Not long ago, a friend — the same one who lost his job in Academia, in the Northeast last year for being too white, too Christian, too male — was surveying the people we know who are trying, however ineffectively to fight the good culture war and said “The kids are confused, mal-educated, not very well read, but full of fight and vigor. And their hearts are generally in the right place. We’ll be all right. We just have the scrappy band of losers to save the world, and we will save it.” (Which is part of what he’s working on.)

I noted the other day, when student loans were mentioned, that you guys have a really weird vision of the people who are in trouble due to student loans.

Now, look, yeah, sure, there are puppetry majors. There are also a never-end of English majors (and there’s a reason for that, which I’ll explain later.) And a bunch of other things, some of them that self-obviously were never going to pay.

But for every one of those, because I have a lot of fans, and kids who have friends anywhere from the early twenties to the late thirties, who have crushing debt from stuff they never completed through no fault of their own. STEM even. And if you’re bristling at the “through no fault of their own”, don’t. For one, I swear, though I can’t PROVE it (because like most of what the lefty cockroaches do it’s still underhanded) most of it seems to be covered up and individual excuses given, but it looks to me like if you’re a conservative, they’re going to kick you out without a degree one way or another. Sure. Not all over the country. Not every university has gone militantly stupid. And some conservatives and their families are too prominent to get kicked out, but I’ve seen waves go through where people I know are conservative all hit bullshit road blocks at the same time. And then other bullshit road blocks. And then more. To the point that, you know, one is happenstance, two is coincidence, three is enemy action.

And I love you guys, I do. Like ice-cream with sprinkles on top, but every time one of you talks about “working your way to school” I hit my head on something and scream. Yeah, I know one person who did that. It only took him 4x as long as it should have to graduate, but he did it. And I know people who attempted it, and their grades fell, and the degree dragged, and eventually they dropped out.

What you’re not taking in account is how much college costs these days. I have insight into it, because, by promise, we paid half of each of the kids undergrad.

Let’s just say if you’re unskilled, a state’s college tuition is now your take-home from a full time job. If you’re supporting yourself, that leaves food, place to live, car, gas, and BOOKS (which are ridiculously expensive) for you to find money for, somehow. (I understand this is different in Utah, and might be in other systems, but not in Colorado.)

Worse, because college (and to be fair, every level of school) is now full of button counting, time-consuming, group work (I saw this with my kids from first grade, and worse, if you were “gifted” they gave you more.) you’ll only be able to take half the courses per year, which prolongs the time for which you have to find living expenses, etc.

“Work to put self through college” is a pipe dream if you’re taking STEM. (It is possible, to an extent with English degrees, if you are naturally gifted. Just occurred to me a friend of mine did this recently. But trust me, it wasn’t easy.)

And no, the people saying “Well, most Americans don’t go to college, so this is subsidizing the rich” aren’t right. Because the people who were pushed/sent to college aren’t rich. (Hence the loans. The rich, largely pay for their kids to go and have “the college experience.”) They’re usually “smart” or at least did well in school. And they’re usually (though not always) strivers. That’s the only thing they have in common.

The people who are partying are either the children of the rich, or athletes with full scholarships.

These days scholarships also have bloody nothing to do with merit, btw. If you’re a woman it’s easy to get a scholarship. If you are interestingly tan, ditto. If you can tell a sob story and have the right opinions, you have a good chance. But pure merit? If they exist (and I presume in a country this size they must) we failed to find them. And when they exist and we found them… well, younger son was offered a full ride across the country. But he was 16, and where would he live? And how would we pay for housing/food/etc? which was more than local tuition? (In retrospect, we SHOULD have done that, but that’s a long story.)

Oh, and on useless degrees: a lot of kids take English degrees because they are given a snow-job on how valuable it is. “With an English degree you can be literally anything. There are companies dying to hire you.” And because it’s easy, if you also have to work full time.

As the possessor of an English degree (in my case ESL, and different, but you know) there are indeed companies dying to hire you. Retail and food service. But seriously, why wouldn’t the kids believe what they’re told by authorities? Isn’t that what we tell them to do? Trust the experience and wisdom of those who are older than they are?

But leaving aside the whole contentious issue of student loans — look, guys, if I’m right, the mummy is going to forgive them anyway. The least you can do is not throw fits, because driving away the kids is the worst thing you can do. No not all of them are brain dead, and a lot of them have been red pilled already — there is the fact that the whole “formal education” thing from pre-school to college, these days amounts to little more than a program of retirement for Beardo the Weirdo.

So, you know, these kids — at least those who didn’t grow up under the gimlet eye and book-flinging hand of someone like me — are very badly read, and sometimes almost painfully ignorant of everything real, from history to economics.

Take the “x number are socialists” I also stared at that and despaired, until younger son laughed. “Yeah, they think they are. Because we were told that everything, from street lights, to public roads, to police was “socialism”” and people who don’t know better, and think that a society should have SOME degree of public service, think they’re socialists. They’re by and large not.”

Or take the fact these people literally have no clue who fought in WWII. Or what the Nazis wanted, besides “they were racisssss and white.” Or–

Yeah, I know. You have an atrocious view of the kids, and some of it is justified. For some of them.

As I said, they’re uneducated, or worse mal-educated, and think they know things they don’t because “older people” taught them those things. They’re appallingly badly read (mostly because of the books that were pushed at them in school.)

Worst, the pedagogical methods used on my kids — and I bet you they’re worse now — were make-work and boring stuff, designed to crush love of reading, love of learning, initiative and … well, anything useful.

The one thing they got pounded with was “responsibility” Only it wasn’t. It was more make work, and a solid dose of guilt.

For instance, when son had to have knee surgery that kept him out of school for two weeks, the teachers were incapable of telling me what he should work on, because they didn’t PLAN that far in advance. At the same time, they told the kids the papers due for the next two weeks, and then didn’t remind them. Just had a box for them to be dropped in. And these papers, which were often painfully boring and stupid, counted for more than the grade. With each of the boys — because they are ADD AF — there was a semester they failed, and we’re looking at the grade going “but he had all As in the tests” and eventually found out they’d done ALL the homework, and on time even, but it was either still on their desk or (Younger son’s) their backpack front pocket, which is so full it barely closes.

At the time they did this, they were… under 12. And were, of course, getting hit with the hormone stick. But the same adults who couldn’t plan two weeks ahead, for jobs they were getting paid for, told us that “No, we don’t remind them. They have to learn responsibility.”

Mostly, the kids, at least mine, learned guilt. Because their teachers’ lack of planning was their problem.

But what you have to remember is that most of these kids are all right. Probably the vast, overwhelming majority are all right.

Oh, they have the same number of custard heads and evil bastages as any other generation. But we only hear from those. And the people who have been red pilled, the productive and smart ones? They’re keeping their heads down and slogging ahead. Because, see where “being discovered to be conservative” (or really to dissent from the choir) will have immediate results, and they won’t like them.

That is starting to change. Oh, heavens, way too slowly. But changing. People have won lawsuits for wrongful dismissal or political discrimination. Now, most of these are the most obvious/egregious cases, but the avalanche starts with a very few grains of sand.

The kids are all right. And we’re starting to take back the culture. Or the wouldn’t have had to fraud 2020 in such a blatant last-minute manner. Because the fraud was already immense and baked in. They should have coasted. Hence the potemkin campaign. But they didn’t.

And that must be our consolation: there are probably fewer young ones to rebuild than we think, and they’re probably just as ignorant and lost as we think.

On the other hand, there are people making a living from teaching various things on youtube, history being one of the subjects I know of. And the kids (and elders like us) are paying for it.

They are trying to engage in the great relearning.

So, the best time to plant a tree or teach your kids properly is 10/20/50 years ago. The second best time is now.

If you can take them out of public school, do so. (And don’t trust private schools without tons of research. Yeah, there are still good ones, but most are as bad as public, if not worse.)

If you can’t, follow the plan in Have Spacesuit Will Travel (and what we did) and teach them at home, after and around school.

If your kid is considering college, look really closely at what they’ll be studying, look at rates of graduation, send an elder to audit interesting courses (most states have free or very low price classes after 55.) It’s an investment, and you should know the likely return.

And if you don’t have kids, and there’s this mass of kids (and I mean anyone younger than you, out there) engage. Talk to them. I don’t know, distribute books. (I am the book fairy.) Or start a you tube channel teaching your specialty.

If you do interesting stuff: building, sewing, machine repair, start a you tube channel or a blog (the same goes for history, languages, whatever) and send me the link to publicize.

As the left is fond of saying “The children are our future” (and the white horse of Napoleon was in fact white.)

But the future they tried to mold these kids for is impossible, and the possible part of it would be horrific.

I don’t care what you think of them. They’re the ones who will be building the world, once it’s obvious the model of centralized control/production/everything else is now counterproductive.

Teach. Teach in every way you can.

Seed the seeds of the future. You can’t control how they bloom, but you can seed. And do what you can to nurture.

I believe the kids will do us proud.

The title is a line I stole I THINK from Mark Alger. It hit me as ridiculously funny mostly because both mom and grandma were obsessed with the Clean Underwear in case you have an accident thing. So underwear to go to war is a very necessary thing, you’ll agree. And there’s a high chance of death. But I would say very few people die at war with clean underwear.

So, on where we are, what we do, and what comes out of the current upside down, sideways, tilt-a-whirl world?

There are things we know, and things we don’t know relating to the present situation.

We know there is a great break up of the status quo, partly because it no longer works.

Now, this is something we, children born in the sixties, were primed for in everything, from science fiction to serious courses.

But what we’re seeing, the break down of the status quo, is exactly the opposite of what we were told to expect by 90% of those teaching or entertaining us. Supposedly competition, and striving and individualism were on the way out, and soft, fluffy bunnies and unicorns perfect communism was on the way in.

Of course that was never going to work. I mean, we know that. But you have to remember guys, that back then they viewed the USSR as ruthlessly efficient. (It’s one of those. I’m caught between laughing and crying. They literally couldn’t feed themselves and the only way they could fool us into thinking they had nuclear parity was to drive around eighteen wheelers loaded with loooong tubes. But– image, yeah, and mass communication fooled us all.

Now, the “right” around the world admired the ruthless efficiency, but smelled something wrong, and therefore they wanted …. softer efficiency.

Which is how going on almost a century, the West sold its soul to socialism.

Socialism is of course not a different beast from communism. It was supposed to be a stage on the way to communism where the means of production were in individual hands (unless they were essential, like, you know, health) but the government controlled all. There was supposed to be some kind of clear dividing line.

