Category: Uncategorized

The person who completed the title with “Are natural allies” can stay after school to help scrub the old gum from under the desks, thank you so much.

This is in lieu of “this is not a post” mostly because I meant to write a post early this morning and instead ended up chatting with friends. Sigh.

Writers these days, no discipline, no pride of hustle, no–

Okay, the problem is I couldn’t write it yesterday because yesterday I spent the day walking into walls.

It started at 7 am with our pest control people who were scheduled to come “in the morning” deciding it was vital to ring our doorbell to tell us they were here. Look, they were scheduled to come. We’d have seen them on the cameras later. DO NOT RING THE DOORBELL BEFORE 9 AM, what’s actually wrong with you?

This normally wouldn’t be that big a deal, but two nights before I got hit with the “tribalism” post at midnight and was writing till 1 am. And then the night after that I was “dry” on posts till one am and wrote till 2 am. Which means when I was wakened I’d slept a grand total of 5 hours. Plus I had a plumber appointment for the morning, which mestatized into an all day thing, so naps were out of the question.

Oh, and I was typesetting and dealing with Amazon, which…. is like dealing with a dental appointment without anesthetic, even if nothing goes wrong, just… dot all the ts and cross all the is. (Yes, I mean that. it’s what I normally do,a nd then I have to go back and fix it.) Oh, yeah, and the isbn place and…. argh.

Oh, and on Tuesday I DID have a dental appointment.

Anyway, the point is, I was really tired, and by the middle of the day was walking into walls. By night time I was starting to do “I can’t quite control my mouth, so I’m trying to speak and just making weird sounds.” So I just went to bed at ten. Without writing a post.

And this morning I’m apparently just lazy. And should be doing a chapter of Witch’s Daughter for the serialization in the substacks and figuring out the shopify store thing so I can sell my own ebooks (and others, if I can connect it to pod and fulfillment by printer.). So I’ll go and do that rather than write a blog post.

Ahem. No, seriously, I truly am fighting a tentacle monster. But it’s a tentacle monster of the mind.

And before I do any real work I have to go fight the litter boxes, the worst monster of all.

So, I’ll see you tomorrow. Think fondly of me as I battle the “Cat poo armagedon” (I should have done the boxes yesterday. I’m trying to avoid “poo in my shoe” at this point.)

The government doesn’t grant you your fundamental rights. You have those by virtue of being human.

Good governments protect them. Bad governments violate them. The fact that they can, and do violate them doesn’t mean they never existed. In fact, arguably, the fact they violate them means they exist.

Which is why I was completely befuddled when I was told that no, of course these aren’t natural rights, since if they were we wouldn’t need a bill of rights to protect them.

I think I merely pointed out that the fact the founders, it turns out rightly, didn’t trust future governments doesn’t mean the rights don’t exist before and beyond governments. It simply means bad governments can violate them. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the morality of doing so.

These are negative rights. They are rights you have in the absence of anyone violating them. (Remember Obama hated that, as he hates anything that doesn’t give him power over us.)

Rights like the right to bear arms don’t mean you have the right to have someone give you weapons. (No matter how much we throw ourselves on the floor and scream.) In the same way the right to free speech doesn’t mean we have the right to make people listen to our speech, compel people to agree with our speech or even insist people don’t contradict us.

In fact is the right to free speech I wish to talk about. By the time I was eighteen and doing 12th grade in the US, I knew the second amendment was under fire.

But I never thought I’d live to see the day when the left openly — not covertly — attacked the first amendment and talked about abolishing it.

Honestly, I think that’s a measure of how we’re winning.

The unalienable rights are well and good, but while the left had the effective lock on mass communication, they really weren’t scared of speech that disagreed with them. Even the times they were “forced” to tolerate it, like during presidential debates, they made sure anything that went against their beliefs was curtailed, mocked, made to seem bad. They could do this by seeding the questions with the left ahead of time, and afterwards by making anything the right candidate said seem stupid.

I still remember — possibly the last time they had that power — how they turned Romney’s anodyne comment about women in binders into — SOMEHOW — a chauvinist and anti-feminist attack. It was inexplicable. But it was everywhere at once and very loud and people went along because they weren’t sure what it all meant, but there must be something in it.

Now they don’t have that power. And they’ve been badly trained by years of having effective monopoly on communication. Then there’s the fact their best ideas were from the USSR and have been proven to bring nothing but horror and poverty.

And meanwhile while for inscrutable reasons (except a resistance to letting us go or perhaps being afraid the Human race will have better chances of survival if we leave the Earth) they were keeping us off space, geeks geeked the computer revolution. Which led to places like this blog and Twitter, and various other means by which someone not-approved can talk.

You can tell how threatened they are by it when you realize they are already stomping on “normal people speaking out on the internet” in the rest of the anglo sphere. (Because abuses elsewhere wouldn’t shock us as much.) And trust me on this, even in the rest of the anglosphere, they have nothing even remotely close to our vigorous political blogging and reporting sphere.

Anyway, in this crowd I do not need to tell you the importance of free speech, or that the right worth protecting is the right to unpopular speech or speech unapproved of from the top.

No. What I want to tell you, instead, is that at a time when it often feels we have an uphill battle.

But this is an actual sign we’re winning. Even if it’s an annoying one. And one where the other side is all stompy. And really bad things on that front are happening in Europe.

but the truth is the left could afford to pretend to be pro free speech and keep pushing the free speech boundaries mostly in ways that destroyed the culture and helped them get what they wanted until they lost the speech monopoly. And speech they didn’t like started to be heard.

Now they’ve had to drop the mask on that as on so many other things.

And now we can see them for the enemies of our unalienable rights they are.

Which means they have no chance of winning the fight. No. You can’t stop a million voices even with force.

Once more I’d like to remind you that typewriters took down the USSR.

