What I'm Reading Now

I'm working hard on the edits for my new novel (tentatively titled Fault Lines), so I'm getting less reading done than I was in the early months of the Trump Regime.

But still! Here's what I've read lately:

Josephine Tey, Daughter of Time

Organizing our books turned up a number of books I hadn't read in years. This is one of them.

The Kid Gets Orientated

We took the kid up to Fayetteville for her orientation session yesterday. Dropped her off at 8:00 a.m., picked her up at 3:00 p.m.

We saw lots of parents who were participating in orientation -- going through the sessions with their kids, in other words. Some kids had both parents with them. I was a little surprised. I don't think the kids at my university take their parents with them.

Also, why would you want to do orientation with your kid? First, your child is now (nominally, at least) an adult. Get your mitts off and let them do this (very simple) thing for themselves.

#2, holy hell, orientation is boring. Why submit yourself seven hours of mind-numbing lectures about technological opportunities on campus and how to find the library if you're not going to need the information? You're not the student! Why do this?

Maybe I'm missing something.

The kid did fine -- she didn't precisely enjoy the experience (because it was boring) but she said it went okay, and she met some other artists when they got divided up to be advised. Also, turns out her ACT score was high enough that she's exempted from having to take Comp I and Comp II. Which is excellent, because boy would she hate those classes.

So she's taking nine hours of studio arts, an honors-level anthropology class, and US History I. No classes on Friday, which she's very happy about.

Meanwhile, Dr. Skull and I talked to the treasurer about the tuition discount I get, and then hung out with Charger, Dr. Skull's BFF who lives in Fayetteville. I worked on my novel edits while they watched a movie. We also drove around visiting bookstores and looking at houses. I'd love to rent a house in FV. Oh, well, one day maybe.

Excellent News

So today I signed the contract -- Candlemark & Gleam is going to publish my new novel. (Title is still in progress.) This is one set in the same universe as my previous novel, but with different characters -- some of the characters appear in the short story I published with Candlemark & Gleam, "Velocity's Ghost."

It's tentatively scheduled to come out in Spring 2018. Between now and then, I'll probably be posting less, since I'll be working on the edits.

I'm so pleased!

The Kid at the University

My kid has her orientation session at the university on Monday. She is very much ready to be out of this town and in the university, so this is good news.

Also, though, we got the tuition statement this week. Holy hell, y'all. Four years at this university -- which is a state university -- will run in the neighborhood of ninety thousand dollars.

She's got a scholarship for some of it, and I get a 40% discount on the tuition (due to working in the state university system), but how would anyone who didn't have these things afford a four year degree?

"Loans" seem to be the answer the university itself is pushing. Nearly a hundred thousand dollars in loans for an undergraduate degree? That's the answer?

When I was at university, back in the eighties, my tuition was less than five hundred dollars a semester at a state university.

Fragile

It's not too late to support our favorite artist on Patreon.

You can get previews and free drawings for as little as $2.00/month!

Saturday Links

Links for you:

A student on campus speaks about the situation at Evergreen. (Big shocker: The white male professor, one who believes we should do "honest research" into racial issues, is not the saint he portrays himself as; nor is the situation at all as the Far-Right blogs and Fox News have presented it. Once again, white fragility has a tantrum, and people of color get the blame.)

What I'm Reading Now

It's been interesting (and by interesting I mean entirely predictable) to watch the reaction of the Far-Right to the recent shooting of five members of the Republican party at a DC baseball practice. Somehow they have been able to shrug off all the other mass shootings and killings in our country over the past years. But this one! Oh, this goes too far!

See this thread by Sarah-from-here for more.

Meanwhile, here's what I've been reading:

Kaoru Mori, A Bride's Story 

This is a manga, translated into English (or anyway my version is). Set in various locations along the Silk Road in the 19th Century, it's beautifully drawn and a lot of fun. There are a number of plot lines, including arranged marriages, women who don't perform their gender correctly, family life, women's lives, and a visiting European anthropologist who runs into some trouble.

Interestingly, given the presence of that anthropologist, A Bride's Story is less plot-driven and more of an anthropological look at the lives and traditions of the characters and their families. One of my favorite sequences in Book One in which a carpenter explains his work to a small boy from one of the families. The art in this section is spectacular.

