Link Me Up, Scotty - People are Stupid (But Also Awesome) Edition

Wednesday, January 28, 2015
I have a dear friend who is undergoing treatment for cancer. When she was called for Federal Jury Duty, she asked for a waiver and provided a letter from her oncologist to verify the situation. The Feds are apparently dumber than a box of hammers.
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Parents who shun vaccines tend to cluster, boosting children's risk. This one's dumbassery is especially egregious, since it puts other little kids' health in jeopardy because these stupid motherfuckers think the greatest medical achievement in the history of the world is actually a vast conspiracy to line the pockets of Big Pharma and secretly give their special little snowflakes autism. Or something.
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And from that bastion of honest and true reporting, The Onion takes a stab at those self-same parents by proclaiming "I don't vaccinate my child because it's my right to decide what eliminated diseases come roaring back."  Written in irony, but painfully, horrifyingly true.
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This is actually the opposite of stupid: MIT researchers have found that when it comes to "general intelligence," women are where it's at if you want a high rate of collective intelligence in a group. Not because women are inherently smarter than men, but because women statistically have higher social sensitivity. Color me surprised.
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Turns out that the Big Tobacco and the Koch brothers' involvement in the creation and maintenance of the Tea Party (i.e., Americans for Prosperity, Freedomworks and more) is far deeper than previously admitted. Grass roots movement my liberal white ass. H/T Steve
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Some thoughts on "getting over" the death of a loved one. The short answer: You never will, because as long as you still love the person you lost, you will grieve for them. Love and grief are conjoined.
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Video of the Week: A. Maceo New Tech High School in Dallas, TX decided to do a one-shot video of the student body and one of their teachers dancing to "Uptown Funk." This makes my heart sing. Stay in school, kids. H/T Emily


Link Me Up, Scotty - STEM for the Win Edition

Wednesday, January 21, 2015
A charitable organization called "E-Nable" engaged a prosthetic designer named John Peterson to help construct a prosthetic arm for a 7 year old boy. The work was done on a 3-D printer, and was designed to look like the arm of a Clone Trooper from Star Wars. It cost $300.00 to manufacture, and Peterson gave his design hours for free. Awesome.
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Service dogs are getting a technical boost from the FIDO Project, who's new vests contain GPS trackers, ways for dogs to call 9-1-1, and more. Service dogs are the bee's knees.
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If I ever feel a need to move to a reclusive town, I would seriously consider Whittier, AK, where everyone lives in an old Army barracks, along with their basic necessities such as a laundromat, grocery store, and school. As long as there was high-speed Internet, I think I'd do just fine.
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From the "math is beautiful" files: Sculptures created on 3D printers based on the Fibonacci sequence, the mathematical formula expressed in nature with pine cones, sunflowers and sea shells. Breathtaking. H/T Pete
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18 Ways Working in a Call Centre Changes Your Life. This explains so very, very much about me. H/T Kimby
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Because I apparently live under a rock, I missed this essay by Kameron Hurley entitled We Have Always Fought when it came out in 2013. And again when it won the Hugo. Because I apparently live under a rock. This is an excellent read for both men and women, and sheds some light on things that should be obvious (but aren't). H/T Smart Man
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Video of the Week: The Dover Delaware Police Department provides some "DashCam" footage of one of their officers who apparently has a thing about Taylor Swift. My favorite part? When he waves another car through at a four way stop, acting all serious between his chair dancing and head bobbing. H/T Laurie


Home Sweet Home(s)

Monday, January 19, 2015
So things have been a bit hectic for me the last four weeks.

First, Sister Stacey and the Incomparable JR came to visit for a week at Christmas time. I wasn't sure how I was going to react this year to Christmas, and I was pleasantly surprised. Their presence here in the Big Yellow House made the holiday not only something I could bear, but a laugh-fest, as well. Thanks, guys - your friendship means the world to me.

Then it was off to San Diego for two weeks to help hold down the fort while the Mechanicky Gal had her hip replaced. As it turned out, we were the ones who needed adult supervision, but we made it through without too much damage to hearth, home and body. (Mechanicky's doing fabulously, by the way. I understand she's been cleared to drive, and is currently training for her inevitable job with the circus.)

I was then home for about 40 hours, then off for business travel Monday - Friday of last week.

Now I'm home, and Miss Jackson Pi will not let me out of her sight. I'm barely allowed to go to the bathroom independently, and the Smart Man tells me she was acting out during my long absence. I'm going to be home for a couple of weeks now, so we hope to get her back to normal before I have to travel again. I'm back to running, and will resume tracking my food today. I gained no weight over the holidays or during my travels, so I'm satisfied with THAT outcome, at least.

In the meantime, we don't anticipate any more house-guests in the next few months, and the Big Brown House has shingles on it. They're working on electrical and such, and we anticipate closing in about three or four months (subject to change without notice).

