It’s all relative. For instance one of my relatives asked me how I planned to survive if I wouldn’t take the vaccine, and I didn’t snort giggle. Well, not audibly. Because she lives in another country and I know how terrified they are.
Then there was the friend skedaddling from NYC to whom I said I was likewise skedaddling from Prison-Colorado and he — audibly! Rude! — snort giggled, because he said compared to NYC Colorado looked wide open and free.
And that’s part of what I want you guys to realize. It’s important.
It’s all relative.
There are two important assumptions not to make: Don’t assume the rest of the country is like your little corner of it. AND don’t assume that the US is just bending over for this. Not relative to the rest of the world.
Oh, yeah as a third assumption not to make (should I come in again?) don’t assume that the rest of the world is taking it lying down. Just more than the US from those I know in the rest of the world. And there’s a reason for that. And it’s important.
As you guys know if you read this blog, I was over the Covidiocy by oh, April? May? But even so it was enlightening when MIL died a year ago and we cannonballed cross country, meeting friends for dinner along the way.
If I had believed in the Covidiocy before then, this would have finished destroying my belief.
Understand, I’m not saying I don’t believe in Covid or Sars-2. I do. It exists. It’s one of a family of virus, and might be a little more lethal than its kind, but without the overblown psi-ops, it required no particular effort to fight. Certainly no more than Swine flu. Wash your hands, don’t cough on people. Don’t french strangers. If you get sick, get immediate treatment with one of many, many drugs that control it early on (and that the establishment is busily making inaccessible, because you must die at their command, peasant.) Also, take special precautions if you’re over 75 or so.
What I don’t believe in is Covidiocy: social distancing. Lock downs. Close “non-essential” businesses. Make people wear utterly ineffective cloth over their faces. Shriek at everyone who refuses to comply. Force people to take a vaccine that doesn’t offer a ton of protection, and hasn’t been sufficiently tested to be sure it offers ANY protection. Etc. etc.
Let me put it this way: If the level of protections necessary in CO were required, then everyone in Ohio would be dead, and other states would be very ill.
For instance, we attended church cross country (was still closed in CO, so we did it way more than on Sunday.)
State A: church was open, with distancing, and every other pew roped off. Communion was brought to you, you couldn’t line up. Masks required.
State B: Church was open no distancing, masks required.
State C: Church was open, completely normal, there was ONE chick (of course in her twenties) wearing a mask.
State D: Church was closed, same as in CO.
Their numbers? By percentage of population about the same.
Look, you don’t have to be a genius to realize that if the extreme measures were REQUIRED or even helpful, then the other states would be in deep trouble. Which made it absolutely clear that all the measures were tyrannical dick-waving and stomping for no reason whatsoever. In fact, I can’t possibly imagine anyone doing that trip by car and not coming to that conclusion, clear as day.
Of course, most people aren’t traveling, since the airlines have decided to make the experience one worthy of Zimbardo. (Seriously, mask between bites. These are my middle fingers.) And they wouldn’t be driving that far without an absolute necessity. So they don’t see it.
And most people aren’t traveling to other countries, because of vaccine passports, quarantines, and again, experiences worthy of Zimbardo. And of course, most people don’t have relatives abroad to whom they speak regularly.
Let me make it very clear that on an international scale, the US was always skeptical of the covidiocy. And is growing more so by the ticking minute. Yes, I know you’re impatient, but let me point out that most people aren’t us, and aren’t plugged in to alternate sources of information, so it will take a while to see the lies.
Actually that’s the big difference between us and the rest of the world. The anglosphere is a small caveat either (and I’d like to know how big the resistance actually IS in Australia. There are leaks around the edges) as they are somewhere between say Europe and us.
The US has the most blogs that discuss current events and politics. And it leads the world by like 95% in having us deplorables blogging in our pajamas. The rest of the world…
I had a vague idea of doing a world aggregator of blogs. I still can read (though not speak) in five languages, and can jack leg two more. I have friends who know other languages, pretty much spanning the world. So I thought “Like insty, but with an international focus.”
So I went looking. Portugal is one of the MOST connected countries. They do a ton of things on line. What they don’t do is have the blogosphere we have. They have mommy blogs, craft blogs, pet blogs, and yeah, tons of cooking blogs.
Politics? Opinion? Political scrum? Well, I’m sure there are some. I mean, there’s a lot of “online magazines” but that’s different. It’s just I couldn’t find them. A cursory look at other countries and it’s the same. I don’t know if it’s laws (The EU and their “hate speech” muzzles is a factor, I’m sure) or cultural, but normal every day people didn’t take to the internet to make rude noises at official news sources and poke holes in their narratives anywhere but the anglosphere, and even then the US is way ahead of the rest of it.
And that’s the difference. Just like you either believed FDR saved us from the depression, or kept your mouth shut about it even though it’s an obvious and glaring, lie, the unified mass media of the rest of the world has spun the covidiocy out of control and totalitarianism as our salvation as a species.
Here? Yeah, not so much. Though I expect our “elites” who set their clocks by the EU think that it’s the same here. And even how hard they had to fraud last election didn’t give them a clue. Which means they’re in for a very nasty surprise. (#teamheadsonpikes).
It is important above all to keep the conversation going; to find ways to keep connecting and talking. Oh, and to scream from the rooftops, even to a small audience when you know lies are being told. These things RIPPLE and propagate.
And in the US things are going to get worse, but we are losing patience and in the end we win they lose.
