I am a novelist with work published in science fiction, fantasy, mystery and historical "novelized biography". I've won the Prometheus award and the Dragon award. I also write under the names Elise Hyatt and Sarah D'Almeida. http://sarahahoyt.com/
We’re back home after doing a week’s worth of work in a day and a half, then driving afternoon/evening/night to get here at 5 am. I’m feeling mostly dead.
And terrified. Because you see we ran through our savings BEFORE moving and the moving expenses were way more than we expected (just the gas back and forth), because of the looking was so expensive, particularly with Pandemic Hotels TM. Then renovations, which weren’t as extensive as you might think, but everything was through the roof, because of “the times we live in.” And if the house takes longer to sell than we anticipate, we’re going to be in a world of trouble.
I realized that on Friday. The problem is fear and stress shut me down. So — as embarrassed and terrified as I am — on the advice (and beating) of many friends, I’ll be doing a gofundme.
Meanwhile, while I was at my lowest I got given a very odd gift.
As some of you know I’m so cheap that Scrooge McDuck would look at me and go “Whoa”. So I rarely buy ornamental things just to buy. (Except mugs, and even that it’s more I have a weird relationship with them.) So, I wanted a fall wreath, but they were like $30 or $150 or something. (This is how much I retain prices beyond “ah, too expensive.”) BUT when browsing Arc Thrift store there was a bunch of “fake fall foliage” for $2 and a vine wreath was $4. And I have a glue gun. So. Three years ago, I made this wreath and hung it up.
The other part of this story is that the other house had a little bird who made its nest on the next-to-the-door light. Dan would get upset it might burn and want to take it off, but I wouldn’t let him, because I enjoyed watching the baby birds.
Well, normally I had the fall wreath up August through December, but this last year…. well.
So two weeks ago, we took the wreath down after a year plus. And two days ago I was cramming it into a huge box, just shoving to get it in. When I realized there was an addition I DID not make, beautifully mated to the wreath. And suddenly I was in tears, as though it was a gift or a sign or something.
It came home with us, wrapped in bubble wrap, in a medium size box, and I’m not even sure about putting it outside or in an interior wall.
Probably the worst part of the last month and a half to two months was that for various reasons my husband had to be at new house while I was in Colorado.
It’s not that I’m insecure in our relationship, or that I thought anything would break from being apart, but there was a terrifying, “broken” feeling, like I’d just been sliced in half.
I’d like to say that’s just habit, because we’ve been married 36 years, but I’ve never done particularly well when Dan is gone for even a few days. And honestly, from the way he looked when I got here, nothing was particularly all right at this end too. In fact, the last time I was gone more than two weeks, he not only completely rearranged the house, but the minute I came through the door, I was told to “never do that to me again.” At the time we were married 1 year. (I went back for degree-finalizing reasons, for a month and a half.)
The title of this post is from a quote about marriage, and somewhere I have a mostly written novel about a woman who marries an elf Lord which I used the title for, which is stupid, since of course it’s fantasy. Anyway, I might have to revisit that sometime next year.
Because marriage is a mystery and very strange. You go from being two to being one. This doesn’t mean you develop a mind meld, of course. Dan and I are very similar in conclusions, very different in methods, and it sometimes — in the rare times we really disagree — sparks fly like you wouldn’t believe it.
It is more that your sense of self goes from being one to being two. An entity of two.
This means you acquire a whole lot of new interests, and do things you might never have had any interest in, otherwise, and also that you learn and grow in ways otherwise unknown.
The fun part is this happens again with kids, but more so. At least for me, having the kids was almost a symbiotic relationship. For the first three years of their lives I LITERALLY could “Feel” what they were doing and where they were. This diminished year by year, but never fully went away.
We went from being a couple to being four. New interests were discovered, like older son’s weird fascination with elephants was communicable. Also, younger son’s very odd music tastes seem to be viral. And we took interest in things we’d otherwise never care about.
Now the process is reversing as the now adult sons cut lose. We’re going from being four to being two. We’re learning who we were, reaching back to before we had them, and what has changed.
And that’s fine, as long as we are together.
I know in the way of life and mortality someday one of us will have to learn to be one. Maybe. I’m still hoping for that “instantly at the same time.”
In any case, I intuit that will be far harder than letting the boys fly.
And I don’t know why or what magic this is. But there is magic there. And a mystery.
When I was little, I looked down on people who moved. No, not you know, who could move, but who moved from house to house.
I suspect in that I was a little like say Regency manor families. I was born in a house where generations of my family had been born (and died) and by gum, I was going to stay there. There was pride in that, and also a little bit of insanity. I suspect it’s to blame for my keeping all sorts of weird things: Cloth I’m not sure what to do with. ALL screws and nails. I mean, something comes into my house and breaks, I remove the screws and nails, before discarding. Pieces of machinery. Bits of interestingly worked wood.
This is mostly because when I was little and wanted to do some craft or create something, the first stop was not “Let’s go get the materials” but “go rummage through the attics and outbuildings, because someone who lived here before has left something I can probably use.” And part of my idiotic back brain equates that with security. Yeah, it has to change, or we’re going to end up two old people living in a labyrinth of plastic bins and cardboard boxes. (What do I mean end up. Shut up. We’re moving. The boxes will get unpacked. Things will change.) I still want to keep a good number of things, because, look, we’re going to uncertain times, but enough is enough. So, the truly ugly curtains in this house are going for donation. I don’t want them. I’ll never use them. And if in the future I feel a strong need for ugly material (I don’t know. Maybe I’ll need to scare someone?) I’ll BUY some. Or trade for some. Or hand-draw some on unbleached muslin, d*mn it.
Anyway, ahem.
So, anyway. I really never thought I’d move out of the village, while simultaneously wanting to live in Denver and be a writer. Yes, I could have contradictory aspirations. I guess we all do.
People who moved around a lot baffled me. I lived where my ancestors had lived. They were in the air, in the water, in the produce, and oh, yeah, the cemetery down the road.
They’d known and loved this landscape like I knew and loved the landscape. There is a love, buried in my memory. This time of year — last smelled at the Denver botanic Gardens, two years ago — the smell of a certain kind of ripe grapes can bring tears to my eyes. It’s etched in my memory with a visual pallet of gold and grey. The gold of the ripe wheat fields and golden leaves. The grey of the field stone walls and the skies, that foretell winter.
Of course, I was in my late teens by the time I realized none of this was what it seemed to be. The village, slow changing though it was, when I was little, was still changing, and the village I spent my childhood in was wildly changed in physical landscape let alone social one from the one my dad loved and grew up in. And I suspect it had bugger all to do with the one grandma knew and loved.
It was like it had moved us/moved around us, till we were in a different place.
This was both freeing and dismaying, leaving me unmoored. But I remember, and still love the village of my memory, the village that no longer exists, now being crisscrossed by high ways and choked with stackaprol apartment buildings.
Some days I’d give everything I own to walk down the main street, even with the smell of uncertain sewage processing, and the noise of the radio soap operas coming from every door. And if it granted me the right to open that little side gate and go around the back and share just one more tea with grandma… Don’t tempt me. I don’t know what I’d give.
That is, of course, not what life had in store for me.
I won’t make jokes about being really from North Carolina, because that’s where I was naturalized. There’s some truth there, like there’s truth in that type of joke. Because, you know, the place left its imprint on me, and some see it. But I never fell in love with it. Partly because we lived in a blah starter home in blah suburbs. There was not much to attach to. And mostly we worked, and had friends. We didn’t do much that engaged us with the place.
Colorado was different, both because it was somehow my place of dreams, and because we were a family when we moved there. Which meant we did things as a family, from taking the kids places, to finding favorite places to eat to–
Mind you our Denver was not most people’s Denver. I’m forever highly amused when someone speaks of Denver and mentions something that’s hilariously alien to me. “Oh, yeah, x place. That was Denver.”
