Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

It’s All a Grand Plan (swallow this post after you read it!)- A Blast From The past from November 2013

So two days ago a friend sent me this “quote”:

“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.” – Josef Stalin

It appears it has been all over face book.  It seemed wrong to me. I mean, it appeared on the order of “Ninety percent of quotes on the internet are wrong,” George Washington.

What appeared PARTICUARLY wrong was, so to say, the “psychology” of the quote.  It’s clearly how some Americans view America, but is it how Josef Stalin would see it?

Let’s leave aside the whole question of how much he believed in communism or whether he did.  He was a psychopath, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t dress his wishes in some form of ideology, and if he did it was communism.  If he believed in communism, the idea that America was “moral” is right out.  In fact, we know he had this idea that America just pretty much was promiscuously commercial from his quote about selling us a rope.  (And that one sounds real.)

In any case, whether he believed in communism or not, he would not say that aloud if he believed it.  Think how bad it would be for someone continuously denouncing us for that criminally evil regime – capitalism – to say we were moral.

Besides, children, veddy bad news, but despite our puritan streak, no one in the rest of the world views us as moral.  Mostly because we’re more open at our weirdness than they are.  It’s like a friend tells me the Japanese are in general very straight-laced, which is why their porn is so wild.  But HERE we get the porn and the tentacle anime and… and we assume that Japanese is a seething mass of bizarre and sex.  That’s sort of how the rest of the world sees us.  If you start an internet rumor that a fad of putting goldfish in your ears for sexual satisfaction is spreading in America, they’ll believe it.  And they would probably even more so when murderous uncle Joe was alive.

The “America is a healthy body” is also something he would not say aloud.  Because again, whether he believed communism or not, that was what they were selling to the masses, and in communist doctrine no capitalist country is healthy as such.  (It’s in conflict, in contradiction, just waiting to be transitioned, you might say.)

Then we have “its spiritual life” – oh, BROTHER.  Let alone that communists are atheists, and that there is a good chance Stalin saw his god in front of the shaving mirror every morning…  Even if he subscribed to the idea that a spiritual life of some sort was good, he would look at us and think we had none.

Look, it’s unfair.  It’s like our being the prudes that everyone else thinks are the class sluts, because we wear makeup and our skirt is a bit short (meaning we don’t pretend to be holier than thou) but as much as America is more religious than other Western countries, measurably, statistically, this is NOT how the world sees us.  They see our multitude of religions.  If you’re devout, how can you be friends with people who believe differently?  Clearly, you’re not devout.  They see our crazier manifestations – and that’s mostly what they see there, the snake handling sects, the spiritist sects, and then the fake churches like the idiots who picket soldiers funerals.  It’s mostly what they see because it’s what their media finds “interesting” – and they think of our religion, here in America as somewhere between a carnival and a freak show.

Why would someone viewing that think of it as a strength?  It would be more “Keep those crazy americans busy with their crazy religions, they’re less likely to believe we’re infiltrating.”

Of all of that only patriotism makes sense, since communism is an international creed and us such believes that undermining patriotism is essential to its spread.

So, yes, I went to snopes and the quote is fake.  Or at least “likely fake.”  (Trust me, it’s fake.)

Which bring us to why I spent so much time analyzing it.  No, it’s not to inure you about future bad quotes.  They will go around, and all of us will fall for some of them sometime.

The reason I spent so much time introducing this is that when I went to Snopes, I found this listed under one particular kind of lie.  The “The enemy is so clever” lie.

We’ve seen this with the Russians far too much and all through my life.  “They’re so clever, that they engineered this and that and the other thing.”  “They’re so brilliant, this is happening just according to their plan.”

Guys, take a deep breath, step back.  If this is all according to their plan, it’s the only plan of theirs that ever went right.  I mean, seriously, they couldn’t feed their own homeland with all those five years plans, but they can do a near hundred year plan to take over the rest of the world?

But Sarah, you’ll say, you say we’re still suffering from the effects of Soviet agit prop!

Oh, sure we are, but agit prop is not a careful plan.  Look, communism is very good at proselytizing.  Arguably it’s the one thing it’s good at.  It hits, like all other communitarian doctrines, the part of the human brain that’s both looking for “fair” and longing for a return to childhood, with benevolent overseeing parents.

Put enough agit prop over there (and they put a lot) and some of it is going to hit and corrupt the vision of other countries.  Besides, communism is so tailor made for intellectuals, explaining how things would be better if the intelligentsia ruled us.

BUT that is not a plan.  Not unless it’s in the sense of “we do this, and this just might happen.”  Witness for instance, that a plan would have come to fruition much earlier – like, before the USSR collapsed.  Also, people that good at planning would have made sure that their system worked.  (It is one of the funniest things about communism that they are central planners, but their plans never work.  Okay, funny in a bitter way.  I’m not laughing at the mass graves their delusions have caused.

There is a tendency to look at trends we don’t like in society and things that aid ideologies we don’t approve of, and think that it’s all a fiendish plan.

Both sides do it.  The left looked at the tea parties and panicked, because it doesn’t fit their conceptual universe for people to protest high taxes.  So they invented the boogey man of the Koch brothers (rather libertarian old bachelors whom a friend who worked for them assured me are very nice.)

Soros is not on the same level – because, well, we KNOW he finances all sorts of left causes (and given his history, anyone who thinks he’s one the side of angels and works for causes he endorses, should think again.  Once you sell out your own people as a kid, well… you’re done, morally speaking.  Particularly when you still brag about it as an old man.)  And he has more money than the Kochs ever did.

But does that mean it’s all his “plan”?  Is it all going according to his plan?  Oh, please, guys – OWS.  No, seriously.  OWS.  Yes, we all saw the ads on Craigslist, but nowhere did it say “must poop on police cars” okay?

He’s a man who wants to see the world burn and to that end tosses a lot of money at various disruptive causes.  But he does not have a detailed plan, and everything does not go according to his plan, or you’d be looking at his face in a big screen every morning, while you did your mandated exercises. (Big Soros is watching you.  Ick.)

Here’s the thing and the reason I don’t believe in the “conspiracy theory of history” except in the sense that some humans will look for power, and that the way they do it is always predictable: humans are strange.

No, seriously, humans are strange.  There has never been a satisfactory enough theory to the way the individual human mind works.  Oh, somewhat… but each school of psychology has hold of an end and no one has the full elephant.  Which is why psychology remains a semi-soft science.

This simplifies somewhat when you have a crowd, but it’s still not conclusive.  And when you have something like a country, which is a conglomerate of crowds… well…

History takes sudden turns, precipitated by events and one or two odd individuals in a crowd who don’t react the way you expect.  “Scientific history” is poppycock.  If it weren’t, the United States wouldn’t exist.

Yes, it is all explainable in retrospect, how we came to be. It’s easy to make up just-so stories about the past.

I doubt there’s ever been a human plan that worked, throughout history, and those of us who believe in a divine plan also believe it has taken some weird turns to accommodate us.  Or as grandma would say “G-d writes straight on crooked lines.” (Or for those of you don’t believe, yes, those could be “just so” stories too, but if it’s all the same with you, I’ll throw my lot in with grandma.  You see, I knew her, and I trust her judgement.)

We’re not G-d.  Yes, I know.  Very upsetting.  But we’re not.  This means that any plan that takes more than a generation will take some very weird turns, go sideways, and slide upside down, in the game of telephone that’s multi-generational belief.

Take for instance old Joe’s supposed quote above.  Even if it had been true, could he have predicted the effect of a massive demographic bulge on American culture which did most of the loosening of said culture?  I doubt it. I think the man had a talent for killing and terror, but no demonstrable intelligence otherwise.

Then why are we attributing G-d like intelligence to him?

Well, both because it puts the other side in the light of traitors and because it means we can’t do anything – see how comfortable that is?  We can’t do anything, so why try?  We can be absolute lumps and lecture all our friends still trying to turn things around and save us from a crash with “You fools.  It’s been planned for decades.  There’s nothing you can do.”  Which is very comfortable and morally superior.

I see it all the time, even now, even from respectable thinkers, about the deblacle that is Obama Care.  “They planned this all.  It’s all incredibly smart.  Game over, man.”

Oh, please.  You don’t need to drink their ink.  No one in their right mind could have planned that insanity.  Did they plan for the plan to collapse into single payer?  Surely.  But not by the sheer incompetence of governmental administration.

We’re well outside their plan, guys.  They’re the gang that can’t shoot straight.  No, this doesn’t mean they’re completely ineffective.  They’re very good at destruction and destruction is half of their job.  BUT it means when their plan goes wrong (and it always does) there is an opening for us to come in, to save things, to fix things, to make things work the way we want.

Will it go exactly according to plan for us?  Oh, heck no.  BUT we can push it in the right direction and keep working.

We’re good at working and at building.

This morning, I got up and I cleaned poop from the hallway.  Our geriatric cat is having diarrhea.