In the rest of the world? No fricking idea. I’m constitutionaly (eh) opposed to sending our boys to die for their freedom again, particularly since two of those boys are my genetic investment in the future. And a few are my “adopted as adults with will power and duct tape.”
But can we survive in a world in locksteap authoritarianism?
I don’t know. We could stop feeding them and watch them collapse. I suspect that will happen anyway, because it’s going to get worse here, before it gets better.
Interesting times ahead. But we, of team Liberty will win. (#teamheadsonpikes might have a hand in it.)
In the meantime, prepare. And meanwhile adapt, improvise and overcome. We’re Americans. It’s what we do.
And keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.
Come on. I’m a health law attorney and we have a giant shit show of violations of rights and dehumanizing of individuals under the guise of “medical science,” you knew I had to get to this eventually.
First up, lawyer hat’s on, so usual disclaimer. This is not legal advice. It is not to be taken as such. This is all very generalized and simplified legal ideas so y’all have a basic understanding of the difference here. Yes, I am a lawyer. NO, I am not your lawyer. And, since I want to keep my job, I have to make it very clear that none of this reflects the opinions or legal positions of my employer.
The main reason I’m writing this is because I am very much anti bullshit and anti using fear as a weapon en masse, as in the bullshit that’s been going on for a year and a half. Businesses were shut down, people were locked down, you couldn’t visit family in some places, and everyone had their faces covered (which is a very effective way to dehumanize people, but y’all probably already know that), and now there’s rules about who can do what if vaccinated or not, AND they’re back requiring fucking masks! (Don’t get me started, just read my last post on here about Creep Con).
Okay, that sentence got away from me there, what was I saying? Oh yeah, the point of all this is I want our side to argue properly against the massive mindfuck.
As in, everyone read this, and never, ever again argue against mask requirements, vaccine passports, or vaccines required to work somewhere by saying it’s a HIPAA violation.
IT’S NOT!
I’m gonna say that again for the people in the back. All this bull around health requirements are not HIPAA violations. Oh, they’re violations, the obvious one would be ADA, I’ll touch on that later, but they are not HIPAA violations.
When you’re arguing for our side, you argue correctly or you don’t argue at all. (Oh, dear lord, I’m channeling my father right now.)
HIPAA:
This is “The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996,” and it is not about individuals, or even businesses, asking you for private health info. Nope. Get that out of your head. It is a privacy law, and it is about health, but it’s about others who have access to your private health info spilling it.
HIPAA is the law that protects you from people like me (who can have access to your personal info by virtue of my job) from telling random others about it. If I know your name, social, that you’re in the hospital, you have herpes, and PTSD through my job, me spilling any of that, personally or on social media or to your friends and family, is a HIPAA violation.
If I have your consent to tell people about it, and I stay within whatever you allowed me to share, that’s no longer a HIPAA violation.
It’s your information, you have the right to control it. Along these lines, HIPAA is also about your right to access your own health info.
You give your name, social, and health info to your doctor when something’s wrong, because they need to know information to 1) charge your insurance; and 2) to figure out what’s wrong with you. Without that info, they can’t help you and they can’t get paid. So you hand over the info to help them help you. You do this, because you trust them not to spread it around. (There are some exceptions, but this is just a general info post.)
Then your doctor/hospital gets your consent to share your info with your insurance company and others who need to know, and tell you they won’t tell others who aren’t in the loop to know about your info. Those others in the loop are entities such as insurance, business partners who deal with other aspects of your care, possibly other doctors or institutions.
You also can give another person authorization to access to your health info, like me as an adult saying if anything happens to me, my emergency contact is my mom, here’s her info, and you are allowed to discuss HIPAA covered issues with her.
A big one people have gotten into trouble for doing in the past was hospital personnel taking pictures of celebrities when they’re in the hospital. Most of the ones who screwed up on this weren’t thinking when they took a selfie with their favorite actor/athlete/author (haha, we can dream about being famous enough for people to want to violate our privacy in that way) in the background in a hospital bed, and posting it on social media.
If there was absolutely nothing personal showing, it’s the celebrity in a hospital bed, but covered and you can’t see anything off about them or any kind of medical charts, so you have no clue from the picture why they’re in the hospital, you might think it’s not a violation of HIPAA.
Nope. It is. Because the mere fact that they are in the hospital is protected under HIPAA. If the celebrity says please take my picture and post it because I want my fans to know I’m okay, or whatever reason they’d ask you to post it, then you have permission to do that, BUT that wouldn’t mean you could say what they were in the hospital for.
You’re probably wondering about all those paparazzi photos of celebrities any time they’re doing anything, including going to the hospital. Well, the paparazzi aren’t restricted by HIPAA. They aren’t getting personal info through their job then sharing it; they’re busting in and violating privacy to get personal info for their job. Big difference.
Let’s say a nurse takes a pic with the celebrity in the background, but she doesn’t share it anywhere. (That’s getting into fine print of what exactly crosses the line for HIPAA. It may be a HIPAA violation or risk of one, and it’s just rude, so she shouldn’t have done it.) That one is a it depends what happens with that pic risk. If a photographer sneaks in and takes a picture and splashes it all over the news, that’s not a HIPAA violation, because he’s under no duty to protect that info. If the nurse takes a picture and sells it to the paparazzi, that’s a HIPAA violation. But, just to be clear, it’s not the paparazzi who printed it who’s in trouble under HIPAA, it’s the nurse who shared it, because she was the one with the duty to keep that info confidential.
