We live in a very strange age, and as such I find myself wishing for things like a rewind button, a speed up button, or perhaps a “mark as read” for life.

Time, as someone or other said, is the strangest thing, starting with our perception of it, and ending with… well, our perception of it.

Some people posit, in fact, that there is no such thing as time outside human perception, and that everything happens, as it were simultaneously.  The idea is so bizarre, I can’t picture it, and if you can you must have a very oddly arranged mind.

The nature of humans is to be sequential, of course.  My personality today is not like my personality at 30, which in turn was quite different from my personality at 3, but if you arrange them sequentially you get a sense of “one of these things came from the others.”

I liked the idea of Heinlein’s story (Lifeline? I can’t remember the title.  I have a problem with titles, including my own.) where each individual was a bright streak through time, worm like, with a definite beginning and end.

(One of the whole things that turns me off from the idea of uploading your personality, in case it wasn’t obvious from Darkship Renegades is this idea that your sense of self also gets uploaded, and more importantly, that it leaves the body you’re leaving in at the same time. That requires either the belief in souls — I do, but uploading your soul would seem to be more than a simple technical operation. Which reminds me I need to put up my son’s short story collection since one of them exactly plays with that idea. Because if souls exist it probably would also be evil to trap it in a machine — or a very odd idea of what the “ego” in the sense of that thing which is each of us is.  And since I can’t see a mechanism to remove it from the living body, unless it’s a metaphysical one (Heinlein could write that, I think. Most of us couldn’t) how would the “me” in a machine evolve away/toward the me in the body, and how trapped would it feel?)

Moving right along, I’m sure I’m not the only one for whom the sense of time in childhood was incredibly extended. I swear an afternoon playing at my friend’s house lasted as long as a weekend now.  Everyone I know reports the same thing. Older son says it’s because of the way experiences (new, versus old) impress on the brain. Some physicists a couple of years ago came up with the idea that time is accelerating. But for my money, I don’t think either is quite right. Because my time can still get bizarrely dilated when I dive headlong into writing a book. Sure, it seems like it was two hours, but once I emerge from the daze, it feels like months or years have passed, perhaps because the intense experience makes me feel like a completely different person.

Meanwhile, boring experiences also take forever to get through.  I remember, after delivering #1 son and seeing he was alive, well, and frankly pissed about how long the whole process had taken, I wanted to push the forward button and take us to a place where I wasn’t so frigging exhausted and could move around and talk and think.  So I did the next best thing and asked for help sleeping… and crashed for 24 hours, waking up to a very hungry baby.

Often when they were little, and I couldn’t sit down and eat two bites without a crisis in between, I wanted to fast forward to “when they can feed/clean themselves.” And I won’t lie and say that I don’t sometimes, now, wish I could rewind to some of the times when they were little, but in my defense, I’d just play “favorite times” over and over again, like the labor day weekend when we discovered Lakeside in Denver.

Perhaps because I was always a very unnatural mother, I’m not actually nostalgic for the diaper years, or the times when I needed to watch them every second, except for one or two truly exceptional days.

All this to say: it’s been a lot of fun having younger son live with us for three weeks, while between apartments.  I feel a little guilty I co-opted him to work in the garden, but I couldn’t have got all the stuff done (from deforesting to planting flowers) by myself, and Dan’s knees, at the time, don’t permit him to do heavy stuff like that.

I look like a victim of domestic abuse (there’s bruises EVERYWHERE) and younger son has lost all the skin in his palms to blisters (builds character) but the backyard is halfway to looking civilized.  It remains for me to run the sweeper and the dethatcher and then sometime in September, overseed.

Which brings me to why my writing has been so slow.  In the wake of my coming back from being very ill, I had to deal with a bunch of things I’d normally have done in the house when we bought it (it was a foreclosure, remember?) before it got much worse.  I still need to find a good, reliable handiman/builder, among other things to rebuild the second floor porch/balcony which has dry rotted supports and other issues and also buy a new oven-microwave unit to replace the one that died.

BUT in the mean time, it has intruded upon my attention that I’m managing my time very badly.  I realized it this morning, when I ran everything I needed to do, from feeding and medicating felines to finishing planting, to putting out trash, to writing this blog.  It was all supposed to be done by 9, and as you see I failed.  I knew I would when I reviewed the list in my head.  Because it’s impossible.

I needed to do it before 9 because son and I have been promising ourselves a few hours at the zoo while he was here, and he leaves tomorrow.  So…

But as I realized I need to block off the writing time and hold it sacred (because there’s always another household care/maintenance task to do) I’m calling it taking half a day off.  I’ll be working on Deep Pink come one pm.

That’s the new attempt. To formalize my relationship with writing time and make it x hours a day when it takes primacy. I used to do it when the boys were in school and writing time was from the moment I walked back home to moment I walked out to pick them up.  It worked too, except for the week after 9/11.

I’m going to try to do the same again, before it’s too late.  Because time is finite. And I have a lot of stuff to do that means much more to who I am than mere home maintenance, even though that also needs to be done, so it doesn’t fall down around my head.

And now, it’s time to get ready to go see the monkeys with the kid who used to be called Little Monkey.  That is lost somewhere in the midst of times, but his adult self is quite nice, and we’ll enjoy a nice morning out.

Before it’s too late.

