Comparative Advantage- by Ian Bruene

A couple weeks ago Our Hostess posted about Economics being real and not some random studies degree or other nonsense. In the comments someone decided to deny the existence of Comparative Advantage, or rather, he didn’t strictly speaking deny it, he merely implied that it held the same status as employment statistics or money supply numbers; something artificial which could be “tweaked” at the government’s whim.

This is not true. This is not even close to true. And the failure to understand why it isn’t true belies a failure to understand not just this detail of economics, but what economics is about in the first place. Now admittedly these are common errors, so there is relatively little guilt in that ignorance. So common in fact are the errors that most of the people who call themselves “economists” still make what should be a five year old’s mistake.

So let us see what it is all about, using a seemingly unrelated story, which in the end will teach far more than just the concept of comparative advantage.

I currently work at Walmart, these days mostly in the back room sorting stuff. In the mid to late part of my shift this turns into sorting apparel into hanging / non-hanging, and between the different departments. For this story what matters is the hanging apparel, which is stored on wheeled racks so it can be moved around the back room and out to the floor as needed. These racks have 4-8 adjustable bars to hang apparel from, so the rack can be customized for what is needed. For a simple example; the intimates department has both bras, which take up less than a foot of vertical space, and also pajama sets, which can easily take up four feet or more of vertical space.

So, we are in the back. We have lots of boxes of clothing to sort through, and we need to efficiently use the racks we have because we don’t have an infinite number. Ignore for a moment the different departments and non-hanging clothing. All that matters is using the rack well.

The rack has 4 bars, set up for one tiny space, two medium size spaces (one on top of the other), and one giant space.

I pick up a pair of shorts. Where do I put them?

Well the rack is empty, so it doesn’t matter. I toss the shorts onto the nearest spot which happens to be the giant space which has plenty of room to fit them and move on. In fact after a little thought I realize that I should be using that largest space: it is objectively the best one, because it can hold any size garment, while the other, smaller, spaces have limitations and cannot hold larger garments.

I continue working, more clothing is put on the rack, eventually the giant space fills up. Oh well, that was bound to happen right? The rack is not infinitely sized. So I start putting clothing on the medium size sections. They might not be as good as the large one was, but at least they aren’t as small as the tiny space. Unfortunately dealing with longer dresses and pants is now a hassle, because the bottom bar is too low and they drag on the ground, so I have to put them on the top bar overlapping the stuff below and causing the whole rack to bulge out. It is annoying and frustrating, but can’t be helped after all.

Or could it?

I’m sure everyone caught the mistake – I certainly dropped enough anvils about it – but it bears articulating anyway. It is true that the giant section can hold any size garment. But thinking of it as “this can hold anything!” is backwards; the correct attitude is “this can hold things no other section can!”. That flexibility means every time I put a pair of shorts or a bra on it, I am sacrificing the ability to put a long pair of pants or a dress on the section which is the only one that can hold them. In doing so I reduce the total quantity of apparel which will fit on the rack.

Instead I should put the shorts and shirts on the medium size sections. I should put the bras on the tiny section. Only if something doesn’t fit on any of the other sections do I put it on the giant one. At least while there is room on those other sections: eventually they will fill up, and then I move to the next-smallest section which will hold the garment.

This is Comparative Advantage. This is not an analogy for it. Nor is it a hypothetical situation – I deal with it nearly every day of the week. This is the concept itself, stripped of the distractions and opportunities for excuses which are used to cloud the matter. And it is interlinked with many economic concepts which people do not understand but are fairly simple to explain.

First of all, there is no money involved. Because Economics is not about money. In fact the fastest way to tell someone doesn’t have the faintest iota of a clue about the subject – short of wearing a sickle and hammer – is that they think economics is about money and finance.

The technical definition of Economics is that it is the study of the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses. All of those parts matter: Scarcity, because I do not have infinite racks, and a given rack cannot hold an infinite quantity of apparel. Alternative Uses, because I could use a spot for this garment, or that garment, or a garment I pick up ten minutes from now. And Allocation, because I have to choose how I am going to divide the garments between the sections.

Second is Cost: a cost or price is not a dollar value. It is all of the options you sacrifice to choose this option. If I place a small garment in a spot where a larger one could go I am sacrificing the ability to put a larger garment there in the future. Or in monetary terms, If I go to Scheels and buy a box of 6.5 Grendel today, I am sacrificing the ability to use that money to go to the local Mongolian BBQ, as well as the ability to have that money in the bank to cover a bill, as well as an infinite number of potential other options I could have chosen.

Third is Value. In the same way that Cost is not Money, Value is not Cost. Value is a subjective thing to decide which costs you are willing to pay. If you pay a cost to get something then by your actions you prove that at the time of decision you value that something more than any of the alternatives you sacrificed to get it. Importantly Value must be subjective, because every attempt to define an objective value theory slams into fundamental problems, such as the classic “what is the value of a glass of water?”. Objective / Inherent Value Theories can only pretend to sort of badly fit reality by bolting on epicycles until they contain an ad hoc, badly-specified, incoherent, poorly-predictive implementation of half of Subjective Value Theory.

But in the end, why does any of this matter? That’s all a nice theory and has some cool quirks, and maybe it is more efficient and GDP number go up, but that isn’t what’s really important right? Who cares if you have 5% fewer luxuries; that doesn’t matter, and they are probably making you soft and weak anyway.

I’ll leave that last one for now. Beating that particular pinata might be fun but isn’t the subject at hand. The problem is that economic efficiency is not about trivial luxuries, or GDP number go up, or scummy businessmen benefiting themselves, or scummy politicians benefiting themselves. Instead economic efficiency is everything. And the only reason it can seem trivial and unimportant is because everyone reading this has lived in such unimaginable wealth for so many generations that the choice “do I starve today, or do my kids starve today?” because there isn’t enough food getting produced is not even in living memory any longer. Those “trivial luxuries”, are the reward of a culture not being moronic being less moronic about economic matters than is typical throughout human history.

Going back to my story: if I declare that using the rack efficiently doesn’t matter, I make my job harder. There is a very good chance I make my job impossible and have to leave boxes of clothing for the poor sod who sorts on the next day. Which will very likely be me.

To borrow a term from The Enemy: when you dismiss economics, you speak from a position of unimaginable privilege. If you aren’t simply ignorant of history, then you probably are one of those scummy politicians or scummy businessmen and think that economics is something which happens to other people.

