Yesterday was a very weird day, complicated by not sleeping more than about 2h the night before. So I was doing the strangest things. Today I need to get some stuff done. But if I can I’ll write a post this afternoon.

Misunderstandings By David Bock

One of the challenges when dealing with people who are unfamiliar with firearms is that many of their impressions have been formed in the media sphere.  Whether through books, movies, television, video games, or the nightly news, an often erroneous understanding of firearms exists. 

Take the fun Bruce Willis movie “Last Man Standing” for example. In one scene his character sends an opponent flying through a plate glass window and rolling across the street with multiple shots from a pair of 45 caliber pistols.

Any gun owner knows that this is impossible and a clear violation of the laws of physics.  However, we generally let it pass as dramatic license and enjoy the movie.

This is not a unique dramatic element.  I could call up many similar scenes that are as equally unrealistic.  I’m sure many of our readers can as well.

The problem isn’t the dramatization of firearms in movies.  I enjoy a good shoot ‘em up movie as much as anyone and probably more than many.

The problem occurs when this type of exaggeration is someone’s only exposure to, and understanding of, firearms.

Here’s another example.  For people living in large urban areas with strict gun laws like New York City, very few people have hands on experience with firearms.  On the occasion they hear about a firearm on the news, it’s almost certainly been used in a crime.  In their mind, firearm usage equals crime.  If, after this association has been fixed, they meet a law abiding firearm owner, it’s often difficult if not impossible for them to break free of their conditioning. 

This is especially true if they’ve also conflated a political position with their misunderstanding of firearms.

Several years ago, when we still lived in upstate New York, members of my family came to visit from New York City.  One of the things some of them wanted to do was visit my local shooting range.

As usual, I started them out with my Ruger 10/22.  Everyone who chose to shoot had fun.  I then pulled out one of my New York legal AR15s with a 22 rimfire conversion kit installed.

At the sight of this, one of my cousins immediately recoiled and refused to shoot it because she thought it looked too scary.  This belief persisted even after I showed her it shot the same ammunition as the Ruger and my petite wife fired it with no issues.

Because of the media implanted association that AR15s are somehow more dangerous that other firearms, she was scared and intimidated.

On another family visit, I gave my uncle (a firearm owner in New York City) a tour of my gun safe.  His reaction was one of shock.  Asking why I had so many guns and why did I have holsters for my pistols?

Following that visit he referred to my firearm collection as “an arsenal” since that’s what he had been taught by the nightly news.

By the way, at that time, my collection was a handful of pistols and maybe a dozen long guns.  Many of them antiques.  Some arsenal, huh?

Sometimes this misinformation is not necessarily accidental.  I remember watching a firearm related story on a local news broadcast years ago.  There were several shots of someone shooting various rifles with voiceover telling the story.  Then they showed someone firing an AR15 and cut to a cinder block flying apart.  It later came out that the cinder block had been shot with a 12 gauge shotgun firing a slug.

Their excuse was that they didn’t have enough time to show the effects of all the firearms so chose the most dramatic to close the segment.  However, instead of showing someone firing a shotgun and its effects, they chose an AR15.  Subtle this wasn’t.

As I mentioned earlier, some people will firmly hold on to their misinformation, especially if it’s combined with a political position. 

I once had a several minute back and forth with one of my more stubborn left leaning friends that AR did NOT, in fact, stand for Assault Rifle. 

He was insistent that it did.

I explained that the AR series of firearms were developed by the Armalite Division of the Fairchild Aircraft Corporation and all of them had the prefix AR.

He remained insistent.

Finally, I pulled out one of my reference books and showed him a picture of the AR17.  A two shot semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun introduced by Armalite in 1964 for the sporting market.

At this he relented. Albeit reluctantly.  His opinion, which had been formed by repeated exposure to misinformation, had become personal. After that conversation, I made this meme to help educate others.

On the other hand some of these misconceptions can be pretty amusing as well.  Years ago, when one of my nephews was young, he was really into the video game Call of Duty.  One night when he was visiting us I mentioned that I had some of the guns used in the game and asked if he would like to see them. 

His answer was an enthusiastic yes.  He specifically asked about the M1 Garand and as I unlocked my safe I told him some information about that rifle.  I then asked him how much he thought it weighed.  His response? 50 pounds.  Which at the age he was then was probably around half his weight. 

Admittedly, at nine and a half pounds the Garand isn’t light, but it’s not nearly that heavy.

Remember, while education is important, knowledge is essential and neither of them do us much good without wisdom.

On 9/11 it took some two weeks before my liberal friends started beating their chests and saying that it was all our fault for… existing, I guess.

After the horrendous events of Saturday in Israel, twitter is already full of idiots, most of them, yes “liberals” (in newspeak, since they are totalitarians at heart) doing the two step of “Israel brought it on themselves” followed by alleged (they’re not. Well, they’re maybe European right, which is national socialist at heart) right-wingers doing the “let them fight” two step.

I’ll just say it right now: if you can look at the wholesale slaughter of civilians, including grandmothers and babies, and say they had it coming, you’re a monster. And if you think it’s nothing to do with us, and both sides are wrong, you’re a monster and an idiot. An idiot at a level that I can’t begin to describe. I’m surprised you can breathe and walk at the same time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you have to repeat at the back of your head “move foot.”

Those who condone monsters are monsters. And those who think that throwing the baby off the sleigh will keep the monsters away are stupid monsters.

If you think the monsters are only coming for Israel, and don’t have America — and all the West — on their sights, you’re an infant, and not worthy of speaking where adults gather.

WATCH: Israel is only the first target, warns Hamas commander.

Like the left, these people believe they deserve mastery of the world and all in it, and stew in rage that you haven’t yet rushed to give them everything and subject yourself to them. Any country that does better than their shitholes must be punished, because of course, they’re supposed to reign supreme. Don’t do them the injustice of believing they don’t believe their own religion. They do.

Which means they’re everyone’s problem. And the left, the other cultists sure they should inherit the Earth due to their ultra specialness and the power of the arrow of history has done their work for them. Look at what happened in Israel and look to our open borders.