The truth is that all this sh*t spewed from the diseased brain of Karl the mad, never made a whit of sense, and most of it boiled down to “That’s not how any of that ever worked.”

So, communism or socialism was often a matter of opinion, and you can tell how well any of them worked by the fact that both called themselves “democracies.” (It was naming by opposites day. It was a long day.)

But even the “free” or “capitalist” west was various forms of socialism. And I don’t mean just the ponzi scheme of social security. I mean crazy cakes stuff (a lot of the crazy started by FDR) that made the assumption the fargin feds had the right to decide how the money you earned should be distributed. And once that kind of disease gets in the brain, the government decides it owns the fruits of your labor, and only lets you keep some, which means you’re essentially a governmental slave. It’s bad crazy and it corrupts everything.

In the west this centralization of power and deferring of everything to increasingly larger governments and “rule of by experts.”

And everyone trusted the experts and the big government, and the increasingly more leftist narrative, because everyone got their news from central sources that supported (or were complicit) in all of that. And then the news got made into history. And if you dissented because — say — you were at the event, and knew the report was insane (every one I was at. Not even wrong. Just like… parallel world insane.) you were considered uninformed or some kind of crazy, because the news and knowledge came from the journalistic experts.

I don’t know when the wheels started coming off. We KNOW they started coming off, because even with Obama, they couldn’t continue selling him as the most important figure ever, or super smart. Oh, the sales job of the media still worked…. on the media, permanent captives of the federal government who live in DC, and celebrities. But the majority of the public wasn’t fully buying the story.

I mean, it really was a next-level sales job, but most of the Obama merchandise, from beach towels to cards seemed to age on the shelves.

And judging from the reaction to Hillary, I wonder how complete the sales on Clinton was.

And of course 2016 was a complete shock for the bastages. And 2022 arguably a bigger one, since they were sure they’d already frauded enough.

But it’s not just here where the internet explains it to some extent. In much of the rest of the world the net isn’t used for news as it is here, and yet the narrative is also falling apart. Despite a next-level snow job on COVID, complete with lock downs and punitive measures, if you look, there are demonstrations, resistance, riots, practically everywhere, and no one really believes “the thing” the establishment is pushing.

Yes, to an extent that includes Russia-Ukraine. No, I don’t support Russia. Yes, I hope they’re beat into flinders so they don’t go around attacking their neighbors. No, I don’t care that the Ukraine is equally corrupt. No, I don’t actually support the world going to war over this, and I think the US should stay the heck out of it.

And that, it seems, is confusing the powers that be around the world. I get a strong feeling they thought they could whip up a world war (probably with Putin’s cooperation) but there is no enthusiasm for it anywhere. So, the grand plan to shore up central governments by having a war that allowed them to stomp dissent fell apart.

And meanwhile Russia, who has been pumped up and pumped itself up as a co-equal if not superior power to the US has revealed itself a sclerotic, disorganized totalitarian mess in the deepest possible trouble, a nation that would probably lose a pillow fight against US kindergartners.

And China, like our local commies, is going insane in full view of the world.

So, that’s what we know. No, we don’t know how advanced the rebellion is or real numbers or anything, because the information is being suppressed at every possible level. And the only people who “get” a panoramic view of this are people like me who are crazy-addicted to news and look everywhere, not just the most common channels.

What we don’t know — you know, little factors that actually affect the outcome of things —

1- how many people are there in the world actually?

2- how many people in each country, and how many are at all educated to operate modern civilization (Mostly trades and stem graduates. People who do things, you know? Though you can count maybe people like me who can train/explain things.)

3- how many people are actually working?

4- how many people are working at needed things, and how many are cat rotators?

5- how big is the next generation, and how many are getting any education that makes sense?

6- how many people are immigrating to the US? Is the net migration even positive? (Not as crazy as it sounds, but would take a whole post to explain.)

7 – Ditto other countries of the world.

8 – How many people actually still believe in the shiboleths of big government and “experts”

9 – How many of the things we THINK we know are based on fake, irreproducible, stupid studies?

10 – How close are we to a major systemic collapse of government/organization/all professions?

That’s a hell of a list of known unknowns. And for each of them there is probably an equally long list of unknown unknowns.

So, you know, when trying to figure out what comes after our current collapse (and the status quo is already in collapse. Right now relatively slow motion) we have to work with all these things we don’t know. We’re making guesses from insufficient data.

Now it doesn’t mean the guesses are invalid. It just means that it’s a mighty shaky edifice, built on spindly foundations.

But that’s all we have. You go to war with the underwear you got on, even when it’s just a little scrap of satin or some really dirty bloomers. It’s what you got.

I’m going to start point out things that don’t fit the narrative and what I think they mean in future posts, to try to figure out where we land when we’re tossed in the pot.

Now, when you’re a mom you can guess the weirdest things from tiny clues. (Call it the mystery of the gallon of milk in the bathroom.)

But I’d still feel better if we had a lot more hard facts.

And some kevlar underoos.

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. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM SAM SCHALL: Vengeance from Ashes (Honor and Duty Book 1)

First, they took away her command. Then they took away her freedom. But they couldn’t take away her duty and honor. Now they want her back. Captain Ashlyn Shaw has survived two years in a brutal military prison. Now those who betrayed her are offering the chance for freedom. All she has to do is trust them not to betray her and her people again. If she can do that, and if she can survive the war that looms on the horizon, she can reclaim her life and get the vengeance she’s dreamed of for so long. But only if she can forget the betrayal and do her duty.

This new edition contains new material not included in the original release of this book.

BY EDMOND HAMILTON, WITH INTRODUCTION BY D. JASON FLEMING: Crashing Suns: Interstellar Patrol Volume 1 (Annotated): The classic pulp space opera series

Somewhere, out in the unimaginable vastness of space, a star is hurtling toward the Sun. Accelerating at ever greater speeds, it can only have been aimed by alien intelligences. With only months to go before the destruction of the entire Solar System, and all life within it, three men and one ship are sent to the destroying sun, in a desperate bid to save life as we know it…

In 1928, in the pages of Weird Tales, Edmond Hamilton published the serial Crashing Suns, initiating his Interstellar Patrol series of stories. With little concern for scientific accuracy or deep characterization, but much concern for excitement, the wonder of space travel, and blowing stuff up real good, Hamilton refined the tone first set by E.E. Smith, and his example was soon followed by others in the first great age of space opera, the pre-Golden Age of science fiction.

This collection brings together the first three Interstellar Patrol novellas, Crashing Suns, The Star-Stealers, and Within the Nebula. Volume 2 will contain the only Interstellar Patrol novel, and Volume 3 will collect the final stories of Hamilton’s first series.

This iktaPOP Media edition includes an introduction giving historical and genre context to the stories included.

FROM ERIC TESTERMAN: Taming Prehistoric (West Of Prehistoric Book 3)

Axemen. Norsemen. Vikings.

Whoever they are, Jedidiah Huckleberry Smith doesn’t care.

But with the possibility of a pardon on the table, he knows that he’d better do everything he can to prove his worth. Which means leading a civilian expedition, this time along the coast of Prehistoria, towards a mysterious warrior tribe whom the apes fear.

He ain’t going alone though.

Along for the ride are some friends… and former enemies.

But first, they are going to make a little visit to the site of their greatest defeat for some payback.

Because Prehistoria will be tamed, one way or another.

FROM LESLEE SHEU: Kumasagi, Part 1: Destin

The Kumasagi, who is in training to comfort and guide the souls of the dead, forms an accidental bond with Asta, a woman born from a sacred lake…

Najat has spent years as a senior-ranked diver, harvesting destins as they are born from pods in a sacred lake. Soon he must give up diving in order to fulfill his duties as the Kumasagi, the younger of two powerful mystics who comfort and guide the souls of the dead.

When his brother Jayan returns from exploring the uninhabited lands, Najat falls ill with a mysterious virus. An unexpected chain of events places him in the path of an errant destin—a woman newly born, yet fully grown. The destin instinctively seeks a Holy Amala, the one who can awaken her cognition and help her find her name.

When the destin finds Najat instead, they must both survive a mind-bending confrontation, which leaves them with a deep mystical bond held secret even from each other.

Kumasagi is a serialized fantasy saga told in seven parts. In Part 1: Destin, Najat’s last day as a Shakti Lake diver leads to a perilous encounter with a newborn destin—the same destin who will become his brother’s wife.

FROM AARON CUMMINS: The Cartographers Guild and the Search for the Jade Mask: An Amazing Pulp Adventure

A roller coaster ride of action and adventure in the grand pulp tradition

Kidnapped friends. A raging revolution. Dangerous mountains. And, at the end of the trail, a lost city that holds a secret worth killing for.

Ace Barrett is a daredevil pilot with iron fists and a wooden head. There’s no danger he won’t face for his friends.
Verity Hester is a research assistant with unusual skills and a secret past. She can pick locks and pockets with equal dexterity. Just don’t ask her where she picked those skills up.

Explorers have called the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan “the roof of the world” for centuries. Snow-capped peaks tower over deep, dark valleys. Visitors to the Pamirs face extreme weather, dangerous slopes, and deadly creatures.

The year is 1922. When two members of a mapping expedition are kidnapped by raiders, the members of the Cartographers Guild will stop at nothing to get them back. The explorers follow the trail into the uncharted mountains and face doom at every turn, while their missing companions are forced to brave ancient dangers to locate a legendary treasure. If bandits or traps don’t kill them, the mountains will. Their crusade leads to an impossible lost city—one no archaeologist would believe—and the home of the fabled jade mask.

Will the explorers save their friends, or will they die while searching for the jade mask?

Fans of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and Allan Quatermain will love the high adventure and exotic settings visited by the Cartographers Guild.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: By the Light of the Moon

Aatu is eighteen years old, a respectable landowner, and about to marry the girl he loves. The south coast of Finland provides everything his little village requires.

It’s a peaceful life, until a band of ex-Crusaders land on the shore. With the harsh winter and lean times approaching, they cannot be allowed to stay for long. When their priests disturb things best left alone, Aatu fears a minor annoyance will become a disaster.

Aatu’s people turn to the old ways to fight the enemy, to teeth and claws instead of swords and spears. Though they are outnumbered and unused to fighting, Aatu is about to discover that wild wolves are not the most fearsome predators in this land, and even the most peaceful people can become ferocious in defense of the ones they love.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Cross-Time Kamaitachi (Timelines Universe Book 5)

I did not land here as a warrior, but a warrior I so soon became . . .

