Yesterday, on twitter — yeah, I only go there for five minutes, morning and evening, to echo my posts, but sometimes it’s enough to hit my face on some kind of stupid — I came across someone, almost for sure European, screaming at a friend.

My friend had commented on the idiot desire by the current maladministration to raise our taxes. My friend was particularly — as he should be — exercised about progressive taxes, a system that always ends up punishing the middle class (of course) and which destroys the economy in the process. And this complete ass called him an idiot by saying that if only our taxes were higher, we’d have better education and our medical system wouldn’t be falling apart.

I think I was very rude. I sometimes am. And the stupidity in that comment was too glaring to be ignored.

First, of course, most Europeans have no idea what our taxes are. Hell, most Americans don’t. They get told our taxes are low, and this is usually federal taxes, but it completely ignores that we also have state taxes, local taxes, property taxes, sales taxes.

Better people than I have added it all up, and in most places we’re giving at least half if not most of our earnings to government. Our real taxation is much higher than in Europe.

So, why are our “education” and “health” falling apart? Why indeed?

Well, it could be because since the early twentieth century our government has been running on the older and crazier European model, which is explicitly excluded from our governance by the constitution.

It could be because neither health nor education are a legitimate province of the government for a self-governing people who wish to remain so.

Sure, local governments might do what they will with education. Maybe. At least when the insane bastages which always seem to gravitate to positions of government and power are doing intolerable things or more likely things utterly divorced from reality, because they can, you can go surround their houses with torches and pitchforks, which seems to get their attention sharpish-like.

As for health, it is find for charities and wealthy individuals to be encouraged to concern themselves with the plight of the indigent and suffering. For many centuries it was preached by the churches, and even the non-religious do-gooders. (Education too, for that matter.)

Only an European — spit — would think that either education or health are a legitimate province of the government. And that’s because they still have rats in their heads from when absolute kings had rights over the everything of their subjects as though they belonged to the king as his play things. And they apparently have forgotten how those regimes ended. (A la lanterne. It might behoove the Americans who thought the Europeans had the right idea to contemplate that. Maybe they have. I’ve noticed that a lot of lampposts are now made so they have no cross piece. Probably a coincidence.)

Particularly in a continent-sized country like ours, to deliver the responsibility and right for your most intimate decisions to a massive and indifferent bureaucracy staffed by people who have attended “the best colleges” and see you as unwashed peasants, and who have no idea how large the country is in fact, or how varied the means of living in it, is …. as stupid as we’re finding out.

Though for my money, both Great Britain and Canada, smaller countries with easier to understand needs, are hitting their nose on that first.

Because surrounding the capital is much harder, and just the expense in torches and pitchforks will bankrupt your average middle class. (Maybe. I’d say in the next five years all over the world we’ll test this.)

I don’t need to do an hypothetical. The money spent on education per state is available on line. And as it climbs the quality of education declines.

As for health, no one — not even the hospitals — knows how much health services really cost. The thrice damnable interference of the government in health, starting with medicaid and medicare has distorted the price structure by removing the patient from responsibility or right to oversee his own treatment. The government pays whimsically and in ways that have nothing to do with the right decisions for the patient.

This was made worse by — really spit — Obama care which dictated what insurances should cover and shouldn’t cover. And if you think the surge in “trans” everything isn’t related to the fact that all insurances are mandated to cover it and that hospitals are starved for money, you’re most trusting than I am.

Even the most mundane of decisions my doctor wants to make for my care — and keep in mind that we do have very good (for our time insurance) — are now captive of “insurance” “approving.” Fortunately our doctor is as irritated by this as I am, so when I vent he just sighs and doesn’t take it personally. But seriously: after my doctor examines me, looks at my tests, and spends time in thought, he must still defer his decision on what medicines or procedures I should have to faceless bureaucrats far away, who are looking at me not as an individual with an admittedly quirky biology (for various reasons) but as a statistical blip.

(For years, while we tried to follow as low carb a diet as possible (diabetes in both families) we were harangued on how we should mostly eat cereals and carbs. Which I understand is, in fact, okay for a lot of people, but certainly not for us.)

So if something works for 90% of the people, then it should work for me. According to people who were never trained in medicine and who only see numbers and statistics.

This is probably why “medical intervention” is right now our leading cause of death. (Yes, they call it medical error, but is it the doctor’s or the system’s?)

Look, the problem is that you’re not making the decisions, the government is. And the government makes decisions according to its priorities.

Your priority might be to stay alive as long as possible, because you have books to write, and you think you’re making a contribution to the world. But the government will look at the ledger as you age, and see the price climbing, and your tax bill falling, and at some point you become a liability.

The same with education. You might want your kid to learn the things he or she needs to be a well-rounded individual who does well in life and is happy. But the government wants your kid above all not to cause trouble. So whatever needs to be taught so your kids just go along with whatever the government wants is what gets taught. And if they think — they do — there are too many people, they might prefer it if your kids get maimed so they don’t reproduce. And all of this is easier if they don’t read too well, can’t do math, and can’t look up the wealth of information available on line. Because, you know, keeping pets is always easier than containing self-actuated individuals you’re annoying.

No matter how much you pay in taxes, most of the money will go to the bureaucrats whose priorities are to grow bureaucracy and treat you like a farm animal.

The way to get out of that bind is not to pay more taxes, but to get government back within its constitutional restraints and push everything not specified in the constitution to the local government or the individuals. And if the individuals actually can read and research, they should keep most of it to themselves.

The more money you pay to an indifferent third party to look after you, the less you’ll like the way they look after you.

And before you talk of compassion and ending suffering: There’s only one way to end human suffering permanently. Look at Canada. They’re leading the way. They’ll now cheerfully treat you for feeling sad or being poor. The treatment is death. As it always ends up being.

Keep government poor. You always get more of what you buy, and we have enough of government.

And keep its big beak out of anything but protecting our borders (ah), negotiating with foreign potentates, and maintaining relations between states (ah) so they don’t degenerate into war.

Everything else? Take it state, take it local, take it personal.

Because the other way it always ends in death. There are no exceptions. The larger the government the higher the chance of mass graves.

In the end that’s all taxes buy.

The F-word by MaryH10000

I used to think feminism was a synonym for women’s rights. I don’t any more. Many people still do.

According to Wikipedia, “Most western feminist historians contend that all movements working to obtain women’s rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not (or do not) apply the term to themselves.” [emphasis mine]

Of course feminist historians do. They don’t care whether I consider myself a feminist or not. No one is against giving women the vote. But by calling that a “feminist achievement,” it can be framed as “winning rights” from “male oppressors,” whether or not the people at the time saw it in those terms, or even whether people today see it in those terms.

