Weather Report, Bird Report, Dog

It's been very cold here lately -- sleet and freezing roads yesterday, and today sunny but 22 degrees when I took the dog to the park at dawn.

A good time was had, but when he spotted three Great Blue Herons in the stream that runs through the park he plunged into the woods along the bank for a closer look, and got hopelessly tangled. I had to wade into the brush and take him off the leash to get it untangled from the trees and liana vines and brambles and -- you guessed it -- he ran off further into the woods, trying to find the herons (who had long since flown lazily and gracefully away).

Eventually he came back, entirely unrepentant. "What a ridiculous dog you are," I said, and he wagged his entire body at me happily.

The Current State of Academics in America

EDITED TO CORRECT MY ERRORS:

I'm sure most of us have heard about the TA in Oklahoma who gave an Evangelical student a bad grade on her paper because (1) the student's paper did not meet the assignment criteria, which required the student to demonstrate that they had read a specific article, and to write a reaction to that article and (2) the only source the student alluded to was the Christian Bible. (She didn't cite it.)  Among other things, this student apparently said that trans people were demonic.

Evangelicals are having screeching tantrums, even though Oklahoma University is kissing the student's feet and giving her everything she wants. This is discrimination, you see, to require a student to write a paper that fits the assignment.

ETA: Also, apparently this student's mother works for Turning Point, and the student may have taken the class in order to get the instructor (who is trans) fired.

ETA: I also once had a student refuse to read an assignment (a James Baldwin short story) because reading it went against her religion. (It had the words 'damn' and 'hell' in it.) I failed the student for that assignment, and my university supported me. AS THEY SHOULD.

In my last few years of teaching, I had a student very much like this one. She wanted to write a paper explaining how Jesus was an historical figure. I discouraged her from choosing this topic, because I said she would not be able to find legitimate sources to support that claim. She insisted she could. Reluctantly, I allowed the topic.

What sources did she cite? You guessed it. Verses from the Bible and an interview with her pastor. I taught students to write papers by doing several drafts with them and holding conferences. Over and over, I told her she either had to find legitimate sources -- not the Bible, not her preacher, but sources published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals -- if she wanted to stick with this topic.

She ended up with a very low grade on the paper, because not only did she never find -- or as far as I could tell, try to find -- reputable sources, she couldn't write a grammatically correct complete sentence or a structurally correct paragraph either. Because that was the major paper for the semester, she had to repeat the class. She didn't complain to the dean, fortunately for me, because -- like OU -- I suspect my dean would have caved.

After that semester, I began assigning topics instead of letting students choose what they wanted to write about. I still got a lot of terrible papers, but at least none of them could accuse me of failing them because they love Jesus.

This TA clearly is doing a great deal right -- requiring legitimate sources, explaining clearly and calmly how the student's paper does not meet the criteria. I would not, myself, have allowed a student to write about why trans people should not exist, but she is a student herself, and still finding her way. At her age, I did indeed allow topics like that, but I always knew my university would support me if I treated the student fairly (as this TA did). Now every Evangelical/MAGA student knows they just have to claim that they are being persecuted for their religion and the university will fall over its feet giving them whatever they want.

There is no way to educate students if this is how the system works. 

Social Commentary

I now live, as many of you know, in the nearest thing to a socialist city you're going to find in Arkansas. Our governor and legislature and much of the rest of this MAGA state hate us with a passion because so many progressives/hippies/liberals live here that it's easy to fund our library, the bike trails, the free busses and the food banks.

And yet. People are homeless here. People are living in their cars. (I encounter them often, since I go early to the dog park, when they're still in the parking lot there.) Some, I am sure, have addiction problems. Many just can't make the rent, which is high in this city, considering it's in Arkansas -- a single shabby one-bedroom rents for $1200/month, and requires passing background checks, providing paystubs, and putting up a sizable deposit as well as the first and last month's rent. Plus you have to sign a year long lease, and if you default before the year is up, you're evicted. Trying getting another apartment with an eviction on your record.

(Why so pricey? Everyone wants to live here, and then also we have a yearly influx of rich kids from Texas who come to attend our R-1 university, probably not because it's a good university as because it's got the Razorbacks. Razorback football is a cult.)

The city is working at building (a) affordable housing and (b) affordable housing aimed specifically at artists. This is what cities should be doing, obviously, but it's not here yet.

A lot of the people living in their cars, or occasionally in tents deep in the trees around the dog park, have jobs. Many also drive for door dash or deliver for Amazon. They're not "lazy," and they're not "illegal immigrants." They're unable to rent an apartment on minimum wage plus a side hustle. (We do have immigrants, but they're mostly working construction, which I assume pays better.)

Are they hungry? They're not eating well, I can guess that from the fast food wrappers scattered around their cars. (There are trash cans, but I guess I might not want to get out of my car when it's 20 degrees out either.) Food banks are useful, but frequently they require a kitchen, which someone living in their car will not have. They don't look healthy, or happy, on the few occasions I see one stumbling back from the single bathroom in the park.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I saw this clip from 1984*, over on PZ Myers' site. It reminded me of a boyfriend I had at about the same time -- 1983, this would have me -- who assured me that no one starved in America, no one was hungry in America. I didn't know enough to push back at him. My own brother said the same thing, a few years later: people were homeless in America because they wanted to be. None of them were starving, or even hungry.

I'm hearing the same rhetoric from conservatives today. MAGA conservatives, anyway. People are homeless because they choose to be homeless. People begging on the street corners are making a fortune, they all have nice cars and five bedroom homes. People going to food banks are driving there in BMWs.

It's the Welfare Queen lie Reagan started in 1980. MAGA loves to believe it because it justifies their bigotry. It's okay to persecute the poor and the immigrants, it's okay to strip food assistance from people because those people are just junkies anyway, spending their money on cigarettes and booze. Hate becomes a virtue in their little bubble. That so many of them claim to be Christian is pretty...I was going to say hilarious, but actually it's disgusting.

They aren't just disgusting. They're immoral.

*I'll tell you what really astonished me about that clip -- how polite Pryor was the the wealthy old lady. He treated her with so much respect. I'd have lost it by the second lie she told. He slips a bit when she tries to take the moral high ground, but he's still saying, "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," to the very end.

Random Sunday Stuff

Thanksgiving went well, though I had to open the windows because so much cooking made the house too hot. Also, Dr Skull got stove up from the cooking, even though we did as much of the actual work as possible.

It was extremely cold -- well below 30 -- when I took the dog to the park this morning. He loves the cold. He got the zoomies and would have leapt into the (ice-crusted) pond if I hadn't yelped in alarm.

I need to go to the library today. But it is SO COLD. Hovering at 32 right now, with a sharp wind. Also sunshine, though, so maybe things will warm up by this afternoon.

Thanksgiving Morn

I took the dog on a frosty walk before sunrise and since then have been involved in preparations for dinner, even though in theory I have very little to do with the cooking. But Dr Skull is not able to use his hands well at the moment, so I am doing a lot of prep work for the dishes he is cooking.

It is beautiful weather here: about 50 degrees, sunny and crisp.

