Month: October 2016

‘As you lie there,’ said O’Brien, ‘you have often wondered you have even asked me — why the Ministry of Love should expend so much time and trouble on you. And when you were free you were puzzled by what was essentially the same question. You could grasp the mechanics of the Society you lived in, but not its underlying motives. Do you remember writing in your diary, “I understand how: I do not understand why“? It was when you thought about “why” that you doubted your own sanity. You have read the book, Hayek’s book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell you anything that you did not know already?’

‘You have read it?’ said Winston.

‘I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book is produced individually, as you know.’

‘Is it true, what it says?’ Something about the idea that O’Brien had written it did not ring true, but Winston had no proof it had existed before the Utopia.

‘It was thought to be true once, yes. The programme it sets forth is nonsense. The individual by himself, no compensation to historically oppressed groups, no debasing of privilege.  Everyone knows the only way to run a society is to keep the forces of oppression and compensation in balance, to right historical wrongs.  The way to sanity is to always be aware of your evil thoughts, your tendency to abuse your privilege.  And everyone has privilege, except the priests of balancing, the enlightened, those who know how to keep society running.

The peons can’t be trusted with such delicate balancing of forces.  Left to themselves,s the lumpen proletariat will embrace greed and money making and the society created will be unequal, and wrong, and chaotic.  Like Somalia.”

“What’s Somalia?” Winston asked.  And for a moment he saw a shadow of confusion cross O’Brien’s eyes.  “It’s not important.  That’s how to answer the idea of individual freedom.  It’s like Somalia.  And Somalia is not Utopia. Utopia is perfect and it’s forever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.’

The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm had come back into O’Brien’s face. He knew in advance what O’Brien would say. That the enlightened ones did not seek power for their own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. That the enlightened ones was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that when O’Brien said this he would believe it.

You could see it in his face. O’Brien knew everything. A thousand times better than Winston he knew what the world was really like, in what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the enlightened ones kept them there. He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference: all was justified by the ultimate purpose. What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

‘You are ruling over us for our own good,’ he said feebly. ‘You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore –‘

He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his body. O’Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.

‘That was stupid, Winston, stupid!’ he said. ‘You should know better than to say a thing like that.’

He pulled the lever back and continued:

‘Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. Only the enlightened ones can punish humanity as it deserves to be punished.  Humanity is a cancer upon the Earth, the only species capable of rendering others extinct, the only species that will destroy the planet left to its own devices.

But killing everyone would be wrong, because then someone might get the idea they could kill us and we don’t want to die.  And the instinct to reproduce is so strong, that merely outlawing reproduction wouldn’t work.

Setting a barrier between men and women? Convincing women men are the oppressors?  Convincing women that they are simultaneously fragile and powerful, till they’re crazy?  That works.  Convincing people heterosexuality is somehow abnormal, and sex is just for play, and then ultimately that all sex everywhere is about power and wrong?  That works.  The birthrate is falling, Winston, and soon we will have w orld without people.”  Winston stopped, a mad gleam in his eyes.  “A world without people.”

For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully.

‘But how can you control all humans?’ he burst out. ‘Don’t you think here and there, a new colony will start and the species will grow anew.”

O’Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. ‘Oh, yes,” he said.  “Humans are like cockroaches.  But if we get in their minds and make them believe us, then we have them. You can make them believe anything. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not make you believe. Invisibility, levitation — anything. That despite biological, obvious differences, and other differences in musculature, in brain formation, despite hormones and how they shape everything about a human before he’s even born, we can make humans believe there are no differences between the sexes.  And alternately we can make them believe all males are natural oppressors and must be punished simply for existing, and all women, no matter how powerful or rich are natural victims and must be appeased.  We can make them believe there are no differences, and at the same time that there are six genders, or ten, or twelve, or a hundred, all of them natural from birth.’

“But that’s mad,” Winston shouted.  “Utterly mad.  You can’t make anyone deny the truth of their own eyes, forever.”

He knew the lever would be pulled.

****

“How many genders does humanity have, Winston?”

“Two!”

The lever was pulled.

“How many?”

“Four.”

The lever was pulled.

“How many?”

“A hundred”

The lever was pulled.

“How many?”

“As many as the enlightened say.”

“That is right, Winston, you are almost well.  And what is PIV.”
“Violation.  Always violation.”

“Can’t a woman consent to sex with a man?”

“There is no true consent, since even in Utopia cis het males are programmed to institute patriarchy.  You must always be vigilant against your own thoughts and your own unconscious privilege, even if you can’t be fully aware of it.  All penetration is violation.  A baby is an invader in a woman’s body.  Utopia is forever and only the enlightened can tell us when we’re wrong. Because the individual is not able to balance the forces of retribution and oppression and greed by himself, or not even within himself. Society is always imbalanced, and there will be oppression till all of humanity is gone, so the enlightened ones must teach us and correct us until that time.”

*********

Winston gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken zeem to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the androgynous, unreadable face. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of zees nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. Zee had won the victory over Zeeself. Zee loved Big Gender Indeterminate Sibling.

A Tsunami Of Bath Sets – A Blast from the past from December 2011

*As I was re-reading this, it occurred to me that the “tsunami of bath salts” effect is also why ALL command and control economy doesn’t work in the end.  If you can’t give good gifts to your friends, how can you determine what strangers will need much less want?*

I swear this is about publishing, so bear with me.

A quick post, as I slept very badly (for reasons having nothing to do with anything emotional.  Just one of those nights.)

I hate having people give me gifts.  I’ve mentioned this before, right?  Oh, not everyone.  There are exceptions.  My husband, for instance, is one of those supernaturally good gift-givers.  His gifts to me have ranged from a little glass owl to two pounds of cold cuts, and in each case they were exactly what I wanted.

On the other hand, the man has an ace in the hole – he can always give me a red rose and I melt.  So… hard to go wrong.

There have been other superb gifts throughout my life, but most gifts fall in the category of the ones this guy blames on (and might be) Aspergers.  Even when people know me – I think – relatively well, I find myself looking at something that , at best, I wouldn’t have looked at twice in the store, and feeling like I failed a test.  Why feeling like I failed a test?  Because… what did I do or say to give them the impression that I…  Etc.  When people don’t know me it can be worse.

I’ve found, for instance, that people latch onto something about me – not just in gift giving – and they seem to think that’s all of me.  Like, conferences STILL put me (sometimes exclusively) on the “Shakespeare panels” or create them just for me, because they think it will please me.  Do I like Shakespeare?  Sure.  It was one of my favorite things in college.  To be honest, though, partly it was to escape reading the more modern stuff.  Also, the study of his biography is fascinating.  But I also enjoyed Jane Austen, I love Dumas and I did my master thesis on Flannery O’Connor.  None of which, btw, compares to my obsessions with Heinlein, Simak, Pratchett, or even Rex Stout, Christie or Ellis Peters (And we won’t mention the Lord Meren series which I wish the author would self-publish and finish.)  So, you know, it’s not like Shakespeare is the all consuming light of my days.  And as for my trilogy on Shakespeare, well, it was in another publishing “country” and besides the series is dead.  I might go back to it, but it’s about as relevant to my work life as Dumas and arguably less so than Heinlein.

