According To Hoyt

(A Blast from the Past: https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/09/30/greebos-editorial-tips/)

I was born a poor black cat.  Okay, stop laughing.  It is actually true.  I’m mostly black, except for spots of white, embarrassingly shaped like human body hair, which show when I lie on my back.  And I was born in the crawl space of a rental house from a feral mother who was dumped as a kitten, and the neighborhood gentleman Mrs. Hoyt pleases to call The Resident Mad Feral Tom.

I wasn’t much more than ten weeks old when I had to defend mam.ma cat’s honor against a roving tom who took the opportunity of papa cat (who used to baby-sit us when mama went about her errands) being absent.

To be honest with you, I didn’t so much worry about my mother’s honor.  It was that the tom made it very clear my brothers and sister and I should be done away with and possibly eaten, so mama could turn her attention to his offspring, the getting of.

Well, I was tiny, but I had needle sharp claws, so I jumped on his head and–

Mrs. Hoyt says that’s when she decided to call me Greebo.  It didn’t hurt for the name that when the neighbor next door trapped me and my siblings (we could never resist tuna) she took me to be “fixed” (I wasn’t aware of being broken) to a feral-fixing service, which then cut half of one ear so people knew we were fixed.  She did this despite Mrs. Hoyt offering to pay for the fixing, which to be fair, she was never forgiven for.

Another thing she was never forgiven for was locking us all in a six by nine powder room, and not letting us be adopted.  To be fair, she let the Hoyts come and pet us and play with us, but she kept insisting we were feral and dangerous — she wasn’t a cat person, and to be fair, I didn’t like her — and not letting the Hoyts find us families.  Then when we were a year old she turned us out just before winter.  This is when Mrs. Hoyt took over looking after us, and trying to re-tame us, as we were rather traumatized at being dumped out into the freezing cold.  She even bought us an insulated house to sleep in during winter, and had us chipped and vaccinated.

Despite this, my brothers chose to live with the neighbors.  Okay, fine, I might have chased Maurice away.  Mr. Underfoot genuinely preferred the neighbors, even though they called him Dumb and Maurice Dumber.  Look, given how et up with cats the Hoyts are I judged my chances of being brought inside best if there was just one of us, okay?  A cat’s got to do what a cat got to do.

At any rate, Maurice owed me, because that first winter out, a fox got him in an indelicate place — to put it bluntly, the fox took an off-center chunk off Maurice — and if I hadn’t descended upon the fox like the wrath of Greebo, Maurice would be dead.

Mrs. Hoyt is still confused at my bringing her half a fox’s tail, ripped vertically.  I’d heard they were valued for stoles, but I think she threw it away, silly woman.  What do you expect from writers.

I also once saved them from a fugitive.  It happened like this, see, I wasn’t very fond of the outside house, so I convinced them to put a cat door on the little screen door to their mudroom.

The mudroom didn’t lock, because back then Colorado Springs’ Old North end was, in the main, very safe.  Besides, all they kept there were these tall plastic shelves with gardening stuff and basketballs, and the kids scooters.  That kind of thing.  Oh, and two cat beds, one in the lowest shelf and one on the highest.

It so happened that every so often a fugitive escaped the maximum security facility somewhere South of the Springs, and then the police would hunt them down and have lights shining from helicopters to catch them. We all knew what those lights meant.

Of course, the problem with that mud room — the Hoyts called it an air-lock. Shakes head at the silliness of science fiction people — is that once you were in there, you had all the time in the world to break into the kitchen.  I knew Mrs. Hoyt was there, cooking, because I’d greeted her at the kitchen window — purr, rub on glass, purr — before going to sleep in the top most shelf.

I don’t know why I know this man was a wrong one, except he smelled bad, of fear and bad intentions, and besides he wasn’t daddy, who was the only person who should be coming into the air lock at that time.

Well — flicks claw — I have my claws.  And I remembered who I got rid of mama’s suitor.  Yep, I dropped on his head.

He ran out of the airlock with me on his head, and I stayed on, yowling and scratching, and let me tell you it wasn’t easy to keep my balance, so I held on with my front claws and ripped with my back claws.  When we found the police he was sobbing, asking for his mommy, and saying something about demons.

Mrs Hoyt was very proud of me and gave me tuna.

So, what does this have to do with writing tips?

Be still, there’s more to the story.

Imagine my surprise when the Hoyts moved away and left me behind.  I thought it was understood I was THEIR kitten — albeit a near 20 lb muscular kitten — but apparently the strange pink monkeys thought I was the neighborhood cat.

So I sat my butt in front of the house and yowled ALL NIGHT.  It worked.  One of the neighbors called and told Mrs. Hoyt she had to come get me, because I wouldn’t let anyone sleep.

And that’s how I achieved my long term goal of being an indoor cat.

Now, because I know she has a lot of other cats (Yeah, not happy about that, but one is old enough he shouldn’t be with us long, the other one is really her son’s cat and just staying with us for a year, and the third is probably just an animated ball of cotton wool) she has to feed, and I don’t intend to go without my tuna, I also herd the silly woman to the chair to write at all times, so she has money to keep us.  Because, and here’s the thing,  found if you work at it, you will be successful.

So, my tips for writers are:

No matter who you were born, or to whom, or how unlikely your circumstances, you can do what you set out to do.  It just takes effort and determination.  Tell yourself right now you’re not going to give up and die when the big feral tom wants you out of the way.  You’ll chase him off if needed, even if you’re much smaller.  And you’ll do it WELL.

Develop your innate abilities.  Mine is chasing off large wild life and terrorizing neighborhoods.  This not only saved my brother Maurice and the other cats in the neighborhood, since the fox found another place to prowl, but it made me beloved by a lot of people who only heard about me.

It also made me capable of chasing off a real, dangerous fugitive and earn the gratitude of the Hoyts.

Also, as I keep telling the writer-woman, when you become what you always wanted to be, don’t slack off.  Be vigilant and always on the job, and you know, sometimes you’ll even get tuna rewards.

It’s all in working hard and never giving up.  Now go write, before I figure out a way to come to your houses and chase you to your keyboards.

Happy hunting.

I don’t want to write this, but I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion it’s needed.

What don’t I want to write? Well… I don’t want to write about the Clancy case anymore. For a million reasons, up to and including that it’s plainly obvious to me that she’s guilty in the legal sense (she knew what she was doing) and yet people are being stupid about it.

Nothing I am about to say exculpates her in any way. People can have mistaken ideas and kill someone under that impression, but unless the idea is that they’re in danger for their lives and there is SOME substantiation (like the other person was holding an object that looked like a knife or a gun and coming at them) they’re still guilty of murder and there’s no getting around it. If, after reading a lot of weird blogs, I become convinced that my neighbor is an alien from beta centauri and kill him, I should be given the penalty for murder, regardless of how much I believed I was saving the Earth.

