How to deal with the holiday season if you are an introvert

We are in the holiday season when parties seem to be obligatory. Getting together with family and friends can be enjoyable but for introverts like me, too many functions with too many people that last too long can be tiresome. It is not the case, as is commonly assumed, that introverts do not like the company of others. They do and they often have many friends. It is that introverts feel drained by the company of others and need solitude to recharge, while extroverts get energized by the presence of others and get drained when they are alone. So the problem for introverts is that parties can come thick and fast in the holiday season and they have too few times when they can be alone.
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Politics, race, and class in West Indies cricket

The game of cricket was invented in England and exported by them to their colonies so that expatriates could continue to play it. But the game fascinated the locals who took to it with such enthusiasm that many of those countries now routinely field stronger teams than England. One of the first colonies where people of color became serious challengers was the West Indies, which is not a single country but a collection of many independent island nations in the Caribbean that banded together to field a single team. For a long time, the administration of the game was in the hands of English expatriates who retained control and appointed the captain of the team and made the selections, even as the dominant players were people of the islands.
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Is 2024 going to be a rerun of 2016?

In the US, there is no such thing as an election season. General elections nominally occur every even year but that is only mostly true for races for national office. State and local elections often occur in odd years as well. Campaigning for the next election begins immediately after one election has ended but that is only open campaigning. Preparations for the subsequent election are usually being laid before any election ends.

So it is unsurprising that there are already many discussions about the 2024 presidential election, even though the predictions that are made just after a mid-term election are usually completely off the mark as to who will actually make it to the finish line two years later. But that does not stop the punditocracy from engaging in endless speculations. This time though, there is actually something concrete to talk about because Donald Trump has already announced that he will run and that has to be taken seriously because he did win in 2016.
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Strikes in the UK

The UK is about to experience a wave of strikes, starting with the nurses unions.

Tens of thousands of nurses across the United Kingdom are set to walk off the job Thursday in what’s been described as the largest-ever strike by National Health Service workers, who said they were forced to act after the government refused to negotiate over pay amid painfully high inflation.

The walkout represents NHS nurses’ first national strike, and it comes as U.K. rail and postal workers are also taking major labor actions in response to falling real pay, meager benefits, and worsening conditions.
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The RCN [Royal College of Nursing] said a strike became inevitable after U.K. ministers declined every offer to start formal pay negotiations. Earlier this week, [Pat] Cullen [general secretary and chief executive of the RCN] met with Tory Health Secretary Steve Barclay in a last-ditch effort to discuss pay before launching the national strike, but he refused to budge.

“I asked several times to discuss pay and each time we returned to the same thing—that there was no extra money on the table, and that they would not be discussing pay with me,” Cullen said. “I needed to come out of this meeting with something serious to show nursing staff why they should not strike this week. Regrettably, they’re not getting an extra penny.”

Jonathan Pie says that all those striking deserve the increases in wages and benefits and job security they are asking for.

On a personal note, I have great fondness for the British nursing profession. I spent a lot of time as a child in UK hospitals and one of the main things that stands out for me in my memory are the nurses. They were briskly efficient but also kind and caring. I would give them anything they asked for.

Treating students with respect

My attention was drawn to this headline for an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education that asked “Do Professors Have a Right to Mistreat Students?” My immediate reaction was “Well, duh! Of course not!” and was wondering why that question should even be asked.

It turns out that the article was prompted by a college professor who had refused to use any gender identification terms other than male and female.

Nicholas Meriwether, who teaches philosophy at Shawnee State University, in Ohio, and routinely addresses students as “Mr.” or “Ms.,” refused to address a transgender woman by the pronouns or honorifc she uses. Meriwether explained that he was not willing “to communicate a university-mandated ideological message regarding gender identity” that conflicted with his Christian beliefs. When he sued the university for violating his rights to free speech and equal protection, a district court found that the student “dreaded participating in plaintiff’s class but felt compelled to do so because plaintiff graded students on participation.” The college had tried to accommodate Meriwether by proposing that he refer to all students by first or last names only, without using gendered titles for any of them. That would have treated everyone equally, and it would not have required him to say anything he did not believe.
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Oregon governor spares all death row inmates

In a welcome move, Kate Brown has commuted the sentences of all death row inmates, just weeks before leaving office.

The governor of Oregon, Kate Brown announced Tuesday that she is commuting the sentences of all of the state’s 17 inmates awaiting execution, saying all of their death sentences will be changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Brown, who has less than a month remaining in office, said she was using her executive clemency powers to commute the sentences and that her order will take effect on Wednesday.

“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people – even if a terrible crime placed them in prison,” Brown said in a statement.

Oregon has not executed a prisoner since 1997. In Brown’s first news conference after she became governor in 2015, the Democrat announced she would continue a moratorium on the death penalty imposed by her predecessor, former Governor John Kitzhaber.
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Masking is being advised again

Last week, for the first time since the pandemic started, I went into a public place without wearing a mask. It was the occasion of some friends of mine visiting from out of town and the five of us went to a restaurant. It felt a little strange at first to be without a mask but the restaurant was only about half full and there were no people at the adjacent tables.

I am one of the few holdouts who are still wearing masks. But health experts are warning that we seem to be heading for some months where cases will rise for three kinds of viral infections (Covid-19, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and flu) and are recommending that people wear masks again in certain situations. This is going to be a hard sell since most people around the country (and apparently the world) have given up on them and live as if infectious diseases are things of the past.

But others share my concern.
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The magic of the Muppets

50 years ago, Sesame Street showed this clip of Kermit the Frog and a little girl named Joey singing the alphabet song, with Joey goofing it up. What is amazing is that though Joey could see Jim Henson crouched down below the camera level and manipulating and voicing Kermit, the power of his performance is so great that you can see that Joey interacts with Kermit as if he is an autonomous agent.

I have seen Jim Henson and Frank Oz being interviewed on talk shows and talking through their characters and even adult interviewers seem to get caught up in the magic and talk with the muppets and not the humans behind them.
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I loved watching Sesame Street with my children and especially enjoyed the segments with Muppets which were often hilarious. This particular one has become iconic and is absolutely adorable.

Congress passes bill protecting same-sex and inter-racial marriages

This law might seem unnecessary but given that the US Supreme Court just overturned the precedent of a constitutional right to abortion and one of the justices signaled that they might want to do the same to same-sex marriage, it seemed like a federal law to protect those hard won rights was necessary.

The House gave final passage on Thursday to landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriage, in a bipartisan vote that reflects a remarkable shift in public opinion just over a quarter-century after Congress defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The final vote was 258 to 169, with 39 Republican members joining every House Democrat in supporting the bill. One Republican, Burgess Owens of Utah, voted present.
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What happened to the ‘War on Christmas’?

Here we are, less than two weeks away from December 25th, and as far as I am aware there has been no recurrence of rage around the annual non-issue known as the ‘War on Christmas’ where right wing politicians and Fox News go on and on about how people are no longer able to say “Merry Christmas” or have any other symbol of the season without being harassed and otherwise being discriminated against. Donald Trump promised that when he became president, he would bring Christmas back and people would be able to say Merry Christmas again.

This was one of the most bogus culture war issues ever but that did not stop it from gaining traction among certain sections of the population. Of course, since people could always put up decorated trees, sing carols, have Santas, and say “Merry Christmas” if they wanted to, it is one of those ‘wars’ where they can declare victory at any time and move on to other culture war issues.
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