So, you see why I have issues with receiving gifts?  Not that I’m any better at giving them.  Gifts I give fall into three categories: the gifts I KNOW the person needs.  This is usually only my closest friends and relatives.  Like, say, I know one of the kids needs new slippers.  Then there’s the gifts I think people will like.  Again, I’m only good at these if I know you REALLY well.  Like, we’ve been friends for years with someone and know that this particular sparkly or that particular statuette is just right, or perhaps JUST ties in with something they’re writing.  Or I know the type of chocolate they love.  That sort of thing.  Of course, it also helps if the person has a prominent hobby-interest that consumes their free time.  Like knitting, or cooking or something.  A lot of people do, but writers and my family tend to be more eclectic.  After that there are “broad category gifts.”  These work best for kids.  If you buy a set of blocks, chances are a two year old will find a way to play with them.  But after adolescence it becomes iffy.

I’ve never fallen into the “give someone something you want.”  Well, not since I was ten and gave my brother the complete book of dinosaurs because that’s what I wanted.  (He’s ten years older and was in college, in engineering.)

I’ve always assumed these gift dysfunctions, both giving and receiving, were peculiar to me, however, studies show that in fact, about 80% of gifts people receive fall into that “OMG, what am I going to do with this?” category.  I think this is why there’s this rise of near-generic gift sets: bath sets with nice-smelling soap and cute towels.  Or coffee sets, with mugs and a couple of generic-brews and biscoitti.  That sort of thing.  (And I shudder to think how many times the non-food ones [one hopes] change hands before finding someone who really, really wanted them.)

Which brings us to the publishing industry.  I TOLD you we’d get there.

I will grant you that I’m not the best informed on the history of the business workings of our field.  However, from reading biographies about the pulp days, it seems to me there were various niches.  People who liked a certain kind of horror tended to read the output of a certain publisher, say.  Same for sf and f.  The closest we have to that is Analog, which could be called “science fiction for geeks.”  (Guilty as charged.)  And Baen which could be called “We’re okay with character, we like science/history accurate, but no plot no sale.”  And that’s fine, too.

But both Baen and Analog have had fairly clear personal directions and hand-offs, while the rest of the field has been a fest of mergers, short-lived under editors (short lived in position, mind, not saying anything about lifespan) and such.

And the selections of the other editorial houses has been much like the result of getting gifts from strangers.  I mean, most publishers these days have under-readers who are (beyond overworked and stressed) not of the field.  They might have edited romance last week, they’re editing sf/f today. Most of them have never been to a con.  They don’t know us.  And then, it’s not just editors.  In the major conglomerates these days, you can’t buy a book without “buy in” from the sales persons.  And then after that, the sales people/distributors decide what they’ll push.  To the extent that bookstores still get any say, they decide what to unpack or not.  And most of the time, these people are not of us.

This seems particularly important for sf/f, but mind you, mystery readers have their quirks too.  Romance is more of a broad church and might be easier to serve, or at least it has well known niches, which is kind of like a giftee having a hobby.

So, the kind of books that keep getting “push” and which used to be hits just by virtue of distribution – since both publishing and bookstores became conglomerates – were:

1 – the generic – i.e.  “Spaceships/dragons, decent grammar.  Those sf geeks will love it.”

2 – the repetitive – i.e. “It’s just like that Rowling chick we published last year and they loved that.”

3- catering to hobbies – i.e. “Well, I know tons of people like knitting.  Let’s do knitting mysteries.”

4 – catering to fads – “there’s that series on TV about chicks, sex and shoes, let’s do all our mysteries about chicks, sex and shoes.”

5 – catering to general categories “this book will appeal to all the sexually frustrated middle aged housewives.”

6 – and finally “what I would like to read” – which works great, if you are a graduate from an Ivy League school about twenty five years old and interested in impressing people with how high brow you are.  For the rest of us?  Not so much.

And this is my answer to the “tsunami of crap” – crap by whose definition?  Why do you think what’s crap to you is crap to other people?  I tell you kids, reading romance has been an education and no, I’m not being snarky.  More romance is competently written than sf or mystery, I hate to tell you.  But because I’m a stranger to the field, I’ll pick a lot by the stuff that says on the covers.  Like “Bestselling author.”  And, OMG.  Some of those books don’t rise to the level of “crap” to me, just on the historical errors.  (Yes, I have a very specialized form of insanity.  Why do you ask?)  BUT they’re mega bestsellers, whose numbers would make an sf/f writer faint.

So… qui flusheth the crap?  Who decides?  WHY would you want someone to decide for you?  Look, given my obsession with dinosaurs, give me a book on sentient dinosaurs, and I’ll forgive a multitude of sins.  Are there enough of me for someone to make a living off it?  Probably.  Enough for a major house to make a profit when they have to print, distribute the book and MORE IMPORTANTLY convince the bookstores to carry the books?  Probably not.

It might interest you to know that the same study on how inefficient people buying gifts for others were, also discovered that people buying for themselves were nearly 100% efficient.  So, now that technology allows us to buy for ourselves, why shouldn’t we?  And why shouldn’t we write/publish what we want to?  Yeah, okay, that falls under giving people the gift you want.  But look, you’re not that unique and you’re facing a VERY LARGE potential pool of book readers.  (If I had a thousand brothers, say, and I gave each one the book on Dinos, it’s guaranteed that a few – maybe even a hundred – would have loved it.)  You’re NOT that unique.  So write for the people you know best – those a lot like yourself.  And chances are you’ll be rewarded.  Doubly, because you’ll be writing for enough people to make you rich, and because you’ll write what you want to.

And please don’t come back and say “but what about the books written in crayon and drool?”  What, you think that doesn’t get published now?  I remember a bestseller in the eighties that was bought even though it came to the publisher written in crayon on wrapping paper, and yes, I read it, there must have been drool on the edges, and probably obscene drawings.  Publisher thought it was “refreshing.”

There is no OBJECTIVE standard for what’s crap in literature.  If you think there is, you bought what they sold you in lit classes.  And it wasn’t worth what you paid for it.

The standard for good is “what sells” in ANY form of entertainment.  Might not be to your taste, but clearly it entertains other people.  So, what business is it of yours.

And as for the famed tsunami, having experienced “Mega bookstore and not a book to buy” many, many times, I tell you “I’ve seen the tsunami, and it’s traditionally published.”  Doubtless it will be indie published, too, as far as I’m concerned.  But I’ll just hie my way among it, picking up from the muck those things that are diamonds to me.  Now, you shut up and do likewise.

