Whining

Why does it have to be so hot in my office? It's SO HOT.

I had the window open for a while, which helped, but now the leaf-blowing guys are out, and the exhaust from those things is unbearable, never mind the racket.

What exactly was wrong with rakes again?

Argh, So Much Anxiety

I'm having so much anxiety about this election. Argh.

News Sources I'm Reading

 I used to subscribe to the New York Times, but their policies became so openly transphobic that I dropped their subscription. After that, I subscribed to the Washington Post, until this past week, when they let their billionaire owner dictate their content, and became, thus, no better than Fox News. I cancelled my subscription and told them why.

Now I have subscribed to The Boston Globe and The Star Tribune. I also read The Guardian, mostly for what it has to say about international events.

If democracy is to survive, the nation needs reliable, trustworthy, non-partisan journalism. That doesn't come free. People have to be willing to pay for it. But also, the newspapers themselves must be willing to stand up to billionaires and wanna-be fascists. 

As I said in 2020, I didn't think the downfall of America would be quite this boring and depressing. But here we are.

Scalzi Endorses Harris

I mean, no surprise, but his post is worth reading nonetheless.

A pull quote:

I am deeply tired of Donald Trump and everything about his shitty, selfish, criminal and hateful self, a man whose only lasting legacy to this point is encouraging the worst parts of the American public to free themselves of any social bond to their neighbors and to be be just as awful as their idol. Kamala Harris fucking laughs, and seems happy, and actually appears to like people, not just tolerate people she needs something from. It would be too much to say she embodies the better idea of what the US could be — that’s a lot to put on anyone — but I will say that at least when I look at her, I know that there’s a chance that the better idea of what the US could be is possible. I can’t look at Trump at this point and see anything but hate and anger, and the worst of what we are as a nation.

I agree 110%, obviously. And when I look at Trump supporters, that's what I see too: hate, anger, lies, and cowardice. They are America at its worst. 

I have voted. Dr. Skull has voted. The kid and his fiance have voted. If you haven't voted, do it now.

I am so anxious, y'all. 

Ten days, now

The Drought

The drought is so bad here, I put two big ceramic bowls (Heywood's water dishes) out in the yard and I'm keeping them filled with water. 

So now my yard is filled with birds -- bright red cardinals, sparrows, doves, mocking birds, and dozens of others I don't recognize. The squirrels like the water too, but the birds keep yelling at them and chasing them away.

I might get bird seed next.

I Voted Early

 Straight blue ticket, as you might imagine. I voted against the casino and for medical marijuana.

Y'all, I Gotta Tell Someone

My credit score is so good.

It comes from paying off my credit card four years ago now, and then not taking on any debt (or none I didn't pay off within six months) until I bought this car. Taking out a car loan actually improves your credit score, which, who knew? Also no foreclosures or evictions! Go me!

The loan guy actually congratulated me. 

Four Years Ago Gas Was Realllllly Cheap

It's like a thing among MAGAts to pose the question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

I am, but only because COVID killed my father and I inherited all of his money. (He had dementia, but it was getting COVID that killed him.)

Which is the thing they're forgetting -- four years ago we were in the middle of a pandemic that has killed over a million Americans so far.

I suppose I shouldn't say "forgetting." They deny the epidemic ever happened, and if it did happen, it wasn't any worse than the flu (which killed somewhere around fifty million people in 1918), or if it was worse than the flu, then it only killed the weak. Like my father. Or immunocompromised people, those losers. Or diabetics. Or....

THERE WERE SEMIS FILLED WITH DEAD BODIES BECAUSE THE MORGUES WERE OVERFLOWING.

[image or embed]

— L O L G O P (@lolgop.bsky.social) October 22, 2024 at 6:33 AM

And that's not even taking into account the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the attack on the Capitol which he orchestrated, his malfeasance, the separation of children from their parents at the border, his fucking the Supreme Court for the next 40 years, the eight trillion he added to the national debt, the inflation that kicked off due to his mishandling of the epidemic, his encouraging the Right to become vaccine deniers, his endless lying....

All of which MAGAts also deny, so it's no good trying to point it out.

WOOOOO

I am pre-approved for a house loan. Now all we gotta do is find one in Fayetteville in our price range.

Cat Pictures

 This picture of Baby Jasper, circa 2010, came up in my memories today:

The Real Voter Fraud

...is coming from the Right. No surprise there.

I Have to Get Out of This Town

My neighbor has put Trump signs all over his yard.

