How I Became A White Mormon Male (with a great rack.)

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

Marxism is a great theory. It is self contained, and within itself it explains everything. This is why it is of great appeal to intellectuals and people who work in the world of ideas and words.

As long as you stay within it, it explains everything. And it gives people who subscribe to it the impression of being incredibly intelligent, because they an explain everything and understand everything, even in places/fields they’re not very knowledgeable about.

Sure, there have been some things so big and visible that they traumatically broke the theory. The first one appears to have been the first world war, which showed that workers could actually be patriotic, and not unite in the “world.” Also that they weren’t particularly enthralled with the idea of communism and killing everyone who had more than them.

Then it became “They need the leadership of the intellectuals to create a workers’ paradise.”

But somehow the workers’ paradise kept not happening, and enough “bad stuff” leaked out, so it was decided it was actually the third world and “oppressed ethnic minorities” who were natural communists. And they would win in the end. This was Gramsci big brilliant idea.

And then everything was explained again, and made sense, provided of course you stayed inside the theory and never had any contact with the real world.

They’re still largely running on this, and it’s an amazing sight to behold, because they seem unaware that it has no contact whatsoever with reality, and that most people outside those operating only on the theory look at the things they write, and listen to the things they say with mingled horror, confusion and amusement, because they’re so bizarre.

This explains bizarre horrifying theories, like the idea that everything needed to succeed in modern life, like literacy or punctuality are “White Supremacy.” The thought goes something like this: Capitalism is a disease of white people, everyone else being naturally socialist/communitarian. If things are required to survive in industrial society, they are “white supremacy, imposed on people of color.” “Obviously.”

It also explains why Marxists keep reporting with glee that white people will soon be extinct and that the “Global Majority” is on their side.

All of this works — for them — because Marxists are the most insular people in the world. While they may have international acquaintances, the international acquaintances they have are exactly like them.

Regardless of color/features, these are people mostly educated in Western Universities, usually good and expensive ones. (These have long since become loci for the transmission of Marxism. At least 70 years, and probably 100. In fact, Marxism really only works in the minds of isolated academics and their disciples, who are unclear on the idea of money/origin of food.)

So they have absolutely no idea that people of other colors are not really any more altruistic/socialist than anyone else; or that what appears to them as communal tendencies is actually just tribalism/family loyalty, which is actually a form of selfishness/self survival at the extreme hardship mode.

Then, over and over, they are surprised when they meet people who can tan (Mediterranean people Uber Allas!) and who actually refuse to sing in the socialist/communist choir, or be “super smart” by believing (or at least paying lip service to) their theorythatexplainseverything.

Hence the New York Times recent panic over “Extreme Right Wing Latinas” and how scary we supposedly are. (Boo!) This while being, by the way, not extremely clear on what “extreme” “right wing” or “Latina” are, but hey, it’s the old dingy lady. What do you expect?

And the fact that I’m anticipating with much glee the fact Great Britain might get a female-of-color prime minister who is more conservative than Boris (not that this is extremely difficult.)

This of course won’t make the left reassess their theory. They’ll just explain minorities not joining in their gleeful destruction of Western civilization in the name of future paradise, by saying whatever the minority is is “self hating” or “internally colonized” or suffers from “internalized misogyny.”

In other words, they theory is perfect and any deviation from it means that the person isn’t actually what they obviously are. Which is how I became a White Mormon Male. (They never mentioned the great rack, but you know, guys, these 38-DDDD front mounted radar emplacements are such weird accouterments for a White Mormon Male, that they must be mentioned.)

I am proud to say I share the strange distinction of having my ethnicity not be what it obviously is with Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell, both of whom are people of extreme intellectual power and vast knowledge. I also share it with every black person in the US who didn’t vote for Joe Biden. And I share my ex-post-facto sex change by declaration from my enemies with every woman who voted for Trump (even once) and every woman who doesn’t think slogans like “say vagina” or “say abortion” make any sense whatsoever. And/or doesn’t think she needs help from the government to live her best life.

Of course, in my case, this happened over Sad Puppies. And much as I hate to bring that up because for us, it’s long been done and over with (no matter how much the left thinks we still gather in our secret enclaves to discuss how to torment them next.) We proved the Hugos, and by extension World Con were vehicles of political approval/log rolling, having nothing to do with the quality of the story. Our work there was done.

No, it wasn’t what we intended to do. Not at first. At first, at least Brad (who is the idealist) and I wanted to make the Hugos back into what they were: a way to reward outstanding science fiction people wanted to read. An award by the fans, to indicate to the fans what was cool/exciting/worth reading that year.

This seemed important to us, because at the time most publication was still traditional. And there is so much in traditional publishing that is influenced by what the publishing house does with your work, from cover to distro, to even the timing of the books. The houses themselves — obviously, if you look at their lists — don’t really know what readers want to read. Sometimes their guesses hit big, but most of the time they don’t. And books that could hit big are given the mid-list (or low list) treatment that is basically sabotage by any other name (in their defense, I don’t think publishing houses see it that way. I think they’re culling/triaging to put the resources in what they think is more likely to succeed, with the caveat that they really have no clue what will succeed.) We — or at least I — viewed reviving the Hugos, with the “pay to vote” (but not necessarily able to attend) as a mark of “This vote matters to me” as a way that houses could use to figure out what people who were really into science fiction truly liked, even if it might be something that didn’t get an amazing number of sales (just enough to have a fervid fandom) and therefore figure out where to put their promotion money more accurately.

We were naive, because our interest was at least 90% altruistic. There might have been hope for Brad, maybe, whose career was relatively new. But by then I was mostly locked into mid-list and “won’t go above it” by all the houses, and that wasn’t going to change. (Note I was not nominated and didn’t really push to be) and Larry Correia is already a mega bestseller who clearly has found his audience and market. So our idea was to detoxify the field for those who came after us. Make Science Fiction Great Again, you might say. (We were ahead of our time.) A genre that attracted more readers, and published what the public wanted.

We didn’t realize — and in my case this was painfully stupid, as I came close to getting a doctorate, and I know the internal processes of academia — we were directly attacking people’s livelihoods, not just their internalized theory. (I wonder how many of them actually believe the theory, and how many whore their opinion for money and prestige. Don’t answer that. In the end it doesn’t matter.)

Internalized theories can be defeated, if the bang is big enough. (See WWI.) Self interest and survival can’t. People will fight by any means necessary for those.

And what we were actually attacking was people’s ability to make a living.

Again, I should have known this and been aware of it, because in the year from hell — 2003 — I interviewed close to a dozen agents, all of whom I had a major disagreement with. This was back when I had only published (but not written. I’d written FAR MORE than that) the Shakespeare series. So in the eyes of the professionals I was a “Literary” and “Award worthy” author. Also, of interesting background and ethnicity, which increased that “award worthy” thing. So agent after agent laid out a plan for my success. I was to write a book every two years or so, and make it as intellectually challenging as possible. They would then promote me to awards, etc. And this would allow me to get a job teaching college.

Every time I said “No. I’ve taught college before. It’s not what I want to do for a living. Also I want to write four books a year and make them fun” they acted like I’d grown a second head. I was a smart and educated female. Of course I wanted to teach university. And they could get me there, easy peasy! All I needed was some awards!

Which is exactly the game being played with the awards, and why they’re vital in leftist circles.

