I Know It's TikTok, but I love this Poem

 It's by a guy named Lucas Jones:

@lucasthejones Books in bio 🥀 Poem: ‘I’m doing this thing where I’m pretending to be nice to women’ #poem #fyp #spokenword #foryou ♬ original sound - Lucas Jones

Alternative link

Paying Taxes

We paid our taxes today, plus a $319 fee to TurboTax.

I don't mind paying taxes, though I do mind that so much of what I pay goes to billionaires and to this ridiculous war. 

I do mind that the process of paying taxes is so complicated that we need either professional help or this extremely expensive program to pay them. Other countries manage without this bullshit. Why not us?

(I know why not us, it's a rhetorical question. Why not us because tax companies bribe the government to keep the system in place.)

Passover 2026

Dr Skull got sick shortly after I did, but we both recovered in time to have the Seder last night.

I had to do all the cooking, sadly, but mostly everything turned out well. Though I forgot to make the asparagus, and the horseradish I bought was painfully hot.

My carrot tsimmes was a big hit. I put the recipe on my cooking blog.

We also had matzo ball soup, boiled potatoes with dill, roast chicken, matzo, and various desserts of affliction, including chocolate-covered matzo, fruit slices, and coffee cake.

Dr Skull, Uncle Charger, and the kid had slivovitz at the end of the meal, but I was too tired.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

Making Progress

I feel much better today but I had terrible fever dreams all night, waking up several times feeling deeply awful. It was like the dreams were telling me I'd wasted my entire life and it was too late to do anything about it. 

This is not at all true, of course. I've done pretty much exactly what I wanted with my life, married the perfect person, had a wonderful kid and a great job, and am continuing to live precisely how I like: reading books, writing books, hanging out with my family, throwing a ball for the dog. I'm guessing fever and toxins made my brain think otherwise?

Anyway, no fever this morning, no body aches, only the usual headache. Let's hope that's all over.

Ooof

Our Passover Seder was supposed to be tonight but I am down with either the flu or Covid. I haven't tested for either yet. According to the internets, it's probably the flu.

We've rescheduled for Saturday.

Ugh.

Dialects of English

You'll remember I wrote a post about the insistence on only one dialect of English being "real," or an actual language; and how this foible is because Americans love to have what they consider legitimate reasons for bigotry.

Here's evidence that this is an actual problem. White Americans -- especially conservative White Americans -- are either unable or unwilling to understand AAVE in courtroom settings, which is contributing to unequal justice under the law. 

Court reporters have to be able to transcribe what is being said in a courtroom with at least 95 percent accuracy. According to this article, court reporters tested on AAVE can only transcribe what is being said with less that 83% accuracy. 

In 31 percent of the 2,241 transcriptions, researchers found, the court reporters’ errors changed the content of what the speaker was saying, misinterpreting either who was involved, what was happening, when it happened, and/or where it happened.

Further, juries either can't or claim they can't understand what black witnesses are saying in court.

As the article puts it, there's a real lack of "willingness" to understand AAVE.

This might be an actual lack of comprehension, of course. When I taught World Lit, I would often teach Frederick Douglass's Narrative of a Life, which is written in perfect SAE of the time. That dialect was often well above the literacy level of my students, who could often barely read what they called "modern" English (English written since the year 2000). Still, they never complained they couldn't understand what Douglass was saying (even when it was clear they could not). 

I would also give them half a dozen narratives from the WPA slave narrative collections in the Federal Library. The WPA collectors deliberately transcribed these narratives in the language, the dialect, spoken by the former slaves -- in AAVE, in other words, from the 1930s. (There's a pdf collection here.)

When I would assign these, some of my students (I won't say conservative, although they probably were, being this was a freshman class in Arkansas; they were definitely white kids) would insist they "couldn't" read the narratives. "They're not in English," they would insist.

Mind you, these are Arkansas kids. Most of them grew up speaking Southern English, which has its roots in AAVE. I'm not saying they were all liars. At least one of them I know for a fact just wasn't too bright. They could barely read SAE written in the 21st century, so maybe they actually couldn't understand this text (a sample):

I wuz 'borned in Orange County and I belonged ter Mr. Gilbert Gregg near Hillsboro. I doan know nothin' bout my mammy an daddy, but I had a brother Jim who wuz sold ter dress young missus fer her weddin. De tree am still standin what I set under an' watch ' em sell Jim. I set dar ant I cry an' cry,  specially when dey puts de chain on him an carries him off, an' I ain't neber felt so lonesome in my whole life. I ain't neber hyar from Jim since an' I wonder now sometimes if'en he's still livin.

But maybe they and the other students who complained were just not willing to understand what they saw as "not English." Maybe their point was Black people who couldn't speak in the standard English of the time had no right to be heard.

I also remember a smart (white, conservative) kid, very likeable, from my History of the English Language class who wrote, very nicely, in my end of the semester evaluation that as much as he realized I was educated and intelligent, I was wrong when I taught in the class that different dialects of English were just that, different dialects. Speaking proper English, he said, was moral issue. 

Speaking anything but standard English, that implies, is immoral. Is a sin.

You can see why this might be a problem when people who don't speak SAE show up in court seeking justice. (It's not just Black people who don't speak SAE, and of course some Black Americans do speak SAE. That's not the point here.) When we speak about systemic injustice, this is what we mean. This injustice is baked into the system, and it is approved of and enforced by a sizable percentage of our population, some of whom are lawyers, some of whom sit on juries, and many, many, many of whom are police officers. 

Or ICE agents, but probably that's less important, since ICE agents aren't really interested in what anyone has to say, in SAE or AAVE or the dialect of the Intermountain West or whatever.

My kid is Flying Home

So far no trouble with TSA or ICE in the airport, but then they both pass as white cis males, so.

We've been taking care of Rosen, whom Dr Skull loves so much he wants to adopt her. But Jasper is afraid of her, so much so that she won't go in the room where the litter box is. (They've had two fights so far, both of which Jasper lost.) 

So unless I figure out a place to put a second litter box, that's probably not a solution.

Also, the kids love Rosen and don't really want to give her up. It's too bad, because Rosen is a great cat and she does indeed really love Dr Skull, who misses Junti (who was his cat) terribly.

Dr Skull with Rosen

Rereading Books

Apparently some people think you should never re-read books, because, and I am summarizing, there are so many books out there to read, why would you ever waste time re-reading?

I do read a lot of new (or new to me) books, but for me one of the pleasures of reading is re-reading. I especially like to reread a book that I haven't read in years. It's kind of like parallax vision, maybe? I remember what I thought or how I understood a book when I was 20 or 30; how will I see or understand the same book now? I'm a different person now, so I understand the book/see the book differently.

I'd go so far as to say you haven't really understood a book if you haven't read it more than once. This is especially true for me, I think, because I read really fast (though I don't skim unless the book is terrible and I'm trying to see if it's worth finishing). When I'm gulping down a book because I want to know what happens, I don't always spend a lot of time thinking about what's happening. Re-reading lets me do that.

I also like to reread a book I've read maybe a dozen times. It's like watching your favorite movie or listening to a favorite song. I enjoy the beats and the scenes because I know them so well.

Recently I've discovered the joy of listening to a book that I've read a dozen times. The audiobook of Nobody's Fool, for example -- listening to that was such a different experience from reading it. Same for Jo Walton's Thessaly trilogy.

What about y'all? Do you re-read?

Spotted on Tumblr

If y'all aren't on Tumblr, by the way, you are missing out. It's the internet the way it was meant to be.

ANYWAY.

A German Tumblrist asks why Americans are so obsessed over "whether something is a word." Why are we like this, they want to know. They're talking about how certain speakers of American English get angry when a dictionary includes words like 'ain't' or 'irregardless.' Why? Why? they demand. Those aren't real words!

As a professor of the language, I have the answer to this question: It's because Americans love any excuse at all to be a bigot. 

I used to teach History of the English Language as well as English Grammar and one of the things I had to teach my students was that their "correct" English was a dialect of English, like any other dialect of English. It wasn't "better" than African American Vernacular English, or Bronx English, or Mississippi English, or working class East Coast English.

That is to say, Standard American English (what they counted as 'correct' English) does not communicate its meaning any better than, say, AAVE. In fact, in some ways, SAE communicates less well -- AAVE is really good at communicating aspect with its verbs, for example, which SAE mostly ignores. 

(I remember when I was first studying Greek. Greek verbs also pay a lot of attention to aspect, and my entire class could not wrap their heads about what this mean -- for us, 'perfect' was just another sort of  past tense, and what even was aorist? Raised speaking SAE, this was a concept we had real trouble grasping.)

Why then do so many people believe that SAE is "real" and everything else is 'slang' or ignorant or not even actually English? 

Because it lets them feel superior. It allows them to look down on some group -- to be bigoted in a way that feels approved of by their culture.

Let me tell you, I too used to wince when someone said something like, "I have already ate," or "Mom took Tim and I to the state fair last week." That was before I actually knew something about how language works. Now I find these regional difference -- like "Anymore you can't find eggs for less than ten dollars a dozen" -- fascinating.

Anyway! My point, and I do have one, is that anything which communicates meaning is language. For example, I love saying things like "irregardless" and "ain't" and "we might could finish this tomorrow," just to jar people a bit.

"Ain't?" they will exclaim. "Irregardless? Those aren't words!"

"But you know what it means," I point out. "If I say, I ain't eating no more pie, you know exactly what I mean, irregardless of what you claim."

And they do. So why does this upset them, someone with a PhD who says irregardless? 

It's cognitive dissonance. They know I'm educated, they know they can't treat me like trash, and what does that mean about this thing they have been counting on, that their ability to speak SAE means they're better than people who say things like "I seen her at Walmart"?

It's like people who think being an American makes them better than people in other places. When they find out that people in other places actually have good lives, and are good people, some of them better lives than many Americans in fact, cognitive dissonance. It was the one way they could feel superior. Now what do they have?

See also people who think that being a certain religion, or having a certain skin color, or being a certain gender makes them 'better.' When anyone suggests otherwise -- that tantrum they throw, that's cognitive dissonance. If they don't have this way of being superior to other people, then what do they have?

I mean, they could accept that being superior to other people isn't something they need, or even should want, but it takes a great deal more enlightenment than most of them will ever have to come to that realization.

Headaches Again

 As I think I mentioned, I pretty much always have a headache. Usually it's a low-grade ache around my temples or behind my eyes. But -- as now -- when the weather is changing, I have a first-class banging headache that makes me want to lie in bed and whimper. Nothing really helps. Sometimes a shower does. But not usually.

I have taken Motrin and a Tylenol. We'll see how it goes.

Retirement

Dr Skull and I had a lovely outing last night -- we ate at one of our favorite restaurants and then went to the bookstore and bought more books. We discussed traveling to various cities, which he wants to do and I am less eager about. As y'all know, my favorite thing to do is stay home, read books, and write books.

A day trip to Tulsa I could probably manage. 

Though I am slightly jealous of what the kids are doing in Maryland -- day before yesterday they went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and yesterday they went to the Smithsonian zoo. I think today they are driving to Philly to visit an art museum.

Spring Break

This town is deserted during Spring Break, which I have to admit I'm enjoying. No lines at the grocery store. No traffic on the roads. There are fewer dogs at the dog park, which I'll admit is a drawback.

Dr Skull and I are having our long-delayed anniversary dinner at the Southern Food Company this evening, that's our celebration for the Break.

The kid and his husband are having a great time in Maryland, and Dr Skull has decided to steal their cat. "This is my cat," he keeps saying. "I'm not giving her back."

Rosen, the Cat in Question

Babysitting the Grandcat

 There are actually two grandcats, but they're not getting along, so one is staying with us

and the other I visit every day.

The kids are in Maryland, visiting their friends who live there. They'll make a sidetrip to Philly. I'm hoping they don't get caught up in all this lunacy with Trump and the airports.

Whaaaat!

Okay, I'm interested.

It doesn't seem entirely accurate, since Odysseus could honestly have given a fuck about his men, but other than that it looks epic. I might even see it in the theater. 

UGH

It was 72 degrees when I took the dog to the dog park at 7:30 a.m. High of 90 is predicted today.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler, but I'm already in my dread-summer mode.

Brought to you by Global-Climate-Change-is-just-a-Myth.

The Pitt and ICE

If you're not watching the Pitt, we're already into Season Two. This is a show in which each season takes place in a single day -- Season Two is the fourth of July. Every episode is one hour in that day.

There had already been a nod toward Trump's brutal immigration policy, with a young Haitian woman who has custody of her ten year old brother. The parents, seized by ICE at their immigration hearing, had been deported. The kid blew two of his fingers off off playing with fireworks with other kids in their housing complex. "Wouldn't [the kid] be better off with his parents?" a clueless first-year student asks.

July is when you want to avoid hospitals, FYI. It's when all the new students, doctors, and residents start their year.

Anyway, on this week's episode, Thursday night, ICE agents showed up dragging a tiny woman in plastic cuffs. She 'fell down the stairs,' they claimed, and injured her shoulder. The ICE agents were huge men in masks, barking orders and refusing the leave the woman alone with the doctors. Eventually, abruptly, they decided to drag the woman out before her treatment was complete, and when a nurse, Jesse, tries to intervene, they tackle him, cuff him, and drag him away too.

It was extremely upsetting, and -- according to viewers from Minnesota -- extremely accurate.

As you can imagine, MAGA cultists are crying and screaming about the episode, which was filmed months ago, way before Minnesota kicked off. I doubt any of those throwing tantrums actually watch the Pitt, which is really for people who are smarter than most MAGAs. (I mean, who isn't smarter than a Trump supporter at this point?) But they're offended and this is treason and also propaganda.

Weirdo losers. Let's hope they shut up and faded into rightful obscurity post-Midterms.

ETA: See also this.

Spring Arrives

Spring is arriving in Fayetteville just in time for Spring Break. All the flowering trees are flowering; all the other trees are putting out bright green leaves. The grass is coming up silky and thick and green as the leaves.

Today we're expecting a high of 90, which is a record high for this date. Same tomorrow. After that, it might cool off (like, highs in the 70s) for a little while.

The kid and his husband are flying to Maryland to visit friends there. I'm babysitting one of my grandcats while they're gone. 

What are my plans for Spring Break? I'm going to write a lot and read a lot and take the dog to the dog park. Maybe Dr Skull and I will have lunch at a fancy restaurant one day.

I'm living in paradise.

Evangelical Cultists and Pedophilia

Another Duggar son has been arrested for sexually assaulting a child.

At some point, we have to recognize that Christian Cultists are a true danger to children and act accordingly.

ETA: Yes, this is slightly ironic. It's what Christian Cultists say whenever someone even tangentially related to or involved with a trans person commits a crime. Though it is worth noting that far more "Christians" commit crimes, sexually assault children, and shoot people to death than anyone trans or trans-adjacent does. Also more white cis men. 

The advice, by the way, from the Christian Cult on how to stop your sons from sexually assaulting their siblings and other small children? Don't let boys change diapers, make sure your small children don't run around naked after their baths, and teach your tiny daughters how to wear dresses without being 'immodest.' These are children under the age of three, by the way. How *do* we keep young men from sexually assaulting infants? It's a puzzler.

My Actual Birthday

It's today! I can't believe how old I am. Or rather, I can't believe how young being 66 seems. I remember at 16 thinking 33 was old. Ha!

Anyway, here is an update on what being old is like:

Every day, something new aches. Right now it's the tendon I bruised during the snow storm and also my spine. ("My spiiiine!" I cry often.) A week ago it was my hip, after I slept on it a little too long one night. Sleeping! Sleeping gives me injuries now.

I wake up early now. Not at five a.m. as I was when we first moved here, but I'm up and dressed by 7:30 most days. Partly this is the dog, who begins demanding his walk around 7:00. But also it's because I'm in bed by 9:30 or ten most nights. Me! Who seldom managed to sleep before 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.!

I'm eating a lot more cake than I used to. I'm sure this isn't good for me, but on the other hand, who's going to stop me?

I spend a lot of time in doctor's offices. Mostly this is for Dr Skull's appointments, but some are also for me.

I take exercises as seriously as I did when I was 30, when I ran a couple miles every day and also took my dog for a three mile walk most days. Some of my aches arise from this, but most are because I'm ooooold.

I love being retired. Day after day with nothing planned. I lie on the couch and read books. I take the dog for at least two walks a day. I go to the library. I write whenever and as much as I like. I never have to teach composition again. There's plenty of time to do laundry and the dishes. (It's amazing how much less annoying dishes and the laundry are when you aren't exhausted and also you have plenty of time.)

I am extremely glad I don't have to depend solely on my social security. Medicare, on the other hand, is wonderful. I got a lengthy statement in the mail yesterday for all of Dr Skull's home health care, and the big news was on page one: "Amount you may owe: $0.00."

Granted, this is only because we can afford to pay for Part B and Part G, but still.

I'm liking being 66 a lot, I guess is the conclusion here. May it long continue.

He just wants to sit in my lap all day long, is that so much to ask?

It's My Birthday

 Well, not until tomorrow. But we had a party yesterday, with order-in Italian and this:

A leaning-tower of carrot cake, which I made my own self, since Dr Skull cannot make cakes at the moment. I am not a fifth-generation baker, as you can probably tell. Still, it was tasty. The cream cheese frosting was especially good.

The kid and his husband and one of their grad school friends came over; also Uncle Charger. We had a good time. Next week is the kid's spring break and he and his husband are flying off to Maryland to visit friends. Maryland is where the kid plans to move if the situation does not improve in Arkansas.

The kid painted this for my birthday:

Jasper and my little cat Junti, may her memory be a blessing, cuddling together for once.

It was 20 degrees and wimdy when I took the dog to the park this morning. There were two big dogs there so he had someone to run with.

Happy Ides of March!

Them Romans and their tyrants, huh. 

Huckleberry Sanders

Sarah Huckster Sanders, our current governor, spent yesterday bragging about how she is going to force every public university and public school in Arkansas to install a Turning Point USA club. For the students.

(Student clubs are usually asked for, organized and run by students. This, clearly, will be something else -- enforced, organized, and run by the state. You know. Like Hitler Youth.)

In case you forgot what Turning Point USA is, it's a giant grift formerly run by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated by a high powered rifle just at the very moment he was claiming gun violence was not a problem, and if it was a problem, it was only because a couple of trans people had shot people.

Turning Point USA exists to make money for those who are running it, to support Trump, and to hurt education. To be clear, they want to turn education into indoctrination for the MAGA point of view, with all its bigotry and hatred. 

They claim to be Christian, but it's a specific kind of Christianity: one that hates the poor, despises the immigrant, and wants to erase from existence anyone who isn't pretty much exactly what Kirk was: a podgy, smug, reactionary white cis guy. (Or "white male man," as Erica Kirk phrased it yesterday.)

Charlie Kirk, the grifter, is now dead. So now his wife, Erica, has abandoned her two children, ages four and two, to continue the grift. Sarah Huckster Sanders, who is grift all the way down herself, has happily joined hands with Erica.

After Trump is gone, all these losers will fall back into oblivion, their natural state.

Bagels in Fayetteville

When I first came to Arkansas, back in the previous century, you could not get bagels here at all, not even the terrible supermarket kind. Later, we could get Lender's at the Walmart. When I returned to Arkansas, in 2002, even Fort Smith had (fairly terrible) packaged bagels. 

When we moved to Fayetteville in 2024, there was an Einstein Bagels. They're acceptable bagels, but still not great.

Last week Benny's Bagels (which is apparently a Dallas chain) opened here. It has been non-stopped packed ever since. These are real bagels, y'all. Dr Skull even approved of them, and he is as judgy as any Jew who grew up running a bakery could be.

So far it's so busy all the time that it's hard to get in there and it sells out regularly, but I'm assuming eventually it will calm down and we will have somewhere to go to get bagels when I don't feel like investing the hours it takes to make them at home.

Photo by Randi Mendolia

Photo source

Higher Prices Brought to You by an Illegal War

Trump ran on no wars, lower prices, and hurting trans people and immigrants.

Since he's delivered on the last two, I suppose conservatives are willing to give him a pass on the first two.

Oh, and he's also destroying the environment. Conservatives love destroying the environment.

What a joke this country has become.

Adventures in Cooking

Dr Skull used to do most of the cooking around here, which was how I liked it. But his spinal issues have left him with less than stellar use of his hands, and also he cannot stand for very long. This means cooking has devolved on me.

I dislike cooking. Well, let me revise that. I like to cook occasionally, but this cooking dinner ever single day is for the fucking birds. Also, sometimes he wants lunch! 

Also, I have discovered that I can only cook about three things that Dr Skull will eat. (My staple, pasta in cream sauce, he will not touch. Or beans and rice, which is the other thing I am truly suited to cooking. He also hates curry.)

Here is what I am cooking these days:

(1) Tuna casserole

(2) Bagels (which we eat with lox and cream cheese and -- Dr Skull -- a slice of red onion)

(3) Roast chicken and asparagus

(4) Something with the leftover chicken. Like chicken pie, or chicken and noodles

(5) Takeout

I am asking you for suggestions for something I could cook which isn't pasta or beans. Help.

Shamus Makes it to One Year Old

The dog is a year old today. 

He still likes nothing better than to sit on my lap.

Sadly, the laptop is usually there

Curse My Life

These days, we only get winter in Arkansas from late November to the first of March. Highs in the high 70s this week, and also rain. So we can't even open the windows, unless we want to live in a swamp of mold. Have to use air conditioning.

Brought to you by Global Warming is just a Leftist scam.

Trump's New War

Apparently claiming to end (fictional) wars wasn't getting him enough attention.

I guess he thinks the American people will support him if he kills enough brown people. That's the plan. That's the only item on his agenda.

What a disgrace.

Here Comes Summer

Highs in the 70s this week. Ugh.

I'm going to miss these frosty mornings. The dog loves them too. He zooms wildly around the dog park, chasing birds and squirrels. Also leaping in the pond, which I do not love as much.

What I'm (NOT) Reading

I've hit a run of mediocre books. Not actively bad -- I kind of like really bad books, because it can be fascinating to watch them trainwreck. 

These are just books that could have worked if the writer had done this or that, but instead they decided to maunder on about some point or plot turn that doesn't matter, or describe something incoherently.

It's kind of depressing. I really need a good book to read. Where is the universe hiding them?

Please Don't

AI is now writing the replies for emails I get on Gmail.

I can write my own fucking emails, guys. C'mon.

MN Families Need Help With Rent

 You can donate here.

Help in other ways here.

RIP Junti 2013-2026

We had to put my little cat down. The vet told me it was a miracle she had lasted this long, with the kidney numbers they were seeing. I know they said when I took her in the first time that she could have as little as a week, but I don't think I heard that.

She was doing really well for several days -- eating and playing like her old self -- and then yesterday she just crashed. Last night she cried for about an hour, until I finally got her to go to sleep (cuddled in my arms). After that she was lethargic and almost motionless, all bone under her beautiful coat. When we reached the vet, she only weighed 3 and a half pounds.

We got her when she was a fluffball of a kitten, just seven weeks old. She was meant to be a companion to Jasper, our first cat, who hated her on sight. (Jasper was a year old then.) Eventually they got to like each other enough that they would often sleep cuddled together, though for years they had giant hissing fights. When both of them were younger, they would also play together sometimes, chasing each other around the house and leaping up and down on things. 

They loved the bookshelves in our first house, which had a really high place at the top for them to sleep on, like panthers.

Junti on the High Place

Junti was a beautiful Siamese mix, sable brown with black paws and a face, and the clearest, meanest blue eyes imaginable. Dr. Skull was really her favorite, but sometimes she would deign to sleep on my lap, if the days were cold enough.

She was a good cat. I'm glad she didn't suffer long.

Junti on my Lap

Junti Contemplating the Green Space

On Having Enough

I've inherited my father's money about two years ago now. I've been (moderately) wealthy for two years, in other words.

I still think like someone who is lower-middle class, which was how I was raised, and how I lived for most of my life. 

Lower-middle class: there was always enough food, even though it wasn't great food, and we always had clothing, even if it was terrible clothing. Our vacations were spent visiting my parents' relatives in Indiana, or driving to Florida to spend a day at the beach. (This was about what we did for my kid -- our vacations were day-trips to state parks; or an overnight trip to Tulsa, where we would visit the zoo; or a week at my parents' house in New Orleans.)

There was never money for extras like field trips or meals in restaurants or books. I remember a terrible fight my parents had because my mother subscribed to a children's book club which delivered books once a month. Those books were how I read Tom Sawyer and Little Men and Aesop's Fables. 

And when I got out on my own, I almost at once fell into serious debt due to thyroid cancer, so even when both Dr Skull and I were earning pretty good money (from sixty to eighty thousand a year total), we were still living paycheck to paycheck. Money was always a constant worry. When the car broke down, which it frequently did, because it was a crap car, it was always a disaster.

So it's only been in the last two years that I've had enough money. This is such a change, I can't even tell you. We can eat in restaurants. We have a good car. We can afford good health insurance. When I needed another pair of shoes, I just bought them. (I wore a pair of shoes that was cracked across one sole for about a year, because there was never any money for a new pair.) I got new glasses when I needed them, like right then, not waiting and squinting for months. 

I have a wealth manager.

I do still think like someone who doesn't have money. The kid has to keep reminding me, when I hesitate to buy something at the grocery (have you seen the price of chicken lately?), that I can afford to buy food. (When the kid was little, we only bought fresh fruit in the summer, which was when I had extra money from summer teaching.)

It may be true that money doesn't buy happiness, but life without the constant worry and fear about money is certainly making me happier.

What's the End Game?

So MAGA arranged, by voting for an extremely corrupt and dangerous president, to overturn Roe v. Wade. Obviously that was not their end game -- despite what the rubes believe, conservatives aren't at all interested in 'protecting babies.' During the 50s and 60s they used racism to motivate their base; during the 70s and 80s they used the existence of gay people. Starting in the 90s they used abortion, which previous to then not many people had cared about.

Once they overturned Roe v Wade they had to find a new target, something new for their base to get outraged about. They've tried various things -- trans people and immigrants, currently, pedophilia and voter fraud formerly -- but sadly these aren't really getting the base enraged enough to actually, you know, do anything like vote, probably because even MAGAts know most of the claims being made by the Right are silly lies.

Since the attacks on our civil rights and liberties does enrage leftists enough to actually vote, you see the problem, from their point of view.

What to do about this? It's simple, for a simple sort of mind like we see in most conservatives these days. If certain groups of people vote 'wrong,' keep those groups of people from voting.

Not a new tactic, I know. It's the same one that was used in the South from about 1890 to 1965, and in various places and ways since about 2000. Keep the 'wrong' people out of the voting booth, America Becomes Great Again. Or White again, at least.

The latest idea, which I'm seeing bruited about more and more from those on the Right, is to remove the right to vote from women and from anyone who isn't 'head of a household,' which is to say certain married men with children.

For people who scoff at this, the notion that Roe v Wade could be overturned was equally laughable twenty years ago. 

Women have only had the right to vote in America since 1920. Brown and black people didn't really get the right to vote until the Civil Rights act in most places in America. Universal suffrage is a really, really new concept.

If you don't think conservatives can strip away that right, look at all the other rights they've erased over the past year, never mind that last decade.

P.S. They're also coming after contraception, obviously. Keeping people bound down with more children than they can support or educate (this is why conservatives are attacking public schools), especially if several of those children are chronically ill (this is why they're opposed to vaccines), they won't have time or money or energy to kick up a fuss. Plus all those uneducated, malnourished, sickly people will make excellent workers: desperate enough to work for low wages, in such terrible health that they will die in their fifties or sixties, well before society needs to worry about paying retirement. 

What I'm Reading Now

Nancy McCabe, From Little House to Little Women

McCabe writes about her childhood and young adult reading, as well as a trips she and her daughter take to visit literary sites across the US and Canada, including the Little House museums.  I've never been to any of these museums except the one outside of Independence, with the reconstructed Little House on the Prairie; but I was reading most of the same books McCabe read in the same years she was reading them, so I enjoyed this memoir a great deal.

McCabe, her daughter, and various friends visit not only the Little House museums, but other museums, such as the Betsy-Tacy houses; the Anne of Green Gables museums on Prince Edwards Island; and the Alcott museum in Concord. Interspersed with the travel memoirs are reflections on McCabe's own life growing up in a religious conservative family in Kansas, focusing on her relationship with her mother, aunts, and female cousins; and how she evolves, both as a reader and person, as she comes of age and adopts her own daughter. Her memories of her family intertwine interestingly with her memories of the books she reads.

There's also some political musing about the various books -- feminism in Anne of Green Gables, as well as the conservative strictures that helped to create the Little House books (and even more so in the horrible television show). Both Wilder and her daughter were opposed to the New Deal created by FDR's administration, and these books (among other things) worked to create a narrative that explained why the New Deal, or any government aid, was a bad thing. (Never mind all the government aid Pa got, which among other things gave them their land in the Dakotas and sent Mary to college.) 

McCabe is the author of Vaulting Through Time, which I reviewed for Asimov's. It's also about mothers and daughters, aunts and cousins. Plus time travel! Both that novel and this memoir are wonderful reads.

Ron Charnow, Mark Twain

This is a biography of Mark Twain, and about a zillion pages long. Twain has never been one of my favorite writers, being very uneven, though of course I read Tom Sawyer about a million times as a kid. I've read Huck Finn a couple of times, and enjoyed the first half every time. I don't think I have ever made it through any of his other books, though bits of his diaries of Adam and Eve are funny. Anyway, I picked this one up off the new books shelf at the library and mostly enjoyed it. 

The second half of the book, when Twain's life is falling apart and his kids and wife are dying, is a bit depressing. Also he (and they) were constantly ill with things that antibiotics would cure, or which could have been prevented with vaccines. The baby son died from diphtheria, for instance. And they were always getting boils or dysentery; the youngest daughter had her life ruined by epilepsy. Life before modern medicine was awful. (On that topic!)

If you want to know what it was like to be a writer born before the Civil War who lived through a number of historical events and social changes, this book will tell it to you. Warning: Charnow doesn't try to gloss over the racism and misogyny of Twain's younger days. To his credit, Twain learned better and did better in his adulthood. 

Reading the biography made me want to give Twain's works another chance, and I might even do that.

Stephen Graham Jones, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

This one was recommended to me by my kid, who likes horror novels. I do not like horror novels, but he said I would like this one. I did! 

It's about a Pikuni -- a Blackfoot -- Indian, Good Stabs, who becomes a vampire after attempting to kill a 500 year old vampire who immigrated to the US from Europe in the early 19th century. Good Stabs lives, as a vampire, through the destruction of his people and his culture by Europeans, attempting to fight back by killing Europeans, especially the Buffalo hunters who are wiping out the great herds that his people lived on.

Jones does interesting things with vampire lore, and he's a good writer. Trigger warning: lots of genocidal murder in the backstory. If you can handle that (I skimmed some parts), this is an engaging read. The ending left me a little underwhelmed, I'll admit.

Dealing with Home Ownership

We've been in the house about fourteen months now. I always said I didn't want to own a house because then we'd have to repair things, and neither of us is very much of a DIY person.

Here are things I've had to repair (or pay to have repaired) over the past 14 months:

(1) Installed a walk-in shower for Dr Skull, who no longer has the mobility to use a tub shower. My SIL recommended a contractor for this, and he did an excellent job.

(2) Rebuilt the back deck and screened in the porch. The same contractor did this as well. Also an excellent job.

(3) Put in a gas stove when the electric stove quit working. Hired plumbers to do this one.

(4) Swapped out various electrical outlets -- this was paid for by the previous owner, really, who took over the closing costs. 

(5) Put in a "cricket" on the chimney, also paid for by the previous owner.

(6) Replaced the circuit breakers so the house didn't burn down. Also the water heater vent, same reason. 

(7) New washer and dryer, ugh -- the house came with a washer/dryer, but they were very old and when the washer quit working I just went ahead and replaced both.

(8) Fixed the plumbing leading into the laundry room, which entailed fixing the plumbing that lead into the house -- the pressure had been set too high, which was why the feed in the laundry room started leaking.

(9) Smoke alarm battery needed replacing. I did this one myself!

(10) Repaired the automatic garage door opener. Surprisingly cheap!

So yeah, owning a house = lots of repair work. I guess some of that comes under "remodeling," by which I mean the porch and the shower. Both very much worth it, though!

Links

PZ Myers fell on the ice and concussed himself. I worry more about falling these days, though so far I feel pretty stable. During the snow, I stepped in a hole and hurt my Achilles' tendon, which I do not recommend. It is very slow to heel. (Pun not intended, but it's hilarious, so I'm leaving it.)

Fraser Sherman blogs about the situation in MN. Like Fraser, I have been given hope by the people of Minneapolis especially. From the post:

Adam Serwer: “Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.

I too have notice how unChristian many American Christians are. If this were 2026 years ago, they would be standing with the Romans, celebrating the Crucifixion of that trouble-making Jew.

This was bizarre: the FAA closed the airspace around El Paso for ten days and then a few hours later reversed the decision. No one seems to really know what happened, though I have seen claims that a "party balloon" alarmed someone. Also claims that DoD and Hegesth are having a spat. Who knows, with this regime.

Same, Charles. Same.

Palate cleanser: N&M talk cats. My little cat seems to be doing better, which is good news.

Donate to MN. They run a daily Go-Fund-Me for people in the city, plus links to food banks and immigrant aid. 

The science of the protests:

UPDATE: Looks like the protests worked. We should all take note. This is how we win.

We Need Unity

I still remember the student who told me she was voting for Trump because the country was too divided, and we needed to "heal" those divisions.

At the time, I was knocked speechless. Why would she think Trump, of all people --

But clearly I just wasn't understanding what she meant. Trump wasn't Obama, that's what she meant. What she meant was, we need to return to a time when white nationalism was the norm, and we could murder any brown person who stepped out of line.

Terrible Dreams

I had an awful dream last night where we were moving again. I was packing, or trying to pack, except the moving boxes kept falling apart. Also, it was our house in Idaho. Also, every time I thought I'd gotten all the books off the shelves, more books would show up.

If we believe Freud that in dreams the house is the body, then this dreams means....

Honestly, no idea.

My Poor Little Cat

My little cat (her fighting weight is five pounds) had been losing weight. I took her to the vet, to find she weighed just a few ounces over four pounds, and that she has kidney disease.

They kept her for three days, giving her IV fluids and appetite stimulating meds, and she's home now. She's eating, but she's still awfully skinny. I have to continue the appetite stimulation meds and also give her subcutaneous fluids. The vet says she could live another year or another month, it's hard to say at this point.

Junti, the Tiniest Cat

What I'm Listening To Now

I listen to audio books when I'm doing kitchen work or laundry, and when I'm trying to fall asleep (my insomnia is really bad at the moment). These are the ones I've been listening to lately.

Angela Thirkell, High Rising

Read by Jilly Bond. Written in 1933, this is what my kid calls a "family book," by which they mean books about families doing nothing much except having tea, raising kids, and falling in love. This is Thirkell's first book that focuses on Tony Moreland, I think, and his mother; but George Knox and Lord Stokes and others show up as well. There are some anti-Semitic moments and casual classism, as is usual with Thirkell's early books. Since nothing much happens, this was a good book to listen to when I was trying to fall asleep.