I am not pagan, though I have friends that are, and though there was a strain of belief in the village which, without having anything even vaguely to do with American/New Age/Paganism, was not… precisely Christian. Or anything much else.  Call it “using natural forces that science hasn’t yet identified” and be done with it.  It exists in every rural community.  Communities close to the land that have no room for frills spend an unusual amount of time on manipulating these “forces.”  Perhaps they are forces of the collective subconscious as things like “the Secret” claim.

At any rate, this is not to talk of religion, even unusual ones.

It is to talk of raising the power.  Raising the power (Yes, I’ve watched pagan ceremonies.  I watch a lot of things) is a fascinating concept, and it’s probably all headology, but one does feel something while watching it.

Again, I’m not pagan.  I don’t propose to raise the power from the four corners of the world, or whatever.  I also sometimes drive my pagan friends nuts by pointing out historical truths about some of the names they invoke (or heaven help us, call their children) and say “not near me.  It might be all superstition and imagination, but history has a power, and not near me.”  Having to explain to a friend that sacrifices to Tanit were NOT a Roman invention was kind of interesting.  Everywhere the Carthaginians went there’s Topeths.  And hundreds of little skeletons in clay jars.  If those were only burials of malformed/premature children, the Carthaginians must have had a hell of a child mortality rate, unheard of in the rest of the world.  And I am not a very good person (or at least very nice.  I DO try to be good.  With mixed success) but one thing I know and that’s that dead babies are an evil thing.  Sort of the touchstone of my morality, such as it is, is that “You shall not hurt the helpless, the trusting, or those who have reason to expect good from you.”

Anyway, I don’t play with things I don’t fully understand, which is the same principle that leads my poor husband to be responsible for electrical and plumbing.  I’ll do painting and carpentry because I GET those, but not electricity or plumbing.

But again, I like the concept of “Raising the power.”

So many of you, not just here, come and say something like “I’m trying to fight, I am, but I’m so tired.  I’m just so tired.”  And I get you, because I’m so tired too.  Tired of politics, tired of the career that often seems like running on ice, tired of a million daily contretemps and problems.

To continue focusing on the difficulties, the problems, the areas that don’t make you happy, doesn’t help.  It just drains you more, till you become angry and bitter.  Trust me, I know.

Twenty years ago I was dying in a hospital bed.  No, it wasn’t some woo woo stuff.  It was pneumonia, but being intracellular pneumonia it took a while to diagnose and if my blood ox hadn’t been too low to read the hospital would have told me it was all in my head and sent me home.

However, everyone who was anyone told me I was going to die.  (Except my husband who said “the hell you are.”  And that’s why I’m here, because he wouldn’t give up, even when I had.)

At that moment, clearly, I found what my “center of power” was.

I was back then still unpublished.  We had a house I was trying to fix/improve (as, when aren’t I?) and the boys were toddlers, and I had no help, let alone being eaten alive by stuff like clothes and shoes.  Life was a continuous round of work, interrupted by the occasional rejection.

But in that hospital bed, I realized what I really missed.  I missed going out garage-saling and thriftshopping with the three guys (my husband and sons.)  I missed the cats.  And I felt guilt and terrified that all my worlds I’d never written or never written well enough to be accepted were going to die with me.  (My very first world still waits writing.  I now know how to do it, but I need to clear the decks a little, first.  It would be amusing if that is the one that hits, particularly since it’s weirder than any world has a right to be. And definitely ah– Post binary.  Suffice to say it was my answer to The Left Hand of Darkness.  Then it went crazier.)

And in that moment I found my power.  I was going to live so there would be more of those moments with the guys.  I was going to live so I could write, and write well enough to be published.  (I wrote Darkship Thieves four years later.  Yes, I do know when it came out.  There are other, publishable novels I wrote in between that just need my going over and editing.  Some I’d forgotten I wrote.)

My raising of power is almost always from my family — I’m soppy that way — and there are particular jewels I keep and bring out and relive fondly.  Like the labor day when #2 son was three, and we discovered Lakeside.  (For those of you not in Denver, Lakeside is a rather decrepit amusement park with an art noveau design, and a lot of outdated, still running pretty well rides.  And a wooden rollercoaster.) Since I hate heights and falling, amusement parks are a bad idea for me.  Except the door price at Lakeside is very low (I think it was free, but parking was $5) and you pay per ride.  So Dan and the kids could sample everything from the wooden rollercoaster to the bumper boats, and I could walk around reading one of the mystery books I’d bought the day before at Murder By The Book, and then take the train ride around the park at the end.  That first time there, we left the park at ten, as they were starting to turn off the lights, and went in search of a place to have dinner.  The little one fell asleep against me, his head heavy and warm, as kids’ heads are.  And we ended up finding PF Chang’s at the top of a high rise (everything else was closed) and eating there, looking at Denver lights.  We lied to Marshall, too, and told him the duck was chicken, because he only ate chicken at the time.

I can close my eyes and bring it all back.  And I feel better.  If everything crashed tomorrow, I’d have had that one perfect weekend.

There are others, usually fleeting.  My favorite is when I was very depressed and, out of nowhere, Dan said “I’m not going to work today” (we’re terrible people.  We work on weekends) and took me off to City Park at sunset.  We made three circuits of the park and harassed the ducks.  And then we went out to eat — I THINK — at Ted’s Montana Grill, which has a little fountain outside, which we watched while we ate.  (Well, Dan might have been watching the scantily clad girls walk by.  It’s all good.)

Almost as good was the time two years ago, when older son was working near-full-time and odd hours and I was trying to rebuild a house, write (which was difficult as thyroid issues only allowed me to think of three words at a time) and make some sort of life in a space cramped with boxes. I don’t remember why but we had to go to the mailbox (which we had the foresight to get in Denver even though at the time we lived in the Springs.)  Must have been a contract or check I was expecting.  So we drove to the mailbox, and since it was an hour and a half away, while we were there (after getting whatever it was) we decided to go to the zoo.  It was pouring rain, so we stopped at a walgreens and got umbrellas, and then we walked around the cold, rainy zoo, talking, having the zoo all to ourselves.  Afterwards it was too late to drive home (we’d have hit right at rush hour) so we went to Pete’s kitchen and watched the rain stipple the windows while we had coffee and (against our diet, very much, but we only do this once every few months at most) we split a baklava.

Or there’s the time when we were so broke that Dan could only afford one gift for me for Christmas, and that was a little blown-glass owl, which still sits in my office, because it reminds me of how much trouble he went through to get it (having to drive to Manitou during work hours, while working unusually long hours) and how much thought he put into it.

If we let despair and turmoil overcome us, we deny that these good moments can happen, that there is beauty and happiness in the future.

