Oh Readers of Plenty It’s that time of year where I show how obedient and what a good listener I am, and ask people who like what they read here to kick in a few bucks, if they have it to spare.
Your contribution can knock out the rats in my head who insist that this is a waste of time!!!
I have been told, repeatedly, by several of you, that it also helps the rats in your head that do not like feeling like freeloaders.
This is not an emergency appeal, this is not a matter of life and death, (or even death and ice-cream), and I will throw my shiny new chinchilla of hope at you if I realize you’ve hurt yourself to send me a few dollars of thanks.
That said, a workman is worth his hire, and I think I feel Jerry Pournelle glaring at me from heaven since he cannot give me the lecture about how my work has worth and I need to respect that value. So, if you find value in this blog’s work, and you won’t hurt anything by doing so, toss something into the hat!
There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you subscribe. It takes cards.
For what is going on: I am actually doing quite a bit better since multiple people have taken it on themselves to nag me into going to the doctor before I am nearly dead.
On the down side, as a result of that I am in the position of waiting to see a specialist (mid month) for a something which responds to antibiotics but comes back when the course is finished, and has the normal doctors saying “huh. I’ve never seen that before.” I am sure I don’t have to explain to everyone here how not reassuring that situation is, but it is being handled.
There are several non-book tasks I intend to get rolling this year- among them putting the clanker songs on Spotify so various Hunlings will quit asking if they are up yet, and another of which will need to be further along before I open it up. It will be site for all things geeky and also hopefully a good promo site for indies. (Can you feel the anticipation?).
If I can stop throwing out “interesting” symptoms and becoming a medical curiosity, I should be able to finish Rhodes to Hell and move on to the next Dyce. Needless to say I’m also working on Orphans of the Stars, the second book of Chronicles of Elly.
And that’s all for now, throw a handful of hundreds in the hat, (go ahead! Make my day!) and lets get back to playing!
Yes, I do think the Supreme Court’s decision on birth citizenship was wrong, and further it was dangerous, because I believe Clarence Thomas over the lot of them. His scholarship is superior to all of theirs.
The truth is that we’re facing a new form of attack. As I said before, when the borders were open, the world cannot win against us militarily but they found they can attack us by sending the most wretched, uneducated and frankly hostile to us (In the Americas and I suspect the rest of the world, they heavily recruited communists for the caravans) people they could find over the border in massive waves. That this had the advantage of lowering our wages, raising costs of living and draining the body politic dry, while presenting us with scenes of squalor was an advantage.
It was an attack by human wave, no more, no less. They’ve done the same to every Western nation. Successfully, in terms of more or less destroying the countries.
It has abated now, and largely stopped. Except for H1B visas, which are a different problem, but not by much, and which this administration is failing to curb.
BUT the human wave attack has taken another form. Not only women performing birth tourism, but in China’s case doing that factory style. And in many ways, too. There have now been found more than one literal “factory” where Chinese citizens are having children via surrogate and raising hundreds of kids in various institutions throughout the land.
This is innovative, technically legal, and evil.
The supreme court ruling against birth citizenship would be an easy solution, of course. but please keep in mind that what we have now is exactly what we have had for the last two or three generations. NOTHING has changed. We just hoped it would.
It doesn’t mean we can’t combat this by other means. Sure, getting the supine congress to act might be a forlorn hope — which is why we must win in November. I don’t know what to do for it other than pray, but we must — but they might. Miracles do happen.
And I bet you anything that Trump is already plotting how to make them act, because he has seen the size of the threat (now if someone can clue him in to H1Bs? I’d appreciate it.)
Probably the absolutely easiest way to combat this threat is actually within Trump’s reach, though it will bring law fare, as well as crying and gnashing of teeth.
NOTHING in the constitution allows us to tolerate dual citizenship. NOTHING. The oath I took at naturalization required that I renounce all allegiance to foreign nations and potentates.
And yet, most Americans today think nothing of someone having or assuming dual citizenship. If that weren’t possible, the baby factories on US soil might not stop, but the having a kid and taking him “home” to be raised would. Because in the parent’s country of origin he’d have no status and no right to any services. And it would create an intolerable situation.
