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*For the previous chapters, please go here. These are posted first draft, as the brain dictates to the fingers which are remarkably stupid. 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*

Witch’s Daughter by Sarah A. Hoyt

Installment 4

 

Shadow

Before Albinia had realized what was happening, Michael had jumped on her, and was holding her down, while there was a curious sound like hail all around, combined with a sound of howling wind.  And she tried to protest, but he wasn’t letting her up.

Things that Mrs. Hodges had told her flitted through her mind in sudden panic.  When she’d told Mrs. Hodges that she’d rather not let Michael know she was a girl, because, she thought, men could steal a woman’s virtue, Mrs. Hodges had told her not to let him touch her, or force her into any position, and that she’d be all right.  Though it was also a good idea not to be alone with him behind closed doors.

The later accorded so much with things Mama had said, that Al could only imagine it meant that when alone with a girl or in a position of command over her, a man could then steal her magic and do with it as he wished.

Panicked, unable to see, because part of Michael’s — or should that be Lord Michael’s? — cravat had come undone and flopped in front of her face, Albinia made futile attempts to get up.

The worst part is she knew they were futile. First because the big lump must outweigh her by double, and second because as the youngest sister of six boys she knew that it was almost impossible to overpower them, even the ones who were about her size.  Which was why she’d learned early on to use her magic–

The though was useful. She didn’t need to maim him, or even seriously hurt him.  She’d learned early on that sharp and concentrated force applied to a vulnerable area would get the young man distracted enough for her to then fight free.

Of course, if  he’s already stolen my virtue–

But she’d try. The other thing she learned, growing up, is that you always tried.

With everything in her, she closed her eyes, and concentrated on the back of his neck.  she’d had a view of it as they came into the house, and remembered it clearly: the pink skin beneath his hair.  And then under her breath she muttered the easiest incantations for effect.  If she still could do it, and had it right, it would feel like a giant mosquito sting on the back of his neck.

She aimed for effect and let it fly.

“Ouch!” came from above, and for just a moment, she felt his reaction, a slight movement, as probably his hand went to the back of his neck.

She took the opportunity to lever herself on one elbow, dig the other into what she hoped was his mid-riff, as she shoved with her whole body to get him off her, and then, before he could get hold again, before she even blinked, to leap away from him and–

That was when she slowed down enough, even as Lord Michael shouted, “Hey, I was trying–” to realize that the window that had been behind them: a vast affair composed of many little squares of glass encased in a framework of lead had broken inward, with force.

There were little pieces of glass all over the floor.  She assumed that was the sound of hail that she had heard.  She realized he’d been trying to protect her, probably guessing — accurately — that the impact of the glass would be less on the sturdier fabric of his suit.  Even so, she realized that the back of his neck wasn’t exactly as her mental image had been.  There were now myriad tiny cuts, as though he’d been excoriated by the glass, which now she thought about it, he had been.  As he turned around, anger in his eyes, she said, “I’m sorry.  I know you were trying to protect me, but I couldn’t see–  I had to see–”

He looked confused, but only for a moment.

The gale force winds, which must have blown the window in hadn’t abated at all, and now, through the window, came something dark and formless, something immense and man shaped but which looked like it was made wholly out of smoke.

Al didn’t even mind that Lord Michael stepped in front of her.  She could feel him, vaguely, because she sensed that he was working with forces bigger than she could command, assembling something magical.  But it was complicated, and difficult, and the figure coming through the window swatted it aside with a giant hand made of shadow and smoke.

And then…..
She would never be clear precisely what happened next, but she saw the thing grab Lord Michael, like a kitten by the scruff of the neck.

Albinia didn’t think. If she’d thought this would be the last thing she’d do.  But her body reacted before her mind could. She grabbed for him, around his midriff.

And suddenly she was suspended middair, holding on to the young man, while — inexplicably — they both flew suspended over London, much higher than even the boat had flown.
*Guys, I know, I know this is very short. But I really have a million things to do. I’ll try to finish the chapter later today. – SAH*

 

 

In this series of posts, I’m going to sketch what I view as four probable futures coming from this.  Mind you, I’m a fiction writer, not a prophet. These futures would probably all have bits of each other in it. Because people are mixed up and messy.

Only one of them — this one — is unalloyed “good” (as much as anything is in the real world) and I start with it, partly because I don’t want to send you into the weekend depressed. Also because I’m doing my best to avoid bottoming out on depression, because last night’s presidential weaseling of guidelines solidified for me that we now live in a socialist economy. Our only choice is between national-socialists (no, not like Hitler. Hitler was an aberration. The others, by and large, didn’t kill their own people in batch lots, just in lost of opportunity, despair, poverty.) and international socialists. The economy will never be free, and your ability to pursue happiness will never be your own again.  Not unless….

In this scenario people set themselves free.  At some point, they get tired of the disaster porn the media is feeding them and get out of their basements, and look around to realize that no, we’re not all dying like flies, there are no bodies on the streets, the hospitals are so far from overwhelmed that doctors and nurses are choreographing dance numbers in the hallways, all while grandma’s cancer gets worse, and mom goes without heart surgery because the government closed the hospitals, to make way for a surge of COVID-19 deaths that never happened.

Then people get angry and jam the streets and start screaming and yelling and refusing to be arrested. They, in fact, become the America Hong Kong thinks we are.

The governors, in terror, realize they’ve gone too far, and lost all plausible cover.