My part of the menu:

Bread

Sweet potatoes

Dr Skull's part:

Butternut squash soup

Cornbread stuffing

Pumpkin pie

(I made the cornbread and peeled and cut up the squash. I will probably roll out the pie crust as well.)

The kid:

Mac & cheese

Brussel's sprouts

Mashed Potatoes

The Turkey

The kid's husband:

deviled eggs

Uncle Charger is coming to dinner as well.

Novel Revision Submitted

I sent off the revision of the third Velocity novel (titled Down the Core) yesterday and so today I am at loose ends. I have reviews to write, of course, and I suppose I could do all the things I put off so I could work on the novel non-stop, like cleaning the bathrooms and dealing with the recycling.

Or I could re-read novels and drink hot tea. Maybe take a nap later.

Hmm, hard decision.

What I'm Reading Now

Stella Hayward, The Good Boy

On her 30th birthday, a woman is granted a wish by her magical grandmother. This is a family tradition -- every grandmother gives every granddaughter a wish on their 30 birthday. But Genie, a bit drunk and traumatized by life, accidentally wishes her beloved dog was human -- and voila! 

This is an adorable book. The best part is Rory, the dog turned human who still acts and thinks like a dog. He's a golden retriever with his own traumatized past, and he's just great. (The trauma is off the page and kept non-explicit.) There's a romance (not with Rory) and it's fine and charming as well, but Rory is the best part. If you're looking for a well-written, charming read with a happy ending, this is your book.

Elly Griffith, The Frozen People

This is sort of science fiction, so I suppose I could have included it in one of my review columns. But it's really SF-ish, so I decided not to. It's a good book, mind you, and kept me interested all the way through -- this division in the English civil service handles "cold" cases (so cold they're frozen, get it), by which they mean cases that can only be handled by sending witnesses back through time to observe the murder. That's the only science-fictional part about the novel, the time travel. Otherwise it's a straight-up murder mystery.

The main plot concerns a powerful minister in the government, bruited as a possible Prime Minister some day, who is writing a book about his family history and wants to clear up the rumor that one of his great-great-grandfathers was a serial killer. So our main character is sent back to 1850 to act as a witness, and gets stuck there. Meanwhile in the future/present, the minister is murdered. Are the two connected?

I love time travel novels anyway, but this one is also very well done. Good writing, great characters, and a couple of cranky cats. If you like a little SF in your murder mystery, this might be worth picking up.

Helen DeWitt, The English Understand Wool

Helen DeWitt wrote one of my favorite books, The Last Samurai. This is a bit different, and much shorter (really a novella) but every bit as good. An 18 year old, raised in Morocco and various cities (Paris, London) by fabulously wealthy parents, reared by those parents to be spectacularly well-bred (never doing anything mauvais ton), suddenly learns that (a) her parents are not her parents and (b) she has very little money left indeed. What she does about it is one of the surprises of the book. 

As with Samurai, DeWitt plays with form and structure here. She does it very well. This book is a delight, and it's short enough to read in a few hours. 10/10, no notes.

Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow

This one is also (sort of) science fiction/fantasy. A woman on the eve of her 40th birthday figures out how to return to her 16th birthday. There's a portal, sort of. But it will only ever take her back to that one day, her 16th birthday. She can, however, change things, which changes her life in the future. The one thing she keeps trying to change is the death of her father, who in the initial story is dying of lung cancer. The thematic arc is she has to learn to accept her father's death. 

It's not a bad book -- nice writing, and the characters are pretty well done. But it's the kind of SFF which people who don't read much SFF end up writing. (To her credit, Straub knows this and lampshades it in the book.) The science fiction convention that features heavily in the various timelines is really well done. Straub's father is Peter Straub, so that makes sense. 

The notion of 1996 being the ancient past kind sent me.

Harper Lee, The Land of Sweet Forever

I read this one so you won't have to. Lee is famous for having written every high school teacher's favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird (I also loved this book as a kid) and then never publishing anything else. Because of this, it was a truism among the (male) writers in my MFA program that Truman Capote had "actually" written Mockingbird. 

Anyway, now that Lee is dead, her heirs are publishing her trunk novels and uncollected works, including Go Set a Watchman in 2015 and this collection of short stories and essays this year. It contains several short stories written when Lee first started writing, none of them terrible but none of them very good, and several pretty bad essays about nothing in particular. 

Only read this if you're a completist like me.

James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I read this as an undergraduate and again as a graduate student, so this is a re-read.

It's a lovely book. Joyce writes like an angel. Sadly, this one is overshadowed by his (incoherent and frankly overrated) later novels. If you actually like to read and don't just want to look like a hipster, this one and his short stories are where you should spent your time.

Deer

 Two deer were grazing out behind my house this morning:

There were also two squirrels in that tree. Shamus was in a puppy quandary -- which to bark at first?

Reading Before the Internet

Getting a review copy of Martha Wells' new book in literal seconds made me think about the world previous to the internet, when probably I wouldn't even have found out Wells had a new Murderbot book coming out until I stumbled across it in the New Fiction section of my library branch.

That's if my library happened to buy the book. Not always a given.

Back before the internet, if the library didn't have a book, I didn't have any way to find that book. Often I didn't even know that book existed. I do remember looking at the front of books I liked, where there was often a list of other books written by that author. Then I could (1) fill out interlibrary loan books and sometimes the library would find me a copy or (2) hunt used bookstores, hoping to run across a book or (3) go to the Walden's in the mall. This was after the Walden's bookstore opened in the mall, when I was about thirteen, I think. And Walden's didn't usually have the book anyway.

There were no bookstores anywhere within my reach before I was old enough to ride busses on my own (again, around 13). Drugstores had a section with paperback novels, as did the 7-11 about a mile from my house, and I would sometimes get books there. But mainly I got books from the library and from used bookstores.

When I was in graduate school, I ran across a catalogue for a company that sold books through the mail. I can't remember the name of the company now, and usually the books weren't the kind I wanted to read, but I do remember the delight with which I greeted this catalogue every month.

Amazon began selling books in 1998, the internet tells me. That sounds about right. I didn't really become internet savvy until around 2000, but one of the first things I hooked into was online bookstores. One of these was Alibris, I think. I don't think I started buying books from Amazon for another couple years. 

I was still haunting used bookstores and relying on my local public library at that point. We were in Charlotte, NC, which has an amazing public library. And they would buy any book I asked them to. Our local library here will do that too, or at least so far they have.

There were also more bookstores in Charlotte I could get to, since I could drive. Charlotte had a lot of bookstores. Here, there's only one, and it's a Barnes & Noble, which usually doesn't have any books I want to read, though I do get my magazines there.

I still rely on my public library for a lot of the books I read. But now if I want a book and I know it exists, I can usually get it -- from Amazon, in a few seconds if I'm okay with reading an e-copy; from Thrift Books or other sites in a few days or weeks if I want a hard copy. 

There is also a great used bookstore here, the Dickson Street Bookshop, which I bought tons of books from when I was in graduate school and still visit sometimes.

