This is the blog of Kelly Jennings, science fiction writer.
I don't think we, as a nation, have ever entirely grappled with how much living through a Donald Trump presidency is like being ruled by your one uncle whose wife died several years ago and whose only human interaction is watching television.
— Emily St. James (@emilystjams.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 11:31 PM
Plus the only station he watches is Fox News.
ETA:
This is your annual reminder that when we say "politically correct" or we say "woke," what we mean is "treating people with compassion," or "being a decent human being."
So when we say, "I'm not politically correct" or "I hate woke!" what we mean is, "I don't want to treat people with compassion," or "I hate having to be a decent human being."
Prompted by a post at P.Z. Myers.
Oh, and if the word "equity" bothers you, because equality is all we really need, then what you're saying is "I've got everything I need, fuck the rest of those people."
It's finally winter here. The temp when I got up to go to school was 34 degrees.
Lows in the low 30s and mid-20s all week. It's lovely!
On the recommendation of someone, I forget who, I watched the first two episodes on Landman, which (at least for me) requires a "free" subscription to Paramount Plus. (I can cancel it for free if I do it within five days.)
This is a series set in the oilfields of Midland, Texas, about a landman, which is a guy who gets leases and solves problems for an immense oil company. Billy Bob Thornton stars, and Jon Hamm plays the owner of the oil company.
There's a lot to like here -- Billy Bob and Jon not least of all -- but wow, the sexual politics.
The main point, at least so far, is that the oil business is a high-stakes and very dangerous game (the getting and selling of oil). It's hard on the bodies and the lives of the men who work the "patch," as the oil fields are called. The pay is good because the job is so dangerous. That part is making a good point.
And the huge amounts of money involved -- the show, so far, does a good job of showing that and showing why the people who own and profit off the oilfields are not going down without a fight. The show explicitly compares the oil business to cocaine/heroine smugglers, which is a nice touch.
The show also does a good job of showing the contrast between the oil company owner's life, and his family who lives on the profits of the oil company, and the lives of the workers on the oil patch, without ever calling attention to it. There's a nice scene where Billy Bob's son says, "The difference between you and [Jon Hamm] is that you quit and he didn't," and Billy Bob snaps back, "The difference is he has a trust fund and I didn't."
The macho posturing and dominance games are pretty well done too.
And there's some nice writing.
But much of the show is aimed at convincing us that the idea that oil companies are destroying the planet is just silly, and the oil production must continue, no matter the cost, in any definition of "cost."
Also, women in this show are either sexual possessions, and shown as such by the show (Billy Bog's nubile 17 year old daughter parades about a house filled with men in her lacy undies and a crop-top sweatshirt; the girl who works at the all-night coffee stand has her tits hanging out; Jon Hamm's wife spends her time lolling in a pool or in the sun); or they are ignorant upstarts who don't understand how the real world works (a lawyer for the evil law firm which protects the oil company). We also have a waitress, who stays out of the way when the men are talking. (I'm not the only one to notice the terrible job this show does with women characters.)
I get that this is probably part of the culture. But the show also shows all these big tough men as good guys, deep down, (Jon Hamm suffers when the oil patch workers die). And of course women exist to flash their tits and ass at men. Why else would men keep them around?
I might give it another episode or two, because the pacing and the writing are pretty good. But it's propaganda for the oil companies and for toxic masculinity, at least so far.
We have to stop assuming Trump is secretly a master manipulator with a plan. If there’s a plan here, it isn’t fucking Trump’s. Trump has concepts of a plan. And that “concepts” is to devour a Filet-O-Fish while watching his sons hunt immigrants for sport. That’s about as sophisticated as he gets.
— Catherynne M. Valente (@catvalente.bsky.social) November 22, 2024 at 10:32 AM
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It's 38 degrees here today, so winter has arrived. At least briefly. Tomorrow and the next day we're looking at highs in the 70s.
Honestly right now all I care about is no snow and ice for moving day, whenever that turns out to be.
I finished Blackboard Ultra training today. Six hours of my life which I will never get back.
The thing about Blackboard, it's entirely counter-intuitive. Once you know how something works, you can usually do the thing. But there's no way to figure out, from looking at the screen, how a thing works. You have to have someone stand behind you and explain what to do next.
WTF designed this burning trash heap of a program?
I had my first moving trauma dream last night, and we're not even close to closing on the house, so that was fun.
I can't remember what moving is as traumatic as. The loss of a parent? Divorce? Having your entire life burn down?
We want to move, I can't wait to move, and I am still having stress.
Speaking out against attacks on the trans community:
I would like to speak up today for the trans community. You see, I know a bit of what it’s like to be politically scapegoated. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, suddenly anyone in America who had any amount of Japanese ancestry became suspect. Politicians preyed upon ignorance and fear. /1
— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) November 17, 2024 at 12:19 PM
This one especially:
They hope that by targeting one group, the rest of us will cower. Such an environment gives an open invitation to fascism. It leads to discrimination, then segregation, then internment, and still worse. A compassionate, good people would not permit this to happen. We will not be divided against /6
— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) November 17, 2024 at 12:30 PM
Buying a house continues to be an endless series of papers to sign and things to transmit. Apparently after the 2008 bubble, regulations increased markedly on buying houses. So there's a whole list of things you have to do, and things you can't (or shouldn't) do, and I have to prove that I have or have not done all these things, with documentation. Like, I shouldn't have opened a credit account over the past year (which I haven't, except I sort of have, because we bought the cars, but apparently car loans are different, because the lender calmed down once I pointed out what that was).