Which brings us to the Big Yellow House.

Now that the holidays are over and we can see that the new house will be complete in 3-4 months, it's time to get the Big Yellow House ready to sell, and I am dreading it. We have a real estate agent who helped us when we bought this place, and he's agreed to help us again. We have an appointment for him to come out and take a look at the place, so that we might get a better idea about what needs to be done. We already know a carpet allowance and some paint are on the list, and we can manage that just fine - it's the other things, the things we don't know about, that I dread. This is our first home, and so we've never had to prepare a house for sale.

And of course, my brain is an asshole, which means my insomnia now consists of me obsessing not only about how we want to decorate the new house, but what needs to be done to this place.

I'm sure it will be easier than I'm making it out to be. Maybe. I hope.

Link Me Up, Scotty -

Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Friend and fellow UCFer David, a university history professor, takes on the challenges of teaching modern history in this country. When the documented facts directly contradict the PR of dog-whistle politics, how do you teach students to not necessarily agree with the professor, but to think critically? For the record, I still really want to take one of his classes.
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Bill Donahue, President of the so-called Catholic League, once again opens his mouth and removes all doubt about his status as a mouth-breathing dick by blaming the publisher of Charlie Hebdo for his own death at the hands of Muslim extremists. According the Donahue,
Stephane Charbonnier, the paper’s publisher, was killed today in the slaughter. It is too bad that he didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death. In 2012, when asked why he insults Muslims, he said, “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me.” Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive.
Could you miss the point just a little bit more, there, Phil? I don't think every heir to the enlightenment has vomited in their mouth just yet.
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Eleven badass women who gave zero fucks about what other people thought of them, their behavior and their goals. Get on with your bad selves, ladies.

H/T Skepchick
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An examination of the word "privilege," and how its use can give us an opportunity to more deeply examine our biases and help determine intersectionality. Such exercises can only help us be more compassionate with our fellow humans.

Link Me Up, Scotty - A New Year Edition

Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Timothy McSweeney provides a product review of The Invisible Backpack of White Privilege from L.L. Bean. Satire, thy name is Jonathon Swift (and Timothy McSweeney).
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Zen Pencils once again hits it out of the park with this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, who was a complete badass, no shit.
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A doctor tries to make a difference to rural patients who require palliative care by doing the unthinkable - making house calls. Well done, sir - well done, indeed.
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Laurie Penny takes on the issue of Nerd Entitlement in modern society, and how a patriarchal hierarchy hurts not only women, but other disenfranchised groups. H/T BrainDoc.
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Ta-Nahisi Coates asks a critical question: If it's less risky now to be a law enforcement officer than any other time in the last century, then why do police want you to believe they're constantly in imminent danger? Hint: It has more to do with an inability to accept criticism than with reality.
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An interesting take on the use of Smart Phones for work after-hours. This bears deeper thought on my part, as each year I find myself becoming more and more "available," and not only to professional contacts.
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Are the military academies a waste of time and money? Annapolis Professor Bruce Fleming thinks so, and while I can't speak first hand to the cultural norms of the USNA, I can confirm that as a Senior NCO I found the ring-knockers to be arrogant, smug, linear thinkers, and less effective at actual leadership than other officers. YMMV. H/T Brother Seth
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Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter has run afoul of the Streisand effect in a most spectacular fashion. I could almost feel sorry for the guy, if I wasn't weeping about the fact that an elected official is so stunningly ignorant about the First Amendment. Be sure to click through and read the Frederick News Post's editorial on the matter. It made me snort coffee out of my nose.

This I Believe - 2015

Thursday, January 1, 2015
I believe in community.

Over the last year, I have come to realize how very important community is in the every day lives of people. After Moe died, my communities - my friends, my family, my co-workers, even my childhood friends whom I hadn't seen in years - rallied around without hesitation.

My family shared my grief, and grieved with me. My friends took care of me, checked on me, and grieved for me. My co-workers picked up my slack at work, and never made me feel like I should "suck it up" and resume my professional responsibilities. And my childhood friends resumed our relationships, and supported my grief journey in ways large and small.

And all of these groups, they're my tribe. They represent the communities that saved me from my grief without belittling it, who grieved with me and for me, and made me realize that in the very worst year of my life, I was not alone, and had people around me who loved and supported me, sometimes in spite of myself.

People need community. We need it to help us in times of trouble, we need it to help us celebrate our triumphs - we need a community to share our lives.

Our communities change as we grow. We lose contact with our school chums, our brothers and sisters in arms, our workmates. People move into new communities, through work, church, online groups. And each of these communities provide us with the support and sense of belonging we need.

I believe our species would wither and die without our communities. Not only did we evolve to need each other, our emotional make-up requires that we not only need one another, but we help each other, as well.

I'm thankful for this. It makes me whole, in addition to saving me from myself in during the worst year of my life.

This I believe.