My Media Sources

We don't have a television*, so I get zero amount of my news information from television. 

I used to subscribe to the Washington Post and to The New York Times, but dropped my subscriptions due to their editorial decisions.

Now I subscribe to these sources:

The Boston Globe (good, but a little too local in its focus)

The Atlantic (very good, with an in-depth reporting style I thought was gone forever)

The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (a local paper, which leans very much to the right, but at least seems sane, except for the letters to the editor section and an occasional editorial)

I also read a local free paper, The Fayetteville Flyer, which covers local events like council meetings and festivals and buildings applications. And I get some of my news through BlueSky -- not that they do reporting, but usually the news hits there first and then I can look to see what the AP site says, or the Globe. And I pick up some news from various blogs, and then do the same search.

Occasionally I will watch a segment from a television news station on YouTube, but these are so annoyingly vapid that I usually click away after a few minutes. 

If you can only have one news source, I recommend The Atlantic. Well worth the subscription fee.

*I'm not a television snob, honest. We watch TV shows -- we're watching the Pitt right now -- but we stream them. I grew up in a house where the TV was on all the time, and usually three televisions, all on at the same time, all turned up loud. When I moved into my own place and first experienced life without the racket of television, I was in paradise. So first we kept the TV in a little room of its own, and then we kept it in the closet and only brought it out to watch movies, and now we don't have one at all. It's wonderful.

"What is Trump Doing with these Tariffs?"

My kid asked me what Trump was up to with these tariffs.

"Crashing the economy," I said, "but I can't see why."

The simple answer is because he's an idiot, which is undeniably true. But I can't help thinking there's something even simpler behind it, like he thinks he's found a way to make himself (and Elon) richer by doing so. Since I'm not a billionaire, I don't know how that would work.

Also I'm sick*, so I'm not thinking on all cylinders. Here's what Camestros and their comment section have to say.

*I picked up a virus somewhere, which I hope isn't COVID. A cough, a sore throat, gastrointestinal issues, a fever. Plus general aches and blahness.

New Cost-Cutting Measures

ETA Update: There was so much outrage among local citizens that the Sebastian County police had to reissue this with APRIL FOOLS across it in red. Apparently the Venn diagram of people who hate electric cars, people who hate Leon Skum, and people who hate cops has a pretty big intersection point.

Wonderful idea!

From the Sebastian County Sheriff's office: 

We are proud to announce the purchase of 12 new Cyber trucks to add to our patrol fleet. At a purchase price of only $102k each these will more than pay for themselves in fuel cost savings. Due to a lack of charging stations in Sebastian County, we are giving you, the community, the opportunity to partner with us. If you live south of Greenwood and have an approved charging system, and would allow our units to stop by for a charge, we consider you a valued gold star community partner. These units will hit the county roads today, April 1st.

(Alt text: image shows a Cybertruck with a Sebastian County Sheriff logo on its site)

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

Those of you who, like me, love someone who is trans know how scary our country is for trans people right now. The instinct is to hide, and no one will blame anyone who does.

But standing up and being trans in public tells every frightened trans person that trans people are out there, and there are many of them. (As many of them as there are redheads in the world, according to some estimates.) 

Trans people are people. They have human rights. Those who tell you to hate them, those who tell vile lies about them, are as evil as the racists in 1950, who told the same lies about brown people as transphobes do now, and for the same reason: to give a fascist population someone to hate.

When I was a kid, they taught us in school that America was the one place on earth where everyone could be equal. Well, that wasn't true then, and it's not true now. But it's what the country means, it's the spine of our democracy -- everyone is equal under the law -- and I'm not settling for anything else.

This goes out to my kid and his husband, and all their wonderful friends.

First Home Repair

One of the things I liked about renting was that when things broke I could just call the landlord. Depending on the landlord (I've had both good and terrible landlords) they'd come fix it. Ta-da!

Yesterday the thingie in the toilet which makes the toilet flush broke in half. Thanks to the help of YouTube, I figured out not only that this was called a toilet chain, but also how to replace it. I got a new toilet chain today and fixed it in about two minutes.

Go me!

I highly recommend YouTube, btw, when you don't know how to do something. Someone will have made a video about how to do it, probably several someones. It's great.

Applying for Social Security and Medicare

I am doing it, God help me.

The Medicare bit is the most complicated so far. There's Part A and Part B and then like D through infinity, and you will need professional help (I have acquired it) to understand which part/s you need to apply for. 

Am I worried about what Trump and DOGE are going to do to the Social Security system I have been paying into since I was 15 years old and got my first "real" job? Yes, I am.

Eroding Rights, Collapsing Rights

We've probably all seen the video of the Tufts graduate student being arrested by ICE. 

She is a Fulbright scholar. She has never committed a crime. She has a valid visa. She is in a graduate program. She has not been charged with anything. She was simply seized and shipped out of state. No one is sure where she is now, and ICE will not let her lawyer talk to her.

As Matt Mikalatos says:

I've heard some people saying lately that there's no reason to be concerned, because immigrants don't have the same rights as citizens, and honestly I find this more stomach-churning than some of the directly racist or xenophobic things I've seen people say. Why on earth are people defending the government that's harming people instead of the vulnerable people being harmed?

I will promise you this: when a government starts violating rights of the vulnerable, it doesn't stop with a single population of people.