They will make noise. They will threaten.

But you need to learn — I’ve learned — the more noise they make, the more they’re losing.

And they are losing.

Keep talking. Don’t stop.

Tribalism is the bane of mankind.

If there really were no great civilizations before ours, the fault would be squarely laid at the feet of tribalism.

To the extent the West has managed to take humanity further — further away from want, further away from famine, further away from the misery of barbarism — it is because through a combination of historical, philosophical and religious circumstances, the west (some places to a higher extent than others) came to view humans as all (more or less) part of the same tribe. All “human.”

Because you see, in tribalism you don’t. Those people who are related to you, or look like you, or tie their flegfardt as you do are people. Everyone else, them over there, who wear their spoons sideways? They’re not human. They’re terrifying animals who look like humans but who are as likely to kill you and eat you as look at you.

In the deep past of mankind — AND STILL IN MUCH OF THE WORLD — your humanity is conditional on how close you resemble the tribe in question and sometimes on whether you were raised there.

In the US we joke that there are places like small town New England or places in the Appalachia where if you haven’t lived there three generations you’re foreigners. Many places in Europe are or were like that till recently, (at least the one I came from was submerged in “foreigners” sometimes literally, so it’s no longer like that) but that’s not what I am talking about. It is perhaps the narrow edge of it.

However in true tribalism, you really don’t consider the rest of humanity “human.” The corollary, by the way, is that you don’t consider yourself quite human. You’re a being of the group. Your identity, the fact that you’re human at all is wrapped up in this sometimes very small group of people. You only make sense in connection with them.

Even the place I came from was/is a bit like that. It’s the West, of course, and of course other people are human, but there is an overwhelming tendency to think of yourself only in relation to the family, the tribe and their needs.

But how does that hold civilization back, Sarah? Shouldn’t we think of others, of the family, of the people we love first?

Um….

One thing is interest in others, loving your neighbor. Another is to view yourself as owing an obligation to people you’re related to for the rest of your life.

As an arrangement I suppose it’s superior to a man alone in the Savannah with a knife. Which is why most human societies drifted to it. That and because it’s the natural state of Great Apes, which is what we are.

However– However–

Tribalism, codified and set in stone becomes binding. You can’t innovate, you can’t have private property, you can’t improve yourself because you belong to the tribe/the family/the group.

We’ve all heard of tribal societies where a member can’t open a store, because all others will demand things for free from the store.

Where I come from which is well past that stage, you’re still expected to do “favors” for your family (which makes all Latin societies inherently corrupt. Yes, the culture is the same.) And you’re expected “not to give yourself airs” and not to act like you’re better than “your people.” And this is in Europe.

To the extent America became the engine of innovation and improvement of human life it is because, for various reasons, we got over tribalism.

Fully? no. Fully might be impossible so long as humans are humans. We are not angels, but apes who dream of angels.

However in America the ideal is to live with others as though every other were as human as you are, regardless of looks, attitude, etc. In America, the ideal is you deal fairly with everyone, and you have laws that apply to everyone equally.

Now, this doesn’t always apply, and it’s always at its worst when we get a large influx of immigrants, all at once. There were Irish and Italian immigrant ghettos, and of course you favored your kind if you could. “Of course” because you’re human. And there was a large unassimilated lump of people that were closer to each other than the rest, and under stress. of course they clung and acted tribal.

Still do with the latest imports. Perhaps worse with the latest imports, because America is under attack internally too, as well as externally.

The wave of people brought in to submerge the culture in ever increasing numbers was an attack. Of course it was. A highly innovative form of asymmetric warfare. but so was the insidious corruption of our laws and institutions which were supposed to assimilate and integrate the newcomers.

Instead of people being encouraged to learn English, they were catered to in their original language. Something that kept them tribal and clinging to those who understood them, and also dependent on the government catering to them.

People were encouraged to cling to their customs, from the innocuous — clothing, food, music — to the noxious — considering the long-ago-left-behind-countries better than the US — to the damaging, like honor killings or child marriage. Everyone else was told to oppose any one of these things, or to wish your neighbors didn’t play salsa music in the yard day and night (an actual example from a recentish article) was “racist” because “silence” was white. Somehow.

So were things like being punctual, frugal and clean. The bourgeois virtues that lifted the poor of the west out of poverty were now discouraged in new immigrants. People who demanded them from new immigrants were called racists. And the immigrants themselves were made to feel guilty if they tried to fit in.

A few years ago, someone nominally on our side also an immigrant said it made perfect sense that I’d completely acculturated (except for the d*mn accent) because “Women always adopt their husband’s tribal customs.” He’s not exactly wrong, at that, because of course evolutionarilly that is what was selected for, since women were often either traded or war spoils. It favored survival.

Except that if that were the case, my husband would have adopted half of my original culture, or more, because that’s what everyone from neighbors to colleagues to schools pushed us to do. I was told I came from a beautiful old culture — with absolutely no interest in why then I’d choose to come here. There is a curious blindness among the elite left, where they think prosperity is a function of location, not of what you do there — and my husband — whose ancestors have been here since the first European arrivals (save for the ones who met them on the shore) –got shamed for not learning Portuguese. A language, mind you, that had absolutely no use in our daily life.

As late as our youngest being in Middle School, schools assumed that “of course” we spoke Portuguese exclusively at home.

Those are the pressures against assimilating. Not, of course, that my family much cared, because we are Odd, which means while we’re aware of the way we’re being pushed, being pushed just annoys us. If anything it makes us less likely to go that way. So I acculturated, even when it felt like dying. My husband — to the extent being a mathematician, that he’s even aware of social pressures and dictates — became more intensely American. Our family went all out for the High Holy Holidays (for those not read in, that’s the Fourth of July, though we also do a thing for Valley Forge that involves biting off the heads of gingerbread Hessian soldiers on Christmas.) The 4th of July was the kids’ favorite holiday because we had the biggest party we could muster. Every year. And the kids were raised on the founding documents and American history and the ethos of America and why we were different and better than the rest of the world.

