Category: Uncategorized

Hi guys, I am alive, but I haven’t even had time to put up a guest post, much less the promo.

Be patient with me!

Have a picture to amuse you and keep us in mind tomorrow for the funeral and Tuesday and Wednesday PARTICULARLY when we’ll be driving down and across most of the US on the way home.

Driving yesterday was…. Odd.  Every time I got behind the wheel it turned into a kind of “crazy driving training video.”  If Dan took the wheel it was fine and boring.

In no particular order I got “car next to me letting its towing rig drop so that it was getting flames from friction on the ground” (Everybody move to the left!), HUGE German Shepherd loose on the highway.  (I would have stopped and rendered aid if I were confident I could get across five lanes of traffic to the berm, AND then run back and forth on the highway, to capture the creature without being hit.)  As it was I avoided hitting him (twice) and prayed really loud he’d stay on the grassy berm toward the exit.  No idea where he came from, but I hope he survived. Looked like a nice pup, though probably part great Dane. I mean, a kid could have ridden him.  Even though he looked EXACTLY German Shepherd), “tiny red dumptruck merging at 40 into stream of traffic at 70 trying to merge six feet in front of me, while I have an eighteen wheeler on my left.  Followed by, crazy traffic, construction, deluge, direction dyslexics marking construction (left, right left, no, we meant right) in the two miles leading up to it, while playing leapfrog with eighteen wheelers.)

Dan would take over, and it was a beautiful, calm drive.  we finally gave up, so I drove maybe 4 hours to his 6 or 6 and a half.

So, whoever was pulling that off, stop it, just stop it.  I CAN drive, but I don’t enjoy it, and in the middle there I almost had a heart attack.

Dan SWEARS there was no rain of frogs, no plague of blood.  Bah. I know what I remember.

Anyway. Be patient if I don’t post much till Tuesday or Wednesday.

 

Remembrance and Determination by Amanda S. Green

Nineteen years ago, this nation woke to a tragedy unlike anything it had seen since Pearl Harbor. We were under attack. Four commercial airliners had been hijacked. Two flew into the Twin Towers in New York. Another crashed into the Pentagon and the fourth in a field outside of Shanksville, PA. That last plane crashed where it did because of the heroism and sacrifice of the passengers and crew onboard who refused to let their flight be used as yet another weapon against our nation.

To say the country was in shock as it reeled from one event to the next is putting it mildly. We were stunned, hurt, angry and so much more. We watched as first responders risked their lives in an all too often vain attempt to rescue those trapped by the terrorist actions aimed against all of us. We watched in horror as people jumped from the Twin Towers. We couldn’t believe it as the towers came down. It was the thing of nightmares.

But something else happened that day. In cities and towns across the country, neighbors and strangers pulled together. There was a sense of need–to act, to help, to cope–that joined us. People in areas immediately impacted by the crashes opened their doors to those trapped in town because routes away from the Twin Towers and the surrounding area were shut down. They donated their time, their food, their money.

In towns like mine, so far from where it was all happening, we did our best to pull together as well. Within an hour and a half or so of the second plane hitting the Towers, I was standing in line at the local blood bank. It was the only thing I could do right then. I was surprised by the number of people already there. The blood bank wasn’t even officially open and there were already close to 75 people in line. It didn’t surprise me to see the doors to the center suddenly swing open. Employees had come in early, without having to be asked. And not just those who were set to work that day. Those who were off, as well as at least two who no longer worked there, came to do what they could to help.

Within another hour, at least another 100 people stood in line behind me. The blood bank had a line that extended down the length of the center and around the corner. One of the employees came around and told us the line was about to turn yet another corner. Finally, with something like 200-plus people waiting in line before 11, they sent a worker out to talk with us. He had a pad and pen and was asking if anyone wanted to leave their name and number and come back the next day or two. There was simply no way they could process anywhere close to as many people as were there.

No one ahead of me volunteered to come back. I didn’t either. Why? Because I needed to do something. We all did.

It took time, but they finally whittled the line down to about 100-125. And man were those techs hustling.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

The sandwich shop next to the blood bank also opened early. It opened its restrooms to us and offered us free water and soft drinks. Someone, and I never did learn who, brought up a TV and several radios so we could listen to what was happening. Other people who lived nearby brought some lawn chairs for those of us standing in line.

Albertsons, one of our local grocery stores, sent their manager and several clerks with half a dozen or more ice chests filled with drinks, ice, etc., All free of charge. We wouldn’t even have known who they were if someone in line hadn’t asked. They came in their personal cars and didn’t wear anything to identify their employer. They simply wanted to help.

It was almost 5 by the time they got to me. As they took me back to a chair, another local merchant arrived. This time, it was a local restaurant. They had coolers and hot boxes filled with food–meals–for the workers and for those of us still there. Again, no one wanted recognition. They simply wanted to help.

In the nation’s hour of tragedy, people pulled together.

I look at that and then I consider what is happening in our nation today. We are in a different sort of war now. It’s not a war waged by an external enemy—although we have plenty of them who are more than glad to cheer on our internal adversaries and offer them aid if needed. No, this is a war waged by those who live here and who have decided it is time to destroy the very foundations of our nation.

It is bad enough that we have “mostly peaceful” demonstrations that have led to destruction, injury and loss of life. It is worse that we have politicians who refuse to take steps to protect the citizens of their towns. But, worse of all, we have those who actively advocate the suspension of not only our civil rights but our constitutional rights.

We have a presidential candidate in Joe Biden who has all but threatened workers and business owners who do no support unions coming into their shops. His running mate is more concerned with being seen with the victim of what she terms police brutality than she is in making sure the woman who has accused him of a crime has a chance at justice. But there is no hue and cry about it because the current narrative is all about how police are evil and should be abolished.