But there is a different way to see the improvement in women’s rights. We could see it as the result of the natural alliance between men and women to create and protect children. And personally, I also see it as having been greatly enabled by the increased health and wealth brought about by the industrial revolution.

Why does this matter?

First of all, because someone advocating for women’s rights as a feminist will normally miss important factors of the particular “women’s issue” they are discussing. For example, why shouldn’t we have women on Seal Teams? To a feminist, the only reason someone would be against this is because men or “the patriarchy” want to oppress women. The actual reason is that women aren’t strong enough.

It’s amazing (and actually dangerous) how many women, and especially how many young girls, think that women are a match for men in a close-in physical fight, without weapons or some other “equalizer.” And no, martial arts alone will not make a woman the equal of a man. Sorry, Cobra Kai.

Secondly, by framing everything in terms of “oppression,” it misses the real purpose behind some of the differences in the treatment of women. What this means is that when the difference in treatment is removed, the real purposes they served are also removed, which can actually lead to more harm being done to women.

I’ll use one common example. Women have historically been more severely judged for sexual promiscuity than men. That is not only a difference in treatment. I would agree that it is also, to some extent, unjust.

The feminist answer is simply to normalize sexual promiscuity for women as well as for men, because in the feminist point of view, any difference in the treatment of women springs from the oppression of women by men. Which, by the way, is why the male is always used as the baseline by feminists. Whatever the oppressor has or does is always superior to what the oppressed has or does.

The problem is that sexual promiscuity is, in fact, worse for women than for men. The sexual double standard is based on actual, meaningful biological differences between men and women. Because, of course, the primary dangers of sexual promiscuity for women and their children was, and still is, the danger of becoming pregnant without the adequate support of a family.

So how do we handle the injustice of the sexual double standard? The answer in the middle ages was to apply the female standard to men. No, it wasn’t perfectly enforced. But it was, actually, the goal or standard of the Christian west.

Then it became an issue again, after the industrial revolution destabilized the primary reproductive and economic contributions of women. And actually, come to think of it, those of men as well.

The level of wealth increased so dramatically, for everyone, that the maternal death rate, even for poor women, was lowered drastically. Women were healthy enough to get pregnant earlier and more easily, they were more likely to survive childbirth, and their children were more likely to survive infancy. This lead to many more children being born, and surviving, by women of all classes. It’s not hard to see how the increase of children got spun into the Malthusian fear of overpopulation leading to disaster. Which is where we still are today, even as demographics show that the problem is not overpopulation but rather the opposite.

What do we do?

The feminist framing sees “many more children” as a matter of the oppression of women, as opposed to a pretty great problem to have. So the answer to “many more children” is to kill the extras while still in their mother’s womb, and to use whatever medical means are necessary, including hormonal disruption of the female reproductive system, to keep women from conceiving. The end result, of course, is to see the most uniquely feminine ability, the ability to create new people from her own flesh and blood, as an inherent matter of oppression.

A pro-woman viewpoint, in alliance with men, would first of all frame the issue as returning to a more normal level of child spacing, to improve the ability of the family to care for their children. This might still lead to average family sizes of four to seven children (not sure of my statistics there). They would simply be the result of only four to seven pregnancies, rather than constant pregnancy and high infant mortality.

Secondly, the female reproductive system would not be framed as an enemy to be overcome, as most current child spacing methods do. The idea would be to work with the reproductive systems of both men and women. This might actually include hormonal therapies to improve the health and predictability of the incredibly complex female reproductive system,to come up with non-destructive methods of child spacing. And part of the solution would still be to discourage promiscuous sex for both men and women, because it would still put women and children at greater risk.

That’s just one example. And it doesn’t deal with the economic issues of a family of that size, or how the labor to support and care for such a family should be allocated. But it does describe the basic methodology in dealing with such issues.

So no, I’m not a feminist.

Because of the co-option of the term “feminist” to mean anyone who promotes women’s rights, I will not automatically assume that someone who uses that term is against women’s rights. I will, however, assume that she or he does buy into the “oppressor vs oppressed” narrative, and therefore is likely to promote solutions that hurt women. In general, if you call yourself a feminist, you must demonstrate to me that you are NOT using this frame before I will consider your solutions.

I probably shouldn’t expect anyone forty or so, no matter what supposed position of authority to know anything about how economics works. Even those who — as this one did — announces they’re not socialist and communist have their brain eaten up by all the Marxist cr*p they were fed in school.

I know because I was fed the same, and it took till my mid forties and a lot of reading to thoroughly rid myself of it.

However one of these days I’m going to stand up in church and correct the sermon. And then all h*ll is going to break lose. Probably literally.

The poor man was trying, I grant you, but his point to begin with was super-stretched. He was trying to say a thing on being in the world but not of the world, and decided to go with both feet into his description of Roman society. This was bad enough, because it wasn’t exactly accurate. Or was profoundly strange. Like he seemed to think the Romans were uniquely bad because of slavery. (Lowers head into hand and moans.) When of course every society of the time had slavery. At least by and large (with exceptions, because, well) Romans didn’t practice human sacrifice, or not in batch lots. At least not anymore.

Yeah, yeah, gladiators. But again, every society of the time had something like. We are different only by virtue of being able to fake guts and blood well enough no one needs die. There is enough of the animal with us we do enjoy watching violence.

But then his attempts to say we, in America, in our time, are as bad as Rome. (Slaps forehead.)

Look, no. Just no. No, gangbangers shooting each other is not like gladiator fights. No one is applauding it or paying them for it. It’s just the price of doing business outside the law. It’s the same in every society throughout history.

And then…. and then saying we, like the Romans who overindulged in food, then threw up to indulge again, are “indifferent to people starving on the streets.” Dude. Duuuuuude. The only people “starving” on the streets of America are doing so because Meth is a hell of a drug, not because people AREN’T pushing food at them at every possible turn. On the contrary. Remember the guy who moved to a new town with no job and $5 and within three months, without applying for official help had a job, a furnished apartment and a beater car? And he didn’t have more because he kept turning away official assistance.

As for people starving in the rest of the world? It’ s complicated. I’ve read articles by Africans telling us to stop sending them food and money. Mostly because apparently the most lucrative career an African in most of Africa can have is driving NGO people around. Which means what their brightest people do is…. work that doesn’t advance anything or provide anything local.

For my money, my lefty brother was right about one thing: China has done more for Africa than the West has. Instead of giving them our surplus and choking their own native attempts at industry and agriculture, with our free or much cheaper stuff, they built factories, roads and airports. Yes, it was done with the intent to exploit the natives. But Africa is Africa and the Chinese soon found that tribal societies have trouble with national agreements. On the other hand, infrastructure will remain here and there beyond the next local war, and might help them. Certainly will help them more than bags and bags of food.

