Busy Tuesday

Typically, Tuesday is a day off for me, but today was an exception- it was the day of our all-staff meeting. It was a good day, seeing my assembled coworkers, many of whom are seasonal, so I hadn’t seen them in months. We had presentations by our educational team on some new projects, and our buildings and grounds staffs gave an overview of a major site renovation/restoration project on one of our sites. I was in awe at the assembled talent on display today- I have some incredible coworkers. Our president gave a speech in which he got a bit political, he opined that our mission is to foster the humanities, and to counter the forces which divide us. Apparently, this ruffled some feathers, and he was mildly criticized during the lunch break, to the extent that he apologized for ‘stepping over the line into politics’. I approached him after the meeting and told him that he hadn’t stepped into politics, but politics stepped over the line, that false controversies were stirred up by bad actors.

After the all-staff meeting, my immediate boss and I met with a young man who had applied to replenish my gutted department. He seemed like a nice guy, a Yonkers resident like myself. I made sure to ask him if he were comfortable working outside at night, in the dark, and told him that two guys were unable to finish a shift because they were scared of the dark. This guy is a Yonkers guy, so I think he will be okay. It’s now a matter of HR checking his references and conducting a background check. In the meantime, HR finally promoted one of my subordinates to a full time position. For the record, he can run people the wrong way because he’s utterly candid, but I think every organization needs someone who tells you exactly what he thinks- while arguing for making him full-time, I told my boss, “The only times I wanted to punch him in the nose were times when he was right.” Looks like his candid approach rubbed off on me. With his promotion, much of our staffing crisis goes away, but we could use two more part-timers.

It was a long day, but a productive one. The busy season starts tomorrow, and I feel better about the coming weeks than I did yesterday.

The Fear and the Smear

Pete Buttigieg poses a threat to the religious right... he's an openly gay veteran of the armed services who articulates a liberal Christianity which is more in line with the Gospels than the Robertson/Swaggert/Graham right-wing version, the version which appeals to people who would execute the Gentle Nazarene for being a commie subversive. Pete Buttigieg scares them so much that there has already been a smear campaign against him. Thankfully, it was attempted by the stupidest 'dirty tricksters' to ever walk this planet, the same ones who tried to portray Robert Mueller as a sexual predator. This smear campaign was particularly vile, it was an attempt to portray Mr Buttigieg as a sexual predator, an anti-LGBTQ calumny that has largely been rejected by mainstream culture. At least the young man that the dirty tricksters tried to bamboozle into participating in their smear campaign has spoken out against them, even as the broader right-wing media tried to give the story legs.

For a bunch of people who claim to follow the literal word of the Bible, these assholes sure love to bear false witness. It's this sort of religious right hypocrisy which has resulted in non-affiliation now being one of the biggest and certainly the fastest growing group in the US religious landscape. Maybe if the Christian churches followed the lead of Pete Buttigieg, they wouldn't find their pews emptying out.

Night of the Bigwigs

On a typical workday, I wear what is normally described as 'business casual', a collared shirt and a pair of sturdy 'work' trousers... I have one of those weird jobs which involves some 'public facing' work and some Scooby-Dooing around outdoors (oftimes in a pretty damn swampy environment). I typically pack a change of clothes because of the amount of time I spend outdoors in all sorts of weather.

Tonight, it's going to be jacket and tie, what my mom jocularly refers to in military fashion as 'dress blues, tennis shoes, and a light coat of oil'. The board of directors of the not-for-profit for which I work is meeting at my principal workplace. Besides the annual board meeting, the event is a rollout for a major project, so there will be a presentation about the project and a dinner. I imagine much of my night will involve running interference for the caterers and the cleaning contractors... pointing out outlets and unlocking doors. One of the development staffers from the main office will be working with me. We get along famously, she met her husband in one of the bars down the street from my place, so we are simpatico. For the record, she's a hoot, she has a great sense of humor, even under stressful conditions (the last event we worked together was during a torrential downpour, when the basement of the building flooded and the parking lot was under six inches of not-so-clean water). I checked the forecast today, and it might rain a little.