In the health care field, we have access to info so that we can help people (that’s the heart of it, yes, it’s me looking at it in rosy light) so we have a duty to those people to keep their information safe. There’s a lot more that goes into HIPAA, like the measures hospitals and businesses have to take to keep health info private, especially electronically. It’s a huge tech area, people make big bucks to make sure those records can’t be hacked, and it’s a huge deal when they are hacked.
When there’s a HIPAA violation by accident or something like someone hacking in, then there’s steps the entity has to take to mitigate the damage, and there’s some hefty fines, especially if it’s done on purpose, like the nurse taking a selfie with the celebrity in the background and posting it on her Facebook page, but that’s not really the point for this article.
With vaccines or what illnesses you’ve had, whether you’re in the hospital, your social, and so on, generally your doctors/hospitals/insurance companies can’t tell others without your consent.
That’s the general HIPAA rule. It is a duty of us in the medical field to keep the info you give us in confidence to help you with your medical situation confidential, and to make sure you can access it since it’s your info.
That doesn’t mean these entities won’t ask you for your consent to share. They do all the time for a multitude of reasons. (My parents signed a HIPAA consent for my brother to be in a rehab facility’s brochure when he was 14 because he recovered so beautifully from two broken legs… skiing accident, whole other story, so he was a wonderful success story for them to highlight.) And it doesn’t mean others who have no reason to know it, like a store, asking you to prove you’ve been vaccinated against the C19 Zombie Virus or don’t have it/never had it/have been living in a bubble for two years, is a HIPAA violation.
It’s kind of like saying an individual deleting your comment off their Facebook page is a violation of your first amendment right to free speech. Nope, Constitution applies to what government may and may not do (whole other post on the violations going on these days may have to happen) and has nothing to do with an individual restricting your speech. That’s what saying a business asking you for personal health info is a HIPAA violation is like.
Great example in here of that principle. Me saying my brother broke his legs and was in the hospital for weeks, then rehab for months, isn’t a HIPAA violation, because I have that info from being his sister, not from having access to that info because I worked at one of the places that treated him, or the insurance company processing the claims.
So, are we clear on this now? No one on our side shall argue vaccine passports or mask requirements are a violation of HIPAA again. Let the other side argue using completely wrong facts, they’re much better at it than we are anyway.
ADA:
Here is one law that should apply to all this vaccine passport, you have to wear a mask, and sign away your soul and individuality for the “greater good,” join the Borg because resistance is futile bullshit.
I say should, because as far as I can tell, when it comes to Covid restrictions, the ADA doesn’t exist. Everyone is ignoring it. I’m hoping that becomes a bunch of massive class action lawsuits in the near future.
This is the Americans with Disabilities Act. Basically, its job is to protect you against discrimination due to your disabilities. And this one does apply to businesses as well as government. It (very generally) says no discrimination against those with disabilities for employment, public accommodations in commercial facilities, and telecommunications.
The big issue we see these days is the part about public accommodations in commercial facilities. Public services and education (schools, courts, public transportation), restaurants, hotels, stores, and convention centers, to name a few, have to comply with the ADA.
As in, this one does apply to private businesses.
So all those people saying a private business can make it’s own decision about who to let in, wrong! No, they can’t. They aren’t allowed to discriminate. People arguing it’s a private business therefore it’s their choice, obviously don’t know about the cases stating businesses can’t refuse to serve you due to the color of your skin, and know shit all about the ADA.
Businesses aren’t allowed to discriminate against you based on certain things, such as race, and thanks to the ADA, they can’t discriminate based on a disability. They have to make reasonable accommodations for you to receive services if you can’t receive them the same way as others due to your disability.
A big, obvious example of this is all the handicap accessible retrofits you see in stores, restaurants, and hotels. They have to have ramps alongside stairs for people in wheelchairs to get in since they can’t walk up stairs, have to have handicap bathrooms so that people in wheelchairs can wheel in, and use the bars in there to lift themselves from wheelchair to toilet. If they can’t make something exactly the same for you as for a person without that disability, then they have to make reasonable accommodations. What those are can still be a grey area in more established areas. In Covid restrictions matters now? Half the businesses I know aren’t even trying, and their employees have no clue what medical exemptions and/or reasonable accommodations are when asked.
It’s pretty clear under a straightforward reading of the law that discriminating against people who can’t wear masks safely due to medical conditions, like asthma, is not allowed. Like the businesses that don’t let you in unless you’re wearing a mask are discriminating, and at the least have to offer reasonable accommodations to you to stay within the law. Most of them don’t even try. You have to push them, get managers, and threaten lawsuits most of the time for them to try to accommodate you, and they act like you’re being a ridiculous, entitled Karen. Take that situation and apply it to someone who can’t get in because they’re in a wheelchair and can’t get up the stairs, and the employees who have to lift up her chair to get her through the door saying she’s an entitled Karen demanding special treatment.
Yes, it is like that.
BUT the Covid restrictions aren’t about actual medical issues and health, disabilities, not discriminating, treating people fairly, or any of that. If they were, then businesses would establish policies on how to stay within the ADA with the Covid restrictions. Governments wouldn’t be able to demand you wear a mask to be in a government facility, like schools, city buildings, or courts. They would have to do the equivalent of providing a handicap ramp or at least carrying you and your chair up the stairs.
They don’t. Businesses don’t even worry about it, because the “rules” say anyone who can’t wear a mask is just being difficult, or making a political statement, or that if they really can’t wear one then they shouldn’t be in a place that requires it, and that’s that person’s problem.
They don’t worry about it, because the “good people,” wear masks, because the “good people” follow the rules. All of us not wearing masks. We’re the “bad people,” the “others,” we’re the people who don’t follow the rules.
