We’ve eaten low carb for five or six years now, mostly faithfully because if I break from low carb I immediately experience an eczema outbreak.  When it started, I had eczema all over my body and wasn’t sleeping.  Most of the time the trigger for eczema is dairy. My mother had assumed mine was, so I was raised without dairy products or anything that might contain traces of dairy.  I found out long before I left the house that she was wrong, because I’d have milk and yogurt at friends’ houses with no bad effects.

But I had no clue what the trigger was, except stress.  It is still that.  In the run up to my son’s wedding, with all the travel arrangements, I was in the middle of a major outbreak. By the afternoon after the wedding, it was almost completely clear.

So a search on line said that for some people the trigger was sugar or really carbs of any sort.  I went low carb cold turkey.  (Despite which I’m now trifling at the border with diabetes, but that might have to do with thyroid regulation — I’m overdue for a test — and with the fact that I spent three years (the house buying/publisher issues years) going on prednisone every three months.)

A year or so later husband was diagnosed as diabetic (though most of the time he too stays at the border, at least if we’re being good on carbs) and the whole family went low carb.

While bread is much missed by my husband, it doesn’t normally disturb me not to have it.  My major “I miss this” is potatoes.  You can fake mashed potatoes decently with mashed cauliflower.  But nothing can fake baked potatoes or fries.  My secondary miss is corn. ANYTHING with corn.  Popcorn, corn chips, corn.

Speaking of cauliflower, younger son discovered riced cauliflower which is extremely useful as fake rice.  In fact, since I’m feeling under the weather I’m considering making Chinese Fried Not Rice tonight.  (It’s one of my “I feel ill” things.)  And I recently found out you can make passable if not extraordinary fake refried beans from cauliflower.

Anyway, I don’t normally miss bread much.  The exception is in fall.  When it starts getting colder I want bread, crackers, bagels, etc.

Some of these are “easy” to make to regular recipes.  There is a low carb flour called Carb Quick available from Amazon.  As long as it’s not a yeast raised dough, you can make it from this.  I often use it for muffins and scones. Also the rare batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Some are more difficult. Something you learn early is that carb quick (or almond flour) recipes lack sponginess and also structural integrity.

For bread that friends who aren’t low carb can’t tell from the real thing, I make Soul Bread.

For pizza dough (and as a basis to a lot of other things) I use the Fathead recipe.  Since pizza also isn’t one of my things, (I know, I know, HERESY!) I do it maybe twice a year, when we have the guys over and we are watching a movie of something.

But this last week as the weather turned ugly in Colorado, I found myself hankering for pretzels with dip and, strangely, for crackers.

So I turned to the internet…

Okay, believe it or not this makes a very decent pretzel recipe.

As for crackers… remember the fathead dough?  Well, you can make these which are your basic cracker:  https://www.ditchthecarbs.com/fathead-crackers/

However for something a little more savory, these were quite good:  https://simplysohealthy.com/low-carb-rosemary-parmesan-crackers/

And for those who can’t have cheese/dairy, there is this:  https://lowcarbyum.com/keto-low-carb-crackers/

Because I don’t do low carb baking every day, I didn’t have any sunflower seeds, but I did have ground hemp seeds (yes, Colorado. Ardeearar. Actually it was left over from before I found cauliflower “rice.”  It was one of the experiments.  Anyway, I used that and the result was a crunchy “Whole grain” artisanal cracker that I wouldn’t be amazed to see served at a high class restaurant as an appetizer.  It tastes very nutty, too.  Good for spreading stuff on or dipping.

I have other recipes to try, because these searches always yield “oooh.”  This includes bagels roti (I can serve it when I make vindaloo) and what I’m assured is a good immitation pita (which since, with a few exceptions, our diet trends “Mediterranean” will be very good.

And now I have stuff to edit, a half dozen (not exaggerating) short stories to write, and two covers to fix.

Fortunately I cleaned house yesterday!

As American companies go over, one after the other to kiss China’s dictatorial… feet, I’m finding the revolt of Hong Kong against the mainland’s attempt at imposing tyranny upon the island is a neat and clear separator of those who hate freedom and those who love it.

Forget American official involvement.  Some online blogger was yelling that America only intervened when its economic interests were engaged.  He’s not wrong. Part of our ability to ignore the middle east and start to pull our boys home is that we are no longer dependent on middle Eastern oil.  After almost a decade of Mr. Obama doing everything but shooting our fracking ability through the head, we’re producing well enough, thank you that we don’t need to be involved in the graveyard of empires.

Ultimately when it comes to nations — and something the left never understands, since they see themselves as instruments of world-wide revolution (the whole Workers of the World schtick) — they should not fight unless they absolutely need to or it serves their interests, economic as well as political and of influence, in some way.

It would inadvisable and potentially apocalyptic for the US to go to war with a nuclear-armed nation, over an island that is no part of us, no matter how much anyone in government or out sympathizes with the revolt.

On the other hand, individuals are free to express support, and keep in mind that just having the eyes of the world on them, and vocal support from the west can help. There is a reason they’ve not been crushed, yet, and it’s not China’s loving kindness.

What doesn’t help are are companies crawling over to kiss despot… feet.  Blizzard being the latest of those, of course.

What helps — us not them — is to clarify who is for freedom and who is not, who wants to encourage individuals to live in freedom and who hates the very notion.

One of the big surprises was AOC signing the pro-Hong Kong letter from congress.  Perhaps she doesn’t realize her entire program is tyrannical (no, seriously, there is a thing amid young liberal art majors, where they think that communism is the natural state of mankind and once the oppression is removed it will all be singing and sharing and … well, kindergarten. It’s all bullshit, ignorance and lack of brain, but it’s possible she believes this. Far smarter people than her do.)  Or of course it’s possible that she can’t actually read but that’s probably unlikely. It doesn’t make her program any less heinous, but let’s at least give her credit for the fact she doesn’t THINK she desires tyranny.

For others there’s no surprise at all, mostly among our business men, honestly.  It’s not even a matter of money or making money from China. They think that the mass of humanity are idiots and that everything would be so much better if they had absolute control.  Which is why they hate and despise Hong Kong, the same way they hate and despise the rights guaranteed by our constitution.  This ridiculous clique of techno-nerds are convinced they’re nobility and each of them tries to proclaim louder “L’etat c’est moi” not realizing they’d be the first against the wall “come the revolution.”

And even among common, every day people, it is a mark of perverse love of dictatorship to condemn Hong Kong. The idiot woman who was filmed screaming they should just turn themselves in because resistance was futile, or whatever?  She was saying “I’d rather live in chains, come enslave me.”

Might Hong Kong’s story end badly?  Of course it might. I expected a bad ending long ago, and am praying for them every day.