Which probably makes them rather odd ducks, since the rest of the kids in school are hearing why America is worse. And also why white people suck. (And the definition of white is more “behaves in a middle class way” so that Asian immigrants are considered white two generations in.) And are responsible for the evil in the world.

I think the left said between that and encouraging arrant tribalism in all the newcomers they’d get us back into a tribal society.

Tribal societies are easy to control. You keep the groups stoked one against the other. And then you rule on top of the mud heap.

It didn’t work that way. Oh, sure, there are people still stuck in that mind set, notably a lot of Democrat congressmen and women. But the man and woman on the street? Not so much. Latins didn’t vote for illegal immigration, even if the idea is fostered that most of those coming in illegally are Latin. (No longer largely the case.)

And then there’s the fact the left has never understood people who look alike to THEM can have very deep divisions. And that there’s no way in hell all people who tan are going to unite against “the white” because frankly they view the other people who tan as more of a problem.

That’s the fractious side. But there’s the other side.

Humans in proximity with other humans meld, meet and reproduce. Regardless of how much those near them try to stop them. That’s humans. We’re randy apes.

It is not rare or even noteworthy for me to find myself some public place and see a family that’s clearly an amalgam of several different points-of-origin. Oh, sure, sometimes those points of origin are all in Africa or all in Europe (though that’s rare, frankly) but even then they are the type of family that could only occur in America. More usually there are people of European, Asian, African and indefinable origins interacting as family, with kids passed around from lap to lap. Even in highly ethnic and relative recent immigrant places, like our favorite Mexican restaurant, I’ve seen a Latin family with quite obviously an Asian daughter in law and grandchild.

People meld. People mingle. By and large and more and more with the ease of travel, people are a genetic kludge. BUT and this is very important, people are American.

Yes, even now, despite all the pressures to the contrary, these people interact as Americans.

During the never-ending June driving around, I found myself at a hotel breakfast with a bunch of teen basketball players. Their unifying characteristic is that all of them made me feel like a midget. And yes, a lot of them were very very dark. But a lot were tall blonds, and looked either Germanic or Irish or yes. (Yes, growing up in Europe I can indeed tell you those features are all different.) They interacted as friends. Or in some cases frienemies, but despite all the push to view themselves as widgets who are a race/a skin color/a set of features FIRST the divisions were nowhere that clear cut.

And I literally couldn’t imagine that scene anywhere else.

Now, before you guys think I’ve lost my mind. I still think that illegal immigration is bad and bad for us. When I say these people were used as a weapon, I don’t mean they were brought in for our good. Perhaps they allowed some companies to pay lower amounts to their work force, but at the same time we were paying vast (vaster than I think we’ll ever know) amounts in social net payments to enable that.

And we were paying other prices, since other countries flooded us with the worst of their worst. Crime, lawlessness, all in turn leading to greater tribalism.

And of course, since Jimmy Carter and some crazy court decision saying tests with different outcomes are discriminatory, people have been forbidden from administering tests to job applicants. This fostered credentialism; the explosion of the diploma factory universities (and at this point even the ivies are diploma factories) AND nepotism. (If you can’t trust anyone, hire your friend/cousin/neighbor.)

Given that and systems that rewarded a work force that was anything but white male, it all became a spoils system that discriminated against whites and hardest against white males.

So now you have a lot of very intelligent people who, having been pounded their entire lives with the idea they mustn’t be racist and must be open to every skin color and culture have decided the solution to society’s ills is…. tribalism.

For the love of suffering succotash people! I know some of you have a brain. I’ve seen you use it. But in this? In this you’re “thinking” — I use the term loosely — with your toenails, or perhaps your spleen.

Tribalism is impossible to eliminate and to an extent, yes, we suffer from tribalism. And people, particularly displaced recent immigrants will take advantage.

But–

You can’t complain about people favoring their tribesmen from “places where they shit on the streets” and then want to have MORE TRIBALISM HERE.

Listen, let me spell it out for you: WHAT MAKES THE WEST BETTER IS NOT THE FACT THAT MOST OF YOU NEED SPF 3005 SUNBLOCK or some other f*cking alien type of thing to protect you from the sun. It’s not your blue eyes. It’s not your blond hair.

Hitler’s illusions notwithstanding, throughout the Middle Ages Germany was considered the most backward country in Europe, and part of the setup for the long war of the twentieth century was their just having pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, unified and wanting a warm water port in the worst way. (Literally.)

Skin color is not magic. There might be some genetic advantages to Neanderthal genetic inheritance, including a tendency to not be quite so tradition bound and more creative. Maybe. Evidence is unclear. Shake the magic eight ball of shards of pottery and bits of bone, and ask again.

Culture does matter. And the Western culture of “all human shaped things are human” and “We’ll give them the same chance under the law” did best for ALL HUMANS. The American version of “Equal under the law and give them a chance” did particularly well when combined with mobility both physical and social that allowed the exceptional to shine.

So why am I hearing rumblings about how we need a more collectivist mind set and we need to be tribal?

Mostly because people aren’t thinking. Partly because they are interacting with people who still live in the worst shit holes of the universe and either tell them how wonderful the place is, or pretend they aren’t living there and tell them how bad the US is.

Because of course, the practices of the places where you shit on the street will become MAGICALLY improved if you remove melanin. Yep. That’s super-plausible, isn’t it? No, I’m not calling you a racist. I’m calling you stupid.

If your skin color is so fucking superior and gifts you with automagic thinking powers, prove it. Do better at things by virtue of it. That means you don’t need a hand up or a handout, and you don’t need nepotism in your favor. Just a fair playing field. (And perhaps not even that, if you’re superior enough.)

