When I was little, we lived in an apartment cut out of grandma’s house. I understand before my time, it had been storage rooms of various kinds, but was converted to a shotgun apartment for my parents when they got married. Because my parents are crazy people, they then lived there for 14 or 15 years, until they could buy a home outright.

The house was already over a hundred years old when I was born, and electricity had been a late addition, though my parents had their own electrical board and meter.

Not that we used a ton of electricity. There was a light in the middle of the ceiling in the kitchen, one in the living room, and bedside lamps in the bedroom and in the hallway where my brother (or I. The other would sleep at Grandma’s that night) slept. And there was the radio mom listened to while working.  But the board was such that plugging anything at all in made it go down. And when it went down, the normal procedure was to slip the coin that was the equivalent of a quarter into the place where the last one had melted.

It took me years to find out this was an extremely unsafe practice and why.  I.e. since the coins don’t blow as fast as the fuses do, they could start a house fire. But frankly, if anyone in the family knew that, they didn’t care. Because having the coin in there meant if you accidentally turned on two lightbulbs and the radio, the whole thing wouldn’t go down.

Right now it’s entirely possible that we’re looking at just that situation globally, and that at the moment China is the coin in the electrical board, disguising the fact that things are very bad indeed.

Because I belong to a group of writers and futurists, we are, of course, all discussing what precisely the kung-flu — xi disease — means, and how bad the outbreak actually is.

The funny thing is that everyone agrees that the official numbers are nonsense, but what the real numbers are, nobody knows.  And the difference is ludicrous, ranging from something like 1k to 13k.

As for percentage of infected, that’s even more nebulous, because no one is testing everyone.

So far it seems to be a wet petard outside China — which is good — as SARS was, as were other illnesses of the third world, such as Ebola.  OTOH one of the things we don’t really know is how long ago the outbreak started.  We also are a bit shaky on latency, as it seems possible that people are infected and infectious a long time without symptoms, (we know it’s some time, but not how much time.)

In fact, the truth is we know about as much about real facts on the ground as we know who really won the Democratic party Iowa caucus.  Which is to say very close to nothing.

Even witness reports contradict each other, ranging from bodies piled int he street, to everything completely normal, except for an overabundance of facial masks.  And of course, there are reasons to lie in both directions. Opponents of the regime might want to report more trouble than really exists, while those who are defending the regime might want to white wash the whole sorry mess.

Which brings us back to jamming coins in electrical boards, or removing batteries from fire alarms that are beeping because the battery is old — and yes, I know you’ve done that. I have too, when it’s the middle of the night and you don’t have another battery — and then leaving it like that: it reduces the number of alarms. It also, in the end, could cost you your life.

Totalitarian regimes, by definition, falsify information. Or silence it.

They present the outside a smooth, polished, best-case-scenario image. That’s the good side. The bad side is that what is actually going on inside is not known, either to the outside world, or to the inside.

Everyone who agitates for reductions or elimination of the First Amendment should ponder that.  Sure, words can be hurty and cause much anguish. As someone who is actually quite confrontation averse, I know that. Also, frankly, like the beeping alarm in the middle of the night, which denotes not fire but a low battery, they can mean pretty much nothing. A lot of speech that goes to rumors and innuendo with absolutely no substance — but enough about CNN — is like that alarm, annoying you and keeping you out of bed for no good reason.

So, why not curb the ability to call people bad things? Or to tell lies? Why not pass a law against fake news? Why not simply say that news can only be reported by licensed journalists held to strict standards?

Because no one ever needed a First Amendment in order to tell you the baby is pretty and that the clothes the king is wearing are wonderful.

If you put any curtailments on the First, you’re giving tyrants and people who would like to be tyrants the ability to stop information they don’t like.

And trust me on this, having worked in industries dominated by the left, it’s like a mini totalitarian regime. You constantly watch what you say and even your facial expressions, because any sign of dissent will be punished.  This means when people get up there and make blatantly political speeches you disagree with at a political banquet, you try to keep your face absolutely impassive.

Of course that means the idiot who got up there some years ago, and talked about how Howard Dean was our future president had no clue how many people he was offending.  Now in science fiction and at the time, it didn’t mean much. It’s not like any of us were going to say anything. We couldn’t get around the gatekeepers and continue making a living.

OTOH when that regime is country-wide (and it is, in a lot of countries. Even Canada has restrictions on speech) there can be real world consequences.  Say a law says your words can’t “cause panic” or “incite to harm.”

Like facebook’s famous “coordinating harm” interdiction which was used to prevent from typing the name Eric C*aramella, because apparently naming a fake whistleblower means we’re all going to show up at his house with clubs and broken bottles, (Ah, left, you project like an IMAX) that incitement to harm or causing panic can be used to, oh, say, prevent a doctor from revealing that there’s a pandemic running rampant. Or preventing people from knowing the magnitude of the disaster.

So…. what does it matter?

Ah, I’m glad you asked.  You see, in the past we could tolerate totalitarian regimes where truth was unknown and unknowable.

Mostly because, frankly, though there was global commerce, it was erratic and performed on horse/camel/elephant back or by ship.

Nowadays you could go around the world in 3 or 4 days (depending on your flights and resources.  But more importantly, merchandise and money does that.

The epidemic in China can affect our economy. It can also affect our medical resources, available to fight the epidemic (of all things, apparently most surgical masks are made in China. Which is a problem.) So even if it’s just confined to China for cultural or economic reasons?  We’re still going to feel the impact, and in an election year that could be very no bueno.

But what if the “epidemic” started much earlier, or we’re being lied to about…. well…. most of it?

What if it comes here?

Well? What if it does? We have no way of knowing or judging how bad it could be or how bad it could become.  (And you guys are prepared for a one-month quarantine at home, right? If not, why not? I mean, even if this is nothing, there’s always the possibility of future trouble.)

This is the problem of enmeshed world economies, the problem of globalism and open borders.  It is not only that when trouble hits we have no real way to seal the border. It’s the problem that even a disease like SARS or EBOLA which will not propagate in the West, if it crosses a certain threshold, will have economic consequences for the west.

I’ve said before that if we want open borders, we can’t have a welfare state. And as long as we have a welfare state, we need tight control on who might come in to — potentially — be a charge on citizens.

In the same way, if you want a global economy, with complete free trade, you cannot have totalitarian states. Because if you do, you’re putting the entire world at risk. It is not a coincidence either that epidemics and any kind of illness tend to kill a lot more people in states where information doesn’t flow freely. A great part of curbing illness in any herd, including the human herd is forewarning and preparing. If you can’t trust anything our of a country you do business with, what confidence and you deposit in their performance?