If this happens soon enough, it will be tight this winter, but not outright famine.  If this happens soon enough, and Trump realizes it (if he has a talent, it is reading people) he puts the blame squarely where it belongs.  He denounces “governing by “experts”” and does a 90 degree turn and tells us how we were fooled.  And what the media and the DNC (BIRM) did to the country, all to put their spokeszombie in charge.

He wins in a landslide, but with the other side completely discredited.  At which point he cleans house, the Dems fall apart (I told you it was a dream) and the election in 2024 is between Republicans and Libertarians. And I don’t know for whom I’d vote, at least if Pence is the nominee, because as head of the Covid-19 task force he seems to believe experts and reach for the authoritarian lever, given a choice.  I don’t like his personality as seen in this response, and his personality is all we have to go on.  So it would depend on how wild-eyed open-borders the Libertarian was. (Because open borders are a bad, bad idea when the rest of the world is largely unfree.)

If it happens soon enough, say no later than mid May, the winter will suck like living hell, but America recovers. America recovers fast.  Regulations that impair the opening of factories and America doing for itself are struck down. Everyone goes to work, and Welfare becomes a distant, bad memory.  The economy takes off like a rocket, because bad as we’ll be we’ll still be way better than 90% of the world.

And because people have seen what schools and colleges are doing to their kids, homeschooling grows exponentially. Perhaps not everyone, but a vast majority of parents in jobs that work from home opt to teach their kids from home.  Because the job market is so tight, kids are encouraged to join the gig economy as soon as they’re able (and laws are relaxed. Look, our laws are insane, okay. 15 year olds have never been “children.”)  College becomes less relevant, and what remains is real scholarship and real training.

Eventually — I’d like tomorrow, but I know it’s more likely to be ten years — the stupid tax collection laws online are done away with, and people can trade and work across state lines, start up their own sales sites and not be dependent on vast, increasingly unresponsive corporations.

In ten years, from a happy, prosperous America starting to colonize space, we look back at this moment of utter insanity and say “yeah, but without it, the breakage of the old institutions would have been slower, more painful, and we’d have ended up in a more centralized and less free society.”

And 2020 initiates the beginning of the Liberty century, one in which individuals become more and more free each year, until the crazy theories of that angry inkblot, Marx, are no more than a bad memory and referred to in wondering confusion, as we talk about phrenology.

Sure, people still need to fight to KEEP their freedom, but the corner will have been turned, and we’ll be undoing the closing of minds and opportunity of the 20th century.

No, I do not believe it is likely. But I WANT to believe.

 

 

[Because C.C. is right, and depression is a passive mode, also a vulnerable mode that makes you susceptible to getting ill and to just not doing anything, even what you know you should do, I’m going to combat mine starting tomorrow (but taking the weekend off for the other stuff, including promo I didn’t do last wee) to sketch where we are, and where I think we’re headed.

The where I think we’re headed will be four scenarios, only two of which avoid the boog, and only ONE of which is in any way good. (And the one that requires the most action NOW.)

You should have received your “Please don’t boog” money and if you don’t need it for immediate expenses, it’s time to consider how to put it into durable goods, because where we’re going, you’ll need a barrel of money to buy coffee.

So tomorrow I’ll explain my sense of where we’re going (why, let’s tie a ribbon on the handbasket handle. That will make it ALL better.)  More tomorrow.  – SAH]

I’m not often baffled by the insanity of crowds, but I’m genuinely baffled by the insanity over the entire Winnie the Flu episode.

I mean, I’m used to the idea that people will smell the fear of others and be infected. I’ve seen it happen. As I’ve told you before (I think) if mom hadn’t reached into a crowd and slammed me against a wall so the panicked crowd went by, I’d have been one of the people trampled when the rushing human stampede got to the steps of the underground passage. You see, I was at a demonstration with mom.  I was 16.  We were all packed into this plaza surrounded by tall buildings (a situation that still makes the back of my neck itch, to this day) and suddenly …. I can’t explain it. Suddenly I was running with a bunch of other people running.

And though I’d heard the shots, I had no clue they’d come from above us (even though I was young, my directional hearing always sucked.)  I had no idea why I or anyone else was running.

So– I get panicking crowds. It’s not a big mystery.

And yet, this one has me baffled, because people I trust, people whose judgement I trust are evenly divided between “this was utterly necessary” and “uh, no. This makes no sense.”

Also I know a lot of people in health care (no, I’m not sure why) and most are as baffled as I am.  Because the …. event just isn’t there.  It just isn’t living up to the panic.

And while to an extent I’m not puzzled at all by the behavior of the governors, mayors, neighbors and all the petty assholes in the world, some of which are nasty because they were born that way, and some of which are nasty because they think if they crash the economy enough we’ll get instant paradise, or at least get rid of Orangemanbad, which to them means the same, there are things that still baffle me.

I swear this week is worse than last, for instance, and I’m not SURE WHY.  I mean last week people seemed to be joking about the restrictions, and my neighbors were socializing normally.  Now? The three people I met on my walk practically jumped away from me, and no doggy will be allowed to be petted, because…. because…. I don’t know?

More people are driving ALONE IN THEIR CARS wearing masks too, which makes me wonder what kind of crazy world we’re living in.

And I wonder what the F*ck is going on in people’s heads. Are they all insane? WHY?

For instance, this week I saw a report that the virus can “fly thirteen feet” and “Stay suspended in the air for hours” and my reaction was “Sure, but what’s the load and infectivity?  And “suspended” only if the wind is blowing really hard, in which case it will be blown apart and the infectivity will be really low, right?”  Though what I said aloud was “Oh, dear lord, Winnie the flu got wings.”