But we are weird and like weird things. Our love affair with Denver started on weekend “mini vacations” (the only vacations we really ever had.) We’d stay at embassy suites, because the kids could sleep on the sofa and not WITH US. And we went to the Natural History Museum (Now DMNS and really changed) and later the art museum (Sometimes. Depended on the exhibit they had) and to Lakeside, (where if a bomb fell that killed only non-native English speakers only Dan and the boys would survive.) Oh, we also went to the zoo because #1son likes elephants and #2son likes monkeys. And there was Pete’s. For a lot of my birthdays Dan and I would take lunch out and go to Pete’s kitchen. Maybe the Natural History Museum.
Later, as downtown became gentrified, we sometimes stayed in the embassy suites there. And as the boys stopped going with us, we’d go to the botanic gardens to walk, and plot and dream.
And I loved that. I loved the place, I loved the feeling. I loved the seasons.
Well…. everything is different. If not utterly spoiled by 2020, then just…. different. Like a suit of clothes that shrunk in the wash.
The Denver I loved doesn’t exist. Like the village, I can only visit in my memory.
And we moved.
And I feel like an old cat in a new house. My box is in a weird place, and what are all these smells?
It will get easier. There are things I already love. This place seems to have Fall, which Colorado saves for the places with Aspens. It’s more like you’re going along, and it’s summer and suddenly the snow storm of surprise descends.
I used to love fall, and I can discover that again.
I suspect I’ll fall in love with things and settings in this place too. I doubt it will be my final destination unless something catastrophic happens.
Sauve qui peut. Sauve qui peut. This is me sounding the toc sin. Sauve qui peut. NOW.
Okay, you know and I know that I believe in the end we win they lose. But that’s in the end. There’s the in between time to get through.
And I told you the waters will get mighty rough. I failed to estimate just how rough. Partly because I failed to appreciate how Rat on Meth the opposition is, and how bottomlessly, bizarrely, almost impossibly stupid. Note this is not a natural stupidity. That has limits. This is the stupidity of otherwise normal (though not half as smart as they think they are) people. People who’ve gone to school to be that dumb. People so spoiled, so “educated”, so convinced that they’re speshul that they not only can’t find their ass with two hands but are convinced someone else will always wipe it for them.
Or as I have put it in the past, this is fourth generation communists in charge of every organization, every major institution, everything that is used to keep the nation running. Now, mind you the country isn’t communist. They just took over our institutions, which — given full control of the media, as they had when the long march began — in the past would have given them absolute and total control over the country.
Communism is an amazing thing. It achieves in four generations what took the royal houses of Europe ten to achieve via incest and genetic messes: leaders so useless that it takes three tries to figure out on which end to put the crown.
Worse, the crowned heads of Europe had some excuse. Most of them were genetic rejects. Communism does this with perfectly normal if not brilliant people by simply training them to bark like seals and clap at received wisdom and never, ever, ever, let a seed of doubt of a shred of thought get in the way.
The first generation of commies were evil (There is no option for non-evil, in a philosophy that enshrines envy as a virtue) but cunning and smart, and often lied to themselves about their own goodness. But they knew that given a chance people wouldn’t back them. So once they took over something (or even got a foot in the door) they had to bring in their ideological brethren. The problem of course being most of those weren’t that smart, and were more evil than cunning or competent. So the second generation was perceptibly less competent than the first, but still competent enough that given mass media control, and insistence that these were “the best people.” The fourth generation, which is where I came in, had become somewhat noticeably incompetent. If you were in the field (whatever field) you knew that they were selling less/doing less/less efficient/less sane than the preceding generations. But people outside still could be kept from noticing. And there were enough of us mobi-ing to keep the whole thing from collapsing by being normal-person competent. I suspect most of the left in our fields knew we weren’t on their side, or at least suspected so. But they tolerated us, while treating us like crap, because we sold just enough, or whatever to keep them in business. (Whatever the business.)
And then about 10 years ago that changed. You had to be fully on board zombified to stay employed. 4th generation. They don’t know how things run, and they don’t really think things need to run. They believe they can control everything by the same means they got promoted/hired/pushed up the ladder: WORDS. They think that words and performative and reality is irrelevant.
And the problem isn’t even that everything is fucked. A semi-competent administration, say generation 2 commies, or an effed up but with some non-commie zombies in the midst could fix this up in no time.
The problem is that they don’t realize anything is wrong. They — and this administration is all 4th generation, including Joe who is an early member — are all 4th generation. All Cargo Cult Communism.
They’re going on the experience of their lives: say the right words and everything is WONDERFUL and PERFECT. It works.
So we get the administration laboring over PRONOUNS as the economy disintegrates. We get the Junta pushing “get the jab” in a labor shortage. And none of them would DREAM of challenging the holy environmentalism of California, even if it starves the country.
It is tempting to attribute it to malice. And there is malice. As I said, any ideology that sanctifies envy is not on the side of angels. BUT it’s not as coordinated and epic malice as you’d think. It’s just… performative stupidity and thinking they can say the right words and magically there will be rainbows and unicorns.
Part of the issue is that Occasional Cortex is not that far from 4th generation mainstream. She’s just stupid enough to talk about it. And her stupid, bizarre idea that in the green new deal we could just pay “Native Americans” to advise us on the environment is the type of thing they think. The noble savage spun through a thousand woke tales, and having nothing to do with real life blood and sinew humans, who you know? actually are mostly European since Amerindian genes got overwhelmed, but even if they weren’t wouldn’t be some of kind of magical mystical environment fairy.
They really believe in the magic of the right words. They really don’t believe in reality. Which means it’s all going to come apart at speed.
Yeah, we probably can put it back together. We’re Americans. But count on a rough, rough year. If we’re lucky no deaths from famine, but it’s going to come damn close.
And no, the idiots at the top of all our institutions will refuse to admit anything is even wrong. Because if they admit something is wrong, then they can’t change reality with their words.
They’re attempting a stunt on the level of levitating the Denver Mint, which they tried at the 2008 DNC, but with the entire country.
It’s going to get rough. And bumpy. Hold on to the sides of the boat. And prep.
Yes, like most kids who remember the 70s I’m skeptical of prepping. I’m also really bad at it. But we need to boys and girls. Food. Medicine (And that’s a how do you do given prescription meds. I’m trying to get some of my medical peeps to give us lists of herbal OTC stuff we can stock that while they might not be as effective as the meds (they won’t be) might keep some people alive.)
Get ready for year from hell, and then just very rough times as we rebuild. Remember freedom seeds because #teamheadsonpikes looks poised to have a go, and you know, our side has lousy target acquisition.
Good people are going to die. Innocents are going to die through this. Form what association you can, even among commenters here. Prepare to take care of yourself and those you love.
Don’t be fooled into a false sense of security. The type of collapse we — probably all — are sensing is first slow then very fast.
And yes, what a time (I picked to stop sniffing glue or rather) for me to be strapped for money and unable to fully prep?
The water is going to get rough. Keep your clothes and ammo where you can find them in the dark, and get ready for a year of suckage.
We’ve all heard of Ming the Merciless, and his depredations on the planet Mongo.
But you probably never heard of his truly evil twin, Ming the Merciful. You never heard of him, because he destroys civilizations so completely that nothing is left to tell the tale of their fall. And he’s been in charge of our institutions for a long time. It’s frankly both a wonder and heartening that we’ve resisted him so long.
Yeah, I’m being silly, but only somewhat. And what I said still applies.
