*Okay, I have a confession: when I wrote this, I THOUGHT the left had hit the limits of how crazy they could go. And then 2020 happened and they said “hold our pinot grigio and watch this….
May the good Lord in his infinite mercy send them some sanity, so that in 2021 we don’t say “2020 was adorable….” – SAH*

Resolved: The Higher The Fewer- A Blast From the Past From September 2019

Guys, pssst?  Can someone check on the left? Because something is seriously, bizarrely wrong.  I mean, wrong enough that if the left, collectively, tripped into a hospital’s ER, they’d be slapped with a psychiatric hold.  These people — collectively — are not well.

Look, when I was growing up, one of our merry band was schizophrenic.  When he felt his insanity coming on, he’d go and commit himself, because he didn’t want to hurt anyone.  We can only hope (in vain) that the left could have that kind of insight into their mental processes.

Recently, I heard of someone also suffering from mental illness, who removed every electrical wire from his house, bashed his laptop, the radio, the TV and his telephone, sent in his own obituary and generally posed a danger to himself and others because the aliens/CIA/someone was spying on him through all of those.  He might be saner than the left.

No, seriously. I was texting to Bill (Reader) yesterday and I said something like “the left is so crazy it’s starting to scare me.  What kind of rational human being thinks we should reorganize our entire economy because an indoctrinated SWEDISH teen needs to allay her anxiety?”  And then he said, “Or for instance, that Biden is corrupt, therefore impeach Trump.”

And then I realized there were a ton of other things just as insane from that side of the isle, and I had to think, and then…

Okay, we’ll ignore people like Rashida Tlaib going on about how black market vaping cartridges have coffee and alcohol and other things that can’t be digested by the lungs, and Alexandria Occasional Cortex going on about filming the poisonous effluvia of fracking at a place where no fracking was happening and therefore it was just heat waves from drilling machinery.  We’ll ignore this, because stupid is as stupid does, and the concentrated stupidity in the “squad” is denser and harder than the core of some stars. On the other hand, consider, ladies and gentlemen, that the democrats and the press (but I repeat myself) think that creatures of such impressive density, whose stupidity is even now influencing the orbit of distant galaxies, are worthy not just of being in congress (I mean, the Romans, famously put a horse in the Senate. Who are we to complain about mere donkeys?) but are people we should listen to, and give any type of attention to and/or look to for the future of this country.  No, think about it for a moment. It will prepare you for what is to come.

As I sat there, staring at my phone screen, I realized some of the crazy is so crazy that the mind has attempted to erase it. I always said that the Obama administration had the interesting strategy of covering scandal with scandal, but I swear the democrats/progressives/ happy face socialists, (whatever the hell they call themselves this week. They keep changing names like a bad Chinese restaurant that cooks the neighborhood pets) these days cover crazy with crazy, until your mind rebels at the sheer amount of insanity and regurgitates it, like a cat that has swallowed half a bag of marshmallows (I’m looking at you, Havelock.)

The crazy has been so, you’ll pardon the allusion, fast and furious that I forgot one of the incidents first time through, and probably am forgetting some now.  We won’t even go back till the Mueller investigation was revealed as utterly hollow and probably fraudulent from the beginning.  Mostly because in the aftermath the NYT admitted it was trying to distract us with “racism, racism, racism” and such poor scholarship that even other leftists called them on it.

But somehow, somewhere along the line, the dime dropped that these days you can put the American people to sleep with “racist!” or its new hip variant “white supremacist.”

In between there, sometime, there was the bizarre obsession with “children in cages” which they never seemed to comprehend were ALSO from Obama’s tenure. (And we got the picture of Occasional Cortex staring forlornly into a parking lot, and a lot of other nuttery) And also somehow this morphed into “detention of people trying to illegally cross our border is like German death camps.”  Because you know, the problem Nazi Germany had was all those Jews trying to cross the border to come in.  WHAT?  Yes, it’s exactly like it, except where it’s not like it at all, which is all over.

But the left has minds so completely virgin of history that they make virgin olive oil look like promiscuous olive oil, and so from this bizarre a-historical comparison, they jumped not only to attacking ICE facilities and defacing American flags (question for the audience, what flag do they think they would prefer? Do they really think an invader would put them in charge? Don’t answer that. “Think” is a misnomer for what passes for their mental processes at this point. It’s like the random firing of defective, partially wet fireworks) but also to thinking that “free health care for illegal aliens” and “abolish ICE” is a winning point for their 2020 platform.

Look, guys, can thorazine be made into tranq darts? I think we’re going to need them.

But somehow, this fail-safe way to win American hearts and minds failed (save for a few empty heads in the suburbs who kept bleating “but the children” as though it were kind to encourage unscrupulous parents and kidnapping strangers to grab the kids and drag them the length of the Americas getting raped along the way by making “but the children” a get out of jail card to walk dry shod onto American soil.) I know, un-possible. And yet it failed. Possibly because as the fiercely heterosexual Cory Booker says, so many of us are “despicable.”

And so — because, as I read somewhere (might have been the NYT) they’re counting on (I swear I’m not making this up) scandal fatigue (attached to Trump!) to win them the 2020 election, the left decided to go completely, pants on head, writing obscene words on your naked bods with indelible marker, dancing a jig in subzero weather nuts.  We’re not talking the gentle madness of planning a transatlantic bridge made entirely out of soap. No, in retrospect that was the Mueller inquiry.  This… this is something completely … well, crazier.

So, what have  we seen:

Well we saw Beto O’Rourke not only saying that damn the second amendment, full speed ahead, if he won the election he was coming for our guns, but — mark my words about this, please — having T-shirts printed up with this, as though he thought, nay, was SURE this would be the making of his campaign.  No, seriously.

It is as some liberal but still sane guy said recently as if “The left thinks it’s campaigning in a country slightly to the left of Sweden.”

I’d say more than that. I’d say they think they’re campaigning in a country as disarmed as England.  Let me assure them we still have not just our knives, our screwdrivers, our sharpened spoons, but also our guns.  And saying “you’ll let me take them because I say so” doesn’t sit too well with us Americans. I suppose it’s not Beto’s fault that he never met any of us. I’m going to assume he landed, the day before that debate, from some other parallel world where there are no Americans.

Maybe in that world, the Swedes rule America.

Then there was Kavanaugh thing.  You’re going to say “Oh, old news.” Oh, au contraire, mon frere in suffering through this craziness.
No. Kavanaugh was brought up again, and the left wanted to impeach him — yes, impeach him — because some book recently published said he’d wagged his penis in someone’s face when he was eighteen. The book also said, mind you, that the woman denied and said she didn’t remember any such thing.

And when the supposed victim of this crime said “never happened.” they said that just because she couldn’t remember it, it didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Yes. The left, ladies and gentlemen, small dragons, wingless birds and feathered mammals, the political side that #believeallwomen, even people who suddenly remember things that supposedly happened forty years ago in a house that doesn’t seem to exist, when a designated victim says she doesn’t remember anything of the kind and it never happened says, “Forget the drunken slut. She doesn’t remember but that don’t mean nothing. Wouldn’t remember her own name if it weren’t tattooed on her butt. Listen to us. We must impeach a supreme court justice because we say so and will stomp our little feet and scream till you do what we say.”

Which funnily enough, between Sweden and tantrums brings us to the next item: Turns out the left believes that the best way to treat a child’s anxiety is to rearrange the entire economy of the world.  No, seriously.

I was on a forum where a woman said we shouldn’t discount the opinions of Greta Thunberg just because she’s mentally ill.

Okay, then. I suppose the guy who ripped out all the wiring of his house should be listened to. I mean, perhaps there were in fact aliens spying on him through the wires.  I’m sorry, if you’re merely depressed, your opinion might have some validity.  Distorted, maybe, but there might be something there.

