Iconoclast. Social activist. Olympic gold medalist and world-class painter. BAFTA-winning filmmaker for her documentary about her Grammy-winning album. The youngest person to graduate from Oxford University, the youngest person to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and the youngest daughter of the…

I have abandoned the Flat Circle school of thought re: time wonkiness. Now I’m all about the Jeremy Bearimy.

I’m thinking she’ll likely be more focused on getting out the vote than on changing minds. So, she’ll probably be in areas with traditionally low voter turnout (which is probably a good idea.)

I live in Smyrna, which is definitely liberal (yay for electing Jen Jordan and breaking the supermajority!)  On the other hand, this is Cobb, which is ... slowly turning blue but not there yet. What are the chances Oprah will come to my neighborhood?

I blame Freakonomics.

The traditional understanding is that this just meant, say, the children of foreign diplomats do not automatically get birthright citizenship because they’re not truly subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

Every time I hear this, I (deliberately) think it’s “Pop-a-Troll” and then wonder what on earth those poor gnomes did to deserve that.

Pointless to engage them? Probably, yeah. Pointless to keep them as friends? Definitely.

I adore Avenatti when he’s out there raising hell, but I do NOT want him to run for president.

My super-racist father too. Fortunately, he doesn’t vote... but my proud-democrat mother does. (She was thrilled to tell me she mailed in her absentee ballot for Beto.)

Another funny thing about that: the Democrats’ percentage of the overall vote in Georgia actually increased from 2012 (44%) to 2016 (48%). We kept hearing about how Clinton lost all these traditionally blue states, but nobody paid attention she actually did better here than Obama did four years earlier. And neither…

Reminds me of all the people on House Hunters who look at a balcony or patio and proclaim, “I can see myself sipping coffee out here every morning!” Mm-hmm. Sure.

Oh, yeah. I can be in and out in 20 minutes (depending on the checkout lines), thanks to all those shortcut doors.

My mother is one of those Southern women who insist that their great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess. Last winter I took an Ancestry test*. NO Native American ancestry. Period. I am as white and northwestern European as it gets. We did have <1% Eastern European Jewish. My mother asked if that makes us Jewish. I…

And I’m pretty sure last year TJ’s had a pumpkin-themed pasta sauce.

Ah, but many of them are so myopic and stubborn that all they see is “kneeling = disrespecting THE FLAG OMG”. The issue of police brutality doesn’t even enter the picture. And if it does, well, those people who got shot had it comin’. (Just typing all that makes me a bit nauseated.)

For what it’s worth, the temperature conversion shortcut I’ve always used is to double the Celsius temperature and add 30.  Or the reverse: subtract 30 and divide by two. (e.g. right now in Atlanta it’s 65F or 18C.)  You’ll probably be off by a few degrees, but it’s close enough for mental math!

Low-income public schools around here are increasingly turning to uniforms. I’ve taught in two Title 1 middle schools with uniforms, and parents loved them because they were so much cheaper. Most of the Targets and Walmarts around here sell cheap khakis and polos for under $10/each. Plus, they can be reused if you…

Also saw it yesterday, and of course I cried - which made the tiny bits of humor sprinkled throughout all the more welcome. And although I like to think of myself as an ally, it also reaffirmed that I still have so much to learn, and that there are so many things I’ll never truly understand.

It did feel rushed. On a positive note, though, I like how the three Companions have a preexisting relationship, with a history separate from the Doctor. Granted, that’s not new, but it still makes things more interesting.