Being a conservative/libertarian is sort of like that.  You’re always cleaning poop you didn’t make.  And you don’t want to, because you have no interest in power over others.  But if you just leave it there, someone will slip on it and make a bigger mess.

It’s not a plan.  It’s just that you know where the spray cleaner is, and the paper towels, so you do it.  And you change what would otherwise have happened.

Be of good cheer.  Destruction is not a plan and incompetence is not a destination.

Giving up would be premature and despair is a sin.  In the long run, destroyers always lose, and you always need the person who knows where the cleaner is kept and how to use the paper towels.

Square your shoulders and be alert.  You, those you love, and perhaps the entire country depend on you.  This is not time to go wobbly.

Today I came across an article where I found these insane lunatics (yeah, sure it’s redundant. Or not. I think they start out lunatics and become insane or vice versa.) are actively re-segregating schools, because it’s supposed to give you equity.

I could go into a long list of their major dysfunctions that make them sure segregating by race is better for minorities, mainly involving the fact that all their previous tweaks to achieve equity only made things worse and made minorities look bad, instead of average. It’s the same process as assuming every woman was going to be exceptional, because those who made it into the work environment when it wasn’t normal were exceptional. (DUH).

But that’s not important right now. The important thing right now is the Procrustes bed of EQUITY. This is not equality, but equality of outcome.

The only way you can have equality of outcome with kids — or any humans — is to SEVERELY restrict super-performers while enhancing the reward of poor performers.

In school this is easy to do, particularly in disciplines where grading is subjective, like most of the humanities. (And why it drove me insane as a young kid.)

In life it’s also easy to do, if you steal from one person to give to the other, aka redistributive taxes.

The devil is in the details.

You’ll note in the article that one of their indoctrinated victims says black and minority students get punished more. This is not true. Not only is this not true, but when younger son was going through middle school year from hell, I found out he was being given detention for forgetting a pencil for class (He didn’t forget it, the field trip arrived late, and he didn’t have time to go to his locker, which was halfway across the school. And yea, that was on purpose and — long story) while the kid who had the day before held the teacher at knife point wasn’t given detention, or really any punishment.

This is because in a multi-ethnic and huge middle school in a downtown environment they punished ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY middle class kids from our neighborhood. A) because they were scared of gang (mostly Latin) members. B) they had to show improvement. And it was easy to show that middle class kids who were forgetful got better over time, for fear of detention, but not so much that multiple-assault gang members improved.

As I understand it, it’s that way pretty much everywhere. So in schools near urban centers minorities and other blighted populations get lighter punishment.

And the problem is again in the details. Whether it is because you give them an A when their work is barely worth C, leaving them unable to face work or higher education, or because you failed to civilize them to 21st century standards, when their families aren’t up to the task, the result is the same: they’ll fail. And given the populations affected by it, often give ammunition to bigots.

In these circumstances, what will re-segregating do? Well, more of the same. Leading to accusations that they get inferior teachers, etc, leading to–

The truth is that you can’t make everyone the same. Equity is a stupid goal that should never exist, much less be enforced.

Look, one of the many ways that public schools are failing is that they’ve always aimed for equity. (I was explicitly told that it was easier to handicap my kids, than teach them ahead of the class, and they hated when parents taught the kids way far ahead. Yeah.) Just for convenience and ease of the teacher, it’s easier if the kids are all more or less at the same level. And the problem with that is that this goal is implanted in people’s back brain. (Even when insane lunatics aren’t in charge.) As is the idea that we’re all about the same.

We’re not all about the same. Took me to my thirties to figure out I didn’t care enough about money to work really hard at investing. I cared about having enough money for security (eh) not enough to roll in twice a week, and keep in a vault where I went swimming for exercise. Metaphorically speaking. I just wasn’t willing to work that hard.

It’s taken me to my fifties to realize I’m completely unsuited to work for myself, and keep a schedule, and only do it because I’m driven to write.

We’re not all the same. And doing well or badly in life is not in fact a matter of how hard you work.

That, and the idea that there’s always a right answer are probably the worst contributions of public schools to society.

Because they’re put in people’s brains when they’re really, really young.

Depending on what pursuit you’re involved in, your IQ might be secondary to your ability to focus; your memory; your ability to keep doing a boring task day after day; your organizational skills; your ability to see colors; your ability to hear notes… I could go on. None of these are strictly speaking IQ (though they can influence it.)

And your ability to work hard at writing a novel almost for sure won’t correlate to your ability to work hard at investing, or picking investments or even (groan) advertising. (Ask me how I know.)

Thinking “I’m smart and had good grades, I can be a millionaire” a stupid thing to do until your mid thirties when you realize “I don’t even want to live like that.”

Imagine how much stupider it is to think “I don’t want to work/live like that, but I should be given half of that person’s millions because he/she does or is.”

Yeah.

In the end, equity destroys everything because it’s the opposite of meritocracy. You should have the prestige of the job, even if you can’t do it. You should have the rewards of a top athlete even if you have two left (eh) feet.

And in the end the rewards aren’t even alike. They keep going to the “good boys and girls” who parrot the line and play victim best. (As we have reason to remember.)

Equity is a good way to starve everyone. Because growing food is harder than having an A on a test. It’s also far more important.

Will they succeed in putting it in every school? Well, they’re getting suburban parents to rebel.

But that doesn’t mean they will realize what a bad idea it is. They were told that everyone is the same. (Not that everyone should have the same opportunities, but that everyone IS the SAME) and that any disparate results are the fault of “isms” and “white supremacy.”

This means they’re going to go crazier and crazier in pursuit of a mythical result of everyone being exactly the same.

In the end we win, they lose.

But the damage on the way there is going to be horrifying. Keep yourself and yours safe. The waters are about to get rough.

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

A couple of years ago, I woke up with a very silly vignette of a story-ling in my mind. This got written as “The Rain of Frog.” After that, whenever I was depressed, or just tired of the news, I’d write another very very odd story, and put it up.

I haven’t done that in some years, and while you guys clamored for me to publish it as a book, it’s really short, and I let it drag. It’s sat, completely edited, on my desk for …. five months, I think.

I finally managed to get it published, and it’s up now. I haven’t checked if the paper version is available, and I promise to make it available on other stores, as well this week.

For now it is only on Amazon. The cover is by the very nice and talented Caitlin Walsh, who has hung out among you reprobates for many years, and who let me beg/push/annoy her into making me a cover.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost

Odd Magics
This is a very strange collection of fairytales, recast for modern life. In it the prize isn’t always to the fairest, the
magic is rarely to the strongest.
But lonely introverts do find love, women who never gave it a thought find themselves at the center of romance.
Doing what’s right will see you to the happily ever after.
And sometimes you have to kiss an accountant to find your prince.

FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: Dragon’s Fealty

When he attended their wedding in summer, Lisinthir Lauvet Imthereli, Third of the Chatcaavan Empire, promised his cousins they would see him in spring for the birth of his heirs on Eldritch soil, and to attend the birth of theirs. He returns to a world and a people reviving from their long winter: a new navy; the rescue of their suffering acreage; and the burgeoning of a tenant culture revolving around the new communications and travel networks.

But a prince and a culture aren’t the only things making their return. When a mistake made in the summer season comes back to haunt them, Lisinthir will discover himself torn between warring allegiances… and someone else will have to pay the price. Will their enemies succeed in blighting the promise of the season?

FROM SABRINA CHASE: One Blood

(Sequel to The Scent of Metal)
After freeing the AI ship Argo from the ice of Pluto, Lea and her team race for the prison planet Beredul to free the Wiyert trapped there. The planet conceals vital information about the aliens that enslaved the Wiyert–and now threaten Earth. Little time remains to protect humanity. A handful of escaped Wiyert, desperate to rescue their people, offer to guide the team. With their help, Argo’s formidable power, and Lea’s unique mental abilities, they hope to penetrate Beredul’s defenses without detection.

They must trek on foot for days across the war-torn surface, pursued by gigantic, nightmare predators to reach the nearest Wiyert stronghold.

And then the hard part begins. Everything on Beredul conceals a dark past…even the terrifying beasts that roam the planet. Disturbing intelligence reaches the alien civilization, triggering an investigation.

The Wiyert have learned caution through harsh experience, and something about the humans from Earth arouses their suspicions. They know too much—and do impossible things. Can the Wiyert trust them with their lives?

Trust always comes at a price, and that price may be too high to pay…

FROM TONY ANDARIAN: The Return of the Horde: Dawn of Chaos 2 – Hell Gate, Part I (Sanctum of the Archmage)

A new constitution prepares Carlissa for an era of enlightenment. The harsh traditions of the past fade, and a promise of freedom stirs the air.

In the space of one terrifying day, that promise is shattered in a bloodbath of fire and magic.

Thousands of years ago, an epic battle was fought between good and evil. The demon lords had opened a door to the realms of hell itself, and their horde threatened to overrun the earth. But the Kalarans, led by the hero Calindra, destroyed their hellgate and drove them from the world.