I am convinced I know why Lindsey Clancy killed her kids (though not a 100% sure why all three of them, unless she figured that leaving the other two in the world associated with the case of their brother and mother was too cruel and they’d be put in foster care and decided that was a fate worse than death) and while utterly inexcusable, it is something that other people in our circles might be prone to in far, far less lethal circumstances. It is in fact something I fell into when I was a young mother, though of course I never considered killing the kid, only worried obsessively.

To explain how I got there: I have spent the last few days either helping family members move (I did say this move was complicated), cleaning or unpacking. (I’m switching to more unpacking over the other two, though some work on that remains.) Since I’m desperately, floridly, ADD, I need something to keep the mind going while I do mechanical, repetitive work. If it’s some task that’s half an hour or less, like say doing dishes, I can do stuff like plot or write the next chapter in my mind. But if it’s a morning or an afternoon or a whole day, at some point the mind turns off and takes the body with it.

The best illustration of this is when I went for a walk (a task that’s unbearable alone, or without distraction), walked two blocks, and found myself turning around to go back home. It was simple. Mind said “this is boring, let’s go home” at a level I wasn’t even aware of.

So, normally I listen to “mindless books” or books I’ve read before (First read in audio doesn’t work well for me.) But Jane Austen fanfic has been invaded by AI, whose cadences drive me nuts in audio worse than in reading. And none of my faves are up for re-read. So instead I put youtube on with one of the podcasters I like and let it cycle whatever. Unless it becomes offensive and I have to change it.

Anyway, one of the things it brought up was a female blogger talking about how Clancy was guilty. I let it stay on because it was interesting, particularly since she had initially been on Clancy’s side, and was explaining how knowing more changed her mind.

She brought up a few things I didn’t know, which I confirmed afterwards. Clancy had joined a mommy facebook group apparently devoted to blowing off steam about your kids. Look, I’m not going to judge stupid things moms say, because I was known to say “I am raising Abel and Cain, and I just want to know which is which” when I got tired of the boys fighting, and don’t want anyone to think I was either serious or ready to do something about it. BUT she said that her second child, Dawson, was the “most difficult person I’ve ever met” and how she didn’t like him, and in fact couldn’t stand him. That’s hard to discount as just blowing off steam, and there is nothing even vaguely jokey or deflecting about it. Particularly when the kid was 19 months old at the time. (Look, my kids have driven me insane several times. I’ve never not liked them, much less hate dthem. In fact I can’t even think in those terms. Also, he was the first child she killed.

The other thing I found out was that before the killings she looked up whether a psychopath could be cured. Most people, including the blogger whom I first heard this from, assume she meant herself.

The other thing, which is widely known, is that the woman was obsessed with “mommy books” and blogs on how to raise the kids, the best way to do this and that. How to optimize yourself as a parent and your children as a product. This is, to be honest, a temptation of educated, over-thinking moms all over. (Which is why I’m writing this blog.) She perhaps did it even more than is normal because she was a perfectionist.

I’m convinced she’d become convinced her son — not herself — was a psychopath, and also that she knew just enough to know psychopaths are dangerous, evil mass murderers. (No, it’s not true. Any number of psychopaths are decent, productive members of society. In fact, apparently, a good number of them are surgeons. It’s just we tend to hear about the ones who decide to flaunt social norms by doing evil stuff.) And therefore, not wanting to be blamed for unleashing that on the world, she decided to kill him. And to kill the other kids to prevent their being traumatized by the results of her crime. (Thereby proving SHE is a psychopath.)

Of course, she’s utterly guilty of the crimes. I’m also sure that she was treating that poor little boy very poorly whenever she could get away with it.

But that’s neither here nor there, because this is not about her. It’s not up to me to send her where she belongs, so I leave it in the hands of a higher power.

What I can do is help other people becoming caught in that kind of thought-trap.

Mind you most mothers who decide they’re raising a psychopath, or a potential serial killer or a never do well won’t kill their kids. Thank heaven most mothers are still decent human beings. BUT they’ll worry themselves sick over it, and might be much, much harsher with the kid than there is any objective reason to be.

How do I know this? I know it because I’m one of those mothers.

First let me point out I never read mommy books. The mommy blogs weren’t a thing yet, thank G-d, and the books had such appalling grammar I could never make it past the prologue. (The reason I had them at all is that all my friends were bombarding me with books with titles like “How to raise the strong willed child.” I wasn’t impressed. First, “Strong Willed” is a weird way to spell “stubborn” and second, I knew precisely how to handle that when it mattered. A quick smack on the bottom when too young to understand reason, and taking the computer cord away to enforce compliance, once they could reason. Most of the things I didn’t enforce compliance on, because they weren’t that important, and the kids eventually realized they were pushing against nothing and came around.) I don’t know how I’d be raising kids nowadays.

However, I read a lot of books on true crime and psychology, and I became very alarmed. That I know of my kids never harmed (let alone tortured) animals. However, both were notoriously hard to potty train (it runs in the family) and had the occasional bed wetting accident when over 3. Everything I read assured me this meant they would grow up to be mass murderers. And, of course, if you start looking at a toddler for signs of evil, you’ll find them. Mostly because toddlers are your original, untainted savages. And there’s nothing noble about savages. They’re just all impulse, no moderating reason. Our job is to make them into human beings fit for society.

I had nightmares and worried for years over this. My usual joke is that I should have stuck with cats, because cats lack the opposable thumbs to become mass murderers (eyes Indy and his hand-paws.) But the worry was real.

We are now awash in so much information on child rearing that the average mother can’t avoid it. And most of it is, to put it mildly, alarmist or sensationalist. It’s often being passed by neurotic mothers to neurotic mothers and growing in the telling.

I routinely watch younger women who have littles obsess over things like nursing styles or times, and nap times and…

My kids never took naps. They just didn’t. I remembered being a little kid who didn’t take naps, and rolled with it. (The up side is that until they were teens they slept 12 hours a night. That was nice.) As for nursing, second son weaned himself at 6 months. Since mom said I did the same, again, I rolled with it, into bottle with supplementation. Structured days? What’s that, when mom is an ADD writer?

They seem to have turned out all right. In fact, their failings are failings that I’m discovering more and more are hereditary. And by that I don’t mean just me, but as dad talks more about his brothers and sister as he gets older, I find their failings are things that have been going on for generations.

I don’t think any of you out there are evil or disconnected from reality enough to Clancy your children, but I read you worrying about it, and trying to “improve” your parenting styles to perfection and your kids into perfect and smart and good.

Look, our job IS to civilize them. This is hard work and can’t be done overnight. Yes, they will still sneak cat kibble after you tell them not to eat it. Yes, there will be battles campaigns wars fought over comic books and favorite toys. No, you can’t improve everything at once. Pick your battles. Work on what bothers you most.

