Good grief, I cling to my posts sometimes.

Nothing is ever finished - only abandoned - but I hope that Part 2 of "The Trouble with Classifying Nature" still provides some good food for thought, while addressing a profound cultural disconnect between the fruits of recent paleo-genetics, and misrepresentations of evolution, archaic humans, and "progress" that make it so hard to change how we think about our shared and complex past.

#Humanism #History #Science
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/the-trouble-with-classifying-nature-cd8

It rained all through the night and it's still raining now, so no running, no park time, and no horses - but also, I didn't quite finish my work last night, so one more day of catch-up before I can rejoin the world.

The most important project on my roster is still on track, though. Everything else just got squished around it, but I can still finish May strong, and hopefully have that Grist story sent out this weekend, too. 🤞🏻

Have a good one, CoSo! More soon.

I feel like Alastair Sim's Scrooge on Christmas Day, trying to suppress his giddiness long enough to play one final work-related trick on Cratchit.

"And the Shadows of Things That Would Be can still be dispelled. And they will be! I know they will be!"

#AmWriting, but under very, very silly circumstances.

https://youtu.be/I2xPS1iiHUA

I'm just so happy for our US friends today.

It's not everything - there's still so much work to be done on the road to Nov 5, and to rectify all the damage done to the courts, other public institutions, and general civic society - but for now, today, there's this One Small Good Sane Thing in the news, and...

I'm just so freaking happy for you all. 💛

Okay, sillies out, and coffee in hand. Off now for real.

Watch your hearts, and remember that unless you have the Jedi power of changing thoughts and minds and SCOTUS verdicts from a distance, doomscrolling might not be advantageous to your health today.

See you on the flipside, all you beautiful rotten critters you!

Another busy day, but at least this one should be manageable with an early bedtime. 🤞 And then tomorrow, we run with the horses* in the park. Have a good one, all.

---

*The horses don't run; they mostly pick through the park trash for cane sugar and fruit peels. But I'll run around them, and that'll be close enough. #LifeGoals

🤨 When I checked my email this morning there were a lot of "likes" for my post last night - more so than for a lot of other recent work - so I guess the lesson here is "talk more about venereal disease"?

We're such a silly, gross species. :)

Bigger piece on myth-making around early humans later today - mostly drafted from last week, but probably in need of some tune-ups because I got so frustrated with it last Thursday and Friday.

For now... *one* more task before bed, and then we can hop into Thursday's regular working schedule hopefully all caught up. 🤞 What a week!

Night, CoSo! Hope you treated yourselves kindly this past day.

In under the wire, here's a wee reflection on some viral hitchhikers that archaic humans were carrying around 50,000 years ago... and what we can learn from deep time history about how to appreciate the sometimes overwhelming amounts of data available to us now.

#History #Humanism #Science #Anthropology
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/the-upside-of-50000-years-of-venereal

Heading into a class now, and then I can draft the newsletter.

Busy day! Almost no balls dropped, but I don't think I'm going to get a run in tomorrow morning after all.

Friday, though--Friday, we'll end the month pretending we had everything well in hand all along! 🙃

Midday love-in while getting tea.

Can you imagine living so well that, even if you die fairly young, the one thing you'll be known for, above all else, is an unequivocal net positive for the world you leave behind?

My very birth was a bit of a bad choice on my parents' part, but every day is an opportunity to uplift others and in so doing to uplift oneself. It is not naive to aim for kindness. It is not always a sign of greater street sense to be hard.

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/V1bFr2SWP1I

And now, another packed day. For some reason, a lot of Small Big Asks came out of the woodwork all at once these last few days, and they're taking a lot out of workflow.

Haven't left my apartment (outside last night's class) since Sunday, and it doesn't look like I'll be getting out today either.

But! Some seasons of work do be like that.

Rewind Wednesday later tonight, then hopefully a walk/run tomorrow morning--depending on task completion today.

Hang tight, lovelies, and have a good one!

Okay, folks.

A touch delayed on this piece, but there was just so much to read up on, to provide an overview of a few of our latest "satellite wars".

No, it's not all related to international espionage, or even so-called AI and its mixed bag of a role in orbital tech. Sadly, we also have to deal with a much more quotidian challenge to our future not just in space, but in terms of climate change research closer to home.

#Technology #Space #Environment #ClimateCrisis

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/the-other-satellite-wars

*crackles knuckles*

Okay, time to 'sletter.

#VerbingTheNoun
#AmWriting

🙃 I am a good educator.

One of my students was excited to show me the English book his cousin gave him.

It turns out his cousin--a gay upper-class Colombian--is a diehard fan of a certain would-be autocrat running for US office.

My *student* isn't, though, so after I set his mind at ease by telling him the production history of this book, we went through sections and came up with reading exercises that would work best with its contents.

Like I said - I am a good educator. 🙃

No matter what.