But if you’re a child who suffers from both a cognitive disorder that makes it impossible to identify irony, hyperbole and lying AND from depression, why would anyone in their right mind pay attention to what you have to say?  Worse, note the CHILD in the last sentence. Greta Thunberg is a child who has not, in fact, finished the equivalent of high school.

Now, I know that children can be geniuses. I am the mother of a diagnosed “profoundly gifted” son, and another who is “at least one standard deviation above him.”  I’m here to tell you that both of them can be very knowledgeable about whatever their field of specialty is.  Which at sixteen was…  Do you know how many bizarre arguments I endured over the best way of making ME a body replacement robot, so I wouldn’t have auto-immune attacks? Or the life history of various comic book heroes, with and without retconning?  I would absolutely listen to them, then, on those subjects. Because they were probably the greatest living authorities on them, and also on various convolutions of Asterix the Gaul. Or in the case of one of them, the economic policies of ancient Rome.

You know what they weren’t authorities on? What international policy and economics should be. You know why not? Because they were sixteen.

Even adults can’t grasp how one could change world economics without killing most of the population, to avert global warming if it were a problem (hint, it doesn’t seem to be. Or at least not within foreseeable future. Or at least none of the people who claim to believe in it actually act like it is a problem.)

But, oh, dear Lord, the left, and Europeans — WTF really is the Monaco Royal Family thinking? Have they reached the level of inbreeding where they’re as dumb as Occasional Cortex? — and the press, think that this girl, because she’s sincere and angry is somehow worthy of talking in front of our congress and the UN (as if the UN needed to further beclown itself) on how we must all change things because we Faiiiiiiiiled her.

I realize that throwing tantrums has got her parents to structure their entire lives around her dictates, but what no one has explained is how and why they expect the rest of the world to do so.

Look, any of my kids when they were young and living with us, telling us we needed to change something like our dinner time because we’d faillllllled them and were ruining their childhood would be told “Tough. Also shut up child the adults are talking.”

But the world is supposed to stop for Greta Thunberg, because she’s disabled and really, really indoctrinated? Oh, and has pigtails.  Well, then. Neither of my boys had pigtails. Must be the difference.

And of course, just in case this failed, the left organized a massive, all out tantrum by giving the kids time off to leave school and demonstrate, stomping their feet and demanding we stop everything because they’re scared.

I guess because they don’t have kids, the left exaggerates the power of children tantruming?  because for us parents, that’s called “Wednesday.”  We used to look at our kids, throwing themselves to the grocery store floor, pumping arms and legs and go “Cute.  Okay. We’re leaving. Call us when you have a job.”  This usually stopped the tantrum and got them walking sheepishly beside us.

Metaphorically speaking, that’s the only response Greta, who comes from a country as far left (in fact) as Sweden deserves from the United States. I don’t care how “sincere” she is. If her fears really were of man-made global warming, she’d be lecturing India and China, not us.

So, take her away from her horrible, insane parents.  Give her to human beings to raise. Whipping the parents in the public square till the blood runs freely is probably not practical, and besides they might enjoy it.

But wait, wait, “You must give us socialism because this Swedish kid is upset and besides we have all these other kids who will take a day off school and hold up signs” isn’t the sum total of the left’s madness… Oh, no.

No. Possibly the best part of the last two weeks is the left demanding that we impeach Trump because Joe Biden is corrupt.

Sure, there’s other stuff there, but already the wheels are coming off, between Trump releasing the transcript of the call, and apparently the “whistleblower” not actually having heard the call to Ukraine, so he’s blowing his little whistle on … hearsay? and… Oh, yeah, this guy works for the Clintons, seems like, or at least that’s what I got from the convoluted chain of who is paying whom…

Is your head hurting yet?  Mine is.

Guys, in my misspent youth, I looked after friends who were suffering through bad acid trips and who were more rational than the left has become.

I fully expect sometime next week they’ll start an inquiry in the House on “Why is a mouse when he spins?” and return a resolution of “The higher, the fewer.”

Which would be hilarious, if these people didn’t have the power of the purse, if (through their press branch) they didn’t manipulate the perception of the US abroad, and if we were absolutely sure that we can beat the margin of fraud.

As is, though, it’s like being locked in a small room with someone who has gone completely and utterly insane.

Any minute now, they’re going to swagger over, wave something in our face and say “See, see? I told you the US is evil and Trump is a dictator. I have proof. Proof, I tell you.”
And we won’t know how to break it to them what they’re holding is a fistful of their own excrement.

Ellen realized for the first time how much her husband had changed when she took the tea into his office.\This story is now part of a collection for sale here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W3WBJYJ

I was very hopeless over the weekend. I’m still hopeless in a way, but I think I zeroed in on the situation, and though I still don’t but I think I figured out a particular mechanism of what’s happening and I want to share, because someone else might have a solution.

I was reading a mystery on Friday evening, while doing other things, as usual, when suddenly there was the scene when the character, investigating a case involving the murder of a gay person, walks in on a suspect watching Fox news, and of course, immediately decides he must be guilty, because he’s obviously conservative and therefore homophobic.

This both made me grind my teeth, and made me think of all my friends who are otherwise conservative, and frankly fed up with the dem shenanigans they know about, like #metoo or the “gender of the week allows me to compete in women’s sports”, or with oh, the governor of Colorado destroying public property and attracting multitudes of homeless to Colorado by making the giant, newish, expensive convention center into a homeless shelter. (And you know, following the things that happened in hotels and such that were converted, it will be cheaper to have it demolished and rebuilt than to make it useable again.) Thereby also laying waste to the most expensive area of town, to all the businesses that paid a premium to rent or buy near the convention center, to–

They see this stuff as wrong. They don’t see it as coordinated, nor the campaign behind the curtains. Like #metoo was a desperate attempt to get Trump and it’s bitterly funny it snagged mostly their own guys. Along the way it also destroyed many people’s lives and makes it almost impossible for the women who want a level playing field and who actually want to compete in the work place to do so, because men are now officially scared of employing women, promoting women and/or working with women, and frankly would rather isolate women into their own little pods than have them as useful co-workers (not everywhere, of course, but in a lot more places.) And that doesn’t count women with histories of being abused (many of them by family) who were “activated” by metoo and its assumption that everyone with a penis is out to get you.

My friends would absolutely agree these are bad things. They would not, however, agree that it was a dem move behind the scenes that started the whole thing. That it was at what the dems thought was a convenient time, doesn’t help.

But some of them are smart enough to suspect that Biden would be very bad, and Kamala very, very bad. And they hate the warbling stylings of Occasional Cortex.

They will still vote democrat, without thinking.

Because the Republicans are racist, sexist and homophobic. They know that Trump has never condemned white supremacists, because the news media has never reported on the many times he has, or all the transcripts, recordings, etc. showing he did.

They know because everyone from college on has told them, that the republicans are racist, sexist and homophobic. They know because teachers, professors, the media and elected officials tell them so.

Surely not everyone could be lying to them!

Because if everyone is lying to them, the world is completely different from the solid world beneath their feet, and then they have to re-examine everything including how things work, everyone around them, and their own place in the world.

One of the things I do when profoundly depressed — not since early 2019 — is read true crime books. There is a mini-explosion in them, as indie has allowed reporters and people involved in even minor cases to compile their notes into a book and throw it out there to be read.

The excuse, for me, is that I read them because I write mysteries. Okay, it’s not an excuse, it’s true. But the other side is that I also like to know…. the trends of human character, as it were. I like to know the mechanisms by which other people find their way into the world.

And as someone of relatively healthy psyche, I have trouble understanding the criminal or even the shady. It’s been my endeavor since I was aware of the possibility of hurting others to do as little harm as possible. What violence I’ve engaged in was always in self defense or defense of others who couldn’t defend themselves.

