@leslietownes It's Wednesday! How r u?

I have been summoned?

@XanderHenderson Indeed! Just hoping to catch up with you in a more "casual" chat! How is spring in Arizona? How's work?

Spring is good. Teaching is a little frustrating at the moment---I have no synchronous classes this semester (the in-person classes just didn't fill).

i'm OK. how are you?

like, did you have a chance to view the total eclipse?

xander are the asynchronous classes simply more work because of the asynchronicity? the student expectations?

i left academia before i had to really deal with this, but i work mostly remotely and love it, but i realize it's a different kettle of fish

@amWhy I did not. I had plans to be in New York, but the HLC (our accreditation agency) decided to schedule a visit for that day, and I needed to be there for it.

@leslietownes Good. Springtime in Wisconsin is when I come out of hybernation.

@leslietownes The asynchronous classes aren't really any more work. But students don't do well in them.

my wife was dealing with this during the peak of the pandemic. people just could not be arsed to take her classes seriously

And it is frustrating to feel like I am putting in a lot of work for students who aren't doing what they need to do in order to be successful.

@XanderHenderson I missed it too, though my niece made it close to Indianapolis.

I managed to take one picture during the eclipse:

Note the reflected image near the bottom.

haha, there it is

@XanderHenderson Indeed!

I was rather annoyed that I had to be on campus that day.

Almost no one else was there---the college pretty much shut down during the eclipse.

I realized yesterday (full moon) that the total eclipse was at a time when the moon was a "new moon", which I take to mean, "the dark-side of the moon" occluding the sun?

for what it's worth, i respect the commitment. i left academia the minute it became inconvenient. my wife stayed on a few years before she left too. it feels important that some people carry on the tradition of teaching, although it feels equally important that it's not us

@leslietownes Heh.

@leslietownes Your wife has left the academy, too?

yes, she has a government job now

Our president took a new job, so we are going to have an interim president next year. It looks like the governing board is going to promote the current vice president of learning and student services to the job for the year. I am kind-of sort-of angling to fill in as VPLSS next year.

it is less money but on an hourly basis it is more money per hour. it literally stops at 5pm, if you can imagine

@XanderHenderson I also wanted to pick your brain and @leslie 's brains as to any thoughts on the 2024 presidential election. @xander, pokw Alexander Gruber to return to this room!

@leslietownes Nice perk

it seems important that trump not be elected, everything he touches turns to shit

@amWhy I fear that Trump is going to win, and govern from prison. Which would be... interesting.

i've never been a huge biden supporter but i'd vote for him a thousand times before the other guy

@leslietownes Absolutely.

and yes, i'm mentally preparing for another 4 years of trump

But nothing seems to touch Trump in terms of the electoral college.

I'm also betting on a hung jury in the current trial.

@leslietownes and @xander... I'd agree a thousand times with you both.

i am less apocalyptic than a lot of left wingers. the thing about trump is that his attention span is very short, so if something doesn't attract headlines it will carry on more or less as usual without the involvement of him or any of his lackeys, and a lot of the aggressive stuff he tries to do will die in court

it will still be a shitty four years

@XanderHenderson Trump seems to have dossiers on every prosecutor and judge who's ever challenged him.

he has some weird and inexplicable sympathy for russia and will probably fuck up our foreign policy because of short sighted personal financial interest

@leslietownes The thing I fear most about Trump is that he is going to pick a real, dedicated wing-nut as his running mate, then die three weeks into his term.

but if i'm being honest i don't give that much of a shit about foreign policy

@XanderHenderson i really hope that trump lives forever because the alternative is a nightmare scenario

Of course, I don't think that Biden is going to survive a second term, either. :/

My money is on a female president by 2026. Probably Trump's running mate.

Maybe the scary lady from... uh... is it North Dakota?

remember sarah palin? what a fucking disaster that would have been

No doubt.

Noem. From South Dakota.

@leslietownes In NO Way can she be Marjorie Green!

with all of those folks you just have to imagine it's going to be a feeding frenzy at the lower levels of government, with every unqualified shithead in a suit suddenly being given tiny amounts of power to abuse

@amWhy i certainly hope not

@leslietownes With Trump firing them three weeks later.

What scares me most is the courts.

yes, The Donald floating on top of all of it will actually be a meaningful check on their power, because nobody knows what his position is on anything

I'd vote for Liz Cheney any day, in this political nightmare.

@amWhy She seems to have some integrity.

@XanderHenderson Agreed. I've never sided with a Republican, but she's got integrity, something sorely lacking in the GOP

@XanderHenderson Absolutely, even the Supreme Court, and especially at the Supreme Court level. There's too much evidence of corruption among the most senior conservatives currently seated on the court.

Time to go make dinner.

washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/24/…

@XanderHenderson Understood! Feel free to pop in once in a while!

TLDR: criminal charges in arizona against giuliani and others for election interference