Or we can think of and meditate on our “happy places” and our “centers of power” and raise the strength to dive back into the muck.

Once more into the breach, my friends, but let us keep in mind those things that make life worth living.

It’s all very well to pledge your life, your wealth, your sacred honor, but life must be worth living to be worth sacrificing.

Remember that.  Raise the power.  And fight on.

 

In case it hasn’t been blindingly obvious — stop shouting, guys — I’ve been a little out of sorts.  Part of it is that we’re in a time of great change.  No, I don’t mean politically, but that too.

I’m finally getting my thyroid issues treated, (though I need to schedule a check-up blood test) and I have a desk treadmill, both of which by and large make me feel 20 years younger.  Unfortunately there are things making me feel twenty years older.  Such as… younger son moved out this weekend.

Now, we still have older son on the property, but he has his own area, where he can live without coming upstairs but once or twice a week.  So suddenly I find myself an empty nester.

I was never one of those mommies.  You know exactly what I mean.  When they were toddlers, and I was looking forward to their entering school (yes, yes, I should have homeschooled.  Hindsight is 20-20) I was talking to a bunch of other moms and the consensus was “oh, when they go to school you’ll miss these days.  You won’t know what to do with yourself.”

I was doubtful on the accuracy of this, and in fact it wasn’t accurate at all.  When the kids were at school I wrote.  That’s what I did.  I never had any problems figuring out “what to do with myself.”

So why does the move out, and being alone with my husband (whom I happen to like, as well as love) freak me out?  Why does it feel so weird?

I think I figured it.  It’s not even the reorientation of our priorities.  We’re still partly financially responsible for each boy and will be for two more years, and they are, of course, our priority till they’re wholly self sufficient.

No, it’s the images in the head of what each life stage should be like.  When and where I grew up, when the kids left, you were done.  You had done your job.  Retirement was around the corner, and then you slowly dwindled into irrelevance while life went on without you, with nothing more to look forward to than visits from the grandkids.

Obviously this has changed in the last fifty years.  It was always different for some people anyway.  There were always exceptional people who started their career/interest in their fifties or sixties or even, occasionally, seventies.

But when and where I grew up sixties was “old” and seventies was very old and eighties was unheard of.

My parents are in their eighties and have broken the mold to an extent.  I know what they did when the last kid (me) left the house.  They went traveling.

I don’t particularly want to go traveling and besides, I think that was part of the assumption they were old and counted for nothing.  They were going to travel before they died.  They’re still around, and dad is keeping up on his reading and walking, but I don’t think my old age will be like their old age.

Part of what is changing everything — some for the better, some not — is that the entire concept of life milestones is changing.  First is the longevity thing.  We now can live to our nineties, or can count on it, barring the obviously unforeseeable stuff (I’ve lost friends in their fifties.)  Expectation CAN extend to the nineties without straining credulity, and if you’re lucky, you can get to a hundred.  It’s not only not unheard of, older son while working at the hospital saw a lot of centenarians.

That’s an almost doubling of the “reasonable expectation” of life for people when I was a kid.  And before you say “but most of that is useless old age” … well, my dad complains (who doesn’t) and he’s not walking as fast as he was, but if I didn’t know his age I’d rate him as early seventies or, in village terms when I was little, sixties.

And yes, I too saw the article saying we can’t get past 114 because of errors in copying.  (Rolls eyes.)  This sort of assumes our gene-science never gets better.

The point I’m trying to make is that I have shoved the last kid out the door (not true, he skipped out) and I have an expectation of maybe forty years more, maybe more, because, well, look at how things changed in the last 50.

That is a lifetime.  Careers lasting 20 years are full careers. Thirty, definitely.

It’s no time to dwindle, no matter what my subconscious says.  But I have no models for what it is a time for.  And humans are social animals.  We live and die by models of what to do.

Hence I’ve been a little out of sorts.  I’m trying to get over it, honest, because I have books to write, and there is no reason to be moping around waiting for grandchildren that might or might not happen (except for the adopted ones, who live too far away.)  And certainly no one in my generation is seeing one red cent from social security, so we’ll have to work those next forty years, anyway.

But it’s all new.  There is no guiding experience of previous generations, no model for this stage of life (we’ll call it “second maturity” shall we?)

Maybe I’ll start wearing a bun and dress all in black, to assuage the instinct, while I go about finally getting my career off the ground (almost impossible with offspring in the house.)

But I — and a lot of people who find there is no “model” for their stage of life — am going to be a little out of step, a little out of sorts.  It’s almost like a second adolescence.

Bear with me.  And advantage of being older is that I do know this too shall pass.

 

I am in many ways a terrible person.  Or I am to anyone in authority over me, trying to give me a story without making it a detailed explanation.

Say I am told that books just aren’t selling because people don’t read.  I go “But I am someone who JUST reads for fun.  No games, no tv, no movies.  And most of the time I go to Barnes and Noble and can’t find anything I WANT to read.  For years all I bought there were stuff like The Times Table of History” and it wasn’t for lack of WANTING to read, it was because of not finding anything remotely readable for my tastes.  (If I want to be preached at, I go to church.)

I’m that kind of horrible person, I ask questions.

Which is why I found it somewhere near ROFL funny when that creature dropped by yesterday — you remember, the one who asked us if we were not free in some way (rolls eyes) which not only betrays a lack of understanding of what I was saying, but also a lack of understanding of the fundamentals of liberty — and I went to her blog to check out whether she was just an idiot or malicious.  (I do in general check out drop ins I’ve never seen before, if their first comment is unreservedly positive or negative. Because, see above.)

The answer would seem to be yes.  But the really funny part was the reason she was so upset at the “puppies.”  (Notice no difference between sad and rabbids) whom she represented as being “right wingers” upset at “no right wingers winning awards in science fiction.”  Hence, the “Yes” since darling idiot seemed unaware the sad puppies nominated among others an outright (and proud) socialist.  It’s always astonishing to me that people can have so little curiosity they don’t check the story.  Also among the organizers, I wouldn’t qualify myself as a right winger, not by European classifications which is what the left uses.  I mean the last time I heard the phrase “Gentlemen, your swastikas” was while watching the Producers.  I’m a Rational Anarchist, who has tried really hard to vote Libertarian and ends up voting Republican half the time, with a clothes pin on my nose, only because I have family in Venezuela and I don’t believe in socialist paradises.  I suppose darling idiot thinks everything not communist is “right winger.” Sometimes I wonder we managed to teach them to write.  Maybe she’s using text to speech software.  There’s a hope.

But the reason she was REALLY mad at us is that now Science Fiction no longer presented a “united front” towards the world.

And there I stopped, scratched my head and REALLY wondered how she managed to read and write.

Look, I know it’s customary to ask “what are they teaching the kids these days?” BUT REALLY I ask you WHAT ARE THEY TEACHING THE KIDS THESE DAYS?