In whatever ways the future has disappointed me (waves at everything happening in the country), thirteen year old me would have loved this aspect of 2025. No flying cars, meh, okay. But the books I can have!

Not to mention phones and tablets. Honestly I'd rather have these than flying cars.

Wooooo!

I scored a review copy of Martha Wells' new Murderbot book, Platform Decay. WOOOO!

That's my Friday night sorted.

Buy Comic Now!

Support my artist son! Support an independent artist! Support a trans artist!

Beautiful and disturbing horror comic about a pregnant trans man living with an abusive wife and a ghost.

It's available on Ko-Fi and domestic shipping is free.

Other work available on the same page, including stickers and mini-comics. Get'em while they're hot!

Apropos of Nothing

This morning I was remembering a period of about nine or ten months in my 20s when, as a new feminist, I was determined to stop being "nice" and deferential. I quit laughing at things men said, for example. And I didn't smile as a reflex, just because I was a woman and my face was in public. And I started arguing. I did not stay quiet when I thought people were wrong. 

But also, I would take a stand and hold that position, refusing to give in even when I knew I was wrong.

I must have been so insufferable.

Sorry, everyone who knew me then.

But How To Retire?

Over on Reddit, someone asked an apparently sincere question: "If I don't start drawing my social security until I'm 70, how can I retire at 65?"

The longer question was that this person was seeing other people retire at 65 and did not understand how they were doing it.

I can't believe that level of cluelessness is actual. But maybe this person was like 20? Who knows.

The replies were all like, well, when we were in our 30s we didn't buy boats or jetskis or immense houses, we didn't spend a month in France, we put our excess money in the stockmarket and....

The notion that people exist in America who do not have "excess" money appeared nowhere in the discussion. I mean, I was making a middle-class salary (sort of) and there were many (many, many) months when we barely made it to payday. When the car broke down or someone got seriously ill, we had to put that on credit cards. "Just don't buy it if you can't afford it" did not apply.

I was only able to retire at 65 because I inherited my father's money. If I had to depend on social security, I would never have been able to retire. Never. My SS check is just a little over two thousand a month and if I had retired at 70 it would have been a little under 3000 a month. Try living on that.

I do have TIAA money, which has had from three to five percent of my salary per month added to it since I was a baby professor back in 1995. (There was frequently an option to increase that amount, sometimes by as much as five percent more, but we could never afford to do without those $$$.) TIAA pays out another couple thousand a month. We could have scraped by on that, maybe. 

But we couldn't have afforded six hundred a month for Medicare Part B, D, and G on four thousand dollars a month, and frankly we're only doing as well as we are right now because (due to my father's money) I can afford to buy those. If we had to depend on Medicare A (the only one the government pays for) we'd be literally thousands of dollars in debt right now.

If you're depending solely on your social security, you can't retire. Period. 

Heat Wave

High of 76 today and 80 tomorrow. UGH.

After that, winter returns.

Destructo Dog

Of course, when you get a puppy, you can count on losing at least a few items to their need to destroy the world.

So far Shamus has chewed up:

(1) One of my Birkenstocks

(2) A stuffed tiger that was a gift to Dr Skull

(3) My favorite blanket which I crocheted last winter

(4) About fifteen of his own toys, which, fine

(5) One of Dr Skull's slippers

(6) A book from my childhood which I really never expected to read again but STILL

(7) Dr Skull's copy of Proust's A la recherche de temps perdu, which he claims he was reading

He's now eight months old, weighs 50 pounds, and would love to spend his life sitting on my lap and chewing on my fingers.

Such a good dog!

Winter Arrives

Or I guess it's a false winter, to go with the false fall we had earlier: i's 38 degrees here now, going down to 20 degrees tonight. A high tomorrow in the 40s. 

My kind of weather, though when I took the dog to the dog park this morning at dawn, it was too cold even for me. Tomorrow I'll have to wear my winter gear.

Tonight I'm making a chicken pie for dinner. Soon it will be time to make soups and beans.

Dawn is Nice

I've become one of those people who wakes up early even though they don't have to.

Partly this is the dog, who wakes up at six every morning and starts demanding his walk. Partly this is because I have a nice medication (Temazepam) which for the first time in my life lets me lie down and go to sleep, like in ten minutes. (Before I always lay awake for two or three hours, or got up again and stayed up until three a.m.) 

Partly, I think, it's because I don't have to get up. There's no alarm clock, and nothing to  resent. When I wake up, the whole day is mine. I could go back to sleep (the dog, though), but why would I? I have coffee to drink and walks to take and writing to do.

So I'm up at six, usually, or sometimes as late as seven, and off to the dog park ten minutes later and by 8:00 I am at my computer, hot tea at hand, ready to start writing.

This is the life I always wanted, and I have to tell you, it's paradise.

Also, I'm seeing dawn, like, a lot. Almost every day. Dawn is very pretty indeed, y'all.

Random Thoughts

(1) The trees are lovely in Fayetteville right now -- brilliant red-orange, yellow, and red. I like driving around town right now because every time I turn a corner, it's like wow, another beautiful tree.

(2) Conservatives are posting about how young voters will be sorry for voting for Mandami because he'll broadcast Muslim calls to prayer five times a day everywhere. Like church bells, I guess. Horrors.

(3) Liberals keep putting little stories on my FB feed about how this school district or that one is making it illegal to call kids by their "preferred names," and then adding a gotcha about JD Vance not going by his birth name. What they don't get, obviously, is that to conservatives this is not a gotcha. Of course these laws do not apply to them. They're not meant to apply to them. The laws protect, but do not bind them; they bind and do not protect trans people, gay people, or children (or immigrants, or the working class, but neither of those applies in this case).

(4) I'm still in a lot of pain from having the two teeth pulled. The pain medication they gave me only helps a little. 0/10 do not recommend.

(5) Our neighbors keep chickens, including three or four roosters (these are pets, I am pretty sure, not kept for eggs or meat). They roost in the trees of the neighbor's tiny backyard, and sometimes come over to forage in my yard. The roosters crow a lot, which upsets Dr Skull but which I kind of like.

(6) This weekend we're getting a hard freeze. Can't wait.

Scalzi on the Election

Hard agree on this here:

Turns out that out-and-out grifty fascism isn’t, in fact, very popular, especially when the promised benefits of that nonsense — lower food prices and inflation kept in check — are nowhere in sight, and when the only part of the government that is working is the part that floods cities with armed paramilitary violating people’s constitutional rights. 

PZ Myers also has an interesting post, quoting Eugene Debs extensively. (Spoilers: conservatives are clutching their pearls because Mamdani quoted Debs, who honestly I bet 97% of America have never heard of. I have, of course, but I'm one of those educated leftists.)

What Do the People Want?

I gotta say, the delusion from "conservatives" that the people want immigrants deported is pretty bizarre. Most of us know immigrants, and most of us like our immigrant neighbors. 

I mean, not all immigrants, obviously. There are bad people in every group. But I have to say, among the immigrants I know, most of them are hard-working, determined, and not at all whiny. Unlike "conservatives," who blame every trouble (usually imaginary trouble) on someone else. Right now it's immigrants and trans people. Next year it'll be some other group.