Of course they couldn’t admit that, or the fact that most of them have readership in the high tens. (Though they might sell in the low hundreds, their books being display items.) So instead, they resorted to the depths of the narrative to explain it.

I’ve seen this used again and again, in all possible fields and events, to explain why things aren’t going the way of the left, or why people are fighting against what is obviously the coming socialist paradise, promised by the magical arrow of history. They came up with the most bizarre, astounding explanation: Sad Puppies was White Males, threatened by all the people of color and women writing science fiction. Our objective was to make them stop writing science fiction.

If your mouth just dropped open and you’re having trouble closing it…. I understand. Because of the close-in group three were females, and only Brad can be considered a white male. (Larry being Latin and the son of immigrants.) And he is married to a black female. (Which was viewed as proof of his white supremacy. Yeah.)

Of the close/close-in group of cour, I was both female and had the ability to tan.

But, you know, I wasn’t really. Because Larry and Brad are male, I must have internalized maleness. Because they are Mormon, and because a Mormon had dared defy their god-like-Barry Obama, I must also be Mormon. And because of course, white males are super privileged and have all the power, and because I wasn’t socialist, I must also be “really” male.

How the hell this makes any sense, I never understood. Particularly the part where we were trying to stop women and minorities from getting awards and/or writing science fiction. I mean, even if we wanted to stop them writing science fiction, how were we to manage that? Pen names are pen names, and the color of the paper is the color of the paper (or these days the pixels.) On top of which one of us were editors. (I have edited one anthology for DAW and found I hated it.) None of us were publishers. And even if we’d managed to change the award to a free-for-all fan award, the fans care even less for the color of the writer (or their sex, or who they sleep with) than those of involved in this do (and we care not at all.) So, in the future, minorities and women could get Hugos for exceptionally loved fiction, just as they did back when the award meant something would sell well.

But you see, our being who we were, and what we were trying to do both threatened their livelihood AND their world view, in which they are forever fighting against an all powerful and white-supremacist patriarchy, and in which the only way to get ahead is by fightingshouldertoshoulder for socialism and affirmatively voting not merit (which is white supremacist, of course) but a writer’s skin color, sex, and what they like to do with their fiddly bits.

So, really, we who were fighting against the fiddlybit socialistocracy MUST be the enemy in disguise.

And so, therefore, quod erat demonstradum (Latin is also white supremacy. I denounce myself), we were all — including Kate Paulk and myself — White Mormon Males.

This came as a great surprise to Kate’s husband and mine as well, and we’re still dealing with the traumatic fall out of my now adult sons finding out that not only did they have two fathers, but also that I’d raised them in a religion that apparently wasn’t my own.

We are coping with it as best we can. Dan says at least he still has my great rack to console him.

The weird thing, and the power of left persuasion that they retain to some extent (though not close to what they need to also retain power) is how many people seem to believe this. About once or twice a month — not approved — I get someone yelling at me for converting to Mormonism. Even people theoretically on our side, don’t seem to get this never happened.

And I’ve seen this stuff happen again and again, and people becoming male, or white by fiat-of-the-Marxists, because otherwise their theory will fall apart.

And I keep wondering when the theory itself will fall, and what zany retcon they’ll come up with that is even stranger than Gramscian bullsh*t to explain how the future is totally theirs, and they are the oppressed underdog, even though they’ve controlled universities, large companies and a good chunk of bureaucratic government for at least seventy years. And how they will claim we’re the oppressors, even though they’ve held dissenters out of the power structure for decades.

Whatever it is will be highly entertaining.

Either that, or their heads will explode from the tension, and just think of how much cleaning that will entail in the halls of academia.

307 thoughts on “How I Became A White Mormon Male (with a great rack.)”

  1. Eh, the clean up job is inevitable. Might as well get it over with it.

    As long as it stays out of here. The aardvark thinks it may attract the green penguins.

    Remember them? Well, neither does anyone else

    1. As one of your actual straight white male Mormon fans (also with a great rack, but I’m working on that) we’d happily welcome you to the Tribe. But no transmogrifications required. Come as you are–in all your Portuguese female wimnen, Moose and Squirrel glory.

      Regardless, happily I remain on Team Hoyt. Keep fighting the good fight!

      2. But it’s a very happy green penguin! (Cracked me up when I looked at it upside down…)

      1. You are a cruel White Mormon Male with a great rack. Bacalhau/ Baccalat is as hard as rock (harder than some, somewhere between sandstone and granite). At least when Carp hits it kind of goes squish. Throwing Bacalhau may be a violation of the Geneva Conventions (protocol F on the use of piscine products as weapons of war), But that’s just the kind of evil the oppressed have learned to expect from their white Male Mormon oppressors.

          1. There is one in Porto. Called Bacalhoeira. We walked past it when mom had spent two weeks serving us only that.
            The tout upfront followed us going “Great food. Very typical.” By the end we were running.
            I used to like it roasted. (After softening and de-salinating in water for three days or so.)

        2. Nah. It has no weight to it. Soak it over night, change the water a couple of times if you can.

          1. I don’t know one pebble isn’t too heavy but a dump truck full of them can give you a really bad day.

          2. Ot, there seems to have been a bank run in Zhenghou today. Something about depositors not having access to their money for the last six monthx…

        3. When we were in Portugal, they were selling truly gigantic bacalhau about two inches thick. I tried to get that to take a picture of me brandishing it by the tail (it was tough as oak, I swear) so I could post it when y’all get out of hand.

        4. well we were going to throw bass but someone dropped it.

          … i’ll see myself out.

    3. Reminds me of the old cowboy joke about how to cook carp:

      Skin and gut the carp, then find a fresh cow patty and wrap the carp in it, and toss it on the coals. After the whole mess has cooked hard and dried, break off the cow flop, throw the carp away and eat the cow flop, because carp just ain’t no damned good.

      1. You have to cook carp like you do catfish: wash it, then wash it, and wash it again, and just once more for old times sake.

        It’s a bottom feeding freshwater fish, so they’re all kind of like that. Though, they are pretty good when cooked right.

        Carp roe is also awesome. Walmart used to sell gigantic jars of it for cheap, and you could make fantastic taramosalata out of it for cheap.

          1. Breading and bacon grease ain’t gonna fix all those little tiny bones.

      1. I shared a cab in Boston on a business trip, on our way to our hotel. He asked the driver
        “Where can I get scrod around here.” The driver replied
        “I been asked that question a thousand times, but that’s the first time I’ve heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive.”

        BTW, thank you guys for the prayers, good wishes, energy. I am home recovering (slowly) and the procedure was a success.

        5. I’ve spent at least three minutes trying to reverse engineer “scrod” from the pluperfect subjunctive.

          I think I got it. This place, I swear.

    5. You want cod for the halibut? Not tonight, the aardvark has a haddock.

      (Dons carp resistant coat while running for the shelter.)

  3. The janitors can’t be paid enough to deal with the mess mentioned in that last paragraph.

    Being the Sons of Martha they’ll do it anyway, but not without commentary.

  5. As aggravating as that period was in some ways, I have to admit I quite enjoyed parts of it. Being a very small part of Sad Puppies and part of the back and forth, reading some of the great ideas and lines that came out of it, just enjoying the feel of being part of something worthwhile…. Thanks for that… oh, and for the books, can’t forget those!

    1. In typical fashion our side addressed the issue with logic and humor while those on the other extreme, obviously threatened and horrified, responded with doxing, swatting, and ad hominem attacks. We just thought they were wrong while they believed with all their hearts that we were evil.