One moment, Dr. Yukiko Yamaguchi was in her high-tech singularity research lab in California, busily adjusting an electronically-leaky fitting playing hell with her instrument readings.

The next moment, she was falling through space, and landing hard in a wilderness area she would quickly discover was her family’s ancient stomping grounds in Japan – but with an apocalyptic twist.

A hundred years later, there would be legends of a great yōkai, a demon, whom some called a kamaitachi – a sort-of whirlwind, weasel-like creature with blades for claws, which catches up unwary humans and slices their skin. But this kamaitachi is no ordinary yōkai – rather, she is

The Cross-Time Kamaitachi

FROM DOROTHY GRANT: Blood, Oil and Love (Combined Operations Book 2)

In a colony world desperate for resources, a search for new reserves reveals a shadow war!

Lizzes Olsen is a newly minted petrogeologist researching the untapped potential of places on her planet even terraforming overlooked. Unfortunately, the site she’s found is deep in enemy-occupied territory. The same enemy is funding the radical eco-terrorism that turned her university toxic, and training terrorists to kill the Empire’s geophysicists and geologists. Between bombings at home and being hunted abroad, Lizzes’ career, and her life, are in danger.

On the other hand, she has the unlikeliest of allies: a fairy god-Gunny Sergeant, and a very determined Imperial Recon soldier named Twitch who’s out to make her his very own happily ever after. If it takes a hecatomb of her enemies to get her down the aisle, they’re going to make it happen…

FROM T. L. KNIGHTON: The Last Champion (The Champion’s Cycle Book 1)

When the kingdom of Altria falls before an expansionist lord, the champion Korr is tasked with spiriting off the next in line to the throne as well as a princess who could be used to legitimize the duke’s claim to the throne. Joined by his childhood friend, one of the legendary Rangers of Altria, Korr seeks shelter with the man who trained him to fight many long years ago.

Korr is charged with raising the young king and readying him to take back his kingdom, but a chieftain of the Bohgan people becomes something of an obstacle to that purpose. Can Korr keep King Darvos and Princess Lauranna safe?

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.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: COMPLAIN

*Yes I know I promised noodling on what comes next. But you know what? I can noodle next week. Put your hands together and give the man who needs no introduction a warm ATH welcome – SAH*

Principles Are A Grand Thing – A Guest Post – by John Ringo

This was pulled from a long twitter thread on the subject of the PRINCIPLES! Crowd and their insistence that DeSantis shouldn’t have lead a charge against Disney, ‘Don’t call them groomers! That’s naughty!’ because PRINCIPLES!

And I’m going to use Dien Bien Phu as an example.

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

At Dien Bien Phu, the French Foreign Legion was slowly surrounded by the Viet Min. The Communists slowly took high ground position after high ground position. At first the French tried occasionally to push them out and occasionally succeeded.

But eventually the Viet had all the high ground with artillery sited on the base.

At first the shelling was a nuisance. Then it got heavier. More and more guns, more anti-aircraft.

Eventually, the French were pounded into surrender.

The Left has been ‘boiling the frog’ for a long time and it has mostly been by weaponizing empathy around ‘cultural issues.’ The Dems have always been win/lose against Republicans but the Left has taken over every major cultural high ground. Academia. Media. Entertainment. Now major corporations.

And the effect has been horrible for conservatives. (And for everyone else I might add.)

‘Practically everyone with a PhD is a progressive! So that shows we’re smarter than you stupid conservatives!’

For decades it has been a major pain in the ass to be a conservative on a college campus. It was bad in the 1980s AT UGA. ‘If you believe in God you’re too stupid to be a scientist.’

If you create a massively hostile environment for people, deliberately destroy their career, you don’t get to then say ‘We’re the smart ones cause we have all the advanced degrees.’

You don’t get to say ‘We’re the only creators because no conservatives can write’ when you deliberately ensure that cons can’t get any awards.

Except that’s exactly what the Left does.

And, remember, lack of a college degree on average cuts long term earnings substantially. Which means less money on the right all things being equal. If you look at the graph of right wing money vs left over time the right has been losing more and more ground. Which is one of the few reasons the Left has been able to advance. It’s sure as hell not their insane, failed, policies.

The Right are the French, being continually bombarded. By Marxists at the least if not communists. The Left has all the high ground. We’re damned near at the point we’re going to be forced to surrender. And we’re at Will To Power. The Left has gotten so powerful, it’s openly defiant of any ‘norms’ or ‘equality’ or even laws.

When the Left burned cities, 99% got a slap on the wrist and rarely jail time. Cons go wandering around the capital and they get a vast panoply of human rights violations against them. Obama was the most corrupt administration in recent history except Biden. But they don’t get investigated. Cons get dragged out of their house in the middle of the night by SWAT teams and shown off to the media over obscure regulations. Trump was investigated repeatedly and illegally for things that were never even CONSIDERED worthy of investigation in previous administrations.

Hillary’s pay to play scams are fine. A conservative gets a parking ticket and they’re destroyed.

Why? Why does the Left get away with all of this? Why does nobody stop them?

James Carville said it recently in the reverse: ‘Nobody is afraid of the Democrats!’

Nobody has been afraid of the Republicans in my LIFETIME. Lois Lerner can laugh at a congressional committee the Republicans are running and gets away with it. Strosz can smirk and preen. Bureaucrats and businessmen flat out lie to Republican leadership and nothing happens.

But they don’t do that to Democrats. Why?

Because if you do, the Left will kill you. They will f’ing DESTROY YOU.

See Joe the Plumber or any number of other examples of ‘nobodies’ that were destroyed for questioning the Left.

So why doesn’t the Right (metaphorically) kill people who disrespect their leadership? Why do the bureaucrats and businesses think they can screw over the Right but not the Left?

PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

The PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! crowd has been a Conservative Surrender Chorus for as long as I can remember.

You can’t attack a bureaucracy that is treating Republicans like something under their shoe! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

You can’t cut funding to academia just because they’re tweeting #KillAllRepublicans. PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

You can’t smack down a company that involves itself, overtly and partisanly, in politics! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

Why?

It goes back to Buckley and National Review.

Buckley set out to create a ‘new’ conservative movement after HUAC and McCarthy burned out. They would purge the icky John Birch, anti-communist, Goldwater wing of the party and campaign on PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

‘Take the high road.’ ‘If you get into the mud with a pig you get covered in mud and only the pig enjoys it.’

If you take the high road, you’re silhouetting yourself and you’re just going to get shot.

If you don’t get in the mud with the pig, it takes you out at the knees and gores nine kinds of stuff out of you.

But PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

Which got us to here. Teachers are openly grooming kids and convincing them they’re… something they are not. Children are being permanently chemically castrated for kicks and money. Two weeks to flatten the curve turned into two years of random medical tyranny. The sitting President that most represented the Right, far more than the eGOP, was investigated over a hoax THAT THE FBI KNEW WAS A HOAX.

The list goes on and on.

We’re in the bunkers, being pounded by artillery. Every time some leader on the Right tries to break out, tries to rally the troops, they get bombarded by fire from every direction.

Reagan was constantly bombarded. Newt to the point he was destroyed. Tea Party was taken out by investigations and the IRS refusing to process their paperwork. Then the leadership was audited to death.

We could fight that. We could rally round a flag. But the worst part. The part that is absolutely INFURIATING, is the Surrender Chorus.

YOU CAN’T FIGHT BACK! THAT’S ICKY! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

Stay in the bunker. Learn to cope. The dinner parties are loverly.

I’m sick to death of the principles crowd. David French, leader of the Conservative Surrender Chorus, once tweeted “If I supported Trump, I’d never be invited to another dinner party.”

If your politics is based on whether you get invites to dinner parties, you don’t have ‘Principles’. You have the opposite.

We’re in the bunkers being bombarded. We’re Dien Bin Phu. We’re Mariupol. We’re overrun and bleeding to death.

But the worst part. The absolute worst. Is the TrueConservatives that every time we start to take a position quite frankly stab us in the back shouting PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES!

If you’re more worried about PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! than @libsoftiktok being doxed, if you’re more worried about PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! PRINCIPLES! than a mulit-billion dollar supposedly ‘family friendly’ corporation with loads of largesse given to it by the taxpayers coming out, very publicly, in favor of chemical castration of children…

Then you can take those principles and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

And when the Left learns to fear the Right, when the woke corporation boards gulp and go ‘Okay, we’ll stay out of it’, when the bureaucracy comes to heel…

Then you can be nice. Then you can take the high road.

Until then…

DRIVE YOUR ENEMIES BEFORE YOU! TAKE THE TALLY OF THEIR SLAIN AND THE LAMENTATION OF THEIR WOMEN!

And, yes, salt the earth.

When that is done, we can have a discussion about ‘principles.’

Suddenly the word “Gerontocracy” is in everyone’s lips, as though they’d woken up this morning and realized our leadership is old beyond reason.

They’re not wrong. But they’re also not right. I mean, there’s old people and old people. And certain tendencies of old people do make the situation very perilous. As does the speed at which society is moving coupled with an older leadership. But then, since I was about 35, our society as been setup to eat the seed corn.

It’s essential to understand this, as well as to understand that while this is a side effect of the baby boom, it is not the boomers fault. (I will reserve the right to stone most boomers in politics and the media, but they’ve done that to themselves already, which is what causes our problem.) The fault is not in the culture (though some of the culture is the result of it) but of the giant, undisgested lump of elephant moving through the snake.

In a way — pardon digression, still on prednisone, which makes my thoughts spaghetti-like — it would have been better if the SF writers of the mid century had been right, and the boom had become the new normal, with large generations forever more. No, we wouldn’t be that overpopulated, and we might have found our way to the stars out of the fear of being so. But more importantly, it wouldn’t have made the boom a singular event that distorted society and economics for… will be a century before it’s all done.

We’ve had sudden and drastic expansions in population before — the renaissance — and it normally leads to more productivity, new lands discovered, etc.

But this was an anomalous big lump of people moving through. Bigger than before, and bigger than after. It’s hilarious that they’ve claimed half the sixties for the boom, because it’s so clearly and plainly wrong. I was born in 62 and moved through life in the shadow of the baby boomers who set the rules. They set the rules not by virtue of being bossy (okay, I also want to stone most of my boomer teachers “you teach me more than I teach you.” “Good. Give me a share of your salary.”) but because “most people in the population are in this age range” means that advertising, production, and accommodations for the stage of life you’re in caters to that big lump.

