At least in these parts, the March kindergarten homework packet is very leprechaun-centric. This raises some obvious questions about the status of leprechauns. Are they actual entities? Are they mythical? And how’s a curious kid to decide?
Good things (a list to get me through the week).
Surely I am not the only academic who feels perpetually buried under — well, under stuff that needs doing. It’s a very daunting pile, and sometimes I think that the only plausible way that I could catch up would be to fake my own death.
But one must not lose perspective. Progress is made occasionally. And, in the background, there are cool things that make the press of obligations more tolerable.
So, this Tuesday night, I urge myself onward by taking stock of some good things, and some wee bits of progress.
Blogging as myself.
In a private communication, Sciencewoman asks:
Just out of curiosity, how have you been able to blog under your real name? Has your department been supportive? Are you post-tenure and immune from some of the pressures that the rest of us feel? Or is it that a philosophy department views outreach/education differently from a strict science department?
In the same communication, she also suggests that I might answer these question in a blog post, so I am.
The ’10 weird things about me’ meme.
As seen at Rants of a Feminist Engineer and See Jane Compute.
Ten Weird Things about Me:
Friday Sprog Blogging: roll the dice.
Sitting here on the calendar between Chinese New Year and Saint Patrick’s Day, it seemed like a good time for the sprogs to do some investigations of gambling devices — in particular, dice.
Shaken up.
Just had an earthquake here. I’ll post the USGS data on it when I have it.
UPDATE: Preliminary estimates put the magnitude at 4+. And more than 1000 people filed reports within about 10 minutes of the shaking.
We Californians are well trained.
Dissent in professional communities.
This is another piece in the discussion currently raging about the latitude members of a profession ought to have to follow conscience over the dictates of the profession.
Professions are communities of a sort. What unites them is that the members of that community are taking on a certain set of shared values.
This does not mean all members of a given profession are unanimous about all their values. A profession does not assimilate its members like the Borg. Indeed, there’s something to be said for a professional community that reflects a diversity of values and perspectives — it gives people in that profession the opportunity to try to see things through someone else’s eyes. This needn’t make you change your stance on things, but it helps remind you that your stance isn’t the only one that a reasonable person (at least, a person reasonable enough to be a member of your profession) might hold.
The big question, as has become clear in this discussion, is what ought to happen when the values of an individual within a given profession are in tension with the “shared values” of the community — where the “shared values” I have in minds are the ones explicitly specified in the professional code governing that profession. Such a code can be like a mission statement for the profession: this is what we stand for. But what about the members of the profession who don’t endorse all those values?
Two blog carnivals and a frog.
The inaugural edition of Scientiae, the new women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics blog carnival, has been posted at Rants of a Feminist Engineer. Skookumchick has assembled an impressive array of posts dealing with joys as well as frustrations — go check it out!
Also, the 55th Skeptics’ Circle is up at The Second Sight, and the skeptics think they have your number. (You don’t believe me? Click on the link and find out for yourself!)
Bonus after the jump: See what kind of frog I am.
Media consumption inventory.
Over at BlogHer, Marianne Richmond has tagged everyone with a meme on personal media consumption. Given that I’ve already self-identified as a Luddite, I figured a little self-examination of my media habits might be worthwhile.
Personal integrity and professsional integrity.
On Abel’s post on conscience clauses, Bob Koepp left this comment:
It’s a pretty warped understanding of professionalism that would require professionals to violate their own sincere ethical beliefs. After all, someone lacking personal integrity probably isn’t going to be much concerned with professional integrity. “You can trust me because I lack the strength of my convictions.”
I think the connection between personal integrity and professional integrity is an important one, so here are some preliminary thoughts on it.