But regular people -- which is to say, not weirdos and conspiracy theorists -- are not interested, and in fact oppose, the persecution of immigrants. Regular people are horrified by what ICE is doing. That's one reason the GOP lost bigly yesterday.

Regular people also do not hate and are not horrified by trans people. They're absolutely not interested in laws that persecute that nice kid down the block who just wants to get on with their life.

What do the people want?

(1) A functioning economy, in which what regular people earn matches up with the price of housing and groceries. 

(2) Healthcare that doesn't bankrupt thousands of Americans every year.

(3) Reasonable working hours. The notion that people should have to have two or even three jobs to survive is a real non-starter for most people. 

(4) Time to spend with their families and on their own interests. (See #3)

(5) A government that works for the people, not against them. And maybe one that doesn't fund genocides, either here or abroad.

Doesn't seem like a lot to ask.

Blue Sweep

Apparently the Democrats did well in the elections yesterday (there was no election here in Arkansas), which is somewhat cheering.

Fingers crossed people are waking up to what the GOP actually stands for (which is to say, unbridled bigotry, unbridled liberty for their friends, unbridled oppression for the rest of us. Also, lots of socialism for the very rich, and lots of misery for the poor and working class.)

See PZ Myers for more.

What I'm Watching Now

I'm rewatching Downton Abbey. I don't know why.

It's a very conservative show, with the wealthy people all being saints under their quirkiness, maintaining this huge fortune simply to provide jobs to everyone on the estate. When the new heir (who comes from the middle class) wants to dispense with a valet because why would he need a valet, he gets a stern talking to from the patriarch about depriving someone of their income on such a flimsy excuse.

The servants are all very touchy about their various (really, really) minor indications of status, like who is the first footman and who is the second. Everyone stands up when anyone of higher status enters the service hall. That kind of thing.

On the other hand, it's a low intensity sort of show. When things go wrong, they mostly don't stay wrong. Usually the wrong is only threatened, and then turns out not to happen. Bad things -- really bad things -- don't happen, and everything turns out fine, mostly. Even during WWI, only servants die or are badly injured -- for about half a minute, it looks like the Downton heir will be paralyzed -- and worse, not able to,  you know, have children -- but don't worry, he gets better.

 The exception is Lady Sybil's death, and even that has its impact mitigated by everyone (eventually) behaving well. Even the grumpy patriarch eventually gives in and goes to his grandchild's (Catholic!!) Christening.

And usually it's just things like the dog is lost, and then gets found; or Lady Mary and the heir have a fight, but then they make up; or Mr. Bates goes to jail, but then he gets out.

Anyway, I think it's like a comfort watch. All the problems get solved, and pretty easily. Rich people are benevolent, poor people live pretty well, the world is clean and well-managed. You know, a fantasy.

Also, the production values are pretty good.

 

Halloween in the Last Century

Here is what Halloween was like when I was four to twelve years old. 

Kids dressed up, usually in costumes they made themselves (a bum, a football player, a dancer), though you could buy masks and cheap rayon costumes at Woolworths or TG&Y. I think one year when I was really little my mother bought us all masks -- I was Casper the Friendly Ghost, as I recall. But kids didn't really like these masks, since they were very hot to wear and also the elastic that held them on hurt your ears.

Anyway, in whatever costume we put together, we went out in packs. Little little kids, like under four, did not go trick or treating. Older than four, you went with a bunch of other kids. By the time I was six or seven, I was going with the kids my age in the neighborhood -- Debbie Moore, Karen Pettus, another girl whose name I don't remember -- and my brothers were going with the kids their age.

There were huge swarms of kids out roaming from house to house, all over the neighborhood. We didn't go outside our particular neighborhood, which was called Willowdale. From about five to about eight, we hit every single house -- there was no such thing as a house that didn't give out candy, though there were houses where "mean" people lived. Down the street, for instance, there was a guy who wouldn't give candy to anyone over six. I mean, really!

We use paper grocery bags to collect the candy, and when we came home, exhausted and triumphant, we poured the heaps of candy out on the living floor and compared our hauls. Occasionally there would be some trading -- like I hated suckers and loved those peanut butter taffy things, so I'd trade with my brother who hated peanut butter.

There weren't any decorations, as I recall, though usually people did make jack-o-lanterns and burned candles in them. And parents had only one function -- they stayed home and gave out candy. No kid would have wanted or needed a parent to walk them from house to house.

In any case, Halloween was one of the important holidays of the year for kids -- Christmas and Mardi Gras being the other two. I still remember the year I got strep throat and missed it. (I did try to go out, but had to turn back a block from the house because I felt so awful. I remember sitting on a curb trying to convince myself I could keep going.)

When my kid was little, we drove to a neighborhood that wasn't full of Evangelicals to trick-or-treat, because of course Evangelical Christians in Arkansas believe halloween is worshipping the devil. I did walk my kid and his friends around the neighborhood, and almost always any kids under about ten had parents walking with them. Kids older than ten still went with their friends. Lots of houses shut their lights off, the accepted signal for 'we don't celebrate halloween here.'

In our recent neighborhood, there was no Halloween. Maybe this was because it was an Evangelical neighborhood? There were a lot of Trump signs.

Here in this new neighborhood, I did see people trick-r-treating. But not only did they all have parents with them, their parents were driving them from house to house. Long trains of cars wound through the streets, stopping every few houses to let the kids out.

Our street is last one in the neighborhood -- surrounded by a green space and a golf course -- and mostly trains of cars didn't make it this far. I only saw a few kids older than ten or so out on their own. They looked lost and confused. I stayed home with the candy, as is my role, but only three different sets of kids came by. This is probably because I didn't put out any decorations, which seems, here, to be the sign for 'we celebrate halloween, come knock on the door.'

I suppose Halloween in the 1960s and 1970s was a bigger (and freer) deal because there were so many more kids back then. Also, the 24/7 news cycle had not yet been invented, and parents didn't know letting your kid run the neighborhood unsupervised was dangerous. 

Next year I'll get some lights and a giant inflatable pumpkin.

True Fall

Frost on the grass when I took the dog to the dog park this morning, and so cold I looked for (but did not find) my gloves. A freeze warning out for tonight.

Brr, fall! My favorite season.

Ow, Ow, Ow

My teeth have been removed. I am in considerable pain, but unable to use pain medication at the moment because I have to drive.

Ow, ow, ow.

Donate to Your Local Foodbanks

Give them money if you can -- they can do more with it than you can. But they'll take food as well.

I set up a monthly donation sometime ago, which I have just increased this month. It won't make up for what the Trump administration is doing, starving kids for political reasons, but it will help some.

If you're in Arkansas:

Northwest Arkansas Food Bank

River Valley Food bank

Arkansas Food Bank

Usually there's a church somewhere also running a food bank. You know how I feel about religion, but if that's your pathway, take it.

Life in the Previous Century

A post over on Reddit about kids today has me remembering when I was four years old, how my older brother and I would walk to the Stop'n'Shop, which was at least two miles round trip, to buy penny candy. This was when you could get candy for a penny a piece. My mother usually gave us each a nickel, probably to get us out of the house for an hour or two.

