Happy Friday, Gentle Readers.
The foul weather has stopped for the moment in my neck of the woods. Mostly, it has been a week and a half of rain. But the sun has returned, and for the first time, I can see what the dogs have been leaving in the backyard. So my Saturday is all planned out. And ruined.
Don’t Deadname the Dinosaurs
Who doesn’t love dinosaurs? Everybody loves dinosaurs, right? Well, if you are sufficiently well-versed in DEI, CRT, and BLM, have the right signs in front of your house and the right stickers on your car, you may love dinosaurs, but you certainly don’t love their patriarchal, whatever-phobic, and “ist” names that imperialistic paleontologists have been branding them with since the first fossilized femur was unearthed, back God-knows-when. You see, dinosaur names aren’t inclusive enough.
Oh, c’mon. Like you didn’t see that coming.
Nature reports that there is an effort underway to ensure that any dinosaur species discovered in the future have names that accurately reflect where and how they were located. Apparently, the guidelines for naming a new species are a little too lax for some people’s tastes. After all, we would not want to risk offending the dinosaur community by using the incorrect names. You laugh, but I can almost guarantee you that somewhere out there, somebody identifies as a dinosaur. Don’t even get me started on the pronouns and bathrooms.
At any rate, German paleontologist Emma Dunne and her colleagues decided to analyze all of the dinosaur names starting with the Mesozoic Era. If you’re interested, that is about 1,500 dino monikers. Give or take a diplodocus or two.
The authors wanted to know how much effort it would take to address what they saw as problematic names, which they describe as those “emanating racism, sexism, named under (neo)colonial contexts or after controversial figures.” They found several such names, equating to less than 3% of the dinosaurs they looked at.
What the team learned is that some dinosaur names were taken from the colonial names for the countries in which the fossils were discovered. The indigenous names of those places or, in some cases, researchers were ignored or mistranslated. For the moment, it looks as if the names by which we have come to know the “terrible lizards” will remain intact, barring some unforeseen development.
If someone out there wants to rename a dinosaur for an indigenous researcher who was overlooked by history, fine with me. Heck, rename all the dinosaurs if you want. Most of us don’t have time to worry about it. I’m still trying to get past the idea that dinosaurs may have had feathers. I never saw that in “Land of the Lost.”
Maybe we’re due for a rainbowsaurus. Or better still, a transosaurus rex!
Sorry, I’ll see myself out.
Get Your Ph.D in F.A.T.
All those 11th-year college students who want to dodge student loan payments and adult responsibilities while continuing to protest everything under the sun and still feel relevant could get a little worried now and then. After all, you can only spend so much time in college before you have conquered or at least audited all the fields of study. The time may come when you run out of reasons to hang around, even if you are still in grad school.
Woke academia to the rescue! For those last-lap college students who are harboring phobias of real life, the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque is offering Fat Studies. Quoting from the syllabus, Campus Reform notes that “This course will consider the structural forces that construct fatness as problematic—as diseased, gross, dirty, lazy, gluttonous, and other negative characteristics—thereby reinforcing antifatness.” There are plenty of overweight people out there who do not fit those descriptors, but when did facts ever get in the way of a tenured professor with a collection of axes to grind? In addition to learning about how antifatness interacts with other types of oppression, students will learn about fat liberationist movements and activism.
There is also a “Fatshion Assignment” (Get it? Get it?). Students must design two outfits, regular and plus-sized. They then must explain how easy or difficult it was to create the outfits and if there were any price differences for the purchases.
At this point, colleges are just one semester away from handing out coloring books and word searches.
The instructor has announced that grading will not be contingent on participation or attendance. That would be “ableism.” Where was that excuse when I was hungover in college?
Aside from giving someone another reason to throw a tantrum on X or another sign to wave at the next campus protest, I can’t see much use in a course like this. But, hey, it’s not my money these people are wasting on a student loan.
Oh, wait. It probably is.
Wine Recommendation:
Because we should eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow, we may be in a Third-World dictatorship.
Amen.
One of the ways I relax is by cooking. Usually, I cook something complicated to keep my mind off of the fact that the world is going to hell on a skateboard. But recently, I was too tired to worry about it (writing is harder than it looks, you know), and “cooking” consisted of grabbing one of those pre-made charcuterie boards out of a fridge at the grocery. Hey, food is food.
Once dinner was lovingly unwrapped and artfully plunked down on an end table, I paired it with a 2020 Bolla Valpolicella.
You will probably either love or hate this wine. I thought it went very nicely with the meat and cheese. It is a typical dry red, but it stayed right in the middle of the road with the acidity and tannins. That made it not too aggressive but with a tiny kick to it. The red fruits really stand out, and there is a little bit of leather and some oak. This is not a smoky wine, but for those who like that taste, it holds its own. For a red, you can obviously pair it with pasta, beef, or lamb, but try it with a chicken dish. We had some chocolate-covered cranberries to finish off the meal, and this wine would work great with a dark chocolate dessert.
That’s it for me. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you next time.