Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

The school year is finally coming to an end!  I can guarantee that the exhausted instructors are far happier about this than the exhausted students. Still, as I start to emerge from the black hole of school to look around at the world, all I see is TRUMP/HILLARY/BREXIT panic-mongering and media madness, and I'm tempted to dive right back into the black hole.

Anyway, as proof of life, here is a hilarious ad that I got from a friend of a friend. Let's have some fun with stereotypes and sport rivalries, shall we?

Awesome LOL: Global Stereotype Map

This is brilliant ... and a brilliant commentary on the absurdity of reductive stereotypes.  It is also delightfully insightful and incisive in places: note how it calls a chunk of Russia "Putingrad," Ukraine "Putin's Precious," and Crimea "Putinistan."  On a lighter note, Sweden is labeled "ABBA," "IKEA," and "Nobel Prizes."

The World Cup Is Here! Get Yer Hate On, Sports Fans!

For your amusement, you get not one but two haters' guides to the World Cup, both hilarious in their intentionally hyperbolic hatred and gross national stereotyping.  Here you go:

• Hater 1
• Hater 2

Obviously the caveat is that if you are easily offended, don't bother.  Then again, if you were easily offended, you wouldn't be reading this blog, right?

By the way, I think my favorite insult from the haters' guides is this:

Colombia: Oh hey, how'd you guys get in? DRUGS.  You're not fooling anyone here, Colombia.  When a rich guy moves in next door and I never see him commute or he runs a shop that appears to have no customers but he lives like a rich man anyway, I suspect drugs.  And that is how you got here.  We all know that FIFA chooses its host countries and tourney entrants by demanding briefcases full of bearer bonds and bondage hookers and DRUGS.  So many drugs. Enough drugs to make your eyes bleed.  That's how you bought your way in.

You know why it's so funny?  Because it's riffing on the widely known fact that FIFA is laughably, obviously corrupt.

How Not To Combat A Stereotype

Protip: If you're angry about people thinking you're violent, then maybe you shouldn't express yourself by blowing people up.

LOL: the EU's Hilarrible Ad for Women Scientists

Apparently this is not a joke.  This really is the EU's attempt to encourage girls to study science.  Come on, really?  Some ladies are not amused.  I laughed out loud, though.  It's so blatantly stupid.  Dude, they replaced the "i" in "science" with a lipstick!  Here's the actual website.  

Look, I'm on the record on this blog saying that girls should feel free to be themselves in academia, and if "being themselves" means enjoying nice shoes and clothes and whatever, then that's great!  My point is that you should feel free to express your femininity and your personality however you please instead of constraining yourself inside someone else's arbitrary expectations ("you have to look like a frump in order to be taken seriously," etc.)  At the same time, I don't think you should construct yourself as a sexpot to order to get attention.  Your work should speak for itself. This EU propaganda, though, isn't about that at all.  The geniuses behind this would have done better to appeal to the intellect and highlight actual women scientists past and present ... oh, you know, people like Ada Lovelace or Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin or Barbara McClintock or the growing number of female astronauts or ... You get the picture.  Oh, and see this too as long as we're talking about scientific stereotypes.