The Great War has long since been lost to myth and legend. The Church struggles for relevance as the people forget their covenant with the gods. A renaissance of freedom and learning stirs the air in the modern age of Carlissa, led by the royal family, and the wisdom of the Archmage.

All of that comes to an end when a dome of shimmering magic appears in the capital city.

The people fight desperately to survive the chaos that follows, and wonder bitterly why the gods seem to have abandoned them. Their only hope lies with the magic of the Archmage — and his, with a young princess who never wanted to rule. She must find the strength to set aside her bard’s calling and take up a battle against impossible odds, or surrender her land and people to the Black Magus and his demons.

In The Return of the Horde, the Demon Horde returns to Carlissa with the opening of the Hell Gate. Can the land’s heroes survive its sudden and brutal onslaught? And even if they do, can they stop it from conquering the world?Sanctum of the Archmage, Volume One – Dawn of Chaos
Dawn of Chaos, Book 2: Hell Gate
Hell Gate, Part I – The Return of the Horde

Note: An earlier version of this book appeared as part of the novel Dawn of Chaos, published briefly on Amazon in 2017. That book has now been re-written and expanded into a series of six novella-length installments.

FROM FRANK J. FLEMING: Hellbender

Doug wasn’t sure whether he should trust Satan.

The red flag was that he said he was Satan. But the deal was good: Listen to Satan’s story in exchange for some donuts. And Doug only half-fulfilled his part of the bargain.

But maybe he should have listened better, because during his friend Bryce’s next scheme (theft with light to moderate treason—the usual), Doug and the rest of his friends—Lulu (the fun one) and Charlene (the not fun one)—end up with a powerful artifact, a small metal cube with world-ending power that Lulu decorated with bunnies. And now everyone wants the bunny cube, which means Doug, Bryce, Lulu, and Charlene are being pursued by an insane supermodel general, an army of sadists, a vast criminal organization, a smaller, more-in-startup-mode criminal organization, and an unstoppable killing machine—the worst kind of killing machine.

Doug and his friends may be a bunch of losers who aren’t particularly smart or good at anything, but they have one thing going for them: a really cool name for their mercenary group. And now it’s up to Hellbender to save the world—well, what’s left of it. It’s pretty ruined and war-torn already. But, you know, they live there, so they kind of need it.

It’s a mess, but that’s what you get for listening to Satan. Or half-listening.

BY ED LACY, WITH FOREWORD BY D. JASON FLEMING: Blonde Bait (Annotated): A hard-boiled noir thriller

Mickey Whalen lived on his boat and bummed around the Caribbean all by himself, until he found a woman alone, on a sandbar, with a suitcase full of money. He fell for her, hard, even as he was trying to figure out who, or what, the hell she was running from!

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Hairballs (A Cat Among Dragons Story)

“Gee, Rada, what could go wrong?” Plenty, as it turns out.

Join Rada, Yori, and other Adamantine Division Scouts as they rediscover why bars are not the best place to find inspiration.

A Cat Among Dragons short story, 4500 words.

FROM MICHAEL HOOTEN: A Bard Without a Star.

Gwydion ap Don is a talented harpist, and a known rogue. His uncle Math sees something more: a young man with the magical talent to succeed him as Lord Gwynedd. But to learn magic, Gwydion will also have to learn self-control, duty, honor, and the martial arts. He’s not sure which will be the hardest.

And when his training in magic begins in earnest, how he sees the whole world will change, as well as how he sees himself. He will have to battle bandits, cattle raiders, and armies in his efforts to learn how to be a leader. But mostly he will have to learn how to control himself, which is the one battle he is not sure he can win.

This volume contains the first three eBooks in the Bard Without a Star series: Wizard’s Heir, The Two Tanists, and The Bardic Academy.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: Lyddie Hartington: Galaxy Sleuth

Facing poverty after a childhood among the wealthy and powerful, Lyddie Hartington decamps to Ceres, a newly colonized planet on the edges of the galaxy. Armed only with a change of clothes, a letter of introduction to the directors of the Andromeda Company, and a blaster, she is determined to make her fortune.

But Ceres is nothing like Orion-14, and before she knows it, Lyddie is witness to a murder- a murder that goes to the heart of the Andromeda Company and puts her life in danger. With the help of her new friend, an entirely too handsome captain of the Galaxy Watch, she must discover the murderer and solve the mystery of her family’s downfall.

If she can survive long enough to do it.

FROM CELIA HAYES: Lone Star Glory: Continuing the Entertaining and Mostly If Not Always True Adventures of Texas Ranger Jim Reade and his Blood Brother Delaware Scout Toby … Republic of Texas

Time and place? The Republic of Texas, at mid-19th century
Who and what? Texas Ranger Jim Reade, and his Delaware blood brother, Toby Shaw – tasked with solving puzzles, finding the missing, guiding the clueless, and protecting the innocent!
“So,” Toby observed, an hour and a half later. “What have you seen, from this?”
The two of them stood, a few steps from a crude scarecrow cross-frame of poles, from which hung an extremely ragged linen shirt, formerly belonging to Elisha Reade – a shirt from which some small patches had been cut to mend items of a newer vintage. But there was enough of it remaining to serve, hanging from the cross-pole thrust through the sleeves, as a target for Jim’s trusty Paterson revolvers … A good few shots had been at close range. As close as the range in which Jon Knightley had exchanged – or claimed to have exchanged – revolver-fire with his wife.
“A curiosity which I had already suspected,” Jim replied. He was tired. His shoulders slumped, and his ears rang from the frequent report of his revolvers. “Jon Knightley murdered his wife – his latest wife…”

Lone Star Glory – continuing the adventures of Texas Ranger Jim Reade and his blood-brother Toby Shaw of the Delaware, in the Texas of legend!

FROM AMANDA S. GREEN: Night of the Wolf: A Nocturnal Lives Prequel

Mackenzie Santos has seen it all as a police detective–or so she thought. The last thing she wants after closing one of the worst cases of her career is to go out to celebrate her birthday. But she promised and maybe Jenny was right. Maybe having dinner and drinks with her best friend would help put the horror of the case behind her. Soon she will soon learn she should have listened to her gut. Nightmares do come true and monsters really do exist. And, on this night of the full moon, she is the prey.

This expanded story was originally released as Wolf’s Prey.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Fractional Ownership

When his company demands either a move to Mars or the loss of his job,
perpetual plaintiff Lewis Ostrow finds he can’t even get a ticket to
the world without lawyers.

A short story.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: BROTHER

Today is the day when traditionally people set up elaborate — and often ridiculous — hoaxes on other people.

I was never particularly fond of those that were actually designed for people to believe, mostly because I’m not fond of making fools of others, or humiliation humor. Perhaps I have more empathy than average, or perhaps I know that I am on occasion foolish myself, and don’t wish to inflict it on others.

To me the ideal April Fools joke is the one where it’s obvious from the beginning that it’s a joke, but people are amazed at the thoroughness and the trouble you went through to create it, so that they are, in a way, in on the joke and admiring your artistry.

That’s the kind I tried to perpetrate with the famous announcement of the eminent publication of my mystery Sharkdip Thieves. And my son, back when he did a comic, went through a great deal of trouble to do something similar when he claimed he’d been bought by an anime corporation which would be, from then on, responsible for the art. Or my husband, when he announced he’d sold the world’s stupidest book for a million dollars. I mean we were very careful so it was obviously absurd.

And yet, casual readers fell for it. And yeah, sure, they weren’t so much humiliated, as they came back and slapped their foreheads minutes later going “Oh, no. I should have realized.”

I considered doing something of the kind today, though honestly I can’t even think what. Or I considered doing an outright very silly one, and have Havelock-cat write this post and claim he’s holding me hostage until provided with an orange kitten friend.

The reason I’m abstaining is not just because I’m still trying to finish Bowl of Red (Yes, I know, but it’s hard to write fast enough (And not have to delete bits because I suddenly went off on a tangent for ten chapters, which happened there. Okay, only 5. Those will probably be used in the next book, All Hot) when I’m in the middle of an eczema outbreak that disturbs my sleep. Yes, it’s much reduced, and “not bad” in the scale of outbreaks, but I still wake up when my arms rub against the covers which they do, of course) and I REALLY need to get it to my editor by close of business today, if I’m going to keep my publication schedule. And then, after a couple of days break, I need to roll tout-de-suite into Dark Waters, the sequel to Deep Pink.

I could take an hour and come up with a fun post, since I’m taking it to write this, anyway.

But I found when it came right up to it, I didn’t feel up to honoring deception, even open, “obviously not deception.”

I’m too bruised and my nerves are too raw. Over the last ten years, in everything from culture to politics, we’ve been made fools of and been caused to repeat things we know are foolish, for the sake of survival.

Someone, either Herb or Snelson, during one of his depressive periods said he wouldn’t be surprised if he came here and found this site had always been a front and a deception, designed to take down the names of participants. For the record, it’s not, though I imagine all our names, handles and proclivities are written down by various interested parties. These days if you’re not on a list you’re not trying.

