Aelfgyfu

I'm so glad to be back on Standard Time! And not just because I got an extra hour's sleep! I would gladly give up getting the hour back if I never had to give it up in the first place.

I know a lot of people love DST, including my mother, a night owl. But even my mother hates the idea of year-round DST, because she remembers when they tried it. It was such a disaster that they pulled the plug before the two year trial period was up: "The US Tried Permanent Daylight Saving Time in the ’70s. People Hated It".

DST is bad for the body, as The Washington Post shows in a great story with a set of infographics: "Why Daylight Saving Time Is Worse for Your Body than Standard Time".

Both of Florida's senators, Voldemort (Rick Scott) and Marco Bible-Thumper Rubio,* support year-round DST, because of course they do.


* Rubio quotes the Bible on Twitter a lot. He frequently does not understand the verses he quotes the same way I do.

The government shutdown here in the States brought this scene to mind. ( MAJOR SPOILERS for original Planet of the Apes movie )

A lot of people are reposting appeals for Kony 2012/Invisible Children. Before you give money or repost, I urge you to read the following:

"Think Twice Before Donating to Kony 2012, the Charitable Meme du Jour" at Jezebel

and

Visible Children

Visible Children warns not only that this "charity" spends the vast bulk of its money, but it supports military interventions by armies with histories of war crimes.

The Charity Navigator page for Invisible Children is worth seeing--particularly at the bottom, where it is compared with other charities with similar missions, and in the middle, where the financial data are given (including administrative expenses of over 16%; Doctors without Borders, by contrast, is under 2% there).

Invisible Children responds here, so you can read their answers too before you decide.

This discovery is awesome: Anglo-Saxonist Elaine Treharne, showing students an early printed text of Chaucer, found a Latin poem pasted in back that other people must have seen but ignored. So Prof. Treharne, in a sense, discovered a new, early modern Latin poem, by a woman, to her tutor. Read the article here; it's not long, and lots of fun. Patrick Conner, another Anglo-Saxonist, manages to get mention in the article as well.

Anglo-Saxonists can work in later eras and often do, quite successfully. Take that, pro-modern bias!

I've been away from the news the last few days and just heard about the riots in London! Now, of course, I'm trying desperately to remember which of my LJ friends actually live in London. I can't believe the pictures I'm seeing and the news from the web and on the radio.

I hope all of you are okay. I pray that the violence ends soon.

See this entry by bentleywg for a little bit of misinformation accidentally spread by German news.

"Cats of War: The Pentagon's top-secret feline special-operations program, revealed," by Holly Allen and Christopher Beam at Slate. Go look NOW.

From The Ann Arbor News: "The male patient who swallowed rodent poisoning and breathed a toxic, potentially flammable gas is still isolated in his room. . . ."

Srsly? Who knew?

I do feel bad for the patient who took it; I won't speculate on reasons. I hope they can help him.

Those who don't want to read about politics may want to skip this. I'm not trying to be partisan, but each party has already staked out its own position on the matters I'm about to discuss.

Every time I turn on the news or read the newspaper, I am confronted by politicians in several states (including mine) saying that government employees get pensions to which they contribute not a cent—that my friends, colleagues, and I are freeloaders living it up at the expense of taxpayers. ( Less a rant than an appeal for understanding )

"The Royal Society's Lost Women Scientists" appeared a few days ago in The Guardian; I thought it worth reposting. I've heard of Margaret Cavendish and Mary Somerville, but I don't recall hearing of Caroline Herschel, for instance.