XKCD Stings Today

 The original is here.

Disaster Relief

So remember that talking point before the election, when Trump's regime was claiming Biden diverted FEMA money* to send illegal immigrants money? Such outrage from the Right. Such exclaiming about brown people eating the dogs and cats while Biden was paying their rent.

We had tornados rip through Arkansas on Easter Sunday, and another set just before that. To her credit, Sarah Huckleberry Sanders applied for disaster relief.

Trump has denied it. You can't, after all, fund FEMA and give billionaires huge tax breaks at the same time.

As you can imagine, this has our local MAGA Republicans outraged. The hyena isn't supposed to eat THEIR faces. Tom Cotton, among others, has written a letter begging Trump to reconsider. Better polish up those boot-licking skills, Tom, you're gonna need them.

Easter Sunday tornado hit about a mile from my house

*Biden did no such thing, of course. The FEMA money went to the victims of the flood. As we should know by now, every accusation from today's conservatives is actually a confession. They accuse because that is what they are doing, or would do if they had the chance. See also: accusing trans people and drag queens of pedophilia and assaulting women.

What I Like about Living in Fayetteville So Far

 (1) The weather. We're only fifty miles north of where we used to live, but the weather is so much better. Clearer, crisper air, about five degrees cooler on the average, and one beautiful day after the next. Well, we did have that tiny tornado on Easter Sunday. But other than that!

(2) The library. So many books! Also, it's three stories tall and I need books on all three levels (first floor is where the holds are picked up, second is the fiction, third is the large print and non-fiction), so why join a gym when I can just go to the library. 

Downside: everyone in town loves the library as much as I do, as it not only has a ton of books but also programs for every age group -- story hour, cooking classes, yoga -- all day long. So sometimes it is not just hard but impossible to find parking at the library, despite the three-story parking garage and auxiliary parking out back. I mean, this is good, I love a city where people love the library; but it's a little frustrating when I have to leave without going in because I can't park.

(3) The Co-Op, or Ozark Natural Foods Co-op. Locally owned and supported by residents, the Co-Op provides "locally grown, responsibly sourced" food, some of it from local farmers and artisans. I could live on their chicken pies. The kid says I already do.

(4) The infrastructure. Fayetteville is inhabited by people who care about the community. It's a city being built for and run by the people (who are pretty much 90% progressive). So we have bike and walking trails and parks everywhere, recycling not just permitted by encouraged, green spaces (though not as many as there used to be), that library, and a planning board that thinks about the aesthetics of the town, not just giving tax breaks to billionaires. You don't know what most cities are like until you live in a city that makes sense.

There's also free public transit, funded by the university and the city, but only in certain areas.  If you don't happen to live in those areas, the free public transit isn't that useful. Nor does it really keep students from bringing their cars to school and then driving like toddlers around the city, sadly. (We do have a lot of rich kids from Texas whose daddies have bought them GIANT trucks and SUVs to tool around town in, and like many 18 year olds they have no sense of self-preservation.)

(5) The variety of restaurants. In Fort Smith, we had one good restaurant -- Las Americas -- and a couple of burger joints that were okay. The Chinese food sucked, the pizza sucked, the general American food restaurants were mediocre. Here, these are so many good restaurants that we are hard pressed to choose what we want. And there are other good ones we haven't even tried. Excellent pizza, outstanding Chinese food, diners, breakfast places. Amazing.

(6) The university. I'll admit I've only skirted the edge of this resource. Come fall, I plan to be studying Greek and Latin there. And there's a theater, a huge library, museums, an immense gym -- all of this will be accessible to me once I'm a student. Cannot wait.

(7) Bookstores. All Fort Smith had was Bibles a Million. Here, there's the Dickson Street Bookstore, as well as a Barnes and Noble, and several smaller secondhand shops. With the library, though I have less need of bookstores. And my purchases from Thrift Books have plummeted.

(8) Jeni's Ice cream. I can get it via Whole Foods but also through my local Harps. The kid accuses me of being obsessed, and I do admit I tend to horde pints of it. My favorites at the moment are the Cold Brew and Coconut Milk; Milk Chocolate; Darkest chocolate; Brown Butter Brickle; and Boston Cream pie. However, Jeni's is coming out with new flavors, which I await in anticipation.