The whole point is, I don’t want to hurt anyone just going about their life without any detriment to other people. And I hate the thought of returning good with evil. To me — though I know that makes no sense — that has always been the central, cardinal sin. And the level doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you shoot someone who was breaking into your house to leave a gift (yes, unlikely, I know, it’s an example, bear with me) or you kick a puppy who was running up to you to greet you with joy and lick you, it is horribly, horribly wrong. (Though the first has worse consequences.)

Given that, it’s really hard for me to understand anything from grifters to murderers. And it’s always important to know these people do exist, and the harm they can and will do.

So– I read these books. That I only read them when I’m depressed is something else.

But one of the things that breaks your heart in these books is the number of people who help murderers, hide them, give them things, and enable them to commit more harm.

What breaks your heart worse is understanding how many of these people are doing it, not because they love or trust the murderer, but because the murderer has convinced them that if they don’t the people out there will do them worse harm.

Yes, the term for that is gaslighting, but the movies make it seem like it’s all this smooth narrative. It’s not. It’s disjointed, doesn’t make sense and changes all the time. And at some level the victim (in this case meaning the person conned/coerced into helping the murderer) is aware it doesn’t make sense. But they’ve been so convincingly scared of everyone outside their little menage, that they can’t bear to go to them. Because to them, if the murderer is bad, these people are way way worse.

It is worse for children caught in this situation or for women who were first caught into this situation as children.

They are so terrified of anything outside their psychological prison that they don’t dare escape, even given the option.

And this is what’s happening to the decent people caught/gaslit by the left. They were captured as children, in schools that — often unbeknownst to the parents — taught them a distorted view of reality up to and including the massively hilarious — to anyone on the outside — “the parties changed sides” version of US history. (Something that COULD NOT happen without both parties agreeing, and seriously, where did the meeting take place? who was the last president before they switched? and precisely why didn’t all politicians on either side also immediately quit and change? and also, while at it why switch and not just change name to something completely different?)

And the narrative is sustained, all over, by media, entertainment the loud chatter at work (conservatives never talk loudly or in public.)

So– They’re inside the bubble and they believe this. They have to, because everyone has always told them how scary the non-left side is, and how it will hurt and torture everyone they know. Even while the left side is destroying the economy, bankrupting the country, calling for insane lockdowns, taking away their freedoms and businesses, and generally trying to remake us into Cuba, while shouting “Death to America.” Oh, but they KNOW the other side is worse.

This is the only thing that explains, recently, an otherwise not mentally retarded journalist going undercover with antifa because he (different from the other one) totally believed it was white supremacists doing the looting. It’s the only thing that explains otherwise sane people believing that everyone who opposes the socialists is somehow racist, or sexist, or homophobic. Even when the people are of another race or women or gay. It’s also the only thing that explains their all believing that we’re all going to die of Winnie the Flu, because — obviously — the republicans want everyone to die. They’re just moustache-twirling villains. Even though, btw, and much to my disappointment, no, Trump never called Winnie the Flu a hoax (well, it’s not, it’s Chinese psy-ops, with JUST enough lethality to lend it some credence), nor does he call for everyone to just go back to living normally, (I wish he would) and he lent the whole nonsense way more credence than he should.

But in their minds Winnie the Flu is super-lethal and Trump wants them to die.

Because the other side must be utter devils.

The way you find this, btw, is that they buy into “never listen to anything that makes you doubt the gaslighting.” We’re getting people on facebook calling the anodine (and fast going left) fox news ultra far right. The same for every other site to the right of Lenin. Or CNN. Same thing. You’d think they wouldn’t be scared of reading different versions of this stuff, but they believe reading/watching this stuff will somehow MAKE you be racist/sexist/homophobic. Which is insanity, or the result of gaslighting.

Those of us who still have friends (or relatives) on the other side, also know the “begs.” So, for instance a friend of mine who knows I’m none of those things but also knows I’m way to the right of Lenin, assumes I am this because I am religious.

And while he’s right that I am religious — or try to be — that’s a growth misunderstanding of how my mind (or my belief) works. In fact, because I AM religious I wouldnt’ support anyone who wants to discriminate on the basis of characteristics that people can’t help having.

Also, weirdly, he seems to believe that because I am religious, I will of course want the installation of a theocracy. And that the Republicans promiss that. Which is somewhere beyond bizarre, since none of this works. No, I don’t believe in theocracy, and I think churches should keep their noses off secular matters they know nothing about (glares balefully at Monsigneur D’Avignon and his repeated condemnation of Capitalism) and the idea of establishing a theocracy in the US is laughable, since all the Christian churches are more opposed to each other than to secularists.

But it’s the “make it fit” patch the gaslighters have handed him, and he uses it, because otherwise his view of the world and of himself would shatter.

As I (having been raised in Europe, I was soft left, at least, even though I always hated communnism) and others who’ve realized the sham can tell you, it’s not a comfortable position. And it leaves you unable to respect and enjoy things you used to.

But the thing is, while the dems used this gaslighting to keep themselves in power, and engage in more than a bit of mild corruption, and act all important, it was one thing. The problem, however, is that unpunished this sort of stuff grows.

Because the left has no checks, and the mere fact of being left means being given a pass, they started attracting outright stone cold psychopaths, many of whom are now their leaders. And their aim, the place they’re going for and dragging everyone they hold captive is nothing less than the destruction of civilization. Partly because not only would rather reign in hell. As we know from Winnie the Xi and his ilk, they LIKE ruling in hell, and frankly would prefer it to ruling in heaven.

2020 has shown anyone who is not under their spell just how dangerous the left has become.

But not their captives. It hasn’t shown their captives anything because they’re locked in terror screaming “the other side is worse.” A good example would be the sermon I endured at the many times vandalized Denver Cathedral, where we were told that “no justice, no peace” and if we don’t send more money to Africa (!) and treat the homeless better (than letting them camp all over the sidewalks, wherever they please, and look after all their needs, for free, and hand over public property for them to destroy) the violence with continue.

This makes absolutely no sense, because saying “help me, or I f*ck you up” is not a cry for help, it’s an hostage situation. And the problem of the homeless is not, and never was “they don’t have enough stuff.” In fact, the problem MIGHT be a society so wealthy that they can afford to live without structure, without addressing their mental issues, and able to indulge in all sorts of substances, while free of consequences. As for Africa, if there’s something we learned in the 20th century is that hitting economies and cultures with massive bags of money doesn’t help them. It only distorts them. Oh, and the best thing we could do for Africa right now would be remove China’s colonial boot from their necks.

But these people aren’t thinking. Not in any sense of the word. They just don’t want to get hit again. And they can’t go to anyone outside for help, because those are bad people who will hurt them.

Does this make them less culpable? Sure. Does this make them less dangerous, while they cooperate in the destruction of our nation and the West? No.

What do we do about it? I don’t know. For the individuals caught in this type of situation, it usually takes something happening that FINALLY makes them have to admit everything they think and think they “know” is wrong. I shudder to think of the event that would break through the mass delusion, when the whole Covidiocy lockdowns didn’t.

Yeah, some of the more suspicious are seeing through. The majority still isn’t.

And I don’t know what to do about it. As we found in the collapse of communist societies, many people cling to the lie even after.

I don’t know what to do about it. I presume there is a large number of people caught in this (though due to fraud, it’s hard to figure out how many) and I don’t know how to pull them out. We must almost rely on a miracle. And I don’t like relying on miracles.

But barring that, I don’t know what to do.

We’re not the ones being gaslit. We’re the bystanders being dragged through hell because those we love are collaborating with evil, are increasingly more and more unhappy (since they know what they’re doing is wrong but they can’t see an alternative) and we don’t know how to save them. Worse, they’re actions are taking us to hell too.

We’re the bystanders. And there’s very little we can do.