Yes, i do realize it would put a lot of people in uncomfortable positions. But the law is the law. Choose a country and cleave to it.
After that there are various legislative situations. The lowest probability one is the congressional amendment. Sure, try for that too. Try for EVERYTHING. But do not go into lamentations and rending of garments. You are not any worse off than last week.
It’s just the easy solution has been shut off. We’ll have to do it the hard way.
Be not afraid. And keep fighting to the extent you can, even if (just) with words.
In which I have become Sarah, Destroyer of Panels.
I’m back, and as much as I’d like to write a coherent post, it’s not going to happen today. So I’ll do an after action report of sorts.
As usual, I go to Liberty con to see friends old and new, and a lot of you who hang out here in the flesh again or for the first time.
This year I wasn’t as available as is normal, because having been sick in the lead up to the con, I was, while healthy, still what the Victorians used to call “very pulled down.” I.e. I tired easily.
Also, it is one of the scars of 2020 that I can’t handle crowds as well as I used to. Hey, I have recovered to the extent that I no longer have an anxiety attack at spending a day with both sons and their wives, but twenty or so people, surrounded by another 100, with occasional look ins and hugs and such from those 100, is a lot. And required a lot of time in my room in silence.
For this I’m sorry, and hope to have recovered some more (psychologically) and to be in better shape next year.
Also I suspect I’ve aged a lot because most people didn’t recognize me, which is disquieting. I mean someone asked me if I’d seen me….
Meanwhile I got put in the Dystopia panel, this year renamed Destroyer of Worlds. Sigh. I told Rich he could put me in it. I INTENDED to behave properly, honestly.
The best laid plans of Sarahs and con goers….
The panel started with SOME MINOTAUR walking in. This would have been perfectly fine, except that both the moderator and one of the panelists were OBVIOUSLY Liberty con firsters and also the panelist took himself super-seriously. All of which was a serious problem, because the panel was 75% Huns and I realized from their expressions they had something planned and were all in anticipation.
Look, I used to teach. I know the look of a classroom that has set up the BEST prank yet and is practically jigging in their seats waiting for the it to fall.
And here, I won’t pretend I didn’t know something was up. I knew that there was a group gift planned from my close-in fan group on discord, because I accidentally stumbled onto that conference. They were collecting for a collective group, and I knew it had something to do with an eagle, and that I’d been warned to have space in the car on the way back.
I did not realize my adorable, insane, frustrating, amazing, completely ungovernable fans had chipped in to buy me a METAL EAGLE THE SIZE OF A SMALL CHILD. Which is, of course, going to have a place of honor in the entrance patio for the new house. No question. And will wear holiday-appropriate hats. Which considering we’re moving deep into suburbia (husband likes it) means that we’ll be the weird people. Ah, well. His name is George.
I don’t have pictures because husband took them and he’s out on errands.
The problem is that OF COURSE the moderator, not being wise to the Huns was somewhere between irate and confused as Orvan delivered the Eagle and I unboxed and displayed it.
And he TRIED TO GO ON WITH THE PANEL WHILE THIS WAS HAPPENING. At one point he asked me, “Is this normal? Does it happen all the time?” To which my answer was “Definitely not. And yes.” Followed by, “I’m sorry, they’re my fans. They’re adorable but insane and I can’t do anything with them!”
He then thought he was safe and tried to resume the panel, at which point the minotaur delivered the… Chinchilla or hope: A BEAUTIFUL Chinchilla plushie with wings and a flower crown. (Yes, I promise pictures later.) I understand Shesellseashells made it. THANK YOU.
And then the poor man tried to re-start the panel, just as Orvan delivered me a notebook with a cover that said it contained the nuclear US launch codes. By that point I was laughing so hard I couldn’t speak.
And from the audience, from a Hun, came, “Behold, I have become Sarah, destroyer of panels.”
At which point the panel resumed, 15 minutes later, with one very bewildered mod and one very upset panelist. All of which was okay until …. three of them claimed that if something or other happens civilization will die. Even you know, a supervolcano erruption or a year without a summer.