And as a Yale professor who has just accepted a job in Canada puts it:

“But how could you speak out loudly if you’re not an American citizen?” he questioned. “And if you can’t speak out loudly if you’re not an American citizen, when will they come for the American citizens? It’s inevitable.”

Call your reps. Make some noise. Clown show fascists are still fascists.

 

Stolen From Tumbr

 A fable for our times:

Trump Regime Stripping Away Rights

If they can do it to immigrants, they can do it to you.

If they can do it to tourists, they can do it to you.

If they can do it to people who have green cards, they can do it to you.

If they can do it to students, they can do it to you.

None of us are safe. All the Trump regime will need to do is redefine whatever category they please into "non-citizen," or "criminal," and that will be that. 

We're building new prisons in Arkansas, while cutting funds for schools and libraries. If you can't see why that's dangerous, you've been drinking too much Kool-Aid.

ETA:

Haircuts and Nicknames

 In Arkansas, one of our Republicans wants to create civil liability for anyone who "assists" transgender minors. That includes parents, and apparently anyone else on the planet, and it includes things like calling a kid by a name which doesn't "fit" their "biological gender," or allowing them to wear clothing that doesn't align with that gender:

"...any act by which a minor adopts or espouses a gender identity that differs from the minor’s biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles of the minor, including without limitation changes in clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, and name.”

(Emphasis mine)

Comments are asking if this means a parent allowing a kid to have a hairstyle (long hair, short hair) which doesn't "fit" their assigned gender will be prosecuted; or if buying jeans for your daughter creates civil liability.

But no. Of course it doesn't. No cis child will be prosecuted for wearing jeans, or having a ponytail. As with most laws, this one will be prosecuted selectively. It's a law that can be weaponized against trans people.

Laws about what clothing people were allowed to wear used to be common in the U.S. Women who wore jeans, men who wore blouses, these people could be arrested and prosecuted. Long hair on men was a crime. Men with eyeshadow or earrings could be prosecuted. These laws were not enforced against "good" people. Like the War on Drugs, they were a way to prosecute the "wrong" sort of people. That's how these laws will be used as well.

Arkansas governor and Trump wannabe Sarah Huckleberry Sanders and her supporters keep blatting about how parents should be in charge of their children, but that's not what they mean. It's not what any of them mean. They mean they want to put "good" parents in charge of their children. And their definition of "good" is parents who agree with them -- Evangelical Christian parents, Trump-supporting parents, bigoted parents. 

Parents like me, and other parents who don't see children as their possessions, as their weapons in a culture war -- we should be prosecuted. We should be jailed. We should definitely not be allowed to make decisions about our children's healthcare, or their education, or their lives. 

As with women's bodies, decisions like these should be left to the government. 

Spring Break Hoves Into View

And then after Spring Break it's only April until I retire -- five weeks and out.

My department is insisting on holding a retirement party for me. Don't they know how much I hate parties? Dr. Skull asked what I wanted to do for my birthday (last week) and I said, "Absolutely nothing. Let's do absolutely nothing."

So that's what we did.

I plan to spend Spring Break putting my books into alphabetical order and writing reviews for Interzone. Also drinking a lot of coffee. It's the perfect holiday.

Books, not yet in alphabetical order

The Kid's First Academic Conference

He's doing a poster presentation on "The Efficacy of Scientific Illustration in Portraying Large Herbivore Impact":

The Kid at the AABA

Violation of the First Amendment

The right to protest against the actions of our government is one of our fundamental rights. It's right there in the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

If Trump's regime can redefine that protest as "terrorism," and redefine a person with a green card as an "illegal immigrant," none of us are safe. 

This is one of the foundations of the country. Trump is violating it -- and his base have no problems with that violation. 

When they themselves are arrested, and when they find themselves scheduled for deportation, well, they'll be outraged. (If it happens to them or to their tribe, it's a crime. If it happens to liberals or brown people, it's hilarious.) It'll be too late at that point, of course.

Call your representatives now.

Ten Days Until Spring Break

 ...but who's counting?

(Asking for a friend.)

Via Pharyngula

 Anti-Semitism in the Oval Office, or that really bizarre behavior toward Zelenskyy explained:

The elements that emerged in conversation with Jerzy over the years -- the mockery of Jewish appearances, the need for Jewish submissiveness, the claims about dishonesty, greed, cowardice, and corrupt conspiracies -- figure in the scholarly literature on the subject.

        (snip) 

Zelens'kyi was elected on a peace platform in 2019, but Putin did not want to talk to him, in part because he did not think that Zelens'kyi showed him enough deference.  

        (Snip)

It was all there, in the Oval Office, in the shouting and in the interruptions, in the noises and in the silences. A courageous man seen as Jewish had to be brought down. When he said things that were simply true he was shouted down and called a propagandist. There was no acknowledgement of Zelens'kyi's bravery in remaining in Kyiv. The Americans portrayed themselves as the real heroes because they provided some of the weapons.  

Go read it all, as the kids today say.

To forestall the MAGAs: We've been told that Trump can't be anti-Semitic, because he has Jews in his own family. But that's like saying he can't be a misogynist because he married a woman. Pretty much all bigots are okay with "their" member of whatever group they hate. I've had transphobes explain to me that they know trans people, so they can't be anti-trans. 

Also, honestly, it's probably also to do with Zelenskyy having more backbone and being a better president than Trump. Trump, like most weak men, can't stand strength in those around him.

Original post at Pharyngula

See also this.