And here’s the part I plain don’t get — just don’t get — Trump’s administration has made it possible to test people for government jobs again. And you know where government jobs go, the rest will follow.

This is not just a killing blow for the Academic stupidity, but, combined with stomping hard on DEI and the very concept of racial favoritism, and the closing of the borders and making work visas harder to obtain for a while, we stand a chance of clawing back to a society that’s primarily meritocratic.

Which we badly need because, listen to me, if you hire people for ANY REASON other than competence, competence will degrade and disappear. Yes, yes, you see the “affirmative action” hires, and you think competence is in the crapper in general because they can tan.

I have bad news for you. If you give preference to tall, pale blonds (in anything but modeling) you’ll be in the same place in three generations. The schools will not demand as much of them, because they must give them good grades; the people who hire will hire them even if they can barely read; and once on the job they will not do anything, because a) it’s not required. b) no one taught them how to.

If you just said “Well, fine, at least it will be my people” you have traded in your brain for a pancake. And the pancake is flat and lacking syrup.

If I didn’t have descendants, and if I didn’t come from an exceptionally long-lived line, I’d just smirk, sit back and buy marshmallows to roast on the fires of the dying civilization as we head back to tribalism for the long count.

Except that I do both. And that I don’t think the intellectuals who are now declaiming for “community” and “tribalism” are winning this one. Because again, people on the street don’t care for your triumphalist arguments.

They care for what works. And tribalism, in the long run, works for nothing but making people mad and resentful. And insular, very insular.

So why are all these people trying to push us in that direction and convincing us there’s no other hope, even as the things propping up this — pardon me — shitty regime are being pulled down by the administration? Even as people are becoming free to compete individually and on an even playing field again?

Why the big push the other way, the clamor of voices?

Isn’t it a coincidence we’re being told “We need affirmative action for OUR side” even as affirmative action is finally being relegated to the dust bin of history?

Oh, you’ll say but it’s “American Heritage” bloodline, because that is those who understand liberty and representative government.

Which is very cute. Husband comes as close to qualifying for that as you’re going to get (People who fully qualify for that, all eleven of them, have 30 toes per foot. And play the banjo really well.) He’s an exception to their political leanings. Most of them are blue-blooded communists. Because they prize “making the right high class noises” and “having the right high class thoughts” above all else, and thanks to Academia and the last century, most of those noises and thoughts have been Marxist.

Years ago, we had this glass fronted bookcase that our cat D’Artagnan (nickname Slinky McEvil) had learned to open and close. (Bear with me. yes, it is relevant.)

We don’t quite know how, but we kept finding Havey cat confined to the bottom shelf of this bookcase. Reconstructing the crime, we assumed that D’Artagnan had put Havey’s toy in there, leaving the door open, and when Havey got in, D’Artagnan slammed the door on him.

This happened at least twice a day, every day. We kept explaining to Havey “This cat doesn’t have your best interests at heart. This cat is not your friend.” And yet, it happened again and again, till older son (whose cat D’Artagnan was) moved out taking the bad element (now gone, and lamented) with him.

Havey-cat has some excuse, since he spent his kittenhood in a mini golf course where people hit him on the head with golf clubs for playing with the balls.

I don’t think most of you have that excuse. I mean, they don’t abandon kids at mini golf courses, and if they did the kid would die rather than live on bugs and feature water.

What’s more, you have all the history of humanity at your disposal. You can read (most of you.) Unlike Havey cat, you can learn from the mistakes of history and the rest of the world.

And yet it never occurs to you the people pushing tribalism, division, and an inversion of the already dysfunctional system in place are not your friends and don’t have your best interests at heart. It never occurs to you that changing the power sign means nothing because HIRING OR FIRING FOR ANY REASON BUT COMPETENCE LEADS TO LACK OF COMPETENCE.

It never occurs to you that a state of tribalism will need a strong state to mediate the spoils and keep the tribes from each other’s throat.

And that we’re dying form a too-strong state.

It never occurs to you that people throwing fits against individualism and individual striving and achievement don’t have America (or the West’s) best interests at heart.

Havey-cat has an excuse. What’s yours?

For the last few years, with the open border and people trampling in willy nilly, I had a running theme when I linked those news: Those poor saps are walking in on a family quarrel. When the excrement hits the rotating object it’s going to get seriously ugly.

I now think I was wrong on that. Oh, not on its getting ugly. I still worry about that and they — and the people they think are their defenders — aren’t making these people being caught in the middle less likely.

But I’m less — not completely “not worried” but less — worried about the excrement hitting the rotating object and precipitating us into a civil war.

Look, I’m going to be blunt: I don’t know how many votes the left is creating ex nihilo. I’ve known for a good long while that we were nothing like the half of the country that shows up in voting — this is obvious from how hard they work all the fraud mechanisms — sometime in the last three years I came to suspect their high watermark, including all the indoctrinated young and their insane shock troops and everyone else was about 25%. Of those the hard shock troops which are the criminally inclined and the insane who can’t be talked out of their leftist insanity are maybe half of that.

Look, in a nation of 300 mil (I never bought the 50 aggregated on out of nothing the last 20 years even as birthrates trolled the depths) it’s still a lot of people.

But it’s not enough for a civil war.

The fact that we took away some of their financing sources (not even all of them) and the shock troops became reduced to the usual half a dozen boomers with assistive oxygen and walkers bleating on the corner just reinforced my belief. I’m now convinced the young lady who told me ten years ago that most of antifa was there because it was a paycheck was saying nothing but the truth.

So the illegal masses coming in aren’t getting into the middle of a family quarrel. But they are still in danger. In fact they might be in more danger than not.

Look, there are certain things we’d been assured were lies that we now know we’re not.