*THIS IS SARAH: Ian Bruene, besides his make-ends-meet-job between-jobs is also a budding entrepreneur. If you buy gaming figurines, you could do worse than do it from Murphic industries.*

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FROM SEAN FENIAN: United Fleet (The Stardock Trilogy Book 2)

Four months ago, the Crickets — the Chhrt’ktk’t, in their own language — had abandoned a mobile shipyard with a burned-out hyperdrive core in Sol system, as a decoy. They hadn’t told humanity about the decoy part. Then they had picked Alex Holder to operate it, simply because he happened by chance to be the first human they found who could — because that would make it a better decoy.

In perhaps as little as five years, the Khreetan would be coming. The Crickets hadn’t intended for humanity to know that, either.

Alex had those five years to build a defensive fleet from the spines out, recruit crews for his ships, and find enough humans who could reach full rapport with Cricket tech to command and control them — and get all of them trained to work together despite their national differences. All this, while at the same time he tried to share the Crickets’ scientific knowledge, distribute their technology where it was most desperately needed, and somehow still keep the peace.

But would it be enough?

Fortunately, he had help, and he was beginning to find more people who could fully link with Chhrt’ktk’t technology.

FROM JERRY BOYD: Friends With Boomafits (Bob and Nikki Book 46)

BSR thought that things were going well on Zarathrustra. They should know better by now, don’t you think? One thing leads to another, as Bob and the crew do their best to straighten things out. Ride along, with the ships of BSR as they try to keep their world safe.

FROM JAMES TOTTEN: Battle Fatigue and Speed Bumps: Breaching Ain’t Easy

Volume I Battle Fatigue

It’s hell on Earth in the explosive battlefields of the former North Korea. Two Corps, Chinese and Korean/American, are slugging it out to decide the fate of the Korean Peninsula as World War Three rages on. SSG Denise Ware is in the thick of the battle with her four ground combat drones, screening the Corps from attack from a Chinese Armored Regiment. The action comes quickly to the drone drivers as they fight to keep the massed Chinese armor from attacking the flank of IV Corps. Will the drones win or lose, or will the Chinese overrun IV Corps and destroy Korea’s industrial capacity that is supplying NATO with the tanks and vehicles needed to hold the line in former Ukraine? It’s armored combat at its worst as the drones, or “American Murder Hornets,” try to save the day.

Book II Speedbumps

Learn how “Slowball” earned his handle and goes to war after retiring. Follow his exploits as his “tiny tanks” blunt a Soviet attack in the “no quarter asked or given” NATO war in Europe rages all around his tiny tanks. The drivers have the guts and the drones are doing the dying as the battle in the former Ukraine chews through men and materiel. When the drones get decimated, who will come to save the day? Find out in this action packed short story forged on the future battlefields of WW III.

FROM SCOTT MCCREA: Twenty Chests of Gold

Introducing a new series of adventure novels by storyteller Scott McCrea!

Jeff Galleon, California surfer and beach bum, is a “person of interest” to the police when old friends are murdered. Galleon soon discovers he is at the center of a conspiracy involving rogue American agents, a beautiful assassin and missing pirate gold. He traces the treasure from California to New York to Paris to the Dominican Republic, but can he find it before the killers find him?

Twenty Chests of Gold is the first in an exciting new series of adventure stories featuring Jeff Galleon by Western Writers of America Spur Award finalist, author Scott McCrea.

And this one has a book trailer, apparently!

FROM DALE COZORT: Snapshot42-Book2:Through The Texas Gate (Snapshot-42 Book 2)

Snapshot42: Through the Texas Gate is an alternate history novel. In early November 1942, with World War II hanging in the balance, an invisible wall cuts Europe, along with parts of the Middle East and North Africa, off from the rest of the world. With the Allies running out of vital raw materials from the rest of the world, they look for ways through the wall. They find two gates to other realities. One leads to a still-independent Republic of Texas that still uses black powder weapons and is barely holding off fierce nomad raiders, while another leads to a strange land without people but overrun by still-living dinosaurs.

Jim Bridger and Colonel Tillman need to buy oil and food to keep the allies in the war, but first they have to survive fierce new enemies in these new-found realities.

FROM MARY CATELLI: Enchantments And Dragons

A wizard must produce justice enough to satisfy a dragon. A young man tries to rob a tiger’s lair. An enchantress tries to keep a court safe while they ignore the perils of misusing her magic. A lady finds that court intrigues can spread even to the countryside. And more tales. Includes “Over the Sea To Me,” “Dragonfire and Time”, “The Maze, the Manor, and the Unicorn”, “The White Menagerie”, “The Dragon’s Cottage,” “Jewel of the Tiger,” and “The Sword Breaks.”

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Other Side of Midnight

Life has been a nightmare for Mitya ever since he was arrested on trumped-up charges and exiled to Siberia. But this labor camp in the far north of Magadan Oblast hides a secret far more terrible than the merely human evils of the Great Terror. For the universe we know is not the only one, and there are places where it interpenetrates with universes where the laws of nature as we know them do not operate, where humanity has no place. Worlds inhabited by beings ancient and terrible, to whom humanity are slaves, playthings, food.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Gods and Monsters

Here there be dragons…again, damn it.

Deshayna has her sanity back, and forces older than the gods have granted her a new purpose. Chronos, his freedom restored, fights for his sanity, and with it, a purpose in helping Deshayna—now called Shay—with hers. The gods are starting to pull together more…and it’s about time.

Millennia after the last dragons to threaten human existence have been hunted down, they’ve started to reappear, hinting to the surviving gods that something more sinister appeared first: Tiamat.

Instead of a confrontation, though, the gods—major, minor, and genus loci—are drawn into a frustrating hunt for a predator that flees rather than attempting to strike.

FROM KAREN MYERS: Second Sight: A Science Fiction Short Story

BORROWING SOMEONE ELSE’S PERCEPTIONS FOR A POPULAR DEVICE CAN ONLY MEAN COMMERCIAL SUCCESS. RIGHT?

Samar Dix, the inventor of the popular DixOcular replacement eyes with their numerous enhancements, has run out of ideas and needs another hit. Engaging a visionary painter to create the first in a series of Artist models promises to yield an entirely new way of looking at his world.

But looking through another’s eyes isn’t quite as simple as he thinks, and no amount of tweaking will yield entirely predictable, or safe, results.

