Who Has What Now?

So despite all the trumpeting about percentages of wealth, and all the pie charts everyone's been passing around the blogosphere, this is still how Americans think our wealth is divided up.

All I got to say about this is WTF?

Also, no wonder Scott Walker and the TeaBaggers can pull their con off.  What are my fellow citizens doing with their time?  Not fucking well paying attention, apparently.

Watching Dancing With The Stars, I guess.

Democracy.  You get what you deserve.

Oh, Big Shock

James O'Keefe edited the NPR video into lies, lies, lies, making Schiller say exactly the opposite of what he actually did say, over and over again.

This is the same game the Right keeps playing.

Why does anyone keep buying?

And here's my second question: will anyone pay half as much attention to this revelation as they did to the O'Keefe's big reveal? Oh, I think we know that answer.

WHAT time is it?

Somehow I missed the approach of daylight savings time this year.

I've been staying up until two and three in the morning lately anyway, working on the current novel -- see, I go through shifts in writing schedules.  For awhile, I'll work best waking up at six and writing like crazy for three or four hours before I go to work.  And then I'll work best coming straight home after classes and writing five or six hours.  And then (like now) I'll work best during the five or six hours from ten p.m. until I'm literally so tired my eyes are crossing.

This last shift is not the best shift for someone who has to function in the modern world, especially on those days (only three of them this semester, but still) when I have to wake up in time to make 9.30 office hours.

Anyway.  Today I woke up, rolled over, and said, ah.  Ten o'clock.  Plenty of time to clean house before the writing group arrives.  (My writing group is coming today.)

But ha!  But no!  It was actually eleven o'clock!  The Gods of Time are mocking me!

WTF.  Why do we even still have these time shifts?  So far as I know, the notion that this saves fuel has been disproved, and it clearly fucks up everyone's schedules, and is it just that once we've DONE something, we can't STOP doing that thing?  Because that's not true.  Scott Walker just said so.

I'm grumpy.

This Is Why I'm Depressed

So...I'm chatting with one of my students today, about this and that and nothing much, and I happen to drop into the conversation that I'm feeling a little gloomy just now.  Oh, why, he says.

"Oh," I say, "all this with Scott Walker, up there in Wisconsin, I'm angry about it, and that's got my mood a bit dark."

"Who's Scott Walker?" he asks.

Which, see, this, I just -- how in shit, how are, how do we even start to win against the Koch Brothers and all the rest of them?  How?  When 80 or 90 percent of the country isn't even fucking awake?

Seriously?

Hey, Look!

It's Martin Tuesday --

Chapter 15 is up.  We're on the second to last chapter now.  Closing fast!

Obscure Book Review

...over on FanSci.

Otherwise I got nothing for you.  It's midterm, I'm still (obviously) obsessed with Wisconsin, I'm trying to get my submission packet in shape to submit to Angry Robot Books, I'm getting a migraine every six minutes it seems like lately, we're really really broke (yes, like everyone else in America, I know, but that doesn't help) and I have about six projects due and only one even started.

Sad me.  Is that violins I hear?

Update on the Revolution

Even the Rasmussan Polls admit the truth now.  Walker's losing it.  60% hate his lying ass.

Here's what First Draft has to say.

Oh -- also?  That big fat lie the RW Noise Machine has been pushing about the 7.5 million dollars worth of damage the protesters did to the capitol building?  Yeah, more like 0 dollars worth.  Think any of them will change their story now?  (Color me doubtful.  I'm still hearing the story about how Clinton's staff took all the W's off the keyboards in the White House before they left, when George W. took office.)

Here's Mother Jones on the whole issue.

Indiana and Ohio are planning to pass similar laws, with very little fuss as far as I can tell.  Here's hoping the unions in those states gin up and take a clue from Wisconsin.

Update on the Revolution

Walker, as you probably know, locked the Capitol building yesterday.  Only people with "official" business were being let in, and, oddly, that didn't include protesters.  Unless a protester left, no other protester was being let in.

Now a judge has ordered that the Capitol (being a public space) has to be unlocked and opened to the public.  Ha!  And yay!

(Not that Walker has complied yet, apparently.  Apparently he's claiming the building is open to the public, since people can get in if they have business there. Here's the twitter from the MadisonACLU Twitter: "Govt perspective says Capitol is open, one-in-one-out is sufficient. Order is invalid. Law enforcement is complying.")