  7. “It also explains why Marxists keep reporting with glee that white people will soon be extinct and that the “Global Majority” is on their side.”

    …and even if they do wipe us out they’ll just find another group to scapegoat/blame for why their paradise isn’t working. Until they run out of people. So… the “we in, they lose” result is very desirable.

    1. The only thing that (in their theory) unites all POCs is opposition to whites (who are all always oppressors, even Slavs and Poles).

      That and with many of the activists, the chance to extract resources via white guilt. Unfortunately, white guilt seems to be a resource that’s running low, to the point where many have.resorted to fracking society to extract it. The only form of fracking they approve.

    2. They can”t wipe out white people. What they’ve done is reclassify. For instance, we Latins (solidly Mediterranean with bits from other places) aren’t white suddenly.

      1. Not that I hate being a white, middle-aged, mostly conservative, raised-Catholic, male; but anyone who thinks that particular group would revel in a far higher chance to come down with skin cancer needs their head examined. White supremacy my left little toe. Viva the Common Sense and Hard Work Supremacy of the Meritocracy!

      2. …until someone does something the progs don’t like and suddenly they’re “White Hispanic” or similar.

        I do remember a few years ago reading about some leftist conference where they were “welcoming all POC” or similar, except for… light-skinned Asians. So I guess that’s where they’ll get more white people or where the scapegoating will end up attacking later.

      3. Let’s not even discuss the Asians. Sometimes a minority, sometimes not, depends on the needs of the narrative that minute.

      4. Let’s not even discuss the Asians. Sometimes a minority, sometimes not, depends on the needs of the narrative that minute.

        1. Well, amusingly or not so much, back when Japan Was Cool at the end of the 19th century and the very beginning of the 20th, a lot of rabid KKK types were sure that the Japanese (not usually the Chinese or other groups) counted as white. So it’s happened before.

          Of course, Victorian weebs also had a tendency to start to treat all kinds of cultures and races as equal to themselves, so it was a dangerous interest to acquire.

          1. Once witnessed an online discussion about a political cartoon depicting nations uniting against the Yellow Peril, and what it made it interesting was that one flag was clearly Japanese.

      6. People noted that Congresswoman Flores was a “Latina,” in the Times article, not a “Latinx.” So, if you want to be a real Hispanic woman, go Republican!

  8. Biden has helpfully informed is that if you’re not with him, you’re not really a woman.

    at least we finally have an approved definition for what a woman is: Democrats and Biden voters. That clears things up.

    Also who are the real black people, which is why Shaun King, not Clarence Thomas, is the real black man.

        2. You never see Jerry No Nads and Pat from Saturday Night Live together, just sayin,

              1. Pardon my language, but that is solidly “Hell Yes”. Also more feminine than the whatsit in the nuclear waste handling position.

      2. The shame is we had that in November of 2016. Their wailing and rending of their clothes (alright given much of their support the rending of the clothes yielded results that were rather nauseating). They were on their knees awaiting the death blow and GOP started fighting itself and its new leader for what rude tweets? I mean he wasn’t my favorite either, but when you have a cobra by the throat it’s a bad time to decide it would make a nice pet, or to feel bad for destroying a poisonous creature that was destroying all you had worked for.

        2. I think many felt threatened by Trump’s reputation of firing and cutting out what didn’t work. Same issue as the sad puppies accidentally attacking peoples way of life.

          It’s pretty sad that the best way to make money and power in politics is to promise to fix a problem, but never actually fix it, just keep promising that you are getting closer to a solution.

          2. Yeah the RINOs were a bit like the Governor in “Blazing Saddles” wanting to protect their phoney baloney jobs.

  9. “Marxism is a great theory. It is self contained, and within itself it explains everything.”

    Everything within the theory, nothing outside the theory, nothing against the theory. Looks to me like Marxism is just Fascism of the mind.

    1. Fascism was developed to explain why Marx’s predictions hadn’t come true. It replaces class consciousness with nationalism and allied itself with the rich by allowing them to keep their property and position as long as they did what the state demanded. Fascism is only right-wing if you consider Stalin to be a moderate.

      1. I refer to them as Militant Atheist Dysangelists. (I, on the other hand, am what blogger/author Francis Porretto calls an Amiable Agnostic.)

  10. I remember gleefully following the sad puppy exchanges back in the day, but then I’m old enough I still have the 1962 Issac Asimov edited Hugo Winners on my shelf that I’d bought new, hence had some thoughts as to what such award winners should be.

    Writers of color, etc. from way back then? It’s only lately I happened to read one was black, a New Yorker but I don’t remember who. Didn’t matter when I was reading him, doesn’t even matter enough that I remember now. Larry C’s wife is black, slightly interesting to know but has no effect on my opinion of him, her, etc.

    I never bothered to remember which first and second initial plus last name or which pen names were male or female. Of course in many cases I knew but it didn’t make no nevermind.

    There’s a guy around here that for 10-15 years I’ve known of but haven’t happened to meet. A generous man, spends a lot of time helping others, a pillar of the community, his name would often, very often, come up, always favorably, in conversations. Someone, just yesterday, mentioned to me his skin color (germane to what we were talking about.) but I’d probably heard 50 or so mentions of him over the years and I’d no idea his skin was darker than mine, such wasn’t consequential enough to bother mentioning.

    Character not color,race, creed or sexual proclivities; be it reads or deeds, character and characters matter, author’s and doer’s color,race, creed or sexual proclivities don’t.

      1. I’m just happy that both Brad and Larry found wonderful women to spend the rest of their lives with. I’m even happy for the apparently rare same sex couples that manage to spend their entire lives together. Humans are social animals, and even the most hermit-like need to sometimes get their “people fix”. How much more blessed can you be to wake up each morning to see the love of your life looking back at you, or sleeping next to you, or even snoring in some awkward position with the covers all twisted up around them?

        2. Life is a team sport with the normal team size of two. Married 50 years to my best friend and lover.

        1. I took it the same way, but my excuse was an excess of blood in my caffeine stream. OTOH, I’d have been shocked, shocked I say, if Larry’s wife hailed from Pineland. Krasnovia forever!

  11. I think that we’re close to the point now where we just want the crash to happen, just to get it all over with, so we can start the clean-up.

    1. I sort of agree with you. If the crash is going to happen, let it be on our watch. I’m a late “boomer” and the generations following don’t have enough mental or physical fortitude to get through tough times ahead. At least with some of us boomers still around, we stand a chance of rebuilding a functioning society from the ashes. A society based on current millennial “leadership and thinking” is destined to failure.

      2. Honestly, my faith is my own generation, X. Many of us have been frustrated for years by the Boomer’s clinging to their ways and poisoning the future. Sadly there aren’t enough of us, but I think the X influence is starting to impact the Millennials. At least my Millennial siblings are starting to understand some of what I’m preaching, but it is a battle to replace the entrenched Marxism in their education and common culture.

        1. “Many of us have been frustrated for years by the Boomer’s clinging to their ways and poisoning the future.”

          I appreciate the sentiment. It’s also insulting, though I suspect it’s unintentional. I too get frustrated by old people like me not wanting to either defend their traditions or open their minds to new ideas.

          It’s the words “clinging” and “poisoning” that have me pushing back on your comment. It’s mostly not true, and it’s a stereotype perpetuated by younger people.