We have a Speaker of the House who not only proved she has no regard for the law, but who had no problem setting up one of her constituents for doxing. Worse, Pelosi claimed victim status for herself because she just had to have that hair cut before her interview with Vice—where she extolled the need to continue the mask mandate, business shutdowns, etc. When faced with proof of how she ignored local Covid-19 regulations, she claimed ignorance and the said she’d been set up.

This is the person who sits in the line of succession to the presidency and she didn’t know 1) she should have been wearing a mask and 2) that beauty salons IN HER OWN TOWN were not allowed to open for anything but outside work?

There are so many other examples of steps being taken by both foreign and domestic enemies of this nation. Too many to set forth here. But here’s the thing. They don’t have to win. This battle, much less the war, isn’t over. Our nation has proven time and again that it can overcome obstacles, be they economic or constitutional or even military. But we have to want to win.

I challenge each of you to remember those first days and weeks after 9/11/2001. Remember not just the desire but the need to make sure our country came out of the attacks stronger and better than it was before. Now put that same desire, that need into play today. Do not go gently into the night.

Do not sit at home on election day.

Do not let your voice be silenced.

Do not forget our history and do not consign our children and grandchildren to a future we can’t be proud of.

I want to leave you with this. I was proud of our nation on 9/11 and on the days following. We proved we could pull together when we need to.

And, by all that is holy, we need to do so now.

As Todd Beamer said, “Let’s Roll!”

 

Good morning boys, girls and dragons. It is sweet to see your glowing morning faces.

What time is it at According to Hoyt? You’re right. It’s heresy time!

My husband has long ago learned that there are places it is not safe to take me, because he just ends up dragging me out while I’m still trying to get a last zinger in at the speaker.  Yes, that has included churches. We don’t attend there anymore.  But mostly it’s lectures or movies or theater performances, where the person in charge believes we’re in need of hearing just a little more of that ol’ time (what? He’s been dead a long time. And most of his adherents are either fossilized while living or brain dead, so….) Marxist religion.

Yesterday we almost added museums to that list. It came this close. You could smell its tail when it went by.

You see we thought it was safe to go to a WWI museum.  And as you guys know I’m interested in the era. Partly because I think that’s when the wheels came of Western culture and we started skidding on dangerous ice. Without wheels. Downhill. And there’s fire at the bottom of the ravine.

In a way the visit was good — the exhibits are excellent, and we might go back because I didn’t get to look at all the guns as I would have liked to. I’m not an expert, no, but the national variations on light machine guns are fascinating, and I still have to write World War Dragon — because it solidified a) what went wrong. b) why lately — like the last three years — the history has been “tasting” as if it rhymes with WWI.

My talking back, though started with the introductory movie.

I’ve told you guys before the causes I was taught for WWI, which included fervent nationalism, militarization and idealization of the military, as well as Germany coming late to industrialization and feeling hemmed in.  That last is probably true, btw.  Though at this point I’m in no mood to give consequence to “historians” infected by Marxism and therefore prone to running headlong down stupid blind alleys towards brick walls.

I have bad news.  In the forty years since they’ve pounded that arrant nonsense into my head, they’ve added more.  To that list is now added “Social darwinism” (Talk back “Did they confuse it with the SECOND world war?”) “Which believed that evolution applied not only to organisms but to cultures and that the fittest culture would survive!” (Talk back “And you don’t? Why not? What the hell do you believe? Or are you confusing culture with race again?”) Income inequality (Talk back: “As compared to what fluff brain? ANY time before that the inequality was greater.”) And the terrible treatment of the working classes in cities (tb: “Again, compared to what? Have you been asleep while India and China industrialized?”) which led to socialism (TB: “I too love to blame socialism for just about everything. But for world war I it’s a step too far.”) which was sweeping the masses, so practically every worker was socialist (TB: Snort, Giggle “No, butt-brain. The intellectuals were socialists, and it’s not hard to recruit petty criminals and useful idiots to swell your ranks. But no. Most workers were not socialist.”) AND THEN the one that made everything click: “Imperialism. Those darn hyper nationalistic states of Europe were going to Africa and Asia and creating colonies.”  And it clicked.  Particularly since the next point in their description was about how the Balkans didn’t like being under the heel of the Austro Hungarian empire.  (Not that I blame them. I mean, for a brief time Portugal was too, several centuries back.)

And the back of my brain went CLICK.  And now I need to descend into heresy from everything you’ve been taught. Although note, I’m not going to rewrite history. I’m not one of THEM. I’m just going to challenge the way it’s been interpreted and force fed to generations of people.

There is a very stupid meme going around facebook that talks about how terrible it would be if Europe had ever been treated the way that Africa and Asia were treated, and partitioned and repartitioned at random by uncaring colonial powers.

It’s one of those that makes me faintly nauseous, (like the one that claimed the pilgrims had white privilege) because it betrays just how far our schools have gone into not teaching the kids any kind of history beyond “Europe bad” and “everywhere else good.”  It would be less criminal if they simply didn’t teach them to read and write (wait, that’s true!)

Because of course, not only was tribal, mostly pre-historic Europe partitioned more or less blindly by conquering powers: Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians. But it was then repartitioned again and again at the whim of invaders (Goths — yes, their horned helmets were all black. Someone bop the comedian on the head and drag him out in the alley, please — Ostrogoths, Swabians, Franks, Alans and only Bob knows what — he’s very learned Bob — else.)  In fact the “national” borders of Europe are no more “real” to the genetic make up of people’s than are national borders anywhere else.  They are mostly where they ended up.  The fiction that the things inside the walls are “races” or ethnicities is a creation of public schools and national poets and … well, fictionalizing historians. Something the left should be quite familiar with.

This is not to say there should be no borders — more on that later — but frankly if the rest of the world wants to have the same “inside border” cohesion as Europe what they need is not to redraw them and moan about colonialism: it’s a shameless and ruthless propaganda machine to convince school children of bullshit. That should be easy. Communists can do it.