And I lost my mind. Because even Cuba still has a civilization of sorts, despite impairment of being under communism and various interdictions. I refuse to believe Americans are less resourceful. Within three days five guys in a garage will ride in with solutions. And hell, if the onerous regulations are lifted, not only will we come back, but we’ll roar past where we are and maybe finally become a multiplanetary civilization.
Look, not only am I not at home to doomerism, but I’m becoming less tolerant to doomerism each passing day. I’m not telling you the way ahead is all ice cream, skittles and smiles. It’s not. never was. Never in the history of ever. I’m not claiming that I’ll survive a massive disaster — being dependent on a daily thyroid dosage, this is HIGHLY unlikely — but humans were made to strive. And Americans are still the most dedicated to individual liberty of any humans in the world and also the more resourceful.
There wouldn’t be ONLY five guys in a garage, but thousands of five guys (and the occasional crazy gal) in a garage and possibly even an army of grandmothers (biological and not) just putting their hands to what they could and bringing civilization back.
As P. J. O’Rourke said in his trip to Russia: the utter dinginess of the place would not survive a few Americans with bottles of windex and rags.
We will be okay. And I think we’ve turned the corner on the worst. Yes, the communists are coming out of the closet and sure this time it will work. Be not afraid. Their plans always fail. Yes, sometimes they impose a lot of suffering on the way, but the hey day of their destructive philosophy has passed. We have the receipts. Just keep working. And most of all, keep being American. As hard as you can. No, Harder than THAT. Just do it.
….. I think, though, I’m going to have to beg off the dystopia panel in the future.
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
“Through water they will come,” she had said. “In fire they will go.”
High in the mountains of the American West lies a glacial lake with a deep underwater secret. Nearby lives Jake Greenwood, a straight-shooting libertarian professor of writing with a troubled past, who just wants a simple life. But on the morning of a summer solstice, he discovers two otherworldly visitors with odd burns washed up on the shore. Guided by a prophecy he received decades ago, he finds himself caught up with them in a global struggle for life and freedom. Can he ultimately save the world—and himself—by telling their story?
Gripping and often lyrical, Orphans of Time is a character-driven story of hope, desperation, healing, love, loss, and salvation. Told from the perspectives of three characters, it seamlessly weaves time travel, dystopian, sci-fi/ fantasy, romance, and visionary elements into a timely narrative.
Joey Mumbai had a hell of a time saving his space station from a code inspector. Who knew that running the place would be ten times worse?
A mob boss just dropped a “little job” on Joey’s doorstep: take out a rival’s shuttle bus when it docks at the station, and make it look like an accident. Seems easy enough. But the pilot is a jacked-up, strung-out, psychopathic rabbit named Captain Hazel. And Hazel has plans of her own for the ship. Meanwhile, a ritual to the eldritch demon that lives in the station’s kitchen has gone terribly wrong. And now eight sentient chicken tenders are running loose with a dream of freedom and a thirst for vengeance. They’d be pretty darned cute if they weren’t so darned murderous.
As gangsters, smugglers, terrorists, and homicidal fried food collide in the winding corridors of Halcyon, Joey must somehow keep everyone alive and prevent an interstellar gang war. All while coping with a rage-filled manatee, a maniacally happy computer, and not nearly enough booze.
A gritty, irreverent, sci-fi noir comedy packed with action, disaster, and questionable life choices, the second book in the Space Station Halcyon series answers the eternal question: “What could possibly go wrong?”