*For the previous chapters, please go here. These are posted first draft, as the brain dictates to the fingers which are remarkably stupid. Also there will be inconsistencies because until September or so, the timing on these is wonky, and I’ll forget stuff between posts. Eventually it will be cleaned up and fixed just before page is made secret/taken down and the book is published. At that time I will take lists of typos or volunteers to proof read. For now, it’s written in a hurry, usually an hour before it goes up. And, let me remind you, it’s free – SAH*

The Morning After

Al woke up grumpy. Before she left her room in the morning, she looked inn the packet Geoffrey had given her, which was supposed to protect her virtue, and found five seeds. She couldn’t sense any magic from them and wondered if they were the kind of joke that Geoffrey used to play on her when they were both much younger.

But he had seemed so serious–

Shaking her head, she dressed in the gown she’d been given at the Darkwater townhouse and then, on a whim, rummaged at the bottom of the wardrobe till she found a sack, into which she put a male suit of clothing which was hanging in the wardrobe, plus two additional pairs of trousers.

She had no idea what a magical road of challenges would entail, but her time with Michael had taught her that she was as likely as not to end up soaked or in torn clothes. And besides, Michael wasn’t any better at staying clean and dry shod. And one of the few things mama had said that rang true to Al’s experience was that one always felt better for having her feet dry and clean clothes on. Besides, there was just so much more freedom of movement to male clothing.

The thought that perhaps Geoffrey would object to her carrying the bag worried her, until she realized that likely Father would want to be in human form to give them instructions, and therefore Geoffrey would of necessity be a swan.

She would never have wished such a curse on her brothers — only perhaps when they were tossing her dolly above the height she could reach, once or twice, but they weren’t wont to do it to often — but since it had happened, Al had to admit it was rather more convenient to have her brother only capable of trumpeting and not of speaking. Trumpeting was much easier to ignore.

But all the same, and though she was right about Papa being the one in human form, it was a very strange breakfast.

Having left the room, shortly after daybreak, fully prepared to throw a fire ball at Papa’s nose — she must be a most unnatural daughter, for the idea didn’t disturb her at all — she was comforted by finding Michael waiting for her in the hallway. All else being the same she was far more likely to be able to fend off a werewolf with his help, and she could tell by his smile that he was similarly relieved. But neither mentioned the possibility of this cloudless morning offering an incidence of werewolves.

At any rate, they heard Papa call out almost immediately, “Good morning,” and they came down the stairs at a trot, and sat at the dining table, which was set with all the essentials of an elaborate breakfast, from kidneys to stewed fish.

Al, who woke slowly and was never enthusiastic about breakfast, had poured herself tea, and observed that Michael took only toast, butter, and tea.

Not sure about the protocol of this whole quest, she wondered if they’d regret not having food later. They should perhaps ask for a picnic basket.

“I presume,” Papa said, in the sort of voice older men used when they were sure they were stating the obvious, even though it might only be obvious to them, “that you know the rules of a magical path, Lord Michael.”

Michael had to his credit, taken a moment to answer, and then answered with perfect equanimity, “Not as such, no.”

Albinia could have sank. Where had Papa come by the idea that such arcane knowledge was common. And yet he looked surprised at the response.

He opened his mouth, closed it, then looked about to speak, when he instead hiccuped in a most appalling way.

Lord Michael raised his eyebrows. “Voles?”

“No… a…. a chicken.”

And if at that moment Geoffrey hadn’t come down the stairs trumpeting indignantly, Albinia would have run screaming out the door. But Geoffrey didn’t seem to be what Papa was referring to as a chicken. However, well, she had other brothers who were missing, so she asked, in a demanding voice, “Are chickens part of the design of this world?”

At this point papa had frowned, then shaken his head. “No. I have wondered if it was an intrusion by your mama.”

Albinia didn’t know if he meant her mama was the chicken — why would she be? but then hadn’t the boys turned to swans here? — of if he meant mama had sent a chicken, which was probably no more insane than the other thought. Instead of asking, she took advantage of dad pouring himself a large cup of tea, while Geoffrey trumpeted insistently at him, to take five slices of cake onto her plate. And then, while Lord Michael watched her with fascinated gazed, and Papa and Geoffrey held an argument that presupposed papa could understand the trumpeting as words, Albinia wrapped the cake in a napkin and dropped it into her sack. She was amazed, but gratified by seeing Michael’s lips curl up in a smile.

Papa and Geoff kept arguing.

“Of course I will give them all the instructions.”

Geoffrey trumpeted.

“I don’t know what you mean by that, I am not either a head in the clouds academician with no understanding for other people’s limited knowledge.”

Angrier trumpeting.

“Honestly, it’s like someone else taught you magic. I mean, if I didn’t teach you, who did?”

Al saw Michael raise his eyebrows, just before he pushed a small bundle towards her. It was a napkin, and from the feel of it it was filled with some boiled eggs and apples. She grinned back and secreted the food in her bag.

She didn’t know why not ask for a picnic basket, except of course, she had a feeling she shouldn’t. And having lived with mother a long time, she was somewhat respectful of her own feelings in this.

And then Papa answered one of Geoff’s protests with, “But he has spent time in fairyland.”

“I remember nothing of it,” Michael said, definitely.

“Oh. Well, then,” Papa said. “The truth of the magical path is this: we don’t know what this particular one will be, nor what it will consist of. We cannot, since the challenge was set by my lady wife, and presumably altered, consciously or not by each of my sons as they walked it, but I do know that everything you do on the magical path has a reward or a punishment.”

Geoff made an annoyed sound.

“So, much like real life sir?” Michael asked.

Papa glared. “Well, I suppose so, except that….” He paused. “Except that everything you do will be returned to you a hundred fold.”

“I see, sir,” Michael said. And getting up went to the buffet where some additional dishes were laid out. Since Al hadn’t seen him eat much, she wondered what he was doing until, on passing casually by her sack on his way to his seat with a different kind of cake on his plate, he dropped five candles in her bag. Looking at the sideboard she realized the silver chandeliers were now bare. She also realized they’d never get away with this if Geoff weren’t distracting Papa, and wondered if he were doing it on purpose.

“So, don’t kill anyone or anything unless you absolutely have to,” Papa said. “And try to help anyone you meet.”

“Very well, sir.”

Albinia had no idea what Michael passed her during the next round of squabbling between her brother and father, except that it was very large and wrapped in two napkins.

“And stay alert for intrusions. That chicken means my lady wife is up to something.”

Which Al would take to mean that the chicken wasn’t mama. Maybe.

Lord Michael stood up, “I believe we must go now, sir,” he said. “The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll return.

They headed out the back door, and there was a gate at the end of the garden and a clear path through the woods.

At the gate Papa wished them the best of luck, and Geoff trumpeted something that Albinia wished she could understand. She bent down and kissed the swan’s head, “You take good care of Papa, and thank you. We’ll come back soon and restore you.”

His trumpeting was the sort of half-embarrassed thank you of an older brother who did not wish to be beholden.

And then they opened the gate and stepped through. All of a sudden they were in the middle of an impenetrable forest. There were trees in every direction save for a path that led into the deeper darkness ahead.

Somewhere nearby a baby was crying.

*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. ;)*

THIS IS A RE-EDITION (THOUGH CONSIDERABLY PROOREAD AND EDITED FOR COHERENT TIMELINE) OF AN EARLIER WORK, NOW CHANGED TO MY P&P PENNAME:

FROM ALYX SILVER AND SOFIE SKAPSKI: A Touch Of Night: Pride, Prejudice, Werewolves and Dragons, Oh, My!

A Pride and Prejudice Variation.
In a world that puts shape shifters to death, Mr. Darcy was unfortunate enough to be born as a were-dragon.
But the cruel laws don’t always find their victims. Mr. Darcy has survived and protected Mr. Bingley who is a werewolf.
Meanwhile, in Hertfordshire, Lizzy has been protecting her sister Jane who turns into a beautiful hunting dog.
When Mr. Bingley rents Netherfield, the Were-Laws and the shape shifting of three of them add extra complications to the flowering of romance between the well-loved couples. And Mr. Wickham. joining the Royal Were Hunters, lends additional danger to the situation.
Will they get together despite the danger, Lizzy’s active imagination and Mr. Darcy’s excessive nobility of character?