Does it make any difference if they fight and lose or preserve their lives by not fighting at all?

Of course it does.

Look, in many ways our revolution was the echo of many other, failed, revolutions.

Hong Kong is in a true impossible position.  They have to either fight or become enslaved to one of the worst regimes of the modern era. Not might. Not divided government, not things aren’t going as fast as we’d like them to. If China can extradite Hong Kongers for “thought crimes” and political crimes, Hong Kong is just like the rest of China. Period.

In such circumstances, you fight. There is nothing else you can do.

And if you lose, maybe in the future someone else will pick up the flag and run.

I stand with Hong Kong.

As most of you know, I like dinosaurs.  It could be said that I never outgrew my love of dinosaurs.  Possibly because there were no Natural History Museums around when I grew up.

If I’ve been particularly good, my reward is to go to the Natural History Museum and walk through the area with dinos.  If I have caught up on books by then, I would like to celebrate my birthday by going to the museum and drawing both the skeletons and dinosaurs. We’ll see.

At one time we went to see the dinosaurs of Gondwanaland and those were fascinating. Since they lived in real niche environments and were very well adapted to them, some of them in ways that made them look truly ridiculous.

Of course it is sort of the same thing with the marsupials in Australia. They were well adapted to their niche with other marsupials, but completely helpless when meeting placental mammals.

Perhaps it is because of this that recently I’ve been thinking the problem with the democrats is that they were much too well adapted to an evolutionary niche which is changing at a fast pace.

Bear with me.

By virtue of the long march, the liberals, by the time I was born and possibly before, had a unique set of protections that meant it was never, ever, ever in the wrong, no matter what.

Because they controlled the entire entertainment/information/news complex, they were sure that things that happened wouldn’t actually be reported if they impacted them badly, while things that might be in their favor were reported whether they happened or not.

It was so floridly insane that JFK being killed by a communist was attributed to the right and the “climate of hate.”

It was so crazy that the left convinced half the country that the parties switched sides on race.

It was so batsh*t divorced from reality that despite the fact that most of the wars we got into were started by democrats, it is the republicans who are viewed as ‘war mongers.’  That, despite the fact that the Democrats command all positions of power and wealth they’ve convinced people it is the Republicans who favor the wealthy. Etc. etc. etc.

Heck, if you add historians to the act — and they’re definitely part of the left information complex — we have the spectacle of our founding fathers being denigrated as uniquely evil for failings that were common to pretty much everyone in their time (and at which they failed less than others.)  Then there is the fact that FDR, the hero president of the left, for decades credited with combating the Great Depression, probably caused it.

But the left had all these …. coverup resources, which meant that their malfeasance was never actually reported.

So what is the downside of that?

The same as with any other organism hyper-adapted to its current conditions.

If you don’t have to be careful and watch for predators or those who might want to take you down, at some point you forget how.

Note that as we pointed out here not so long ago, even with the internet, we still have nowhere near the command of information the left has. As much as they’re slipping, they still command the heights. If they were even minimally honest and/or competent, we’d be in some serious trouble.

But they aren’t.

Why aren’t they? Because they never had to be. Because the new generations who climbed to power knew they could do whatever they wanted and have time leftover (as grandma would say) without it causing any problems for their career.  Eventually they developed this mythology (probably around the time that Clinton got caught diddling interns and everyone made excuses for it) that if you support the right causes, you’re a good person, despite everything you might do around that “support.”

And look, even with Clinton, there were signs that things were changing. Mostly, we’d developed talk radio and a couple of blogs.  And that was enough to spread the tale of the blue dress so the public heard about it.  No, seriously, we now know JFK had at least as many bimbo issues, but no one ever heard of them, and instead what you saw was the image of the perfect first family.

There are other things.  Blogs took down not only Dan Rather but the bizarre deception he’d concocted which otherwise might have given up president Jean Francois Kerry (Quod Avertat Deus! Like Hillary, in less mannish pants!)

And we’re getting bigger and better.  Honestly, 2016 and Trump’s surprise win is something I’d been anticipating for a while. The point at which we can flip an election despite the media pushing all the other way.

Doesn’t mean we’ll beat the margin of fraud every time, but it means we’re that big.

Look, guys, we understand them better than they understand us, because we live surrounded by their signal.  We’ve even learned to fake being them, so we can thrive.  And btw, that has to be giving them cold sweats. We’re seeing some witch hunts already here and there. They have to guess that amid those who seem the most loyal there are “infiltrators” who just decided the masquerade was worth it. (And there are, at least, I know for a fact, in SF/F writing.)

And we are usually better at whatever it is we do for a living, because we didn’t get any slack cut to us for “correct political opinions.”  (They might not know that, but it is still an advantage on our side. A big one.)

More importantly NO ONE on the right ever got that dirty or that sloppy.  We couldn’t, because the information complex was actively looking at us for that spec of dust in our eyes.

But the left? Oh, dear, the left. Beam? They have entire super stadiums in their eyes. President can’t keep it in my pants Clinton?  Joe “I blackmailed the Ukraine to get my doper son a job?”  Completely run of the mill.  I bet you there are far worse examples of corruption, waste and cheer insanity.  (And I mean besides Occasional Cortex or what’s her name the Representative with too many husbands, one of which is her husband and the probable immigration fraud?)

They were secure not because they were competent and clean, but because they could count on all their misdeeds being hidden.

I know you’re furious these people aren’t being dragged into jail, but guys — you only know they deserve it because we’re already winning. We’re already clawing back some of the functions they had completely controlled.

And they really aren’t ready for it. Which is why you see the bizarre insanity of an impeachment attempt in which no one has to vote for it. Because they’re scared.

They’re marsupials who just met their first placental mammal.

Or if you prefer, they’re dinosaurs, completely adapted to their place and climate, and there’s this fiery ball in the sky that keeps getting bigger and bigger.

But these dinosaurs know what comes next.

Be not afraid. Do not minimize the gains we’ve already made.  Yes, there will be loses, but they will never have full control again.

Which means their environment has changed and they’ll never be as secure/thrive as well.

Ride right through them. They’re demoralized as hell.

In the end we in they lose.  Do not lose your head, and keep pushing.

It’s way too early. I’m way too tired. We had to do something late last night and I’ve slept all of five hours.  I not only couldn’t cue the post, I’ve been trying not to fall asleep again, while sitting here trying to think what to do.

And it occurs to me I have duties.  I’m in this bundle at Story Bundle, you see. And it’s a pretty good buy.

It ends tomorrow, so now is the time to check it out.
And I’m going back to bed.

The Vampires! Bundle, curated by bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson:

Now here’s a bunch of books you can sink your teeth into! The Vampires! StoryBundle abounds with the blood-sucking best! Thirteen page-turners across the spectrum of vampire fiction, and all of them with fangs!