Will your child grow up to be a psychopath? You’re in no position to know. Not when they’re under two. If they are, you will just have to try to make them the kind of psychopath who is a top surgeon and not the kind that boils the neighbors in a bag. (Yeah, hurting animal is a line you just do not allow them to cross.)

You just do the best you can, don’t make charts, and let the kid grow and develop, while curbing the worst stuff, one trait at a time.

And remember both the kids and you are human, and neither of you is going to be perfect, ever. Good-enough is a good goal. Also, you don’t own your kids, anymore than your ancestors own you, so don’t try to make them things that you can create, remove and mold.

Reading too many mommy books and blogs might give you the impression it’s all in your control and you’re a bad mother if you don’t control it. If you must read that cr*p, accept you’re a bad mother and roll with it. You come from a long, long line of bad mothers and here you are. And here your granddaughters and greatgranddaughters will be. Being bad along with you. And yet, raising kids who are, by and large, functioning human beings and no worse than the run of humanity will be.

Remember that the thing about eating from the tree of knowledge and being like gods was a LIE. You can eat from the tree of knowledge, but you’ll remain yourself, just a more panicked and neurotic yourself.

Don’t obsess. Don’t make it all about you and a reflection on you. Concentrate on making them functioning adults rather than perfect exhibits of your skill as a perfect mother.

And hey, as someone who was a mother of small children, and who did this, but it turns out not nearly enough?

ENJOY them while they’re little. Yes, it’s insane hard work. And yes, you pray — PRAY — with tears in your eyes for just a meal you can eat without getting up to feed/clean/fetch every two minutes, and for a potty break in which you’re allowed to sit there ALONE.

But it’s also the most wonderful thing in the world. The kids are, truly, innocent, in the sense that even when they do evil it’s because they don’t know they’re doing evil. And they’re enthusiastic. And everything is new and wonderful to them. You can show them MARVELS by lighting up a Christmas tree or making a braid with ribbon.

One of my favorite memories is of 3 year old (and yes, out of carseat, because my kids were ginormous, but in booster) younger son falling asleep against me in the car after a day at the amusement park. If I close my eyes, I can still feel his little, heavy head, just slightly sweaty, leaning against my arm. Others: reading to them with both of them on my bed. Building toy railroads with younger son. Going for walks with older son. Drawing with them, with everyone on the floor drawing on giant newsprint-sheets. Just… being with them.

It’s the greatest time ever, and you should enjoy it. Unless the house is actively unhygienic, let it go. No one will care if there was dust on the shelves 20 years from now. Unless you’re driven by internal insanity or desperate need, let work go too. Just for a few years. The yard? Bah. Let things grow. You can always uproot them later.

Just enjoy your babies while they’re babies. And later when they’re kids, and teens, etc.

And remember neither you nor them will ever be perfect. Just human beings like others. Only these ones are yours, and you’ll love them unconditionally. Until the end of time.

Recently (because once we started this move, having just enough money for the move and of course losing my income for several months, since I haven’t finished anything, everything had to break and be replaced, bit by bit) my phone battery decided to convert to Islam threaten to explode. So we had to get another in a hurry. And, of course, it cost me way too much to get in a hurry.

And then I was faced with the true horror of AI use.

Sigh.

It’s not the AI, really. It’s the idiot things the phone thought to do with it.First, there’s no way to uninstall the native AI without installing another. So I installed Google’s Gemini to cancel the native AI.

What can have led to these desperate measures you ask? Well, because (it’s apparently a known problem with this model) it invokes itself for no reason anyone can imagine based on what it heard you say and after searching its database.

All of which would be PERFECTLY fine if once it got invoked it didn’t speak in the world’s smarmiest voice from my pocket.

The first time this happened, it said, in a calming tone, “Keep compressing. Do you want me to call emergency services?”

I was mildly startled by this, since at that moment, we’d just pulled into the garage and neither of us had spoken for minutes. My answer of “What in heck?” luckily didn’t get interpreted as “Call 911 and have the armed forces scramble jets.”

Afterwards, I looked at the listing of what it thought it heard and it was: rub, press, rub, press.

I have no idea how it interpreted that from the sounds of opening a garage door (I guess?) or how having gotten that it jumped to “Treatment for a perforating wound” instead of, you know, cleaning a stain on fabric or, you know, other things.

This was the first time and I thought “Weird, but okay….”

The next time it got invoked, I’d told Dan something about painting the porch, and from forth my right pocket bursts the smarmy voice, “The Sistine Chapel was painted in fresco by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512–“

That was… odder. And I was starting to get slightly testy.

But then I was talking to my son, trying to coordinate cars and u-haul, and into the middle of this conversation bursts the world smarmiest voice trying to give me instructions on…. I don’t remember, but I think it was on how to prune roses.

I had a moment. Not right then, because I just turned it off, but after we got the u-haul in place I spent half an hour screaming on how stupid the AI was and how I was sick and tired of it getting invoked.

But we were moving and busy and … I let it run, other than looking it up and realizing I could only drive out the demon by installing another– I mean, I had to install another AI to replace it.

Until, a week later, I was feeding the cats and as I reached past Muse I scared her and she started to run away, and I said “What’s so scary about my reaching for the food?”

And from my pocket comes the smarmy voice, “It’s not scary. Do I get some? Yum.”

Look, I can’t even imagine what kind of mental aberration went into the programming that my statement got interpreted as a question for AI nor that that answer was appropriate. I’d imagine the appropriate answer would be something more like “Please repeat question?” BUT no. It said that, with a jokey undertone, like ahah, I’m just another human, here in your pocket, talking about eating.

Look, I don’t know why but that came across as one of the CREEPIEST things I’ve ever heard, and I sat through at least one Clinton speech. I about jumped out of my skin, and ended up settling for gemini, which, thank heavens can be disabled so it doesn’t answer on voice. Even if it does volunteer to look up words from news articles for me. Difficult ones, you know, like coffee or cat. And no I have no idea what secret combination of finger taps and Dan snoring by my side sets THAT off.

“But Sarah, I thought you liked AI!” I do like AI. It’s an excellent tool in its place. It’s the enthusiasm for pushing it everywhere, including places it’s not wanted that disturbs me.

Oh, and the programing that tries to make it a jokey, friendly kind of “companion” to the people who own the instrument of the AI. Because…. honestly?

I’m now terrified I’ll be in my eighties and mumbling all the time (I’m almost there, on the second.) and become convinced this voice from my pocket is an evil goblin threatening to eat my cats….

There has to be a better way of using new technologies than “the most stupid way possible.”

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Max Berezin Collection (Chronicles of the Fall Book 26)

Snapshots a character’s life.

One previously published short story, plus nine new stories that give brief glimpses of a budding Mentalist Lord as he survives ambitious relatives, brief romances, interesting assignments, and vacations . . . Balancing family duties and work while doing what’s right . . . even if it might not actually be legal . . .