And because of that, because we might inspire others to stop blindly following rules, because not wearing a mask might be about bucking the rules, we’re dangerous. And it’s okay to discriminate against the people who refuse to follow the rules, because then it’s not discrimination, you’re just making people follow the rules.
You see how they have that in a nice little bow.
When a business doesn’t comply with the ADA, you can file an ADA complaint. People have for being discriminated against under the Covid restrictions, but so far, as far as I have heard, nothing’s come from those. I’ll be filing one for the discrimination I dealt with at Creepy Con. I’m almost positive it’ll come to nothing, but hey, I don’t know much about the process since I’ve never filed an ADA complaint, never needed to, so at least I’ll be able to share what going through that process looks like.
Under the HHS fact sheet on the ADA, here’s who’s protected:
“Who Is Protected Under the ADA?
The ADA protects qualified individuals with disabilities. An individual with a disability is a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits major life activities; has a record of such an impairment; or is regarded as having such an impairment. Major life activities means functions such as caring for one’s self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working. Under the ADA, a qualified individual with a disability is an individual with a disability who meets the essential eligibility requirements for receipt of services or participation in programs or activities. Whether a particular condition constitutes a disability within the meaning of the ADA requires a case-by-case determination.
Physical or mental impairments include, but are not limited to: visual, speech, and hearing impairments; mental retardation, emotional illness, and specific learning disabilities; cerebral palsy; epilepsy; muscular dystrophy; multiple sclerosis; orthopedic conditions; cancer; heart disease; diabetes; and contagious and noncontagious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV disease (whether symptomatic or asymptomatic).”
Does asthma make me a qualified individual? I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out.
But PTSD sure as shit puts you in that category. You know what a common trigger for rape victims is? Having their mouth covered, because, surprise surprise, most rapists want to keep their victims quiet and cover their mouths. So far, everyone I know who has talked about it (and it’s a shocking and saddening amount) who was raped, has a trauma response to having their mouths covered.
I hope that helps clarify a bit why you shouldn’t bring HIPAA to a discrimination fight. I hope it was helpful information. I hope a lot of things. When it comes to the rest of the country, I don’t have much hope. (Post on Biden’s latest edict will probably be coming soon.) When it comes to our side, I have some.
And until the world as we know it ends, we’ll act as though it intends to spin on. For authors, that means writing and selling books.
So, if you want books that aren’t full of leftist woke bullshit spreading the “virtues” of fear and victim points, then check out my books. I have book bundles and my 911 Remembrance Day sale going on for signed paperbacks. The best part of that, besides the whole they’re signed thing, is big tech like Amazon doesn’t get an extra piece of these.
Books are $10 each. The Supernatural Streets Anthology is $12. And the Evie Jones Compilation is $8.
Bullet bookmarks are $4 each, 3 for $10, OR, you get one free for buying a book bundle.
Book bundles are: Buy 3 get 10% off, buy 6 get 13% off, buy 10 novels get 15% off, or buy all 12 and get 20% off, which knocks it down to $100. (Plus shipping and handling.)
The SDF Series: Paranormal Mystery Romances: Ariana’s like Buffy with a badge.
Ariana’s a cute, spunky FBI agent who only has the job because she’s psychic, and she’s going to prove to her coworkers and herself that she’s more than just a pretty face on a too young psychic when a serial killer strikes.
The Elemental Demons Series: Psychic Thrillers: If you loved ‘The Conjuring’ this is a must-read series. Fans are saying these ain’t your daddy’s psychic thrillers.
Sarah is shattered after the man she loved dumped her, throwing away their life plans, and ran back home after college. But the refuge of home isn’t when strange things start happening. She’s not religious, but there are more things in Hell and Earth than are dreamt of in her philosophy. She’s going to have to face her fears and find her strength again before one of those dark things she doesn’t believe in uses her broken soul against her, and all of humankind.
The Gods Defense, The Magical Adventures of Evie Jones, and Supernatural Streets, can be checked out through on my sales page too, so you can see if they’re your thing too.
AND Brena Bock is doing a paperback sale (after being voluntold 😊 )
Brena is in 3 anthologies, and has them up to be signed and shipped at discount prices too!
All my life, I have heard that the left have a plan, and it’s working perfectly and we’ve already lost.
If you’re my age — born at the very end of 62 — or older, you’ve probably heard the same from serious people, usually stroking their beards (even the women.) “It’s over. Communism will inevitably win. They have a plan. It’s lost. All we can do is delay.”
Often it goes back to how leftist the young are, and how “if you give me a child” etc. (Which btw is true in the small things (I still apologize to bread when I drop it) but not so much in the big ones, or no one would abjure the faith of their youth.) And sometimes to 1984 or other Ploddenapocaliptishmarxencrap (Probably a German word, or it should be.)
Yeah. Okay, the commies got a plan. That is sort of their one and only given strength. They plan, they organize, they work towards the world’s stupidest things, but they do it TOGETHER. (Eh, mostly.)
But to believe it’s working you’d have to forget everything from the collapse of the Soviet Union (THEY surely try to forget it) to the repeated smacks on the nose they have got in America, to the fact many of you don’t seem to know that the only reason that the Soviet Union survived that long was because we FED THEM. (Seriously. We should give all those who lost relatives to the Soviet Union and its depredations, including the poor bastards in Africa destroyed by Russia’s Cuban mercenaries a chance to disinter FDR’s corpse and kick it around. It’s no more than a very mild form of justice.)
