon. Calendars abhor blank white days, I guess.

However, I will be free at 1:30, and then I’m off to the lab to attempt some controlled matings of young spiders. I might be disappointed (they really are on the small young side), but the fun is in the trying. I’ll be recording the whole show, so later tonight or tomorrow I might be able to treat you to some spider porn. Hopefully, not vore porn. Or not some angsty teen drama where the protagonists all pointedly ignore each other at the dance.

Bring back the weird

The paleontological literature is a showcase for tragedy — it’s a graveyard of long-dead species, all snuffed out millions and millions of years before any human was around to appreciate them, and all we can do is look in awe at their fossilized corpses. In particular, fans of the Cambrian fauna can only pine for magnificently weird creatures that have been extinct for hundreds of millions of years, and represent entire exotic lineages that have left no descendants today. Two of the strangest are Anomalocaris and Opabinia.

Two of the most peculiar Burgess Shale animals, Anomalocaris and Opabinia, illustrate the complicated history of research of many Cambrian soft-bodied taxa – a result of their unfamiliar morphologies compared to the occupants of modern oceans. Both Anomalocaris and Opabinia possess compound eyes, lateral swimming flaps, filamentous setal structures, and a tail fan. Recent work has revealed that Anomalocaris and its relatives, the radiodonts, are united by the presence of paired sclerotized protocerebral frontal appendages and mouthparts composed of plates of multiple sizes, forming a diverse group containing over 20 taxa. Radiodonts range in age from the early Cambrian to at least the Devonian, and have been recovered from numerous palaeocontinents. Meanwhile, the most celebrated animal from the Burgess Shale, Opabinia regalis, with its head bearing five stalked eyes and a proboscis, remains the only opabiniid species confidently identified and is only known from a single quarry in the Burgess Shale. Myoscolex ateles from the Emu Bay Shale was proposed as a possible close relative, though this interpretation was hotly contested, and other authors have proposed a polychaete affinity.

The radiodonts (arthropods with mouths containing plates arranged in a wheel, that irised open and closed) are diverse and notorious. For a time, they were the largest predators on the planet, with their paired long spiky Great Appendages extending from the front of their head. Like the quote says, the opabiniiids are known from one location and one species, but they are weird. A similar array of swimming flaps like Anomalocaris, but then having 5 eyes on stalks and a long snout with a mouth on the end of it…it’s heartbreaking that they no longer exist. Spiders are cool and all, but I’d love to have schools of anomalocariids or opabiniids swarming in our local lakes.

At least one new opabiniid species has been identified, though. This cutie:

For perspective, here’s where they fall on the phylogenetic tree.

Tardigrades and velvet worms and mantis shrimp are certainly wonderful and interesting animals, but I have to yearn to see more of that glorious radiation of interesting forms in between. All gone, though. If gods were real, they’d never have let them die off.

What is the monarchy good for?

I’ve been struggling to come up with a good excuse for keeping the British monarchy around, and I’ve come up with two. Just two.

  1. Inspiring the Irish to write lovely diatribes against kings, queens, and other such useless “influencers”.

    Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown.

    Beyond this, it’s the stuff of children’s stories. Having a queen as head of state is like having a pirate or a mermaid or Ewok as head of state. What’s the logic? Bees have queens, but the queen bee lays all of the eggs in the hive. The queen of the Britons has laid just four British eggs, and one of those is the sweatless creep Prince Andrew, so it’s hardly deserving of applause.

  2. Giving conservatives apoplexy as they twist themselves into knots to defend the indefensible.

    British TV personality Piers Morgan on Wednesday doubled down on his criticism of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, after being pressured out of his high-profile anchor job at “Good Morning Britain.”

    In typical style, he dug in his heels, refused to apologize and announced he would be back.

    “On Monday, I said I didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah [Winfrey] interview. I’ve had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don’t,” he tweeted.

    Morgan sensationally resigned Tuesday after his network was flooded with complaints about his coverage of the interview. He had said he “didn’t believe a word” Meghan told Winfrey, specifically her assertion that she felt suicidal and was offered no help from Buckingham Palace.

These are all worthy accomplishments, but also rather superfluous. Irish writers have a long history of beautiful writing and hardly need a royal cause to motivate them; for that matter, the Scots and Welsh have also achieved much in spite of the English appendage to their homelands. While I’m happy to see Piers Morgan blow himself up, conservatives will seek out and detonate outrage no matter where it comes from. If they aren’t rushing to support the British Royal family, they’ll just latch on to some other victim, like Pepe LePew.

Come to think of it, a British royal and an entitled, oblivious cartoon skunk do have much in common.