Not The WORST Thing, but Still...

I used to semi-enjoy reading conservative blogs, for pretty much the same reason I was almost an anthropology major, and probably for the same reason I read and write science fiction. I like walking in other people's shoes. I like to be able, just for a bit and even if it's only slightly, to understand the worlds of people who are not me.

This election, though, has ruined that pleasure for me. Homo sum, said Terence, and therefore, humani nihil a me alienum puto. This is what I believe as well.

But sadly, conservative blogs are now gulping down the Trump Kool-Aid in two-liter sized go-cups. As much as I would like to continue to read and try to understand them, right now at least, there's nothing to understand. They're all repeating the same lies and fake news stories, while howling with hysterical hatred about those evil liberals (baby-killers, flag-burners, ballot-stuffers, and traitors).

Having read one (actually, I've read about fifty) of these post-truth screeds, I find I don't need to read another.

More than one Trump supporter has told me they voted for Trump because America was "so divided (with the implication that Obama/progressives caused this terrible division) and that "we" had to bring the country together again.

Somehow I don't think the foaming wrath of the alt.right is our path to that.

New post up at Cooking with delagar

The kid and I have been making banana bread about twice a week for the past months. "Have you put this recipe up on Cooking with delagar?" she asked.

"Well, no," I said.

"Why not?"

Why not indeed.

Excellent Banana Bread

Here We Are, Thankful America

All over the internet, people are posting "Why I'm Thankful" posts, though some are also posting, "Holy Hell 2016!" posts.

I'm leaning more toward the latter, frankly, what with our country being occupied by alt.right Nazis and White Supremacist plutocrats, but I fight to maintain a certain zen. Or at least to hang onto non-panic by my fingernails.

Review of To Shape the Dark

Oh, look! My review of To Shape the Dark, a wonderful new anthology edited by Athena Andreadis, is live today, over at Strange Horizons.

Hilarious New World

So we've elected a whiny baby to be our next President.

When he's not appointed racists and bigots and sexists to important post in our government, or using his new position to make himself richer, he's firing off tweets demanding that American citizens stop saying mean things about him.

Well

We all know the five stages of grief -- denial & isolation; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance.

I seem to have gone straight from anger into depression.

I'm not sleeping and I'm not able to get much work done. Why should I, when our country has decided, out of pique and spite and hate, to elect this vile joke into our highest office -- when, now that he is in the highest office, not just America, but probably the world, is doomed?

Trump plans to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

That right there is all you need to know. Never mind what he'll do to education, to a woman's right to control her own body, to LGBT rights, to the immigrants in our country. Never mind the effect he's already having, with the spike in hate crimes / assaults.

All of those we might survive and mend, once (if) America comes to its senses. But climate change? Yeah, it's already almost too late to do anything about that. Trump's destruction of our progress on that, along with what he'll do to the EPA, that's going to be something we can't change.

Things Could Be Worse...

...though right now I am struggling to see how.

My one hope is that Donald Trump is, in fact, a joke -- he knows nothing about how the US Government works, he has no ability to negotiate or to work with other people, and he has the attention span of a gnat. How much will a man this inept be able to accomplish?

That's my hope, anyway. As I'm telling all the smug, triumphant, Trump-supporters I know, yeah, let's check back in a year or two. See how we think then.

Drinking Tea

I'm drinking tea. It's not decaf, despite the orders on my diet. But it is delicious.

Yesterday I ate a little chicken broth and some orange Jello. Also a lime Popsicle.

It's the high life.

I'm Alive

The surgery went well, and they gave me nice drugs to get me through that and the immediate aftermath.

I haven't had any reflux since the surgery (knock wood); but on the other hand, I feel like I have a belly full of sharp bits of tin.

This Year's Jack-o-Lantern

Designed by the kid, carved by Dr. Skull

Tomorrow They Cut on Me

...which sounds really dramatic.

Tomorrow morning at five a.m. I check in for the surgery to fix (let's hope) my hiatal hernia, which is causing my GERD, which is causing my ulcer.

I Need Xanax

Sweet Jesus, this election is on my last nerve.

I'm mainlining Nate Silver, which only helps a little.

Dr. Skull, the kid, and I went down to the courthouse and voted early. Now we just gnaw our nails and wait.

Juxtaposition

So oddly enough -- odd, because I don't usually get enough space in my day to watch this much media -- I watched two documentaries yesterday, back to back.

First I watched 13th, the documentary by Ava DuVernay about the loophole in the 13th Amendment that made it possible to continue slavery by another name, by turning black Americans, and specifically black males, into a criminal underclass.

It's very well done and worth watching, though I'd also recommend reading Slavery by Another Name, which adds a lot of the deep background this documentary presents in summary.

I knew most of the information in 13th, but not all of it -- I didn't know the information toward the end, for example, about ALEC and its connections to the prison industry. And I'd heard some bits of the information about what's happening with immigrants and private prisons, but I learned more here.

Well worth watching.

Then -- right after watching this film, which made me angry and depressed and furious about how fucked up our country was -- I watched the PBS documentary Hamilton's America.

Well!

I don't know if you saw it. (You can stream it for a limited time through the link above.) But it's lovely, and Lin-Manuel Miranda is just lovely in it. This documentary made me feel so hopeful and happy about this country. Brilliant, talented people working hard and well, creating something amazing, and having amazing success: that's the America we all love.

Both of those are the real country, hard as that is to wrap our heads around sometimes.

So, This Happened (TW: medical procedure)

I may have mentioned my ulcer.

I've got this ulcer, caused by my hiatal hernia, caused by having a baby -- well, by being pregnant.

Raising a Genderqueer Kid in Arkansas

I didn’t intend to give my kid – a brilliant Jewish atheist with anxiety and depression issues – a childhood in a small hyper-conservative city in Arkansas, where most of the people she went to school with would be Evangelical Christians, not to mention Far-Right (read: Trump-flavored) Conservatives.