I think even if certain items are legal, there are some jobs - like ones where the lives of passengers depend on your judgement and reflexes and general connection to reality - where they're forbidden everywhere for use immediately before doing that job. This guy had at least three things going on where he should not have been in that cockpit, especially if the report I heard he was deadheading* down to LA to fly a plane himself is true.
I haven't flown in over 20 years and this does not make me any more inclined to.
*heh. Deadheading. because he took magic mushrooms.
I use the Tide for sensitive skin. It seems to do okay. My mom always used washing POWDER when I was a kid and I used that for years until one day I realized "you're an adult and you can decide" and I started using liquid.
(And my mom uses the same detergent as I do now)
Usually it's shampoo and conditioners that get discontinued for me; it's hard to find a brand that doesn't turn my hair into a bird's nest. (I have very dry hair).
***
I need to get out of town again; am going to go to the next town south for better grocery shopping and maybe buy myself some kind of small treat because it's just been one of those weeks.
it's my "mid fall break" (nevermind that the K-12 schools got all three days this week) so I am going up to Chickasaw National Recreation Area for some hiking (actually I could have already left; they open at 9 and it's just over an hour there).
I may not hike as much as I planned; I had a stomach bug last weekend that I thought I had beaten but a little bit of nausea or maybe gastritis is hanging on. I'm basically OK but afraid I might not have the stamina I usually have, and I'm already trying to think about where I may be able to get lunch that won't involve either something acidy (so the Italian place is out - tomatoes) or deep-fried (so: the fast food purveyors are out). I guess I'll figure it out.
There are also a couple small shops in the town adjacent to the park I want to visit; it's time to start considering Christmas gifts for my brother and his family (we exchange at Thanksgiving)
I'm just going to sit very quietly for a bit and not make plans, as Norovirus is burning through campus. So far I've managed to avoid it but I know if I confidently said "I am going antiquing tomorrow!" I'd wake up vomiting at 3 am.
I do need to do a grocery shop, I should just do that locally despite there not being great choices here. I still have to economize after a ruinously expensive late summer, and if I drive the hour's round trip for better shopping, then I'll want to pop into the Ulta, and see if there's anything new at the quilt shop, and, and, and.
And also, it's OU/Texas weekend, which means if I go out on the interstate I will need to time it carefully to avoid the traffic down and the traffic back.
I really WANT to go out of town for shopping but am trying to talk myself out of it, in other words.
(How I wish we had good shopping that was closer, or at least another hour's-round-trip option that didn't involve braving tailgate-bound or post-tailgate fans)
oh yeah, I had a student rage-quit our program (he was one of my advisees) and he said he was going to work in the Dakota oilfields and make more money than any of US ever would (and he ran off with a couple books I had loaned him, but he mailed them back later)
I kind of wonder how he's doing now. We do allow for re-enrollees but they often have to repeat classes.
I also had a student write a really rude and dismissive letter to the department in early spring 2020, basically saying "yeah well this business is willing to pay me (well above the typical wage: basically hazard pay) so you all can kiss off" and okay fine. I hope he fared okay but again I never heard from him again.
In retrospect those experiences may be partly why I'm a tiny bit defensive about all of this.
I wonder if in some cases this is people out of touch with history. I teach at a small uni in a lower-SES region, I have had students tell me they wanted a degree because they wanted out of having to do a retail job for the rest of their lives. Maybe if you're in line to inherit a car dealership or have a parent who runs a firm that will find a place for you you can avoid college (or, as I saw in the wealthier school I was a teaching assistant at, party your way through for four years and then take your guaranteed job, and along the way make your instructors' lives frustrating).
also air moving around is a lot more tolerable to me than still air is. The air conditioning on the hall where my office is at work has been intermittently out. It's been as hot as 86 in my office.
