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I was going to write about something else, and had the whole damn article pretty well in my head, but you know the annoying suggested articles that your browser shows you, unless you have time to tinker with it and make it go away?

Well, one of them was something like “The excuses white men give not to get involved in diversity.”

I was already grumpy. For…. various reasons.

Starting with, for example, the fact that I had to pass up on a set of Daz poses because the insane designers made much of how for the first time ever, these poses were for couples of all compositions. A) they were lying. There were no alien and human couples, or cat and human couples. B) Seriously, dude, dudette or whatever side of the bed you woke up on that makes you think you’re a typing squirrel or something, all the poses can be used for characters of both sexes, which means you can totally use “love poses” for gay couples. Sure, sometimes you have to adjust the hip tilt a little, but most of the time you actually don’t. So, this bizarre set of poses is a) a way to virtue signal. b) a way to sell 1/3 the poses for an outrageous amount. One doesn’t know whether to be horrified at your duplicity or compliment you on your capitalistic instincts, and I’ll decide on it as soon as I’m done throwing up.

Perhaps it’s Pride month. No, I don’t actually have anything against gay people. I have something in fact for people being allowed to be who they are. But the problem is we aren’t. Have you ever tried throwing a conservative pride month, in which we study the achievements of conservatives through history and long-closeted conservatives take to the street to show how conservative they are and proclaim to all and sundry “Yep, I’m a conservative.” (I’d suggest a Libertarian Pride month, but getting Libertarians to agree on a month would be near impossible, and probably mean we end up celebrating in Sectoberember.) Right now, right at this moment, being a conservative is far more of a liability to your business, your life, your career, your education and your prosperity than being gay has been for at least 20 years.

Or let’s try “large family pride.” or even just “family with kids pride.” Seriously, even as a family of four, with my pitiful lacking fertility, we found that it was almost impossible to find things to do with our kids while on vacation, after they were like 3 years old. Like the idea of spending time with your kids having fun was completely alien to our culture. (Hence things like an obsession with zoos, aquariums and museums and other places where our kids could be amused as well as we were. Most of the time. Thank heavens we had bookish/mostly quiet kids. So, let’s have a month in which it is ‘family’ pricing, and family amusements and family fun fairs and–

No?

You see, I have absolutely no problems with gay pride. I even understand its need, the origin being in a time when being gay ‘outloud’ was at best frowned upon, and it was actually the love that dare not speak its name. Yeah, the parades can get hell of tasteless, mostly because settled, married gay people have better things to do with their time, but you know what, I can avoid them.

However, if one isn’t allowed to celebrate being a conservative; being a family with kids; being straight; being purple with pokadots, then it’s not ‘diversity’, it’s “approved of categories, that you have to reflexively endorse.”

I will also point out, just as a side note, I never got “pride” in being what you are. If gay is something you are born (I actually believe that, or so close as makes no difference. I believe it is something you are by the time you hit puberty, and like most other mate choice things it’s fairly immovable, though it sometimes changes — the mate choice and the gay — with age and hormonal choices) why be “proud” of it? It’s like running around screaming that you have five fingers in each hand and you’re so proud. Or you were born with a head, and yah, baby, how proud you are of that skull atop your neck. Seriously? What effing sense does that make?

Of course the left keeps pushing pride and allegiance to this bullshit it calls “diversity” and which has to do with inborn, not chosen nor worked for characteristics: the color of your skin, the fact you have a vagina, who you are attracted to, your family’s origin.

I mean, I could to an extent understand if they talked about pride in things that are chosen, or at least worked for: conservatism (which until about ten years ago required a hell of a lot of courage, stubbornness and counter-cultural reasoning); or having a large family, which despite those of us who can’t is in this day and age a decision and work; or hell, being a programmer, a writer, a good gardener (I now have in my head an image of a gardener pride parade, with people waving radishes in the air. I’d watch in awe, since the weight of my gaze is enough to make plants die.) Or hey, being a cat lover. Yeah, some of that might be inborn, but the fact that you put up with the little bastages without strangling their fuzzy necks is a reason for price. (Mostly “I’m so proud I’m a sucker.)

But no, they are always “proud” of things you were born. Or accuse you of being a traitor to something you were born.

For instance, I can’t count the number of times the idiots on the left (BIRM) have accused me of being a gender traitor. And you know, it’s not for saying things like “The Muslims are right about women” which would be, if not gender treason, human treason, because the Muslims are fairly insane about women and their means of dealing with their gynophobia destroys humanity and civilization. No, it’s usually for saying whatever deviates from the word promulgated from on high by the Marxists who have taken it upon themselves to dictate how women should think.

Never having sworn allegiance to women, much less Marxist directives for women, I can’t by definition be a traitor. Not unless they’re actually receiving these directives on how to behave and what to say through their vaginas, in which case, desole, my vagina (and vulva, which is what the arrant idiots think is a vagina) is strangely mute. It doesn’t monologue, it doesn’t dialogue, and it most certainly doesn’t preach Marxism. Which is good, because wearing a gag there would be uncomfortable.

And before I leave the topic, why are these women so enthralled and amazed by the fact they have vaginas? I mean, I used to know a tiny little girl whose parents had trouble keeping her from masturbating in public. But she got over it by three, having figured out there was more to her and to life than this one organ.

Why the fascination? Are they aware they have other things going in life? Or is their poor facsimile of a life so empty that the only thing they have of interest about themselves is a vagina? Or do they think it’s an achievement to be born with one? I don’t know. I’m going to leave this topic, because these people depress me so much that I want to go out and start distributing free Thorazine.

Anyway, okay, so Pride month annoys me, because all the corporations, every single establishment and even online things feel a strong need to virtue signal how they support gays and (now) trans. The fact that those two are largely mutually exclusive hasn’t seemed to matter to them.

I don’t particularly care if someone is gay, or trans, or prefers to mate only via the eyestalk intertwining rituals of martians. Mostly because the only person whose orientation and sexual preferences I give a good goddamn about is my husband.

Oh, I take notice of friends’ orientation, but only insofar as I’m either looking out for someone to introduce to them, or I need to remember their significant other to include in party invitations, Christmas cards and the like.

I mean, I can’t be the only person for whom the idea of imagining her friends having sex brings up a massive cringe and a prolonged ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, right?

Oh, I have marginal interest in my sons’ orientation insofar as I would like grandkids. But honestly? If one of them had been gay he wouldn’t have been off the hook for grandkids, and nagging, so, whatever.

Other than that…. why should I care, really? Why should I affirm, celebrate, or hang up a rainbow flag? Being gay is not a political affiliation (or shouldn’t be. I mean, sure the left claims them. I have a dozen friends who testify otherwise) so why does it have a flag, even? It certainly isn’t a nationality. My normal response to the rainbow flag is “It’s a big gaudy, isn’t it?” I mean sometimes one is sorry they didn’t go with the butterfly, which was the symbol used in Germany in the seventies.

I’m okay with my friends being gay. I’m not okay with the corporations acting like assholes over this, and wanting everyone to repeat and emphasize how being gay is okay. Of course it’s okay. It happens. I mean, my religion says it’s a sin, but you know it’s not the worst sin, and I have my own sins to worry about.

I’m okay with people being black or women, too, or again purple with polkadots. (Hey, I grew up in science fiction.) Why the hell would I?

I don’t even have any issues with people of different cultures, except insofar as they try to impose their own culture on me. No, I’m not going to avoid having stuffed pigs in my work area. Not that I have any, but… I’m also not going to wear a burka. I’m not going to refrain from saying that China is an ass’o’e or that communism is a fucked up idea, and I’m going to call out the stupidity of a lot of Latin or tribal or other culture. Because I can. Because I’ve acculturated, and I see cultural advantages and preferences very clearly.

As long as their culture doesn’t interfere with a common objective or any interest, I couldn’t care less.

Apparently and for bizarre reasons this is supposed to make me racist/sexist/ and homophobic.

Two days ago, talking to younger son — who grew up in this rather ramshackle household, where the parents (us) had friends of every color and sexual orientation and profession — he said he was still puzzled why people in the media and the power of structure of publishing thought I was racist, sexist and homophobic.

I had to point out to him they don’t think any of that. Or if they do, they’re foolish beyond permission. They might have convinced themselves of this idiocy, but really, it’s a means to convince themselves they’re not horrible human beings. And it only works because they are horrible human beings.