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: Heavenly

Preparing For The Long Rains a blast from the past from December 4 2012

As many of you know, I’m watching Foyle’s War, kind of the way I watch things these days: when I need to iron, or do something else that occupies the hands but not the eyes (much) or the mind (at all) I turn on a couple of episodes (thank heavens for Amazon prime.  I remember being very much broke and not having cable – as we don’t now – and not being able to watch anything.  With Amazon prime and the stuff free for kindle, I’d have had a much easier time of it.)

I’ve before talked about sudden insights, things I’ve known all along, but which suddenly seem fresh and new.  Like “they didn’t know they were going to win.”  It also started me reading about the World Wars again, which means eventually there will be some blogs related to that, but I need to be more “with it.”

Today is the first day I don’t feel I’m at least partly dead or about to fall asleep in… over a month.  OTOH I forgot to bring my computer to the office, which is why this post is so late.  (Don’t even ask.)

The most amazing thing of all, though, is that despite all the restrictions they lived under, the rationing, the coupon books, the collecting of every piece of scrap, most people lived as though the war weren’t happening.   (I’ve often considered, too, that while the idea of rationing was completely wrong-headed economically and might have FED scarcity, it might have been the right thing to do PSYCHOLOGICALLY creating that sense of unity of purpose.  I’ve also wondered if the problem was that after 9/11 we weren’t asked to plant victory gardens or buy war bonds, but simply to “go shopping.”  Yes, I know it was sound in many ways, but it might have made a difference psychologically if people felt they were contributing.  Or perhaps not.)

Of course the series is a mystery series, and there is usually something involving the war – because that’s how they sold it to the producers – but you sort of catch glimpses of people around, and you get the feeling most people were… what was it people were doing while Noah built the ark?  They were marrying and being given in marriage, having babies, worrying about where to live.  Even when the war affected all of those, it wasn’t the main concern.  The main concern was everything else: who loved whom, who hated whom, what the crop was going to be, and why the kid was acting weird.  All this without knowing if they’d win or lose, or what the next year (or month) would bring.

Right now, sometimes I feel as though this is what the whole world is doing around me.  They’re making plans, getting comfy, settling down, fixing what’s wrong with their lives – or perhaps trying to survive unemployment, illness, other life stuff.

And then periodically I get together with a friend, or sit down with an old acquaintance and I hear how much more seriously they’re preparing.  It’s all guns and canned food, and why am I still living in an urban area, have I gone nuts?  And don’t I realize it’s time to set aside the writing/publishing thing and worry about preparing to survive the collapse.

And then I feel like it’s me who is going about every day life, unaware that there’s something big coming down the pike.

I am aware there is something big coming down the pike.  I think even those who “aren’t” or who deny it, know it at some level.  There is a … tense feeling in the air, and everyone is sitting on the edge of their chairs.  There is a suspended-breath feel – waiting for the next shoe to drop.

The thing is that no one knows what the next shoe will be.  A light sneaker?  An army boot?  A baby bootie?

Each of us has a mental image of disaster, mine formed by experiences (and books, and movies) and other people’s by THEIR experiences and books and movies.

The problem is no one knows.  This has never happened before.

And before you start screaming at me, that of course it has happened before, that even recently the USSR folded like a pack of cards, that we know exactly what collapse looks like… sigh.  No we don’t.

Oh, sure, we can look back to say the French revolution and see what happened when the leading power of the day got buried in deficit and went mad.  We can look at the collapses in Argentina, and… everywhere else in the 20^th century.  But the parallels aren’t right.

If you go back far enough – the French revolution – you’re dealing with a completely different state of affairs, not just mentally but also at the economic/material level.

You see, America has changed the game, both ways.  I remember hearing it mentioned that the USSR still commanded loyalty because peasants STILL lived better than under the Tzars.  A similar thing was said here about Scandinavia and socialism.  Their life improved.  And the same could be said about Portugal under its strong-man regime.  People can point to how poor Portugal was, but we thought we were rich.  As a child, I always wore shoes, for instance, even if the summer “sandals” were the shoes that had stopped fitting in winter strategically cut.  I had winter coats.  We had coal delivered.  I didn’t have to do what mom did and go, barefoot, along the train line, gleaning coal dropped by the trains.  I got Christmas gifts, usually a variety of plastic stuff.  It wasn’t just “we’ll have some fruit for desert and that’s how we know it’s a holiday.”

This was because things that started in America – including the improvements in agriculture, the new processes and new materials – allowed a level of prosperity that was still better than anything the world had known before.  Even in countries doing their best to slit their own throats, the easier ways of producing things and the abundance of food made a difference.  Things got better.  (And everyone got used to thinking that was the way of the world.  BTW I’m aware this process didn’t start with America.  It started with Great Britain and the Industrial Revolution.  But then the torch got passed and things accelerated.)

The other part of this – influencing all collapses in the 20^th century – is that America tends to support other countries in trouble.  This is a double edged blessing, btw.  There is reason to wonder if the USSR would have survived nearly as long, with its dysfunctional regime, without the grain we were willing to provide at bargain basement prices… because we had it.

We don’t have an America to bail us out, and we don’t have an America to keep innovating as we collapse.  We ARE America, and there is no one to pass the torch to.

Please, please, please, don’t tell me that Brazil or China stand ready…  Brazil is in a pretty good place now, partly bolstered by our petro dollars, but let’s not kid ourselves.  Until they fix their political culture, they’ll continue going through the boom and bust cycle in a way we can’t even imagine.  As for China…  China will not survive our collapse, and as it cracks it will show us what a crack up really means.  All of those who are my age and were astonished that the USSR didn’t fight like a wounded bear as it died, might yet get to see this process.

By the time Great Britain started its self-inflicted decline, the US was already well on its way to moving into the lead industrially and agriculturally.  There is no country in that position.  There are countries that can pretend to be in that position, but not when you look at internals.

So, what will the collapse look like?

I don’t know.  And you don’t either.  All we know, because we can feel it, like sand grains shifting on a dune in the first movements of something that is not even fully visible, but which will suddenly remake the landscape, is that we’re already in the process of collapsing.  For a definition of collapsing.

What I’m betting on, of course, is a collapse that collides full-on with the catastrophic innovation of tech.  What this will look like is like an accelerated version of what we have right now, and, to an extent of what Portugal had in the seventies.  The old ways and those in control of them at all levels – from education to production; from politics to news – will be collapsing but at the same time they’ll be each day less relevant, as they get replaced.

This is sort of – if you need a visual – like making a train into an airplane while it is running.  It’s chaotic, very scary and not painless.  Some people will get crushed as gears get moved, and some people will fall out by the wayside and die as the shell is changed.  And some others will fall from great height, even, as the plane takes off.