A week or a little more ago, I warned here that I had a sense of very bad things coming. Very bad things close up. This sense, btw, probably has buggerall to do with prophecy. I am, sadly for my sanity, a compulsive reader of news and well… everything. And I have the type of brain best described by Heinlein in Friday, when the boss calls Friday in the middle of the night and asks her when the Bubonic plague will hit again, and she answers, though she’s not sure where the answer came from. She’s been processing things at a very deep level, and arrived to conclusions that have nothing to do with her conscious.

(Yes, you can get me to give that type of answers if you wake me up, and they’re often accurate. Fortunately (?) the people who have access to me when I sleep prefer to either ask me funny questions or implant novel ideas. Yeah. That sort of person.)

Most often though, I just wake up at 3 am and “know” something. Sometimes I can backtrack logically and tell you what I know and why, which is why I went from worried about Covid to coldly sure it was bs. And I knew what I’d seen that prompted that certainty. (For all the good it did me to scream in the desert.) Or take when I knew the 2020 election would be stolen. It was obvious no one would run Biden, or the campaign Biden run, unless they had unimaginable amounts of fraud sewn up, so that they could defeat practically anything short of a major landslide (which caused them to fraud at the last minute and visibly.) This did not much other than depress me and make me frantic. Again, no one else seemed to listen.

So, I don’t like these “hunches” and I dislike them more when they are vague, unfocused and of the “something wicked this way comes.” Which is what I had.

A lot of you have pinged me to ask me if the events in Israel were what was triggering it. Maybe? Though I don’t think it was that specific, there was a certain easing of the “now there’s nothing we can do” sort Saturday night. (What my subconscious thinks I can do, I don’t know. It has an inflated idea of my importance in the world, I think.)

BUT — and it pains me to tell you this — we’re not done. The first pebble has fallen, but the avalanche is not started yet.

If you ask me, I suspect the two-steppers — because these people think twitter is life — are encouraging the left…. and others.

The amoral, excitable elements among us looked at what happened in Israel, and they liked it. Oh, they liked it. They smell blood and they want them some.

Who? you’ll say.

Oh, we’re spoiled for choice, and it’s a devil’s choice. We have our national malcontents, who think if only we let them go Stalin on us, they will have paradise. Hillary wants to re-educate us, but let us face it, most of the left just wants us dead. Some cartoon character I no longer remember was talking last week of killing all Trump supporters. So, you know. They want blood. They want to let the beast out.

Then there is the open borders. Even in the best possible situation, when you let carefully vetted foreigners in, there is hostility. I saw it as an exchange student — and distanced myself from my fellows because of that — when day two of gathering the students from all over the world at a NY university for “orientation” (Mostly how to buy things, how to write a check, what is considered polite. That sort of thing) the students were talking about how horrible the Americans (Volunteers who had given up their summer to help us) were. I don’t want to rundown my fellow exchange students. This wasn’t universal, just a majority. And even those who were blaming all their difficulties with… being in dorms? in a university? on American horribleness became saner when separated (as most of us were) from those of their culture or adjacent cultures.

I think it’s instinctive in humans, in a new situation, to try to bond by denouncing the strangers. And the strangers to denounce were the Americans, because this was their country. So, that’s what they were doing. (No, I wasn’t doing it, but that’s because a) I didn’t really bond well with my countrymen — Odd, you know? — and b) I realized, having the self-consciousness of a snail, that it was unhealthy to turn against America when we were here for a year. Yes, there were things that annoyed me during the year, but 90% of them were the climate. I think some people at headquarters delighted in sending people from lands without snow to places where snow remained on the ground for six months. Eh.)

But now picture that with often illiterate and very much pre-modern people flown across the world to be smuggled over the border, with promises of everything free, and more wealth flowing to them than they can imagine. (Yes, sure, some people still come here to work. But we all know that since Obama, there has been a campaign to convince people to come to the US for the things they are “entitled” to. Like all the health, welfare, education, etc. programs.)

And… it’s not going according to plan. Even in the best of times, with limited immigration, it won’t. Look, exchange students took umbrage at dinner being too early by Portuguese standards. And later, when I was with my host family I was surprised they — early 80 — were struggling paycheck to paycheck, and expenditures carefully controlled. Because that wasn’t the image of America in my mind.

Now, in a situation of mass immigration? Logistics becomes a nightmare. Even if we tried to give them everything the left has promised — and we weren’t broke as heck — it would be impossible. You can’t feed/care for/look after these many people perfectly.

I’d think by now any number of groups among those who came in, are working up a fine froth of anger at America. This is made worse by a lot of them having been recruited by/from communist orgs, for whom America is and has always been the enemy. And by the fact a lot of them are recruited from those who consider themselves at war with America and we’ve mostly ignored, like Iranians. Or, you know, Chinese. Or Afghans. Or–

And then there are the ones already living here. As we saw from Rashida Tlaib to various violent demonstrations over the weekend.

Oh, and let’s not forget the climate hysterics, who are sometimes distinguished from the outright communists (but there’s a slide.)

The usual two step are going to convince all of these that they’re safe to act. And, oh, they want blood. They want revenge on Americans, who have the nerve to live their lives and pay these people very little mind.

And the two-steppers are going to convince them that they’re safe; that we’re soft; that it’s a great time to act.

Will it be as bad as Israel? Well, no. There’s a lot more of us. The country is very large. There will be no coordination between the various groups. There’s unlikely to be (but I wouldn’t bet against some) a barrage of rockets and covering fire to create confusion. It will be, as I’ve been telling you, isolated. Some places will be very bad indeed; some will read about it on the news. Which honestly is what a lot of people even in Israel are doing.

What will be as bad? All these idiots will be convinced they’re winning. There will be a barrage of pictures of the atrocities they commit. They will be doing selfies with the raped and murdered. And they will be PROUD. Just like the monsters of Hamas, they will be giddy with blood and wanting to show off.

And then things are going to get very weird, very fast.

I’m not the only one with this feeling, though most people aren’t unspooling it. The boss is just sure of a crisis coming.

And there will be a crisis. Because something shifted in the night between Saturday and Sunday. I expected to be angry. I didn’t expect how angry other people would be, nor the reason of their anger.