(9) Bird song. There are so many more birds here. I love their singing, especially in the morning, though they sing all day. A hawk hunts the green space behind the house. Watching him hunt is beautiful. There's a rooster living next door, whose crowing charms me. There are more insects here too, which is why there are more birds, I suspect. Fort Smith residents tended to drench their yards with Round-Up, which killed off the insects, and maybe the birds that ate them. Though maybe the birds just left for better fields -- I did used to see birds in the park down by the river there.

(10) The children. There are children here, and they play outside. I could go weeks without seeing a child outside in the Fort. The kids here walk home from school, which is possible because most of the neighborhoods here have sidewalks. An ice cream truck trawls my neighborhood every day around 4:00. An ice cream truck! Do you know how long it's been since I saw one of those?

(11) Dogs. Partly this is because I live by the dog park, but I'm seeing so many dogs. All on leashes, I might add, again opposed to the Fort, where people let their dogs run wild. Also, hardly any of them are pit bulls. 

(12) My new house. It's on this quiet street not too far from a dog park. I have a deck. I have that marvelous view off the deck, of the green space behind the house. This neighborhood is also so quiet at night. It's wonderful. 

Junti Contemplates the Green Space

The Trade Off

 From over at Alas, A Blog:

I stay off of Twitter these days, because it's 90% ads and 8% hate and silly misinformation, with only 2% posts anyone sane would care to read, but from what I can tell, this is absolutely accurate. Most people are bewildered or angry about the tariffs and the tax cuts for Elon, but so long as Trump lets them hate trans people and immigrants, it's fine.

Why Trump Supporters Still Support Him

The fact is, they think they're immune from the actions taken by the Trump regime. They think the hyenas aren't going to eat their faces.

Think about what that means. 

It means they're fine if these things happen to us. If my kid is arrested or assaulted for doing something like pissing in the wrong bathroom, that is fine with them. If my kid's professor or friend or neighbor is deported because they're Hispanic or Muslim, that's fine with them. If you or your spouse or your friend gets fired for being "woke," that's fine too. 

That's what they want to happen. 

If your neighbor or you, for that matter, if you're arrested because you supported the wrong person in the latest election, or if your business collapses because people can't afford to buy things, that's great! If your disabled child can't get the help they need because Trump's regime cut funding to your public school, as far as they're concerned, that's wonderful. If your kid dies because you can't afford the health care they need, hey, shouldn't have been born poor or "weak," should they?

When it happens to them, you might ask, will they be sorry? Well, they'll be sorry for themselves. But they're still going to say fuck you, because you had it coming. 

Dr Skull's Health Improves and I get a Tasty Dinner

 The pain clinic put Dr. Skull on steroids, which has improved his pain level so much that he was able to cook dinner for me for the first time in months. Chicken Marsala, mushrooms, asparagus, bread, and Death Water. This is the high life, y'all.

What Am I Even DOING with My Time

(1) My kid and his husband are moving into a townhouse. Their current place is 441 square feet, and their kitchen has no drawers. The new place has no washer/dryer, but there's a laundromat literally half a block away. Anyway, I'm only ancillary to this move, but it's still been occupying some of my time.

(2) Home Repair. We've been putting in a walk-in shower, because Dr. Skull has trouble using tub-showers anymore. His back injury precludes stepping in and out of tubs. I've been helping him in and out, but that's a short term stop gap. The walk-in shower is nice, and we hired a contractor to handle all the various plumbers and so on, but MAN it's a lot of work on my end even so.

(3) Medicare. I've almost got everything worked out, but again, a lot of work on my end.

(4) Reading for and writing reviews. This is fun work, but it's still work.

(5) GRADING PAPERS. This is the last set of comp papers I will ever have to grade. That is all that is keeping me going at the moment.

(6) Various medical and dental appointments. Most of these are for Dr. Skull, and one of the doctors is located in Fort Smith, which means a lot of driving.