Do they teach people that “uniform front” or “community of one accord” or whatever the hell they call it are normal for any group of more than three people?  And if so WHY?

Everytime I hear that anyone won by unanimous vote, even if it’s in a small organization, I know for a fact either it’s a job no one wants, or there have been shenanigans.

Humans are otherwise so constituted that there are always a few of me among them. And far worse than me.  In a run off between the Messiah and Beelzebub there would be three or four custard heads who voted for Beelzebub in the firm belief he was misunderstood or maligned.  In anything less clear cut than that you’re going to see far more dissension.

And when you’re talking about a community of creative people who can’t otherwise agree on anything, up to and including whether pants should be worn on butt or head, if you see a united front, you know there’s shenanigans.

I.e. I always marveled at all those people who said things like “there are no right wing writers, because right wingers just go along with the status quo and aren’t very creative.”

This betrayed that a) they were living circa the beginning of the 20th century when anything vaguely considered right wing was “the status quo.” b) they’d failed to notice the socialists had run away with the train around 1920 or so, and were now the status quo in every large institution and company.  c) were under the impression it took marvelous creativity to write the 14th Harry Potter knock off, which was in fact most of what was being produced at that time. d) thought it was possible for creativity to follow a rigid set of ideological beliefs.

It seems stupid but I spent a large part of the 00s arguing with people that this was blazingly, in your face dumb.

It was also gospel for all the big publishing houses.  To check if someone was a good writer, you made sure they mouthed the right beliefs.

Which explains why I went to Barnes and Noble to be disappointed.

Thank heavens for indie, people know it’s not like that.

And in the same vein thank heavens for the Puppy movements, because now people know we’re real, living, breathing people and not Marxist robots.  They might be tempted to look over a science fiction book now and then, and might even buy one and then another, and another.

Now, if only we could get the incipient little totalitarians to understand that it’s possible to have more than one opinion about things, that total unanimity is not a sign you’re right but a sign you’re afraid (or voiceless), and that dissent is not some kind of crime in other more important areas, like national politics.

Perhaps then they might be fit to live in (or even conceive of) a free society.

 

A Fall of Books – By Free Range Oyster

*And a Sunday challenge from me.  Write the first two paragraphs of a story where the main character is a beggar, the setting is modern and the problem is distraction. – SAH*
A peaceful and joyful Sunday to you all. Let’s start off the new week with a mess of books, shall we? There’s no shortage this week, and we’ve a nice mix of styles to boot. Leaves are falling (in this hemisphere) and books are blooming. As always, future promo post entries can (and should!) be sent to my email. Happy reading!

Jason Dyck, AKA The Free Range Oyster

Overstimulated, underremunerated, medium rare, and half price on Thursdays

Jason Anspach

’til Death

Rockwell Return Files Book 1

Sam Rockwell is a fledgling private investigator specializing in Returns, or, recently deceased ghosts with unfinished business. After his no-nonsense father is murdered and comes back, Sam takes the case hoping for a big break and a chance to win the heart of his Girl Friday.

Short on experience and long on the swagger of the dog-eared pulp fiction he keeps in his desk, Rockwell sets out to find his father’s killer only to find himself caught up in a deadly game of Cold War Intrigue at its most horrific as the Doomsday Clock inches closer to permanent midnight in this witty throwback to the Golden Age of Hollywood noire.

On sale for 99¢

’til Death: Second Impressions

Rockwell Return Files Book 2

Wisecracking Private Detective Sam Rockwell is running for his life, but that doesn’t keep him from taking the case of a Return who’s slipped past Heaven’s radar and overstayed his time on earth. Together with his fiancé, Amelia, Sam brawls and dances his way through San Francisco to unravel a zany mystery where nothing is what it seems at first blush.

The laughs and silver screen thrills of Jason Anspach’s signature 1950s Cold War tale of Hollywood noire are back in this madcap sequel as Sam and Amelia return once again to right wrongs, solve crimes, send the dead off to their proper eternity, and maybe, set a date for their wedding! The Maltese Falcon meets It’s a Mad Mad Mad world in this smart and witty paranormal romp.

On sale for 99¢

’til Death: The Man Who Balked

Rockwell Return Files Book 3

A pennant is on the line and a life hangs in the balance!

When local baseball player Junior Jones receives death threats over the color of his skin, the team’s wealthy owner hires Sam Rockwell to solve the case and stop a murder before it happens. Sam goes undercover as a minor league pitcher to strike out the culprit. Follow the clues along with Sam’s curmudgeonly ghost of a father Frank Rockwell, and Sam’s wife Amelia, who holds a secret that will forever change the lives of the entire Rockwell family.

It’s another laugh-filled, madcap mystery in the warm, witty 1950’s hollywood style of author Jason Anspach.

Currently available for preorder

William Lehman

Keeping The Faith

John Fisher Chronicles Book 2

It was supposed to be a simple poaching case. A “easy way to get back on the horse, after your injuries”. Oh yeah, it involves lycanthropes, but, that shouldn’t be a problem. The trouble is, NOTHING is ever simple when John Fisher, Federal Park police, and retired Navy SEAL is assigned to the case… When they found the dead Marine, that’s when things really went south. John and his partner have to solve poaching, the murder of an active duty Marine Lycanthrope, and several other crimes, but it seems the Government isn’t exactly happy to help.

C.J. Carella

Advance to Contact

Warp Marine Corps Book 3

(WARNING: Contains violence, strong language and adult content)

As war rages on across the galaxy, a diplomatic mission turns into a desperate fight for survival.

Captain Peter Fromm: Fromm and his Warp Marines face old enemies and new threats inside a colossal space habitat ruled by a mysterious alien civilization. Their lives and the fate of their country hang in the balance.

Heather McClintock: The CIA operative faces her toughest opponents yet: a race of decadent immortals with godlike powers and murderous urges. Her only weapon is an untried new technology with lethal side effects.

Major Lisbeth Zhang: The fighter pilot risks her very soul when she makes contact with entities from the depths of warp space. Her choices may lead humanity towards a golden age – or eternal damnation.

Corporal Russell Edison: Russell just wanted to travel across the galaxy, meet exotic aliens, and shoot them. These new ETs want to play with Charlie Company, and they are about to find out that Marines only play to win.

Release Sale: Advance to Contact will be on sale for $2.99 until October 18, when its price will go up to $4.99

John Van Stry

Past Tense

Days of Future Past, Part I

Paul’s been having a bad day, perhaps one of the worse days he’s ever had. And now into the middle of all this, his instructor just got drafted by some mystical goddess to help save a world.

As for Paul? Well, he’s really not supposed to be there, and if he thought he was having a bad day before all of this, it just got worse, a lot worse. He’s now on a one way trip, forced to help a man who despises him while at the mercy of the world’s biggest trickster.