Communism is in fact an idea so stupid that only intellectuals can believe it and try to apply it. Fortunately for them they do attract most intellectuals with the siren song of “because you’re smarter than other people, you see this.”
I was fortunate, I guess, to have grown up in a religion that has a long list of approved prophecies going back centuries, some of which range from the trivial tot he “OMG, that’s not even possible.”
But for every one of these prophecies, I can find a site on the internet where brilliant minds “prove” it’s already working out. “When they said the sky would turn purple with yellow polka dots, they actually meant my mom would wear a dress that color and stand on the fence. It’s happening, man. It’s happening.” And because I was raised and indoctrinated in that system I read those sites and believe it. For about ten seconds.
There is this kind of confirmation in the best written (and it’s brilliant fiction, btw) Ploddenapocaliptishmarxencrap. Yeah, 1984 is great fiction, though I’ll note I haven’t re-read it since I was 14. But I remember most of it, which tells you it was good. Just not fun.
However Orwell was a believer, even if a heretic. As an adult, read the damn thing and tell me it’s in the least likely.
Not only would it fall apart within years — if not weeks — because no one can manage a large economy well enough for it to survive that long (yeah, China. Sure buddy. If you think China is working out that well, you haven’t looked closely), but it could never extend to the whole world, or everyone would starve and die out.
The other thing is that it’s 1940s tech extended indefinitely. This might work — eh, sort of — under really tightly controlled regimes, but sooner or letter a clever monkey (ape, d*amn it. We’re apes) throws a wrench in. The internet is a big wrench, and their attempts to put the genie back in the bottle have been markedly unsuccessful. But it doesn’t take the internet. The Soviet Union was brought down by typewriters and copiers. At twelve I built a radio from old parts in the attic (well, you see, I wanted a radio. So dad put down Three Men In A Boat which he was re-reading and told me “So, get one. I have no objection.” (This is actually an accurate representation of that moment. Yes. I know. Look, I thought Have Spacesuit was not fiction, let alone science fiction. For all I knew any kid in America could go to the moon.).) It got BBC transmissions (better than FM, d*mn it.) Leaving aside a regime so nuts they thought that the BBC was “right wing” (Bernie? Is that you?) I did it at 12, broke, and well…. with not much knowledge. Because monkeys (apes, ook) will tinker.
Take a deep breath. I have in the backburner a project called “Loose a Heinlein character in 1984 stand back and grin.” But the truth is you don’t need a Heinlein character (I could never build a boat. I could learn to butcher my food I just never have.) You need a human. Just a human.
Communism is a toddler, trying to get humans to behave like building blocks, and screaming and yelling and breaking things when humans won’t. By definition it can’t win.
This should be particularly obvious when their strength is “mass everything” and we’re headed towards “individualized everything.”
They can hurt us. They can’t win.
In memory of our martyred — but not defeated — brothers in freedom in Hong Kong, all you have to do is be like water.
The area of Portugal I grew up in, or rather the part of the ocean accessible from it — when I was little an excruciating 2 hour trip through the city on overcrowded, irregularly spaced buses, now 15 minutes up the highway — is known for sudden and incredibly impressive waves. So impressive it’s become a surfing paradise, drawing people from all over the world.
When I was eight — I think — I drowned. Oh, no, not really. Not even to the point of stopping breathing and needing resuscitation. But … Let me explain.
I was eight and playing in the very shallow part of the ocean. I had my back to the main part of the ocean. And suddenly, out of nowhere, a wave lifted me off my feet and rolled me. My eyes were open, and it was beautiful greeny yellow inside and I inhaled some water, and I couldn’t tell which way was up and–
My dad must have been very close, saw me go under, and dove in before I was dragged out to see, and pulled me back. My first words to him coughing and spluttering and spitting were “I died.” He still quotes this as one of the funniest things I’ve ever said. And it’s probably true.
It’s true in the sense that wave changed me. it showed me that things are unpredictable, and also that the beautiful can be deadly. And in that moment of upsideownness (totally a word) the mind somehow changed and the world with it.
There have been other waves in my life, including the pneumonia that almost killed me at 33, the concussion at 40 and– other times. Including the year of the five moves, five years ago.
This wave…. The move from hell or house purgatory or escape from Colorado…. whatever you want to call it, might be bigger than all of those, or in retrospect it might prove to have been just a few minutes of being rolled around. Right now, we don’t know. There is danger still, though perhaps not as great as my paranoid mind perceives (I have money/security issues. Always had. Knowing I have them is no cure.)
We should have been done two months ago. We should. Except this has been house fix up from Murphy.
There are always things that go wrong, particularly when trying out a new process/way of fixing something/whatever. This one…
Part of it is the unvailability/unreliability of supplies, and part of it: like, stain two floors, made of the same thing with the exact same mixture, varnish with same varnish and how in heck is one greenish and one RED. Like the reddest wood I’ve ever seen? And no, it’s not the wood (it really was the same, same batch.) the stain? Possibly. It was a different batch, and yet….
More importantly, we’ve had stain that didn’t stick. Wood that was deffective and had to be torn out, varnish that inexplicably turned the floor coal-black. Contractors that were unreliable, etc. etc. etc.
Now? Almost done. Effectively “listed” though pictures will be taken next monday, and it will be officially up for sale on the Friday after that.
Younger son and husband had me come home last night. I mean last night. We drove through the night and got in at 3 am. Younger son went back to touch up a dozen small things and supervise cleaners.
