First day back to work after the holiday, which is weird. Since I work for a gubmint-related thing now, I get gubmint-related holidays off. This is one of the most un-call center-like things about this job. Most places like that give a minimal amount of holidays, and in some cases, you work them on a volunteer or round-robin kind of thing. I worked last Christmas, may I have this Christmas off? No? Shit. (This actually happened.) When I got married, the place I worked wouldn’t approve the actual DAY of my wedding off, but approved the WEEK of my wedding. That is how the Week of Fun Started. Looks like for the 3rd time in 29 years we’ll have to put off the Week of Fun again this year. The way our vacation allotment shakes out is that I get the full amount in September of every year, which makes it a challenge for the following July. Since Kimmers didn’t start her job until November, she doesn’t have PTO. For the year. Which is also weird. I’d have thought they’d pro-rate, but it doesn’t appear so. Also strange because she was just in the hospital for a week, so that’s fun. That’s enough bitching for how, let’s navigate to the meat.
In a piece of news I will file under “I want off this ride”, let me pose a question to you: If the principal of your elementary school leaves his gun in a bathroom stall, and a third-grader finds it and reports it to his teacher, what is the correct thing for that teacher to do? Clearly, It’s sending another third-grader to the bathroom to check if it’s a real gun. What–and I can’t stress this highly enough–THE FUCK.
Britney Griner signed a one-year contract with the Phoenix Mercury, making it her 10th season with the team. Of course, she missed last year because of her detention in Russia. Now, I’m not a big basketball fan, (note: watch this space for the day they announce the Sonics are coming back), but before today I had not seen a news story mention why she played in Russia to begin with. The NPR article I linked here says that WNBA athletes often play overseas in the off-season to supplement their income because of gender pay inequalities with their NBA counterparts. Now, admittedly, this may be a different situation from the USA Women’s soccer team which has carried the load for US Soccer while the men have done fuck-all, but if the pay difference can be argued as a safety concern? “Hey, if y’all would pay me I wouldn’t have to go anywhere else.” I’m not the brightest bulb on the tree, but that would be my argument next time salary arbitration comes up. Does the WNBA even HAVE a player’s union? (They do.)
In the next town over, Chesapeake, BM Williams Elementary School went into lockdown and was dismissed early because they received a bomb threat email accusing them of ‘devil worship’. BM Willams is the school you may have heard about in the news because they have the After School Satan Club. The email accuses a Chesapeake school board member, the Chesapeake schools superintendent and the organizer of the After School Satan Club of ‘promoting devil worship and unIslamic values.’ Without evidence to the contrary, the letter implies the writer of the email is Muslim. I don’t believe it for a second, but I’ll be willing to admit it if I’m wrong. However, let’s be clear about what we’re dealing with here. This is a person who saw the word Satan and didn’t look beyond the paint. I’m not a member of The Satanic Temple, but I know that’s there’s a big difference between them and Anton LeVay’s Church of Satan. To begin with, The Satanic Temple doesn’t actually believe in Satan. They don’t worship Satan. They use the imagery to troll evangelical extremists. They use satire to get under the skin of people. They’re activists that preach—if you’ll pardon the expression—equality, social justice, and to point out religious hypocrisy. They’re all about personal autonomy, curiosity, pragmatic skepticism. The after school program is an answer to the Good News Club, a Christian after school program. It doesn’t try to ‘convert’ kids, it teaches “about rationalism and understanding the world around us.” in other words, how to make sense of the world using critical thinking skills and natural curiosity. Questioning everything. That’s a good thing in my opinion. In fact, the only group of people I can think of that wouldn’t think that’s a good idea are folks more interested in indoctrinating their kids.
Lastly, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Gonzalez v Google today, this is the first of two cases regarding the Internet and Section 230. I’ll have a deeper take on it in the coming days, but here’s the link if you’d like to hear it.