To unpack that: you see, diversity is only an asset if it’s diversity of thought. That diversity of thought, enshrined under the first amendment of the US Constitution, is designed to make us able to think what shocks and upsets other people. And to express it too. This is often needed, because sometimes people need to hear “that’s a stupid idea.” Or “you’re not special because you have a vagina.” Or “Muslims are/aren’t right about women.” Or “The left is in control of everything and are actually stodgy conformists.”

That is an asset because humans being social apes, societies are likely to run down blind cultural alleys, and there are only two ways to deal with that: a group of internal non conformists bitch, moan, yell, and often risk ostracism in order to call attention to this stupid thing that has become widespread; or they are conquered and subjugated by a more functional society. Since the last is really horrific, the first is to be preferred. So, yay, diversity.

It might also be useful in some projects, to have someone who thinks from the outside and goes “Well, you know, if you’re writing all these leaflets in Spanish, this is a problem because not everyone in the US reads Spanish.”

This is of more importance in marketing and the social “sciences” than in, say, engineering. Yes, sure, I know the story about the single woman in the “design a seat” team who said “but that doesn’t fit women” but in fact, that wasn’t diversity. That was something any of the idiot engineers should have figured out. They were just bad engineers. It had nothing to do with their sex.

Other than that, what does diversity do?

Well, diversity of color, orientation, and all that? Does nothing. What you really need is diversity of thought.

But since the Leftist Kakistocracy has captured the institutions, including the cultural institutions, the only diversity allowed is external diversity that doesn’t challenge their power. And then when you challenge their power anyway, their only excuse is that you must oppose all that external diversity they like to proclaim.

What? You don’t want a group composed of the largest publishing house in your field to control awards? Well, that can only be because you’re privileged white males, afraid of women, gay people, black people and people of other national origins. Even if it’s patently obvious you can’t be any of those.

It’s the lies people in power make up to protect their power. That’s what the phony baloney “diversity” is all about as well as all the justifications for why white males are now and forever privileged while everyone else is downtrodden.

The phony “diversity” allows them to co-opt foot soldiers to defend keeping them in power and to shut you up with claims you’re a bigot, even while they squat, like obscene poisonous frogs on the structures of power.

Fortunately you can tell it’s no longer work, because they have become way louder and more shrill, demanding you participate in their diversity cosplay.

You know those “excuses” white males (And for the purposes of this post, we are all — or at least the left would consider us all — white males. Even those of us who tan, are female etc.) use not to “participate” in diversity? I didn’t read the article. But I can give you what the biggest should be “Go f*ck yourself and die, for claiming I’m tainted or owe you something due to an accident of birth. And get out of my face, you useless shitbird. I’m working. If I stop working, you stop eating. Maybe not right away, but very quickly. Because we’re the ones doing things that ultimately keep society working.”

We are Atlas, lifting the world aloft.

They should think twice before causing us to shrug.

Decoding the left is easy. Like all cultists, their internal life is simple to the point of boring.

Yesterday a friend asked why in hell were pipelines bad, when trains and trucks transporting oil is much worse for the environment, both in the burning of fossil fuel for the transportation and the possibility of leaks, disasters, etc.

But that’s kind of silly. That’s taking the left at its own word. They might say they’re doing things becaus they care, or for the environment or whatever, but they don’t.

Just like they don’t care about the poor or the downtrodden or–

Look, in their minds, they do care about these things, okay. Or at least it’s how they disguise their true feelings and beliefs from themselves.

It’s just that when push comes to shove, they don’t care about the real environment, but the environment in their heads. Just like they don’t care about the real working class, but the working class that thinks correct thoughts and quotes Marx. I.e. the working class in their heads. And they certainly don’t care about female Latin immigrants who don’t like Marxism, because those aren’t real female Latin immigrants. I have it on good authority that those are actually white Mormon males (with or without a great rack.)

They care passionately about these concepts in their heads. And if people only behaved correctly, the left would care about them too.

But the problem is people don’t. They never do. People, in their actual real-world manifestation are messy and unruly and disobedient. They don’t believe the high faluting concepts you want them to believe, the working class refuses to be noble and non-materialistic, other races don’t act like the perfect victims you want them to be, and no one, no one recognizes your superior wisdom.

So while spouting care for many things, and hiding behind a barrage of abstract concepts and fashionable words, the left really has three rules:

1- Favor whatever hurts the US. (You know the US intimately. And they refuse to recognize your brilliance, damn them. Also, you’ve been told every other country is so much better. And it must be, because you’re so smart, good countries would recognize your brilliance.

2- Favor whatever hurts the Western world. (Sure, France is so sophisticated, and you heard Britain was so much cooler than the US, and all that, but hey, they are capitalists, and white, and white people “literally” invented slavery and capitalism to oppress the rest of the world. Particularly YOU since capitalism doesn’t recognize your brilliance and people refuse to pay you the pots of money that y ou deserve by just existing with all your brilliance.)

3- Favor whatever hurts humanity, even if to do it you must hurt other parts of the environment as well.
(You know humanity is shitty, because it refuses to recognize your brilliance. I mean, you understood Marxism at a go, because you’re so smart and sensitive. And you’d think that people would reward you for being so smart and sensitive. But humans don’t, because they are so shitty. Look at all of them living happy lives while ignoring you and your sensitivity and intelligence and suffering. Obviously they don’t need to exist. Only smart and sensitive people like you should exist, and not reproduce, so you don’t risk bringing less magnificent humans into the world. And then when you die, the world should be left pristine, as if humanity never existed. Because humanity didn’t deserve to exist.)

If you’re imagining this said in the voice of a wounded and half-crazy teen, bingo.
The left might be composed mostly of older people at this point, but at its heart is a generation that was hurt and neglected, and not paid much attention to by their parents, and which perpetuated its errors. “The neglected children of World War II” as Heinlein called them, grew up to have neglected children who grew up to have neglected children.
Look, I know it’s not a choice, but kindergarten teaches lessons, and they’re not good ones. And nations that let their children be raised by strangers reap what they’ve earned.

At the heart of Marxism is pride, envy and all unkindness. Marxism enshrines envy and resentment as their cardinal virtues.

Given their head — they never will be, because these people would never hold control. They are fourth generation, and no longer even know where food comes from. Their obsession with eating bugs, besides because they like making people do repulsive things, is because they honest to bog believe the Earth isn’t producing enough food because “too many people.” They have the logical-thinking ability of gnats. And my apologies to gnats, some of whom might be brighter — they would exterminate first the US then the West, then humanity, and if they still could, then mammals, then warm blooded animals, all the way down, till nothing even vaguely related to humans existed.

It’s almost as though raising kids in the self-esteem belief they’re special, the world owes them, and being jealous and envious means they’re “socially aware” and “social justice warriors” is a bad thing, isn’t it?

Leftists want to extinguish everything they can’t control and given the brain power of mentally damaged gnats, that’s everything, including themselves.

Therefore, the end goal of socialism is like the end goal of some goddling in Babylon (I’m too lazy to go to the bookshelf five feet away and look the name up in the book. Deal) who extinguished all life on Earth because it was too noisy.

Teach your children well.

Don’t let them become socialists.

Sit down, oh my friends, and spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you of the misuse of magic.

To be clear, the magic of storytelling.

I’ve been aware that storytelling has a power…. since ever. It was actually funny when someone in the comments talked about some woman who lied whether she needed to or not, and even when it hurt her. It was funny because that was me, aged circa 5. And I can tell you why people do it. They do it for the power. Because having people believe some insanity you just made up gives you a sense of power, of being smarter than others.

That’s magic mis-used.

I was fortunate both that my dad came down on every instance of lying like a ton of bricks (I have reason to suspect he had defeated a similar tendency in himself at about the same age) and that my life is a bizarreness (totally a word) magnet, so that some of the things people refused to believe — having caught me in lies often — were weird, but had happened. Like the encounter with the bubblegum pink pig.

Dad beat it into me (not literally. Dad struck me twice — barely — in my entire life, and it was rather obvious it was worse for him than for me. But that man could spank with words very thoroughly. I’d frankly rather have been physically beaten) that the problem of being an habitual liar is that no one will believe you when you tell the honest truth. And worse, that you lie to yourself, till you don’t know what the truth is. He pointed out the downfall of liars is that you have to keep track of all the lies, and make them coordinate. And eventually the entire edifice falls apart. And when it falls apart you will never be believed, ever ever again. (And I want to say dad might be optimistic on that last one. But–)

By the age of six, still faced with the necessity to make up stories and tell them, while I didn’t want to lie, I came up with the idea of telling lies people know are lies. And I wrote my first novel (“novel” because though by hand it took up 3 notebooks it was probably at most 20k words.) It gives you all the highs of making up a big lie, without the lows. And it’s a type of magic. (Of course the price of having magic is that you must use it and use it for good. And yes, even novels can be perverted. Which is part of what I want to talk about. But that’s another story.)

