This week, we’re watching Trumpers defend the President’s lies about how serious the virus was, despite years of their insistence that he tells the truth all the time.

Let’s pretend, for the sake of argument, that he honestly wanted to downplay it to avoid a panic–that it wasn’t about the stock market or his re-election.

He could have still brought us together. He could have said that we could easily deal with the threat, if we listened to our doctors and our scientists, if we followed their recommendations to not spread it.

But instead, he said it was like a cold or flu.

But instead, he said our doctors and scientists couldn’t be trusted.

But instead, he said our healthcare workers were stealing supplies.

But instead, he touted a dangerous cure–a drug his friends had stocks in.

But instead, he said he wanted to withhold funding from blue states, to punish us for not liking him.

But instead, he said the whole thing was a Democratic hoax, designed to take away freedom, to ruin America, to weaken his chances for re-election.

But instead, he said encouraging things about violent threats against democratically-elected state and local officials who (gasp!) took the threat seriously and told people to mask up.

But instead, he said things that made his followers think all of us who wore masks were brainwashed at best and traitors at worst.

Let’s make an important distinction about how he could have “downplayed” this: he didn’t say we misunderstood the severity. He said we were evil people who hate America.

Cause he would hate to panic anyone.

I know I’ve been playing this game for almost four years, and I’m tired of it too, but I have to ask you, Trumpers, if Obama did this–if he lied about a pandemic threat, if he said Republicans were making it up because they’re traitors, if he wanted to withhold aid from red states, if 192,000 (as of today) Americans had died, and if he doubled-down on the lies every time he got caught, would you really tell me he was right to lie to us?

The other night, I had a strange dream.

One of my healthcare specialists recommended that I join a secret upscale Davis orgy group. He said it would make me feel better.

My first response was “no. I’m so ashamed of my body. I don’t want a whole room full of people to see it.”

He talked me into joining anyway. Unfortunately, my dreamscape didn’t feature a meeting.

I’m sad about what I said about myself.

I woke up convinced I was ill, not sure if I’d somehow managed to get a bad cold or the beginning of Covid.

What a relief to discover that I’m ill because the fires are closer and the smoke is hurting my throat, eyes, and lungs!

It’s also 110F today.

(Seriously, 2020, go fuck yourself.)

This week, I’ve gotten, from friends:

three letters/postcards

figs

wine glasses

a blouse

a bottle of wine

cat food

help for another friend’s mom

a moisturizing mask

a notification that some good lighting is arriving for my teaching videos

advice

comfort

care

I’m feeling loved.

Last night, I could not sleep

There was a bag by the door, my hospital go-bag.

It’s been waiting for months, because of Covid.

It was joined by a new bag.

The evacuations were only two towns over, and I had to be ready to leave.

My phone was beside me, left on.

But I couldn’t sleep, because I was afraid I wouldn’t hear it.

There was already ash in my mouth, smoke in my already weakened lungs.

If I slept, how soon before the fire was at the door?

I thought about what would happen if I had to grab one of the bags.

About how the President would never hear my name, just a number about evacuees or the dead someone would try to get him to listen to while he was golfing, tweeting about tires, embracing QAnon, retweeting racists, wishing pedophiles well, testing out new words to call Kamala, blaming California for being in a drought, a heat wave, and a lightening storm all at once, wishing the citizens who live here ill.

This post is not about how Republicans, who decry “cancel culture,” are trying to “cancel” Dolly Parton because she supports BLM.

It is about how learning Dolly Parton supports it should maybe make you reconsider. Dolly Parton doesn’t hate white people, the police, ‘Merica, or Jesus. She understands that “Black Lives Matter” doesn’t have an “only” in front of it, which is why she said, “of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”

If you don’t support BLM, it’s likely because you’re believing the Republican racist lies about what it means.

(Or you’re a racist.)

This post is also about how if you’re no longer a fan of Dolly Parton for saying, literally, that white asses aren’t the only ones that matter in this world, you have never been a fan of Dolly Parton.