Or, to leave the overstretched metaphor behind:

It won’t be pretty, and I advise to have prep stuff on hand – you know, guns and canned, and such.   Whether to move to the city or rural is something else.  Yes, I know what you guys hear – and the instinct to “go and hide.”  But I’ve read accounts of Argentina’s collapse, and the worst stuff happened in the countryside, where isolated farmhouses were raided.  If you were in the city, for the most part, you were all right. (Which I’d say was more likely if your city has military presence.)

But again, there is no way of KNOWING.  All you can do is sort of guess and sort of prepare, and of course, ideally you’d have a town residence with a rural getaway, or vice versa, but not if you’re as broke as I am.

HOWEVER because you expect the new to emerge from the old, with preparing for the collapse of the old, for interruptions of supplies, for disruptions in electricity, etc, if you believe this is the sort of collapse that’s coming, you’ll be doing what you can to prepare your profession for the new order.  In my case, this means getting as much as I can up electronic, so I might have at least some income should paper distribution collapse.  I don’t know what it would be for your profession, but if I were a computer-person, I’d be trying to establish the ability to have different contracts on the side.  (If your current employment contract allows it.)  As we’ve spoken of before, what you should be trying for is as many and as varied streams of income as you can.  If you’re a writer not making much, yet, married to someone in a traditional industry that’s going to get whacked, I urge you to do what I’m doing, and write like mad and put it up as much as you can, in as many genres as you can.  (Though I’ll note, for me at least, bubblegum seems to sell best.)

I’m doing this because I don’t believe we’ll collapse totally.  Can we?  Well, sure.  Again, as I said, we’ve never seen anything QUITE like what we’re starting on.

But here’s the thing – if we collapse totally… well… I can’t afford to buy a farm.  I can’t afford to store enough food for the next fifty years.  The best I can do is buy books on building log cabins and trapping animals, and supplying the kids with bows and arrows.  Then if the unthinkable happens, we shall go and colonize the national forest.  (No?  Why not?)  As long as I have some food to survive till a crop can be got in, well, it’s much like preparing for the catastrophic change – except that we never get to be civilized again and therefore all the ebooks count for nothing.  Worth trying, anyway because you never know.  And what else are you going to do if you’re not massively wealthy and able to prepare for the fall of civilization?  Sit around knitting your total collapse blankie?

There is a third option, and for all I know it might be the most likely.  It would be the most likely if we had an America to save us.  It’s called the “modified hangout.”  You slide and slide and slide, and there’s no ending to the slide.  Africa has gone through this and Europe is heading into it (though we’re helping it by propping it up – yes, we’re still giving foreign aid to most of the world.)  This is a world in which services become worse and worse starting with those the government provides, from supplemental income to mail to (where it does so) electricity.  All of it becomes unreliable, untrustworthy, subject to the whims of bureaucrats and how much baksheesh you’re willing to pay. Every year is a little worse than the last.  And you just… hang on.

At the end of this is the world of Heinlein’s Friday, with everyone in armored cars and people in guarded compounds, and the rest of it resembling what a total collapse would do, but crossed with the world of Mad Max.

I wouldn’t bet on this last one.  It is unlikely.  To get there, you need someone subsidizing you, because your society stops functioning long before this to the point where it keeps food and clothing available, much less keeping someone very wealthy.  I don’t think America can keep itself on this path without outside help and – get this very carefully – there is no outside help.

At the same time, even if it happens, how do you prepare for it?  Well, the best thing is to have some stuff laid by so you can protect yourself and yours and provide in case of shortages.

BUT most of all, the best thing is to be very wealthy and able to afford a private enclave.

My plan – though it’s unlikely it will bring me enough wealth – is to do exactly the same I would do in the first instances.  Because if there’s any chance of my being wealthy it is to have a book (or more) hit.

So, right now, I’m very busy – which has the advantage of keeping me from fretting too much.  (You should see me when I fret too much.)

The best thing to do when the rain starts falling and you don’t know if it’s just a severe shower or forty days and forty nights is build your ark.

Even if it’s just made of words and electrons.

Do go on with life — it might be important and your “peacetime activities” might yet be the most important thing in making the collapse non-permanent — but keep an eye on that rain.  And prepare for any eventuality.

There is so much need out there nowadays. You guys know. I share, here and at instapundit, the fundraisers of people I personally know who are in a tight spot. And there are a lot more than there used to be, say 4 years ago. A lot more. I’ve never before had to put a personal limit on what we donate, because otherwise I could easily spend everything I make helping five or six people a month: and that’s just in our personal circle, and people we know and are willing to vouch for. And to whom what we can give makes any difference.

But let’s face it, even if I could give to everyone, for their immediate need or disaster, it’s a bandaid. Not minimizing it: sometimes we need a bandaid. Or a tourniquet to stop bleeding out. But for almost everyone, what they actually need is what we took for granted for so long and not that long ago: decent jobs, stable cost of living, societal structures that work and aren’t infested with crazy psychopaths and fields of endeavor that haven’t gone crazy on woke, or worse, just crazy.

I can’t give people that. And it tears me up.

Just like at the back of my head I have two lists of people I know, even if just on line, looking for mates — right now I have a great mismatch on ages and religion, but the networks extend, and there’s a chance or ten — and will pounce at the slightest sign of compatibility or maybe potential for friendship; I also have a list for jobs, and for people looking for jobs. And there’s an odder list for “I need to sell a car” and “Someone might be able to afford this car”/house/whatever.

Sometimes it works. But too rarely for my tastes.

However, I can give you something: If you’re struggling, in trouble, if you feel like you’re falling short, there’s a very good chance it’s not your fault.

There are great crises in this country right now, crises no one talks about. From the fact that any number of professional people who haven’t been unemployed for any significant amount of time are now laid off and can’t find jobs; to youth unemployment which in turn is affecting their ability to launch/start their lives; to people quietly draining their savings away; to businesses failing because everyone is poorer; to … a lot of other things. This is a consequence of everything being broken, and of people being stuck in this dissolving system and unable to make their way against the falling apart of the “blue model” of society, and the crazy Marxist attacks on the emotional and relational structure of the West.

I won’t belabor it, because I’ve gone into it so many times, but while it’s possible for centralized society to work in small scale, the larger the country and the more complex society, the more it’s going to fall apart. It worked for a time, maybe. I mean, do we know if it worked, or if we simply didn’t know about the failures, because of the centralized means of communication. To the extent it worked, it did because it coasted on the remnants of shared ideas: honor, duty, work, fair dealing. All the bourgeois virtues.