J.M. Ney-Grimm

A Knot of Trolls

North-lands spellcasters who reach too boldly for power transform into trolls – grotesque villains wielding a potent magic and destined for madness.

Spanning the North-lands history, from ancient times to the pastoral present, A Knot of Trolls features seven such evildoers. Seven trolls and the ordinary youths called by chance or by destiny to take a stand.

“The Troll’s Belt” stars motherless Brys Arnsson, challenged as much by his own deceit as by his troll foe. “Crossing the Naiad” presents shepherd girl Kimmer with a dangerous tragedy from the distant past.

“Skies of Navarys” follows two friends with a vehement difference, their contested decision to decide the fate of thousands. In “Resonant Bronze” Paitra and his brother struggle to claim appropriate guilt – neither too much nor too little – and thereby defeat a troll warlord.

“Rainbow’s Lodestone” offers the spirit of the rainbow a chance to learn that the smallest places birth freedom. “Star-drake” stalks a pitiless troll-herald to defeat – or is it victory? – utterly unforeseen.

And in “Perilous Chance” young Clary needs a miracle. But her miracle – when it comes – sports razor-sharp talons, world-shaking power, and a troll-witch to guard its sleep.

Seven tales of magic balance death and destruction against destiny and hope.

Also available from these fine booksellers:

• Barnes & Noble
• iTunes
• Kobo
• Smashwords

Dwight R. Decker

Some Other Shore

From Mermaid-Land to Poughkeepsie…

Daft professors and their put-upon students roam this world and others in these six stories, training the all-seeing eye of Science on history’s stranger mysteries and legends, and answering questions no one ever thought to ask before…

Are Gingerbread House-Building Witches really apex predators following instinctive behavior patterns something like trapdoor spiders?

When a UFO contactee cult builds a landing field for flying saucers, will anybody show up?

Is it possible to bring a dead king back to life when he probably never existed in the first place?

Was the next step in human evolution something we never even suspected – and we’ve already missed the bus?

Those intrepid if somewhat queasy investigators bring a much-needed reality check to fantasy… but sometimes fantasy bites back!

Jeb Kinnison

Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations

Human Resources (HR) departments are widely disliked, and job searchers are generally advised to contact the hiring manager directly if they really want to be considered for a job. There are good reasons why HR acts like an arm of the government bureaucrats pressuring companies to hire more protected minorities and women—because that’s what they are, in many companies.

There are many people working hard in HR to promote the interests of their organization, but their efforts are often blunted by the prevailing HR culture that values buzzwords and feel-good social goals more than productivity and excellence.

This book may make you angry, but it will show you how you can fight back by resisting HR and its policies.

Pat Patterson, aka Papa Pat, wrote a blog recently about how the greater drives out the lesser. You think you’re having the worst day in the world till you get that phone call and you find your best friend has cancer, as my husband did some years ago.  And suddenly all the petty stuff at the office, or the household repairs are … just petty stuff, and you don’t even remember them.

Nothing bad happened, but yesterday I spent the day in a hospital waiting room.  And then we heard everything had gone well.  In fact very well.  And then we came home.  And I crashed hard.  So hard that today I barely woke up in time to go collect the two-legged critter from the hospital and make him comfortable back at home.

And then I did a quick clean because well, the house was dirty.  And I only now remembered I hadn’t blogged.  I’m sorry.

Family took over for a while.

I am okay and everyone here is okay.

I’ll try to do a Dark Fate later today, but I’m about running out the door, to spend most of the day in a waiting room.

I’d like to make several points, though, before I go, partly to explain what yesterday’s post was about.

First of all I made the post yesterday because I HAD TO.  The other alternative was walking away and shuttering the blog.  I was going to bed depressed every night, which interferes with what I do to earn a living.

Now some of you are going to say I can’t stand contrary views, I’m unreasonably optimistic, and I can’t stand to have anyone oppose it.  Obviously, this is what at least one gentleman believed, as he thought I meant he shouldn’t read my blog any more because he “can’t find hope.”

Certainly, if you’re so depressed that you need bolstering, I DON’T mean to send you away.

What we were dealing with, though, was not depression.  It was “burn it all downers” treating their “side” as a soccer team.  If we pointed reasons why the US is not like any of the scary examples they’re scaring themselves with, they come back with “Nuh-uh, yes it is.”  The apex of this, again, was someone thinking that Americans will act like Chinese or Russians at the time of their revolutions, ignoring culture, ignoring education, ignoring the fact we have the ability to communicate without state interference and therefore would know what is happening.  In fact, ignoring anything except the “win” that we’re going to go down just like Russia and China.

And accusing me of fetishizing guns was probably the funniest part of all this.  Yeah, Americans aren’t even aware of the liberties they do have, like a fish isn’t aware of water.  Which is why we’re not like any of those other countries. If you don’t know that, you might have no perspective on what the world is really like.  You might also wish to consider you’re not fully informed and get your images of the possible from reading too much fiction.

When I’m faced with people like that, who want to “win” by… I don’t know causing everyone else to kill themselves, yes, I do tell them to get out of the way.  Because after a while you get tired of fighting the very same irrational battles.  If these people BELIEVED what they say they’d already be committing suicide. But it’s all testosterone, wanting to be right and believing that the worst case scenario makes them “smarter.”

I’ve seen this in the past.  I grew up in the cold war and we were going to be nuked, really, next month, if not before.

As to my vaunted optimism: This makes me giggle.  I am not by any definition an optimist.  Ever. My worlds, despite the fact my characters keep fighting are actually fairly dark.  If you look back through past posts you’ll find I expected by now we’d have lost an American city to a nuke.  Even now, I expect whatever the outcome of this election, there will be blood on the streets, and in some places it will get to the level of “civil war.”  (Take the thing in Charlotte to the next level.)  I’m predicting domestic terrorism if the left loses (which doesn’t look likely) and I’m predicting the government harassing areas it doesn’t like if the left wins.

I’m not predicting “the long night” because that would take A LOT of nuclear explosions.  I’m not saying it’s impossible, mind.  That was also what yesterday’s post was about.  But those nuclear explosions will come from outside the country, not within.

Anything else?  We’ll rebuild.  We haven’t yet got to the level of civil disorder of the seventies here, let alone the seventies in Europe.

Things are never as bad as we imagine they’ll be.  They’re also never as good.  Those who thought we could elect republicans and then sit back and reap the benefits, and who are now mad because their brilliant plan didn’t work are guilty of unwarranted optimism.  Also of not understanding our system of checks and balances and of expecting legislators to perform miracles.

My best case scenario is that we’re going to eat live slugs for four years.  At the end of those four years, if we’ve worked really hard and are very very good at it, we MIGHT be lucky enough to get another Mitt Romney.  And in three more cycles, if we’re very good, we might have someone approaching Reagan, after which we can continue applying shoulder to the wheel to get us to as close to the constitution as this sorry world will allow.