But I remembered my first reaction to that, which was utter indignation, and then I thought of all the sites that had effectively pulled that on me — and you — over the years. I won’t mention them because I’m not going to get in a war. But we all know them. In fact these days sites that are what it say on the tin are very few. (And in that spirit, this is the blog of a neurotic fiction writer of socially unacceptable opinions, trying make sense of a bewilderingly bizarre and stupid world.)

And I remembered all the friends I’ve lost over the years. And some of them probably have cause to think I was the one who changed. I never did, but by keeping quiet I allowed them to think I was a leftist and “one of the good people” which of course is their foolishness, that they assume anyone not actively fighting them agrees with them, or that the side that put over a hundred million thinking, feeling individual people in graves is the “good people.”

But others I was truly wounded by, because our relationship was not political at all. We never mentioned or thought of politics — that I know of — unless it was the fictional politics of a created universe.

Yet all of a sudden, over a plastic rocket and the standards for being awarded such, there they were, calling me all sorts of ist and ism, and reviling people like me…. for no good reason.

Lately I’ve been looking at pictures — not out of nostalgia, but because I’m unpacking framed pictures of us that were never put up int he house we moved to in 2003. These pictures are mostly of us in the nineties, with our kids and our friends.

Of that group…. none remain. Not in contact with us and friendly. I think one of twenty or so people have our current address. The others, I wouldn’t trust with it.

This is shocking to someone who tried to keep friendships even after moving to another country, and who always expected her friendships to be life-long.

I look at those pictures, of parties at our house, and I marvel. And the thought “How beautiful we were” goes through my head, having nothing to do with our physical appearance. There was an untroubled, carefree look, an ease of casual friendship.

Was it always a sham? Probably a double sham, honestly. Even though I was open about my politics with most of our friends, they either assumed we “didn’t really mean it.” Or that my opinions were silly and my being an immigrant, once I “informed myself” I’d agree with them. (Completely missing the point of my history.)

And yet…. How beautiful we were. We knew we disagreed. We knew some of those disagreements were fundamental. But we thought in time things would shake out and a consensus would be arrived at, and that there was no true animosity on either side.

I think those ideas started falling apart with the 2000 election, and were nuked to kingdom come when they joined with our active enemies to lecture us about how America had brought the 9/11 attack on itself by being…. mean? Free? Whatever. By being us.

That was when most of our friendships fell apart.

We’ve rebuilt. But we can’t seem to trust that carelessly again. I don’t know if it’s just us, or if it’s universal. At this point, another betrayal still hurts, but I shrug and go “What did I expect?”

Heinlein’s bastard son, Lazarus Long said (paraphrased because I don’t have the quote right here) that a mother’s illusions are functional. If mothers didn’t believe that their children were the most beautiful, the smartest creatures ever born, none of us would survive childhood.

In the same way, our illusions were severe, but in a way functional. They allowed us to subsist and be happy, in the belief our friends, our co-workers, those who shared our passion for our hobby were well-intentioned human beings, no matter how deluded.

With the illusion gone, we might survive, but not happily.

How beautiful we were. And what fools.

Something fell into place with me, this morning, about this fun little start to a WWIII we have. And it makes sense.

Like the meme posted later on in this post, I want to warn you if you read this post, it’s one of those “Once you see it you can’t unsee it” and it might cost you sleep. Or not, if you’re one of those people who needs things to make sense. It might also allow you to prepare.

One of you surprised me a few years back by saying my style, my — for lack of a better term — natural voice, when I’m not being one of my characters (it’s complicated. Think of me as a radio that types, channeling narratives from parallel worlds. No, that’s not true, but my subconscious is a stone cold b*tch) reminded her of Agatha Christie, specifically in the Miss Marple stories.

It surprised me because while I read Agatha Chris obsessively for years, I read her mostly in Portuguese.

However, Miss Marple was so much like my (paternal) grandmother, that I couldn’t help but be influenced by her. Or by grandma. It’s hard to tell which. Both of them could figure out the rational explanation to something, because a fact didn’t fit, and they’d dig, and dig, and dig, and create analogies for what was happening, in search of an explanation.

I have the same need to make sense, to see “reason” out of things that don’t seem to. And I can’t stand it when something doesn’t FIT. If you want to drive me insane, you do something completely out of character for which there is no rational explanation. I’ll obsess over it for years, whether it’s in my favor or not.

This is why I knew the covidiocy was a sham of some sort. Not only weren’t the homeless dying like flies; the third world, despite some reports, also weren’t dying like flies. And the big cities in the US were encouraging homeless to crowd and congregate while everyone else was locked up. It didn’t add, unless the whole thing were a sham perpetrated by several groups for several related goals. (A prospiracy more than a conspiracy. I could expound on the cross-purpose goals I’ve uncovered so far, but that’s another post, right?)

In the same way, this whole “We really are in a shadow war with Putin! The cold war is back! Putin is crazy! He’s invading the Ukraine for funsies! Putin is invading because we crowded him! Biolabs in Ukraine!!!!!!” But at the same time — to give Trump his due — Putin, in this head to head (supposed) context, hasn’t dumped the contents of Biden’s laptop (of course they have it. I mean our FBI has it, and they are rapidly approaching status of enemy, domestic) into our national discourse. (I mean, it would complete disorganize us, and lose us whatever international prestige we still have, such as it is.) Or Putin could have dumped all the other Kompromat I’m sure they have on the not-very-bright and not particularly stealthy Biden crime family. Why hasn’t he?

And Biden, despite his continuous gaffes that take us to the brink of nuclear exchange, at least in theory, is STILL USING PUTIN TO BROKER THE SUICIDAL IRAN DEAL. And hasn’t opened up the keystone pipeline and started authorizing drilling,which would sink Putin and possibly save the democratic party. (Yes, Greens, but seriously. It’s either a war and an emergency or it’s not.)

This morning, this thread hit my mailbox from three separate sources (and if you’re not following Trent Telenko on Twitter, create a burner account to do so. I’m going to need to do it, since I refuse to log in to my real account (I just use it to echo my blogs) and Twitter is getting pushy about logging in. It’s worth dipping a toe into the sewer for the man’s insights, honest).

You should go and read the whole thing, but until you do, let me quote a bit, so you get what we’re talking about. Again, the thread is here:

Alright, this is the promised thread🧵explaining the “Irrational Regime Hypothesis.”
This is a national/institutional behavior template.
Warning: once you see this template. You cannot unsee it.

The basic concept is that for certain unstable regimes (or even stable ones with no effective means of resolving internal disputes peacefully, particularly the succession of power) domestic power games are far more important than anything foreign, and that foreigners are

…only symbols to use in domestic factional fights.
The need to show ideological purity & resolve – “virtue signaling” in modern terms – as a means of achieving power inside the ruling in-group becomes more important than objective reality
Only the internal power matters

…as outside reality is merely a symbol to be used in the internal power game.

The ruling Imperial Japanese military faction of 1931 – 1945 was a classic example of this irrational regime hypothesis.

Trent Telenko, on twitter

And suddenly the back of my mind clicked. Not conspiracy, which is hard on this scale — Not kabuki which didn’t feel quite right — but like the Covidiocy? Prospiracy. “We’re all going this way because we think it fits our goals.”

Now I want you to consider that it’s not one, but two irrational regimes, we’re dealing with.

This has been bothering the heck out of me, because it smells like they’re cooperating, only that’s not QUITE the right pattern.

None of this makes sense, unless you have TWO irrational regimes (Ours and Russia’s. China is too, but it’s another ball of wax. China doesn’t really believe other nations are real, anyway. They’re just Barbarians and China is all-under-heaven, so this is all much of a muchness on that front.) that are using each other as scarecrows to quiet the opposition at home.

Yadda, yadda, sure, the great reset and depopulation is part of the plan, but look, this is not actually throughout the left, and I bet 90% of the Biden Junta (as a handle for his handlers) isn’t committed to it. The plan exists out there as a wished for exegesis that makes them be “on the right side of history” but most of them are running on what they heard in college was good, and are not committed to the great reset world.

Why do they act like they’re simultaneously enemies and besties, and all the while are bringing us closer to nuclear war than we’ve been in 40 years?  What sense can we make of this?

This is not about Ukraine. This isn’t even a shadow war between us and Russia.

This is two, enormously unstable regimes, who don’t understand why the internals of their country aren’t conforming to their theories and things aren’t falling into place as their ideological certainty tells them they should, trying to stomp on internal enemies and keep/increase power. 

The other/opponent is just a paper target, something to focus the eye on, but it’s not really what they’re shooting at. I submit to you that Biden’s supporters really, truly thought that the “right” (for lack of a better term) would not just say “Well Putin has a point” (Which is the worst I’ve heard) but fall in, vocally, ecstatically, behind Putin.  That because they’ve been told Trump is Putin’s bud (And remember the left assumes that the right in the US goes for cult of personality as much as they do) we would all rush to vocally support Putin.

