I think I saw this first on Tumblr, though it might have been Reddit: a woman complaining about a Little Free Library near her house, because it gave people a reason to stop there and "do reconnaissance." At the end of the clip, she demands, "Are we even zoned for spontaneous public literacy?"
Another person objected to the Little Free Libraries because "anything" could be put in them. They didn't seem to mean drugs. I think it was porn they were worried about, though who knows, conservatives call everything porn these days. For examples, the very existence of a trans person or a gay person in a book makes that book pornography. (Hence the outrage because a public library had a copy of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.)
Honestly, about nine-tenths of being conservative is being afraid of things which are harmless. Do they fear an armed man in a grocery store? Heavens, no, that is simply a fella practicing the Second Amendment.
Do they fear a woman in a hijab? Why, of course! A woman with purple hair? Even scarier! A trans woman in public. OH MY GOD.
Vaccines scare them so much they prefer to risk their lives and their children's lives rather than get a few shots. This also risks the herd immunity that protects the immunocompromised and infants too young for vaccines, but that is fine, their irrational fears trump everything. (Pun intended.)
You might remember the whole mask uproar -- conservatives accused the rest of us of being "afraid" of COVID, unlike them. They didn't fear a little virus! And when Arkansas was passing a law that made concealed carry on university campuses legal, conservatives sneered. What were liberals afraid of, that they didn't want armed people wandering around on campus?
That's projection for you. They're so afraid of, well, everyone that carrying weapons everywhere seems, to them, sensible. But if we object to trying to teach sonnets while several people in the classroom are packing heat, we're the ones who are afraid.
So, obviously, books are too scary for conservatives. Anyone can read them; any idea at all might be in there; and even little children might learn to think for themselves.
Maybe it's because I'm on both Reddit and Tumblr, but I've seen a lot of discourse about migraines and headaches and chronic pain lately.
I used to have killer migraines that put me in bed for up to four days, and only improved when I started vomiting. (Why is vomiting a cure for migraines? I have no idea.) Those mostly stopped when I went through menopause, but I still get them a couple times a year. Medication does nothing.
I have had a constant low-grade headache -- like, my head always hurts -- since I was a child. From reading social media posts, I have learned that not everyone has a constant headache. Is this true? Medication does nothing, although once when I was in high school I took ten aspirin, which cut the pain a little.
Also, my joints and my bones have ached pretty much non-stop since I was about fifty. I remember telling my primary care physician about it when I was fifty-two and saying, "I guess it's because I'm old?"
"Fifty-two isn't old," she said, but she didn't suggest any sort of solution.
Then a couple months ago, as you know, my knee went out. My current PCP did an X-ray and determined nothing was wrong. He gave me some NSAIDs to take, and they did the trick. It's been fine since.
ANYWAY. I'm just curious. Is this typical, or am I weirdly filled with pain?
This clip from a townhall meeting shows a GOP operative attempting to create a viral clip which would make Democratic senate candidate Abdul El Sayed seem evil.
This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.
The take-away from this is that Christian Nationalists do not, in fact, support the Constitution above their own religious beliefs. Having lived among Evangelicals for decades, I could have told you that to begin with. It's part of their faith -- (their) God above all.
The Constitution says that this country does not have a religion; it allows us all to decide that for ourselves. Their churches say their singular way of believing in their God must be the God of everyone. That's a dangerous thing to believe in a country filled with people who do not believe in their one specific sort of Jesus -- or in God at all, like me.
Their religion cannot and should not be allowed to decide how all the rest of us live. That is the straight road to terrorism.
Yesterday was a beautiful fall day, sunny and chill.
The kid, Dr Skull and I drove up to the fancy outdoor shopping center in Rogers, Arkansas, known as the Pinnacle Hills Promenade, and had brunch at Sweet Paris, which is a little bistro that sells crepes and coffee and various breakfast items. Dr Skull had an omelet, I had a croissant, and the kid had something spicy with eggs, as well as a Crepe Maman (a crepe with cheese and jam).
The place was crowded with people walking their babies and toddlers through the mall streets (they are actual streets, with wide sidewalks): there's a Lego shop up there, among other things. I saw an actual Lululemon shop. I thought those were only in memes.
The kids seemed to like the fountains better than anything else, even though for some reason the water had been dyed this hideous shade of pink.
We went to the William Sonoma, and after that to the Fresh Market, which had all sorts of fancy foods. The bright cold weather was lovely to walk around in, but Dr Skull's mobility is limited, so we didn't explore further.