If you like Vampire Suspense or Mystery, you’ll enjoy Brother Blood and Sister Death by Bill Ransom. Human-vampire fraternal twins with dangerous sibling issues run from near-fatal mistakes in the city to sequester themselves outside a rural fishing town. This is a special sneak-preview release for this bundle, not available elsewhere until December! And Running from the Night by Ramón Terrell. An action-packed ride filled with diverse and fun characters, immortal societies existing alongside our own, with a pinch of romantic tension. In You Suck by David Wood, Dunn Kelly seldom has a problem covering for his alcoholic father, the only Special Populations detective on the police force, but when teen pop star Delilah Idaho sees a wrinkle on her forehead, Dunn’s world is turned upside-down.

Read more about the TEN other books in the bundle here, and make sure to click on each cover for a synopsis, reviews and preview of each book!

Brahmandarins-Guest post by Nitay Arbel

In the wake of the 2016 elections, I coined the term “Brahmandarins” for the transnational ruling class. https://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/2016/12/17/trump-and-the-rage-of-the-brahmandarins/

Three years later, it is quite evident that the election of the populist Trump over the Brahmandarin Hillary was not an isolated phenomenon. In nations around the world, from Brazil to Britain, either populist revolts are threatening the stability of Brahmandarin regimes, or voters have put populists (real or perceived) in office.

But who are these “Brahmandarins” really? And why this portmanteau of “Brahmin” and “Mandarin”?

Traditional Hindu society knew hundreds of hereditary castes and subcastes, but all broadly fit into four major “varna” (“colors”, strata):

• Brahmins (scholars, clerisy)
• Kshatriya (warriors, rulers)
• Vaishya (traders, skilled artisans)
• Shudras (farmers)
• The un-counted fifth varna are the Dalit (“untouchables”, outcasts in both senses of the word)

Historical edge cases aside, membership in the Brahmin stratum was hereditary, even more so than in the nobility of feudal Europe. At least there, kings might raise a commoner to a knighthood or even the peerage for merit or political expedience: one need not wait for reincarnation into a higher caste.

The Sui dynasty in China, however, took a different route. Seeking both to curb the power of the hereditary nobles and to broaden the available talent pool for administrators, they instituted a system of civil service examinations. With interruptions (e.g. under the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan) and modifications, that system remained in place for thirteen centuries until finally abolished in 1904. Westerners refer to laureates of the Imperial Examinations (from the entry-level shengyuan to the top-level jinshi) by the collective term Mandarins. Ironically, this term comes not from any Chinese dialect but (via Malay and Portuguese) from the Sanskrit word mantri (counselor, minister) — cf. the Latin mandatum (command) and its English cognate “mandate”.

Initially, the exams were limited to the scholar and yeoman farmer classes: with time, they were at least in theory opened up to all commoners in the “four occupations” (scholars, farmers, artisans, merchants), with jianmin (those in “base occupations”) still excluded. The process also was ostensibly fair: exams were written, administered at purpose-built examination halls with individual three-walled examination cubicles to eliminate cribbing. Moreover, exam copies were identified by number rather than by name. For some fascinating background, see

https://www.quora.com/Could-Chinese-commoners-take-the-imperial-exam

as well as this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH5486n9lfs

In practice, the years of study and the costs of hiring tutors for the exam limited this career path to the wealthy. Furthermore, the success rate was very low (between 0.03% and 1%, depending on the source) so one had better have a fallback trade or independent wealth. In some cases, rich families who for some reason were barred from the exams would sponsor a bright student from a poor family. Once the student became a government official, he would owe favors to the sponsor.

Moreover, the subject matter of the exam soon became ossified and tested more for conformity of thought, and ability to memorize text and compose poetry in approved forms, than for any skill actually relevant to practical governance. (Hmm, artists or scholars in a narrow abstruse discipline being touted as authorities on economic or foreign policy: verily, there is nothing new under the sun.)

What do we have today, in the 21st century?

In theory, our elite is meritocratic: the “best and the brightest”, leading graduates from the most selective universities. France’s civil service perhaps comes closest to an idealized version of the Mandarinate, as I’ve discussed here. https://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/the-memo-and-what-it-implies/

The French themselves, of course, joke about living in an “ENArchy”, a pun on the ENA (Ecole Nationale d’Administration, idiomatically: National Administration Academy) of which so many senior bureaucrats are graduates. Unlike in Imperial China, one can be the son of a street sweeper or a shopkeeper and make it through the ENA on talent and eyebrow sweat. In practice, the ENA has become a by-word for an insular elite, concerned only with its own peer group and out of touch with broader society. Significantly, one of the bones Emmanuel Macron threw the Yellow Jackets protesters was a promise to close the ENA — his own alma mater…. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48059063

If one visits Europe nowadays and talks to an average middle-class person, there is a broad sense that the ruling class:

• has lost the plot
• is focusing on trivial issues to avoid having to deal with “elephants in the room” and to distract the public from them
• is manufacturing crises while ignoring real ones
• is focused only on the interests and sensibilities of people like themselves, and treats others like “sheeple”. “We are beinglived”, as the proverbial cab driver told me in Brussels.

Fair or not, politics is a game of perception. It may (sadly) be true that many people are willing to sell their birthrights for a mess of pottage (the way the biblical Esau did). These deals start coming apart, however, when the ruled perceive the ruling class as no longer in touch with events, and no longer able to hold up their end of the bargain. The notion of a “social contract” between ruler and subjects, and of the contract being abrogated when rulers are no longer holding up their end of the bargain, is made explicit in the Dutch 1581 “Plakkaat van Verlatinghe” of 1581.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Abjuration

In this Act of Abjuration (as the name is usually rendered) against the Spanish emperor Philip II, the Dutch lay out their grievances against the Spanish emperor, their attempts to seek redress, and their final decision to declare their independence. (Sounds familiar? No coincidence. https://news.wisc.edu/was-declaration-of-independence-inspired-by-dutch/ )

The Dutch language knows the priceless verb “doodzwijgen”, literally “kill something by keeping silent about it”. This has been a favorite tactic of European Brahmandarins for a long time— the near-media silence on the continuing Yellow Jackets protests is only the most recent example.

Manufactured hysteria about one or more distraction issues is another tactic — one that resembles flares fired by a fighter plane under attack by heat-seeking missiles. The US mainstream media, egging each other on in feedback loops, merely keep amping that technique up not just to 11, but to full potato and beyond.

Fortunately, in the internet age, the train of full media control has left the station. May it never return there.