From the Prometheus Award-nominated series—Book 1 is a 2026 Prometheus Award Finalist for Best Novel. The Long Night is over. The ash is clearing. And the orbital defense AI called Damocles still owns the sky. Shaifennen Roehe is sixteen years old, five feet nothing, and meaner than a sack of wet roosters when the situation calls for it. She is also Hesperides Colony’s most effective corporal, which is either a compliment or a warning depending on how you look at it. The skizzer swarms—giant predatory insects that are supposed to hibernate through the northern winters—are not hibernating. They are swarming earlier, bigger, and angrier than anything the colony’s histories describe. When one of those swarms hits Twelvety Homestead, Shai loses people she cannot replace. The answer to why the swarms have gone wrong is somewhere on the Southern Continent, and Shai is going to find it. What she finds is larger than anyone guessed. A thought-extinct alien species—not quite dead, not quite extinct, and not quite what the history vids suggested. A buried Mutual Prosperity artificial intelligence, waking up, very interested in meeting the colonists of New Vermont Prefecture, and extremely willing to help in ways nobody asked for. And enough pre-war hardware buried in the wreck of an assault shuttle to change every equation Shai’s people have been working with. Meanwhile, Greenline Town is building airships. And the orbital AI called Damocles is still up there, waiting for someone to make a mistake big enough to earn a response. Stormjammer is the second book in the Kiss for Damocles series, set in J. Kenton Pierce’s Tales from the Long Night universe. It is military science fiction built the old way: earned action, characters worth caring about, earned victory, and consequences that land. For readers who want their space opera gritty, their libertarian themes embedded in story rather than lecture, and their protagonists capable of punching above their weight class. The Prometheus Award-nominated series continues. Shai Roehe does not stop. Neither do the problems.
What happens when inspiration stops feeling entirely human?
Paintings that command armies. Songs that shatter crowds. Ancient poems that speak directly into an immortal ear. A revolver forged from the ruins of Earth, passed from hand to hand across generations, delivering justice with a chorus of the dead riding in its steel.
The Muse Within Us is an anthology of dark fantasy, horror, military science fiction, and literary speculation. These eleven stories all ask one question: does inspiration come from within, or are we tuning into signals already moving through the world? Editor Wally Waltner has gathered writers from across the speculative spectrum. Within these pages: a sorcerer-seamstress transformed into a dragon by her masterpiece; a court prince whose animation magic revives a forgotten civilization; a musician haunted by crowd-controlling spirits called the whispers, carrying two hundred dead from one show; a Norse scholar who realizes he has been speaking ancient kennings directly into an immortal ear; and a war painter ordered by a god of war to paint ever bigger victories until he refuses and pays the price.Also here: a baker empowered by a minor demon of boiling oil trapped in petrified wood; a mason’s boy whose hands transform into the arches of a destined cathedral; a blues musician whose song outlives him through new vessels; a gunsmith on a dead Earth forging a revolver that carries a chorus of voices across centuries; and a young woman who discovers that flowers blooming where bodies fell grant strange artistic power at a terrible cost.
Some of these muses are generous. Several are predatory. All of them change the people they pass through.
The Muse Within Us because what moves through you may have its own agenda.
Princess Regnant Alice and her companions, after a trip to Prince Daniel’s world Xeros, and a visit to Lost Terra and a meeting with Michael, the mysterious, ancient human, have been directed by Michael to travel to Mahoukai — a world of magical beings who will be able to properly train and guide Prince Daniel’s sister Alouette in the use of her inborn magical powers.
But a nagging question continues to bug both Alice and her father, Roger; what is really going on, back on Capital? Is a revolution brewing? Is the Lord Chancellor, Rupert, somehow involved, and at what level? Eventually they must bid a reluctant farewell to the Mahoukaian Great Mages of Antiquity, and end Alice’s six month absence from her Throne.
And what they find on Capital is far, far beyond anything they might have imagined from 50,000 light years away.
It’s not easy being married to the leader of the band, even in the best of times. When everything becomes political, you’ve got a nightmare on your hands.
Laurel had her doubts when her husband signed on to headline Governor Thorne’s Independence Day concert in Candlestick Park. Now that the band’s committed to the appearance, the Flannigan Administration has decided to shut the show down, with prejudice.
Laurel knows she has to fight this attempt to stop the signal. But doing so may put her in more danger than she could ever have anticipated, and risk those she loves.
A story of the Grissom timeline, originally published in Liberty Island Magazine.
This edition also includes a bonus essay on the era of dictatorship in Grissom-timeline America.