(7) The current political situation. Contacting my reps daily. I'm pretty sure it's doing no good at all -- they keep sending me responses telling me I'm wrong and to stop worrying my pretty little head. But I persevere. I was glad to see the Supreme Court standing up to Trump. And of course I continue to donate to the ACLU, which is doing stellar work.

Ugh

I just realized that if I retire I have to clean my office out.

Three More Weeks

Three more weeks until the end of the semester. Well, four, if we're counting exam week.

Can I make it?

It's hard to say. I'm grading the major papers for my Comp I classes and HONESTLY.

Happy Pesach!

Tonight is the first night of Passover. I'm doing much of the cooking this year, since Dr. Skull is not able to stand or to grip things well. He did make the broth for the matzo ball soup, and he is supervising me on several other dishes. What are we having?

• Matzo ball soup
• Roasted chicken
• Potato kugel (made with actual schmaltz)
• Grilled asparagus
• KFP matzos
• Several desserts of affliction, including candy fruit slices, macaroons, and KFP chocolate cake
• KFP wine (not Manischewitz, actual wine, which is available here in our new city)

The kids and Uncle Charger are coming to the Seder. I'll share pix if I remember to take any.

Chag sameach! Gut Yontif! Don't forget to throw out your yeasted things*!

*We did not throw out our yeasted things.

That's Professor Emeritus to You

The university board of trustees has granted me Emeritus status. The main benefit to me at the moment is I get to keep my university email. Yay!

STOP THE CHILD ABUSE

 A cartoon:

(Transcript: First panel: A woman wearing a teeshirt that says "Adult Human Female" is practically sobbing with outrage. She says, "We need to act to ban trans care and make sure children develop naturally and healthily!" Next panel: a woman gobbling a burger and fries asks, "So you're going to do something about ultra-processed foods and additives? Against rampant child malnutrition?" Third panel: Same woman in a hockey suit asks, "Will you ban ballet classes, since they alter children's muscles and limbs forever? Or contact sorts like hockey or football, for giving them lifelong head traumas and concussions?" Four Panel: Same woman, looking disgusted: "Or is hunting down a handful of trans kids who just want to live their life as themselves and participate in society more urgent than all this?")

I've noticed transphobes who bleat about "natural development" and "mutilating children" could not care less about the damage being done by sports programs around the nation, or yes, ballet, for that matter; or about the damage being done by social expectations for little girls to be skinny and cute above all; or such "mutilations" as nose jobs, breast enlargement surgery or breast reduction surgery for boys with gynocomastia. That's all fine.

I've also noticed they don't worry about "natural" development when they're putting braces on their kids teeth, buying them eyeglasses or contacts, and dying their own hair. All that is fine too. It's only the nasty transes we have to police.

Note: I would have never let my kid play hockey or football, and probably would have hesitated about ballet, for the reasons stated above. But I'm all for braces, eyeglasses, and whatever anyone wants to do with their own hair. My point here, though, is entirely other. They don't really care about trans kids. They care about being allowed to be bigots. Trans kids, and trans people, are a safe target right now. Ten years ago, they would have been attacking gay people. Thirty years ago, feminists. Fifty years ago, black people. It's all the same playbook, just different targets.

MURDERBOT TRAILER!!

It airs on May 16. I cannot wait.

May 2025 ON BOOKS

My Asimov's column, "On Books," for May 2025 is now live on the site.

It'll only be available for a few weeks, so get it while it's hot.

In this column, I review these books:

Kaliane Bradley,
The Ministry of Time

John Wiswell,
Someone to Build a Nest In

Jon Evans,
Exadelic

Beth Revis,
Full Speed to a Crash Landing

Beth Revis,
How to Steal a Galaxy

Madeline Ashby,
Glass Houses

Cebo Campbell,
Sky Full of Elephants

Kingfisher,
A Sorceress Comes to Call

Michael Bérubé,
The Ex-Human 

The Bradley book has just been nominated for a Hugo. Well-deserved!

Trump's Tariffs Explained

 Or, why your retirement fund is tanking: