tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83406842024-03-19T04:47:20.489-04:00delagar This is the blog of Kelly Jennings, science fiction writer. delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.comBlogger4482125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-24750739591019293252024-03-17T12:10:00.010-04:002024-03-18T22:28:32.167-04:00William Allan Jennings (1939-2024)<p><br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf2Me-EOUPPy8AvPseEDpJ-usz4h-zryyCDIa_Nj13vX9gm-6YUKRsX_hJOolgmxHjYCcdWrVl4kKSm4Q1jD1MdHQtTenWsIq1ow0pEVkKQkE9fn2xHp3A6s5brnr6zeqZE86sNhxrJCAwSn-c8C2GrPzKr23EI92z_c6blZZ8Bk6u7Ws1BuGI/s364/Dad%202019.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="332" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf2Me-EOUPPy8AvPseEDpJ-usz4h-zryyCDIa_Nj13vX9gm-6YUKRsX_hJOolgmxHjYCcdWrVl4kKSm4Q1jD1MdHQtTenWsIq1ow0pEVkKQkE9fn2xHp3A6s5brnr6zeqZE86sNhxrJCAwSn-c8C2GrPzKr23EI92z_c6blZZ8Bk6u7Ws1BuGI/w159-h175/Dad%202019.jpg" width="159" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My father, 2019</td></tr></tbody></table>My father died yesterday, from complications from COVID and dementia. His condition had been worsening over the past few years; and he was at the stage where he knew almost no one, or where he was, or what was happening.<p></p><p>He still missed my mother, though. Every time I spoke to him on the phone, he would tell me how lonely he was, how much he missed her, how when he woke in the night, he would reach over to the side if her bed, and it was always empty.</p><p>They had a long relationship -- meeting when they were 20 years old and 22 years old, and marrying three months later. They drove out to Seattle, Washington together a few days after that, where my father had just been hired as a chemical engineer at Boeing. They had to marry beforehand, because in those days a man and a woman could not rent a hotel room together unless they could prove that they were married.</p><p>Once in Washington State, they lived in a tiny pink trailer in a trailer park in Renton, Washington, where over the next five years they would have three children -- my brother Scott, me, and my younger brother Michael. My memories of my father from these days are few and fleeting. I remember him taking care of us one night when my mother went to play bridge, and falling asleep on our couch, waking up briefly to tell me to make sure the trailer door was locked. I had to reach up the lock the door, so I would have been two, I guess, which would have made him around 23.</p><p>And I remember him holding me up in the hospital so I could look at Michael, newborn, in the hospital nursery. </p><p>When I was four, he was transferred to New Orleans, where he helped build fuel tanks for the Apollo missions. I remember visiting the plant, and seeing the tanks, which were impossibly big (especially for my four year old self). We were living then in the trailer in a trailer park in Gentilly, near a coffee plant. (Community coffee, I think.) I remember waking up to the rich smell of the beans being roasted.</p><p>I remember when he and my mother bought a house being built in a new subdivision, out in Metairie. We would drive out to the subdivision (Willowdale) on Sunday afternoon to see how the new house was progressing. He would walk us through it, pointing out where the rooms would be. And he found and planted a swamp willow in the backyard, which would grow into the tree I spent half my childhood climbing.</p><p>He was never really a hands-on sort of Dad. Taking care of the children was my mother's job. But I remember he built kites for us (using his engineering training). We drove to Florida a couple times a year, so he could go to the races (car races, at Daytona Beach, I think? I don't actually remember that) and we could play in the ocean. Every year, in the summer, we drove to Indiana so we could spend a week with my grandparents in Andrews, Indiana, and a week with my other grandparents, and bunches of cousins, in Richmond, Indiana. That was our big vacation. </p><p>When I was 13, my mother turned up pregnant. She was 34 then, and he was 32, and it was a shock to both of them. But after a few days, my father was delighted. "When I'm in my 40s," he would say, "I'll have someone to take to baseball games, and fishing." My youngest brother, born when I was 14, was his favorite of all of us, I think.</p><p>I don't know much about my father's childhood. He would tell us how he had to live on potato soup during his early childhood, because his family was so poor; and how his father bought a farm when my father and his brother were in their teens, so that my father and his brother could learn responsibility -- they took care of a small herd of dairy cattle, milking them, feeding them, keeping the milk cans sterile, and selling the milk to a local dairy. Only when I was an adult did I learn he could imitate the bawl of a young calf -- he did it for my kid. It was hilarious.</p><p>He also told us once about how when he was little, five or six, he had a terrible case of boils, so bad that he couldn't walk; and how the doctor have him a shot of penicillin, which cleared them right up. Google tells me penicillin did not become available to the public until 1945, so I guess he must have been six, at least.</p><p>I know he graduated from high school at sixteen, and went to college on a scholarship, finishing his degree in three years. This was how he was able to marry my mother when he was 20. Later, when we were in New Orleans, he got an MBA from Tulane.</p><p>He worked for NASA until I was 13, when he was transferred to Wichita, Kansas, a place he hated so much that he quit NASA and went to work for <a href="https://freemanmag.tulane.edu/2018/07/26/class-notes-summer-2018/">Louisiana Off-Shore Oil Port, or LOOP,</a> as Vice-President of Operations and Construction. That was the job that made him rich enough that he was able to retire at 55 -- though he kept working as a consultant after that.</p><p>He and my mother spent the next twenty years traveling the world. He ran marathons on every continent, including Antarctica. They went to China. They went to Australia. They took boats up the Rhine. </p><p>When I was living in Idaho, they came out there and we went to Yellowstone Park. The most excited I had ever seen him was when we hiked down to this immense waterfall together. That and the buffalo. It wasn't the buffalo he liked so much as how furious my little dog Spike got about the buffalo. Whenever we drove past one, Spike would go nuts, baying and slamming himself against the car window. That cracked my father up.</p><p>The last time I saw him in person was just before the pandemic, when he and my mother drove up to see us. He was already affected badly by dementia, and kept asking me where this was I lived, and what was it I did for a living, again? </p><p>"Do you see?" my mother asked me, when we went out to Wal-Mart together. "Can you tell he's different?"</p><p>He hadn't had the diagnosis yet, but he would within the year.</p><p>"I don't know what he's going to do, if I die," she told me. "What's going to happen to him without me?"</p><p>He missed her, that's what happened. He missed her to the end. Even when he could remember nothing else, he remembered that.</p><p>"We were married for sixty years," he would tell me, when I called him. "I miss her every day."</p><p>He was the last of my parents, and the last of my childhood. The last person to remember the bicycle he gave me for Christmas when I was ten, or the puppy he gave me when I was eleven. The last person to remember the house I grew up in, or what those vacations to Daytona were like. The last person to remember my brothers when they were babies, or birthday parties, or how I learned to ride a bike.</p><p>I'm the oldest in the family now. That's a weird feeling, I have to tell you. Me, the elder.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-81457500314367949452024-03-14T17:27:00.002-04:002024-03-14T17:27:49.425-04:00New Washer Acquired<p>It's a Maytag, and according to the internet it should last at least 15 years.</p><p>Here's hoping!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjujTnNEC6UC0P0wAO6y6THF6oRNGiISSpq9NiSZXN2jk03W0m-yGQxiMH5bLKRCLSncrO-sLaazIsv43hjb2WZvQ0EcYUnqLlwL9GIFvo2iLeySOnTMiIiRCvg768GOjl1CM0iq7gbtN3ZVFwKwmkUOwv-C37o_IpXzpzGzjEX-GzLdzDJR4SF" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="177" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjujTnNEC6UC0P0wAO6y6THF6oRNGiISSpq9NiSZXN2jk03W0m-yGQxiMH5bLKRCLSncrO-sLaazIsv43hjb2WZvQ0EcYUnqLlwL9GIFvo2iLeySOnTMiIiRCvg768GOjl1CM0iq7gbtN3ZVFwKwmkUOwv-C37o_IpXzpzGzjEX-GzLdzDJR4SF" width="157" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-3104627349004287032024-03-14T09:50:00.000-04:002024-03-14T09:50:06.943-04:00Fate Laughs (LOL LOL)<p>I ordered a washing machine online (who knew you could do that?) from a local hardware store and it is scheduled to be delivered today.</p><p>At the same time as the tornados arrive.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-21977122356311314172024-03-12T17:59:00.002-04:002024-03-12T17:59:53.957-04:00Tana French!<p> Tana French has a new novel out, and I scored first in line on the library hold list.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji5wWOhK3QA1frspcAKFFaMVQC9kT7585uNSZWZAAC_7xNY2zIyRBQ7zDh8WC_ITKTB_2mZC7Q39dP4sAQcc5p-y8x1OMbXIzaHVdOb7LRf6gGu1-2I8VsV-o5FV7JwQLTP1Bh37exxRO6J9-62uZhbBeapJkT7ONcQ7hnA-qHD0-fFes-GXuV" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1208" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji5wWOhK3QA1frspcAKFFaMVQC9kT7585uNSZWZAAC_7xNY2zIyRBQ7zDh8WC_ITKTB_2mZC7Q39dP4sAQcc5p-y8x1OMbXIzaHVdOb7LRf6gGu1-2I8VsV-o5FV7JwQLTP1Bh37exxRO6J9-62uZhbBeapJkT7ONcQ7hnA-qHD0-fFes-GXuV" width="159" /></a></div><br />This is a sequel to her <i>Searcher</i>, about a Chicago cop who has relocated to a small town in Ireland, which I re-read in anticipation of this novel. I can't wait!<p></p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-64794561112901942382024-03-12T14:26:00.000-04:002024-03-12T14:26:02.810-04:00ARGH<p>My washing machine (which I bought from a second-hand shop) has finally quit working entirely. Formerly it would stall, and I'd have to kick it or bang the lid hard, and it would start working again. Now it's totally and finally dead.</p><p>We're going to look for another eventually, but for now it's back to the laundromats for me.</p><p>Meanwhile it is spring in Arkansas. Everything is blooming and I can shut off the heat and leave the windows open. My cats are very pleased.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifnj07Q_JrtP6fct0ws9cYP7WVvSc0-FqK-GsQCaIi71bTJiQzL9YFfjmD6yDg8RAHZ0Ply91fLi_jbPRmStscTnZL_7uAEtjezrjqZ0VoWSf5hrANNlTLTD88OLe2KWbqcPXim6EwjU1Xdd4N3kvTJzl7sgtXGIQLRLUqALsH9vbI61gbpV6N" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="302" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifnj07Q_JrtP6fct0ws9cYP7WVvSc0-FqK-GsQCaIi71bTJiQzL9YFfjmD6yDg8RAHZ0Ply91fLi_jbPRmStscTnZL_7uAEtjezrjqZ0VoWSf5hrANNlTLTD88OLe2KWbqcPXim6EwjU1Xdd4N3kvTJzl7sgtXGIQLRLUqALsH9vbI61gbpV6N" width="180" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-66248474630957223842024-03-09T17:47:00.001-05:002024-03-09T17:47:49.740-05:00Dogs in Arkansas<p> This hefty bulldog came to visit me today:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEitwWdn8Gu7kk5QAAqF0zyUHV0QRCz7AFRCkNBVSl3dscgjRbzUmJProIMZBoOoQtQQZ3B-Ltf-E4Cnrm2nMeCHhTsgn91X25RHcSm4Kpmxyw34QyXNQztea08x4CmajpnN_iVnPa5GkSdChTgVJkeMZ0CULph4GMx-QDkQhHU_9SYzaQBoOARd" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="1560" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEitwWdn8Gu7kk5QAAqF0zyUHV0QRCz7AFRCkNBVSl3dscgjRbzUmJProIMZBoOoQtQQZ3B-Ltf-E4Cnrm2nMeCHhTsgn91X25RHcSm4Kpmxyw34QyXNQztea08x4CmajpnN_iVnPa5GkSdChTgVJkeMZ0CULph4GMx-QDkQhHU_9SYzaQBoOARd" width="320" /></a></div><br />He and his little French bulldog friend were trotting briskly about, entirely unsupervised, neither wearing a collar, and both what we in the dog-owning circle call "intact males." <p></p><p>This is entirely normal behavior for dog owners in this city -- their animals are left free to wander at will. Luckily these two were very sweet, but I've been rushed at by loose pitbulls and yappy little furballs too often to greet this practice with equanimity.</p><p>If you don't have a fenced yard, supervise your animals, and preferably keep them on a leash. Please.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-34060538290296367032024-03-08T20:44:00.005-05:002024-03-08T20:45:40.934-05:00Seven Days Until Spring Break <p>...but who's counting?</p><p>This isn't even such a stressful semester. I'm teaching two comp classes, one scriptwriting class, and an introduction to creative writing. About 75 students. True, it's a lot of writing to read, comment on, and eventually grade, and true, it's a new prep; but it's no more work than I usually do per semester.</p><p>I did get made chair of the committee to hire the new poet for our writing program, but I won't do any actual work on that for another month or so. Maybe it's anticipatory stress. </p><p>Maybe it's just midterm. Midterm always leaves me feeling exhausted.</p><p>Whatever, though, I'm counting the days.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-7890016561303996502024-03-05T20:03:00.003-05:002024-03-05T20:03:28.635-05:00Ugh<p>All I have eaten today is sugar -- a free donut from the breakroom for breakfast, a bag of M&Ms at noon, and two sandwich cookies before my night class. I also drank like fifteen cups of coffee. This is hardly the Surgeons General's recommended meal plan.</p><p>Though the M&Ms <i>were</i> peanut M&Ms. So, you <a href="https://www.nutritionix.com/i/m-ms/peanut-m-ms/550f4f612c6fbcb46ddb9fe5">know, protein</a>.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-41257733997789653722024-03-05T13:27:00.004-05:002024-03-05T13:27:48.792-05:00My Kid Does Comic<p> My kid has drawn a comic I suspect we can all relate to:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0BeS8HAej0yKOR6eur5UbSBFBZZ35w8LvZKAr6mPhBHeKBGS4Oj9na9AEbIwDy1Udu3q21C2-HX5_Zva_rGo1vxDrp2tl6Fv81FJ8aJGyWa4ryMINtL_VnQKqqCrkodC-C7ac6-GF6t9hUGwHysO8NY0ltcTyIU0wkUdBrxNC5wL5vZuVAS6O" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1192" data-original-width="749" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0BeS8HAej0yKOR6eur5UbSBFBZZ35w8LvZKAr6mPhBHeKBGS4Oj9na9AEbIwDy1Udu3q21C2-HX5_Zva_rGo1vxDrp2tl6Fv81FJ8aJGyWa4ryMINtL_VnQKqqCrkodC-C7ac6-GF6t9hUGwHysO8NY0ltcTyIU0wkUdBrxNC5wL5vZuVAS6O=w252-h400" width="252" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/deercliff/art/the-bad-post-1027375641">Source</a><p></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-48513088647962722022024-03-01T11:44:00.002-05:002024-03-01T12:23:51.130-05:00What the GOP has Planned<p>They're not keeping this a secret -- these are the things they plan to do, if they get control of the country back.</p><p>(1) Deregulations -- let corporations police themselves</p><p>(2) Strip the EPA of power</p><p>(3) Increase drilling and fracking</p><p>(4) Do everything they can to punish the poor, especially the homeless</p><p>(5) Round up immigrants and deport them. (Recently it's been a talking point on the Right that 10% of the population of the USA is "illegal" immigrants. This is so laughable I don't even know what to say. The actual number is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/#:~:text=Trends%20in%20the%20U.S.%20immigrant%20population&text=As%20of%202021%2C%20the%20nation's,of%20the%20foreign%2Dborn%20population.">more like .03% of the population,</a> but it's pointless to argue. They left facts behind long ago.)</p><p>(6) Strip away any regulations surrounding guns. An armed society is a free society, I mean, unless you're a kid cowering under your desk waiting to see if you're the one who gets shot this time. Also, let's put more police officers in schools. That's the hallmark of a free society!</p><p>(7) Heavily regulate public school teachers and librarians, up to and including prison time for librarians who allow "children" to access "porn." (By "porn" they mean books that include LGBTQ people, or acknowledge that some families are not the nuclear model, or books about "Critical Race theory," which is to say books that contain actual history, rather than the Klan-version; or books that are simple about black people doing things.)</p><p>(8) Make trans people illegal. Not just trans kids, though yes, trans kids too. Trans people.</p><p>(9) Make birth control illegal. It's abortion, they've made the case for that, and now that abortion is illegal, birth control is next.</p><p>(10) Repeal Marriage Equality. Sure, it's settled law. So was Roe V Wade.</p><p>(11) Massively increase tax cuts for the wealthy.</p><p>(12) Stop feeding poor kids. Poor adults too, of course, but right now they're taking aim at poor kids.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjMzn0Hb5H6nc0NIPxEswDVn6UGPjLSKOfBN_UhuLiyRZFV1jRAwvfmO6LeMsEvFhHgpQkYLgWdxZHaZSGjX2YGmUt9tI5gYjwtDPx7yuCeCiAxDQCTId_Ah0XWIL-nKk-59tTLz9pp80Qt1ja-P456XkSe8uNdE6qisRmq6DUkt0EiP6JoVHCg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="680" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjMzn0Hb5H6nc0NIPxEswDVn6UGPjLSKOfBN_UhuLiyRZFV1jRAwvfmO6LeMsEvFhHgpQkYLgWdxZHaZSGjX2YGmUt9tI5gYjwtDPx7yuCeCiAxDQCTId_Ah0XWIL-nKk-59tTLz9pp80Qt1ja-P456XkSe8uNdE6qisRmq6DUkt0EiP6JoVHCg" width="298" /></a></div><p>I'd say Americans won't stand for this, but the past decade has shown most American will stand for almost anything, so long as it lets them feel superior to someone, somewhere. So long as it makes them feel like they're privileged, and better than <i>those</i> people.</p><p><br /></p><br /><p></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-725982802358534212024-02-25T12:35:00.009-05:002024-02-25T13:33:18.675-05:00Sunday Links<p>Watching all the reactionaries s<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/22/ivf-ruling-embryos-alabama-00142625">cramble to deal with the</a> Alabama <a href="https://jabberwocking.com/republicans-cant-tap-dance-around-ivf/">ruling has been, what'</a>s the word, a mix of depressing and hilarious, delarious? Clearly the leopard wasn't supposed to eat THEIR faces.</p><p>They're pro-life except what they mean i<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/24/libs-tiktok-oklahoma-nonbinary-teen-death/?fbclid=IwAR0U8pPkxuzr9UaDJ1aios_GyQPf7mhpn8z-S70sq_sh_uIGf6acbKWDM2Q">s pro-what-they-think-is-life</a></p><p><a href="https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/02/25/least-surprising-devolution-ever/">Nazis are welcome, b</a>ut trans people aren't. Pretty much all you need to know about conservatives in America.</p><p>When a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/25/play-outside-and-sing-together-living-in-denmark-and-raising-viking-children?fbclid=IwAR081BC4JA-sQVBYCl-8UkcdYGhVjglaMq1BoF9TUYaayFlvmaKtlPQzI-Q">culture is actually pro-life and pro-child </a></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFuqTyOBvfzaH7Lqo12TVrAiRCTkik2f9naBZsbk14ThpSvLyAtLnCBRZyk77_x7WjcbmK_zRCndb-dqXZ3XKCcOa7XUMBqiynFAmR4Rz33to5O74tqrI203-TC0bYh5rvPO0AXpjrUOMUSe_vKqoh7TTca3IyKniXUk4IF8s22dy_kIh9og6i" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFuqTyOBvfzaH7Lqo12TVrAiRCTkik2f9naBZsbk14ThpSvLyAtLnCBRZyk77_x7WjcbmK_zRCndb-dqXZ3XKCcOa7XUMBqiynFAmR4Rz33to5O74tqrI203-TC0bYh5rvPO0AXpjrUOMUSe_vKqoh7TTca3IyKniXUk4IF8s22dy_kIh9og6i" width="160" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjKZKBYni0CWAiGaLL-BlRFaNiJ8qrSRnna6Ya313Jz__UoIJbRa1R8TycuGAyazc9U76GtcP7jA_-0Hlk9QCNpB5Ghmg_s_troSlvpPQniMSrHR7g0FtjF_MqpX3HOfWoyEkd0IvwSf4Y47n3luKZNFxU2OTjWPY1dnetdmtgHK802rLhCvswf" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1239" data-original-width="2000" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjKZKBYni0CWAiGaLL-BlRFaNiJ8qrSRnna6Ya313Jz__UoIJbRa1R8TycuGAyazc9U76GtcP7jA_-0Hlk9QCNpB5Ghmg_s_troSlvpPQniMSrHR7g0FtjF_MqpX3HOfWoyEkd0IvwSf4Y47n3luKZNFxU2OTjWPY1dnetdmtgHK802rLhCvswf" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trans People Don't Exist, So It's Fine to Beat Them to Death in a Bathroom</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQjN2QU3IQ5aj1szROlNABI46VelyxKbN93Ye0yi_cQd5keEwLjiQbU1TQny-3sP4Dz49DU5zFUuRRbkBXPuQboFS6vziEKnkZaFV3qLuhoRlltUp0hajy7qLxklIim-fwAqtTZaoepYFLREmvtt_FTmRQkgZG3yZV7JyaoZenEomUtyBL8Jf7" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="889" data-original-width="821" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQjN2QU3IQ5aj1szROlNABI46VelyxKbN93Ye0yi_cQd5keEwLjiQbU1TQny-3sP4Dz49DU5zFUuRRbkBXPuQboFS6vziEKnkZaFV3qLuhoRlltUp0hajy7qLxklIim-fwAqtTZaoepYFLREmvtt_FTmRQkgZG3yZV7JyaoZenEomUtyBL8Jf7" width="222" /></a></div><br /><br /></div>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-72398406261403597182024-02-22T12:12:00.002-05:002024-02-22T12:12:13.992-05:00Blade Runner<p>I'm watching Blade Runner with the aim of maybe showing it to my screenwriting class, and at the start it tells us <span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>LOS ANGELES 2019</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which is funny. What's NOT funny is that almost none of my students have even ever heard of this movie.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-7618397463039959632024-02-22T09:42:00.002-05:002024-02-22T09:44:52.736-05:00What Kind of Judges <p>In case you weren't alarmed enough about Alabama's Supreme Court ruling that frozen blastocysts are children, <a href="https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/02/22/how-to-get-a-demented-judicial-system/">here's who made that ruling (Via PZ Myers).</a></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #550000; font-family: georgia, cochin, serif; font-size: 16px;"></span></p><blockquote>During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.</blockquote><p>This is what our "conservative" party has become. That's not actually conservative, obviously. It's reactionary, and it's radical. I would have hopes that this decision would be overturned by a higher court, but thanks to Trump voters, our higher courts are very nearly just as reactionary, radical, and bigoted.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAfU31C4W59g5x6fTJo4JXkwFuMgERsazZoe2y-S9XT4KZeWL-7dM6nHt-MRDXVkp4zWxjpKCylL4q5recv5YUcH_AOpWASL3ov-qJO1MzvYDpgpj3Yjr2Wfs1jeAJ9IvzeR4-Wf7vc3tI4WTERY7y9XVWRG8LsDFehkNEnDx8DUdeWHi7CcoA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="881" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAfU31C4W59g5x6fTJo4JXkwFuMgERsazZoe2y-S9XT4KZeWL-7dM6nHt-MRDXVkp4zWxjpKCylL4q5recv5YUcH_AOpWASL3ov-qJO1MzvYDpgpj3Yjr2Wfs1jeAJ9IvzeR4-Wf7vc3tI4WTERY7y9XVWRG8LsDFehkNEnDx8DUdeWHi7CcoA" width="220" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-50754728072304966962024-02-21T14:23:00.003-05:002024-02-21T14:23:32.383-05:00Perils of the Modern Age<p>Or, password blues.</p><p>So, not only does my university now require multi-multi factor authentication to let me access my university stuff, it is now changing the rules for passwords, making them longer, requiring them to have more weird characters and numbers, and not letting us reuse a password for 24 months.</p><p>Also, we're not supposed to write them down, ever.</p><p>Given that I have like SEVENTY passwords to various sites, how</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-66107116623071635582024-02-21T00:01:00.002-05:002024-02-21T00:01:15.016-05:00Re-Reading Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Disturbances in the Field<p>This is a book I first read years ago, I think in the 1990s? I've re-read it every so often. (In fact there is a bookmark in it of one of the kid's early drawings, dated 2003.) Anyway, I wanted to share this passage:</p><p></p><blockquote>I watched Victor Rowe. In his light eyes was the most critical expression I had ever seen. Anyone who scanned the world that way, I thought, must be the most clever, the most supercilious. And if he knew how striking he was, it would be so much the worse. He was tall and rangy and moved with the coordinated, weird grace of a giraffe. </blockquote><p>This is the man she will marry, but the book is not about romance or any sort of love affair -- though she and Victor do seem to love each other. She's a pianist and he's an artist and they have four children and live in Manhattan in the 1980s, and it's about their lives in college and their lives in the 1960s and 1970s, and their friends and families and one terrible event that smashes into that life. It's not about the terrible event, either, exactly, it's about the life that collides with that event. Oh, and Greek philosophy. It's also about Greek philosophy.</p><p>I was in graduate school when I read this book, and just after I finished it I saw it on the desk of a fellow grad student. "Oh, I love that book," I said (which parenthetically is the worst thing you can say about any book if you are a graduate student in English).</p><p>"Did you," she said. "I got a little bored with all the philosophy."</p><p>I was a young grad student and had no rebuttal. What I should have said was, but the philosophy is the most essential part of the book! I should have said, but what are you reading it for, then? The fucking daily life in Manhattan?</p><p>(To be clear: I love the daily life in Manhattan part. 1960 through 1980 in New York was such a different world, this might as well be science fiction.)</p><p>What I did say was, "That was my favorite part."</p><p>We stared at each other as though across an abyss. I don't know what became of her; I don't even remember her name. I think maybe she was a translator? Or a New Critic. Who knows.</p><p>Bored with all the philosophy indeed.</p><p>Anyway, you should definitely read <i>Disturbances in the Field</i>, though I haven't like any other of Schwartz's books nearly as much. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhf9SDaQ_-0dOtDwbpXUCBLYjtBuyLR-dAux7DTkknnafN9-d6iZdZbAbdO_HyW4_j95CEWXaoFwdp70jH8uxLDjzEvEMVaikYVDrUKrIOOmlQTWr_yyNVyegsWdaOyp7a5Z4kg6JZ1ztCSgSZiU0aJ-b7c3Rw34AbiFWUyfY6ckTNIfxl_XcPq" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="350" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhf9SDaQ_-0dOtDwbpXUCBLYjtBuyLR-dAux7DTkknnafN9-d6iZdZbAbdO_HyW4_j95CEWXaoFwdp70jH8uxLDjzEvEMVaikYVDrUKrIOOmlQTWr_yyNVyegsWdaOyp7a5Z4kg6JZ1ztCSgSZiU0aJ-b7c3Rw34AbiFWUyfY6ckTNIfxl_XcPq=w133-h190" width="133" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-31724368313262323882024-02-20T17:11:00.002-05:002024-02-20T17:11:43.007-05:00Random Stuff<p>I do not have Covid. I think it was just a cold, because I'm much better today.</p><p>We've hit summer already here in Arkansas. High near 80 tomorrow.</p><p>I read Laurie Frankel's new book, <a href="https://thesouthernbooksellerreview.org/family-family-by-laurie-frankel/"><i>Family Family</i>,</a> between naps while I was waiting to see if I had Covid. It is just excellent. Highly recommend.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhBIAk5fYcr4j6bsEOEQY6hJzLY9jX4ypT5gwwQg5f5JWLaQjN7rulRNs3ggjaDMI_BwRqs1fFGdpI3KwzdnSC3zycHT2d5x87QQufpr0b1Bm6lmgP1kX-VbTHBXBzscv4gpWEpK3o_a6AfZ6ZZZ4i84phhFHvpIoma1_unrKoRh-Er0xXsIhAJ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1511" data-original-width="1000" height="119" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhBIAk5fYcr4j6bsEOEQY6hJzLY9jX4ypT5gwwQg5f5JWLaQjN7rulRNs3ggjaDMI_BwRqs1fFGdpI3KwzdnSC3zycHT2d5x87QQufpr0b1Bm6lmgP1kX-VbTHBXBzscv4gpWEpK3o_a6AfZ6ZZZ4i84phhFHvpIoma1_unrKoRh-Er0xXsIhAJ=w79-h119" width="79" /></a></div><br />Half my time in online classes is spent reminding students that if they just read the directions and look at the example I have given, they would be able to answer their own questions. Only I'm way nicer than that when I say it. But UGH.<p></p><p>My students are much more receptive to the idea of Universal Basic Income than I expected them to be. Only a few students have sternly explained to me that we should be against UBI because it's immoral, or liberal. Honestly I was expecting that reaction out of most of them.</p><p>Even so I think next semester I will have them write about extinction events instead. Or maybe plastic, though oh my God researching plastic is <i>so depressing.</i></p><p>My kid got into graduate school. He's waiting to hear about a (real) job, but if he doesn't get that, he'll almost certainly go to grad school. His ultimate goal is to be a scientific illustrator and also draw comics.</p><p>I am craving cookies like you wouldn't believe but all the cookies available at our local grocery stores are disgusting. Also I don't really want to bake my own but it may come to that. UGH.</p><p>There's another local Chinese takeout I might talk Dr. Skull into trying, since I am not happy with the one we're using now.</p><p>How's things with all y'all?</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-24968801164415467482024-02-18T12:11:00.002-05:002024-02-18T12:11:44.244-05:00True Love Has Its Limits, You Know<p>I've had a mild fever, a headache, a sore throat, and achy bones; plus yesterday I slept for about 20 hours.</p><p>Me: Ugh. I think I might have Covid again.</p><p>Dr. Skull: :(</p><p>Me: Come see if I have a fever.</p><p>Dr. Skull: I'm not touching you if you have Covid.</p><p>Me: Fine, just leave me here to die.</p><p>Dr. Skull: (retreats into his office.)</p><p>Me: At least bring me a Covid test!</p><p> </p><p>(The test was negative, but the directions say I should test again in 48 hours. Ugh.)</p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-42431759526812997802024-02-15T18:51:00.006-05:002024-02-18T12:59:54.972-05:00What I'm Reading Now<p>J<b><span style="font-size: medium;">ane Gardam, <i>A Long Way from Verona, Old Filth, The Hollow Land, Faith Fox</i></span></b></p><p>To be honest, Jane Gardam is mostly what I am reading now. I discovered her via <a href="https://dameeleanorhull.wordpress.com/">Dame Eleanor Hul</a>l's blog, and although my library only had two hard copies (my preferred method of reading) they have bunches of e-copies, and I am working my way through them. </p><p>Gardam is a delight -- lucid, lively writing, and a huge backlist, so she can keep my reading appetite satisfied for awhile. </p><p><i>A Long Way from Verona</i>, which is about an adolescent girl, Jessica, in England during WWII, whose father has quit being a headmaster to become a curate in Yorkshire (the vilest part of England, according to Jessica's mother). It's Jessica's voice that carries this one -- she's tough, hilarious, and unstoppable. This is supposed to be a children's book, but as an adult, I loved it.</p><p><i>Old Filth </i>is one of her adult novels, about a British judge (retired) whose wife has just died. The novel moves back and forth in time, from the death of Filth's mother at his birth (in Malaysia), after which his father neglects him entirely until he is five, and then sends him home to England to board with a woman who keeps "Raj orphans," which is to say children whose parents send them back to England while remaining in East Asia or India themselves. Apparently Gardam bases this part of the story on Rudyard Kipling's life, which honestly explains a lot about Kipling. Filth stands for <i>Failed in London, Try Hong Kong,</i> by the way. Apparently this is a trilogy, but I haven't gotten ahold of the others yet.</p><p><i>Hollow Land </i>is a collection of what read almost like short stories, set in Cumbria, which is apparently part of the Lake District, tracking the lives of two families and their general community from the 1970s until 2015, which makes it technically science fiction, since it was originally published in 1981. Gardam's 2015 is a much more interesting and appealing one than the one we have, I'll add.</p><p>I've just started <i>Faith Fox</i>, and I love it to bits already.</p><p>Highly recommended.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Carolyn See, <i>The Handyman</i></span></b></p><p>Carolyn See was also recommended on Dame Eleanor Hull's blog. This is the only one the library had in hard copy; I'll look for e-copies next, because See is also great. <i>The Handyman</i> is about a guy who wants to be an artist, but can't seem to find his material. It's kind of how he finds his material, but mostly about how he becomes a humane human and how he learns about community. I could not stop reading this one; I read it all in one day, finishing about two in the morning even though I had to be up at six the next day. I'm very much looking forward to reading all her other books.