Anyway, the point is that “colonialism” and the “unrest in the balkans” are not because of nationalism and “people becoming aware of ethnic differences” (I swear to Bob they said that. Do Historians nowadays know bloody nothing of history?) and dragging poor Darwin into that stew (fish stew. with heads in) is just purely mean.

Industrialization and the rapid change of ways of life does come into this because Man — and woman, child, infant and dragon — does not live by bread alone. Some wise Rabbi said that, and He was, as grandma would say, covered in reason (Hopefully the Reason of the Postrel era. It’s gone down hill.) I.e. men who can see time before and after their lives and whose lives are far too brief for their minds, need a narrative to fit into.

For a long, long time the narrative had been religion and a way of life.  “I farm, as did my father, my grandfather, his father etc. etc. etc.”  When you moved away from the village, where you could visit the graves of all your ancestors, you needed a narrative to be part of. Which is where nationalism and to an extent militarism fit in. (To the other extent militarism was always part of it, and now there were dime-novels talking of adventure, which is often in war or happens to military man.)

But there was real unrest at the time.  And while we know of a few where socialists spoke, etc, I don’t believe it was at all “socialist” or “Marxist” even.  I mean, look, I’m running on stories I heard from my grandparents who heard them from their parents (their being children during WWI.)  And other people’s grandparents, too, in other countries.

Oh, sure, the intellectuals loved Marx. They still do. They’re a very conservative constituency.  And the organized Marxists (which at the time flew under a number of banners, including gutting and wearing the skin of Anarchists. They also still do) were running as hard as they could to get ahead of the mobs that were getting pissy.

But the mobs weren’t getting pissy because they wanted socialism. Socialists just happened to be the only organized ones who could claim credit/responsibility/ stir things their way.

The unrest had more to do with a lot of dislocated people living in a large group than ever and running around without a narrative to fit their lives into.

But there were other things….

Glanced by in the presentation is the fact that most of the ruling class of Europe was related to Queen Victoria.  They didn’t talk about it, but here’s the thing, the other problem is that the vast empires of Europe had been vast for a long time, but not really centralized.  It’s possible Americans don’t know this, but large European countries (Sometimes you can swing a cat not needing a passport for the cat) were “one country” only in name.  The regional variations in everything from dialect to cuisine, not to mention the administration of local laws, and even local laws imposed by the local grandee made them effectively several tiny, locally-administered countries overseen/protected by an overlord.

In the nineteenth century that changed.  Not only was the ruling class running in possession of faster means of transport, and the wealth from the industrial revolution, but heaven help us, most of them had IDEAS.  (A lot of those ideas very similar to Marx’s.) They, by gum and golly were actually going to govern ALL of their holdings. Down to the smallest village.  (This had started with Louis XIV, may his name never be sufficiently damned, but in the 19th century they had the ABILITY as well as the desire to stomp on every peasant face forever.)

So what that presentation never connected (they had drunk too much Marx) but should is this:

Just before WWI people were rebelling against distant and often dogmatic rulers, who frankly didn’t know anything and cared even less about local needs and conditions.  This applied equally to European villagers and to Congo tribesmen.

And the European Elite, basically one family, was about as clued in and with it and insulated from the consequences of their bullshit as out would be world elites today.

So, yeah, they were having the equivalent of tea parties and yellow jackets outbreaks, which of course the socialists infiltrated and tried to claim — stop me when it sounds familiar — which explains what actually happened where the presentation used all sorts of passive voice “the respect for established monarchy was broken.”  Uh no.  People were sick and tired of distant rulers who didn’t get them trying to tell them how to wipe their behinds.

So yeah, things were breaking down and the ruling hierarchy found something to distract the people: a long, and bloody war.  Although to be fair, they were probably trying to grab more territory to mis-administer from afar. It just all came together in a perfect storm.

And afterward the Marxists blamed….  nationalism and the free market.  And tried to force internationalism — aka more control from afar — on people and treating people as faceless members of nations, with the guilt and victimhood ascribed to groups, not people.  And when that blew up in WWII… they doubled down.

We’re now in the middle of a massive, new revolution (Call it the digital revolution, though I don’t think that’s exactly right) in the way people live and work, and the old narrative doesn’t fit.  Unrest is breaking out all over, and the socialists, who are now, by and large the ruling elite, keep trying to appropriate it, and ascribe it to the same old same old.

If we double down and prescribe more internationalism, which they do, it might kill civilization and humanity with it.

And to be clear I am for borders.  I see the point of larger countries (commerce and military mostly) but the administration must be as local as possible.  When it comes to government it should always be as small, local and personal/adaptable as possible. Because people aren’t groups, or widgets that fit into groups, be the groups race, cultures, or nations.  Or even villages (trust me.) And because if the local government is doing something particularly idiotic, you can go and have a talk with them.  While if — oh, at random — all of Europe is governed from Brussels, you can’t even vote the bastards out, much less go and have a pointed, finger to sternum, conversation with the worst offender

What we’ve been doing for 100 years now is doing the same thing over and over again (A war? Let’s erase national barriers, and have people governed by impersonal groups far away! That will cure it!) and expecting a different result.

And we all know what that means.

If we don’t break out of this loop, we’re headed to World War Three and afterwards the socialists will try to set up ONE government for the whole of the Earth, because that will stop wars (they never heard of civil wars, the idiots.)

Let’s stop this, shall we. Do not buy the narrative. Speak up, talk back, disrupt the “accepted causes.”

Disrupt the story of the accepted causes of everything really.  And keep talk back. Because everything has been infected with Marxism. And we must drive this heresy train all the way.

Good thing it has no brakes.

 

Two days ago we had news that my mother in law was put into hospice.  She has died today.

This means instead of being home on Sunday, we’ll be traveling across the country to the funeral.

Keep us in your thoughts, since this means I’ll be driving a lot, which frankly scares the heck out of me, but also that life is going to be  a mess for another week. If all goes well we’ll be back home in a week and a day.

If you guys send me guest posts, much appreciated.  And posting WILL be a little erratic.

I’ll try to bob up once a day, no promises on time, though.

