Natasha Warner

I got to see some fun animals from a rescue place today. Petted some of them. Petunia the pig has a very amusing, wiggly nose. #tucson #animals

The University of Arizona continues to add translations in Native American languages of Arizona to building signs. We unveiled four signs today from the CRIT tribes, in Hopi, Diné Bizaad, Mojave, and Chemehuevi. Tribal leadership and language leaders came to Tucson and spoke at the ceremonies, as well as UA students from the tribes and various university officials. It was quite a moving day. I think we're now up to about 20 buildings! #Tucson #Arizona #UniversityofArizona #IndigenousLanguages

I just finished reading _Prairie Fires_, by Caroline Fraser, a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was fascinating, I learned a lot I didn't know before, and it left me with a lot of thoughts. I really enjoyed the author's thorough research, going through things like Civil War draft records (Pa was a draft dodger, the books left that out somehow), testimony to congress about how non-viable small-scale farming in the Dakotas was going to be, and tons of letters and diary entries as well as drafts of the Little House books. I was especially struck by the part about Caroline Ingalls' (Ma's) childhood: the malnourishment for several years after her father died especially. Her sister apparently told Laura about that time period much later, Caroline never did. Caroline's father had been a silversmith in the East before moving to Wisconsin, but in Wisconsin he died on a ship that sank in Lake Michigan while transporting lumber to somewhere further East. This makes me wonder why somebody with skills in a trade moved to Wisconsin and took on a trade he didn't know how to do. Now I think the way the Little House books portrayed Ma was deeply unfair, in the name of making a better story. This biography focuses a lot on economic history, and argues that the reason the family kept moving wasn't Charles Ingalls' (Pa's) desire to live independently from others like the Little House books say, it was because he was poor. Every time a farm failed, he didn't have much choice but to try elsewhere. And because he was poor to start with, the farms he was able to get weren't going to be economically viable, ever. The biography also really drove home for me what a gigantic government giveaway the Homestead Act was: not only did the government give the stolen Native American land to White farmers for almost free, most of the time once they just barely survived on it long enough to get the deed, they sold that land and moved elsewhere, because farming it was never going to work, but they walked off with the profit from selling that land. I felt like this biography did a fairly good job covering the Native American side of the story especially for Wisconsin in the 1860's, but the book is about the White farmers, so the Native American side of the story is a small proportion of pages. A large part of the biography focuses on Rose Lane (Laura's daughter and editor/co-author). I had no idea how exploitative, chaotic, and impetuous she was. What a mess. The bits in the book from Lane's diaries and letters were fascinating, if aggravating. She really had no ethics when it came to publishing either journalism or novels. I knew Lane was a libertarian, but I didn't know she was one of the founders of U.S. libertarianism. It's also especially interesting how both Wilder and Lane emphasize the Little House family as being all about integrity and independence, while Wilder's father and husband took advantage of every benefit and government handout they could get, lying when necessary to get it, or downright stealing land as squatters. When people don't live up to their own values, they often aren't very good about admitting that. Anyway, it was a fascinating book with a lot of detailed research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_Fires #LittleHouse #biography #books #reading

Continuing my project this summer of sewing baby clothes, I finished this set for the baby of a colleague. The colleague and his spouse have interests in music. It might be a little formal for a baby, but I like it. I bought this fabric years ago to make a set for the child of a former student who was a musician. #sewing Tagging Amy in case she's interested. @amyfou@lingo.lol

My university, just within this summer, "modernized" our HR procedures, "modernized" our travel and reimbursement system, "modernized" the university's main website, and has now "modernized" the "content experience" of our learning management system. I'm really not sure I can take being modernized on anything else in one summer and still do my job. It's funny how every administrator and staff person who leads a training on these things explains that the purpose is to "modernize" something as if that meant that it's obviously, definitely a good idea. #AcademicChatter

My son and his partner came over last night with their two dogs. I got thoroughly licked by one while petting the other. #dogs