And then, as they did during the two world wars, and claim was done during the cold war (waggles hand. Sometimes. Inconsistently) they could righteously suppress the opposition as traitors in a time of war and paint them as evil to the populace.

Meanwhile Putin thought that he could have a short victorious war, start on his dream towards greater Russia, and cement the suppression of opposition, and his cult of personality at home.

Those were the actual goals, and that explains the “we wouldn’t object to a small incursion” and the crazy cakes way Putin went at the war.

It didn’t work, on either end. So now the only thing the two can do is escalate, in pursuit of their real goal: the cementing of internal support/suppression of opposition. This is the only thing that explains why Biden is still making obvious “gaffes” that take us to the brink, and why Putin, reportedly is conducting the war from a nuclear-proof bunker.

Will they go that far? I don’t know. Grandma was fond of saying “I’d not go anywhere – even to heaven – with a madman, because he might push me down.”  And we’re dealing with two insane regimes.

May G-d have mercy on our souls.

*Ladies, gentlemen, dragons, sea otters and small flightless birds: Frank Fleming needs no introduction. A lot of us grew up reading IMAO.US (Yes, yes, I am older than he is. Who are you to dictate when I grew up). My reaction whenever he offers us something for According to Hoyt is “We are not worthy.” Also, and this is very important, you must all go out and buy his books. He allegedly has evidence of my participation in Instapundit’s puppy blending rituals*1 and hypothetically could release the pictures, if he doesn’t make enough money out of his books. So, I’m pushing him for purely altruistic reasons and totally not because I apparently once left a laptop for repair and forgot it and there might possibly be pictures of puppies and blenders. GO BUY HIS BOOKS. – SAH*

Writing Male Characters – by Frank J. Fleming

Writing is hard. For one, there’s a seemingly infinite combination of letters, but only a small subset of them make any sense. To demonstrate, I’ll just bang on my keyboard a bit.

qoiebnv,mdjapx,ciouipoebhjcklaq[;pejklsm,d

See? That doesn’t make any sense. It takes a lot of work to get all those letters in the right order.

And the other hard part about writing is creating realistic characters — really believable people. Now, one thing everyone can easily do is write female characters. That’s because women are straightforward. Women like it when you compliment their hair, and their primary motivation in life is obtaining more shoes. To write a realistic female character, that’s really all you have to know.

But men are more complex, and that’s why I think a lot of people write male characters who aren’t very believable. But I have some tips here that will help you write some male characters who seem to jump off the page.

TIPS ON WRITING MALE CHARACTERS

* Duty is important. One of the main motivators of male characters is duty. Duty is what gives men purpose, and a sense of duty should be the driving factor in any story. The only problem with duty is that when it’s said out loud, it sounds a lot like “doody” and makes men laugh. So while duty should be important to the story, it should never actually be said, or it’s going to derail everything with snickering.

* Few emotions. You may think, “I’m going to write a really passionate character pulled to his limit by extreme circumstances.” Well, not if you’re writing a male character, because men aren’t big on feelings. You tell a male character, “Barbarians sacked and destroyed your home village killing everyone!” his first reaction will be to grunt and shrug. Because men aren’t big on feelings and aren’t going to get all worked up over events.

* Always tries punching. So what does your character do when faced with a problem? Does the character use their brains to think of a solution? Not if the character is male; he’s first going to try punching something. Because men like punching things and will always give it a try in every situation. Let’s say you have a science fiction story, and there is some sort of interstellar anomaly. A male character will walk right up and try to punch it. Only if that fails will he then try something else like quantum physics. This is why Sherlock Holmes was widely criticized for having an unrealistic male character because Holmes always went straight to observation to solve crimes instead of just punching the nearest person and yelling, “Who did this?”

* Men only want one thing. Despite whatever is going on in your story, it’s important to remember that men only want one thing at the end of the day: nachos. This is most of their motivation for doing anything, so make sure to mention it in your writing. “He knew that by overthrowing the dark lord, he’d be free to eat all the nachos he wanted.” Stuff like that. Men can also be motivated by pizza and tacos, but it usually all comes down to nachos.

* Men don’t like it when you make fun of their homemade Mandalorian costume. When men work really hard on a cool imitation of the Mandalorian costume, it really hurts when people make fun of it. I think I did a great job, and I don’t think it’s that far off from the TV show. And I know before I said before men don’t have emotions, but they might get a little emotional when they spend all week trying to make cardboard look like beskar steel and their wife just laughs at them when they walk around the house in it.

—

Well, there are all the tips I have for writing realistic male characters. Apply these, and maybe you’ll finally stop getting criticized for not understanding men in your fiction. And maybe get a 3D printer. Then you’ll be able to make a Mandalorian armored codpiece so realistic even your wife won’t be able to laugh at it.

Frank J. Fleming’s new novel, Superego: Betrayal, the third in his Superego series about a psychotic, intergalactic (male) hitman, is out now.

*1 Instapundit being a puppy blender, to get him energy to power his posting (when it was just him) was of course a joke Frank floated, in response to never being linked at instapundit. It spread until Glenn Reynolds was known to a substantial portion of the internet as “the puppy blender, himself.”
It is of course just a joke. No puppies were blended in pursuit of it. And of course instapundit doesn’t have a teleporter so that all of us, contributors, can get together and participate in horrific and yet cheesy puppy blending rituals. If you don’t believe me, ask Stephen Green or Charlie Martin, whom I totally didn’t share the Colorado teleporter for a while.

All right. I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense.

Yes, the title is a dig at our alleged VP, one that Ace of Spades loves to make. It appears every time she fails — I knew someone who worked for her for a while. They don’t know if she’s stupid or lazy, but apparently her modus operandi is to sit in her office and browse for shoes, while people do her work for her — the journalists go on about how some male “failed to position her for success.”

If it were only her, though, I would grit my teeth and go on, which honestly is all I’m doing under this destructive mal-administration. (If they don’t get us nuked, it wasn’t for lack of trying.)

But I was reading Austen fanfic, and I realize this is a generational problem, starting with X probably and really horribly bad in my kids’ generation. Women really expect to be “positioned for success.” And if they fail it’s some man’s fault.

This Austen fanfic was exemplary of this, and I read it with awe and horror, in the same spirit one would watch a train wreck, disgusted and shocked but afraid to look away.

Look, the central conceit of Pride and Prejudice, if you haven’t read it, is that both the parents were objectionable, and the young ladies were cast upon the world with no a feather to fly with. This falls broadly under “author being an *sshole to characters, because it makes the story more interesting and their triumph greater.”

Mr. Bennet, the family father, is probably a raging introvert. He hides in his office and reads great works, emerges to make sarcastic comments, and finds “felicity in marriage” in an unusual way. This is because his wife is vulgar (she is a merchant’s daughter. In this case “Vulgar” is a term of art meaning “she never learned the complex interactions of the upper class”) and frankly dumb as a post. (Beyond being vulgar she doesn’t understand a lot of the interactions between people, pretty much anything people say that is even slightly involved or…. really anything. She is credited with the ability to set a good table (no mean feat at the time) but in no way intellectual.

Now this rings absolutely true. And milder than it might have been. I know many a brilliant man who, for reasons of being young, desperate and male, married a woman who creates beautiful music with the wind whistling in and out of her ears, when turned a certain way. The best ones are like Mr. Bennet. They develop their “felicity” by amusing themselves with the strange things their wives do. This is because, as I told my son long ago (about his classmates) if you laugh at people, you still love them a little. Particularly, if it’s a tender laugh as in “Oh, boy, she’s so silly” which unless Mrs. Bennet is being egregious is the type of laughter in P & P.

The middle type will leave the family.

The really bad ones turn abusive. Arguably that was my grandfather. (And grandmother wasn’t stupid. Just ignorant, and he was brilliant. She had practical knowledge, but the man read everything and was friend with authors.)

I was aware of the “It’s all Mr. Bennet’s fault and he’s the bad guy” faction mostly because (for weird but cogent reasons) older son took a Jane Austen course in college. The perspective, as someone who grew up with Jane Austen, puzzled the heck out of him. But I knew it was out there.

I mean, was he flawless? No. He should perhaps have done more to secure his daughter’s future, but at their income level people really didn’t have a season in London, so he wasn’t depriving them of that. (They might have taken the girls to Bath, maybe.) But mostly the reason they were having trouble marrying the girls off wasn’t even dowries. (And yeah, at 21 Jane, the pretty one, was practically on the shelf.) It was the Napoleonic wars, which were killing men in batch lots, and also taking away a lot of rural boys to go fight. which left rural hamlets curiously devoid of marriageable prospects. This is something neither of their parents could have foreseen when they were born. As the local gentry, Mr. Bennet probably figured out his daughters would marry the like from nearby hamlets, or perhaps wealthy farmers/merchants. (They were on the bottom of their class, so permeable.) Also, Mrs. Bennet’s marriage portion is intact, and not inconsiderable being five thousand pounds. The interest of that would keep widow and children in some comfort in a rural village, even if not in affluence.