I don’t understand whence comes the myth of the very efficient communist regime.

[Before I go on, let me get definitions out of the way: Communist, socialist, progressive, social democrat… It’s a continuum, but really at some level it’s like that Far Side cartoon with the two bathroom doors and a penguin picture on each and the caption “only they know the difference.”  And yeah, to the concern trolls who’ll come by to give me the idiotrivia about it. Thank you. I know. Thanks to your comrades in the 70s in Portugal I studied Marx in all my courses in middle school (BTW that was a bad idea. As a well-read 12 year old, who could do math, I saw the holes in logic, economics and psychology.) The point is that yeah, we can also tell which sex a penguin is by looking closely. The point here is that no one outside your group cares. Same sh*t, different name for the smell.]

Now that this is out of the way: there is a myth out there that the statists are incredibly efficient and smart.  They believe it, of course. I mean, it has been an article of faith with them, ever since I’ve been cognizant, that people on the right are stupid uneducated hicks.

[And for the sake of definitions, again, let’s make this clear: “on the right” to the left means anyone not of the body. they lump into one group the European “blood and soil” right, the national socialists (because not internationalists, therefore not of the body), the libertarians, the American “leave us the heck alone” right, religious conservatives, in fact any religious person, and basically anyone who doesn’t think Lenin had some great ideas. Hell, for a while there they tried to shove Maoists in here with us.]

This is the result of our education system having been largely taken over by the Lenin-fans.  They equate smart with “has the right answer on the test” and “has the right credentials” both of which really are the same thing. And when the curriculum calls for parroting Marx, praising Lenin and hating the free market the only ones getting good grades are idiots, mobis and submarines.  (I wonder if the left has any idea how many submarines there are.  I have a feeling they’re about to find out.  Let’s face it, even I, who am glass fronted, hid successfully for over a decade.)

So they think of themselves as super smart.  And their politico-religious beliefs requires they believe in central control, and that it can work and be efficient.

But…. excuse me? Why do the rest of you believe it?

I was reading a facebook post by Brad Torgersen about the feet-on-fire Portland guy, (Oh, you haven’t seen it?  Well…. let’s say burning man wasn’t completely cancelled this year.  More at the link, but get an oggle of this:)

Anyway, Brad linked this and someone in the comments said these are the Kopstone Komissars.  Which is when it hit me:
THEY ALL ARE.

The really committed communists, the ones who said “come the revolution” always were, and their murderous baby thugs are worse.

No, I am absolutely dead sure on this. Remember I’ve had a vast number of encounters with leftists my entire life — some day over drinks remind me to tell you in detail about the “demonstration guard thugs” who surrounded me, all pointing AK 47s at me and thought I would be scared. No, seriously. They were a for-real circular firing squad.  If I hadn’t pointed it out they might have let go, too. Okay, I told them, because I was afraid they might accidentally hit me. But having been on the receiving end of their expertise, having them try to shoot me meant I was probably the safest there. —  and none of them was playing with a full deck.

About the closest you get to sane and competent are soft American left, and all of us have friends — and relatives — in that pool, so you know without my telling you that these otherwise sane people are ignoring all the contradictions and impossibilities in the bullshit they support. They have to be. Because otherwise they’d have a psychotic break.

From there on, the insanity just piles on.

I’m not going to say that these people are naturally stupid. Hell, I’m related to some of them. I’m saying the ones who are smart, or even competent in other things have…. cracks. Okay, we all have, but their cracks allowed this idiotifying (totally a word) cult-like “explanation for everything” to invade their brain, and that thing eats your ability to function and your common sense.  (Might be a thing of totalitarian ideology.  I have vague memories of people talking about naziism doing the same in the early 20th century.)

But the truth is when they’re running fully under the power of Leninist-love, they have lost most of their marbles, their competence is doubtful, and they couldn’t find reality if it bit them in the fleshy part of the butt.

Occasional-Cortex is about normal level of competence, and when people ask why left-wing mayors are destroying their own cities, I think it’s because they don’t think they’re destroying them. They are, instead, giving an opportunity for the downtrodden to take over them, or whatever. They are of course completely insane, but their cult requires them to believe this.

Obama didn’t mean to destroy world economy, for instance. He thought if he impoverished the US, the rest of the world would become richer, because insano Marxist economics requires that to be true, so it must be true. And he couldn’t process reality that went against the doctrine.

It’s like this all the way down with the left.

But then, you say, Sarah, how did they manage to have these plots, these illusions, to take control of academia, the media and entertainment?

Oh, that was because they had full control of them, starting with a lot of sympathizers in place before they got frisky.

They really can’t function with anything less than FULL control. They’re not competent. They can just project an ILLUSION of competence. BUT they need full control.

Remember in the USSR they had to install a ban on TYPEWRITERS and were finally taken down by that revolutionary tech, the copier.

And they think they can take control of the US and KEEP IT.

So, the series of prattfalls we’ve been watching this year? That’s the left when not in full control of the narrative. They’re always like that. the number of stupid moves they made in any country they got control of? Is almost all of them.

Yeah, they did this desperate covidiocy thing to regain their captive audience, but even that is breaking down.

We’re Americans, and you block us on one side, we go the other way. And as for means of communication?  Oh, brother!

The left trying to take over America are like a dog chasing a car.  If it catches it, then it will know what real trouble is.

Be not afraid.  In the end we win, they lose. If we manage to not die laughing.

A note from your friendly neighborhood writer (I know, I know, I’m not the only one!): Sorry about this strange truncated post, but it’s my husband’s birthday and I don’t feel like doing anything, and besides I didn’t promo yesterday.
Real post tomorrow, I promise.

Also FYI I HATE the new WordPress posting interface, which they make really clean by hiding ABSOLUTELY everything and then you have to poke around till you find it. And they don’t let you switch back to the class mode.