It wasn’t so much the surprise attack on Israel. I’m sixty, and some of my earliest memories of the Olympic games involved the massacring of Jewish athletes by terrorists. And I remember the Yum Kippur war. And I remember the Iranian hostage crisis. And I remember — Most of us are inured to Islamic terrorism. We’ve seen too much of it to be shocked. And I don’t know about people who grew up here, but I grew up in Europe, so communist terrorism is also a known. From the lunatics who’d take whole planeloads to Cuba, to the lunatics who planted bombs. You guys saw your bit with the likes of Weather Underground, though our media, then and now would not report much of it.

But that’s the thing. The reporting has changed. The media has been protecting the monsters, by not telling us the full measure of their blood-insanity. Even now they’re keeping quiet on a lot of killing, and either not revealing the motive or back pedalling the identity of the killers, or the insane evil of the killings.

This won’t happen this time. Like the Hamas savages, these people think their ability to hurt others is a super-power. They think violence makes them super-human and somehow justified. They’re going to take selfies. They’re going to tweet. They’re going to post on facebook.

And there will be a lot of them, from a lot of organizations, cascading, because once one starts the others will also want to brag and show how important they are. There are probably some in planning, right now. When it will hit, no one knows, but my feeling is probably not long. Because they saw. And they want. And they’ll be driven by the feeling the war is already won, all they have to do is join the victors or be left out.

Our official response will be weak and vacillating. Our media will do its best to cover it up.

It won’t work.

Because something shifted overnight between Saturday and Sunday. Something in the zeitgeist. The quiet, private men and women who just want to be left alone woke up.

What comes next? I don’t know. I know it won’t be pretty. And it’s not something I’m looking forward to, no. Because when the majority gets upset, all those who stick out are at risk. My liability is an accent and a vague “Latin” look, though honestly it could be Italian. Or any other Mediterranean sub-race. (You are allowed to spot the issue.)

But it doesn’t take that. It takes “Odd” and “sticks out.” Now America has more of a tolerance for that than practically anywhere else on the globe. (And my guess is the whole globe will go froggy if/when provocations happen in America. Why? I don’t know, but people, they had BLM demonstrations the world over. And demonstrations against Trump with “not my president.” It’s like they can’t help themselves.)

So most of us might be okay? Probably. Just not a good time to make too many waves, I guess.

Be aware. Be alert. Plot your routes. (Ask me how happy I am to be traveling this week. OTOH maybe some of you will come to Son of Silvercon in Vegas, yes?) Watch your six. Be prepared to defend yourself and those around who need protecting. Before, during and after.

Mass insanity is very hard on individuals. And must be prevented from devouring everything.

And you are to keep yourself alive and well. Because we have a republic to rebuild.

Be not afraid. Something has shifted and the common man is awake. And angry.

It is our duty to control the fire, lets it consumes us and everything we value.

The world is full of pretty lies. And normally, I’m able to scroll past them and go “oh, idiocy, more idiocy.”

Today is not that day. No, listen to me. Today is not that day.

I was scrolling through twitter looking for an update on the war in Israel, and I came across this:

And I stopped. And I read that post. Every single word of it is a lie. A lot of it are pernicious lies. And they’re told by well-intentioned people who can’t or won’t look at the world without the rose colored glasses.

It’s not just these things are lies. It’s “they’ve been proven to be lies, over and over again.” But a lot of, perhaps the majority of “educated” people in the west piously believe them. Because they want them to be true.

Start therefore with that “Education” — education can be many things, but some of the best educated people in the world at the time led World War I. And while on that, do you realize the cultures fighting knew each other very, very well. Heck, most of the nobility was related to each other across Europe. Which did not stand in the way of turning Europe into one vast abattoir.

In fact, most of the vicious wars were civil, or between neighboring countries that knew each other’s cultures intimately. So this “Get to know the other culture better” is utter and complete poppycock. Or as the British say “Bollocks.” And smelly bollocks, at that.

As for all cultures, all systems, all value systems being equally worthy of respect?

Oh, really? So, a culture that enslaves women is the same as one that values women? A culture that protects and takes care of the weak is the same as one that tortures and kills them? A culture that welcomes difference is the same as one that pounds down the nail that sticks up? A system where — as in all communist systems — a small elite lives very well while others starve is the same as one where private property allows even the poor to suffer from obesity? And a culture that doesn’t believe it has to exterminate its neighbors is the same as one that does?

Don’t be ridiculous.

And as for not stigmatizing, dividing, etc? Pernicious bullshit. Pernicious bullshit on stilts. The horrible savages who kidnapped innocent people at a rave and raped women to death are not the same as people who are breaking themselves trying to spare the innocent. There is no comparison.

And evil needs to be called out and stigmatized. Else, it will take over the world. Go read this: Proportionate about Gang Rape.

Savages celebrate the death of and desecrate the corpses of those who’d never harm them because they CAN. Because they’ve been marinated in hate and their own superiority from birth.

Their culture is not the same as those people who try to save the wounded and help the victims of natural disaster. And they shouldn’t be treated the same and looked at the same.

If there’s hope for the savages it is for them to realize and be made ashamed of their savagery. And that won’t be achieved with some highfalutin “education” which will only give them better words to justify why they should be able to rape and kill innocents. No. the only way they learn it is by being stigmatized, shamed, and having vengeance rained upon them. And having them know they did wrong. And that the rest of humanity will not tolerate their evil.

Coddling them and treating them like precious darlings that don’t know better and just need understanding? Will only destroy civilization and spread their evil savagery everywhere.

No, the answers aren’t what I was taught at my very good college. Or what you were taught, either. And they’re certainly not the principles of international bodies that seem to enable only kakistocracies and rapinage.

But they’re the way we get out of this loop. The only way. We have to denounce evil and let them know it’s evil. That they did evil and will not profit from it.

Everything else is a betrayal of humanity and civilization.

These are not the answers I’d wish for. They keep me awake at night.

But they’re the only ones that work, so our children and grandchildren don’t live in hell.