 

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. One book per author per week. Amazon links only.-SAH*

FROM MEDRON PRYDE:   Forge of War (Jack of Harts 1)

 

In 2205, we learned the answer to one of the oldest questions of all time. Are we alone? They brought medicines with them that nearly wiped out diseases, and extended the human lifespan into the centuries. They helped us study advanced technologies, and expand our colonies hundreds of lightyears from Earth. It was a golden age that many thought would never end.

Jack grew up in a world at peace, his only interests, partying and girls. But when a sneak attack killed millions of Americans, and wiped out almost everything and everybody Jack knew, he volunteered to serve and get some payback. But the Marines want more than people looking for revenge, and cybernetic partners demand a higher commitment. If Jack wanted to earn his commission as a Marine Corps fighter pilot, he had to let himself be forged into something stronger than he’d ever felt the need to be. A man willing to live up to the name of his squadron. A Cowboy.

Historical note: The Marine Corps fighter squadron that is a central part of this story was named in honor of the real life Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 112, the Cowboys. Because of these aviators, and everyone else who has served, I am free to write this story. I will never forget.

FROM L. DOUGLAS GARRETT:   Remember When: a work of fiction

He had met someone amazing, but then he got pulled back into The Trade. He had to become David Cox again, and his lives were about to converge in a way he had never faced before.

Remember When is a slice-of-life espionage thriller that builds on images of 1983, a cracked mirror reflection of things that were and pieces of might have been. “A story reminiscent of Miami Vice, with a dash of the 80’s music scene” is brought into tight focus in this novella length telling. Everything comes together in Los Angeles in the days before the US Festival. He’s there, or is he? “When you see the price they’ve paid…”

FROM STEPHANIE OSBORN: Break, Break, Houston (Division One Book 10)

If Division One can’t find Omega, Echo will die.

When Alpha One sets out on an emergency assignment to rescue the NASA mission to which Omega once had been assigned before it ends in catastrophe, all hell breaks loose. But galactic medicine can save Echo, even from the brink of death…

Or can it?

What’s left of Echo’s mind—after he is resuscitated—rejects his life, his love, and his friends. Devastated and distraught, a heartbroken Omega flees Earth, deliberately losing herself in the galaxy on a dangerous, self- assigned mission, without realizing that she holds the key to Echo’s survival. Fox and the others must find her before Echo dies…again.

FROM STEPHANIE OSBORN:  CAMPBELL: The Sigurdsen Incident (Childers Universe Book 6).

IS SOMEONE TRYING TO KILL MARY RAO?

Captain Mary Rao, Jablonka’s planetary tactical officer, seems to be under the gun from all angles, but neither the Sigurdsen Base military police nor the counter-intelligence investigations personnel believes that it’s anything more than a confluence of accidents.

Lieutenant William Campbell of the CSF Intelligence Division believes differently. What he doesn’t know is who or why.

And if he can’t figure it out soon, he could die with her.

FROM NITAY ARBEL:   Operation Flash, Episode 2: Hinges Of Fate

Killing Hitler had been child’s play in comparison with figuring out what to do next.
After the coup, the Reich was split into two. Bormann in Munich is Führer of a remnant Nazi state. Goerdeler’s Emergency Government in Berlin fights Bormann on the inside while waging a two-front war with the Allies on the outside.
But a secret meeting abroad may be a game-changer.
Meanwhile, Goerdeler’s special assistant Felix Winter investigates what turn out to be crimes beyond even the conspirators’ worst fears…

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: SHARE

 

We went to a friend’s wedding, and though I thought I had plenty of time to get ready, I realized I’d misplaced my hairdryer.  Which led to a frantic (and fruitless) search and implementation of a plan b, which meant no time to put up a blog.
But we’re all fine, and I’ll post tomorrow.

Lessons Not Learned, by Thomas Sowell – a guest post by Amanda S. Green

Most of us grew up hearing the cautionary tale about how we must know history or else we’re doomed to repeat it. If we paid attention to the warning and looked back at history, we’d find more than a few examples where lessons hadn’t been learned and tragedies were repeated. Professor Sowell drives home that point in this essay, included in Controversial Essays.

According to Professor Sowell, “we have missed some of its most blatant and most horrifying lessons.” (CE, p 222) These horrors came under Nazi Germany and from Communist regimes. They resulted from “from concentrations of political power, brought about by heady rhetoric, powerful visions and emotional manipulations.” (CE, p 222)

Looking at that single comment, it almost sounds like the Democrats have been reading Professor Sowell. After all, how many times have we heard them decrying the rhetoric of Trump, condemning him for playing to the emotions of the white supremacists in this country? The problem is they need to look into the mirror and see it applies to them as much, if not more, than it does to the current president. These are the candidates pandering for votes by promising they’d erase college loan debt, free college for everyone, universal healthcare, etc., etc., etc.

Professor Sowell quickly gets to the heart of the matter—and the real danger presented by those liberals who so blithely brush aside the foundations of our republic.

“The constitutional barriers that stand between us and the tyrannies that have swept over other peoples around the world are treated as things to be brushed aside or finessed when those who are skilled with words manipulate our emotions.” (CE, p 222)

We see this at work after every “mass shooting”. Hell, we saw it in full media focus a little more than a week ago after the shootings in El Paso and Dayton. It seemed like every liberal politician, and a few so-called conservative ones as well, climbed onto the gun control bandwagon. They did so before all the facts were in and certainly before they learned whether or not the two shooters had obtained the weapons used in the attacks legally or illegally.