Pew Research Center Makes My Point

Here's a post from Anna Brown at the Pew Research Center, "5 Key Findings about LGBT Americans" makes exactly the point I made in my post earlier today.

 63% of Americans said in 2016 that homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with 51% in 2006. LGBT adults recognize the change in attitudes: About nine-in-ten (92%) said in a 2013 Pew Research Center survey of adults identifying as LGBT that society had become more accepting of them in the previous decade.

Perhaps as a result of this growing acceptance, the number of people who identify as LGBT in surveys is also rising. 

Yeah, this isn't rocket science.

The rest of the post is well worth the read.

These Kids Today

Rod Dreher writes yet another ridiculous post. This unhealthy obsession with LGBT people is really damaging his ability to reason.

In "Born That Way," Dreher argues that the rising number of young LGBT people means that those people aren't "really" gay. (Apparently it's a fad, or a lie, or a conspiracy by us powerful SJWs.)

The comment section is even more ludicrous than the post --

Not Really Human

Depsite all the tantrums the Far-Right threw about Clinton mentioning that it was deplorable to be a racist and a bigot, the special snowflakes on the Right have no problem declaring that anyone who isn't just like them -- following their religious creed, believing their political theology -- is "not really human."

Here's Rod Dreher, insisting in another wall of text ranting screed that anyone who isn't Christian-like-him isn't "fully human."

For [LGBT people]. one’s full humanity requires being able to express sexual and psychosexual desires, because these things are part of their identity. For traditional Christians, being fully human (in the sense of fulfilling our nature) requires ordering those desires to the ideal God reveals to us in Scripture and in nature. Understand me clearly: I’m not saying that LGBT people are “less than human,” any more than I would say that someone who cheats on his wife is less than human. Rather, I’m saying that all of us realize our full humanity when we live by certain truths embedded within Creation. In this sense, sin can be seen as a failure to be fully human, i.e., to fulfill God’s will for ourselves.

Links!

So how about that Comey hearing?

I'm no fan of the knobstick who got Trump elected -- he says he feels sad about what he did, but yeah, buddy, that cuts no ice with me. You're sad, and my country is being destroyed. You did a bad thing and you should feel bad.

But I think it's clear enough: Comey says yes, Trump obstructed justice. Yes, the Russians interfered with the election. Yes, Trump is involved.

Will this cause the GOP to do the right thing? Don't make me laugh.

Here, have some links:


Linguistic posts are my kink.


Existential Comics meets Mad Max.

Working Hard

I'm getting so much done during these weeks when I am off-campus -- I finished my novel; I proofed another novel (not mine, but really good and a lot of fun -- look for Unraveling Timelines, this fall); I have written about two-thirds of what I think is going to be a novella.

I've also planted a garden, made inroads on the dreadful wilderness that has been my yard for the past five or six years, sorted and alphabetized all my books, moved those we plan to donate or sell into storage, and reduced (some of) the chaos in the house.

All this, of course, while the USA fragments and collapses around our ears. (I'm not watching any news, though I now have subscriptions to both the NYTimes and the Washington Post.)

Nicole and Maggie asked, a few weeks ago, how people felt about their jobs -- whether they felt they needed to work in order to have purpose and structure in their lives, or whether (if, for instance, Universal Basic Income ever becomes a reality) they would be just as happy and productive without having to work for a living.

I seem to be much more productive when I don't have daily classes to teach, and papers to grade. I don't know if this is because it's only for these seven weeks; or if the effect would last.

I wouldn't mind finding out, though. (We can dream!)

The Hell?

I'm seriously befuddled by the Religious Right these days -- well, I suppose that means most Conservatives in the USA, since the GOP has been eaten alive by the Evangelicals it coaxed into the party in the hope of winning a few elections.

Friday Links!

All the books are in order. I am (almost) caught up on my laundry. The chimney is fixed (finally). Now all I have to do is vacuum and I'll have nothing to do but write. Is this my beautiful house? Is this my beautiful life?

Have some links!

This essay by Rebecca Solnit on Trump is brilliant. Longish, but well worth the read.