I have spent my entire life learning how to talk to you so are you SURE it’s not you?
I’m autistic. I did not suspect I was autistic until I was in my late twenties and I did not embrace it until later. But once I did, everything in my life made sense. I don’t really make sense as an autistic person because — as I say in all my personal statements for jobs — I am an excellent communicator. I give engaging talks, I can write persuasively, and I understand how to phrase complicated subjects so that non-experts understand. I would describe myself as an introverted person, but you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t know me.
I’m…
Worst. Gag. Ever.
I knew my partner would get a kick out of the Golden Calf version of ex-President Trump. And he did. But the problem is, my partner is French and although he loves all things American — demonstrably — he doesn’t necessarily have the same knowledge of the United States as a native like myself. This meant I had to explain to him what exactly CPAC is.
My first definition was “it’s like Anime Expo except overtly racist,” and to be honest, I think that’s probably the best description I could have given. The second one was “It’s when all the…
Only God can save the conspiratorial
I got into a bit of a Twitter war the other day. Well, no. That’s not accurate, I clarified a science point in thread form on Twitter and a few conspiracy minded bigots thought they could swarm me.* This is not terribly unusual. I’ve been swarmed before. In 2016 especially I was pretty regularly swarmed because I’m pro-democracy. Simple as that. So despite being autistic and therefore being a bit more susceptible to emotional barbs than you silly normies, I am somewhat inoculated as it were to the effects of a good Twitter bashing. …
How the Biden-Harris administration brought adults into the room
Since I got after Facebook the other day I guess it’s only fair I rag on Twitter today. Twitter is great, honestly, but it’s also kinda … awful? I have many arguably destructive hobbies and one of them happens to be scrolling through Woke and Do Something Twitter and having a good laugh. I mean, it is genuinely great that y’all are so plugged in, but there’s just an absolute cornucopia of bad takes. And it’s truly deeply entertaining. If I ever get elected to office perhaps I’ll feel differently, but for now I am true neutral.
There are multiple steps between live bird and chicken nuggets.
For reasons unbeknownst to me I have a Facebook account still. Just … let’s just accept it and move on. Anyways, I also have a doctorate in Palaeopathology which — for the uninitiated — means I am an Archaeologist who works with human remains and specializes in disease in the bone. This also means that — yes — I have studied prehistory and — yes — I know about “gendered division of labour,” and why it’s super hard to prove and probably not terribly relevant in most premodern and especially prehistorical cultures.
Were we really to get into the weeds…
Regardless of your damage, you can afford empathy.
What I wanted to write was a funny vignette about cloaked figures standing ominously in forests. But no. No. We can’t have fun here. We have to talk about TERFs. So, for those of you who were not here for JK Rowling and the Gynaecology of Bigotry or whatever that episode was, TERF stands for “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists.” Oh, but don’t call them that. Because these women who insist that TERF is a slur will also insist on calling trans people “it.” You cannot make it make sense because there is no sense to it.
Before I get too…
Nearly a year ago I predicted the downfall of the Republican Party. I won’t make any grand prognostications for exactly when and how the Republican Party will cease to be because while it could be utterly decimated in the next few days with the Senate impeachment of Donald Trump, it could also limp on divided and largely irrelevant for the next few years. It’s even possible the Grand Old Party will linger on for decades and eventually re-establish itself as a relevant part of our democratic republic. …
And as usual his supporters are trying to appropriate the meme.
I commented to a friend a few days ago that it felt like we had all collectively aged a decade in the last four years. Biden’s inauguration was an uplifting relief, but it was cathartic and melancholy. It wasn’t truly celebratory, certainly not in the way Obama’s was. Watching it as virtually all Americans had to in isolation I was struck that it seemed muted. When J-Lo sang “get loud,” in a minor key it felt not like joy but almost muted relief. I volunteered for Biden’s campaign, I promoted and supported Kamala Harris online, and I spent my weekends…
But it was meant to consolidate power and indoctrinate children after a successful coup.
Edit: On January 20th just after his inauguration, President Joe Biden issued “Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities through the Federal Government,” which will review the impact of Federal programs on underserved communities. It also rescinds Executive Order 13958 which called for the publication of the “report” I review below.
Yesterday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the White House published their “The 1776 Report: The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” The announcement was sufficiently banal that I almost did not realize how truly insidious this thing was. …
Trump may be the cause of death, but it was the pre-existing condition that caused him.
Democracy is a weird form of government. It asks the citizens of a nation — without any regard for their level of education or capacity or anything else — to collectively vote for representatives or laws who or which will then maintain their state. It requires people of vastly different opinions and backgrounds and wildly different priorities to come together and agree upon things which neither really like, but which both can tolerate. …
Ariadne Schulz
Doctor of Palaeopathology, rage-prone optimist, stealth berserker, opera enthusiast, and insatiable consumer of academic journals.