I have a tiny desk fan. It's loud, I can't hear anything when it's running, but it does make it more tolerable when it's hot. I also hate humidity and air conditioning is about the best bet for removing that (dehumidifiers work but only in small spaces)
Meanwhile, I'm looking at the *slightly* warmer bedsheets (because they're a blend and not pure cotton) and going "no, not yet, can't use those for a couple more months"
I hope we do get a cold winter; it was a brutal summer here and it would be nice to have some contrast, and nice to be able to put away my rotation of 5-6 lightweight dresses and pull out the heavier gear.
I'm not THAT conservative, but I would object to the sort of "smash and grab" stuff that makes the news, mainly because it feels like it puts other shoppers at risk. I mean, a dude who just snatched $400 of gold chains out of a case isn't probably going to flinch at knocking me down to get out of the store in a hurry. And all the ordinary folks just trying to make it day to day find their lives a little more difficult....
I hate the loss-of-agency that doing all curbside pickup makes me feel (I felt that hard during the pandemic) but if I felt actively unsafe going into a store, I guess I'd do it.
my broke-ass wal-mart doesn't have the cameras, so we come in for "greeter inspection" when we leave and I hate it. As I said, it makes me want to shop there less despite the mom and pop grocery here being more expensive and having much more limited stock.
I would mind the cameras less. (The local Lowe's does have them, did not realize that's what they were for)
oh yes I am sure the big box stores want to load the cost (and effort) onto the customers; I've joked the future is us being sent into a warehouse with a headlamp and a box cutter and one of those scanning guns, and told to find our own damn groceries
I TRY to use staffed checkouts when I have to use the wal mart (I try to avoid it, because the walmart here is an aesthetically awful experience). This is because if you self-check out you get inspected even harder at the door - show your receipt, let them rifle through your bags. If you went through a staffed checkout, they usually do little more than glance at the receipt.
Of course, MOST times they have one staffed checkout open. Though yesterday? There were literally fifteen people stacked up at the entrance of the bank of self-checkouts, so I went and waited for one of the staffed ones. Probably got through faster.
But yes, it rankles to be treated as a potential criminal which is why I shop at the small regional chain here in town IF they have what I need (they don't, a lot of the time, which is why I have to go to wal-mart some times).
I wish I lived somewhere with more grocery choices....And I'm too far away from the other options to do Instacart or similar. (1/2 hour each way)
honestly, my main feeling is frustration. What this is going to do is make the lives of ordinary honest people (like me) harder. If I have to hunt for a Walgreen's clerk (say) in order to get some item I want or need, and Walgreens, like every store now, is understaffed (for whatever reason) and I can't find a clerk, either I will do without the product or will mail order it from a place.
I would not shoplift as (a) I was taught it was wrong and (b) I suspect I'd get caught if I tried it.
Granted this is less than ideal if the thing you need is Imodium or similar where waiting a week might....mean you don't need it any more. But it does suggest maybe brick and mortar will just continue to spiral away. I KNOW I would be less prone to want to shop at a place that essentially treated me as a criminal (locking away things so I have to ask, having lots of tags on stuff, making me stop at the door and surrender my receipt to allow my bags to be searched.) It bothers me to feel like it's assumed I'm a would-be criminal. I can't be the only one.
None of my college students from now on will have actual memories of the event.
Some days I look at this, and the pandemic, and the Trump administration (and the very tail end of same) and wonder if I've lived too long; history is baffling now.
When Gen X and the elder Millennials are dead, there will be much less commemoration and that's probably a good thing
1. I am so tired. Tired unto death. I hope we don't get another serious transmissible disease soon given how so many Americans are just oppositionally-defiant about doing anything to help their neighbors any more/willing to listen to cranks who don't have background on the topic spout forth what they want to hear. I've really soured on my fellow citizens in these past 3 years and I don't see my feelings about them ever improving.