Oh, you want to help people starving? Well, in the modern world people starve because their rulers steal everything and or, like in Cuba, enforce their not picking up food literally from the environment (purses searched for shrimp. Not a joke.) You want to help them? Topple their horrible government. Then topple the next one and the next one, and then maybe, afterwards something will emerge. Or not. Cultures are complicated and cultures that have been under the heel of tyrants too long might not recover well. Really the only way is to kill everyone over the age of three, and then raise those in our culture.

Any religious man up for that? No, I didn’t think so.

So, you know what we can do? Stop feeding them and let them topple from inside. Because international charity is hard. It involves cultural things, and different priorities, and we do more harm than good. Oh, make international adoption easier. It’s better than opening the borders, and then the kids — under 3 please — will be raised in our culture. That might do some good. And makes up the population shortfall without facilitating invasion.

But of course, the churches are all in on facilitating invasion. We got told that illegals are working under horrible conditions because they can’t complain. Apparently our minister is unable to think through the obvious point: if this weren’t better than how it is at home, they wouldn’t be here. Our country, with its standard of living and its social net is an attractive nuisance. Which is why we need strong borders. So pitch them out and reinforce the border. What are the chances he’d be for that?

And I’m aware that a lot of industries simply can’t function at the current minimum wage. Just can’t. Agriculture, and some manufacturing. It’s impossible to stay in business and pay all the money to people who are untrained plus pay the government mordida in the form of various fees. It’s cool. Maybe if we seal the border, we’ll finally make “no minimum wage, and no government monkeying in the economy” viable. But I bet you the minister wouldn’t be for it either.

And then there was his assertion there is no slavery anywhere in the world, but children in sweatshops sewing sneakers. This man needs an economics book flown in ASAP. Because he’s stupid and ill informed. (TBF earlier he admitted to listening to NPR and got booed by the congregation, so he hasn’t done it since.)

Yes, there is slavery in our world. Uygurs and others in China. OTOH those “children in sweatshops” are replicating our own industrial revolution. They are making more money and likely eating better than in their dirt-poor villages. Which is why they take their jobs. You let it work itself out and they’ll be the new middle class and demand better for their kids. Let’s not impose our standards on a society that has no alternative but kids working, and working at dirty and dangerous jobs too. Because we are the product of generations doing that, and that’s why we’re well off enough for adults — EDUCATED ADULTS — to be completely ignorant of the facts of life.

And then — and then — he comes up with how sports figures make so much money, when so many people are subsisting on minimum wage, and …. inequality!

Oh, dude, G-d love. Someone has to and your head being full of rocks makes it hard for us in the real world not to throw things at you.

Yeah, some people make more money than others. Usually people of unusual ability and talent, who nonetheless also had to work very hard and sharpen their natural gift over a lot of time to get where they are.

It is people who create inventions or companies that produce things (business is a type of talent. I know, because I don’t got it) who drive the wealth that allows our “minimum wage” workers to live like kings compared to most of the world.

Why should anyone work hard at developing a talent or at creating something if their reward is the same as someone doing a poor table-waiting job at the local dead-end-diner? (There are good diners. And there are abysmal ones.)

That’s not justice. That’s crazy cakes.

While you’re at it, why should a writer write books if he doesn’t get paid more than minimum wage? And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather Larry C. doesn’t go and work as an accountant again. Because sometimes I need a break, and I need stuff to read. Because reading stuff gives me hope.

Now, I don’t get watching sports. Never did. I guess it’s because I’m not spacial-visual. I can watch it, but there’s no wonder for me. BUT that’s tastes, okay? My dad used to spend his weekends watching sports. It was his page-scroll break.

Why should he do that if the athletes were people pulled off the street? And that’s what they would be, if there were no money in it.

Let people pay what they think someone is worth. Stop trying to control how others live.

Because at the bottom of that, it’s just envy.

And your attempt to “do good” turns into evil. Which I believe was something something about a lesson in a garden somewhere.

Then you wonder why the pews are empty. You know, we can get our Marx, undiluted, from CNN and the New York Times. And these days, they too are having trouble keeping their metaphorical pews full. Because we’ve seen the fruits of their “compassion.” And they’re rotten.

I mean, every Odd empathizes with ‘be in the world but not of the world’ but if you must preach that we be of another, completely imaginary — and not in the sense of having faith in something beyond, but in the sense of making up a reality because this one doesn’t suit you — world we’re going to have some problems.

And sooner or later, I’m going to stand on the pew and talk back.

Which will just cause talk.

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 ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Castles, Creatures, and Nights: Familiar Generations Book Three

Strange things stalk the nights. Especially nights when the land remembers …
Christmas brings surprises both welcome and otherwise for Jude and Shoim. Can they survive the peak of baking season, or will Shoim finally end up in a pie?
Mike and Rich find themselves over their heads, assigned to observe delicate diplomatic negotiations in a haunted—perhaps—castle. Abyssal beasts might be easier to survive.

• Deborah, Hiram, and Art try to prove that they are grown-up magic users. Their parents disagree.How does a Hunter say what he cannot speak, mourn when tears are forbidden?And more!

Join the next generation of mages, sorcerers, Healers, and Hunters on a wild trip through nights silent and otherwise.

FROM JERRY BOYD: Bob Has a Tantrum.

It’s time for Bob to square some things away with the Commonwealth. Rules are rules, though, and that means two weeks in a ship with no gravity. When they get where they’re going, they still have a bureaucracy that hasn’t changed in a thousand years to get through. Come along and see the adventures of the crew of the good ship BS Karen.

FROM DANIEL ZEIDLER: The Constable’s Quest.

A novella-sized tale of adventure, humor, good versus evil, and Cops & Dragons.

When a dead red dragon crashed in the alfalfa field on the outskirts of the city, Watch Sergeant Sigurd Arnson hoped it would attract the King’s attention to the remote frontier territory and the increasingly cruel duke who administered it for the Crown. What the dead dragon attracted instead was a runaway teenage girl with a magic talent that could lead her to the dragon’s lair and the treasure within. Now the duke has ordered Sigurd to take the girl into the Wilds and find the unclaimed hoard within seven days or they and their families will suffer the duke’s wrath.

FROM EDWARD THOMAS: The Crossroads and the Oni

A young samurai lies dying by a crossroad in feudal Japan. His prospects for survival are dim until an ugly old lady finds him. She seems to be an oni, a powerful evil spirit. In return for her help she demands he become her husband. Certain death or marriage to the Oni, which should he choose?