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 MACKEY CHANDLER: The Long View (April Series Book 14)

Despite their animosity, North America seems cowed into leaving Home and the Kingdom of Central alone for the moment. They are begrudgingly honoring the treaty Singh and Love hammered out in Hawaii and allowing free passage to home. That doesn’t mean they’ve lifted the sanctions on Home trade. The European powers are as friendly as needed to do trade but have never apologized for the lies about the origin of the last flu pandemic. That’s already fading from short-lifer’s memories. They can’t understand why long-lifers just won’t let stuff go. It helps that North America has other problems like Texas aggressively nibbling away at their border. Quebec has always been patiently waiting for them to be too busy elsewhere to repress them, and Mexico is quietly slipping away to Texan influence without a shot being fired. China, never really homogenous is too fractured into competing regions and interests to be a threat for a while. Jeff may have tipped them over the edge to that but it wasn’t hard.
In the relative peace holding for a moment in history, the habitats and the Moon are progressing past survival to making life comfortable. While many on Earth think the Spacers survive on Earth-grown food they’ve progressed to an abundance of essentials and are working away on the luxuries. They are acquiring extra-solar real estate beyond the Earthies reach.
Heather and her peers, April, and Jeff, plan a Grand Ball to celebrate life, friends, and allies. If the timing doesn’t work for the Earthies that’s their problem. It’s time to enjoy what they’ve accomplished and make plans for the future long put off. Soon enough, short-lived politicians will be replaced by those who don’t remember what happens when you rile the Spacers up. But for now, they can enjoy the moment.

FROM DOROTHY GRANT: Dust Of The Ocean.

In the ruins of an ancient alien city, a half-alien slave’s act of mercy will change the course of a cold war.

When Mika saves Arkady, a wounded enemy soldier, he offers her a path to freedom. All it will take is finding a hidden artifact that may alter the course of an interstellar conflict…

But the path there will plunge their team into the depths of inhuman nightmares, battling ancient bioweapons and outwitting her former owners. It’s going to take everything they have just to survive, much less escape with their prize!

FROM DAVID COLLINS: The Wrong Number (Ambassador to the Stars Book 1)

Steve White was just taking a leisurely stroll and looking out over a small pond to see if any of the turtles were out. When suddenly, he finds himself 423 light-years away. Surrounded by strange aliens and desperately trying to fake his way out of an impossible situation.

He “fakes it” and assumes the role of the Earth Ambassador to the Pathless, the somewhat insectoid partial humanoid 4-sexed race he now finds himself with.

His goal is to return to the Earth.

Their goal is much harder to understand. They want him to be the trade ambassador. But what do they want from the Earth, and what can they offer the Earth in return?

They agree to send him back to Earth, but they insist he brings along one of their race, modified to ‘almost’ pass as human.

Convincing the Earth that the aliens are real is surprisingly tricky. When he does finally convince them, then things get strange fast.

FROM RANDY BROWN: First.

“First” is an electrifying tale penned by Randy Brown, where our hero, Lewis, aspires to be the inaugural human to voyage to another star system and return unscathed. His journey, however, is fraught with unexpected obstacles – ruthless competition, treachery, personal loss, and a tumultuous relationship that threatens to derail his mission.

When he finds himself in a race against time, the stakes skyrocket. Uncovering his true adversary propels the narrative to another dimension – not only is his life in jeopardy, but so is the future of humanity and the course of space exploration. As Lewis grapples with these challenges, he discovers that being ‘first’ comes with burdens he never anticipated. “First” is an enthralling exploration of determination, survival, and the boundless realm of space.

FROM CELIA HAYES: To Truckee’s Trail

The Stephens-Townsend-Murphy wagon train party crossed the continent in 1844, blazing a trail through the wilderness from Ft. Hall in present-day Idaho, across the high desert and over the Sierra Nevada range to Sacramento; two thousand miles across unknown, trackless wilderness on a gamble that life at the end of the trail would be better. This is the story of their journey, every dusty mile and hard choice, and of an extraordinary group of ordinary Americans.

FROM ROBERT A. HOYT: Cat’s Paw

What if the doom of the universe or its salvation didn’t depend on humans?
What if cats were far more than we imagine?
What if—
But enough of this: At the end of the universe there is a Mountain. Every thousand years, a bird flies to strop its beak on that mountain. When the mountain is worn to nothing the universe ends.
The mountain is down to a few grains of sand.
The only hope of survival for the entire universe rests in the grubby paws of an alcoholic alley cat, a fluffy cat with not much brainand a bookish cat who thinks Guinevere is a male hero’s name.
The universe might have run out of luck.
Or not.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Ice Storm.

Everywhere Evangeline looks, a thin coating of ice makes objects gleam in the sunlight. However, the beauty proves deceptive, for it hides a deadly secret, one only she can recognize.

In her youth, Evangeline had aspired ot master the powerful magics of her world. Those dreams died the day her Gift awakened uncontrolled and plunged her into a vision of a full fleet battle. The Admiral’s Gift will not be denied, and for Evangeline there was no choice but to trade her mage’s robes for Navy blue.

Now she is faced with an enemy she cannot fight save by magic. Except those who bear the Admiral’s gift are forever barred from working magic.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Death of a Musketeer (The Musketeer’s Mysteries Book 1)

When D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis discover the corpse of a beautiful woman who looks like the Queen of France, they vow to see that justice is done. They do not know that their investigation will widen from murder to intrigue to conspiracy, bring them the renewed enmity of Cardinal Richelieu and shake their fate in humanity. Through duels and doubts, they pursue the truth, even when their search brings them to the sphere of King Louis XIII himself and makes them confront secrets best forgotten.

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: pink

Ladies and Gentlemen, Israel is under unprecedented attack this morning. There are many reasons for this:

Breaking: Israel under rocket fire; UPDATE: dozens apparently killed, kidnapped – Some of them are discussed here.

Israel is the bastion of civilization in the Middle East. It is also the ultimate place of safety should things every go that far froggy — as they’re likely to be under any seriously leftist government — not only for those who are Jewish and openly practice the religion, but even for people of Jewish ancestry. It was created for that reason. And for that reason the left does not wish it to stand. (Oh, possibly for other reasons, having to do with prophecy, but we won’t go there, because I dislike woo woo, even when it comes from my own head.) In many ways it is the last place of safety for civilization BECAUSE of that.

