What Am I Even DOING with My Time

(1) My kid and his husband are moving into a townhouse. Their current place is 441 square feet, and their kitchen has no drawers. The new place has no washer/dryer, but there's a laundromat literally half a block away. Anyway, I'm only ancillary to this move, but it's still been occupying some of my time.

(2) Home Repair. We've been putting in a walk-in shower, because Dr. Skull has trouble using tub-showers anymore. His back injury precludes stepping in and out of tubs. I've been helping him in and out, but that's a short term stop gap. The walk-in shower is nice, and we hired a contractor to handle all the various plumbers and so on, but MAN it's a lot of work on my end even so.

(3) Medicare. I've almost got everything worked out, but again, a lot of work on my end.

(4) Reading for and writing reviews. This is fun work, but it's still work.

(5) GRADING PAPERS. This is the last set of comp papers I will ever have to grade. That is all that is keeping me going at the moment.

(6) Various medical and dental appointments. Most of these are for Dr. Skull, and one of the doctors is located in Fort Smith, which means a lot of driving.

(7) The current political situation. Contacting my reps daily. I'm pretty sure it's doing no good at all -- they keep sending me responses telling me I'm wrong and to stop worrying my pretty little head. But I persevere. I was glad to see the Supreme Court standing up to Trump. And of course I continue to donate to the ACLU, which is doing stellar work.

Ugh

I just realized that if I retire I have to clean my office out.

Three More Weeks

Three more weeks until the end of the semester. Well, four, if we're counting exam week.

Can I make it?

It's hard to say. I'm grading the major papers for my Comp I classes and HONESTLY.

Happy Pesach!

Tonight is the first night of Passover. I'm doing much of the cooking this year, since Dr. Skull is not able to stand or to grip things well. He did make the broth for the matzo ball soup, and he is supervising me on several other dishes. What are we having?

• Matzo ball soup
• Roasted chicken
• Potato kugel (made with actual schmaltz)
• Grilled asparagus
• KFP matzos
• Several desserts of affliction, including candy fruit slices, macaroons, and KFP chocolate cake
• KFP wine (not Manischewitz, actual wine, which is available here in our new city)

The kids and Uncle Charger are coming to the Seder. I'll share pix if I remember to take any.

Chag sameach! Gut Yontif! Don't forget to throw out your yeasted things*!

*We did not throw out our yeasted things.

That's Professor Emeritus to You

The university board of trustees has granted me Emeritus status. The main benefit to me at the moment is I get to keep my university email. Yay!

STOP THE CHILD ABUSE

 A cartoon:

(Transcript: First panel: A woman wearing a teeshirt that says "Adult Human Female" is practically sobbing with outrage. She says, "We need to act to ban trans care and make sure children develop naturally and healthily!" Next panel: a woman gobbling a burger and fries asks, "So you're going to do something about ultra-processed foods and additives? Against rampant child malnutrition?" Third panel: Same woman in a hockey suit asks, "Will you ban ballet classes, since they alter children's muscles and limbs forever? Or contact sorts like hockey or football, for giving them lifelong head traumas and concussions?" Four Panel: Same woman, looking disgusted: "Or is hunting down a handful of trans kids who just want to live their life as themselves and participate in society more urgent than all this?")

I've noticed transphobes who bleat about "natural development" and "mutilating children" could not care less about the damage being done by sports programs around the nation, or yes, ballet, for that matter; or about the damage being done by social expectations for little girls to be skinny and cute above all; or such "mutilations" as nose jobs, breast enlargement surgery or breast reduction surgery for boys with gynocomastia. That's all fine.

I've also noticed they don't worry about "natural" development when they're putting braces on their kids teeth, buying them eyeglasses or contacts, and dying their own hair. All that is fine too. It's only the nasty transes we have to police.

Note: I would have never let my kid play hockey or football, and probably would have hesitated about ballet, for the reasons stated above. But I'm all for braces, eyeglasses, and whatever anyone wants to do with their own hair. My point here, though, is entirely other. They don't really care about trans kids. They care about being allowed to be bigots. Trans kids, and trans people, are a safe target right now. Ten years ago, they would have been attacking gay people. Thirty years ago, feminists. Fifty years ago, black people. It's all the same playbook, just different targets.

MURDERBOT TRAILER!!

It airs on May 16. I cannot wait.

May 2025 ON BOOKS

My Asimov's column, "On Books," for May 2025 is now live on the site.

It'll only be available for a few weeks, so get it while it's hot.

In this column, I review these books:

Kaliane Bradley,
The Ministry of Time

John Wiswell,
Someone to Build a Nest In

Jon Evans,
Exadelic

Beth Revis,
Full Speed to a Crash Landing

Beth Revis,
How to Steal a Galaxy

Madeline Ashby,
Glass Houses

Cebo Campbell,
Sky Full of Elephants

Kingfisher,
A Sorceress Comes to Call

Michael Bérubé,
The Ex-Human 

The Bradley book has just been nominated for a Hugo. Well-deserved!

