One of the more horrible ways to go

There’s a reason, I guess, that my wife brings me a big bowl of fiber every morning. I think she prefers that to having to pluck the legs off grasshoppers.

A man who lived in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas sometime between 1,000 and 1,400 years ago may have died from a horrible case of constipation, according to a study of his mummified remains.

And during the painful months just prior to his death, he ate mainly grasshoppers, the study researchers found.

Apparently, Chagas disease, which is caused by a parasite called Trypanosoma cruzi, had blocked up the man’s gastrointestinal system. That blockage caused his colon to swell to about six times its normal size — a condition called “megacolon.” The man was unable to digest foods properly and gradually became malnourished, scientists found. The condition would have made it difficult for the man to walk or even eat on his own. The researchers think that in the last two to three months of his life — either family or members of his community — helped the man eat by feeding him grasshoppers whose legs had been removed.

Ugh. What a miserable way to go.

I may have figured our cat out

We don’t have one of those affectionate, cuddly kitties. Instead, we have a hair-trigger psychopath kitty who will cut you if you cross her. You can tell she wants to be friends — she will, for instance, follow me around the house and sit near me, within arms reach but no closer — but if you try to be too chummy, the fangs will come out and she’ll stalk away in a huff.

But last night she jumped up in my lap and lay there purring. I was taken aback. What had I done differently? Then I realized that I was wearing a dark robe, blue but so dark it was nearly black, and everything clicked into place. We’ve known for some time that if we put a black blanket on the floor or on the couch, she would preferentially curl up on that. She just doesn’t like light colored objects. So now I realize…

Our cat is racist.

Either that, or she’s seriously into the Goth scene.

I may have to test her musical preferences. Siouxsie and the Banshees, maybe? Joy Division? Or maybe she’d be content if I just played more Prince?

The romance is over

The heartbreak of a breakup is worse when you get the news secondhand. Putin has parted ways with Trump.

More than a month later than most world leaders, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday congratulated President-elect Joe Biden for his victory in the election, a delayed recognition that could set the tone for icy relations.

“In his message Vladimir Putin wished the president-elect every success and expressed confidence that Russia and the United States, which bear special responsibility for global security and stability, can, despite their differences, effectively contribute to solving many problems and meeting challenges that the world is facing today,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

I knew all along that the relationship would never work out — it was a friendship of convenience between two spoiled, selfish people who would only stick together while they thought they could get something from one another. Oh well, Donald still has a few potential dates for the prom on Saturday.

Putin was one of the last heads of state to acknowledge Biden’s win; Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un are other holdouts.

I can see where Bolsonaro and Kim have a lot in common with the loser-in-chief, but I was baffled by Obrador. Shouldn’t Mexico be happy to see a bigoted basher out of office? But here’s a brief explanation:

Few expected López Obrador, elected in July 2018, to openly embrace Trump and his hard-line border policies after all the dirt thrown. But that’s just what happened.

At heart, the two men are nationalists more concerned with domestic business than foreign affairs, experts say.

“I think we need to understand that AMLO has an uncommon worldview,” said Duncan Wood, director of the nonpartisan Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute in Washington, D.C. “He is much more focused on what happens internally than what happens in the United States. He wants the world to know he isn’t beholden to the United States.”

OK, I can respect that — it’s not so much an affection for Trump as it is a need to stand independent of the US, no matter who holds the office.

No rest for the weary

Time to crash down into reality. Meet Bob Good, the newly elected congressvermin from Virginia.

You think electing Biden made everything all better? Think again.

  • Virginia just elected a Trumpkin. He’s going to be poisoning congress for the next few years.
  • He’s addressing a rally of unmasked people, not wearing a mask.
  • His message is that we have a very serious virus, but the pandemic is fake.

Huh. The US didn’t suddenly become smarter on 4 November. I guess the work has only just begun.

The Wall Street Journal opinion pages have always been garbage, anyway

In case you hadn’t heard already, the WSJ published an appalling bit of nonsense from a Joseph Epstein in which, for some unexplained reason, he decided the important issue of the day is to berate Jill Biden for using the title “Dr.” I know. It’s idiotic. She earned the title, use it. There’s a serious reek of sour grapes here, since Epstein has, at best, a BA. Nothing wrong with that, all of my students graduate with a BA, and I’m proud of them. If you want to see it dissected, with excerpts, here’s the summary for you, complete with summary diagram.

But here’s the deal: among themselves, academics tend not to use fancy titles for each other. We might use them when introducing a colleague to others (but see below), but many of us won’t expect it even with our students, or anyone else for that matter. That goes for all you readers, too — I’d rather you didn’t address me as Dr Myers. That feels weird.

One exception, though: if you try to tell me that you’re not going to call me Dr because I only have a mere biology Ph.D., then for you, I’m going to have to insist on the formality.

Also, these data bring me up short. There’s a tendency for male academics to be more informal with female academics than with their fellow men.

Wow. When women introduce women, they’ll nearly 100% of the time use their title; when men introduce women, it’s down to less than half the time. That’s simple misogyny, diminishing the accomplishments of women, which Epstein has to an extreme degree, but a surprising number of us men also share. I think I tend to get formal when doing formal introductions, so I don’t think I’m guilty of that, but I’ll be more conscious of the problem in the future. I wouldn’t want to Joey Epstein myself, you know. No one wants that.