Meanwhile, hear the people sing!

The Revolution will be Blogged About

For those of you, like me, condemned to following this via the blogosphere, here's one of the best blogs I've found for keeping me up to date on what's what -- First Draft.

Lawyers, Guns, and Money and Crooked Timber are also good for talking about the issues.

See also The Democratic Daily.

Don't Mourn, Organize!

The Wisconsin Assembly passed that evil bill last night, at 1:00 a.m., without input from their Democratic members.

All over the web, all over the blogosphere, I'm hearing pious comments from those on the right about how this is necessary, to balance the budget; about how it's just, because why should teachers be different from anyone else, getting paid a fortune and guaranteed lifelong employment while only having to work nine months a year; about how it's just good business to give the rich guys tax breaks at the expense of the middle class, because that's how we get the economy rolling again.

None of these talking points are based on reality, as I am sure I don't have to tell any of you; but the fact that I am seeing them, over and over, tells me the right-wing is getting their version of reality out there. Via Faux News and Rush and Glenn Beck and that crew, no doubt, but whatever, people are buying that narrative. The fact that that version of reality will destroy our country --- has been destroying our country -- that wake up call will, no doubt, hit most of them far too late.

Boycott! Boycott!

Here's a list of products put out by the Koch Brothers.  Don't give them a nickel!

Koch Products:Angel Soft, Quilted Northern & Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper; Brawny paper towels; Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups; Mardi Gras napkins and towels; Sparkle, Vanity Fair, Zee napkins; Georgia-Pacific paper products & envelopes.

Feminist Five Year old!

Someone is raising this kid right.

Cheers me right up!

The Unions Yes!

I can't take my eyes off Wisconsin lately. Did you see the part about pizzas -- how people from all over the country and all over the word (people from Turkey!) are calling pizza shops around Madison and having pizzas sent over to the protestors? (No pizzas from Arkansas, I notice. Ha. Color me shocked.)

And the videos that are being made! I love these videos!

Of course, if you watch nothing but Fox News, all you hear about is how Scott Walker is a hero, doing the manly man hard work of balancing the budget (they don't mention how he unbalanced it, giving tax breaks to his assbuddies the Koch brothers, paying them back for buying him the election), so that's how half of America still sees what's going on.

And who owns Fox News again? Someone remind me of that?

How To Fix The Deficit

Cut money to Planned Parenthood?  And NPR?

Yeah, not so much.  That's like fixing your problem with the giant credit card debt and hospital bills by canceling your cable.  Yeah, the thirty bucks a month you save (and yes, I *am* speaking from personal experience, how kind of you to ask) is thirty bucks you don't have to spend -- but does it really do much to help against the fifteen hundred dollar deficit you are running?  

Really?

(And before anyone says, oh, but stop buying lattes, and don't waste money on cigarettes, and you should live on crackers and grits LIKE WE DID WHEN WE WERE POOR, I've got something for you right over here in this cupboard.  Yeah.  It's a big cup of STFU.  The problem was never how we were wasting money.  The problem was the thousands of dollars the hospitals charged me, and then us, and, when we lived in states where this was legal, the interest they changed on those bills when we couldn't pay right away.  This was over and above what our insurance paid out, yes.  For instance: in Idaho, when I had my kid, the insurance did not cover "well baby check" at the hospital.  WTF?  So that was fourteen hundred dollars I was supposed to pay out of pocket, when I was still paying off the hospital and doctor bills from Arkansas for my thyroid cancer -- when I didn't *have* a spare nickel, in other words.  Guess where I had to put that $1400?  On a credit card.  Which charged, eventually, 39 percent interest.

But yes.  I'll cut my cable bill.  That will help.  And stop buying iced coffee.  By all means.  Not that I could ever afford to *do* that, mind you...

Where was I?)

Oh, yes.  Here!  Fred, at Slacktivist, explains why the problem is not the U.S. Government version of the cable bill.  So those who think it is should STFU.  Though he doesn't say that.  Because he's nicer than me.

Martin Tuesday!

Chapter Fourteen of Broken Slate is up at Crossed Genres.

We're rocketing toward the conclusion now -- that runs on March 22.  The book will be available in print version shortly thereafter (hi, Mom!).