It’s also obvious from the book that Mr. Bennet mostly gives way to his wife because “it’s not worth fighting.”

We don’t know if the estate is well administered, but since there’s no mention of debts or tenants leaving, we must assume it’s well enough administered. It’s just not that big or profitable, period.

Now, sure, part of fanfic is making assumptions, and sometimes the assumptions or outright changes to the characters are okay. This one annoyed the living daylights out of me, though, because one gets the impression that the author didn’t realize she was making changes. There was no “Because of her father, Mrs. Bennet actually had a lot of business acumen” or deep seeding you do for these things.

No, it was just “Mr. Bennet failed to support and help his wife, and that’s why she was this bad. Oh, yeah, he also mismanaged the estate, so we’ll have Lizzy manage it for him, and she’ll do brilliantly, even though in the book her main talents are snappy come backs and dancing, because she has a vagina and therefore is brilliant. Oh, and he’ll recognize he did wrong and spend the entire book apologizing to his wife and daughters, and being really impressed with his wife for taking him to task.” (Again, these young women idea of a strong woman seems to be being a b*tch on wheels.)

The entire book is a pile on on Mr. Bennet for failing to “support his wife” and “help her with what she needs to know.”

IOW, the author seems to think that Mr. Bennet should be doing both jobs — and we won’t even go into the fact here that yes, lady of the Manor was a job, as was Lord of the Manor (even though they weren’t titled) each with its specialized area of knowledge and management, and that Mr. Bennet probably had absolutely no clue what it took to do his wife’s job, since his mother would never have taught him that — and giving his wife all the credit.

Which seems to be like a subset of young women views as their due in life, because … because they were born with a vagina. Which means if they aren’t wildly successful, they’re being discriminated against and it’s some men’s fault.

I won’t go into the central contradiction at the heart of this, which I’d already noticed in the 80s, and which is apparently the central relationship-between-men-and-females neurosis of boomers, which is that women can do anything, but they’re being held down by men, and are fragile flowers who will met if looked at the wrong way.

But I kind of know at least some of the issues influencing this insane view that men should “position women for success” while giving them all undue praise and worship.

1- It starts with the women who were upheld while women were fighting for “equal rights” meaning for entry in the male world of male jobs (but only the indoor and clean ones, mind.) Keep in mind that in most western countries (well, not the one I came from) the barriers weren’t political or legal, but social. There was a strong “ladies don’t do that” that kept (mostly middle class. Lower class women always worked. They had to) women out of middle class jobs. Which means that women who bucked that were to begin with iconoclasts and odd. Those who succeeded weren’t merely crazy.
Women who first broke into … oh, professorships, or commercial writing, or even professional secretary, were exceptional. You see this a bit when you read thirties books, and you have the utterly devoted secretary who knows how to do everything in the office, and is unmarried because she devoted herself to her career.
They were exceptional, because it was very hard to break in. You had to be super-hungry, determined and focused to get a foot in the door.
So they were amazing and exceptional. From this a lot of people on the activist side took the idea EVERY woman was like that, and imagine the amazing things unleashed if they were “equal” to men, or even better took charge.
The just-so story that emerged in the heads of activists and theoretical thinkers was that if women were this wonderful, what force men MUST be exerting to keep them down in all sorts of ways.
(And since in most cases there was no legal barrier, this is why boomer females believe in a vast conspiracy by all males, ignoring that most males want their wives/sisters/daughters to succeed and also that they’re not a hive identity.)

2 – When women were pushed, harangued, shoved into professions many of them had no interest in, because culture had flipped and you couldn’t be “just a wife and mother” and if you tried you were called names and assumed to be dumb, most of them failed to amaze.
Which, of course they did. Look, most people are average. That’s why it’s called average, or normal. Heck, most men also have no interest in a career. If they’re wealthy and/or fortunate enough, most of them will happily putter through life doing this and that, and nothing of consequence. And 99% of men and women have jobs, not careers, much less vocations. Those of us who must do one thing, come hell or high water are very, very broken.
So, women failed to take over and remake the world into paradise. And the just so story went wild. There really must be a vast conspiracy of males and the patriarchy. And it’s so sneaky, you can’t see it, so micro aggressions, etc.

This is how we get to boomer females, ten years older than I who are sure their potential for a brilliant career in science was ruined by Mr. Jones in Third Grade who told them that girls just weren’t good at math. I mean, it’s possible Mr. Jones existed, though so many of them report this, I think they’re borrowing each other’s experience in the guise of false memory. There are asses everywhere. But if you had a real vocation and drive to science, you wouldn’t be deterred by that.

Me? I love science, but I transpose digits in math, so despite all encouragement, and because I didn’t figure out the digit thing was an actual brain glitch till my late thirties when I had to figure out ways for the kids to overcome it, my love affair with science remains mere flirting, including a lot of reading popularizations, and listening to scientist friends. And having known a lot of these women intimately, if Mr. Jones told them that girls couldn’t do math, he was lying to console them. He didn’t want to say “You, personally, my dear can’t do math. You can’t do much thinking either. You should stop trying to be an intellectual leading light and learn crochet or something. Also there are better channels for your fervor than grievance and feminism. Have you tried Christianity and becoming a missionaire?”

But their impression that “if women had free rein, they would all be amazeballs” sticks, and they won’t let go. So we’re now in the fourth generation of finding excuses.

And the women are actually factually handicapped by the fact that no authority figure dares judge them harshly, or judge them at all.

They can’t give the highest grades to boys, because someone will notice and accuse them of being misogynist. Look, NATURALLY in mixed classes, boys have the top three spots or so. And this is being told to you by a woman who always had the top spot, even if she had to half-kill-herself to do it.

This comes not because men are smarter — there might be more brilliant men than brilliant women but society rewards high-normal not brilliant — but because males in general are more competitive, so they care if they are the best. And also because statistically — which says nothing about the individual — men have more geniuses (and more morons) and women tend to cluster around the center of the bell curve (there are evolutionary reasons for this. I’m not going into them.)

But that’s not what we see in any classes today. Because no one would dare do that. In fact, they will distort the entire style of teaching and all the testing, and finally resort to outright lying to make women be in the top slots.

Look, older son is thirty. I have gone to a lot of graduations. I’ve read a lot of “Award winning” projects. ALL women. Sometimes a man snuck in, but 90% of them were women. And I have eyes/can listen to speeches/ can read the “winning” efforts.

When my kids were carrying high Bs and these girls had perfect As? They were doing at best C work. The boys were doing A work. (And no, not because I’m their mom. You should hear me critique their efforts when they’re subpar.)

Our acquaintance included boy and girl twins, both of average intelligence. The girl had straight As. The boy eventually dropped out of high school, because he felt there was no correlation between effort and grade. They are not anomalous. I keep hearing more and more stories like that.

These girls are being given praise and high grades for work that frankly should be taken to the woodshed and given a good drubbing.

Every time I taught or tutored, I found that by the end of high school girls were maybe three years behind the boys. They were also, by grade, at the top of their classes.

Not because girls are stupid, and in fact when I tutored and was ruthless with them, most came up to speed really fast. (So did the boys. I…. might be a bit scary.) (Why were the girls in tutoring? Well, some parents NOTICED they were little ignorant monkeys and wanted them to actually be prepared for college.)

It’s because girls aren’t being taught. They’re being praised, and glorified, and told they’re the best evah!

Here’s the dirty secret: no matter how much you mollycoddle someone, sooner or later they’ll come up against a test.

It might be in college, when it is required that you actually do that math you’ve been avoiding, because it’s boring, and some professor refuses to play along because vagina, and he has tenure, and you’re going to fail.

It might be as a young newlywed, when you can’t balance your checkbook.

It might be in a job, where they let you keep the title, but you realized you’ve been shunted aside and your subordinates are actually doing the job. (And you don’t want to spend your day shopping for shoes.)

Sooner or later you’ll get tested. You can’t mollycoddle someone into success.

No one can succeed for you, nor get you into a position where you’ll never make a mistake. For one, we are not born perfect, and we all make mistakes. Every day. It’s mistakes that really teach.

In that fanfic, if Mrs. Bennet had suddenly shunted her husband aside, because he had “failed to support me.” she would have rapidly squandered whatever money they’d set aside in fripperies and a new carriage, because THOSE not estate management, or preparing her daughters for society were obviously her areas or expertise. And throwing a 19 year old girl at regency estate management would mean ruin. Before or after her nervous breakdown.

If you have no other reason you’re supposed to be successful than “because I”m a woman” and if you think you should succeed without trying because you have a vagina, you are delusional.

Failing to do your job for you and give you praise is not failing you. Unless it’s you failing yourself.

Yeah, sure, some men — though mostly women — will stab you in the back and climb the ladder over your dead body. Humans, what are you going to do?

And some professions/jobs are closed shops and guilds, which mostly favor those who have family/parents already in them or in some contact with them. Like, it’s much easier to become a bestseller, if your parents worked for NYC publishing, or at least attended the parties. Oh, and if you have the right politics. (In publishing, liberal female is life on the easiest of settings.)