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Dragon’s in the Details

Six stories of dragons hiding in today’s world:
A Friend, Indeed–A little girl meets the best friend she could ask for when she finds a dragon sleeping in her wagon.
Tempest–What do you do when you find a dragon in your favorite teacup?
Clowder–These are absolutely not cats, no matter what they look like, and will take offense at your mistake.
Back Yard Birds and Other Things–If the dragon defends your chickens, you invite it to stay.
Houdini–When the pet supplier sends the wrong kind of dragon, the pet store’s got a problem.
Hoard–Not every dragon cares for gold, gems, or cash.

FROM GEORGE DIMOCK: Le Boulanger: The Bread Baker.

Whether you have never baked bread before, or are an experienced baker, this book is an invaluable resource. The author shares his 35 years of baking experience, taking you from the simplest breads through the more complex. It is intersperced with bits of bread history, as well as recipes from throughout history.

FROM D. JASON FLEMING, BY CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER: 3 Ways of Lead (Annotated): A Pulp Western Omnibus

Charles Alden Seltzer was one of the first crop of western authors, a contemporary of Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine. But he *really* hit his stride in 1921, and these three post-1921 novels prove it!

Brass Commandments

“He’s man’s size, goin’ an’ comin’. No show, no fuss; likes to play a lone hand. Cool an’ easy an’ dangerous. Two-gun. Throws ’em so fast that you can’t see ’em. Lightnin’s slow when Lannon moves his gun-hand. Dead shot; cold as an iceberg under fire.”

Such was the opinion in Bozzam City of Flash Lannon. Five years of getting an education back East might have tamed him, some, but when rustlers target his cattle, and the local law doesn’t care, Lannon nails a new law to the wall of the local post office: his brass commandments naming the five men who must leave the country — or die.

Five named men… and “one other.”

Last Hope Ranch

When Ned Templin rode out of the desert to the Last Hope Ranch, Lisbeth Stanton was grateful, because he saved her from having to kill a man. But when Templin told her he was staying, and that he was an outlaw, and that a posse was on his trail looking to hang him for murder, her opinion changed a little.

And it kept changing, for Templin was an enigma, with secrets and motivations she never could have guessed. And, it turned out, so was her father, whom she had been with her whole life but never really known. Between Sheriff Norton and his posse, and the criminal gang Blaisdell’s Raiders, secrets would out, and bullets would fly, at the Last Hope Ranch!

The Way of the Buffalo

When Jim Cameron saved a stranger’s life, he hardly expected that stranger to promise to shoot him dead.

Sunset Ballantine wasn’t bothered that a man had tried to shoot him from a distance — no bullet had ever touched him, despite living his long years in the west and getting into many a gunfight. He *was* bothered that this Easterner was going to run a railroad right past his front door in sixty days. And even more bothered that the man didn’t change his mind once the threat was issued. Ballantine’s word was iron law in Ransome, always had been. Yet this Cameron, understanding full well that Ballantine meant it, and would undoubtedly beat him to the draw in any fair fight, was pushing ahead anyway.

Would Cameron back down? Would Ballantine go back on his word? Could an old western hand face down the forces of Progress, or must he go the way of the buffalo?

• This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes introductions giving the novels historical and genre context.

Charles Alden Seltzer was one of the first crop of western authors, a contemporary of Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine. But he *really* hit his stride in 1921, and these three post-1921 novels prove it!
Brass Commandments, Last Hope Ranch, The Way of the Buffalo

This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes introductions giving the novels historical and genre context.

FROM JACK HEREEMA: Marigold: Our Lady of Thieves.

A young child is found on a tip heap and is rescued from a dismal future by Sir Kai ap Gruffydd, a man whose courage and fighting prowess is known all over England. There is something about this girl that speaks to him . . . like he has somehow known her from his past. When he asks her name, she tells him. Her name is Marion. With the guiding hand of her new guardians, Marion blossoms into a young lady who can recite the catechisms taught to her by nuns, and then execute the most intricate sword-fighting skills ever seen by man or woman.

In the meantime, the Sheriff of Nottingham has been secretly working for Philip Augustus of France, whose sole purpose is to create civil unrest in England to undermine and emasculate King John. The foul treatment of the people of England by the sheriff galvanizes a gang of outlaws, under the leadership of Robin Hood, to thwart the sheriff of all efforts at every opportunity. Our heroine, Marion, is drawn into this conflict when she sees impoverished women and children who are suffering from the consequences of high taxation, forced labour, and brutal violence.

It is up to Robin Hood and Marion, along with their compatriots such as Friar Tuck and Alan a Dale, to outwit and outmuscle the sheriff, and bring down his use of unjust draconian power against the rights of the common weal.

FROM BOB MADISON: Cash and Carrey

High school jock Cash Hamilton has almost everything: he’s tall, handsome, a star football player and beloved by all the girls. The one thing he hasn’t got is his namesake: Cash is dead broke. But a rich novelty manufacturer has a way out – all Cash has to do is date his hated school rival, brainiac Stu Carrey.

Add to his problems an amorous snake, a New Age swami, an angry not-so-ex girlfriend, and a room of wombats, and you get a complete picture of dating in The Modern Age.

Cash and Carrey is the first adult romcom by Bob Madison, author of the acclaimed young adult novel Spiked!

Gay for pay has never been so much fun—or so dangerous.

“Cash Hamilton, the hero of Bob Madison’s new novel, is a 21st-century South-California Bertie Wooster. His special friend, Stu Carrey, is the son of a tycoon who manufactures gags and novelties–joy buzzers, whoopee cushions, wind-up plastic penises, and such. Cash isn’t as genteel as Bertie, or as gentle, but he still gains entrée into some of the stately homes of Orange County. He’s a witty and surprisingly likeable narrator, and his prose is as well-stocked with laugh-getters as Mr. Carrey’s warehouse. Cash and Carrey is outrageous and extremely silly. It’s also as sweet as it is funny.”

– Christopher Miller, award-winning author of The Cardboard Universe, Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects, and, American Cornball.

“If Dobie Gillis and Groucho Marx had a son it would be Bob Madison. Funny, silly, and funny.”

– Nick Santa Maria, comedian/author

(The cover to Cash and Carrey suketh mightily. Bob, if you want me to fix it ping me and I’ll try to do something about it next week.)

FROM JASON FLEMING, BY P. G. AMERTHON: Marmorne (Annotated): The Victorian Classic

The British Segrave brothers were as different as could be. Emil, the eldest and a solicitor, was passionless and precise. Julius, the middle brother, had enough energy for three normal men, so his decision to mount an expedition to Africa was no surprise. Youngest, Adolphus, was the peacemaker between the other two.

How their fates became tied to the quaint French village of Marmorne, and the Prussian invasion of France, none of them could have foretold…
This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving literary and historical context to the novel.