Now'n'Laters were my favorite. You could also get wax coke bottles, and chalky candy cigarettes. There were also candy bars, but those cost an entire nickel, so we never got those. Bazooka gum came with little cartoons inside the wrapper. Root beer barrels were also great. 

The ice cream truck came by every day in the summer. Popsicles were a dime each, or you could get those chocolate coated ice cream bars. There were more expensive options, but my mother only gave us a dime each.

No wonder I have two abscessed teeth.

Anyway, the most astonishing part of this memory, to me, is that my mother let us walk all that way alone when we were four and five years old. Then again, when we weren't walking to the store, we were often out in the wilderness behind the house (the woods) for hours at a time, playing with matches and dodging snakes.

Also we were always barefoot. Well, I think we wore shoes in the winter. But other than that.

Brush Your Teeth, Folks

They're going to have to pull both my abscessed teeth. Then I'm getting implants. Or I should say, eventually I get implants. (It's a whole process -- they put cadaver bone in your jaw, and let it grow to your own bone; then once that heals, they put in a screw thingie. Then once that heals, they send you to the dentist, who gives you a cap. Two caps, in my case.)

Meanwhile, neither dentist will give me pain medication, because Arkansas hates people in pain. The oral surgeon says they can give me some after the "procedure." The dentist says take Tylenol.

I do have antibiotics, which are helping a little, by knocking back the infection. That's what's causing all the pain, apparently.

I remember reading books written in the 1930s, people talking about tooth aches in their childhood like they were a chronic condition. Before antibiotics, anesthetics, and modern dentistry, I suppose they were.

What I'm Reading Now

 A lot of SF for review purposes, and also these books:

Ursula Le Guin, Birthday of the World

This is a collection of stories and novellas, and a re-read for me. I love Le Guin, of course, but mostly I re-read this for the novella "Paradises Lost," which is set on a generation ship. I'm reading a novel for revieew by A.D. Sui which also involves a generation ship, which made me want to read this one again. Written in 2002. the novella is influenced by the increasing political power of the Religious Right, which was just beginning to grow at that point. In the small community on the generation ship (4000 people), a new religion is born and soon becomes prevalent enough to attempt a takeover of the governing committees on the ship -- the education committee first, and then others. This is an excellent novella which is even more relevant today than it was in 2002. A quotation:

"One kind [of person," Luis] said, "has a need, a lack, they have to have a certain vitamin...Vitamin Belief."

[Hsing] considered.

"Not genetic," he said. "Cultural. Metaorganic. But as individually real and definite as a metabolic deficiency. People either need to believe or they don't."

She still pondered.

"The ones that do don't believe that the others don't. They don't believe there are people who don't believe."

"Hope?" she offered tentatively.

"Hope isn't belief. Hope's contingent upon reality, even when it's not very realistic. Belief dismisses reality."

(snip)

"What's the harm in believing?"

"It's dangerous to confuse reality with unreality," he said promptly. "To confuse desire with power, ego with cosmos. Extremely dangerous."

Helen Philips, Hum

This is sort of like science fiction, in that it is set in the near future. I'm not reviewing it for either of my columns, though. It's the story of a woman who has lost her job. Her husband works gig jobs, doing things like emptying litter boxes for the very wealthy. The woman volunteers for experimental surgery to (slightly) change her face, so that surveillance cameras can't identify her. She does this because it pays a lot of money, but then she uses the money to take her husband and two kids on a visit to a botanical garden, which is extremely expensive because all the actual forests and flowers and insects and so on have been killed off by climate change. 

There's a lot here about kids using screens non-stop and AI doing the parenting and gig work and the flaws of capitalism and precarity and blah blah blah. Nothing new, to be honest, and nothing new to say about any of it.

This is an extremely depressing book. Maybe don't read this unless you like novels where the characters are powerless and their lives are catastrophes.

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. 

This is a re-read. If you haven't ever read this book, I highly recommend it. It's about Francie Nolan, a poor kid in Brooklyn from her birth to when she leaves the city in the first two decades of the 20th Century. Based on Smith's own life and memories of Brooklyn, it was originally published in 1943. I've been reading and re-reading this book since I was about ten years old, and I re-read it after watching the 1943 movies on YouTube (it's free, though you do get a few ads).

The movie is pretty good, but the book is better. Much more realistic than you might expect from a book written in the 40s, and centered almost entirely around the women characters -- Francie's brother and father are main characters, but it's mostly a story about her mother and sisters and grandmother, as well as Francie herself.

Fumi Yoshinaga, What Did You Eat Yesterday?

This is a manga which is mostly about cooking in Japan, though there's a little peripheral drama among the people doing the eating and cooking. Also quite a bit about shopping in Japan. The main characters are the lawyer, who does most of the cooking, and his boyfriend who is a hair stylist. The series started in 2007, and there's a bit of angst from Shiko, the lawyer, because he's not out while his boyfriend, Kenji, is. Shiko is a tightwad, and Kenji a spendthrift, so there's some squabbling about that. 

Apparently the manga was made into a TV show, but I haven't seen that. I haven't read all the volumes either-- there's a billion of them -- but if you like cooking and representations of quotidian life, you might like this one.

Fumi Yoshinaga is also the creator of Ooku, which won the Tiptree Award/Otherwise Award in 2009.

UGH TIMES TWO

One of my teeth had been hurting, so I went to the dentist today. Not one but two abscessed teeth.

Consultation with the oral surgeon guy at dawn tomorrow.

GOD.

How the GOP Governs

In Arkansas, as in much of the United States, grocery, fuel, and rent prices are climbing. I paid ten dollars for a dozen eggs last week, and flour prices have doubled over the past few years. Even things I used to live on because they were cheap -- rice, chicken, potatoes -- are now expensive. A whole chicken is $4.99/pound, when you can find one. You can't always even get a whole chicken. And white meat and thighs are even more expensive. 

In Arkansas, our education system is failing. We're 44th in the Nation. 

Housing prices have skyrocketed over the past ten years.

Farms are failing.

Health insurance prices are climbing.

What is our GOP government, led by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, doing in response? Why, they're mandating that every school, including universities, including our flagship university, put copies of the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. This is, obviously, blatantly unconstitutional, which bothers absolutely no member of the GOP, which daily wipes their asses on the Constitution.

They're making it illegal for trans people to pee in the bathroom that matches their gender.

They're keeping all three trans women in the state from playing sports.

They're forbidding Fayetteville from becoming a "sanctuary city." (Fayetteville was not a sanctuary city. We're just relatively liberal compared to the rest of the state, which is, of course, a crime.)

They are, in other words, appealing to their bigoted base by harming the least powerful people in the state. That's how the GOP operates. It doesn't solve any of the problems, it doesn't help the people. It just gives them someone to hate, and makes their bigotry feel virtuous.

That's our country. That's what conservatives want.

