Had a nice relaxing and invigorating walk on the #reedcollege campus. Ahhh #nature. Check out the cool fish ladder.

Have you seen those posts that are like "Don't be passive, this isn't Twitter, introduce yourself and participate in conversations" ? I'm taking them to heart and I'll be posting not just one, but three or four #introductions aimed at different audiences.

First of all, I have real-life communities. I'm a former resident of #SantaPaula and #Ojai #California, now #Portland #Oregon #PDX

I attended the #ThacherSchool and #ReedCollege #reed

I sing with #PGMC, Portland Gay Men's Chorus

Shout out to #mathstodon to say hello. I majored in math at ,#ReedCollege, decades ago now but I do try to keep up now and then. My undergrad thesis was on #KnotTheory (#algebraic #topology). My father was an applied mathematician in aerospace. These days I make a living as a software architect and it is the rare and joyous day when I get to use any bit of math.

This year, juggling class at #ReedCollege have resumed in person, with masks, with the Performing Arts Building generously allowing us to use the atrium for class. This is a huge relief for me! We have a few guest instructors, but don't have the space to invite the general public back.

Construction on the new gyms begins next month and will be finished for Fall 2024.

Information for juggling in Portland in the meantime can be found at https://www.portlandjugglers.org/

When the pandemic hit, I started teaching juggling class for #ReedCollege on Zoom and that was hard and so different from being in person. It also meant that the college class was no longer a meeting place for all the #PortlandJugglers and community that have been participating for 40+ years.

Then, on top of the pandemic, in February 2021, an ice storm destroyed both gyms at the college. That meant continued online juggling classes at Reed.

https://www.reed.edu/reed-magazine/articles/2021/snowstorm-sports-center-roof.html

Some more about me: #juggling. I learned to #juggle in my year off from college. When I returned to #ReedCollege , juggling was a PE class and I signed up. After I graduated I started teaching that juggling class. In 1992 I founded the #PortlandJugglingFestival with much help from my friends. Around that time, I was also tapped to staff a new juggling space at the #OregonCountryFair. I have taught thousands of people to juggle, or taught them a new trick, or a new prop. Juggling changed my life.

While everyone is celebrating the #HouseUpset in WA-03rd district and laughing because the #redwave never happened, a candidate who is far more right wing than her #reedcollege education would imply, was elected because she was the obvious saner choice versus rabid #january6 defender & election denier, the groyper Nazi Joe Kent.

Perez's problem comes about precisely because she comes from SW Washington, a place with deeply corrupt local politicians that she has had to hitch her wagon to in order not to be shut out. But some of these motherfuckers really need to go. Take Dennis Weber, the pigfucker piece of shit Cowlitz County Commissioner who personally commented regarding the unlawful detention of minors for years on end that it would "help underwrite the costs of the facility" (KUOW).
https://www.kuow.org/stories/ice-detained-immigrant-children-in-washington-state-new-documents-pierce-its-secrecy

In October, Perez demonstrated that she is indeed comfortable around fascists like Weber, in a pretty goddamn gross display of amicable relations. This kinda shit is why I don't like Perez, as much as dunking on Kent is fun. Dennis fucking Weber is the commissioner who got the Cowlitz County ICE contract together that held three teens who were never charged with a crime for YEARS in the local juvenile "services center". https://twitter.com/MGPforCongress/status/1580373021256478720?t=8t72P_Dw_JwyxL6n0dsGcw&s=19

MGP clearly doesn't give a fuck about immigrants. Weber is the same kind of good ol boy asshole who runs everything else in this county and that's why having a liberal in Congress won't actually change the corrupt redneck Mafia that actually runs this county. Perez is willing to pal around with this scumfuck piece of shit and says "we need leaders who will unite us and not divide us" & it just goes to show that she doesn't really take the threat of fascism seriously.
#fascism
#election2022
#uselesslibs
#abolishICE
#racism
#immigration
#unlawfuldetention

I'm also an alumnus of #AFS Intercultural Programs (Nykøbing Falster, Denmark), #ReedCollege (#biology and #philosophy), Pacific Northwest College of Art (contemporary theory and printmaking #PNCA), the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship at #UniversitasNegeriMalang (East Java, #Indonesia).

At various times I was also at Portland State University, The New School, and The CUNY Grad Center. #PSU #NewSchool

#introduction