A collection of short stories about the intersection between over- and under-hill, between human and faerie.
Fortunate One–Is the ability to see the normally unseen a gift…or a curse? Steed–When you don’t fit anywhere, perhaps you should listen when the faerie horse says you belong elsewhere. Kintsugi–When your fiance is a faerie, they don’t want your mortality to get in the way of forever. Faerie Gifts–Sometimes, the faerie’s gift goes wrong…what’s a new mother to do when a faerie wants to bless her new babe? Mixed Blessings–A boon to a musician exchanges one addiction for another.. Bargains Struck–When the fairy grants your wish in exchange for your firstborn…what happens when you can’t have a child? Golden–When the geese aren’t killed, the eggs keep coming.
Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.
On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong. Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all. Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction. Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.
Volume 1 The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep. They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner. The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives. Skip’s already broken that one. Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.
Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.
As a vacation-property consultant for Celestial Retreats Unlimited, his job is to help wealthy clients purchase dream homes on the most beautiful resort worlds in known space. Floating villas above sapphire oceans. Mountain lodges beneath alien stars. Private estates overlooking glowing seas.
The wealthy pay for his travel.
The scenery is spectacular.
The murders are entirely unexpected.
Armed with little more than patience, common sense, and an eye for detail, Gideon repeatedly finds himself entangled in mysteries that baffle local authorities. A billionaire dies inside a locked villa during a planetary storm. A famous celebrity disappears beneath a double sunset. A passenger commits murder without ever boarding the transport where the crime occurred.
Again and again, Gideon discovers that luxury may disguise greed, deception, and deadly secrets—but it can never hide them forever.
Inspired by the classic puzzle mysteries of the Golden Age, The Vacation Broker Mysteries combines fair-play detection, exotic science-fiction settings, and an unforgettable amateur sleuth whose greatest weapon is simple observation.
A Science Fiction Story Bundle from the collection There’s a Sword for That
THE VISITOR – Felockati is anchored to his permanent location underwater and misses the days of roaming his ocean world freely.
But something new drops out of the sky and widens his horizons — all the way to the stars.
YOUR EVERY WISH – Stealing the alien ambassador’s dagger is a sure thing for Pete — just what he needs to pay off his debts.
Until he starts talking to it. There has to be a way to get something for himself out of the deal. Has to be.
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.
I’ll do the promo post tomorrow, because Liberty, you know?
If you’re one of the Huns here: we’ve been weighing various options for food. We have a problem since I was diagnosed celiac last year.
Yes, the Rodizio is largely gluten free, but Dan and I would eat maybe a serving and that seems a waste.
Turns out there are a couple of gluten free options here in town, one of which makes the Rodizio seem cheap. The high likelihood right now is that we go there right after Dan’s last panel. If you’d like join, grab us. I’m about to come out for my 11 o’clock thing, which I think is a signing.
There is a tendency to doomism that annoys me and keeps getting on my nerves. Partly because so many of us who are getting older tend to paint the past in beautiful colors of what we wish it had been, rather than what it was.
There was a post at my friend Kim Du Toit’s blog, and I shared it at insty with something like “This is true, but we have just started to fight back and we have a chance to win this.” Blame it on my having been on the road, and being very tired (road construction and such made this trip almost as difficult as when we used to fly and get routed over half the country) because the post is also not true. I mean, it is, in the sense that our schools have been working overtime on socialist indoctrination, but at the same time they’ve been getting more obvious and therefore easier to fight.
And the gist of it is that this isn’t the country of Reagan any longer, because both parties have been converging towards socialism and we’re all doomed. DOOMED I say.
To which I say HOGWASH.
Is there some soft, stupid economics thinking in our ranks. Oh, my dear. When President Trump talks about how he needs to control the oil companies and keeps them from taking “excessive profits” I want to ask him to sit down and let the businessman who actually knows business stand up.
Yes, of course there is a lot of soft socialism in economic thinking and also a lot of “Let the government do it.”
It is the nature of government to run to authoritarian and anti-business solutions. Sure.