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>J. G. Ballard, <i>Empire of the Sun</i></b></p><p>Someone left this book on the leave-one-take-one shelf in the English department hallway, and since I'd wanted to read it since seeing the movie, I took it. I didn't leave one, but I took several of my excess books the next day, very penitently. </p><p>This one, as you probably know, is about a British boy who gets separated from his parents in China during the early days of WWII, and spends the war interned in various camps, surviving by attaching himself to adults who both exploit and look after him. Ballard himself was interned in China during the war, though I am pretty sure he was with his parents the whole time.</p><p>This is an interesting but not great book. If you liked the movie, it's worth looking at; but I don't know that I'll seek out more Ballard. Apparently he wrote science fiction, but I've never read or even seen any SF books by him. Wikipedia tells me he wrote a SF book called <i>Crash</i>, which the movie of the same name is based on, but I haven't seen that movie either.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-90465089425981851432024-02-14T14:07:00.003-05:002024-02-14T14:07:36.316-05:00God Never Makes Mistakes<p>PZ Myers <a href="https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/02/14/nobody-calls-it-the-gender-chromosome/">discusses a Christian bigot making </a>the claim that trans people shouldn't exist because it's wrong to change what God creates.</p><p>Myers rebuts her claims, but I'd just like to add that it's kind of telling how many of these bigots make that claim while, say, wearing makeup. Or eyeglasses. Never mind how many of them have had plastic surgery or gastric bypass surgery or fake tans, in the aim of gender-affirming care (so that they'll look more like they think a person of their gender should look). Or wear heels. Or dye their hair. Or pluck their eyebrows, shave their legs, put on perfume, hell, fucking bathe. God wants us to be smelly, after all, that's how he made us. </p><p>And if God never makes mistakes, then I guess we should leave kids born with heart defects or cleft palates or club feet as God made them. We should let Type I diabetics die. People with high blood pressure, no help for them. If you get a cavity, why, God wants your teeth to rot, that's how he made them.</p><p>Oh, wait, it's only TRANS people we should keep from getting the medical help they need. I keep forgetting.</p><p>You can tell these people are creating God in their own image, because he always believes exactly the hateful bullshit they believe.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-91412051011264176722024-02-14T10:45:00.005-05:002024-02-15T12:28:11.566-05:00Spring Already in the Fort<p>We had a brief cold spell in January, which is apparently all the winter we will have this year. Next week, the highs are going to be near 80, heading into the last week of February.</p><p>Meanwhile, the GOP is pushing the notion that climate change is a hoax, so that they can give more money to their owners, the oil companies. Maybe the planet will become unlivable, but hey, at least a few rich men will get a tiny bit richer. And the GOP can maintain power. Win-win, am I right?</p><p> ETA: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/14/americans-believe-climate-change-study">This study shows that only 15% of American</a>s think Climate change is a myth. I would have thought a lot more than that. What's the odds that on a Venn diagram the overlap between this lot and the Magats is a circle?</p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-83248210996242159932024-02-09T13:15:00.004-05:002024-02-09T15:57:12.669-05:00Teaching Script WritingI'm teaching a script writing workshop for the first time this semester. Since I have never written a screenplay or script of any sort in my life, it's an adventure.<div><br /></div><div>I'm using Syd Field's <i>Screenplay </i>and Blake Snyder's<i> Save the Cat </i>as texts in the class<i>,</i> and I am also writing my own screenplay, for the experience more than anything else. Also watching a lot of movies and applying what I have learned from Field and Snyder to those. </div><div><br /></div><div>One category of assignment I've done so far is to watch movies with the class (<i>Cast Away</i> and <i>Contagion</i>) and have them "map" the movies to the model Field gives, the three act structure that is the classic screenplay form.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>It goes like this:</div><div><br /></div><div>Act I: Set up</div><div><span> </span><span> Plot Point One: propels the viewer into the story</span><br /></div><div><span>Act II: The body of the story</span></div><div><span><span> </span><span> Plot Point Two: propels the viewer into Act III</span><br /></span></div><div><span><span>Act III: Conclusion</span></span></div><div><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span>Act I is about 20 pages of script; Act II is about 70 pages; Act III is about 20 pages.</span></span></div><div><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span>I also had them read the<a href="https://8flix.com/assets/screenplays/c/tt1598778/Contagion-2011-screenplay-by-Scott-Z-Burns.pdf"> Contagion script</a> and compare it to the movie, which was probably the most useful assignment we've done so far.