One concept we keep coming across is that of a “silent majority.” It is a concept easily ridiculed, because if they are the majority, why are they silent?
It is also a concept that proves itself again and again. The early eruptions of tea parties here, the demonstration I attended in Portugal when I was (I think) sixteen.
The problem is that “the silent majority” brings up the wrong image. This is not a crowd of people sitting at attention, stewing, unable to speak.
A more accurate name would be “the have a life majority.”
I got obsessed with politics early by being exposed to the fact that while I might want to ignore politics, politics doesn’t ignore me, and if you give people with power their head soon enough they’re intruding into your innocent pleasures: cancelling ballet classes; mandating you spend whole days painting murals; decreeing that your grade be by vote of the class… that type of nonsense. And worse.
So I follow politics like a guard dog following an intruder. But most people don’t. Even my husband has no clue what I’m exercised about at any given time. (Weirdly younger son inherited mom’s issue and he’ll roam around the house periodically going “Marshall smash” for reasons his father can’t fathom, relating to names he can’t recognize.)
I figure it’s kind of like most people are interested in the lives of celebrities and I just don’t get it. Not meaning to say the lives of celebrities affect our daily lives or are interesting, but I figure that’s what most people think of politics too: too far away, too remote, too boring.
Are these people the majority? I’d guess so. From conversations heard in public spaces, even among the supposed cogniscenti, they might be an hyper majority. Most people don’t understand anything of politics, and care even less. In fact, most people think of politics as the business of people running for office.
But, Sarah, you say, what about the left which is on all the time? Oh, most of them, except for the ringleaders, don’t really care either. It’s just that “making progressive noises” is considered akin to “saying I’m a good person.” That’s because the messages put out by our education, media, entertainment and even art in the last 100 years are so stilted as to equate “having progressive ideas” with “being a good person.”
What they’re doing is the equivalent of artists and noblemn in the middle ages making extremely Catholic noises, even though when you dig into their lives, most of them weren’t any better than current day celebrities. I mean, DO keep in mind that Henry VIII pre-reformation, often listened to six or seven masses a day. Yeah, he sure was a pious and well behaved gentleman. Except for all the mistresses and all the byblows.
The truth of it was that they didn’t REALLY believe anymore than the masses on the left really believe in progressive ideals. Oh, if pressed, they’ll parrot them, and if endangered they scream them, but this is all “look at me, look at me, I’m a beautiful and good person.” Which btw, is how leftism persists as a positional good after communist country after communist country has been exposed as a sewer of moral corruption and material poverty.
So they’re louder, but they’re just as uninterested in truth and in what is going on in fact. They just want to show they’re nice and thoughtful and belong to a certain class.
In fact, the only thing that brings out the silent majority (on either side) is real hardship. They’re not fully out and bitching yet (it will take a lot more than that) but some of the crazy in this election season is from their first blinking at sunlight.
Rue the day they become fully engaged, because neither side knows a heck of a lot about economics, or society or … well, anything. They haven’t paid attention. they know about managing their lives, not about the macro society. (Which is how most people are. Not because they’re stupid but because they don’t care.) And when they wake up the only thing they know is that they “don’t like” what is happening. So the reaction tends to be … interesting. It’s the sort of reaction that fed the guillotine.
Which is a danger to avert. Because what comes after is never better, even than the horror of the the ancien regime. And unfortunately good men as well as bad can drown in the rivers of blood.
Which is why years ago I decided to start speaking out. To put myself out there. I’m frankly the sort of person who, left to her own devices, wouldn’t interact with unknown people and would write only under pen names so no one knew. At some point it because clear to me that some measure of fame is needed to make a fortune in this field. I understand it, but I still don’t like it.
And yet, at some point I couldn’t stay silent and blend into the silent majority anymore. Because as grandma used to say “Silence is consent.” And what I was consenting to was the sort of spiral that ended in blood on the streets. Our “aristos” having taken over the media and all the means of information live in a bubble and ignore the vast, uninterested majority who is suffering from their stupid reality-divorced decisions. This only ends one way.
No, my voice alone won’t avert it, but I’m doing what I can, and I can sleep at night, and I can look at myself in the mirror.
Can you?
According To Hoyt 
c4c
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C4c
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Waaaaaay off topic, but in the news about cats:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/04/05/dont-laugh-i-have-a-serious-reason-for-raising-my-cats-gender-neutral/
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Yes, mental health is a huge problem in this country.
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No it isn’t. In the future, the DSM will only contain one diagnosis: People who refrain from recreational drug use.
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* looks at his drink “I’m good, I suppose.”
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In the future US, Alcohol use is not recreational but is needed to survive life
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The problem will be sorting alcohol from Dr. Bob’s Patent Neurological Elixir: With 15 SSRIs and Acetylcholine Esterase Inhibiters.
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I fear you may be correct. I went from NPR (post theft of satellite radio) and well, there sure are a lot of cocktails to try. And now I have satellite radio back again (still working on the proper install, but Big Band swing stays and… well, I don’t have to try a new cocktail or two (or three) every day now.
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Yeah, NPR. No outright commercials, and the music isn’t the cRAP stuff. But the election coverage. Oy.
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Cocktails? Half a pint glass of 100pr vodka topped with OJ…141 and Coke/Dr Pepper…100 pr whiskey and coke/Dr. Pepper. Just enough to be able to drink vs sip
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Hey, my default cocktail is the Manhattan. No mixer. And this election the ‘Aunt Roberta’ is looking far too tempting. That’s when I’m not in a straight whisk(e)y mood.
But today is mild. A beer suffices after a nice drive while listening to some swing.
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I’m teetotal, and don’t see what alcohol has to do with this election cycle.
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Anesthesia, Bob. Now, I don’t drink much (maybe a whole three shots a year). I do have a high pain tolerance, though.
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What’s there to be hurt over? This is about the best cycle possible for us.
The least worst other candidate is much more interested in restoring law to the United States than in erasing the populations of the Mid-East and Meso-America.
-Friends of Pat Buckman for President, 2016
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When I drank, my favorite mixed drink was a boilermaker.
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Far too much work. Why not use an extra-long straw and your favorite bottle of paint thinner/spirits? None of that tedious mixing & measuring to get in the way.
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Variety is the sp(l)ice of life.
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“I fear you may be correct. I went from NPR (post theft of satellite radio) and well, there sure are a lot of cocktails to try. And now I have satellite radio back again (still working on the proper install,” – Orvan Taurus
*blinks*
You stole a satellite radio just so you could listen to NPR? (o0)
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“T’ain’t funny, McGee!”
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*snicker* Well, *I* thought it was funny. :)
But I am an odd man with a very low sense of humor who is easily amused. *grin*
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So… fairly average for this site, then?
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Pretty much. I seem to fit in well here, I’ve noticed.
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What year are you posting from? Because here in 2016 that is already true.
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OK…more necessary
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A gramme is worth a damn.
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Have you seen the news story on the Transgender person who had his/her nose and ears cut off because now he/she identifies as a dragon?