Over at Camestros Felapton's site, he writes about a claim being made by the death cult which American Christianity has developed into -- that there is more evidence for the resurrection of Christ than there is for the assassination of Julius Caesar.
It's obviously not true, and CF explains why, so I'm not going to spend words on that.
Instead, I want to talk about two things. First, Christians are supposed to be taking the existence and the resurrection of Christ on faith. The faith in the impossible thing -- the definition of a miracle -- is the entire point. They believe this story not because they have evidence, but because they don't. You don't need faith to believe in the existence of hats, for example, or that the cat is on the mat. If I point at the cat on the mat and say to you, That cat is there, and you believe the cat is there, that's not religion. That's just living in an evidence-based world.
So why are they are so desperate to find evidence that their religion is factual? It's like that part in the John where Thomas needs to stick his fingers into Christ's wounds before he'll believe Christ is real. The text is pretty clear that we're not supposed to respect Thomas because of that.
The second thing relates to their attitude toward trans people. I've seen more than one soi-disant Christian claim trans people are evil for trying make them "believe" in trans people, or in pronouns. In fact, no one care what any specific person believes. We care about everyone being equal under the law, and we care about our country not making certain groups into second-class citizens. Hate the 'woke' all you want, but stopping trying to pass laws that make it illegal for people to exist in public, or get medical care, or live their lives.
Who is it that is trying to force all of us to believe something which is not, in fact, supported by evidence?
I am fine with Christians holding to their frankly unsupportable belief system -- that the world is 6000 years old, that it's possible to rise from the dead, that after death we can go to an eternal paradise, but only if we believe in this one specific sort of Christianity. That God cares what pronouns people use, or whether we perform our gender the way Karen in Indiana thinks we should. That God wants us to beat our children. That God says women have to submit to men. That Jesus loves America more than any other country. That America is the best country in the world.
I am not fine with those Christians trying to force everyone else to act as if those beliefs are fact. They're not facts. They're a story certain people believe because it makes them feel better. That's fine. I'm all for people doing what makes them happy. I'm not fine with (Christian) people trying to force everyone else to do what makes Karen in Indiana happy.
Why do they need to try to force us to admit that their religion is the truth? I asked a Christian that once, and he admitted that if his kids saw people who weren't Christians living their lives and being happy, it might make his kids wonder whether their religion was, in fact, the truth.
That's what it is. They don't have faith. They have a story they desperately want to believe, and they need all of us to believe it too, or else maybe they might start to wonder if their weird death-cult religion is true.
In their desperate quest to make the world around them believe what they (pretend to) believe, they are destroying democracy, our public schools, our universities, and the planet.
(Not all Christians, in case I need to say that. I have known six or seven people who actually do the things Christ said in his sermon on the mount. But mostly our American Christians today live more like Romans: pretend to believe what we believe, lick our boots and say we're right, or we'll happily nail your ass to a cross, destroy your country, and steal everything you care about, including your children, your rights, and your liberty.)
We're having a two-day long thunderstorm here. Since it has barely rained since July, I'm pleased, but my poor dog is terrified of thunder. Currently I have him on the drugs the vet gave me. We'll see if they work.
After the storm, actual cold weather arrives! Lows in the 30s and highs in the 60s. I am very pleased about that.
We bought a Panasonic, 900w. So far I'm very happy with it, though it has a child-lock function that takes a little getting used to.
(Basically, when the microwave dings, you can't open it until you hit the child-lock button. Useful for those with small children, I guess, but annoying for me.)
I hardly watch TV anymore because most of it is boring, though I did like Murderbot, and Ted Lasso, and The Pitt.
And recently I started watching Shameless, the US version, which is about an impoverished family of six kids raising themselves -- their father is an addict and their mother is bipolar and mostly absent. The show has eleven seasons, all available on Netflix.
I'm intrigued by this show because it gives a (mostly) realistic picture of poverty in America, at least in northern cities. The six kids have all been in and out of foster care; the oldest daughter , Fiona, has been taking care of her siblings since she was six. She's pretty smart, as is the oldest boy, Lip; but she had to quit school at sixteen when her mother abandoned the family.
One reason I like this show is that most of the main characters are intelligent. They're in poverty not because they're stupid and lazy, but because their parents are broken and no real social safety net exists to help them out of poverty. All the things we're told to do if we want to escape poverty -- work hard, stay in school, live frugally -- don't work in their lives.
