Tag: scary

The 2016 election takes a turn for the surreal

This would be a noteworthy and historic election in any circumstances because of the selection of Hillary Rodham Clinton as the first woman to be nominated for President of the United States by a major political party.  And as much as I have problems with many of Clinton’s policy choices over the years, generally speaking I would consider her to be a highly experienced politician and quite well qualified.

Then there’s the other party and their nominee.  If someone had written this story ten years ago as fiction, people would have thought it was totally over-the top.  An egomaniacal reality TV star has gained the party’s nomination for President, and in the meantime, has also pretty much wrenched control of the party away from the establishment.  And to top it all off, there are now questions as to the exact nature of the relationship between Trump and Russia, for God’s sake.

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Enough

Despite living on the very cusp of the middle class and constantly worrying that one slip will send us spinning into a void from which we won’t be able to return, Geoff and I enjoy a lot of privilege.  We’re white, we’re straight, we’re cis gendered, and, though we live in an expensive area of the country, we live in a fairly safe area of the country.  Gun ownership isn’t very high and health care is good here.  It’s isn’t nearly as hard to get good mental health care here as it is elsewhere in the US.

And yet, after what happened in Orlando yesterday, I’m angry.  I am angry that we live in a country that has wholly abdicated the promise of freedom upon which it was founded.  We are no longer free from tyranny and fear, you and I.

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Sometimes, fear is a good thing

As a part-time first responder who is interested in emergency management, disaster recovery, and safety in general, I read pretty much everything related to those topics that I can get my hands on, including a lot of stuff about how people respond in a crisis.  It’s fascinating stuff, and some really excellent books have been written about it, such as  Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – And Why. 

A side effect of this is that I have started paying attention to what I would call “unusual” deaths and accidents.  People keep doing things that I would consider to be pretty damn unsafe, and it costs them.  Recent examples are plenty.  A man leaves the designated paths at Yellowstone, and falls into a spring that is so high-temperature and acidic that there is literally no body to recover.  A young man accidentally shoots himself while taking a selfie with a pistol.  A tourist in Australia goes swimming at 10 at night in an area clearly marked with signs warning about crocodiles and gets killed by a crocodile over 14 feet long.  Or the guy in Georgia back in March who decided that it would be cool to pack an old lawnmower with 3 pounds of Tannerite and then shoot at it from only 40 feet away.  He blew off his own leg, and the whole thing was caught on video.

And I realized that what all of these people had in common was this: a lack of fear.  Specifically, a lack of what I would consider to be the healthy kind of fear.

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Brimfield 2016 – @TheBloggess Edition

The May edition of Brimfield 2016 has come and gone.  We haven’t photographed our purchases yet, that will come later.  What we do have are the photos we took as we wandered around.  These are the weirdest photos of items we encountered from Thursday-Sunday of last week.  And some of them are truly odd.  Others reminded us of The Bloggess, so we went ahead and snapped them.  For posterity.  We did not purchase any of these items.

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The science and history of rogue waves, part two

While searching for some videos on YouTube that might do a better job of explaining the phenomenon of rogue waves than I can, I actually found some really, really good material.  First, one of my absolute favorite people on the Intertubes, Hank Green, who is also half of the awesome duo that is the vlog brothers.  Here, Hank talks about rogue waves on his SciShow channel.

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The science and history of rogue waves, part one

In what could prove to be a huge step forward in predicting how rogue waves are formed, and thus a tool for saving lives at sea, researchers at MIT have found a way to give 2 to 3 minutes warning of an incoming rogue wave.

I know it probably sounds stupid, but it’s hard for me to explain how excited I am about this research.  So much so that I am tempted to go speak with the researchers sometime (living in Cambridge does have its advantages).  But to understand why I am geeking out about this, it might help for me to go into some detail about what we know about rogue waves, and how they have affected ships at sea, as well as oil rigs, lighthouses, and coastlines.  This is one of those times that my love of history (especially maritime history) and my love of science come together.

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An Open Letter to the Dallas TSA

Today I’m flying back to Boston from Dallas.  As a matter of fact, as I write this I’m on the plane and we’re heading from the gate to the runway.  I was surprised on my way down here how dramatic my process with the TSA wasn’t.  The TSA is pretty much my nightmare of a government agency.

Today, when I went to my screening to leave Dallas, I lived my nightmare.

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Donald Trump is more of a symptom than the cause of our political mess

I don’t like to talk about politics too much on our blog, because frankly I need more positivity in my life, and these days it is really difficult to find anything whatsoever in politics that gives me cause for optimism.  Still, I am a historian, and I can’t help but think that we are currently experiencing one of those watershed Presidential elections, like the election of 1860 or the election of 1932 or the election of 1968, in which those of us who experience it will talk about in terms of what things were like before, and what they were like after.

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Say what now?

This is probably what The Bloggess would categorize as Spectacular Marketing Fail.  Or maybe Exceptional PR Blunder.  Anyway, when you’re trying to sell something, or in this case, give it away for free, remember the first rule of sales: Know Thy Audience.

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Flat Earthers and other science deniers

I have always thought of “Flat Earthers” as something of an insult, something you say about people who cling to long-disproved beliefs (hence the comment by President Obama a few years ago in reference to climate deniers).  Honestly, I had no idea that the whole Flat Earth Society thing was making some sort of comeback, but apparently it is.  I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.

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