In an ideal world — and trust me, I’d love this — we could have a free flow of people and business everywhere.

But I have some time ago realized that wishing every country were open to scrutiny and allowed speech of all sorts, it’s sort of like wishing every man were a gentlemen and none of them committed rape, or that every woman be honest and truthful.  It’s a lovely idea, but one that will never happen, for is it not written, the bad apples shall always be with us?

In a world with bad apples, individuals and groups of individuals — all the way to nations — must protect themselves.

Which means, unfortunately, that not everyone can move around with perfect liberty, and that one cannot have commerce with countries that engage in totalitarian practices.

Because totalitarianism kills, sooner or later.

And we don’t want to go down with it.

 

 

 

Book Promo

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL:  Ice Storm.

 

Everywhere Evangeline looks, a thin coating of ice makes objects gleam in the sunlight. However, the beauty proves deceptive, for it hides a deadly secret, one only she can recognize.

In her youth, Evangeline had aspired ot master the powerful magics of her world. Those dreams died the day her Gift awakened uncontrolled and plunged her into a vision of a full fleet battle. The Admiral’s Gift will not be denied, and for Evangeline there was no choice but to trade her mage’s robes for Navy blue.

Now she is faced with an enemy she cannot fight save by magic. Except those who bear the Admiral’s gift are forever barred from working magic.

 

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN:  Called to the Council: Shikari Book 6.

 

Wife, Mother—Councilor, Spy?

Auriga “Rigi” Bernardi-Prananda wants only to do her duty as wife and mother. The Staré natives of Shikhari call her guardian, Healer, and one of the Wise. With the leaders of the people divided, more and more lower Stamm Staré look to her for guidance.

A hunting trip turned war forces her hand. Trapped by Shikhari’s ancient enemy, Rigi must lead her people to safety. But who are her people? And how can she protect her children, both Human and Staré, from an enemy that hunts from shadow?

Rigi must call on all her resources as secrets in high places combine with low treachery to endanger the world she calls home. Artist, mother, huntress, Wise, Rigi navigates interstellar intrigue (and sibling spats, and wildlife with a dreadful sense of timing.)

FROM JAMES L. CAMBIAS:  The Initiate.

A SECRET ORDER OF SORCERERS RULES THE WORLD. ONE MAN HAS VOWED TO DESTROY THEM.

It’s their world. He’s going to take it away from them.

The Apkallu are masters of magic. Theirs is a secret tradition stretching back to the dawn of civilization. They rule the world from the shadows, using mind control and deadly monsters to eliminate any threat to their power. If they know your name, or have a trace of your blood, you can never defy them.

Sam Arquero lost his family to a demon, and knew that nobody would believe the truth. An old man named Lucas offers him the chance to find out who is responsible, and bring down the Apkallu forever. All he has to do is join them . . .

Under a new identity Sam learns the secrets of magic, infiltrates the Apkallu, and walks a razor’s edge as he picks off their leaders while avoiding supernatural detectives on his trail.

But Sam faces a greater threat: As he fights monsters, what is he becoming?

At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

 

FROM MIKE WATSON:  The Beacon at Barrington Light: A Novella of the Tri-Cluster Confederation.

Marilee Harris is a Lighthouse Keeper for a subspace beacon at the edge of the Caledonian system, a lonely post some think is the worst possible assignment; she will be alone for a year. Marilee, however, doesn’t mind. She has another purpose, and the beacon provides a perfect laboratory for her research—until she suddenly disappears. Or, has she?

FROM T. L. KNIGHTON:  With Triumph And Disaster (Tommy Reilly Chronicles Book 3)

Alien life is theoretically possible, but what few signs of life are scattered through the universe are of primitive cultures that barely made it out of their own stone age, if that.

So when a big discovery threatens to shake the very foundations of xenoarcheology, it’s big news. The problem? Someone doesn’t want it discovered and they’re willing to kill to keep that from happening.

When an old friend asks Tommy Reilly and the crew of Sabercat to give them a hand, he can’t say no.

That’s when things get interesting.

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: Song.

Recently, in a group I belong to, a lot of younger friends were talking about how adult life is drudgery and work and a lot of being kicked in the teeth again and again, before arriving to the end, broken and with nothing to show for it.

I won’t say they are wrong. I will just say they’re not right.

Dr. Peterson says that human life is tragic, and he’s right too. But he also gives instruction on how to live a life that lets you die in peace, with the certainty you have accomplished something.

A lot of human philosophies are about that. And you, know I have a friend who is an hospice care nurse, and she will absolutely tell you that there are hard deaths and “good deaths” for people of all religious persuasions and none. There is a way to live your life, not with no regrets, but knowing that you did the best you could, you tried the best you could, and you can now face eternity or nothing with a clear conscience.

What I do know is that it’s not “Those who die with the most toys win.” I know this because some of the most quickly-forgotten, reviled people I know were very wealthy. They were also impossible to live with.  Note the two are not necessarily the same. The rich man who can’t pass through the eye of the needle is his own breed, not just correlated to wealth as such.

Those who live only to accumulate power? That also doesn’t seem, in the end, to bring the kind of serene certainty you did what you could that you might describe as a good death.
I’ve always thought of those who scramble for power as scared people. They want power to control others, because they’re terrified of others, and therefore must be able to tell others how to live.  Dictator or family terror, these people usually die just as scared as they lived.

For years now, this has been the pattern I try to fit myself to, particularly because I’m TRULY unsuited to it. The neurotic personally of the writer doesn’t want to do anything QUIETLY. I want to rage, scream, and kick things like a Shakespearean villain (and some heroes.)

 

“For three thousand years architects designed buildings with columns shaped as female figures. At last Rodin pointed out that this was work too heavy for a girl. He didn’t say, ‘Look, you jerks, if you must do this, make it a brawny male figure.’ No, he showed it. This poor little caryatid has fallen under the load. She’s a good girl-look at her face. Serious, unhappy at her failure, not blaming anyone, not even the gods…and still trying to shoulder her load, after she’s crumpled under it.

“But she’s more than good art denouncing bad art; she’s a symbol for every woman who ever shouldered a load too heavy. But not alone women—this symbol means every man and woman who ever sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude, until they crumpled under their loads. It’s courage, […] and victory.”

“‘Victory’?”

“Victory in defeat; there is none higher. She didn’t give up[…]; she’s still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her. She’s a father working while cancer eats away his insides, to bring home one more pay check. She’s a twelve-year old trying to mother her brothers and sisters because Mama had to go to Heaven. She’s a switchboard operator sticking to her post while smoke chokes her and fire cuts off her escape. She’s all the unsung heroes who couldn’t make it but never quit.

—Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (1961)

There is a danger in it too, mind you.  It is possible to become enamored of the thought of self-sacrifice and distort oneself while enabling others to be useless and never grow up.  This is a particular risk for us mothers, particularly those of us who literally love our kids more than ourselves. (Look, not all do, but some of us are broken that way.)

When I was in high school the first sentence I wrote in every notebook was “The important thing is not to be happy. It’s to be good for something.”  While there could be worse mottoes, my psychologist friends cringe when they hear that, and they’re not wrong.

So, what’s a good life?  I don’t know.  It’s probably different for everyone around, and each of us has different temptations to stray from it.  Look at what Heinlein said: those are good lives, well lived, even if you never heard those people’s name, and they’re buried in a pauper’s grave. OTOH there are probably people who think they’re doing that, while infantilizing their families and taking the brunt off life for people who can and should face it alone.

We all start out with dreams.  Big dreams, if we’re worth anything.  And it’s easy to dream really big when you know nothing about the world.  Particularly if you know you’re brighter than the average bear, and stronger too, and are willing to undergo work to get where you want to be.

Me? My first book was going to astound the world. I was that good.

Was I that good? Who the heck knows.  You can’t judge your own writing, anymore than you can judge your own beauty.  But I’ve read a lot of bestsellers (not all. Some do things I can’t figure out how to do. I’m working on it, damn it) who don’t write as well as I do. So, my assessment wasn’t all wrong. BUT — but — things only work out perfectly, ever, in dreams.  In reality I had to sell what the editors were willing to buy (and my first trilogy, while competent and — I THINK — decent of its kind, wasn’t even in the genre I like to write. (I can write just about anything, though.)) and it came out with the cover they chose, and the push they chose and the time couldn’t be more disastrous unless it had come out the day all books in the world caught fire simultaneously (which hasn’t happened, obviously.)

As a result my career has been — yes — a bunch of kicks in the teeth. But between them, there have been moments of shining pleasure and beauty. Usually not when the awards come or the book “sells better than expected” (Pfui) but when I create it and see that it’s good (of its kind and for what I wanted to do.)

My writing will be forgotten ten minutes after I’m dead, probably, but I’m doing it as well as I can, and I’m NOT QUITTING.  It will never be a shining thing of immortal beauty, because that only happens in dreams.

In reality the actions and decisions of others get a say.  And yes, life is often unfair and horrible. So far I’ve been blessed with a much beloved husband who loves me too. (No, he’s not the redheaded astronaut I fantasized about as a young teen. You know what? NOT sorry at all for that.)  I’ve been blessed with two sons who are good people, and probably both more grown up and sane than I am by now.  And I haven’t lost any of the three of them, and I’ve never gone naked or so hungry I couldn’t bear it. AND because my husband loves me, I get to work at what I want to, to which success is secondary.

But in a chaotic system there’s no such thing as “fair.”

I was lucky in another way, now I think about it. At 33 I spent 11 days in ICU with pneumonia. All the doctors told me I was going to die.

It clarifies the mind enormously.

I wasn’t sorry I’d die poor-ish or that I’d never won awards, or that I’d never got the accolades of the writing world (I wasn’t even published, though I’d sold a short story, and the magazine went under.)

Two things bothered me: I’d be leaving my husband in a difficult position, with two very young children to raise (4 and 1.)  And I’d never written even one book in the multi-connected world I’d dreamed about since I was a little kid. I had several novels written in my head, that I’d never share with anyone.

Those two things were what ate at me.  And it will tell you something about traditional publishing and compromises that I’m only now starting to write in that universe, now that I’m indie:  Schrodinger worlds. I will probably have to have a diagram on my writer page, because even “date” unless it’s “Earth date” is a matter of opinion in that one.  The one thing I know is that I might die with only some books out, but I can’t face dying with none of them out.

What else is important to me? Making sure my kids are “flying free.”  I.e. that they have the tools needed, and are working at something they love and preferably married to someone who is right for them. (One down, one to go. Yes, real marriage is also difficult and often you struggle with it, but the good ones make you better than you’d be on your own. They will literally make you a better person, and more capable of achieving whatever it is you need to achieve. I think older son has that. I know I do.)

That was actually what clarified it for me. Because I love my sons very much, what I wish for them is the best and that is: Satisfying work one feels is important; a life-partner whom one loves and who strives with us and themselves to make both better; children if possible, because love grows and because humanity must go on; the courage to accept one’s own limitations and live past the times when death kicks you in the teeth again and again.

In Heyer’s book A Civil Contract, she has the main character, after breaking (of necessity) with his fiance and agreeing to marry a rich woman (actually long after that, when the first fiance marries someone else) thinking “He had come to the end of dreaming.”

But by then it is clear to the reader that the lost fiance was the worst possible match for him, and that this dream in his head is a fantasy. He’d have been miserable with her.  While the wife he’s forced to marry makes him happy (and BETTER) in ways he could not have dreamed of.

Yes, it’s a romance, and Heyer is not “realistic about the relationships between men and women” say the intellectual midgets. But she IS realistic about life.

Sometimes the most worthy things are done only when you come to the end of dreaming.  It feels like your guts are ripped out whole, but it is what’s known as “adulthood.”

And at that point, knowing you’re too weak for that damn stone the builders expect you to lift, and that it will inevitably crush you, if you try to lift it ANYWAY, you will win, even as it crushes you.

she’s a symbol for every woman who ever shouldered a load too heavy. But not alone women—this symbol means every man and woman who ever sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude, until they crumpled under their loads. It’s courage, […] and victory.”

“‘Victory’?”

“Victory in defeat; there is none higher. She didn’t give up[…]; she’s still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her. – Robert A. Heinlein.

Go and lift. Go do the most worthy thing you can conceive of, no matter how hard.

And you’ll win. Even if you lose.

 

 

Battling the forces of evil. Some poetry for a Friday morning. Pardon the religious overtones, it’s still a beautiful poem. If it helps, it is about a saint, so those are inevitable.
A warrior saint.

 

FERNANDO INFANTE DE PORTUGAL

Deu-me Deus o seu gladio, por que eu faça

A sua santa guerra.

Sagrou-me seu em honra e em desgraça,

As horas em que um frio vento passa

Por sobre a fria terra.

Pôs-me as mãos sobre os ombros e doirou-me

A fronte com o olhar;

E a esta febre de Além, que me consome,

E este querer grandeza são seu nome

Dentro em mim a vibrar.

E eu vou, e a luz do gladio erguido dá

Em minha face calma.

Cheio de Deus, não temo o que virá,

Pois, venha o que vier, nunca será

Maior do que a minha alma – Fernando Pessoa.