Trump's Tariffs Explained

 Or, why your retirement fund is tanking:

My Media Sources

We don't have a television*, so I get zero amount of my news information from television. 

I used to subscribe to the Washington Post and to The New York Times, but dropped my subscriptions due to their editorial decisions.

Now I subscribe to these sources:

The Boston Globe (good, but a little too local in its focus)

The Atlantic (very good, with an in-depth reporting style I thought was gone forever)

The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (a local paper, which leans very much to the right, but at least seems sane, except for the letters to the editor section and an occasional editorial)

I also read a local free paper, The Fayetteville Flyer, which covers local events like council meetings and festivals and buildings applications. And I get some of my news through BlueSky -- not that they do reporting, but usually the news hits there first and then I can look to see what the AP site says, or the Globe. And I pick up some news from various blogs, and then do the same search.

Occasionally I will watch a segment from a television news station on YouTube, but these are so annoyingly vapid that I usually click away after a few minutes. 

If you can only have one news source, I recommend The Atlantic. Well worth the subscription fee.

*I'm not a television snob, honest. We watch TV shows -- we're watching the Pitt right now -- but we stream them. I grew up in a house where the TV was on all the time, and usually three televisions, all on at the same time, all turned up loud. When I moved into my own place and first experienced life without the racket of television, I was in paradise. So first we kept the TV in a little room of its own, and then we kept it in the closet and only brought it out to watch movies, and now we don't have one at all. It's wonderful.

"What is Trump Doing with these Tariffs?"

My kid asked me what Trump was up to with these tariffs.

"Crashing the economy," I said, "but I can't see why."

The simple answer is because he's an idiot, which is undeniably true. But I can't help thinking there's something even simpler behind it, like he thinks he's found a way to make himself (and Elon) richer by doing so. Since I'm not a billionaire, I don't know how that would work.

Also I'm sick*, so I'm not thinking on all cylinders. Here's what Camestros and their comment section have to say.

*I picked up a virus somewhere, which I hope isn't COVID. A cough, a sore throat, gastrointestinal issues, a fever. Plus general aches and blahness.

New Cost-Cutting Measures

ETA Update: There was so much outrage among local citizens that the Sebastian County police had to reissue this with APRIL FOOLS across it in red. Apparently the Venn diagram of people who hate electric cars, people who hate Leon Skum, and people who hate cops has a pretty big intersection point.

Wonderful idea!

From the Sebastian County Sheriff's office: 

We are proud to announce the purchase of 12 new Cyber trucks to add to our patrol fleet. At a purchase price of only $102k each these will more than pay for themselves in fuel cost savings. Due to a lack of charging stations in Sebastian County, we are giving you, the community, the opportunity to partner with us. If you live south of Greenwood and have an approved charging system, and would allow our units to stop by for a charge, we consider you a valued gold star community partner. These units will hit the county roads today, April 1st.

(Alt text: image shows a Cybertruck with a Sebastian County Sheriff logo on its site)

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

Those of you who, like me, love someone who is trans know how scary our country is for trans people right now. The instinct is to hide, and no one will blame anyone who does.

But standing up and being trans in public tells every frightened trans person that trans people are out there, and there are many of them. (As many of them as there are redheads in the world, according to some estimates.) 

Trans people are people. They have human rights. Those who tell you to hate them, those who tell vile lies about them, are as evil as the racists in 1950, who told the same lies about brown people as transphobes do now, and for the same reason: to give a fascist population someone to hate.

When I was a kid, they taught us in school that America was the one place on earth where everyone could be equal. Well, that wasn't true then, and it's not true now. But it's what the country means, it's the spine of our democracy -- everyone is equal under the law -- and I'm not settling for anything else.

This goes out to my kid and his husband, and all their wonderful friends.

First Home Repair

One of the things I liked about renting was that when things broke I could just call the landlord. Depending on the landlord (I've had both good and terrible landlords) they'd come fix it. Ta-da!

Yesterday the thingie in the toilet which makes the toilet flush broke in half. Thanks to the help of YouTube, I figured out not only that this was called a toilet chain, but also how to replace it. I got a new toilet chain today and fixed it in about two minutes.

Go me!

I highly recommend YouTube, btw, when you don't know how to do something. Someone will have made a video about how to do it, probably several someones. It's great.

Applying for Social Security and Medicare

I am doing it, God help me.

The Medicare bit is the most complicated so far. There's Part A and Part B and then like D through infinity, and you will need professional help (I have acquired it) to understand which part/s you need to apply for. 

Am I worried about what Trump and DOGE are going to do to the Social Security system I have been paying into since I was 15 years old and got my first "real" job? Yes, I am.