Oh. Goody.

Now there are two things that could eat me.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080520131750.htm

Apparently there are 30,000 Burmese pythons on the loose in Florida, and, per the Associate Professor of Herpetology and Fear Induction cited, they can live in any environment that gators can, meaning that they can be found anywhere in the lower 1/3 of the United States. Oh, and apparently they are breeding like slithering, limbless bunnies. Bunnies with scales. Bunnies capable of capturing, crushing, and eating a ******* alligator. Bad-ass Bunnies.

In less lethal news, it is sunny and warm and I have Vietnamese food.

Alles Gute.

A quick thought about grading.

I am currently most of the way through grading my first set of exams, so this will have to be brief. There are tests that are easy to grade - those from the people who have studied and know what they are talking about, as well as those who haven't bothered to study, as my red pen makes a few quick slash marks and we're good to go. The problem are the people who write incoherent answers - there are parts of their answer that make sense, but overall it's a mess. There are nuggets of truth contained in the answer, kind of like peanuts in stool.

Alles Gute.

Damn Girl Scouts

First and foremost, it was great seeing the family over Mardi Gras. By the end of the parade, I looked like Mr. T, but without the tasteful fashion sense.

In other news, **** the Girl Scouts with an iron stick.

Devil in a Blue Box

I made resolutions to eat better and exercise more intelligently (i.e., mix things up, don't let the body adapt to one kind of exercise, exercise more regularly, etc.). I bought fruits and vegetables, a new scale to track several body metrics (e.g., body fat percentage, since overall weight might not decrease during dieting, as muscle replaces fatty tissue), and had been good for awhile now (the visiting family was a clear exception). Then the little cookie pushers brought out their table with signs like "Good Cause" and "Noblesse Oblige". I've written elsewhere about my experience with them, so I will quote myself:

**** you, Girl Scouts. You and your Samoas and your Dulche de Leches. Didn't you know I just bought a new scale to track four different body markers? Didn't you see the *healthy* things I bought *right before* you sidled up with your table and "Good Cause" signs? The fruits and vegetables and reduced sodium/calorie soups? Didn't you know I would be helpless before you and your new flavors "Willpower Rot" and
"Eat 'em, Fatty's"? Jerkfaces. All of you. This is all your fault.

So, two boxes later, I have issued a fatwa: Girl Scouts are an Abomination unto the Eyes of the Lord. A sweet, nummy-licious Abomination.

In other news, it's testing season for my students. My personal favorite quote following an exam: "Nothing personal, but I hate you."

I figure I must be doing something right.

Alles Gute.

Nothing terribly exciting to report:

...reading for this Hobbes article continues to be the bane of my existence.

...my students have turned in sources, so I've spent the weekend checking to ensure everything is peer-reviewed by someone more authoritative than Wikipedia's anonymous authors.

...Valentine's Day was spent driving and reading in Texas.

...spent some time working on manuscripts for the research group.

...it is a lovely 63 degrees in Lake Charles at the moment, so I'll be outside doing, of all things, more reading.

The most *extreme* and radical thing at the moment is getting set up to grow my own basil and oregano. Because I'm wild like that.

Rebel without a cause. Or his own herb garden. Or the recurrent angst of attempting to reconcile Aristotelian teleology with modern existentialism in the question of existence versus nonexistence.

So, until things calm down on the academic front, my social life will probably be spent with books, which neither drink nor serve as good conversationalists.

In other news...

Oh yeah, Mardi Gras is coming, and we have that Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off. I have beads in wait for women of loose morals. ;-)

Alles Gute.

What's New and Exciting in Louisiana

Well, for starters, there is now a grassroots campaign to elect a porn starlet to replace our currently embattled Senator Vitter. Yes, the Draft Stormy push (not sure if this is innuendo) is truly a high point in Lousiana, since we are no longer the most corrupt state (that honor went to Alaska with the whole Ted Stevens thing, accordingly to felony convictions for a single Senator). So, of course, we need something to put us back on top and, apparently, in reverse cowgirl.

This is what I think of when I think of participatory democracy. Heaving mounds of participatory democracy...

In other news, the major is going well - we had a very productive meeting with the Dean on Friday and made major headway. I've been immersed in political philosophy in preparation for this Dune and Philosophy article, and I have discovered entirely new veins of procrastination at my intellectual dig site. I brought three books on Hobbes home with me over the weekend, put them on my table outside with the idea of reading in the warmth (mid-70's all weekend), and proceeded to ignore them until Monday morning.

Another book arrived today (Essential Histories: The English Civil Wars 1642-1651), but it promises to be a faster read. Hobbes wrote the Leviathan within the context of the English civil war, a bloody nine-year affair (which extends further back before Charles I, which I learned in conversation with Hanno on the way to Mexican Mondays (lunch, not a cultural diversity thing)). Suffice it to say that England was sufficient nasty and violent to inspire Hobbes to write about the most base parts of the human psyche, in which our natural reason tells us that the most reasonable conduct involves killing others before they kill you. Or, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, beat them with a crowbar before you speak softly. Or something.

Anyway, I'm off to the gym before dinner and more reading. The joys of modern academia.

Alles Gute.

Neat Opportunity

The Onion: Source of All Truth

Just a quick note, as I'm running out the door to head back home.

I'll be giving a presentation on Buddhism next Wednesday as part of Diversity Week here at McNeese. With any luck, I'll be able to keep them interested and get some recruits for the year-long survey of religion course I'm planning for next year. The fun part is deciding what to cut from the lecture to condense it into 30-40 minutes, since my notes are designed for two weeks of classes.

Off to hit the gym and read Hobbes.

Alles Gute.

Pop Culture and Philosophy

A little interesting news to start the week. I opened my e-mail this morning and discovered that I had been accepted for inclusion in Dune and Philosophy, part of the Pop Culture and Philosophy series by Open Court Press. They accepted my abstract for an article called "Hobbes, Spice, and Power", which relates the imperial structure in Herbert's books to Thomas Hobbes' political work Leviathan, in which he discusses scarcity, violence, and justifications for essentially any political structure that prevents anarchy. It will give me an excuse to read science fiction and call it work. :)

Alles Gute.