I have nothing against mercy and compassion. In fact, I try to exert it on a regular basis, because I’m conscious of how far off ideal-me I fall and how often I need mercy and compassion. Half the time when husband asks “Why did you do x?” (Which makes our life markedly more difficult) my only answer is “Actually I have no idea.” Mostly because ADD and tiredness… let’s say hope I don’t have Alzheimers, but the last month is largely a blank, and the two months before that not much better. And I find my body has a mind of its own. For instance our fridge in CO has this really neat feature where you can open JUST the dairy compartment, and not the rest of the fridge. So for five years I’ve trained myself to put the handle towards that door. … I’m still doing the same, even though we don’t have that door, and the handle is hard to reach from inside the fridge.
So, on that as well as more — ah expensive and destructive — miscalculations, I often need mercy and forgiveness. And I try therefore to dispense it to others.
But I’ve come to suspect that mercy is a bigger responsibility than unbridled anger and destruction. If you lose your mind and kill a bunch of people, it’s terrible. But if you, in your mercy, plan to make people act as they should for (your vision of) a better future, you an distort people’s lives and cause misery (and death, or never life) forever. See FDR and the soft socialists of Europe.
My Wicca friends have a rule that goes something like “Harm none.” But looking back on half a century of life, I have to tell you that this rule is easier to believe in than to apply. Sure, I can refrain from punching people in the nose, or taking stuff from them or — even — hurt them. Physically. In the moment. But in the long term, my acts of what I thought was mercy, my — often — attempts to save people I liked or loved from themselves probably led to more misery than if I’d stepped back and washed my hands of them. Okay, so my life would probably have been lonelier. But these people would probably be in better places now. Some of them much better places. And others would have wreaked less havoc if I hadn’t believed their stories.
Of course if one thinks about it too much, one ends up in a corner, trembling neurotically and doing nothing.
There are two things that caused me to sit back and reconsider the “Always be merciful; always give unstintingly. There’s never any harm in charity.”
One of them was seeing a thrift store throw away perfectly good things, better than we had in our house or could afford at the time: even from the thrift store which was (still is) where we acquire most of our stuff. (Dan calls it the lease program. In Colorado it was ARC thrift stores, because they were cheapest, in fact 10 years ago very cheap. We got furniture and clothing there, used it as long as we needed it and donated it again.)
We’d just bought something — probably a desk — and I was waiting out back to return it, as I watched the employees take a lot of the donations they had been given — piles and piles that were completely unsorted — and put them through the compressor dumpster. A lot of these were things I would have bought on the spot. Disclosure, in fact I tried, as they were putting a dinnette set in, and our dining table had just been broken. They wouldn’t sell me the dinette for $50 (which is all we could afford) and instead reduced it to shreds.
How is that harm? Well, how is it not? I realize they got the thing for free, and probably get rid of a bunch of things so they can keep prices up. But– It was something we could have used. We would have paid what we could afford for it…. and then it was destroyed. This while they keep a steady drumbeat for more donations. Which causes more waste.
We still donate things to thrift stores, but I usually try to give them away to PEOPLE first or (weirdly this works better, particularly when Dan assembles computers from the “components junk” around the house) sell them very cheaply. For the longest time, Dan would take broken computers replace the non-functioning parts, and sell it at cost of repair parts. Usually around $50. I think in the nineties we equipped a lot of broke or strapped people with computers for that price. That was our charity. But I also “sell” refinished furniture for that much, rather than take to thrift store.
The other experience that made me uncomfortable with “unbridled charity” was walking through Acacia park in downtown Colorado Springs, when it was still safe, but getting overrun with homeless. If you walked as I did, minding your own business, you heard the most appalling things.
The link above talks about how the homeless crisis is mostly a drug crisis. They’re not wrong. I’ve come across at least two “high as a kite” homeless who weren’t even, in any definition, human and one who fit as close to the definition of “Possessed” as I ever want to meet (Yes, including quoting scripture.)
But back in the early 2000 when we moved back downtown Col Springs, the homeless were not, by and large, demon-kind on meth. They were … homeless. Panhandlers. Shiftless. No account.
And the conversations I heard were… uh… enlightening. They despise and think of settled/income producing people as patsies. There to be fleeced. They’re not wrong.
But I also heard enough life stories of people who “dropped out” to leave a life of ease and do nothing, catering only to their pleasures in their teens. And now they were facing old age (Often at 50. I mean, you age fast on drugs and such) and couldn’t go back. wouldn’t be able to figure out how to go back.
Heinlein unlocked something in my mind in a book (Red Planet) where he says Man is made to strive. He was right of course. Without some strife, something you desire and sharpen yourself against, you stagnate at best. At worst, you decay, fast. You lose touch with doing anything but following your pleasures.
Even people who have worked their entire lives decay fast when they retire.
Yes, people who lived “disordered lives” of just doing what pleased them have always existed. Well, at least since the industrial revolution. Before that, you needed to be very wealthy. As I pointed out before Jack the Ripper’s victims were of that kind.
And those people tend to be miserable, while destroying everything and everyone they touch as well.
But once our government and really big institutions got in the game, we tempted a lot more people into the rat trap of this sort of life.
I was listening to Elvis croon “in the Ghetto” two weeks ago, when it hit me this sort of propaganda for the welfare state (no? listen to it.) was exactly wrong headed. It seemed to be “people grow up to a life of crime because they’re deprived.” And that’s an insult to every poor-but-honest person ever. Yes, it could/might have been a croon for civil rights. And yes, destroying the horizons of the young does cause violence. Though mostly it causes disinterest and descent into drugs, and the welfare state does that too. Everywhere.
Man (and verily woman too) was made to strive. And most humans aren’t prey to some overriding thing they MUST do. Like me with writing and looking after my family. In fact a lot of humans just want to survive. If they have that taken care of, they’re free to self-destroy. Yeah, it’s contradictory. That’s human.
The problem is, until we rid ourselves of undeserved superiority, of the idea that it’s ours to fix other people’s lives, our charity is more likely to be counterproductive than not.
And the government, and most mainline churches, being staffed with people indoctrinated in Marxism are vast pools of people with unearned superiority and an unshakeable conviction the lack of money is the root of all evil.
Don’t destroy your kids, or other people’s kids, by making their lives too easy. Don’t assume they’re living in squalor because they need other people to tell them how to live. When you do help, make sure you’re helping in a way they can accept and build on.
The hardest thing of all has been — with my kids — to accept their goals are not mine, and they must make their own mistakes.
I suppose that’s even harder when it’s some bureaucrat planning for other people’s kids. And making broad assumptions.
Ming the Merciful is the real threat. He makes people too incapable to help themselves, and in the end so much prey to their appetites they’re not even human in the sense of thinking through and planning their course.
Don’t be Ming the Merciful. To yourself, or others.
Man was made to strive. All we should ask for is that none of us strive in vain.
*Wordpress is up to its old tricks, so some things won’t be linked/highlighted all through. Sorry. I know it’s visually distracting, but I can’t figure out a work around – SAH*
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And trying to make Siberia Max self sufficient. But is traveling to other worlds to research dairy farms the cover for covert contact a foreign government about an illegal method of controlling portal travel, or are both cover to hide that he’s really there to help the son of a friend through his perilous Presentation and Challenge?
As Axel falls deeper into a tangle of outmoded laws and customs . . . his Cyborg friends have troubles of their own . . . or is that . . . opportunities?
Two husbands, a large house, many friends – that was predicted for Margaret Becker Vining. That she would be a widow, left to raise her four sons in a tiny frontier town was not mentioned in the old conjure-woman’s prophecy. Austin, the makeshift capitol city of the Republic of Texas, was threatened and besieged from all sides. Peace did not come with Sam Houston’s victory over the Mexican Army at San Jacinto. Between old and bitter enemies and the inconstancy of unreliable friends, Margaret Becker Vining, her family and her friends must fight to maintain their independence and security . . . while Margaret herself despairs of ever finding happiness again.
