Saturday, June 19, 2021

Now here's the math prof we all should have had

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Monday, May 31, 2021

This sad week

I was going to put up another funny post, but not tonight. 
This week I read the books Nomadland and Snakes in Suits so I was a little bummed out to begin with. 
 And then we got the terrible news about the Kamloops Residential School graveyard, with the certainty that there will be more graves found across Canada. 
A few years ago, when the Truth and Reconciliation Report was released, their use of the term "genocide" was disputed -- I do hope now that that type of  self-righteous and hurtful residential school denialism will not happen again.
I have a Twitter list, Indigenous Twitter, which I set up so I can more easily follow Canada's most prominent Indigenous voices and important news. Here is some of the most useful commentary from today:
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Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Seven tweets in May

And read the whole thread for this one: Does anyone still remember "Seven Days in May - which was a 1962 novel and then a film with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster -- when the US government was threatened by a military takeover? 
 Seems sorta quaint now, doesn't it.

   
And I had not realized Rod Serling wrote the screenplay!
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Friday, April 30, 2021

Happy Friday

I'm back - turned out my keyboard had somehow disconnected itself from my laptop operating system and they needed to find each other again. Sorta like this: So now I've got my laptop back and I'm feeling like this:
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Monday, April 19, 2021

Laptop woes

Sorry my laptop is being looked at-all of a sudden the keyboard wouldn't work. Not sure how long I will be without it. So - later, dude!
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Friday, April 02, 2021

We don't deserve dogs, do we?

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Monday, March 29, 2021

The Boat as Metaphor


So now the world is following the tale of the boat stuck in the Suez Canal, there's even a website Is The Ship Still Stuck?
And all the pundits are engaging in their favorite indoor activity - coming up with "takes" on how the situation illustrates the ridiculous and profound nature of life in these pandemic days, etc etc. 
At the Atlantic, Amanda Mull writes about how we're going to need a smaller boat:
For people who don’t work in shipping, these problems have reared their heads over the past year in an endless and seemingly random series of consumer-goods shortages, affecting products as varied as sofas and spandex bike shorts. Now, though, these problems—and the persistent frailty of the global system on which corporations have built our physical world—have a singular visual metaphor in the Ever Given. She is huge, and she is stuck, like I am when I wake up with a hangover. Right now, there’s not enough ibuprofen and red Gatorade in the world.
The most interesting takes, however, aren't the metaphysical ones, but the economic ones. 
Here's Matt Stoller talking about what the stuck boat is telling us about the constructed fragility of our economic supply chains:
What is new isn’t the vulnerability of the Suez Canal as a chokepoint, it’s that we’ve intentionally created lots of other artificial chokepoints. And since our production systems have little fat, these systems are tightly coupled, meaning a shortage in one area cascades throughout the global economy, costing us time, money, and lives. 
It’s a dumb way to organize a global supply chain system, just as it was dumb to build ships that are too big to fit into canals. And that’s why the "big boat stuck in canal" is such a great illustration of the problem, it shows our policymakers and corporate leaders couldn’t even think through what would happen if Really Big Thing Got Stuck In Important Canal.
Yes, the stuck boat has definitely revealed some problems in world commerce, just as the pandemic revealed problems in public health.
Once again, in spite of all our society's attempts to anticipate and prepare, we just don't seem to be able to really get a grip on an issue until something actually goes wrong.  
But never fear, then its Canada to the rescue! UPDATE: Fascinating article today in The Guardian about how they got that boat free.
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Sunday, March 21, 2021

Sunday Night Sock Hop

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Sunday, March 14, 2021

Funny stuff

 







And one more - its hilarious:
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Friday, March 05, 2021

Patsy Cline: She holds you in her heart when she sings

On March 5, 1963, 30-year-old singer Patsy Cline was killed in a plane crash - one of the first musical losses I can remember, though far from the last. 
Here is a pretty good documentary about Patsy Cline and her music:
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Wednesday, March 03, 2021

I love this!

And this happened here, in Saskatoon:
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Tuesday, March 02, 2021

Tweet of the day

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Saturday, February 13, 2021

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sort of a lousy day, really -- stupid cold, and Trump is found GUILTY but he skates away without any penalties so far. Well, anyway, here's some funny tweets just to lighten the mood for Valentine's Day:
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Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Back to normal

What a relief it is to just have normal politics-as-usual going on everywhere these days - blaming Trudeau for stuff that isn't his fault, blaming O'Toole for stuff that IS his fault, watching Biden taking over the US government, its all good these days. 
I don't wake up and doom-scroll twitter anymore. 
Here's some of the recent funny stuff: 
I guess the Bernie meme is finally over: Too soon?
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Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Nah nah nah nah Goodbye

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