Narrative is a very important thing for humans. A need. Man does not live by bread alone, because we’re sentient creatures who need to have an idea of what we’re doing and what it leads to beyond “get up, eat, do things, sleep.” To be truly happy humans need a sense of purpose, a sense of where they’re going (and btw, Peterson is right that you should set yourself the highest goal you can conceivably achieve. Even if you fail, you will do more than if you don’t set yourself any goal, or set yourself on that’s easily achievable.) They also need a sense of collective purpose. For much of human history, this was set by an idea of the king and the people as a unit, the divine right of kings, and a religion that promised a perfected state of being over time.

In a new entity like ours, a new state of being collectively, this sense of purpose is particularly important since nothing else binds us, neither common religion, nor common race. Our civic religion of believing in the founding documents can hold us together, but for that it has to be taught and not undermined.

Anyway, sometime in the early 20t century or a little before, the fact that information and entertainment and… well everything that could reach out to population at large was working on the industrial model of centralization and central distribution started corrupting the stream of information.

Look, maybe they figured out during WWI the power of the lie. Or maybe it was WWII that showed it to them. They saw what destructive lies could do, and seeing it, instead of realizing lies were bad, they decided that lies were good if they were good lies.

Which it’s becoming startling obvious is what they believe. Something like: the carefully crafted lie will cause people to behave how they “should.”

The problem, of course being that “should” is according to the minds of mostly mal-educated people who have been taught their fellow men are savages and that there is an arrow of history that leads to the inevitable utilitarian communal state, which has never worked, ever, in the history of humanity, or not beyond extended family, and there often worse than anyone wants to acknowledge.

So all the through 20th century we were treated to a barrage of “news” and “entertainment” that pushed certain ideas, including that no one is clean and that the only way to make people behave decently is constant and minute supervision by the “enlightened” who make people do things for their own good. And the “message” when decided upon get promulgated down the line by everyone, including “artists” and “storytellers” but also extending to journalists and even to an extent to scientists and very certainly to politicians who whether they’re running to shape the lie, or simply to stay ahead of the lie, do lie like rugs.

Look, even 20 years ago the lie was impregnable. I saw someone here, in the comments, minutes ago, talking about how we hadn’t found WMDs in Iraq. This is one of those things that “everyone knows.” It’s also, according to my friends who served in theater, absolutely false. It was a narrative that the MSM was shaping, to get rid of Bush, (who while a socialist was, apparently, insufficiently socialistic) and it penetrated enough that those not in possession of first hand knowledge, or close and trusted second hand knowledge still believe it. And still use this as the basis of their reasoning, and whatever decisions.

There are others, too many to count. Many of which are actually in the history books. “FDR ended the great depression with make work jobs” is probably the most egregious of those.

In fact, yesterday, one of the comments I didn’t approve because it was late at night and suffice onto the day the stupidity of day, without adding more voluntarily, was talking about how we should abandon all hope, because the children have been indoctrinated and young people will accept quietly the totalitarian state because “that’s what they were taught.”

The “stupid beyond permission” in that comment is that if you were born in the 20th century you were conditioned to the idea of the totalitarian state. Sure, some people had a lighter indoctrination, consisting only of the idea that the central government and only the central government can solve big problems. Or the idea that the news media tell the truth. Or that there’s an approved truth and nothing else can be said.
Or it could be, like from my generation onward, complete and relentless indoctrination to the point people believe the most bizarre things, such as that the parties changed constituents. (Think about it. How could that even have happened? If I tried to sell that shit in a novel, it would be flimsy. In reality, it’s impossible.) This can only be sold by continuous echoing of ideas, in every possible (and impossible) medium from education to news to entertainment.

In the future, if sociology is worth a tinker’s damn, it will note that a seamless narrative that is echoed by everyone at once is the sign of a controlled narrative, which is, in blunt terms, a lie.

And yet people from my generation onward still turned against the unified lie for the messy truth. We did it even when we did it — as we had to — in isolation, and thinking we were crazy, back in the day when reading something that dissented from the narrative made you think “this can’t be a reputable source.”
Arguably a majority of people turn away from the lie in every generation.

Because the lie doesn’t work and is not congruent with reality at any level. So eventually you have no choice but to face the truth, even if you have to go against all that you’ve been taught.

So, the chances the kids will be (or already are, since they can’t talk and get through school) okay is high.

Particularly because the effect that dad told me about has come to pass.

You see, lies build on lies, and it’s worse when they’re collective lies. And even the liars come to believe the past lies, gene rationally.

Does Obama and his entire corrupted cabal hate America. Well, yes, undoubtedly. When they send their demon spawn to the street to shout “No border, no wall, no America at all” it’s fairly obvious.

But part of the problem is that they’ve also swallowed a bunch of lies (some of them so old they’re of Soviet origin.) Like the idea that world economy is a fixed pie, and that if we’re rich it is because we “stole” our prosperity from a poor nation (Snort, giggle.) Or the idea that if they implement their policies, America might vanish, but the people of the US will be happier and more prosperous. They weren’t actually lying when they expected “summer of recovery”, they were just believing an accumulation of past lies.

That’s part of the reason they always are shocked when their wonderful program doesn’t bring about paradise.

The problem for them is that enough lies have exploded, and they’ve done enough horrible shit to try to bring about paradise (particularly under Obama who combines being a true believer with being as dumb as a human being can be while being able to chew gum and breathe at the same time. Fast and Furious is the work of a mental defective.) that they can’t afford for the truth to come out, and therefore they must keep piling on bigger lies.

2020 was the mental breakdown of the left that has controlled every stream of information in the US. It succeeded to an extent because sane people couldn’t believe anyone would do something that insane. (I’ve found most of the people who cut slack to outright evil people are very good, and so lack the ability to understand criminally evil. In the same way the sane can not understand the insane.) They believed there had to be a pony under the reeking mountain of horse shit.

This is known in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress parlance as a joke that works once. Now we have their range, and as the full bilge behind the lockdowns and masking, as the fact that they denied the effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquin and Ivermeticin, medicines that COULD have saved thousands of people who actually did die of Winnie the Flu, comes out, they’re going to try to lie their way out of this.

Which means the next one is going to be a doozy. And when that fails, they’re going to get us in a war.

I said when China Joe cheated his way in that this meant we were going to war with China. This seems counterintuitive, but other than GWB (and that was forced by things like 9/11) most of our big wars have been the work of a democrat president who needed to save his butt.

Well, they have a big butt and a big need to save it. And at some point, they will need to distance from China, particularly because China is going to have massive problems of their own, which they fail to understand because they don’t get trade or business. (I.e. they don’t get the poorer the US becomes, the less we buy from them. Which is already happening. And they need us to buy from them to stay afloat.) At some point int he China ImplosionTM they are going to give up on puppet states and just try to keep control at home. They’re already almost there.

At which point their money (which is mostly smell and bullshit, anyway) stops flowing, and our politicians are left holding the bag, or in the colorful saying of my birth region “F*cked and ill paid.” And in desperate need of the biggest distraction possible. Which is going to be war. Against China is a guess. Partly because in their mind China is as big and competent as us (snort giggle) ensuring a good long, and dangerous war.

This is will be bad, needless to say. But I don’t think it goes the way they want it. I think it implodes in their face, leaving a residue much like egg.

And that’s if their lies don’t implode faster and earlier.

They’ve built a nice, stinking pile of horseshit, but even they are starting to be aware there’s no pony there, and to the rest of us it’s strikingly obvious.

I don’t know what comes next. My sense of war starting this month (civil war, tbf) has receded, partly because I think the fact most states have opened up has created a diversion. For a little while, at least.

How long it lasts, I don’t know. Till the clowns who have taken over our institutions decide they need to do something is my bet. And whatever they come up with is going to backfire badly.

Plus we’re going to face a crisis in our mental health, and I’m not joking.

As it becomes obvious the huge edifice is nothing but lies, we’re going to have a lot of people who don’t know what to believe. Worse, we’re going to have a lot of people who don’t know what to do. All they’ve been “trained” to do rests on the lies, and only makes sense in the world of the lies. There are teachers, journalists, economists, all sorts of scientists who are going to face a reckoning.