2. Was there not a study out of a SE Asian nation (possibly Indonesia?) that was a large-scale study that showed that masking was actually pretty darn effective? And not even the "everyone has to do it" as it was the "you are protected by your mask." One thing that frustrated me deeply in the mask debate is that like for a year or two it was believed "my mask protects you; your mask protects me" and when I'd walk into the Kroger and be in the 2% of shoppers who were masked.....well, it did psychological damage, "Those people don't give a (poop) about me, all the things I ever do are to benefit others and I never get any" so it was useful to know that masks actually helped the wearer.
3. My 87 year old mother masked in public until a couple months ago. She asks my advice regularly about it despite me being the same kind of biologist as she is (therefore: not an epidemiologist). (I think I have stepped into the role of being the one who advises and reassures now that my father is gone, and frankly it's kind of exhausting). I recently advised her it might be wise to mask up at church again (she asked me) or anywhere where she's going to be indoors in a group for a while
4. I've seen studies saying transmission is most likely if you're in a crowd for an extended time - so a 15 minute run through a grocery store is probably OK; going on a plane for three hours a mask is probably a wise choice. That's going to be my plan going forward.
The last two cats my parents had - littermates, Siamese - would have been easy enough to tell apart by behavior if their coloring hadn't been different. Cleo was the sweet one, Patty was the smart one. My brother (he later confessed that he did it by sticking a suction-cup toy progressively higher on the wall) taught Patty how to climb the living room drapes as a kitten, and she would go up there and pull out the drapery pins (big weird metal doohickeys kind of like a paperclip bent weird) and Cleo would pick them up and carry them to my mom. That was about the smartest thing Cleo did. Like I said, she was the "sweet" one.
Classes start Monday for me and this weekend is going to be death hot so other than a quick grocery store run I don't have any plans other than staying home in the AC.
Still death-hot here. Will probably be death-hot until October. I still braved driving to the next town over to go to the JoAnn Fabrics because I felt like I was gonna lose my stuff if I stayed in town another day
Bought a Halloween doormat. Yes I want it to be fall.
then I went to Kroger's for groceries, not a great idea, apparently this was the first day after payday/Social Security day a lot of people got out to shop AND ALSO the store's AC was broken and it was like 85 F in there. And the "customer service" desk was closed so my checkout person was having to field calls (there were 2 checkstands open and the self-checkouts are supposedly for 20 or fewer items). I was polite to her, I know it wasn't her fault everything was bad but it was not a fun experience.
I feel like AC repair companies should prioritize public buildings for repair....
Nah brah, I'll believe this when it starts showing up in consumer goods. I remember feeling so hopeful in 1989 when we were discussing "cold fusion" in Organic Chem after the first reports of the results. And I remember my shock and disappointment to learn it wasn't real . I thought of it as a "hoax" although a quick check online stops short of saying that.
Though as an working alleged-scientist, I admit I'm gobsmacked to think that people can just openly falsify details* and not expect to be found out and ultimately discredited. What research I do is very small and not important to almost anyone (it mainly centers around soil invertebrate communities, or prairie plants) and I can't imagine if I falsified data that it would go well for me; I'd probably have to resign and do some other career with what remained of my working life. But maybe if you're big enough and important enough people care less? I don't know.
*That seems NOT to be the case here; if anything it is a mistake on the original researcher's part and as Michael said, they demonstrated some OTHER effect than superconduction. But there have been a lot of scientific hoaxes in higher-stakes fields than mine. I have heard cases, for example, of faked micrographs in cell biology.
Saturday here is graduation for the summer semester, and they pulled a switcheroo on us - now every department must send at least one representative, regardless of whether or not they have graduates. Because I "got paid" (at the adjunct rate, because small class) this summer, I am on deck. (Though my colleague has it worse - he's having to go and sit with his wife, who is having to have a biopsy today). It's going to be 105. Fortunately it's in the basketball arena.