You see, those facts don’t matter, not when it comes to the gun control narrative. All that does is that they media and willing politicians whip up enough emotion with the voters of this country to limit our Second Amendment rights. Now the media is going after Trump because he is focusing the gun control conversation on mental health concerns. How dare he even suggest there might be some other explanation for why someone decides to shoot up, or stab or firebomb or anything else a group of people! Doesn’t he know it is the gun that causes the evil deed?

Then there’s this quote, one even more important to remember today than when Professor Sowell first wrote it:

The constitution’s proclamation of “equal protection of the laws” for all Americans is swept aside by saying the magic word “diversity,” while creating preferences and quotas for some at the expense of others. (CE, p 222)

I’ve been alive long enough to remember how the “reverse discrimination” movement in college admissions was hailed as the next best thing to come along to help heal the inequities of years of preferential selecting of whites over minorities for admission. I’ve watched my son have to worry about getting into the college of his choice because he didn’t fit the current diversity requirements. Unlike Lizzie Warren, we chose not to capitalize on our Cherokee heritage and, trust me, we have a hell of a lot more Native American blood in us than she does.

Yet, to challenge these diversity laws and rulings is bring condemnation down on your head. Forget hiring the most qualified person for the job. If you receive state or federal funding for your business or institution, you have certain quotas you must fulfill. Forget about making money for your shareholders. That’s an evil capitalist idea. We must make up for the so-called sins of the past, no matter what the impact on the present or the future.

The first amendment to the constitution says that the right of free speech cannot even be infringed, but that is all forgotten in the stampede for ‘campaign finance reform.’ (CE, p 222)

But it goes beyond that. We have politicians wanting to make it a crime to be critical of them or to make jokes about them. We have colleges and other institutions giving First Amendment protection to AntiFa and similar groups but shutting down the free speech rights of more conservative speakers and organizations. To those “woke” institutions, the fundamental right of Free Speech applies only to certain types of speech, certain “approved” types.

But we are playing with fire when we simply ignore the constitution or find clever ways around it. Without a constitution, we are at the mercy of whatever phrase or fashion sweeps across the political landscape. . . Yet our judges, politicians and the intelligentsia play with fire as if they had never seen the conflagrations. (CE, pp 222-223)

The example Professor Sowell gives is campaign finance, but it applies to so much more. The scary thing is both sides of the political aisle are guilty of trampling on the Constituion when it suits their purposes. We’ve seen presidents use executive orders to circumvent it. We’ve seen Congress passing laws it should reasonably have known would be struck down on appeal. We have even seen the Supreme Court, or at least members of it, trying to rewrite the meaning of certain parts of the Constitution because those portions aren’t, in their opinion, “woke” enough.

Sowell points out that the protections given us by the Constitution are protections millions of others on this Earth would love to have. Unfortunately, we have “agents of change” who have made it their life’s work to dismantle those protections or, at the very least, water them down to insignificance.

The professor hits the proverbial nail on the head with this:

In short, we and our children are being trained to be sheep and to respond automatically to words that strike an emotional chord. We are being set up to be played for suckers by anyone who wants to take up where the totalitarian movements of the 20th century left off.

The very tactics of those totalitarian movements—intimidation, demonization, and disregard of all rules in favor of politically defined results—have become hallmarks of political correctness today. Some people think political correctness is just silly. But many people thought Hitler was just silly before he took power and demonstrated how tragically mistaken they were. (CE, p 224)

Those two paragraphs say it all. The Left wants us to react with emotion, not intellect. They want us to follow blindly. The freedom to question and doubt is not to be allowed. March in lockstep, Comrade, of hie thee to the gulag.

It is up to us to say not only “no” but “hell, no!”. We do that by voting. We do that by speaking up and speaking out. We do that by not supporting media outlets that are nothing more than mouthpieces for the Left that would tear down our Constitution. We do that by teaching our children history, philosophy, economics and so much more. We do it by not abdicating our roles as thinking human beings.

Our country has survived serious trials before. But for it to survive this one, we must be willing to step up. I am. What about you?

 

One of the Marxists — and the unaware-they-are-Marxists-by-indoctrination products of our indoctrination machines, including those who now teach in them — worse lies is the maligning of the industrial revolution.

It’s 2 parts Marx and 1 part Rosseau.  It is the ignorance and disdain of the moneyed for what the working class has to do to survive, coupled with a naive certainty that rural work is sort of like gardening and beautiful.

As some of you have caught on, for the last month or so, between illnesses, travel and trying to squeeze in a few hours a day to write, I’ve been all out of spoons for real reading. So I’ve been reading Pride and Prejudice variations, which is to say fanfic. It’s restful, you know how it’s going to end, there’s not even new characters to get into.

Once, during the … not worst but strangest two years of my life, when Dan had a traveling job and I had a pre-schooler and an elementary schooler in the house, I spent a lot of time reading it on line, and also writing it. I find it beyond extraordinary that we now live in a time when we can put these up for money, and as soon as I have a few minutes, I’ll finish some of my half-done stuff from austen.com, such as By Her Hearts and Allurements or Oh, Hill.

Anyway, the way I do it is to find an author I can stand, and read everything she (or he, but hes are more rare) has out.  And this kid I’ve been reading is promising.  She had, in the beginning the occasional impulse to ruin what is otherwise a decent (if not responsible) character like Mr. Bennet to make him sink into depravity and vice for no reason, but the more she writes, the more Human Wave she becomes.  (I’ve been reading more or less in order.)  And she doesn’t preach feminist cant, which is a reason to wall most other authors of these.