(This book was previously published with Sarah A. Hoyt and Sofie Skapski as the authors. Sarah’s name has been changed to match her other published Austen fanfic.)

FROM MARY CATELLI: Where There Is Smoke.

Who but her old master can tell Marisa what secrets lie in the spellbook that even the Nameless Necromancer kept hidden away?

FROM J. L. CURTIS: Tales Around the Supper Table: -An Anthology of Texas Writers.

This collection is from ten different Texas authors. There was no ‘world’ or set up for the stories. It was up to the individual authors to write their stories, so you get a wide variety! Vampires, dragons, werewolves, enchanted swords, runaways, SciFi, and cowboys… Stories for everyone in this collection of Texas authors!

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Judiciously Familiar: Familiar Tales Book Fifteen.

“By the Pricking of my thumbs/ Something wicked this way comes!”

“Caw! Caw!”

A raven the size of an eagle appears in Riverton. When it begins haunting Familiars, Lelia and André Lestrang have to decide if it needs their special attention. Lelia, battling fatigue and postpartum depression, juggles family, magic, and working at Belle, Book, and Blacklight. Her employer, Arthur Saldovado, too wonders about the raven and its meaning.

Something from the past stirs, something dark and deep. A new sorceress and the raven hint at dangers hiding in the shadows. Shadows perhaps too dark even for shadow mages to master.

FROM MARGARET BALL: Tangled Magic

After waiting ten long years for Richart Dalkey to realize she’s no longer the awkward young girl he grew up with, Elspet is thrilled when he finally comes to pay her court . . . until he divulges the true reason for his visit. His proposition? A sham engagement to discourage debutante Dorothea Turvoll, who’s infatuated with Richart and whom his mother wants him to marry. Elspet convinces him to pretend he’s desperately in love with her and actually court her instead, certain that with time—and a little bit of magic—he’ll see they’re meant to be together.
But another woman in Din Eidyn has her sights set on Richert, as well as some dark magic of her own, and she’ll stop at nothing to win the one man who can give her the social standing she desperately desires. Before long, the charade gets out of hand, and as scandal engulfs the ton, Elspet must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the love she’s always wanted.

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: PIG

Sorry, since today is Hun’s dinner at Pete’s, and I have to finish cleaning, I probably can’t write before around 9.

However, we’ve come up with a problem. Paypal has suspended my donation account and insists that I’m “selling goods” which is frankly insane as they have absolutely no proof of this.

So I presume it’s the usual paypal tricks of demonetizing sites they dislike.

What other services are there that I might use? I have used Paypal despite its corporate stupidity due to my lack of time to research alternatives.

Anyone have alternatives they can suggest?

UPDATE: CHAPTER TOMORROW. I’m tired.

Give a Warm ATH welcome (which does not mean start talking advarks and dragons, guys!) to comedic genius Frank Fleming, who is here to teach us how to write fake news. And you know he knows how to, since he keeps getting fact checked* by Snopes, Facebook, and other organizations which have had their sense of humor ablated at formation (*But not on Occasional Cortex getting her head stuck in a bucket. That’s self-obviously true. She wsa probably looking for her brain.)- SAH

How to Generate Fake News by Frank J. Fleming

Hi, it’s me, Frank J. Fleming from The Babylon Bee (and writer of novels such as Superego: Fathom, now available on Audible. Since I write for a Christian, conservative satire site and Christians and conservatives don’t know how to be funny, the main point of our satire is to trick people into thinking it’s real, i.e., to make fake news.

Fake news is great! It helps you get traffic for your website or tilt an election at the behest of the Russians who are funding you. But you’re probably wondering: How can I make fake news? Being an expert, I am here to share some tips that will trick everyone.

TIPS FOR MAKING FAKE NEWS

Include real details. One of the important features of fake news is that it sounds real. That means you include details that are true. For instance, let’s say you start an article this way:

President Trump today set fire to a…

People will read that and say to themselves, “The president is Trump! This could be a real story!”

Or if you start a story with:

Today in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, escaped llamas...

People will google that and say, “Hey, Washington, D.C., is the capital of the United States. The rest of this story could be true as well!”

But if you get a detail wrong that people know, that could ruin the whole ruse. For example, if you wrote:

Boron, which has a melting point of 2,113 degrees Kelvin…

Someone could say, “Hey, Boron has a melting point of 2,349 degrees Kelvin! What is this guy trying to pull? Maybe the rest of this article about Russians putting a mind-control device in Kamala Harris is wrong as well.”

Write to people’s biases. A key to fake news is to have it be something people would like to be true based on what they already think about certain political figures. Let’s say you’re writing for people who think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is stupid. Then you could write some fake news like:

Today, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got her head stuck inside a bucket and ran into a wall.

And the people who don’t like Ocasio-Cortez will say to themselves, “That does sound like something she would do, as she is very brain-stupid. This news checks out, and I will not doubt it.”

On the other hand, people who like Ocasio-Cortez will say, “This can’t be true! She is the world’s smartest socialist. Something seems awry with this news. And if it is true, I’m certain Ocasio-Cortez had a very smart reason for putting her head inside a bucket so it would get stuck. I’m going to research this and look for other verification.”

This partisan divide is why it’s hard to trick all the people all the time with fake news. I dream of a day when this nation is less divided and I can constantly fool everyone.

Be sensational but not too sensational. One of the main reasons for fake news is to generate lots of buzz and traffic, and thus it has to be something people will want to share and write angry tweets about. For instance, I could write this:

Today, President Trump bought a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

And that’s total fake news. I just made that up. I don’t even know if that’s his favorite flavor of Doritos. But no one is going to share that fake news, because who cares.

But you can go too far in the other direction. Let’s say I wrote fake news like this:

Today, President Trump nuked France.

Now, that’s some sensational news people will want to share. But they’ll also think to themselves, “Hey, that’s pretty big news. Shouldn’t everyone be talking about this and I didn’t just find out about it on some news site I’ve never heard of before?”

So you have to tone it down some. Like:

Today, President Trump nuked Micronesia.

No one even knows where that is. Could be true!

Don’t have the letters “CNN” above your news. That is now a dead giveaway for being fake news. You need to come up with some other made-up news organization name, like “Totally Real News.”

—

Well, those are my tips for making fake news to generate lots of traffic. So go out there and tilt an election or cause chaos. And check out my science fiction novel Superego: Fathom, now on Audible. It’s totally true, and none of it is made up.

Perspective by B. Durbin

Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

—Simon & Garfunkel, “The Boxer”

Early this March, a man was stabbed.

Pause here for a minute. I want you to think about what came to mind when you saw that phrase, hold it in your mind, because I’m about to change that picture.

Early in March, a man was stabbed in a parking lot by a stranger.

Pause again. What changed about your picture? Does it make a difference to you where this happens, that the person with the knife and the victim didn’t know one another?

Early in March, a security guard was stabbed in the parking lot of the store that was his charge, by a patron of that store.

Each bit of information causes you to revise that picture in your head a little more, doesn’t it? And I’m doling out that information in infuriatingly tiny bits. In a trial—which is what this is scenario is based upon—it’s far slower. You hear testimony after testimony, view evidence that is available to be viewed, and it takes a very long time. This particular case was a super-short one, with the presentation of evidence only taking one full court day.

You have a picture of the security guard in your head, don’t you? Well, I’m about to break it, because the victim of the stabbing survived and was the very first to testify.

And he was a kid.

