Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Weather Post

Today and tomorrow we're having highs near 90 here.

In the middle of October, I had to put the AC on last night.


14 comments:

nicoleandmaggie said...

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???????????????????????

Which is to say. I HATE THIS.

Plus my classroom was way too hot yesterday.

Bardiac said...

We had 5 or 6 inches of snow yesterday....

nicoleandmaggie said...

Also the mosquitoes. WHY WON'T THEY DIE??

delagar said...


Bardiac: I'm JEALOUS.

N&M: I got bitten by a mosquito while I was at the park yesterday. IN OCTOBER.

nicoleandmaggie said...

I just had a student complain to the college-level dean about me saying that I said political things in class and that I said trump voters are fascist (which I did not, though I did say I was anti-fascist).

The dean did not knock it down to the college level, but instead had my chair ask me about whether or not the allegations were true.

And you know what? I have a dozen male colleges, at least one of whom is pro-Trump who are LOUDLY political in all their classes. Nobody complains to the dean about them and WTF, this is a college. They can handle it or they can take a section from a different professor. These are not things I should be getting into trouble for even if they were true, which they are not, so long as they don't affect people's grades. Which, dude, I teach statistics with rubrics. Unless you come up with a new way of being wrong, you're getting the same amount of points deducted as the first person who made that mistake 10-15 years ago.

My big concern though is that I'm going to get posted on one of those conservative forums and my family harassed etc. It's hard to move during a pandemic and I need the job for health insurance.

delagar said...


I'm so sorry. And I know how you feel.

I've had more than one Evangelical student complain about me to our chair, though not the dean yet. Apparently an atheist talking about the influence on literature of historical facts (deep time, Darwin's theories, the Protestant Reformation) is, in the eyes of some students, "attacking" Christianity. And I had one student complain to his minister, who preached against me in their church -- apparently I am an agent of Satan.

So when I see conservatives claiming that Leftists hate free speech, I laugh and laugh and laugh.

Not really. Really I'm annoyed and not at all surprised. Privilege is a hell of a drug.

nicoleandmaggie said...

What pisses me off is that my chair talked to me to ask me if I had done these things and then said she would tell the dean I was "cleared of all charges" which... no, I am a private citizen. I am allowed to have political opinions. They are not getting tested on my political opinions. And the students sure as hell voice theirs in class.

Just killed a mosquito.

Jenny F. Scientist said...

It's 80 in the mountains today. In October.

This week I did say "Trump is threatening that Biden will listen to scientists. Threaten me with a good time, why don't you?" I talk about health policy a lot but unless they want to complain to the dean that it is definitely NOT wrong to let babies die of preventable conditions, and also pharma should totally price-gouge on insulin, they're going to have a hard time.

delagar said...


The weather is *supposed* to cool off today. I mean, it's only the 23rd of October. No hurry!

nicoleandmaggie said...

Did I mention that I had a guy go off yesterday on how the US isn't a democracy, it's a republic, yesterday and that the 59% will be ruling over the 41% if we allow everyone to vote? (I kept saying, "it is a representative democracy, which is a form of democracy. I know this because my son is taking AP US history and his history teacher has said so on zoom. He got tested on it," and he kept saying the US isn't a democracy, it is a republic. And I'm like, dude, that's covered in the US history class too-- it is a representative democracy and a constitutional republic. They're not mutually exclusive.) Finally I stopped him and went back to heuristics and biases and endogeneity.

That's me not letting people with alternate political viewpoints talk.

delagar said...


"It's not a democracy it's a REPUBLIC!" is the favorite screech of conservatives lately. I think it must be some point that's getting made on Fox News? Or one of those homeschool textbooks they all use.

Usually when I ask them to explain the difference they just sputter. Or begin telling me how many people Hillary Clinton has murdered.

nicoleandmaggie said...

Yeah, it's definitely a talking point, but like, I teach statistics. It makes no sense and is just so much against everything we've ever learned about patriotism. I'm getting slammed for being pro-democracy and anti-fascist and anti-racist. What kind of upside down world are we living in?

This guy also said racism isn't real because as a brown man he's never faced it. (He's Hispanic.) If he'd said that now I'd point out exactly which fallacy that is, but he said it at the beginning of the semester so I was just like, there are randomized controlled trials that show it exists even if you've never experienced it.

delagar said...


I've had so many 18-20 year olds insist they've never experienced racism. Or that they have a black friend who told he'd never experienced racism.

TBF, when I was 18 I would have insisted sexism didn't exist since I'd never experienced it. (The fact that my high school didn't offer Latin or Physics while my brothers' offered both? The fact that I had to do hours of housework every day while my brothers did none? The fact that every book we read in English class was by white men? SHEER HAPPENSTANCE.)

nicoleandmaggie said...

Yeah. I've definitely had students who over the course of their time in school have realized that as well. In this case, the guy is a returning student (ex-military) so older than 20.

Uh oh, it looks like they're setting up a vote for supreme court on MONDAY. I guess I will call to complain.