FROM DAN MELSON: Meeting The Morelli (Embassy Book 1)

Tessa was desperate, and a two year contract with an Imperial Embassy looked like the way out. Helping a newly contacted species develop to a point where they’re ready to deal with the universe is a years-long project, and those whose missions succeed can expect more lucrative contracts in the future as well as the knowledge they’ve helped an entire species survive.

The Empire of Humanity is not being altruistic. It has selfish reason to want the Morelli and others to survive. But the Morelli must be willing to learn, and there’s only so much latitude a species may be given before even the Empire’s own citizens require suppression or worse. Tessa and her superiors must find a way to persuade the Morelli to learn about the dangerous universe beyond their current holdings before the Morelli do anything irreversible.

Because evolution is not done when a species achieves sentience, or even technology. It becomes communal, and the penalty for failure is extinction.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: I Can See Clearly Now (Science Fiction Singles)

What if you could see the life you never lived?

Commander Daniel Forrester has spent forty years among the stars.

At fifty-eight, he is a respected starship commander with a lifetime of exploration behind him. But when news reaches him that Elizabeth—the woman he once intended to marry—has died, Daniel is forced to confront the question that has haunted him for decades:

What if he had stayed?

Then the Resolute discovers something impossible.

Another starship appears in space.

It is the Resolute .

It carries the same identification number, the same crew, and the same commanding officer.

But it comes from somewhere else.

Daniel has encountered an alternate reality.

And in that reality, another version of himself made a different choice.

That Daniel stayed on Earth.

He married Elizabeth.

He helped establish humanity’s first permanent colony on Mars.

And Elizabeth is still alive.

For the first time, Daniel can see the life he has spent forty years imagining.

But the boundaries between the two realities are beginning to collapse.

As alternate histories bleed into one another, Daniel faces an impossible choice: pursue the life he believes he should have lived—or save the people whose lives depend upon the reality he actually chose.

To make that choice, Daniel must finally confront the difference between regretting the past and living in it .

I Can See Clearly Now is a reflective science-fiction novella about alternate realities, impossible choices, lost love, regret, acceptance, and the courage to embrace the future.

FROM KIRILL KHRESTININ: Via Dolorosa: A Novel

Some roads only open at the bottom.

Laura Jones leaves her grandfather’s Arizona ranch for Los Angeles, certain her real life is waiting there. She wants to be an actress. She finds a man who knows how to keep that dream alive—and how to use it against her. Then another man arrives, wearing a police uniform.

Harry Dolan knows what his partner is. He has helped make it possible. At home, his fifteen-year-old daughter needs him, his marriage is disintegrating, and the violence he excuses on the streets is never far from his own front door.

Back in the desert, Laura’s grandfather has a Purple Heart, a shotgun and a past he rarely speaks about. He knows how to fight. What fighting can save is another question.

Their lives collide in a world where pain becomes an excuse, love becomes possession, and people ask God for mercy while denying it to one another.

Via Dolorosa is a brutal literary crime novel about the damage people inherit, the damage they choose to inflict, and the possibility of faith when every comfortable answer has failed. Violent, profane and unflinching, it asks what remains of love when suffering gives you every reason to become cruel.

FROM LEE ECKHARDT: PLACE of HONOR: A Science Fiction Novel

Sixteen-year-old Jozan par Julien is First Princess of the Empire of One Hundred Suns and next in line for the throne. Seventeen-year-old Cade-Klin Soline is the most junior member of her bodyguard, someone Jozan is only barely aware of. That changes when an assassination attempt maroons Jozan and Cade-Klin on a dangerous alien planet. Knowing that this is the beginning of an attempt to overthrow her father, Jozan vows to return to the Imperial World, a vow that will throw them headlong into an incredible adventure, an adventure in which they will face a hostile jungle, predatory animals, the mystery of a vast alien space ship and a deadly interstellar conspiracy that will do anything to keep them from reaching their goal. And, at the end of the journey, Jozan will not only have found love with Cade-Klin but will also face the shocking truth about her destiny, a truth she never suspected…

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Everything in 24 Frames

Twenty-four frames equals one second of motion-picture film.

Cather Hargreaves learned that fact for class, but as an abstraction. Now that he’s going on a tour of a movie studio and its back lots, he’s about to get real-life experience in just how movies are made.

What he didn’t expect was being tossed into a real-life horror, as the war against sectarian violence suddenly comes home to the City of Angels. It’s a moment that will change the course of his life forever.

When life is on the line, 24 frames can be an eternity.

A short story of the Grissom timeline.

FROM MICHAEL NICHOLS: Fatal Abstraction: Revolutionizing Strategy and Innovation for the Age of AI

In an era where AI is accelerating disruption and uncertainty, traditional business strategy is dangerously outdated. While innovation professionals adapt rapidly, many established organisations remain stuck in slow, mechanistic planning cycles. Fatal Abstraction argues that to survive, leaders must learn to govern at the level of uncertainty they face―rethinking how strategy is conceived, executed, and evolved.

Drawing on philosophy, mental models, and first hand experience with hundreds of ventures, author Michael Nichols offers a bold framework for mastering disruption. This timely work equips entrepreneurs, executives, and investors with the tools to navigate AI-driven change, build resilient ventures, and revolutionise strategic thinking in the modern age.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Cross-Time Kamaitachi (Timelines Universe Book 5)

I did not land here as a warrior, but a warrior I so soon became . . .

One moment, Dr. Yukiko Yamaguchi was in her high-tech singularity research lab in California, busily adjusting an electronically-leaky fitting playing hell with her instrument readings.

The next moment, she was falling through space, and landing hard in a wilderness area she would quickly discover was her family’s ancient stomping grounds in Japan – but with an apocalyptic twist.

A hundred years later, there would be legends of a great y�kai, a demon, whom some called a kamaitachi – a sort-of whirlwind, weasel-like creature with blades for claws, which catches up unwary humans and slices their skin. But this kamaitachi is no ordinary y�kai – rather, she is

The Cross-Time Kamaitachi

FROM SUMMER GRAYLING: True Colours

Jan Van Der Vaart is a legend. The focus of his magical Talent is pain, and he’s spent years in the military, then as a mercenary, making terrorists, cartels, and governments fear him. Finally, he carved out a safe haven for other Talents, and tried to retire… until one last job, cracking a black lab snatching Talents off the streets, went sideways. He’s left staggering down a rainy coastal highway, thumb out and hoping he’ll catch a lift before the kill team realizes they missed…

Aurelia Brinati is on the run. Having escaped five years of hell as an unwilling lab rat, she has a stolen car and a plan to hide from pursuers by taking passage on a cargo ship headed anywhere else in the world. When she picks up a stray sailor headed the same way, she rapidly discovers she’s out of her depths… and safe in the heart of the storm.