D. Fernando, Infant of Portugal

G-d gave me his gladius, that I make
His Holy War
He anointed me His in honor and disgrace
At the hours in which a cold wind blows
Across the cold Earth
He put His hands on my shoulders And gilded
My brow with His glance;
And this fever for Beyond that consumes me
This striving for greatness
Are His name
Vibrating within me
I go, and the light of the lifted gladius falls
Upon my calm face
Full of G-d I fear not what shall come
For come what might
It will never be
Larger than my soul. – Fernando Pessoa

And since I’m in a poem mood, I tried and failed to find my copy of my one book of Reiner Kunze’s poem, so this is just a vague allusion to his poem for which he should not be blamed. Though it was a favorite and I memorized it at one point, it is a 30-year old poem in German.  Take it as such. The clumsiness is mine.
I couldn’t find a copy on line. Somehow it has gotten confused with another poem and that’s what Good Reads lists the title as for a poem that’s actually Abundance From An Empty Creel.

For any brilliance in this, credit Kunze. For any clumsiness, blame me and my memory which I’m sure misremembers and mistranslates things. But what I remember is this:

Things of Clay

We wanted to be like things of clay
Useful
Going to the tables of humble people
Working for those who
At five in the morning
Drink coffee in the kitchen.

We shall be as the shards
Of things of clay
Never again whole
But perhaps
A glimmer in the wind.

Socialism and the Democratic Dictatorship – by Matthew Bowman

So there I was, minding my own business, and a Munchkin who refused to go to sleep at the usual bedtime. Really, I’m not sure what he was expecting to accomplish by staying up late.

But it meant I came across this particular gem of myopic intelligence looking for a handout, shared into the Secret Headquarters of All Things Insane on an obscure website called something like Bookface. Now, I’m going to cover every single word of it, so if you’re not used to the kind of statist idiocy you can find online, please shield your eyes lest it burn a permanent afterimage into your retinas.

Now, being tired and a bit strung out from Munchkin’s antics (really, child, you have to be at least three years old before building a proper death ray out of nothing but Lego bricks, it’s a choking hazard), I decided to do the smart thing and just walk away from it.

Ha. No. I fisked it. And Sarah liked it, so she said she’d be all “disappointed” if I didn’t write a blog post for her.

I know what that means, and I am not prepared for a visit from Greebo’s minions. So here’s the blog post.

If you’re not already familiar with the Asymmetric Bullshit Rule, please familiarize yourself:

Yes, that’s right. That tiny little socialist screed has a lot of words that mean nothing, but I’m about to write many, many more words about them, because the problem is that even more people actually live under the delusion that these words in this kind of configuration are Profound, Meaningful, and Wise.

“But, Mr. Bowman, you’re a religious man. Socialism is a religion. Why are you persecuting them?”

Hell. No, really, because hell. Not the Big-H hot place that’s somewhere in excess of 200 C (the ignition range of sulfur, AKA brimstone), but the living, mortal hell that socialists bring to every country where it gets tried. Just ask Sarah’s cousin in Venezuela. Oh, wait, you can’t. Good thing for socialists that there were a lot of other “disappeared,” so it goes from tragedy to statistic. Whew! Break out the Che Guevera shirts!

“But Mr. Bowman, what about Scandinavia?”

That should be another shirt. “What about Scandinavia?” with a picture of Europe on fire. Scandinavia isn’t socialist. They used to be headed in that direction, but they saw the writing on the wall and have been rolling back many of their programs. That’s beyond the scope of this fisk, so please, go ahead, ask in the comments. I’m sure you’ll come across someone who will give you lots of good, hard facts you’ll be able to safely ignore.

Okay, let’s get into the fisk. The original will be in italics, and my commentary from this point on will be in bold.

“Socialism: The government owns most of the major industries.”

Try “all.” This is helped out by the way that many of them die out anyway. That’s what happens when you choke the life out of someone in order to give life to someone else. There’s always something lost along the way. But keep going, I’m sure someday you’ll get it right.

“This is an extreme system that seems to fail.”

Okay, so this type of socialism is pure socialism, so it’s extreme? If extreme is bad, then clearly there must be something about it that fails. But what does that mean?

Let’s look at liberty instead. What’s extreme liberty? Well, a logical examination would indicate that “extreme liberty” is either anarchism or so close as to be indistinguishable. I don’t want anarchy, but if your goal is liberty and nothing else, then true, pure anarchy solves that. Society falls apart, but that’s a feature, not a bug. You could also argue that extreme liberty is ultimate isolation, being the only human you will ever meet. No society seems to me even worse than a broken society, but even if the drawbacks aren’t worth it to me, I can’t deny that it is still liberating.

Yet can socialism deliver on its promise even at great cost?

When socialism falls apart, you have a failure of the very thing it promises to preserve: equality and well-being. Taken to its logical conclusion, you wind up with the same destruction of society as you have under anarchy, with no industry or agriculture to support large populations or making the tools necessary to efficiently defend against one group raiding the supplies of another. You have all the disadvantages of anarchy without any of the benefits of individual freedom, because all that’s left is the enforcement of the party leaders directing The People — and The People become no better than serfs.

This might, theoretically, not result in a plutocracy; but that doesn’t mean it’s ever actually happened. EVERY instance of pure socialism has resulted in a ruling class concentrating all the wealth in the name of defending the people. That’s feudalism repackaged.

We’re talking about something that was defeated by the HORSE COLLAR, and yet people keep trying to bring it back its essence under another name.

Sheesh. Already I have so freaking many words, and I’m only two lines in. Bullshit be asymmetrical.

“Corporate Socialism: (our current system)”

If everything is socialism, then nothing is. You just want to talk about corporations now.

“The government mostly benefits wealthy corporations.”

How so? Bailouts?

Since this is directed at disguising the Democrat Party agenda, we have to assume that this is an attempt to paint the status quo as being held up by conservatives. When’s the last time you saw a conservative saying we needed more bailouts?

SHUT UP, GEORGE. I asked for a conservative. And while Bush was not all bad, it is absolutely unbelievable to me that a Texan president’s eight years has been outdone by three years of a NEW YORK LIBERAL. If anyone managed to win those odds in Vegas, my hat’s off to you, because no one could have predicted that.

No conservative politician has ever wanted the government to bail out any company. This isn’t even a No True Scotsman moment; it just simply hasn’t happened. The closest you get is government-backed insurance, which most conservatives (grudgingly) accept because the companies have to pay into them in the first place.

Now, frequently the Democrats have reached for the idea that tax breaks equal bailouts, and this statement from the original post so vague (“benefits”) that we can safely assume the original author is trying the same here. There are two issues with that.

