What I'm Reading Now

Ann Patchett, Whistler

I feel like I should read Patchett more than I do. Every time I pick up one of her books, I end up liking it a lot. Somehow I've never read straight through her publications as I do with other authors I like.

Anyway, this is one is good. It's about a woman, Daphne, in her fifties who runs across her former stepfather -- a man her mother was married to for a few months when Daphne was nine years old. They divorced shortly after Daphne and the stepfather were in an accident, and Daphne hasn't seen him since. But she has always remembered him and always loved him, and always blamed herself for the divorce.

Whistler is a horse, which neither Daphne nor anyone in her family has ever met. But his story turns out to be crucial to theirs. No spoilers otherwise.

I love this book a lot. It's also very short, but unlike many short books, it's exactly as long as it needs to be. 10/10, no notes.

Stephen Baxter, Evolution

I read all of this -- well, not every word, because I skimmed some bits where Baxter is just listing plants and various lifeforms in a given era -- so I guess I liked it. Baxter follows the genetic line of a specific human, from back before the Chicxulub Impact (when the ancestor was a small mammal) through 2034, when a volcano finishes destroying the current ecosystem, into the future when the sun explodes.

The main character is evolution and how it shapes one specific line of genetic material, with side excursions into other lines. It's accurate enough, especially as to how random and non-teleological evolution is, but since the main character is a mindless force of nature, it's a little hard to care what happens to any of the 'characters' in the story. It's an idea-not-character science fiction novel.

Baxter mentions but doesn't really deal with the accidental things that make up human/hominid consciousness and identity -- why we grieve, how we can be paralyzed with anxiety, addiction. Those would seem to be non-adaptive, and yet. I do like that he gives hominids these features, though, even if he never confronts them.

I read this one, but I don't think I'd read it again.

Stephen King, If It Bleeds

I think I had read this one before, but it's so hot I was looking for simple reads at the library. This is a collection of long short stories, three of them linked, and one containing our favorite character, Holly. The three linked stories, about a guy names Chuck, are honestly sort of dull, but the other stories are pretty good. Also, nothing too scary.

Worth reading if you just want something engaging that won't make you work hard.

Natasha Pulley, The Salt King

I actually listened to this one. I read it for a review with Asimov's, and loved it, of course. If you haven't yet read Pulley, this is a good one to start with. The audiobook, narrated by Luke R. Francis, is great. 

Like most of Pulley's books, we have a M/M romance at the center, though in this case it's a M/Supernatural Being relationship. And, as with most of Pulley's romance, it's mostly without any sort of physical passion. The two guys love each other, they just don't seem that interested in sex. 

Her previous book, The Mars House, was science-fictiony. This one is fantasy, which is what she normally writes; but not historical fantasy. Anyway, she's great, and this one is almost as good as my favorite book by her, The Kingdoms. Pulley is probably the only author who I buy in hardback *and* in audiobook.

This is Hilarious to Me

And by hilarious, I mean exactly what I would expect out of American "Christians."

As I've stated, I never was a big fan of Dolly Parton. I love country music, but mostly the Steve Earle / Jason Isbell / James McMurtry kind of county music. I didn't dislike Parton's music, it just didn't do much for me.

But Parton was clearly a good person, filled with the loving kindness that a true follower of Christ will have. She did the things Jesus said to do: loved her enemy, cared for the poor and sick, treated everyone as her neighbor. Furthermore, she spoke often about her faith, about loving and following Christ. Not only did she talk about it, she lived that faith.

And yet, American "Christians" are condemning her. I have seen more than one "Christian" claiming she is burning in hell. Why? 

Because she wasn't a bigot. How dare she not hate LGBTQ people? 

That's it. That's the entire reason.

Their "Christianity" boils down to just one rule: hate the right people. Nothing else matters.

Weather Report

Christ:

Eight days in a row of highs near or at 100 degrees. In September.

After that, highs in the mid-90s.

God.

Knee Update

The doctor ordered an X-ray, which shows "joint space narrowing of the patellofemoral compartment" "consistent with degenerative changes." The translates into "a little arthritis," the doctor says, and has prescribed a short course of anti-inflammatories.

If that doesn't fix it, he says we'll send me to an orthopedist.

It's better already, so I'm not too worried.

Surveillence State

I ordered a knee brace off the internet and since then every ad I see on YouTube or Amazon or the puzzle game I play on my phone is about canes, knee braces, knee surgery, and other ways to fix a knee.

(My knee is better today, though it still hurts.)

Knee Pain

I was at the Harps today, just walking like a normal person, when suddenly my knee went wonky.

Sharp pain, and then it started buckling. I could barely walk.

It went away after I sat down awhile, but then it came back. I could only just drive home.

Now I'm in my big chair with the knee elevated, looking up possible causes. My friend in the sciences says it might be incipient rheumatoid arthritis. Ugh.

Weather Report

Another heat dome is on the way. Ugh

Today is almost nice -- 70 degree when I went to the park with the dog at eight a.m.

But next week looks terrible.

Two more weeks of summer.

Anti-Vaxxers

One of the two people that died of measles in Pennsylvania was an infant.

