OMG, I heard this happened but I didn't realize it was the entirety of the quote. I'm a freaking *athiest* and I knew this wasn't a real Bible quote.

It is a sign of the times that sitting next to a geriatric pug got me more social media engagement than any of my scientific or political posts.

The people are tired. What we need right now is dogs.

My view on my flight today. Little bugger snorted and grunted for the entirety of the flight. It was perfection.

"we're at a plate boundary somewhere near Hawai'i"

One of my all-time favorite WTF movie moments.

And, there should only be one truck shared by 10 or so homes. No one needs a truck every day, but when you need them, they're super handy. Same with my lawn mowers.

Tradwife movement ‘attracts men who are hostile to women’ The strongest predictor of support for women staying at home and deferring to their husband is not, as researchers expected, chivalry but ‘hostile sexism’

"Among young American men, the strongest predictor of support for the tradwife lifestyle was not gallantry but hostility towards women"

Apparently this is not what researchers "expected". Which makes one wonder: had these researchers thought about it for 30 seconds?
www.thetimes.com/life-style/s...

This was a wonderful quarter with terrific students. With all of the angst around AI and poor post-COVID attendance, and general student angst, I gotta say that these folks were absolutely superb.

Mantle convection was not a major part of the class but it came up a few times and the students were very interested in it.

Oh subduction plates
Driving mantle convection
Most people don’t know.

Plate subduction is,
Much like mid-ocean ridges
Mantle convection

Two haiku about relative velocities, a major part of the curriculum around plate tectonics:

If we’re moving fast
Or so we think, we must ask
Relative to what?

Tectonic movement
Has not an anchored reference.
It’s all relative!

Oh geology
The lithosphere is mantle
With little bit crust

Spreading centers rift
Cooling lava locks the field
Poles are then preserved

These two have some major Pacific NW vibes:

Isostacy bro
Find that happy medium
Are you in balance?

Waves are wicked sick,
Though I feel bad for S waves,
They fear the fluids.

Now haikus from the geophysics class. This was an in-person final, so more rushed. But there's a nice range of topics!

Magnetic field
Should it disappear today
Then Earth turns to Mars.

One student wrote three:

An epicenter
Is not to be confused with
A hypocenter

Attenuation
A decay of amplitude
Waves lose energy

Pushing and pulling
A focal mechanism
Tells tectonic tales

Quaking in my boots
Fault plane ruptures, the ground moves
Drop, cover, hold on

Out of sight waves move
Through the mantle, crust, and core
Stories in each shake

Oh seismicity,
Built by S and P waveforms,
How you shake me so.

Depth and magnitude
No, infrastructure decides
Who lives and who dies

Wiggles on my page
Bring me answers from the deep
And new head-scratchers

Two students wrote haiku about the 1700 Cascadia quake and orphan tsunami:

A phantom forest
Destroyed by a violent force
Signs of the Megathrust

With an unknown source,
Japan’s orphan tsunami,
From Cascadia

Perpendicular
Planes Yielded by the Moment
Tensor, Beautiful.

The seismology students had a take home exam, so a little more time to think about their haiku. Those are listed first:

It's that time of year, folks--as extra credit on their final exam, students in my geophysics and seismology classes are invited to write a relevant haiku. If you're a geophysics or seismology geek, enjoy!

Others I remember: failed interviews at U. of Indiana, Colorado College, and the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (USGS), failed application to the US astronaut corps.

I don't have my full failure CV--I'm too old and my archiving skills are poor. But here's what I found in an old "jobs" folder--lots of unsuccessful applications there. This doesn't include at least a dozen jobs for which I applied prior to completing my Ph.D.

I made it past round one here in the US, but was axed because between rounds 1 and 2 my eyesight slipped *just* past the acceptable stage.

A Sweet Tradition: Whitman Sends Walla Walla Sweet Onions to New Students Every summer, new Whitman College students are welcomed with a gift of Walla Walla Sweet Onions in a tradition that has been enjoyed by Whitties since 1992.

A Whitman College tradition! www.whitman.edu/whitman-stor...

If you happen to be in Memphis, do NOT miss the Civil Rights museum. It's located in the Lorraine motel, where Martin Luther King Jr was shot, and it's immensely powerful.

MLK Jr was right: the long arm of the universe bends towards justice. But friends, we have to make it bend. Without action--brave, bold, action--it does not bend.