Update for Everyone V: Born Under A Bad Sign

[Crumpets]

I haven't posted about my life in forever, so here are a couple of things I'm up to:

- After I got back from Europe in October, I was on something of a tightrope financially, so I did what any good Seattleite does and got a job as a barista while I look for more long-term employment.

- I'm planning to move to DC this summer, regardless of whether I actually get hired anywhere or not, but I will have to see what the money situation is.

- I've been trying to impress this girl for like, two years. We had kind of an awkward moment back in June when I sort of let her know how I feel and she told me she didn't want to date anyone right out of college until after she got her life figured out, since she'd probably end up relocating. Things were awkward for a while, but have been getting better. As it turns out, she figured out her life a whole lot quicker than I did, so I still have work to do, but we will probably end up at least in the same metropolitan area.

- My grandpa is sick with something very odd, that has befuddled all of his doctors - it's like he has Parkinson's, but will randomly be fine for days or weeks at a time before going back to being almost completely immobile and having lots of cognitive difficulties. He's getting his latest round of test results back this week.

[Crumpets]

Oh, and also, ages ago I was part of this group that was researching various policy positions of the 2016 candidates re: the EU. It just so happened my team was the Trump team, so when he unexpectedly won the election, one of my co-writers actually got invited to Brussels to present our report.

So I like to think that somewhere in Brussels, some bureaucrat is reading our Trump paper and making some minor administrative suggestions to policy based on some random thing I wrote.

[Crumpets]

I'm officially in the certified teacher hiring pool for the 2017-18 school year in two districts so far. Hopefully, second time's the charm for me.

Do you have any idea which schools you might be teaching at?

[Crumpets]

So I was just involved in something of an altercation with a Trump supporter at the women's March in Seattle. He was shouting abuse into the crowd, so I grabbed his sign trying act "all in good fun" (admittedly not the least childish thing I could have done) at which point he tackled me and slammed me into the ground. Some of the other protesters pulled him off me and made sure we we're both alright. Just goes to show that it's us white dudes who continue to be the problem and the women were the sane ones throughout the situation.

[Crumpets]

So I was just involved in something of an altercation with a Trump supporter at the women's March in Seattle. He was shouting abuse into the crowd, so I grabbed his sign trying act "all in good fun" (admittedly not the least childish thing I could have done) at which point he tackled me and slammed me into the ground. Some of the other protesters pulled him off me and made sure we we're both alright. Just goes to show that it's us white dudes who continue to be the problem and the women were the sane ones throughout the situation.

I like you, but you had that coming. That's just the truth. He had no right to literally do harm unto you but that's about par for the course. Violence begets violence.

I agree. It was definitely a dick move on my part. I was just very surprised in the moment how quickly it devolved. If he had just yelled "That's my political speech and you're censoring it." I would have felt awful. I didn't post to brag, but to caution Trump supporters and opponents to be more careful than I was.

[Crumpets]

It's one thing to tear up a sign like Crumpets did (which didn't really warrant the body-slam, but that was to be expected) at a public protest where tensions are expected and already high. It's a completely other thing to pick a fight on the freaking road with a vehicle. This is getting out of hand.

Yeah, that's way out of line. Also, I just want to clarify - it wasn't just that a guy was waving a Trump sign at a women's rally; I have no qualms with that. It was that he was yelling stuff like "You c***s are only here 'cause you can't satisfy a man" at random women and kids.

[Crumpets]

1. Mull coming out as trans
2. Realize I'm living in North Carolina
3. Nope the f[inks] out of that
4. Repeat ad nauseum

I get your reasoning, but I think there's a lot to be said for how much the "coming out" movement helped the gay and lesbian cause in the United States, specifically by showing everyone that gay people don't only exist as hairdressers in San Francisco. I imagine if people knew just how many of their close acquaintances were trans, they might not be so keen to call them all molesters. Then again, I'm not LGBT or really any sort of marginalized person, so whatever floats your boat.