Why does it matter if Sanders forces universities to put religious displays in university classrooms? Let me tell you a little story. This is from when I was teaching History of the English language. One day early in the semester I was explaining the Great Vowel Shift, and how it worked. To do that I had to back up to the Proto-Indo-European language, and how sounds diverged as dialects grew into separate languages over the vast arc of time.

After class, one of my students came up to me and asked why I hadn't talked about the Tower of Babel and how that had caused the one language that everyone spoke to become many languages. She was a sweet student, who had been educated in an Evangelical church school, so I had to gently explain to her the difference between religion and science. "In universities," I remember saying, "we use evidence-based data to understand how things happen, how they came to be. Religions rely on revelation and faith, and that's not how we work in the academy."

Imagine me trying to say that with religious texts plastered on the wall. Imagine trying to do science, or explain about deep time, or get students to understand evolution, when Sarah Huckabee Sanders has told them their religion, their version of that religion, is the ultimate authority, in the universities as well as in their churches.

FAux News

Having listened to Fox News in more than one waiting room over the past month, this is indeed exactly what it is like:

Transcript: Three people in an airport with luggage watching a giant TV screen. The newscaster is saying, "It's also the Democrat's fault that your flight is delayed by three hours and you'll be seated behind a screaming baby."

UGH

Now *I* have a toothache.

And the dentist can't see me until Tuesday.

Luckily so far Tylenol is handling it. Though apparently that will make me (more) autistic.

Octavia Butler: Library of America No. 393

I received the new Library of America volume of Butler's work (no. 393, as they list it -- volume 393, I want to say) yesterday. 

If you're not familiar with the Library of America series, it's a series published by a non-profit with the purpose of keeping works of classical American literature in print. 

This is the second volume of Butler's work they have published. The first contained Fledgling, Kindred, and some short stories, including "Bloodchild," which is probably her most well-known short story. 

Parable of the Sower, in which Butler apparently saw Trump coming (actually, she just took Reagan and the world of the 1980s and extrapolated), is probably her best-known novel at this point. Not her best novel. That's almost certainly Fledgling, though I would be willing to listen to arguments for the Lilith's Brood trilogy, which is what this new volume contains.

I didn't really need to buy this volume, since I already have Lilith's Brood in paperback. But the Library of America volumes are lovely books, and also I wanted to read the extra material -- the notes, some letters from Butler, and the introduction, by Imani Perry. Yes, I'm a nerd. But if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't have come across this note:

Writers have no idea about the quality of their work. None. 

Ugh My Knee Hurts

Which brings up the perennial question: Should I go see my primary care physician, or am I just at the point in life where everything is going to hurt all the time?

I'm choosing the latter, not because I actually think it's true, but because I can't bear spending one more hour in a doctor's waiting room.

Feeling Gloomy

Mainly it's because of Dr Skull's health problems -- on top of everything else, he now has an infected tooth which has to be pulled as soon as possible -- but also because of the state of the country, which honestly, can we please not?

While I was sitting in the waiting room at the oral surgeon waiting for Dr Skull, Fox News was playing on the television. It's just ludicrously non-stop propaganda. Can people actually take that silliness seriously? They spent twenty minutes saying, over and over, that the Democrats had shut down the government because of their hatred for Trump. 

No explaining. No further details. Just that, over and over.

Then they moved on to "left wing violence," which has apparently increased over the past decade. Again, they just said that over and over, for about ten minutes.

As we were leaving, they had moved on to Trump, who is the best president ever. Everyone agrees!

This is my country? This is my country.

Another Five Hours in the ER

Dr Skull had uncontrollable shivering and a fever so I took him to the ER, where we sat for five hours and then left AMA.

Good thing we don't live in Canada, huh? Imagine what a nightmare it would be to have socialized medicine.

Also

We went to Whole Foods last night as a treat and SO MANY people were there. I cannot deal with crowds and noise and being trapped in a crowd with no clear escape route, so by the time we had been there like ten minutes I was jittering on the edge.

We did see the kid's main professors and their two adorable children, so that was a nice bit. The older one was running around with monarch butterfly wings, very cute. The younger one is still an infant, but also very cute.

And we got some excellent sourdough bread and the last of the season's figs. Worth it? Maybe.

What MAGA does to Education

On the one hand, this is sort of funny, in a depressing way: the MAGAts took over New College in Florida because it was "too woke," and have been spending tons of money turning it into a failure. (H/t Nicole and Maggie.)

For example, the new trustees decided one of the problems was that too many women were attending the college. (Because women = woke.) So they recruited unqualified men to enroll in the college, with exactly the result anyone might have predicted. 

Retention has fallen off a cliff, as qualified students leave to get a better education elsewhere and the unqualified students flunk out, or just quit attending.

DeSantis wanted this all to work so badly that New College got a blank check from the legislature, and Josh Moody at Inside Higher Ed reports that the school has been using that check and loading it with zeros. Annual cost per student at other Florida state system schools = $10,000. At New College it's more like $134,000. No, that is not one my typos.

(Snip)

Nathan Allen, who was VP of strategy at New College for 18 months after the takeover told Moody that he thinks legislators may be running out of patience:

“I think that the Senate and the House are increasingly sensitive to the costs and the outcomes,” Allen said. “Academically, Richard’s running a Motel 6 on a Ritz-Carlton budget, and it makes no sense."

The real punchline, of course, is that this is what Trump supporters want to do -- and are doing -- to universities all over the nation. They are destroying what had been a flawed but world-class educational system in order to piss off liberals. Oh, they claim it's because they don't want students "indoctrinated," but what they mean is, they want to indoctrinate students. (Actually educating students is far too likely to lead to those students becoming progressive.)

Meanwhile, MAGA is still doing its best to make the deification of Charlie Kirk (Charlie Kirk! FFS!) a litmus test, firing those who won't whimper about what a great guy Kirk was, or recite the correct catechism about his wonders and miracles. This raving over-reaction, which reminds me of the Satanic panics of the 1980s, may have gotten at least one young black man killed.

Meanwhile, the GOP has shut down the government because the Democrats in government won't cave in and allow Medicaid to be funded by the very poorest of Americans. If you can't afford healthcare, you should just die -- this has been the GOP "healthcare plan" all along.

And, meanwhile, they are also driving the economy off a cliff. Why? Apparently because someone who knew nothing about economics told Trump how he could make American manufacturing great again, and now everyone around Trump is too terrified to explain to him what a stupid idea tariffs are.

Meanwhile, Trump want to use the US military to invade "woke" cities and destroy "the enemy within." What enemy would that be? Not just liberal or progressives or immigrants or trans people, though yes, all of that group. No, the "enemy within" is anyone who won't lick Trump's boots, or won't lick them enough.

Meanwhile, Trump already using his federal forces to attack cities he sees as enemy cities, most lately Chicago. Portland is apparently next on his list. In Chicago, doors were broken down and men, women, and children ripped from their beds, zip-tied -- some of the naked -- and hauled away to undisclosed holding areas, where they are going unfed, unwashed, and uncared for. People were pepper-sprayed. People were beaten. Some of these people were immigrants, and some were US citizens. Your status doesn't matter. If Trump sees you as an enemy, you're an enemy. (Bear in mind that he sees all immigrants, all brown people, all LGBTQ people, as enemies, or potential enemies,)

Meanwhile, the GOP is doing everything they can to stave off their defeat in the midterms, including redrawing voting districts to disempower non-white people. 