The oldest son, Lip, is crazy smart -- smart enough to win a scholarship to MIT. But because his family needs his help so often and so desperately, it is difficult for him to maintain the necessary GPA, or to get to classes. And Fiona works a series of low-paying jobs, unable to get better work because she has no high school degree and because her youngest sibling, a baby when the series starts, needs someone to take care of him. Then, when she finally gets a job that pays a living wage and has benefits, she loses it after the youngest child (a toddler) ingests cocaine left lying around during a party.
Everyone in this show and in the neighborhood smokes, drinks, and does various drugs. This is also realistic. As James McMurtry puts it in "Fire Line Road," when you're that far down, you're just going to get high. "It's like eating or breathing to the rest of us."
When the second son, Ian, enlists in the military, hoping to escape poverty, his mental illness (he's bipolar, like his mother) sabotages that escape route.
The second daughter attempts to inveigle her way into a stable family by getting pregnant by one of their sons -- who promptly flees. The third son gets caught transporting heroin. And so on.
The only "success" any of them ever see comes from dealing drugs, running scams, or stealing.
It's not that there isn't violence in this show. There is violence. There is also drug use, and bigotry, and crime. But there is also a community of equally impoverished people who help one another -- it's made clear, for example, that our main characters know everyone in the neighborhood, and turn to them for help, while helping them as well. It's not big help, mind you. No one is paying their electric bill. But if you need someone to watch your two year old for the morning, one of the neighbors can do it. And if you're briefly homeless, someone will let you sleep on their porch, or in their living room.
The show also makes it clear why foster care doesn't work, and why putting young offenders in jail is a terrible idea. Carl comes out of juvie as a much more successful criminal than he was when he went it, and he brings home a kid who aged out of juvie and has no family or community to return to, and no skills that will get him a job.
I'm only in Season 5, so maybe things improve eventually? But I am dubious. This is the poverty class about a quarter of our country lives in. If anything, the show is a little too optimistic, in that usually some solution shows up -- when the oldest daughter goes to prison for child endangerment, she's released after on a few days, because of overcrowding. When the alcoholic father's liver is failing, a donor liver comes through. And so on.
I also like the attitude the show has toward racism, LGBTQ people, and immigrants. This also is realistic -- the characters aren't all bigots, for example. The community is made up of various races and religions, as well as gay and trans people, and while people make racist and anti-gay jokes, it's clear these are just jokes. One of the characters, Mickey, comes out as gay early on, and the guys at the local bar give him shit, but also -- clearly -- accept him. And when Ian, the second son and Mickey's lover, comes out to his brother Lip and to Fiona, they pretty much shrug and accept it.
This arc, between Ian and Mickey, is a good one. Mickey's father is racist, and is a bigot. The show shows us clearly what that looks like, and how horrific it is.
I understand trans characters show up in later season. So far, we've only had a trans girl, who is about ten, and who some characters do not accept as trans. That's disturbing, but also realistic. "You're not a girl," one character tells her. "You're a boy whose mother raised you as a girl because she's crazy." Other characters, though, are fine with it, and treat the girl as a girl.
The chaotic and precarious existence of those living on the edge of homelessness is really well portrayed, though. You see why the characters smoke and drink and do drugs. You see why they can't climb out of the trap that is structural poverty. Each of the characters tries and tries again to escape through all the means we are told is an escape from poverty -- education, the military, marrying into wealth, own and running your own business -- and each time the chaos of their world slaps them back into poverty. The best job Ian can find, after the military, is dancing at a club called the Fairy Tale, where young gay men give lap dances to rich old men. It's clearly objectification and destructive to the young men, but it pays well enough to keep the family going for a winter.
There is one point where Lip, the kid at MIT, understand that if he is to climb out of poverty through this excellent degree from an excellent university, he will have to abandon his family, his neighborhood, and all the ties he has there. He will have to move into a different culture, with a new ethos. He will have to become someone else.
But that family and that neighborhood have always been the central good in his life, the one thing he and his culture have. As Mickey puts it at one point, "He's family. Family comes first."
Lip can turn his back on that, clearly. He can adopt a new ethos. Where does that leave him, though? Who does he become is he does that? He doesn't have the generational wealth that his fellow students have, or the culture that wealth created for them. He may be able to get a degree from MIT, with all the job prospects that degree will give him, but he will have no family and no culture of his own.
There is a lot of drug use, a lot of sex, a lot of violence, so much chaos. If you can't handle cussing and nudity, this one is not for you. But it's holding my attention.
The systems can be prone to error or abused, according to multiple national news outlets. The information the systems collect can lead to wrongful detainment or even serve as a tool for criminal behavior, such as stalking.
I know this is only common sense, not some woke marvel, but it's nice have a city that does things that make sense, and make life better for its population.