Josephine Tey, Miss Pym Disposes

Karen Cass reads it. One of my favorite books, which I have read so often I know it almost by heart. This is also a good category of book to listen to while I'm trying to sleep. Miss Pym gives a lecture at a physical training college and then stays on for a few weeks, dealing with a murder toward the end and middle of the book. The mystery isn't the point, though it features heavily in the plot. Rather, this is a study of the students and faculty at the college, and of a particular kind of English life. Published in 1946, there is some classism and eugenics commentary, but this is nevertheless a charming novel.

Richard Russo, Nobody's Fool

Read by Ron McLarty. I have listened to this one before, but it's such a good book, and McLarty does an excellent job reading it. It's really long, over 24 hours to listen to, but well worth it. If you haven't read Russo yet, this is his best book. We follow working class Donald Sullivan -- Sully -- and the other inhabitants of the dying town of Bath, NY, through a few months in the winter of 1983 or so. Just a great book.

This Isn't at All Alarming

From Paul Krugman's column, which I encourage everyone to read all of:

Trump is now calling for “nationalizing” the midterms, meaning to put voting and the counting of votes under his administration’s control. He can’t do that, but his demand is a clear sign that he will not accept the public’ s verdict in November.

So it’s just being realistic to say that MAGA will try, somehow, to prevent voters from having their say. Will ICE try to prevent blue districts from voting? If that fails, will they reject the results, in a midterm version of Jan. 6? Call me alarmist, but remember: The alarmists have been right, and the people telling us to calm down have been wrong, every step of the way.

Still Cold, MN Still Occupied

It was 16 degrees when I took the dog to the dog park this morning -- the first time we've gone in a week, due to all the snow and ice. It was still snowy there plus lots of ice. The pond and stream were frozen over. The dog still had a good time, though. He loves to run.

I'm limping a bit because I slipped on the ice a few days ago and bruised my Achilles tendon. It's not serious, just annoying.

Minnesota is still occupied. Donate if you can: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/

AI Being Very Helpful

So on my Gmail account, which I use to communicate to editors I write book reviews for, AI has started helpfully attaching summaries to the threads, explaining what the emails have covered.

For all kinds of reasons I do not like this.

Still Snowy, MN Still Occupied

No sign of snow melt yet. About seven or eight inches on the ground, I think. The high today is supposed to reach 33, but not for long enough to melt much. Tomorrow we're reaching the 40s, but for today at least we are still snowed in.

I take the dog out for his walk twice a day (in multiple sweaters, a ushanka, wool gloves and snow boots) so I'm doing okay, but Dr Skull is getting stir-crazy.

I've made donation to food pantries in Minneapolis and to the ALCU of Minnesota, and I encourage you to do likewise if you can. One of my students lives there now, as do many of my favorite SF writers. Naomi Kritzer has a page about how to help.

Kritzer also includes links to local news services, if you want to read about what's happening but don't want to be fed MAGA propaganda.

I've seen lots of MAGAts on FB and elsewhere saying Pretti shouldn't have been armed -- these are the same people that love to preach about the 2nd Amendment, so I don't know how to square that circle -- and others saying that he should have "informed" the agents that he was armed. You know, like Philando Castile did.

Most of the other boot-licking MAGAts are saying he should have just stayed home. Because that's the way to deal with injustice and tyranny and people murdering your neighbors -- stay home and watch TV.

These people sicken me.

Another Murder by ICE

Yet another US citizen has been murdered by ICE. This one was shot in the back by an agent -- it's all on tape. At least ten shots were fired, some while the man, Alex, was already unconscious and on the ground.

The Trump regime is saying it was justified because the man had a gun. (He also had a valid permit to carry the gun, and never drew his weapon. In fact, another ICE agent took the gun and backed away well before the murderer shot the man.) That it was justified because the man was a "terrorist" who "attacked" ICE agents. (None of that is true.) That he went to the protest planning to kill ICE agents. 

On FB, MAGAts are saying he deserved to die because he was blocking traffic (He was not) or interfering with ICE agents (he was filming ICE and he tried to help a woman they pepper-sprayed and knocked to the ground).

Or he deserved to die because he was at the protest. 

Or he deserved to die because he had a gun.

Second Amendment? What's that?

Never mind the First Amendment.

If you ever thought MAGA had any principles or honor or human decency, they stand revealed now.

Another Shorter Video

Snow Dog

 Shamus loves the snow:

Ooof

It's cold here. 

Really, only 27 degrees, but with the wind and 40% humidity it feels so much colder.

How cold is it? It's so cold I'm not taking the dog for his evening walk. This means he will be restless and annoying, but it is just too cold.

Snow is predicted to start at 10:00 p.m.

Winter Emergency

The weather guys are saying we're getting from eight to eighteen inches of snow this weekend, starting Friday night. Also "brutally cold" temperatures.

Arkansas is dutifully panicking -- the kid and I got groceries yesterday (including milk, but not bread, because we bake our own bread) and the store was filled with frenzied shoppers. The hummus we like was sold out, as was the cream.

Home Health (Dr Skull's home nurses) called to make sure Dr Skull had enough food, medicine, and water, also a plan for where we will go if we have to evacuate. (We have no plan for what to do if we have to evacuate.) It's interesting to have access to functional health care. You just have to wait until you're 65 and then pay $650 a month in premiums. 

Send Help to MN

Naomi Kritzer (one of my favorite SF writers) has written a post about ways to help if you live outside of Minnesota. Go here!

She also gives information on how to prepare for ICE coming to your town. ICE is already in Arkansas, attacking brown people only two towns up the highway from me. If you think they're not coming to your town, you're probably MAGA and lying.

Nicole and Maggie have links.

If you're in a Red State, as I am, and your reps are celebrating this despicable behavior, as mine are, call them anyway. Explain why the Gestapo is not good for America. They probably won't listen. Do it anyway.

Snow?

We might get snow this weekend -- one site says 14 inches, but most are saying 3-5 inches. You can imagine my excitement.

Plus! This will be Shamus's first snow!

Who Is Paying the Tariffs?

A study just came out showing Americans are paying Trump's tariffs.

Seriously, did anyone not already know this? (I know MAGAs pretend not to know it, but everyone knows they lie about everything, so they know it too.)