*Nitay Arbel is (a friend and) an author, working on an alternate WWII:

Operation Flash, Episode 1: Knight’s Gambit Accepted

On March 21, 1943, one man came within a hairbreadth of blowing up nearly the entire Nazi leadership.
In timeline DE1943RG, he succeeded.
Then the conspirators discovered that killing Hitler and his chief henchmen was the *easy* part.*

Pratchett’s “Witches” world was so similar to my own, from jumping over fires to get married (not legal in my day, but there was memory of it) to various local folk superstitions, that it was always a surprise when he pulled something I’d never heard of.

One of these is the “rough music.”

When someone has done just about enough that a small village can no longer put up with him, the men in the village get together and play a barbarous and terrible music as they nerve themselves up for the barbarous and terrible things they have to do.

In Europe — hell, all over the rest of the world —  the rough music is playing.  Just because no one is reporting on this, it doesn’t mean it’s not going on, and growing, and nerving itself up to… something.

The level at which the Gilets Jaunes have been under reported is extraordinary, except that it hasn’t stopped the uprising either.

(And now I think about it, how much do we see in main stream news about Hong Kong? And it hasn’t stopped the uprising either.)

To those of you who haven’t been to Europe recently (as locals, not tourists) and don’t have family there, there are things to remember:

1- Europe is weird in terms of blogs and alternate news media.  They might read ours — some do — but blogs never really took off in Europe as a source of news.  Even here, we’re at most 50%.  Maybe a little more if you count that news filter in.  People talk at the water cooler, whatever.  More on this later.  BUT in Europe this doesn’t exist.  Mostly the news they get including the news from here are third hand via our media and whatever crazy alien clown they’re getting their spin from.

2- Europe is about 20 years “ahead” of us on the road of what a friend of mine calls the Brahamandarins taking over.  The internationalist left has been in full command since the nineties. They never had a Reagan (Thatcher sort of kind of held off the tide briefly, but only in one country.)  There was no eighties prosperity. Hell, slick Willie was to the right of their right. Obama is about center of their politicians, including his loathing for the country he governed.

3- Europe is in trouble BAD.  The government has betrayed the people to the extent of making it almost impossible for rural populations to live with any dignity; for people to afford having families; for people to be safe in their lives, pursuits and possessions.  No, I mean to a level you guys don’t comprehend.  Imagine if the Obama years had lasted for 30 years now, and he controlled all the media, all the judges and most of the law enforcement.

And Europe has had just about enough.  Things like Brexit and the Yellow Jackets filter through here, in the alternate news sources.  I wonder how much else is going on, we have not a clue about.  The fact we know about the Yellow Jackets at any level is bizarre enough, given that they are — media and internet wise — living in the eighties.

So, let’s talk about the rough music.  Sure, you can hear it. I can hear it too. The stomp and the drumming can be heard all over the world.

That which can’t go on, won’t.

But I implore you to stop and think: if the rough music plays, what comes after?

There might be no hope for Europe, but Europe’s… ah…. how do we put this? Europe’s tenets, their stand before the world, an improvement as they were on everything before them, are not ours.

Even in Europe I suspect when this bursts — and there it will burst.  The elites flaying and screaming is only making it worse — you’re going to see things that will make you wonder why on Earth good American boys died in WWII.  Because we’re about to get National Socialism, the sequel.  National because they’re getting tired of the international elites (and who isn’t) and socialism because the poor bastards have not experienced anything else their entire adult lives.

It will happen. It is necessary. The EU was probably one of the most bizarre ideas in the history of bad ideas. The way it’s run which essentially steals the franchise from ordinary people was just the old style “good families” coming back into power through a back door.

But what comes after will probably be horrific. If we’re all lucky it will also be briefish and like France after the revolution they’ll find their way to something slightly less insane.  With or without Napoleon and Europe wide war?  Ah… that’s where we need to talk.

First however, let me say that hearing the rough music from the rest of the world is starting to echo here.  We see what’s going on there. And we hear strange and stupid stuff, like the “whistleblower of the day” and an impeachment without voting and of course, pancake-gate.

Faced with that kind of behavior you obviously think “It’s insane.” And “We have to stop it.”

But there is something you’re missing.  There’s the good news.

The first good news, of course, is that Trump won in 2016.  it was bloody impossible. The fraud was unbelievable. But he still won.

And in the midterms — yes, they won the house, but think about it — the fraud was UNBELIEVABLE. Literally. Banana republics were laughing at our random keeping of polling stations open, of weird shenanigans with votes down in FL and of whatever the heck the chick in Georgia thought she was doing.  And they won… the house.  And not with a rushing majority.

Do you know why they’re going insane?  Because they hear the rough music too. And they know that they probably can’t cheat enough to win in November 2020 or even keep the house. And they’re desperate.  And none of their increasingly crazier gambits are sticking.

For years, they were a gerbil kept in the controlled environment of left information-complex. They could pull the right lever, and things went their way.

Arguably the last time this worked for them was making an infelicitous but in no way bad phrasing of Romney’s into a threat on women. “Women in binders.”  Of course he meant women resumes were in binders, and he was signaling that he hired women but they made this sound like he somehow wanted to put women in binders. And crazy leftists all over were repeating this, as if it even meant something.

They threw everything in, they burned all their credit to get Obama elected.  If they could they’d have made him the new FDR/JFK/Hero president of the left forever.  They couldn’t.  They couldn’t make Summer of Recovery fly. They couldn’t even make Michelle Obama fly as a fashion icon.  (Arguably, she didn’t help them.)  They burned everything they had. They pressed that button to deliver their progressive pellet and nothing happened.

And then they got everything and everyone, including probably controlling who the right chose, so that Hillary would have “her turn.”

… and it didn’t work.

But worse, the things they keep trying to do keep not working, including the “we’re really going into a recession NOoooooow”

Worse, traps they lay for Trump ensnare their own guys.  See #metoo.

Yes, the left hears the rough music playing.  But the rough music they hear, right now, is coming from ballot boxes.

Understand, everything they’ve done to us so far can be undone.  Part of their madness is how much of Obama’s “legacy” Trump has quietly dismantled while they chase crazy stuff like the totally bizarre impeachment.

Worse, they’re being unmasked, repeatedly, in public.  Look, guys, I’d been hearing about the Lolita express and Clinton since the early 2000s on the blogs. I didn’t even believe it. It was too fantastic. How would he keep that quiet.  And then it exploded.  And then Jeffrey Epstein died in a way no one in America really believes was “unforced suicide.”

And yes, there’s a feeling there’s a sluice of sewage down there, and it’s splashing most of the left.  They’re keeping it quiet, sort of, but people know.  You can’t unknow this stuff. And this was something that five years ago most people would have thought you were crazy for bringing up.

Then there’s Ukraine.  I don’t know what they thought they were playing at. But what it keeps exposing is massive corruption in a widening circle, and Chinese influence too.

So– They hear the rough music at the ballot box.