But this is the second book that she’s made me stop part way through because of the “dark Satanic Mills” thing.

No, seriously, this woman believes that in the Regency working men and women hated mill owners, that the mills were sort of like hell, that society looked down on children working in them, and that anyone who owned one would be ostracized , not for sullying himself with trade, but because he owned “one of those evil places.”

It is obvious to me, from this woman’s work that she’s very young. Twenties, maybe. My kids’ ages.  And it makes me yell “What the hell are they teaching the kids, actually?”

Okay, the entire dark satanic mills bullshit benefited greatly from the talent of one Mr. Dickens, convinced socialist. I will admit he was a good writer. He was also one of the few whose books I avoid like poison.  Yes, I know he didn’t know how bad socialism would turn out to be. But he must have known he was lying.  And if he didn’t, it was only because he was such an elitist fool that he never mingled with the people or actually knew what went on in their lives.  Actually 90% of what he portrayed well was the criminal under class, and anyone who has had no matter how accidental contact with them, not to mention anyone who reads true crime books knows they are tediously the same in our day, and it has zero to do with conditions or exploitation, but with people’s on internal drive, and what values or lack thereof they choose to listen to.  Without some kind of internal compass people seem to create their own hell, falling victim to human instincts of indolence and envy which will eventually destroy them.

Heck, even with an internal compass, and ambition, it’s sometimes pretty hard to stay on track in the face of set backs and own bodies sudden yet inevitable betrayal, as I can tell you.

Look, we bought into the horror of the early industrial revolution, partly because the Marxists wanted us to believe the present prosperity and the industrial age, which at their core they hate and despise, was built on exploitation and was irredeemably evil and also that anyone that achieves anything is naturally evil and has committed some sort of crime. What else can you expect from the gospel of envy.

However, in the current day and age, no one has an excuse to believe, much less teach this stuff.

Why?

Because we’ve seen the industrial revolution work, in real time, in countries like China and India.  And while China does have a component of slave labor, mostly in camps, that’s not the bulk of their industrialization. And it certainly isn’t in India.

I guess generation fair-trade can not comprehend this, but they should understand these are not feudal systems (well, China kind of is, but again, that’s not the thing driving it. In fact I think the industrialization has escaped the party’s ability to control, which is why they’re getting twitchy.) People leave the fields in droves to go work in the mills, because it’s a better life.

Look, boneheads, I know you guys are appalled at the idea of six year olds working much less working 12 hour days.  Yeah, so am i, but let me tell you, that was not anything the mills did differently from the rest of human history before it.

Coming from a rural community, in 20th century terms poor as Job, but in comparison to the rest of history rich beyond comprehension, and belonging to a middle class family in which grandad was a trained professional (carpenter) and dad had a white collar job, but about 90% of our food was still what we grew, let me tell you that kids worked, starting very early.  I was given all kinds of passes, because I was born premature and was very sickly. To be honest, I was giving more passes than I should have been, and felt excluded often.  But still, I remember being awakened early on a Spring morning when I was 5 and set to weeding the onions. And this wasn’t an isolated occurrence, merely the first I remember.  During grape harvest the entire family — yes, including kids — took time off and spent three days working sun up to sun down.  The women would mostly be in the kitchen, cooking food for the multitude, at least part of the time, but we also carried the baskets of grapes (yes, on our heads.) And as young as three, I was set to harvesting the grapes atop the hen coop, because the roof was iffy, and also the grapevines (which in private residences in the North of Portugal are grown as a canopy over patios and any free space, to maximize area they can grow. Dad said in his day, and before trucks, they grew in a canopy over the street) had grown kind of close to those tin roofs, so no adult could squeeze there.  When cousin grew too big to do it, I was hoisted up there, to harvest the grapes.

Now, in my day and even dad’s day,this type of child labor was safe and almost fun (at least if you didn’t do too much of it) kind of like my gardening these last few days.

But let me tell you I paid attention to the poorer families. If you think having a five year old tend to cows and other big animals was “safe” you’re out of your bloody minds.

So the “Horrible things happen in mills. People lose limbs.” is very impressive to our pampered kids, but it cut absolutely no mustard with the people who were actually leaving the farms in droves to work in those mills.  Why? Because a lot of them had horrible things happen to them at the farms, and lost limbs.  Worse, until mechanization and artificial fertilizers, it was brutal, unrelenting work, sun up to sun down, and at the mercy of fate in a way even traditionally published authors find too risky and scary.

People left the country in droves to work in factories, not because they were forced, but because what seem horrible working conditions to them were no worse than what they’d experienced in farms, and they might have a day (or half day off) plus the work paid more than farm work did. And the cities provided more opportunities.

Heyer, who did her research has a kid working in textile mills growing up to own the mills (the unknown Ajax) and of course it was that kind of upward mobility as well as the fact that their rural tenants and workers whom the noblemen always treated like charity cases, were escaping them that horrified the ton.  They might have covered it in concern for the poor little children, but trust me, that wasn’t it.

And at any rate, no one in the regency was horrified at anyone owning a mill, unless it was in the “tainted with commerce” sense.  And people in the country were more likely to try to ingratiate themselves with mill owners. They brought jobs to the area, particularly at a time of grain-price instability.