24 mm of rain at my house from that storm yesterday (very nearly an inch)! The desert is happy. The buildings at work have any number of leaks, including the one in my hallway that's been leaking every storm for a year now. I think maybe Facilities should just wrap all these old buildings in giant saran wrap. My house had no leaks, though! #Tucson #monsoon #Arizona #rain #cactus #AcademicChatter

I just watched the movie 9 to 5, for obvious reasons this week. I was too young when it came out. Wow, that was fun! And silly. My mother was a woman in an administrative position when that movie came out, although happily her bosses weren't like that. Her work clothing looked just like the shirts Judy wears in the movie. I might still have one of them in my closet. For a comedy movie, boy I enjoyed watching those women triumph over the patriarchy one scene at a time! For a movie of that time period, I'm impressed that it included intersectionality a little bit: the fired employee who gets to come back on a job-sharing program is Hispanic, and at the end there's a white male employee who uses a wheelchair who wasn't there before. I'm delighted that the ex-husband who came running back didn't wind up being an unintentional hero, and got sent right away again. The creative use of the garage door opener was hilarious. I'm going to be laughing about this movie for a while. I really didn't know anything about Dolly Parton back in the 80's, and I wish I'd seen her movies back then, or a few years later. #Dolly #9to5

I enjoyed seeing this happy little piece of rock art today. I think it was made by a friend of mine. #tucson

The building I work in at my university dates from 1904. They've been installing new fire sprinklers, which I presume will keep us safer than the old ones. They thought they were done today, and warned me there might be a few drips when they did the test of the new system. I came back from class 1.5 hours later to a flood in the two rooms next to my office that went all the way down the stairway into a room below us even. We are now getting unplanned new carpet in two lab rooms upstairs. The dean came in and followed the muddy trail to see what was going on. We were mostly lucky: we think the sound booths are OK, and there weren't many computers in these rooms. The workers were very considerate, and very sorry, and they did all the work of moving the furniture and cutting the carpet out. It was an unexpectedly exciting day. My department now has three independent sources of water damage going on. #AcademicChatter #Linguistics

We're a week behind, so we just watched #LikeChronitonsThroughTheHourglass . I have never liked soap operas. I found the soap opera parts of this one to be a combination of funny, and very hard to watch. But I loved the line about "body cleaning theater." I really liked that Pike found ways to not lie to Uhura and play along, especially once we found out they all remembered afterward. If he had lied and played along, they would both have wound up even more messed up by the experience. In that part, I liked that Trelane couldn't quite control things, to his own surprise. I really loved the scene between Pike and Juliet at the end, and that Pike found a way for his daughter's life to have been "real" even if it isn't fact. And then at the very end, I really, really like that Pike actually went for counseling. Apparently by choice. I like how he keeps pushing his chair back, getting as far from the counselor as he can, even though he chose to talk to her. And I like that they finally let this poor guy cry at the end. I wish Star Trek had let other captains actually cry more often on screen. It's not healthy for all Starfleet's leaders to just keep pretending they don't have grief. As for the soap opera thing overall, well, it's only one episode, I can put up with it. I'm generally fine with the genre-hopping thing, even though it means some episodes are pretty weird. I'm fine with Star Trek where we never know what we'll get next! In fact, I think that's a good thing. #StarTrek #StarTrekSNW

I'm a university faculty member in Linguistics, and I just got an email from a high school senior who wants to come shadow a linguist for 20 hours before Oct. 15 for a school-required project. We've actually done this before with this school, and I'm delighted by high school students who want to learn about linguistics. However, the students apparently aren't allowed to miss regular class time in order to do their shadowing project. So they're only free to do 20 hours of profession shadowing on weekends or after 4 PM weekdays. How does the school think this will work? If you want to shadow a nurse or a grocery store evening manager, maybe this works. But what if the students want to become K-12 teachers? It also doesn't work for academic jobs--while we do plenty of work at night and on the weekends, watching someone answer email for 20 hours would be boring, not to mention that they're answering email from home. I don't get how the school thinks this would work. Anyone else have experience with high schoolers shadowing jobs? (The previous time we did this, we happened to be running a weekend conference, and took the student along to that. Otherwise, they have to have a day off school while we're in session.) #AcademicChatter

