Malicious and Stupid

I should probably stop writing these. The authoritarian regime is disappearing people. They're kidnapping legal residents (after revoking their legal status) and trafficking them to notorious prisons out of the country. Sure, they haven't come after citizens. Yet. It's just a matter of time. 

Here's Trump saying to Bukele that "homegrown criminals are next" and talking about how El Salvador will need to build "about five more places."

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— Philip Bump (@pbump.com) April 14, 2025 at 9:31 AM

They're taking away legally acquired social security numbers, stating the immigrants are "deceased" and taking away their access to their money. They're telling immigrants to register with the government. They're working on a bill to require people to prove their citizenship to vote, only there is no way for a married woman to prove her name change (marriage certificates are not allowed documents for proof). 

We have a measles outbreak that the regime is downplaying. 

And, of course, the tariffs. That are tanking the stock market. 

It just keeps coming. Fast. And everywhere. 

There is no sense to this. Well, there is. The regime is lashing out because they're malicious. They're doing it all very badly because they are stupid. 

And the press is complicit. Did you hear about all the protests last weekend (April 5th)? No? Yeah, because the mainstream press barely mentioned it. They're not doing their duty. 

Also, Congress. Senator Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours on the Senate floor. And then they all voted for the regime's newest cabinet member. Sigh. 

The federal government is lost. We are in an authoritarian state. 

So, what do we do? I haven't a clue. I found some online articles that I wanted to link to (more for me, really, but you might find them useful).  

• A Threat Model for Opposing Authoritarianism
• All of US: A Directory To Connect, Care, & Build
• Some Actions That Are Not Protesting or Voting

And I will resist as I can where I can. Although, I'm not brave, so if the fascists challenge me, I'm not terribly convinced that I'll stand up to them. We can hope. 

Stay safe. Help others where you can. 

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter

Leftover Yarn

I went ahead and burned my usual Monday post on Saturday with my finished (without face) cat pillow. Had to be done. I'm not sure how I would have titled that post today, but "Kitty Cat" was sitting right there. I would have been an idiot not to use it. 

Which leaves me with nothing to post about today. And, I am once again without project. Sigh. 

I really need to get a case of start-itis. That's when one has many ideas, so one pulls out yarn, collects patterns, and casts on a bunch of projects at once. I could use a bunch of projects sitting around right about now. But, alas, nope. I have one lone project waiting for me, that I might eventually get to.

So, what to do? 

Well, I could do another cat pillow. I still have blanket yarn. 

Not quite enough for a cat in any of these (well, maybe the white variegated), but perhaps another two-toned cat? 

Last week I had a tote bag idea. I don't have enough yarn on hand for what I'm envisioning (and I'm not buying yarn for this), but I could do multi-colors. 

Yes, that's red, purple, magenta, and orange. Together. Maybe? Maybe not. Just thinking about it right now. (And if you go through all the posts I've done where I was thinking about something, I suspect only about half of them got finished projects out of them.) 

Then again, I've got nibling birthdays coming up. Twins on the 25th. Middle nephew May 4th. And niece in June. Perhaps I should ask them if they want me to knit or crochet them anything. I probably shouldn't have waited this long to ask the twins. 

Anyone have any good ideas? I've got spring break this week, so I have some time to put some projects together. 

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter

Kitty Cat Complete

I normally would post my yarn-y post on Monday, but this worked too well for the letter of the day today, so...

If you were here Monday, you saw my fail. The hole for the tail for the crocheted cat pillow was in the entirely wrong place. It took me a surprisingly short amount of time to fix that (as in, one afternoon). I ripped it all out to the tail hole and then restitched everything. 

The tail is now placed correctly. And I rather like how it turned out.

Hopefully it now looks like a cat.

I'm debating embroidering on a face. I'm terrible at embroidery, and I'm not even sure where to start. (The pattern doesn't offer embroidery ideas, only the concept that a face could be added if desired.) But I rather like it like this. 