However it appears otherwise intelligent women are emerging from our schools with the belief that mills were a horrible place. (Which they were, except for comparison with everything else available to the working class at the time.) I have no idea HOW they think they caught on, and became what’s called “the industrial revolution” except that I know that kids are uncertain about when feudalism stopped or for that matter of the difference between feudalism and slavery.  And guys, they vote.

This distortion of even trivial details in history is what you’re up against raising kids now and here.  And because the left pervaded everything for the last hundred years, they have corrupted everything, including entertainment and teaching, so the kids might never find out any better.  I’m fairly sure some of their teachers haven’t. It takes thinking and analyzing primary sources or an unusual set of experiences to know how full of nonsense all this is.

Oh, and btw, having a house maid be afraid to be “sent to the mills” is the outside of enough.  Mills weren’t workhouses. People didn’t get SENT there, they got HIRED.  Dear Lord, what are they teaching the kids.  And if you think being a house maid was better than working in say a textile mill, you’re out of your mind.  You’re also spitting on the generations of girls who ran away from “service” to work in the mills.  The Jane Austen fan fic writers seem unaware that most house servants weren’t ALLOWED to marry (until sometimes middle aged, sometimes never.) and that their work was a never ending round from before sunup till very late in the evening. They seem to think of it as some kind of sinecure. Perhaps because they think of housework in the light of all the labor-saving aids we have, from machinery to chemicals.

In short, these kids are being taught it’d be fine and dandy to go back to the pre-industrial age, by people who see themselves as feudal lords.  And it makes me sick.

Teach your children well, teach them to think. We might already have lost two generations, who will vote to go back to the horrible conditions their ancestors escaped with cries of gladness, to work in those evil, satanic mills. From which came enough surplus to lead to our current blessed age, where the children don’t even know how good they have it.

 

 

Laws have power.  Mostly they have the power of the government behind them.  As in: if you don’t do this, we’ll kill you and/or put you away for a long time.

That’s it. That’s the only power laws have.

The left meanwhile seems to think they’re some kind of magical incantations, which, by existing, would make it impossible to do/think/say something.

I don’t understand that.

It is most notable in their crazy rush to forbid guns, which give middle aged, out of shape women like me the possibility to defend themselves against crazy people who might want to kill me. (Up to and including the government, should things go that way.)

What puzzles me about the idea that if you forbid guns no one will have any, and there won’t be any crimes committed with guns is that it’s so widespread. Europe has tried this. Yeah, they still have guns.  Britain is now forbidding knives, and yes, they still have knives.

Soon enough all British citizens will only be able to get the kind of ridiculous plastic cutlery you get on airliners.

And yet, people will still murder people. And would be spree-shooters will find other ways to kill a vast multitude of people.

Yes, America’s crime rate is higher than Europe’s. We know. We also know statistics aren’t tracked the same way there and here.  And also that, honestly, if you remove our cities which are as hot on gun control as Europe and make sure we’re comparing apples to apples, we have one of the lower rates in the world.

This is because even crazy criminals understand “I might get shot.” And even suicidal mass-shooters understand “I’ll never accomplish my glorious killing spree if I get shot the minute I fire. I might not even kill anyone.”

This is why all shootings of this kind occur in gun free zones.

Making the person or persons who decides to create a “gun free zone” liable for any shootings in the place would do more to make us safe from spree shooters than all the red flag laws in the world.

Because red flag laws can get abused. The left already think anyone who disagrees with them is “crazy.” And look at how the Soviet Union used their mental health system sometime.

And more importantly they’ll do nothing to keep guns off the hands of people who want to misuse them.  Nothing will.

Humans are cunning apes. We’ve been killing each other since we only had fists. Stone-ax control would have stopped nothing.

The conceit that a little sign saying “this is a gun free zone” is capable of stopping someone already intent on killing a multitude of people is… I’m not sure? I think believing you can turn back the sea with a word makes more sense.  This is madness on a par with the craziest Roman Emperors, an assumption of power that is not only improbable but impossible for a human being.

But it might be part of how the left thinks. They also think we can “teach rapists not to rape.” As tough you know the entire instruction of mankind has failed, but if we specifically tell them not to rape, that will stop it.

The problem with all this is that making laws that won’t be obeyed, or won’t be obeyed by those people who are intent on doing whatever it is the law is supposed to prevent, doesn’t only “not work” and lead to more bad laws, when the hysteria sets in.

No, the problem is that it creates a highly corruptible system, full of contradictory injunctions that can be exploited by fallible and corrupt people, who are often attracted to positions of power and force.

And the other problem is making everyone is a criminal.

Laws that can’t be obeyed, won’t be obeyed. A lot of behaviors will go underground, where they are more dangerous.  For instance, if you forbid cloning, you’re guaranteeing cloning will be used for body parts (or whole-body transplants) instead of, say, for infertility issues, or to make a twin for your kid (which whatever you think of the morality, is infinitely more benign.)

Forbidding guns will disarm the law abiding and trusting, leaving them, therefore, vulnerable to those who couldn’t care less.

And giving our law enforcement agencies a mass of self-contradictory, unenforceable law to enforce will corrupt them too. For illustration, look to South America.

Heck, we’re already halfway there.  There is no one, left or right in this country who truly believes that Epstein committed “unassisted suicide.”  No one. Not even the people who TRY to.

That tells you where we’ve got to.

And that’s the problem.  Because the only power of the law is knowing an impartial authority will enforce it with clear eye-ed impartial vision or as close as humans get.  That is what makes laws worth respecting. That and the fact that they are not only useful but enforceable/trackable/doable.