And I wish I was kidding, but no. Do NOT look at the pictures, do not look at the pictures, say again do not look at the f-ing pictures. Some shit you just can’t unsee, but wish you could.
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Saw the thumbnail, didn’t want to look closer. Feel sorry for the surgeon…
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I don’t feel sorry for the doc at all. Indulging that sort of delusion in such a permanent fashion is utterly unethical.
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That’s why I feel sorry for him – having damaged his professional ethics in such a way, he is now less than he could be. Pity him may be more accurate.
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IMHO the surgeon should be de-doctorized. Taking money from delusional people to cut them up more, that’s scraping the bottom of the barrel.
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I have learned through sad experience that when someone says don’t look this up, they *mean* it and I definitely should not look it up.
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Yeah, I thought it was a joke. Nope, no joke. They really cut his fricking ears and nose off. And his package, but that was earlier I guess.
But -I- am the bad guy here for objecting. Right?
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well, there is another who believe hat not only is she transgendered, but it also trans-ageist (or something like that) and is actually eight years old.
Note: I do actually believe in transgenderism. Its too well documented. Is it as common as it looks like lately? Not so sure.
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I had seen that story, and glanced at the picture and decided quickly to NOT study it. And I did once meet that fellow who had various things done (tattoos, piercing, likely more) to be as cat as he could be. Was a nice enough fellow, but… still it was rather weird.
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Cats aren’t as smart as people are.
Which also means they aren’t nearly as stupid.
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Cats are welfare recipients, mooching off the humans, and never paying their fair share of taxes. :P
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We thought this our best-cat-evah, Imp, went to his well earned place in kitty paradise. The following summer we did not get one single ripe tomato out of our garden.
Damn squirrels … nothing but fluffy tailed rats.
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Good point. I’ll admit that cats can be of some use in keeping the small varmints under control.
And that they are cute, lovable little bits of fur, who can bring a bit of joy into one’s life at times, although that usually goes without saying.
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Squirrels = good targets for .177 CO2 pistol.
Target practice while you contribute to globull warming…….
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Mine’s pretty good about leaving dead tributes on the doorstep.
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My late cat managed that amazing feat….. twice. In a lifetime.
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We have one cat who is a stone killer, a rescued feral. She is the sweetest thing in the world as long as you don’t try to take her kill from her.
Have another who is not quite the killer but desperate for affection so he always brings you victories/ Deborah does NOT like waking up in a welter of rodent gore on her pillow, but I make a point of praising the big guy for a job well done/
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And how many times has Deborah pointed out to you, that you are training him to leave rodent gore on her pillow?
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Rodent gore on her pillow
By her sightless head
Dead squirrel in the morning
Dead girl in the bed
I love song writing.
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On one drizzly evening, as The Spouse was departing for work, Imp took a mad dash off the end of our front porch. He jumped back up and returned to the door about as fast. The Spouse and I looked down to see that Imp was gently holding a small wren in his mouth, the poor thing was in shock. Imp was not at all amused when we informed him he could not bring the bird into the house to play with.
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Mine kill spiders.
There are HUSBANDS and BOYFRIENDS who can’t manage that.
Although, to be fair, they probably also do not eat said spiders. (And flies. And, at one point, a hornet.)
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I knew a woman who would sing of her prowess at spider-fighting at girl’s camp. Then when she came home, she would call on me to stomp them for her….
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While I lovingly refer to Kili as the furry little socialist, she does provide valuable physical therapy. Yes, she forces the large human with the broken back to bend down and pick her up, squat down and retrieve the toy mousie batted under the couch, bend down and give her milk, and also gives him agility training by the old walk-between-the-ankles drill.
She also makes sure he refocuses his eyes periodically instead of staring at just the computer screen for hours by jumping into his lap and demanding pettings, or crying at him to come retrieve a toy hiding under the couch.
I couldn’t drag him to an exercise class with wild horses that’d make him bend over or squat as many times a day as the cat does. So, she earns her keep.
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What the– I can’t even–
::settles for a flabbergasted expression::
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Well, since (if you listen to the activists) all cats are supposed to be neuter anyway, you can call them anything you want to, as long as you do it in a properly reverent tone as you acknowledge the Greatness which is Cat. (Or so Athena T. Cat has informed me.)
Or you look at your phone and mutter “D@mnit, Ivan” in Russian and wonder why your grandmother ever got her cat a smartphone in the first place. (New story out in May ;) )
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True. I’m pretty sure mine wouldn’t care if I called him a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ so long as he got the Worship That Is His Due, including belly rubs on demand (mine is a strange cat–he *loves* tummy rubs, and may actually be a labrador in a cat’s body…)
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Yours too? Athena never read the Cat Guide to Being a Cat, as far as I can tell, because she insists on getting vigorous chin-to-tail belly rubs several times a day.
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Yeah, Amy (who definitely chose us to be her staff) comes to display feline pulchritude / request tummy rubs, too. On her schedule, of course.
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Heh, and his brother plays fetch (and catch) better than any dog I’ve ever known…(Although he has a distressing habit of soaking his preferred fuzzy-ball in the water dish first, and then dropping it in the middle of the bed…Thankfully, he owns my parents, not me, so I’m not the one getting chilly wet spots in my bed in the middle of the night…)
I think they both missed large chunks of the Cat’s Guide.
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Our current alpha male, Honey Boy, is the ultimate in not neuter ever fixed; he’s practically Catrick Warburtion.
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Don’t know what that sentence was, but it was supposed to be, “neutered, but never fixed.”
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Or you look at your phone and mutter “D@mnit, Ivan” in Russian and wonder why your grandmother ever got her cat a smartphone in the first place. (New story out in May😉 )
Yay for the Series That Came In From The Cold!!!
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Woohoo!
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The new rules endorsed by the National Science Foundation require that flatworms be raised in a gender neutral environment. Flatworms raised in a gendered environment give substantially different experimental results.
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Well, someone is fortunate enough to not have any significant problems and thus be able to waste time on utter(ing) bilge. Bucky lastard.
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So glad it is only crazy cat ladies involved:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/04/navy-bureaucracy-has-no-idea-how-to-make-job-title-yeoman-gender-neutral/
Then again, perhaps it is cat ladies in the crazy years.
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Hey, I am a crazy cat lady! (Maybe a different type of crazy, but crazy anyway and I have cats so I definitely claim that title to myself. Spinster too.).
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Yeah, but we’re sane crazy cat ladies.
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:)
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You know better than to ever try and convince Greebo to be less than he is.
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My little fuzzy buzzy caught a cold in the kennel. It makes him very sluggish, and uninclined to be evil, but he’s getting better.
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I am so sorry to hear he has been under the weather — and that you have had to put up with the evil on top of everything else.
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Saying your cat is sluggish reminds me when two of our now departed felines were kittens and got some kind of shots (distemper? Rabies?). Vet said they might be a little lethargic. Out of my mouth pops ” How the hell do you tell when a cat is lethargic versus just being a cat?”. The cats were deeply offended (though the vet laughed).