For those thus inclined, who are of a praying kind, please pray for Israel, and for the safety of the many Huns who happen to live there. And for those further thus inclined, send some edible morale to the boys in the IDF, so they know they’re not alone.

Another way for support, though more for the long haul: Save a life in Israel from thousands of miles away.

I am not a traditionalist. I think very few Odds are.

It’s not that we don’t want to be. Look, we probably, most of us, also want to be the popular kids in school. It’s just we’re all peculiarly broken, and even if we try our oddness keeps breaking through. We ask inconvenient questions. We poke at strange corners of the mind and go down rabbit holes of learning where frankly we — or anyone — have no business being. It’s just who we are. Most of the time “Why did you study that? Why did you look at that? How did you come up with that?” can be answered with “It was there.” And most of the time “What were you thinking?” can best be answered by “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Given who I am and what I am, it’s a miracle how traditional my life has been. It’s also shocking/upsetting, but you know, it’s important it be upsetting to all the right people, because I would be lying if I said that most of us, by the end of elementary school, aren’t just a wee bit upset people don’t take us as we are, and therefore a little bit ready to upset the popular and overbearing sorts, just a little bit. Like a bur under their saddle. (This is before the self proclaimed elites were outright evil.)

But I am not a traditionalist. In a society where my religion was the default, I tried to go off in weird (and I mean weird, trust me) directions twice before I came to the conclusion that while I’m not against other people’s finding different answers, for whatever reason — perhaps because the Author has a sense of humor — this was where He wanted me. Oh, and that He existed. (That sometimes is very difficult because I don’t like woo woo stuff, and He’s by definition Woo Woo.) In a society where every toddler girl had her ears pierced and wore only skirts and dresses, I, (because I’m deathly allergic to metal, and because mom thought if my legs were uncovered I’d catch my death (or because she wanted to re-use my brother’s old clothes. It’s one or the other. she’d deny this one, btw, anyway)) had no earrings, and wore pants until I was 12 or so, and then only dresses on special occasions. I might as well have been the boy named Sue.

Given that, it was hard to be a traditionalist. Also, in a society (at least locally) where if a girl read, she read either romances (often comics-romances) or religious and moral tracts, I read…. everything. No, really. Part of the reason I got so good at foreign languages is that my brother and my father, in a vain effort to keep me off it, bought anything vaguely racy or even clinical sex manual in English and French. Well. I don’t think they ever figured out I was reading it. Probably. Dad at least never figured it out. It would have horrified him.

My brother fell in with the science fiction crowd in college. Which meant he brought home science fiction books. This was the seventies, so a lot of it was New Wave. But since it was also Portugal, which has always printed to the net, we started scrounging for used books everywhere from the used bookstores to the houses of friends’ grandparents. (It’s amazing how many elderly people will hand you their beloved books if you are sitting in a corner trying to read them. In retrospect, the ones who did so probably could no longer read them comfortably. But for the Kindle, my reading might have slowed down by now.)

We because by 11 Science Fiction had become my fun of choice. Mystery a close second. But I never went and stood outside book stores waiting when a big mystery release was anticipated. Partly, I think, because mystery was a more “normal” taste, at least of Portuguese men, so they printed more.

But the science fiction print runs were always tight, and any new book by Heinlein, Simak (go with it. Huge in Portugal. I wonder if he ever knew it), Bradbury, Asimov, Anderson, would sell out by noon of release day. You might luck out and find one or two on a spinner, in a postcard store in some forgotten area of the country ten years later (Glory Road) but it was hard to rely on luck. So I’d drag my behind out of bed and go wait with the other addicts outside the bookstores before the opening. And you know, it became clear early on I was an oddity. Most science fiction fans were male in professions like engineering. A young girl was a curiosity. But it was okay, because it was who I was.

If I had a dime for every time I was asked if I was reading for school, while reading science fiction or popular science, I’d have been rich by the time I turned fifteen.

But I wasn’t a radical. Not really. Except in politics. And in politics, I was a very weird radical. I ran through all the leftist ideas by the time I was fourteen. At ten I wanted to ban fossil fuels. Then my brain grew a bit, okay. And I realized the “the ice age is coming because we burn fossil fuels” was a load of goop that made no sense.

By fourteen, I had gotten tired of the fact that leftism was pushed at us from every single outlet, including supposedly apolitical ones. And that we weren’t allowed to question it. So of course I questioned it, and fell head first into all the anti-communist literature. And there was meat there. It could be questioned, and it had answers.

But it was radical, or at least obeyed the radical impulse, because it started with “I don’t know why you’re pushing this on me, but I won’t be made to fit a mold not of my choosing.” That’s the radical impulse. And a lot of us square pegs seem to refuse to fit in round holes, one way or another.

In the States, it was different. Somehow all the Odds had become convinced they must strike a blow against patriarchy. They were being radical by doing exactly what society was pushing them to do. But they didn’t seem to know it.

The number of women who told me men would be threatened by my working outside the house… Well, in Portugal this might be true. In the States in the eighties, that got you pats on the back and the “so smart” label.

So, of course, for various reasons, I ended up being a stay at home mom. And had derision poured on me every time we socialized with normal society. The pinnacle of it was Dan’s co-worker who told me I was a housewife and writing was just an excuse for staying home. Since, you know, he knew nothing of writing or of me, and my not being published must mean I wasn’t trying.

I was trying — I’m very, very trying — of course, which also meant I didn’t fit in with the more traditional mommies, or the artsy set in Manitou Springs, where the art really was an excuse to stay home with the kids. They’d invite me on outings and picnics, but I was finishing a novel. If I have regrets it’s not giving the kids more attention. But given I tend to do everything in headlong mode, perhaps that’s for the best. Hovering over them night and day wouldn’t have been good for anyone. Including me.

So, what is this all about? I’m not a traditionalist. I still am not. I don’t fit the socon mold more than I fit anything else. My best classification is probably small l libertarian-constitutionalist.