So, when I was in my twenties and just getting married, the big TV series was “thirty something” and all about having small children (which was treated like no generation had ever done it, ever, but that’s TV and marketing.) And SF magazines said no one under 35 (later 40) could possibly be experienced enough to write science fiction.

Actually what my micro-generation, stuck somewhere between boomers and Xers got to experience was a bizarrely foreshortened adulthood (Probably part of the reason I feel very weird with turning 60 this year, let alone with being considered a “venerable figure” in my field.)

My experience will do, but I’ll mention others of similar bend for other industries. You see, I started trying to get published at 23. And yes, okay, I had extra challenges. But when I was 31 I read a huge magazine editor talking about how no one under 35 could have enough experience to write professionally. A couple of years later the other major magazine editor upped that to forty. I got published at 35. By the time I was 40, the echo boomers were starting to come of age and scribbling. Suddenly editors and agents were telling me that I was too OLD to write, and they needed to buy these highly-privileged, never-lived kiddies “to connect with the young people.” (No, that didn’t work. Most of the ones accepted and pushed to the hilt then have already left the field, or are scrounging at the margins, because these fetuses — not even the age, but age and extreme privilege — knew nothing of the world but mommy and daddy’s money and the wokeness they’d been taught.)

In other fields, I have friends who overshadowed by the big-group-of-boomers, were treated as “the young kid” well into their fifties, and now suddenly find themselves being called “the old man/woman” and finding they are too old to be affordable.

This is partly because the indigestible elephant was not only very large, but also had longer productive lives than previous generations. (Part science advance, part necessity. You can’t support that many not-working old people, and expecting it was semi-nuts.)

So that is one huge source of the distortion. Demographics are like the law of gravity. They influence everything. The influence might be stronger or weaker, but it is always there. And a huge demographic disruption will touch everything.

But unfortunately (or perhaps inevitably, because of the factors that brought it about) the baby boom happened at a time when the industrial society had reached the idea that centralized/mass/from the top down everything was better. Which not coincidentally also obsessed on the “rule by experts.”

This and the fact that a larger proportion of boomers went to college than any previous generation, created the idea that once they graduated and worked for a few years, they were “the experts.” (Even true in relation to younger people. Not older, but again college and Chesterton’s fence was gone for good and being trampled over.)

The fact that the colleges at the time were already a stomping ground of Marxism made it worse, because Marxism is “revealed truth” (A cult without a god, you could call it) which means that it can’t be penetrated with logic and observation. Which means it can’t adapt. And minds trained and possessed by it cannot adapt, and cannot change.

Years ago, I heard that it’s impossible to change your politics/religion/etc after forty five, no matter how big the event that discomfirms your beliefs.

I’m not sure that article was right. In the last few years, I’ve witnessed much older people become red pilled, blue pilled or black pilled well past 45.

I think what the article was observing — it was written shortly after the fall of communism — was that those who had bought whole heartedly into the communist “just so” story didn’t seem able to snap out of it.

I think that’s because Communism is such an appealing “logical” system, which works fine in a closed mental loop, but melts at a touch of reality. Those who committed to it because inured to reality and sacrificed everything to protect the beautiful system in their minds.

So, yeah, nothing could penetrate.

Anyway…. demographics.

Right now the demographics are grim. And by that I mean “Will our heroes and heroines escape a civilizational crash?” grim.

Look, we don’t actually know how many people there are, but if I had to guess, and from just the discrepancies I’ve seen in my life (like when Portugal supposedly had 7 kids per woman, I knew two families with more than 2, and heck, most people only had one, already, in the early sixties. And granted we were near the city, but we were not affluent, nor were our neighbors. And the government at the time actually paid per child. Just an example.) I’d be shocked if we have half the world population the UN guesses at.

That a population crash is already under way and has been for the last 20 years or so is the only way to explain some truly bizarre things going on in the economy. (And unfortunately if it’s correct, real estate is not a good long term harbor for capital.)

But the point is that if a population crash is already underway in most of the world, of course you’d have a gerontocracy. The boomers are now elderly, and they are still the largest group in the population.

BTW, this is all relative. BGE says, and he’s right — though I think our ingenuity and our adaptability is what saves us — that there’s hope for the US, not so much for the rest of the world. However, my mom visiting 20 years ago was overwhelmed by how many children there were around everywhere. They weren’t that many. One of my alarm bells is that we’ve normally lived in neighborhoods with our contemporaries, but my kids never had the “dense pack” of neighborhood kids I had growing up. Even accounting for different child rearing, I could usually count one or two kids in an eight block radius. And most of their classrooms were half-empty. However, by comparison, yeah, the US was hopping with elementary school age kiddies.

Does the third world have more kids? I don’t know. I haven’t been out of the country in person in the last few years, except to Europe.

The picture that demographers paint is of younger countries, but with birth rate falling at a clip. But I have reasons to suspect this, beyond “These countries couldn’t count their population with two hands and a seeing eye dog.”

Look, local wars, terrorism, incidents of violence have fallen worldwide. There’s fewer “settle this with fists” even in the Middle East and/or Latin cultures.

Yeah, yeah, we’re so much more civilized. Oh, wait. No. The only thing that would do that is the fall in young males. It’s pretty much a demographic game.

Why hasn’t Europe erupted? No young people. That it’s got bad enough for people my age to lob Smart Cars at the Arc du Triumph tells you how bad it is, but that no one has been ala lanterned tells you there aren’t enough young people to commit violence.

But even in the middle East or in the East, these things start and fizzle. Things get bad enough that they start, but then they don’t…. continue. Because there aren’t enough young people, and revolution is a young (mostly, despite female contributions and the fact the person writing this was a hellion) man’s game.

There has been a distinct lack of rioting, looting, fighting in the streets all over the world, for at least twenty years, and falling fast. Oh, sure, it’s happened, but compared to historic norm, it’s much lower than it should be. And in the US it’s largely astro turfed, and the young people are paid to riot. It’s a ninetofive. It’s a job. And there aren’t enough of them for it to mean much.

However note that astroturf rioting is enough to scare Supreme Court Justices, who are very old and whose view of the world comes from a past filled with youngsters, who could ignite a civil war if they got upset enough.

Which is where we come back to gerontocracy.

The world has more or less always been ruled by the old. Young rulers taking over and being good was a shock.

But there are two elements to this: their old weren’t as old as our old. And they had more young people to keep the system in check.

So, yeah, commies and others dispute this — rolls eyes — but I want them to take a hike (off a short peer.) As much in shock as I am at turning 60 this year, and as much in bad shape as I feel (I really need to recover from the move, and exercise more, and live better) sixty isn’t what it used to be.

I still tell people this, and I don’t know if it makes any sense, but when people over sixty — even sixty two — died in the village, it was “Well, it’s sad, but he/she was old.” I met my first eighty year old when I was in my teens. And he looked worse than Joe Biden, and more like we expect a 100 year old to be today. 100 year olds were rare enough that my dad doubted they existed and thought they were just bad record keeping. But about every five years or so, they interviewed a 100 year old on TV.

If someone dies under oh, 75 these days, we hear “That’s terrible. What happened?” (I’m starting to hear it for 80 to 85. Unless the person was in bad shape or known to be ill.) My parents are late eighties/early 90s, and living by themselves, a pretty much normal life. And if my friends in healthcare are correct, there are a lot of 100 year olds in and out of the hospital, and up to about 120. (Used to be thought 114 was the hard limit, but that’s getting pushed.)

Now, of course, there’s great individual variety. We lost our first friend of natural causes five years ago. And some are wrecks in their sixties and seventies. (Hello, Brandon.) But it seems to be fewer and fewer people undergoing that.

In fact, due to the elephant in the snake, old-age health care and ways to stay productive and active and independent longer are likely to improve markedly in the next ten years, unless it all crashes.

Problems with this?

Well…. Look, one of the reasons I’m sympathetic to student loan forgiveness (one of my kids has significant ones, but we also paid a large amount for each of them, so it’s not that. Also, he has a plan to pay back, and if all else fails we will do it. We also have a plan. Belt and suspenders. But we’re rare.) is that it became clear to me thirty years ago as tuition started to climb that it was a way to farm the young to keep the aging elephant in the snake in comfort in its old age. It only got worse. (Yeah, yeah, massive debt, blah blah, blah. My feeling is we gave more than that to the Taliban. And don’t get me started on the stimulus. Forgive the damn debts, already, so maybe some kids can have kids while there’s time, okay? Yeah, it will cause some universities to crash. And this is bad, because?)

The problem is that society distorts to serve the most populous element. And that there aren’t enough young people to keep it in check.

The problem is that our old are very old indeed. Your view of what the world is like is set somewhere around your youth. This is why we continually hear women whine about lack of opportunity for women, or publishers rebel against the eternal (and largely imaginary) fifties.

The supreme court was easily scared by antifa rent-a-riot because the picture in their minds is of the sixties, with a vast number of (largely leftist-indoctrinated) youth who could set the country on fire.

The congressional dems and not a few gop are convinced that socialism is the future, because the picture in their heads is the fifties and sixties, full of USSR agit prop.

And so it goes. Remember that a proportionately large number of the voting public is that age too, and stuck with that mind-image.

Yeah, they’re trying to import millions of youngsters, willy-nilly, forgetting that people are not widgets, these people are net drains in a tech society, and will largely leave, as we already saw in the early tens, because it soon becomes obvious there’s nothing for them here.

(Also they haven’t realized yet a lot of the youngsters coming in are vaccinated against socialism. Don’t tell them. I’m hoping those stay.)

So, what does it all mean?

It means we’re eating our seed corn. My situation, being the youngster until I was suddenly “too old” is nothing to my kids’ generation. I suspect, given improvements in medicine, they will be “the kid” well into their seventies.

It means a slowing down in innovation and more importantly, problems adapting to change. (Our governing organs are already having issues with it.)

It means an ossifying of structures that frankly are already not working.

It means having fewer and fewer kids, because the time you can afford them recedes to the farther and farther future. And thus worsening the situation.

So, what can you do?

If you’re young enough? Have a kid. Have two. Have three. Dear lord, I beg you with tears in my eyes, have a dozen! And I’m desperate enough to say if you’re not married, have a kid anyway, even if artificial insemination is not really licit in most religions. Find a friend to help you raise the kid. Find a mutual support system, and do it.

The future is made of people, and we don’t have enough of them. We need — need — to turn this around, or civilization will crash hard.