Hope your fuzzy feels better though not evil :-).
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I caught a feral kitten (3-4 weeks old) for my mom and she tamed it. She named her Katrina, after the hurricane, you could definitely tell when SHE was lethargic.
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Its a shame that pop culture doesn’t have any examples of a woman as a yeoman. Imagine if Star Trek, for example, had a female “Yeoman Rand” as an aide to Captain Kirk.
Seriously, though… when I was a kid I thought a yeoman referred to women in the Navy because of Trek. Now they can’t figure out to make it less of a male title?
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Nope, nobody mistaking Yeoman Janice Rand for a boy.
Could the Navy please get its act together and worry about things like China going berzerk and having sailors captured by 3rd rate navies like Iran’s instead of this inane minutia?. January 20, 2017 can not get here soon enough.
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Insert rant about how the English “-man” is already gender neutral.
Mostly I think this is a matter of the MCPON doing the Chief’s core duty: Keeping the officers under his care from making truly stupid decisions.
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These people are hyper aspergers. All the words have to make nice labels for cans that contain only… you get it right?
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That and the thrill of making an entire society, an entire language, dance to their tune.
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Indeed, the SJW can’t even imagine it’s NOT be a gender-neutral term. When they say that “werewolf” means “man-wolf” or “in modern English” “person-wolf,” they are wrong, because it never occurred to them that it’s man (male).
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Person is easy, DC:, perchild. Do NOT confuse with merchild.
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I wonder what the Compersondant of the Marine Corps thinks about this?
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Except that the use of person is suspect, because son is a male noun. So, on the principle of reversing historical discrimination, shouldn’t that be the Comperdaughterdant?
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Combeingdant?
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Languages tend to simplify, over time – so propose a degradation of “person” to just “per” and they’d be all over it.
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Yeoper; Comperdant. Simple enough to use & understand, it might even work in a story that is holding the whole anti-gendered-language thing up for ridicule…
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You know things are bad when crazy cat ladies are the definition of sane …
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Secretary. Administrative aide.Clerk. Just a few suggestions. Without even looking at the article.
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Nice. Okay, if I am speaking or writing in English and somebody tells me he/she does not want to be referred to as he or she, from then on he/she is it. Problem solved.
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I was reading something recently and though it was a typo when I saw ‘ze’. Realized it was deliberate when I saw it several more times, and also some other weirdly spelled gender-related word. Apparently, this is now a Thing. (A stupid thing, because it looks like a freaking typo.)
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Which makes “it” ever so appropriate. And apt.
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Ahh. The horror that is tumblr. Monsters from the Id.
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I hate, hate, hate those pronouns. They ruin so many of the things that I for fun. Xi, xe, si, hir, shi and the like ruin all sense of immersion for me. I stick with the standard binary system, even when it makes things strange, but that’s half the fun.
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I have no problem with ‘Hir’… assuming it’s German. And ‘Xi’ just makes me think of ‘Sie’… which.. hrm…
What do these types do in language where one needs to know when to use ‘der’ ‘dir’ or ‘das’ or equivalent? English simply has ‘the’ and is thus well gender-neutral already, not concerning itself with the gender of tables and doors and such.
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It’s always native English speakers who feel that we lack pronouns. I’m fine with he, she and, if necessary, it, but there are people who think that English needs neutral pronouns and pronouns to refer to individuals who don’t like using he and she, Because you know, even the genders of special snowflakes have to be special.
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In Finnish “it” is “se”, so…
And while the proper pronoun for a human would be “hän” in Finnish (yep, it’s a pretty gender neutral language, but it’s normal to bring up the gender, when known, in some other way anyway. Seems humans just want to know, at least when talking about other humans) we actually mostly use “se” in spoken everyday language anyway, so…
(Hey, you already adopted the word “sauna” so why not?) :D
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I’m not sure the phenomenon has spread much beyond English speaking North America
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I’ve heard of some complaints in German, where of course so many more terms are masculine. . . though the account I read mentioned that no one complained about the way the Hail Mary ends — “Pray for us sinners” –even though “sinners’ is masculine.
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or ce/cer
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I told younger son that he should invent an alien gender identity with its own pronouns, just to screw around with the goofballs.
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I’ll point out my first world (eight novels, not one published. Don’t say it. They’d need serious rewriting) was modified (for equality doncha know. You’ll be shocked it didn’t work) hermaphrodite humans. I used he as a pronoun because other than the fact that they were rather… pretty boys… with their clothes on that’s how they’d read (though some of them might give people an unpinnable uncomfortable feeling.) I know now why they were rejected everywhere. If I’d called her Xe and Xyr, I’d be a darling.
I could have class, I could have been a pretender. (intentional.)
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I don’t even know what the stories are about, but because you call hermaphrodites ‘he’ in them I have to say that I would be sure to read it if you were to make them available. That particular world building decision is awesome as far as I’m concerned, because it’s one that people rarely make.
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It was a barbaric and insane world. And eventually I’ll re-write it…
BUT you see how that alone would get me rejected in NYC, right? I was so naive.
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Yes, unfortunately, I can see how that would get you rejected. I’m looking forward to when you rewrite it and get is published though.
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I’m not quite a Thing. My hair is too short. :-)
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More a handful (or several hands-high..) for a Thing, and hair too short for an Itt?
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There is already a gender neutral pronoun in common use that works quite well for those who object to he/she. It is idiot.
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I have a rather low opinion of the need for a gender-neutral personal pronoun; but if they insist, I’m willing to suggest an inclusive portmanteau of “she”+”he”+”it”, using the first letter of the first two and all of the third. It’s a bit rude, but seems appropriate.
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that’s what Kate Paulk does.
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I’m in good company, then!
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Heh, possibly the only gender neutral/all inclusive pronoun that I’m okay with and it tends to fit the people who need it very well.
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Except first thing in the morning. Well, nobody really wants to see me before the coffee infusion.
Two other things I would note as part of the “silence” – the fear of the power of the opposition (you know that one well), and the feeling of being powerless to do anything about the problems that are just “too big.”
Both of those, of course, take collective action – which is difficult to get until enough people are very unhappy.
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Actually, we ARE powerless to do anything about problems that are “too big” – for anyone who is earning a living, or otherwise being of value to other human beings, there is simply not enough time to completely understand the complexities (probably everyone else, too).
HOWEVER – 2 things (that y’all know, already): Decompose the whole problem into parts, some of which you have the interest and can take the time to understand; and, accept that the perfect is enemy of the good-enough. Be willing to stand up on those, from time to time and as opportunity allows. And don’t let it bother you that other people, with interests in different details, think you’re part of a “silent majority”.. you will have the effect you have, on the people who care about what you care about most.
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“Can you?”
Yup.
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Gender neutral cats – so more at risk of UTI because of stupid owner?
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I s’pose, technically if you’re being a responsible cat owned and get your fuzzies spayed/neutered…then they’re ALREADY gender neutral…? (Nope, sorry, can’t keep a straight face on that one.)