That the Marxist project which captures those same institutions mounted an attack on, from education to entertainment, to news “reporting” to… well, everywhere. Over the shared idea of “decent behavior” it wallpapered the idea that every single human being is despicable, so there’s no point struggling for more, that the highest virtue is envy, and that the world divides into the oppressed and the oppressor in every single circumstance. Which means the highest thing you can aspire to is being an oppressed victim.

And the world started coming apart. At this point our institutions are falling to a tidal wave of incompetence. Our schools are corrupt. Our children are being destroyed.

No, not everything is doom and gloom. There is a strong and real counterculture — REAL counterculture, not the tear everything down pretend Marxist counterculture — building. If their project weren’t coming apart, they wouldn’t have locked us down. If their project weren’t falling apart, they wouldn’t have a corpse-in-charge. They are barely holding onto the saddle, as the whole society buckles under them.

Which is part of why things are falling apart faster and faster. because every one of their attempts to stay on backfire.

Yes, we’re starting to build our own structures, slow and under it all.

But … But you can’t predict everything. And we’re in the middle of a massive rolling turmoil, where each person can’t do much. We can try. We’re all battlers, we all struggle like heck, and none of us likes to be a burden on anyone else. And all of us are driven to do our best. We make plans. when the plans fall apart, it’s hard to keep things in perspective. It’s hard not to feel responsible, not to feel like it’s all our fault.

But the times we’re living through, as a friend said yesterday, all of us are going to have something we love and depend on slough off. It’s not our fault. It’s just the way the world is, in the turmoil we’re going through.

I can’t find jobs for everyone. I can’t help everyone. None of us can. And sooner or later I’m going to find myself in a situation where no one can help me, either, except perhaps with a bandaid. All of us are.

When that happens lay down part of your burden. It’s not your fault. Stop beating yourself, examining everything you did, dissecting every situation. Stop figuring out why the things that looked so logical, so obvious, so close in your future didn’t turn out that way. Or why the path everyone told you was what one should do didn’t bring the success everyone promised.

You are not stupid. It is not your fault. We’re caught in a maelstrom, a hurricane, where we can’t control everything, or even perhaps most things.

You will of course continue trying. And all of us are trying to harden various parts of our life, and prepare, but seriously? You can’t protect yourself completely or flourish completely in this mess.

So, as you try to rebuild, as you try to create, as you try to walk against the driving wind: don’t carry guilt over the failures.

There’s a very high chance it’s not your fault. And as difficult as it’s going to be for us individually and collectively to build under, build over, build around, you don’t need that extra burden.

Lay the guilt down. Take a deep breath.

What happened happened. All you can do is do your best going forward.

Now.

When I was young — at least after the revolution — May day was international labor day, and the entire TV was given over to people draped in red, wearing uniforms, carrying the flag of butchers, and parading endlessly past dais draped in red. On the dais (daises?) sat senilocrats (totally a word) trying to look dignified while they plotted how to put a knife in the other’s back.

They did it all, constantly, for a little bit more of foreign goods purchased at the state store, another dacha for their protracted vacations and, the worst part, all the treachery and everything they got for keeping other humans enslaved mind and body? Got them a lifestyle about the level of middle-middle class Americans or the inhabitants of any other relatively free country.

The truth is that tyranny is the fast track to starvation, while freedom produces so abundantly that even the poor, even now, in our country, live a lifestyle that would be the envy of the richest in eras past.

And yet, like the senilo-kakistocrats of the past, our own would be forever rulers prefer a regime that enslaves all and makes all poorer, in exchange for their being just a little better off than, say, a steady-working craftsman in the US.

I think they prefer to be somewhat poorer provided they are envied, because the rest of the country is starving and grubbing in the dark.

I don’t understand it. Perhaps because I never cared how well others do, provided I can do fairly well myself.

But some people can’t enjoy their good, unless others are destroyed.

Which is what those endless parades meant. “Look how strong and wonderful we are. Look at our might and despair.”

Don’t despair. Those parades were a lie, complete with recycling military vehicles, etc. to pass before the podium.

Tyranny is always weak. In the process of starving everyone, it destroys its own strength. So it can’s last.

Sure this is more comforting when watched from across the world, in some place of warmth and abundance.

But it is still comforting nonetheless. The dark times don’t last. They can’t. The boot can’t stamp on the human face forever. we’ll chew through the leader and bite the foot well before that. But also, the leg has no strength because it hasn’t eaten in several days, and the foot in the boot is a skeleton.

Years ago — and you’ll have to forgive the slightly hallucinatory tone of this post. For some reason ear infections always make me not quite able to focus. Right now literally, I believe due to fever — a friend said that the left always screams loudest and appears strongest when it’s losing.

Since then I’ve seen no reason to doubt him. In fact, I believe the more they try to appear powerful, the more insecure they are.

And I think the current insanity is a mark of how scared they are. They’ve glimpsed the abyss, and it’s a long long way down.

Does this mean I think they’ll lose the elections? No. Unless something very strange happens. We should still vote — against them — in case a miracle occurs.

But at this point people are saying and seeing things that were literally hidden and hushed up before. We’re thinking things that were unthinkable.

They’re not winning. They’re making a much bigger display of control, precisely because they lost it. And they know it.

We’re not losing. We’re coming back slowly from the totalitarian folly of the 20th century.

It takes time.

I don’t like it any better than you do. I likely have less time than a lot of you.

But would you rather, like Moses, perish having seen the promised land of freedom,or be one of those who lived in calmer times, and died without ever even knowing they were prisoners, body and soul? Or that the future wasn’t endless red parades forever?

I’ll take our fraught time, our chance at freedom, our chance at rebuilding an imperfect Republic that cherishes individual freedom.

And that’s a labor I can believe in.

I spent the morning outside today, clearing the vegetable beds (meant to get it done last fall, but it never happened) and putting in the seedlings: squash of various kinds, cucumber, tomatoes. (This was probably inadvisable because I woke up yesterday with an ear infection. Better today. Hopefully the exertion doesn’t make it worse again, but it had to be done, because there’s a timing for these things.)

Before this year, I’ve had vegetable gardens three times. Once in NC pre-kids, and once last year, when we got invaded by tomatoes that wouldn’t stop till first frost. Oh, cucumbers too, but the tomatoes were outright hostile in over-producing.

