Category: Uncategorized

I’m continuing the four paths leading forward from where we are now.

Four is a gross oversimplification, of course, as there are probably hundreds, and each of these will partake a bit of the others.

And because the usual suspects will think I am sketching my idea of Utopia, let me point out my idea of Utopia is Pie in the Sky where Marxism is defeated without blood and the future gives freedom to every weirdo (I are one) and oddling without fear. And where the boundaries of humanity’s hope are enhanced by technology.

HOWEVER if we’re going to boog, this is the best case scenario. And frankly it’s as much “pie in the sky” as the previous one because the possibilities of it going very, very ugly are much higher.  Once you toss the dice of civil war, it could be worse. And probably will be.  (BTW all of these are scenarios in which the US survives as a nation, though perhaps in the last two only in name. The ones in which we break apart and become neighboring hostile nations are all worse. For us, and for the world.)

So, here we go.  2020, later referred to as “the year we saw clearly.”

As the lockdown extended into July in some places, and the other places were far from normal, as the obviousness mounted of shortages, and that those who had presumed to tell us what to do were not only wrong but criminally so, unrest started to happen.

The fourth of July was bad across the country, as the nation woke to what had happened in Sacramento, and there was a brief attempt to demonize “militias” which had worked so well under Clinton.  But while horrified by the events shown on TV, America as a whole had listened to the media for the last time. So the attempt had the opposite effect.  One on one, neighborhood by neighborhood, neighbors started talking, organizing. At least in the functional parts of the country, this resembled more a mutual aid society.  “Oh, your computer needs a part my dead computer might have.” and “I see little Timmy has outgrown his shoes. Well, since they still won’t let thrift stores happen and clothing stores are having supply issues, let me see if I have a pair Billy wore only for a month before his growth spurt.”

The internet is up, and the part of America that does things and learns things (the majority of it given a chance) is hitting you tube for gardening videos, shoe repair videos, canning and food preserving suggestions, and generally busy as a bee.

In the functioning part of America — everywhere but some cities, really — things are tight and bad, but not horrible.  The other parts of America receive aid from the federal government in the form of supply trucks.  Cereal and rice normally sent to the rest of the world, are distributed to American citizens.  Special diet? Well, no room, really.

Some people still doing very well even in urban enclaves. And some have formed their own mutual aid societies.  Some not so well.

As cold hits and  the personnel to man power plants isn’t always available — the authorities are still being paranoid about colds and there are union rules — even those who are self-sufficient pass some very cold nights.  Media’s dramatization of homeless freezing in the streets is shrugged off by a population that is scrambling for the next meal (having money doesn’t mean there’s food you can afford.) Strangely a lot of the homeless clean up. More than freeze or starve? Who knows. It’s not like the media covers those.  There are also some brutal crimes, some food riots, neighborhoods perceived as “rich” under siege by those who wish to redistribute.  No one knows how many. The media makes it sound like “they’re coming for you next, and you must elect socialists to save you.”  The socialist rethoric is now strident.  You’re fairly sure 2020 has lasted a lifetime. Your doctor is still only sporadically in, as your local government takes sudden panics over “infection.” And you know damn well that grandma wouldn’t have died of her cancer if she’d had some chemo. She was only in her early seventies, too, and you were counting on her for babysitting.

When the famine hit in the rest of the world, including parts of Europe, most people didn’t even notice.  They noticed the push at the border. They noticed politicians talking about the brotherhood of man and how we should open our borders and ship all our food abroad.  In a leaner — literally — and more food-anxious population this goes over like a lead balloon.

Which is probably why all hell breaks loose when the election results come in and the international socialists won.

Isn’t it weird it should start in Boston, so long a bastion of that exact ideology.  Maybe there are places that are fated.

No one really knows what happened. Yes, there are people who save to take their kids to see the monument and the liberty bell that was broken out of bounds to ring that day.  But no one really knows the rights of it. Was it really a riot over representation and vote dilution? Or was it over food? Or was it, as the media tried to say for a while, “white supremacist” guerillas?  There are learned people writing learned books about it.  It’s fascinating to the part of the population fascinated by that. Not very large, since few have the leisure, time and excess wealth to devote to such things.

This time, though, it wasn’t like Sacramento.  It was more like the powder keg we’d long been tapping dancing on went up, all of a sudden, without warning.

They don’t recommend you teach your kids about the winter of 20-21 until they’re mature enough. They leave it to you to decide what mature enough is, but for most people it’s just before franchise. Which is now 21 in most states and restricted in the way each state decided.