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Even neutered for some reason male cats have a greater incidence of UTIs. From WebMd article Cat Urinary Tract Problems and Infections:
Neutering does not change that physiological difference.
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Yes, I know. :) Was poking fun at the article nonsense about the pronouns. My own kitty’s brother has had a couple of close calls with UTI’s, and I take steps with mine to try and reduce the chances of him getting one. (Which means, of course, that I now get a nightly scolding if I’m late with the wet-food supper…)
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We ended up (OK, I ended up because Mom and Dad were out of the country) having GiganCat replumbed after a third round of bladder/kidney trouble. Worked great, but the anesthetic wore off completely 8 hours avert the vet said it would. 0200, 22 lb of cat very happy to be home and rarin’ for attention and pets and chase-the-sock.
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Grrr, “after” not “avert.” AutoCorrect delenda est.
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chase-the-sock
You know I first read that as “chase the stock” (ie livestock) and wondered at a cat that would take on horses and/or cattle. :grin:
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GiganCat probably would have. He was large, sweet, friendly, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I can see him trying to chase a cow.
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I had a cat that used to chase dogs. I would have chased any livestock that wandered into his yard. He would also play chase-the-sock while my feet were still in them.
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Had a cat that would stalk deer in our yard. Was a wonderful fruit tree guard.
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I did to, one day I saw a big doe spot it about fifteen feet behind her, turn around, brace her legs and lower her head to almost the cats level, and stare at her like, “okay, wadda gonna do when ya catch me, huh?” The cat looked a minute, then hurriedly slunk off.
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My Italics (a 20 pound ginger tabby) keeps trying to convince me he can TOTALLY take those deer outside the window. Really, he can take ’em! (And mind you, this is a cat who is convinced–CONVINCED–that the squeaky front door, thunder, and any form of power tools are going to kill him, and so he must hide under a blankie if they are in play…The only time he is ever a lap cat is if there’s a thunderstorm on.)
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Deer are prey. Yummy, yummy prey. Thunder, squeaky doors, vacuum cleaners, etc. are *not*. Hence the different behavior. ;-)
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“My Italics (a 20 pound ginger tabby) keeps trying to convince me he can TOTALLY take those deer outside the window. Really, he can take ’em!” – Sara the Red
Oh cool! Someone else who had an oversized cat with an attitude problem. :)
I had eighteen to twenty-two pounds of lynx-point Siamese when we lived outside of Ennis that thought that anything under coyote sized or Heeler mass was potential snack food. He dragged home a rooster that he caught one day from somewhere.
Cottontails were fair game – they were lots smaller than he was.
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I had a beloved cat Spike who thought he could take on a flock of wild turkeys in our back yard. I thought he was going to have a stroke or break his neck as he charged the window repeatedly giving his war cry asking to PLEASE let him out even though he’d never been as far as the back deck.
And as RAH points out in Door into Summer you MUSTN’T laugh at them even though you and the whole family are snorting like mad men trying not to laugh. Part fluffball part Lancelot (or more closely Senor Quixote).
Cat had way more guts than brains.
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I have an orange tabby – a (neutered) male. At one point he needed surgery (UT blockage) and the vet found ovaries and a vestigial uterus, which they removed. So now I can check all 4 of the male/female/neutered/spayed boxes when I visit the vet. Perhaps the occasional displays of bad ‘cattitude’ are because I am using the wrong pronouns.
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My dogs are considered ‘intact males’ by the Vet. Apparently, the percentage of ‘fixed’ males is so great that it is easier to label the ‘un-fixed’ ones.
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the percentage of ‘fixed’ males is so great that it is easier to label the ‘un-fixed’ ones.
It’s not the percentage, vileprogs don’t like it when they get labelled.
Oh, wait, were you talking about actual canines?
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The one issue that comes is the fear of coming out of that glass closet. There are a lot of aspects of me that I keep hidden IRL because I distrust that live and let live is a valid option anymore. Because of the recurrent two minutes hate I am overcautious of sharing my opinions. Have already seen people fired for rocking boats.
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Acknowledged. And I was in the closet a long time because of that, and I will freely admit coming out might not have been entirely sane… I just had to.
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The canary in the coal mine was Brendan Eich, who along with 52% of California’s voters in 2008 supported Prop 8. Then suddenly, six years later, he is ‘outed’ and fired as CEO.
Then there are the demands to remove names of historical figures because their lives did not meet with modern progressive approval. Strangely, all the Robert Byrd memorials in West Virginia, celebrating the long history of this Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of the KKK during his long tenure as Democrat Senator seem to be immune to criticism.
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Yeah. And one of the areas I spend time and write is very much aggressive about destroying those that think that way. Part of why I keep head down.
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‘sOK. Ya gotta pick yer fights.
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Ya. Admittedly it’s more reason to actually stop thinking about publishing and actually do it for the real world vs just online
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…they know about managing their lives…
They think they know how to manage their lives. If they did there would not be so many wed to the cult of experts or swayed by the popularity of the ‘next big thing, nor would so many be actively seeking to functionally become wards of the state.
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It’s much easier to manage your life if you contract-out most of the management to someone else.
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Also somewhat off topic, but I just picked up three Heinleins on Audible. (I’ve never read Heinlein.)
I blame all of you. :D
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Yay. I’m not alone in the ‘bad hun’ club.
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What! It is our fault that you never read Heinlein? NEVER!!!
;-)
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No, I blame all of you for the fact that I just splurged THREE CREDITS at Audible on Heinlein! ^_^
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I’m grumbling because RAH’s Moon isn’t available in e-format. :wink:
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Available at Amazon for ten bucks and change.
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Uncle Lar, I purchased that paperback some time ago.
I want it is e-format. :wink:
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Sorry Drak, I swear when I first went and looked Amazon had a kindle version, but following my own link I see that now they don’t.
I do have it in both plain text and mobi. Which would you prefer?
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mobi.
drakbibliophile at yahoo dot com
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Check your FaceBook PMs
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Thank you
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The one I have (I don’t even remember where I got it) has a watermark stamp in most formats, which makes it irritating to read. Which admittedly is undoubtedly the purpose of said watermark, but I bet the way it is written it would work well as an audible book.
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Pusher.
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I’m so jealous. I’d give years of life to hear/read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress or Puppet Masters for the first time. To mention two.
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YES. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Starbeast, Have Spacesuit Will Travel and Citizen of the Galaxy as well.
Which reminds me, The Spouse had started rereading Starbeast to me when I was in the hospital and never finished it. grumbel…mumble…sigh…
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I picked up The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, and Rolling Stones. :) I shall probably listen to one of those when I’m done listening to A Canticle For Leibowitz (which is taking a number of entirely unexpected turns on me…a nice change, as I can usually smell 80-90% of plots, it seems, a mile off…)
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Rolling stones. When Hazel argues with her son, it’s like someone eavesdropped on Robert and I. Since I only read it a couple of years ago, it was startling. I actually burst out laughing in the middle of my walk and scared the homeless people.