Judging by what 2020 already did to people, my guess is about half the people are going to crack wide open.

And a lot of them won’t be able to find their way back to any form of sanity.

When communism was revealed as a lie, yes, a lot of people became religious, but a lot embraced communism double-hard.

Prepare for the same yet again. And prepare for trouble. Big trouble.

We might have postponed the reckoning (I suspect no more than a few months) but the four stand ready to ride and create mayhem of massive proportions.

There will be wars and rumors of wars. And official rumors, from the top, that are worse than rumors. Narrative, lying narrative.

They have never used their powers for good, and they don’t even know where good is and couldn’t find good with two hands, a pole and a seeing eye dog.

Be ready for the waters to get rough. Get to safe places, physically, emotionally, financially.

And keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

When the narrative breaks, the shards go everywhere. Even your own mind. And some of them are sharp enough to cut like madness.

Welcome to the Sunday Book Promo

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (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. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM CHRIS DURSTON: Each Little Universe.

‘Chris Durston refuses to be dull.’ – ‘You’ll laugh. A lot. You might even cry.’ – ‘If you want to meet some characters that will stay with you for, quite possibly, the rest of your life, I highly recommend this gem of a book.’ – ‘This is one of the most out-there-in-a-good-way stories I’ve ever had the honor of reading.’ – ‘It was a great read from open to close.’

If Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett had written an earnestly nerdy story in a setting running on the ridiculous logic of Scott Pilgrim, it might have come out something like this.

For two oddball inventors, taking care of an unexpected new arrival – a girl from the stars – is hard enough. Dealing with the things that want her back may turn out to be harder.

A story about love in all its forms (but not a love story), Each Little Universe asks big questions through familiar lenses, treating video games, wrestling, and pop culture with equal gravity to questions about what it means to be human and how we each find a place for ourselves in a big, strange cosmos.

Fans of Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, American Gods), Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim, Seconds), and Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Killing Commendatore) will love this story, set in a world very much like our own but a little more strange, and the unusual take it offers on life, the human experience, and cats.

FROM M. C. A. HOGHARTH: An Heir to Thorns and Steel.

Morgan Locke, university student, has been hiding his debilitating illness with fair enough success when two unlikely emissaries arrive bearing the news that he is prince to a nation of creatures out of folklore. Ridiculous! And yet, if magic exists…could it heal him? The ensuing journey will resurrect the forgotten griefs of history, and before it’s over, all the world will be remade by thorns and steel….

Book 1 of the Blood Ladders trilogy, an epic fantasy with sociopathic elves, vampiric genets, and the philosophy students mixed up in the lot.

FROM STEPHANIE OSBORN: EMPIRE: Section Six.

There are some jobs too subtle, too sensitive, or too dangerous for the bureaucracy. The Empress Amanda has a solution: a secret espionage network that reports to the Emperor Trajan alone.

And they have just the man to set it up.

Nick Ashton gets his most difficult assignment yet — Section Six!

Its first mission: Wingard Sector, where someone is interfering with the Emperor’s plans. There’s another word for that:

Treason!

FROM PATRICK CHILES: Frontier.

Marshall Hunter only wanted to fly: the faster, the higher, the better. But a life of rescuing wayward spacefarers and derelict satellites in the cislunar cruiser U.S.S. Borman is far from the adventure he’d imagined. But his fortunes change when a billionaire couple goes missing on their way to a near-Earth asteroid. Out of contact and on a course that will eventually send them crashing into Mars, the nuclear-powered Borman is dispatched on an audacious, high-speed interplanetary run to bring the couple home. As they approach the asteroid, however, the Borman itself becomes hopelessly disabled.

With the Borman suddenly out of commission and far beyond reach, cislunar space begins falling into chaos as critical satellites fail and valuable lunar mineral shipments begin disappearing in transit. Nothing is as it seems, and Marshall Hunter and the rest of the crew suspect none of it is by coincidence.

FROM DAVID E. PASCOE: Baptism By Fire.

When a madman and a giant flaming thing attack James Lawrie’s Marine outpost, the medic and an explosively talented sergeant aren’t supposed to save the day. Life becomes no simpler when Petty Officer Lawrie returns home on leave to find federal agents investigating the disappearance of a young woman from his past. A young woman whose body turns up marked with eerily familiar symbols.

FROM DAN HOYT: Ninth Euclid’s Prince.

Welcome to New Rome!
The far-flung heirs of the Eternal Empire of Eighty-Three Worlds have been called home to its seat of power, New Rome, by the Emperor himself. In these mean streets, no wife is above suspicion, and no man above assassination. With the Emperor poisoned and Prince Oswald in jail, Ninth Euclid, a mathematically gifted secretary from a rural backwater, must solve the knottiest problem of all: How will he keep his liege lord safe from daggers in the back and politically scheming trollops in the night?

FROM BLAKE SMITH: In Pursuit of Justice: A Novel of The Garia Cycle.

Garia and the East Morlans have been on increasingly rocky terms for years, and when Téo and Zara ran away together, they touched off the powder keg of war between their kingdoms. Now they have to fight for their lives while learning to live in a foreign land.

In the Morlans, Hanri and Alia are facing their own sets of problems. He must control and divert the single-minded vengeance of his father King Reynard, and she must sort the gold of information from the dross of gossip in a palace swarming with rumors. It could mean the difference between life and death for all of them.

FROM ROBERT BIDINOTTO: WINNER TAKES ALL: A Dylan Hunter Justice Thriller.https://amzn.to/3fYAqtD

Dylan Hunter — the vigilante hero of #1 bestselling Kindle thriller HUNTER — returns to battle . . .

A MURDEROUS CONSPIRACY FOR ULTIMATE POLITICAL POWER

Engaged to be married, mysterious journalist Dylan Hunter and CIA security officer Annie Woods are desperate to put their violent past behind them.

But then an investigative reporter is brutally, mysteriously murdered.

A visionary presidential candidate is targeted for destruction.

And a horrific day of unspeakable terrorism rocks Washington, D.C.

Soon, Hunter’s investigation puts him in the cross hairs of a power-hungry billionaire and a cold-blooded assassin. Camouflaged by “fake news,” a deadly conspiracy of Russian spies and American traitors aims to install their puppet in the White House.

And these predators will do the unthinkable to bring America under their total control.

The stakes — political and personal — couldn’t be higher. Because to stop them, Dylan Hunter must make an irrevocable choice. He must revert to his dark, secret life as a violent vigilante, waging a one-man war of justice against the corrupt and untouchably powerful.

It’s a decision that will, finally and forever, seal his fate … including his future with the woman he adores.

But for now, only one thing is certain:

In the tidal wave of political violence raging through the blood-soaked streets of Washington, D.C., the final outcome will be … WINNER TAKES ALL.

FROM DENTON SALLE: Black Earth Rises: Urban Fantasy in a Slavic-haunted Texas (Hall of Heroes Book 3).

Like the black earth showing through the snow, the otherworld emerges into ours.

Texas – big, open, and strange. Stranger than you can imagine as the Slavic Otherworld leaks into it. With all the monsters and myths of folklore loosed in North Texas.

Jim’s planned on a night of dancing and drinking as a break from studying. His best friend, Mike, came a long despite his bad feelings about it. It got bad. Then it got worse than Jim imagined as the nightmares of myth came hunting them.

What does a young man do when he finds horrors are real? And that a centuries-old brotherhood exists to fight them? Reality turns out quite different than he thought.

An urban fantasy where the terrors of Eastern European folklore hunt the streets of Dallas. If you enjoyed Butcher or McGuire, you’ll love this tale of magic and myths in the modern world.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: OVERFLOW

We have a visitor over for the month. Visitor is a weird way to put it. He’s a fan who because a friend, who became one of my forever hyper extended adopted family, in this case a little brother. (Not that he’s little. He’s built much like my kids. Genetics of adoption. If my other hyper extended family adopted little brother reads this, yeah, I know you’re small and slight. I don’t know how you got that from mom’s family but I don’t judge.))

Visitor is a funny way to describe it, because he came over for the express purpose of help me clean, box, paint and help Younger Son carry heavy stuff, so I don’t kill myself. (The plan is to get this ready for staging and selling, anyway, and if nothing shows up, rent in the desired area till we find something. Though hopefully something amazing just shows up. This minimizes our monetary exposure, (aka double mortgage) and is less likely to drive me nuts.) Anyway that’s what he’s here for. That and a lot of book talk and stuff.