I don’t hate traditionalists. A lot of my friends are more religious than I am, and not in my religion (though I’ve gotten more religious as I age, mostly because there are so many things I can’t fix that need fixed, and I want to offload them from my shoulders, which are inadequate. I now understand why grandma prayed all the time.) It doesn’t bother me. A lot of my friends are not religious at all. In fact, two of my duct-tape-adopted little brothers are atheists. My duct-tape-adopted older brother is Buddhist. They’re all more radical than I am in various life choices, too. A lot of my female friends lived far more “on the edge” lives than I have.

If you look, from the outside, save for a tendency to don grubby clothes and go outside and tuck point, or dig up half of my garden, or whatever, I am the average traditional woman my age. Practically all my recreation is going somewhere with my husband. I spend a day a week cleaning the house (asthma, you know?) I cook our dinner. As I age I wear more skirts and dresses, because they hide where I’m lumpy in that peculiar old lady lumpiness, here things just run down due to gravity. Heck, if my husband didn’t tend to run around in sweat pants and t-shirt, and could be convinced to wear a sweater-vest and smoke a pipe, we’d look like grandma and grandad in some fifties poster.

Why does all this matter? Because I’ve seen the future. And I’m going to be considered such a loose-minded person. A little leftist. Practically a hippie.

And I’ll not have changed.

When we went to Colorado Springs, we decided to go to mass at our old church, the one in which the boys were brought up, the one down the street from us where we used to live.

We did this with some trepidation. You see, that church was always a little radical, in the way we were always a little radical. Oh, look, people wore whatever and most of the women worked, but it took things more seriously than other churches seemed to at the time. Things like the teachings on human life.

And then, before we moved, and part of the impetus to move closer to Denver (though not the only impetus, mind. I hate moving and it usually takes four or five factors to convince me) a leftist priest under a very leftist Bishop took the church hard left. And we started driving the hour and a half to the Denver Cathedral for mass. (It’s hard to explain why but back then, for what turned out to be a brief few years, it wasn’t political. The sermons weren’t ripped from the CNN headlines. It was a relief.)

The last time we’d been at that church because we were in town for a conference, and couldn’t figure out where else to go, we found the church was all interestingly colored-hair and piercings, and I was afraid they’d do a nude sacramental dance. (Those of my denomination who are laughing now, know exactly what I mean.)

So, we went full of trepidation and fear, because heck for all we knew it was worse now. Blocks away, we started seeing it: young families, most of them younger than my kids, with multiple small children, walking to mass. The men wore suits, the women wore the same veils old ladies wore to mass in the village when I was little. And I blinked.

Let’s say I was the only woman in that service not wearing a skirt or dress. I stuck out like a sore thumb. Dan was in a button down, and there were a few men without coats, but– well, he didn’t stick out as badly. And the mass…. Well, it wasn’t in Latin. But other than that.

Five years. Five years. I stood there in shock, then started looking around. The people were the same they’d been when I was a parishioner. Gone were the homeless-and-aggressive-lesbians of five years ago. They were, as when I was a parishioner, mostly young families, and judging by clothing and hair and general demeanor, the same type of people who always attended that church, being, as it is, deep in a college neighborhood: professors and graduate students. Upper-middle class. Upper-middle income. (Well, no we weren’t, mostly because I didn’t make much, or regularly make much. But we always every time we moved bought the distressed house in the neighborhood and fixed it, sold at a higher price and bought in the next more expensive neighborhood. By that neighborhood we were three in of doubling our money. We stayed there longer because kids and schools and church. My value-add to the family for the longest time was not my writing, but my handymanning skills (thanks to my grandfathers and their buddies who answered my questions and let me watch them do stuff.)

But the thing is this is the class and group of people who are normally edgy and radical. Experimenting with strange ideas and lifestyles. And they were. At a guess the women stay home (though I’d be shocked if most of them don’t work from home. Money these days, you know. Also we right now couldn’t afford a house in that neighborhood, even a very distressed one.) The men work. They have kids they raise themselves (and probably homeschool, or send to the church-school.)

Suddenly I understood why the government is so afraid of traditional Catholics. They are radical. Rad Trad.

The most radical thing you can do these days is dress conservatively, get married, go to church, have kids.

And I realized with a shock how many of my younger fans and friends were like that. Yes, even the ones in non-standard families are as traditional as …. well, as would have branded them stodgy in the seventies.

I know there are a ton of denominations who have sprouted traditional branches, much to the shock and horror of their leadership. The Catholic church doesn’t like it much, either. Francis has forbidden mass in Latin, which is stupid. Because if you don’t allow them to do it within the church, they’ll do it outside. However everything must be permitted except the ultra-traditional. Because you see, they thought that they could compromise temporarily and then the old people who wanted the traditional thing would be gone. And the hippie-dippy anything goes would prevail. Since that was obviously radical and where the energy was.

I suspect it’s the same in other churches. I know it is in those where I have young fans. The elders frown and gasp and are horrified by what they’re sure are sexist (and racist, and homophobic, and transphobic — the phobic list keeps growing — probably) abominations. They warn of dangerous paths, as though ever looser rules, ever more spinning out of control societal engagement modes were the historically normal way.

We’re now into a hundred years of the left controlling almost all traditional positions of power while pretending to be edgy, subversive, and challenging norms. Even though they’re pushing their own norms from above.

We’re now into a hundred years of their speaking power to truth and imposing fake radicalism from above.

And it’s breaking. They’re losing their grip. Because like me, when I was young, people realize that the rules being imposed from above can’t be questioned, or the whole system falls apart. And people questions them.

The open challenge is coming from the Odds, of course. We never fit in. But there’s quieter challenges. In my by and large traditional church, young women are dressing more conservatively than the rest of us, oldsters, and wearing veils. Not all of them, but it seems there’s more every week.

And again, I suspect this is society wide.

Something broke in the early 20th century. Sure, okay, the automobile splintered families. People started moving to cities. There was more money, more leisure, more chance to explore. And whatever they tell you, if you look at family histories, more women were working, even before WWII. Which means more children were being raised by the public schools which were increasingly in the hands of “progressives.” This was exacerbated by mass migration and the need to integrate kids, which always leads to a tighter rein on schools and what they teach. And conformity rules. The conformity of discomformity.