First, “not raising taxes” is only the same thing as “benefiting” if you assume that the money belongs to the government in the first place; in which case it’s not a tax, and we all work for one giant corporation. Wait, isn’t that what you hate?

Second, the statist left has loved to say that corporations aren’t people, but they also love to have it both ways. Here, they act like corporations get away scot-free (ironically, when’s the last time you saw a Scot free of England? But I digress). However, if corporations aren’t people, then the people who run AND work for corporations get taxed twice. First they have to pay corporate taxes (monthly, unless it’s quarterly, unless they’re nonprofit, unless they still have to pay certain taxes anyway — don’t blame me, the IRS rules are written by hyperactive German engineers snorting Pixie Stix), and THEN they have to use their remaining money to pay their employees, who THEN have to pay taxes on taxed money. So if corporations aren’t people, then why tax these people twice?

Ugh. I have to speed up. BUT THERE’S SO MUCH WRONG.

“Most major industries are privately owned (capitalism),”

The only way they can get away with this “most” statement is by saying that the military is an industry. Really. If you’ve been lucky enough to have not encountered that argument so far, then I’m sorry to break your cherry. The socialist left loves claiming that the military is “the means of production of war,” and therefore the military is socialist, and therefore the government is socialist. They weren’t getting anywhere with the roads-and-bridges argument, so I guess they thought this would work out for them.

There are private military contractors who might get involved in warfare, but under international law that’s not the same thing, so that’s really all they have. I think it’s just because they think we’re so brainwashed into loving the military that they want to either convince us we’re already socialist or they think we might turn anti-military under the weight of their impeccable logic. (I threw up a little in my mouth writing those last few words.)

They can’t say that about firefighters and police, because there are private companies that do the same job. I haven’t seen anyone say that “prosecuting criminal defenses” is socialism, but give it time; technically, no one does that other than the state.

“but still receive massive handouts, bailouts, and other benefits at the expense of the taxpayer.”

At the hands of the party promoting socialism, doofus.

Yes, the Republicans have experimented with that, and it’s always a disaster; and the experiments normally extend only to tariffs, which I think are stupid (it’s just another tax and impacts the economy accordingly), with very few actual bailouts. As I said before, those are always decried by the conservatives. Hell, most conservatives who lose their livelihoods would rather claw their way up out of poverty rather than accept charity, and those who do usually limit it only to family.

“It is driven by corporations’ ability to influence the laws with large amounts of money that results in legislation that favors their ability to make even larger amounts of money.”

Do you even know what a run-on sentence is, you grammarless insult to an already-bastard tongue?

That’s called crony capitalism, and the left has been promising to get rid of that for CENTURIES now. Yes, just pass this next law! It’ll work THIS TIME! That’s how we got the 16th and 17th amendments, and the underlying promise of utopia through government regulation also got us the 18th as well. (Yes, Prohibition was pushed by progressives and socialists; look it up, dumbass.)

“In this system the wealthy become more wealthy at the expense of the lower classes. This system is essentially a Plutocracy (ruled by the wealthy).”

I already covered this point responding to Socialism. Moving on! Oh, hey, we’re finally to the next section.

“Democratic Socialism: The government mostly benefits the citizens.”

Yay! Excellent! That’s the whole concept behind the three purposes of government!

Wait, “mostly”? What’s this “mostly” crap? If you’re instituting a government that isn’t 100% intended to benefit its citizens, then what in the name of Ginsberg’s taxidermist are you ACTUALLY DOING?

See, I’m going to take a moment in the vain hope that someone, somewhere, will read this post with an open mind and think about what the actual purposes of government might be. The following is as concise a summary of conservative and small-L libertarian philosophy as I can manage.

1) Secure and facilitate voluntary agreements and cooperation among its citizens and serve as impartial arbiter, because you can’t have a cohesive society without enforcing agreements.

2) To defend citizens against threats both foreign and domestic, because you can’t keep a society without protecting it.

3) To aid citizens in disaster situations and take steps to prevent public disaster situations, because you can’t maintain society without planning for the worst.

Government action beyond these three purposes is best avoided, which is why we support small government, low tax burdens, cutting or removing government programs that can be handled by private enterprise, and moving government agencies to the smallest and most local level possible for their function.

Will “democratic socialism” give this to us? Considering that everyone who supports and promotes it wants MORE government, HIGHER taxes, REDUCED private enterprise, and CENTRALIZED government, I highly doubt it. But what do I know? I’m just a knuckle-dragging conservative who actually read books in college without red covers.

“Most major industries are privately owned (capitalism),”

Fisked above.

“but they have to stand on their own without handouts from the government.”

This is so obviously an attempt to appeal to conservatives that I’m not even insulted. I’m just amused. You REALLY think that a rightist is going to fall for the claim that socialism increases personal responsibility and fiscal solvency? Really?

“The tax burden previously funneled to the wealthy corporations is used to improve the lives of citizens instead.”

Again, this only works if you believe that all money belongs to The State, and we all work for a giant corporation called The State. A tax that does not exist does not equal government support.

“This enables the government to help fund improvements to public services such as: Police, Firemen, Libraries, Roads and Interstates, Education, and Healthcare.”

Every single one of those things is currently funded by government, and two of them absolutely should not be. Can you guess which ones?

“The system is driven by people working together and lifting each other up.”

Haha.

Oh, wait, you’re serious. Let me laugh harder.

“In this system the middle class thrives and poverty decreases.”

This has already happened under what you called corporate socialism. Even the statist left, masters of goalpost movement, can’t move the goalposts fast enough to keep up with the growth of middle class wealth in the United States over the last hundred years alone. When you add in England and go back nine hundred years to the document that is the most direct ancestor of the Constitution (the Coronation Charter of 1100, look it up), you can see so clearly that middle class growth is directly due to the freedom to perform private business that you’ll briefly think you have the necessary clarity of vision to read a map revealing the location of your gluteus overly maximus.

“This system is more Democratic (ruled by the people) than our current system.”

How so? Because you’ve increased the regulatory burden on ordinary citizens? Because you’ve made them more dependent on government handouts? Because you’ve driven everyone who can leave to get out, leaving only those who have no choice but to accept a 100% voter return for El Dictadora? (And yes, I do understand Spanish pronouns better than any current Democrat presidential candidate.) You can call it a democratic dictatorship, but it has to be one or the other.

Go back and caress your tear-and-other-stained copy of The Communist Manifesto, you pompous dick-nosed slimy idiotic syphilitic camel-infested bundle of shameless quarter-witted monkey-twisting puny nosehairs. You’re about as useful as a condom dispenser in a Vatican toilet.

