randomcub

During the last month, I've developed the habit of listening to two USA historians during my lunch break on Saturday. On Saturday morning, they have an always-interesting discussion about the week's events. If you have a lunch hour (the videos are usually 30-45 minutes) where you'd like an educational distraction, then I recommend their talks to fill the time.

I came to these discussions because I would occasionally watch videos from the YouTube host on other historical topics. There's also a series of interviews with government figures, called "American Conversations". The most recent video in that series is with Elizabeth Warren. That interview is good, and I would have gladly voted for Warren for President in 2020 if she was the nominee. I wish there was a convenient url to link just to the duo weekend chats that I'm recommending now, but you'll have to look for the titles "What the Heck Just Happened?" from the Live broadcast list.

The host, Heather Cox Richardson, previously taught history at MIT. Near as I can tell, however, she chooses never to use an honorary title like "Dr.", because I could only ever find her referenced as a professor. She did get her Ph.D from Harvard in 1992, according to this broken MIT page. I like her videos because of the stoic rationality on display. I think that's why the duo on Saturday morning is so effective. In contrast, Joanne Freeman, history professor at Yale is an emotionally-expressive burst of laughter at absurd history unfolding before us. More than once, it occurred to me that "She's a hoot!"

The pair works really well together. I recommend watching their Saturday duo, if you can spare the time.

Last year for Christmas, I got several books as gifts. One was from a coworker who sent me a bestseller that I knew nothing about, "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir. He's the same author behind the hit movie "The Martian" starring Matt Damon. This new book turned out to be a very enjoyable read for me.

I learned yesterday that there's now a movie based on this book, expected to arrive 2026 March 20. This movie will star Ryan Gosling, a casting choice that I enthusiastically approve for the main character. The theme behind the book is not really apparent in the unnecessarily suspense-heavy official trailer video that came out a few days ago. The plot requires understanding that our civilization on Earth is in danger because the energy output from our sun is diminishing. In fact, all of the stars around us are diminishing their output... except for one nearby star. The plot takes our main character to that solar system to investigate the issue, as a last minute effort (hence the term, "Hail Mary" in the title of the book and movie) to save humanity. The movie trailer barely shows us a glimpse of the alien character, but we'll have to see a lot more of it for the movie to match the tale in the book.

What the story is really about, however, is friendship. A human and an alien find themselves in the same strange solar system, trying together to unravel the mystery of dimming stars, before each of their civilizations collapses. They have obvious cultural and biological differences, yet they have a shared imperative with little time for research. Neither of them is the perfect representative of their species to do this particular task alone. Research together, however, they do because they must. I think that the psychological trait "openness to experience" is something that we could use a lot more of from societies that seem to be swinging towards authoritarianism. I hope this movie presents an effective motivation for strangers of that perspective to try it.

There's another plot twist involving our main character that carries from the beginning to the end of the story, so I won't go into details. But besides friendship, the story is also about redemption. After reading it many months ago, I put aside the book while feeling almost Star Trek levels of hope for humanity as a species.

I am very eager to see this film. Whichever service hosts it online will definitely receive my subscription to watch it. Sorry, but I'm still not doing theaters, not even with a mask.

Just 24 hours ago, I knew exactly what I was going to write about today for Moody Monday. Now, though, so I've seen so many things that it's hard to choose what topic to mention.

Like the Amazon internet outage that took out much of the internet for most of the day, including where I work. My first tech support phone call this morning was from the main in-person test center on the biggest campus. They called to report that multiple students were unable to work on quizzes in multiple courses. I confirmed it wasn't just them, the images in exam questions weren't loading for me too. Within an hour, we knew just how widespread the problem was across the USA. Eventually, the entire Canvas website (used for coursework and quizzes) itself was down, affecting universities around the globe. At least we got a semi-funny picture from their Canvas website about the outage, pictured in this news article. Eventually, our phone system was also affected, with me losing a caller mid-sentence then unable to call them back. I had to take my lunch almost 2 hours early, during a period that phones were simply not operational, because we anticipated the rush of calls when we would need "all hands on deck" when service resumed later. It was a frustrating day.

Even more important to me than the estimated 100s of billions of dollars in lost productivity, however, is the attempted bombing of one gay ice cream store here in Minneapolis.

There's a paywalled news story here. Before the paywall kicks in, maybe you can read some of the context and see a photo of the giant flag hanging on the front of the building that probably prompted the attack. If you can't see the flag there, then you can view it here in Google Maps. More interesting, however, is an eyewitness to the second attack who took photos of the accused-offender's car to give to police. It's posted here on Bluesky.

I did advocate that people move to Minnesota from other areas, anticipating the violence that Republicans would unleash (more on that topic next Monday, maybe) with a second Trump term. I still maintain that it's safer here than elsewhere in the USA for queer folk. Wherever you are, stay safe out there.

Tomorrow, I expect to write some thoughts about the recent No Kings protest. Contrary to popularization online, it is only the 2nd largest single-day protest in the USA. (sources: Britannica and Wikipedia)

Today, though, I'm in a good mood at the huge and peaceful protests nationwide (even worldwide). One of the curious features of this protest is the collection of inflatable costumes, intentionally expressing the stark contrast between the reality of this very American activity and the characterizations by our Republican government leadership. These constitutional law professors agree (YouTube) with this protest strategy to undermine the propaganda, and this psychologist and retired Army Colonel agrees that it's very effective to disable the attempted "projective identification" from Republicans.

Here is a nice part of the AI-generated lyrics:

"Just a man in green, facing odds. But when the gas rolls in, he don't run away.
He just croaks out loud. Not today.
Ribbit, ribbit. Ribbit, let freedom sing. It's a funny old way to do your thing.
With a smile and a hop, you can make your stand in a frog zoo, holding freedom's hand.
With the chicken, the shark, and the unicorn parade, we all march proud in the frog brigade.
...
They ain't breaking windows or burning cars. They're laughing at the law with electric guitars.
Cause humor, my friend, is a protest too. When the worlds gone mad, you can still stay true.
Ribbit, ribbit. Ribbit, let freedom sing. Ain't nothing so strong as a silly thing.
If the world gets dark, don't be afraid. There's light in the laugh of the frog brigade.
...
Some folks say it's foolish pride, but they ain't seen that frog inside.
Standing tall in a storm of hate, somtimes you got to look strange to be great.
You can't fight fire with the frown and fear, but a big green frog can make it clear.
Love's still louder than a flashbang sound, and a good laugh shakes the battle ground."

I hope you're in a good mood too, watching YouTube videos and other social media about yesterday's massive protests.

It's almost 8am, and I need a nap. Last night, I completed a sleep study, and of course I didn't get a good night's rest.

As soon as I got home, I took another shower to get the sticky goop out of my hair. I also sprayed my nose with iodine spray, since I couldn't wear any mask or nose filter during the sleep study. The cat apparently spent the whole night downstairs on the living room chair that I vacated 12 hours earlier. I should go feed her again now, then I'll debate crawling into bed for some more rest.