Then I read the thing and they say if a breeze blows when you sneeze, the virus could go 13ft.  I SWEAR I’m not making this up.

But people lap this up. Some woman yelled at me on facebook that it can fly 13 feet and stay suspended in the air.  At which point I had to point out, sure. And it probably waits mid air to infect her when she walks by.  AND worse of all, if she catches it, AND is sick enough to need hospitalization, she only has a 98% chance of surviving it.  Which considering how many people are asymptomatic OR have minor symptoms, and that deaths so far are what? 3 per million? means that her chance of dying is far far lower than her chance of dying of a traffic accident on any given month, on any given highway in the nation.

So, why are people panicking more this week? WHAT IS GOING on?

I figured part of the reason I can’t “see” it is that I don’t expose myself to the propaganda network blared out by our Main Stream Media 24/7.  Oh, that and because I have a vague understanding of science. But still too good to imagine the virus is sentient.

I mean, what the hell is going on in people’s heads when they do stuff like this?

And what the holy fandango was going on in the head of the Raleigh police department when they posted a video of them arresting protestors of the #reopen North Carolina movement, and telling them that protesting wasn’t an essential right.

At some point the dime MUST have dropped, but the video won’t play.  I.e. they got a clue that posting a video of themselves violating people’s first amendment rights wasn’t a good look. …. but it took posting it first?
Look, I get not wanting to step out of line, because baby needs shoes, or whatever. BUT dear Lord, they were PROUD? They thought people would approve?
What the actual hell is wrong with them? I’m fairly sure they promised to obey the constitution.  And then on my repost of the video, some *ss clown tried to argue that obeying the constitution of the United States and the constitution of North Carolina meant obeying the governor.  Head>desk.  Don’t people know history? Aren’t they aware that “orders are orders” was not an excuse in Nazi Germany and isn’t an excuse now?  Are they incapable of the most basic reasoning?
I’m scared.  I’m scared because after years and years of people talking about this or that being Nazis, I’m starting to see how we could get there from here. I’m starting to SEE it.

And I don’t understand it.  I particularly don’t understand how people who are skeptical about everything else — EVERYTHING else — suddenly are saying that this destruction of wealth, of civic order, of basic rights, was “needed” and “rational.”

And the reasoning seems to be “if it weren’t all the countries in the world wouldn’t have done it.”

Which is the problem, see?  China did whatever they were doing, and by their very secretive nature and the stuff that leaked, scared the world in general. So when Italy went tits up, IN ONE VERY SPECIFIC LOCATION, and a) didn’t want to admit that they’d messed up by doing the whole Belt and Road Chinese insanity and b) thought they’d get money and help from Germany by exaggerating the threat c) national authorities panicked and locked up, other countries in Europe started getting scared.  And our media saw an ideal opportunity to get Orangemanbad. Because everything is.  And then the US massively over reacted, and the rest of the world went “Oh, if they’re doing it they know something.” and overreacted even more. (I know from talking to relatives in Portugal that they think both our press and our secret services are “competent.” which is laughable, I know.)

I still don’t understand WHY people are panicking more now than last week or two weeks ago, even as more and more revelations of cooked books, and more and more people, including Cuomo, admitting that cases and deaths are now going down?  WHY are they more scared now?  Even if the cases were absolutely right, this is not a d*mned patch on the flu a few years ago, and NO ONE panicked for that.

Are they now going to wear stupid face masks forever?  WHY?

And I start wondering how much of this is because people have been primed for years with story after story about post-apocalypse.  It took me some time to realize part of the things the left was doing in the oughts were because they’d grown up with stupid apocalyptic fiction in the eighties, a fad started because the left thought that Reagan would of course destroy everything.

Turns out what you grow up thinking of as the future, gets sort of planted in the back of your mind and you will either do things to bring it about or coast through similar scenarios without examining the rationality.

Which probably explains why we feel like we’re living in a re-enactment of WWII crossed with the measures taken against the flu of 1918.  All of which makes no sense for the precipitating incident.

And then my head hurts….

Normally I have a sense of what comes next, an upper and lower bound to “what is possible.”

Right now? I don’t know.  People are stuck at home, and turning on the TV for a feeling of contact with the world. And the media is feeding the panic and trying to keep them stuck at home.  It’s like what happened after 9/11, only with no good reason whatsoever.

People don’t seem to notice the bait and switch, where we were  going to be locked in until the curve flattened so we didn’t run out of respirators (which btw, don’t seem to help much) but now we’re going to be locked in until there’s a vaccine/cure? WHY?  Is it killing everyone it touches? Well, no. But we’re going to be kept locked in, because the media and the various authorities LOVE them the power.

Only the chances of there being a cure are close to zero, because that’s not how corona viruses work, and besides, WHY do they think they can keep lock down going for 18 months? WHERE IN HELL DO THEY THINK THE FOOD COMES FROM? And before you tell me that the farmers are planting, sure. But the economy is not THAT SIMPLE. It’s a bunch of interconnected things, some of them quite unfathomable to anyone outside the field. When governors, or HOAs or Police chiefs, or whoever the heck decides one of those isn’t “essential” because, why not? then suddenly there is no food making it from the fields to the table of those who need it.

I’m seeing various fields panic, including pork processing plants closing and it’s happening earlier than I expected.  I’m also seeing that small businesses are going to crash hard, leaving us at the mercy of the massive corporations which the lefties pretend to hate while in fact encouraging them for their perfect crony capitalist/fascist society. Because you can extort them.  And this makes me very, very nervous.