In the wrong hands, the obsidian owl can wreak death and devastation on an unimaginable scale.
A nihilist biker plans global extinction. A rival biker wants merely to retire, if he’s allowed to. A young woman wants revenge.
Karl Thorson, ex-Special Forces soldier, agrees to help Trisha Wagner track down the biker gang that slew her father and brother, and stole an artifact — an obsidian owl. Nero Jones intends to use the artifact in a ritual he hopes will cleanse the world with fire. Vegas Kuzmich wants to bring his drugs to market, then retire from the life of an outlaw biker. But his men demand he first get some payback from Nero Jones’ bikers. All of them are headed for a showdown in Yellowstone.
Can Karl Thorson retrieve the obsidian owl? Can he thwart Nero Jones’ scheme? And will Vegas Kuzmich ever get to retire?
Don’t miss the third book in the Semi-Autos and Sorcery series. It’s what fans of Larry Correia and Jim Butcher are hungering for.
The people of this generation, man and woman alike, can remember what they were doing when the power commonly called “magic” returned to the world. Despite, or perhaps because of, the chaos and calamity that took place afterword, that moment remains locked in the memory of all humanity.
For Tommy Nelson, that day was notable because he didn’t have to go to school for a week.When people experienced a new power and went insane, Tommy didn’t care. No one Tommy knew lashed out, burned their family alive, or destroyed an entire building. When the government crackdown happened and squads of men came to Tommy’s school looking for “mages,” several of Tommy’s classmates were escorted away, never to be seen again. Tommy felt safe.
But Tommy wasn’t safe. His power was dormant and forced to emerge. Tommy was driven into hiding, away from his family, into a new world of dark and light magic where he must quickly learn to control his new powers, and figure out who to trust.
All Col. Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., USSFM – the Lion of God – wanted was a little piece of paradise to call her own.
Being stuck on a desert world – even if she was the CO of the premiere battalion of the 1st U.S. Space Force Marines that was based there – was not getting her any beach time. Mostly because, without an ocean, there’s really no beach at all.
But she’s got a fix for that problem.
Now, if only the academics studying the problem of terraforming the exile world of al-Saḥra’ would get out of her way . . .
. . . and if only the religious fanatics who want their planet left as a desert, despite all the water from the planet’s former oceans being accessible only a few miles down, will leave the terraforming project alone long enough to see the good it will bring them . . .
. . . then, the Lion would truly be in Paradise.
But even in paradise, black clouds – and black ships – can herald danger for the Lion, herself, and for her daughters as well.
The authoritarian Terran Union has been expanding for centuries conquering independent worlds on its frontier. When Justin Brand ambassador of Grettier’s World to the Union learns that his home is next on the list to be conquered, he must scramble to escape earth, warn his home world and find allies to help it resist Terran Aggression. Will he convince the New Commonwealth to help, or will the liberty of Grettier’s World be crushed under the heal of the Terran Union forever?
When the Adversary shattered the world, the Savior and her Companions kept the remaining pieces from falling into the void. The school they established trains young boys and girls to continue their work, healing the cracks, facing wrongbeasts, and reversing the aims of the Adversary wherever they can.
And all of this is work for heroes, as far as Marda Quincesinger is concerned. She’s more interested in the cake her mother’s baking her for her fourteenth birthday than in taking on the daunting work of an Outremer. But faced with the chance to help her family, she decides to see if she has what it takes to join the Outremers’ ranks.
Full half the hopefuls who arrive for their first year don’t return. Will Marda be one of them? Or will she find the hero in herself?
A gentle story in the tradition of the Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, and Harry Potter.
It’s been a year since Shane Richardson’s older brother was murdered by evil fairies. Shane is trying to rebuild his life and move on, but the supernatural seems determined not to leave him in peace. When his brother’s grave is vandalized and parts of his body are stolen, Shane finds himself drawn into the world of a powerful Fae known as the Harper, a creature with influence over the dead and the truths they can tell. Some would do anything to see that truth come to light, while others would kill to keep it buried. Caught in between multiple magical forces, Shane must figure out what side he’s on and fight to protect his friends, his family, and himself.
When flight on a boat jeopardizes all a family has worked for, can an errant son risk his life to save their future?
The Luwenthals—second generation settlers on the lost planet Not What We Were Looking For—confront the destruction of their past life, and are forced to flee. As the boat containing the family’s prized linotype crosses a river lit by the flames of the printshop they had to abandon, fifteen-year-old Tobias Luwenthal must face his father’s ire over what he sees as his son’s betrayal. Disaster strikes, but will Tobias seize the chance to redeem himself at the cost of his own life? Will his father learn from his son as Tobias has learned from him?
A short story that picks up right at the end of The Gear Engages.
If you’ve enjoyed the Martha’s Sons series, start reading now for a glimpse into what happens next in this dystopian lost world!
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
Fifty Ways To Leave The Coof- Guest Post By GoSpace
I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV or in the movies. I am, however, someone who can read, look things up, and understand numbers- and when it comes to the dreaded covid, numbers are all important. And, there’s something you need to understand right up front- your doctor isn’t responsible for your health. Your insurance company isn’t responsible for your health. The government- especially the government- not only isn’t responsible for your health but seems these days to be actively working against it. There is one and only one person responsible for your health- you. Awesome responsibility, isn’t it? Doesn’t apply to children- PARENTS, adults, are responsible for their health Not teachers, not school superintendents or school boards, parents or in some cases legal guardians. Now that that rant is over¼
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What can you do to reduce your chances of getting gravely ill or dying from the dreaded covid? Well, let’s start with- what can you do you improve your health, period? Mild exercise, even just walking, stop smoking or using illegal drugs, moderate your alcohol use, and if you’re carrying excess weight- LOSE IT! Your doctor, public service announcements, school. Well, virtually everyone, has already told you that. So what else? Ah, now we get into studies and numbers. And proof the government doesn’t care about you. And there are lots of links you can follow and look to see for yourself.
What is your Vitamin D blood level? Odds are, you have no clue. It’s never been measured. When you get a routine physical, you get a CBC and a urine test, and maybe an A1C level. (You SHOULD get that even if the doctor sees no need. He or she may be wrong¼.) But you don’t get a Vitamin D blood level. From the link.
Unfortunately, about 42% of the US population is vitamin D deficient with some populations having even higher levels of deficiency, including premenopausal women, those with poor nutrition habits, people over age 65, Caucasians who avoid even minimal sun exposure, and those who take prescription medication long term for heartburn, acid reflux, and constipation. Studies show people with darker skin, such as African Americans and Latinos, are also at risk for lower vitamin D levels because high amounts of melanin in skin reduce the body’s ability to produce vitamin D from sunlight. In addition, certain chronic conditions—such as celiac disease, bariatric surgery, obesity, and chronic kidney or liver disease—can contribute to deficiency.