Mind you, I don’t have a lot of standing to pull on this, because he was in his mid-20s, and I’m not old enough to have a kid in their mid-20s, but he was this tall, lanky guy, without that broadening of chin and chest that so often hits males in their early 20s, with tattoos on his arms and a longer cut of hair. He looked barely out of college age, young enough to be thoroughly embarrassed by the medical photos in evidence, and the security thing was just a job.

He suffered a stab wound slightly to his back, puncturing his left lung and severing a wrap-around abdominal muscle. He also suffered a glancing blow to his arm and reported several more cuts in his jacket (not produced in evidence.)

You’ve got a pretty detailed picture in your head, right? How about this: He received those injuries in a scuffle which included both him and another security guard, and the security guard kicked the knife-wielder a couple of times.

Or this: There was a third security guard, who was armed, who was not involved in the scuffle, but who was following the other two.

And this: The knife-wielder was black, and followed through the parking lot by three security guards who, while not white, were considerably lighter in skin tone than the guy with the knife.

Everybody with the political sense of a gnat is wincing right now.

Was there video? Amazingly, yes, there was, and very clear for being across the parking lot. (On that note, who sees people on the ground in the street and blithely drives by them? Thanks for making it that much harder to determine what went on.) You could see the security guards following, the guy turning back several times, the victim pushing him, and finally Knife Guy turning around and throwing punches. Except—when did he get the knife? The video isn’t that clear, and that’s important, because if he were to get it out on the ground, the defense’s argument of Self Defense takes on new importance.

Do we have the knife? We do—and I’m going to take a bit of a digression here. I’m fairly well acquainted with knives. We have dozens of kitchen knives, a number of utility knives (mostly of the folding sort) and a few daggers for pretty. I also have a couple of sheath knives that I’ve never had reason to use, because what the heck would be the point in an urban environment? And as for camping, the folding knives are sufficient for that.

Knives are a horrible choice for self-defense, and here’s why. 1. They require close quarters. The whole point of self-defense is to get away intact, and the more distance you can get, the better. A gun or pepper spray is better suited to getting someone to keep their distance. 2. A person who is stabbed doesn’t immediately go down—in fact, the security guard in this scenario didn’t immediately know he was stabbed. He saw the knife, so after the guy ran off, he checked himself. (And then he started coughing up blood, but still…) 3. If you take out a knife, someone is going to get cut—and that someone is going to be the weaker one. Knives favor the strong. If someone were to perform a home invasion on me, I would use just about anything, even smashing a nice guitar over their head, before I went for a knife, because the odds are better that I would be the one hurt.

So a guy carrying a sheath knife an inch and a half across the base, several inches long, and with some serrations near the base, that’s going to get my attention.

Back it up. Why were they following him across the parking lot? Well, it seems there was a minor altercation on the other side of the store, where three guards (the armed one on a break) interacted with Knife Guy. According to their testimony, Knife Guy head-butted the victim before walking off. This is not on video; the security cars block the view.

And why did this happen? Well, prior to that, he was following a woman, presumably toward her car. As far as we know, this woman was unknown to Knife Guy, and from an earlier video where you can see their faces, she’s carefully not looking at him. According to testimony, she pointed out that Security was right there, and the security guards told Knife Guy to leave her alone.

There was a lot of discussion with the jury once deliberations took place, and I do find it interesting that the women were more on the Guilty side at the beginning of deliberations. Most women have at least one story of being followed by a guy bigger than them, and all women know the cases where an interaction with a stranger gets a woman killed. At issue wasn’t the fact of Knife Guy doing the stabbing; the issue was whether there was reason to believe it was in self-defense.

We watched the video enough to make me surprised it didn’t show up in my dreams. (At least, it hasn’t yet.) The conclusion we eventually came to is that he had the knife when he turned around and jumped the security guard, and there was no chance for him to have stabbed later. And after a lengthy discussion of the word “immanent”, we came to the verdict of Guilty of assault with a deadly weapon.

Short trial. Only three days, plus a day for jury selection.

So why does this matter? Because it took three days, plus intensive attention and discussion, to figure out the legal meaning of an interaction that took all of twenty seconds—or three minutes, if you go back to Knife Guy exiting the store. And so much of what passes for political discourse these days is based on soundbites, or fractions of video, or single-point perspectives. We think we know what is going on, or at least we act as if we do. Yet twelve people can see and hear the same things and come to different conclusions—but those same twelve people can agree on something if they take the time to talk it out, and to listen to everybody else.

A headline that says “Unarmed Man Stabbed in Parking Lot” is correct. So is “Multiple Security Guards Involved in Altercation With Black Man.” You’re going to be presented with very different points of view in those two articles, and we haven’t used more than a handful of words. Pay attention. Pay close attention. Everyone knows less than they think they do.

Have you ever had a nightmare where something horrible is coming closer and closer, and you can neither move nor react? My dreams often involve standing on the train tracks, as an express train barrels towards me, and I can’t move my feet.

I’ve been living there for the last six months, 24/7.

Though you could say I’ve been living there all my adult life, sure. But that’s one thing, and this is another.

It’s as though I were a time traveler, who came back in time to avert a great disaster, and I can’t do it. No one will believe me.

This is actually not an unusual form of time-travel-thought-experiment. Think about it. You go back in time and manage to get there JUST before 9/11. Oh, let’s be generous. Give it a month.

You know exactly what is going to happen, what the flights are, etc.

What do you do?

Sure, you call a tip line. And maybe, just maybe you can do something. Maybe you can get just the right man. Maybe he even believes you. But the chances of that person having the authority and navigating the labyrinths of competing fiefdoms that are our secret services to stop the event are probably less than 10%.

Even possessed of perfect knowledge, with all the details in your pocket, you probably can’t do it. You probably stand a better chance if you call the towers with a bomb thread and make it credible, so they’re evacuated. But let’s face it, this is not the 70s. Most bomb threats (and there are a lot of them) aren’t credible or significant, and the towers were big properties filled with a lot of companies who would not want to evacuate their offices.

Again, that’s with perfect knowledge, with absolute certainty of everything in play and who the culprits are.

Something that’s not given to us, non-time-travelers. I mean, I look at the amount of fraud that’s possible, the cases caught, and at the non-campaign the democrats are running as well as (according to Rush, at least and I believe him) severely cooked polls and I think “What does this all trend to but they’ve given up on campaigning and are just frauding.” But I don’t know. Nor do I know what Trump is dong to counter it. Weirdly — or maybe not — the flamboyant street-fighter seems to be a persona (enough to make me wonder if he’s an introvert. Because those of us who are extremely introverted but can “work the public” do it by creating a persona, often one that’s completely different from our real selves.) Behind it is a man who does a lot of things behind the scenes. So many and so quietly that even I — who follow these things and have contacts in high and low places — am sometimes startled by something massive he’s done, incrementally and behind the scenes.

And there are …. indications. I didn’t put this in my article yesterday because I haven’t verified it. I’ve been otherwise busy (long story, which I’ll tell another time, but I’m doing a rush editing job that has eaten my life.) But my husband tells me Colorado who went all vote-by-mail years ago has announced it won’t send out absentee ballots unless requested, and will be verifying ID. I’m not sure if this is true, nor how it can be true, since well it would mean the current people in power giving up massive ability to fraud themselves into continuing in power. But I’ve heard other similar stories of the left suddenly backing off vote by mail, and wonder what’s been going on behind the scenes.

But the thing is I don’t know. And even if my worst suspicions are true, what can I do about it? Besides scream in the desert?

And if the election is stolen and it comes to war — war would be a terrible thing to do, but there are worse than things than war. Cuba, or Venezuela, or, because we’re Americans and go big, the unmaking of all civilization, for instance. — what can I do? Sure, be prepared. I am. Though the body is as weak as the spirit is capable. I have no illusions about what a woman my age can do. I also have no illusions about what the rest of us can do cut off from the ability to communicate.