But that’s what life is like, and what a complex society is like. No one owes you anything. Not because you’re a woman, not because you can tan, not because you’re a cross eyed Pacific islander, with an interesting history.

People will try to give you breaks for all of those, even those in most cases those characteristics have nothing to do with professional competence. And people will try to push you into their idea of success.

But in the end, in the very end, short of cancelling you and making it impossible for you to be hired (and sometimes — feral grin — not even then) people will succeed at what they want to do, if they want it badly enough and are willing to work their tails off.

Yeah, they will sometimes have to work harder than other people, for various reasons. Well. That’s humans for you. You can’t really equalize access without ending up doing things like preparing women atrociously, because you’re afraid of discouraging them.

And also, most jobs that look glamorous and easy from the outside aren’t. Anything that pays really well, and a lot of things that don’t, are a lot of work for everyone. And a bunch of headaches, and often total lack of security.

Don’t go imagining that people of a difference sex, color or body type have it easier. Yeah, some do. Though in most closed-shops right now, the greatest advantage is leftist politics, and if you want it badly enough you’ll pretend that.

Or you’ll go away and do something else.

Despite a century of indoctrination, most humans don’t want “careers”. They want jobs that pay for the things they really want to do.

Trying to demand that men do everything while giving women all the credit is not only spitting on feminists like grandma, who fought to erase the legal distinctions, making women responsible for their own money and allowed to live alone even if widowed: it’s trying to take us back to when every woman was considered sort of an overgrown child.

Because you can’t keep telling people to believe you over their lying eyes without a reaction.

So grow up. Succeed or don’t. Work or don’t. Fight for what you want or don’t. Just stop blaming others for it.

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

*Some of these books are getting pushed two weeks in a row because now (crosses fingers) they have images. Apparently it makes a huge difference. Who knew? – SAH*

From Sarah A. Hoyt: Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost

This is a very strange collection of fairytales, recast for modern life. In it the prize isn’t always to the fairest, the
magic is rarely to the strongest.
But lonely introverts do find love, women who never gave it a thought find themselves at the center of romance.
Doing what’s right will see you to the happily ever after.
And sometimes you have to kiss an accountant to find your prince.

This one is the fault of all of you little maniacs. I wrote a few short short fairy tales set in modern day, frankly on days I was too depressed to write about the real world. And then y’all clamored for it in book format. Well, having read them over, they’re really ridiculously cheering-up. So I edited them and slapped them up for sale. Yes, there will be a paper version when it comes out (I need to figure out how to put it for preorder, first.) This amuses me greatly because fracture fairytales are the domain of ultra-woke. Cover by Caitlin Walsh, who was terrified of making a cover, but I bullied her anyway. Because I do that. There you go – SAH

From Frank J. Fleming: Superego ON SALE

Rico is a psychopath.

That’s why his job as an intergalactic hitman for a massive criminal syndicate suits him so well. He gets to do what he does best: go planet to planet and wreak destruction. He enjoys his work.

But Rico’s latest assignment isn’t what it seems, and after inadvertently thwarting a terror attack, he finds himself playing the good guy. Stuck pretending he’s a cop, he gets paired with some lady detective who is more than a little suspicious of him. To make matters worse, he starts to have new feelings toward her, feelings he’s never felt before. Love, maybe? That’s stupid. What is he supposed to do with that?

And this job isn’t fun, as it soon spirals into secrets, betrayal, and a whole planet out to kill him. Well, it’s a little fun. Still, Rico may have finally found himself in a situation he can’t shoot his way out of.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t try.

From Frank J. Fleming: Superego: Betrayal

Terrorists. A ruthless criminal syndicate. A warmongering dictatorship. And those are just Rico’s allies.

With the civilized universe conquered, it’s up to the uncivilized to fight back. Rico prefers working alone, but this time he’s leading an army against his two greatest enemies, who both have one thing in common: Rico’s own DNA.

Fighting a personal battle on a galactic scale, Rico enlists thieves, murderers, and malcontents (plus one space princess) to help him save the universe from tyranny.

And considering Rico’s new associates, it’s not a question of whether he’ll be betrayed, but when, and by whom.

From Amanda S. Green: Foil of the Gods

Evil has taken root in the Adrean Imperium. Soon it will rise up, destroying everything in its wake. If Balaar wins, the world will fall to a darkness the like of which it has never before seen.

Aimsir, to the west of the Imperium, is the birthplace of the Order of Arelion, enemy of Balaar. Cait Falconer—Knight-Cleric and heir to Queen Maeve Porgisl, ruler of Aimsir—knows danger draws near. Aimsir’s borders have been safeguarded but at a great cost. Now Cait and the Order work with the Queen and her military to make sure Aimsir never falls to the coming evil.

Then the unthinkable happens. Allies fall. Others become enemies. The followers of Balaar march inexplicably toward Aimsir. If it falls, all will be lost.

From Roy M. Griffis: The Thing from HR: A Cthulhu, Amalgamated novel

What’s a nice Shoggoth like him doing in a dump like this?

Narg was content working as a Damnation Services-10 in HR. Sure, he was related to one of the Elder Gods, but a little nepotism never hurt any Thing. His life was just wailing and gibbering, right up until his Uncle needed a small favor from his nephew.

All Narg had to do was go down among the humans…and pretend to be one of them.

From Dale Cozort: Snapshot-42 Book One-Stalingrad Run

At the height of World War II, an apparent time anomaly cuts Europe and part of the Middle East off from the rest of the world. Trapped in Northern Iran, with no way to contact the world he knew, United States Army Engineer Jim Edwards is forced to flee from both the Germans and the Soviets. His only companions are a mysterious Russian woman who may be trying to assassinate Stalin, and a man who calls himself “Loki”. Is he any more trustworthy than the Norse trickster god he’s named after?

In a desperate bid to get to Great Britain, Jim finds himself in a treacherous race across Nazi-occupied Europe. His mission? To prevent the Nazis from overrunning Europe, then sending their war machines against an alternate United States that’s still armed with black powder muskets. The freedom of mankind’s future may depend on his success.

Pam Uphoff: Home World

Roland house Jaeger is in desperate straits after being brutally used to distract his father while his enemies move.

Lord Seigbert Fey needs help to gain custody of his orphaned grandchildren, and desperate enough to take a chance on a battered angry teenaged boy.

Together, they start to pull their lives together. But their Transdimensional Empire of thousands of Worlds, the Drei Mächte Bündnis, the Three Part Alliance, is heading into rough waters, and about to hit the rocks that will shatter it.

Can a small family survive the fall of the Alliance?

From Anna Ferreira: The Flight of Miss Stanhope: A short and Sweet Regency Romance

Marianne Stanhope is in trouble. Her family is urging her to accept the attentions of a most odious suitor, so she turns to a gentleman of her acquaintance for aid. But Mr. Firth has his own reasons for assisting Miss Stanhope, and it falls to her childhood friend Mr. Killingham to convince her that she’s made a dreadful mistake.

By Malcolm Jameson, With Afterword by D. Jason Fleming: Too Young To Live!

After suffering a catastrophic failure that almost destroys their ship, the crew of the Thuban manage to gain some control inside of a dark nebula, and land on the mysterious Athanata — a planet where age is immortality, and youth is a death sentence!

First published under the editor-mandated title Quicksands of Youthwardness, iktaPOP Media is pleased to bring this long out-of-print Malcolm Jameson tale back to readers everywhere.

From Peter Rabe, with Foreword by Jason D. Fleming: A House in Naples

After World War 2, Charley and Joe made a good living on the black market in Italy. They didn’t like each other. Didn’t even trust each other. But they worked well together.

Now it’s been ten years, though, and after Martha shows up, things are starting to come apart.

From Leigh Kimmel: Once a Chekist

Katya Burinskaya carries a deadly secret. So when she is summoned to the Lubyanka for a personal meeting with the head of Imperial Security, she fears the worst.

However, this meeting does not concern her, but her daughter. Tasha has become entangled with a troublesome genomic prince of the Imperial House, and both mother and daughter may suffer if Katya does not assist Security Minister Chalkov in investigating a family affair of his own, which also involves Prince Yevgenny Yakovlevich.

Politics makes strange bedfellows in the new Russian Empire born of human cloning and Cold War genetic experiments. Chalkov was once an officer of the old Soviet KGB. And as Katya’s husband often warns, once a Chekist, always a Chekist.

A short story of the Grissom timeline.

Originally published in the anthology Mortis Operandi.

From T. L. Knighton: Bad Moon On The Rise

Sheriff Jason Calvin and the people of New Eden have managed to move on from a brutal war with a neighboring town. In the aftermath, a new government rose from the ashes to bring peace to the Tennessee Valley.

Unfortunately, there always seems to be people who have no interest in peace as a group of ruthless thugs with a personal axe to grind kills one of Jason’s closest friends. Now, the sheriff has to deal with meddlesome bureaucrats, a conniving rival, and old enemies in an effort to find the men responsible, plus the small army protecting them, and bring them to justice.