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I think you may have added to your list of titles: She Who Scares The Homeless People
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Sara “The Rolling Stones” is the Full Cast Audio one right? That and their rendition of “Have space suit will travel” have traveled many a mile in our family car only exceeded in popularity by the Focus on the Families Narnia recordings.. Enjoy you’re in for a treat.
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Try listening to the “restored” version on audiobook. It’s almost like reading it for the first time.
The slow pace of audio gives me plenty of time to be critical of what I’m listening to, as opposed to simply vacuuming text. A lot of books I had read several times turned out to be full of stupid when I listened to the audio.
The Puppet Masters is one of the few that actually got better with the audio version. It’s still amazing how closely his future worked out to ours; yeah, flying cars and an odd atomic war or two are different, but the details… he wrote that book in *1951!*
The “Mary” character still doesn’t make any sense in the restored version, though.
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“The ‘Mary’ character still doesn’t make any sense in the restored version, though.” – TRX
Okay… how so? Uh… and is this a case of I’d need to have to read the restored version to see what they’ve done to her in order to understand the answer?
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No, she’s the same as in the abridged version.
Even when I was quite young I had trouble with the idea of a super secret agent assassin with tippy-top security clearances… who was both amnesiac and appeared out of nowhere.
That’s stretching things beyond the bounds of belief even for a modern diversity hire, much less the nuclear-standoff world of the Puppet Masters.
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Ah. Yeah, okay. On the same page now, then.
Yeah, I had the same issues with her. I thought it was just me having grown up on a steady diet of Donald Hamilton…. nice to see that someone else looked at that, blinked, and went “Huh?”
I’ve always kind of waved it off because, well, Heinlein. I was willing to hit the “Turn off brain before reading” button on that one particular niggle.
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Oh, they had different mind-science and though she was amnesiac, they made it clear her mind was gone over and there was nothing bad there to prevent her being an agent.
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Of course, her amnesia involved her early childhood so it would have been seen as a curiosity not as a security risk.
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PARTICULARLY because it’s not abnormal to remember nothing before 7, even absent traumatic events.
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Nod. Of course, a little girl found in a wilderness (on Venus) could be assumed to have had a traumatic experience.
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*That* kind of an agent, most places would want to run individual security checks of your intestinal flora. Anything at all hinky and your application would never make it past the first cull.
I think it’s more “security mindset” than “male vs. female.”
The bothersome thing was, the amnesia / Venus / kidnap thing wasn’t necessary for the character or the story; it’s just glued on like a set of cow horns on the hood of a BMW.
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^^ *nod* What TRX said.
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Nit.
IMO it was necessary for the story because the idea that the Slugs had failed to invade Venus meant that the Heroes found a way to destroy the Slugs without destroying the Hosts.
The Heroes now knew of a disease that could kill the Slugs faster than it would kill the Hosts.
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Yep.
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Yeah, unfortunately I’ve listened to it till I know it by heart. Also the one I can’t stand to listen to is Friday — awful narrator.
Er … Mary made perfect sense to me. Is this a male/female thing?
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“Er … Mary made perfect sense to me. Is this a male/female thing?”
Probably not. She also didn’t make sense to my S.O. in a much later time frame, and the S.O. was about as feminine as you can get and be a gun toting, sword wielding barbarian gal.
I *think* it’s a matter of “No one with those qualifiers and that background would *ever* have gotten a security clearance in this type of world and political setup,” type problem.
I had similar issues with Friday: her professionalism didn’t ring true to me.
Note to writers: if your supposedly professional and hard boiled character gets me reflecting that their first meeting with a Donald Hamilton character would end up with Helm looking down sardonically at your character’s fresh corpse on the ground wondering why life couldn’t always be that easy, that character has a verisimilitude problem. Too many of those moments, and that loud crash you just heard is the crane holding up my suspension of disbelief collapsing.
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Again, they had different “mind-science” It makes things like Citizen of the Galaxy difficult to read now, but… he was going on that premise.
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*nod* It was why the crane didn’t collapse completely. I can hit “Brain off before reading” mode if it’s just one of those moments, and the author has a decent fanwank/writer-wank for why it works that way.
Too many of those, and no good writer wank, and it gets the Did-not-finish treatment that InCryptid did.
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You have a point.
I liked Heinlein… but I can quote sizeable chunks of Donald Hamilton from memory.
Of course, Eric was predictable in his cynicism…
I think I liked “Assassins Have Starry Eyes” best of all Hamilton’s work, though. Not much cynicism there; just an honorable man operating under cultural principles many modern Americans would find incomprehensible.
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*grin* Another Hamilton fan, cool. Assassins Have Starry Eyes is one of my favorites of his.
I’d love to find a copy of that and The Mona Intercept in ebook format somewhere.
As I recall, Eric had good reasons and more than an ample amount of them to be predictable in his cynicism…
“Not much cynicism there; just an honorable man operating under cultural principles many modern Americans would find incomprehensible.” – TRX
*nod* What I mentioned in the thread aways back on cultural glimpses from older movies and detective novels: the people from our American culture back then were harder folk, and it showed up in a kind of a matter of fact way that no one from the time frame really thought about, noticed, or thought much of when they made those films or wrote those novels. But it can be jarring to people of today who grew up with modern sensibilities.
I imagine that Hamilton’s Eric would give most modern SJWs and college speshul snowflakes a case of the screaming vapors and send them quivering into their Safe Spaces.
Heh. An idea for a sure fire SJW Repellent: just wave a Donald Hamilton novel in their general direction. :)
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Just wave a copy of “The Intriguers” and listen to the pops as they implode.
They didn’t have the term “SJW” in Hamilton’s day, but he knew *exactly* what they were…
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Oh yes, definitely. And he had them defined and pegged down to a “T”.
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Really? I thought Friday was the best narrated of the dozen or more Heinlein’s I have listened to.
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No. The woman’s tone of voice makes the character sound stupid and full of herself, both. You can read she despises the character. Not there when she does males.
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You may be blaming us now, but once you have experienced the master I believe that you will be thankful. :-)
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Probably. I think the only reason I didn’t read Heinlein sooner was because a good friend of mine in Middle School Era attempted to read Stranger in a Strange Land, and found it deeply weird, and her unhappy grumbling about it rubbed off on me and caused me to go “Okay, will put that on the ‘probably won’t read’ list…” Also, I (mistakenly) lumped him in with Asimov and Clarke, whom I attempted as a kid/teen and gave up on in boredom/frustration. (I am not a fan of very hard scifi where the science is the primary feature over and above the characters/story, I’m afraid.)
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This I can completely and entirely understand. I, too, was put off by the cult that surrounded Stranger in a Strange Land. That, along with Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, another all too popular book of the era. I did not find reason to appreciate either. My take away was to not read either author again.
I think the reason that The Spouse started reading me The Moon is a Harsh Mistress that long ago day was to fix this grievous lapse in judgement.
He has never read me anything by Hesse.
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I missed out on Heinlein in high school for much the same reason. I just didn’t grok SIASL (see what i did there?) and didn’t pick up another Heinlein book until my mother gave me Starship Troopers the night before i left for basic training.