Ignore the nattering of the idiots about how having kids is for the dumb, or kids are problematic. Stuff a sock in the lecturing fools’ mouths, and HAVE ANOTHER KID. Right now, there is no more important work. The only work as important is raising and educating those kids to be productive, decent and able to think. (I’m thinking of the line in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress: “Had kids, paid their own way.” That ladies, gentlemen and octopi, is success.)

Of course, I can’t contribute to that fight. To be fair, even when I theoretically could, I was very, very (supremely) bad at it. As in, fertility of a small rock. Otherwise there would be eleven of them running around now. (Minimum.)

So, what I plan to do is keep my mind as flexible as possible, with new books, new learning, new experiences.

And living long, getting meaner and crazier every year, like the boss in Puppet Masters.

On the serious side: staying independent and not a burden on anyone as long as I can, encouraging young people to have kids, and do my best to pass on my belief in individual liberty.

Gerontocracy is a problem, but the peculiar jaws of our dilemma are more fine-grained than that, and might not happen again for a long, long time.

And sooner or later Pelosi will run out of young Chinese blood for transfusions, and go the way of all flesh. As will all the other corruptocrats.

And the world will change.

How will it change? I’m not sure. So I’ll poke at it tomorrow and see if anything spits out.

Meanwhile, you go and build, and think and remain as flexible as you can.

(Exits to the tune of “staying alive.”)

I want to tell you about something extremely weird that happened to me in 2019 — well before the Covidiocy and the Great Election steal — and which has me profoundly uncomfortable, because it’s woo woo stuff, and I don’t like woo woo stuff.

It has however been the only thing to keep me going since then and without it I’d be the blackest of the black pilled. However, this was one of those maybe not part the red sea (there was no physical manifestation) but by the very nature of it undeniable and by coming when it did, puzzling then and “Oh,” afterwards.

I’ll also point out that I know at least three other people who had similar experiences at around the same time, and took it better than I, because they are more comfortable with faith.

Some of you have rebuked me in the past (in private, thank you) for not talking about religion or my relationship with himself. There are many reasons I don’t do that, the most important being that this is not a religious blog. I don’t have issues with religious blogs, but this one deals with secular issues of society, culture and governance. Are all those influenced by religion? Sure. But in a religiously pluralistic society such as ours, I can’t convince anyone — and will chase many otherwise willing people away — by screaming things I believe and they don’t.

Like there is no arguing with taste, there is no arguing with faith. You either believe or you don’t. And there is nothing sadder than someone trying to convince others by repeatedly quoting a book or a tradition they don’t believe in. And it’s probably sadder when it’s my own. You can dispute within groups of believers by quoting basis of the faith, but outside? It’s somewhere between hollow and silly. Yeah, yeah, convert, etc.

That brings me to the second reason: I don’t particularly feel called to convert people to my faith. I will pray for those I love who I think need Himself in their lives, but that miracle is beyond me. And please don’t yell at me, I do realize it’s heretical in oh, so many ways, but I believe Himself finds a way of reaching even those who believe objectively harmful doctrines. I believe, in the beautiful phrasing of a Greek Orthodox monk to whose lectures a non-believing friend introduced me years ago, that “The doors of hell are locked on the inside.”

The third reason is. however, the most important: I am not a woman of faith.

Stop staring at me. I am not, naturally. I dislike that which I can’t see or touch. The irrational and miraculous annoys the living daylights out of me. And it annoys me whether it comes from the faith (which with some interesting admixture. No really) I was raised, or from Bob the sun worshiper who has made a shrine of rocks in his yard and makes fires there in summer, and dances around it in animal pelts. (Dude, I DID live in Manitou Springs for 7? years. What part of that is unclear.)

It annoys me because in my back brain it’s a breaking of the rules.

On top of that my religion is painfully legalistic, or it is as it was taught to me, and I’m not one of those people. Even if I TRIED dotting every i and crossing every t I’d fail twice a week and ten times on Sunday. It bugs the living daylights out of me, in the same way that it bugs the living daylights out of me to learn German: Three genders, randomly assigned? What do you mean Casus? If I have to solve quadratic equations to say “Good Morning” I’m just going to hit every native speaker with the dictionary and run screaming into the night. Your Casus is Casus Belli, your language is an offense against normal people, and I will only learn it under protest, and then forget it quickly.

This is not, by the way, an invitation to discuss my faith or lack thereof, much less to try to convert me to a new and exciting faith. I follow the religion grandma taught me. Badly. And mostly when I pray, I hear Himself chuckling in the back of my head. Because I’m the plucky comic relief.

I’m just trying to explain my relationship with the whole thing, so that you understand why what I received is both unlikely, and why I trust it, despite everything.

So, because I am what I am (Popeye of me) and because Himself is what He is — and I do believe in Him and that He’s an author because nothing that doesn’t have self-directed intelligence could be this perverse (Yes, I just called the Creator perverse. Yes, I remain uncharred. You will most certainly deal) and no creature who ISN’T an author could have this disgraceful sense of humor and plotting (yep, still uncharred. DEAL) — I sometimes get …. miracles. Miracles, “seeings”, answers to prayers I didn’t make but would if I knew to do it.

I can explain away ninety percent of them. I also have “religious nerd” friends I hit up to make sure I haven’t wandered into seriously diabolical stuff, or at least very evil, particularly when this stuff involves dreams, because I’ve had some doozies. (One of those died, but this doesn’t save him from my discussing it with him. He doesn’t answer audibly. I’m not that crazy, but I still tell him about it.)

Ninety percent? Well, I can explain them away so they don’t bother me. Not that the explanation needs to be very sane or make tons of sense. A lot of devolves to sun spots and weather ballons as explanations for UFOs. They make no sense, but they allow me to ignore that for just a moment something that shouldn’t have happened happened or was given/granted to me. And then I can sleep at night. Yes, I am aware I’m playing a game with myself. Deal.

Now I get these…. once a year or so, not always on matters of high import. Or on matters of high import to anyone else. And they break causal/logical sense. I only refer to them as coming from the Creator, or G-d, or whatever you care to call them because they seem to all come from one…. well, person. And there’s a personality.

If you’re not a believer, you could think it’s some logic of the multiverse. In fact, we have a broad category of things that have happened to us that are either miracles, or time/multiverse travelers playing pranks. And for them to be miracles, it would need to be necessary which we don’t see.

Examples and the first was beneficial: when we moved from an apartment in Rockhill SC to a house in Charlotte NC, we made three u-haul trips, and cleaned the apartment. We were 24. And we carried everything/did everything alone.

By the time we finished, we were beyond exhausted. On the last trip to Charlotte, after returning the u-haul, I realized I didn’t have my purse. I remembered clearly that we’d left it behind, in the one piece of furniture in the place: a sofa, which we were abandoning/leaving behind, with agreement from the complex. I made some exclamation that included “purse” and my husband said “I know. You left it on the sofa in Rockhill. Tell you what, we’ll call the landlords and go get it at the office in the morning. I just can’t tonight.” Both of us clearly remembered the purse, and where it had been left.
Imagine our surprise when we opened the door and the purse was dropped on the floor in front of the door, in the new house.
And yeah, I explain these things way easily “We both misremembered” and go on with life.

Other things are harder to explain and most fall under “gremlin activity.” Like, my husband’s contact lenses disappeared from the closed box. This is …. He’d worn them for ten years, and trust me, it was a ritual. There’s no way he didn’t put them in the box. But they disappeared, forcing him to drive an hour to the eye doctor with a seriously outdated prescription. (Yeah, it could maybe be good, because it delayed him, maybe there was an accident if he’d gone at the regular time, or gone straight to work, but frankly, that requires a lot of special begs.)

The others are really, really stupid things. For a while there, my phone and my kindle disappeared and appeared in randomly strange places. Earning me a reputation for being a total airhead. And then it stopped, suddenly. The tell for “this wasn’t right” is that the places they appeared in made no sense whatsoever, or were places I’d already looked in ten times. (And by that I mean places like a vast, clean coffee table, where nothing could hide.)

The other week, we spent a day, both of us, looking for a relatively large piece for an essential machine. I’d carried it from the bedroom to the bathroom, and it disappeared. Both of us looked all over. I ordered a replacement. That night, my husband was brushing his teeth and glanced at the top of the hamper, where it was sitting in splendor and visible glory.

Those might be miracles, but I have no idea how. There is no actual “intelligence” or sense behind them. Weirdly they disturb me less than those that have intelligence and sense, because it’s just one of those “there are holes in reality. Meh.” My husband has a short hand for these events. It’s “Frigging time travelers collecting souvenirs.” (He assumes the supervisor makes them bring some back.)

But anyway, if you want to believe these are all random acts of the multiverse, I won’t argue with you.

I’ll just say the very few things that happen for which I have no explanation not even a bad one, tend to be “true” even if sometimes you have to wind through a weird road to get there.

A lot of these are knowledge, sudden certainty, strange dreams (there is a feel to dream that’s “true” even though one of them I refuse to believe is, because it’s more mystical than I like to believe and would also imply I’ve been called to something important. (And the one of you who has heard me gnaw on that dream like a dog with a bone can stop giggling right now. It’s not becoming, and sets a bad example for the kids.)

They rarely come when I’m praying, or if they do, they come about something unrelated to what I’m praying for, if that makes sense.

And when I say “I heard” understand I have never yet had an auditory hallucination. I “heard” refers to a thought in my head that isn’t mine. I don’t know how else to explain it. And I realize that sounds crazier than hearing voices. Mind you, most of the time I don’t “hear” words. I “feel” a train of thought.

One time I “heard” something clearly was when I first met Dan. For various reasons — no seriously, he had had dental surgery, hadn’t showered in two days (I still haven’t broken him of not showering when he feels sick. I think it’s counterproductive, but it’s his thing) and was high as a kite on pain killers. He was also having a massive acne outbreak — he didn’t at all look attractive. But the minute I saw him, I heard in the back of my mind “This is your future husband.”

It took us four years, relationships to other people, etc. etc., but dang it, yeah he was. (The miracle there, is that I didn’t run screaming into the night. Probably only thing that prevented it is that it was the middle of the day.)

There are others, like a sudden certainty younger son would be all right (Back then. Now I just worry.)

Or knowing to the moment when grandma died, and also that she was all right and was with all her beloved animals, including the turtle, even though my annoying family hadn’t told me she was sick.

These things, when they hit, can’t be doubted.