I’m seeing food lines this winter.  And I don’t know what that will do to us as a nation.

And meanwhile the deranged fools keep telling us no, we have to continue being locked up for our own good, and election will by by mail because it’s easier to fraud because voting is of course much more dangerous than going to the post office, or the grocery store.  Because the same virus that apparently is more dangerous at night, and grows wings and ambushes people in parks ALSO attacks in polling places, I GUESS?

And people go along with it.  Does it look better when repeated endlessly on TV?  When will they wake up? When they’ve elected the dem spokeszombie, who promises the most “progressive” administration since FDR? Or when that comes in, the third term of Obama, and the boot crushes what is left of us?

I don’t know. This evening, I look at the last rays of sun disappearing, and I fear it’s all too apt a metaphor and that next, falls the night.

 

Yesterday, as I was finishing my epic kitchen clean up, I started getting phone calls.  The first one was from a friend who confused me with my husband (seriously. He doesn’t even have an accent!) and because my phone doesn’t tell me the name of the person calling, I assumed it was a telemarketer.  When things cleared up I found out Rush Limbaugh had read substantial portions of my article on PJMedia.

Because I’m lazy — which for Sarah-speak means “I actually have other stuff I need to do/finish.” — I’m just going to put links to the article, to Rush Limbaugh’s show, and to a video.

AND THEN I’m going to make a few pithy observations.
So, if you’re ready, here it goes:

This is the article:  Modeling COVID-19 and the Lies of Multiculturalism.

This is Limbaugh’s show: The COVID-19 Models Can’t Account for Culture.

AND this is the video:  If it doesn’t take you there, skip to 1:19:45 

For the record, I’m honored, but it’s perhaps too much of an honor as I still haven’t processed this.

I first started hearing about Rush in 91.  I only listened to bits and pieces of his show, ever, mostly because ADD.  I guess, if I’d had bluetooth headphones, as I do now, I’d have developed the habit of listening to him while cleaning, all over the house. But back then, you know, with a toddler, my life was never precisely silent enough to listen while doing other things, and I have trouble sitting still and listening.

That said, I’ve read Rush Limbaugh. A lot. And I admired him madly, as I was deep in the political closet, because he was out there. He was speaking out. He was saying things that needed to be said, things that at least half the country was thinking, but which had no voice in mass media, ever.

He was one of the first breaks in the wall of false consensus that kept pushing the Overton Window further and further left.  He was in many ways the beginning of “fighting back.”

He took an outdated medium, because it was the only thing they allowed us, and he turned it into a megaphone.  And he changed the culture. Which is important, because politics is always and forever downstream from culture.

And for those who will say “but he got rich from it.”  Sure. He did. OTOH a) it was a counterintuitive bet.  No one goes into right-of-center anything for the money.  Because right of center is anti-establishment. And establishment has ways of slapping you down from stepping out of line. Everyone who is right of center and manages to make a living, much less get rich, has to be 1000 times better than anyone spouting the “approved” leftist pap.

So, whether you realize it or not, standing up for the establishment cost him monetarily. It also cost him in psychological and stress issues, I guarantee. Why? Because the minute you step out of line, there are legions of brain dead establishment drones who devote their lives to attacking you, reviling you and wishing you ill.  I, myself, have a few of these Renfields who devote their lives to twisting every word I ever said to make me sound either stupid or insane or perhaps criminal.  It’s amazing that they devote so much time to this.  To be fair, I have no idea who half of them are, unless the mental cases really intrude on my life in some way (and there’s always mental cases. Including those who go after you financially. At one point I was attacked on Facebook by someone who used to work for one of my publishers, and who screamed at me how horrible it had been to work with me.  I had no clue who this person was. By asking, I figured out she’d copyedited Draw One In The Dark.  So, her experience working with me was going over a completely apolitical book, back in the days when I wasn’t even out of the political closet.  Also, that book was one of the more trouble-free copyedits I had. Mostly she’d moved commas around, and since I was out sick when they taught punctuation, I just assume the copyeditor is right.  I don’t even remember any disputes.  But because I disagreed with her politically this person had made that nothingburger interaction into some horrible experience, and is probably maligning me all over traditional publishing.)  Most of the time I find out these people have written about me because some fan tells me.  And the number of times I’ve clicked through to see their ravings is zero.

BUT I have dedicated Renfields, working for the establishment and trying to pound me down, because I’m the nail that sticks up.  Imagine if you will what kind of crap Rush puts up with.  And yet he persists.

Which is why I admire him immensely, and was moved to tears seeing him receive the presidential medal of freedom during the State of the Union.

I’ve said before I would never have come out of the closet without Breitbart.  I probably wouldn’t even have thought of it without Rush.  So, there it is. My little mite, such as it is, should be to his credit.

Meanwhile, while my close friends told me that because I was read by Rush on air, I was no longer respectable, and were joking — particularly as they said I’d no longer be bought by traditional publishing. Which is a forgone conclusion, and also, seriously? I’m not sure there will be a traditional publishing after this house arrest stunt. Their one advantage was placing paper bricks in bookstores. That might be gone now — there were comments elsewhere on social media that said that and were serious.

By having one of my pieces read on air by an icon of right of center media, I was beyond the pale.

My answer to that is what Portuguese fisherwomen did — and I never figured out what it meant, and mom still won’t tell me, so I suspect it’s obscene — which is holding one hand palm up and hitting it with the BACK of the other hand.  That for your respectability!