The entire world fears him… except her. Powers are gathering to recapture Aurelia, but they’d best beware. Jan and his friends will do whatever it takes to keep her safe… whether it’s murder, mayhem, or last-minute shopping runs to find something called cream of tartar for her snickerdoodle cookies.

Protective Hero ✓ Hidden Magic ✓ He Falls First ✓ Found Family ✓ Runaway Heroine ✓ Psychic Powers ✓ Hurt/Comfort ✓ Damaged Heroine ✓ Touch-starved Hero ✓

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Witchfinder (Magical Empires Book 1)

A Duke’s Defiance Could Shatter Two Worlds
In an England where magic pulses through every cobblestone and the English Regency manners and modes never ended, one man’s conscience threatens to topple an empire.
Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater, inherited a legacy of forbidden heroism. For generations, his family served as witchfinders, crossing between worlds to rescue those condemned to die for possessing magical gifts. But when the royal princess vanished twenty years ago, the king sealed the borders between realities forever.
Now Seraphim faces an impossible choice: obey the crown and let innocents burn, or defy his king and risk everything he holds dear.
With only his enigmatic half-elf valet Gabriel Penn at his side, Seraphim tears holes in the fabric of existence itself, leaping between alternate Earths where magic means death.
His mother and sister are lost in Fairyland. His enemies circle like vultures. The king’s patience wears thin.
But Seraphim’s stubborn compassion burns brighter than caution. In a world where doing right means risking everything, he’ll discover that the greatest magic might just be the courage to keep fighting when hope seems lost.
Some prices are worth paying. Some lines are worth crossing. Some hearts are worth breaking.
A spellbinding tale of sacrifice, family, and the dangerous allure of doing what’s right in a world determined to punish goodness.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: TEMPT

By Holly the Assistant

A Quiet Summer

No, really. In spite of all the crazy wildfires, I haven’t heard any news of riots. Not like 2020. Even the cities deliberately hit by arson attacks stayed calm.

Maybe the rioters couldn’t afford gas to get to the preferred rioting locations?

Maybe the rioters were working for pay in previous years, and the funding spigot dried up with the crackdown on government spending through NGOs? (Now there’s a misnomer: if your funding comes from government grants you are NOT a non-governmental organization.)

Certainly there were attempts with the anti-ICE activities to gin up a few riots, but those fizzled pretty early on. Turned out that there was no natural rioting support for illegals. I think some of the anti-Flock efforts are also aimed at gathering angry crowds together, from the social media posts, and that doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction, either. People don’t love surveillance cameras, but they do love criminals getting arrested, so it’s a mixed bag, and no one seems to be really interested in having themselves a riot over it.

The hysterias du jour seem to be getting shorter and shorter, and the people flipping out over renaming one of the great lakes seem to have gone on to other topics now.

There’s some interesting stuff over on the White House website about hunting and fishing, and I urge our sportsmen to go read those. I think it might get considerably easier to get access to federal lands for hunting. The fishing one is for saltwater fishing, and I’m a creek fisher by . . . sheer laziness I suppose, it’s my backyard, after all. Everyone in the Chesapeake Bay watershed should look over that EO and see if they need to beat on their local municipalities for charging no longer justifiable fees.

I haven’t heard anything in the media about the tit for tat with Canada over trade, particularly federal procurement. That’s very interesting, especially here in the run-up to Alberta’s secession vote. Has anyone seen that anywhere? How about those of you on the other side of the boarder, is that hitting your news at all?

Gas prices seem to be what’s left for midterm drama, unless they can get some excitement going for other stuff between now and then, and I don’t know about you all, but we haven’t-quite-reached Obama level highs here yet. It’s pretty hard to get a bunch of excitement up about that for anyone who was an adult back then. (That’s before inflation adjustment, by the way, in my mind, but after per the official records. I distinctly remember prices higher than what’s reported, but I didn’t take pictures of the pumps back then.)

I think I’m more concerned about bad candidates depressing the turnout than anything else other than fraud at this point. Some of us have some real stinkers on the ballot. However, a lot of us have rather nasty propositions on the ballot, so maybe that will help get people out. Do encourage your friends to exercise their franchise, as much as is reasonably in your power to do so.

When I was a little girl and an history nut (now I’m an old woman and an history nut) I found out about the (supposed) at least Spartan standard for whether an infant lived or died. The baby was brought from the birthing chamber and put at the feet of his father. If the father took him up, he was a baby, a son of the household (or a daughter, but this being Sparta, sons mattered more.)

The books I read treated this with some approval. The father inspected the baby for defects, and would of course know if the baby was illegitimate, and thus only the fittest survived. The eugenics thing was still strong in Europe. Probably still is. And in Portugal it made perfect sense for the father to be the one deciding because he was, after all, the one expected to pay for the kid’s raising.

I thought it was unspeakably barbaric. And I’d like to ascribe this to my being so enlightened and smart, even at eight or nine, but really, it was probably because my family provided the ribbing about how any sane father would have rejected infant-me, born extremely premature and very hard to keep alive. And how this was why I was still a weakling and caught every disease possible and some impossible. The idea that culling would apply to oneself, like hanging in the morning, sharpens the mind something wonderful.

Anyway, I was very grateful to live in a civilized time when keeping me alive, at least in the measure of the possible, was expected by both society and law. After all, I was a lot, both personality and health, and it was for the best that drowning me in the bathtub or abandoning me in the woods wasn’t acceptable.

Some — dear Lord — 20 years ago, Libertarians who were friends of mine became very alarmed that our standard for who was human and a life worth keeping had changed. Now, it had effectively become “You’re human if mommy says you are.”

No? Look at when a pregnant woman gets killed. Whether the child gets counted as another homicide depends on whether the child was wanted or not. A lot of states have not only abortion till birth but, like Colorado — COLORADO! — you’re allowed to kill the baby for some time after birth with no consequences.

You’re human if mommy wants you.

If mommy doesn’t want you, you stop being human even as labor pains start. She can say “My body, my choice, I want the fetus terminated.” If mommy wants you, on the other hand, she’ll send your sonograms at two months around with “Look at my baby. He has my nose.”

And that decision can change in a minute. Sometimes on a dime.

This is not tenable. It is particularly not tenable for a secular humanist society. (Religious societies have their own answers to abide by. That’s different.)

It’s not tenable because “humanist” rests on “humans” and if what a human is depends on the whim of the woman (and usually a woman who is stressed, hormonally off-ballance and possibly exhausted and ill) the foundations of the society crumble.

My generation — forgive us — were lied to, with a lie we couldn’t personally disprove. We believed that until some time (12 weeks, I think) the growing baby was “a tube with no feelings and no brain” and no human characteristics. This is also untenable in the time of more and more developed sonograms. My older son looked like a peanut in the sonogram at 10 weeks, but now you can see features, little fingers.