FROM KAREN MYERS: Tales of Annwn – A Virginian in Elfland

A Collection of Five Short Stories from The Hounds of Annwn.

The Call – A very young Rhian discovers her beast-sense and, with it, the call of a lost hound.

It’s not safe in the woods where cries for help can attract unwelcome attention, but two youngsters discover their courage in the teeth of necessity.

Under the Bough – Angharad hasn’t lived with anyone for hundreds of years, but now she is ready to tie the knot with George Talbot Traherne, the human who has entered the fae otherworld to serve as huntsman for the Wild Hunt. As soon as she can make up her mind, anyway.

George has been swept away by his new job and the people he has met, and by none more so than Angharad. But how can she value the short life of a human? And what will happen to her after he’s gone?

Night Hunt – When George Talbot Traherne goes night hunting for fox in Virginia, he learns about unworthy men from the old-timers drinking moonshine around the fire and makes his own choices.

Who could have anticipated that the same impulse that won him his old bluetick coonhound would lead him to his new wife and the hounds of Annwn? Every choice has a cost, he realizes, but never a regret.

Cariad – Luhedoc is off with his adopted nephew Benitoe to fetch horses for the Golden Cockerel Inn. He’s been reunited with his beloved Maëlys at last, but how can he fit into her capable life as an innkeeper? What use is he to her now, after all these years?

Luhedoc needs to relearn an important lesson about confidence.

The Empty Hills – George Talbot Traherne arranges a small tour of the local human world for his fae family and friends, hoping to share some of the sense of wonder he discovered when he encountered the fae otherworld.

He’s worried about discovery by other humans, but things don’t turn out quite the way he expects.

FROM CHRISTOPHER WOERNER: In the Details

This is a collection of essays covering the last few months, current events ranging from the war to the virus to the economy to the tyranny we’re living under every single day. Until very recently, none of us would have thought this was possible, and yet here it is. Our tyrants want as much misery as possible spread across the world they control. I hope to motivate and inspire a resistance movement, this is day-to-day coverage of why we need that.

The B-side is similar, collecting the comic strips I’ve made recently, a hopefully-more amusing look at the struggling we face. And this is where we are now.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Sound of One Child Crying.

Who is the child Reza can hear crying every time she goes to the new addition to the Royal Library? Her boss insists there is no child, that it is nothing more than her uncanny sensitivity to the unseen world making a nuisance of itself.

Worse, searching for answers gets her angry rebukes about respect for the dead. The further Reza goes, the more certain she becomes that someone is hiding an ugly secret.

It’s a secret that traces back two generations, to a dark period in this land’s history. A time most people would prefer to forget, not caring that denial doesn’t make a problem go away.

The truth may set you free, but not without a price. And Reza fears that death itself might turn out to be an easier price than the one demanded of her.

Read less

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: Health

The night before last, as I tried to write the next installment in the serialized novels, I ran aground on lack of words.

For background, we were on a trip for a week, came back late on Wednesday, had to figure out medical appointments for tomorrow and have (I HOPE) resolved the insurance fight. (I hate it when the insurance tries to provide medical care instead of my doctor, you know? And it’s now the third or fourth time. Being treated by actuaries is particularly bad for Odds because, as Kate Paulk put it, we have bodies as strange as our minds, more likely than not.)

Anyway, in the midst of this stuff, the story is in my head, but words won’t come. Add a dash of ADD and stir well, and what you get is my falling into the first video or article someone sends me, and ending up rabbit holing.

Well, the video someone sent me was Razor Fist. It’s linked in the last post. And then the side bar suggested the Critical Drinker on various Disney flops and Hollywood characters in general, and then —

I have very little control over the rabbit hole, once it starts, particularly past the time at which the ADD med has any effect. So, all I could do was background think.

I’ve been getting very upset at the invasion of “Witch” stuff into cozy mysteries. Not because I have anything about paranormal mysteries, but because these aren’t mysteries in any sense of the word.

And before someone gets very upset, no I don’t want people to stop writing them — I worry about their effect on people’s minds, yes, but I don’t want people to stop writing what OBVIOUSLY has a market — I just want Amazon search to achieve the functionality of Alta Vista search in the mid nineties, and let me have exclusion words. If I can search the cozy mystery subcategory with -witch it will take care of the problem. Instead, they insist on filling my search with pages and pages of books I’m neither going to buy nor borrow. So my grrrr in the search is at Amazon. (No, it doesn’t do to remove “supernatural” — I’ve loved some ghost cozies, which have a LONG tradition.)

Anyway, my husband reads them, because… well, Dan reads everything, and at the rate he reads he runs out of “favorite” stuff and branches out. And Dan reads me passages and tells me plots as a matter of course. (It’s better than telling me movies.) Also, I’ve read a few when in dire need of words in front of eyes.

I’m a little disturbed by most of them, for the same reason I’ve been more than a little disturbed by my son’s generation preferring fantasy over science fiction.

Oh, it’s not the magic, though that’s part of it. Go too far down the reading about magic path, and you start believing you can change the world with a thought or a word. I mean, you can, sort of, but only your internal world, which causes you to see the world in a different light. You can’t actually turn frogs into princes with thought or word, though, and thinking you can is the path to madness.

What really has disturbed me was an early manifestation of what the Critical Drinker described as “The chosen one” syndrome.

And it’s part of the issue I had too with the Snow White actress’s comments that Snow White would be dreaming of being the leader she knew she could be.

We all have dreams. I dreamed I would be a bestselling writer back when I was 8 in Portugal. And in the half-formed, inchoate dreams of a little girl in a small place, who had no clue what anyone did, or how things were made and sold, it was very much “And then I’ll make them amazed with my talent, and voila!”

This syndrome wasn’t helped by my parents religious-like belief in “Talent” which yes, should be written as a capital T. I have no idea where they got half their ideas and stories, but they were — for instance — convinced that Mozart could play the piano flawlessly the first time he saw one. They thought that writers would send in their first novel, and if they were any good, it would be immediately accepted. Etc. etc. etc. It was in a way a cult of the “genius” the person who could flawlessly do things.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times they held their breath as I tried something out for the first time — from archery to music — then informed me I’d never be any good, because I couldn’t do it flawlessly first time out.

I do wonder if it’s a Portuguese thing, and if these stories are in the culture. It would explain much about the country and the culture, if they believe people are either born to do something without learning, or they’ll never do it.

Anyway, I’m very lucky I was married when I started seriously trying to write and publish, and away from the culture. I can imagine what my parents would have done at my writing book after book and story after story for 13 years before breaking in. I suspect they’d have browbeaten me into giving up.

And this is why the “Witch Mysteries” (Most of them. There are, undoubtedly exceptions) and most of the Hollywood stories of “strong women” scare the heck out of me for their influence in the culture.