If respectability consists of endorsing the Marxist thinking that has killed a hundred million (and probably more) across the world over the last hundred years, I want no part of it.  You go on and be “respectable” all you want.

I’ll stand with the people like Rush, who are building a world where the individual counts for something, and where killing half of your population in a planned famine, or working them to death in work camps isn’t the laudable, done thing.  Not to mention a world where no sane human being would collaborate with the Chicoms.  (And btw, what makes me sick about the establishment working for and with the Chicoms is that I have a gut feeling it’s not even for money. They’re just that twisted.)

Anyway, if this is no longer being respectable, I don’t want to be respectable. Besides, us bad girls are always fascinating…

And now I’ll go work.

Sarah out.

When I was going insane in 08, (because whenever communism or its slower, but just as lethal sister, socialism, with or without happy fun hats threatens, my PTSD rises up, and the back of my brain starts spinning so that I can’t write) Jerry Pournelle gave me as advice “If you can’t do anything else, make things very clean.  It won’t hurt, and in the long run might help, because when you get off the panic mode, it’s one less thing to worry about.”

So I did.  I spent what must have been months scraping and waxing the floors of the previous house.

I’m mostly angry right now, and hopefully the idiocy doesn’t last that long, because, you know, I’m ….. well…. I suppose I could replace the carpet with wood.  Which needs to be done, as well as a lot of touch up and refinishing.

Anyway….

The reason this post is so late is that I woke up the day after a big family holiday meal (the holiday meal was big. The family remains smallish.) to a kitchen in upheaval, since I’d taken out large cooking implements I use maybe once a year, plus a lot of good dishes that DO NOT get washed in the dishwasher.  Plus the floor of the kitchen was a mix of chocolate (I made low-carb chocolate bunnies. They went over well….) and marinade, and heaven only knows what.

It’s snowing really hard out.  When the weather predicted snow only yesterday, I had planned to go to the home improvement store today and spend most of the day refinishing the front door, which has taken a beating from the weather these last four years since we moved.  I also planned to do some repainting inside, and plant two trees.  (Squints out the window at the flying blindness of snow.)  So, that isn’t happening.  in fact, this is one of those times that Colorado would be shut down even without our governor being a concentrated blot of leftist insanity.

But I said I’d start the journey back to normal today.  And so, I did.  I’m on the third load of dishes, and the kitchen looks like a  place human beings might cook and eat in.

And you know, Jerry was right. (Yeah, I SHOULD be surprised. Not.) Because there is something inherently therapeutic in taking a confused mess with blobs of stuff spattered all over and making it into a shining, clean space.  It gives you a feeling you have some control. (More on that later.)  It doesn’t stop the panic — nor should it — but it gives you a sense that you’re not adrift in chaos and powerless to impose your own desires on your personal environment.  And when you’re done, you are rewarded with things looking and feeling better, too.

Meanwhile I was informed (three times. LOL) that Rush Limbaugh read part of my PJM post on why culture makes a big difference in the transmission of any disease, and why OF COURSE NYC has a different risk than the rest of the country.  (BTW, you’ll find if you look on line that they say population density is something like 22k people per square mile.  That’s wrong.  Husband spent way more hours diving into the numbers on all this (He’s now obsessed, and as normal when it’s numbers, all I can do is let him finish his research and then, hopefully, use it in a post.) It is only 22k people per square mile because they include Staten Island in the count. If they don’t, it’s 77k people per square mile.  Compare that to, say, New Mexico, which has at best 2 people per square mile, and you see how irrational it is to model the entire country the same.)  I’m very flattered.  I’ve never listened to Rush, though most of my friends did, back in the day, mostly because I had untreated ADD (actually ADHD because I fidget, can’t sit still, and can only concentrate on something auditory while doing something else.  Which is why I listen to audio books while cleaning.)  Now it’s treated, but I still don’t listen to things very often.  I have however read him, and am aware of the genius of the man.

Anyway, one thing I don’t think I said in the article (I woke up and wrote four of them in a row, so…) is that it baffles me that other people can’t see this.  I have to consciously remember that, through accident of circumstances, I’ve changed cultures more often than most human beings, and can see how the differences translate in daily life, and therefore in risk of disease.

Our president, admirably down to Earth as he is, is after all a New Yorker, and New Yorkers have trouble understanding the rest of the country is not a sort of New York manque.  I think that is part of what has allowed him to be maneuvered into the insanity of locking down the country and destroying the economy.  Which, yes, will doubtlessly now be turned around and used against him.

But, on this snowy morning, and having just cleaned my kitchen enough my female ancestresses can stop haunting me, I’m willing to see positive stuff too:

Governors in the East — in the EAST — are talking of re-opening; the president is talking of re-opening.  Maybe the worst of the howling insanity is now passing.

And meanwhile, maybe we can explain to our slower countrymen why the economy matters; why it’s not just “money” and, in the unpleasant times we now face, why it’s always bad for a government  — ANY government — to prevent people from working and producing.

Meanwhile, like me this morning, coming into a kitchen with dirty appliances and dishes piled with very little rationality on every surface, it’s time for us to take stock of what we now face, with clear eyes and thinking mind.  There are various places now yelling about food shortages this Fall.  And yeah, what’s being destroyed/plowed under, etc, is MOSTLY what supplied restaurants, but please stop and think about it.  If people were eating half the week at restaurants (some estimates are that most people — certainly not us, btw. If we go out once a week it’s a lot — eat out one meal a day) they still need the same amount of food.  In the right “supply chain” or not, that food will be missed.  So, plan accordingly.  I need to budget SPACE to store emergency provisions.