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Stranger is one Heinlein that I have no desire to reread.
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I read it once. I disliked it greatly, on multiple levels. I read it again. It didn’t get any better.
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I only read it the one time. Any science fiction recommended by a librarian, as it was, is probably not worth reading. No matter who it is by. Same goes with any critically acclaimed science fiction.
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Huh. I had the opposite experience. As a kid, our librarian kept recommending the H. Beam Piper Fuzzy books and I kept putting off reading them. Basically for a variant of that reason: any sci-fi recommended by an adult couldn’t possibly be any good.
Then I got bored at one point and picked up Little Fuzzy, read it at a single sitting, loved it, and grabbed the sequel and every other HBP that our local branch had.
I’ve had a bit of a soft spot for anything recced by a librarian ever since.
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Regarding Little Fuzzy, do NOT be tempted by the Scalzi remake. It is -remarkably- annoying. It will make you angry.
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Scalzi has earned my dislike for lots of reasons, but that pile of garbage is high on my list of reasons. :mad:
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Small-town librarian in the 50’s was the one who turned me on to SF (I think in retrospect, she’d acquired some of the big Galaxy Omnibus (?) and wasn’t getting the circulation she expected, assumed SF is for kids. But we never talked about that, just a “you might be interested in this.”)
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“Regarding Little Fuzzy, do NOT be tempted by the Scalzi remake. It is -remarkably- annoying. It will make you angry.”
Read it. Gritted my teeth. Snarled a few well chosen and pithy obscenities under my breath. It would have gotten the hit-the-opposite-wall at high velocity treatment, but it was a library checkout.
Fortunate: the library factor kept me from considering how to best apply it as a suppository to Scalzi.
I returned it with a post it note on the inside cover saying, “Warning: if you actually liked the H. Beam Piper Fuzzy novels, don’t bother with this one.”
That was the first, last, and only Scalzi novel I’ve ever read, and the only one I’m ever going to bother reading.
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It took me multiple tries to get through it, and the only reason I gave it those multiple tries is because it is referenced so often by other science fiction authors I like, in their books. It didn’t improve with any of the tries, I still look at that book and think, “teh stupid, it burns.”
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That’s actually one I have reread several times over the years. Including the “unexpurgated” version at least twice. (BTW, it may be familiarity bias, but I think the editing he had to do improved the final product.)
When I think of why that is – I believe it actually helped to inoculate me against several of the pandemic mental diseases.
The Fosterites (the radical “evangelical” church)? Um, that didn’t turn me against “Conservative Christians” – it made me aware of the “I am among the Saved, and can do no wrong; you are not, and the same thing is absolutely wrong for YOU to do.” mindset. (Think of the Puppy Kickers – or SJWs in general – or the racialists – as the Fosterites.)
Another thing – yes, we CAN have a perfect Libertarian society. Just as soon as all of the pesky humans put in a great deal of work to stop being pesky humans. Nothing else will manage that (and make your own assessment of just how likely that is to happen).
Now, true, there’s only one character that I would like to emulate from the book; that is Jubal Harshaw. Sigh – that is a vain dream, however. I’m afraid the spouse won’t let me have hot and cold running secretaries…
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Am I the only one was driven crazy by the reversal of Mike’s first and middle names between the unabridged and abridged versions?
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Doing our best but doing it quietly because a howling mob could ruin us. We’d be doing the right thing but doing it from the back of the car. And I think there’s more than a few of us like that.
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“It’s always the quiet ones.”
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We’re always plotting something. I should write it down, eventually.
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Damn it, Sarah, sometimes it’s like you have a secret portal into my mind.
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Yes, I can look myself in the mirror. Happy hour starts at 5:30. I begin to look better at 6:00.
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The “blinking in the sunshine” image brought this to mind, which I read yesterday: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/us/politics/obama-donald-trump-economy-indiana.html
Oh, the ingratitude of the unwashed masses! Obama’s clique and hangers-on really do not understand that the little people who make their very lives possible do not see them as Lords and Saviours, very possibly never have …
Since I happen to know some people in that region of the country, I’ll just put myself out there and say that those “little people” know well that any downturn in the greater economy will result in another round of misery for them – being that the largest industry there is a luxury item, recreational vehicles, and hence highly seasonal and variable. So they are always waiting for the next federal F-up shoe to drop, to beat them down once again …. They don’t want to be politicians or go to Washington. They just want to be left alone to have families and work and faith and home. So, yeah, it takes a lot to get them riled up politically ….
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Was that link to The New York Times or The Onion? I have a hard time telling them apart anymore :)
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Y’know, I wouldn’t have minded that article nearly as much if it weren’t for the fact that it was patently obvious that the reporter thought Obama was responsible for everything going well.
It definitely had nothing to do with Mitch Daniels or Mike Pence…
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If it was Obama, why isn’t the whole country doing amazingly well? But it seems some places are doing better than other. Place like Texas… hrmm.
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Just look at the troll that crawled in the past week or so.
He honestly cannot grok that we don’t hold him up as an authority on everything, because he is an educated, professional man of the Left.
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Precisely this.
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Troll? I don’t recall one. Yay! That must mean that my self-training in ignoring the inconsequential and ridiculous is finally paying off.
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I think birthday girl used the correct word – ‘ingratitude’.
We have moved from (1) we disagree, but let me try to convince you to
(2) I’m right, you’re wrong to (3) I’m right, you’re evil, and your failure to recognize my intellectual and moral authority proves it. The last part – the unwillingness to bow to the soi disant Homo Superior is what they find most galling. After all, telling someone that their journalism or Grievance Studies degree is merely low-quality toilet paper has got to sting.
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Yes.
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Decades ago the Federal government passed a luxury tax, arguing that people wealthy enough to be buying luxuries could afford to pay the extra taxes. Even wealthy people have to pay attention to their bottom line. So a local company that employed a sizable number of skilled crafts people at very good wages building rather nice customized pleasure boats went out of business.
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At least three up here. And the boat-building economy never came back once they dropped it. It was cheaper to buy yachts overseas.
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I had several acquaintances out there that were involved in customizing corporate GulfStreams. Tricky and exacting work from top to bottom, considering the engineering and the FAA regulations.
Last I heard from any of them, they had mostly moved out of state, finding other jobs when that business collapsed in the US. Much lower-paying jobs.
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Erm. “Here,” not “there.”
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Boeing has a place, in San Antonio, IIRC, where they prep certain airliners to be big business jets. (The Boeing Business Jet unit. And yes, that includes Saudi 747’s with gold toilets etc.)
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A more accurate name would be “the have a life majority.”
There was a gathering/demonstration in St. Paul (MN capitol) in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s with a smaller-government, lower-taxes, don’t-bug-use attitude of some sort. The politicians seemed puzzled, “We never see you folks, but you’re here now?” (Saturday session…) And got the reply, “Well, see, WE have JOBS we take seriously.” At times, I suspect the politicians took that to mean that jobs were a problem… people having them, that is.