So, my problem is that most Witch Mysteries are fantasy but not mysteries, not in any classical sense. You don’t give the reader clues and play fair. Not a bit of it. Instead, you set up a mystery, and then the main protagonist — almost always a woman — uses her magic to solve it.

The good ones are amusing and set up “the price of magic” type of problems, but they’re not mysteries, except insofar as there is a murder. This is sort of like calling Heinlein books a romance, because there is pair-bonding. It doesn’t hit the right mark. It doesn’t play the right music. It’s not a mystery.

Anyway, so, after Dan had read me a bunch of bits of them and I’d read a few, I pegged them as “Grown up, female Harry Potter.” Which makes a certain sense, since I suspect most of the writers are generation Harry Potter.

And Harry Potter is of course the least developed of the group of protagonists of the eponymous novel. This is not a criticism. He is the “chosen one” a perfectly acceptable role in fantasy. And he does have struggles, though maybe not enough for the role.

But here’s the thing: you cross that with the “females already have power within themselves, and just need to accept their awesomeness” ethos of our culture, and you get very bad art. Which in turn poisons the culture further.

But of course, this bad art is very popular. And the reason it’s popular is that we’ve already poisoned the culture.

First, let me point out that my last 20 years or so in traditional publishing I was protected. As much as I don’t wish to go back into the fold, Baen is still the sanest house in the field, and I can’t imagine “She’s jut perfect and flawless and things fall into her lap” would be acceptable as a main character, ever. Much less suggested and enforced.

However I hear stories and for at least 15 years it’s been verboten to create flawed female characters (or other minority or “left protected class”.) If you do, you’ll be called misogynistic and cancelled.

At the same time — I KNOW. I had kids in the school system — the schools are terrified of being the “science teacher” all female boomers complain about, who apparently told each and every one of them girls couldn’t do science. (Which amazes me, because in a much more patriarchal and misogynistic culture — a true one — I was never told that by a teacher. Not a single one. And most science teachers were male. Oh, I was told that by peers, friends, family but NEVER BY A TEACHER. Probably because I could actually do the work. Never mind.) So, girls are given all the prizes and the “Lady’s A” and positioned for accolades (positioning for success doesn’t work) and treated as if they’re already perfect and don’t need to learn. (Until they crash as young adults, because they’ve been smothered by the tyranny of low expectations. Which actually does make them incapable.)

At the same time, a girl who argues with a boy is treated as a victim, as though females were predestined to be hurt by boys their own age. Seriously, they’ll put them in counseling, and try to arrest the boy for “sexual harassment” starting at age three.

The result of this is a generation of women on psych drugs, and running from themselves.

Part of me empathizes with them. Who knows? I might have been quite good at sports, if I’d been allowed to try and fail and try again, instead of being told if I failed the first time out, I “didn’t have it” in me.

In the same way even if they’re given the grades or whatever, these girls are failing where it matters: At understanding that skills are something you build. They keep looking inside themselves and finding young, unformed people who can’t do much of anything. And then imagining that boys somehow have it easier. And of course, little boys already have Svengali like powers to hurt them irreparably by calling them poopy-faces or telling them they’re bossy. Because casual playground insults are super serious and determine your course of life.

So, of course, they like reading these non mysteries, where women with amazing powers can do anything by waving a wand. It’s a way to self-soothe their sense of failure.

But at the same time builds on it.

And before you tell me that Heinlein too had chosen ones — waggles hand — kind of, but not really. His characters go through black moments and breaking points, and never get good at some things. A lot of them are bad at math, for instance. And others have friends who are better at what they most wish to do.

But more importantly, struggling and learning is portrayed, however abbreviated for narrative reasons.

The inability to create realistically flawed characters who have to work for what they want does nothing but inject into the culture the poison of the cult of the flawless genius. Which none of us is, being human.

And no, not blaming the Witch Mysteries for that — that’s just a symptom (and some of them are good, again) — but yes, blaming the horrible movies of the last couple of decades.

Perhaps it’s a good sign they tend to tank. Perhaps instinctively they strike us as wrong.

We need more stories of people who struggle, even if they have a knack or an ability. More stories of people who fail, early and often on the way to future success.

And fewer stories where “easy wins” are a sign of being chosen.

That’s not how the world works. The win that’s too easy is often hollow and can’t be sustained.

Of course you can’t make struggles as realistic as in real life. Stories are abbreviated and more dramatic than reality.

However no one, no sex, no race, no orientation, no culture should be exempted and have all their members portrayed as flawless and perfect.

Humans aren’t perfect. I doubt aliens if they exist will be perfect either.

Man (and yes, woman too, for those lacking in ability to read by inference) was born to strive.

Everything else is a lie and a road to nowhere.

Three things to point out before I start the post:

First, the left is acting as though it could lose this coming election. Maybe it’s just their fear and their guilty conscience and they really have it sewn up anyway. This is possible.

Second, if DeSantis were nominated I would of course vote for him over Biden. Yes, I have very profound doubts about him, mostly proceeding from the reason people desperately want him. No, not the reason they say. The reason they REALLY want him, with desperate longing to get him in the presidency. Because he can’t do what they need him to. It’s not in the power of any human. And if he tries, he’s not even going to be a caretaker president. He’s going to be a cork rammed down over the national problems which will keep growing behind it. And the blow up will be epic. (For the record, I’ll vote for anyone against Biden, except Pence and Christie, because we already have Biden. I mean having someone with an R after his name do everything the left wants doesn’t benefit anyone.)

Third: I don’t think anyone but Trump has a chance in h*ll. It’s the name recognition. That was the main reason Trump won in 16. And now he has more.

It’s all very well for us political wonks to whine and b*tch that this one does this, that one does that, but 90% of the time, the reason the incumbent wins is that the people who only think of the election ten days before the vote go with the name they know. That’s it. Yes, it’s a deranged way to vote. Were you under the impression most humans were sensible?

I also want you to rid yourself of the “but Trump is unelectable.” I don’t normally quote Razor Fist, but you really need to watch this, because what you’re saying is literally insane. It is equally insane and laugh out loud stupid the idea the left is going after Trump with everything they have because they want him to be nominated because “he’ll lose.”

He might very well lose. Again, it’s quite possible, not to say probable the fraud is unbeatable, since no one would run the campaign they did in 2020 if they didn’t KNOW that on the basis of fraud alone, they had more votes than Trump got in 2016. I want you to contemplate that. It has to be true, because there’s no way they’d leave that to chance.

Now, that’s a “margin of fraud” no one could beat. And yet Trump did. He got more votes the second time around. Which meant they had to fraud at the last minute, in front of everyone.