Now I just need to get my Munchkin to sleep.

Matthew Bowman can be found at his apolitical Novel Ninja blog (desperately in need of new blog posts but still open for business and accepting manuscripts for editing), where he is frequently confused for a moderate by the ill-prepared; and at Write of Center Authors on Facebook, where he is in the process of setting up a writing-support organization for freedom-loving authors, editors, publishers, and cover artists. He’s not normally this caustically creative, but baby-induced tiredness makes him loopy and Sarah assured him it would be, on occasion, hilarious.

Part of the problem with humans is that we tend to get used to “how things have always been.”

And when those “things” are comfortable for us, it’s hard to imagine them changing.

Sure, the human animal is adaptable, but sometimes it takes us a while to figure out how to work around when things change. For instance, say we move the furniture in the house: if I come downstairs in the middle of the night to get water or deal with screaming cats (it happens) I will walk carefully around where the sofa used to be and then walk right into where it is, or perhaps trip over the coffee table and fall on the cat. (In addition to my being completely night blind, I’m usually without my glasses in these excursions.)

And then there’s the bigger patterns. I mean, you eventually learn to walk around the new place for the sofa.

But if you read fiction — or non-fiction — written around big historical transitions you’ll hear a great lament for “how things used to be.”  For instance Agatha Christie’s people often lament the quality of something “post war” (and that the first world war.)

However, I think right now we’re in the middle of such a large and…. strange change, not immediately obvious that most people who were comfortable in the previous conformation are having trouble adapting.

What do I mean by the nature of the change?  Take blogs, or ebooks. Same thing really.  When they were first considered, talked about, everyone was full of “this is the new thing now.”

Only it wasn’t. I attended and sat at the most panels on how ebooks would change the industry back in the early nineties.  And then nothing happened. Because reading ebooks on your computer was cumbersome, and as a friend put it, “Who wants to carry even a laptop (they were bigger then too) to the bathroom to read their novel?”

As for blogs, those of us who were on them right after 9/11 expected them to have this huge impact on the elections and… well, everything. Because this new distributed media was so self-obviously better than the clearly biased and lying newspapers and networks.

Only, nothing happened.  Until it did.

I think they call this the mechanics of the sand pile, where the grains of sand are shifting slowly, inside, but the outside looks completely immobile, and steady.  And then suddenly the whole pile shifts over.

I understand it’s how a lot of social change occurs.  And though in this case the change was partly technological, it was still a social change, a breaking of habits and ways of doing things.  For instance, I used to subscribe to three newspapers which I read religiously every morning before getting to work. (The Gazette, the Denver Post and the Wall Street Journal.)  And honestly, I dropped them one by one, more because I hadn’t got around to renewing, and then realized I was reading my news on line and didn’t need them.

Kind of like that but society wide.

Ebooks finally started coming into their own in 2010. I’m not 100% sure we’re done with their peak yet. I think there are things to come that will make all this seem like early days.

And the first revolution in which the traditional media showed their impotence was 2016.  And even then I’m not going to say it was blogs. Might not have been. Europe seems to be caught in the middle of the same thing, and as far as I can tell, for various social reasons, they don’t have blogs like we have blogs. (Explaining to my mom what’s now a big part of my life is nigh impossible.)

Anyway, I think this is causing some confusion, blindness and otherwise inexplicably stupid behavior in people who never seemed stupid before.  This is what I call The Years the Masks Fell off.

Look, take a just-now thing: the DNC says that all precincts in Iowa WERE counted. The app recorded every vote, they say. They just need to tally them.

Turns out that’s probably not precisely true.

As a friend noticed, that’s not precisely a lie, that’s just ‘making sh*t up.’

We’re seeing that a lot from the other side of the isle suddenly. Unbelievably stupid behavior like the sham wow impeachment.

They keep telling us “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” and being shocked and appalled when we choose our lying eyes.

In the non-political side, my calling, as it were, writing and publishing, we’re seeing equally unbelievably stupid behavior from publishers: from trying to play the same old “push” games and being shocked and appalled when they don’t work, (even though Barnes and Noble is a spent force, and the traditional reviewers eclipsed by Joe Schmo with a blog.)  They heed the once a year (at most three times) schedule, even though indie has changed expectations and people expect at least four to six books in a series a year.  But more importantly they do crazy stuff like overprice ebooks because that will SURELY force us to buy hardcovers. Or, my absolute favorite, they will scream at us how ignorant and what terrible people we are for not reading their precious pushed Polly.

And then they’re shocked, nay astonished, when these tactics don’t work.  While we who are standing outside this look at them and go “Who would think that would work? Some two year old?”

I mean half of the bizarre behavior of our government and its agencies falls under that heading too.  “Who could think that would work/wouldn’t be found out/made any sense?”

But the thing you have to understand is that you’re not dealing with stupid people. Not by half. You’re dealing with people who were very competent and comfortable in — for lack of a better term — the previous paradigm of politics, or publishing or whatever.

The more comfortable they were; the easier it was for them, the harder it is to accept that it’s gone and it’s not coming back

For instance, the dems could trust the media would cover for them absolutely and completely, and that their pettiness, idiocy or outright corruption would never be revealed.

They got used to it, they got comfortable. They got to believing it was their natural right. It was just the way things were. They were the good people. Their hearts were pure. No one would ever look into their behavior outside the limelight.

If some psychological tests are correct, they grew to believe they were entitled to corruption and unethical behavior for all the “good” they did, such as Clinton thinking he was entitled to all the women he wanted for “fighting for women’s rights” (Which for men like him always mean abortion, but never mind.)

They can’t adapt. They can’t believe things have changed.

In the same way editors and publishers in traditional publishing were in a privileged position. They didn’t even have to be nice. Writers would still be nice and subservient to them. Because, well… it was the only game in town.  And they didn’t need to be THAT good at their jobs. There were enough super readers out there with an habit to feed, that unless they published dud after dud after dud (some of them managed it) sooner or later, they buy a big hit, and make their reputation.

In their heads this is still the world they live in. They can ignore writers and what writers want, because, well, what are writers going to do?  And they can kick you out and your career is over, right? And if they want a book to do well, they just do a lot of publicity and get all the right reviewers to praise it, because what are the readers going to read.

If they could for a moment forget the experience of a life time, and see how things are done now, past the noise of twitter for the left, past the still-fawning authors-who-hope-for-validation for publishers and editors, they’d see not only has the world changed completely, but the old world is not coming back. Not ever.

No matter how many reassuring, whistling past the graveyard articles Publishers Weekly and the other rags write, we’re not all going back to buy our stories in paper bricks, from a limited selection of publishers, and waiting a year for the next opus. Not. Gonna. Happen. Not ever.