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Jobs mean you might be independent enough not to kowtow for goodies. That’s a problem, if you are a certain type of politician.
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Lack of job means time to weave rope. That solves that particular type of politician.
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Point. Or loop, in this case.
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Which is why all of the local government “hearings” all seem to be scheduled for 3 PM on Wednesdays.
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or in the case of this state, 3 pm wednesday in Sacramento, six hours away. “No one came in to the public meeting” is a common claim by the state govt
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Pretty universal problem, and complaint. To be fair, on the rare occasion meetings are scheduled for evenings, attendance isn’t usually a lot higher – think it has to do with the meeting discipline demonstrated: only slightly more open to outside opinion being interjected than if they said “1st order of business: resolved to accept all the agreements made privately about the agenda items before us, yea or nay? Ayes have it, meeting is hereby adjourned.”
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Absolutely, Sarah. I speak out because I saw what was happening with this country and I do not want a miserable life for my children.
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Looking in the mirror . . . Yes, I can. Not as much as I’d like, because of job, but there’s digging under and building under. As someone said up-thread, “It’s always the quiet ones . . .”
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And that’s totally acceptable. I got to the point I realized I wasn’t, so…
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Are you a little dusty up in the Panhandle this morning? I read you guys are getting a big dust storm today…
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There was one overnight when the wind shifted, apparently, but it was just cool when I got up at 0545. That makes two I’ve missed out on this week. (Yes, you can tell I’m just crushed, crushed I say, for not having to endure another afternoon of flying dirt and gravel this week.)
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Yes, most are silently getting on with their lives, and buying guns and ammo. And knives! Kniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiives, big, long, SHARP POINTY knives; ooooooohhhhhhhh, yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
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“A Girl Needs a Knife”, lyrics by Neil Gaiman (IIRC). Unfortunately more on the killer than the cheerful usefulness scale.
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[Faith] “Hey. A girl likes a sharp knife. Got a problem with that?” [/Faith]
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Ah yes, the paper-cut shudders variety of knives. The ones you pull out to cut a piece of string, and the SJW at the next wicket falls over in a dead faint.
I look for them. You can usually spot the end poking out, and the little clip on the outside of the pocket. Extra points for the glass breaker option on the butt.
I take them as a sign that while many are silent, not all are -oblivious-. There’s a difference between silent because watching and silent because clueless.
Although, the clueless do appear to be legion. It’s an ongoing issue for me, I get ranting about it and I can’t shut up.
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One of the fun things about playing in the SCA – somebody needs to cut something, asks “has anybody got a knife?”, and you see nearly everyone in earshot move a hand toward their belt to offer their … err, “costume accessory”. Some places, they have to be peace-tied, but not usually at campgrounds.
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In one fantasy story, a guy was talking about needing a knife and another guy (who the first guy didn’t know was there) threw a knife which stuck into a log near the first guy’s hand.
A fight nearly happened but the second guy explained that his teacher was always tossing knifes around when somebody asked for one. :wink:
Note, I don’t remember author or title but it was one of these “people from our world are brought to another world to fight an evil”.
Each of them were rescued at the point of death and brought to this world.
Each were put into the hands of special teachers to train them.
Oh, each of them also had to fight (during their quest) an intense fear relating to how they almost died.
Oh, one of the female characters became a wolf-shifter who’s teachers were a wolf-pack.
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Crap! I read that novel! Wow – hadn’t thought of that in freaking years.
One of the kids went to a family of stone workers with stone powers, and he became the strong man of the group, IIRC. And they were all brought in so they’d get special abilities, being from another world, and then could infiltrate some bad guy’s Keep and take down the Big Bad that no one from this world could go up against…
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That’s the one. [Grin]
Oh, the best part to me was when the wizard was to send them home, everybody in the group basically said “But we’re home now”. [Grin]
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*shakes head* Man. Small literary world, huh?
You’re one of the only other people I’ve encountered that’s even heard of that novel.
Wish I could recall the title.
And, yup: ending was the best. The “we’re all ready home!” was a kicker.
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I remember it.
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How come we all remember the plot, but not one of us can name the title or author, WHY??
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Apparently, that was an eminently forgettable author and title, is all I can come up with.
I even tried doing a search off of the basic plot, and while I got hits, none of them looked like the novel Paul and I were discussing.
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Same reason I can recognize a cousin I only saw twice, who is older than I am, from his baby photo– and I can tell you a dozen different stories, but heaven help me if I can tell you ONE of his names, or the names of any of his immediate family, or even which great-aunt he belongs to!
Stories make a web. Names– for authors or books– are rocks. I can drape a whole huge pile of netting over my arm, but I can only carry so many rocks without something to hold them in.
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Until quite recently, the law in my area allowed me to carry as many concealed firearms as I could stagger around with, but carrying a blade of 2.5″ or longer was a felony. So I got out of the habit of carrying a knife.
Arkansas then dumped all of its knife laws; I can now carry anything from a claith mhor to a Klingon bat’leth, perfectly legal.
A few weeks ago I was at a friend’s house, and he was trying to get through the blister pack containing a new network card. It had proven impervious to various implements on his desk, so he asked if I had a knife.
“No, but I could shoot it for you.”
He said, “That’s no help, I can do that for myself.”
Sometimes I think I live in a world where Reality is unevenly distributed…
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Huh. No one really paid that much attention to that law when I lived up in the Ozarks, including the local deputies. Everyone carried a Buck folder or similar that I lived around in Eureka Springs.
Similarly in Texas when I was growing up: technically, it was illegal to carry a fixed blade in a belt sheath, but I carried an Old Timer or a Randall of one type or another all through my childhood and pre teens, and no one blinked. Not even the local neighborhood cops.
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In AZ I used to carry a fixed blade knife in case both guns jammed. Now I live in Canada, all I get to carry is a pen, a phone and a winning smile. Canada sucks. ~:(
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I loved living under Alaska’s knife laws. Other than the silliness of switchblades and gravity knives being illegal, all pocketknives were explicitly legal, and all other bladed instruments were totally legal – until you used them to commit a crime. As long as you had no intent of committing a crime, it was completely legal for you to wander all over town with anything from a serious fishing knife or machete to a rapier, or anything inbetween.
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“decreeing that your grade be by vote of the class”
When I was in college, I dropped a class one semester for just this reason. It was a required Speech class, and the first day the Prof. announced that the grades on our speeches were going to comprise a vast majority of our grade for the class, and that all the grading of those speeches would be done by our fellow students and averaged.
I looked around at all the fresh-out-of-high school faces of my fellow students (I had done 6 years in the Marines), and was pretty sure I had no chance of getting more than an “average” grade, that is IF I even passed.
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Back in the second and third grade in the People’s Republic of California, we got grouped into nice little communist cells of five, assigned work as a group, and got group grades.
It was supposed to teach some commie work-together stuff. What I learned was that if one person was willing to work, the others wouldn’t see any point in wasting their own time at it.
In the Real World(tm), that served me well when I had the misfortune to work for various employers who bought into the “team” management style.
