Jun 18 2025

The trade war

You know, I’m confused about this whole trade war thing. Better a trade war than a nuclear war, for sure, but … Isn’t it good for a country to reduce its dependence on other countries? Isn’t it good to reduce one’s deficit, to balance the budget?

If the States doesn’t want to buy as much oil from us, that’s a good thing! It means we can drill less. We shouldn’t be drilling in the first place. Read Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything.

If they don’t want to buy as much lumber, that’s also a good thing. We can stop cutting. Given the forest fires of 2023 and 2025, don’t we need every single tree that’s standing? To absorb some of the global-warming carbon dioxide that’s filling our atmosphere?

I guess Trump’s decisions are a problem if he’s breaking promises to purchase, especially if we’ve already prepared to sell. But can’t we either just sell to someone else or keep it for ourselves? Maybe then our own prices for gas, wood, etc. could go down.

And/or maybe the problem is the system. Why shouldn’t countries be able to increase or decrease how much they buy and sell from each other? Is the problem that he just suddenly decided to reduce purchases rather than renegotiate trade agreements that bound him to said purchases?

Jun 16 2025

Trump on trans rights

https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/05/10/trump-promises-rollback-on-trans-rights-heres-what-hes-said/

Yes! (Canada, take note!)

Jun 14 2025

Strip Search – movie by Tom Fontana – highly recommended NOW

I watched this years ago, but happened to watch it again today (it’s on CRAVE), and WOW. Talk about timely. The current political context in the States adds so much to the viewing. Highly recommended.

(Though I the classroom ‘What if?’ bookends are unnecessary and, actually, reduce the film.)

Jun 12 2025

Trump and the ban on food additives

Love the idea. Wish it were worldwide policy. Should’ve gone further to address the entire food process, banning harmful chemicals in fertilizers, pesticides, etc.

Jun 11 2025

American workers / Mexican workers / GM

“Think of how handily Detroit’s auto workers were distracted from GM’s greed when they were given Mexican free-trade-zone labor to treat as a scapegoat; the American worker’s enemy isn’t the Mexican worker, it’s the auto manufacture who screws them both.”

from Overclocked, Cory Doctorow

Jun 07 2025

from The Last Election, Andrew Yang and Stephen Marche

“It is a successful fifteen seconds of television, the result of months of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultancy fees.” p24

Yeah. Politicians are as bad as business owners. If they spent their marketing budget on making a better product, providing better service … There ought to be a low ceiling in both cases for such expenditures. At the very least, it would go toward leveling the playing field.

“… Americans don’t want reliable information anymore. they want confirmation of teir biases and rage.” p97

Jun 06 2025

funny bit from John Scalzi

I’m reading through his “Whatever” archive …

“See, now, this is a dog: [picture of Kodi …] as opposed to a Shih Tzu, at which you look and say to yourself ‘This is what happens when you put a mop and a stuffed animal in a room with a Barry White CD.'”

Picture Day Part 7: Woof!

Jun 05 2025

An idea for profs

Here’s an idea I’d implement if I were still teaching:

Have your students grade each other’s papers, anonymously.

First, they have to establish critieria and justify them, then they have to grade the paper they’re randomly assigned accordingly.

You grade them according to how well they graded the other’s paper.

Hopefully, this will counteract the ‘likes’ and casual ‘thumbs up’ tendency and develop true critical thinking about what they read — critical reading.

It should also improve their own papers. (Suggest, to the clueless, that they use their own justified criteria while writing, and before submitting, their future papers.)

Jun 04 2025

Research into male/female differences–is a redo required?

Does any research into the differences between male and female distinguish between females who have experienced pregnancy and childbirth and those who have not? It’s doubtful, since most research is conducted by men, to whom making such a distinction would not even occur.

But there are permanent changes to the brain as a result of pregnancy and childbirth. “Gray matter becomes more concentrated” and “Activity increases in regions that control empathy, anxiety, and social interaction.” There are also changes in the amygdala, “which helps process memory and drives emotional reactions like fear, anxiety, and aggression” (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/what-happens-to-a-womans-brain-when-she-becomes-a-mother/384179/)

So are the much touted differences between male and female differences between male and only mothering females? If so, that entire area of research needs to be redone.

Jun 04 2025

Unpregnant (the movie)

The movie titled Unpregnant has been on my list for a while, but I’ve just subscribed to CRAVE.

One, I was appalled to see that the movie is categorized as a comedy.

I suspect the categorizing is done not by CRAVE staff, but according to the movie’s submitted metadata, which means it’s the writer, director and/or producer who are calling it a comedy. And I suspect that whoever is responsible for the category identification is a man.

Because only a man would find it funny that
– a teenager finds herself pregnant because the condom broke, finds her whole life about to change direction in what she may well consider to be a horrible way—all her plans, her aspirations, her goals, no longer possible
– she discovers that the nearest place at which an abortion without parental consent is available is almost a thousand miles away; she doesn’t have the money to get there
– she discovers that the teenage boy knew the morning after that the condom had broken, but did not tell the young woman; if he had, she could’ve obtained the morning after pill—problem solved
Have I gotten to the funny part yet? Where are the giggles?

As I watch the movie, I see that yes, there are comedic moments. The movie becomes a road trip between previously estranged friends. But who would decide to write a comedy based on such traumatic premises. Again, only a man.

So I was surprised that two of the three writers are women. What the hell?

Shame on the three of you for perpetuating the clueless view that pregnancy and abortion are no big deal.

So when abortion is prohibited altogether in ALL fifty states, oh well. No big deal. Right?

(And to think people have DIED to secure your right to decide for yourself whether or not to reproduce.)