Call it my back brain adds up to something that my conscious brain has no words for, if you insist on not believing in woo woo stuff, which I really wish I could do, and still try.

Anyway, in this case, my “sense/feeling” in 2019 came while I was praying, but I was not praying about this specifically. I was worried, but about much more personal stuff, such as where money would come from to do some needed repairs.

And out of the blue I got…. a train of thought and a certainty.

I knew the election would be stolen (which is why I was so sure through 2020) and I knew very bad people would get power. The train of thought was “Worse than FDR LBJ and Woodrow Wilson rolled into one and dipped in Nancy Pelosi.” And I knew it would be bad, very bad.

But I also knew with absolute, unwavering certainty, that America would not only survive, but would come out of this more America than ever.

Perhaps not the perfect constitutional republic — I think that worked for like an hour after the ink dried — but closer to it than we’ve seen in the last 200 years or so. With more freedom, more prosperity and more individual ability to pursue happiness than ever.

I got the certainty that “past the bad times” the republic not only lived, but it was a golden era. And that I would see it. Or at least the beginnings of it.

And it was absolutely, unwaveringly CERTAIN.

Have I tried to explain that episode away?

Am I still me? Of course I have. But there is a rock-hard certainty to it that can’t even be chipped away, no matter how depressed I get.

And btw, the friends who were vouchsafed almost exactly the same, though most are of different religions and one tries really hard to be a non-believer AREN’T HELPING ME EXPLAIN IT AWAY.

Maybe it’s an amiable delusion, to help me weather the storm. Maybe my devious subconscious is so smart that it foresaw what was coming and gave me this, so I wouldn’t die of despair.

Sure. But I know my subconscious really well, and if it were behind this, it would have — instead — filled me with the illusion that there were time-travelers hiding in old train stations and then forced me to write a novel about it.

Reassurance and kindness are not in its range of abilities.

And at any rate, it won’t let explain itself away that way.

So, today I was going to talk about the consequences of gerontocracy. (Yeah, there are some. It was to be called “Eating our seedcorn” And then I was going to have a post about what comes after. Because I don’t know, so I like to explore and poke at it.)

Instead, as I was thinking about what comes after I got a strong feeling I should write this.

Do I think it was a divine command?

No. I think this is my subconscious doing some weird math of its own, and figuring that at least one of you needed to hear this.

I have no clue which one of you. But now I’ve said it, and I hope it helps.

Gerontocracy — or in this case kakistocratic gerontocracy — tomorrow.

I have boxes to unpack, and younger son is tapping his foot and crossing his arms at me.

Wally wally wally.

See you tomorrow. And don’t send the men in white coats for me. I can act completely sane. Sometimes.

Every Generation a blast from the past from march 9, 2020

May I ask whose brilliant idea it was to indoctrinate new generations on the need to have fewer children?

No, no, don’t answer. I’ve read a lot of science fiction written in the mid twentieth century, and I know.  The thinking parts of the culture in the dawn of the current era of abundance had time and leisure to get all panicky about excess population and how we were killing the planet, and a lot of other rather emo nonsense.

Also I went to school shortly after the middle of the twentieth century, and was lectured in every class about how the human race needed to find a way to stagnate…. er… to “keep population the same or reduce it.”

The only good thing about that rank stupidity was that it was marginally smarter than the tripe they pulled on my kids, where they tried to convince the kids to sign agreements they would never reproduce when they were thirteen.

Future generations, if there are any, will stare in awe at our magnificent suicide, and at the strange assumption that because we’d just had a baby boom, future generations would continue to reproduce at the same level…. forever.  Again, I think it was the ease of communication, and the exponential growth of a class that worked with their minds.

The Bible says something about the heart being deceitful…. but it has nothing on the mind.  Things you teach kids when they are very young tend to be unquestioned, unexamined and forever believed.

One of the things the last few generations have believed with absolute panic certainty is that each of us needs to do his/her part to REDUCE the human population.

The other thing they have believed with credulous certainty is that the population figures from the UN are accurate, instead of being — at BEST — guesstimations, and accurately at worst a steaming pile of bull of excreta completely imaginary.

To an extent I absolve my fellow Americans, at least those born and raised in the US for believing the smelly poo the UN numbers, because they are, after all, residents in one of the most efficiently organized countries in the world.  Stop laughing.  No, seriously, stop laughing.  Even the vaunted German efficiency (and I’m not sure they were ever that efficient, except they believed they were and projected that image) has decayed markedly.  And as for the British, please don’t go there.  No, I don’t think they were ever that efficient to begin with.

The thing is that as sideways and upside down as we are, over our vast territory, particularly when coordination and central organization are needed (or intrude, anyway, as we’ve seen in the case of tests/vaccines/etc.  Question: How many of these unexploded IED of uneeded and inefficient centralization did the last administration leave submerged in the law code, ready to blow us to kingdom come at an unexpected event? Don’t answer that. I like to sleep at night. And the problem was that these were the children of the mid century who refuse to believe that centralized isn’t better. Or perhaps they’re just pigs for power, greedy to get their command on.) we do remarkably well. Not great, but remarkably well. Compared to everyone else, that is.

The problem is people born and raised in America tend to assume that this is the baseline for humanity. Having been raised in a country where the Italians and the Irish are considered self-controlled and remarkably efficient, I’m always in awe of this strange, if admittedly enchanting delusion.

I’m not a hundred percent sure while people in other countries, like, say, Portugal, think that the population “count” makes any sense.  No, I’m serious. I don’t get it. Unless it is a rock bottom assumption that EVERYONE must be more organized then them. (Bizarrely it doesn’t even begin to be true.)  I know that they tend to believe our federal government has machine-like control over every aspect of civic and cultural life in the US (no.  I’m okay. Really, I’m okay. Let me have some water so I can stop laughing and type again.)

Only this illusion allows people to believe that — what is it now? 8 billion? Yeah. It’s about as accurate as climate modeling into the far future.  Computers and GIGO rule! — population count the UN puts out.

Seriously, guys, WE who are computerized, have a civic culture where people report a lot of their stuff whether it’s needed or not (is Thomas Jefferson spinning in his grave fast enough to power all of Virginia yet?) AND where most, if not all, of our births take place in the hospital, have only the most general ideas of how many people there are in the nation.

This is because — I’m not sure when, because I haven’t looked into it — at some point our politicians realized that having MORE people in their state/districts/etc gave them more power.  And they did what they always do with things that give them more power and control. They started fudging the reckoning.

It was most blatant under Clinton and Obama — the party of unbridled governmental power! Maybe they can use that as a slogan: “Our candidate is a walking poster for the memory unit of a nursing home, but we just want power” — whose administrations both insisted that “we must add in an arbitrary — computer generated (are we sure the computers don’t have it in for us) — number of people that are “undercounted.””

Guys, I looked at the numbers they were adding at the time. I also lived in one of the cities they added numbers to. Let’s just say at that time we didn’t have nearly that many either homeless or immigrants.  Now we might have that many homeless but — hint — they were attracted at the time of pot legalization, they weren’t spontaneously generated by the sidewalks and asphalt. They came from elsewhere, where my guess is they’re still counted.

And that’s not considering most of the Latin countries south of the border are undoubtedly still counting the population we’re supposedly undercounting.

So, here’s the thing, multiply that by… well, the countries of the Earth. Our politicians have incentive built into our system (and a few bad decisions by the Supreme Court) to over count us.  That doesn’t even begin to tally the incentive that countries that are net recipients of international aid have to over count their people. Remember most of that aid is calculated per-capita.

“Oh, Sarah! But look at all those immigrants. Surely they are reproducing massively!”

<Falls on the floor laughing. Then laughs some more.

Guys, no. Those cultures are just bizarrely, massively, EXPLOSIVELY unable to provide for their people.  And the west opened their doors. My guess is that each of those immigrants is still being counted at home, too. And probably their families are much higher on paper.

There is a game which everyone has heard of and social workers and others have seen play out in real life: welfare families in certain areas “borrow” children.  I.e. some children are share over several families, to boost the numbers and the payment.  This is certainly true for a lot of the illegal immigrants, because there is no way to keep accurate records/count them.

The insanity of giving welfare to illegal immigrants is another thing that will have the future going “Did they start putting LSD in the water then?”  But it’s worse than that, it was the explosion of unimagined prosperity in the 20th century. It gave humans illusions that they could make the world into paradise, and that there was no reason not to distribute the surplus to EVERYONE.  (The world doesn’t work that way, and being given unearned wealth most destroys humans. Never mind.)

Now, why did the west open their doors?

My guess is because our leaders have some inkling of how bad things are in terms of how many people are in the upcoming generations.  My guess is that they are becoming scared, because — get this — nonexistent people cannot have children.

As much as most people like to pretend I’m crazy when I say I think our world population is already falling (why this would be any more crazy than the UN’s baseless assertion that we’re drowning in babies, I don’t know) that’s what the actions of the government of EVERY developed country are doing.

They are in a desperate fight for resources: the biggest resource of all: PEOPLE.

The west is willing to take welfare cases and illiterate peasants, in the hopes — I would guess — that their children will be productive citizens.

Except that this is the government. Centralized governments. Remember what I told you about the efficiency of such an institution?

The imagined elites composed of technocrats are so far removed from third world peasants that they don’t even GET the massive difference. They also don’t get the difference in culture. They have — after all — traveled abroad and met their counterparts, and they’re ALL the same, right? there’s no real difference, right? (I think they’d find a difference, if they married into those cultures, but never mind.)

But cultures don’t work like that. And importing vast numbers of people from dysfunctional cultures is not going to end well.  Because when you import a group the culture lingers. And these cultures are what’s technically known as fucked up non-functional. So non-functional, in fact, that they can’t provide for their new generations, even when those numbers are falling. (Look, guys, apparently women in the Middle East have used the internet to find the rhythm method and vote with their wombs.)

Socialist/welfare/”blue model” governments need ever growing populations. Their dominance came in the mid-century, when that was the assumption.  They are trying to bring in people who’ll look after the aged, and contribute to the ponzi scheme their societies have become.

But they don’t understand people very well, since I think most such technocrats are lizard beings from Alpha Centauri (well, what IS your explanation.) So they’re madly competing for WARM BODIES.  Which, since they’re being attracted with welfare and hand outs are doing nothing but collapsing the grift-and-moralizing systems faster.