Even the change in yarn at the rear looks okay. At least, I think so.

Now, what to do with the thing? I have no use for it. Any ideas? 

Kitty Cat previous posts: 

• Yarn Under my Fingers
• Not Quite a Cat
• Leaving the Mistakes
• Feline Fail

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Jazz Age Notes

Friday. Junior English. Third period.

It was my first day flying solo (so to speak--there's a co-teacher) in Ms. A's class. The lesson plans said to present a slideshow to the class while they took notes. Easy enough. 

I previewed the slides. And I panicked a little. The classes are 92 minutes long. There was no way the slides could possibly take up a full hour and a half of class time.

The classes will read The Great Gatsby once we return from spring break. The slideshow was about The American Dream, F. Scott Fitzgerald (the author), and general historical background on the 1920s Jazz Age (when the book is set). 

But, I had made the assignment from the previous class due Friday, so they'd get a bit of time to finish that up if they needed it. Or so the plan went. 

After the morning announcements, we got to work. As I do, I discussed the slides. They had bullet points about The American Dream. I expanded upon what was there. I pointed out how while taking notes, they didn't need to write down what was on the slides verbatim. 

And as I talked (and waited for the students to finish writing), I watched the clock. Time kept ticking away. And soon I realized this was all taking some time. A lot of time. 

We had twenty minutes of class time left. I did a mental inventory. We had a lot of slides left. And I realized, I wasn't going to finish the slideshow by the end of the period. 

Oops.

Although, this was a good problem to have. I was worried I'd have half the class to fill after finishing up. 

I had no idea I could talk that long. And it wasn't even an issue of me having to stop every two minutes to get their attention again. They were following along, a few piping up when I asked questions of the class. I mean, it went well. 

When I noticed that we were within five minutes of the end of the period, I called it. Not quite finished, but looking ahead to the next week, I realized I could finish off the slides then. I definitely have a bit of a cushion, although that means that we'll do a video on the author's life on the last day before spring break. They were supposed to have a free day as Ms. A was kind of expecting many of them not to show.

No big deal. The video is just on F. Scott Fitzgerald's life. I mean, it's interesting and all, but it won't hurt them if they miss that day. 

The slideshow was 55 slides long. I got through about 30 of them. 

So, now I know I can fill an entire 90-ish minute period with 30 slides. I might need this information later. 

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter

Idyllic Transition

The day had finally arrived. The day I had been anticipating since September (or October). I would be taking over Ms. A's classes for 30 days. 

Ms. A has been out since the middle of February. But because emergency teaching credentials only allow us subs to cover 30 days total in one class, and because Ms. A planned a 14-week maternity leave, two subs would be needed. Ms. A told me she wanted me to do the second half. 

The first half had been done by Ms. S, who I had worked with in the past. We were given two days of transition, which are days where she tells me what I need to know to keep the class going. Only, as I had covered Ms. A's classes before, I knew what I was in for.

That is not to say that the transition wasn't needed. It's good to have a couple days where I get up to speed before teaching the class. It's way better than the scramble I usually find myself doing. 

But, we really only needed a couple hours of transition, not two days. (We both got paid for them, so I'm not going to complain too much.) 

I recognized many of the faces in the classes. I had had many of them before, most notably in the math class I covered at this time last year. 

On the first day of transition, Ms. S taught the classes. (They had "study hall", so there wasn't much to do.) On the second day, we were beginning talking about The Great Gatsby (which is what we'll be reading until pretty much the end of the school year), so I took over. 

We started with a bit of background on the 1920s, and then they had an article to read on the author's life. They were to annotate it. I uploaded the article into their Google Classrooms, and then I explained to them what they were to do.

To annotate an article online, they use the comment feature on Google Docs. They highlight the passage, and then they can add a comment to it. Easy enough. 

