Syllabus #63

Most of these links are from earlier in the past week.  Look, the last few days have been busy.  I hate that word.  Being busy is not a badge of honor and I hope busyness is one of those things that no longer has cultural cache going forward, thanks to the time we have all spent with so much less to do.  But in the last few days, I, uh, had a lot of items on my docket of shit to do.  Here's what I scrounged up, nonetheless:

What say you about this Trader Joe's controversy?   I will admit I've always felt a little weird about the ethnic-sounding names they give to their various cuisines.  The names are corny at best and probably reinforce harmful stereotypes at worst.  That being said, I feel like this is akin to the Texas real estate group making a big hoohah about not using the term 'master bedroom' anymore as if that solved racism.  There are bigger issues to focus on.  Not that it isn't a step in the right direction to address something that people can experience as a micro-aggression, but this isn't earth-shattering.  But maybe that's just me talking from a place of privilege and not understanding how it feels to be reduced to a stereotype?

It was so heartening to learn that these hateful buffoons were going to face consequences for their ludicrous and dangerous actions, but then that last little caveat:  their Republican governor will probably just pardon them anyway.

Shoot, for $1000 I'd download Farmville or some shit.  I would need a lot less of an incentive to download an app that, if widely used, could save actual lives and shorten the duration of a pandemic.


This is some serious fascist action.  We should all be scared, but not paralyzed with fear.  WHAT do we do?

I'm too lazy to search back in my own archives to see if I wrote about this a few months back, but WOWWOWWOW you guys!  Dunkaroos are comin' back!  Did you 'roo?  I don't remember my mom buying a lot of the overpriced fun junk for my lunch boxes back in the day, but I know I experienced Dunkaroos at least once and man did I covet those little pouches of icing.  The cookies not so much.  This is where I'm having flashbacks of writing about this before, but I recall the cookies being like if an animal cracker wandered the Sahara for a decade and was equal parts cardboard and sand by the time it landed in the Dunkaroo package.

Analog Reading:

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson.  I'm on the verge of becoming a KW completist.  What if his books were terrible and I just made it my mission to support him on the basis of having the same initials?  Good thing they're odd and delightful or I'd really be in a pickle.

Still plugging away at Rick Steve's new collection of old Europe stories.  And by plugging away, I mean it's sitting on my nightstand, waiting for me. 

Put How to Do Nothing on pause because after months of doing, uh, a lot of nothing, now I seem to have my work cut out for me in various ways.