geowench

I'm off work for my "weekend" now. I am, however, on-call for potential overtime during the next 6 days, because I volunteered my name on the list.

I didn't watch either livestream, because it was busy at work this evening. As I type this message, the Board of Trustees already issued their vote on the closure of several university campuses in Pennsylvania. The President of the university also ended a livestream discussion about these profound changes. There is a special phone queue setup for handling calls about this issue. Who attends that campus closure line? Why, it's IT Support, of course, you silly goose.

If it gets too busy for regular staffing levels, they'll call in people to help out. I've turned on the ringer on my smart phone, so I can respond if I'm called to report for duty.

I hope it's dull. I hope there's no increase. It's rational that they're trying to be prepared. I'm just not in the mood to get yelled at, even though all of us are always (not just for this event) empowered to immediately hang up on anybody who is verbally abusive, which is a wonderful policy that I appreciate immensely.

Here is the roadmap for the closures. The data is solidly behind these closures. They did a good job on the recommendations here (PDF file, 15.8MB, 143 pages). I hope all of this phone preparation is completely unnecessary. I don't want to get called in for overtime.

There are labels that I gladly accept and others that I reject.

For instance:

• I am not a Democrat. Not since Bernie got sidelined the first time.
• I am a progressive. Meaning I want continuing improvements in response to new empirical knowledge.
• I am #antifa. And you should be too.
• I am not an anarchist.

I should explain that last label, given my longstanding criticism of so many things here in the USA. I want great changes in government and economic structures, yes, but I still want structures. Anarchism has the debatably-laudable goal of making individuals each responsible for all outcomes. It plans to accomplish that goal, thanks to elimination of all hierarchy as a form of coercion. Afterwards, individuals and their choices would be all that matters.

I've recommended the book "The Nature of Economies" by Jane Jacobs many times over the years. It uses easy ecological metaphors to teach ideas that are more complex. I propose a biological metaphor for understanding proposed anarchy. Show me the creature that was formerly a multicellular organism of specialized cells (requiring hierarchy of its own sort) that later backtracked to eliminate that specialization, where each cell becomes master of itself and must negotiate with other cells as equals. Show me how evolution has proved that simplification strategy as more adaptable than advanced specializations, then I'll believe that anarchism is viable at our level too. It seems at first glance, at least, that Mother Nature prefers constant change and reorganization, not mere simplification.

"You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists."
- G.K. Chesterton

I still believe in the beauty of complex systems, and I still believe in the possibility of their actually serving the long-term needs of constituent components.

The heat is a bit much. Normally, May is the month in Minneapolis where we're hoping to avoid any frost damage to the things we planted much too early because we hoped prematurely for the end to winter. This year, we keep getting heatwaves. Minneapolis is currently under a red flag warning about fire risk due to the dryness and strong winds. The temperature as I write this post in the evening is 30.5C/87F. We're expecting a few days of temperatures above 32C/90F. It's warm weather for May in Minneapolis.

Pictured here are the tulips and daffodils that are flowering in the front yard, in the middle of the raspberry patch that is beginning to leaf out. The flowers have been pretty for about 2 weeks already, so they won't last much longer.

I still haven't finished pulling out the grass in the front yard. I did succeed in mowing over the clover path in the back yard today during my lunch break from work. Yesterday, I got some carrots and tomatoes planted, from sprouts that I put in flats a few weeks ago.

I finally ordered the air conditioner that I located last year. It may not arrive until after this heat wave breaks, but at least I'll be ready for summer. For now, the thermal mass in the house is keeping downstairs cool. Upstairs in my bedroom, I open the windows at night to help some of the heat escape and get some more comfortable rest.