The left as it was before the boog — and it is a mark we are still Americans that that fossilized joke made it into teaching materials — would say the franchise was racist, sexist….  Whatever.  In most states both men and women can vote, and all colors.  Note “in most states.”  The franchise is universal, but you have to qualify, but the qualifications vary by state.  Because those decisions went back to the states. Because the insanity of treating the entire country as NYC taught people that it’s better to be local. Really local. That’s the other thing: you want to run in a state, you’d best have been born there.  And for voting…. well, we think the minimum qualifying residence is 5 years. Those jokers in Ohio were always lax. Also they wanted to attract population, despite their winters.

Most states agree that you’re an adult after you served in the army or have been married for 3 years with at least one child.  SSM?  Well, some states allow it. Cut your cloth to fit your pattern. You might have to immigrate to another state. Yes, it’s a pain now a days. But that’s the result of sending power back to the states and disempowering the out of touch feds.

Whether the fiddly bits of the person you marry are unlike yours or not, devolving to local rule means Mrs. Grundy has a say.  The Karens didn’t go away. But instead of policing you for compliance with mask policy or compliance with the latest SJW command, after the boog the Karens want you to know you should be married, faithful and living a life just like everyone else.

We never go social credit or intrusion by the state. But we find out the tyranny of our neighbors is just as strong.

Oh, the boog was brief but horrible.  Between it and increasing economic disorganization, we lost more people and wealth than we could afford.  The US is a young country. Neighborhoods are full of children. Most of the children are either homeschooled, or schooled in neighborhood-arranged schools so the parents can go to work.  Admission to college (rare) or trade school is by merit exam. No one collects data on the race of the applicants. They seem representative of the area it’s drawn from.

But college or trade school come after the army.  Mandatory for men. Voluntary for women.  Strangely no one complains women aren’t given combat posts, by and large (there are exceptions.  The beast is always hungry), probably because serving in the army has a real chance of dying.  People joke about it, nervously, as “have two and one for the war.”  Most people have more, simply because they remember the twenties and how the elderly with no support network …  well, most of them didn’t starve. But it wasn’t pretty.

People from the late 1900s would say we’ve become a militaristic society. It’s true to a point.  There are very few men who didn’t serve, and a bit of the mannerisms and attitudes translate to civilian life.

But you see, it wasn’t a choice.  We caught that nuke right after the boog, because no one was paying attention to what was going on abroad, as our media tried to shape, instead, what they wanted to happen in the US.  And then there was that EMP attack. Not as much damage as there might have been, but let’s say the winter of 21-22 also shouldn’t be talked about to young children.  So our young men go to war. Because the world is a mess. And we don’t want the — real, this time, not orchestrated — border-rush of — real, this time, not orchestrated — refugees and starving families of 22.  No one should ever have to shoot desperate people. But the US was too close to the edge, itself.  And the rest of the world…. well, if the Europeans wouldn’t involve us in their to-the-death knife fights, it would be nice. But you know that’s not how it works.  And we do need to protect trade, such as it is. And even with news being all weird and non-centralized, what happened in Frankfurt should never happen again anywhere.  We’re not the world’s police, but cannibalism, really? in the twenty first century?

China went very quiet after the nuclear exchange, but we still patrol the seas. Japan is rebuilding and has A birthrate. As we said rebuilding. Russia is a permanent threat, as they’ve been most of their history, and airplanes and guided missiles allow them to threaten the world, not just their neighbors.

Anyway, your kids will come back from service, and tell you they can’t tell you everything but you catch a look sometimes, a shadow in their eyes.

And if you lose a child…. you might never know how or where.

Those who remember civil liberties don’t like this and talk of the real danger of military dictatorship.  If we elect the wrong man — or woman — and particularly if a bio agent really hits us and it’s worse than the panic of 2020.  This is why the obsession with devolving power to the smallest unit. And giving states more say than the Feds. But people who lived through the boog as adults remember how fast things can change, and get nervous.

How free are people?  Well….  Most of the country they’re okay, at least in terms of the government.  There are pockets where we hear of odd things. But it’s so difficult to get unbiased news. (Shame what happened to those TV stations, but we sort of understand. People blamed them for the madness and destruction of 2020. They weren’t wrong.) You hear it from your neighbor who has an internet gaming friend on the other coast, and who heard it from a cousin’s friend.  It’s possible none of that is true.

Still, we know from our own neighborhoods that we’re not free-free.  You might be free in law, but Karen would like you to know they saw you smiling at the guy from the garage at the fourth of July barbecue. And don’t tell her he’s your cousin. She’d have heard.  And your kids will be laughed at in the neighborhood school, and damn it, you’d better behave. Because, well, at some point you might need the neighbors’ help.

