Bitchin Dave's newsletter

Texas had a story that actually cut me deeply. The basic story is that a literature professor at Texas A&M was conducting a lecture about children's authors and in the context of the discussions used pronouns other than the two that the GOP seems to dwell on. A student was incensed and a discussion ensued; essentially the student was saying the law was broken in even discussing such matters.  The instructor politely offered for the student to leave if they (see what I did there?) were uncomfortable.   And how do we know this?  Because "someone" in the class recorded it and posted it online (I don't know if that's actually legal in and of itself).  To me, it feels an awful lot like a setup, but no matter.  There was additional fallout. The student wound up calling the chair of the department and recording that conversation and posting it (not sure if that's a crime in Texas, either, but whatever).  The chair said nothing would happen as a result of this, an...

Flori-duh is doing what it does best: leading the world in stupidity.  A few weeks ago, Florida's surgeon general announced a plan to end any and all vaccine mandates for any public-type things. And that stance is supported by the governor, of course. These "public things" include schools. Who needs to prevent communicable diseases in the classroom?  Make the plague great again!  Adults get sick and die, that's on them. But kids dying as a result of poor decisions by parents, and worse, the government? That's just sad.  Funny how the GOP is all about being pro-life before birth, but afterwards, not so much.  And for what it's worth, the surgeon general of Florida apparently let his medical license lapse, and hasn't been affiliated with any hospital for many years.  Both of which are in violation of the law, given the position he holds.  But why let pesky rules get in the way of an ideological agenda (which I guess is to make everyone sick?) === Workplace h...

I listened to a really interesting podcast about the Eleven Madison Park Restaurant in New York City.  I wanted to talk about that for a moment. (sorry in advance for the length!) The gist of the story is that the restaurant is a fine dining establishment and around five years ago, it was awarded three Michelin stars. It was heralded as one of the best restaurants in the world.  The chef/owner realized he had nothing else to accomplish; he had reached the summit and had done as much as he could.  And that's when he decided to challenge himself to achieve something new.  It was sort of an existential personal crisis, and his solution was to change the menu completely, to think about sustainability and long-term health of the planet. And so he closed, and re-opened a while later as a plant-based restaurant.  In his own words, this was not based on anything related to animal rights or about applying labels to it. This was simply about sustainability and challenging himself to do some ...