The nation isn’t turned around in one administration or in one week.  The left has been taking over the administrative apparatus for a hundred years.  Count on at least that much.  Yeah, each of us can’t do much.  I know my only usefulness is in the culture wars.  But I’ll do my poor best.  And if each of us does his/her poor best in the cause of freedom, which might very well involve working for liberty in the belly of the beast, our great grandchildren might be free men and women.

If this is unwarranted optimism, you’re reading me wrong.  And if you think my scenario is depressing, consider the alternative if your great granddaughters being women of the veil, dressed like living room furniture, or your sons living in 1984.

Not that 1984 is plausible.  The tech went the other way, from mass to individual.  Which is why I say that in the end we win, they lose.  We are more in tune with how things are done now, while they pine for the “mass information” world of the twentieth century.  Mass production too.  That encouraged thinking of humans as widgets.  This encourages thinking of each one different.

But adapting to how things work now will take time.  And it will take work.  And if your only interest in the world is to see the long night come, you are, objectively, working against Liberty and humanity.  I don’t have to indulge your sadism.

And I don’t have to go to bed every night between angry and depressed.

So, that was yesterday’s post.

If you’re willing to work, no matter how disheartened you get at times, you’re welcome here.  You’re my brothers and sisters.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat but there’s a 10% chance the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train, but liberty for future generations.

I’m not in a good mood.  This happens.  Partly this is because I was caught by a cold in the middle of a downward spiral (downward spirals happen.  They’re fairly normal, I know how to correct for them, and most people can’t tell I’m in one.  It’s just human interaction becomes a little more difficult and I become more of an hermit.  Also, at a party, you might notice me in a corner, more. I’ve been dealing with this since I was seven or eight.  I manage it so that chemicals don’t need to manage it for me. In this case it was responsible for my catching a cold, because I’ve been so isolated from human contact going to a diner made me catch a cold.)

Yesterday a very good friend sent me a note.  While she didn’t object to Out of the Darkness’s post, she said she might stay away from the blog more, because she knows politics are horrible, but she doesn’t need her nose rubbed in it.

At the same time I spent all day yesterday overcoming the desire to shutter the blog and walk away.

Not because politics are dire, or because I don’t have anything to say (as some of you have noted, a lot of what I write about is not political but cultural.)

No, I’m not going to shutter the blog.  But I’m going to take my gloves off, turn the crucifix to the wall, and speak my mind.

I’m sick and tired of people who treat politics as people in the village treated soccer.

Soccer was a big thing in my day.  For one, it was regional, which meant it tied in to your native pride.  For another it was passionately felt.  Families had allegiances to a soccer club for generations. Money was paid to “Women” to hex the opponent before a big game.  People who neither watched nor listened to soccer, nevertheless knew that “their” club was on the side of light and good and the others were agents of Satan.  I knew a man who disowned his son for rooting for the wrong club.

Those thinking this was displacement for not being able to DO anything are absolutely right.  First Portugal had a mono-party regime.  And then it had so many parties that it made no difference. So, soccer.

I’ve long been disturbed by Americans’ ability to treat politics as the village treated soccer.  It might have made sense once upon a time.  Politics were regional, hereditary, and whoever won you at least had the illusion they wouldn’t endanger you (that this was still believed to be so during the cold war shows how irrational the belief is.)

That Americans are still doing that shows you that humans are REALLY great apes with the group identification gene overcoming reality and self-preservation.

This was exemplified yesterday when I was in one of Alexander Pournelle’s threads.  He’d just posted about the long — and silent — war queuing up all over the world.  China’s moves, Russia’s attitudes, the long game of Iran.  All of these are things that are clear and present dangers.  But his first comment on a post about Russia was from a guy saying “Oh, yeah, we should elect Trump.  He can grab Russia by the p*ssy!”

The ONLY partisan thing in Alex’s post was that he pointed out that our government is doing NOTHING about this, except, well… piddle, twiddle and negotiate.  He did not post in support of Trump, and in fact it had nothing to do with partisan politics (I doubt either of the creepy clowns have the wherewithal to conduct a rational war. Sometimes I think that onet would be better because he’ll view it as an insult to his dignity.  Then I remember “the art of the deal” and his tendency to admire Putin.  Then I think the other would be better, and I remember she doesn’t GET security and her vp is a robot imperfectly programmed with Maoist phrases.  He’d probably GIVE us to the Chinese, let alone sell us. And she hates the military.)

But the creature commenting on Alex’s post can ONLY see his team and the other team.  If his team is acting like putzes, he must show the other team is no better, because “Go Dems” is about the level of his understanding of national politics.

Time and time again, I come up against this.  And now?  There’s a new team in town.  They’re the “burn it all downers.”  They’ve coalesced around Creepy Clown Trump, because subconsciously they knew he’d destroy the GOP and they think that this will lead to the emergence of a party that represents them better. (They also believe that the “GOPe” has betrayed them, because Trump told them so.  And perhaps because they, like him, have ZERO understanding of parliamentary procedure, or how the government is divided, or even the power of an hostile press.)  Mind you for a party to represent them it would want mostly to burn civilization to the ground and “abandon all hope” which is the only thread they have in common.

THEY TOO think politics is soccer, and they’ll lie (to themselves, most of all) distort and harass in the service of having their team win, with no thought what comes after.  They must pound down any shred of hope, even if it involves saying that the American populace is equivalent to the Russians in the tens or the Chinese in the 40s.  Yes, that’s right.  Culture be damned, we’re all EXACTLY the same and population dynamics are the same, and reactions are the same.  This can only be maintained by someone who never lived abroad among natives.  OR someone who needs his team to “win” so badly nothing else matters.

For some years now, I’ve been trying to explain to the “abandon all hopers” and to the “we need to fight it out with each other right here and now and that’s the only important thing” that this is not how the world works.

Look, I blame Hollywood.  In Hollywood there’s wars and revolutions, and they’re fought internally with no input from anyone else. And one side wins.  Books tend to do this too, and it’s something I fight VERY hard not to do.

We no longer live in the world of the 1700s, and even then the rest of the world got a say (a major say, both for and against, btw) even though voyages by sea took forever and there were no intercontinental missiles.

The world is as far away as the press of a button.

The US has been enforcing Pax Americana for about 100 years (give or take) now.  This is not an ideal situation, of course, but it is what it is.  We had the firepower and the wealth to do it, so we did it.  I’ll remind you that without it, you’d all be speaking Russian — and you might still be.

Unfortunately the isolationists and people who think you can end wars by saying you won’t fight have the bit between their teeth.  They’ve conspired to make America the weak, dithering, self-harming derelict on the street corner.