          As we move toward the reckoning, we’ll need to work with each other without “poisoning” the conversation with insults.

          1. You might want to reconsider giving full-hearted agreement to your fellows opining on how the following generations “don’t have enough mental or physical fortitude” to rebuild the world…oh, wait, that Boomers’ choices will have burnt down…

            Millennials signed up after 9/11, and some of us are nearing military retirement by this point. We’ve worked, and created, and adjusted our lives until the media has to be upset about “young people these days” not having enough out of wedlock sex, nor divorcing in the predicted numbers, and this is A Really Bad Thing For Reasons.

            Look at the head of the rabid mobs of mis-educated college kids, and it’s not Y and Z who are enforcing those norms, nor until recently was it X.

            So either live up to actually treating people as people, and recognizing that stereotyping everybody under, what, their mid-60s, isn’t a great recruitment strategy, or folks just won’t take it serious.

            2. Pushing 70 here, and I agree with Foxfier, sort of. There’s assholes in every generation, and too many of the boomers tried to pull up the ladder once they made it. OTOH, there’s folks in the younger generations that are duplicating the crab bucket. (And I’m guessing there’s also ladder pullers in those generations, too. Sigh.) On the gripping hand, there’s people in every generation that are trying to build under, around, and through, and/or are dealing with life as it stands, without BS. (And yeah, if one generation has the power concentrated in it, there’s going to be more ladderpulling in that generation. Last I looked, it’s a human trait to conserve what you got. Some people take it to extremes, though.)

              IMHO, we have enough common enemies. The intergenerational bullshit doesn’t get us further along to defeating them, (which makes me wonder how much of the Boomer/X/Y/Z/Millennial hate is fomented by agents of TPTB).

              2. I know that my mom and dad haven’t had any trouble finding “kids” of every following generation who were conservative– or even more conservative than themselves, frequently.

                The catch is, they don’t inform folks of what they “must” believe because of their demographics, and when someone “slips up” and admits to a conservative viewpoint– they’ll mildly agree, and/or was enthusiastic, depending. (This is also why we have a right-wing full-on otaku buddy in Seattle; it’s “safe” to disagree with us. Often challenging, but you get augments, not shunning or worse.)

                Silly example, the kid who was apologizing for the delay checking them in, because “there’s a Weird Al concert-” and then he starts to panic and explain he’s a musician, and my mom launches into fangirling on it, with apologies for having not followed his new records since my brother had graduated a few years prior.
                Since mom and dad were in full cowboy gear, mom still giggles at the looks they got. She figures the poor kid was thinking that they’d assume Weird Al was satanic or something….

    4. No crash. History teaches us that the cycle in a collapse is that the Left grabs control. If you’re lucky, they get turned out by a Napoleon. Painful, but a solution. If not, you’re stuck with Stalin for 70 years or so.

      Our objective should be to follow the example of the Founding Fathers. Establish control FIRST. Then smack the Leftists as hard as required to maintain order.

      2. The Left has grabbed control. They’ve got the Executive and Legislative branches, which are the “proactive” branches. Yes, we have the Judicial branch right now (and I’m grateful for that!), but that’s the branch that’s supposed to be reactive instead of active (at least, when the Constitution is being adhered to).

        So yeah, we’re waiting for the crash. Whether there will be a Napoleon or someone similar likely depends in large part on just how bad the crash is. Or whether we can take back control soon enough to head off the crash.

        1. Fwiw, they have a good chunk of the Judicial branch too – only a small fraction of cases reach the Supreme Court, and you have the insanity going on at the local level of DAs just not prosecuting crime and/or coming down on people for non-crime like self defense.

          Which.. doom and gloom if you want, I guess, but it’s also the place where people have been starting to fight back – the local level. Do you really want to bet against distributed systems with autonomous self-computing actors over against a giant overarching central controller?

    5. Celia,
      Everytime I read your comments somewhere I am reminded of why the U.S. has had the best military ever to walk the planet. It earned that reputation on the back of the sound wisdom of its NCOs.

      1. I’ve been saying this for months, mostly in response to the Russian performance in Ukraine. The US trusts its jr enlisted to make decisions that must be handled by company, if not battalion commanders in almost every other army in the world. And our trust in them is a direct result of the strength of our NCO corps.

  12. Would it help if I apologize ahead of time for whenever I get to meet you in person for glancing at your 38-DDDD before fixing on your face? I’ll probably open with something stupid like, “Hi Mrs. Hoyt. I’m Michael Houst. Gee, I don’t get it. You don’t look at all like a white Mormon male.”

    1. You’d be amazed how many men have conducted entire conversations with me without knowing my face. particularly when I’m in evening attire.

      1. Well, I am a bit of an Odd. People’s faces tend to fascinate me, which is a good thing because I really need to fix their faces and names strongly; otherwise I’m hopeless with remembering who they are. Of course, like RAH’s protagonist mentioned in Double Star, fans don’t have a problem remembering the people they are fans of.

        1. To be fair, a lot of Odds don’t believe in meeting people’s eyes while conversing with them. Somebody told me there’s an eye-meeting practice app, somewhere.

            1. I’ve never learned how to look people in the eye while talking. I’ve worked to correct that, but it’s really really hard.
              Usually, I find myself walking away from an interaction going “darn it, next time LOOK at them!”

                1. I’m just grateful for a crowd of people that even understands this problem. 🙂 I get better every day, just need more practice.

                2. Yeah, I have that trouble, though some people seem to consider my eye contact a bit spooky. Might have something to do with my size. Not only am I fat, I’m reasonably tall (6’0), bearded, and with a resting-bastard-face. No, the last balisick in the family passed away several decades ago. Grampa Pete’s close ancestors hadn’t gone viking. I think. Hmm.

                  1. There’s some social stuff with “acceptable duration of eye-contact” and a lot of people don’t exactly want eye contact, but almost eye-contact. Otherwise it seems to compute as too much attention?

                    That’s before people who think you shouldn’t meet their eyes, but they want you to not meet their eyes in a different way.

                    My son does fairly well with focusing on the nose of the person he’s talking to; then they just freak out because there’s an 8 year old with a large vocabulary and a lot of enthusiasm.

      2. I don’t tend to look people in the eye, but I usually keep my eyes generally at the same level. I’ve definitely had questions of why I was looking all over instead of looking at them.

        1. Crazy Thought.

          Back when Mom was still around, to get her goat I would look straight forward when talking to her.

          Since I was taller than her, this meant that I was looking over her head. [Crazy Grin]

    2. Dude, I will stare at The Great Rack when I meet Sarah. It’s now in capital letters, and therefore worthy and unassailable.

          1. Some lovely lady has a dirty mind.

            The Reader didn’t say anything about viewing The Rack unwrapped. [Very Big Crazy Grin]

            3. Shamelessly stolen from site long forgotten:

              An eager inventor named Jones
              Was reduced to loud sobbing and moans.
              He’d devised X-ray glasses
              To study clothed lasses,
              But all he could see was their bones.

              2. Reminds me of Niven’s comment about X-ray vision in his “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” essay: “I wonder how long it took before young Clark realized that objects had surfaces?” 🙂

                1. There’s an infamous scene in the latest Wearing the Cape where Astra, who has super senses (although not X-Ray vision) explains the downside this way:

                  “I made my parents invest in an extreme soundproofing upgrade to their bedroom after an emotionally scarring night. Just, eeww.”