Anyway, he’s been commenting on the books lying around the house. (Pretty much every room.) Particularly the ones on soviet science. (Yes, it’s for a book I’m collaborating on with another of the hyper-extended family.)

Soviet science is amazing. Mostly because it wasn’t really science as it was interpreted in the US for the longest time. (Or in much of the Western World since Enlightenment.)

Look, science is a particular thing. A METHOD of acquiring and testing knowledge.

Every year in school, in every STEM discipline, we learned the scientific method the first day of school.

Notice event, effect, or phenomenon; formulate hypothesis that explains it; test hypothesis with experiments; confirm or deny hypothesis; if denied formulate new hypothesis that covers new observations. Test the new hypothesis, etc. ad nauseum.

This scientific methods allows for hypothesis and “known processes” to change. Take the Medieval idea that life could spontaneously generate and that maggots were “created” by rotting meat. It made perfect sense at their level of observation. Except when we got the microscope, we could observe more accurately that the eggs were already there. (I believe before we got the microscope, actually, but it’s one of those days when there isn’t enough caffeine and I don’t feel like going and researching the size of fly eggs. Forgive me. If I do it, I’ll fall down a rabbit hole and still be researching tomorrow.)

Or take things that “moderns” meaning people in the 20th century loved to make fun of, or rail against, like bleeding sick people. Our ancestors weren’t fools. It turns out that in the absence of antibiotics, if you bleed people some amount it kicks the immune system into high gear, and some people can be saved. (Now, the theory of humors formulated to explain it was nuts, but you know, they didn’t have the whole picture. Which meant they were applying the “fix” to tons of things that it could not help) We now know that, through studies made.

There is a never end of this stuff, where the theory and “scientific understanding” of something changes, as our understanding and instruments change. Which incidentally is why “Believe the science” is bullshit. Science thrives on being challenged. And it changes.

One of the most fascinating parts of soviet science was the untold amounts of time and money poured into studying paranormal phenomena.

If you don’t know it, we also had a program that studied things like mind communication and other psi-powers.

It was tabled not because these things don’t occur and haven’t been observed, but because it’s impossible to systematize. There seems to be not just a high degree of correlation to one individual, but what is called “the joker effect” in that the same say far-seer or telepath, will suddenly get completely fluent….. and insane results, with no rhyme or reason.

In the Soviet Union it was never tabled, and they had AMAZING results. I mean, particularly if you read books written early on by sympathizers of the Soviet Union. Why, their mind readers were right every time. They had people who could look inside our secure installations, they–

This is brought up apropos someone in the comments yesterday saying that the early virus released in Wuhan was 100% lethal very fast. Yeah, I heard the same thing a year and a half ago. It was also transmissible for weeks before symptoms showed.

Look, people, that’s like strange ice, and hot snow, okay?

First of all an immediately lethal virus would be about as useful as a bio-weapon as an accordion is useful in an air raid. Second asymptomatic transmission is the holy grail of a viral weapon, yes. Kind of like perpetual motion is the holy grail of mechanic engineering.

So, why would there be reports of this?

Because China is a totalitarian country. When the supervisors, who wouldn’t know science if it bit them in the nethers, tell you they want a perpetual motion machine, it’s not worth your life to disappoint them. Instead, you give them what they want, and swear it works, even if you have to install hidden batteries.

Soviet science had amazing results, not because they had amazing results but because amazing results were reported. Because they had to be, because the researchers wanted to continue breathing.

… and most of it was never checked, because it was what the higher ups wanted.

This is the greatest disadvantage of totalitarian regimes. Every time someone with gape-mouthed certainty tells me that China is going to bury us in blah blah blah, my eyes roll under the sofa and then I have to clean the cat hair off them.

Understand once and for all — which our “elites” can’t and don’t — that even the most powerful person in China has not a clue what is actually working and what they can and can’t do. Hell, like the publishing industry, there’s falsification at every level, because there has to be (in the case of publishing, because it’s almost impossible to get accurate figures. In totalitarian regimes because it’s not worth your life.)

Your rulers dictate that you obtain impossible results, so you fake them. This gets rolled to the next level, where now they want even crazier results, and so on up the line. Which is why the CIA who believed the reports thought communism in Russia was so d*mn successful.

It’s very important that you be aware of this, and keep it in your mind at all times for two reasons::

First, our idiot rulers believe everything they get from abroad. The level at which they are enmeshed with the totalitarians can be measured by their credulity. It behooves us to know when they’re being even more idiotic than is permissible, and why they might be doing crazier things than normal, so that we can extrapolate what they think they’re seeing, and stop them before they destroy our economy by putting the entire country under house arrest (say.)

Second, this method of “science” has been creeping into the US.
I’m not going to say anything about my friends who do science founded by the government. I’m not going to say anything, because for certain levels of science, it is only possible to do research if you have government funding. But I am going to point out this is a massive risk.
We are already seeing that even in the hard sciences most studies can’t be reproduced. Also if you dig, hypothesis that big government wants confirmed are always confirmed. Also, if you dig, there was no possible way to fairly evaluate the hypothesis in the time/with materials given. But failure will destroy careers.
And then there’s “Climate” science where you falsify the numbers so it shows what the bureaucrats want in the finest Soviet fashion. And then that’s used for the next round of “what the bureaucrats want.” (Harry readme) And in the name of this industries are set to be destroyed, impossible methods of propulsion are being demanded, and socialism is proclaimed as the savior of the Earth. Oh, and your children are being terrorized in school.

Western Civilization got where it is, where we banished historical levels of poverty from the world not because of some imagined racial superiority, not because we stole “wealth” from other civilizations. No. What made Western Civilization (And the US) great was the ability to use the scientific method and with it break the teeth of powerful people’s erroneous assumptions.

We retain civilization only insofar as we refuse to give in to the totalitarian “make the ruler happy” bullshit that has pervaded most of human history. And if we perish, it’s dark ages for… well, a very long time.

Refuse to believe lies. Demand the numbers. No. The real numbers. Dig into the entrails of studies. See if anyone tried to reproduce them and failed.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light of rationality.

Hold high the lamp of freedom of thought. Tell the hordes of totalitarian goblins to go defenestrate themselves.

To survive, humanity must know the truth, as close as our minds can understand it.
Anything else is suicide.

First, and because I didn’t promise not to do this: I TOLD YOU SO, I TOLD YOU SO, I F*CKING TOLD YOU SO.

For everyone who came here to lecture me, that the China Coff was going to depopulate the world, and I was being irresponsible for saying it was like the flu with a lot of stupid number games added; for every one who flounced because I told them the masks were a f*cking stupid idea that did nothing (including, yes, the gentleman who knew that masks would work against a VIRUS because when he was six someone made him put on a mask to go see his dying father); for everyone who mask-Karened with “just put on the mask”; for every raging asshole (including Sprouts grocery store manager) who told me that if I had a mask issue, I could get delivery, making asthma a crime worthy of house arrest; for every insane, stupid governor — Polis might be the dumbest of the lot — who made us wear masks outside, thereby making escape to the zoo or the botanic gardens impossible; to the f*cking airlines whose f*cking stupid rules made it impossible for me to be at my dad’s 90th birthday.

Come closer so I can whisper in your ear: I TOLD YOU SO. After which I’m going to knee you in the groin so hard you’ll taste next Wednesday. Yes, even if you’re a woman.

So, yes, I KNEW from the beginning, and I was suicidally depressed that no one else seemed to see it.

Honestly? I still don’t understand why they couldn’t. The numbers from the Diamond Princess were clear enough, but more than that, the fact that our medical supervisory institutions announced they wouldn’t audit cases of Covid-19, meaning there was no penalty for inflating the numbers, which hospitals were being given extra money for; and the “must not question” policies of the social media and news media made it obvious what was happening: it’s a scam

The fact that we jumped from this to an utterly radical program for containing the disease, only the program — like masks — made absolutely no sense.

Understand now and forever that quarantines and lockdowns have been used in the past. But they’ve been used for severely affected, afflicted people and areas. You don’t quarantine the healthy you quarantine the sick.

I’m not in the mood nor do I have the time to teach you virology, which I only know at the yeoman level, and only because I write books of biological-based SF, but sweet dancing penguins on crack, people! “Asymptomatic transmission” IS NOT A THING. Rationally it couldn’t be a thing.