And we've got to have an inspection, and an assessment, which is fine. And we have to prove we actually have the down payment, and that it isn't money I've borrow via a credit card (yikes, do people do that?), and so on.
Still, the process is processing. We may actually be living in Fayetteville by the middle of December.
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| The kitchen |
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| Another view of the yard |
If only we had something like this here, instead of whiny little bootlickers sucking Trump's ass.
Māori MPs briefly suspended the Aotearoa parliament’s attempts to reinterpret their founding treaty in the most bad ass use of the Haka I’ve ever seen.
— Ashley Fairbanks (@ziibiing.com) November 14, 2024 at 9:23 AM
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...as an expert in cost-cutting, to cut government waste. Oddly enough, the things Musk plans to cut will directly benefit his own empire.
Musk’s appointment was criticized by Public Citizen, a progressive consumer rights NGO that challenged several of Trump’s first-term policies. “Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack,” co-president Lisa Gilbert said in a statement.
Trump and Musk, designing a car: "We don't need fuel efficiency, because global warming is a myth! We don't need seatbelts or airbags, because we're not going to hit anything! We don't need brakes -- we're not going to stop!"
We haven't closed on the house yet, but I've started prepping for the move anyway.
The first step is purging things we don't need or can do without. This is made easier by the fact that we moved less than five years ago, so we haven't had time to build up too much crap. It's made harder by the fact that Dr. Skull and I are possession-incompatible. Nothing makes me happier than getting rid of crap I'll never use again; whereas Dr. Skull wants to keep everything, just in case.
In case of what? In case he might need something later. This applies to fraying t-shirts, shoes he hasn't worn in ten years, mixer accessories for a mixer we no longer have, cushions for the lawn furniture that is not going with us (it belongs to the house), old sheets for a bed we no longer own....
I'm also looking at moving checklists online. Argh, this is complicated.
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| the yard in the new house -- beyond the fence is the green space I was talking about |
So I wanted to make a pot roast for dinner tonight, to assuage my anxiety, and the recipe calls for half a cup of red wine.
We only have white wine. And rum.
And I could run out and buy some red wine, but sadly I live in a benighted state which does not allow anyone to buy wine on Sunday, because Jesus. Even though Jesus was the guy famous for turning water into wine.
I could use red wine vinegar, but Dr. Skull says that won't work.
I know we're not supposed to assume that people who disagree with us are dupes and fools, but honestly, anyone who voted for Trump at this point is a dupe or a fool or a bigot or all three. (Though really I'm leaning hard on bigot and dupe at this point.)
It's 1600 square feet, and on a quiet street. The property backs on a green space. We're about two miles from where the kid is currently living, and a short drive from all our other family up there.
We really like the house, and the price is right. Fingers crossed!
I guess not exactly, since we all thought we would defeat him in 2016, and this time we weren't so sure.
I feel just as sick and betrayed, though.
And they voted for him based on lies, lies they knew were lies. They voted for bigotry. They voted for white supremacy. They voted against immigration, against decent behavior, against kindness. They voted for the ugly lies that will allow them to feel that they are virtuous. That's the world they want.
I've seen interviews with Trump subjects claiming they voted based on the high price of gas and blah blah blah, but that has nothing to do with it. His promises to hurt immigrants and people of color and LGBQT people and women -- that's what they want. That's what they were voting for.
When the leopard starts eating their faces, will they realize they made a mistake? They may, but they will never admit it.
I'd say we need to keep fighting, but what good has that done us? Since the Right Wing hate machine put Reagan in power, it's been one long slide to this moment. I see no evidence that anything has or will change. This is the country they want, with more working poor, more ignorance, and more misery, and the climate growing worse and worse -- more hurricanes, floods, heat waves and droughts -- while the very few hyper-wealthy getting richer and richer and richer, and the Right Wing liars continue to line their pockets with the wealth stolen from the American people. And to write laws making that legal, and to put judges on the bench which will back those laws.
This is the world they want, so here we are.
For today, I'm trying really hard not to doom-scroll.
For tomorrow, I plan to stay off the internet except for work, and to track my kid as he flies back from the West Coast (where he and the boyfriend have been attending a wedding). I will read and I will grade papers and I will breathe very, very deeply. I may take a Xanax I have squirreled away for an emergency. There is also chocolate.
See you on the other side.
The internet has now been out at my house, and in a two block radius around my house, since Thursday afternoon. (Almost three days now, but who's counting?)
AT&T sends me useless updates, or lying updates, every 24 hours or so. They have no idea, currently, when I will once again have internet service.
As I said elsewhere, I am finding out what people did before the internet. A lot of reading and baking, apparently. I read an excellent book by Isaac Fellman all in one day, and two books by Naomi Novik, and I have baked apple crisp and banana muffins, and am currently making baguettes.
My kid says at least I can't doom scroll. There is that.
Once again, I have had to drive up to my miserably hot office to access the internet and grade my students' submissions.
At least it's cool enough today that I can open the window and get the temperature in here down from 74 to 70. But still, UGH.
AT&T says they have no idea when internet will be restored to my area.
The internet has been down at our house, and in a three block radius around our house, since yesterday.
This is torture.
I've had to come up to my very hot office at dawn to grade. UGH.