                  1. She also talked about odors that other people don’t notice. 😉

        2. /em facepalm
          Should next year’s LibertyCon have a wet t-shirt contest? And in all fairness, it should include men with wet t-shirts also so the gals can laugh their butts off at us.

            1. I own a kilt, being a piper and all, I’m up for it even knowing the answer to the riddle of what a Scotsman wears under it.

    3. This is where Sarah’s accent presents a solution wrapped in a problem. She’s JUST difficult enough to understand that you find yourself looking at her face so you can read her lips to add to your ability to understand what she’s saying.

      😛

  13. Not to name names, but during the height of the madness, I noted that there was an editor of one of the major publishing houses who was not only a vocal Puppy Kicker, but a rabid ex-and-anti-Mormon. It would not surprise me at all to find this person’s fingerprints on the tar brush.

    1. You know, it’s not the ideals of what the Catholic Church professes, it’s the leadership that I see as corrupt and manipulative that I have a problem with.

      1. Well, the whole “control the Hugos” project was mostly a Tor project. It would have been shocking if any Tor editor had advocated fair voting and opportunities for all.

          1. I remember someone named Anderson(?) I know he thought I was a fascist, he sent me a letter to tell me so. But that was long before the Puppies.

  14. Interesting. I was never a part of the sad pupppy vs woke writers war. By the time I figured out what it was it was probably over. But I believe, from what I’ve gathered here that because of my work and world-view I would be viewed as a ‘sad puppy’ by the wokians. But I’ve also come to realize over the years that even outside of sci-fi/fantasy, my work, due to who I am, is shunned, I believe, because all of the houses have been taken over by wokians, not to mention the ‘book blogs/sites/reviewers/etc.’ So, a question to the outcasts here, what do people see going forward? Will the Marxist/perverts running publishing and the literary world ever be routed (like we hope the same folks in the political realm will be)? And, I have to add as well, despite what Breitbart said, ‘so-called’ (Not all of them, but many) conservative sites that have ‘book’ tabs, only sell/promote/review non-fiction tomes, which do not, in my opinion come under the category of ‘culture.’ In my opinion, “How we won in East Detroit” is not culture and not Story. So, will conservative power places ever begin welcoming conservative culture in the form of STORY, that is, novels, novellas, short story collections and short Stories? Thank you!

    1. I suspect that in the publishing industry, as with the government, or any other group of people for that matter, will always have at least someone of Communist-Marxist-Socialist ideology or inclination. People can be fairly easily placed into 3 groups: those who want to give orders, those who want to be ordered, and those who don’t want either. Unfortunately, there’s a whole lot of the first type that gravitate to the Lefty side.

        1. And the industry is apparently in a panic over that fact. As they should be, and deserve to be.

    3. Direct to e-pub. I think when this shakes out, writing will be like baseball. There will be a “minor league” of writers doing e-publishing, from which you move to the “major league” of hard-copy books.

        1. Well, now… I tend to agree with Mike’s analogy. It’s what you can make the ticket price, and still fill the bleachers.

          To extend it, there is the “ticket price” for a limited run like the World Series (especially Game Four). Come Fall/Winter, I’m planning to squirrel away a bit at a time towards an eventual LibertyCon – but if my age/health winds up preventing that when I have the money, I’ll have my local rare book guy find me a set of the leather bound RAH complete works.

          1. The Beaucoup Bucks League, in most eras of writing, has belonged to writers who had quantity of sales as well as (or even in lieu of) quality of writing. It’s possible that there will be a hardcopy collectibles market, or a books for when the power is off market, but mostly the rich and famous authors will be the ones that just have a lot of sales to a lot of people.

            1. Of late the BBL has been being dominated by people like the Clintons, Obamas and other clingers on to the democrat party. They get 7 figure “advances” when the books sell at most in the low thousands more usually less than 1000 so those advances NEVER pay off. It is a bribe plain and simple by the publishers. Not sure they get much out of it

              1. They get to brag at cocktail parties about who writes for their imprint. It’s not much different than paying Bono to perform at your daughter’s birthday party.

                1. But even publishing is not immune to the laws of economics. I wonder who is keeping the publishers afloat because as far as I can tell traditional publishing is swirling around the bowl and has been since the ’90s.

                  1. After the oncoming unpleasantness, the Reader really wants to see the connection between ‘non profits’ and certain industries such as publishing that have been completely taken over by Marxists aired for all to see. The Reader believes there has been a river of cash in that pipeline, far more than most imagine.

                  2. Think of the publishing as a money-laundering service, not as a direct political support system.

                    For example, Dem party wants to ‘support’ a politician. They talk to a publisher, publisher makes a ‘book deal’ with the pol, gets some schlubb to write the book, and the agreement is that the Party will buy x number of those books, which covers the up front cost + a bunch on the side for the publisher.

                    Win win for all sides, and it makes it look like their ideas / pol is popular too, so lots of upsides.

                2. It would be much more fun to pay Rick Astley to perform at your daughter’s birthday party, with the stipulation that he not perform “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

                  (Here’s hoping that my HTML-by-smartphone works….)

                  1. And then do one of those photo presentations showing baby pictures, first day of school, etc. and then end with the YouTube video.

                3. “…paying Bono to perform at your daughter’s birthday party”

                  That took me a minute to process. When I see “Bono” I think first of Sonny, not U2, and my first thought was “If you get him to your daughter’s birthday party that will make the news!” 😉

              2. When I see the big advances for books destined to the remainder table, I start thinking money laundering.

                FWIW, Costco had the Hillary & “co”writer novel in trade paperback. Didn’t see copies flying off the table. OTOH, this was Saturday morning, when the raimbow-hair brigade is sleeping it off and the store was filled with people doing their periodic multi-month supply trips.

                (I was in for a medical trip, and the difference between customers Thursday noon and Saturday morning was intense. Rainbow hair/lots-of-face-diapers with carts, vs Carhartts/Wranglers and bare faces pushing the flats. Felt right comfortable Saturday, unlike Thursday. FWIW, that Costco gets about a third of its business from people east of the Cascades and well south of the Oregon/Cali border. )

                2. You’d think Cali would get more bang for the fruit/veggy checks if they were checking returning Cali license plates for receipts that should have Use Tax paid on. Or maybe they aren’t bothering because people properly declare the taxable items on their state returns, don’t they? (JIC sarcasm off …) I mean we 100% did when we lived in Washington State. (Oops, must have not depressed the sarcasm button so it would stay off.) We did, when we had to register, whatever. OTOH we didn’t have a Costco type warehouse for bulk buys back then. Note, I didn’t even know the definition of Use Tax until I had to deal with it programming, 25+ years after it applied to personal purchases. Yes, I know, Washington state doesn’t have annual filed taxes, but Use Tax is suppose to be declared and paid.

                  1. That level of use tax is so low-level it spends more wasting time chasing it than it’s worth. No, they get you on the things you have to register – cars, boats, planes, trailers, etc.

                    Which was annoying as all get out, that every single time I moved states, the new state wanted use tax on the airplane I owned as soon as I registered it in state. And wouldn’t take evidence of having paid the danegeld to another polity as reason enough not to demand their share of sales tax all over again.