That’s the good news.  The bad news is that humanity has never been in a situation where each individual family had an incentive (economic, regulatory — well, guys, when you can’t leave the precious darlings alone for more than 2hours, and can’t let them walk to the park by themselves at ten, what do you think that does — emotional and propagandistic (that climbing population)) to have fewer children; where each “blue” government in its own territory had an incentive to REDUCE population, because each citizen is a LIABILITY who will require health care, welfare, etc. etc. etc., and yet where each of those countries also desperately needed a higher and higher population every 20 years, to be able to keep existing.

I don’t even know what to say to the situation, except that the West, in this as in everything else, is forging new paths. Now, they’re new paths in self-destruction, but what the heck.

It won’t last. Whatever comes after, this won’t last. It won’t last because it is at war with itself. And the way it seems to be breaking is the people of the various countries getting annoyed at the imports who refuse to fit in. And refusing to pay for welfare.

Which …. I don’t know. And the important thing is that no one does. Between our a amazing prosperity in historical terms, falling birth rates and a completely insane would be technocratic class, the only thing I can promise you is that we’ll live in interesting times.

It took me very long to get published, compared to normal humans who set out on this path. Depending on how you look at it, from first mailing something out to first sale — at half cent a word, a short story — it took me either 13 or 16 years. Though you have to understand that most of that time I was either not writing or not submitting, because life events had overtaken me. (In that sense, I suppose life is not much different now.)

Mostly,mind you, my ever-breaking down body. (Fifty nine years of not dying and counting.) But also moves across the country, kids and other stuff that needed done. (So, as I said, normal.)

Still even at the most generous of ways of looking at it, say it took me nine years of active trying: that’s approximately three times longer than it took other people who started at the same time or shortly after to get to that same place.

Now everything is up-ended, because Indie is different, and even if you intend to be traditionally published (why dude? Rats in head?) you’d be a fool not to publish and earn n indie as soon as you can.

I actually wonder if it would have taken me less time now to make significant (or measurable, eh) money in the new path, and/or if I’d have managed it all.

There’s no way to answer that, you see. We’re creatures of our time as much as creatures of our place. No matter how American I’ve become (apparently very, judging by how I rub the birth-relatives JUST wrong) I’ll always have my roots deep in a little Portuguese place that no longer exists in any meaningful way. (And most of the people who shaped me then sleep beneath the marble in the old cemetery.)

And no matter how successful I get at indie (I will. I’m like the energizer bunny. I might slow down, but I don’t actually know how to stop) I not only came up through trad, but I came up by a path that technically didn’t exist, already, by the time I used it.

Which probably didn’t help with the speed of the breaking in, and is part of expectations, you know?

I had grown up reading about people who had broken into writing and their path to success, and it went something like “Did a bunch of odd jobs, then started writing. The writing was unsuccessful for a while, then I broke in with a short story that paid me 1/4 c a word (I can no longer remember if my first was a fourth or a half cent. Eh.) And then I sold at one cent a word. Then three cents. Then eventually pro. And then I sold a novel.”

By the time I came in, this path didn’t exist. There simply weren’t enough magazines that paid anything, much less that kind of ladder. I didn’t realize most of those people had made it in pulp days, when you made your bones in serials, even for novels.

But I didn’t know that. Being a person of a place as well as a time, I was a deep-outsider. And I didn’t know what I didn’t know. But if I were a gaming character, I’d have rolled the highest possible for stubbornness, to the point that it’s almost a super power. “Give me this granite head, and I will move mountains.”

So, having sent a first novel out and got it rejected, with a rejection I didn’t understand, I set out, cheerfully, to make my way in “as it should be done.” (In my head only, understand, but hey.)

Yes, yes, I got a personal rejection for my very first submission, and to me it was purest Chinese. The editor informed me that they would accept it if I changed the bio-engineered humans pronouns. That wasn’t possible (still isn’t, and you poor slobs will probably get the re-write of that book this year.) But more importantly, not knowing about the rats in the heads of sf/f editors (already in 85, yes) I thought it couldn’t be the REAL reason. I mean, they were somehow sparing my feelings.

So, I became convinced of two things: my language wasn’t good enough to pass for native (not actually wrong. It reads slightly stilted to me, now. But since I can’t stand outside and see myself write-by on the street, I don’t know if it was “good enough”) and that I must go in via short stories.

Now you have to understand my natural length is around 40k words. (Awkward, yes.) I had to learn to write both longer and shorter. And longer is MUCH easier.

But by gum, if I had to go via short stories, I was going to go via short stories. It took finding listings (hard at the time) for literary and little and “for the love” and it took submitting to some very sus places, but I sold something at either a quarter or a half cent, then got stuck in a half cent for a while, then sold at a cent, then…. then three cents, then, well, then it broke and I sold a novel, and started selling shorts at pro levels (6c for those who wonder) and sometimes at 10c a word. I might be the last pro to make it in that bizarre way. (If anyone ever writes my unauthorized bio, may I request you call it The Last Dirty Old Pro. “Dirty old pro” used to be what the wanna bes called us, because we’d “sold out” but in this case it fits, since I did get my hands dirty enough clawing up through the grubby levels. The equivalent of starting out on the shop floor.)

The problem, it turned out, was not my writing, nor the method of going in, and I could have saved myself time and tears if I’d understood the problem was expectations. (Still is in a way.)

People who read expect certain things. Editors and publishers expect certain things. The editor who rejected my first novel wanted the hermaphrodite characters to be “she” because that struck a blow for feminism. (It also doesn’t work. At all, not with those people.) They expected characters to act a certain way. (And boy, the “Portuguese politeness” that was ingrained then and which my characters acted like, was interpreted as passivity.) And then later, when I became published, I got hampered by the fact that my editors and publishers wanted me to write like “Latin immigrant who made it in despite everything.” Because that they could sell. But most of my characters don’t even have Portuguese names. Because frankly managing what people expect of Portuguese characters and the way those characters would be due to my deep knowledge is almost impossible. (Why I don’t write things set in Portugal. Because like translation, it is anchored in lies at both ends. Has to be to work. And I hate lying. It’s different than telling stories.)

Twice, once because the editor didn’t care, another because the editor was drunk, I was told specifically how they could make me big “write an autobiographical novel, with a bit of magic, and a lot of why you are oppressed.”

Yeah, no. I rolled plus three million for stubbornness, remember? And besides, the stories are for sale, the soul isn’t. If I am going to do something that destroys me, it might as well be driving an eighteen wheeler. (Trust me on this. Not with my coordination.)

And yes, this is one of the ways that being a white male is, as that arrant fool put it, “playing life on the easiest mode.” Sure, corporations will discriminate against you. Climbing up is hand over hand and very hard, while every woman and minority with three brain cells gets promoted or chosen ahead of you (remember I’ve been watching this for 30 years. Don’t argue. I’m an outsider. I see clearly) but at least you know the expectations in other people’s heads, including the idea that you’ve had it easy. And in writing you can write whatever crosses your head that day. No one wants to fit you into the box in THEIR heads.

I wouldn’t say it’s easy, precisely. But the expectations are manageable.

But it was the expectations that were the stumbling block; and it is a characteristic of those deep-expectations that they can’t even be voiced most of the time, and you’re not really aware of your own, much less other people’s.

Figuring out at least some of it helps greatly as a writer, because you can play with it. This is why I refer to writing as playing a chess game with yourself, and the other side is pretending to be the writer. (Um…. if/when I get to teaching, I should do one on expectations, and how to study them and set them up.)

It helps as a human, because you can then figure out why people are reacting oddly to you. (I think my next door neighbor thinks I’m addled, because I start projects, then disappear indoors for day. He must not have the slightest what’s going on. (Mostly auto-immune and writing.))

But it’s very difficult, because there’s a good chance the model for other people’s expectations that you create is wrong.

Heck, in your nearest and dearest: it took Dan and I years — 30 — to figure out why certain things really p*ssed the other off, and why the other was reacting that way to minor things. I mean, once I figured out that he got furious at my changing the place of things in the cabinet, because he thought I WAS DOING IT ON PURPOSE, I could explain that no, I actually don’t have a spacial memory. So, if the plates are all gone (say) I don’t remember where they go. Not the slightest. Yeah, in retrospect, I can see for a normal person that sounds insane. (I’m brain damaged from the circumstances of my birth, and that’s one of the areas I really am not normal.) And yet, it was the truth. But there are things we’re still working through at 38 years and counting, because we don’t even know how to vocalize it.

Anyway, why was I thinking about this today?

I woke up with the thought that particularly among Odds, the path is rarely straight, and I don’t actually have a single friend who started out to do what he now does for a living. (I do have one that does what his degree prepared him for, but he started out wanting to be an MD, he just didn’t get in.)

Maybe that’s normal in the normal run of populations, but then one wonders why degrees exist AT ALL? Still all my friends are Odds — or the vast majority. The others might be Odder than that — and the array of mismatch is glorious.

I know lawyers who are really writers; marine biologists who program computers; biology phds who teach; agricultural engineers who draw….. They are all moderately or very successful, but between the cup and the lip the cup was grabbed by aliens, anally probed and returned on the other side of the universe.

And me? Well, I was tame, you see. After seeing my brother (and cousin — oh, yes, the chemical engineer who is a teacher) be unemployed for years, I was going to take a degree that had multiple employment prospects, AND I could always default to teaching at full pay. Safe. Secure…

And then I married across the ocean. In my entire career, I used my time-expensive degree exactly three years. And wasn’t particularly happy any of those years.

Part of this is that Odds don’t meet anyone’s expectations, and we have our own expectations, which are usually demented when seen from outside. (See where I looked at a page rambling about pronouns and decided the issue was that my language wasn’t good enough.)

Something else — and I’ve seen this in sons and friends — is that the Odds — or as psychologists called it “Highly gifted” — bruise more easily. It was one of the things they told me about both my sons when they were tested (and they start at “profoundly gifted”. The other one is worse) is that they will feel hurt or be traumatized at things others will shrug off, and sometimes at things that make no sense to anyone outside their heads.

When I finally understood it — look, my expectations, okay — what made perfect sense to me was my spending weeks, as a 3 year old mourning grandma’s LAMP. No, seriously, they changed the kitchen light from regular to a big, fluorescent shop light. Given how huge the kitchen was, and how tall the ceiling, this makes perfect sense for adults. (Or sane people.) But the introverted, sensitive three year old a) personified the old lamp, wondering why it was being cast out. b) mourned the quality of the light which made the room warmer. I lacked the language to express it, so I sounded like a crazy kid.

If you dig down through the traumas in my psyche, you’ll probably find grief over a lamp being changed. It’s not sane, but it’s probably there.