Anyone else wonder why it’s starting this early?  Why because they fear NEXT YEAR’s October surprise and are trying to defang it now.  How bad can it be, to start a year ahead.

And you can see how worried they are by how social media has been trying to censor things (though interestingly, this last month has been less weird, perhaps because there are inquiries being made.)  And by their sudden and bizarre sallies against… FREE SPEECH.  Yep. They’re actually coming out, publicly, against the first amendment.  yes, we know they’ve always controlled speech in their enclaves. But it’s not working. And now all they can do is scream “But I want you to shut up” and “Mr. Policeman, make them shut up.”  This is not a position of CONFIDENCE.

In the same way, they’ve been flapping jaws about a living constitution since I was an exchange student. This is the first time they’re coming out as being AGAINST the Constitution. (Admittedly, Obama started it.)

No, this isn’t good. It makes everything feel very unstable.  And it makes people on our side scream “Get them, before they get us.”

But the best thing we can compare this to is the lancing of a boil.  It looked prettier and healthier while the pus was under the skin.  But it would have killed us.

It would have come to the point where there was nothing else we could do but don yellow vests, and take to the streets.

Fortunately things happened.  Okay, mostly the internet, which they keep thinking they can control, but which keeps blowing up on them.

It’s to cry — with laughter — a hundred years of marching to the institutions, and the AV geeks are beating them.  It’s like the USSR being brought up by copiers and typewriters.

And it’s something to remember.

Totalitarianism cannot endure, not long term, with widespread peer to peer communication and the ability to communicate freely and for free across the country and across the world.

China, you say? Yeah, Hong Kong might still end badly. But that it’s lasted this long, in open defiance? It is a sign.  And it is not a sign the despots are winning.

Will we have to do it? Will it come to it?

I hope and pray it won’t. I’ve said before “be careful, be prepared.”  I’m hoping it won’t come here.  We do after all have the internet. And Trump. And if you think that makes no difference, you haven’t been awake the last two years and change. They have yellow jackets. We have a Trump. (And does his name not make you wonder if G-d is a novelist?)

The rough music might come here.  I can envision stuff like really, really obviously faked-up elections that we can’t even begin to pretend we don’t see, and trying to cram someone like Lizzy Warpaint or Kamel the Harris down our throats.  Or worse. I can imagine our government actually physically divided, with the House attempting to outright arrest the president solely on their say so.

Any of these things will send up the balloon.  And look, dollar stores have yellow jackets. It’s not a bad idea to stock up.

But Trump has a way of coming up with twists no one saw, twists that avoid the worst possible things…  And I’m hoping he keeps doing that.

Because guys, if the rough music comes here, it’s going to be ugly, and it’s going to burn short but hot.  And there’s no telling what emerges.  No, seriously, you don’t know.  You might wish to fight till we have the real constitutional republic, but remember the young in military age never learned civics.

You toss that dice, you don’t know what happens after.

And it’s not just us. The rough music is already playing in the rest of the world. To the extent things haven’t gone completely and bizarrely insane — in the paint the room red  sense — it’s because there is the US. And they can’t read us. They have no idea what we’ll do.

To an extent, despite our refusing open involvement, we’re what’s keeping the protesters in Hong Kong alive. We’re what’s keeping the antifa-like elements of the yellow jackets (not most of them, but an element) from turning this into just a pillage and rob expedition resulting in who knows what.  I don’t know what our influence is in the rest of the world, but I’d bet it’s not negligible.

We’re the one sane guy, holding the gun, and watching the rest of the room burst out into inanity.  To the extent the world isn’t drowning in blood, it’s because we’re here, we’re functional, and people are afraid to get our attention.  Not to mention tariffs or not, we’re their best customer.

If we down into the ululating madness, there’s more than a good chance the rest of the world does too.  There’s a good chance we’ll wake from any donnybrook we engage in, in whatever form we wake up, to find the world is Chinese. Which would spell the end of Western civilization and pull us into the cycle of “always burning books and restarting history” China plays.

Even with a best case scenario, do you want the US facing a world-Chinese Empire?  How long do we keep the republic then?

And even if everyone emerges and the Chinese don’t have the strength to become a world power (who knows?) we’ll have lost twenty or thirty years and countless wealth and lives.  And what emerges will be …. possibly very bad.

It might be unavoidable. And if we get to it, there’s nothing left but to fight valiantly.

The balloon could go up.

And yet it’s better for everyone if it doesn’t. It’s better for everyone if America keeps at least the appearance of a constitutional republic while we clean house and reset onto a better course.

It’s better if the rough music never plays, if the mob never has to deal with things in the only way the mob knows how to do it.

Trust me, exposure will still destroy most of these people, in everything that is worth it to them. Even if not one of them goes to jail, we’ll still have won a duel to the pain.  (And don’t be sure they won’t go to jail.)

For years now I’ve been telling you: in the end we win they lose.  Things are already headed that way. Which is already a miracle given how much control they’ve for 100 years.

What you can do right now is speak up, expose the nonsense, not let them hide.

The time for fighting might come.  But it might not.  At least not physical fighting.  Keep in mind what we’re doing is not without dangers.  And some of us have already paid a heavy price.

I can’t tell at this point if it’s better or worse for the republic if the left loses its mind faster. On the one hand, beware the wounded bear.  On the other hand a spooked enemy — as we’re learning — fights badly.

Don’t let up now.  Come out come out wherever you are, if you can at all. They fear our exposure of their misdeeds more than they fear our (right now) ineffectual physical violence.

Be prepared, but for now, just be aware.  And don’t back down.

Stand your ground.

Book Promo

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  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. One book per author per week. Amazon links only.-SAH*

FROM ELI STEELE:  Blood and Iron: Part One

Magic doesn’t exist, until a mage falls in the streets of Ashmor. In his last moments, he gives Rowan Vos, a thief for hire, a sword that will alter his future, and threaten not only his own life, but the lives of everyone around him.

Eldrick D’Eldar returns from the Kingdom of Meronia with dire news – three decades of fragile peace is unraveling.

And Griffon Alexander, the son of a minor noble relegated to the borderland keep of Braewood, is about to face the culmination of all of these events.

FROM GRACE GARNE:  Trouble at Oak Tree Motors (Texas Trouble Book 1)

The residents of Firewood Texas think an ex-con from California is their problem until a meth gang moves in.

FROM PAM UPHOFF:  Marooned (Wine of the Gods Book 46)

Xen Wolfson is a powerful dimensional wizard. With no idea how he wound up in a wilderness, bereft of magic, with what looks a lot like a lightning strike burn.

If he doesn’t get killed and eaten by the wolf, and learns to make weapons, and hunt without magic, he can survive until someone finds him.

Hopefully a friend . . .