                    1. new state wanted use tax on the airplane I owned as soon as I registered it in state. And wouldn’t take evidence of having paid the danegeld

                      –
                      Inlaws ran into that. Granted they came from Oregon to Washington, and it was before the more recent Oregon new vehicle percentage fee (a sales tax by another name, no matter it didn’t come before the voters as required). But they learned there are specific categories. One vehicle per registered driver is allowed Use Tax free, still pay annual property tax based on State perceived value. Does not include RV’s of any shape or form, trailers – boat or utility, motorcycles, boats, if primarily used in Washington State, and I presume, airplanes, whether prior sales tax had been paid on purchase or registration in another, or multiple states. They learned this by taking up: one car, two pickups, one pickup camper, one boat with trailer, two road motorcycles, and one utility trailer. Did not have to pay on boat because it’s primary use was in Oregon waterways, but did have to pay tax on the trailer used to haul it. The utility trailer, an old pickup bed, from a junk yard, converted to a trailer by the boys and their father, in late ’50’s or early ’60s sometime (boys didn’t remember). BIL had it because their mom said “take it”, after their dad died (we should have taken it), had never been registered, ever, either in California, or Oregon (not required). I guess that was fun registering, as well as valuing.

                      Inlaws were soooo not happy. But that was where his job was.

                      When hubby was transferred to Randle, Washington, and I and the kid stayed in Oregon, we did not register the truck or trailer, or the car we bought for hubby to commute with. My take, and I’m sticking with this, is MY name was also on the registrations, I was an Oregon resident, and Washington State could stick their registration where the sun didn’t shine. Now the truck was only up there to drag the trailer to an small RV site, and then brought home. The RV trailer sat up there in the site for 16 months before it was bought home (because hubby was transferred back). The commute vehicle was brand new (gas saving alone, even in 2003 – 2005, paid the monthly payment). Also what does it say about housing in Randle that the 27′ Terry with slide out was the better housing option? FYI, housing has not improved, in the last 15+ years. Anyway, technically, anything on the roadway, or parked, for 1/2 the year, is suppose to be registered in Washington. Oh well. Too bad.

                      Then there was the ’58 Plymouth we took up in ’79, and parked it. Finally sold it to someone who was restoring a ’58 Plymouth for parts rather that figure out how to cart it back to Oregon. Washington State did send us a letter saying they’d confiscate it if it wasn’t registered. They didn’t come get the thing when I called and ask when were they coming to pick it up 🙂 it sat there for another 3 years. Didn’t make the neighbors, who had to look at it, and probably turned us in, very happy either.

  15. The owner of a certain gaming company recently weighed in on the Dobbs case, and announced that in opposition to the “theofascists” who rule the country, his company would be supporting the Lilith Project. While I was croggled at the notion that “theo” could be applied the prevailing faction in power (they seem rather thoroughly secular to me, although the “fascist” part isn’t a bad fit…I think he’s mistaken on where the power lies), I did decide with regret that if they he was going to support a cause I find abhorrent with his corporate dollars, I could not in good conscience support his company with mine.

    1. I saw that yesterday and was quite disappointed in them…
      It’s like he’s bought into the worst ideas the loony-lefties scream will happen anytime anyone to the right of Stalin gets elected will happen…

      1. Since his HDQ are in Austin, I would guess that he’s about as familiar with political conservatives as Pauline Kael was with Nixon voters…and for the same reasons.

    2. They aren’t secular, they’re pseudosecular. Marxism and their concept of science are as much religions as Christianity and Buddhism.

        1. Not to disagree with either of you, since I consider Marxism, atheism, and scientism as variants of secularism and consider that to be a nontheistic, non-organized religion or quasi-religion. But yes, philosophically shallow, broken at the core and (sometimes violently) intolerant.

    3. Question – why are people on the Right so hesitant to name the company / person who has bad behaviour?

      2. Oh, and it tends to derail conversations– so rather than the point being “huh, that’s nonsense, but if he’s going to be spending his company money on that, I won’t give his company money.”

        Plus, the accusation flung is unusual enough that one can find out if one wants to, but not direct enough to call in defenders— especially if, as if often the case, the guy doesn’t actually do any such thing at all, and/or the owner has no authority in the direction of the company.

        (I was very amused that whoever did the update before last on ARK took the first section to do a Call For Action in defense of abortion…and all the comments for the first page or so that I went over either told them to get back to making video games, or that abortion was murder, or to stop sticking their cruddy politics into other folks’ face.)

        1. I suppose the difference here is — I would expect us to be truthful.

          If you’re giving your honest, as-accurate-as-possible assessment of what someone said or did, I think it’s worth putting the names & places down.

          2. Steve Jackson Games, and my source was a post last Friday July 8, by the owner, on his own company web site. While I prefer not to be vocally anti-abortion..there is already an abundance of overheated rhetoric on both sides of the issue and I have nothing to add that hasn’t already been said, I am not neutral about it, and for me, there is this to consider: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/official-statement/abortion. In this case, it’s the “pay for”, however indirectly, that I am refusing to do.

  16. I’m at this point where I want to be the nightmare that they think of. This horrible person that is sitting around with his fellows, drinking good whisky (minus the smoke, hate most tobacco products and even a good cigar is an iffy enjoyment item), and plotting how to make them miserable and the world in a terrible set of circumstances.

    Why?

    Because it sounds like actual fun versus this grim, dull grey life that the critics keep thinking is the only way to live and the only way to be.

    (That, and I’d like to pinch some barmaid butts without getting slapped.)

    2. Ah, but if you make the Left miserable, the world will be made well. Never forget that America’s pain is the Democrat’s gain.

      2. The thing is the left are already miserable. They’ve been “Woe is me the world mistreats (POC, workers LGBTQ etc) for the last hundred years they have been what H.L. Mencken accused the Puritans of, “Being afraid somewhere someone was happy”. They are such neurotic idiots they have no joy in their lives and want to make sure everyone else is similarly (or more) miserable. The only joy they get is doing something the have forbidden the Hoi Polloi from doing (e.g. flying private jets, eating fancy waygu beef. using forbidden drugs). Feh (expletive deleted) them and the horse they rode in on.

        1. The Leadership of the Left is not yet miserable. They may complain, but they’re really still sitting pretty. Once they actually are made miserable, things will start accelerating.

          1. Eh, there is power they ain’t got. A leftist King Canute would not be rebuking impious flattery but actually expect the tide to go back out.

    3. There is an art to pinching barmaid and cocktail waitress derrieres. First, how much hand strength do you have? Like a limp dead-fish handshake, a weak pinch is seen as an annoyance at best. However, a pinch that leaves a bruise better come with an apology in the form of one hell of a tip, and it’d be wise to give a verbal apology and assurance that you don’t do that again, lest you find yourself slapped and your table not served. (This depends on the bar, but in general is a wise plan.) Also, this leads to the width of the pinch. A tiny tight nip is likely to hurt (and get you slapped), while a larger, more gentle squeeze will be taken in the spirit intended.

      Important thing to note: the material being worn upon the lovely lady’s buttocks. Usually you will find that they are wearing tight clothing, often so tight that it looks like it’s been painted on. The reason is simple: it gives you no purchase, so a bruising grip is often extremely hard for average hand strength to achieve. A material encouragement to not do so, if you will. This isn’t to say it can’t be done: a man with sufficient hand strength can still do it. However, the one night she wore the jeans that weren’t skin tight, she came back from her shift black and blue and red and rising purple from mid thigh to in line with the illiac crest. Oh, the things she had to say about that, despite the apology tips…

          1. No, no, they’re not very shockable, but I have an image of feline self-possession and grace to retain! Never mind the time I failed to make the leap up to the bar: I clearly groomed my shoulder with the “I meant to do that” dignity-restoring licks! Or when I had the zoomies. Who doesn’t have an excess of energy to blow off every now and then?