No one is really afraid of the derelict, and that’s why you’re seeing adventurism abroad from all sorts of bad actors.  Because regardless of what you were taught in school, there are bad actors in the world and they don’t depend on American “aggression” to act.  In fact, they depend on America being busy elsewhere, looking in the mirror and popping its own zits, like an adolescent psycho.

There is another reason the US was suited for “world’s policeman.”  We didn’t have imperial intentions.  Because we’re not a country of soil and blood conquering another land and giving it to our blood means nothing to us.  Which is why to quote Dave Freer “The Americans are awful imperialists.  All they want to do is go home.”

This is already imperiled and wait till you taste the way other countries do imperialism.  You’re gonna die.

BUT if we kill one of the major parties, the one opposing the vile progs who hate America, if we descend into the madness of “let it all burn” and encourage destruction of institutions and cultural structures?

The world will be RIGHT HERE, at our door.  In less time than it takes you to say “Are we being invaded?”

Alex Pournelle has been sharing links like this, and this, which are nibbling at the edges, seeing if we’re dead yet, so they can bite.  And if we act dead (which we’ve been so far) they devour us, even though we’re bigger than they are and have plenty more resources.

Two years ago, though you probably never heard of it, the Chinese got hold of most of our files on people with secret classification.  Yeah, they sold some of that to scammers, but do you want to bet none of those assets, the ones with juicy info on their files, are compromised?  I wouldn’t.

And the Russians have compromised our government.  Yes, Hillary’s server, but Obama too, and our voting system.  Any halfway sane country would be saying ALL ballots will be paper and ALL voters have to re-register NOW and ID will most frackingly be necessary for voting.  A serious country would be pointing out to the perpetrators that wars have started for less than this.

We’re not acting like a serious country, because the Kumbaya kids want to believe in “give peace a chance.”  And the journalists will not report it, because they are social signaling as being on the side of the rich and powerful, which are in this country the left.

And meanwhile, Republicans, Democrats and burn it all downers continue squabbling and fighting like there is nothing more important in the world than making sure their “team” wins.

Listen, do you hear that?  The tocsin is sounding.  The idea of America will not perish from the world, but we can be hurt so badly that all of civilization goes down for the count.

If that’s what you think you want, go look in a mirror and think about why you hate the world and humanity.  And if you really hate us and despise us so much, do us a favor and rid the world of you.

The rest of you, the ones who are capable of realizing this is not a soccer match, open your eyes.  This is not a game. The results affect our lives, the lives of our descendants, and even for those who have no descendants, the life of the species who gave them birth and who has nurtured them.  (And if you think everyone has done you wrong, and you want to burn it all down, I say to you: you first.  Matches and gasoline are not hard to obtain.)

It is time to remember that by the people and for the people government thing.  It’s time to start fighting as hard as you can.  Sure the press, the left and the burn it all downers managed to give us nothing but Creepy Clowns — incompetent ones at that — for the national election.

The national election is not the only one.  There’s local ones.  Work and vote for your local sane candidates.  Or “saneish” candidates.  Anyone who understands water is wet and fire will burn will do.  And after they’re elected, don’t step back and expect them to save you.  Continue working.

The tocsin is sounding. Iceberg dead ahead.

You want to play with the deck chairs, you do so at your own peril.

This is the time to be grown up.  Infants screaming the world done them wrong and they want it all to diiiiiiiiie will be ignored.  They will be first in line for protection, if the shit really hits the fan.

It’s time to be a grown up.  It’s time to do what you can, in whatever small way to shore up the Republic, or ensuring it can come back.

America is still as it always was the last best hope of mankind.  No, it’s not perfect.  Its ideal government lasted less than 10 years.  Ideals and the world don’t coexist.  So, no, you didn’t get perfection.  Sorry, the world is like that.  But you got to be born in the best country in the world, measured in prosperity and ability to make your own way.  If you don’t see anything special about that, I bet you there are millions in the rest of the world who’d trade with you.

You’re not getting your way and a pony too.  But there is no reason to destroy what we have.  Yes, the fight for freedom is continuous.  No, you’ll never be able to declare you won and go home.  That’s soccer, not life.

Now stop whining and work to preserve liberty in our life time.  Or get out of the way.

 

 

 

Controlled Burns – Out of the Darkness

There are times in life where you just have to call it quits, burn everything down, and rebuild from the ashes like some kind of mythical phoenix. You just need a clean slate, with as little baggage weighing you down as possible. I can understand that, having done it in my own life several times now. I am rather annoyed with those who think that this is the path we need to take for the country. Put the damned matches down for a hot minute.

 

The country can still be saved. We are starting to run into the real trouble, the crazy years, and people are losing their minds. What we need now is careful consideration and a calm center. We need to figure out what is weighing us down, and *then* we can burn. We need to have a few controlled burns so that we can keep the whole thing from going up in flames.

 

The educational system turning the nation’s children into oversenstive idiots? Burn it down. The welfare system that has failed to have any appreciable impact on reducing poverty? Torch it. The DEA, which is setting policies that deny doctors the ability to treat real pain while it enforces laws that make criminals out of peaceful citizens? Light it up. You guys get the idea. We need to clear out the dead weight so that what remains is a cleaner, more efficient government that doesn’t interfere overly much while we go about our lives.

Yes, there’s a lot of dead weight. Yes, there’s a lot of corruption. Yes, there’s a lot of problems. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, though. Pick a problem you see in the country and learn all you can about it. Get involved on the local level. Educate people about the issue. Light a fire under your elected representatives to start cleaning house. Then join with others who are working on different problems in your community.

The left has been working for 150 years to destroy the American spirit, and yet it lives. They have tried to drive the nation’s soul into ruin, and yet we still still stand. We are tarnished and rough around the edges, but we are still in the fight. They have tried to make us bend the knee to our betters, and we still stand defiantly.

We have let them push us apart for too long. We have let them set the tone for too long. We have let them drive us to despair. Now is the time to build. Build businesses. Build relationships. Build community. Build lives. Teach your children. Help your neighbors. Work on the issues, and keep your matches ready for those controlled burns.

*A Sarah post-script: As you guys (probably) have noticed, these posts have been getting later, I haven’t done Dark Fate in two weeks, and if you’re on FB you’ve seen me there a lot.  Yes, there is a an explanation.  A member of my family is having relatively major surgery on Friday, which is stressing me, and I’ve caught a stupid cold.  The good news is the cold is better.  And this too shall pass.  Hopefully this weekend, the critter (no, not a cat, one of the guys) will be back home and recovering. Meanwhile, I’ve put out the first of the new collections I’m assembling, with the short stories I took off sale, to avoid cluttering my page on Amazon (though each collection also has a new story in it.)  Yes, I made the cover from “found elements acquired for free from Pixabay and the renderosity free section, and ran it through filters with filter forge.*