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Why did Velociraptors speak French?

(“They were all Claude.”)

(Apologies to French speakers who don’t mispronounce the name as a homophone of “clawed.”) Which dinosaur is always willing to give something a shot at least once?

(“Try-ceratops.”)

Okay, my son is finally starting to get the idea of jokes. Since he’s still a huge dinosaur fan, I’ve been thinking up jokes on the theme. Some of them are way over his head, though, so I’m sharing the ones I’ve thought up here.

More dino jokes welcome. Complaints, not so… When the baby pachycephalosaurus refused to take a bath, what did its parents say?

(“Stop being so hard-headed!”)

For those who doubt the reach and influence of US domestic culture and policy abroad: my son has a toy transformer robot his grandma gave him—made in China, bought from a Korean store—that is a cop car with the English label “SWAT TEAM” on it. But for those who don’t know how kids can improve things by accident: he thinks it’s pronounced “SWAMP TEAM” and apparently it’s a robot that helps swamp creatures in trouble.

RT @TheRituChaudhry: “Schools, colleges have been closed for a year, destroying lives & careers of our Children.”

No.
Schools and colleges…

@ryszardwithaz @JustinHowe What is the sound of one dead space miner clapping?

📹 And while we’re on the topic of great vibey jazz tunes that start with “M,” we could all use a little Mercy Mercy Mercy right now, am I right?  (Pretty sure the personnel is right. This is the version from “Mercy Mercy Mercy! Live at the… tmblr.co/ZwA1ltZtiTguKy…

📹 Had the head and the first chorus of the trumpet solo on a loop my head today and boy did it distract me. But, like, in a good way, though it took me a while to remember the title of the tune, and that drove me nuts. tmblr.co/ZwA1ltZti9c6GW…

@JustinHowe @ryszardwithaz I tend to think of them as being both at the same time? It’s like… [insert appropriate food metaphor here].

@pintsizehorror Then it came out the old lady was out of her mind, was notorious for doing crap like this on the Seoul subway, and specifically had a habit longstanding habit of picking fights with teenaged girls. Presumably because, you know, bottom of the totem pole and all that. 🙁

@pintsizehorror The old woman then assaulted her. Netizens were split three ways (pretty evenly, in polls) about whose fault it was: the old woman, bystanders (for not intervening), or the teenager (for “talking back”). Video showed the whole thing online. The poll results were… crazy. @pintsizehorror Discussion ensured and we got to be told that we were ignorant for not understanding that a little light violence between random, potentially insane stranger adults and unaccompnied minors was totally fine and good and necessary to defend the Confucian social order. (Argh.)

@pintsizehorror That was looong ago, on the blogosphere. I won’t dredge out the link, but someone who wanted could find it. This was back before it was illegal to assault unknown children for imagined slights. He made a nonsense argument about the Confucian Social Order justifying “just a slap.” @pintsizehorror As I remember, a teenaged girl bumped an older woman’s shoe with her own muddy shoe by accident. The older woman demanded an apology. The teenager apologized. The old woman demanded groveling. The teenager said, “I’ve already apologized, what more do you want?”

@pintsizehorror (His tune didn’t change when we learned that, in the case that was then being discussed, the “adult” who was “defending the social order” by assaulting a random teenager whose was insufficiently apologetic for bumping her shoe was notorious for doing this on the Seoul subway.)

@pintsizehorror Exactly, it’s easy to have “opinions” about shit that never affects your life in practical terms, in a country you sometimes visit on holiday. He’s constantly failed to consider this. @pintsizehorror My last exchange with him, he argued that adults slapping kids they didn’t know for perceived rudeness (specifically, insufficient groveling) was a proper “defense” of the “social order.” Did not pause to consider whether such a social order was defensible.

@sarahcalderwood I mean, I will say it took till last summer to start, and only hit a fever pitch this week. But yeah.

So, has anyone else posted a copy of the FAQ the Seoul government sent out about the mandatory testing of foreigners for COVID?(If not, I can share, if anyone wants to see it?The Canadian Consulate sent out a copy to everyone on their mailing list today.)

Spoiler: Unimpressive.

RT @hyunsuinseoul: lawmaker Lee Sang-min says Seoul’s mandatory COVID-19 testing for foreign nationals is an “act of racism” & “barbaric di…

RT @adatseng: Korean-language community reporting vs. mainstream English-language reporting based on sheriffs’ statements https://t.co/Phx2…

Just once day I’d like to log onto Twitter and see that nothing absolutely horrific happened.

It’s not going to happen, is it?

But, you know, that’s a small point. It’s just, again: I’d think homeschooling would be a way to teach kids more sensible ideas about gender, and here the book kind of… entrenches some very conventional ideas about gender.

Still worth a quick read, though.

I am not really that familiar with the movement being promoted in the book, mind you; and I still liked some of the ideas in the book. But… it felt “apolitical” in a way that was *not actually* apolitical at all. Maybe there’s more thought on this in their forums or whatever. I also feel like the “Wild + Free mamas” terminology is more about building a brand identification (mostly white, mostly privileged moms) than celebrating insights of parents (women and men) in the thick of homeschooling instead of just the (yes, often male) “academic experts.”