As usual, I will be packing a change of clothes- after the mucky-mucks leave, it's back through the woodsy area to the building where Ginger is handling her mousing duties, and I don't want to get my dry-clean only clothes muddy. I gave her a double-ration of cat food before leaving last night to tide her over until I can feed her when the VIPs leave, but I imagine she'll be hankering for some kibble. Sure, I will have been dealing with the Board of Directors, but I know who my real boss is.

H8Chan

This morning, I had every intention of following up my Thursday post on science, but that all went to pieces when I read about the latest terror attack on a house of worship, a mass shooting in a San Diego metro area synagogue. Like the Christchurch mosque shooter, the perpetrator of this attack wrote a manifesto on 8Chan, one drearily similar to the other shooter's manifesto, also posted to 8Chan. Additionally, the responses to the manifesto were encouraging the violence.

It seems that this current shooter was radicalized online by reading about the 'white genocide' conspiracy theory, and that his family wasn't involved in his turn towards terrorism (I am reminded of the two suicide bombers in Sri Lanka who were sons of a wealthy spice merchant). It's a shock when people 'from good homes' commit heinous crimes, but a sober look at the evidence reveals that many terrorists come from monied backgrounds. Poor people don't have the money for arms, and working stiffs don't have the time to spend on radical sites.

I have a nauseating feeling that these 8Chan massacres will continue. There's a toxic synergy of social isolation, bigotry, and nihilism that occurs online, and impressionable people will be 'blackpilled' and see violence as the answer to the problems they believe afflict them.

First Goslings of the Year

Today, I spied the first goslings onsite this year. It was my dear good goose whose babies were first to emerge. The nest is now occupied by shell fragments:

The goslings, as goslings tend to be, are cute. Here is one of them with mom and dad:

Something tells me that, although they got used to people walking within five feet of the nest they had built near the entrance to the site, they wouldn't be so calm if anyone were to approach the babies so closely.

Search for Dark Matter Sheds Light on Neutrinos

Science works... spending on science is important because scientific inquiry in one topic often pays dividends in other areas of inquiry. Recently, a facility designed as a dark matter detector has observed a two-neutrino double electron capture, a radioactive decay process by which two protons in an atomic nucleus absorb two electrons and release two neutrinos. The next project will be to observe is a neutrinoless electron capture is possible, which would imply that neutrinos are their own antiparticles. The search is still on for dark matter, which is thought to compose 27% of the universe's makeup, but which only interacts with baryonic matter through the force of gravity.

My go-to authority on the... uhhhhh... matter of dark matter is Dr Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University, who delivered two Secret Science Club lectures on dark matter. Here's a TED talk by the good doctor on dark matter:





For a more in-depth exploration of the matter, the Fermilab has an hour and a half lecture by Dr Natarajan on dark matter and black holes. While the subject matter may be hard to wrap one's head around, I think that Dr Natarajan's almost musical accent makes the lecture fun to listen to even if you are physics averse.

The Secret Science Club also featured a lecture on neutrinos by Dr Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Toronto. I am particularly enchanted with the idea of tying together our knowledge of the infinitesimally small universe within each atom with our knowledge of the mind-bogglingly vast multiverse. Science, I repeat, works.

Meanwhile, Twenty Miles North of Yonkers

Chappaqua, NY lies almost exactly north of my beloved City of Y______. Yesterday, a Very Special Visitor graced the hamlet... 'Coach' Dave Daubenmire drove eight-hundred miles from his Ohio lair to stand outside the Clinton abode, agitating for the arrest of Hillary Clinton for her numerous, though ill-defined, crimes against humanity. No less an authority than the Holy Spirit has issued an indictment of Hillary.

The real freaky part is that Daubenmire implored the right-wing 'Oath Keepers' and 'patriot groups' to join him at Casa Clinton, the 'greatest crime scene' in the world:

Dave Daubenmire drove from Ohio to New York yesterday so he could stand alone outside the Clinton's home and demand that Trump arrest Hillary. pic.twitter.com/ZPIcPHYLTG

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) April 23, 2019

Part of me hopes that these right-wing assholes will take Daubenmire up on his challenge. Between Bill Clinton's Secret Service detail and the state and local authorities who look ill upon out-of-state whackos bringing their firearms into New York State, anybody following 'Coach' Dave on his crusade against Hillary is looking to enter a World of Hurt. I would certainly not mind seeing a thousand MAGA Militia members facing felony charges just in time for the 2020 election season.