All the anti-vaxxers who inquire (in bad faith) that if we have our measles vaccine, why do we care if others don't get it? Since we'll be protected by our magic shot, right?

This is why. Infants who are too young* for the vaccine can get the measles, and they are more likely to die of it than those of a more robust age. (Like six, which was when I got the measles. Not the shot. The actual disease. I lived before the vaccine was available, when children were still dying from the disease. About 200 kids died of it that year in America.)

“The real vulnerability is in infants between 6 and 11 months of age, as maternal antibody is waning and they haven’t gotten their first dose of the MMR vaccine,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Dallas.

In places where infants have a high risk of measles exposure, health authorities sometimes recommend an early dose of the vaccine for babies starting at 6 months old. That was the case during an outbreak in Texas last year, when two unvaccinated girls died of the disease.

Other people have immunological issues. They too can catch the measles. Some people, like me, lived before the measles vaccine was available and may never have caught the disease. Sure, they're likely to be old, so maybe anti-vaxxers don't care if they die. They didn't care during COVID, when "only" old people and people with immunological problems were likely to die of the virus. (Like my father, who was in his 80s, and had dementia. Who cares if he dies, right?)

These people have shrugged off the bonds of community. They aren't part of the community, they are declaring. Often they have their own insular (and whackaloon) community they have decided to belong to instead. That's their right, here in America.

But they're despicable all the same.

*12-15 months for the first shot, and a booster at ages 4-6

AI in the wild

(1) Guy at the dog park casually commented that he used AI to try to find out what kind of dog his mutt was. I hid my wince.

(2) The kid's husband is being compelled to use AI in his engineering class. WTF, I said. Apparently in the future engineers will use AI, he said, so we have to know how to do it. WTF, I said again. 

Donate to Imagination Library in Memory of Dolly Parton

 Link is here.

Dolly Parton RIP

Dolly Parton died today, and pretty much everyone is mourning her.  I was never a huge fan, but I held her in a lot of respect for the work she did fighting poverty and helping people in poverty get an education.

Over on Reddit, someone not from the US asked what Parton did that made her, in his words, a saint.

The first comment gives a list:

1. She is the founder of Dollywood, which is an amusement park that helped turn her hometown of Sevierville, TN from a small extremely poor town to a built up city with a large tourism economy. Dollywood pays a living wage to employees and covers full tuition, books, and fees for employees who want to attend college. She is one of the largest and best paying employers in that area, and the overall economy has grown immensely due to her efforts.

2. She founded the Dollywood Foundation and other scholarship efforts to improve high school graduation rates and help kids from Sevierville attend college.

3. She runs a large number of other charity projects, including an animal sanctuary. She runs a program called Dolly Parton's Imagination Library that sends free books to children.

4. She has donated a huge amount of money to disaster relief and children's hospitals. East TN Children's Hospital is now renamed as The Dolly Parton Children's Hospital in her honor. She's also made large donations to Vanderbilt for children's medical research, children's medical care, and COVID research. She has made a large donation to the Salvation Army as well.

5. She has a reputation for being kind, easy to work with, cool under pressure, and fair. She's been married to one man for her entire career and has no personal or political scandals. The only things she is known for are her musical career, her philanthropy, and her personal image. Her charity work is focused on universally beloved causes, not political campaigns or pet projects. She got a lot of heat for her image and background early in her career and she handled it with am immense amount of poise and grace. Her early interviews are pretty much a masterclass in how to address backhanded complements and rude comments with dignity.

TYWKIWDBI has several posts about Parton up on his page.

Erik Loomis weighs in.

From the Atlantic (gift link), something I didn't know: 

In 2020, she donated $1 million to help fund the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, then proudly received the shot.

This Guy.

Can we make this guy President:

We're being told that if we sacrifice the rights of some people, then the rest of us get to keep our rights. We all know that's some BS.

[image or embed]

— Abdul El-Sayed (@abdulelsayed.bsky.social) 10:19 AM · Aug 23, 2026

Hard link here. 

His wiki page.

Baby's First Cartoon

This is one of the first comics the kid ever made:

Translation, since only a mother could read the kid's handwriting:

First panel: Hello, Children!

Second panel: I'm Mr Happy-face!

Third Panel: Do you know what happens when you get old?

Fourth Panel: You die! (Kids, off-stage: Waah!)

No Power in Gary, IN

So apparently the power has been off in Gary, Indiana for ten days now.

Why isn't this national news?

We lost our AC for four days in August one year and I nearly fucking died. Ten days in a city in Indiana? 

God. Remember when America used to be a first world country? Good times.

Boycott the New York Times

In case you aren't already boycotting the New York Times, here's another good reason to join the boycott:

The nonprofit Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) found that, between 2024 and 2025, the Times published over 130 articles on trans issues, and only quoted trans people in 14 of them. Media Matters and FAIR both have found that the vast majority of articles they published contained misinformation or outright harmful rhetoric against the trans community.

The Times has even been cited in laws and court cases attacking trans rights. In 2024, Mother Jones reported on numerous different anti-trans state-level laws and legal battles that cited their reporting, including in Alabama, Idaho, and Missouri. The infamous US v. Skrmetti Supreme Court decision, which ruled that Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care is legal, cited the Times 29 times in justifying their decision.