I’m not disputing that there’s a lot of stupidity in the nation’s two parties, or that they don’t converge in bizarre and alarming ways.
What I’m saying is: SO HAS IT EVER BEEN. THE DIFFERENCE IS NOW WE THE PEOPLE HAVE A MILLION BULLHORNS TO FIGHT BACK.
Look, popular ideas of the time are popular ideas of the time. No matter how stupid, both parties fall in with bullshit like “progressivist” (meaning the government led “progress”) ideas (We had progressive Democrat AND Republican presidents) and eugenics, and handling the mental health crisis by abolishing madhouses, and– It could go on and on. It is human — and remember people from both parties attend the same school system and all used to read more or less the same newspapers or listen to the same news — to have a bunch of stupid ideas that are the ideas of your time.
And the past — I tell you again and again — wasn’t some golden era of liberty. Sure, sure, both Woodrow Wilson and FDR who in great measure forged these our shackles, were democrats, but a lot of the nonsense they engaged in was supported by Republicans at the time. They could not have done it otherwise. A lot of the opposition and a lot of the people might have disagreed with the specifics, but thought it was right and proper for government to have that level of control.
And people, listen, that we didn’t drop into full communism was probably just a quirk of FDR getting so fascinated by WWII that he let his claws off the throat of the economy. Would it have stuck? Would there have been another American Revolution? I can’t tell and neither can you, but I’m glad I’m not in that time line.
The thing is a lot of that nonsense, from price controls, tot he government sticking its nose into the economic life and stealing the breath of commerce stayed on, until Reagan.
It has been mentioned to me that Maggie Thatcher started the removal of such shackles before Reagan. Perhaps I didn’t pay as much attention to her back then, since the UK was a foreign country, but the US was always my focus of interest, even while I was Portuguese. But I DO remember the shock in in Europe when Reagan started dismantling the edifice of government interference in the economy that was still considered absolutely indisputably right in Europe. Oh, the rending of garments and pouring of ashes on heads. America was going to destroy itself, they said gleefully. Weirdly, the boom afterwards was treated as completely unrelated and having nothing to do with this freeing. (Bah.)
Look, I don’t take anything away from Reagan. In a way he did amazing work, and freed us to an extent that was AT THE TIME undreamed of.
But — and I want to make this very clear — he was working against what we now consider to be LEFTIST consensus of both parties. At the time it was just considered “normative” and “sane.” And oh, yeah “the way things are done.”
Reagan broke that and mind you, to a great extent the left has been on the run ever since. Yesterday on Twitter someone told me there haven’t been Marxists since the eighties, that Marxism was completely discredited. I don’t know where he is, I didn’t look, but I assume it’s a parallel world.
Sure, the Marxist economic measures and ideals were proven wrong and cast down and then went underneath, insidiously, into education, into activism — paid for by USAID, mostly — into studies and papers and into all sorts of crap, till people are learning “Marxist literary analysis” which is kind of like learning “blue fish red fish literary analysis” for all the grip it has on the real world.
Except this stuff has real effects. Combined with maleducation, there’s an entire generation parroting “socialism” and “Marxism” who have no idea how stupid and how ridiculous it is.
And this seems to make it be “everywhere.” It’s not. It’s on the run. It’s a rump movement. It will not stand.
No, this is not the country of Reagan. It is the one he seeded. it’s grown from that. There is no way Reagan could have defunded USAID (which might not have been so egregious before Clinton and Obama, but I suspect always was) or sent DOGE into the bowels of the deep state. The deep state, and the “uniparty” won a victory against Reagan on immigration too, that I don’t think they could carry now.
So, are things better or worse?
Yes. They are better in that the victories of Reagan gave us a place to stand and fight against the statists. They are better because we’re no longer subjected to the overwhelming megaphone of main stream media and each have our little channels to fight back. They’re little but there’s a lot of them. It’s better because the “experts” have scored a own goal with covidiocy and made it possible for us to question their “benevolent” rule.
It is worse because we have entire generations of people indoctrinated into the idea that socialism will give them everything they want. And we have a vast number of unassimilated foreigners among us.