But these people can’t move on past their lived experience, their ‘it’s always been this way.’ and “it should be this way.” And the “We deserve it to be this way.”

Like deposed kings in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, they walk through packed rooms wearing their crowns, trailing their robes, and they can’t understand why no one is bowing and scraping, except maybe a few sycophants.

But the rest of the crowd is moving on, creating the future. And if they look at them at all, it’s either with mockery and pity.

 

It tells you something about where the “me” lives that I feel much better and more focused mentally, and therefore I’m very happy. Even though doing stuff like, Oh, showering, still takes me forever and leaves me exhausted.

I don’t even care, provided I can write and maybe finish my web site and set up the newsletter at last.  Which as I said tells you where I live.  As a friend of mine says, sometimes I need to remember to take care of the meat suit.

I’m hoping I’ve turned the corner on the “clear head” thing, because I DID have the flu vaccine (though son says it’s a poor fit) they said this should last five to seven days, and since symptoms started on Thursday, I hope to be okay on Thursday. Fingers crossed.

One thing that being sick does — I am very fond of Giovanni Guareschi’s Don Camillo books to whom, when he was about to do something inadvisable, the Lord would prostrate him with such a fever he couldn’t leave his bed — is strip away all the unnecessary stuff. Or at least stuff that can be postponed.

I mean, I’m not about to claim cleaning the house is unnecessary. When I start seeing grains of cat littler — carried in the reprobates’ paws from the laundry room — on the dark living room carpet I go a little crazy, so yeah, cleaning at least once a week is needed. But this last week it didn’t happen, and ain’t nobody going to die from that.  In the same way, when I’m in a hurry to finish books and put up revised covers, and finish work, and and and being sick allows to just sit and pretty much not do much of anything.

One of the things it allows me not to do is worry too much about the Democrat primary.

Why should I worry about a dumpster fire that just got hist by a clown car, you ask? Well, because I’m terrified that Bernie Sanders will win the nomination. You guys can be sure that he won’t win the election, and I grant you that a free and fair election would be hard for him to win, but seriously when have we had that, in my lifetime? We all know how Kennedy won, after all.

The fury on the left when they lose is that they failed to cheat enough.

And anyone who doubts that Bernie Sanders will have the full support of what remains of the international communist movement and their money is a fool. Yeah, they’re a much diminished thing, since they lost the cash cow of the USSR, but it worth it to them to put all their money into this, because if they manage it, they’ll have America’s money to finance — finally — communist revolution around the world. If they did that much with the USSR, imagine what they could do with as much as they could extract from us.

I can see the logic from their point of view, though honestly I think it would blow up in their faces in ways they can’t even imagine, from quite likely igniting the boogaloo at the first crazy authoritarian thing Bernie does, to their ruining the country so fast that there is no money for their fun and games.

But no matter how badly it would go for us, there’s a good chance none of us would survive it. And even if we did, the Constitution would for the foreseeable future live only in our hearts and the USA, the last best thing on Earth, would be gone.

I can write about it. I’d rather not live through it. I joined the glorious experiment of my own free will, and I’d rather not see it crash in my lifetime.

Of course we still don’t know if Bernie swept the stakes.  The app the democrats have been assuring us is totally fine for general voting in the late great state of California, couldn’t handle the caucus in Iowa.

Yesterday a friend posted on facebook that he didn’t understand how anyone could look at what is going on in China and believe that centralized government is a good thing.

Of course, he’s missing several things, including the essential goodness and a basic innocence of natural-born Americans, who take certain things for granted, such as that a government works for the good of their people, and that news coming out of a country or region are NEWS and not so tightly controlled that nothing the centralized government thinks bad will come out.

This is ridiculous, since the left in the US knows — or should know — to what extent they manipulate the news. Particularly those leftists at the top. And yet, the assumption of a government existing FOR the people is so baked into the fundamental genes of Americans, that even Mini-Mike (I hear he hates that, so Mini-Mike he is now forever) Bloombug thinks that China’s government is doing things to ingratiate itself with the people, as if they could be arsed.

The other thing he’s missing is the vaunting hubris of kids who were educated in such a way they were continuously told they were the best and brightest and the smartest generation to ever grace the world.  And all the while they’re maleducated, taught a lot of things that just aren’t so, and taught to avoid thinking, since thinking might lead them to step out of the herd and be cut off forever.  The problem with our youthful socialists is that they can look unblinking on the wreckage and stinking graves the regime left strewn throughout the 20th century and think this time it will be different, because, well…. it’s them.

And no, the fact that the app — with which, of course, they hoped to cheat in California, which actually if you think about it makes both eyebrows go up, because if California is  not fully under control, what is? — blew up in their faces will not correct their hubris.

Instead, it will fill them with certainty that next time they’ll do it better and infallibly.

You’ve heard the thing about people dreaming of life extension who don’t know what to do with themselves on a Sunday afternoon?

These people dream of total technocratic control over the world and can’t manage a small caucus in one US state.

May the Lord protect us and save us from the Self Esteem Children.

We’re going to need it.

 

Last night I realized I DEFINITELY HAVE THE FLU, not “just” an autoimmune attack because the “crushing depression out of nowhere” fell on me.

It isn’t that we don’t have reason to be anxious and depressed right now (long story) but THAT I knew and was dealing with.  It’s more like in the middle of making dinner all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I felt like the world was ending tomorrow. (Yes, I know that can be a symptom of a heart attack. And if I had no other symptoms, I’d go get checked. But I have other symptoms.)

The problem is that, being autoimmune, feeling suddenly exhausted, unable to move above a crawl, feeling like your whole body hurts, having a crushing headache and wanting to sleep the clock around aren’t really symptoms to rush to the doctor.  Instead you take an antihistamine, rest a bit, and check again.  In my case, being all clogged up isn’t even a reason of being actually ill beyond the auto-immune, since part of my auto-immune is asthma.

Unfortunately since I started having symptoms Thursday, there’s no point going in and getting formally tested.  They can’t give me anti-virals which won’t do anything.

Also unfortunately this is presenting exactly like the flu that put me in the hospital with pneumonia, as I’m not coughing at all.  When this happened before, of course, I decided I didn’t have the flu and let it go so long I ended up in ICU for 11 days.

I know better. I’m going to push liquids and see if I can loosen stuff enough I will cough. No guarantees, but I’m going to try.

Also I’m going to find or buy another of the GOOD blood ox meter so that if my oxygen goes down, I will go to doctor.  Right now I have the unreliable oxymeter (note, found the good one. Oxygen is fine.)