This is the neighbor who kept stopping me to chat when I was taking my walks in the neighborhood. I knew he was annoying, but I didn't know he was an idiot and a bigot.

Ugh.

ETA this story from the Guardian: "A Third of Americans Agree with Trump That Immigrants 'Poison America's Blood.'"

The poll also found nearly one in four Trump supporters, 23%, believe if he loses the election that he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume office.

And this:

What I'm Listening to Now

I've been listening to audio books while I exercise and while I'm trying to fall asleep (highly recommended, by the way). I've got the Hoopla app which lets me borrow these for free -- if your library is a Hoopla subscriber, you can probably do that too.

This are my recent favorites:

Kathrine Addison, Goblin Emperor, narrated by Kyle McCarley

I love Addison's books about this goblin/elf world anyway (there are also ghouls and dragons), and McCarley does a fine job narrating. This are books where the main characters acts with decency, intelligence, and as much justice as they can manage, despite being from categories -- like being half-goblin -- and past circumstances (being treated unjustly, and even abused) which make that difficult. Addison's world is richly developed, with several cultures, religions, and multiple languages. If you're listening to it instead of reading it that might be a problem -- the book has an appendix of characters, places, and words. But since I've read this one a couple of times already, I'm having no problem following it. The story in this one concerns Maia, the fourth and half-goblin son of the emperor of Elfland, who has been relegated to a distant hunting lodge with an abusive guardian, rather than being brought up at the court, since no one thought he would ever inherit the empire. Then his father and all his brothers are killed when their airship crashes, and Maia has to take over. This is my current go-to-sleep book.

Shirley Jackson, Raising Demons, Life Among the Savages, narrated by Lesa Lockford and Kirsten Potter

These are Jackson's two books about bringing up her four children from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. They're kind of twee but also charming and occasionally very funny. Jackson herself called them a "disrespectful memoir of my children." Lockford and Potter do an excellent job with the narration. Some of this material was also published in various women's magazines before being reworked for the two books. If you've only read Jackson's horror novels and stories, these are entirely different, and a lot of fun.

I also listened to these while going to sleep. They're perfect for that -- nothing bad happens, and very little is at stake.

Naomi Novik, The Temeraire novels, narrated by Simon Vance

I read the first two of these a long time ago, and then our library didn't have the rest and that was when we didn't have any money, so I just didn't read any of the others. So now I'm listening to them while I exercise. Vance is an excellent narrator, so much so that I sometimes exercise just a little longer so I can find out what happens in the scene. If you don't know these books, they're about a minor member of the nobility during the Napoleonic wars, who is serving as a ship's captain when he accidentally "harnesses" a dragon, and thus must leave the navy and join the aerial corps -- a very different kind of service indeed. The bond between him and his dragon, Temeraire, makes him willing to put up with the disruption of his life. A knowledge of the history of the time helps, but I know only what I've learned from reading Georgette Heyer novels and Jane Austen novels, and I'm pretty well able to follow it. These are the first audiobooks I've listened to without reading the novel first, and I'm enjoying them a lot. 

Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News? narrated by Ellen Archer

This is my favorite of the Jackson Brodie novels, and Archer either has or does an excellent Scottish accent. This is the first novel Reggie is in -- she's about sixteen in this book, and her mother has just died, leaving her an orphan (though apparently legally of age in Scotland?). There's some violent deaths in the background, but mostly in the novel we see Reggie and her mentor Dr. Jo as well as Jackson Brodie and Louise, a Scottish police officer, handling things as well as they can, while also (both Jackson and Louise, who are hot for each other but married to other people and thus unable to admit the attraction to each other.)

The Scottish accent is at least 20% of why I liked this one so much. But also Reggie is a great character. I listened to this one while I exercised and it make the process practically enjoyable.

Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, narrated by Kevin Free

Also bedtime books. These are about a construct security unit who hacks its governor module and becomes a rogue unit, but instead of murdering people watches a lot of media instead. Then he makes friends with a giant space ship and...oh, who doesn't know the plot of these already? Free is less good in the first volume, but he rapidly improves, and since I know these so well by now they're a good going to sleep listen.

Please More Xanax

I am so anxious about this election.

FB is full of people spreading lies about immigrants, crime, and what a whore Harris is. I've had to ban myself from the site because I keep trying to reason with them. You cannot reason with Trump supporters. They are disconnected from reality, and they are proud of that. They are dupes, liars, and fools. There is no way to reason them out of positions they did not use reason to get themselves into.