A cross-dimensional war is brewing, and Xen’s kidnapping was the first shot fired. As the unknown enemy continues to grab the strongest of the dimensional cops, Xen’s friends try to find him, and at the same time locate the enemy so they can stop the hostilities before it turns into open warfare.

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.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: rub

I don’t know if this is a thing I continue, but particularly since most of you are hyper-competent people.  But it occurred to me I had ONE expertise that is not common.

As I’ve told here several times, due to several things, one of them being that because I was one of the few who made it into university (there was no private at the time, and the places were few, the grades very high to get in) it wasn’t expected that I (as mom would put it) “would ever have my hands in dishsoap”, I was never taught even the rudiments of cooking.

I’d picked up some by virtue of taking extra classes and doing tutoring, which meant that I often came home way after the family had eaten. I was competent to take a seasoned, prepared chicken leg and fry it, for instance.  I could make popcorn.  I knew how to make tea and coffee.  Oh, and I knew how to bake, but Portuguese views of cakes are completely different from the US (they PREFER them dry.)

So on my first day as a married woman, after my husband went to work, I set about looking for stuff to cook, and I literally read the instructions on the back of a pasta package to figure out how to make it soft.

Sure, in the US the joke is that college students survive on ramen noodles.  We were living like college students for the first three years of our married life, but here’s the thing: I didn’t even know ramen noodles existed.  Also I’d been raised in a tradition that made meals at least two courses and occasional desert necessary.  (Which yeah has a ton to do with our weight issues. Never mind.)

Fortunately my SIL in Portugal had anticipated my problems, and got me a very basic cookbook for newlyweds, with pictures.   It is now in pieces, which makes finding things very difficult (same as my joy of cooking) but the principles I learned in those first ten years of cooking with as little expense as possible tasty enough meals to keep us out of restaurants most weekends is now in my head.

I can’t use most of it now, because Dan is diabetic and — thanks to many many prednisone courses — I hover on the verge of it. At any rate, carbs and stress are the triggers for my auto-immune attacks and I’ve managed to stay off the pred for a year now and would like to keep it that way.

But there are tricks and work arounds, which I’ll also be glad to share.  If you guys are interested, I’ll start doing this on Saturdays and include low-carb work around for recipes.

This is also germane to us right now, because I’m switching from cooking for a family (with two boys/later young men) to cooking for just two late middle aged people, who don’t actually eat as much as they used to. I find in terms of not wasting food (look, the way I was brought up,  if you dropped your bread you were supposed to pick it up and kiss it to apologize) and not eating the same thing every day (you know, if I make a roast it lasts forever. Unless we invite the boys and DIL for dinner.)

So I’m also learning tricks and work arounds and ways to do things.

Anyway, if you guys are interested I’ll do this as a feature on Saturdays, and make note of your own contributions in comments.

So, to begin with, some cheap staples:

Eggs- look for them on sale.  Seriously. Sometimes they’re 99c a dozen.  Sometimes, in my area, they’re less. Yes, you can freeze them, though as whole eggs it tends to burst them.  Back in the days of feeding what felt like a horde of males, I’ve been known to put cheap ziplocs (though the cheap twist close bags would work too) into muffin cups, break an egg into them, freeze, seal, and then put a dozen or so in a freezer bag.

Eggs are wonderful stuff, because if you’re otherwise out of most food, you can use very little of other stuff to make a tasty meal from eggs. Omelets souffles and quiches are all cheap –if you get your eggs on sale.

Parmesan in the shakeable packages – It’s not extremely perishable, it’s a good flavoring and it’s additional protein and fat.

Rice – if you can eat carbs, find one of the bulk places or the Asian grocery stores. Get a fifty pound bag of rice. It’s usually fairly cheap. It can be turned into all sorts of things from soups to deserts. And it’s just good filler.

Frozen vegetables – but Sarah, they’re more expensive than fresh.  Yeah, they are, but they don’t go bad as quickly.  Again, the thing is to watch for sales and large packages.  (Again, it is a good idea to freeze them in smaller portions.)  We usually have cauli flower and broccoli, green beans, and some kind of mix in the freezer.  In our case now it’s mostly because we forgot to buy vegetables, or have been too busy to go to the store. BUT when we were very broke, we used to buy the big cheap bags at Sam’s (we got membership through Dan’s work) and live on it and rice with a little bit of meat…

A little bit of of meat: chicken.  No, seriously, chicken.  Unfortunately I hate chicken, so I’ve found a million and one ways of disguising it.

The cheapest chicken I’ve found is at Walmart (in our area) and comes in10 lb bags. It’s also all legs and thighs, which means first I need to debone and refreeze most of it (though we also eat legs and thighs, obviously.

The cheapest POULTRY we’ve found is the day after Thanksgiving hitting the local grocery store and buying a couple of the largest turkeys.  Then de-bone and slice into various things.  Turkey breast fillets make a good substitution for veal fillets, btw, in most dishes.  You can also make hamburger, mini roasts, etc out of one turkey.  With both kids eating with us, I could get a large turkey to last us 2 or three weeks, depending on what we were eating.

If you’re going to engage in this sort of thing, it might be worth it to buy one of the food sealers where it sucks the air out and seals the food.  I was told here years ago that if you use those instead of freezer bags, not only is it cheaper, but you don’t get freezer burned meat. I’ve found it to be right.

Now, how do you do all of this labor intensive stuff if you both work? When we had the boys, I used to cook on Saturday while I was cleaning.  Saturday morning was for all the prep, and then I let things marinade/baste/cook while I cleaned.  Then let everything cook and freeze a meal for work day.  This is harder with only two people/low carb, and I haven’t found my rhythm yet.

Anyway, is this something you guys would be interested in? Both the “We only have x in the pantry, what do we do now?” and “How to prep/cook ahead?” and “How to make this low carb?”

Are you interested?  It can become a Saturday feature.

And now I go clean and stuff….  (I still have to enter all the changes into Deep Pink to send to betas.)

Years ago when I was young, innocent and green as the greenest species of leek, I formally joined the Libertarian party and solemnly signed the compact never to initiate violence.

I have since shed a lot of the ideas that made me a member of the Libertarian party — including the idea that the individualists can organize anything the statists won’t high jack (and remember that, because it’s important to my conclusions)– but I still hold by and believe in that.

Look, it’s not that I don’t see that a soft coup has been in progress in this country for many, many years, honestly since before most of us on this blog were born.  And it’s not like I don’t realize it went into high gear… well… around the time of Clinton’s presidency.  Or that I don’t get it’s now in your face and obvious, and has been since 2016.