I’m terrified it won’t sell fast. We spent our savings and overextended, because once things started going wrong, we had to finish it. You can’t sell a construction site. Or at least not do it and recoup.
I’m trying not to worry. Of course I do.
A lot of you are being run off jobs by the Juden-frei vaccine “mandates” of our serene Fuhrer Zhu Bai Den. My gut tells me there will be a giant economic crash. As in, massive. And I don’t know what that means for selling the albatross.
Trying not to worry.
Came home to a mostly-packed house, though my office is setup (good move on my part.)
And I’m dead.
As in, I feel like when I came home after pneumonia and 11 days in ICU. I am not sick, but I don’t feel well. Husband sent me up to bed, so I’m writing this post from bed. Taking in account how difficult this is, it’s probably right. He’s also insisting he cooks tonight.
I look pale and gaunt, and like I just had a great illness. And I worry about not being there for the final clean and “zipping up.” Though son is probably okay with it. I mean, he is the clone.
Prayers are requested for house to sell as fast as possible. Crazy person walking in with a cash bid above our wildest dreams first day it’s up would be GREAT.
I feel guilty I’m not writing or editing, but I do realize I’m “ill” or at least recovering. And tomorrow might not be much better. Against all my instincts and screaming internal sense, it’s too early to take that breath. I’d only drown faster.
The world has changed in the months I was head down in this, and I’m not sure I like the hints I’m getting, nor do I think I should look just yet.
Meanwhile and in an interesting development, About halfway through the day on Monday my brain decided I was done with the house stuff. I literally couldn’t think about it. Instead, plots and character voices too up all my brain. That’s still there. It will be worked on.
For now, though, I went for a gentle lunch break walk with husband, in the park next door, with the sun and the nice bench to rest in (seriously, I think we walked like 200 ft. I’m TIRED) and now I’m here, on the bed,with the laptop. Some friends on social media. Looking out the window t the beautiful golden trees.
The dye is cast. The Rubicon is crossed. On the other end, there will be time for fear, and work and determination.
For now there’s the bed. There’s Havelock cat sleeping next to me. (He is very determined I’m not allowed to get up. Going for the lunch walk got me a yelling at.)
In a way, I’ve died. (Just leaving my home-of-the-heart is a death, in a way.)
The alternate title for this post was “Can you hear the people Snark?” But it is early (considering I’ve been up for three hours) I’m uncafeinated, and very tired. Also possibly paint-fumed. So I couldn’t resist the idea of kitty-galt. And I need a drawing of THAT asap.)
Normalcy bias is YUGE in America. It is a testament to the founders’ vision that after a century of attempts to wrench us away from a constitutional republic, after a massive, in the open election steal, people are still counting on elections to right this mess.
They’re right and wrong.
Look, I’m holding up my lighter with tears in my eyes, and whispering hopefully “Team heads on pikes.” Because I think a brief, brutal convulsion is our best hope to come back to ourselves as ourselves.
In the end we win, they lose, but the gradual road is in the end more costly. Perhaps the butcher’s bill will be hidden. You won’t see heads on pikes and bodies on overpasses. But the squid farms on Mars, the unborn babies, the uninvented conveniences, the– more costly. Because socialism kills, either fast or slow, and the longer we play footsy with it, the more lives will be lost. In that case, probably lives that don’t exist.
And frankly, though #teamheadsonpikes might not eventuate, I still see a brief and violent convulsion in our future. Understand “violent” here does not refer to the butcher’s bill. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be the Junta and their toadies, as I think there will be a few Romanian Christmas Gift events, but MOSTLY? MOSTLY there will be a lot of retirements, if we’re lucky a few prison sentences, almost for sure a lot of people taking themselves overseas for retirement (I’m hoping the Obama posse and their cronies are dumb enough to run to China. (Looks heavenward. Lord, if I’m a very good girl for the rest of my life…) our institutions will turn over so fast you’d think they were on wheels. They might retain the name but that will be the last resemblance. People will lose all faith in government (we’re mostly there) and this bizarre idea of scientific governance will be finally put to bed with a shovel. About 100 years after it should have been, but hey.
Why do I think that? Why do I expect an uprising at all? Americans are supine and taking it and reeeeeeeee.
Will someone PLEASE get me my eyes? The cats aren’t here, but the floor is covered in dust and paint chips. That can’t be good.
Two things: Normalcy bias. As I said, most people who aren’t political animals (Party like it’s 1776, yo) are still waiting for the elections to fix everything. Hell, I’ve seen people who are political animals waiting for it. And the left is lying to itself very hard and half believes their wins are legitimate. (AH!)
And: IF there is a rebellion and the news doesn’t report it, would you know about it?
Hell, the world has been in more or less open rebellion for 5 years, and our news sits on it, like it’s their favorite thumb. And most people don’t see it, except for things like Brexit, or Trump’s election. Ask them about German farmers driving their tractors to city hall and they’ll look at you like you’re nuts.
So now?
This week, between stomach flu and paint fumes, I got a text from Bill Reader: “Is labor shortage” “let’s go Brandon” for “Going Galt””?
Eh. Sort of. It’s…. complicated. Part of it is demographic. Part of it is the cash influx of running blue state refugees. If our gambit in this house works, we could probably retire. We won’t, both because we’re broken to be the type that doesn’t, and because I know what happens to fixed incomes with runaway inflation. But I bet you a lot of people around my age (Not sixty, but I can see it) are just going “F*ckit. Retired now.* And we’re that awkward generation between the boomers and the Xs also known as “before the birth rate plummeted.” Most boomers I know unless they’re like us, are already retired.