And one of them was that it was a lie that people were coming here to steal American jobs.

We were told that immigrants came here to do jobs Americans wouldn’t do.

Turns out they were wrong. Not just a little bit wrong, but wide open wrong.

Numbers don’t lie, and even with the anemic deportation we’ve had, salaries have gone up.

But it’s beyond that. The Telegraph last night had an article about “Generation jobless.” This is something I’ve been sounding the alarm on for a while, and all I get is “it’s all the fault of kids these days.”

Note that the Telegraph is in Britain, but the article could have been written about this country too. I’m not the only one who has observed a tendency for young people (And dear Lord I’ve been screaming at it for 10 years. They’re mostly now over thirty) to either be stuck in a never-ending educational loop or give up and hide in the basement doing nothing. Sometimes literally.

Now the problem used to be mostly young men, because well, the overculture was rigged to create at least “false success” for women, (make work jobs. Pretty looking jobs. “Our Laney is a representative of the under-represented, at anti-racism inc.” and don’t tell anyone she makes nothing) because of all the feminism rawr noises. And also because women are as a rule more social and less likely to hit the “I’m just gonna give up and hide.” But lately I understand young women are hitting the same, with a side line of being highly medicated and on endless therapy sessions.

Thing is when there is a “generation jobless” I don’t care how bad kids these days are (and whose fault is it, if you didn’t check they were at a minimum taught to read and write? Because even I managed that) there is more at work here. A lot more.

The lot more became obvious under Biden when for a year or so almost anyone who got a job was not born in the country. (And I bet it’s the same in England.)

Why? Oh, several trends. One of them was DEI, sure, but another was that people who are here and not citizens are easier to make into indentured servants and/or/pay less. There is also credentialism. If what you require to hire someone is a certificate, other countries are far more okay with faking certificates than Americans ever were. We’re autistic about stuff like that. They’re not.

But ultimately? It’s cheaper. And they’re easier to bully. It looked good for the bottom line; it looked good for diversity.

And so, companies have in fact giving away American jobs away to immigrants. And no, the trades are not a refuge from this, because lately they’ve been importing people for the trades too. (Those are mostly illegal.)

Yes, this means you’re going to see a lot enshittification, because most of the illegals (and not) are faking credentials, learning on the job, and have lower standards for “doing it well” because those are cultural. (Look, I come from a culture where doing it sort of okay is the apex to be aspired to, provided it’s done quickly. Yes, I was saved by being on the spectrum. I have a tendency to waste a lot of time on perfectionism. but there’s a middle ground, and most of the imports won’t even try.)

BUT they are cheaper. And so they are the ones being hired, and salaries are driven down, and then the only ones wanting to do it are those who are also benefiting from programs to help illegals and “refugees” and who can afford to do less in the visible market because they’re receiving subsidies and also working under the table.

The idiots liberals think this means they’re keeping America functioning, but that’s not remotely what’s happening.

What’s happening is simultaneously a driving down of quality and a pushing down of price, until at some point the quality can’t be driven down more by offshoring, but the price falls, and then we outsource to slave labor in China and other totalitarian regimes.

Look, this can’t go on. We can’t continue subsidizing driving our own children out of the job market. And yes, the problem starts with minimum wage, because that’s what sets up the inability to hire people legally. But it doesn’t end there. There are a million factors driving this.

And it’s all pushed by DEI, inability to test people for jobs and having to rely on credentials, and of course open borders.

Trump is doing exactly what he should be doing, in stopping DEI and making it possible to test people for jobs. Because that’s the death or credentials. Oh, and of course, closing the borders.

The young might not be well educated — most are not — and might have learned helplessness. But they’re still of our stock. If their parents succeeded, they’ll find their way once we stop hitting them on the head.

But in the meantime, the people demonstrating on the streets with foreign flags, and the usual idiot obligatory boomers talking about “compassion” are making the possible outcome exponentially worse.

We have figured out the people coming here are in fact taking ours or our kids’ jobs*. From here on out, it’s going to follow a crazy train of resentment against “the intruders.” It’s starting with Indians, because they’re a visible minority. It’s not going to stop there.

The best thing to do? Stop H1B visas. Stop nepotistic/racial hiring. Stop flapping lips about the inherent superiority of your race/subrace. Stop flying foreign flags. Stop insisting we cater to YOUR language, which is not English. Shut up and do your best to Fit in. Or Fuck Off.

Because at the end of this, this bullshit slide affects me. More importantly, it affects my kids.

And yes, note I put an asterisk up there. *Arguably I did steal an American job, but not one recognized as such in the eighties. And in my defense, if he’d not married me, my husband would be unlikely to marry and stay married. We’re one of those couples. So I stole the Wife to the Mathematician and Mother to his very Odd Offspring from some American-born woman, who’d probably run screaming from that job.

I didn’t steal the job as a writer from anyone.** Look, it’s not a location specific job. Arguably, I’d do much better if I were living in Portugal. And I’ve told people to stop worrying about AI and start worrying about people in Eastern European countries who speak English well enough to produce write for hire popcorn books for American companies who will pay them for the piece work, then pay someone who is not ESL to fix it. This is happening right now. Because $500 per novel and a novel per month is a princely living in many places in the world. I’m not that cheap, but what I make per year even just from writing would put me on a par with my brother and SIL who live very well indeed for Portugal.

So, why not do it? For the same reason I throw things at people (American and Portuguese) who ask me why I don’t retire in Portugal. It’s sort of like asking you why you don’t wear a suit that squeezes you and makes you itch all day.

I choose to live here, because I’m American. This is where I feel at home. Where my friends live, and the people I want to be friends with. The people that get me. This is where my children, who have never been anything but American live.

Which is why I’m hoping the crazy doesn’t get out of control enough that the broken identification mechanism casts me out.

