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pharyngula | April 4, 2007This is terribly petty of me, but it's something that always makes me laugh: watching someone in a pickup truck try to parallel park in downtown Morris. You have to understand that traffic is low, there's always lots of open parking spots, so it's a skill that doesn't get exercised much out here. When someone tries it, hilarity ensues. It does snarl up the traffic something fierce — why, there were maybe four or five cars backed up, waiting for this fellow to quit jockeying back and forth and in and out of the lane — and the expressions of frustration in the driver and onlookers are something…
pharyngula | April 3, 2007So I got up this morning and looked out my front window, and this is what I saw:
Then I looked out the back door, and it wasn't any better (as if I'd expected the weather to be localized to only the northeast half of town):
I hadn't been paying any attention to the weather reports lately — in the Spring we only have to worry about tornadoes, usually, and the predictions for those are mostly useless — so I hadn't expected Winter to be reborn. We've got 5 or 6 inches of snow out there, with a couple more on the way. And everything had been so naked and brown just yesterday!
pharyngula | April 2, 2007I've got a copy of the student paper for Ridgewater College, the Ridgewater Review, volume 11, number 5, which contains an announcement:
Can anyone know for certain how the earth began?
Ridgewater's Christians in Action student club is sponsoring talks by Dr Randy Guliuzza exploring this topic and more on Wednesday, April 11th in the Ridgewater College Hutchinson campus commons area at 11:00 am and 5:30 pm.
By golly, I am so tempted to attend. The earlier talk conflicts with one of my classes, but I might be able to get away in time to catch the evening session. It might be interesting —…
pharyngula | March 26, 2007There are a couple of events going on here in Morris this week that I'll be participating in, and that any of you in the region might find worth seeing. First, tonight:
Everyone is cordially invited to the last session of
THE 31st
MIDWEST PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
Personal Identity
Eric T. Olson
(Professor of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, UK)
Will present
"When Do We Begin and End?"
Monday, March 26, 7:30 p.m., Newman Catholic Center
306 East 4th Street, Morris
The gradual nature of development from fertilization to birth and beyond leaves it uncertain when we come into being; advances…
pharyngula | March 25, 2007I just had to say that I stepped outside the door a few minutes ago, and it is 60°F! And almost all the snow is gone! And the sky is blue! And there are birds chirping in the trees!
I think aliens kidnapped me while I wasn't looking and have transported me to a strange and distant world. But the internet still works here!
pharyngula | March 22, 2007…and you were thinking of stopping by the U to see the moon rocks at 7, you could also drop by Old No. 1 on Atlantic Avenue at 6 to join us for Drinking Liberally. Morris is a happenin' town tonight, isn't it?
pharyngula | March 21, 2007Is there anyone in the Stevens County area who reads this blog? Just in case, I'll mention this event sponsored by the UMM Geology Club to anyone interested in coming on down.
Geology Club will be displaying lunar rocks and soil samples collected during
the Apollo missions to the moon this Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. in Sci.
1650. These rocks are brought to us by Geology Professor Jamey Jones, which
he currently has on loan from NASA. This event is open to the public, so
come and check it out!
What: Super cool moon rocks!!
Date: Thursday, March 22
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Place: Sci. 1650 (the…
pharyngula | March 13, 2007I got a request to spread the word around Minnesota—the anti-vaxers are gearing up again to push a silly bill in the Minnesota congress. I've put the letter below. If any of these people are your representatives, contact them and tell them they are being very, very silly.
There's supposed to be a hearing next week on a bill that would limit the use of vaccines containing thimerosal, because of the belief that they may cause autism. This is the third year that this bill has been presented, and it keeps failing, but they keep bringing it back up, even though it's clearer now than ever that…
pharyngula | March 12, 2007In case anyone here was still worried about the saga of the rotting bat corpse on some nice furniture, Nic McPhee reports that Goo Gone works like magic.
pharyngula | March 1, 2007What kind of wimps are they out there at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities branch? They canceled classes! Just because of a major snowstorm!