About halfway through class, Aria approached. I have had Aria in classes for the past couple years. I may have written about her before, but I can't remember what alias I used. Sigh. 

Anyway, Aria had a problem. She had made all sorts of comments on the article (allegedly), but they all vanished. 

Upon some digging, we figured out what went wrong. Aria had clicked on a check mark on the comments she made. Which, if you've ever used the feature, is the thing that tells the program that you have "resolved" the issue from the comment, thereby deleting it. 

And there's no way to retrieve the comments. 

On the bright side, I now knew of one issue that might again crop up, so I made sure to warn every other period about it. 

But Aria's comments... Knowing her as I do, I just said I'd take her word for it and not make her redo the comments. (She wouldn't redo the comments.) 

At the end of the day, Ms. S was again free to do day-to-day subbing assignments. And now I'm in another long term. Should be interesting. 

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Holding No More

April 1st. Tuesday. My first day in the long-term English class that I knew about since something like October. Maybe September. 

(The teacher had emailed me to ask if I would be willing to cover her class when she went on maternity leave. I was unsurprised at the maternity leave as she had mentioned wanting a second child when she returned from her first maternity leave, which I had covered in part for her.)  

I arrived at the school with my usual carry bag and an extra bag with some other things I'd need for the classroom (as I knew I would be there for 30 school days). 

I went to the office to check in. The first door was locked. The second door was locked. I headed for a third door that would be locked, but it would be manned by the school's receptionist who would let me in. (The other two doors are usually unlocked when I arrive at the school. I was just a touch early this day.) 

As I climbed the stairs, my carry bag suddenly fell from my shoulder. I caught it before it hit pavement. What the...? 

I examined the bag. One of the clasps holding the strap to the bag had broken off. 

Uhhhh....

Yikes. This bag has no other handle on it. With my second bag, it was just plain awkward. But at least the office door wasn't too far. As predicted, the school's receptionist let me in, and I went to check in.

I mean, once I was in the classroom I found a spot for my bag to live in for the day (as I usually do) and I didn't have to worry about carrying it again until it was time to leave. The walk to my car is kinda long for holding a bag that has no working handle or strap. A minor irritation, really.

I have a bag that I used to use that still has a functioning strap. Time to pull it out of storage. It'll do until I find another bag to replace this one. Maybe. 

What a way to start my new long term.

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Gullible

Last week, while trying to come up with some things we can do in the face of our current fascist regime, I advocated talking to people with opposing viewpoints as a way to maybe change some minds. Since writing that post, I have changed my mind. I don't believe that will help. 

Those who are in the cult won't have their minds changed by us. I don't think they will ever realize how skewed their views are. 

After I wrote last week's post, I got into a conversation with a MAGAt. I was lamenting the kidnapping of legal residents for having dissenting viewpoints. The response? How dare they speak out against the country. They are guests here, and they have no right. Would someone go to China and speak out about that regime? 

I rather thought that last argument made my point, but nope. And my argument that they were sending innocent people to concentration camps was met with, "they must deserve it". 

The whole conversation began with a news report about the Signal messaging thing. The comment? This couldn't possibly be true. It had to be fake news. Why? Because messaging war plans is illegal. They're only supposed to discuss these things in a secure setting. They're not even allowed to take their phones into secure locations. 

So, therefore, the reports were false. Instead of realizing how incompetent these people are. 

My argument about the people in charge being incompetent was met with the response that I only watched the fake news. Therefore I was getting it all wrong. 

I give up. 

Maybe if there's someone you can reach, great. But life is too short for me to try to convince the gullible.

Then, while I was mulling this over on my own, I ran across this comic called "Believe". It's about why people continue to believe things that are not true. It's something that I'll need to sit with as well. It has a good lesson for all of us. 

So, in my Tuesday scream into the void, I again don't have much we can actually do right now. I mean, continue to throw sand into the fascist gears whenever possible. And continue to call your reps for either praise or complaint. And stay safe. They're coming for us.

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