This is one thing that has changed since 2020. Objectively, I know that five tomato plants, three cucumber plants and a bunch of squash aren’t going to save us from starvation. Heck, even the madly laying quail (no really. They do two eggs each a day I swear.) But I feel an utter lack of trust in the food being in the store when needed. Planting is anxiety-calming, more than anything else.

There are other things that have changed. We now don’t really go out unless it’s for absolutely necessary shopping/picking up something or eating out, or church. We used to go out for all sorts of things, from long and interesting walks, to just exploring a new area, to — even — museums, etc.

Now, sure, part of this is the move, though there are museums and zoos within driving distance, and we used to drive to Denver from the Springs for this, so it’s not a problem. The problem is internal. Or perhaps just something shifted. I no longer feel the need to go out and be around people even passively. I think I know why. I think I feel betrayed. And also guilty. Neither of which is sane, and more on it later.

Part of the problem is that all the things we loved to do, our spontaneous fun outings, like going to a diner at midnight to plot is impossible in the post 2020 world. And not just because we moved. We’re in a smallish (compared to Denver) town, but not so small it shouldn’t by rights have at least a 24/7 greasy spoon. I used to brag I could be released to the wild anywhere in the US and find the best one in a half hour range within a day. This was true, and not only because I had an affinity for decent diners, but also because there were so many. Now, even in Denver, our old hangout, Pete’s Kitchen, closes (I think at 10, except on weekends when it closes at midnight? I think that’s it. We were shocked when we went back.) And throughout the country, in smaller places, a lot of them have just closed. (Partly I suspect because the clientele are mostly those who have had to cut out eating out, not merely “cut back” as we have. Though we have a plan for our entertainment budget. It’s just going to take time to get it going. Yes, merchandise, including t-shirts, etc. but also hand made stuff. I just need some time.)

The thing is, taken in aggregate, our lifestyle has changed almost 100%. I truly can’t underline how much it’s changed, or how strange it is. It’s particularly strange because I’m not climbing walls, which used to be my response to not getting out of the house for a couple of days. (Though to be fair, I’m outside a lot. I have the tan to prove it. Farming is not something to do inside, in this house.)

Now, of course, things change, and as the newly empty-nesters we are, it was going to change anyway. (We were semi-empty nesters for years, due to the fact our previous house had a spacious and independent basement apartment where first one kid, then the other lived. But it turns out semi-empty is not empty. It’s different. Even with younger son living closish-by we don’t see him every day. (Though we tend to talk everyday, for at least a few minutes.) Which means our life is more us-oriented now. And it would have changed.

But I can’t rightly explain how radical a change this is.

Add to it that I don’t like large gatherings or even small ones much anymore. Or at least, I get the horrors before any gathering of any size. I have found that small gatherings of friends for dinner/hanging out are actually good for me. I just resist them before they happen. And psyching myself up for cons is so DIFFICULT.

The not liking to be out, even in the middle of strangers/seeing strangers is because I realized I’m made at strangers in general for falling for the Covidiocy and at the same time feel guilty I didn’t SOMEHOW prevent the lockdowns. How could I have prevented them? No rational way for me to even know how to. I just feel I should have. SOMEHOW. (Did I say this was in any way rational?) So a lot of the people watching no longer interests me. Now, how good this is for my mental health, I don’t know. I know that I used to need a minimum amount of seeing people I don’t live with. I suspect I still do, but am suppressing it.

Anyway, my scars are minor. The lifestyle I arrived at is functional.

Besides the fact of all the friends who died because of that nonsense: because no medical checkup, because were vulnerable to covid and real treatment wasn’t offered, because… And besides their having used the “emergency” to seize control of the country and destroy everything, I emerged on the other side sort of okay.

A lot of people’s scars from the last four years are bigger and more obvious.

The scars fall into two groups: the people who know it was a scam, many of whom knew it from the beginning, others who gradually caught one.

They are suffering various forms of fatigue. They’re mostly tired of being so incredibly angry and having nowhere to put it. It becomes a form of stress.

On top of which they no longer trust… anything, really. Most of us — because I fall in this group — are disturbed to find ourselves looking at most conspiracy theories we used to dismiss out of hand and going “OTOH… 2020.” A short list of things we no longer trust includes various authorities from religious to scientific to anything in between. We’ve gone way past trust but verify to “Don’t trust, verify, and dig past initial seeming confirmation before you allow it might be true.

Thing is, once you’ve seen the authorities running around with their pants on their head, you’ll never see the the same way again.

To us the last four years weren’t shocking in what happened, so much, only the magnitude of it. “Government oversteps” is not a shock for those of us raised in the cold war. But to see the entire west go nuts over a danger that wasn’t, and the level of complicity from every authority and institution (even as the individuals often rebelled, of course.) was mind boggling.

So what it left us with was a profound distrust of every authority, even the ones we thought were okay before.

Meanwhile a minority in the us but PROBABLY a majority abroad — this is hard to know for sure as their news are more tightly controlled than ours — think they lived through the equivalent of the black plague and that the authorities were wonderful in getting us through it.

Then there are the even smaller minority who are running around still wearing masks and convinced they’ll die at any minute.

How those later two views survive without piles of bodies at the street corner I don’t get!

So we’re all running around with different sorts of scars. I’m tempted to say us skeptics are the most functional to emerge from this, but you know even we have fractures.

How it’s all going to play out as the loonies in control become ever crazier I don’t know. They should know not to mess with people who aren’t exactly sane. But they don’t seem to realize there’s any danger.

Interesting times ahead. Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark and be not afraid.

As for the anger, I don’t know what to tell you. Mine is barely under control as is. All we can do is keep on and try not to lose our minds.

Hanging’s Too Good by Holly Chism

In 2015, right at the beginning of the year, I was having a meal. I got half choked when I had a sudden sneeze attack, and inhaled a bit of rice. 

The rice…didn’t come out while I was trying to hack up a lung.  And I developed pneumonia from it.  I was laid out with the pneumonia for about six weeks, even after I’d had the antibiotics to clear it out.  Yeah it took that much out of me. 

Toward the end of February of the same year, the kids brought home a nasty stomach flu.  I guess I was still weakened from my bout with pneumonia, because it hit me a lot harder than it did everyone else.  Imp was down for a day, Pixie was down for three days; Other Half was down for about three or four days, but no more than that.  I was able to get them through their cases before it hit me. 