Bad Moon on the Rise continues the story first told in After the Blast and continued in Bloody Eden.

By Max Brand, with Foreword by D. Jason Fleming: Train’s Trust (Annotated): The classic pulp western adventure

Steve Train, gambler, adventurer, clever rogue, didn’t care much for work. But then he was offered a job with no work, but plenty of danger. The job: track down outlaw Jim Nair — and hand him a pile of money!

From Sarah A. Hoyt: Barbarella #9
(There will be five more with a new plot line after #10!)

The penultimate issue for this current installment! Beauty meets beautiful (and highly defended) beast as Barbarella takes the fight right to The Lady’s doorstep. Doing so means tracking down The Lady’s hidden home world and doing that means fighting through the masses determined to keep it hidden! If it’s that hard to make planetfall, what the heck awaits our hero? And what is the incredible, tragic connection between The Lady and Taln?! All this, and cringy one-liners, too!

Edited by Hank Davis, and featuring a story Co-Authored by Sarah A. Hoyt and Robert A. Hoyt:Cosmic Corsairs!

NEW FICTION AND CLASSICS OF THE GENRE COLLECTED BY THE EDITORIAL TEAM BEHIND SPACE PIONEERS AND OVERRULED!

SPACE PIRATES!

Words that conjure up rousing tales of adventure, derring-do, brave heroes battling the scurvy vermin of the galaxy. Those vermin have taken to pillaging cargo ships and, even worse, space liners, relieving the helpless passengers of their valuables, and worse with the comely women passengers, then spacing the lot—unless one or more of the aforementioned brave heroes arrive in the nick of time, and turn the tables, making the spaceways safe again for the innocent and helpless. On the other hand, perhaps the pirate captain is a woman, and it’s the comely male passengers who need rescuing. And on the third hand (we’re talking space pirates here, possibly aliens with four or more arms), perhaps those ships traversing the interstellar void are not so innocent, and the pirates, fighting an evil despotic star empire and defending the freedom of the space lanes, are the good guys and gals. The possibilities are many, and the daring exploits set the blood racing in the veins of any reader with even a trace of buccaneering spirit in their hidden self.

So board a battered but spaceworthy fighting starship with such star-spanning and award-winning crewmates as Robert Silverberg, Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, and Sarah A. Hoyt, plus James H. Schmitz, James Blish, Gregory Benford, and more, and set sail—er, thrusters—for a universe of freebooting adventure!

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: SPOTTED

*Yes, yes, this time it worked. Well spotted! Granted it worked in a slightly different format, but I think I like it.
Anyway, didn’t quite finish the book yesterday, despite a valiant effort, so going back to head down. If you need me, some of you have my # (you just have to play find the person.) If you can’t find someone who has my number, and you don’t have my number, you don’t need me. Keep the dragon out of my office. He’s liable to get his nose bitten off. And try not to wake Havey, who is sleeping instead of bothering me. Thanks – SAH*

Hoping this will actually get written and show up, which shows you the triumph of hope over experience, I’m going to put it up super fast:

I’m okay. The reason there was no post yesterday and there will be no promo post today (promo post probably tomorrow) is that WordPress is embuggred.

We have again the return of “no picture will post, and if it posts, it disappears seconds later” and now with extra special “The post too will disappear suddenly and with no explanation.”

Comments too are having issues.

For the more paranoid among us, of whom I OFTEN am one:
No, I don’t think they’re messing with me personally. I think they did an update, and because I’m using a really old theme it hits me harder than other people. I’m saying this because last time I had to go into the bowels of the post and fix a bunch of crazy settings that had got flipped by the update before I could “post with images” or even read your comments normally.

I’m trying to finish a book, so I won’t have time to do that today and (maybe) tomorrow.

It might be time to change theme. I might even have to — gasp — get a paid theme.

I’m not the only one getting hit by this nonsense, and it’s really seemingly correlated to age of theme (I think mine is from 2016.) I just hate changing themes, period.

Anyway, wanted you to know it’s nothing major. It’s just the forces of evil (technology) messing with me again.

See you tomorrow.

I’m actually not sick. I am tired. Tired, with a bone-deep tiredness, but not sick.

Well, I just had one of the worst eczema outbreaks of my life — please, no recommendations for treatment. I’ve had this since I was 1. I’ve tried EVERYTHING. One thing works, a medicated prescription cream (Triamcyclone, I think. I have a huge tub of it, but managed to pack it and lose it in the move — which is double weird, because it’s been years since I’ve had anything half this bad, and because low altitude usually stops my outbreaks.

On the other hand, the infallible trigger for my eczema is stress, and between the last few months of the move/fix and the house sale that was ratcheted up to insane levels. By the times things slowed enough, my arms were raw flesh AND infected there were outbreak patches in the middle of my back and some on my back thighs. And I didn’t want to go to the doctor again. (For one, I couldn’t drive. My prescription was way off, and I just got new glasses yesterday.)

But I don’t really count the outbreaks till they go nuclear, so the last two weeks. (But seems to be on the downstroke, now. And almost okay. I no longer look like I have critical burns all over my arms. At one time someone at comicon asked what the outbreak was. He was so kind of advocate for disability, and he was super impressed I was wearing short sleeves, with my arms as bad as they were. Meh. I don’t actually even notice it until it’s affecting my sleep, etc.)

I am tired, though. Boy, am I tired.

Some of this is I suppose normal, considering what the last year was.

But some of it is being super-tired of…. life in the last two years.

Look, when I used to visit Portugal for one or two weeks, it felt like I was spending time in “frustration land.” Anything, no matter how simple ran into delays, contretemps, parts not being available, waitstaff being dilatory (I realized I’d become completely American when I stood on a chair and made like a semaphore to get the waitress who’d been ignoring us to come to the table. The rest of my family who had been waiting for an hour groaned and hid their faces. I wasn’t even vaguely embarrassed. I might to have done it, to avoid retaliation, if what we were waiting for wasn’t the bill.)

I mean, stuff like “I need to buy a notebook” turned into an epic expedition over ten stores, and most of an afternoon because a store would be out of the type I wanted, send us to another, who swore they’d never carried it, then–

And I can tell you it wasn’t lack of familiarity. It was how you lived there. Someone made a comment about how much creativity it took to live in the USSR. Forget it, Jack, it took creativity to live anywhere but the US. You learned to make do, to haggle, to exchange favors. And when to ignore the law. (It was my inability to convince my husband to go the wrong way on a very short street that almost got our rental car wedged in the medieval part of Coimbra, to the point only a helicopter could get it out. Seriously. We managed to get out, but it took 3 hours of turning by inches. And he was like “How come this doesn’t happen to locals” Well, because no one cares about the one-way sign, that’s why. Yeah, it was PROBABLY a source of revenue for local policemen, but better than getting your car wedged. Back then you could bribe a traffic cop for $20 or less.)

It was a relief, like a massive weight lifted off my shoulders, whenever we landed in the US. No matter how crazy the airport, tight the connection, hassled the airport restaurant servers, we knew life had just got massively simpler.

I wish I could take a plane back to the US before people who think they’re universal experts started f*cking with everything.

It’s not even that there are shortages. It’s that the shortages are utterly random and unpredictable. And service? Yeah, there’s a shortage of employees in jobs that are mostly taken by women, and I assume that’s because after the covidiocy many women decided to stay home with the kids, which is a good thing. Statistics seem to indicate so.

But even short-staffed, there’s a curious lack of service in the “dead hours” of the day. And almost everyone I know who is working, their companies have cut staff to the bone and are abusing the remaining employees with crazy schedules and/or overtime. Because, well, yes, the companies are pinched (the war on energy does that) and therefore they’re trying to cut in human resources, as they always do. (And not the actual HR. If they cut HR efficiency and service might go through the roof.)

More importantly, “the way to do things” got broken during the covidiocy. Now you never know if you come in, if you do it from a distance, if they’re going to require masks (And some of us at this point get hypoxic at the thought of wearing masks) if they’ll have what we need in stock, if we’ll have to wait for months, if–

I’ve been trying to get an estimate for some simple work on this house for…. 3 months now. It’s– slow and unreliable. Not as bad as in Colorado, but still slow and unreliable.

And I’m slow and unreliable.

I’m tired. There’s the constant stress of knowing we’re now living in a coulrocracy (*government by clowns) and not knowing what they’re going to do next to fcsk things up for everyone. And no, they’re not making this easy by talking about “possibilities of nuclear war.” No, it’s not panicking me. It’s making me angry as heck, though. I wake up in the night punching something, and then have to apologize to husband or cat.

But it’s exhausting. It all is exhausting.

The new neo asked if everyone had aged 10 years in the last 2. In my eyes, most people, myself included, did.

It’s the stress, the not sleeping well, the waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Nothing is as harmful to the human mind and body as continuous uncertainty.

When will it change? I’m uncertain.

Can someone direct me to the waiting area for the flight to America circa 2017? Thank you.