When you lose that, and can’t trust your authorities who are just another gang, you’re on your way to the time when every man’s stone ax was needed, every day, to protect his meager belongings.

Neither prosperity nor civilization will survive that.

 

Yes, I was going to do a post. And note today I kept my outdoor activities to 2 1/2 hours, so I shouldn’t be this ditsy.

Except that by the time I came inside, now almost three hours ago, I looked like I’d stepped into a shower fully clothed, and I’ve been sitting here not doing much except staring at the screen.  So I’m going to guess I’m still a little out of it.

Today’s program involved honorable combat with the neighbor’s Virginia creeper which had eaten the flower beds on the west side of our yard, and was making a fair go at our pine tree on that side.  Not completely beaten back yet, but I’ve discovered more innocent plants smothered in it, though one is quite dead and I have no idea what it even was.  Perhaps lavender, by the looks of the remains?

I’ll return to full writing tomorrow, promise, but I’m trying to take advantage of having younger son here while he’s here.  He’s capable of a lot of work without complaining.  Since Dan can’t help, due to his knee issues, and older son is very busy, this is a boon and not to be wasted.  Also, if he can’t find an engineering job after he finishes his degree, I shall rent him out as Earth-moving machinery.  Seriously.  Nothing makes it clearer the difference in musculature between male and female than the things he can do and I can’t.  Yes, age probably has something to do with that as well.

Mostly, though, I’m grateful for the generous spirit that allows a twenty-four year old to be kicked out of bed at six am and set to work with no complaint, on things he can’t have the slightest interest in.  At his age, I’d have done it but bitched all the while.

So, until I return and to amuse you: yesterday I did what I do about once a month and went through spam and trash folders to rescue those of your comments that WordPress decided were inexplicably dangerous.

I found a few, and also a lot of real trash and spam.

Now, most of those are unimaginative, and just the sales of medicines, or whatever.  A notable one last week was a commenter bragging of the excellent health care… in China. No, seriously.  It was on point, and a response to the post, but so deluded I couldn’t help but leave it in trash, under same principle as “Not today, ISIS.”

Anyway, there was a funny (because so insane) one in this month’s crop which I’ll reproduce below.  First, Nigerian… illuminati? Second illuminati as a way to make money? And third… Mr. Steve…. WHAT?
At any rate, I figured you guys would be amused.

MY NAME IS SUNDAY EVANS I AM FROM NIGERIAN AM HERE TO SHARE MY TESTIMONY ON HOW I JOIN THE ILLUMINATI YOU MUST BE CAREFUL HERE, MOST OF THE COMMENT ABOUT JOINING ILLUMINATI ARE FAKE I WAS RECENTLY SCAM BY 8 PEOPLE CLAIMING TO BE ILLUMINATI AGENT. I LOST OVER $7,000 UNTIL I COME ACROSS A TESTIMONY ONLINE OF A MAN NAME RICH DOLLAR THANKING THIS GREAT MAN CALLED MR. STEVEN WHO MAKES ME WHAT I AM TODAY PLEASE IF YOU WANT TO BE A MEMBER OF ILLUMINATI QUICKLY CALL OR WHATSAPP. MR STEVEN Hello my brothers and sisters this message is coming right from the good Temple of Illuminati, Alot of people have been scam and dupe just because they want to join the brotherhood of Illuminati, so my brothers and sisters for those of you who are serious and ready to join here is your opportunity now to join the illuminati and achieve your dreams. 9 month ago I try to join the brotherhood of Illuminati but I was Scam by the fake people using the website on till I meet the right member called : MR. STEVEN who help me to be a member of the brotherhood today am so happy because money is no longer my problem now, …… If you need a help to join the Illuminati call OR whatsapp ………….(email and phone number deleted)…… May you live long you are a real son of the Illuminati

Sorry, guys.  Having younger son living with us for some weeks, and knowing time is limited, I’ve taken shameless advantage of his presence to do a bunch of things that have been waiting for year.  To wit, to cut back the bush in the yard that was taking over the flowerbeds, and also the garden which had been taken over by spiney weeds as tall as I.

Like a strand of intellectual-oriented people, the boys and I enjoy hard, violent work.  And perhaps because of that, we got carried away and stayed out there six hours, just about.  We probably have another couple of days work out there, together, and then I — on my own and slower — have to remove the weed prevention barrier from the flower beds, and redo it, since obviously it’s no longer working.

One of the surprises — remember when we moved here I was very ill and prednisone-depending to keep breathing, so yard work simply didn’t happen, and last year … well, I was still recovering — is that the previous owner had a rose garden back there  Which is great, as I was intending on establishing one.  I will still need to get some different varieties, since I presume what she has are heritage roses (a couple of them are, that still had flowers, one red, one pink.) because these roses escaped the choking by weeds by propagating, including a few volunteers on the lawn.  I’ll be moving those tomorrow.  I’m too tired to dig now.

Anyway, it’s going to take a full year, I think, to bring that yard back into proper shape, but at least we’ve made a start on the most violent phase, and I had the advantage of having someone much stronger than I swing the hatchet to bring the bush into compliance.

So, I’m so sorry I’m late. I was out there since 8 am.  And we’ve done about half the work we need to do.

Take it as a sign that I feel better.  At some point I’ll buy a couple more rose bushes, but I can’t plant till next month, so it can wait.

