Syllabus #90

And just like that, the first month of 2021 has slipped through our fingers like sand through an hourglass, if the hourglass was actually a cylinder, and the cylinder was the size of a 50 gallon oil drum.  It feels like so much shit happened this month, because it did, but it has felt like it passed in an instant.  Maybe because we actually had a Very Big Deal event that we have been anticipating for, oh, the last 4 years, to mark the passage of time.  The inauguration was such a profound relief and the fact that it went forward as scheduled with some level of fanfare, of pomp and circumstance, made it feel like the world is still spinning.

So what else flew by us this week like a train with the conductor passed out drunk at the switch?

---

 What a mensch, that Doug Emhoff 

Speaking of mensches, the OG - Bernie cashing in for Meals on Wheels 

I love all of these but especially this one (below)- this is what (most) people mean in practice when they say Defund The Police, but "reallocate bloated police budgets" doesn't roll off the tongue the same way.  Reinvest in other community resources that address the root causes of crime so that police aren't simultaneously the first and last line of defense at a crisis point.  Mental health services and programs that help people in high-poverty areas obtain employment at a livable wage would be a great start!

via Streets Department

This is creepy and perhaps intellectually and financially dishonest on the part of the university, but it also speaks to every kid's fantasy of their teacher being dead.  Maybe not in a literal sense, but what kid hasn't gleefully sung about barbecuing their teacher's head and flushing her body down the potty?  That's just real life, man.

Stay home, wash your hands, if you gotta go out, wear two masks, and maybe also just like, professinal meth cooker, but make it fashun.  

The long read - a fascinating deep dive into the world of phone scams.  Apparently 22% of people surveyed admitted to losing money to a phone scam.  At first I found that number shocking, and I'm going to choose to think optimistically about the critical thinking abilities of my fellow humans and posit that there's probably an overlap between people who answered their phone to take a survey and people who answered their phone and took the bait in a phone scam.  The article didn't state by what methods the survey was conducted, but yo, I never answer my phone unless I'm expecting a call or you're in my contacts, and even then, if I pick up for you, I must really think highly of you. [Ok, edit, it was an online Harris Poll so my theory is incorrect, y'all people are just gullible, I guess]

And finally, if you have time to read only one thing this weekend, edify yourself with this brief treatise on cube-shaped wombat poop.

Analog Reading:

Still, you guessed it, nibbling on The Best of Me by David Sedaris.  I think 'nibbling' is the most nauseating word to use here, or anywhere, now that you mention it.  Go nibble on something moist is probably the filthiest yet least profane thing you could ever say to someone.

Finishing up The Midnight Library by Matthew Haig for my book club.  I will not deny that this book has been entertaining, but there are so many plot holes and unexplained metaphysical and cosmological rules that I would find acceptable in a middle-grade fantasy novel but not a book written for adults, unless those adults want to suspend their critical faculties and read the time traveling chronicles of the spiritual love child of Bridget Jones and Oliver Twist.

Read The Sea Wife by Amity Gaige.  The first half = let's throw caution to the wind and buy a sailboat! and the second half = it's hard to feel sympathy for people who know better but constantly act against their own self interest.  That sounds harsh.  I really liked the book, and the way that it wove the wife's hindsight perspective and the husband's real-time captain's log together to tell a suspenseful narrative.  I just thought both people were insufferable asshats.