            Old NFO reminded me of hurricanes, and I had one with dinner. It was a baby one, barely more than a zephyr, unlike the last one I had in New Orleans… back before Katrina… it’s been a hot minute.

            But here I go posting salacious things on your promo post writing prompt and advising people on the art of properly pinching the lovely curves, and people might start to think twice about how much time I’ve spent working maintenance and flying in rougher places and with military men, and start lowering their expectations to the person I am with insufficient coffee or too much alcohol, instead of the standard of person I try to be…

            2. Alas, unfortunately for us properly-brought-up males who don’t frequent bars and would never dream of pinching, fondling, or groping the barmaids if we did, such advice is of very little practical use. I have heard tell that there are better ways of attracting the positive attention of the fairer sex, not that I have a great deal of experience with that, either.

              1. “I have heard tell that there are better ways of attracting the positive attention of the fairer sex”

                As usual, Leslie Fish had some thoughts.

  17. “Whiteness” is software. There’s no copy-protection. ANYONE can adopt the behaviors and mores of Western Civilization and reap the benefits thereof.

    2. This is why I say there’s a small element of truth to the Left’s talk of “White Privilege.” Mostly it comes from not obsessing over whether or not that last bad thing that happened to you was because of your sex or skin color, which makes it easier to move on and be successful. Note that there’s no skin color requirement to accomplish this, as Clarence Thomas can attest.

  18. I think the fundamental unifying thread of the left is more that they all view the world as a fixed pie and that everyone only exists as part of their tribe. The major differences are on how they think that pie is divided and what characteristics each tribe is defined by.

    That how you get marxists, CRTist, old hidalgoes and wokists all running pretty much the same software, just with the name tags changed: they all believe the world is fixed, and for one person to have something, they must have taken it from someone else.

    And if someone is starting from a fixed pie perspective, if they are compassionate, then they easily fall into the trap of assuming they help people by tearing the wealthiest down, and if they are cruel, they will believe they can only get ahead by destroying those who are ahead of them.

    I wonder if the path forward is to focus on showing that the world is not fixed, but practically infinite?

    1. Thing is, in most basic hunter-gatherer setups, there IS a fixed pie, and the only way you get more is by taking it away from Those Guys Over There.

      …This is why we invented agriculture. And herding, and a bunch of other ways of getting more bang for your energetic buck to feed people.

      The problem is these are all inventions, parts of culture and upbringing, not stuff evolved into our great ape brain. At the core of all of us is a chimp-relative utterly convinced that more means taking it from someone else.

      Civilizing infant humans is supposed to include “we have other ways of handling how to get what we want now”. But some people just… don’t get the memo.

      1. Yeah. I suspect that’s probably why it keeps popping back up.

        But just because we’re hardwired that way does not mean it’s true, so it’s a fight we’ll just have to continue fighting.

          1. Since thumping people over the head apparently is hardwired in, and is only overridden in the process of civilizing the little savages while they’re growing up (currently out of vogue among the “literati”), this would require a bit of “unlearning”. Worthwhile, IMHO, in this instance, but still…see the essay by Solzhenitsyn about “the men who just want to be left alone”, then consider the problem of returning toothpaste to the tube.

                  1. Yeah. And I’m not looking forward to that; I too just “want to be left alone”. But needs must…

                2. …Okay, yeah, you get surrounded by people in a situation you can’t escape – all of who are bigger, stronger, less physically handicapped, and more able to call in immoral allies than you are – and make it non-negotiable. I’mma sit back and watch how you do it.

                    1. Easier for the folks whose responsibility it was, though, no?

                      Part of why the stuff out of the Supreme Court is so– good.

                      Folks actually doing their jobs.

    2. My own take is less that they believe in a fixed pie (although there is some of that) and more that they believe that “Businesses” and “The Rich” are sitting on the huge piles of hidden wealth, and if only those greedy bastards could be made to disgorge their “fair share” of that wealth, then there would be p-l-e-n-t-y to pay for everything on the Left’s government-spending wish list, and more besides.

      Short form: They totally deny the existence of “Peak Other People’s Money.”

  19. After reading the story, I recommend we capitalize The Great Rack.
    Like The Everglades, it is its own definition. Unique.
    We could refer to the two main characters as Sisters Of The Rack.

    2. So what writer(s) among us (and note the Reader is NOT a writer) wants to tackle ‘Tales of the Great Rack’? The Reader thinks an anthology would do quite well. The Reader now retreats to his carp shelter.

          1. Publish that stanza and I’m sure you* will* wind up dead! Just sayin’… 🙂

                1. Oh, I dunno; it’s inspirational. to those of us with a certain type of mentality. 🙂

                  1. I know the Dwarven battle-cry “Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!” (Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!)

                    I wonder how you say “Rack” in Dwarvish?

                    2. As a political theory goes, Marxism produced “Great” internal blood shed. This hardly inspires it to merit the title “Great theory”.

                    5. Youi mean like “The Great Plague” or “The Great Flood”? Or “Catherine the Great”? That sort of great-but-not-good? 🙂

  20. Just a note on how well the plan is going with those who tan – it looks very much like the Sri Lankans (who are VERY tan, for the most part) are close to a Ceaușescu moment.

    1. When I found out that not only had they been deprived of food by a Stupid Greenie Idea, but also deprived of foreign currency to buy food (by Coof and unrest stopping the resorts, and by lack of exporting food), and that all their problems were largely caused by members of a single family who comprised the prime minister, the former prime minister, and almost all the cabinet ministers….

      Well, I think the Sri Lankans have reason to get sporty.

      1. My understanding is you have the causation wrong. The Sri Lankan government screwed the pooch monetarily. In an attempt to limit expenditure of hard currency (of which they had very little) they decided to move to “Organic” farming to avoid paying money to import fertilizers, seed, and other necessities (e.g. fuel for farming equipment) of modern farming. This worked about as well as one might expect. That the Sri Lankans have not yet given their “masters” Their well earned comeuppance astounds me.

          1. I saw they did that. If I were the PM I would have long ago headed for India or China or Switzerland or wherever he stashed his ill gotten gains. If he hasn’t left yet he can put jam in his pockets, he’s toast.

            1. Left yesterday. His residence is now burning.
              Read an article which said the, “transition to organic farming,” was a freaking campaign promise. And of course his committee on doing so never consulted any working agronimists.

          3. They are indeed. Any bets on whether/when the MSM begins referring to “white supremacist Trumpist far-right extremist Sri Lankans”?

            1. Depends on who comes out on top of the power struggle. If it’s someone in the style of Chavez he’ll be lauded as a charismatic reformer beset by challenges both accidental and deliberate, but never self-inflicted.

            2. They’ll just embargo the story and count on the fact that very few people here know what or where a Sri Lanka is. I did find amusing, however, the video of what happened after a mob stormed some official residence, maybe the Presidential palace…they had a pool party in his swimming pool. Just lots of happy Sri Lankan insurrectionists cannonballing into a swimming pool.

              1. I was most impressed by the sheer size of that mob. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked as if it was bigger than the J6 “insurrection-which-wasn’t” by a significant margin.

