Friday Thoughts: Non-binary, Gender neutral, or Neutered?

March 3, 2023March 3, 2023

Friday Thoughts: Non-binary, Gender neutral, or Neutered?

It’s been an interesting week. Interesting in the manner of frustrating and somewhat scary. In the “Frustrating” column is the death of the not-quite-five-year-old refrigerator. The fridge belongs to the landlord, so at least the expenses are his. However, dealing with the fall out is on us. In the “Somewhat scary” column is the tornado warning that sounded last night and the winds that blew so hard I could feel the back wall vibrating. Yeah, I was raised in earthquake country, not tornado country. This will take some getting used to.

February 9, 2023February 9, 2023

Academic Failure and the Loss of Discourse

A post from seven years ago floated up in my FB memories this morning. It was a rant from a former student about the loss of discourse and discussion in the classroom. At the time, this student was in a grad class and had raised a differing point of view only to be greeted with gasps of astonishment. I had copied the rant and posted it as Reason #47 for why I teach. In reality, rants like this, demonstrating the critical thinking skills of my students, remain Reason #1 for why I taught. Yes, I’ve left that world, and the inability to have constructive discussions and arguments in the classroom is my primary reason for leaving.

January 13, 2023January 13, 2023

Friday Thoughts: Disagreement vs. Misinformation

I know I’m likely preaching to the choir here, but I wanted to take a few minutes and examine the issue of disagreement vs. misinformation. “Misinformation” is flying about a lot lately and in most cases it is mildly to egregiously misapplied. “Misinformation” is a word that conjures up images of propagandizing evil dictators. People think “Soviet propaganda” or similar when they hear that term. Characterizing statements as “misinformation” conveys to the listener that the statement is not only false, but deliberately misleading and therefore dangerous. Put your hands over your ears immediately before you become contaminated!

January 1, 2023January 1, 2023

Starting 2023

It’s Sunday morning, the first day of 2023 and I’m drinking cappuccino and thinking about the day and year ahead. For the day, we’re going to a friend’s house and participating in a chili cook-off and tasting that promises to be a lot of fun. We have friends in Texas! Yay! We’ve been in Texas for just over a year now… thirteen months to be exact and every day I’m more and more convinced we made the right move. Not that I was worried it was a bad move, but every day I just feel more comfortable.

December 25, 2022December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas!

I am enjoying my first Christmas with family in four years. I’d almost forgotten how much driving between houses there is, but it’s still fun. We spent last weekend with my cousins doing Christmas and today, some are doing a second Christmas with some of the same people, while others are with the other side of the family. We are splitting our time between my husband’s parents and siblings.

December 9, 2022December 9, 2022

Fear of Money

Earlier today I saw something about Elon Musk and one of the first comments was something to the effect that it was obscene that Musk was worth as much as he is. Combined with the release of the Twitter files and other things, this got me thinking again. It’s not news to anybody who’s been paying attention that a huge number of people who consider themselves “liberal” or on the left, absolutely hate money. And as the saying goes – we hate what we fear. They hate people who make money, people who try to make money, people who want to keep their own money, people who build wealth, people whose parents are wealthy, people who spend more than they do… whatever. If money is involved, they hate it.

November 24, 2022November 24, 2022

Thanksgiving 2022

This time last year (well, the equivalent weekend, if not the date), we were having Thanksgiving dinner with one of my best friends and her family. We were only three days away from the moving truck arriving and taking all our worldly goods down to Texas. We spent the next three days frantically trying to finish up packing and figuring out what was going in the car, what was going in the truck, and what was going in the trash. It was a bit frenetic to say the least. And we were still packing when the moving truck arrived.

November 9, 2022November 9, 2022

Why No Red Wave? Or A Labor of Love

What happened? We were promised an almost unstoppable red wave in yesterday’s election. What we got was one or two upset races and it was business as usual for the rest. Fetterman – Fetterman! – won in Pennsylvania for God’s sake. The corrupt, criminal-loving, now cognitively impaired candidate won over a TV famous medical doc who actually had some good ideas. In Georgia, it looks like the corrupt, racist slum lord will win over the former football player, who yes, has some gaffe issues, but far less than Biden. In other races (check out Real Clear Politics for more results) what should have been clear Republican wins became nail biters and I don’t think it was all fraud.

November 4, 2022November 5, 2022

Demonization and Segregation

It’s a thing among hard-core political partisans to demonize and “other” (to use the language of the left… ostracize, unperson) their opponents and anyone who even hesitates to go along with their ideas. The left, with their capture of the major news outlets, is very good at demonizing, othering, ostracizing, unpersoning, and segregating all those with whom they disagree, dislike, and otherwise want/need to silence and do away with.

October 28, 2022October 28, 2022

Creating Monsters

A generational temper tantrum is occurring. There’s been a lot in the news lately (well, at least on the sites that I read. I don’t know if the mainstream media has said much) about childish adults throwing soup on Van Gogh’s sunflowers and gluing themselves to the wall of the museum, or gluing themselves to a street in Paris, or gluing themselves to other paintings, and other stupid, senseless, and destructive gestures with far less cool and panache than the brothers of Delta House. But they’re out there, throwing temper tantrums.