If it weren't 105 out, I might have considered going after graduation and going antiquing or doing something fun; this has largely been a fun-free summer. But it's SO hot. I get exhausted running 2 or 3 errands here in town. (Once again wondering if there's ANY way I could afford a decent place to live about 1000 miles north of here once I retire)
I also got a tetanus booster (I was due, and in a couple weeks I start fieldwork again, and I don't like to maybe risk tetanus) so I don't feel GREAT. (Next up is the shingles series but I need to let this shot settle down first)
one of the issues in my state (medical legal, recreational still illegal) is that I guess so many dispensaries are cash-only that they are either targets for burglaries (also having an attractive and easily-sold product) or armed robberies of the owner closing up for the day.
I don't know what the solution is. The older I get the more I think there are no solutions to anything at all.
Also our roll out was really badly done, it's the wild west here, and the businesses in my poor burned-out little town are now 50% pot dispensaries and we don't even have a particularly good supermarket. Also the "mom and pop farms" that our governor said would benefit are being bought up by big companies....so it's not really SMALL businesspeople any more. Maybe the still-illegal "weed guys" selling out of their car trunk, if they still exist.
there have also been some moderately horrific human-trafficking cases where illegal grow operations were set up, people brought in (mostly from SE Asia) to work them, subjected to slave labor conditions
oh lord another thing I may have to research and include in this fall's EPL class. I've already got "East Palestine Train Derailment" and "Tree Law" on the list of "new topics"
(I cover both water and land rights briefly in the class)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “The Alaska Airlines Attack”
I think even if certain items are legal, there are some jobs - like ones where the lives of passengers depend on your judgement and reflexes and general connection to reality - where they're forbidden everywhere for use immediately before doing that job. This guy had at least three things going on where he should not have been in that cockpit, especially if the report I heard he was deadheading* down to LA to fly a plane himself is true.
I haven't flown in over 20 years and this does not make me any more inclined to.
*heh. Deadheading. because he took magic mushrooms.
On “Weekend Plans Post: They Have Stopped Making My Preferred Detergent”
I use the Tide for sensitive skin. It seems to do okay. My mom always used washing POWDER when I was a kid and I used that for years until one day I realized "you're an adult and you can decide" and I started using liquid.
(And my mom uses the same detergent as I do now)
Usually it's shampoo and conditioners that get discontinued for me; it's hard to find a brand that doesn't turn my hair into a bird's nest. (I have very dry hair).
***
I need to get out of town again; am going to go to the next town south for better grocery shopping and maybe buy myself some kind of small treat because it's just been one of those weeks.
On “Weekend Plans Post: We Were Going To Do That Anyway”
it's my "mid fall break" (nevermind that the K-12 schools got all three days this week) so I am going up to Chickasaw National Recreation Area for some hiking (actually I could have already left; they open at 9 and it's just over an hour there).
I may not hike as much as I planned; I had a stomach bug last weekend that I thought I had beaten but a little bit of nausea or maybe gastritis is hanging on. I'm basically OK but afraid I might not have the stamina I usually have, and I'm already trying to think about where I may be able to get lunch that won't involve either something acidy (so the Italian place is out - tomatoes) or deep-fried (so: the fast food purveyors are out). I guess I'll figure it out.
There are also a couple small shops in the town adjacent to the park I want to visit; it's time to start considering Christmas gifts for my brother and his family (we exchange at Thanksgiving)
On “Can RFK Jr Actually Help Joe Biden?”
from what I've read, at least some of his relatives have publicly denounced him running. So there's that.
On “Israel and Ukraine and Political Correctness”
same, very same. every time I think I can't get more disappointed in humans, we one-up ourselves.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Crossing the Finish Line”
I'm just going to sit very quietly for a bit and not make plans, as Norovirus is burning through campus. So far I've managed to avoid it but I know if I confidently said "I am going antiquing tomorrow!" I'd wake up vomiting at 3 am.
I do need to do a grocery shop, I should just do that locally despite there not being great choices here. I still have to economize after a ruinously expensive late summer, and if I drive the hour's round trip for better shopping, then I'll want to pop into the Ulta, and see if there's anything new at the quilt shop, and, and, and.