I ordered something recently from England. It came by Royal Mail, which I continue to think is the coolest thing ever. But anyway, before it was shipped, the company I bought it through notified me of a surcharge, due to the tariffs. OBVIOUSLY we're paying for Trump's tariff. 

We're also paying for ICE to beat, shoot, kidnap, and abuse people in Minneapolis. We paid for the tear gas that put that six month old baby in the hospital. That's our tax dollars. That's what we're getting instead of Medicaid for our poorest citizens. That's the world that MAGA wants.

What I'm Reading Now

Deborah Solomon, American Mirror: The Life and Times of Normal Rockwell

I liked this a lot, although I was made a little uneasy by Solomon's heavy hinting that Rockwell was sexually attracted to his teenage male models. (She carefully insists he never acted on this attraction.) If you can wince your past that, this is an interesting look at Rockwell's artistic growth, as he moved from an apolitical creator of funny paintings to a left-leaning artist who created what are probably the two most famous visual works of the Civil Rights era:

It's also a good look at the history of popular art in American through the 20th century. Very readable, and except for the bit mentioned above, I enjoyed it immensely.


Frank Conroy, Body and Soul

This is re-read of one of my favorite books. It's the story of a musician from his early childhood (about four years old) through his young adulthood (about 25 years old). The musician, Claude, is a prodigy, and the book suffers just a little because everything comes to the kid so easily -- he finds the perfect teacher when he needs one, he inherits a fortune just when he needs one, everyone is always in awe of how wonderfully he plays, so on and so forth.

It's basically the Brave Little Tailor plot -- watch this wonderful guy succeed -- but it's well written and immensely readable. This is my fourth or fifth re-read, and I enjoy it every time.

Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

This is the first bookI've read by McEwan, who is apparently a big deal. (He won the Booker Prize in 1988, among other prizes.) I picked up this one because I thought it was science fiction -- it's set in 2120, and deals with a world affected by climate change. Well, sort of deals with it. It's mostly about an academic who is studying a dinner party given by the wife of a famous poet in the early 21st century.

McEwan himself has said that this novel is "science fiction without the science," which, dude.

Half of the book is set in 2120, in England, which is now an archipelago, and told from the point of view of a scholar who is writing about a lost poem, written in 2014. It is a corona, which is a series of linked sonnets, and has an enormous reputation despite the fact that no copies exist and no one has ever read it. This part of the book is interesting: the hunt for the poem, and the look at England in the future caused by climate change: metal is scarce, major cities have been lost due to global floods, thousands of species have been wiped out. The university system continues, but students are bored and don't do any of the work required in the humanities classes. They don't care about history or the past, and don't want to learn about it. This is all interesting reading, and McEwan writes well.

The second half is a journal (found by the scholar while he is looking for the poem) about the wife of the poet who wrote the lost poem. It's less interesting, honestly, though it reveals the answers to all the secrets we're teased with in the first half of the book.

I mostly enjoyed this, though I don't know if I'll read anything else by McEwan. Dr Skull has a copy of Atonement, another of his books, and I read the first several pages of it, but didn't like it well enough to go on.

Thursday Links

This post by Fraser Sherman makes good points.

What's the Insurrection Act?

Not Nazis but slave catchers.

Trump regime wants a list of Jewish students and faculty, which isn't disturbing at all.

Can ICE shoot anyone they like and suffer no consequences? (Last night they shot another person, this one in the leg. They also threw a flash bomb into a car full of children, all of whom are now hospitalized.)

More on the flashbomb attack.

Hank Green on why they're lying and why it matters:

Two Cartoons and a Note

 

That last one is from Alas A Blog, where Barry appends this commentary: 

"I went back and forth on how malicious and evil to make the ICE agent in the final panel. Then I read about the ICE shooting of Marimar Martinez, just two months before Good’s death. Martinez, like Good, was accused by an ICE agent of trying to kill him with her car. Martinez, despite being shot five times, survived, and the case against her was so weak the government quietly dropped all charges.

"The agent who shot Martinez, Charles Exum, sent texts to his fellow ICE agents gloating about the shooting. His texts included: “I fired 5 rounds, and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,” “I’m up for another round of ‘fuck around and find out’” and “Sweet. My fifteen mins of fame. Lmao.”

Conservative Lies

When the National Guard killed those four students in Ohio in May, 1970 -- because some students were protesting the Vietnam War -- conservatives spread endless lies.

Their main lie was the the National Guard members had fired on the crowds of students because they were in "fear for their lives," and that the students had been throwing stones at them, attacking them, mobbing them. None of that is true. 

Conservatives also claimed the dead and wounded students "brought it on themselves," because they shouldn't have been there. (Why weren't they in class?) Others claimed "most" of the protestors were paid agitators. Some said more students should have been shot. Others claimed the dead students were so filthy the undertakers wouldn't touch them, that they were "crawling with lice."

There were endless claims about that, how dirty the students were. Also about how dangerous and destructive they were -- that they had been throwing trash all over the campus. That they were burning the campus down. Nixon claimed they were burning books, and said they were bums. (Some windows were broken in the protest, and one building did burn down, though who knows if it was related to the protests.)

But Nixon did appoint a commission to investigate the deaths, and that commission found that the shootings were not justified. I don't expect to see the same thing done by our current regime.

No, they'll just keep lying about what happened, because it's okay if you bear false witness against those people. That's what Jesus and Socrates both said, isn't it? Love your neighbor as yourself, but slander, shoot, and spit on those people.

USA Fascist State

Honestly, if you're saying the mother of three who was murdered in broad daylight by an untrained ICE agent deserved to die because she

• didn't comply with the police
• tried to escape
• shouldn't have been there anyway, why wasn't she at work
• is an outside agitator
• is acting how women do when they're not controlled properly
• was 'driving erratically' and probably high
• or any variation of those

you deserve what's coming to you. Because if you think Trump's Gestapo will stop before they're stopped, if you think they will stop before they get to someone you care about, if you think they'll stop before they destroy this country, you haven't been paying attention.

ETA: PZ Myers on the killing