I beg any of you who think I’m “soft” or kind, or an optimist, to consider I’m seeing this movie for the second time.  Having grown up in a country where the left felt absolutely no need to hide its intentions and behaviors, having passed as one of them (successfully enough to have a graduate degree in the liberal arts and to be professionally published. And if you think that doesn’t require passing at the times and places I did it, you’re an optimist) I heard them planing and talking, and I know their idea of the world and of the opposition.

Mostly what I know is that, yes, they hate us and often wish us all dead.  But the Haidt studies were no surprise to me, either. I also know they know nothing about us.  Not just “they don’t fully understand us.” but they know nothing.  What they think they know about the right is the “comedy right winger” their fellow leftists injected in various TV productions for years.

Those of you who have been on this blog a long time probably remember our instances of having idiots come onto this blog and accuse us of being all from the deep South, not having finished high school and never having traveled abroad.

This is important, so hold on to that scrap of info.

At the same time, please be aware — I’ve run into them — there are a number (not as large) on our side who suffer from similar issues in target identification.  Weirdly these people are usually very young and have decided that if everything the left taught them is wrong, then the opposite must be true. The fact that they’re young also matters here, so keep it in mind.

Next, yes, I believe there will be violence. I wouldn’t advise anyone to be near a marginal neighborhood at or the week after the next elections. And between now and then keep your eyes open and watch your back. From all sides.  Desperate people do weird things, and the left is acting like a wounded bear. And people are getting pissed at it (you can judge this from the fact that I am, and I’m not even close to the biggest hothead on our side.)

At some point one of my colleagues was keeping track of incidents of left-wing political violence since 2016, and was up to 20. Unfortunately I don’t remember where the list was.

However, after what happened to Rand Paul and to the GOP softball team, it would be a fairytale to say there will be no violence.

There has already been violence. There will be more violence. Some of it will be horrific. All of it will be downplayed in the media, or miss-ascribed.  Keep that in mind, it’s another piece of the puzzle.

What I’m saying is that the violence will have bloody nothing to do with anyone’s concept of a civil war.  Because of how emulsified the population is, how long we’ve been infiltrated, and the growing but far from complete catastrophic technological innovation effect… well, we’re in terra incognita here.  The ship has hit what should be the edge of the flat Earth, it’s not sailing out into space, and we’re all still trying to make it fit into our mental disk-like map of the world.  Us and the left, too.

On their side too, you see clamoring for the progroms of the 20th century, adult happy fun camps, free health care for everyone including illegals, etc. seemingly unaware that we can actually hear them and see them. That these conversations are no longer in their very own smoke-filled rooms, and properly cleaned and primped up by the press for general public consumption.

On our side, you see people saying we should have a jolly civil war, or some kind of uprising.  It reminds me of Mercutio ranting at Romeo in Romeo and Juliet: MERCUTIO: O calm dishonourable, vile submission!

Keep that in mind, too, because of course the reason Romeo is not answering Tibald’s insults is that they’re family — no, hear me out. I’m not going to make a soft-headed appeal for letting the left get away with sh*t, truly — and in the time and place the play is set (and written) that meant that his entire life was now enmeshed with his wife’s family, even if they didn’t know it. Mercutio just, tragically, doesn’t know that.

In our time and place it’s because people view civil wars, or putting people in camps, or even revolutions in cinematic terms: And then everyone had had enough, and they rose and deposed the dictator.

Take it from someone who lived through revolution and counter revolution, to the point Green Acres (you had to be there) theme song triggers PTSD: it’s never like that. It’s never, ever, ever like that.

Then go and find books about the American revolution, real ones, and find out how much they endured and put up with before they pledged their life, their fortune and their sacred honor.  And even then be aware that there atrocities and bad targeting (as there would be) and that it took not just genius but an uncommon amount of amazing good luck for things to turn out as they did. It wasn’t the most likely outcome. It wasn’t even in the top ten.

And we’re not at that point yet, no. Though we’re closer than I’d like it to be.

Look, I don’t think it’s going to flare into a full scale war. I could, however, be wrong. And I’ve been waking up screaming for some time now over the possibility I might be wrong.

I think we’re going to see brief, unimaginably violent outbreaks.  Most of them will be — have been, and not that violent — in leftist dominated cities, which means it’s mostly theater, with few exceptions.  But as the crazy bullshit impeachment has shown, they’re getting more than a little crazy.  And that’s on top the Thunberg thing, which is even more insane (since when do we take 16 year olds seriously, when they demand we kill most of the population of the world?)  In fact, this chick right here is the current poster child for the left. The scary part being that other than saying it in public, she’s not that unusual, even.  Even though she is quite obviously mentally ill.

When ghosts dance fail, cultures do bizarre things.  Yes, there is the possibility of the left trying something stupid somewhere they think they’re safe and unleashing a wave of violence the likes of which they have never seen. On them. Well… them adjacent. Mostly-them. Almost-certainly-them. Kind-of-them.

Because my question is: how do you target?

I’m not even saying — though if you have a minimal amount of self-awareness you know damn well it’s true — that most of us on this blog would probably be mistakenly acquired as targets. Have you forgotten how many of you post under assumed names, because you’re successfully passing in professions controlled by the left? because I haven’t.  Or that to the casual observer (and trust me, there are a lot more people than those who follow sf/f fights, or read blogs) I am one “on that side” being a foreign born, has an accent, uses big words, makes classical references, lives from writing, dabbles in art… hell, has a degree in languages and literature? I’d target me.

2004, because honestly Jean Francois Kerry scared the snot out of me (my imagination was obviously limited. Nothing like this year’s lineup) I volunteered for GOP get out the vote efforts.  This was near insane, considering I was still in the political closet, but bear with me.

Myself, and a group of two other women and two men were sent out to the suburban neighborhoods of Colorado Springs, on foot, to remind people to get the heck out and vote.  People being, in that case, registered GOP voters.

One of the women who was with me kept saying things like “They’re not even real republicans. Half of those are going to go out and vote for the Dems.”

She was wrong. At least those I actually found at home and spoke too, she was very wrong.  But I also understood her impressions.  Sure, there were mom-and-dad evangelical families.  There was also the gay couple where one of the guys, after talking to me about the odds that GWB might lose said, “honey, damn it, we’re voting” and took off his apron, and walked off to grab his partner and drag him to the polls. Moments later, they drove off to vote.  The one I talked to read the same blogs I did at the time. Trust me. We exchanged references.  There was also the family with the immigrant (Portuguese! No seriously. I told his wife where to buy Portuguese foods online, while he was getting coats, so they could go out and vote) dad with the thick accent.  Etc.

Target acquisition? Pah. Most of those people would have fooled me, if we hadn’t talked for more than a few minutes.

Then there are the soft-left. I was going to call them the soft-headed left. But hell, most of them aren’t. Not really. It’s hard for us who live and breathe politics to get that it’s possible for people to vote for someone because “they sound nice on TV”.  But I’d guess that’s a majority of people.