And also, it's OU/Texas weekend, which means if I go out on the interstate I will need to time it carefully to avoid the traffic down and the traffic back.
I really WANT to go out of town for shopping but am trying to talk myself out of it, in other words.
(How I wish we had good shopping that was closer, or at least another hour's-round-trip option that didn't involve braving tailgate-bound or post-tailgate fans)
On “From The New York Times Magazine: Americans Are Losing Faith in the Value of College. Whose Fault Is That?”
oh yeah, I had a student rage-quit our program (he was one of my advisees) and he said he was going to work in the Dakota oilfields and make more money than any of US ever would (and he ran off with a couple books I had loaned him, but he mailed them back later)
I kind of wonder how he's doing now. We do allow for re-enrollees but they often have to repeat classes.
I also had a student write a really rude and dismissive letter to the department in early spring 2020, basically saying "yeah well this business is willing to pay me (well above the typical wage: basically hazard pay) so you all can kiss off" and okay fine. I hope he fared okay but again I never heard from him again.
In retrospect those experiences may be partly why I'm a tiny bit defensive about all of this.
"
I wonder if in some cases this is people out of touch with history. I teach at a small uni in a lower-SES region, I have had students tell me they wanted a degree because they wanted out of having to do a retail job for the rest of their lives. Maybe if you're in line to inherit a car dealership or have a parent who runs a firm that will find a place for you you can avoid college (or, as I saw in the wealthier school I was a teaching assistant at, party your way through for four years and then take your guaranteed job, and along the way make your instructors' lives frustrating).
On “Weekend Plans Post: Almost time to Winterize. Almost.”
also air moving around is a lot more tolerable to me than still air is. The air conditioning on the hall where my office is at work has been intermittently out. It's been as hot as 86 in my office.
I have a tiny desk fan. It's loud, I can't hear anything when it's running, but it does make it more tolerable when it's hot. I also hate humidity and air conditioning is about the best bet for removing that (dehumidifiers work but only in small spaces)
"
yeah and they're talking El Nino, which here, will mean "warm and dryish winter"
at least it won't be HOT and DROUGHT like this summer was. But I do miss snow.
"
Meanwhile, I'm looking at the *slightly* warmer bedsheets (because they're a blend and not pure cotton) and going "no, not yet, can't use those for a couple more months"
I hope we do get a cold winter; it was a brutal summer here and it would be nice to have some contrast, and nice to be able to put away my rotation of 5-6 lightweight dresses and pull out the heavier gear.
On “The Rural Express”
Basically the "Wells Fargo Wagon" song from "The Music Man"
On “A Real Problem For Retail? A Shoplifting Q and A”
I'm not THAT conservative, but I would object to the sort of "smash and grab" stuff that makes the news, mainly because it feels like it puts other shoppers at risk. I mean, a dude who just snatched $400 of gold chains out of a case isn't probably going to flinch at knocking me down to get out of the store in a hurry. And all the ordinary folks just trying to make it day to day find their lives a little more difficult....
I hate the loss-of-agency that doing all curbside pickup makes me feel (I felt that hard during the pandemic) but if I felt actively unsafe going into a store, I guess I'd do it.
"
my broke-ass wal-mart doesn't have the cameras, so we come in for "greeter inspection" when we leave and I hate it. As I said, it makes me want to shop there less despite the mom and pop grocery here being more expensive and having much more limited stock.
I would mind the cameras less. (The local Lowe's does have them, did not realize that's what they were for)
"
oh yes I am sure the big box stores want to load the cost (and effort) onto the customers; I've joked the future is us being sent into a warehouse with a headlamp and a box cutter and one of those scanning guns, and told to find our own damn groceries
"
I TRY to use staffed checkouts when I have to use the wal mart (I try to avoid it, because the walmart here is an aesthetically awful experience). This is because if you self-check out you get inspected even harder at the door - show your receipt, let them rifle through your bags. If you went through a staffed checkout, they usually do little more than glance at the receipt.