And now, I must turn to the neglected garden of my writing! In which many weeds have also grown.  But they will be conquered.

Book Promo

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE FROM SARAH: HI GUYS! IF YOU’RE SENDING ME LINKS TO YOUR BOOK, AND I’M IGNORING YOU, PLEASE PING ME. I DON’T DELIBERATELY IGNORE ANYONE (UNLESS YOU HAVE SET MY HAIR ON FIRE OR SOMETHING.) MY EMAIL TAKES IT UPON ITSELF TO EITHER PUT SOME PEOPLE IN JUNK, AND I DON’T ALWAYS REMEMBER TO LOOK, OR TO JUST NOT LET IT HIT THE MAILBOX. SO, IF YOU KEEP SENDING ME LINKS AND DON’T GET ANY PROMO, LET ME KNOW BY OTHER MEANS.

*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. One book per author per week. Amazon links only.-SAH*

WITH STORY BY PETER GRANT:  Terra Nova: The Wars of Liberation.

New stories set in Tom Kratman’s hard-hitting Carrera military sf series

“Send us your tired, your poor,” says the inscription at the base of the great statue, “your huddled masses yearning to be free.”

But the future of the colony planet, Terra Nova, and its relations with Old Earth is far more a case of boot out your tired, your poor, your dissidents and troublemakers. Use us for a dumping ground for all your problems. Go ahead and abandon these here. This may have been fine, too, but for the UN and its corrupt bureaucracy insisting on maintaining control and milking the new world and its settlers, willing and unwilling both, bone dry.

Contained herein are tales of the history of Mankind’s future first colony, from the first failed attempt at colonization, to the rise in crime, to the rise in terrorism, to its descent into widespread civil war and rebellion…and ultimately liberation. As with most of human history, this history is messy, with good men and women turning bad, bad men and women inadvertently doing good, and blood flowing in the streets.

Stories set in Tom Kratman’s Carrera series by
Kasey Ezell
Mike Massa
Rob Hampson
Chris Smith
Peter Grant
Chris Nutall
Justin Watson
Monalisa Foster
Alex Macris
Lawrence Railey
and Tom Kratman

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER:  April (April series Book 1).

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 entire “April” series is building towards a merge with the future series that starts with “Family Law”.

FROM JERRY BOYD:  Whammo Ranch (Bob and Nikki Book 2).

A saucer comes in damaged, with sick people aboard. A deadly plague threatens Earth. Can Bob and his crew save the day? Will Bob’s good nature cost him his life?
Julie’s boss wants to retire. Can she handle running the restaurant? Can Bob find her the help she needs?
Dee has come down with a terrible case of pedestrianism. Can Bob and the boys find the cure? Will she drive again?

FROM ARCHER GARRETT:  The Western Front – Part 1 of 3 (Western Front Series).

Darkness has descended upon the world; the fabric of society has been torn asunder, sovereign nations collapse under their own burdens, once stable governments are ushered into revolution and allies of old are thrust into war. The tentacles of darkness have inevitably traveled across the Atlantic and are now tightening their grip on the American republic.

Now, faced with a collapsing economy, a failing currency and a society that is swiftly casting its humanity aside, the United States stands at the precipice of a bedlam and malevolence not witnessed since the fall of Rome.

Part 1 follows several characters who strive to navigate the chaos, including:

Jake, his wife and brother are forced to flee the maelstorm of violence as it spills from the cities and into their small town enclave.

A Texas State Guardsmen deep behind enemy lines on South Padre Island, stands with his compatriots against a wave of unspeakable atrocities committed by a ruthless cartel alliance committed to seizing the spoils of the American southwest.

An outlaw and his Catahoula cur companion, learn to survive and even thrive in their river swamp domain as they seek a redoubt from the troubles that plague the world beyond.

A radical revolutionary intent on plunging the wounded nation into revolution as he stokes the flames of hatred and destruction.

FROM JERRY STRATTON:  42 Astoundingly Useful Scripts and Automations for the Macintosh.

Forty-two astoundingly useful scripts and automations for your Macintosh. Work faster and more reliably. Use Perl, Python, AppleScript, Swift, and Automator to automate the drudgery of computer use. Work on the command line, add actions to the services menu and the menu bar, and create drag-and-drop apps for your own custom workflow.

FROM JEFF DUNTEMANN: Firejammer.

Having dropped an alien-contact anthropologist on a newly discovered inhabited planet to establish a relationship with the aliens, starship *Richard M. Nixon* and its crew returns two years later on a trade mission. The corporations of the Tripartisan Economic Combine are eager to buy the aliens’ epoxy glue, which is among the best ever seen in known space. Vincent Icehall, the starship’s young shuttle pilot, has little to do during the mission but hang out with what he assumes is the alien community’s jester and village idiot. Icehall can’t pronounce the alien’s name and dubs him “Turkey,” but slowly begins to realize that Turkey is anything but. Ignoring all of Turkey’s warnings for the crew to leave the planet immediately, Icehall stumbles on a plot by the anthropologist and the aliens’ chieftain to steal the Nixon’s shuttle for use as a weapon of war.

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:WIDE EYED

 

 

Sorry to only get to this now. Woke up very early to deal with front yard. If it were simple mowing would have kicked son who is staying with us for three weeks awake and gotten him to do it, but there was weeding and stuff that needed done.

It was a singularly unproductive morning as all I did was the front yard.  Never mind. More tomorrow.