Does any of this matter? Not to conservative Americans. So long as trans people are suffering, that's all they need to make them happy.

It's been a long time since I was naively proud of my country, but more and more lately, the nation just makes me sick.

The Return of Dr Skull

He's been released from the gulag, I mean hospital.

He's not well, but he's better.

Dr Skull in the Hospital

Dr Skull is in the hospital again, this time because his potassium levels are very low. That's probably related to his kidney disease.

That's what that last post was all about. Argh. Can't the course of ordinary life run smoothly, just for a little while?

Honest Question Slash Vague Post

Does life have to be SO MUCH, ALL THE TIME?

I mean, can't we have one week where nothing happens? 

Back when Dr Skull and I were both teaching and the kid was little and we were stony broke and everything kept falling apart, we used to say to each other, "Life is just one fucking fuck-up after the next." 

Still true.

Dr Skull and I

I don't get nearly as many migraines as I used to, and Dr Skull had never actually said this to me. But I can feel him thinking it.

Alt-Text: Man standing by a woman who is sitting with her head in her hands. He says, "I'm sorry your head hurts, sweetie -- is there anything I can do to make you shut up about it?"

Living in a Progressive Household

So Dr Skull bought a chinois to aid in the production of some sort of fancy cooking, I can't remember what and probably I couldn't spell it if I could. Glace de viande? Is that right?

A chinois

For those of you who do not live with an obsessive cook, a chinois is a fine-meshed conical metal strainer used to puree food or to strain things like clarified butter, which is what Dr Skull and the kid were using it for yesterday.

The name comes from the French. It is called that not because the strainer comes from China, but because it "resembles an Asian conical hat."

Yesterday, Me: "Isn't that kind of racist?"

Dr. Skull: "No."

The kid: "It does sound kind of racist."

Me: "Let me ask the internet."

(Some time passes)

Me: "The internet is divided on the question. Some say it's not racist, others say we should say conical strainer instead."

The Kid: "We can just call it a conical strainer, that's not a big deal."

Me: "It's from the French, and apparently the French are okay with it."

The Kid: "Well, even so."

Me: "Let's call it a conical strainer."

Dr. Skull: "Call it what you want, just find me some cheesecloth."

For those who are interested, it did strain the clarified butter very nicely.

Shamus at the Dog Park

There was a whippet/greyhound mix at the dog park this morning, so Shamus finally had a friend who could run as fast as he could.

Also it was chilly enough that I had to wear a jacket. Fall has arrived!

Shanah Tovah!

We celebrated Rosh Hashanah today -- I did most of the cooking, because Dr. Skull is still recovering. We did buy brisket from Zabars, with overnight shipping, which was appalling expensive. But Dr. Skull was not up to making a brisket this year.

Also on the menu: asparagus, potatoes, fried apples with a bit of honey, and both plain and raisin challah.

The kids and I found some running water to throw our bread into. This was surprisingly hard*, mainly because of the flooding we've been having. The place I was planning to go to was barricaded off. But we found a place on Skull Creek that worked.

After that, we had dinner. Uncle Charger came over, and the kid and his husband. Shamus was very glad to see everyone, so glad that eventually I had to lock him in his crate for a bit. 

Apple cider and white wine were beverages of choice. Honeycake for dessert.

A good time was had by all.

*In Fort Smith, we would drive over to the riverfront park, but the Arkansas river does not run through Fayetteville.

Fall!

Look at this beautiful weather:

Days and days with highs in the 70s and low 80s. Yes, please.

We've had a lot of rain over the past few days, and more is coming on. But that's a small price to pay.

And it's almost October. My favorite month, except for February, and February isn't quite as good, since if February comes, can June and July be far behind?

The End of Summer

Thank God.

Weather guy says highs in the 70s are on their way. More rain is coming as well, which is fine, except for how much the dog hates rain. What a delicate flower he is!

RAIN

We've got rain and thunder here. The dog is extremely vexed with me. I am, after all, in charge of the weather.

COVID and Flu Vaccine

Dr. Skull and I got both, with relatively little hassle, at the local Walgreens. No side effects except that the injection site is a little sore.

Preliminary research is showing the current COVID vaccine is pretty effective. Get it if you can, that's my advice. Our primary care physician recommended it strongly, saying we still don't know enough about the after effects of getting COVID for him to be willing to risk it.

Meanwhile, Trump's CDC is doing their best to limit people's access to this vaccine and to others. 

I'm tempted to believe that this is because they want a nation filled with dead or chronically ill people, but it's not even that. It's simply playing to the ignorance of their base. They know MAGA is fully invested in the lie that vaccines are dangerous and ineffective, so they're telling them what they want to hear. Too bad about all the little kids and old people who will suffer. That's politics!

  

One Last Thing about Our Lord and Savior Charlie Kirk

I've seen more than one "Christian" insisting Kirk was killed because he was a Christian. The claim is he used his platform to preach Christianity, so he was killed. 

I don't think they realize what this reveals about their definition of Christianity. 

No hate like Christian love.

Scored Vaccines

Dr. Skull and I are getting COVID and flu vaccines today at Walgreens. I'm sure in a day or two, this will become a high crime. Luckily, we're retired, so the university can't fire me.

Jimmy Kimmel, on the other hand...

I was going to ask if we've reached fascism yet, but we passed that goalpost some time ago. The blatant firing of anyone who dares to speak against the MAGA cult or their god du jour is a worrying sign, however.

Five More Days of Summer

I'm ready for some real fall now please.

The weather report says rain is coming. Usually we get cooler weather on the other side of rain. Fingers crossed.

Living by Lies

I always thought it was Terry Pratchett who said, "A lie can run around the world while the Truth is getting its boots on," but apparently it was Mark Twain (though in a slightly different form).

Thinking about this a lot this week.

Blood in the Water

I'd wager less than 2% of the "conservative" "Christian*" right who are throwing tantrums about how we are "celebrating" Charlie Kirk's death even knew who Charlie Kirk was before this happened. 

By "celebrating" they mean things like quoting Kirk's own words, or refusing to agree that he was a saint and a hero who was nice to everyone and never ever said anything hateful or harmful. If someone says, well, maybe that's not true, they immediately begin shrieking threats.

It's the power they want. They could not care less about who Kirk was, what he said, how he made his fortune. They don't care that he's dead, either, or how he died. They just love being able to hurt people.

I'm banning myself from social media for awhile. The smug bigotry is making me ill.

What's a Groyper, Anyway?

 Sharing for those of you who do not have a 20-something at home to clear things up:

Text: First Panel: Groypers are an ultra-nationalist Neo-Nazi group born out of the 2010's meme culture, led by Nick Fuentes, who in 2019 started what was dubbed "the Groyper Wars." They targeted the left, but also Mainstream Conservatives.