But that’s breaking. Five generations out, people are looking for something to put their backs against. And the old ways are strange enough to be radical.

Right now it’s the edgy and the radical. But they’re always the vanguard, and others follow.

Am I very comfortable with it? I’m not comfortable with any mass movements. I’m the nail that sticks up, always. I wasn’t comfortable in a very traditional and homogeneous society in Portugal.

But then again I doubt the US will go that way. Oh, some enclaves, sure. But we’re too religiously splintered, too societally diverse (in the real sense, not skin color) for it to become a straight jacket.

It probably will just go far enough that I’ll feel a little uncomfortable, and my grandkids, if I have them, will look at me as being a little silly and hippy-ish. “It’s a thing of her generation, you know?” In the same way my brother’s generation considered me too traditional, too conforming, and a traitor to all the innovations of his generation.

Is it a pendulum? No. I don’t think so. That is a Marxist belief. Or an Hegelian one, at least.

People kept waiting for the pendulum but it never came, because it’s not a pendulum.

But when things are getting too broken, people find a way to rebuild. And of course, the traditional way has worked for generations, before the last, turbulent century.

Will it be rigid? I hope not. But gosh humans like fitting in, which will introduce a certain rigidity.

I’ll fight against that. I’m an Odd. If I don’t agree with, I’ll question it.

But most people aren’t Odds. And they want a predictable, calm existence. Once this external conformity and rule settle in, I suspect it will be hard totally upend it again, absent continuous war and disruption. Which of course is what the conformists who fancy themselves “radical” by fiat will try. Are trying.

A word to the wise in their machinery of enforcement: it won’t work. The big lie of false radicalism could only hold while they had full control of every mass communication means.

People are tired. They want something really radical: what works.

Me? I’ll be a fish out of water. I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again, after whatever spasm is on the horizon (and please don’t imagine revolution or violence. Spasms can happen without either. I very much doubt people took over our old church with machine guns) if I’m still alive I expect I’ll go from “dangerous right” to “dangerous left” having changed not at all.

And that’s fine. I’m aware most of the society isn’t made for me. I’m not a traditionalist. I’m not a radical. I’m just me. And therefore I’ll always stand out.

But looking at that church, the people looked happier than we were. The expectations they’re conforming to are easier than “fighting the patriarchy” or “be liberated” or whatever was continually pushed on my generation. Growing up, having a family and children is natural. What was pushed on us was sort of an eternal college-rebellion that left no room for a happy marriage or children. We had to do it around the edges, quietly defying the voices shouting down at us, and hiding our church-going habits and our secret wish for a large family from our bosses.

It will do. It will be okay. I’ll fight its excesses, of course. I always do.

But I’m starting to think cultures too have a defense mechanism, a point at which they fight back with signals the individual doesn’t get but obey.

Eh. I’ve heard of increased church attendance and traditional lifestyles of the urban young across Europe.

Blindly, in the dark, sometimes following no more than a feeling, I think Western Culture — and remember I think cultures are almost collective sentient beings — is fighting for its own survival. Under the glare of the “elites.”

I enjoy the fear in the “elites” eyes as they realize they are only that which passes. A mistake in the long journey of culture.. I’m small enough to chortle at that.

And ready to face whatever comes.

This morning since the weather is warm and it’s not raining — as opposed to the rest of this week — I decided I needed to get on with the seemingly endless list of tasks that need done in the house, including tuck-pointing the front of the house before winter, and mulching the flower beds. And–

It’s been four hours and the difference might be negligible, in what I actually accomplished out there. I mean, things are done, just not nearly as much as should be done, and–

And I’m tired. Really tired. Particularly since I’ve been running a low grade fever for days — probably auto-immune because of course my stress levels are spiking at going to Son of Silvercon, even though the guest of honor is my friend and a lot of you are coming — and so I work very slowly and get tired way too easily. However I have chapters to do.

Thing is, you know, that it’s not misplaced priorities. For two years now we’ve been looking for people to do this stuff, from the gardening to the tuck pointing, to the painting. When we first got here, it wasn’t as bad as Colorado, but now it’s getting there. We’re willing to pay, even if it’s expensive, because my time is better employed writing, and I’m getting too old for this.

But after trying, I can’t let the snows come again with the house in this state. and it’s not like Dan can do it. His knees are shot, and he’d never recover.

Of course, I’m not a hundred percent sure I’ll ever recover. Right now it doesn’t feel like it. But I’m sure it will get better. Vitamin I, aka ranger candy, is my friend.

I’d say I have no clue why we can’t find a handyman or someone to do this little stuff. But as with other things that make no sense, there’s usually some macro-society thing going on. At a guess it has to do with my generation having been brought up to the idea that while collar jobs are better, and that no one should do this kind of handyman stuff. As well as a lot of influx of manual laborers holding the pay down, so no one learned to do this. And now the oldsters are retiring.

Why the imported manual laborers aren’t available is something I’m not willing to consider. Look, yeah, I was on a board yesterday that someone was talking about how illegals make so much better construction workers. I’m going to say horse pokey to that. Not only do I know Latin culture and its enshrining of “fast and sloppy” as a virtue (these people mostly based it on speed) but in the last almost forty years in the US, I’ve lived in a lot of Victorians that had a lot of problems acquired over the years. None of it compared to our newest house built by mostly illegal labor, which frankly needed redoing from the ground up, because after 15 years the “good enough” no longer was. So, Bah. Also Latin culture and a lot of others across the globe seem to be completely unaware of the need for maintenance. So perhaps the minor jobs of maintenance don’t appeal to the “imported” work force. I don’t know.

What I know is that handymen are unobtainium and so I must do what I can even though, d*mn it, captain, I’m a writer not a Jill of all trades.

This morning, and I no longer remember about what, which tells you more than it should, and certainly nothing I’d like to know, Dan told me about something “This can’t go on. It’s at a breaking point.” And I told him truthfully “I feel like everything is. Not just that field.”