[Crumpets]

Yikes. I guess the good thing is that there's not much he can do on the bus itself, as long as he doesn't know your stop or where you go from there. All the same, do you think you could get on an earlier bus or something?

[Crumpets]

We found out today that my grandpa has Alzheimer's. The good news is that it appears to be progressing fairly slowly, and he's already in assisted living. So, we're hoping it won't change his day-to-day life too much, at least for a couple years.

[Crumpets]

I was on FOX News multiple times during CPAC this week!

Cool! As a guest? Or just in the background?

[Crumpets]

There's something about Mario Kart music that makes me much more high-energy.

Have you heard of the band Anamanaguchi?

[Crumpets]

For some reason unknown I'm reminded of this great Prince Regent's quote from Blackadder: "You know, Blackadder, for me socks are like sex. Tons of it about and I never seem to get any."

And in real life, just as in the show, I'm sure the reason for that is that Rowan Atkinson has been stealing it away from us without our knowledge. That slick bastard.

[Crumpets]

Can't sleep




We need a similar meme for Trump.. How about:  спасибо Trump!

Трамп/Тромп/Трумп?

Трамп is my absolute favorite condescending nickname for the Donald.

[Crumpets]

March 24th. I have 19 days to prepare to condense my thesis into a 15 minute presentation and contemplate what questions I would be forced to answer. I'll likely begin after break--I've got other papers and homework to work on, and one of my housemates and I are going on a road trip tomorrow morning.

If it helps, I found my thesis defense to be significantly less stressful than I was imagining in the weeks leading up to it. I can't speak for all schools, but the professors don't try to take you down or find tiny details to criticize you with, it's mostly about defending why you chose to tackle your issue with the tools you chose and how you think it could be improved upon by other scholars. If you know what you wrote and why you wrote it, you should be set.

[Crumpets]

I was late to work today because the Anti-Circumcision protest movement "Bloodstained Men" held a demonstration ON THE BUSIEST ROAD IN THE CITY where my work and blocked the whole road.

If you're gonna do that, make it a worthy cause... Are those protesters liberals or conservatives generally? No idea.

I have no idea, this is their website http://www.bloodstainedmen.com/

In my experience, it's mostly conservative-leaning libertarians, but definitely not "Republicans." A significant amount of overlap with Reddit. I saw a flyer for one group in Seattle with the headline "Men's rights are human rights!" so... yeah.

[Crumpets]

I just got a cheap radiation detector that comes with a GPS feature, the idea being that you walk around with it in your pocket, and then it will point out how much radiation it absorbed for every minute of your walk and plot in on a map. Tomorrow after work, I'm going to take a walk though downtown to see if I can find any secret nuclear labs/terrorist networks.

[Crumpets]

Overheard on the bus today:

"You know, I was going through a religious phase for a while, and I thought about becoming a priest. But I broke my celibacy six years in. It was Christmas Eve and my friends bought her for me, and midway through, she asked me 'what's my name?' and I'm like 'oh sh**' she used an alias! And I'm like 'I don't know.' And she socks me in the face and makes a run for it, and I black out. So, I don't really think that counts as breaking your celibacy, right?"

[Crumpets]

I've spent the last five minutes at the bus stop watching a socialist protester at the Wells Fargo across the street dancing on a statue. A bus pulls up for a few seconds, and when it leaves, she has vanished, nowhere to be seen. Have socialists developed a means of teleportation, or was she just raptured?

[Crumpets]

So was outside on the street having a cig in my non-smoking apartment complex in the medium size factory town in Oregon where I'm currently living, and see this older man from 200 Feet away that looked like someone I knew 15 years ago and haven't seen since.

Recognized him from that distance and shouted his name, and the guy turns around after a few hollers.