If it drops in the pot, it’s going to be a lot like the Spanish Civil War. Street to street, village to village, suburb to suburb and a lot of personal vendettas and sheer crazy dropping in to make the whole thing random. It will also attract a lot of foreign fighters. Mostly on the other side. Many of which will be stone cold psychopaths. And very capable, with it.

You can’t prepare for that. Not fully. Sure, you can stock up on food, water, ammo and weapons (and if you haven’t done the later by now, I suggest you study chemistry really fast, because none are available.) Other things you can do that you might not have considered: get RIGHT NOW a book on pirate radio stations, and find a friendly electrical engineer to advise you on the parts you need to create one. No, I’m not actually joking.

Also, get the address of a person, who has the address of a person. Postal address. Phone number too, mind you. Organize phone trees, preferably spanning the country, and call each other now, so the traffic won’t be noteworthy and easy to find and block. If you can get a burner pay as you go phone and use that for the phone tree. Have at least one email address not associated with you as you, and organize email lists.

It’s startlingly easy to shut down social media, and most of our phones are compromised. Finding out what’s really happening let alone coordinating anything including protests becomes massively difficult when you’re isolated. And right now you’re incredibly easy to isolate.

DO that. That’s what I found most vital when I lived through this crap before. Have people you can trust and who can help up and down the phone/email/mail tree. And please, know no more than three. They can know other three. And if needed — say you need a place to say in nowhere, Arizona — it can go up and down the tree. But you can only give two names away, and you can send a warning before.

Yes, this is incredibly paranoid, and secret squirrel. It is also “a few things I know” possibly not the most important ones, and not the ones you need.

And that’s the problem. I don’t know what you need. I don’t know how to stop the runway train of crazy Marxism from running over the country.

I can do things. I still need to do an article for PJ on how to secure your vote, for instance, and have been hesitating because some of my instructions contradict Trump, who probably knows better. And I have NO idea why he prefers the other one. Or I do, I’m just not sure it outweighs the downside. And even if I get it perfectly right, what will it reach? At most 100k people. Not enough to make a difference.

That’s what it occurred to me this morning. My problem is scope.

I feel responsible, and solely responsible for stopping socialism/communism from taking over the last greatest hope of mankind.

You see, not only do I have nowhere left to go, but if ah…. government of the people for the people perishes from the Earth, it will not be easy to restore. Partly because so many lies will be told that it will take perhaps thousands of years for people to dare try it again.

I don’t wish that on my children and grandchildren or even other people’s children and grandchildren (what you share with your great grandkids, genetically, might amount to no more than a few DNA fragments. So five generations out, they’re all my kids, or none. Doesn’t matter.) world without end.

And because I feel responsible, I’ve been turning, like a lion in a cage, trying to find a way out, trying to figure out how to save the Republic.

It honestly didn’t occur to me until this morning that my responsibility is MUCH smaller than that. I can save my piece of the republic and fight for freedom in my domain. And that’s ALL I can do. That’s all any of us can do.

Sure, if you have the experience and expertise to do more, you should be doing more, and I neither want to know nor can I help you, but I hope you do it before it comes to blood, and in a way that averts its coming to blood.

But I? I can sound the alarm. That’s all. I don’t know how to fix it, and I’m not responsible for it, and I shouldn’t feel guilty if I can’t.

All I can do is make preparations to rescue me and mine, and help those who are otherwise helpless, and then stand by in case I should be needed.

That’s all. And as upsetting as it is, it is also weirdly freeing. I can move out of what I think is the train path (and no, that doesn’t mean moving out of the US. Again, where would I go?) and try to stay clear of the impact (though my knowledge is not perfect and this might come down to day to day.) It’s all those other people I can’t move out of the path. I can try, but I can’t move their feet. I can only tell them to.

And that makes it less depressing. If it’s not mine to stop, then it’s a disaster, but not something I can be held responsible for. And I can work, and do what I can with no depression.

What I can do might be no more than making my bed, metaphorically speaking, but hey who wants to die with a messy bed? And who knows, if I’m clear headed and prepared maybe there will be one of those chances in a million thrown my way. Because the Author (glares upwards) needs a writers’ group, that’s why.

I don’t know if that helps anyone else. I might be weird. But it helps me greatly. So I thought I’d share.

And this week you might also want to read Mad Genius Club, where I suspect I’m going to get clobbered for straying into politics.

Note for those for you waking up now, that I have been screaming about this a long time.
Notice what’s going on, please: Once is happenstance, Twice is coincidence, Three times is enemy action.

Note none of this even TOUCHES on the fraud facilitation in COLORADO. Despite records in Colorado showing 180 year old people voting and worse shenanigans. Facilitated, of course, by registration on line and never having to prove you’re eligible to vote or even EXIST. If your country is vote-by-mail only or primarily, look for the same things happening there.

Biden doesn’t have campaign offices most places. That’s because they’re not in fact a political campaign. They’re a fraud machine.

On a personal note, I forgot I lost a cat in 2016, too. Our beloved Miranda, to pretty much the same ailment that took Greebo. (His was just faster) I don’t mind this year rhyming with 2016. I mind that it basically said “hold my beer and watch this.”

Tasty Tasty Pottage – A Blast From The Past from October 1, 2016

I am dry-eyed and awake in what feels like the wee hours in the morning.  It is not.  For me it is close to eight am and for you guys on the east coast most of the morning has passed.  I have a distracting tendency to keep east coast hours, which means going to bed with the chickens and getting up at first light.

Today is that special kind of hell that comes after a day like yesterday, where I manage to torture myself both ways: for not noticing how much she was suffering earlier; and for putting an end to her suffering.  I keep second guessing the diagnosis (she always had stomach trouble from a kitten) then remembering she was having issues before the last move, then going back again– don’t worry.  It will pass.  And it’s no bad thing for me to feel small and stupid and impotent.  It helps me appreciate the words of the act of contrition [I have sinned]… in what I’ve done and what I’ve failed to do. Sometimes there are no easy answers, and nothing you can do that doesn’t leave you feeling like you did something awful.

Among my minor awful acts, I spread fear and despondency on facebook.  I know.  If I were the only one to do so!

But this one truly was stupid and hinged on my bad eyesight as well as anything else.  I recently had to change my address so i could vote in the proper precinct.  I noticed a line saying “do you want to receive your ballot by email” and was shocked (and so blind, I failed to notice it was grayed out for me) that I looked at it three or four times, and then felt something snap and yelled on FB.

What I failed to notice is the option for email ballots is only available to military personnel.

I still don’t like the risk, but it’s not as though our military people don’t face incredible obstacles to voting in time. They want it by email, they can have it by email.

The amount of fraud possible from that move is very minor compared to the other… ah… temptations to fraud inherent in the system.

Technically, we have a warm body franchise.  You are breathing, a citizen of the United states and over 18 years of age, you can vote.

These pitifully easy guidelines, it would seem should be lax enough for everybody.  They are not.  Over the last almost a quarter century there has been a determined effort to abolish them.

Part of the reason I jumped on FB (even though it was stupid) is that I have been mad at the craziness in our voting for a long time.

Our voting is now wholly an “honor system.”  I.e. you can sign up to vote without being required to show either proof of your citizenship, or of your age, even.

When I was a young woman, twenty four years ago, I could see the trouble with “enroll them to vote when you enroll them to drive.”  No one else did.  I was told I was suspicious, insane and, of course, racist.  (Why is it that people who assume BY THEIR VERY ARGUMENT that anyone darker than them is too stupid to figure out how to register to vote if it’s not done automatically, or to vote if they’re required to show the same ID they’d have to show to receive even welfare, or even to register more than a day in advance of the election, are the ones who get to call others racists?  Do they lack a mirror or are their minds so limited they don’t see the rueful irony in that accusation?)