Second, a lot of women discovered through the covidiocy that they like staying home. They like their kids. A lot of men discovered the gig economy. There will be fewer payrolls, we’ll just say that. And contrary to statist dreams, no we’re not at the singularity where robots do all the work.
They need everyone working and paying taxes. EVERYONE. Even then their system doesn’t work, but it fails SLOWER.
Third, yeah, we can see it coming. They want all our money. Why should we work for them?
This is something the left doesn’t get.
The other thing they don’t get because they can’t, is that no, they don’t have the support of the majority. Or even a substantial plurality. And that this country is not one large city. It’s vast, chaotic and ornery.
They’re starting to panic at sick-outs and resistance to the stupid vax mandates. They should panic harder, because as rumor leaks, more people are going to go “F*ck you. Make me.*
And the other part is that they can’t help themselves. They. Can’t. Help. Themselves. Noisome, having survived the recall through fraud is outlawing…. private homes and the two cycle engine? Thanks, Governor Noisome. My home in CO went up 50k this MONTH. Not that Polis is much better, but I guess Californians still want to go somewhat blue? And we’re …. freer. I guess.
And they want CRT. And you’ll eat bugs and like it. And women are just like men, except when men are women and women are men. And logic is white supremacy. And they will come into your work, your hobbies, your homes. And they expect you to pay for all of it. ALL OF IT.
People are starting to resist and talk back. And the idiots have no clue what to do about it, because they’ve been sold on “we are the future.”
(Holds up lighter. #Teamheadsonpikes!)
It’s a snowball gathering momentum.
Americans are snarky bastards. We just are. Let’s go Brandon is indicative of what’s going on. It’s both in-your-face snark, and the left can’t do anything about it. Because doing something would be admitting they know they cheated and everyone wants Biden to F*ck himself. Well, 90% of the population, anyway.
And that’s it, in a nut shell. It takes all the effort in the world for them to keep their version of reality spinning. For us? We are entropy. We are chaos. We are reality reasserting itself. With a closed checkbook and tools downed.
We are team labor shortage. We are team sickout. We are team MAKE ME!
And they can’t make us. Even now. Much less as momentum gathers.
Hello Galt!
This is the death of collectivism, socialism, central control. It’s going to be nasty. So was the stupid collection of ideas.
But there is hope on the horizon.
Grid your loins and grit your teeth.
In the end we win, they lose.
Because reality is a bitch, and reality always wins.
This was almost a post about abortion and euthanasia, but then I decided I didn’t have the time/mental space/spoons to arbitrate the free for all that would open up. So, in a month or so. You have that to look forward to.
It is however a post about human life and humanity as a concept.
It is important.
I believe in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, among the inalienable rights of humans. But the question, asked in a dirty little voice from a corner of my mind as I say that is “who is human?”
Look, we can’t really claim that this used to be beyond dispute. Humans have always had issues with this concept. I am, undoubtedly human, freighted with all the rights and consciousness of a thinking, sentient being. You, my friend, almost certainly so. Those buggers over there, whom I’ve never met? Children yet unborn or too young to speak? The elderly so old their mind wanders and they have no idea who they are or what they’ve done? The demented? The impaired? Are they human?
Bah. Who is to decide?
For millenia, humans being tribal creatures, creatures of the band, it was decided by positional and relational criteria. My tribe is human. Those buggers over there? Not so much. Look, they eat weird things, and dress funny, okay?
Though exceptions were always made for those known and friendly. Because humans are funny. And not funny ah ah.
Christianity brought about the “all children of G-d.” So that the stranger with completely different skin, manners, features, was your brother or sister. All human. All redeemed by the one sacrifice that redeems us all. Young, old, impaired. It didn’t matter.
It’s kind of funny in the present day Christianity is presented as the most racist religion evah. Never mind. We live in funny times. And not funny ahah.
The twentieth century and the growth of the state to replace the church (note I say replace. This was intentional. Having a vast state might be okay — all right, by me it isn’t but hey — if it didn’t try to become the religion: the only ones to decide. The moral and thought of the nation it controls. As we know that’s impossible with any derivation of Marxism.
Which is what made the twentieth century (and possibly the end of the 19th) funny and not funny ahah.
The state, being controlled by a group of people who consider themselves qualified to decide who is human — or if you prefer — who gets any rights, considers most of humanity widgets. Mere chattel to be disposed of.
Only the insane or idiots would say things like what Bill Gates openly says, about reducing humanity — whose numbers he doesn’t know. Whose lives he can’t hope to understand — to 20% of its numbers. Because they too are human, and would realize it if they took a minute. Crowned heads and peasants alike have been “reduced” suddenly and horribly, and he’d see that, if he removed the hubris from his eye.
But in our day oligarchs, and the very rich who think they control them, say this casually.
They have forgotten or never understood the horrors of the 20th century that killed over a hundred million human beings, who were deemed not human because they were the wrong ancestry, the wrong religion, the wrong color, the wrong “utility” or simply because they wore glasses. Over a hundred million humans, as real as any of us reading this, were sent to their graves, sometimes in horrible ways, because those with power to decide decided they weren’t human.
Worse, millions more were reduced to lives that we wouldn’t inflict on our own domestic animals, because they weren’t deemed human. (The Nazi experiment of feeding concentration camp inmates on old rags and paper still horrifies me more than death.)
They weren’t deemed human by other humans, temporarily in power.
Only an idiot or a madman would think this is right. Only an idiot or a madman prey to a sadistic compulsion would try to do this. And forget the fate of Robespierre.