Of course, MOST times they have one staffed checkout open. Though yesterday? There were literally fifteen people stacked up at the entrance of the bank of self-checkouts, so I went and waited for one of the staffed ones. Probably got through faster.
But yes, it rankles to be treated as a potential criminal which is why I shop at the small regional chain here in town IF they have what I need (they don't, a lot of the time, which is why I have to go to wal-mart some times).
I wish I lived somewhere with more grocery choices....And I'm too far away from the other options to do Instacart or similar. (1/2 hour each way)
"
honestly, my main feeling is frustration. What this is going to do is make the lives of ordinary honest people (like me) harder. If I have to hunt for a Walgreen's clerk (say) in order to get some item I want or need, and Walgreens, like every store now, is understaffed (for whatever reason) and I can't find a clerk, either I will do without the product or will mail order it from a place.
I would not shoplift as (a) I was taught it was wrong and (b) I suspect I'd get caught if I tried it.
Granted this is less than ideal if the thing you need is Imodium or similar where waiting a week might....mean you don't need it any more. But it does suggest maybe brick and mortar will just continue to spiral away. I KNOW I would be less prone to want to shop at a place that essentially treated me as a criminal (locking away things so I have to ask, having lots of tags on stuff, making me stop at the door and surrender my receipt to allow my bags to be searched.) It bothers me to feel like it's assumed I'm a would-be criminal. I can't be the only one.
On “9/11 at 22: Are We Forgetting?”
None of my college students from now on will have actual memories of the event.
Some days I look at this, and the pandemic, and the Trump administration (and the very tail end of same) and wonder if I've lived too long; history is baffling now.
When Gen X and the elder Millennials are dead, there will be much less commemoration and that's probably a good thing
On “Mini-Throughput: Masks, Redux”
1. I am so tired. Tired unto death. I hope we don't get another serious transmissible disease soon given how so many Americans are just oppositionally-defiant about doing anything to help their neighbors any more/willing to listen to cranks who don't have background on the topic spout forth what they want to hear. I've really soured on my fellow citizens in these past 3 years and I don't see my feelings about them ever improving.
2. Was there not a study out of a SE Asian nation (possibly Indonesia?) that was a large-scale study that showed that masking was actually pretty darn effective? And not even the "everyone has to do it" as it was the "you are protected by your mask." One thing that frustrated me deeply in the mask debate is that like for a year or two it was believed "my mask protects you; your mask protects me" and when I'd walk into the Kroger and be in the 2% of shoppers who were masked.....well, it did psychological damage, "Those people don't give a (poop) about me, all the things I ever do are to benefit others and I never get any" so it was useful to know that masks actually helped the wearer.
3. My 87 year old mother masked in public until a couple months ago. She asks my advice regularly about it despite me being the same kind of biologist as she is (therefore: not an epidemiologist). (I think I have stepped into the role of being the one who advises and reassures now that my father is gone, and frankly it's kind of exhausting). I recently advised her it might be wise to mask up at church again (she asked me) or anywhere where she's going to be indoors in a group for a while
4. I've seen studies saying transmission is most likely if you're in a crowd for an extended time - so a 15 minute run through a grocery store is probably OK; going on a plane for three hours a mask is probably a wise choice. That's going to be my plan going forward.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Learning to Tell Them Apart”
The last two cats my parents had - littermates, Siamese - would have been easy enough to tell apart by behavior if their coloring hadn't been different. Cleo was the sweet one, Patty was the smart one. My brother (he later confessed that he did it by sticking a suction-cup toy progressively higher on the wall) taught Patty how to climb the living room drapes as a kitten, and she would go up there and pull out the drapery pins (big weird metal doohickeys kind of like a paperclip bent weird) and Cleo would pick them up and carry them to my mom. That was about the smartest thing Cleo did. Like I said, she was the "sweet" one.
Classes start Monday for me and this weekend is going to be death hot so other than a quick grocery store run I don't have any plans other than staying home in the AC.