Because I have nowhere to go. No other place is home.

[** Writing is a field screwed up by cheap labor, yes, but the cheap labor at least until recently was not foreign. Writing was screwed up by the demand that women have a profession as well as anything else. This drove an influx of stay-at-home-wives (most not moms) into the field. They were willing to work for less, because mostly they worked for the prestige. Most of them were exquisitely educated and well off, anyway. This drove the advances down to the point they are lower than they were in the 40s. It also, as it always does, affected quality as the books started reflecting ONLY the concerns of an extremely narrow population band, and one what wasn’t concerned with making a living.
Economics is a right bitch. You can’t solve it by screaming about race or whatever. It’s all about supply and demand. A supply of cheaper labor in excess of demand drives price down. That’s it. That it also drives quality down has more to do with the nature of an artistic field and the impressions it feeds on.]

Book Promo

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. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

Volume 1
The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.
They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner.
The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.
Skip’s already broken that one.
Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.

Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Following Trouble : A Tale of Underhill (Pixie for Hire)

Lom has a new mission, to track down illicit magical use. Something is going on in the gritty underworld of Cincinnati, where the nightclubs are still hosting gambling and the organized crime runs more smoothly than the bureaucracy. He’s about to find out if he’s going to get lucky… or get dead.

FROM DALE COZORT: There Will Always Be An England II: Planet Ripper

A gripping blend of alternate history, science fiction, and military adventure set in a world where time travel, alien invasion, and World War II-era conflicts collide.

1944 Britain spent twelve grueling years in the Stone Age, leaving its World War II Allies to fight on alone and forcing brutal decisions: dispatching stranded US troops to ancient North America, while wartime factories crumbled to rust. When the nation snaps back to 1944—mere weeks after it left—it’s a superpower, boasting jets, nuclear reactors, advanced computers, and television, light-years ahead of the world.

But this Britain is a fragile giant, its defenses geared for Neanderthal raids, not modern warfare. As Nazi Germany eyes the vulnerable country, eager to exploit the chaos, an even greater peril looms: a huge, derelict artificial moon orbits Earth, self-repairing with each orbit. Whoever seizes it could dominate the planet—or doom it.

In this pulse-pounding alternate history, survival hangs on getting rusting equipment back in the fight while turning Britain’s advanced technology to war.

FROM RACONTEUR PRESS: Alien Family Traditions (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 58)

In a galaxy torn by war, where battles shatter civilizations, the heart of family endures. From adoptions that bridge species to foster homes offering refuge to aliens and humans alike, love becomes the ultimate rebellion against conflict. Discover uplifting tales of unlikely kin—blood, chosen, or found—building havens of hope amidst chaos. In this heartwarming collection, explore the lives of those who choose compassion over strife, the consequences that reshape worlds, and the reasons why family, in all its forms, is the brightest light in the darkest times. A feel-good celebration of unity and resilience that will leave you inspired.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: Stories of Asteroid Mining: Hardships in the Belt

Stories of Asteroid Mining: Hardships in the Belt
by John Bailey

In the ruthless frontier of the asteroid belt, fortunes are carved from stone—and lives are shattered in silence.

Stories of Asteroid Mining tells three gripping tales from the boom era of space’s final gold rush. Elias Varn, the wiry mechanic-turned-prospector, claws his way to success and returns home to marry his sweetheart. Torin Kade, a hopeful coder from Europa, finds only betrayal and loss in the void. And Cassian Holt, the cunning tycoon, builds a mining empire from the wreckage of failed dreams.

From the dust-choked hulls of Vesta’s saloons to the icy stars above Ceres, these stories chronicle the harsh realities of life in the Belt. In a world where oxygen costs more than whiskey, and claim-jumpers hunt in stealth ships, only the sharp, the stubborn, or the soulless survive.

For fans of hard sci-fi, space Westerns, and frontier capitalism, this gritty anthology exposes the sacrifices made to mine the sky—and what’s left when the stars no longer shine for you.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: On Account of a Dame (Timelines Universe Book 9

Welcome to the New Jazz Age!

It’s the Roaring Twenties all over again — well — the 2120’s, that is. Where New York City has reverted to its Jazz Age roots of two centuries before. What’s missing? Prohibition, and gun control. What’s not missing? Tough guys, and the dames who (sometimes) love them. Gin joints. Speakeasies. Dance halls. The Social Register is still a thing, and the Beautiful People litter the society pages of the local hypernews sites.

Enter a typical gumshoe private detective — a member of that high society himself, yet a man who left society long ago for other pursuits. And his latest client, a rich young woman of leisure, who needs her new husband followed.

Throw in the recently-crowned queen of one of Chinatown’s tongs, a beautiful investment wizard from upstate, and a hundred million dollars in assets, and suddenly it’s all

On Account of a Dame

BY PETER RABE, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Dig My Grave Deep (Annotated): The classic pulp noir

Danny Port wanted out. Being the right hand man to the boss of a political machine in a second rate city was no longer interesting, let alone exciting. But Boss Stoker wanted him to stay. And Stoker’s main competition, head of the local Reform Party Bellamy, wants him to switch teams. And nobody, but nobody, is willing to let him leave. Worst of all, every one of them knows about Shelly, and some of them even know what she means to Port.

• This iktaPOP Media edition has a new introduction giving the book genre and historical context.

FROM TIMOTHY WITCHAZEL: Joshua and the Battle of Jericho: A Poem in Alliterative Verse

From author and poet Timothy V. Witchazel comes the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho in alliterative verse. Tracing the story of the Israelites from the parting of the Red Sea to the fall of the walls of Jericho, the story is retold in the style of Beowulf, Piers Plowman, and other Anglo-Saxon poems.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Having a Pint (Liquid Diet Chronicles Book 2)

Even the dead have to make a living…

Meg Turner, vampire accountant and investments advisor, has plenty of living clients, but not many among her fellow undead. That’s about to change: she’s been invited to a regional business fair for her kind. She’ll get to meet and greet more bloodsuckers than she really wanted to (hopefully without having to suck up to any of them). than just the two Vampire cops she helped track down and stake her late, unlamented sire—and hopefully make some friends and answer some questions.