We'll have to see what happens—it's on the way to the western campus (us) and should hit this evening. I'd also like to know why winter has dawdled about getting here until March and now is trying to give us a whole season's worth of snow in two weeks.
pharyngula | February 22, 2007We faculty at UMM are about to go off to a Campus Assembly meeting, which is always good for making one thirsty. Fortunately, there's a Drinking Liberally scheduled for tonight, at 6:00, at Old #1—it would be a great idea if we all stopped in for a little refreshment and conversation afterwards.
This is, of course, wide open to everyone of the liberal persuasion, so townies, out-of-townies, and students are also welcome to stop by.
pharyngula | February 16, 2007Ah, I'm back home again, and just in time…the snow started falling just as I crossed the Morris city limits.
I was at the Minneapolis screening of Flock of Dodos, and they had a big crowd at the Bell Museum auditorium, including many of the usual suspects in the struggle against creationism in our state. Greg Laden has posted a review, and so has David Wilford (and I agree—this would be an excellent movie to show at a con). Everyone seemed very positive about it.
The discussion afterwards was great, too—movie theaters ought to do this everywhere, setting aside a block of time after a showing…
pharyngula | February 5, 2007OK, so should I just retire and hand over the keys to the blog to Skatje? She's taking over my territory now. Whippersnapper.
pharyngula | February 4, 2007It took it's own sweet time about getting here, but it's finally winter in Morris.
Daytime high of -10°F, and it's supposed to drop down to -25°F tonight. This is definitely stay-inside-and-snuggle-under-a-quilt weather.
pharyngula | February 1, 2007Go, Al! Franken will definitely be running for Coleman's senate position in 2008. This is promising: the Republicans are already upset.
After seeing an account of Franken's calls [to DFL leaders] on the Star Tribune website, Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey issued a statement criticizing Franken's "anger and slash-and-burn partisanship."
That's an excellent endorsement right there.
pharyngula | January 25, 2007It's embarrassing enough that all the Minnesota blogs are snorting in disgust at Michele Bachmann's kiss, but now those foreign, non-Minnesotan sites are making a big foofaraw, too.
Yes, we confess: Minnesota's sixth district elected a dumb-as-rocks, simpering, fundagelical Bush sycophant to congress, one who would enthusiastically slobber all over the president on national television.
However, in our favor, we did not re-elect Mark Kennedy to the senate. He was such an outrageous bootlicking Bush toady, we might have witnessed some hot and explicit flunky-on-prez action instead…consider…
pharyngula | January 24, 2007Grrr. This story pisses me off beyond all reason. It's a trumped up contretemps generated by one of our local Minnesota Republican hacks, griping about a UM faculty member using her campus email.
A University of Minnesota professor has come under fire for sending a message using her university e-mail account to help comedian Al Franken with his likely U.S. Senate candidacy.
Sally Kenney, director of the Center on Women and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, sent an e-mail last week from a "umn.edu" address to an undisclosed number of…
pharyngula | December 29, 2006Captain Fishsticks is one of our local conservative nutjobs who haunts the pages of the St Paul Pioneer Press—he's a free market freak who wants to privatize everything, especially the schools, and yet everything he writes reveals a painful ignorance of anything academic. This week he's written a response to an article that left him distraught: Peter Pitman advocated more and better science education for Minnesotans, especially on the subject of climate change. Fishsticks, to whom all education is a zero-sum game because every time he has to learn another phone number a whole 'nother column…
pharyngula | December 18, 2006I am such a trendsetter. First I pick up on the Paszkiewicz story weeks before the NY Times, and now another creationist I took a shot at, Julie Haberle, is written up in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Ms Haberle is responsible for a set of anti-evolution billboards going up in the region, and she does not come off very well. Here are a few quotes from her that expose her shortcomings.
Julie Haberle, 55, said she once believed creationism "was absolutely nuts" and has over the past nine years come to the contradictory conclusion that "evolution is just silly."
"I'm just a hack."
"I'm not a…
pharyngula | December 14, 2006Time to go get a beer at Drinking Liberally, 'cause the Fall semester of 2006 is all over but for the final exams and the grading and the tears. The last of the written work was turned in today, and now it's just grading until my eyeballs evulse.
Here is a prime bit of end of term suckage, too: it is mid-December in Minnesota, and it is raining. Raining! If I wanted to live in a place with cool wet winters, I'd move back to Seattle.