On “Weekend Plans Post: In the House of Charles Entertainment Cheese”
Still death-hot here. Will probably be death-hot until October. I still braved driving to the next town over to go to the JoAnn Fabrics because I felt like I was gonna lose my stuff if I stayed in town another day
Bought a Halloween doormat. Yes I want it to be fall.
then I went to Kroger's for groceries, not a great idea, apparently this was the first day after payday/Social Security day a lot of people got out to shop AND ALSO the store's AC was broken and it was like 85 F in there. And the "customer service" desk was closed so my checkout person was having to field calls (there were 2 checkstands open and the self-checkouts are supposedly for 20 or fewer items). I was polite to her, I know it wasn't her fault everything was bad but it was not a fun experience.
I feel like AC repair companies should prioritize public buildings for repair....
On “Mini-Throughput: Floaty Rock Edition”
Nah brah, I'll believe this when it starts showing up in consumer goods. I remember feeling so hopeful in 1989 when we were discussing "cold fusion" in Organic Chem after the first reports of the results. And I remember my shock and disappointment to learn it wasn't real . I thought of it as a "hoax" although a quick check online stops short of saying that.
Though as an working alleged-scientist, I admit I'm gobsmacked to think that people can just openly falsify details* and not expect to be found out and ultimately discredited. What research I do is very small and not important to almost anyone (it mainly centers around soil invertebrate communities, or prairie plants) and I can't imagine if I falsified data that it would go well for me; I'd probably have to resign and do some other career with what remained of my working life. But maybe if you're big enough and important enough people care less? I don't know.
*That seems NOT to be the case here; if anything it is a mistake on the original researcher's part and as Michael said, they demonstrated some OTHER effect than superconduction. But there have been a lot of scientific hoaxes in higher-stakes fields than mine. I have heard cases, for example, of faked micrographs in cell biology.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Batchin’ It Again”
Saturday here is graduation for the summer semester, and they pulled a switcheroo on us - now every department must send at least one representative, regardless of whether or not they have graduates. Because I "got paid" (at the adjunct rate, because small class) this summer, I am on deck. (Though my colleague has it worse - he's having to go and sit with his wife, who is having to have a biopsy today). It's going to be 105. Fortunately it's in the basketball arena.
If it weren't 105 out, I might have considered going after graduation and going antiquing or doing something fun; this has largely been a fun-free summer. But it's SO hot. I get exhausted running 2 or 3 errands here in town. (Once again wondering if there's ANY way I could afford a decent place to live about 1000 miles north of here once I retire)
I also got a tetanus booster (I was due, and in a couple weeks I start fieldwork again, and I don't like to maybe risk tetanus) so I don't feel GREAT. (Next up is the shingles series but I need to let this shot settle down first)
On “From Reuters: Mastercard moves to ban cannabis purchases on its debit cards”
one of the issues in my state (medical legal, recreational still illegal) is that I guess so many dispensaries are cash-only that they are either targets for burglaries (also having an attractive and easily-sold product) or armed robberies of the owner closing up for the day.
I don't know what the solution is. The older I get the more I think there are no solutions to anything at all.
Also our roll out was really badly done, it's the wild west here, and the businesses in my poor burned-out little town are now 50% pot dispensaries and we don't even have a particularly good supermarket. Also the "mom and pop farms" that our governor said would benefit are being bought up by big companies....so it's not really SMALL businesspeople any more. Maybe the still-illegal "weed guys" selling out of their car trunk, if they still exist.
there have also been some moderately horrific human-trafficking cases where illegal grow operations were set up, people brought in (mostly from SE Asia) to work them, subjected to slave labor conditions
On “DOJ Sues Texas Over Rio Grande Border Barriers”
oh lord another thing I may have to research and include in this fall's EPL class. I've already got "East Palestine Train Derailment" and "Tree Law" on the list of "new topics"
(I cover both water and land rights briefly in the class)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.