So you fall back on ever more specialized definitions of why it’s okay to kill this person whom society says is not a person if mommy says he isn’t. The excuses are amazing. The relationship broke up and mom can’t afford him/her. The mother is mentally wounded somehow, and the birth will hurt her mental health. The baby has this or that defect. And of course, the baby will need complete support to stay alive after birth. (Like all of us did.) And of course, until x or why stage of development they can’t think as we define thinking. Etc. etc. etc.

But all of these definitions are thin when you consider “till birth and sometimes after.” Or for the “too expensive” “too much work” “too weak” “not compos mentis” …. we’ll all hit these at various points in our lives, and sometimes we recover from that, and sometimes we don’t. That standard will allow us to kill most of the disabled, most of the ill, and 100% of the aged. Looks towards Canada. And don’t think it’s not been noticed. Hell, when I was in the hospital, at 33, with pneumonia, I was told I should allow them to do the procedure that was almost guaranteed to kill me because I was a “drain on my family” and would probably always be, and did I want my husband to lose his job because he insisted on staying with me at the hospital? I mean, the old and the sick in general don’t even have mommy to stick up for them. In fact, according to various cases, at that point it’s “you’re human if your spouse/children say you are.”

It sucks. A society built for humans should have the broadest possible definition of human. Not “you’re disposable scrap unless someone else vouches for you.” and “You’re not even human unless your mother says you are.”

Look, I had a friend who had been very abused in childhood and who said that being wanted was a great standard. Otherwise the child would end up abused. She was a little taken back when I told her she was wanted. Her parents needed a child to abuse. Also “wanted” changes. Don’t believe me? Go to craigslist or facebook marketplace and see all the expensive-breed dogs being given away at 2 or 3 years of age, because they’re no longer wanted. Or, more heartbreakingly, all the old dogs and cats being given away because they’re no longer pretty, fluffy, compliant and CHEAP. As the vets bills mount “wanted” changes.

As for “But unwanted children won’t be happy”: poppycock. Beyond the fact that happiness is a terrible way to judge someone’s life and achievements (I am not permanently ecstatically happy. Are you?) by that standard both Dan and I — he was wanted by his mother, but as a GIRL, and I was never wanted by my mother. My father wanted more children, not my mother — are unhappy, suffering souls. And you know, despite illnesses and various issues, I don’t think we are. I really don’t think so. In fact, in the general order of things, and despite a lot of tight squeezes, we’ve been damn lucky and happy. And I don’t think we’re alone, as unwanted children.

In fact, there is absolutely NO justification for the Mommy Standard of Humanity. And the excuses grow thinner as we learn more about biology and human development.

It is a corrosive, crazy way of deciding what is human and what isn’t, what is to be protected and what is to be killed.

Birthrate drop? Ah! That would be lucky. People wonder about the deranged tick tock mommies and “we’re all Lindsey” nonsense. But why should they wonder? You gave mothers the right to decide who is human and who isn’t. Why should that stop once they’re out of the womb? Or in the crazy states out of the womb for a month or so? After all children can become inconvenient, expensive or simply trying and brainless-acting at any point between birth and eighteen. (And after. Hence my lamentations about “I’d smack you upside the head, but I’d need a step stool” which still happen, sometimes, and the boys are well, early middle age at this point. But I can’t say I’m responsible for them.) Why should they not have the right to do away with any inconvenient child they’re responsible for? After all, their sleep patterns are interrupted! They have to look after these small humans! Do you hear them crying? And just keeping them alive as toddlers is a full time job. Shouldn’t the mom have the right to personal fulfillment?

Roman fathers used to have the right to have their kids executed for anything including talking back. (How many of us would survive that?) Then we became more civilized…

In the ancient world, children got exposed in batch lots. Yes, for defects and maybe infidelity, but really for parents’ convenience. There was a Father’s standard. You’re human if he says you are. (Though if you think the women couldn’t give birth in secret and send the kid to be exposed, you’re an optimist or a fool.)

Christians were considered odd because they raised all they bore. If you think that had no impact on the advance and ultimate taking over by Christianity, you’re also a fool.

So, now, in a post-Christian world, we’ve reverted. And yep, birthrates are in the crapper.

But more importantly, the increasingly more obvious Mommy Standard of Humanity makes each and every one of us very aware “I’m only here, because I was allowed to live.” And “Society can change that permission at any time.”

Right to life? Don’t make me laugh.

But Sarah, you can’t be saying that every human is human from conception! Any number of pregnancies end, unnoticed, in spontaneous abortions.

Yeah, I’m aware of that. None better, since early miscarriage is the form my infertility took. So? Many lives end to, at various points before whatever arbitrary age. Does that give us the right to go around killing people, because so many people die of natural causes by their age? The standard is flawed.

I don’t know — and can’t think of any — standard for determining “What’s human” unless we go “is of human DNA, is alive, and if no one kills him/her has a good chance of growing into an independent autonomous human. Maybe not worth spit, (hell he might even grow into a communist) but definitely human.

If society is going to rest on the measure of the human and humanity, then human and humanity needs to be hard rock, something never questioned. The right to life of humans, all humans, must never, ever come into doubt.

Because that’s the price of the right to life for all of us.

The mommy standard sucks. Even the best, sanest of women have moments of idiocy and insanity. Trust me on this. I’m a woman and I try to be sane, but there are times… If her idiocy or insanity can cost the lives of other humans and this is legally and societally approved of? No one is safe.

“But you’d police every pregnancy.” Take a chill pill. I was born in a society where abortion was strictly forbidden by law. And yet it still happened. In fact, many women used it as their main method of contraception. In fact, it’s probably the only way to keep it safe and rare, because everyone involved knew they’d be in trouble if caught.

But they’d be in trouble if caught. Society as a whole held that human life was precious and not at the whim of either of its creators, father or mother. Society as a whole, though it wasn’t codified, held that humans had a right to life.

Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are pretty hard on the Mommy Standard.

It’s making everyone more than a bit insane and insecure.

I suggest that we’re not Spartans (thank heavens. They were closer to Cuba than to us) and most of us are not insane. It’s time to face up to the Mommy Standard and rethink the whole thing.

Before civilization is completely gone.

(A Blast from the Past: https://accordingtohoyt.com/2016/09/26/a-vast-wasteland-of-prosperity/ Additional Note from Holly the Assistant: Sarah wants me to let you know that Monday afternoon Dan had a medical false alarm, with the result that their local hospital is going to make a good deal of money off their insurance, and Sarah and Dan are recovering from the effects of spending most of two days and a night in a hospital, a battery of tests, and him being discharged with “Everything looks great, we have no clue, follow up with your PCP,” which all of us who have done that routine knows means they’re dead tired because no one lets you sleep in a hospital.)

Yesterday my husband threatened to drown himself in the shower, if I didn’t stop ranting about the stupid things people believe about history. It’s not that he disagreed, mind you, but that he thought it was too much to endure a graduate-level lecture with side-excursions into various examples he’d never heard about before even getting his pants on in the morning.