In the same way if your job is at risk or already gone, plot your course.  Take this week or this couple of weeks to plot a way to solvency.  What is there that needs doing that you can do, and that will pay you.

What needs doing will have changed, just like my kitchen cleaning routines don’t apply to the chaos I faced this morning.  And you might find you know things you can do and fill niches no one else can.  Or at least no one has thought of yet.

And it’s time. It’s time, because otherwise the statists will take advantage of the mess they made to impose their preferred, top-down solution, which will only guarantee sooner or later this ends in blood.

So…. take stock of the mess. Decide where there is something you can do. Start planning how to do it.

Me? I have a novel to finish and have jotted down two article ideas for PJ for later today.
Meanwhile, I’ll also learn to do clothing alterations, so that I can change the clothes I want to keep to my present size.

And I should get that subscription on Amazon, so I can watch Foyle’s war and establish some kind of exercise program, if our weather is going to be as crazy as our government.

Let’s get to work and reestablish our own version of ordered chaos, the only order Americans thrive in.  Before the socialists decide the solution is to break dirty dishes and throw them away.

BUT I’m still alive.

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it.

This one is VIP.  My code is HOYT. If you decide to sign for it, use it, please will give you a discount (and pay me a bounty.)

https://pjmedia.com/blog/the-covid-19-phony-war/

I’ll update this post as the others go up.

UPDATE, not VIP: https://pjmedia.com/blog/the-green-new-nose-under-the-tent/

And more updates:  Modeling COVID-19 and the Lies of Multiculturalism

And this one is VIP, also. Use HOYT as your discount code:

We Risk Killing Civilization in Our Panicked Fear of Individual Death

I might try to do a chapter of the current free novel later, but no promises, as I woke up and wrote four posts now cued at PJM to go up at their convenience.

This thing isn’t exactly under my control, but at least some stuff is getting written.

And I want to work on the interrupted novels.  Normally I do the chapter in the morning before I clean, but I cleaned yesterday. So today I’d like to work on other stuff that’s been hanging while there was a wall preventing me from working.

Of course I also have ALL THE COOKING to do.

We’ll see.

I am also typing this in my night clothes (I know, I know) because we had a gas leak this morning, which was just fixed.

So, yeah. It’s been 2020 all over.  And while I’d like to write a chapter on Witch’s Daughter, it’s not actually my main priority, as the books that have been stopped for months are finally coming to life, and I’d like to finish one of those…. yes, while I must start cooking because younger son (whom we haven’t seen in months) is coming home tomorrow.  Which yes, of course, means I must cook for three thousand give or take a few.

Look, if things go well, it’s the last holiday with both sons in Colorado and able to come home for it.  And if things don’t go well, it’s the last holiday when I can indulge in massive and unreasonably abundant cooking.  Maybe the last holiday to be properly and excessively American.

Not being Maudlin, but you know it’s a possibility.  In the same spirit, in the certainty that Hillary would win, in 2016 we went out to a burger joint, kicked the wheels off our diet and had burgers with buns, fries and coke.  One last great American meal.

In the event, the fat lady hadn’t sung, and the totalitarian non-lady didn’t win.

Let’s hope this holiday meal is also a prematurely maudlin “last time to be excessively American.”

Anyway, still alive. Going to shower now, and put clothes on.  Part of the issue of being low carb is that I must make all the stuff we’d normally buy, like crackers for the baked brie appetizer, and bread to go with the meal. I’ll do that and desserts today, and meats and veg tomorrow.

I also really want to finish my cyborg detective short novel, if possible.  Computer looks about to ready to be operational on Monday. (And allow me to publish.)
So probably no chapter today.  Sorry to play hooky.  I’ll try to do two next week.

 

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Tomorrow is what was known in the village as The Saturday of Hallelujah. Sunday is Easter. Passover night was between the eighth and the 9th.  Even though we’ll be pounded with snow this weekend, the year is turning to life and light.

And we’re stuck inside, the American economy in ruins, by the orders of our “betters” following those infallible computer models they’re so fond of. We’re subjected, every day, to more ridiculous, job-killing, wealth-destroying dictates from our lords and masters.

The latest insanity is that seeds aren’t essential, and nurseries and even the garden section of the local home improvement stores need to be closed.

Not ESSENTIAL in whose estimation?  Not essential by whose decision?  Nurseries, like many other small businesses live on a tight margin, and in this case are HIGHLY seasonal. They won’t be there next year, if they’re shut this year. Not that this matters, right? Because our betters know they’re “not essential.”

In a year when farmers are being hampered in planting (yes, I know the farmers are in the fields. DUH. If I had fields I also would be trying to save some embers from the blaze of ruin.  But farming isn’t the simple endeavor people like Bloomberg think it is. You don’t just poke seeds from last year into the ground, and voila, crop. That’s not how any of this works.  There are soil improvements that are needed, fertilizers, there are parts for machinery. Seeds need to be obtained and obtained in a timely manner. More importantly, planting and harvesting need to happen at regular times.  Oh, and your animals? They need fodder at regular times too. And if someone has decided fodder doesn’t need to be transported or isn’t essential…. well, hello losing most of your dairy herd.

Some of the stories already filtering out, despite the media doing their best to squelch them are that milk is being dumped for lack of a filter needed to sell the milk commercially.  Some of us have already seen milk getting really expensive/rationed in certain areas of the country.  And in California, produce are rotting in the fields.