I can see where this would be way more useful for stuff like, oh, a store or a vlog, but none of the stuff that’s “new and cool” is stuff I need, and I can’t find any of the things I actually want, like how to center the pictures without figuring out pictographs they invented for the occasion. Grrr. Argh.

Meanwhile, kick back, consider one of these books, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

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 MACKEY CHANDLER: Who Can Own the Stars?

The Kingdom of Central’s sovereign, Heather Anderson, set L1 as a limit for armed ships to respect, de-militarizing the Solar System. Now that the Earth nations are experimenting with star drives they want to challenge this limit anew. The USNA starship, Constitution is intercepted violating the L1 limit and brings them to the brink of war again. Will Peer Jeffrey Singh be able to negotiate a compromise? Do the Earthies mean to bargain in good faith? The Spacers need to buy time but things on Earth are always so complicated…

FROM ELIZABETH BRUNER: Drawing the Magic

Can magic be a substitute for drugs? It sure seems like it.

Christopher Chevalier and Listrial, the Fairy Queen, are in Arizona searching for clues about terrifying monsters and the people who fight them and finding more questions than answers.

Winifred and her crew have been knocked for a loop, all their lives turned upside down, and they have a bad feeling about what’s coming next. When Izzy gets in trouble, all hell could break loose.

Dan Ben-David needs answers and he needs them fast. Everything is spiraling out of his control and he doesn’t want to ask for help. Instead, he’s trying to figure everything out on his own and it’s going from bad to worse. He’s in desperate need of help and a sandwich.

FROM JULIA BLAINE: Tea and Sympathy and Emus

A whimsical, quirky story. How could it not be with naughty emus and flying pigs?
On her own for the first time in years, Linda wants to learn to take care of herself again. She’s not doing a spectacular job of it.
Sheriff Deputy Dan Granger doesn’t like making mistakes, especially when he is on duty. He’s made Linda’s new independent life more difficult. When he tries to fix his mistakes, he can’t quite get it right. And it’s more and more important to Dan that he makes everything right.
Can he make this romance fly? Or will birds that don’t fly and pigs that do, get in the way?

FROM MARY CATELLI: Lifestone

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Cool as Ice

Ice is back. He’s got a job, a girlfriend, four talking horses, and now he bought a wreck of a house, hemmed with conflicting requirements of the Historical Society, building codes and fire regulations . . . He’s almost too busy to worry about the looming trial of a former president.

Sorry, guys. It was a very weird day compounded by the fact I drove about six hours yesterday, so by the time I went to bed, I kept startling myself awake from dreams I was driving and… falling asleep. So I woke up early today for things that I couldn’t be late for. I just got back to the hotel.

On the good side, I drove six hours. On the highway. Those of you who know my issues with driving, particularly on the highway, know how momentous this is.

So I’ll put up the book promo tomorrow, since we actually have a very nice batch of books.

I told you this week was going to be weird even for me. OTOH hoping to get these two books out the door so I can publish one this month, and one next month.
I’m also well into editing the Con books, and will talk to Kate about the next two next week, and hopefully lock in the contract. (Editing: SOMEHOW we don’t have an edited version, which is why they’re not up yet. And yeah, I’m doing it, because why not? I was still sleeping 6 hours a night. It will be fine.)

She also has some space operish mil-sf and other stuff I’ll try to get out ASAP. I mean, what am I doing, otherwise? worrying? what good does that do?
And yes, in case that doesn’t come through: I am feeling better.
So promo post and special Labor Day challenges tomorrow (when husband has his birthday, too.)

Catch you on the flip side.

It Takes Longer Than You Think by B. Durbin

I was recently reading a fantasy series—it doesn’t matter much which one—where the world building started out quite well, with a pre-industrial collection of cities and farming towns, but eventually dissolved into poor world building, in that a number of things didn’t make sense.

At the heart of the issue was that the author was evidently unaware of what living on the margin really means. A pre-industrial farming society, especially one such as the one portrayed, where darkness means that everyone and everything has to be safely inside, has almost no room for error, and is going to be on the edge of starvation.

To begin with, how long does it take to bake bread? I know the answers you’re likely to give, but in a society living on the margin, it takes nine months.

Let me explain.

We’re used to our modern society, where you have many things right at hand, but to make bread in a pre-industrial society, we need to be like the Little Red Hen and start at the very beginning. Which means a piece of land.

Land doesn’t come in bags of soil from the garden center. Land starts with what you have. It’s not precisely suited to wheat where I am, so the challenges are a bit different, but a lot of the process is the same. First you have to prepare the ground, which means you have to deal with the plants that are already there. And the rocks and other things that get in your way. Plowing is generally the first step, a deep breaking up of root structures and turning over of the dirt. Where I am, the soil is heavily clay, so things need to be added to break it up. Straw is good for that, as is any dry foliage that is unlikely to sprout. Definitely nothing diseased; you don’t need nasty spores mildewing up your plants. And you’ll want nutrients in there too, all the stuff you’ve been composting over the last year, steer manure or well-aged horse manure, fish heads, night soil, those sorts of things.

This will not smell good.

You may want to harrow the field to break up the clods and even stuff out—yes, “harrowing” started out as an agricultural term—and you haven’t even gotten to planting yet. When you do plant, you have to plant more than you’re going to need, because pests and other problems are going to take out a portion of your crop. While it’s in its early growth, you’ll have to go weeding every day, lest they overtake your crops, but once they’re established, they often out-compete the weeds. But you have to make sure they have plenty of water, the right amount of sun, no disease, no nibbling small mammals (or big mammals; deer are agricultural pests too), and basically you have to maintain the field for as long as the growing season is. 60-90 days is a typical amount of time for many crops after fruit set—which means until you’ve got flowers and pollination, you can’t even start the count. (And mind that you have bees and butterflies, or you’re not getting much of a crop.)