I sympathize.  It’s been a long time since I became aware that when that darn, mobile soap box finds me and gets under my feet, I get really really fast-talking and sometimes drop details.

Weirdly, this fit wasn’t prompted by the commenter who came back to an old post yesterday to lecture us about how stupid it is to expect dem poo’ peoplez to be able to retool and find new jobs, once technology dispossesses them of the old ones.  Weirdly, it started because he was telling me about a TV show and something said in the TV show.  (Beginning of digression. I watch second hand TV.  Whenever you guys see a reference or a quote to popular culture, I acquired it by listening to Dan talk about it.  At least most of the time.  No, I don’t know why I don’t watch TV.  What’s worse, I find most of the people who say “Oh, I don’t watch TV” are the sort of prigs who are bragging of their moral superiority.  I’m not morally superior, and my inability to sit still in front of a television, unless I am ill or engaged in some complex project that involves most of my head and hands, is almost as my dad thought a “handicap”.  It isolates me from the culture.  But it is also true.  I think it’s because I never “got used” to watching TV, like some people don’t get used to reading for pleasure.  Most of the time I was growing up, Portugal had two channels, and one only operated on the weekends and evenings. End of digression.) Dan, as he puts it, watches TV so I don’t have to.

Anyway, he was telling me about how terrible conditions were after WWI, and I started pointing out they weren’t.  Not really.  Sure, some people (a lot of domestic servants) were displaced.  Sure, immediately after, a lot of men came back and found their jobs were gone.  Veterans went around the country side, selling booklets and stuff.  You see this in Agatha Christie.

Unspoken is the fact that a lot of these Veterans were actually not quite right in the head, not that you can blame them after the trench war.  BUT even in Britain, which did itself no favors by prolonging the same kind of rationing, etc, it had had during the war, the economy recovered.

Again, if you read Christie, who was unaware of writing history, since she wrote these books contemporary to the events, you see a lot of new houses being built, of factories being started.  Sure, the old families and the old houses never quite recovered.  But that wasn’t because of the economy.  It was because of punitive taxation.  If you had a death in the family, the estate would be lost.

“But Sarah,” you’ll say.  “That’s why the economy recovered and they were able to live better.”

Really?  You’re going to go with that?

I know that was the theory back then, and we really can’t hold it against them, I think, but no, the state doesn’t “invest” in the economy.  Or “ease transition.”

Mostly what the state does is create more and more bureaucracy.  Of course to the extent that that pays a salary to some people it does SOMETHING (I found out, and was shocked at the racism of it, that this is part of the reason democrats support the endless growth of the state.  They think there are a number of people — specifically black people — who cannot adapt to new tech, and therefore must be employed by the state, ad infinitum, in a sort of work fare program.)  I suspect though, having seen the make-work and endless nonsense of bureaucracy in three countries, what it does do is retard the growth of the economy by removing capital from useful purposes.  Oh, and retarding the prosperity of the employees, not to mention their mental health, by keeping them chained to ultimately meaningless work they know it’s meaningless.  A lot of those people are in the position of soviet citizens.  They pretend to work and we pretend to pay them.

Without the galumphing bureaucracy, these people would have shifted and adapted.

How do I know that?  Because they’re human and I’m human.  Yeah, okay, there are differences in IQ range, but you know what they are not that pronounced amid the whole species.  Oh, sure, our dumber friends annoy us, but they’re still smarter than any other thing this planet has ever seen.

And our species thrives on change and strife.  Our species are cunning apes, who keep finding new ways of doing things.  Which drive progress, which shatters the status quo, which in turn causes people who were forced to change to look for more cunning ways of doing things, which…

Yeah, I saw the arguments of our visiting Luddite.  I have also read people who say we were much better before the invention of agriculture.  But what I know is that before the invention of agriculture we lived as individuals maybe 30 years, and as a species occupied certain zones of the globe, and lived in family groups of maybe 15.  There was a total number of us of maybe a million.  Maybe.  Now we cover the face of the earth and as individuals we’re healthier and more longer lived than we’ve ever been.

And while I sympathize with my fellow libertarians who think agriculture brought in a tiered society, I’d like to say poppycock.  With raspberries on top.  It’s not that you don’t get history (archeology is uncertain, and confused at that level.  Agriculture brought greater prosperity, and that made some tombs much less equal than others.  Also, the tombs we tend to find form the nomadic period are all chieftains or their equivalent) what you don’t get is human nature.  You’re engaging in the same form of fallacy the leftists engage in “Humans were perfect, and then an event–”  Bullshit.  I’m human, they were human. I know exactly their degree of perfection.  And as for thinking some kind of egalitarianism prevailed pre agriculture, those of you who think family-bands are egalitarian have never lived in a family with a tyrannical matriarch (or patriarch.)  It can be (not my family, we were never that organized) like a miniature totalitarian regime but even closer and more in your face.

Yeah, yeah, paleolithic diet and people were so much healthier and stuffs.  (Rolls eyes.)  While some of our metabolisms don’t seem to have caught up with agriculture (almost everyone I know who has issues with carbs has a relatively near ancestor from a nomad/hunting culture. Say no more than six generations off.) and while I myself eat very low carb for health reasons, the whole idea that people became LESS healthy with agriculture is a little mad.

Sure, and if you looked at graves from the village, from the time mom was a kid and my time, you’d find modern medicine, vaccinations and antibiotics had wreaked devastation on a healthy population.  This is because people died younger/less battered in her time.  Also infants tend to sort of vanish into the soil, so you wouldn’t get the great culling that happened before 3 years of age.  Only the strong survived.  In my generation, OTOH almost everyone survived, including the halting, the lame and those with chronic conditions.

Yeah, okay, so no progress comes without a cost.  Sure, some things will get worse, if only for a little while.  Yes, I read Christie (as I said.  One of the amazing things about mysteries, because grounded in the quotidian, is that they are a good record of how life really was, not how historians interpret it) and I read a lot about “pre war” (first) quality.  And it’s true there was a quality never again encountered except now, at high end craftsman created threads and clothes and furniture.

But the industry of the time would never have supplied the masses of humanity that progress allowed to live and thrive.

So, technological progress causes some losses, sometimes for a while.

What it causes, mostly, is disruption.  And the older you get the more you feel all disruption is for the worst, and the world is coming apart.  And if the progress happens too fast (say the first 50 years) people have trouble adjusting their MENTAL PICTURE of the world and some depart reality altogether and when this happens, (the last time I can think of is the industrial revolution, which more or less opened with the blood of the French revolution and closed with WWI.  If it has closed) it ends in blood.