OK, I really enjoyed that puppet episode! It's corny, it's funny, it's our characters who we normally take seriously as muppets! And then at the end it's a dream, so that all the breaking the laws of physics stuff doesn't have to be accepted as plausible technobabble. I mean, there are very few scientific limits on what Trek writers can claim could happen, but I think sentient puppets exceeds those limits, so the dream idea was a good one. I loved the Muppets when I was a kid, and I thought these muppets were well made and well done by the puppeteers. The looks on their faces often came through so well. It seems like it did Jim Henson justice. I loved it when they figured out they were pretty much unkillable, even in outer space. Then I really loved that they not only went for a space walk (space swim?) for the fun of it, together, but they commented on things like sound in space and momentum problems while they were out there. As for SNW overall being too many gimmicks and random genres, I am just fine with it. For the first couple seasons, I felt like the "gimmick" episodes were what saved it from just being TOS rehashed over again with modern production, and it was still in danger of being that. Now that they're trying out a different genre every episode, it's in no danger of being the same plots TOS and TNG used 40-60 years ago redone. I felt like the musical episode and the Lower Decks crossover were the turning point, in a good way. As for this particular episode, I had no idea how much I missed the Muppets! Just what I needed as an adult was a muppets Trek episode. #StarTrek #StarTrekSNW #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #Muppets

I hardly ever re-watch TOS because I can't stand the gender stuff anymore, but I wanted to go back and review what Sarek was like before the whales movie and before TNG and Discovery. Sarek was one giant, total, irredeemable jerk. Toward both Spock and Amanda. "My wife, attend!" Wow, I'm glad they didn't keep on depicting Vulcan as that patriarchal in later shows. After the surgery, Sarek refuses to thank Spock for saving his life, then puts down Amanda for being a hysterical woman. She just laughs it off and shows him more affection. Ick, ick, ick. In Spock's angry conversation with Amanda about not being able to give up command to save his father, oh sure he doesn't express emotions, sure. I'm really glad the series eventually showed Vulcans and Sarek as being a lot more nuanced than this. Interesting though that in this episode everyone pronounces his name as /sarək/, whereas in Discovery Michael at least calls him /serək/. I guess we can put it down to her being a non-native Vulcan speaker. Throughout the series, it remains a question just what Amanda is getting out of this relationship that makes it worth everything she had to put up with, both from Vulcan society and from her husband. And boy, 1960's depiction of women on TV is mostly terrible. #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #StarTrekTNG #StarTrekDiscovery

This is just a delight! "Stayin' Alive" in Middle English! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNzGE-Bg_UU #Linguistics #Music #AcademicChatter

Well, that was beautiful! Literally visually beautiful. I still have no idea why Una threw herself right into playing Nevette instead of saying "You've mistaken me for someone else" early in the episode. They're supposed to be keeping a low profile, right? But no matter why she did it, it led to a really fun detective/spy plot. On the ship, I couldn't figure out why Spock was blatantly covering something up and trying (badly) to get La'an off the track. I suppose out of loyalty to Christine, who must have told him? Intrigue in so many plot lines! I guess Uhura's and Una's hair and make-up on the planet were just part of their local disguise, right? Everyone must have had so much fun filming this episode. #StarTrek #StarTrekSNW