Now, this being the soon to be independent (ah!) Glorious Bear Flag People’s Republic of California under Leader For Life Gary Noisome, that could be because they’re not letting farmers get to the fields.  Or it could be because our leftists and the press (BIRM) did such a great psy-ops campaign in their attempt to crash the economy so they could win the election (worked in 08) that they convinced a lot of illegal farm laborers they were all going to die if they stayed in the US.  They stoked the fire enough that Mexico closed their border for fear we’d come back and infect them. A situation — given the disparity of our medical systems — that by itself should have told people in the US how much bullshit was being piled on us. But it didn’t. And people read uncritically stories of Mexicans defending their border against Americans trying to escape there. (Rolls eyes.)  Guys, who in hell escapes to MEXICO?  I bet you anything those “Americans” were illegals repatriating. So, that might very well be why produce are rotting in the fields in California.  (And another failure of the internationalist open borders crowd who set unrealistic goals for minimum wage and other worker compensation, and then paid illegals almost nothing, while they kept natives in idleness on welfare.)

However, be that as it may, considering California is our main food producing region, such as it is, despite its best attempt to turn itself into a desert, that’s bad news.  But there are others: for decades now, a lot of our food has come from abroad.  How many of the vegetables in the store are stamped with “produce of Mexico”?  With the disruption of international trade caused by this insanity, things were always going to be tight.

So, what sense does it make for them to ban the sale of SEEDS as non-essential? In any sane society, they’d be looking at what’s coming down the pike and going “Plant a victory garden. Hell, we’ll give seeds and fertilizers to anyone who wants them and promises to plant a victory garden.  Any HOA preventing you from plowing your lawn under and planting food is working against the best interests of the country and their powers are suspended.” Because you know, winter will inevitably come. And this winter a lot of people, if they don’t outright starve, are going to come close enough to see it. Plus those of us with restricted dietary needs will either have to forget it, and know we’re shortening our lives or just starve. (So, diabetes or starvation, say. Yeah.)

So, why are they doing the other way?  Well, maybe they’re really really stupid and unable to think through third order effects. Which is possible. Or maybe they’re malevolent and trying to accomplish “green agenda” goals by other means.  How long have they wanted to drastically reduce population in the US?

In support of that later, there’s the fact they’re touting how great it is we’re “reducing emissions” and the fact they want to push the Green New Way of Starving Deal into any relief package passed. (BTW, no real reductions in carbon, as measured, because, well…. humans don’t contribute that much. Except maybe China, which is open for business again.)

There is also the fact that in the name of COVID-19 preparedness they emptied hospitals. Suddenly, things like heart surgery and cancer treatment are “elective.”  The hospitals, btw, sit empty, because Winnie the Flu hit well below even the bed occupancy at peak flu season (except for a couple of places.)  Which means….  Well, who was it who wanted to send granny home with an aspirin?  Mission accomplished.

The execrable Pope — great time to have an Argentinian Communist in power, people. Aren’t Communists excommunicated by the by — who ain’t too bright and has more trouble than his fellow leftists keeping his mouth shut, has already given the game away by saying the virus is Gaia’s revenge or some similar rot.  Somehow, yeah, China’s dereliction comes from “Global warming.” (Rolls eyes.)

And yesterday — rumor, or not? The source was highly credible — we got word that home improvement stores will be closing their garden section (I really, really , really didn’t want to spend 2k in everything I need for the summer work on the house) and that the only paint considered essential is contractors grade in grey or white.

Oh, hello socialism and command economy.  Since when do they get to tell us what types of paint are essential?  Also, who in heavens name doesn’t realize that closing that kind of production means you probably can’t restart it for years?  AND WHY?  Do other colors increase your chance of getting sick? Does the virus love pink?  WHAT SENSE DOES THIS MAKE?

None. Absolutely none.  This is all a cosplay cross between what was done to combat the flu in 1918 (most of which measures did nothing, btw) and a crazed attempt to recreat WWII rationing.  Only this virus is not nearly as lethal as the flu of 1918, (and importantly not to the same demographics) and there is no “war production” because there is no war to produce for.  Sure, okay, yeah, we need to bring a lot of stuff that used to be made in China back home. BUT that has bloody zero to do with restricting what paint can be made, particularly the COLORS.  I mean, yeah, I can see grey. We’re going to need to paint all those injectors to fight Winnie the Flu.

Has everyone gone utterly insane?

The disconnect between all these “urgent measures” (Attention Citizens!) and the actual “emergency” such as it is has become so mind boggling that there are crazed conspiracy theories criss crossing all over.  The most common is that this is SOMEHOW connected to 5G.  My favorite is that we’re all locked in the house because the Earth is going to be hit by an asteroid. There’s nothing we can do, and this will prevent panic. No, I don’t believe it, but holy hell, it’s more plausible than the stated reason.

Oh, but don’t worry, the President is starting a task force to reopen the economy.  I have two questions: Who is holding what over the president’s head to make him act like a moron who never ran a business?  and Will it be a five year plan?

The way to reopen the economy is to reopen it.  The way to reopen the economy is to get in front of the cameras and explain, “Yeah, infections are going to continue, and there will be a surge after we open up.  That’s because this was all designed to slow the rate of infections. Turns out we have way more medical capacity than we thought, and, sorry, we can’t save people from a virus. That’s not a legitimate function of government, unless it’s the type of virus that can be traced and contained. This one can’t. We’re taking measures not to do business with nations that will hide this type of outbreak in the future.  In the meantime, it’s going to hurt, though not as much as the highly manipulated numbers seem to show.  But we’re Americans and we’ve survived far worse. Hiding in your house for fear of a virus might be the most stupid thing we’ve ever done, dumber than sending American young men to die in WWI in a dispute that truly had nothing to do with us, but it’s time to end it. Go back to work tomorrow morning.”