Second panel: Charlie Kirk was one of the main targets of the Groyper Wars. He was considered a "fake conservative" because he accepted debate with gays and Jews. Groypers routinely attempted to derail his debates and force him into extreme positions.

Third panel: Groypers used progressive symbols as strategy to confuse people about their actual beliefs. For example, the protest song "Bella Ciao" was chosen as one of the "theme songs" of the Groyper wars.

Fourth panel: "Hey, Fascist, Catch," is a meme referencing a code for the total annhilation in the shooting game Helldivers2. "Notices bugle OWO what's this" is another hateful meme used to harass the furry community, a common target of the Far-Right.

Fourth Panel Continued: Tyler Robinson is a soldier in the Groyper Wars who has fallen so deep into internet culture that most people can't even recognize it.

 

So he's a Far-Right Extremist who shot Kirk because he didn't think Kirk was far enough to the right. What reaction to this are we seeing on the Right? Either they have dropped their weepy worship of Charlie Kirk (who to be fair was hardly any sort of hero) and are pretending nothing happened  the way they do when someone who isn't trans shoots up a school; or they continue to claim that the shooter was a liberal.

Facts don't matter. Only their feelings matter. 

Free Speech, But Not That Speech

ETA: Here is the Go Fund Me for the Texas professor who was fired. Hat tip N&M.

The screeching over-reaction from the Right after Kirk's death is sure something.  You remember how they liked to scream about "witch hunts" when people were fired or impeached because of actual crimes? How they celebrated the January 6 rioters, who were actual insurrectionists?

Every accusation from the Right is a confession.

Teams of Right-Wing jackasses are getting teachers, artists, newscasters, and others fired -- and calling for them to be arrested -- because those people didn't perform pious grief at the death of a grifter. Some of them simply quoted things the grifter said. This, apparently, is hate speech. Not hate speech on the part of the grifter! Hate speech on the part of those who quoted what he said.

As with the professor (and her chair, and her dean) who was fired for simply teaching that there is a difference between biological gender and gender performance, this is an attempt to control speech, to frighten people into saying and thinking only what MAGA thinks is acceptable.

These are the same people who threw tantrums about free speech when people were criticized for saying racist things, or making bigoted jokes. That was a danger to free speech. This? This is justice.

 

Dog Parks and Mosquitoes

They don't spray for mosquitoes here in my socialist hellhole. I approve, because the spray only sort of works to eliminate mosquitoes, and does a great deal of harm to other insects, which as we all know are in a precipitous decline, as well as harming birds that eat insects.

But this means mosquitoes are pretty bad at the moment. I had one inside the house last night.

They're really bad at the dog park at the moment, so I might have to stop going.

Tips? Suggestions?

Freedom of Speech

But not that speech.

The video, which does not show anyone’s face, captures audio of a student objecting to a professor teaching that there are more than two genders. The student says this conflicts with President Donald J. Trump’s executive order and her religious beliefs, and the professor responds she has a right to teach the lesson and the student has a right to leave. 

The student clearly set the professor up. She had not "won" in the previous class, when who knows what she said; so she came back with a camera and a specific script. It's not "legal" to teach that trans people exist. Not legal.

The university caved and fired the professor. Of course they did.

When I was in the classroom, I had more than one student run whining to my chair and to the dean because I taught things they didn't like -- for example, that the Catholic church existed before the Protestant church. Or that the world was four and a half billion years old and that learning this fact upset some people during the Modernist era. These were taught as part of the Global Literature class.

I also had a student complain to the chair and to the dean because I assigned a book that had "bad" words in it. (Angels in America.) Another time, as student complained because I assigned a James Baldwin story which was (the student said) against her religion. (The story was "Sonny's Blues.") 

In all these cases, the chair and the dean backed me up. That would not happen in today's climate.

Let's be clear: if people can be fired for speaking about trans people, then people can be fired for speaking about anything which is not approved by the party in power. Talking about black people. Or Jews. Or Palestinians. Or feminists, or Quakers, or any group not in favor at the moment. 

As P. Z. Myers notes, the world's top university system is being destroyed, and for what? So a herd of whiny little "Christians" don't have to admit that trans people exist, or brown people are people, or that women have rights. It's disgusting.

(Scare quoted because these "Christians" aren't Christian, in that they don't follow Christ. They're Romans, and if they met Christ today, they would execute him. No, not really. They're not brave enough for that. They'd have ICE deport him and talk about what patriots they are for doing so.)

The video is posted on X/Twitter.
https://x.com/brianeharrison/status/1965093848520294565

If you don't want to give X/Twitter your click, below is the transcript:

Prof: Kind of recap our remarks on gender and sexuality we bring from last class. One thing we didn’t get to last class -

Student: I just have a question because I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching. Um. Because according to our president, um, there’s only two genders and he said he would freeze um, uh, agencies' funding programs that promote gender ideology. Um, and this also very much goes against I, not only myself, but a lot of people’s religious beliefs. Um, and so I am not going to participate in this because, um, it’s, it’s not legal and I don’t want to promote something that is, um, against our president’s laws as well as against my religious beliefs.

Prof: You certainly have a right to engaging in things that find [unable to hear]. Are you suggesting they are false?

Student: Yes

Prof: You are under a misconception that what I’m saying is illegal.

Student: Uh, can you explain to me how, um, how teaching us, um, about gender identity and transgenderism and, um, and there’s more sexes 

Prof: My gender isn’t illegal.

Student: Huh?

Prof: My gender isn’t illegal.

Student: Gender? What do you mean? Your gender is not illegal? According to President Trump’s executive order. If, if you want me to read the paragraph and the order itself...

Prof: If you are uncomfortable in this class, you do have the right to leave.

Student: Yes.

Prof: What we are doing is not illegal. And if you would like to make the claim that it is, you need to talk to the department head or the head of undergraduates.

Student: Well I’ve already been in contact with, um, the president of A&M and actually have a meeting with him in person to show all of my documentation tomorrow. But, um...

Prof: We are also aware and this is part of why there was an observer in class yesterday.

Student: Yes.

Prof: Um, I’m not convinced that your proposal will be effective in stopping me from teaching things that are biologically true because I do have the legal and ethical authority and professional expertise in this classroom.

Student: Okay.

Prof: And it’s time for you to leave.

Student: Yeah. No, I am. I am. I.

Woo, Chilly!

It was 56 degrees when I took Shamus to the dog park at dawn. I actually had to wear my hoodie. Nice!

We're going to have a five or six day stretch when the highs are in the low 90's, but then it looks like fall will actually arrive. My favorite time of year!

Oh No

False fall is over. Highs in the 90s this week.

I was almost ready to break out my sweaters. I did bake bread during the unseasonable cool spell, so there's that.

Meanwhile, here is Shamus playing with his herding ball. He is so happy.

False Fall!

It's the first day it's been both cool and not-humid, so I've opened the windows. The cats are pleased. The dog is extremely confused. I think maybe he didn't know windows could open.

Because of the screened porch, I have this by my workstation:

It's lovely. I am writing in a cool breeze and birdsong and occasional crowing from the rooster next door.

Shamus confused by the open window