My digestion…stopped.  I didn’t just get hit with the symptoms of evacuation from all directions, my stomach stopped emptying southward.  My guts quit moving things through.  There wasn’t even any gas noises.  For five days.  And I ran a vicious fever for all five days.  Slept a lot, too. 

It passed, as all viruses do.  And I went for the usual “been sick” foods: saltines, to start. 

And I thought the symptoms were returning.  Because that bloody hurt.  Same with the plain tortilla I tried the next day.  And the toast.  And the soup. 

Broth was fine; clear liquids were fine; meat was fine, dairy was fine…but that virus had left me with a lasting allergy to wheat.  Not gluten—wheat. 

It also left me with a nasty case of myalgic encephalomyelitis.  Also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or post-viral malaise. 

It’s been nine years, and I still haven’t recovered from it.  I don’t have the energy levels or stamina levels I used to have.  And I can’t rebuild them.  I’ve tried.  I seem to be allergic to my own body’s fatigue toxins, and if I do a little bit too much, I pop a fever (a good one, too—103 or better) and get laid out flat for days. 

Some days are almost normal.  I can do housework, writing, child-tending, and cooking.  If I pop a fever, it’s at the end of the day.  But usually, on good days, I don’t pop a fever.

Other days, it’s a challenge to get the kids to school and back.  Standing up and moving triggers me into popping a fever, and I can’t focus on anything enough to even read.  And supper is leftovers…or my other half brings home rotisserie chicken and sides from Sam’s Club. 

There’s always some level of joint pain in my major joints: both ankles, both knees, both hips, both hands (and now, my right elbow, for whatever reason).  On good days, it’s pi—low level, but never ending. 

On bad days…it starts at a six and jumps every time I have to move.  And I can’t stay still because it builds if I do, and I have to shift positions, until I find another way to sit or lay to relieve it. 

In the near-decade I’ve lived with this, I’ve learned techniques to minimize flares, hacks and workarounds to maximize what I can do, and mitigation for when flares hit in spite of my best efforts.  Oh, and pain management.  Rather, I’ve gotten…okay…at ignoring pain.  Because neither NSAIDs nor Tylenol do anything for this, my liver can take only so much alcohol (which actually does work), and I’m allergic to opiates.  And everything else makes me puke. 

In the near decade I’ve lived with this, I’ve come to admit that it’s not a handicap.  Not really.  It’s a disability.  When it hits—and it does, sometimes without warning—I’m rendered incapacitated.  Completely.  As in, I can stare at the ceiling, and not much more.  Because it also brings pea-soup brain fog. 

I don’t have the mental or physical energy for rage, anymore.  It’s why I haven’t been paying attention to politics for the past decade. 

I can’t afford the ME/CFS attack that rage will kick me into.

I’m there, anyway.  Because I recently learned—and confirmed—that the COVID vaccine triggers encephalomyelitis in some people.  It’s a very small—vanishingly small—percentage of those vaccinated.  And the vaccines, they have begun to admit, weren’t safe in the first place, contrary to what they said first. 

Hell, they’re starting to admit that they’re not even effective.  Not really, and not for long. 

The COVID vaccines weren’t totally untested.  There’s actually a history of mRNA vaccines…and that history has proven that they’re completely ineffective, and that the side-effects are worse than the virus they’re trying to prevent. 

Hm.  Let’s see.  We’ve seen, as a side effect from these vaccines, a massive upsurge in myocarditis, blood clotting disorders (namely, blood clotting when it shouldn’t), strokes, death; nerve disorders, paralysis (temporary and not), and now…now, they also admit that it’s triggering encephalomyelitis and transverse myelitis (inflammation of brain tissue that strips the myelin from the nerves).  An inflammation of nerve tissue that causes weakness, exertion intolerance, crushing fatigue, an inability to think clearly.  It’s not “myalgic”—i.e., accompanied by systemic pain—but that’s about all I can say for it. 

The smallpox vaccine had horrific side effects, too, and sometimes killed the people who were vaccinated.  And yes, I’ve heard the comparison. 

However.  That comparison falls flat.  Very flat.  Smallpox—the virus itself—had a horrific death rate. Outbreaks have been compared to the bubonic plague. That would put it somewhere in the neighborhood of 10%-40%, depending on region and outbreak.  The smallpox vaccine killed 1 person per million vaccinated. 

COVID…the overall death rate from all causes during 2020-2022 didn’t hit 10% of the world population.  All causes.  ALL CAUSES.  Including car accidents, plane crashes, old age, cancer, and heart failure. 

We don’t know how many people COVID actually killed.  The stats have been rat-fucked ten thousand ways from Sunday.  But I can confidently say that…it probably was about the same as a bad flu year.  And many of those deaths were caused by the medical care that purported to be trying to save them: lungs blown out by intubation and too high of pressure; medical neglect and isolation; dangerous experimental medications that caused death in many cases of respiratory failure and/or acute kidney failure. 

We also don’t know the rate of severe adverse reactions to the COVID vaccines.  None of the official studies will actually admit to anything other than easily obfuscated raw data.  Anecdotal evidence, however, puts it far higher than the smallpox vaccine’s death rates.  Especially in the younger populations.  Too many “died of suddenly” cases pop up and then vanish.  It’s a hell of a lot higher than one death per million vaccinated, though.  And it’s a hell of a lot higher on the “permanently crippled” front.

Cancer rates have exploded recently, too.  I’m not sure if that’s attributable to vaccination, or lack of medical care catching pre-cancerous states, or stress breaking people’s immune systems to the point that cancers aren’t caught and eliminated before they’re a problem. 

The statistics aren’t just being deliberately obscured.  Doctors and researchers are not being allowed to look into the negative side effects of these vaccines…and we are still being told they’re safe and effective. 

Not just by idiot politicians that wear loafers because they’re too stupid to be able to tie their shoes without tying them together.  By “experts.”  By the FDA.  By the CDC.  By the WHO.  By the Surgeon General.  By the AMA. 

These people are lying to us.  Blatantly, egregiously, and deliberately.  They’re causing death, permanent disability, permanent disfigurement. 

I suspect that, when it all comes out in the wash, these people will be rounded up and vaccinated with their own medicine.  Repeatedly. 

Because hanging’s far too good for these bastards.