There are no internal passports.  But few people travel. “Foreigners” has come to mean “people from another state.”  Part of it honestly was the loss of airline fleets during the whole mess. And we never really had the money to recoup.  Sure, you can travel by car. But those stories you hear, from over in the next state make you a little hesitant.  Those who do are considered wild and crazy.  And wild and crazy isn’t good.  They might tolerate you if they know you really well, in your local area. BUT, well…. traveling might not be too bright. Every place has bad elements, and if you run afoul of those, well…

The “new normal” is probably hardest of all on people who stick out. No, not skin color (though of course in some areas that makes you stick out, but if they know you, you’re fine. OTOH be pale in a predominantly dark neighborhood, and just arrived and you’ll at least be shunned till they get to know you.  Though probably not a lot worse than any stranger is shunned. And the reverse is true, also, color wise, of course.) and sexual orientation — well, we hear stories of some parts of the US, but we don’t know if they’re true — but just strangeness.  Are you one of those people who reads weird stuff? Or likes to wear clothes not befitting your age? Or just styles her hair weird? Do you let your garden get full of weeds because you were busy building a dragon sculpture? Well…. You won’t get attacked. Not most places. BUT let’s say if something happens the neighborhood will assume you did it. And if we get in straits again…. well.  So outwardly we’re a very conformist society. Probably not as bad as Japan pre 2020.  PROBABLY. Well, not most places.

Oh, the economy?  It’s doing fine. Rebuilding. See, you don’t need to live where you work, if you have a job that’s not serving the locals.  Most of those are intensely local, and most kids are trained for trades.  But if your trade is computer-based or can be done remotely, you can work anywhere, and often do.

The internet is up, and some people call it “relief valve for eccentrics.” (Or Odds as odd people call it.)  The most common reason to move across states and endure the time of suspicion and disenfranchisement is this guy/gal you met online.

World trade is a more difficult matter. And produce and such tend to be more regional, as does manufacturing of essential stuff like medicine, or clothing.  Our diet is more seasonal and not as varied, but we’ve learned. Almost everyone has stores “in case.”

The big cities recovered too. Some people will always want to live where the excitement is.  Honestly, if you’re an odd, it’s the best place to be, and lots of artists flock there, which creates its own gravity and people are less likely to ask you why those two young ladies stayed at your place last night.  Less likely but not unlikely, mind you.  Cities have neighborhoods. Neighborhoods have their own Karens.  Everyone hates the Karen, but no one does much about it.

To someone from the 20th century, our cities would look cleaner and safer (most places. If you don’t stick out.)  Homeless?  Well, you might see some vagrants, but the drug trade hasn’t really recovered (pot, sure, some places, but honestly vegetables pay off better and there’s only so much land and time to tend crops. No one much cares if you have a few plants in your garden, as long as the neighbors aren’t allergic, and you’re not visibly stone in public. Like being drunk in public, Karen will enforce her displeasure on those.) And most people in genuine need get looked after by charitable organizations. A lot of them are those who were late middle age and managed to live through the boog. (A minority.)

Your doctor, by the way, might live across the country. But the local nurse will take your vitals and confer with him or her over the net.  Most people are okay with their care. Most care is pays-in-cash. Charitable organizations help with the rest. In a few states the state will help if no one else will.  People are starting to live really long again, so we must be doing something right. Some states allow for more experimental drugs than others. There are complaints both ways.

All in all?  Well….  Libertarians complain. Marxists…. Not many of those around, or at least not vocal. For one, we’re seeing how his “planned economies” are playing out in most of the world.

Land of the Free?  Well, sure. I mean, as compared to what? It’s not like we’re locking you in for months and preventing from working at your trade. That idiocy told its own tale.  Your rights are respected in most states (the ones that don’t, well, the feds take years and years to decide to intervene, so some people pack up and leave.  It’s not as common as you’d think). Unless they’re violated by your neighbors, but you take it up with them.

We lost untold people and wealth in the boog. Our world is smaller, more restricted, both in self-expression and in expectations. It would seem miserable to people from the 20th century. But we’re doing all right. We’re rebuilding. And tech allows us to be a little richer, and have a source of escape.

Of course there ain’t much for space exploration, though there are rumors the army is doing stuff up there, at least to prevent us from being suckerpunched.  But we’re not sure, because, well, news is local and sometimes it’s just rumors. And military secrets are kept, which is justifiable in a nation at war on many fronts.

Sure, we don’t like it, but then again no one asked us.  (And honestly, most of us died in 20-21 — SAH)

But you know what? People aren’t hungry. And most people have all the freedom they need in their day to day life.  People who’ve been in the army or the few that have traveled abroad, will tell you it could be worse. A lot worse.