@MichaelJDeLuca Good things happen, presumably!

RT @koryodynasty: Seoul Mayor candidate Ahn Cheol-soo wants to create a new tourist attraction for Seoul: an LGBTQ zoo.

Artwork via @heezy…

RT @simran: Horrific news out of Atlanta. 8 people killed in what appears to be yet another violent attack against Asian Americans.

Here i…

Read this! I dug it. twitter.com/Tough_Crime/st…

@pintsizehorror I mean, it’s a Tuesday in Korea. Of course it’s time for yet another xenophobic policy.

(Personally, being in a line to get tested would be an infection risk to someone highly vulnerable to complications, and I almost never leave my damned house.)

@tweetsbymoi I’ve left my house less in the past year less than most people here leave their house in a month. Probably half as much.

(It’s pretty stupid.)

📹 In a breakout room in a Zoom class today, one student confessed that her favorite film is THE SOUND OF MUSIC—which was a first! One thing led to another, and now I’m listening to this and marveling at how it never, ever, ever seems to get… tmblr.co/ZwA1ltZsLB2xue…

@CarolineYoachim Congratulatons Caroline! 🙂

Oh, 9AM TEFL classes. When will admins learn that these are just not a good idea?

(IME the last thing students want is even the cheeriest, most fun foreign language class first thing in the morning. At least let them wake up first…)

I’m trying, but… it’s an uphill battle.

@ArchivistAriel I saw it recently and agree, it was really great. Reminded me a lot of things I learned working among blind & visually impaired people years ago. The acting, the sound design… it’s all great.

@JustinHowe I mentioned this to Jihyun this morniing and she was like, “Yes, that’s exactly it!” She’d gone off fiction for a while and mentioned coming back via a 19th century novel and discovering that she likes fiction again—In the absence of the extremegrind thing, though.

Worth a read. twitter.com/NMamatas/statu…

@JustinHowe @tweetsbymoi “​Due to copyright restrictions, this title is ONLY available in the US.” (From the publisher’s website page for the book.)

I am guessing it’s my credit card that tips them off. :/

@tweetsbymoi @JustinHowe Weird. Looks the same (print editions only) on my phone. 🙁

@jeremiahtolbert I don’t envy you, having not grown up with this and then only briefly experiencing it myself once or twice. (It’s absurd, and makes no sense, if you didn’t grow up with it. Like, WHY WOULD PEOPLE STILL DO THIS?”)

@JustinHowe @tweetsbymoi Weird. Maybe b/c I have a Korean credit card in the system, I dunno. Sometimes I get regional blocks on things. Not often, though. (Usually just a slightly higher price.) @JustinHowe @tweetsbymoi Or my lack of a VPN, maybe…

@tweetsbymoi @JustinHowe I meant the Kindle edition. I can’t seem to find it, only print editions.

@tweetsbymoi @JustinHowe Where? I don’t see it…

@jeremiahtolbert Oh, you’re doing that again? Argh.

@tweetsbymoi Right, and of course, we obviously face less garbage than mixed families of other… what’s the word? Ethnic compositions? That sounds wrong, but, anyway—we get that there’s privilege. Even out son faces less than he would if his non-Korean ethnic ancestry were anything else.

@tweetsbymoi Not quite on a daily basis, and there are bright spots of course, and lovely indivuduals who cross our paths who remind us it’s not universal… but persistent enough crap that we’ve given up on the idea living her even medium term would be a healthy choice for our son. *shrug* @tweetsbymoi Well, eventually, maybe. (That depends on massive social forces, etc.)

But the timescales are such that I except this things won’t be at all different in practical terms even when my son is my age.

@tweetsbymoi Exactly.

But, I mean, racialized testing was so effective in managing the spread of HIV, over the years of… er, well, okay, not really, but at least it was done with no infringement of human rig… er, never mind. @tweetsbymoi But it’s a deep-seated thing here, and I kinda have given up on it ever changing.

Too many people are too brainwashed into thinking ethnicity always justifies a double-standard because difference, and this is something that will change on timescales not visible to us, It hink.

@tweetsbymoi Huh, that’s… interesting. I mean, Koreans generally weren’t being tested on the basis of, “I heard this person might maybe have visited that general neighborhood…”

I’d probably have been tested anyway (if it didn’t mean standing in a crowded line, but I’m super cautious.)

@tweetsbymoi Really? Did you get contacted and told to get tested? (I didn’t hear anything about ill-considered mass testing of non-Koreans in Seoul.)

@tweetsbymoi Honestly, I’ve been expected something like this after the outbreak in Itaewon: mass testing of all foreigners.* There’s usually some event necessary to trigger it.

(*Except the clusters involved ¿gay bars? and ¿mostly Koreans? I guess that sidelined the inevitable dumb policy.)

@tweetsbymoi If I’m being honest, I’m surprised it took a year for something like this. ☹️

@themarkrussell Yeah, this is how I’m feeling.