My brief explanation will be somewhat false, because I can’t explain it without taking the day to verify figures and give you precise facts. I don’t have time for that, so let’s do the high level and mostly wrong, but still a thing quicky explanation:

You see, virus work on load. You’re infected with some virus right now. Tons of them, probably. Here’s the thing, you don’t develop symptoms and it’s not a thing until it reaches a certain amount of viral load. You can be sort of kind of asymptomatic, like the (often) low slow descent into flu, where you feel not quite the thing, till suddenly it crashes on you. And yeah, it’s possible you spread the virus when you’re in “I don’t feel quite right” but I don’t know how “effective” you are. Why? Because it takes a certain amount of viral load. Unless you’re actually in a conference room or at dinner with three people who feel like that, and all are shedding virus. Or unless, of course, you share spittle with someone in that stage.

But for this one bout of panic porn, things that have been known for centuries were denied. Like the fact that viruses are small enough to be suspended in air BUT not coherent enough after a few seconds. A couple of minutes at most. And again, viral load will be too small.

There were and still are — the justification for masking outside — people utterly convinced that if they walk the path that someone infected but asymptomatic traveled, they’re going to catch it, because the virus hangs suspended mid-air ready to jump you.

All of this is bullshit. All of this is bullshit that has never been used to make people afraid of any other illness ever.

At the same time somehow the media, the panic, the insanity, was all in the holy name of convincing people this was the most lethal thing ever. (As we know from Fauci’s emails.) Oh, and crashing the economy. And being able to steal the election. (Thank you, Americans. Even with all that shit, all the crazy bullshit, you voted for Trump in such numbers these assholes needed to fraud openly, in the light of day, in the most clumsy way possible.)

ALL OF IT was a political coup; a way to take down a successful president and install a China stooge. ALL OF IT.

The side effects of this are horrific: we have unemployed people (and hey, suck what I don’t have if you’re going to tell me that it’s just because people don’t want to work because: a) many people still can’t work since the schools STILL aren’t meeting in person (Someone has to stay home with the kids. In most states it’s illegal to leave them alone till 14 or so). b)many people saw their businesses and efforts melt down and are now not disposed to try again. c) A VAST number of people, either retiring or just entering the work force, are looking at the taxes coming down the pike, and the “open the borders, give illegals everything, make Americans pay” and choosing NOT to work. Which is rational, unless you’re driven by internal forces.) We have people who missed their cancer diagnosis and are now dying. We have people who died of other illnesses, because going to the hospital wasn’t a thing. We have hospitals closing because they can’t keep their heads above water after this. Oh, restaurants and stores too, but hospitals inevitably are closing in the most underserved communities. We have elderly who lived their last few months in isolation and pain and misery. We have elderly who started developing cognitive problems after being isolated for over a year. We have teens committing suicide. We have food wasted in big honking batches because restaurants were closed. We have planting done weirdly because no one knew if that sh*t would continue this year.

And that’s in the United States. In the poorer countries of the world, this bullshit unleashed actual famine. There were communities doing okay who are now on the verge of starvation. And it will get worse, with the Chinese Puppet Junta in control, because when the US coughs, the world catches pneumonia. We are THE consumer of the world. We are also the most productive food grower per acre.

All this in the name of what? So a senescent kakistocracy could keep power and keep their crimes from being uncovered?

Sure, in China, but in the US too. If you’re one of the idiots who never looked into Hunter’s Laptop or what is really going on with Clinton’s foundation, or any of that shit, it’s time to look now. You have been EGREGIOUSLY lied to and abused for a year and a half. Are you going to believe them when they say this other stuff isn’t a thing? WHY?

The left (and a lot of the right) elite are the most corrupt and incompetent buffoons since late Roman decadence. It’s probably inevitable when you have vast resources, a concentration of power, and a fawning news media/public opinion.

Everything about them, from their family lives to their business doings to their public and private behavior, when poked at exudes a stench that tells you their bios are like a demon’s resume. It’s filth layered on filth and given a veneer of normalcy that wouldn’t fool anyone who looked at it more than two seconds.

BUT they keep a tight lid on it, and call you names if you try to look at it, and tell you they do what they do because they CARE so much.

Go read the paragraph of what they did when they were trying to get back into power and locked you, scared you and tormented you as a side effect.

THESE ARE PEOPLE INTENTIONALLY DESTROYING CHILDREN AND MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE AND THE ELDERLY IN AMERICA FOR THE SAKE OF POWER.

THESE ARE PEOPLE STARVING THE THIRD WORLD FOR THE SAKE OF POWER.

FOR THE SAKE OF KEEPING THEIR EVIL SECRET A LITTLE LONGER.

And you’re going to believe them on anything else in the future? You — forbid the thought — want to “dismantle capitalism” by giving government powers of redistribution, powers of life and death over EVERYONE?

You’re going to believe a single word they say EVER AGAIN?

You’re going to scream and run at the next “plague” they announce to control you? (And no, I’m not afraid this was a cunning psychological maneuver. I UNDERSTAND the paranoia, but if the Chinese COULD create a virus to kill everyone else, they’d already have done it. They haven’t.)

You’re going to surrender your liberties to these “benevolent” overlords again?

Or are you going to fight tooth and nail to make sure no one else, ever AGAIN has the power to do this to a single nation, let alone the world?

I urge you very strongly to look at the members of the Junta and their helpers, and visualize the real people behind the masks. Visualize people who destroy a country and the world for the sake of more power over everyone, and to keep their misdeeds from coming out.

I URGE you to contemplate that they’d rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.

And then, if you ever again believe any of the media-ginned-up hysterias without checking facts or using your brain, be aware that next time the “I told you so” will have teeth. That knee to the groin will go all the way up. Oh, not administered by me, but by those younger and with more to lose who will be absolutely tired of this shit.

And what comes after might not be civilization as we know it.

FB showed me this from 7 years ago. I still found it hilarious. And I am going to throw down the gauntlet: Come up with more of these!

It is a little known fact that before the foul censorship drive of 1971 all the great works of Western literature were acknowledged to be about chickens.

Nowadays a great effort is being made to restore our heritage and we can finally read the great lines in the original.”Christmas won’t be Christmas without any chickens,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug — Little Women “

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a chicken” — Pride and Prejudice, hattip RES.

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the Great Kansas prairies, with uncle Henry who was a chicken farmer, and Aunt Em who was the chicken farmer’s wife.” The Wizard of Oz.

“It was a pleasure to burn chickens” – Ray Bradbury.”

There was no possibility of taking a chicken that day.” Jane Eyre.

“It was a bright day in April and the clocks were striking chicken” – 1984

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chickens” The social contract (it made much more sense that way.)

“Two coops both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our chickens” — Romeo and Chicken.

“It was the best of chicken it was the worst of chicken.” A tale of two chickens.

“Sing, O Chicken, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaean chickens” – The Iliad

(What? Well, this was the dinner conversation chez casa Hoyt, and I thought you needed to share the… ah… joy.)

*This post was started on the road yesterday. As of now, middle of the day Wednesday, it looks like we’re going to back out of the purchase, as each inspection result that comes in discloses more expenses that must be done up front. As my experience has been that you usually double the predicted expense, the house would be ruinously expensive. And it’s already at the top of our ability to cover. So, our plans to move are suspended by now, perhaps indefinitely. The reports and studying them is the reason this is so late. The post might also read scattered and weird, since I kept being interrupted other paragraph. It might still be worth reading, who knows? – SAH*

I was raised in a very weird household, so it used to be my opinion that men were like dogs, pack animals and law abiding, while women were cats, solitary, who did what they had to do to survive.

Which goes to show you we are all influenced by the circumstances of their upbringing. And if that’s odd, so are our ideas of the world.

I know that both Foxfier and Mary have said that there is no parallel between real humans and RPG alignment, but dad is as close to lawful good as it’s possible to be. He will obey the law if it is at all possible, and works very hard not to give scandal or stand out.

That dad was obeying the whole of the Covidiocy didn’t surprise me. Yes, he’s a thinking and intelligent man, but he also has a touching belief in “the authorities” and those who are supposed to guard public health. One of the few times we’ve ound ourselves at odds was when I tried to point out to him the Clinton administration might not have the best interests of the US to heart. To him it was inconceivable that someone in charge o the country (who didn’t take over through violent revolution) should have interests that go against the country.

He probably thinks our claims of stolen elections are ridiculous, though he’ll never say that, because he doesn’t want to argue with me. He won’t have checked the numbers, and he trusts the MSM, and I imagine what the reporting has been like in Europe.