And so it goes. And I also didn’t want to have to do the maintenance before Fall and the inevitable rebuild after. I’m in the fourth generation of poorly schooled people. As with tuck pointing, I have to read the instructions before doing it, and fashion a narrow enough trowel from the tortured remains of a plastic fork. (Deal.) Only you can’t rebuild working society alone, or with a plastic fork. It’s going to take a lot of hands, and there is by definition very little I can do. And like this stuff I’m doing outside, it might kill me.

But it doesn’t matter, because it needs doing, and I’m — we’re — the ones here.

Sometime before Christmas, I’d like to schedule a whole day to go to bed and stay there. Luxury.

Probably won’t happen.

There’s stuff to do. Before the fall. Either one. And after.

Shoulder to wheel. Let’s get it done.

Banishing BrainGoblins by Caitlin Walsh

It is terribly tempting, and among my worst traits, to wallow in the depths of all of the terrible things happening and being forecast, none of which you can do a blessed thing about.

When I’m being especially bad, it’s not even the Big Things (country-spanning turmoils and whatnot), but just a continual, vicious loop of what’ll happen if I die right now, if my husband dies right now, if all of the things we’ve been relying on to function just up and dissolve in the middle of the night.

Now, my husband is on a similar wavelength to me, so we’ve got a number of things set up for various Worst Cases; I haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement wife for him, nor he a suitable replacement husband for me, but we’ve got a decent number of buckets of bulk staples, cases of toilet paper, and friendly boltholes, so at the very least we’ll probably have enough time to think of the next thing if things go weird.

…and once you’ve managed that, tell me, is there any point in bothering about it further?

So, from the mind of someone who isn’t ever able to *fully* dismiss the goblins of What If, I would like nevertheless to present a list of things that sometimes work, at least a little, to get my feet a bit more under me than they otherwise would be. Perhaps they’ll help you as well!

—

1) A Good Book

This is one of the most efficacious steps when I get to the point I’m afraid to be alone with myself. Why, there was one time that grinding through The Chronicles of Narnia all at once got me through the dark night that somehow lasted two or three days and feeling okay on the other side. Another time it was a teen romance about an aspiring Olympic swimmer who was frustrated that her aspirations and training didn’t really leave her time to date. It’s completely weird what twigs, and I haven’t been able to quantify it yet.

…I’ve been finding this a lot harder since the COVIDiocy. Have you? I’ve been all but unable to keep track of a story for more than a few chapters at a time, and mostly incapable of remembering what I was reading. It’s been almost four years, there’s no excuse for it not to have come back yet.

But it was ridiculously effective before, and even since then I’ve managed to trip into one or two seizing me at exactly the right moment to give me context. Because that’s the thing about books–*context*. Specifically, a context separate from your own, a perspective and drive and ideal outside of the tiny little box your worst self has managed to squish you into.

When the White Witch has enslaved the land of Narnia, and one of the prophesied Sons of Adam manages to redeem himself from helping her in those aims, it’s harder to see your certainty you’ll never do anything useful as an all-overpowering shadow of certainty. Sometimes, all you need is a step outside of your own head to get it back to right.

2) A Win

I believe it’s BA Smith who says to try to accomplish *something* in a day that won’t be undone the next day. Which is a little sideways for me–my stress-doodles are constant, persistent, and when I look at them unstressed I’ll frequently see something valuable enough to keep. It’s the continual things I’m supposed to do, but don’t, that get me down–the things that will be undone tomorrow, but make life better ’til then.

So in my world, when I need a boost, those are the places to go.

Not the littler things, if you’re down enough; doing the dishes or folding the laundry is a great thing to do to keep things rolling, but if you’re looking for A Win, you’re looking for something you *don’t* usually manage. Maybe it’s a Big Effort for something you’re sick of; clearing out the storage room, or organizing the shelves so you can find the book you need, or even throwing out the broken toys that you’re sick of looking at. Or maybe it’s just Something You Don’t Usually Manage–that cobbler your husband likes, or homemade ice cream, or doing that paper craft with the children that always seemed like too much of a pain.

Just a thing where you can go “Regardless of what you say, O Shadow, I have made things run better, and I have made the people in my care happy.”

(That said… cooking in particular carries a big risk of Things Going Even Wronger, so have a backup in your pocket if possible.)

3) Touch Grass

My mom has a saying: If nothing is right and everything is messed up, HALT. That is, ask yourself: Am I Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired? Maybe that’s why.

Now, ideally, once you’ve worked that out, you should fix it; there’s a lot of times that having a sandwich has curbed all of my darker natures. However, for most of my life, Lonely has been my go-to problem–*significantly* less so now that I’m married with children, but still sometimes–and that’s a touch harder, especially if you don’t exactly have a friend you can call up to go have milkshakes with.

But you can trick yourself, sometimes.

A lot of times, Lonely and Angry are absolutely a function of the environment you’re stuck in. Do you browse the web first thing in the morning? I do. And it is an absolutely TERRIBLE thing to do, a way to make sure all of your first thoughts are about all the terrible things people are doing to each other, how everyone probably thinks you’re stupid or evil, and anyway the Grand Titans of the Universe are playing chess on a level we aren’t ever permitted to influence, so why does it all matter anyway?

…honestly, things go Much Better when, instead, I manage to take a bike ride before the kids get up. This time of year? Oh, it’s cool, it’s misty, it’s *perfect*.

(Why on earth is it so hard to convince myself to do it?)

Other times, I used to (before children) go to bars early, when it was just the retirees hanging out. They’ll talk to just about anyone, in my experience. Or if I just needed to know other people existed and behaved normally, I could just go to a grocery store. The big idea is to *break your usual habit* so you at least get *some* impression of something being different.

These are really, really basic things, and you probably know them. But… I keep forgetting them every time I fall into the pit. So I share them, if for no other reason than I can bookmark it and check back next time I need it.

Hopefully it’ll be a while. But you never know.

—

MANDATORY PLUG: Are you going to be in the Las Vegas area the weekend of the 13th through the 15th? Remember, our glorious hostess will be one of the guests at SON OF SILVERCON! Come see Sarah and Dan Hoyt, MCA Hogarth… and even me, Caitlin Walsh, the Chief Artist! (Or sign up to be a Supporting Member and I’ll send you something pretty in the mail.)

Check the details or buy a membership at https://fission-chan.org/ !!!