I'm just going to read SF, give money to the Harris/Waltz campaign, and try to write more. Also, I'm so glad we're moving out of this benighted town. 

What's This?!

We have a frost advisory tonight!

Apparently we have gone straight from summer to winter, skipping fall entirely.

Oh No Fall Break Is Almost Over

I really enjoyed this fall break -- it finally has cooled down here in the Fort, and I am able to sleep. We saw the kid twice, and I figured out how to make pinhead oatmeal in my rice cooker. I also read a lot of science fiction and wrote reviews for some of it. Plus, I caught up on all my grading.

Sadly, tomorrow I must return to teaching. What a good job this would be except for the teaching*.

*A joke, obviously. I love teaching.

Fall Arrives

 Fall has arrived in earnest. We have all the windows and doors open, and the cats are very much enjoying their screened porch.

There might even be frost on Wednesday.

What I'm Reading Now

This doesn't include books I am reading for reviews -- that explains the lack of science fiction here.

Richard Powers, Playground

I don't know how I've gotten this far into my career as an extreme reader without encountering Richard Powers, but I am delighted I have finally stumbled across him. I was about fifty pages into his latest novel, Playground, when I started saying how have a missed this guy? I looked him up on Wikipedia and learned he has won the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, and a McArthur grant. How did I miss all that?

Anyway! Playground is a great book, a near-future about four people whose lives intertwine. There's a lot about oceans, and about AI. The ending left me bemused, and I can't decide if I like it, but the book is very much worth reading. I've put all his other books (or those my library has) on hold.

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Father Time

I've loved Hrdy's work for literal decades now. She's a biological anthropologist who focuses on what babies do to parents and to their communities. Here, she looks mostly at what babies do to fathers -- that is, what being around babies, taking care of babies, and interacting with babies does to the neurological and hormonal makeup of men. (These don't even have to be the actual fathers of the babies.) 

Conversely, she looks at what not being around babies does to men, in those cultures (like her own "tribe" of 1950s Texas) where men are kept from interacting with or taking care of babies for whatever reason. (In Texas, because that was "women's work.") Spoilers: a lack of contact with babies spells bad news for men, which frankly explains a lot about toxic masculinity.

This is a fascinating book which ranges through world cultures and looks not just at homo sapiens but also at primates, rats, and other animals. It's not just enlightening but, like all of Hrdy's books, extremely readable. Highly recommended.

Liana Moriarty, Here One Moment

Moriarty has written some brilliant books -- my favorite by her is What Alice Forgot. She also has three or four books that left me cold. This one, Here One Moment, is about a woman, Cherry, who suffers a kind of episode on a plane flight, and goes up and down the aisles, telling everyone the age they will die and what they will die of. Most passengers treat it as a joke, though others are freaked out, including one mother of an infant who is told her infant will die at age seven, by drowning.

This happens in the first pages of the book. The rest of the book follows the woman herself and several of the people on the plane, as the predictions begin to come true. It's mostly about the past and currents lives of these characters, and it is really well done. Cherry turns out to be the daughter of a professional psychic who has had some psychic moments herself. She does not remember the episode on the plane, and insists she cannot see the future; that no one should take her predictions serious. The narrative itself plays with the idea of whether the future can be seen, whether the future is fixed, and how we struggled to control our lives. I liked this one a lot. 

My Kid Does Art

This was actually done for a presentation he and his group are doing for a seminar:

But honestly, it's beautiful.

"Of course I've Got Sources!"

So in case you missed it, the latest MAGAt conspiracy theory is that "the government" is creating these huge hurricanes on purpose, so that they can aim them at Red States, and kill all the people who would otherwise be voting for Trump.

On one of the sites I was glancing at, a person made the claim that the government was indeed controlling the weather, that this was a "proven fact."

People asked this person for their sources. Now usually when that happens, your average MAGAt is confused, since they have no idea that people are supposed to support their claims with credible sources. Usually MAGAts will then call anyone who asks for evidence a sheep, brainwashed by liberals, and so on.

This person replied, though, giving their source: When they were a child, a weatherman their family knew got drunk and said it was true, that the government did indeed control the weather.

That, for your MAGAt, constitutes credible evidence.

Which is why they're voting for Trump. He tells them stuff, like that Biden and Harris are giving all the FEMA money to immigrants, or that FEMA is refusing the help Republicans, and they believe it, because Trump said it was true, so it must be.