</span></div><div><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span>Then there's the <a href="https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/scriptsample.pdf">whole screenplay format</a>, which frankly is turning out to be the hardest part of teaching the class so far. Only about half the students will follow the format. The rest are kind of making something up and using that. AARGH.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>I think I know my mistake, though. I just told them where they could find the guide, I didn't build an assignment around it. I need to do that.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Anyway, teaching the class is turning out to be interesting. Plus, an excuse to watch movies!</span></div><div><span><span><br /></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-71082195641574989492024-02-08T10:27:00.002-05:002024-02-08T10:27:13.702-05:00Ow<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPPXHHGcCsdOXmPLreqM_ffddHhatRukJd90ISYPomP39K6832Jqe-dlKQTfZgq6MLsjRw4A3JHGSNdv04R2c8YGvv4mq5A-0oEWVpjha1ZgOLKynObxNN8aXLjKHDq62obaXBxBNeNNR84uStlmuRZJO57nfK3Pa3YjE0FDp1wzwPLTvbHZ-V" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPPXHHGcCsdOXmPLreqM_ffddHhatRukJd90ISYPomP39K6832Jqe-dlKQTfZgq6MLsjRw4A3JHGSNdv04R2c8YGvv4mq5A-0oEWVpjha1ZgOLKynObxNN8aXLjKHDq62obaXBxBNeNNR84uStlmuRZJO57nfK3Pa3YjE0FDp1wzwPLTvbHZ-V" width="262" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>(Transcription:</p><p><span> [My kid looking over my shoulder while I sign an email</span>]</p><p><span> </span><span> Kid: You're not a Dr!</span><br /></p><p><span><span> </span><span> Me: YES I AM! What do you think I was studying for all the time when you were little?</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span><span> <span> Kid: Oh, I thought you just liked reading books and crying.)</span></span><br /></span></span></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-39245627402215135942024-02-04T12:23:00.001-05:002024-02-04T12:23:31.972-05:00New Recipe at Cooking with delagar<p> If you've always wanted to make excellent French baguettes at home, now is your chance!</p><p><a href="https://delagarcooks.blogspot.com/2024/02/french-baquettes.html">French Baguettes</a></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-54010581882918497902024-02-02T11:16:00.007-05:002024-02-02T11:44:15.537-05:00Tom Cotton, Y'all<p>I assume Tom Cotton isn't this ignorant -- he was smart enough to get into Harvard, as well as Harvard Law -- so these questions probably signal something else. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xEuRznnu5YI" width="320" youtube-src-id="xEuRznnu5YI"></iframe></div><p>The Right is applauding him, for "unrelentingly grilling" the CEO of TikTok, but the rest of us are bemused and a little queasy.</p><p>He's also a little confused about the post hoc ergo facto hoc fallacy.</p><p>Bear in mind, these are supposed to be hearings over child safety. He doesn't ask anything about that; instead, his aim seems to be to blame TikTok for teens who shoot themselves. It's not the easy availability of guns that lead to that, Tom wants us to believe, but TikTok videos.</p><p>Which is an argument I'm seeing a lot on the Right. Nothing the GOP is doing, or conservative parents are doing, or religious parents are doing, is leading to depressed or distressed children. Laws, no. It's them Chinese comnist and that libral media!</p><p>Tom Cotton is a real prize, by the way. He's one of our senators here in Arkansas. </p><p>He -- of course -- rabidly opposes SNAP; he denies that systemic racism exists -- even though he has benefited from such racism -- and he supports putting even more people in prison. He rabidly opposes marriage equality and Obamacare. He opposes stem-cell research. He opposes closing Guantanamo Bay, and in fact thinks we should send more people there to be held indefinitely and tortured.</p><p>He's pro-religious liberty, so long as it's his religion people belong to, and so long as he can use the religious liberty argument to hurt LGBTQ people and liberals in general.</p><p>He thinks slavery was a necessary evil. (I don't need to point out that Cotton's ancestors held slaves, and that at least some of his generational wealth is derived from slavery.)</p><p>He wants journalists who write articles that support Palestinians over Israelis investigated by the Justice department, to see if they're committing "federal crimes." This is especially hilarious given his actions in 2015, writing a letter to people we were then at war with, telling them not to trust the President. </p><p>He also supports waterboarding, claiming it is not torture; and -- here's something scary -- was considered by Trump as a potential nominee for the Supreme Court seat eventually given to Amy Coney Barrett.</p><p>It might be he's hoping for Trump's re-election, and a second shot at a Supreme Court seat. It might be he has bigger plan. He has ambitions to be president someday, I do know that. Since he's about as charismatic as a Q-tip, I cling to the hope that no matter how xenophobic he is, that won't ever happen.</p><p>Fingers crossed.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8340684.post-64038740058713084772024-01-31T17:34:00.002-05:002024-01-31T17:34:21.238-05:00Weather<p>It's 66 degrees here, sunny and crisp, at the end of January. Forecast calls for 68 tomorrow, on the first day of February.</p><p>Perfectly normal, nothing to see here, move along please.</p><p><br /></p>delagarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18197857250240640822noreply@blogger.com3