Screeching Owl

 A barn owl is living in one of the trees in my yard -- or maybe two owls.

Their screams are pretty terrifying. The first time one screamed, I thought, holy shit, is that an alien being tortured?

Like that, only really fucking LOUD.

April in Arkansas

 It's winter here again -- a frost warning for tomorrow night. (I am worried about my tomato plants.)

Mind you, I am enjoying the unseasonably cool weather. Usually by this time we are hard into summer and I am spending $$$ on air conditioning. Yesterday I had to put on the heat.

We filed our taxes. Only owed the state $58 dollars, and might get something back from the Feds -- which is better than a few years ago, when we owed them money.

Meanwhile our Biden buck finally arrived. I am saving them up against this summer, when I have no classes and also the new system used by the university is apparently going to fuck up my pay. 

They "can't" do a 12-month pay schedule anymore. So either I'm not getting paid this summer at all, or I'm getting 3 paychecks in June and then nothing until a half-check in August. Then next year, it's a 9-month pay schedule, though apparently they're going to set up some scheme by which we can "opt" to save 25% of each paycheck, and then...get all of that in June?

Also they'll be taking our part of the health insurance costs out in 9 lumps into of in 12 lumps.

Theoretically, it will be the same amount of money, just distributed weirdly. I am waiting to see what happens de facto. And hoarding cash, just in case.

My Father

 It's been nearly three months since my mother died, back at the end of January. 

In the weeks after her death, my brothers and SILs (who since I live six hundred miles away had to deal with everything) learned just how serious my father's memory problems had become. Apparently my mother had been covering for him for years.

Though in fairness, I think he has deteriorated a lot in the past year. It was during this past year that my mother began mentioning to me how much trouble he was having, and asking me -- after they visited -- if I noticed how different he was. (I did.)

In any case, my SIL and nephew took him to a neurologist, and he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. We've got him in an assisted living facility now, which luckily his combined pensions and Social Security will pay for. He's physically very healthy, but he can't remember things -- he still has trouble remembering that my mother is dead.

This is all very depressing, I have to say. My father was a brilliant man -- his intelligence, his mind, was his strength. Now he can't remember how to charge his phone.

Hurry

Marie Howe

 

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store   
and the gas station and the green market and   
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,   
as she runs along two or three steps behind me   
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.   

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?   
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?   

Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,   
Honey I'm sorry I keep saying Hurry—   
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.   

And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking    
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,   
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.

 

Cold Spring

 We're having an abnormally cool spring here this year, which I am all in favor of -- usually by this time, we're seeing temperatures in the 80s and 90s. And we did hit 80 here last week. But mostly we're having mid-sixties, and lows in the 40s and 50s at night.

It's very nice. More of this, please!

Re the Hate Bill

 Conservative bigots are so concerned* about damage being done to children, except of course when it is damage they approve of. See this thread here, and this one here, but I'm sure all y'all can fill in your own blanks**. 

1. No, not done: God forbid we actually talk honestly about what risks are culturally sanctioned and which ones are forbidden when it comes to young people - young trans people.

Let me tell you about breaking my wrist:

— Dr CN Lester (@cnlester) April 8, 2021

In my state you can legally be married at FOURTEEN, but they are trying to pass a law that says that if you want gender-affirming pharmaceuticals or surgery, you are legally a minor until you are 21 and can't receive those things until then. FASCINATING. I fucking hate it here.

— frannie (@faultyfrannie) April 7, 2021

*Spoilers: They are not actually concerned about the lives of trans kids. They're deeply pleased at the harm they are doing to trans people, and trans kids in particular. Their faux pretense of concern hides giggling glee at being able to hurt trans people and especially trans kids. That's how bigots work. That's what they are.

**For example, forcing 12 year old rape victims to continue their pregnancies, despite the damage that will do to their bodies; allowing young girls to take such things as ballet, despite the risk of harm that does to their bodies; letting children of 17 and 18 enlist in the armed forces in order to pay for college -- I can go on.

On the Other Hand

Duolingo is beta-testing Yiddish on its platform.

And my writing students are writing the best Bredlik poems.

And my kid does amazing art:

So, you know, not everything is terrible.

Bigots Surging

 As most of you probably already know, our state legislature overturned our governor's veto on the hate bill. This is all virtue signaling -- the ACLU is already planning to challenge this "law," and will certainly win handily, given that the bill clearly discriminates against one class of people. 

That is to say, for example, we can give puberty blockers to cis kids, and parents of cis kids can get them whatever therapy and plastic surgery they desire; it's only trans kids who can't, and parents of trans kids who are forbidden by the state from seeking medical and psychological help; and doctors are only forbidden by the state from providing needed medical care to trans kids.

The GOP and other bigots are showing their true colors here, of course. No government overreach, they howl -- unless that overreach allows them to hurt the people they hate. Then it's fine.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, their legislature is voting to make it a crime for a medical professional to do anything that allows a trans kid to "present themselves" as their actual gender. And it will force teachers to report any kid who seems "gender non-conforming." 

This is utterly sickening. The fact that these laws can't stand does not erase the fact that citizens of my country think such vile bigotry is just dandy.

Ten years from now, every single one of these hateful vipers will be claiming they "have no problem" with trans people, and that "of course" trans people should have equal rights, and that "of course" no one sane thinks otherwise. 