Which brings us to: Yeah, could happen again. But if it does, it was going to happen to anyone else. (I want you to write that inside your eyelids so you see it every night when you close them. Because it’s the truth.)

“But he has changed.” “He wasn’t an ideal president” “He– He– He–” You can’t tell me more people have doubts about him than they did in 16 when some of us decided to vote for him hours before, and some never did, because we had no idea what or who he was as a president. He’s much more of a known quantity and less scary.

“But he let them lock us down” “He endorsed the vaccines” “He made horrible choices in people to serve in his administration.” Ah. Yes. Now spin it for anyone else in that position.

The thing about our administration is that it runs on credentials and “experts”. That’s the legacy of FDR. Anyone remember the screaming when Bush fired some people? Yeah. Do you think Trump could have FIRED THEM ALL? Well, he might this time. But not back then. Even he didn’t know the full extent of what he was up against. And if he did, he would not be able to hire new, functional ones. Why not? Because they have to have the right credentials and be approved of or they’ll be “got” on procedure (Steve Bannon has entered the chat.)

As for letting them lock us and the vaccines…. yeah. I know people on the right with Phds who fell for both and the masks too. Heck, I know people who are MDs. And don’t you go pretending a lot of you didn’t come to the comments to scream at me, crazed with COVID fear.

And even then, Trump didn’t lock us down, and he didn’t make the vaccine mandatory. Instead he forbore to tell the governors what to do, which, yes, allowed some of them to go full Hugo Boss uniform and shiny boots (Jared Polis really is too fat for the look. But he would do it, what can one do except advise him?) But that was perhaps more than anything a witness to Trump’s respect for the constitution. He is not, after all, as we all feared he would be, a democrat.

Anyway, so, no, I don’t think Trump rendered himself unelectable for doing what any other president would have done.

Now is he what I would want? Is he the perfect choice?

Are you kidding me? I mean, what are the chances he’ll cut 9/10ths of the federal government and have the worst offenders whipped through the streets till the blood runs freely? What are the chances he’ll disband the FBI and salt the Earth where the Hoover building is?

Not high. No, he’s not the perfect, ideal candidate. Much less is he — as the left amusingly seems to think — some kind of Svengali that holds us spellbound.

In the boundary of possible, I’d prefer Rand Paul, frankly.

But that’s not in the realm of choice. Of the choices offered? Trump will do. I hope he will do. I hope he’s learned something of the treachery of the deep state and the rest of the so called GOP. I hope he goes in prepared to do everything he can to lift our tyranny of bureaucrats.

But that’s all we can do. Hope. If anyone has a chance, it’s him. The rest doesn’t matter much, because we’re not making a presidential candidate to order. As always, we will hope G-d have mercy on the United States of America, because we’re going to need it. But we would under any administration.

Trump has the best chance of winning, and there is the barest of possibilities he has seen the elephant and is ready to shoot it if it goes mad again.

Which brings us back to why a good number of people, even good, reasonable people desperately want someone else, anyone else. Preferably someone with “a different style.”

I find it somewhere between understandable and pitiable.

It always boils down to “Someone else will be more presidential” Or “Someone else will not get the democrats so riled up.” Or the equivalent.

As the people who came here to yell at me that I wasn’t taking Covid seriously enough (Pfui) because we were all going to die, these people think that if only they can elect someone else, the someone else will make the democrats go back to “acting nice” and to behaving as the person speaking perceived them to be before Trump.

The pitiable part about this is twofold: First they have completely forgotten, apparently, that Pierre Delecto, practically a democrat, was called Hitler, and the most appalling things said about him. And that George W. Bush, a “Christian socialist” by his own admission, was attacked and slandered and brought the Democrats to the verge of an apoplexy at least as much as Trump. Oh, sure, the Democrats hadn’t started the lawfare two step. They learned that trick to attack, cause to resign and destroy the life of Sarah Palin, herself, lest we forget it, no party woman, but one who crossed the isle and shook hands which is why she was selected by McCain.

Trump is not the cause for the Democrats going unhinged. They’ve been going more and more unhinged and desperate since the Soviet Union fell.

The truth is most of them were for a kinder, gentler communism. They really thought that “communism with an American face” would be the perfect system, and everyone would love it. No? Read the old science fiction. That’s what all the writers — most leftists — were depicting.

But the fall of the Soviet Union removed the star they were tacking towards. Also a lot of their pocket cash. And Clinton’s fast patch on it, to make it more like China’s frankly fascist regime is breaking apart. And the kids they carefully indoctrinate eventually find out communism hasn’t worked anywhere. Also, a lot of them probably know exactly or close to how much fraud they’ve been committing. The “luminaries” they attract are either insane or dumb as rocks. The control they exert over things like social media keeps having to be stronger and crazier. And everything they try to do slips through their hands.

They thought they had it all sewn up for Al Gore, and then W won. And it wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to rule forever. (Which also tells you how amazing the fraud was back then.) They got back in the saddle with Obama, though I still wonder how legitimate his wins were. To be fair, at least he looked plausible.

Then Hillary…. They’d been waiting so long for Hillary. I mean, I remember a cottery of writers and editors back in 2000 at the Nebulas talking about how long they’d need to wait for Hillary. And Trump — brash, not even a politician Trump — took it from her, when they were so sure that they’d already arranged for the transition with her. (That too speaks to the vast amount of fraud.)

So, now? Maybe they have it sewn up, but they’re scared, jumping at shadows, convinced that Trump — frankly shoved to the head of an existing movement — is some kind of Svengali, and if they only destroy him, they will rule forever.

Frankly, the shakiness of China is making them even crazier. There’s a lot of money they might not get, not to mention other kinds of help. What kinds of help? I don’t know. I know that when the Soviet Union fell, the left got mighty shaky until China replaced it (but not as well.)

And here we are. The left — the true left, which cannot be more than 25% of the population, judging by how much they need to fraud, and how sure they are of wins — is unhinged. And a lot of them still have a lot of power.

They will stop at nothing to enact revenge on everything and every area they control. Look at what they’re doing to cities in their power. They will stop at nothing. Only they know how little they are wanted and the extent of fraud. And judging by their ravening hatred and destruction, it must be fraud all the way down.

They’re going to get worse. They’re going to hurt us very badly before things can be set right. And note I’m not counting on Trump making much difference one way or another, whether he’s elected or not. He might. There is a tiny chance he might. But it’s highly unlikely.

Mostly, the die is cast. The machinery is in motion. The left, having lost its messianic certainty is desperate. Desperate cults will kill their adherents and their perceived enemies in batch lots.

We can all feel it coming, except those who are very clueless or very stupid. Even the optimists feel it, they just refuse to believe it.

Meanwhile, there is a loud group of otherwise sane people who just “want it to go back to normal.”