And it’s not something normal people expect. They’d go “You’re very smart, so you’re super-logical, right?” Yeah, no.

So, if you’re reading this, you probably have a hell of a time managing expectations (yours and theirs.) You bruise with things other people don’t notice. You break with traumas that are only traumatic to you, and which will make everyone else laugh if they hear about them.

And to make things worse, because the classification by IQ or ability ranks you really high, you feel you should be over-achieving and curl up in the fetal position for years at the slightest failure, even if it’s not your fault. And then feel worse about THAT.

I’m here to tell you that’s all bullshit. It’s all expectations: yours, theirs, and the cat over there’s. (The cat thinks I set my alarm at 7 am every day to pet him. Actually it’s to take the thyroid pills. But we argue about it every single morning, and sometimes pills get spilled all over the sheets as a result.)

You’re allowed to fail as much as the next guy. Actually probably more than the next guy (or girl, or dragon) because in many ways you’re such an outlier that you’re an alien in this world of humans.

If you really want to do something? You’ve got to brazen it out, and realize you’re the only one who is judging yourself for “failure.” You probably fail for other people, too, but in ways they don’t even realize they’re judging you on. Mostly I suspect you just jangle all their nerves by being really weird. Ignore them and forge on.

And you know what? Grab a corner of my mantle of stubbornness. I have enough to cover all of you. And again, “give me this granite head. I will move the world.”

Tell yourself you’re only being an autistic energizer bunny because Sarah A. Hoyt expects you to be. I do.

If I can do it, you can do it. Here’s my hand. Here’s my boot to the bootie.

Let’s climb.

As far up as you want to go.

We’re gonna get it done.

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. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost

Odd Magics
This is a very strange collection of fairytales, recast for modern life. In it the prize isn’t always to the fairest, the
magic is rarely to the strongest.
But lonely introverts do find love, women who never gave it a thought find themselves at the center of romance.
Doing what’s right will see you to the happily ever after.
And sometimes you have to kiss an accountant to find your prince.

Okay, so I intend to figure out what went wrong with the spill chucking and de-typoing on this. I had several editors, and either I mixed up versions, and put up the wrong one, or I was so out of it when entering changes that I added to the typos. You’d think that’s impossible, but I’ve recently seen what I’ve done to Barbarella script over the move, so…
I repeat: If you’ve complained to me about the typos (and there have been more than 5 people who did so, can you send me a typo list? Under the form of “is” and “Should be” per line. Younger son is also on it, but he’s good but slow. I will also be doing a hard cover of this, and the artist has very kindly (and for free) sent me a new TPB cover. So if you intend to buy on paper, you might want to hold off a week or two while I figure this out. If you buy on kindle, it will automatically update when fixed. It was supposed to be one over the weekend, but … stuff happened. -SAH.

FROM BECKY R. JONES: Magic Abroad (Academic Magic Book 4)

Zoe O’Brien is very much looking forward to teaching summer school and tracking down fairy tales in Ireland. Her hopes for a quiet, academic summer are squashed when the dolphins tell her there’s something wrong in the Aran Islands, and her students are stalked by a… something before disappearing. There’s also the possibility that the slightly creepy guy at the train station is her father. So much for a quiet research-filled summer!

Now Zoe is in a race to find her students and help stop an invasion of Ireland by creatures out of myth and legend. The amount of magic in Ireland stuns Zoe. Are the ancient gods of Ireland returning to fight their enemies in the middle of her research? And what does the Morrígan want with Zoe?

*My husband recommends this series – SAH*

FROM A. W. GUERRA AND KELLY HOGAN: First Strike: Loudoun County

Retired Army Delta Force operator Luke Ellis, 17-year-old teen Annie Dedham and her 12-year-old brother Darren, along with young Loudoun County deputy sheriff Alec Holman, are in a race against time to prevent the destruction of humanity. To succeed, they need the help of a mysterious woman scientist. Only she can stop Armageddon from taking place. There’s a huge problem, though: Terrorists are rampaging through the small Loudoun County hamlet of Lucketts and they’re after the same scientist. What Ellis and his little band do over the next several hours will decide the fate of humankind.

FROM JERRY BOYD: Don’t Give Up the Shop (Bob and Nikki Book 24)

The band took some shore leave, and helped their friend in his shop. On a visit to the bots, Bob and Nikki had to rescue some folks. Andre found a girlfriend, and then rescued her, a knight in shining hull metal. Come watch the crew deal with what their shepherd sends them.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Relief Afar: A Martha’s Sons Short Story

Even on a lost colony world, secret enclaves have something to offer—but not when an insider sees a newcomer as the enemy.

Twenty-year-old Peter Dawe’s exile gets worse. Not only is he forbidden the lost colony’s city and his family’s freehold, but even his brother’s isolated farm no longer offers refuge. Of necessity, he heads north, away from humanity’s terraformed valley towards the hidden enclave where pioneers push back the forbidding flora and fauna of the planet’s native terrain. They call it Kentucky

Young volunteers from First Landing’s northern families work to terraform the plains beyond the mountains. They’ve known each other all their lives and spent the summer working together. Peter’s presence should be a welcome addition to the small group.

After what he did to protect his brother’s family, Peter has resolved not to fight again—at least not for a good long time. When another man seeks to test himself against Peter and Peter’s past violence, Peter faces a choice. Does he confront what he’s tried to leave behind, or does he show he understands the hard lessons life insists on teaching him?

Relief Afar offers another window into the lost colony world of Not What We Were Looking For. If you wonder what it’s like to build a new life on an unwelcoming planet, and if you want to see what lies in store next for this son of Martha, you’ll want to jump right into the newest tale.

Buy Relief Afar to transcend exile today!

BY ED LACY, WITH INTRODUCTION BY D. JASON FLEMING: Room to Swing (Annotated): The Pulp Noir Classic

Black private eye Toussaint Moore knew a murder frame-up when he saw one, especially when it was hung neatly around his neck. Instead of dawdling around New York waiting for the NYPD to arrest him for a murder he didn’t commit, he followed the one lead he had: the victim’s hometown in Ohio. Only a stone’s throw north of Jim Crow Kentucky. If he can’t find who wanted that white man dead, and quick, all he’s going to have left is room to swing!

FROM WILLIAM STROOCK: The Great Nuclear War of 1975

The Great Nuclear War of 1975
In a Different 1975…
Superpower relations breakdown and a nuclear war all but annihilates the Soviet Union and devastates the United States.
100 million Americans are dead.
After Washington is destroyed, a smalltown judge delivers the oath of office to Vice President Rockefeller.
Surviving American forces on land, sea and in the air await orders from the new president.
Americans across the nation climb out of the rubble looking for a homeland that no longer exists.
In surviving capitals across the globe, governments ponder the implications of a world without the superpowers.
In Britain, a rump cabinet meets in the Cotswolds to plan a way forward without the United States.
Commonwealth Prime Ministers in Canberra, Auckland and Ottawa look to the UK for leadership.
In Buenos Ares, a weak government plots the takeover of the Malvines.
As radiation sweeps down from Siberia, the Chinese government faces unprecedented famine.
In New Delhi, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wonders how she will feed India.
In Rhode Island, one man will start a trek halfway across North America to reunite with his family.
William Stroock is the author of 15 novels including the World War 1990 alternate history series.

FROM TONY ANDARIAN: The Ring of the Killravens: Dawn of Chaos 2 – Hell Gate, Part II (Sanctum of the Archmage Book 3)

A new constitution prepares Carlissa for an era of enlightenment. The harsh traditions of the past fade, and a promise of freedom stirs the air.

In the space of one terrifying day, that promise is shattered in a bloodbath of fire and magic.

In The Ring of the Killravens, the survivors of the Horde’s first brutal assault regroup and consider their options. The royal family plans a desperate gamble to use the power of an ancient, hidden artifact against the demons.

Thousands of years ago, an epic battle was fought between good and evil. The demon lords had opened a door to the realms of hell itself, and their horde threatened to overrun the earth. But the Kalarans, led by the hero Calindra, destroyed their hellgate and drove them from the world.

The Great War has long since been lost to myth and legend. The Church struggles for relevance as the people forget their covenant with the gods. A renaissance of freedom and learning stirs the air in the modern age of Carlissa, led by the royal family, and the wisdom of the Archmage.

All of that comes to an end when a dome of shimmering magic appears in the capital city.

The people fight desperately to survive the chaos that follows, and wonder bitterly why the gods seem to have abandoned them. Their only hope lies with the magic of the Archmage — and his, with a young princess who never wanted to rule. She must find the strength to set aside her bard’s calling and take up a battle against impossible odds, or surrender her land and people to the Black Magus and his demons.

Note: An earlier version of this book appeared as part of the novel Dawn of Chaos, published briefly on Amazon in 2017. That book has now been re-written and expanded into a series of six novella-length installments.

FROM D. W. PATTERSON: Frozen Time: Time Series Book 3

Because of the Time Wars fought in the space around Earth the underlying system of local and non-local links that makes up spacetime had been destroyed. It was now impossible to use the spin-two drive to open those links and access orbit and the rest of the Solar System. Space access services had fallen back on the rocket ship as the primary way to reach orbit from Earth’s surface.

Now a strange spaceship had appeared above the spaceports scattered around the world and placed them in a seemingly impenetrable bubble of frozen time.

The Earth economy was thrown into turmoil with the loss of space access and a young boy, along with his friends and his amazing AI, were off on an adventure of a lifetime as they and others tried to understand what had happened.

“Frozen Time” is a novel set in the future (2700s) and is the thirty-third and final (for now) story in the Future Chron Universe. Hard Science Fiction – Old School.

The Future Chron Universe consists of nine novels, sixteen novellas, and eight short stories, almost eight-thousand words of science fiction and adventure. See the author’s website dwpattersonscifi.blogspot.com for more information including a recommended reading order.

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.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: Early

*Since I’m not early — obviously — with this post, I’d like to point out that a) Amazon associate’s site-stripe IS one of those rare things, an improvement that helps with doing these posts. I also wish to tear out my hair and hop around like a chimpanzee on speed because ARGH. No, seriously, argh. I was connected through the proxy, without checking, and site strip THOUGHT it was working but refused to. It required two full reboots to bring you this post. Not your fault. Mine a bit for not checking on the proxy before starting. But ARGH. – SAH*

Promo tomorrow.

But the bunnies clearly need to be hugged, living under the cruel heel of the chickens.