    2. Only the chance that I was between sips of morning coffee saved me from needing a new keyboard over that idea.

  22. I should go back and see what the nominated books from SP are rated and how they’re selling again, now that several years have passed. I wonder which ones are doing well, and which aren’t.

  23. Btw, if you want to be edified, check out the genealogy of the late (and reasonably great) Shinzo Abe. I learned a lot about Japanese history and the connections of the important families.

    The interesting bit is that various news sources talked about how the last political assassination was in 1960… but the last attempted political assassination that didn’t kill the guy was also in 1960, and it was q a knifing of Abe’s maternal granddad. (Who founded the LDP party.)

    It was apparently more of a warning or revenge thing, because the guy was a hitman/politician who claimed that if he’d wanted to kill the guy, he was good enough with knives that he’d be dead. Abe’s granddad apparently didn’t want to give it any recognition in later years. But still.

      1. Interestingly enough, it also happened during election season, right after Kishi’s time as prime minister was ending and Kishi’s successor had gotten successfully elected to be prime minister. July 14, 1960.

        1. Anyway… the really wild, animeworthy thing is that Shinzo’s dad and mom not only agreed to adopt out their third son to his maternal uncle, so that he’d have an heir to continue the name… but they adopted him out at birth, and the uncle didn’t tell him the truth about his parentage until he went to university.

          I mean, he’d always known his “cousins” and “aunt and uncle,” but… yeah, that’s pretty weird, even for Japan.

          Nobuo Kishi (KISHI Nobuo) is currently Japan’s Defence Minister. So yeah, that’s not weird or anything.

          1. Having someone to carry on the family name (which requires a male child) is incredibly important in many countries – including Asia. It’s not just taking care of the parents. It’s actually having a kid whose own kids will carry on the name.

        1. my age. Nice girl. Oppressively well behaved. Halfway through the year she adopted the motto “Je suis qui je suis et je plais a qui je plais.” I wonder how that played back home….

        2. The White House statement referred to “Abe Shinzo.” Is this a faux pas? It looks like one to me.
          I keep hearing Joe saying, “My good friend Abe…” (No, he hasn’t said that, but I can imagine it so easily).

    3. Abe was an anticommunist. Take a good look at two of Japan’s nearest neighbors.

      1. None of the news outlets seem to know what could have possibly triggered it. It’s a mystery. Like Epstein’s client list.

  25. Friedrich Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” should be on every young ‘skulls of mush’ reading list. The Jacobins/neo-Marxists/neo-Maoists/Leninists and other varietals of collectivism will insist that equity is a fundamental human right and that all outcomes should be equal. Orwell (Animal Farm) is on the mark, ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS is the big lie that is the real legacy of the Left.

    1. That book was phenomenal. I underlined so much of it that there’s more underlining than book. Short read, and very easy read… don’t see why it’s not on everyone’s list.

    2. That book was phenomenal. I underlined so much of it that there’s more underlining than book. Short read, and very easy read… don’t see why it’s not on everyone’s list.

  26. “Which is exactly the game being played with the awards, and why they’re vital in leftist circles.”

    Oh. Ohh. Ohhhhh… -now- I get it. They’re protecting their Commie-cred because fame/money and teaching jobs.There, that was the missing piece for me. You get yourself some awards, and then the colleges hire you.

    That, finally, makes perfect sense. That’s why they’re trying so hard to freep the Dragons too. Otherwise the Dragons sit there and make the rest look bad every year. And Goodreads! That’s why they suck.

    For the longest time I could NOT understand why anybody would go to the extremes they did over a fan thing. It was ludicrous, going so far as to get the international media involved. They went completely crazy!

    And we kept doing it! Bwaha, five times! Now I’m even happier I spent that money. ~:D Sweet!

    1. Well, not Seanan McGuire. Not some others. But a lot of “professionals” are in it for the college teaching gigs, albeit most of them don’t seem to actually get permanent college teaching gigs. Because they’re still way too low on the victim totem pole and the connections totem pole.

      1. I saw Seanan McGuire at an improv writing panel once. Seriously, they would give the prompt and say “Go!” and she’d be off, typing at full speed.

        There’s someone who writes because she must. And woe betide anything that gets in the way of that.

  27. One of the amusing things to me as an actual white Latter-day Saint woman, our current prophet has encouraged us to reject the Mormon nickname. So their insistence on labeling you as such is a rejection of my faith’s preferred name.

    2. “So their insistence on labeling you as such”
      Well, in fairness, “white Latter-day Saint male” doesn’t fall as trippingly from the tongue.
      — and their ethnicity assumptions about the Church are out of date.

      https://news-uk.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/praia-cabo-verde-temple-dedicated
      “The temple in the capital city of Praia, in the island of Santiago, is the first temple in the country and the 173rd temple in the world….There are currently more than 16,000 members of the Church in 41 congregations in Cabo Verde, many of them second and third-generation Latter-day Saints. The first missionaries to enter Cabo Verde arrived in 1989.”

      All but two people in the picture at that post are deeply tanned.

      Footnote for Sarah: “To read this article and watch the video in Portuguese, click here.”

    3. To be fair, I remember hearing that encouraging people to not use the term Mormon as much as 50 years ago, so I’m guessing it’s a recurring thing.

      1. Recurring, yes, but recently re-emphasized, to the point where even the venerable “Mormon Tabernacle Choir” has been renamed “The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square”.

  28. Why, yes, they can do more damage than we can recover from.

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2022/07/09/manufacturing-facilities-cutting-back-shutting-down-over-high-power-costs-n1611555

    “On June 22, 600 workers at the second-largest aluminum mill in America, accounting for 20% of US supply, learned they were losing their jobs because the plant can’t afford an electricity tab that’s tripled in a matter of months,” write Joe Deaux and Naureen S Malik. “Century Aluminum Co. says it’ll idle the Hawesville, Kentucky, mill for as long as a year, taking out the biggest of its three US sites.”

    The report states that the shutdown process takes about a month, and the plant will need another six to nine months to come back online when the company decides it’s time to resume operations. So a year-long shutdown for the plant in reality will take closer to two years.

    We can’t leave these people in power.

    1. Not more than we can recover, but yeah, it’s going to hurt like a mother.
      No, we can’t, but not much we can do till this runs its course. And you know it will.

      1. Sarah, I’m seeing all the people celebrating the Sri Lankans getting rid of their government greenies and starting all the rebuilding with the pain, starvation, and death from letting the entirely foreseeable and preventable destruction go on, and it depresses me.

        Humans have never once actually acted on “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

        1. Humans have never once actually acted on “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

          I disagree with the above because if humans prevent something from being a problem, then obviously we don’t see the problem that was prevented. 😉

        3. Great Britain waited only for official reports on the battle between the Monitor and the Virginia before canceling all pending contracts for ships, ordering ships being built to be scrapped, and summoning their designers of ships and telling them that they wanted THAT.

          Thus, they had their ironclads BEFORE they needed them.

          1. When it came to shipbulding and seapower in Europe, GB was ahead of most of the pack for almost 500 years.

        4. A mob has occupied the presidential palace. Now what?

          Overthrowing the corruptocrats might get them satisfaction but it won’t get them food.

          1. I don’t know. There’s always the Dutch solution.
            No to team #barbecuefork. We know precisely where politicians have been. We shouldn’t put them in our mouths.

  29. yaknow, you should go all with this. Do the name change. And make it a really Old Testament/Book o’ Mormon name. And your pronouns deserve something over the top better than galactic-imperator or your-magnificence.

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