It’s not going to happen. Or rather, it’s not going to happen till the other side of this.

No president elected will get us to the other side dry-shod. We haven’t been given a Moses who can part these waters of fire.

Not a single one of them will make the Democrats sane as they appeared to be before.

Part of this is that they were never sane. They were simply in control of the media and could make themselves appear as the reasonable, sane ones. Don’t believe me? Read Amity Shlaes The Forgotten Man. FDR would be perfectly at home in today’s Democratic party. He just could hide it, because the mass media was by and large democrat. Not a conspiracy but a prospiracy.

Now Trump has finished removing their masks. Love him or hate him, it would have happened anyway, the next time they were thwarted.

And no one can save us from what’s to come, no matter how “presidential” and “calm” he is. Nothing will make the democrats sane again. Not until they are deprogrammed from their cult, and the scales fall from their eyes. Or they die, which given the age of their leadership is not so far distant.

Until then, we’re stuck in here with them. Then again, they’re stuck in here with us.

Lying to ourselves about their intent and beliefs, their tactics and ideas will do nothing but well…. lie to ourselves and leave us unprepared for the sheer storm of crazy they’re about to unleash.

We don’t need to add to it with delusion and wishful thinking.

The only way out is through.. Let us get through this clear eyed. It’s going to suck like a mother. But there might be hope on the other side, for those who see it.

Ignorance is not Bliss By David Bock

For those that think high school students protesting things they don’t understand is anything new, back in the mid-1980s I experienced my fellow students protest the forming of a military history club. This happened at one of the most prestigious science high schools in New York City.

We were called vile names, our meeting posters were vandalized or destroyed, and the other members of the club and I were harassed on and off school grounds.  All of this was based on ignorance of what our club was about.  Not, as they would have had you believe, in the glorification of war, but in the exploration and preservation of military history.

However, after the first few meetings, the protesters lost interest and the “Military History Enthusiasts Club” met without incident for the rest of my time at that school.

Keep in mind, nothing happens in a vacuum.  Today’s ignorant high school students become tomorrow’s ignorant voters and next week’s ignorant politicians.  These ignorant politicians, supported by those ignorant voters, pass ignorant laws.  Perpetuating the cycle of ignorance and further marginalizing law abiding gun owners.

In the mid-1990s I attended a lecture at Sienna College discussing the proposed federal firearms ban.  The presenter who supported the ban was smooth and charismatic and pushing the same false facts we all know so well now.  He used talking points like “a pistol grip makes it easier to shoot from the hip” and “these weapons serve no purpose but to kill children.”  The college students attending ate it up.

Back then, there was no internet to check facts.  These were new talking points and clear counters for them were still being developed.

The pro-gun rights presenter, on the other hand, arrived late, was unprepared, flustered, and made a hash of the whole thing.

Not our finest hour.

The late-1990s were kind of interesting as a gun owner in New York.  With the burgeoning hysteria about Y2K I had some mildly anti-gun friends come to me for advice on buying their first gun so they could defend themselves when the system collapsed.

I did not ridicule them or dismiss them.  I wasn’t even tempted to do so.  I gave them the best advice I could and offered to take them to the range with my guns before they decided on what to purchase.

Of course, most of them never followed through and the world didn’t end on January 1 2000.  However, a few did become gun owners and after their experiences with the New York legal process, some of them even transitioned to the pro-gun position.  So learning is possible.

Fast forward to early-January 2017.  I was at a wedding reception for a lesbian couple I know.  They had decided to get married because they were concerned that President Elect Trump was going to ban gay marriage after he was sworn into office.

During the reception I was sitting at a table surrounded by good friends.  Some of whom I had known for many years.  Suddenly, one of them called me out as a member of the NRA, implying that this was somehow something shameful.

She then went of a several minute, fact free, rant about “assault weapons” and the need for more and stricter firearms laws.

My response was to tune her out, let her rant, and when she was done I started a conversation about movies or food or something equally innocuous.

Could I have handled this differently?  Of course I could have.  Would it have been productive? I don’t think so.

I could have countered each of her statements with facts.  I could have referenced data from the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services, the FBI, the CDC, or some other reputable source. 

However, considering the Gish Gallop of misinformation, false data, and CNN talking points, I would have needed a page or more of notes so I could address each point in turn.

Had I done this, I would not have changed her opinion, nor the opinions of others at the table who were nodding sagely in agreement with her statements. What I probably would have done was set some of them off and caused anger and bad feeling around the table.

I have more respect for the newlyweds then to cause that, so I kept my mouth shut and let it wash over me.

To quote Doctor Thomas Sowell “It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”

Assorted Calibers Podcast

Brena Bock Stories

David Bock Stories

Before I start this, let me explain that “stupid” is not meant to cover “nonintellectual”. There is a tendency among those of us who are good with words to consider anyone lacking that facility “stupid.”

For years Dan and I joked that each of our colleagues thought we’d married someone mentally deficient. I, because Dan is often not verbally fluent (though fluent in writing. Younger son has same problem), his because I can’t do big math off the top of my head.

But even beyond that, I’ve known a lot of blue-collar manual workers who were genuine geniuses. What they weren’t was intellectual. They would solve weird problems in machine maintenance or household organization in a blink, where I plain couldn’t, but when it came to reading some abstract article, they just couldn’t.

Those people aren’t stupid. They’re just not experts on what you are.

There is, however, genuine “stupid.” Like iron class dumb, who cannot solve anything, or think its way out of a paperback, even a very soaked one.

I submit to you that even before he was senile, that’s what Biden was. ROCK BOTTOM DUMB. Yes, possessed of a certain amoral cunning, but note he took payments from places and people no one would half a brain — let alone a moral code — would.

I submit his lack of moral code comes from his ABJECT stupidity.

When you’re that dumb, you are always surrounded by people who are talking “above your head.” And because each person considers him or herself “average” such persons assumes that the people talking above their heads are doing it on purpose. They are being mean, in befuddling our dunce.

Over time, this turns into hatred of everyone smarter, which is to say almost everyone.

I’m not saying Biden is alone. But I’m saying since the left started hiring and promoting based on ideology, not competence, they’ve been going lower and lower on the intelligence scale.

Until now only the Biden administration remains. A concatenation of very evil people whose only saving grace is not being able to think through second order effects. Or sometimes even first.

And all of whom are convinced the rest of the country, aka most normal human beings, are deliberately confounding them.

They hate us with a burning passion, yes.

May the Lord bless us and keep us. This is the shape of the trouble we’re in.

Sorry, was out of pocket all day. Not near a keyboard. Will try to do post tomorrow, but can’t make any hard promises. If all else fails, I’ll do it on Tuesday, I promise.