Once you’ve got the crop ready, you have to harvest. Of course, you have to be careful, because cut grain is liable to rot if it gets wet, and in a pre-industrial society, you don’t have the weather report as such. So you set your harvest for a dry day and try to get it under cover as soon as you can to dry out. Once it’s dried, you have to separate out the grain, which means threshing it. (One such threshing tool is a flail, which fantasy writers often imagine makes a good weapon of war. Maybe improvised, but that’s the sort of thing that can literally come back to hurt you almost more easily than it can hurt someone else.) Once it’s threshed, you separate the wheat from the chaff—yes, there’s another agricultural phrase for you—by throwing it up in the air in a bit of a breeze and letting the grain fall while the straw and other bits blow off.

So now you have grain, hopefully without too many straw bits in it. Time to get it ground into flour. You could do it yourself, with a mortar and pestle, that would take darn near forever. Or you could take it to a miller, who has millstones, which are set a tiny fraction apart and have channels to carry ground wheat to the edges. The millstones are turned by gears and wind, water, or animals, and the quality of the stones affects how fine the grain is, and whether you get little bits of stone in your flour to wear away your teeth over the years. You get back your flour—the miller has probably taken a portion of it in payment—and now you’re ready to bake.

Except you need some way to do it! While there are means to cook bread over an open fire, you need at the very least a sturdy pan in which to cook it, and the fuel to cook it with. Be careful of your fuel choices, because the smoke is likely to flavor your food over an open fire. If you have an oven, it’s very likely brick set to the side of the hearth, with its own door, and that will keep smoke and ash out of your food. (Hope it’s after the invention of the chimney, at least.) So if you have a nicely bricked hearth, chimney, and oven, you’re doing great. Plus wood, peat, dried herbivore turds (yes, that’s a thing), charcoal from a forest fire, or whatever you’re going to burn.

What else do you need for bread? Well, yeast is actually pretty easy to come by. Stale beer is the simplest (beer comes before bread in human history), but anything that’s fermented can do. In a pinch, you can get the flour wet and wait for *it* to ferment, that only takes a day or two. Three or four if you want that sourdough taste. Make sure nothing nasty starts growing, though—you want fermentation, not rot. Eggs? Well, if you have chickens, you can have egg in your bread. Milk? Cows, goats, sheep.

Now that you have all of your ingredients, you can bake! Baking itself is the shortest part of this all. What you’re really going to want to spend time on is safe storage techniques, though, because you can’t wait until the next harvest for your next loaf of bread. Pottery is pretty choice, as it’s waterproof and vermin-proof. Hope you have a potter around, and the right kinds of clay, and plenty of fuel for the firing…

*Note from the blog owner – B. Durbin didn’t know if this post would be germane for this blog. There was just a feeling that perhaps fantasy writers should know more about the real world before setting out to build imaginary ones.
I think, on the contrary, it is the same airy-fairy sort of notion that of course our ancestors could just run to the supermarket to buy some flour (i.e. for instance that regency that started with the duchess driving a gig to buy groceries…) that gives us the notion that, oh, a state (the glorious masked, locked, bear flag people’s republic) can postpone evictions for non-payment of rent indefinitely.
There is a generation/generations of people raised in such pampered affluence they literally don’t know that everything they can buy — or, say, loot — is literally pieces of other people’s lives: time spent making the things (and effort, and other materials, etc) so this thing could exist.
So, even supposing that insurance could replace the full value of looted goods (it can’t, for the record) the goods themselves would be gone, and with them the pieces of people’s lives that went into them existing and being available for sale.
Looting, and vandalism, which is all the pseudo revolutionary chic of pampered establishment brats these days is in fact a series of partial murders. You’re destroying parts of people’s lives.
You’re destroying value that can’t be replace by money, because money is just a symbol, not the thing.
Do that enough and civilization collapses. And those so pampered as to think that things just appear and that goods aren’t made or created or invented, just infinitely redistributed, really will not like what comes after.
So, yes, this post is germane. It’s a reminder of the real world. Which is that you can’t change by wishing it different. -SAH*

I’m one of those people who doesn’t believe in affirmations. If I tell myself “”You’re good, you’re wonderful, your talent is amazing!” the voice at the back of my head just gets sarcastic. And frankly, it gets sarcastic enough to undo any even vague acquiescence I might be giving to that stuff. Plus my sarcasm…. I’m really good at it. So I emerge beaten.

In the same way, I don’t believe in pampering yourself. Look, I know myself. I’m made of laziness and loving not to do much. Yeah, I say if I win the lottery I’d probably write more, but I’d have to discipline myself to do so. Because otherwise I could easily while my life away going down rabbit holes on the internet. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve recognized the disease in a few of you. Something is mentioned and even if you don’t have any interest in it, suddenly you have to know EVERYTHING about it. You look up what seems like two minutes later, and 400 years have gone by, give or take a week. This is actually how Deep Pink came about. From simultaneous deep dives into apparitions (some of which smell a little of the diabolus and to be fair aren’t certified) and Hard Rock bands history. Okay, I lost less than 400 years. Only about three months, but seriously, I could have done so many other things with that time. Including written other books that have been waiting longer.

Anyway, the point is if I say “I’m going to pamper myself” I don’t even know what that looks like. First thought is a lot of chocolate, but that has its own issues. I mean, that type of pampering, when I used to do it after finishing a writing jag, usually meant a day or two on the sofa sleeping, drinking hot chocolate, or eating ice cream out of a carton, and watching the A & E Pride and Prejudice.

That’s good for like a day, but then I start feeling guilty, mid of the second day. And by the third I’m too guilty to enjoy it.

Just letting myself do whatever no judgement has the same issue. I’ve slipped into that a few times this year, more out of of “I can’t even” than out of “I’m going to let myself do this.” It’s not fun. After two weeks you start feeling you’re completely useless, and why are you bothering getting out of bed in the morning.

So, we’ve established I have no clue how to be good to myself, right? And I suspect I’m not alone. In fact, according to older son, I only ever accomplish stuff by being the most complete (compleate, really) *sshole to myself. He’s not wrong.