Unfortunately, she’s got a Line Progenitor who’s begun invading her dreams, and a serial killer stalking her future clients to distract her from growing her business. Throw in a sick roommate not long before the conference starts, a mafia messenger boy left on her front porch, and only one car to juggle all of her responsibilities toward her roommate and unexpected guest. And then on top of that, she has the business fair over an hour away that features vampire karaoke, nosy, pushy elder bloodsuckers, and one particular elder who’s friends with her unwelcome dream guest. Seriously, it’s enough to drive her to drink something other than coffee or blood.

Just why did she think this whole conference thing sounded like a good idea, again?

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Maze, the Manor, and the Unicorn

A short story of banishment and magical intrigues.

Cecily had been a lady-in-waiting. Exiled to Clearwater — for her health — after she angered Queen Blanche, she has nothing to do but wait.

Until an ambassador is sent there, for his health, and Cecily finds that the court intrigues reach farther than she had known they could.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Time Enough to Spy

A spy has at long last come in from the cold — but all is not as it seems. The longer his debriefing continues, the more uneasy he becomes. In particular, how can he reconcile his presence here with the impossibility of both rescue and escape from a polity with the power to remodel the bodies of their subjects at will?

What secret hides behind those cool professional faces of the agents who briefed him so long ago? Has he been induced to betray all he was sent to protect?

A short story of the Madrian Empire.

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: Frantic

Mostly I’ve done not much of anything since death march with mowers. Okay. It was a very bad death march, but still.

Honestly, I think I’m coming down with something, judging by slight temperature, general nausea and my voice going weird. Nothing serious, but–

It makes me react very weirdly to things. Okay, that might also have to do — all of it might — with stopping Prednisone without a taper.

This afternoon I decided I was losing my temper at people unwarrantedly, then my fans/friends went and looked at the arguments and…

There was the guy who thought science fiction should be no more than 10 years in the future and have all the science. All the science. Super-accurate science. No more than 10 years in the future.

That’s not science fiction. That’s near-future techno thrillers. Younger son will probably end up writing these (after series he’s working on with me.) And they’re completely valid, and I’ve enjoyed some of them. They are not, however all of science fiction. Leave my space opera alone. I bite.

The other ones who came in talking about how the US is too free and this invites communism turned out to be for real Nazis who think fascism is the answer to communism. (I blocked so many people. Yes, they think they won the argument. I think I need to wash just communicating with that type of stupidity over the net.)

He also at one point assumed I am pro abortion on demand and for only fans (somehow) because woman. (Also he thought that Nazis were more moral than communists. Don’t get me started.) Only fans — meh. The porn we’ll always have with us. Porn and cat pictures. I have a high interest in cat pictures (real felines. I don’t even demand they be pets. Big cats are fine.) I don’t look at it. My friends either don’t or don’t talk to me about it. Do I think it’s damaging, etc? Sure. And if I can, if my opinion is asked, I’ll tell people it’s bad for them. But I’m not the boss of the vast majority of people. And I know flat out making that stuff illegal simply doesn’t work.

As for abortion, I think everyone here knows my opinions.

But this touches on something I’ve seen far too often, and when I wrote about not making me a scapegoat, I meant it indeed.

Look, guys, men and women are different. Pretty much from the womb. But there’s a spectrum. And us Odds are, I swear Odd first. We tend to be more “logical” than not.

Yes, I’m sick and tired of people who assume because I was born with a vagina they know my politics. I hate them on the left, where they call me a gender traitor, as though I’d sworn allegiance to the vagina. And I hate it on the right where they assume I’ll do all this stuff and support all this stuff because “of course female.” Including the idiots who say that I might not support all those things that are supposedly women’s preference, but I’ll “betray” it when it gives advantage to women.

I have to assume all the idiots making those mouth noises were born by fission and are single. In fact, they never had a relationship with another human being. Because me? Where I stand I’m the daughter of a man, the sister of a man, married to a man and the mother of two men. And if you guys think that doesn’t matter, you’re as crazy as those people.

Seriously. People aren’t just themselves alone. They are a network of people, and that means they live with other people.

Also, let’s get rid of “I don’t read women, because–” Unless what follows is “they mostly don’t write what I read” you’re being an ass.

Look, as a woman, I admit there is a higher bar these days towards reading women (Or literary fiction. More on that later) because I expect to be sucker punched. I expect at some point there will be a rant against men, or having children, or capitalism or– I even know at least for trad pub women that most of these rants are demanded by the editor. But dear Lord, you get invested in a character, you follow the character and then… smack. Same for literary fic, where they seem to think nothing is as “literary” as making everyone evil and hateful.

But I give women (and some, though rare, and mostly classical) literary a chance.) And if it’s someone I know from twitter say, I really give them a chance.

The other thing is: Can we talk about the fact that not everything women write is romance? My books in general don’t have more romance than say Heinlein books. No, seriously. And I don’t even mean his later books. More like… oh, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

There are some that have more romance, yes, but they are either novelizations of real people’s lives (I challenge you to make Jane Seymour, wife of Henry VIII interesting without ascribing her some totally improbable romance tot he guy who imported sonnets (as a form of poetry) into English (as I figured he deserved it.)) or the stuff my assistant is currently editing (clearing the stupid stuff the house put in.) Though when I told her those were Romances, she looked at me like I’d lost my mind and told me no, they’re adventure, history and cultural clash, with a little personal attraction thrown in. So, there you have it.