It makes me sad that Hampshire College is closing. My grandfather's house was across the street from it, so when I visited him, we'd go for walks on the campus. He rented out rooms to Hampshire students, who were interestingly weird people. Hampshire is a weird and different kind of education, but there ought to _be_ that kind of education, even though we're decidedly not in the 1960's anymore and it was built for that time period. When they took in students who left New College in Florida, I thought maybe that would be enough to boost their numbers for a while. The admissions building at Hampshire is actually the house my father grew up in. The college bought it from my grandfather and moved him across the road. The college didn't even outlast my grandfather by that much (<20 years). I'm sad that the time period that people wanted a place dedicated to opening their minds in creative ways (as opposed to degrees with a predictable career path) only lasted about 55 years. I'm an outsider to this and could be making wrong assumptions, but I'm still sad that college won't be there. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/14/hampshire-college-massachusetts-closure #AcademicChatter #Hampshire #Massachusetts

That was so much fun! Does anybody know where to find the Klingon lyrics for Total Eclipse of the Heart? I need to see those lyrics! I don't think I can transcribe them from her singing. I wouldn't have expected to enjoy a show about everybody getting drunk, but I did. I like the unpredictable, off-the-wall humor. Poor Pike when they get back! I'm not sure I get why each character subconsciously chose what they wound up with for their "journey," but that was fun! #StarTrek #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds

I was feeling discouraged about going to a protest this morning, but went anyway. I was so glad I did! It's usually like that. Even though I had to walk half the way back because the protest closed down the streetcar for a while. There was a brass band, inflatable dinosaurs, and a 3-person Statue of Liberty puppet! #Mayday #protest #Tucson

I've gotten as far as tIqwIj naptop 'my heart's eclipse'. If anybody figures out some of the lyrics, I would love to hear about it. #StarTrek #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #Klingon

I was wondering, how can there be a velar pinch transition during that fricative? English doesn't have velar fricatives. Well, if the /k/ is a voiceless fricative, then it does. Answer " docket." Gramle 1329 3/5
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
#phonetics #linguistics #gramle

Happy First Contact Day! Just 37 years to go until the Vulcans get here! I'm seriously hoping we're not about to start the world war III part of the timeline these days. #StarTrek

I've been re-watching Discovery season 1, and just finished e13 "What's Past is Prologue." What I find hardest to believe about this mirror universe is that they have enough population left after all the killing they do to staff even one starship, or build one. I also find it really hard to believe how many mirror versions of known characters they run into, not just because it seems unlikely that the same parents would have had the same kids, but because it seems unlikely that the same parents would have survived long enough to have kids, or that those kids would have survived long enough to be officers on a starship. That much said, suspension of disbelief kicks in, and I love this episode. I don't normally like mirror universe episodes because people are just so irredeemably nasty, but for some reason I can't pin down, I like mirror universe episodes in Discovery fine. It seems like people are more nasty for an understandable reason, somehow. I love so many things about these couple of episodes, from "Captain Killy" learning to perform power to the sweet scenes between Stamets and Hugh, through that powerful line where Burnham and Mirror Georgiou land on the transporter pad (saving Georgiou's life) and the first words out of Georgiou's mouth are "what have you done to me?!" Little does she know the character growth she's about to embark on. Lorca is also fascinating in this episode. One detail: Commander Landry in the regular universe, under Lorca's command, was one nasty human being, who effectively reveled in committing police brutality. And she was from the "good" universe. Now we see her mirror version, still loyal to Lorca. I think that one minor side character is there to show us that even in a future utopia, there will always be humans who would love to exercise power over others by violence as soon as they're allowed to. Any thoughts on these episodes and characters? Also, I really think 15 episodes/season gave them a better chance to tell a story than 10. #StarTrek #StarTrekDis

I'm so proud of my academic department (Linguistics at University of Arizona). We run a table at the Tucson Festival of Books, in the Science City portion, where we get lots and lots of members of the general public of all ages involved in hands-on activities about language. We use ultrasound to show them how their tongues move while they talk, which got reactions like freaky! awesome! weird! cool! We also did an activity about what language family your family's/ancestor's language fits into, which was a huge hit. I twisted a whole lot of arms last week to get enough volunteers to staff the table (and did eventually succeed), and I'm so proud of our department for putting the effort in to do public outreach about science this way. #linguistics #Tucson #UniversityOfArizona #AcademicChatter