I was raised to think that “the important thing is not to be happy, but to be good for some thing.”
Both sides of that equation are flawed. Of course, the important thing is not to be happy. Happiness is a fleeting state. You can pursue it, but never hold it. Unless the happiness you crave is the sort of satisfaction when it’s late on cleaning day, and everything is done, and you snuggle up to your husband. A sort of glowing contentment. Or what Foxfier called “a sense of “this is good.””
But being good for something is the utilitarian evil rearing its head. Babies, the extreme aged, the infirm aren’t good for something. Either temporarily or permanently.
Does this mean they’re not human?
It took me till I was thirty, a stay at home mom (and very ill, but I didn’t know that) and making no money, and found myself listing for anyone I met that day everything I’d done that day for me to understand my grandmother’s habit of doing the same. It was “justifying my existence” since I was not making anything TANGIBLE. So I had to tell everyone how many times I’d changed the baby. I was ransoming my life for another day.
A sad and evil impulse. Human, of course. And not funny, ahah.
The truth is every time you give humans the power to decide who is human and who isn’t, you get this sort of thing. “Prove you’re useful.” Or “prove you’re useful to me.”
The worst part? As we saw through lockdowns, those who would order who is to live and who is to die don’t even understand what makes the world work. Or to quote a headline from the NYT (No, I didn’t read it. Do I look stupid?) “No one knows what makes the economy work.” (Oh, reeely? No. We do. It’s free humans trading freely. Those who would decide who’s to serve and who’s to eat? Not so much, no.)
You can’t decide who’s to live and who’s to die. No one can. More importantly, no one should. Certainly not a bureaucratic body, or someone who considers himself “scientific.”
That’s not how any of that works. To be human is to be flawed. The mote in your eye will not let you see clearly. Ever.
Judge not lest you should be judged.
Or if you prefer and if you don’t believe in G-d: To give humans the power to decide on the humanity of others is a corruption, which eats society and in the end makes everyone into things.
I believe in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness. For all humans.
And I believe anyone saying “We are human, but those deplorables/stupid people/people who tan/weird ones over there aren’t, and they get fewer rights” is an idiot or a madman, and courting the fate of Robespierre.
I’m still home for another day. Going back this weekend, for …. reasons. Which makes it hard to get everything done by Wednesday, but we’re going to try.
Meanwhile well…. bits and pieces….
I don’t know if I’ll post next week. It depends on what the connection is like back there. It ranges from awful to impossible, though, so I’ll end up doing less, at any rate.
The accomplishments for this week seem pathetic, though I’m trying to rest, so…. it’s still probably too much.
Yesterday I was able to cook dinner in the kitchen for the first time. I’m halfway through unpacking my office. I have clothes in the dresser (and on boxes. SO MANY BOXES.) The dining room is eat-in ready, but I won’t do the walls (which are …. complicated) till I come back again, so things aren’t really unpacked yet. We also need to put baseboards throughout. I have an idea for a feeding station for the cats downstairs, but that involves getting a “rustic” looking “sofa table.” I might end up building one. Probably towards the end of the month. The idea being feeding the cats on bottom, and what can only be called my “coffee shrine” on top. If I put it in the dining room, that makes the inadequate kitchen counter livable, until we can remodel the kitchen. (I’m holding out for a gas range, sorry.) Which might be up to a year, depending on finances which depend on how much I write.
As usual, after three days at lower altitude, the writing started trying to come back. Not fully. I really had got myself in a state. I was determined to b*tch at son dragging me down here for a week (It DID delay us) until I caught glimpses of myself in the doors of gas stations. I looked like my friends who had cancer and are JUST starting to recover. It will give you a vague understanding maybe of how bad it had got when I tell you one of the very minor effects is passing: my fingertips can now be used without excruciating pain, as they’re starting to heal. This makes typing “not a torture.” Also means I don’t drop things and spill stuff all over myself quite as much.
Anyway, my hope for today is to finish setting up my office, so that I might, maybe, come back and start writing. I have Bowl of Red (so delayed) to get out. Also A Well Inlaid Death and I MUST get the Darkship books re-edited and out before I write the sequels. (Darkship Defiance, the Athena book; and Hacking the Storm, Fuse’s story.)
There is a second Rhodes book pushing hard to get written, and of course, The Long Purr Farewell.
So, I hope it’s clear both why I need working fingertips, and why the office must get set up so I can come back and slip into work.
Probably, supposing I’m back by Thurs. or Fri, I’ll spend next weekend painting the dining room and Dan’s office, but by Monday the 18th I MUST be back at work, and producing words. The way I see it, once the kitchen, dining room (We don’t have an eat-in kitchen here), bedroom and office are livable, the rest of the house can be unpacked and finished on weekends and evenings. I’m hoping to be done in time to decorate for Christmas. But the essential part is almost done, so…. the rest will happen.
Anyway, not looking forward to the next week, but determined to make it “the last trip to Colorado” — at least till closing. It should have been a month ago, except for the difficulty of getting workmen to actually show up on time, etc.
And all I can say is this mess might be G-d’s way to keep my mind off the mess our occupying Junta is making of the country.
On a lighter note, last night as we were falling asleep, the cats were throwing themselves about, and there was noisy scrabbling of claws. The words “Stop that” were uttered multiple times, and there might have been a pillow flung unfortunately nowhere near where the noise was.
Or maybe fortunately. This morning, there was a moth, dead, in the corner. Good cats. Satisfactory result.
May we all see the result of our work, thus, in the land of the living.