You may like some of her songs, but you don’t know her.

Dolly Parton HAS ALWAYS BEEN PROGRESSIVE.

Her first movie (for which she memorized the entire script, cause that’s how she thought it works, which makes her even more adorable than she already is) was a #metoo film, decades ahead of its time.

Dolly Parton believes in helping the poor. Her foundation has given away over a million books to poor children, has rebuilt homes lost in natural disasters, and given scholarships to needy children.

She has also been active in animal charities and AIDS work.

Dolly Parton believes in science, which is why she donated a million dollars to our quest for a Covid vaccine.

Dolly Parton supports gay rights–when I last saw her perform, before gay marriage was legal, she made sure the whole audience knew where she stood.

Dolly Parton gives a shit about immigrants. Way back in 1980, her album, 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs, featured a song about the dehumanization of guest workers and the undocumented, “Deportee.”

That song broke this little girl’s heart.

If you are surprised by Dolly’s support of BLM, you were never her fan in the first place.

Dolly, never go away.
Promise you’ll never go away.

Ever since Melissa and I started working on our textbook, we’ve been paying a lot more attention to what our students do and don’t know about source use.

Before, I was guilty of thinking they knew the basics or that they would pick them up, the way I did, along the way.

They don’t know the basics, which is why I’m so glad I take the time to teach the fundamentals.

Recently, I created a 50 question true/false pre-test, just to gauge where they are.

I’m not reproducing all of the results here, but the data should help explain why, when we say, “you have to use academic sources” or “you have to use reliable sources” or “you have to use peer-reviewed sources,” they don’t follow instructions.

This is from two classes of upper-division UCD students:

Reliability

50% of the students think Google Scholar only shows reliable sources (they don’t know about predatory journals).

Peer Review

50% think all academic sources are peer-reviewed.

64% think everything in a peer-reviewed journal is peer-reviewed (this is why they cite book reviews in journals, instead of articles in journals, half the time).

Citing

52% think they only have to cite quotes, not summary and paraphrase, to avoid plagiarism.

60% think “common knowledge” is a fact everyone knows.

Rhetoric

67% believe the appeal to ethos is about appealing to morality (it’s credibility).

What’s an academic source?

50% think anything they get via the university library is academic.

52% think all class materials (lectures, PowerPoints) are academic.

52% think fact-checked news is academic.

64% think dictionaries and general encyclopedias are academic.

67% think poetry is academic (33% think novels are too).

One question defined the difference between as academic and nonacademic sources as one of audience. Academic sources are for academic audiences.

62% marked that as false.

I hope they do better on the post-test!

Thoth is still really, really unhappy about being stuck inside. He yowls whenever one of us leaves.

And at about nine every night, he goes back and forth from the patio to the front door, crying, to let me know he wants out.

I’ve even had to show him that doors to water heaters aren’t mystical portals to the outside.

He only stops crying when I take him up to bed.

This week, though, he’s crying AND totally freaked out.

This is Thoth, watching something intently.

His every muscle is tense.

What’s he staring at?

Anubis has turned into a demigorgon.

Thoth won’t go anywhere near him, but he will stare, trying to figure out what’s happened and whether it’s catching.

After racking up almost $2000 at the vet in the last six weeks, he wasn’t getting better, so I paid for a urethra-enlarging surgery.

He has to be coned for two weeks.

And he’s basically been subjected to bottom surgery against his will.

Meanwhile, how’s blind Graymalkin?

Absolutely fine.

I ran this by my writing group, and they were all on board:

In the last half a year, I’ve had two books come out.

In Fall, I’ll be teaching six classes (after I finish the two I have now), working on the Atwood journal, blogging, doing stand-up, etc.

So I’m giving myself a break . . . from working on a book.

For at least the rest of the year, I won’t be able to beat myself up for not getting that next textbook or nonfiction masterpiece done.