Glad to see that pure xenophobia is alive and well here in the Commonwealth

The thrill I feel at wrapping up grading has been immediately destroyed by the email from my Kentucky state rep reflecting on the theological significance of Christmas. C’mon dude, at least pretend to separate church and state.

This is unlikely to make a difference, but I’m grateful anyway.

Horrific story; not sure why we’re so eager to punish the unhoused.

It’s that time of year (again) for signing the acceptable use policy for kiddo’s school, and I’m again grumpy about a lot of the details in here. Some of these details are me being a nitpicky academic, like the use of the word “technology” to refer to digital technologies alone. Others strike me as more serious, though.

Let’s take a look at this paragraph, listed under a “Roles and Responsibilities of Parents/Guardians” header:

This feels too good to be true? But if the legislation is really dead (at least this time around), I’ll take it.

One of my favorite academic anecdotes to share in conference rooms and university hallways is for my dissertation defense, two of my committee members were there via telepresence robot. This is less impressive post-2020, when a lot of defenses happen entirely over Zoom, but it’s still different than an online-only defense, so the story still attracts some interest. At any rate, as good as I thought my story was, I got a real kick out of this bit in the prologue to Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom:

Look, even academics cite the wrong papers sometimes, but if the researchers you cite to support your crime bill don’t actually support your crime bill, that should be a warning…

I’ve never voted for Michael Adams, but I appreciate his being a voice of reason within his own party.

I appreciate it when our president speaks up against legislation that would hurt the University of Kentucky.

Well, crap. Not a lot of hope that House will stop this.

You can say that, but it’s hard to understand how this isn’t limiting tenure.

Welp, here’s something to pay attention to this legislative session.

I hadn’t thought about this before, but of course the same General Assembly complaining about the JCPS bus crisis is responsible for underfunding their bus system.

Even if the Kentucky GOP is right and this is what loses Beshear the election, it it was clearly the right thing to do. I want Beshear to stay in office, but I don’t know if I could vote for him if he didn’t resist the queerphobia coming out of the General Assembly. Shame on our legislature for passing this bill—and for so clearly acknowledging here that it’s to score political points at the expense of Kentucky children.

Over the past several months, the University of Kentucky has been pushing us to set up profiles on a new research analytics platform. The platform looks… fine, but I’ve been irritated with some of how the platform works and curious why UK is so keen on having us fill out our profiles. It’s felt from the beginning like this is something more for UK’s benefit than for our individual benefits as faculty. When the platform launched today, a passage from the press release added to that feeling:

Grumpy about this this morning.

Wish that I’d been paying better attention to this legislation. Libraries are pillars of our communities and ought to retain partisan independence.

Worries about this picking up. General Assembly took steps in a bad direction this session, but they could go further next time.

I have spent a few hours this week reading violently anti-trans posts as part of a research project. My patience for queerphobic dog whistles disguised as feigned concerns about girls’ sports is at zero. So disappointed in the Kentucky legislature.

I do not always have praise for the local Republican supermajority, but I’m glad to see this goes beyond Ukraine to provide support for all kinds of refugees. Tentative optimism here.

Textbook example of why it is never enough to say you didn’t mean any harm. This is shameful and gross.

Tremendously worrying stuff. Taxes are the price we pay for democratic society.

Amazon already has too big a footprint here. Don’t feel great about this.

Disappointed to see more legislation like this under consideration.