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One of the college classes I TA’d for sort-of combined those two ideas. It based most of the grade on a group project–but your grade on the group project was in large part based on the opinions of the other members of the group and whether or not they thought you had done your fair share of the work.
Strangely enough, combining the two bad ideas resulted in something that kind of worked…
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College engineering lab classes were like that – not enough equipment for everyone to work independently, not enough hands-on experience for some group members to contribute much, plus there would be a few who would rather “dry-lab” it at home than actually learn anything from working on a bench. So I usually did more than half the work to ensure it got done and I had actual experimental results to report. Worked ok unless the incompetents insisted on wasting scarce lab time…
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This was pretty much the seventies in school for me.
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To me musketeers. To me of the king!
Just finished rereading Sword And Blood!
Just as good as I remember! Sarah, please get the next book written/published. :grin: :grin: :grin: :grin:
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As soon as I send these to Baen and that HONESTLY AND FOR REAL THIS TIME, if I don’t manage some disaster (and you know how good I am at those) should be Monday at the latest.
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Jinx!
(I’m about to do the proofs of “Renaissance.”)
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Let’s see what the next disaster shall be…
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put that doll down. And the pin. YES, you Mr.
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Well it can’t be me. I have the lighter
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Yay! I read Sword and Blood last night, and am so worried about the damsel left in distress.
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am a bit worried about the distressing … damsel?… too.
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I’m not worried, much, about the damsel.
I’m more worried about what the ex-wife is up to. (Not my ex-wife, the one in the story). :wink:
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It did feature a distressing damsel, a distressing damsel, and a damsel in a destroyed dress. :)
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Shazaam! very much looking forward to the next one. (Thanks also for the short story.)
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Okay, key question: how prevalent is the sexual content in Sword And Blood? I read the short story First Blood and absolutely loved it. Then I read the first chapter of S&B, and found the nudity/sexuality a little outside my comfort zone. I didn’t think it gratuitous – it made sense in context – I just want to know if it’s a significant factor in the rest of the book before I decide to pick it up.
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It’s limited to two major scenes (after what you read) but IMO isn’t too bad.
The first one is similar to what you read but the second one is less graphic.
Oh, in the second scene, the POV character is willing to make love. Note, that scene is rightly called making love. [Smile]
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I didn’t count that one, because it’s not explicit… eh.
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True, it’s not explicit but it is obvious about what they’re doing. :wink:
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I’m fine with obvious, it’s descriptions that I’d rather do without.
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Only one chapter with some vaguely uncomfortable stuff, then. And it’s necessary. Though it might be the first supernatural battle won through onanism…
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There is one more chapter in which sex is a factor. It’s important for the “idea of what you’re dealing with.”
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There are so many things that are important for one reason or other (and no, I’m not talking about the deeds of today’s famous celebrity or ANYTHING on Twitter), that it’s sometimes hard to determine what is most important.
Getting involved in the political process and trying to smack down every bit of tomfoolery when it proliferates like weeds or insects, and my voice is drowned out by the chattering fools who own the microphones, does not seem to be the best use of my limited time and energy. Hence, I mostly keep silent. But I’m working the problem, in my own way.
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c4c
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c4c
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Please vote:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/133017-what-work-about-a-parallel-or-alternate-universe-should-we-read-for-may
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One concept we keep coming across is that of a “silent majority.” It is a concept easily ridiculed, because if they are the majority, why are they silent?
…
A more accurate name would be “the have a life majority.”
Or maybe the “you can’t hear them” majority?
Partly because of the whole “have a life” thing, partly because you ignore it when they do say it, at best….
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It’s a matter of hearing who they want to hear..
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=beans+in+my+ears+song&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001
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“I can sleep at night,”
(Glances around.)
Or, during the day, for that matter.
Not pointing fingers, just saying.
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Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but it seems the me the quiet, law abiding, under the radar types also tend to have the largest firearms collections and often the most and deepest mil experience. You want a real quiet type, talk to any real ex-SF person*.
This is why I am optimistic that various clever plans by those who want to be our betters have not a darn chance in heck of working – they assume a concentration of power and competence that is just not really where they think it is.
(in this context that’s Special Forces, not SciFi
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Silent Majority is the real life equivalent of Usenet Nod Syndrome.
Typically when reading Usenet, readers would read a post, and if they agreed with it and had nothing more to say, they’d nod to themselves and hit N for the next post.
But if they encountered something they disagreed with strongly enough, then it was R for reply and the Flamethrowers would come out.
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You might get flamed on Usenet… but “social media” tends to turn into a feelgood echo chamber. Note few such forums has a “dislike” button…
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What I want is a “I like you personally but your ideas are full of shit” button. Sadly, none have been forthcoming.
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I have an Iron Finger of Deletion that I use occasionally, when twerps come to my place.
It’s funny, in an Internet filled with pervs and freaks, they hardly ever bother me.
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This is the problem with most opt-outable surveys – mostly those with strong feelings bother to participate, and most of those strong feelings will be negative.
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I guess a big part of the reason I “came out” was because I could see from Sarah, Larry, etc. that you could speak out and fight back and still have a career in the field. Its impossible to overstate just how inspiring this blog has been over the past few years.
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Good heavens? Really? I must remember that when it feels like a slog.
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Yup. It’s been a . . . well, can’t say *good* influence, since I’ve become a very baaaad man since posting here, but it’s been an influence.
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Ah. Like the vagueness of “quality” and “atititude”, you didn’t check what *kind* of influence Sarah was providing…
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Wow – talk about a lack of reading for comprehension, if you even bothered to read Toni’s essay
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Uh — what? Reading whose essay? The post wasn’t about an essay?
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Umm… Has the banhammer been lowered? I think all of hy’s posts have been deleted.
Not that object, particularly, but I was working up a mouth-frothing response to his post referencing Toni, and if there’s no point, I might as well calm down.
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yes, Hy has been banned, though I didn’t delete the posts.
I decided he was Clamps brother with more meds. No point wasting time on him.
SO that’s what you meant by essay. I was puzzled.
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Yeah, he was talking about an essay where Toni pledged support to a “:right wing cabal” (IIRC his wording correctly – not going hunting through my deleted emails for his post).
Odd that his posts have vanished, then, since you didn’t do it.
WordPress stupidity, perhaps. Meh, not gonna care. His amusement factor was used up days ago.
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He can’t read! Seriously. She did no such thing.
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Expressing contrary opinions is one thing, making stuff up to attack us is something else.
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And that’s all he was doing.
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Oddly, WP seems to be sending him to my email subscription without him showing up on the web.
Egads, is he dumb! I’m starting to agree – clamps with better meds.
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Same here. That is, seeing new posts of his.
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Likewise. It’s enough to make me wonder if he knows he’s been banned?
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If he does, and he continued to use an email response to avoid the ban, then that’s illegal in numerous states and countries (as evidence of criminal harassment) and is against most EULAs I can recall.
Not one of the things I keep track of, since I’m not inclined to troll.
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Yeah, apparently other people too. I don’t do email. How annoying. And yep, he is.
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c4c
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