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FROM RORY SURTAIN: Psyker: A Dark, Dystopian Science Fantasy Novel

Dystopian science fantasy – “Where minds are weapons and hope is heresy.”
They call it dark energy or chaos or the Warp. It leaks into our universe at an unpredictable rate.
Those sensitive to it can wield its immense power in unimaginable ways. In the Imperium of Mankind, anyone born with such a gift is labeled a psyker and outlawed at every level of society.
Enter Paric Kilhaven, a scion of a noble House and a young man as clueless as he is clever. His future was set until a genetic aberration, a freak encounter, and a curse turned his life inside out. Reality set in. He wasn’t like anyone else. He wasn’t even considered human, but at the end of the day, he was merely a pawn.
Paric navigates the darkly alluring world of his city’s underhive, hoping to escape the fate of an outlawed psyker. Rival gangs and chaotic forces align against him in a fight for the planet’s survival.
Can Paric outlive the nightmare? Can you? Grab your copy today!
Part adventure, part mystery, this dystopian science fantasy novel is appropriate for Adult and Young Adult readers.

FROM ALLENE R. LOWREY: Einarr and the Shining Valkyrie: A Viking young adult action-adventure

A high-seas chase…

After wintering with the Runemaster alfs of the Shrouded Village, Einarr is finally deemed ‘safe’ to leave the village and rejoin the Vidofnir. But the alfen High Roads have become unstable, so he has to find another way back with his new friends. It seems as though they’ve hit a stroke of luck when an old friend of Einarr’s father makes port. At least, it seems like they’ve found a ride back to Kjell.
But, not long after they set sail, a ship of the Order of the Valkyrie appears on the horizon… and starts following them.

FROM SABRINA CHASE: Red Wolf: Scout Part 2

Despite injury, capture, and enemy pursuit, Nic and Feng Guo succeed in finding the camp of the mysterious northern general — a man who also seems to have a common enemy in the rebellious General Zeng. Other good news is sparse. Suspicious of strangers, the northern general Bai Yan does not welcome their presence. Will they have time to convince him to join their alliance before they must return to Shanmen Fortress?

As Nic and Feng Guo race to return before his absence is detected, Zeng’s nefarious plans for Shanmen are already in motion, trapping the soldiers behind the walls. Only a shunned monk and Nic’s cross-time special forces team remain to defend the people of the town …

FROM MICHAEL HOOTEN: Wizard’s Heir (A Bard Without a Star Book 1)

Gwydion ap Don is a talented harpist, and a known rogue. But his Uncle Math sees something more: a young man with the magical talent to succeed him as Lord Gwynedd. But to learn magic, Gwydion will also have to learn self-control, duty, honor, and the martial arts. He’s not sure which will be the hardest. And when his training in magic begins in earnest, his whole world will change, as well as how he sees himself.

Based on the ancient Welsh myths from the Mabinogion, but set in the world of Cricket’s Song, this new series looks at one of the three great bards of Glencairck, Gwydion. But long before he became a great bard, he had to learn how to be a good man. This is the story of how his uncle tries to temper him into a leader, and a suitable heir.

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Golden Summer

Early ripe, early rotten, or so the proverbs claim.

Pjtor Adamson Swendborg defeated the Harriers and opened NovRodi to the lands across the White Sea. But his wife has not born another living child, and there are whispers that Godown has cursed her or him. He chafes at the old men and old ways that surround him. He may be emperor, but even he must bend to the will of the nobles and the church. As Pjtor wrestles with his past, he discovers that defeated enemies do not always stay defeated.

In his haste to save his world, Pjtor’s impatience may undo all that he has won so far.

FROM ILLENE KAYE: What’s Wrong with Being a Princess?: A short story

What happens when a Fae princess wakes up in a mortal’s bed? TROUBLE!

Eglantine – ‘Tina’ to her friends – just wanted to visit the mortal realm to help her forget her upcoming marriage to a minor demon lord. She didn’t expect him to follow her!

Boat Night is always crazy, but he never expected to be picked up by a Faerie princess!

Brad was just working his shift at the bar when he was suddenly compelled to take the pointy-eared girl home with him. Now he’s being chased by winged hellhounds and an annoyed demon lord.

It’s the morning after neither one of them expected. The question is: Can they survive the day?

FROM CELIA HAYES: Daughter of Texas

A woman’s life in Texas, before the cattle drives, and before the Alamo – before the legends were born… She was there, and she saw it all.
On the day that she was twelve years old, Margaret Becker came to Texas with her parents and her younger brothers. The witch-woman looked at her hands, and foretold her future; two husbands, a large house, many friends, joy, sorrow and love.
The witch woman would not say what she saw for Margaret’s younger brothers, Rudi and Carl – for Texas was a Mexican colony. Before the Becker children were full-grown, the war for Texas independence would come upon them all and show no mercy.
During her life, she would observe and participate in great events. She would meet and pass her own judgment on great men and lesser men as well; a loyal friend, able political hostess . . . and at the end, a survivor and witness. But in all of her life, there would be only one man who would ever hold – and break – her heart!

FROM TOM KNIGHTON: The Essence of Man: A Real Guide To Masculinity In The 21st Century

Popular culture argues that being a man is a simple matter. It’s all about what you think you are. If you think you’re a man, you’re a man. Nothing else matters so long as you feel better about yourself by saying, “I’m a man.”

Historically, that wasn’t the case. Being a man was something earned, something attained through a rite of passage, and those days are mostly gone. However, why should that change the concept of manhood?

Author Tom Knighton has been forced to watch in his role as a journalist and blogger, but that has given him an opportunity to formulate what it means to not just be a man, but to be a good man. This is the guide for taking masculinity into this century without betraying the core of what it has always meant to be a man.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Schrödinger Paradox

To save the future, sometimes you have to reach to the past to change it. And in the face of extinction, you do what you must, regardless of who stands in the way.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Wolf and the Well-Tempered Clavier

With the coronation fast approaching, the Cathedral of St. George the Dragonslayer cannot afford trouble. But come it does, while the cathedral choir director is at the Dragon’s Breath Organ, practicing the anthem he wrote at King William’s own request. While explaining some technical terms to his understudy, the choir director decides to show off a little.

In the process, he releases an ancient menace from long before humanity came through the worldgate to this place. An entity that strikes him blind, and threatens further harm to anyone who tries to play the Dragon’s Breath Organ.

However, they dare not disappoint His Majesty, not on the most momentous day of his reign. Someone must cleanse the Dragon’s Breath Organ of this malicious entity, and the choir director cannot. So the task falls to Miss Anne Teesdale, understudy organist.

Now she must delve into the history of the cathedral, and the mysterious ancient magic that fills the organ’s windchest. A secret that may well cost this young woman her life.

Or worse, her sanity.

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: Morning