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Super Fat Tuesday

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Today is “Super Tuesday” in the U.S. political process. It is also, in the Western Church Calendar, Shrove Tuesday, the eve of Lent. Not a problem for the churches. There are no special liturgical observances for the day. Pancake suppers are frequently found, but they are social (and perhaps fund-raising) events with no sense of religious obligation. So I was not surprised to see a notice at my church that there would be nothing happening on Shrove Tuesday this year: We were all encouraged to do our civic duty and attended our political party caucuses. No problem.

However, outside of the churches, some people are more upset: Read about Pancake day

New old tools for woodworking

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This evening I made a cabinet scraper from a broken saw blade. I did not spend a lot of time preparing the edge, but I am already able to make pretty little shavings, leaving behind a nice smooth surface.

What I was trying to do was clean up the surface of a pair of traditional clogs that I had purchased last summer. A big problem was how to hold them in place so I could work on the surface. Because of the irregular shape and the hollow inside I was reluctant to use a vise. If I tightened the vise grip too much it would break the shoe. The solution was to use a hold fast to lock the shoe to the surface of my workbench.

This was a nice follow up to colgaffneyis meeting: I tried out two traditional woodworking tools, and even with my limited skills and experience, was quickly able to achieve satisfactory and satisfying results.

Clann Tartan Membership Meeting

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colgaffneyis had its annual business meeting today. We elected a new President, c_nocturnum, since her sister, mairi2, was stepping down. As Secretary, I feel like the civil servant of a dynasty, but it is a good dynasty :-)> colgaffneyis has a quite a few active and energetic members, but relatively few who will step forward into leadership roles. Three families hold four of the seven board positions, and two of the three senior staff positions. Well, none of us have been trying to make a power grab. It is more a case of filling a vacuum.

Mixed Nuts

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Two recent incidents at Midwestern universities, actually quite similar IMHO:

From If you reject a teaching job applicant because he believes a crazy conspiracy theory…:

[….] the University of Wisconsin has not rehired 9/11 conspiracy believer Kevin Barrett to teach a course on the history of Islam. […] if we know a person believes something truly nutty, are we not entitled to use that as evidence of his intelligence, judgment, and trustworthiness?

From Silly creationists, Universities are for scientists:

….Iowa State University denied tenure to astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez. As it happens, Gonzalez is an advocate of Intelligent Design, which has been legally ruled to be not only religion, but actually just warmed-over creationism.

I believe both Universities acted correctly.