None of us are going to forget, though. I promise you that.

ETA: More here

Hutchinson Comes Through

Our governor vetoed the hate bill.

Arkansas’ governor has vetoed legislation that would have made his state the first to ban gender confirming treatments for transgender youth. 

So that's some good news!

Cover Reveal!

 Aw, look! It's the cover for my new book:

Coming in September, y'all!

More here.

Come the Fall

 We've just found out that our university is not just going totally f2f in the fall, but that we're no longer going to be doing the alt.hybrid thing.

(The alt.hybrid thing is when you teach the class half online and half f2f -- so like half the class comes on Tuesday, and half on Thursday, and most of the work is done online.)

I'm extremely pleased. True, the part where I get to do most of my work squirreled away in my house like the introvert I am was very nice. But on the other hand, teaching this way (mostly) does not work. Students are less engaged and less interested, and about half of mine have checked out entirely -- they don't come to class even on the days they're scheduled to, and they have quit doing any of the work.

Since much of the work is online, some of them seem to think they can just put off doing the work until the last few weeks of class, and then "catch up." But that's going to be impossible.

One good thing that may come out of this: maybe university administrators will stop claiming that online teaching is the future of the university. Because, bah.

Wildflowers

 My yard is filled with violets:

Also these flowers:

Also bees, though I didn't get a picture of those.

Being a Good Parent to Your Trans Kid

 This thread is pretty good:

Starts here: 

I'm the parent of a trans kid. I want to clarify what that means (as best I can), because a lot of folks don't know or make incorrect presumptions. Happy #TransDayOfVisibility.

— Jesse Thorn (@JesseThorn) March 31, 2021

What I was Saying

 They don't care about women's rights, and they don't care about rape, and they could not care less about "protecting the children." They just want to be bigots.

“It will harm religious liberty. It will undermine women's rights, and I wish I could support it but I can't.”

— Rep. Matt Gaetz, on trans equality being a threat to women in the Equality Act pic.twitter.com/Bz2RYwcOS4

— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️‍🌈 (@cmclymer) March 30, 2021

See also this:

 Source

Telling Lies to Further Bigotry

 I've had more than one person earnestly explain to me that this bill in Arkansas is good because parents were "chopping off" the sexual bits of their kids, or else forcing them to take "drugs" to change their sex.

(1) No

(2) Also no

One gleeful bigot puts it like this: Parents are "chopping the breasts off of teenage girls."*

And another tells me that parents are doing this because they aren't happy with the little boy or little girl that was born to them, so they force their kids to change to the other gender.

(3) No

(4) Good Lord, no

The thing is, giving kids puberty blockers is done for all sorts of reasons, as is hormonal treatment (including parental convenience. Note that this is the only actual case of a pre-adult child having her "breasts chopped off.")  The Arkansas law only prohibits giving these drugs to trans kids. This is obvious and blatant discrimination. And fortunately the ACLU is on it.

Most "transitioning" done before the age of 18 involves things like allowing the child to wear their hair the way they like, and dress the way they like; calling the child by their new name, and using the preferred pronouns.

Nothing in that is either appalling or radical. But the bigots can't run with that, since they know how silly they would look, so they make up hateful lies and repeat them endlessly.

Like Goebbels, they know if they tell a big enough lie and repeat it often enough, people will believe it. And that it helps if you can get the state to enforce that lie.

I cannot stress enough that puberty blockers have been used for decades to delay puberty in cisgender kids who experience precocious (early) puberty. They're only considered new, dangerous, and experimental when identical drugs are given to trans and gender-expansive kids.

— Tuck Woodstock (@tuckwoodstock) March 30, 2021

*I will not provide citations to any of these disgusting liars. Bigots don't get clicks. 

Transparent Bigotry

 Watching conservatives pretend to care about free speech is adorable, since all of us can remember (and see in action) all the times they "cancelled" people for their speech. Right now, it's Lil Nas X. Twenty years ago, it was the Dixie Chicks.  Out in Idaho right now, the legislature is passing laws defunding the universities if they dare to teach anything which is not conservative propaganda. But sure, some adolescents being mean to people on Twitter, there's the real problem.

Watching conservatives pretend to care about women in sports is similarly adorable, given that most of us can remember how vicious they were (and still are) about Title IX and funding women in sports.

Watching conservatives pretend to care about rape, so long as it gives them an excuse to strip the rights from trans people -- same thing.

Right now, pretending to give a shit about child abuse, my legislature is passing a law which will make it illegal for parents to provide medical care for trans kids; and for trans people of any age to use insurance to get medical care; and will allow all medical providers to refuse to treat trans people at all. 

"It's to protect the children," they declaim piously, these same people who believe beating kids is just good parenting, and that twelve year olds should be compelled to carry their rapists' pregnancies to term. Because they care so much about children. 

They're not fooling anyone with their transparent bigotry. And frankly I don't even think they're trying to. They know exactly what they're doing. (Well, maybe not Rod Dreher. He's about as self-aware as a fucking rock.) They think co-opting the language of social justice ("Are you assuming my vaccination status?" one of them asked on FB this morning) is hilarious.

I find all of this extremely depressing. I used to have hope for this country, but being surrounded by hateful bigots is really taking a toll on me.