So?
You want the perfect country? That was sometime before the thing with the serpent and the apple.
Here in the real world, it is the duty of people of good will — and working brains — to fight the “current thing” that enthralls all sides of our political spectrum and which would, to allude to kipling, deliver us bound to our foes.
We’ve escaped the traps of the past, with varying degree of injury and sometimes by the skin of our teeth. The fight goes on.
Government we must have, and government will always be the enemy of individual liberty.
That’s the tension in which we must exist. And the fight isn’t done. It will never be done. The fight isn’t easy. It will never be easy.
But it is not lost, and it is not worse than the fight our ancestors fought.
Now we have more and better ways to fight back (and not just the ultimate, terrible, fourth box way.)
As you know…. probably…. I’m on my way to Liberty con. This year I decided not to drive myself and others insane trying to charge the laptop in the car. It draws too much power and the results are at best frustrating.
So I decided to challenge you with the painter who launched a thousand memes…. of himself.
Joseph Ducreux was a French painter active in the latter part of the 18th century — he was a portraitist in the court of Louis XVI and continued his career after the French Revolution. But Ducreux is increasingly remembered for his series of self-portraits that were surprisingly informal for the age in which they were painted. To contemporary eyes, they almost seem to have been painted for use in memes, a purpose for which they certainly have been used.
You know him for this one here in a goofy take on lyrics:
BUT he did so much more. And most of it silly.
They just about cry out to be memed, but I can’t do it. Could you guys give it a try? That way I can enjoy the results when I get to the hotel:
And of course the template for the well known one:
I call that picture “the moment before the crash”. Or perhaps “Really? That’s where you’re going to sit while I have breakfast?” And yes, before you say anything (you wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings, and he’s reading over my shoulder!) that cat is a little chonky. Mostly because I’ve been feeding Havey whenever he demands it (twenty one and losing weight fast) and he has one or two bites, then leaves the rest for his accomplices. Who are getting rounder by the day. This too shall pass, right?
That vase is the successor of my beloved Koi vase which rests in pieces until I have time to kintsugi it. This one was purchased for two reasons only: It’s blue and white AND it’s heavy as the dickens, so the little terror hasn’t sent it careening yet.
And if you take in the previous two paragraphs, you’re probably asking yourself: Sarah, why do you put yourself through this?
There are many, many answers. Older son suggested “masochism” and several people — particularly considering the advent of the hyper-smart, very people engaged, full of mischief Misoites (Indy, Circe and Muse) in my life — have answered flat out “insanity.”
But it’s not, you know? They are a calculated addition to my life, one that keeps me what passes for sane around these parts, and more importantly, keep me getting up in the morning and doing things, including writing fiction (And writing this blog.)
But Sarah, you say, how can three (not so) little cats keep you writing? What do they even have to do with you getting up in the morning? Don’t you have a husband and sons for that? And a house that needs cleaned? And started novels that need finished?
Well, yes…. And yet–
Let’s start from where I am: I am a chronic depressive, forever skating on the rim of a deep crater of depression. Sometimes going one or two rings inside, which is where the writing stops and the curling up under furniture starts.
I don’t want to be medicated. Partly because either I’m very different from other people, or other people tolerate side effects that floor me with absolutely no problem, but the fact is I’ve never taken a medicine that doesn’t have some sort of “what now?” symptoms. Adderal makes me b*tchy enough that even I don’t want to live with me. Vyvanse is great, but it turns off the writing, as though it were a switch and it just goes “click” off. Oh, I can still write these posts. But the fiction dies before being born. Then there’s various anti-histamines. I’ve found one — finally — that makes me sleepy but allows me to write: xyzal. (My allergist found this report interesting, as according to him it’s a “cleaner” versions of allegra, which still, like all the other ones just turns off the WORDS. Not the writing. I still have stories. I just can’t put them in words. it makes posts very hard too.) But heck, even your humble ibuprofen seems to have weird effects if I stay on it. (Mostly it makes me incredibly sleepy. It acts exactly like sleeping pills. It makes no sense.) So, I’m not about to try to fix the depression with medications. Heck, I’ve been known to avoid pain killers after major surgery because I resent what they do to my mind.