42% of the population deficient, and it’s not a routine part of physicals. As I said, and I repeat- only you are responsible for your health. If you live in a free state, you can walk into a lab or pharmacy and order up a test- they’re not that expensive. If you live in a dictatorship like NY, you have to beg your doctor for a test, then visit the doctor again because you’re too ignorant to interpret it on your own. But let’s get to numbers- what is a good number vs a bad number? Some controversy in that¼ Let’s go to the intro page of The Vitamin D Society https://www.vitamindsociety.org/“The sun is meant to be our main source of vitamin D. Our bodies naturally produce vitamin D from the sun under the right circumstances, such as the time of year or day, amount of clothing or sunscreen we are wearing, and other conditions. Given the chance, the body produces enough vitamin D from sunshine to reach recommended levels of 40-60 ng/ml (100-150 nmol/L).” 40-60 ng/ml- given the chance. Now, from our very own National Institute of Health https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/
Table 1: Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] Concentrations and Health [1]
nmol/L*
ng/mL*
Health status
<30
<12
Associated with vitamin D deficiency, which can lead to rickets in infants and children and osteomalacia in adults
30 to <50
12 to <20
Generally considered inadequate for bone and overall health in healthy individuals
³50
³20
Generally considered adequate for bone and overall health in healthy individuals
>125
>50
Linked to potential adverse effects, particularly at >150 nmol/L (>60 ng/mL)
Wait- what’s this? They say over 50 ng/ml is potentially unhealthy! A few years back, for unexplained reasons, they lowered the level of potential Vitamin D intoxication from 100 ng/ml to 50 ng/ml. The rest of the world hasn’t. At 70 or so, there’s no clear dividing line, some people MAY start to experience signs of Vitamin D intoxication. Surprisingly enough, Vitamin D doesn’t work all by itself. It needs Vitamin K. And- in using Vitamin D, it uses Vitamin K, depleting it. Adding Vitamin K supplements will keep Vitamin D intoxication from showing up at lower levels. Now for some studies of Vitamin D and various things.
From 2015: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/ Adequate levels of Vitamin D is protective against influenza A in nursing home patients. And a quote: “Levels of 25(OH)D are quite low in nursing home residents, and supplementation with 2000 IU of vitamin D can bring levels to normal safely in most patients.” And if you have a loved one in a nursing home, have they ever measured their Vitamin D levels?
Quote: To reduce the risk of infection, it is recommended that people at risk of influenza and/or COVID-19 consider taking 10,000 IU/d of vitamin D3 for a few weeks to rapidly raise 25(OH)D concentrations, followed by 5000 IU/d. The goal should be to raise 25(OH)D concentrations above 40–60 ng/mL (100–150 nmol/L) Wait a moment- that’s higher than 50 ng/ml! Seems the NIH doesn’t agree with itself¼.
Vitamin D supplements protect against acute respiratory infections including colds and flu, according to a study. The study provides the most robust evidence yet that vitamin D has benefits beyond bone and muscle health.
So there’s nothing new about lower levels of Vitamin D being bad for all URIs- which includes the dreaded covid. And 42% of the population is Vitamin D deficient. And yet- we’re not measuring Vitamin D blood levels routinely or seeing to it that the Vitamin D deficient get sufficient. Almost as I said before- the government isn’t looking out for your health. Even moreso:
100% of sailors deployed to a war zone had deficient Vitamin D blood levels! They’re still not checking. Admirals should be cashiered for this as they punish people for not masking¼
A study of French submariners- and guess what? When you’re under the ocean for extended periods- you have low Vitamin D blood levels! Actually, they really shouldn’t have needed a study to figure this out.
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And remember – the government is actively working against your health- headline: “Tricare Ends Coverage of Routine Vitamin D Screenings”. 42% of the population is deficient¼. Why the end? Another quote: “This policy change was a result of recommendations from several professional medical associations, including USPSTF, the Endocrine Society, the American Society for Clinical Pathology and the American Academy of Pediatrics, all of which recommend against population level screening.” 42% of the population is low- but why screen? Medical professionals and medical associations do not care about your health! Remember that!\\
Low levels of Vitamin D among sailors, particularly submariners, has been known for a long time. Finding the older studies is the hard part- they’re not all online. But from 2014:
So submariners are deficient in Vitamin D, have been known to be deficient for a long time- and yet, no admirals are being held accountable for ignoring the health of the men under their command.
So, bottom line, about Vitamin D and covid- you need to know your own Vitamin D blood level and take supplements as needed to get your level up to 40-60 ng/ml, and I’m also going to recommend you take a good Vitamin K supplement with all 3 K varieties.
And studies can be designed to fail There are 2 or 3 I know of that show Vitamin D is absolutely worthless against the dreaded covid. How could this be? Easy. All of them gave a single high dose, 70000-100000 IU D one time, after the patient already had covid, and in one study, were already in the ICU. Uh, the most ardent proponent of Vitamin D supplementation, for example, me, could tell that’s not going to work. Basically, those “studies” were medical research fraud to try and say your only hope is- THE VACCINE! A one time dose, especially when your body is fighting an infection, is going to do nothing for your Vitamin D blood level.
Next up- NAC, aka N-acetylcysteine. Is it an OTC supplement? Yes. Although in their effort to make your health worse the FDA pressured the largest seller- Amazon- to drop it. Reminder- the government is NOT responsible for your health- you are. So is NAC useful against covid? Yes. The NIH says so.
Lots of other articles. If you or a loved one is in a hospital- they’re not getting it, and the hospital will probably not allow you to bring it in. Because the standard USA treatment is- do nothing and wait to see if the patient lives or dies. Should you take it a prophylactic? Sure- absolutely no reason not to. All the studies I’ve looked at, including the 2 referenced, use 1200 mg a day. Warning- the stuff smells and tastes absolutely foul! If you cannot taste or smell it- you have covid, or some other real problem.
Vitamin C and covid. Should you take it and how much? And for what? Recommendations for Vitamin C are all over the map. I take 5-6 grams a day, 1 gram at a time, at least an hour apart. I’m simply going to recommend the Linus Pauling Institute.
I’m also going to say there are numerous studies showing intravenous Vitamin C is good for all kinds of things in a hospital setting. Likely to include the dreaded covid. You’re not going to get it. IMHO, gross medical malpractice. It should be standard for all IV hookups unless otherwise indicated
Quercetin- another OTC supplement. Yes, it is useful against covid.
“Tripartite combination of potential pandemic mitigation agents: Vitamin D, Quercetin, and Estradiol manifest properties of candidate medicinal agents for mitigation of the severity of pandemic COVID-19 defined by genomics-guided tracing of SARS-CoV-2 targets in human cells.” Why in the world would anyone have thought of combining those 3? But- it seems to work. Again, in the USA- you’ll get nothing, and be happy with it.
Ever hear of the OTC nasal spray Xlear? It’s on phase 3 studies for use against covid. Apparently, squirting xylitol up your nose kills 95% of covid- and other viruses- it comes in contact with. The antiviral aspects of xylitol are well studied. And, there’s another nasal spray in phase 3 studies- that contains nitric oxide. Same thing. Searching nasal spray and covid comes up with a lot. “New Jersey-based medical devices company Salvacion, in partnership with the National Cancer Institute, is developing a nasal spray technology to prevent Covid-19 infection. The spray, COVIXYL-V, contains the active ingredient ethyl lauroyl arginate hydrochloride (ELAH) and creates a physical barrier that prevents the virus from attaching itself to the surface in the nasopharynx.” Just found this one searching- nasal spray and covid! And another one: “According to Amcyte Pharma, its NasitrolTM nasal spray was shown to be effective in reducing COVID-19 infections among intensive care unit (ICU) staff in an independent clinical trial.
Nasitrol is a patented nasal spray based on iota carrageenan, a sulfate polysaccharide synthesised by red algae, with demonstrated antiviral activity and clinical efficacy as a nasal spray in the treatment of the common cold. A previous study at the US’s University of Tennessee Health Science Center found that the formulation inhibits infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in vitro.” Wow. All kinds of nasal sprays, some recommend one, others another¼. No surprise. By the time you see this, there may be more. Use your favorite search engine- search nasal sprays and covid.
But let’s talk about xylitol for just a moment- and erythritol. Erythritol, another alcohol sugar, or if you prefer, artificial sweetener, also has several studies showing strong antiviral and antibacterial effects. And a very small number of studies find that if you combine them- they work even better! So, a personal recommendation, every night before bed, and every day after breakfast, or upon arising, whichever suits your lifestyle, fill a glass with warm water, and mix in a small amount of both xylitol and erythritol, and rinse your mouth and gargle with it. It will kill off all the viruses in the upper part of your throat. And in your mouth. Your dental tech will be very happy with you on your next visit- mine was. I’m going to skip my normal rant on nasal irrigation- if you’re already doing it- add both to your mix.