Then there was laundry sorting to do which is done on my bed, and therefore must be done within 24 hours of changing the bedspread, because otherwise all the clean clothes acquire a thin patina of Greebo fur.

And no, Greebo isn’t happy with me. He’s been patiently herding me office-ward all morning and I keep escaping to do these things that mustn’t be necessary, since I don’t do them every day.

And in case you wonder why I’m giving you the “deeds of the day”.  My grandmother used to relate everything she’d done every day when anyone showed up.  As a kid I remember thinking it was a peculiar habit. I still think it’s a peculiar habit, but when I was “just” a housewife and aspiring writer, I’d find myself doing the same thing to anyone who showed up, or to Dan when he came home from work, so I finally understood why she did it.

Housework is such a peculiar conjunction of small and frankly boring tasks and things that become undone as soon as you do them, that it’s astonishing how the time flies by and you look around and go “Where the heck did the morning/afternoon/evening go?” And nothing to show for it. So you list it to reassure yourself, to tell yourself you’re wroth something, and not just frittering away your life in useless stuff every day, stuff no one notices.

Because that’s the other peculiar thing of housework: no one notices it until it’s not done.  I think the first time my husband realized the particular load of work I was lifting was when I was very ill with pneumonia 23 years ago.  Because I was in the hospital for two weeks, even though we had babysitters at home looking after the boys, who did things like feed the kids and do the dishes, he saw how all the other stuff went to hell on a slow schedule, and realized the amount of things I did every day.  Since when he has not said anything about “you’re home all day, couldn’t you do x?”

Now he is home a lot of the time, he gets a worried expression as I get up from the desk to go put a load of laundry in, or whatever.  I know he thinks I could fly a lot higher/faster without that particular burden.  And I get it. Truly, I do. He used to suggest I get someone to do things (before aforementioned series of … unfortunate events) but my problem (back then) is that I am one of those people who cleans for the cleaning lady, and then after the cleaning lady.  In the times I’ve had cleaners (mostly due to being ill) I’ve had ONE who cleaned better than I (and did it all with then one-year-old Marshall on her hip.)

My daughter in law says she tries to do something everyday that won’t be undone in a week.  I’ve been trying to adopt the same habit, with the something everyday more often than not being something.  The something lately is mostly short stories, because I’d made a lot of commitments before the year went crazy.  I found I’d done 45k words of various things in the last week.  Now it’s time to turn my attention to novels, because short stories are nice (and honestly mostly I do them for people I like, though none of them has failed to pay me at least what they’d pay in traditional publishing, but they’re piddly payments, not nearly enough to pick up from the series of unfortunate incidents earlier this year.  So.

So, novels it will be.  First I finish Deep Pink. (The next one is already loud and it starts with “I owed a favor to the Loch Ness Monster.”  It will probably be called “Dark Beer.”  Maybe.  Anyway…. I need to finish it, then swing on to Alien Curse.  I figured I had the wrong main protag, so it was like trying to wrench something into position, which didn’t want to fit. Former main protag to become infuriating love interest.  Some words salvaged. Not sure how many yet.

After that it’s A Well Inlaid Death (Dyce Dare) and Witch’s Daughter (Witchfinder) and Blood Royale (Vampire Musketeers.)  In between there will be a shortish novel called Another Rhodes which is a mystery with a cyborg detective in the far future.  My plan is to interlard (totally a thing) Rhodes and Magis in between the heftier works.  Though why I’m calling Dyce hefty, heaven only knows.

Other things are planned, including alternate history.  Let me see how far I can run, and if the health thing is permanently on the mend, and keep me in your prayers in that regard.  My goal is to fill up your to-be-read lists and drive you a little insane(r).

Which is the other reason I bring up the unending list of household chores.

Look, they have to be done. And I’m faster and more adept at them than Dan, who at any rate has a full time job and MUST find time to write, but we’re not sure where.  It’s just that right now I can’t even consider hiring someone, even if I’d settle for someone who dusts and vacuums only.  And the only way to change that is to write like a demon.

So I list the deeds of day mostly in frustration, because I was not at the keyboard producing words and making Greebo happy.

This too shall pass.  Like a hurricane or perhaps a kidney stone, but it shall pass.

Until then, I just have to write.  Which is what I’ll be doing after I publish this and until Hun’s dinner (at place we had Hunsgiving, probably now about 10 years back?) at 4:30 or 5 or thereabouts.  And for those who checked their calendar, no, it is not in fact the first Saturday of the month.

Having dealt with moving son in temporarily and having our life turned upside down three days before Saturday, we were — Dan and I — blissfully unaware what day of the month it was.  Curiously we felt there was something we should be doing, so we went to the botanic gardens to see the sunset. But we never remembered it was our day for dinner with the fans.

And yes, I know, politics is crazy right now, but honestly, I’m trying to stay away from the blogs and get paying work done (which requires fortitude like you wouldn’t believe, my being a political junky.  But I think in terms of my addiction, politics increasingly are like bad drugs.  I think these are cut with muriatic acid and sooner or later will eat all our faces. So I’m trying to discipline myself to only check them in the evening.  I can’t tell you how hard this is on a nervous system trained to “you have to check, to know if you’re going to run into a mess on your way out and/or they’re coming for you.”

But if I go check politics, nothing will get done. And it must get done.

Anyway. So. I go write now.  I have three and a half hours to lay down words, with brief interruptions for laundry.