How can we reason with people who don't know what a credible source is, or how to evaluate evidence? "My uncle's girlfriend's daddy said it, so I know it's true!"

(One) Trouble with Religious Students

Living where I do, I often have Evangelical students in my classes, who have been homeschooled or sent to schools run by Evangelicals. They've been taught to view and understand everything through a single lens, that of Eschatological Christ as they have been taught he is. 

Frequently they have also been taught that anyone trying to get them to use another lens is demonic, or an agent of Satan, or at the very least misguided. Their job is not to learn to see new ways, but to hold fast to this single way.

It can be difficult to get them to understand global literature when this is the case. They want to view, for example, The Bacchai through their specific sort of Christian lens. Since the play is about Dionysus and the foible of refusing to accept Dionysus as a god, and the vengeance visited on mortals who think they understand the gods better than the gods do, this can cause difficulties.

Why are such people in a university, if they don't want to read new things and learn new ideas? Well, they see the degree as a job qualification. That is, like many people in America today, their parents and probably they themselves see the university as a trade school. They are here to get a degree as a qualification for a job, and to avoid being educated while they do it.

Not all Evangelical students, of course. Not all Jehovah's Witnesses either, to name another religion that is popular in this area. I've had some excellent students from religious backgrounds. But those are students with enough imagination and intelligence to learn to see with different lenses despite their religion. (Pretty much never because of their religion, at least in my experience. Christianity in Arkansas does not encourage learning as a virtue, or intelligence or curiosity either.)

FALL, FINALLY

This morning it is actually cold -- 56 degrees when I woke up.

FINALLY.

More Conservatives Lies

The new lies I've seen coming from the Right have to do with the destruction in North Carolina, and the response to it.

From the left, I am hearing about the help flooding into the region from ordinary citizens as well as the National Guard and FEMA. Some of the stories literally bring tears to my eyes.

Go here for more on this:

Disaster compassion is real. Here are some things I've seen today and yesterday in Western North Carolina:

— Margaret Killjoy 🏴 (@magpiekilljoy) October 2, 2024

Meanwhile, the Right is busy spewing their usual hate and lies:

• FEMA is broke because they gave all their money to immigrants 
• People who try to volunteer in NC are being arrested by FEMA/federal agents
• FEMA will only give victims of the hurricane $750 dollars 
• Biden's government is controlling the path of the hurricane, they sent it to NC on purpose, because NC is a red state
• FEMA won't give you help if you're white -- their new DEI initiatives mean they have to give all their money to immigrants and brown people
• FEMA is confiscating any money or aid sent to NC
• There's no money for disaster response because Biden sent all the money to Ukraine

See this meme, being shared by Trump supporters, for a sample of these lies:

It's gotten so bad that FEMA has set up a site to deal with rumors. But from what I've seen, any attempt to counter rumors is useless. When people try to talk sense to Rightwing weirdos, what they get is a response like, "You're just brainwashed by the Fake News Media," or "Do your own research, stop trusting federal lies."

Evidence and facts and good sources do not matter in the least to Trump supporters. That's why they're Trump supporters.

ETA: Even Republicans have had enough (though Trump supporters keep on ticking, as you can see in the comments):

local republican representatives in north carolina setting the record straight. pic.twitter.com/lgzXLSmBUV

— emily may (@emilykmay) October 4, 2024

Grading Papers

I have papers coming in. They're mostly good, but when they're bad, they're really bad. I have to bribe myself to keep working with chocolate and popcorn.

I also have to keep reminding myself: This is the second to last time I will have to do this.

Retirement can't come soon enough.

The VP Debate was Depressing

Partly this was because Vance lied nonstop and was only fact-checked once (about the immigrants in Springfield being legal immigrants); partly it was because Vance is just better at debates than Walz, who was visibly nervous, and misspoke or garbled his answers. 

It's also depressing when we consider the possibility that if Trump is elected, we could end up with Vance as president. 

Over on the cesspool that is Twitter, Rod Dreher was gloating over how well Vance did (despite Vance bearing false witness against immigrants, a thing that you think would bother Dreher, since his schtick is that he's such a Christian) because, says Dreher, at least Trump will get rid of trans people.

(1) Wow

(2) That's the religious right for you, folks. Forget anything Christ actually said or told them to do. Instead, they're going to obsess about trans people and abortion, even though Christ said nothing about either of them.

I've learned better than to argue with these moral monsters, though. They could not care less about facts, evidence, or anything Christ said. What they want is power, and they will do and say anything to get and hold onto that power.