Next up- melatonin. That stuff that helps you sleep. Will it help against the dreaded covid. The NIH says- yes. So pop one each night before bed. Also pop a tryptophan. Less anti-covid evidence, but so what? You’re going to sleep better.
Haven’t mentioned zinc yet. Zinc is needed for proper immune system functioning. From the NIH: “The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for adults is 8 mg/ day for women and 11 mg/day for men.” Many covid sites recommend 40-50 mg/day. I’m skeptical- unless you’re actually sick. Then your body is using up zinc rapidly. My multi has 10 mg zinc. Between that and my red meat consumption, I get enough. You’ll have to make your own judgement. Remember- too much zinc interferes with copper, which you need, and too much copper interferes with zinc. Metals in the body need to be balanced properly. One link for zinc:
Bromelain, a digestive aid, may have some effectiveness against covid. Apparently, a combination of bromelain, quercetin, vitamin C, and zinc is in phase 4 studies. Which means it’s gone through 3 phases and shown some success.
Actually, popping a few multi-enzyme digestive pills after each meal, with bromelain, papaya, and others, certainly isn’t going to hurt. It may or may not aid in fighting covid. It will do some good for your digestive system. So, why not?
Turmeric, circumin. Recommended by many, research says maybe, maybe not. Effects, either good or bad, likely minor from a quick search. If you already use them for seasoning, don’t stop. If you don’t, don’t start- unless you discover you like the flavor they impart.
Will taking all these supplements or using the nasal sprays or doing the gargling or nasal rinsing, will any of them keep you from getting covid? Probably no. But they lessen your chance of getting it, and if you do, they lessen the initial viral load, thus giving your body a better chance to fight off the virus before it sends you to the ICU. And maybe, you just won’t get it. I use many of the supplements. I nasal irrigate daily- with xylitol/erythritol, and gargle daily with it. I’ve met the CDC definition of close exposure to the dreaded covid twice. I haven’t gotten it. How do I know? 7 blood donations with no antibodies detected. They’ve stopped testing, darn it!
One last link for Vitamin D. The evidence continues to pile up:
It’s a study of numbers- since it’s all about numbers. The key takeaway: “ Regression suggested a theoretical point of zero mortality at approximately 50 ng/ml D3.” I do believe they haven’t actually found someone with that level of Vitamin entering the ICU and dying. Or even entering the ICU.
Note- nothing about prescription medicines here. They’re a whole other subject.
It’s all relative. For instance one of my relatives asked me how I planned to survive if I wouldn’t take the vaccine, and I didn’t snort giggle. Well, not audibly. Because she lives in another country and I know how terrified they are.
Then there was the friend skedaddling from NYC to whom I said I was likewise skedaddling from Prison-Colorado and he — audibly! Rude! — snort giggled, because he said compared to NYC Colorado looked wide open and free.
And that’s part of what I want you guys to realize. It’s important.
It’s all relative.
There are two important assumptions not to make: Don’t assume the rest of the country is like your little corner of it. AND don’t assume that the US is just bending over for this. Not relative to the rest of the world.
Oh, yeah as a third assumption not to make (should I come in again?) don’t assume that the rest of the world is taking it lying down. Just more than the US from those I know in the rest of the world. And there’s a reason for that. And it’s important.
As you guys know if you read this blog, I was over the Covidiocy by oh, April? May? But even so it was enlightening when MIL died a year ago and we cannonballed cross country, meeting friends for dinner along the way.
If I had believed in the Covidiocy before then, this would have finished destroying my belief.
Understand, I’m not saying I don’t believe in Covid or Sars-2. I do. It exists. It’s one of a family of virus, and might be a little more lethal than its kind, but without the overblown psi-ops, it required no particular effort to fight. Certainly no more than Swine flu. Wash your hands, don’t cough on people. Don’t french strangers. If you get sick, get immediate treatment with one of many, many drugs that control it early on (and that the establishment is busily making inaccessible, because you must die at their command, peasant.) Also, take special precautions if you’re over 75 or so.
What I don’t believe in is Covidiocy: social distancing. Lock downs. Close “non-essential” businesses. Make people wear utterly ineffective cloth over their faces. Shriek at everyone who refuses to comply. Force people to take a vaccine that doesn’t offer a ton of protection, and hasn’t been sufficiently tested to be sure it offers ANY protection. Etc. etc.
Let me put it this way: If the level of protections necessary in CO were required, then everyone in Ohio would be dead, and other states would be very ill.
For instance, we attended church cross country (was still closed in CO, so we did it way more than on Sunday.)
State A: church was open, with distancing, and every other pew roped off. Communion was brought to you, you couldn’t line up. Masks required.
State B: Church was open no distancing, masks required.
State C: Church was open, completely normal, there was ONE chick (of course in her twenties) wearing a mask.
State D: Church was closed, same as in CO.
Their numbers? By percentage of population about the same.
Look, you don’t have to be a genius to realize that if the extreme measures were REQUIRED or even helpful, then the other states would be in deep trouble. Which made it absolutely clear that all the measures were tyrannical dick-waving and stomping for no reason whatsoever. In fact, I can’t possibly imagine anyone doing that trip by car and not coming to that conclusion, clear as day.
Of course, most people aren’t traveling, since the airlines have decided to make the experience one worthy of Zimbardo. (Seriously, mask between bites. These are my middle fingers.) And they wouldn’t be driving that far without an absolute necessity. So they don’t see it.
And most people aren’t traveling to other countries, because of vaccine passports, quarantines, and again, experiences worthy of Zimbardo. And of course, most people don’t have relatives abroad to whom they speak regularly.
Let me make it very clear that on an international scale, the US was always skeptical of the covidiocy. And is growing more so by the ticking minute. Yes, I know you’re impatient, but let me point out that most people aren’t us, and aren’t plugged in to alternate sources of information, so it will take a while to see the lies.
Actually that’s the big difference between us and the rest of the world. The anglosphere is a small caveat either (and I’d like to know how big the resistance actually IS in Australia. There are leaks around the edges) as they are somewhere between say Europe and us.
The US has the most blogs that discuss current events and politics. And it leads the world by like 95% in having us deplorables blogging in our pajamas. The rest of the world…
I had a vague idea of doing a world aggregator of blogs. I still can read (though not speak) in five languages, and can jack leg two more. I have friends who know other languages, pretty much spanning the world. So I thought “Like insty, but with an international focus.”
So I went looking. Portugal is one of the MOST connected countries. They do a ton of things on line. What they don’t do is have the blogosphere we have. They have mommy blogs, craft blogs, pet blogs, and yeah, tons of cooking blogs.
Politics? Opinion? Political scrum? Well, I’m sure there are some. I mean, there’s a lot of “online magazines” but that’s different. It’s just I couldn’t find them. A cursory look at other countries and it’s the same. I don’t know if it’s laws (The EU and their “hate speech” muzzles is a factor, I’m sure) or cultural, but normal every day people didn’t take to the internet to make rude noises at official news sources and poke holes in their narratives anywhere but the anglosphere, and even then the US is way ahead of the rest of it.
And that’s the difference. Just like you either believed FDR saved us from the depression, or kept your mouth shut about it even though it’s an obvious and glaring, lie, the unified mass media of the rest of the world has spun the covidiocy out of control and totalitarianism as our salvation as a species.
Here? Yeah, not so much. Though I expect our “elites” who set their clocks by the EU think that it’s the same here. And even how hard they had to fraud last election didn’t give them a clue. Which means they’re in for a very nasty surprise. (#teamheadsonpikes).