You see, dad was brought up mostly by his mom and grandmother (while his dad worked abroad until dad was in his mid-teens.) Grandma later admitted to having been perhaps a little too harsh on her 3 boys, because well… they were built like my boys and by 10 they were taller than she was. And she was afraid they’d go “to the bad” without a paternal influence.

His mom and grandmother did have his best interests at heart and were strict but fair.

Mom on the other hand, was born in a less stable family structure, in a much more dangerous area, and left to her own devices much of the time.

I don’t mean to say mom would consciously do what is wrong. But to her right and wrong have little to do with what people around her think or do. And rankly, she has very little respect for authority. Authority has to prove itself good or she’ll just assume it’s bad. (Yeah, I know. The nut didn’t fall far from the tree.)

There is no easier way to make her doubt something than to be ordered to do it, and to have authorities order her to do it. (Yeah, yeah, blah blah, nut tree. I hear you.)

So, imagine how shocked I was when she fell for the covidiocy and fell in line with all the instructions. Oh, she’d try to rebel, now and then. Like when she told me — tartly — during a call that they’d close the cemeteries, apparently afraid the dead would catch Winnie the Flu. But the next week, she’d be terrified of the China Bug and afraid I’d catch her, since I didn’t fall into line with any of the bullshit.

I have to assume that the propaganda in Europe was next level. And that at 85, mom is much more susceptible to the opinions of those around her, particularly since I doubt she’s ever spent much time on epidemiology or biology.

At any rate, according to my best friend from childhood, who had a pretty good handle on my family (having spent as much time around it, as around her own family, but with more detachment from the mechanics) I am somewhere in between. My instinct is not to trust authorities (probably because of the times I grew up in) but I do examine everything in light of rationality and life experience. So, trust but verify. Unless the authorities (and the crowd) push me to the point that I get stuck in “Effe you, no. You’re not the boss of me.” (Yeah, I know, but think on it.)

So, it’s a complete shock to me, no matter how many times I see it, that women in general seem to follow the crowd and “the people in charge” and to believe the crowd is right.

In retrospect, and looking at it from an evolutionary perspective, it makes perfect sense, since we are a species with a very prolonged childhood. Judging from both our closest ape-cousins and from modern day primitives, it is very difficult in situations of barbarism to raise children to adulthood if you don’t have the support of a family, or a tribe.

So, for most of our history as humans or pre-humans, the women who stuck out, refused to fall in with the crowd, and refused to obey left no children. Which of course, would make most women who survive, after several generations of it, would be natural conformists, with a tendency to conform outwardly and — perhaps — undermine the status quo by stealth and behind the scenes.

The female fighting mode is underhanded, undermining, and psychological. If we’re going to talk “toxic” femininity is far more toxic than masculinity. Masculinity, untamed and unbroken to society is dangerous in an open, violent way, a way in which most people understand they’re threatened by and therefore can defend themselves from.

The female form of fighting is best understood — so it is also understood what type of pond scum our ridiculous occupying Junta has installed as mock (very mock) VP — if you remember the Joe Biden Kamala Harris debate, when the little bint ripped up at the man who, no matter how corrupt and evil he is (and he is), had mentored her and nurtured her career by accusing him of having been racist against people like her.

You saw it in poor confused Joe’s eyes at that moment — and he was less confused than he is now, so he probably still knew who he was — the complete shock at being attacked by this woman who owed him gratitude and should at least have abstained from a frontal attack.

But Commie La Whorish is very female, from her means of advancement to her means of fighting. Which means she has no friends. Only people she can use until she steps on their bleeding corpses as she climbs.

That is a female who has not had her toxicity moderated by civilization, and who romps around being her evil self, and patting herself on the back for being so smart (I have it on the word of people who know her personally that she’s actually not very smart and her main points of interest are fashion and well…. herself.)

Her ilk infest boardrooms and businesses in America, making business a place where no one can be honorable, where merit is irrelevant, and where you must always watch for a knife in the back.

This is particularly bad in businesses almost wholly taken over by women, such as publishing, the arts, broadcasting, etc.

In such businesses even males adopt feminine modes of being in the world and the result is often horrific.

This entire crazy covidiocy has been a case of women and the men who have learned female modes of being in the world (and who are worse than women) running around with the bit between their teeth trying to agrandize themselves with how smart and special they are.

Note that women aren’t particularly dangerous. Not in civic life and not in business. In fact, women can be perfectly good citizens and business people.

The problem we have is that men have spent generations developing a “public mode” in which their natural male mode is curtailed –i.e. men might get very upset. They might talk of punching someone, but it would be very weird for say business partners to duel over a decision. Mine you, it was still perfectly common four hundred years ago — and tamed and civilized so people can work together for the good of whatever the objective is. So the “male way” of being in politics or business has been refined, and there’s established ways of doing things.

But while — contrary to the idiot pseudo history — women have been in business as more or less constant presences for about 100 years (and before that sporadically present) there has been no development of “ladies don’t do this” in business.

In the beginning, as a minority, they adapted to the majority’s way of doing business. Having grown up in a country seriously behind the times, I learned from dad a public-face that was/is mostly male. Oh, sure, I will be charming in a female way when in public. Well, if I can. In fact, I am a profound introvert, so when I’m in public it’s almost entirely a performance. However, I will turn my attention to discussing the subject at hand/working towards the objective of the group/business/whatever, and submerging my own advancement. At any rate, I never had much backstabbing instinct, since that is way too much work and I’m lazy.

But most women who first broke into public life, probably behaved like the men with whom they worked, because that was the way to be successful.

Honesty, though perhaps to some extent it curtails “female ways of being” (Search me. I really don’t know. I know that women in general think deeper and with more connections, while men think more clearly and point to point. So it’s possible that a “female way of thinking” could be of help in business, particularly business that deals with people. I just don’t know for sure that office-mode for males (and default office mode for 100 years of so until the current era of insanity) would curtail that. Or fully understand why it would. Note that my last “real” job in an office was 30 years ago give or take) I think the mode of being in business evolved over centuries works pretty well for both sexes.

If I understand it, this goes something like: The important thing is the job, whether the job is building houses or teaching kids, all personal grievances and agendas are submerged to that; workers are trustworthy and can be taken at their word; workers will be present at work time; there will be no personal feuds during work hours; professional etiquette requires that people pretend to be at least friendly acquaintances, no matter how much they might dislike each other on a personal level.

The list could go on, and yes, I know, there have always been issues with those rules. And other rules that involved “how to be in business” some of which I might not even know anymore, since they’ve been eroding hard for the last 20 years at least.

The problem is that in the last 30 or 20 years (different for different areas of the country) many industries became majority-female, at the same time that the women arriving at the scene came with a narrative (some of it justified, for women ten years older than I or so) of having been discriminated against and “being kept down by the man” (literally.) Note that while the narrative might have been justified at first, at least in the sense that women were basically adapting to an alien environment, but it’s not been justified at all for at least20 years, and has intensified despite it.

So women arriving in business now have never been discriminated against (by and large, okay? I know there’s always exceptions) BUT believe they’re being kept down.

Add to that the fact that since earliest schooling every teacher would be afraid of “discouraging” or somehow crushing the precious darlings (I’m not joking, and any of you who has had kids in public school recently has seen this) combined with a lot of older teachers projecting their traumas and their imagination at the kids.

These women have never actually been socialized for business, or told that their female impulses are wrong. So they come into business using the evolved mode of the extended family, the tribe and the seraglio, which means women backstab, form alliances and devote their full energies to interpersonal politics and looking good, leaving the “purpose of the organization” as a distant and possibly half-forgotten point.

Mind you this form of being in the world was great when the purpose was to suck up to the man or woman (depending on your position in the house) in power to make sure you and your children were safe and well fad. Admirable even. And in our tribal past are situations in a woman couldn’t be both honorable and safe. (honor being a thing evolved in chivalry days, and then honed to serve as a business code.) There still are in some of the shitholes of the world.

That is what’s imprinted deeply in female’s “nature”. And no one is curbing female nature, because having a vagina is magical and makes us special. (To be fair most men think this way, so they’re no help.)

Which is why even now that most rational people know that the whole damn covidiocy was MOSTLY idiocy and that wearing a mask is actually and literally worse than useless, as it seems to have worse outcomes, the people still wearing masks are mostly female.

You see, their instinct is to conform to the “voice of authority” (Which in this case is the news media and government) and to force others to conform, while taking an advantage or two along the way.