But listen to me anyway, if nothing else because I’m a past expert at doing this all wrong: Be good to yourself.

We’re all hanging on by our fingernails, barely surviving. No, really. Well, okay, I am. 2020 has been a scouring year. I feel we’ll emerge from it stronger and more determined…. if it doesn’t kill us first. The jury is out on the “if,” but hey if it kills us our problems at least in this reality are over. And all I accomplish by telling myself “I’m not worried” is that I worry at a subconscious level, and then don’t sleep. We’ve seen our country turned upside down by fiat of a bunch of dictators. We’ve seen petty criminals and the children of the rich riot and burn down our cities. We’re not allowed to engage in commerce unless we muzzle. And we’re told things that are patently not so — this virus is the most dangerous evah! The country is tired of capitalism! We’re the most racist nation evah! — even while our eyes and reason tell us something different.

And some of us — okay me — have lost all our fun stuff. I haven’t been out to the botanic gardens or the zoo since March. Dining at Pete’s is okay, if you feel like having food in the apocalypse, with most of the diner empty and everyone looking strained. Oh, and nothing can be spontaneous. One of the joys of both of us working from home most of the time has been “oh, hey, I’m not getting anything done” Headache/whatever. “How about we go for a quick walk and then hit up the lamb’s special at Pete’s/have the charcuterie platter at the German place/go to x lecture at the museum?” And we can do stuff at the drop of a hat. It might be we have to work two hours late, but we can go and do it then. Only not now. Most of those things are not happening/curtailed/I’m not sure they’d let me in with “just” face shield.

And most of us — even my husband, which is weird — have lost our “time”. I don’t have a very accurate time-sense. Oh, I’m pretty good about “what time is it” but not “What day of the week/month is it.” It used to be anchored by our day off — Saturday — I could kind of figure out how many days it had been since we’d taken an afternoon off. Most of the time. But that is… gone.

Other people had other things they did. Gaming night. Saturday breakfast with friends. The day they meet Bob for lunch and to catch up (Bob gets around.) BUT all that is gone. So most people are disoriented and have no idea what day it is, or sometimes what month it is. (March. It’s the billionth day of March 2020. I swear.)

And because everyone is frayed and stressed and on our last nerve, we are getting other hits. A lot of other hits. Stress increases illness, and at any rate some of us are on the run from our doctors, who make us wear masks though they know damn well we have breathing issues. People aren’t going in for routine checkups, and everyone assumes it’s fear of the ‘rona, but I think that’s stupid. It’s like college students not wanting to have classes in person it’s assumed to be fear of the ‘rona, and that’s stupid too. Sure, some of them — those who mainline XINN on the daily — might be scared. But given the ratings of those stations, I doubt that’s a majority. It’s just that most people don’t enjoy going out in public during the pretend apocalypse, or LARPing the end of civilization. Everyone in masks, and having to stay out of shouting distance of each other (which btw in Europe is only 3 feet, or as we call it in the states “normal”) and everyone acting like we’re all going to die? It’s depressing and stressful, and none of us — even those who CAN wear masks without huffing like Thomas the tank engine after five minutes — wants to do that.

So, stress and lack of medical care, we’re all losing friends to death, or finding out they have cancer. And all our personal relationships are stressed as heck. Even our impersonal relationships. I’m still not sure — and kind of gobsmacked — at the commenter who took offense/though I was casting him out yesterday. What the hell, even? Normally, at least I have a vague sense of a suspicion of a glimmer of what I might have said, but not that time.

And if it were just commenters on the internet, I’d just take a vacation from it. But all human contact is strained, (and rare.) Husband and I are making a point of being extra nice to each other because we realized we were each overreacting to everything, for instance. And in the store I feel anger and fear radiating from people. And what’s worse, as Herb pointed out in yesterdays post, I’m not even sure what they’re angry about/scared of.

Me? I wake up screaming at the thought that our republic has barely two months to live, if things are done as they always have been and the frauding is worse than ever.

And I don’t know what to do. I’ve been doing (rare) writing jags, reading the world’s stupidest cozy mystery series (No, let’s see…. The main character has the same name as the author; in the inevitable love triangle she chooses the insane-sounding beta male (kind of like Dyce deciding she’s in love with Ben, but only if Ben were WAY more effeminate and weird); the police are complete bumbling fools. Not “the character is so weird that she/he sees what the police doesn’t” but complete bumbling fools.) I’ve been reading them one after the other because they require no mental effort. I’ve been doing covers for books that haven’t reverted and might never revert and obsessing on them, like it mattered (Oh, I do have plans to engage a lawyer and/or burn it all down (which would be entertaining) at the end of September, but at best it’s going to be a bitter battle. Also, I figured out Luce’s clothes were too tight/weird so I changed them this morning, and will post at end.) And I’ve been cleaning/refinishing/fixing because I’ve found that being exhausted means I sleep for at least a couple of hours.

None of this is healthy. None of this makes me feel better.

We’re going sort of on vacation (it’s complicated) tomorrow for a week (which means posting here will be weird, meh, like you’re not used to that these last few months) and hope to get my head in order as far as writing/getting back to writing. Well, at least I can’t RENDER on the laptop.

And then I’m trying to figure my way back to some sort of sanity. Because if it all goes to hell and gets very bad this winter (which I fear will happen no matter who wins) I need a routine in place, so that I can survive it mentally, emotionally and physically. And hopefully be around for the rebuild. (If they don’t catch me first.)

I think part of it is establishing a routine and sticking to it. Not that I know for sure, because I suck at both those things: routine and “establishing.” But it might be time to make an unwonted effort.

But I hear routines have a calming effect. And you feel like you’re safe, because you’re doing things you’re supposed to be doing at a time you’re supposing to be doing it.

And I’m going to try to make part of that routine being good to myself. No, not that way. Not endless deep dives into internet useless trivia. Not eating ice cream from the carton (well, maybe once a week, but probably not from the carton.)