It is important above all to keep the conversation going; to find ways to keep connecting and talking. Oh, and to scream from the rooftops, even to a small audience when you know lies are being told. These things RIPPLE and propagate.
And in the US things are going to get worse, but we are losing patience and in the end we win they lose.
In the rest of the world? No fricking idea. I’m constitutionaly (eh) opposed to sending our boys to die for their freedom again, particularly since two of those boys are my genetic investment in the future. And a few are my “adopted as adults with will power and duct tape.”
But can we survive in a world in locksteap authoritarianism?
I don’t know. We could stop feeding them and watch them collapse. I suspect that will happen anyway, because it’s going to get worse here, before it gets better.
Interesting times ahead. But we, of team Liberty will win. (#teamheadsonpikes might have a hand in it.)
In the meantime, prepare. And meanwhile adapt, improvise and overcome. We’re Americans. It’s what we do.
And keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.
Come on. I’m a health law attorney and we have a giant shit show of violations of rights and dehumanizing of individuals under the guise of “medical science,” you knew I had to get to this eventually.
First up, lawyer hat’s on, so usual disclaimer. This is not legal advice. It is not to be taken as such. This is all very generalized and simplified legal ideas so y’all have a basic understanding of the difference here. Yes, I am a lawyer. NO, I am not your lawyer. And, since I want to keep my job, I have to make it very clear that none of this reflects the opinions or legal positions of my employer.
The main reason I’m writing this is because I am very much anti bullshit and anti using fear as a weapon en masse, as in the bullshit that’s been going on for a year and a half. Businesses were shut down, people were locked down, you couldn’t visit family in some places, and everyone had their faces covered (which is a very effective way to dehumanize people, but y’all probably already know that), and now there’s rules about who can do what if vaccinated or not, AND they’re back requiring fucking masks! (Don’t get me started, just read my last post on here about Creep Con).
Okay, that sentence got away from me there, what was I saying? Oh yeah, the point of all this is I want our side to argue properly against the massive mindfuck.
As in, everyone read this, and never, ever again argue against mask requirements, vaccine passports, or vaccines required to work somewhere by saying it’s a HIPAA violation.
IT’S NOT!
I’m gonna say that again for the people in the back. All this bull around health requirements are not HIPAA violations. Oh, they’re violations, the obvious one would be ADA, I’ll touch on that later, but they are not HIPAA violations.
When you’re arguing for our side, you argue correctly or you don’t argue at all. (Oh, dear lord, I’m channeling my father right now.)
HIPAA:
This is “The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996,” and it is not about individuals, or even businesses, asking you for private health info. Nope. Get that out of your head. It is a privacy law, and it is about health, but it’s about others who have access to your private health info spilling it.
HIPAA is the law that protects you from people like me (who can have access to your personal info by virtue of my job) from telling random others about it. If I know your name, social, that you’re in the hospital, you have herpes, and PTSD through my job, me spilling any of that, personally or on social media or to your friends and family, is a HIPAA violation.
If I have your consent to tell people about it, and I stay within whatever you allowed me to share, that’s no longer a HIPAA violation.
It’s your information, you have the right to control it. Along these lines, HIPAA is also about your right to access your own health info.
You give your name, social, and health info to your doctor when something’s wrong, because they need to know information to 1) charge your insurance; and 2) to figure out what’s wrong with you. Without that info, they can’t help you and they can’t get paid. So you hand over the info to help them help you. You do this, because you trust them not to spread it around. (There are some exceptions, but this is just a general info post.)
Then your doctor/hospital gets your consent to share your info with your insurance company and others who need to know, and tell you they won’t tell others who aren’t in the loop to know about your info. Those others in the loop are entities such as insurance, business partners who deal with other aspects of your care, possibly other doctors or institutions.
You also can give another person authorization to access to your health info, like me as an adult saying if anything happens to me, my emergency contact is my mom, here’s her info, and you are allowed to discuss HIPAA covered issues with her.
A big one people have gotten into trouble for doing in the past was hospital personnel taking pictures of celebrities when they’re in the hospital. Most of the ones who screwed up on this weren’t thinking when they took a selfie with their favorite actor/athlete/author (haha, we can dream about being famous enough for people to want to violate our privacy in that way) in the background in a hospital bed, and posting it on social media.
If there was absolutely nothing personal showing, it’s the celebrity in a hospital bed, but covered and you can’t see anything off about them or any kind of medical charts, so you have no clue from the picture why they’re in the hospital, you might think it’s not a violation of HIPAA.
Nope. It is. Because the mere fact that they are in the hospital is protected under HIPAA. If the celebrity says please take my picture and post it because I want my fans to know I’m okay, or whatever reason they’d ask you to post it, then you have permission to do that, BUT that wouldn’t mean you could say what they were in the hospital for.
You’re probably wondering about all those paparazzi photos of celebrities any time they’re doing anything, including going to the hospital. Well, the paparazzi aren’t restricted by HIPAA. They aren’t getting personal info through their job then sharing it; they’re busting in and violating privacy to get personal info for their job. Big difference.
Let’s say a nurse takes a pic with the celebrity in the background, but she doesn’t share it anywhere. (That’s getting into fine print of what exactly crosses the line for HIPAA. It may be a HIPAA violation or risk of one, and it’s just rude, so she shouldn’t have done it.) That one is a it depends what happens with that pic risk. If a photographer sneaks in and takes a picture and splashes it all over the news, that’s not a HIPAA violation, because he’s under no duty to protect that info. If the nurse takes a picture and sells it to the paparazzi, that’s a HIPAA violation. But, just to be clear, it’s not the paparazzi who printed it who’s in trouble under HIPAA, it’s the nurse who shared it, because she was the one with the duty to keep that info confidential.
In the health care field, we have access to info so that we can help people (that’s the heart of it, yes, it’s me looking at it in rosy light) so we have a duty to those people to keep their information safe. There’s a lot more that goes into HIPAA, like the measures hospitals and businesses have to take to keep health info private, especially electronically. It’s a huge tech area, people make big bucks to make sure those records can’t be hacked, and it’s a huge deal when they are hacked.
When there’s a HIPAA violation by accident or something like someone hacking in, then there’s steps the entity has to take to mitigate the damage, and there’s some hefty fines, especially if it’s done on purpose, like the nurse taking a selfie with the celebrity in the background and posting it on her Facebook page, but that’s not really the point for this article.
With vaccines or what illnesses you’ve had, whether you’re in the hospital, your social, and so on, generally your doctors/hospitals/insurance companies can’t tell others without your consent.
That’s the general HIPAA rule. It is a duty of us in the medical field to keep the info you give us in confidence to help you with your medical situation confidential, and to make sure you can access it since it’s your info.
That doesn’t mean these entities won’t ask you for your consent to share. They do all the time for a multitude of reasons. (My parents signed a HIPAA consent for my brother to be in a rehab facility’s brochure when he was 14 because he recovered so beautifully from two broken legs… skiing accident, whole other story, so he was a wonderful success story for them to highlight.) And it doesn’t mean others who have no reason to know it, like a store, asking you to prove you’ve been vaccinated against the C19 Zombie Virus or don’t have it/never had it/have been living in a bubble for two years, is a HIPAA violation.
It’s kind of like saying an individual deleting your comment off their Facebook page is a violation of your first amendment right to free speech. Nope, Constitution applies to what government may and may not do (whole other post on the violations going on these days may have to happen) and has nothing to do with an individual restricting your speech. That’s what saying a business asking you for personal health info is a HIPAA violation is like.
Great example in here of that principle. Me saying my brother broke his legs and was in the hospital for weeks, then rehab for months, isn’t a HIPAA violation, because I have that info from being his sister, not from having access to that info because I worked at one of the places that treated him, or the insurance company processing the claims.