That means I manage it. And because I’ve been managing my depression since before I had words to call it that, you could say my entire life is designed around it. It’s part of the reason that — arguably — we’ve always bought houses a little above what we rationally should have. One of the weird things I only recently identified is that I must have AT LEAST one room in the house that I love; that makes me happy just going into it. And why I actually spend precious time decorating and trying to make things look purty. And did, even when I had two toddlers and was trying to break into writing.
But that gets into who I am: I teeter forever between being over-managed, ie having a life that runs like clockwork, and trying to stave off chaos with unavailing and frantic activity, while my life falls apart around me.
Of the two I much prefer the first, of course, which is where I tend to fall, once I’m up from the latest illness, and not preparing for a con (Or actually while preparing for a con. Yesterday I cleaned and organized, because the house was getting to me.)
The problem is that left to my own devices I arrange things so that they are incredibly organized. Like…. so organized in terms of my life, that I get up at the same time, eat the same thing, do exactly the same actions every day.
If you’re going “oh, bliss” you might be slightly on the spectrum. Which, I will grant you so am I, which is why I tend to that. BUT–
But at some point you get up and are going through your routine and realize all the joy has drained out of your life. And you don’t know why.
When this happened, the kids were still living at home, but were both in college, both self-sufficient adults (except for the inevitable “mom, I thought we still had cereal?”) And my life had become a clockwork, ticking beauty of scheduling.
We all know the thing to do for that, right? Add Toddler. Let’s say that the time of life wasn’t conducive for that, besides my having the fertility of a small rock. In the Sahara. At the peak of Summer.
… At the time I added something else, which took away some time but helped in other ways.
BUT when faced with the same issue a few years ago, I added the current crop of cats. Look, cats are ideal for adding just a slight sprinkle of chaos — okay, the Misoites might have meant overshooting — because they are mobile, cute, get into things but aren’t going to — for instance — eat a sofa, and will make you smile with their insanity.
It doesn’t have to be cats, though. During a particularly stressful part of my life, having derpfish on his tiny aquarium on my desk, glaring at me because “where are my food pellets, hooman?” was immensely cheering and took away from the sterile quality of an over-ordered life.
For that matter, my husband spent ten years tending a cantankerous (And now enormous) cactus in a corner of his office.
The point is that it’s something alive with the potential to give you at least tiny surprises, and which pulls you out from the tendency to over-order your life.
Left to our own devices, being slightly on the spectrum and very work focused, Dan and I would create utterly sterile lives, where we get up at the same time, eat the same things, work at the same desks side by side, eat the same dinner, go to bed. There’s reassurance in that too, but after a while it starts feeling like you’re just a cog in the machine the day has become.
Now we have some critters who will make us take unscheduled breaks because the belly must be petted (like the spice must flow, but warmer and more fuzzy. Okay, find, and chonky.) And this morning I found that, the dry food having run out in the dispenser, Indy had unplugged it both at the plug in and from the wall. (Why he thought that would help is another question. Or maybe he was just mad at it.) Which is annoying, but also amusing because WHAT EVEN?
And minutes ago Circe was walking around talking to herself, which she does on the regular.
Now, yes, if you’re of an age and situation to do this, kids do the same and are, arguably, more rewarding. But kids will also worry you more. (I know. Mine still do.)
Cats — though note I’m side eyeing Indy who is reading this over my shoulder as I type — rarely grow up to be ax murderers — lack of opposable thumbs — and you don’t worry about their careers and their relationships and what are they doing now? They’re just cats. As long as you keep them from chewing electrical cords, removing child locks from cabinets (I still have no idea what he did to the lock for the under-sink cabinet) and attempting to fix your computer (okay, that’s just indie) they are a safe outlet for chaos, and something you can love too. Because you want to love the thing that bring chaos.
And chaos is absolutely necessary, at least if you’re some sort of a creative. Because otherwise life becomes clean, ordered, and profoundly sterile.
According To Hoyt 