I have slept twelve hours. I have almost passed out in the kitchen while making myself tea. No, I don’t know why since blood ox is actually high.

I’m going to push liquids, particularly warm liquids, so I’m on tea and broth for a while.

The problem is this: even though I’ve taken the aderall, my mind is working on 2 minute cycles. If you’re waiting for anything from me that requires any braining (you know, not “Do you like ice cream and chocolate”) be it critiques, image manipulation or writing, please, please, please abide in patience until I’m over this carp.

I can’t tell you how annoying it is for someone of my disposition to not even be able to do the administrivia that comes with writing.  I have a ton of it waiting, from setting up the newsletter at last, to finishing setting up the writing website and blog, to putting the newsletter at the bottom of every published book, to designing new covers for books where they’re dated/inappropriate, to putting out paper editions.

I don’t know which I can do of those, but right now reading the instructions for how to set up the newsletter (in a different site, since the one I first did didn’t work) doesn’t even work, because it’s a paragraph at a time, and then I forget what I just read.

This drives me insane, because if I can’t write, at least I want to do the other stuff.  I might try to set up the writer’s blog, since honestly most of it is just copy pasting text and doing auxiliary pages.

Yes, I know “Woman, you feel like crap, but your main issue is that you can’t work?”  If you saw my schedule, and saw that I wasted most of January on various stupid illnesses and other issues, you’d understand.

Meanwhile I’m going to ask you to please pray (yes, even if you’re a non-believer. Just talk into that telephone. There might or might not be someone on the other side, but it can’t hurt) for my family, because January was a shower of carp, and February has amped it up and if the trend continues we’re just going to be crushed.

Meanwhile, forgive me for whining about my health like an old woman. I know I’m not old enough for that.

If I miss any posts, unless Dan puts up the pre-written, years ago “If you’re reading this” assume I’m not dead, just imitating the vegetable kingdom by drinking a lot and doing not much.

Sorry abouut the non-post-post.

 

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FROM EDWARD THOMAS:   Unfair Advantage (The Troubles of George McIntyre Book 1).

George McIntyre has a problem.
He caught a nanotechnological disease that turned him into a ten-foot-tall monster. He has scales, fur, horns, big teeth, claws, a face like a pony and a barbed tail. He got an upgrade in strength, speed and intelligence that is so profound it is terrifying him. But that’s not his problem.
He’s been shot, stabbed, blown up and thrown in jail. But that’s not his problem.
He’s created an intelligent robot assistant. But while she is proving to be a lot more than he bargained for, she is not his problem.
There is an alien machine that is trying to turn every human alive into a mindless, remote controlled zombie. That’s his problem.

MACKEY CHANDLER:  April (Paper Edition)

April is an exceptional young lady and something of a snoop. After a chance encounter with a spy, she finds herself involved with political intrigues that stretch her abilities. There is a terrible danger she, and her friends and family, will lose the only home she has ever known, and be forced to live on the slum ball Earth below. It’s more than an almost fourteen year old should have to deal with. Fortunately she has a lot of smart friends and allies. It’s a good thing because things get very rough and dicey. They challenge the political status quo, and with a small population the only advantage they have in war is a thin technological edge.The “April” series of books works towards a merge with the “Family Law” series set further in the future.

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN:  Called to the Council: Shikari Book .

Auriga “Rigi” Bernardi-Prananda wants only to do her duty as wife and mother. The Staré natives of Shikhari call her guardian, Healer, and one of the Wise. With the leaders of the people divided, more and more lower Stamm Staré look to her for guidance.

A hunting trip turned war forces her hand. Trapped by Shikhari’s ancient enemy, Rigi must lead her people to safety. But who are her people? And how can she protect her children, both Human and Staré, from an enemy that hunts from shadow?

Rigi must call on all her resources as secrets in high places combine with low treachery to endanger the world she calls home. Artist, mother, huntress, Wise, Rigi navigates interstellar intrigue (and sibling spats, and wildlife with a dreadful sense of timing.)

FROM MARY CATELLI:  The Book of Bone.

A novelette of curses and journeys.

Avice’s dreams of settling at Clearwater are dashed. The lawsuit had ended, and the lands were made over to her, but a bone wizard lays a curse on the land, and blight begins to spread. All will die before the curse as it spreads.

Neither her family nor her king are willing to help. She is left alone with only the knowledge that the mysterious Book of Bone may have the lore that she needs — if only she can find it.

FROM JULIE PASCAL:  WYRM

“Complete your tasks and you will be released. We have summoned you and you must serve us.”

“Never.” The word caught against the fangs in her lengthening jaw and became a growl. She looked down at her tormentors below her and knew them. Fox ears and cat eyes.

“Never!” She bellowed defiance that started deep within her scaled body and expanded with her to fill the sky.

 

 

I woke up today with the flu (but not the Kung Flu, because you know, I haven’t even ordered Chinese take out in the last six months, because low carb. Um…. wonder if the Chinese restaurants are feeling the bite) having done a you turn and run me over again.
So, I’m going to do some writing and maybe some intensive napping, because I’m really low on sleep and have been.

It would help, truly, if my immune system did anything besides attacking ME. If anyone knows how to communicate this to it, tell me.  At this point I’d probably be better off without one, as insane as that sounds.

I do wonder how the coronavirus will play out not as an illness, but as an economic impactor.

One of the things to consider is that most illnesses that originate in the third world, and even those that create considerable panic/high death rates (which if China is reporting even semi-accurately* this one isn’t REALLY doing) tend to fizz out when they reach developed countries, because even the basics of washing yourself/your hands and disposing of bodily waste with some consideration to not causing illness seems to make a lot of difference.  While on that, let’s remember that the population explosion of the west in the eighteenth century was mostly predicated on improvements in hygiene.  A sub-though on this is whether the “progressives” (they name themselves by opposites) bringing medieval hygiene to our sidewalks are trying to eliminate the West’s immune advantage.

Anyway, as an illness this would seem to be a non-event being LESS lethal than normal flu, at least in the West. *In China we have to go with the caveat that they lie or massage the truth ALL THE TIME since their concept of reality is not the same as ours. So, who knows. It could be very bad there, but how much will that affect our economy?

Which brings us to: Does the Wahun virus give the left the edge they need to propagandize us into a recession, which in turn will place a commie in power?

Other things running through my sleep deprived brain include “Does G-d give us extra challenges when we’re main characters?  And does being main characters mean our payoff will be better, or has He become a dystopian literary writer, and does it mean we just die more meaningfully?”

That last thought is probably insane, and I probably should go to bed with two aspirin.

Anyway, see you tomorrow. Just wanted you to know I’m really not dead. I have just off and on wished I were, in the last 12 hours.