And yet there were signposts on the road to hell.  You know I have an accent.  I happen to know I have one too.  I’ve been a citizen since 1988, however I know many women in my circumstances, married to American men, who never change their citizenship.  And yet, when I changed my license to Colorado (took me a couple of years after moving as, at the time, I wasn’t driving) I was asked if I wanted to register to vote.  I had assumed this might come up and had brought with me my citizenship certificate.  It was never asked for.  This did not reassure me.

Apparently the goal of it is not to insult me by implying I have an accent, or perhaps that I can tan (since again, the question is apparently “racist” it never having occurred to the cracked heads who make that sort of decision that an accent is not a race, just an origin of having grown up abroad a long time; and also that pale blond people too can have accents, be foreign nationals and therefore not entitled to voting in the US.)  You can’t insult me by saying I have an accent.  I know I have one.  It would be like insulting me by saying I am not six feet tall.  Presumably I know that too.  As annoying as it gets when cashiers and strangers ask the fateful “Where are you from?” (Just up the road.  You?) I do know it’s there and I don’t think assuming I have a higher chance than someone who sounds like they grew up in Texas of being a foreign citizen is a horrible insult.  Yeah, in the event, I’m a national and someone with a Texas accent might not be.  So? The answer is not to remove the requirement to show proof of citizenship from those who might not sound as citizens, but to make everyone show ID.  That we went the other way is incredibly stupid or malicious or yes.

The next sign on the road to hell was when a Japanese journalist, on some kind of exchange program, found that he could register to vote in Colorado DESPITE HAVING PROVED HIS IDENTITY WITH A JAPANESE PASSPORT. He wrote about it in the Gazette.

I knew then we were in trouble, but I didn’t fully understand how BAD that trouble until I was changing my address.

Yes, sure, what I feared was the worst — the ability to receive your ballot by email — was not true.  But that would not be a signpost on the road to hell, that would be a sign we were already consumed to ash.

Not only can you now register entirely on line — which since voting in Colorado is NOW entirely by mail completely spares you the need to have… well, a physical body because you have to show no proof of nationality, age, or, well… anything.  You just click a box on a page — BUT you can register (says right there) at sixteen.  You are, however, sternly enjoined not to vote till you’re eighteen.

Why sixteen, you ask?  Who the hell knows?  What good does it do to register you to vote (which is all the page does) then tell you you’re not supposed to do it for two years?  I suspect this is the mutant child of Motor Voter, because you can register to drive (with parent approval) at 16.  And still I must ask, though, since the page has nothing to do with drivers’ licenses and is ONLY FOR VOTER REGISTRATION why register you at sixteen?

I have said before that when I was a poll judge in Colorado I found a great number of people, showing up to vote, were told they early voted or voted by mail, and COMPLETELY forgot about it.  Apparently the rate of dementia in Colorado Springs is about 1/3 and affects people of all ages.

There are other charming things, such as recent reports that apparently we have the same enthusiastic post-vital voter participation as Chicago (well, done, Colorado, you’re coming along.  I’m sure it’s what every civilized place wants to be: Chicago.  Next up, we can make our streets into battlefields.)

Then there are reports like this: The Washington Mall Shooter VOTED. Three times, despite not being a citizen.

Apparently Washington and Colorado are of one mind about the right to vote being a thing to entrust to the honor system, because even though voter fraud is so rarely investigated or persecuted as to make the risk of lying/cheating trivial, EVERYONE is an honest person when it comes to voting.

NO ONE would do this with payments, even government payments, but apparently it’s fine to do it with the right of the people to govern themselves.

At the heart of the fact we have a warm body system is the idea that any restriction of voting rights will adversely impact someone and cause an unequal application of laws. This is why we print ballots in Chinese and Spanish and more exotic languages and never ask, NOT ONCE how people who are so limited in their understanding of the predominant language of the country can participate in its self-governing.  (Yeah, I know they can be very well informed through foreign newspapers.  And if you haven’t yet realized the joke that is, you have never really read a foreign newspaper for foreigners. They make the bias in ours seem non-existent and also most of the time they’re so bad they’re not even wrong.  Just a different universe.)  This is why — because some idiots abused them once — you’re not allowed to give literacy tests, or even to have the person “voting” be of sound mind.  This is why the vote of people with dementia, a growing demographic, is not debarred.

And this is why, in an excess of making sure that EVERYONE can vote, no matter how strange their circumstances, we have early voting stretching for a month ahead, we have vote by mail and we have register and vote without ever showing you have the right to, or indeed that you exist and are alive.

We have in this process gone well beyond warm-body franchise to imaginary entity franchise.  Nothing in fact — except perhaps foolish honesty — can stop me registering and voting for each of the entities that live in my head.

We have also in this way rendered moot the right to a private vote.  In states like Colorado which (against the wishes of its people, btw, as expressed by referendum) vote exclusively by mail, there is no right to private voting.  Any ballots mailed to a family address are subjected to the whims of a domestic tyrant, and I’ve already heard the usual rumors of people whose mothers or fathers vote for them, requiring only they sign the ballot.  Impossible you say?  How?  How is that impossible in a tyrannical family?  And how do you even prove it happened afterwards?  I bet you it’s happening, throughout the land.

In Colorado, and in many states throughout this great land, you can vote if you’re too young, you can vote if you’re a foreign national, you can vote if you’re dead and you can vote if you never existed.

Every time someone points out this is ALL on the honor system and all these violations are possible, someone gets huffy and says that there is no proof of fraud.

How would there be proof of fraud?  Besides which they don’t mean dead people shown to have voted, or even names like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny who are assiduous voters.  Proof of fraud means someone was persecuted and convicted.   And how do you even start to do that, when the whole system is designed to obscure the identity of anyone who might choose to do so?

So, you say, better someone not entitled to votes, than someone entitled to vote is turned away.

How do you figure?

Say Bob is entitled to vote and does.  Meanwhile, Minny Mouse, Doktor Frankenstein, Michael, here on vacation from Australia, Joe who is a legal resident from South Africa, John who is American but who is not verbal or indeed mentally competent to vote and whose mom voted for him, and Cindy, Trevor, and 30 of their best friends who are all sixteen also turned out to vote.  What is Bob’s vote worth when diluted by all of those.

Is it that bad?  Can you prove it’s not?

Let’s suppose that everyone are angels unborn, unable to cheat or lie.  Let’s suppose that despite incentives, like cheating yourself bread and circuses, no institution was likely to actually use its power to create fake votes.

In a government of the people for the people, the important thing is that it be KNOWN it’s of the people.  I.e. you have to make sure you’re not being governed by a tiny minority who (as with fake twitter accounts, say) multiply their numbers by fraud on an industrial level.

In that situation, one fake vote is enough to cast doubt.  One OBVIOUSLY exploitable flaw, like being able to register at sixteen, but being told to be a good boy/girl and not vote till eighteen, is enough to cast doubt.

Like Caesar’s wife, the franchise of the American people MUST be above suspicion.  Which means in practical fact, that you HAVE to require each would be voter to prove they’re American citizens and over eighteen.

If we don’t do that — as we haven’t — we have not only sold our rights for a mess of pottage, but we’ve sold our rights of redress and righting this.  Or do you think officers elected by this corrupt system will let you overthrow it.

I think this is foolish.  The left — and come on, if it weren’t mostly the left intending to dilute our right to vote, it wouldn’t be them arguing for ever laxer rules and Motor Voter wouldn’t be Bill Clinton’s baby — has a curious tendency to mistake the wrapping for the present.  I think they think if they can capture the FORMS of government that means they captured the country.

As we’ve seen again and again in fields they captured, it doesn’t.  It usually leads to what they captured being rendered obsolete and superseded.

I don’t know if that can be done in government, but I bet you in five to ten years, we’ll find out.

We did not trade our rights for a mess of pottage! Because this is not our pottage.  We’re not the ones who made the bargain.  And we want our rights back.