That’s what the president should say, but he won’t. The political risk seems to him too high.  Partly because the loud mass media has silenced everyone else.

And the governors are having so much fun implementing socialism that they won’t. EVER. They’re sure you’ll love it, if you just get to try it. They finally see their opening to put their boots on your neck forever. I mean, normally if they said you couldn’t buy seeds, you’d hit the road, and go find your local organic co-op and buy them, right? If they said you couldn’t buy paint of a certain color, a million backyard paint mixing operations would start.  But ah, you need papers to travel, and hey, they convinced everyone you’ll die if you talk to a stranger or buy anything from them.  So now they can control you, reduce the population with an “unavoidable” famine due to the virus, get Americans used to bread lines, tell you where you can travel (such a carbon reduction) and what work is essential and what isn’t.  They can postpone your wedding (no more than ten people), make sure you have no babies (well, what are you going to feed them), deny you medical treatment, shame you when you complain.  And you’ll take it.

They’re wrong of course. You’ll take it for a time, but not forever. But they don’t get that.

Here’s the thing, though, the way things are RIGHT NOW, you can rebel now or rebel later.  You can rebel now, and go back to your life, or you can rebel later, when you’ll have to shoot anyone asking you for papers or keeping you from growing beans.

If you don’t assert your rights now, you’ll have to assert them in blood, when you’re starving and sick, cold and broken in winter, when the lights go out (we’ve already been having brownouts and blackouts) when your cars are not working, when getting factories back in a state to produce anything is almost impossible, when airplanes have been taken to “graveyards” in the desert forever, when your local hospital has shut its doors and has no money to reopen.

It’s time. It’s enough. If you let them they’ll pile on restrictions forever, and the “reopening plan” will cause more damage, because NO ONE CAN PLAN AN ECONOMY. Attempts to do it always end in poverty, misery and death.

And if you think I’m exaggerating this is the kind of innumerates we have trying to “plan” the economy.

This is the kind of power-addicted lunatics we have trying to CONTROL you and me:

This has nothing to do with controlling any virus. It has to do with power and control.
And every time — EVERY TIME — a nation locks down and imposes curfews, it’s never about what it says it is. It’s always about the rulers being afraid of the people.

As they should be. Because unless we massively disobey now, we’re going to have to kill them.  And a lot of innocents besides.  And blight our national wealth and life for GENERATIONS in the process.

It’s time to get back to work.  Start planning now. See what loopholes there are to allow you back to work.  Yes, I know, a lot of the stores and factories you work at will be closed.  The economy is very interlinked, which is why it can’t be planned.

It doesn’t matter. If your job no longer exists, if your boss won’t re-open the store, the factory, the restaurant, start looking around at needs.  All famines in the modern era have been failures of transportation, for instance, not of production.  Figure out which places have produce rotting in the field. For a fee, can you pick them? Drive them back? Can you arrange to sell them to friends and family, very loosely defined? (Hey, people on craigslist are part of this American family.)

I don’t know what you can do, because I’m not you.  And unlike our demented elites, I neither think I know what you can do, nor what you see in your area (physical and expertise.)

However I do know that following the American non-plan and getting to work doing what you can RIGHT NOW is the only thing that can save us.

Ignore the government at all levels. Yes, even the policemen trying to arrest you for playing ball with your kid. Point out to the idiots the courts are closed. Then point out to them you’re taking their name and badge number and bringing a lawsuit for violating your rights as soon as the courts reopen. “Orders are orders” didn’t work so well last time.

GO BACK TO WORK.  INVENT NEW WORK IF YOU HAVE TO.  Even if you were retired, find something you can do, some need you can fulfill.  GO work.
Yes, I will be writing, but I’m also trying to figure out what other needs there will be, and what I can do.  I have a new computer being built since three of mine died (yes, great time!) and once that’s up I’ll start putting books up.  I don’t know if that helps anyone, but I’ve been keeping myself sane with reading and audio books, and I can’t be alone.

After that, my abilities are limited, but I’m going to see what I can do.

Build under, build over, build around.  Ignore their plans. Their plans are not for our good.

The goal is to have everyone out of the house and doing the most productive thing they can by May 1st.

May First (Yes, I know, stealing the commies holiday is grand) is now National Hit the Streets Day.  If you can get out of the house and work, do so.  Open your shop, serve coffee on our front lawn, I don’t care. Be outside. Do something productive.  And if you can’t do something productive AT LEAST BE OUTSIDE.  Out in the street. Out in the park. Both of which are paid for by your taxes, btw.

May 1st, get out. Wear SOMETHING yellow (Hong Kong, the gillets jeunes, which though not like us also are fighting attempts at tyranny.) Snek optional.

Because we’re Americans. They govern by the consent of the governed. We don’t need their consent to exercise our natural rights.

They’re ACTING out this article, but it’s not OUR constitution (it’s Chapter 7, Article 39 of the constitution of the USSR.)

This would be the only thing that would give them the right to do what they’re doing.  BUT IT IS NOT THE LAW OF THE LAND.

All they have on their side is force. But there’s way more of us than of them.

And they can’t arrest us all.

Start now. On Monday, go to work or plan how to go to work.

May first we’ll have obeyed our last “shelter in place” illegal proclamation. Olly olly Oxen Free. Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Make it go viral. The sort of viral they don’t like.