Because being away for a week — I’ve found in the past — is enough to shatter my “habits” particularly the dysfunctional ones (I’ve fallen into this before, and gone away to a hotel for a week to “reset”) when I come back, I’m going to try really hard to establish a routine where I walk or do something vaguely like exercise every morning (it used to be a thing pre-march) then work, then take an hour and make something nice for lunch (this has become a thing, but it has been erratic) and then I work again till five or so, and then I’ll have something diffferent and fun each day of the week. Yes, rendering (though some of that is work. I owe a few of you covers. But that is not necessarily for “fun time” unless… well, some of it is) and crocheting and, once the sewing room is done, some sewing or drawing (same room.) And I’m going to try to put in time to just sit on the sofa with Dan and read. And I’m going to schedule in the occasional low-carb hot chocolate or dessert. Because.
And I’ll try to write blogs at night for the next day. And do more articles for PJ, because some stuff still needs to be said.

And then I’m going to hope it works. I’m going to try really hard to be good to myself. Even if in my case that means doing it on the schedule and forcing myself to do what’s good for me and being good to myself on the clock.

I am, of course, also open to suggestions, because, you know, I’m kind of new at this.

But I suspect most of you are better at this than I, and I want to ask: What are you going to accomplish by worrying obsessively, or getting in fights on the internet? Will it change a yota of what’s to come? If not, then it’s probably best to be good to yourself, and get yourself in good shape, so you can survive what promises to be the most difficult winter of our lifetimes.

Be good to yourself while you can. The time for sacrifice is coming soon.

And below is my latest iteration of my time-waster.

UPDATE Well, one thing can be said…. you guys are making me learn Daz. I should probably scrap the figure and try again. Came CLOSE to it, and lost the positioning in the process. I think this physic is more….believable? Realistic? Though it actually looks worse/bizarre naked, but works better with clothes. I think there’s something toggled on this figure that I can’t see/find and might be from an installation issue. As in most body mods I tried to make it more believable made it even weirder. (Sigh.)
Anyway, this probably looks better…. maybe?

The Great Remasking by HerbN

I am on vacation this week. My in-laws had a non-refundable stay at a resort where they have a membership. Unfortunately, my father-in-law required medical treatment barring travel. As the stay was not movable or refundable, they offered it to us.

The last thing he told us last night when we called to say we were in and checked in without problem was “Have fun and wear masks.”

My in-laws are not what you’d call politically left. They watch Fox News. They rant about the Obamas still. I even, accidentally, said something that led my mother-in-law to rant about how Michelle Obama is a man. Like I said, not on the left and not on the mainstream narrative about Trump and Republicans.

But they are one hundred percent on board with the preferred Narrative about COVID. In doing so, they are part of the Great Remasking.

I’m not talking about the physical masks we are all forced to wear to get the necessities of life, although that is part of it. I am not talking about the Left letting their masks slip and show their actual view of us and their intentions, especially since we got uppity and elected Trump. I’m talking about the mask lain over all of us in the pre-Internet era.

Before the Internet it was hard, although not impossible, to see how many people saw through the mainstream media’s lies. It was hard, but not impossible, to get accurate news on events in the next state, much less across the nation. It was impossible, or so close as to be impossible, to get that information in a timely manner to counter the mainstream’s attempt to create the preferred Narrative.

It was impossible to know if you were and your immediate friends were all that was left of people who didn’t accept the Narrative. Some of us thought we were crazy because no one else thought like we did. Others of us felt a “last man on Earth” isolation. A third group thought we were the one eyed men in the land of the blind and realized that did not make you a king.

Then came electronic networks. BBSes using things like FidoNet at first and we many tiny contacts. Then came the World Wide Web and with it the widespread adoption of the Internet. People could put up websites and join message boards, under pseudonyms at first, and post what they were afraid to say to a neighbor or colleague (or in a sad comment spouse or partner).

We learned we were not alone. We learned that often our “radical” thoughts were tame compared to other people. Now and then we’d find that guy in the next cubicle who we were afraid to tell we thought the news was full of it on global warming had a well-done analysis of the math that not only reinforced our conclusion, but showed it to be a bit conservative on just how much manure the Narrative was shoveling.

Four years ago, amid much wailing and gnashing of leftist teeth, this realization reached a crescendo. Not only were leftist Democrats defeated with the election of Trump, but they were shorn of the ability to create an illusion that cowed most of the population and frightened the rest into silence. Ever since Trump there have been attempts to build the Narrative and force us to get back in line and shut up for fear of being seen as wrong thinkers. They got no traction until COVID.

Then they politicized a virus. Their allies in the media got into a 24/7 fear mongering. They got us to remask.

I am in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. This is not Obama country. It is not Biden country. Yet I have to wear a mask everywhere. Here or home in Atlanta, I have to wear a mask even to buy groceries. Life requires I hide behind a mask.

And those masks are not just physical. In forcing a mask for the virus while simultaneously politicizing the wearing of masks they have undone the unmasking the Internet created. The undoing is not complete, but it has started.

Is the guy in line behind me at Kroger wearing a mask because he can’t come in without it, or is he wearing it because he’s back on the reservation?

The Great Remasking isn’t about physical masks, although it only works by making a physical mask a requirement to buy necessities. The Great Remasking is about taking away our ability to see we are not alone in our questioning the Narrative. It is about restoring the power to the media and the Left to tell us “this is the Truth and you contradict it at your peril”.

I am not sure how to fight back. A first step could be masks that signal. At first I thought a MAGA mask could do that, but my in-laws are very MAGA. They are also telling me to remember to wear a mask.

I think when I get home I’m going to go to the craft store and get some iron-on letters. A MAGA mask might not signal I do not buy the Narrative, but one that says “forced compliance” might. Sure, it will get looks, but if it gives one other person thinking they are the only one convinced we’re living in mass hysteria that they are not alone in their thinking, I’ll take it.

We may have to comply with the physical masking to buy food, but we do not have to comply with the Great Remasking.