So, are we clear on this now? No one on our side shall argue vaccine passports or mask requirements are a violation of HIPAA again. Let the other side argue using completely wrong facts, they’re much better at it than we are anyway.
ADA:
Here is one law that should apply to all this vaccine passport, you have to wear a mask, and sign away your soul and individuality for the “greater good,” join the Borg because resistance is futile bullshit.
I say should, because as far as I can tell, when it comes to Covid restrictions, the ADA doesn’t exist. Everyone is ignoring it. I’m hoping that becomes a bunch of massive class action lawsuits in the near future.
This is the Americans with Disabilities Act. Basically, its job is to protect you against discrimination due to your disabilities. And this one does apply to businesses as well as government. It (very generally) says no discrimination against those with disabilities for employment, public accommodations in commercial facilities, and telecommunications.
The big issue we see these days is the part about public accommodations in commercial facilities. Public services and education (schools, courts, public transportation), restaurants, hotels, stores, and convention centers, to name a few, have to comply with the ADA.
As in, this one does apply to private businesses.
So all those people saying a private business can make it’s own decision about who to let in, wrong! No, they can’t. They aren’t allowed to discriminate. People arguing it’s a private business therefore it’s their choice, obviously don’t know about the cases stating businesses can’t refuse to serve you due to the color of your skin, and know shit all about the ADA.
Businesses aren’t allowed to discriminate against you based on certain things, such as race, and thanks to the ADA, they can’t discriminate based on a disability. They have to make reasonable accommodations for you to receive services if you can’t receive them the same way as others due to your disability.
A big, obvious example of this is all the handicap accessible retrofits you see in stores, restaurants, and hotels. They have to have ramps alongside stairs for people in wheelchairs to get in since they can’t walk up stairs, have to have handicap bathrooms so that people in wheelchairs can wheel in, and use the bars in there to lift themselves from wheelchair to toilet. If they can’t make something exactly the same for you as for a person without that disability, then they have to make reasonable accommodations. What those are can still be a grey area in more established areas. In Covid restrictions matters now? Half the businesses I know aren’t even trying, and their employees have no clue what medical exemptions and/or reasonable accommodations are when asked.
It’s pretty clear under a straightforward reading of the law that discriminating against people who can’t wear masks safely due to medical conditions, like asthma, is not allowed. Like the businesses that don’t let you in unless you’re wearing a mask are discriminating, and at the least have to offer reasonable accommodations to you to stay within the law. Most of them don’t even try. You have to push them, get managers, and threaten lawsuits most of the time for them to try to accommodate you, and they act like you’re being a ridiculous, entitled Karen. Take that situation and apply it to someone who can’t get in because they’re in a wheelchair and can’t get up the stairs, and the employees who have to lift up her chair to get her through the door saying she’s an entitled Karen demanding special treatment.
Yes, it is like that.
BUT the Covid restrictions aren’t about actual medical issues and health, disabilities, not discriminating, treating people fairly, or any of that. If they were, then businesses would establish policies on how to stay within the ADA with the Covid restrictions. Governments wouldn’t be able to demand you wear a mask to be in a government facility, like schools, city buildings, or courts. They would have to do the equivalent of providing a handicap ramp or at least carrying you and your chair up the stairs.
They don’t. Businesses don’t even worry about it, because the “rules” say anyone who can’t wear a mask is just being difficult, or making a political statement, or that if they really can’t wear one then they shouldn’t be in a place that requires it, and that’s that person’s problem.
They don’t worry about it, because the “good people,” wear masks, because the “good people” follow the rules. All of us not wearing masks. We’re the “bad people,” the “others,” we’re the people who don’t follow the rules.
And because of that, because we might inspire others to stop blindly following rules, because not wearing a mask might be about bucking the rules, we’re dangerous. And it’s okay to discriminate against the people who refuse to follow the rules, because then it’s not discrimination, you’re just making people follow the rules.
You see how they have that in a nice little bow.
When a business doesn’t comply with the ADA, you can file an ADA complaint. People have for being discriminated against under the Covid restrictions, but so far, as far as I have heard, nothing’s come from those. I’ll be filing one for the discrimination I dealt with at Creepy Con. I’m almost positive it’ll come to nothing, but hey, I don’t know much about the process since I’ve never filed an ADA complaint, never needed to, so at least I’ll be able to share what going through that process looks like.
Under the HHS fact sheet on the ADA, here’s who’s protected:
“Who Is Protected Under the ADA?
The ADA protects qualified individuals with disabilities. An individual with a disability is a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits major life activities; has a record of such an impairment; or is regarded as having such an impairment. Major life activities means functions such as caring for one’s self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working. Under the ADA, a qualified individual with a disability is an individual with a disability who meets the essential eligibility requirements for receipt of services or participation in programs or activities. Whether a particular condition constitutes a disability within the meaning of the ADA requires a case-by-case determination.
Physical or mental impairments include, but are not limited to: visual, speech, and hearing impairments; mental retardation, emotional illness, and specific learning disabilities; cerebral palsy; epilepsy; muscular dystrophy; multiple sclerosis; orthopedic conditions; cancer; heart disease; diabetes; and contagious and noncontagious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV disease (whether symptomatic or asymptomatic).”
Does asthma make me a qualified individual? I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out.
But PTSD sure as shit puts you in that category. You know what a common trigger for rape victims is? Having their mouth covered, because, surprise surprise, most rapists want to keep their victims quiet and cover their mouths. So far, everyone I know who has talked about it (and it’s a shocking and saddening amount) who was raped, has a trauma response to having their mouths covered.
I hope that helps clarify a bit why you shouldn’t bring HIPAA to a discrimination fight. I hope it was helpful information. I hope a lot of things. When it comes to the rest of the country, I don’t have much hope. (Post on Biden’s latest edict will probably be coming soon.) When it comes to our side, I have some.
And until the world as we know it ends, we’ll act as though it intends to spin on. For authors, that means writing and selling books.
So, if you want books that aren’t full of leftist woke bullshit spreading the “virtues” of fear and victim points, then check out my books. I have book bundles and my 911 Remembrance Day sale going on for signed paperbacks. The best part of that, besides the whole they’re signed thing, is big tech like Amazon doesn’t get an extra piece of these.
Books are $10 each. The Supernatural Streets Anthology is $12. And the Evie Jones Compilation is $8.
Bullet bookmarks are $4 each, 3 for $10, OR, you get one free for buying a book bundle.
Book bundles are: Buy 3 get 10% off, buy 6 get 13% off, buy 10 novels get 15% off, or buy all 12 and get 20% off, which knocks it down to $100. (Plus shipping and handling.)
The SDF Series: Paranormal Mystery Romances: Ariana’s like Buffy with a badge.
Ariana’s a cute, spunky FBI agent who only has the job because she’s psychic, and she’s going to prove to her coworkers and herself that she’s more than just a pretty face on a too young psychic when a serial killer strikes.
The Elemental Demons Series: Psychic Thrillers: If you loved ‘The Conjuring’ this is a must-read series. Fans are saying these ain’t your daddy’s psychic thrillers.
Sarah is shattered after the man she loved dumped her, throwing away their life plans, and ran back home after college. But the refuge of home isn’t when strange things start happening. She’s not religious, but there are more things in Hell and Earth than are dreamt of in her philosophy. She’s going to have to face her fears and find her strength again before one of those dark things she doesn’t believe in uses her broken soul against her, and all of humankind.
The Gods Defense, The Magical Adventures of Evie Jones, and Supernatural Streets, can be checked out through on my sales page too, so you can see if they’re your thing too.
AND Brena Bock is doing a paperback sale (after being voluntold 😊 )
Brena is in 3 anthologies, and has them up to be signed and shipped at discount prices too!
According To Hoyt 