Yeah, it’s scary out there, and things are shaking loose.  But a lot of the things that are shaking loose are undoing the mass-industrial-entertainment-news complex, and the idea that one size fits all.  Some of what is shaking lose is the inability for any of us to reach a mass audience without intermediary “gate keepers” who have long been taken over by the long march of Marxists (speaking of people who have left reality far behind.)

Technological progress — or even change — hurts.  But so does iodine.  It still allows us to live better and longer than our ancestors.

And the one thing you can count on is that we, cunning apes that we are, will continue engaging in it, and adapting to it, and fighting over it.

Those people who are all concerned about you losing your way in this heartless society?  Those who try to cushion you and put you in a safe space?

They’re not your friends.  They’re afraid of what you do if you and your creativity were fully unleashed.  They have achieved a certain domination over their society but are afraid if anything more happens they’ll lose it.

It’s not you, but them, they seek to help.

Ignore them and build.  Build under, build over, build around.  Anticipate technology.  Build technology.  And ignore them.  It’s the only way to deal with them.

Housekeeping Note:

Yes, we realize getting moderated is a pain. Yes, it is automagic thanks to WordPress. Yes, we can blacklist certain words, IP addresses, etc (you might recollect we had to block a whole chunk of a certain foreign country some years back?). NO, we canNOT whitelist you. Not by IP, not by handle. It is NOT a feature WordPress offers. Believe you me, if we could, we would, because for whatever reason there are half a dozen known regulars who get spam trapped regularly. Compared to the actual thousands of spammers and trolls that WordPress traps each day, it’s not bad.

Neither of us, as much as we love you, can spend all day at the computer letting comments through. We try to make sure one of us checks at least twice a day to let your brilliance through. And you really don’t want Sarah sitting here all day, because then you don’t get stories. Me, you don’t pay enough for that job: I’m one of those multiple-small-business-women, and you’d need to replace the rest of my income. But you can submit bids, if you really want to.

By Holly the Assistant.

(You may have noticed that Sarah and I swapped last Friday for this Tuesday. This was intentional, be not alarmed.)

The nature of being a musician is that I know a lot of teachers. My students play in school groups, my performing peers are often school teachers, their friends are teachers . . . a good amount of my local social circle is spread from Kindergarten teacher to tenured professor. And my parents were professors, so the overall multi-generational social circle . . . anyway, teachers everywhere.

And the thing is, they all mean well. They have good intentions. They want what’s best for their students. (I know there are ill-intentioned teachers, because humans, but I don’t know them personally. Well, except for two who . . . but that’s a different story for another time, and I’m absolutely sure those predators thought they were in the right all the way to prison.)

Which is the problem. Wanting what is best and actually knowing what is best are two very different things, and having the right to decide for another person is an entirely separate matter altogether.

Our educational system, by its nature, is central planning oriented. One teacher plans the classes for her many students, one principal plans the policy for her teachers, one dean directs her college. So conformity is a valued trait, by the nature of the system. To get employed and stay employed the teachers jump through hoops. (And tenured professors more than others, because PhDs are a dime a dozen and if you don’t conform you don’t get tenure, and you probably won’t land another position, at least not easily. It quickly becomes habitual, and habits stick.) If the person at the top of the hierarchy has decided that recess is good, teachers conform to that. If she’s decided that peanut butter is bad, teachers conform to that.

People who mean well who are selected for conformity. (And of course have a preference for students who match their own characteristics, and encourage students’ characters in that direction.)

That’s the educational establishment in this country.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: if the thing being conformed to is good, then it’s a very good thing indeed. But if the thing being conformed to is bad, then it quickly becomes very bad. Take Zero Tolerance, for an example. Zero Tolerance of bullying is a very good idea on the surface. No one wants bullies tolerated. They should be disciplined until they reform. In practice, though, it’s the victims who get disciplined when they finally retaliate. Why? The simplest explanation is that no one actually notices until the victim reacts. Often, though, there’s good evidence that the teachers did know, and ignored the bullying because the bully was of a group deemed to need extra help and support. Giving extra help and support to kids who need it is itself a good thing. Tolerating bad behavior because the kids need extra help and support is the opposite of good, but if we allow the common prior that people behave badly because of bad circumstances, it follows that the kids will just be good if helped and supported enough, so the victim who retaliates is actually the bad kid because he is in good circumstances and yet acted badly in retaliation. (Rationalizing FTW? Humans.)

And there we see the slow application of pavement of good intentions leading right to hell.

There’s yet another case of a teacher secretly transitioning a kid in the news. I guarantee you that teacher believes that she is doing this thing in the kid’s best interest. The state agrees. The parents don’t. It’s before a judge.

How do we decide what is best? When do we have the right to decide what is best for someone else?

The traditional answer goes something along the lines of conforming to the general society in ways that lead to successful survival is what is best, and that the head of the family/tribe/clan has the right to decide for the people within the group.

The religious answer is something like obey God, even if it leads to failure of personal survival, is what is best, and the head of the family/tribe/clan decides for the group, but the individual within the group is right to rebel if the order is against God’s law.

The modern American answer is actually pretty unclear about what is best, but pretty solid on as you choose for yourself, provided you are in fact an adult.

The whole debate right now is focused on who decides for non-adults, and exactly what is a non-adult. Is a sixteen year old a non-adult unless she wants an abortion? Is a twenty-five year old a non-adult if he’s on his parents’ health insurance? What constitutes mistreatment of a non-adult that terminates parental authority over the non-adult and moves her under government guardianship? Is the government automatically guardian over all non-adults within it’s jurisdiction? Do the parents have to pay if they have no authority over the non-adult? Is everyone actually under government guardianship and has freedom to act only with governmental permission?

This is on the ballot in a number of states this November, in various forms. When you read the propositions-and look up and read the actual text, not just the ballot summary, don’t just think about that particular issue, think about the broader principals of who decides what is best for another person and in what situations.

Among my personal friends are a family with a child with a rare genetic mutation incompatible with life, long-term. They are part of a foundation of families supporting the researchers working towards cures for this class of mutations. Which is to say, one-off genetic engineering on a living person, which cannot be tested for safety with double blind studies . . . who decides on taking the risk of trying the genetic engineering on the child, if the researchers get to the point they think they may succeed?

And then for adults, we’ve recently seen a couple whistle blowers over organ donations intended to be taken from living, responsive, adult humans, who would have been killed by the donation. Who decides what is best?

When your relative is too old to decide for himself anymore, who decides for him? Who decides he is too old? What’s in his best interests?

The perfect person who perfectly knows what is best for everyone else doesn’t exist, and would be overwhelmed with sorting out the entire world population if she did, anyway. Given that, letting the individual figure out what he thinks is best for himself, and letting the closest kin of those who cannot decide for themselves, however we decide who cannot decide for themselves, determine what is best for them, is the route to the best results for the majority, even though there will always be those individuals who make bad choices for themselves and for those they have control over among us.

Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness, as someone much wiser than I once put it.