Turns out it was "Ray" (Names have been changed to protect the innocent) who came of age in Rural 'Bama in the Post-Civil Rights era, knew the legendary University of Alabama Coach Bear Bryant, driven Long Haul rigs from Florida to Mexico, worked a Coal Miner in Northern 'Bama for a year, was a roadie with Hank Williams Jr for a few years, shrimp fisherman off the Gulf Coast for a bit in the '80s, and most importantly a friend that I lost touch with some years back....

He just moved back to Oregon about a year or so back, as did I, and he's literally living one block away....

Anyways---- this is one of the most random encounters I have had since 1994 where I bumped into someone I knew at the major Train Station in East Berlin....

Not sure if any of y'all have had similar random encounters, but we'll be grabbing a beer next week after he comes back from the Coast and getting caught up on 15 years of life.

I had a pretty weird experience like this in high school when I ran into my friend's mom in the Karol Bagh area of Delhi. For context, this is what Karol Bagh looks like:



i.e., not the most touristy place out there. It turns out she was there with MSF.

[Crumpets]

Went on a date this morning. We went to the shooting range and he brought his ar-15 and glock. When I told him surprise me with something interesting, that was not quite what I had in mind but was pretty fun nonetheless, and I actually HIT the targets!

Typical Florida.

[Crumpets]

I had surgery this morning - nothing too dramatic, just some nose and throat stuff - but if any of my posts sound like I've gone off the deep potato, that is why.

[Crumpets]

I had surgery this morning - nothing too dramatic, just some nose and throat stuff - but if any of my posts sound like I've gone off the deep potato, that is why.

I hope you feel better, and soon!

Thanks! Apart from the Groucho Marx-style gauze mustache and constant nosebleeds, I've managed to avoid the more nasty side effects, so I'm hoping I'll be back to mostly normal by the end of the weekend.

In other news, TIL my six degrees of separation to President Trump. Four of the six links are from Russia:

Me -> Girl I know -> Her dad -> Philipp Kirkorov -> Emin Agalarov -> Rob Goldstone -> Donald Trump

[Crumpets]

Just sent a job application to the CSIS.

O.O <--- Me as deer in headlights

[Crumpets]

In the winter/spring semester of this year--as in, my last semester of undergrad, I took a domestic terrorism graduate class. For the final paper, I opted to do a sweeping survey of terrorism rather than focus on one group, and as such, I reviewed every incident on US soil from 2012 to 2015, which were then the four most recent years. It was a massive undertaking and, in my mind, constituted original research, so I flirted with trying to publish it. My conclusion, adborn out by the data, was that while right-wing terrorism was more common, Islamic (I don't know how you want to phrase that--"Islamist"?) terrorism was more deadly on a per capital and a total basis. My findings were already invalidated owing to the Global Terrorism Database's publication of 2016 statistics which finally happened sometime this year. But it is the events of yesterday that really (A) make me believe that trying to publish such a document might be in poor taste, and (B) want to review the 2016 data to observe the rise of political violence and specifically the type that comes from conventional ideology.

The problem with trying to analyze things like the relative deadliness of terrorist incidents is just that there are so many external factors that can determine how destructive an attack is. The statistics on deaths/attack by type moved dramatically last year just on the Pulse Nightclub shooting, despite the fact that it was a pretty poorly planned-out spree shooting. The Boston bombings, meanwhile, only killed a few people, despite being extremely sophisticated and planned for months, just because the bombs were placed down low, and ended up injuring hundreds in their legs, but critically wounding only a few people.

If you wanted a sample size big enough to compensate for all these tiny things that can get in the way, you'd have to start including all acts of terrorism in Europe as well, and maybe even domestic attacks in the Middle East as well. The problem then becomes reliable data, since a car bombing in Damascus a few months ago would just not get the same amount of analysis as, say, the underwear bomber.

[Crumpets]

ANNOUNCEMENT:

EHARDING HAS BEEN BANNED FROM THE DISCORD!!!!

What did he do?