And yeah, I know this sounds terribly negative towards women. It’s not. Both women and men can unmake civilization in their own way. (And to the snowflake using the name “woke” — really — who has been bitbutcketed and who took it upon itself to lecture me on how civilization was more than two thousand years old, the Egyptians had civilization. Sure. Of course they did. As did the Babylonians and the builders of Gobekli Tepe. But where we know how their civilization worked, none of us would want to live in it, while with more or less comfort, most of us if forced could live in Western civilization, whose foremost roots lie about 2k years deep, though they could be deemed to extend the 6k years of Judaism. No other civilization (And speaking of older ones, oh, “woke” snowflake, you could have brought up India or China.) could or did develop the technology that makes our lives easier and had — pre covidiocy — almost banished famine and poverty — as historically understood– from the globe.)

The problem is that women are not being told “Yeah, you’re a woman and that’s special, but as an employee for x, your job is to do y.”

They’re not, for lack of a better term, taught to be gentlemen.

It’s already biting women in the *ss, because no sane man wants to be alone with a woman who might find it convenient to accuse him of sexual harassment to score points. No sane man wants a woman as his immediate subordinate if his removal will cause her to ascend. (Joe isn’t sane. Or in fact all there, at this point.) No sane man would start a partnership with a woman not his wife. (And some would be weary of partnering with their wives.)

Women are being taught to be feral. And either sex in feral mode (most of the feral men you’ll see are in other lands, or criminals, or of course homeless) can destroy civilization.

Going into a store where every man was walking around bare-faced and every woman masked and glowering made me sick.

I don’t want to reap the backlash that will come; I don’t want my granddaughters to be subjected to suspicion and hobbled because “women can’t be trusted in public life.”

The early feminists — early twentieth century and before — were clear about holding women up to ideals for being the best of the race. (Human race, oh, “woke”.)

It’s time we taught our daughters to do the same.

We’ve come a long way baby. And if we don’t learn to behave like civilized humans, we’re going to find ourselves back there, just as women are in most of the world.

And Humanity will be poorer.

On the road, heading to Colorado. Very long day. Should be there late tonight.

We are okay, and depending on what can be done about the one major issue, nothing unexpected about the house, and we might yet be moving. Updates on that later.

Meanwhile, the trip has been good or something. Being in lower altitude seems to help my concentration, and I did, wait for it, FINISH THE CURSED NOVEL.

I’ve sent it to my primary alpha reader to hunt for typos and tell me how many times I changed a name. For some reason Luzend had a habit of becoming Lucenzio and Lucendio. In my defense, I do the same with real people’s last names. And first names. And brand names. And pet’s names, and … well occasionally my kids’ names and my own name. (Though admittedly for that I need to be very tired or totally immersed in a novel. Rumor has it (coff) when writing full tilt I behave a bit like Star in Glory Road when she was taking personality impressions of her predecessors. My food tastes, clothes tastes, and sometimes my awareness of my own surrounding change. My husband — thank heavens — finds this amusing.)

But anyway, when a book drags on this long, I tend to get more confused about names, or places, or of course world details. So my alpha reader will also have the job of figuring out if the solution makes any sense whatsoever.

I am now working on the #3 script for Barbarella. My editor has been very patient, but I’d like to get it out of the way, in case we do need to go all hands on deck to get moved within a month (and get the current house on the market ASAP.)

Anyway, I’m going to get back to designing panels and dialogue so I can close this by the time we get home.

I’m glad you guys have promised not to set the place on fire (right? You have, right?)

And now, give me some paragraphs of the story for which this would make a good cover. (And yes, I’ve displayed this before.) (If this were the cover of a novel, I swear I’d call it Bait. And yes, it amuses me immensely.))

Prove to me that we’re not being run by a cabal of our enemies. Prove it.

They seized power by force, and they’re rapidly degrading our infrastructure and our communications, and out military capabilities.

And I don’t mean they’re just crazy Marxists. I mean, sure, that’s part of the issue. Marxism is inherently a destructive philosophy, so they will destroy as a matter of fact. But this particular set goes well beyond that.

Look, dad was an aficionado of war memoirs, commander biographies, and a student of strategy. From my earliest years, when we were walking, he’d talk about things he’d been reading.

The first thing invaders do is destroy the roads of the occupied country, so the defenders can’t counterattack. So these asshats are doing this in advance.

And the thought process behind it is a miracle of leftist bizarreness:

$20 Billion to Rip Up Highways, To Reduce Climate Change and Division Caused by Road Traffic

Look, I’m sure this was suggested by China, and the dunderheads are totally buying it under their Compleate Illusions system.

Sure climate change. Climate change can justify anything. If we told them they needed to burn people alive to prevent climate change, they’d already been building the pyres.

But that’s just sort of a reflexive thing, like a Moslem saying “Insh Allah.” It’s not actually involved in their thinking as such. Or their thinking is not involved in it. whichever.

The truth is that they realized that the Covidiocy has destroyed the cities.

You see they had everything planned. They were going to force more and more of us into the city, because they were going to make running an internal combustion engine so hard. So if you had a job, you’d live in the city. Where you’re more easily controlled. And where they could make you believe bullshit like overpopulation and that — look at all the homeless — we needed more and more welfare.
Their idea of their perfect world is the 1930s version of the future. Just megalopolisis, isolated, with people completely controlled. It has the bonus of leaving pristine wilderness outside that, for the elites to build their dachas.

And part of the problem is that they never understand other people have agency and respond to circumstances.

I don’t know what they expected when they went full fashboots and — in the case of Polis, and I bet not the only one — gave homeless the right to camp in every public land, and defecate in public as well as freeing a bunch of felons.

Did they expect this would just scare people more, and they’d lock themselves in, in fear and trembling, allowing the idiots to design society.

Instead, people left. Americans are on the move. I swear half of my friends are moving from more locked to less locked, from bluer to redder. Some demographers have caught on, seeing through the smoke and mirrors, and are confused — most of them being leftist — because Americans are in the middle of a full migration. As full and as all pervading as the movement west. Or after the civil war the movement of black people North.

Some of this must have penetrated the granite-like heads of the ruling left. Or at least the planning left.

They somehow didn’t expect — possibly because they don’t really get technology. I mean, I have my moments, but I swear most democrats were disappointed when laptops started being made with no “cup holders”. They’re at that level of stupid — that a tech that hasn’t been fully implemented, giving us the ability to work from home, would be kicked into high gear from the covidiocy.

I guess they expected people who work mostly from their computers to sit at home watching panic porn on TV and not work?

More importantly, I don’t think they expected people who have to work in person to follow that migration because, well…. if you owned a restaurant that the covidiocy killed, you might, for instance, pay heed to the fact people are driving everywhere because, duh, masks on planes, and therefore build a road side diner. or perhaps find a small town that’s underserved and start anew there.

Oh…. a lot of people are changing jobs too, and the jobs are no longer binding them to big cities.

Honestly, the only way for big cities to save themselves is to become touristic centers. NYC was halfway there when the covidiocy hit. Only not fully there because lefty governance sucks at making a city safe.

If I were a lefty governor or mayor right now, I’d aim the fashboots at crime and disorder, get rid of the homeless, spruce up the place, and go all out in courting tourism. Then people would move in to cater to the tourists, and eventually other businesses would move in, because that’s where people are.

But leftists don’t think that way. Carrot and incentive is beneath them (of course.) Their idea is rather that they will force those unwashed peasants to do what they want.

So, you know, “infrastructure” leads them to rip up roads, so that people who work in the city will have to live near their jobs.

It will surprise no one Buttigieg’s is involved in this. Possibly because that man’s head is optimized for oral sex, leaving no space for a brain. And of course, because he’s a child of privilege, who doesn’t in the most fundamental way understand where his food comes from or how it gets where he can buy it.

It never occurs to them that the lack of roads means employers will stay far away from it, and that people won’t move to hells on Earth because they’ll otherwise have to end up in traffic jams. Instead people will move elsewhere, do other things. Industries will spring up in the heartland and form small clusters around them.

We’ll go more distributed, more sparsely populated, more out of their control. And the cities they completely control will become hell holes inhabited by derelicts only.

And they’ll have no clue why.

They’ll keep trying increasingly crazier ways to herd us to the 30s. But they — and their Chinese Masters — don’t get Americans at all.
To quote BGE in a different context, they’re just pushing on a string.

They can’t win. And we ain’t gonna lose.
Yeah, times are going to get rough, and we live in the stupidest timeline, somewhere between tragedy and comedy.

Some of us are going to die laughing. But not many.

Be not afraid. We got this. All we have to do to defeat them is be human beings.