Most of the “left” aren’t left because they want to destroy our way of life. Most aren’t even aware of the crazy idiocy their candidates are spouting. They’re busy people, who have jobs and families, and imbibe their daily dose of MSM’s or entertainment “Orange man bad” without thinking.  Involving them in a war WOULD be an atrocity even if they are casually supporting genocide and tyranny. They have no clue they are.

Killing vast numbers of innocent — not just a few, as the revolution admittedly did — is not a way to anyone’s heart.  Even the American revolutionaries grew disgusted at the French revolution when it waded through lakes of blood.

It is PARTICULARLY foolish when the media still holds a giant megaphone, for those people who are too busy and don’t care about politics and also — I hasten to point out, since I know most of you don’t know this — the only voice about events in the US that is heard around the world.  Look, I spend about 1 hour of the weekly phone call with mom explaining that no, Trump isn’t rounding up dissidents, etc.  And mom is SKEPTICAL as a consumer of news.

Whatever emerges, if we wade through blood, will need trading partners; will need some good will and cooperation abroad.  The world is too interconnected to tell them all to f*ck off.  And more importantly, it will need the world not to think it’s weak.

But let’s talk about what will emerge: if we start this, if we jump into the dance with both feet before the tune even plays, if we give the YOUNG — who do you think fights? and who do you think is most enthusiastic in mob action — their head in this, the people who will jump in and control it are those who have access to the means of propaganda.  Oh, if the uprising against the current “elites” is strong enough, they might just — probably — change their tune, and become the most nationalistic of all nationalists, screaming from the roof tops that they always hated leftists.  But they’ll be the same people. And they’ll be directing the violence and the reconstruction.  I don’t think you’ll keep your republic.

So, what is our option other than vile submission?

Well, IF the election is stolen and they start rounding up people by the numbers, yeah, you’ll get to see as close to a civil war as your heart (not mine) desires.  This will be a very, very bad thing.

Those of you who read Ringo know what he’s said about when the engine of world economy seizes and stops.  People will starve to death, while we resolve our differences. Some of them even in the US.  Unimaginable wealth and progress will be destroyed.  And I doubt any of you will like what emerges.  Sure. We have more force than they do. But they’re better at manipulation.

A renewal of the Republic?

It would take a miracle.

I’m not saying it can’t happen, but if we’re going to pray for miracles, can we pray for something else?

Trump, a brash man, a blunt one, a man I thought we couldn’t abide or trust in the presidency, is engaged in doing to the American left what Ronald Reagan — imperfectly — did to the Russian empire that called itself the USSR.

He might fail. There was always that chance with Reagan too, and in a way he did, because while he defeated the Soviet Empire, he didn’t expose it for what it was, and left the infiltration at home untouched.

Trump is causing them to expose themselves, and to expose themselves in ways even the media can’t cover up.  He’s putting pressure on them in ways that even I don’t understand/anticipate until I see them play out.

He’s not the president I wanted, but he might have been the president we needed.  And perhaps G-d still protects fools, drunkards and the United States of America.

Perhaps if we don’t joggle his elbow by doing what the left is clearly trying to provoke us into doing — to have an excuse to retaliate — he can bring us safely through this very narrow and perilous strait.

And if — note IF — he does it will be because there was a divine thumb on the scales, because all the deck is stacked against us.

But so far? So far he’s done far better than I expected.  And he’s winning. If he can expose the corruptocrats and kleptocrats of the left for what they are, he might steal their thunder, and steal that mushy middle. Or at least keep them from being idiots for long enough that the danger passes.

Hold your breath. Watch your back. Fight the war of words. Pray the war of fire and blood doesn’t come.  Pray the republic survives.

And be not afraid.

So. I had a guest post for today, but family stuff intervened so last night I was neither able to cue it in time, nor get to bed before close to one, which means I got up late today.

I’ll do a brief state of the writer.

I’m still fighting something upper respiratory with extreme tiredness. Seems to be going around and takes a long time to kick. Working on it.

Signs I’m getting better include the fact I’m finally reading stuff that is not Jane Austen fanfic again.  For a while it was all I could handle.

Tried a couple of thriller series, but they failed to hold me. So I fell back into the fanfic and I’m only now pulling away.  This has been my longest period of “must read/can’t deal with real stuff” since I spent two years reading Disney comics when the middle school was trying to destroy younger son.

So that’s good news.  Other good news: I’ve finished annotating the revisions of Deep pink, and should finish entering changes by (knocks on head) tomorrow, health permitting.

Then it goes to betas before being released into the world.

The longer novel Alien Curse is advancing and only two weeks late (gah.)

I have FOUR short stories I need to get done this weekend.  Oh, and Deep Pink will need a cover.  Plus I’m doing a series of three covers to re-release a series of books, now under Inkstain Publishing. (Hi Kate!)

The nap-in-the-afternoon is really interfering with this schedule, but it really IS getting better.

Oh, yeah.  I’m doing more substantial posts for here again, which you guys seem to like.  Just reminding you that should you get to feeling guilty about the free ice cream, there’s a paypal donation button (two actually) up on the right hand side.

For those who don’t like paypal (I get it, I do) the address to Goldport Press, inside any of my indie books will get to me. We accept checks, cash, gold coin, and — specifically — a small labradoodle.  (Younger son is allergic to dogs, of all things, but I really need a walking companion.)

We don’t accept kittens (are full up), chickens (though in a year DIL might) or explosive devices.

No, you don’t need to donate. Yes, it would help, but my aim is to make my money from fiction.  However, it would help and provide incentive to do the more complex posts.

Yes, there will be a compilation, if I can clear the decks enough to actually go through years of post and compile them.

There will be a workshop or a few (probably one a month) on writing techniques, once I have husband in one place long enough to talk tech and hardware to teach them.  Also hosting, of course.  (And yes, it’s been that crazy.  You have no idea.  Hopefully this is our last year before we launch the boys into their own orbits, but as such it’s a year of keeping track of a lot of things, driving people to the airport a lot, helping figure out research and contacts, and… all that stuff.  Which is not as much WORK as you think, it’s just unpredictable and disruptive.) And there have been doctor stuff.  Yes, that’s responsible for the improvement, but it also takes time and is disruptive.  Yes, I’m whining.  (Not really. Just wishing I had double the hours to do stuff in.)

We will attend TVIW in Kansas in November.  We haven’t registered or done anything about hotel and travel yet, which tells you how organized everything has been.

Anyway: I now go to have coffee, breakfast, check on son’s cat whom we’re catsitting and who is SUSPICIOUSLY silent.  Then I write, with a chance of intermittent doctor appointment.

Guest post tomorrow.  Carry on.