(And probably will be – SAH)

UPDATE AND IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR COLORADO PEEPS: GRIDLOCK PROTEST AT THE CAPITOL TODAY AT ONE. MAKE JARED POLIS CRY AGAIN!

Book Promo

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

FROM NITAY ARBEL:  Operation Flash, Episode 3: Spring Awakening.

The third installment of the alternate history series where Hitler and Himmler were assassinated in March 1943.
A desperate military situation forces Carl Goerdeler’s Emergency Reich Government (ERG) to make a bargain with the devil.
Across the Channel, Winston Churchill plays for time as he pursues a separate peace with Goerdeler.
Two old acquaintances make the first steps on a long march toward national atonement.
And meanwhile, the ERG’s deadliest enemy lurks within its gates.

FROM NATHAN BISSONETTE:  Kobold and Centaur.

Worst Prom date ever. Steph only went with Sam because nobody else asked her. Besides, it’s just for Prom, right? It’s not forever. But that was before the little man with pointed ears handed them enchanted scrolls that sent them out of this world. Now she’s stuck far from home in a different body. Can Steph and Sam make it home in time to save the Earth without getting killed? Or killing each other? And what about the Prince?

FROM THOMAS SEWELL: Techno Ranger: A Sam Harper Military Thriller.

North and South Korea are on a collision course with the prospect of reigniting war in this action-packed military thriller!

1LT Sam Harper, surfing engineer, tries to fit in on his new job. He’ll risk everything to prevent mass destruction.

Sam’s intelligence analysts identify security vulnerabilities in a government lab in Seoul.

Meanwhile, his CIA ex-girlfriend complicates his life with her spy priorities.

A desperate North Korean general sends a naive Special Forces lieutenant and his team across the DMZ to steal nuclear materials technology.

Sends them disguised to infiltrate the top-secret lab Sam protects.

Sam will need all his combat and technical skills to safeguard those he cares about, but his involvement with a traitor and a CIA temptress may teach him the wrong lessons about who to trust.

FROM MARY CATELLI:  Enchantments And Dragons.

A wizard must produce justice enough to satisfy a dragon.

A young man tries to rob a tiger’s lair.

An enchantress tries to keep a court safe while they ignore the perils of misusing her magic.

A lady finds that court intrigues can spread even to the countryside.

And more tales.

Includes “Over the Sea To Me,” “Dragonfire and Time”, “The Maze, the Manor, and the Unicorn”, “The White Menagerie”, “The Dragon’s Cottage,” “Jewel of the Tiger,” and “The Sword Breaks.”

FROM PAM UPHOFF: War Party.

Ice is a powerful magician and trained warrior. His day job, however, is political analyst, and it is once again election year.

Hopefully with fewer explosions and snipers than the last one, but in the Empire of the One, what sounds like a boring desk job is anything but.

Especially when al old flame gets pissed enough to jump into the presidential race.

Between assassins on the loose, duels to the death, and a sense of something nasty coming his way, Ice is going to be busy.

ALMA T. C. BOYKIN:  Gloriously Familiar: Familiar Tales Book Eleven.

Dragons, fires, a haunted piano, and a haunted young man.

Six stories of mystery, history, memories, and adventure. From a quiet mage with silver knitting needles to an accidental dragon and an ancient story teller, to a Mare of Unusual Size and a Familiar of Unusual Activity, there’s something for everyone in this collection. Meet new friends, catch up with old ones, and wonder with Lilia if André ever will learn.

 

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: EXTEND.*

 

*The management wishes to emphasize it is not responsible for the Vignette TeamTM handing you guys these straight lines.  Also it wants to declare in advance that “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t do anything with these three.”

Addendum: I would also like to thank you for prayers.  I’m feeling better. (I think I’ll go for a walk.)  Though still somewhere between baffled at this mass psychotic episode and enraged at the destruction wrought, I now have hope sanity is reasserting itself, at least that brand of very American sanity that consists of saying “No, you can’t tell me what to do.”  I also have found a renewed hope that just as a small dose of a pathogen can vaccinate the potential host against the real disease this bit of craziness will inoculate America against the idea of a government that can violate your rights and destroy your life at will.  No, it’s not guaranteed. Nothing ever is. I also suspect it’s one of those vaccines that needs regular boosts.  But in the sense that the burned hand teaches best, this insanity of “rule by experts” and the (I am sure) pain we’ll all experience for a couple of years might teach us to avoid the worst. Keep praying. – SAH

*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