On the serious side, sure, I have more motivation from personal attraction than…. oh, mil sf. (Unless it was Prince Roger.) Or children’s picture books. Usually people in my books are doing things for other people: friends, lovers, children, spouses. Because… well, most people only become heroes in extremes and that’s one way to get the character to move. But my stuff is no more romance than Heinlein’s late stuff was “porn”. When people say that, I always wonder if they’ve read any contemporary romance or mystery (published by the big houses.) Both are likely to contain more explicit sex than anything Heinlein wrote. (And way more than I did.)

Anyway, you see, I’ve been getting a bit cranky. And yeah, it’s probably the prednisone cut-off. I normally just ignore the glaring stupid. And the mildly annoying.

I’m really hoping to finish an installment of Witch’s Daughter tomorrow and to — finally — send section two of NML to the copy editor (I need to implement a couple clean ups my editors suggested first.) And typeset section one, which is back from the copyeditor, so that the paper will also be on pre-order. And I suppose I should investigate Barnes and Noble and the other places. And set things up there.

Anyway, if I snap at you, it’s partly because I swear I’ve been besieged by strange idiocy and infuriating coincidences (including but not limited to the fact the lawn guy showed up after the lawn was done. Yes, he had good reasons, but still… Argh) and the fact I’m just touchy. I’ll try to be less touchy. I don’t like ME when I’m touchy.

In more amusing news: I know I have a mutant cat who can taste sugar. Indy keeps finding ways of breaking into or getting to things that are sweet. I suspected this since the first time I found him face deep in the sugar bowl omnoming away, but now I’ve secured that stuff where he can’t get to it, he’s resorted to stuff like…. licking the bowl where we had the grapes, because there’s some sweet stickiness left behind.

I guess he fits in with all geeks. No. I’m not giving him mountain dew. Geesh. Cats don’t do well on caffeine.

Also I found the Paul French book, then lost it again. I know, I know. “I sense some resistance” … I guess.

This too shall pass. On the good side, there are a bunch of things I’m doing more competently — or at all — than I was when we moved three years ago. Including the death march with mowers. When I tried to mow before, the asthma attack almost killed me. This time, there were only peripheral allergies. I’m also managing doctors’ appointments (the making of) and such much better than I was. So, there’s hope. I guess altitude was seriously messing me up.

Oh, yes, if you sent a check to the fundraiser, we might not cash till labor day. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but we don’t have a bank closer to us than two hours and hate doing banking on the phone. We will try to make it before that, but it depends on Dan’s schedule. Again I’m sorry. I know it’s a massive inconvenience, and we’ll try to make it sooner. But it is what it is. Dan just had it forwarded, since the last one came in on the 31st. (Not sure why.)

Anyway, I leave you with the inevitable cat picture.

That’s Dan’s and my legs under the fuzzy blanket. Circe is on me, Muse is on him. Indy is squarely between us (weirdly not demanding we hold his paws) and Havey is also kind of in between us. We were, needless to say, watching a British mystery. (A not bad one, though also not great. Is it me or have British mysteries turned into shows about emotional disregulation with everyone from policemen to suspects going on rants and throwing punches? It didn’t use to be that way and frankly? it just looks stupid. So I end up doing other stuff while watching, or I make too many tart comments.)

And now I’m going to feed the bosses and go to bed. The cat food timed dispenser stopped working and if I leave it too late, they open it and carpet the living room in cat food. I thought it was Indy, but no, it’s Circe, his sister. (I yelled at her when I caught her doing it, and she went and got Indy, apparently under the impression I wouldn’t yell at her big brother. She was wrong.)

I’ll try to be more productive tomorrow.

First of all, if you subscribe to my substack and/or were hoping for a book review, the substack will come (a chapter of Witch’s Daughter) tomorrow. The book review probably Friday. I lost the book for a while.

I’m running late on account of Death March with Mowers. I.e. our lawn care fell through, and I’m the one who can do it. Which would be easier if it weren’t almost an acre, and the only implement to cut it we have weren’t a little electric mower. Oh. We have an electric sheep too, but he who wrangles tech hasn’t had a chance to train it.

Of course, the moment I was done, lawn care showed up. Mistakes were made, won’t happen again, etc. etc. etc. Just in case, He Who Wrangles Tech shall be nagged into taking the electric sheep out and showing it where to dine.

Meanwhile I spent the day in a state of near — almost — functionality. Which is better than non functional as the last two days, but not exciting. (It wasn’t so much the mowing. It’s just hot and the combination of the two was a bit much.) (My assistant who is reading this as I write it reminds me it might also be hangover from just stopped prednisone. And that’s quite likely.)

Suffice to say I’m out of sorts, a state in which I’m likely to get annoyed by things I’d normally ignore. Which is why my readers who aren’t science fiction readers or particularly interested in shelving conventions or designation of genres are going to have to forgive me while I go into matters of genre, which will in turn lead to a point for the larger culture wars.

Because, trust me, it does apply.

I’m not picking on the person who left the comment in Mad Genius Club saying that since No Man’s Land dealt with complex speculation and problems it would be considered literary anyway, so why not market that way.

There are things that are so wrong they’re not even wrong with the idea of leaning into “literary” for marketing, but they’re things most people who haven’t been in the trenches for the last 30 years can’t be expected to know. I think the top sales figures for literary these days — that’s with full traditional support, push from critics that can declare something anointed and perfect, etc — is around 2k copies. For releases without buzz, let alone indie which is to say something no self-respecting critic of literary fiction would sully himself with, I suspect that would be maybe a couple hundred.

Then there is what “literary” is.

I know of at least three definitions, none of which applies even remotely to my novel. Oh, okay, sorry. I hope one does apply, but by the time it does apply it will be a long time and we’ll all be dead.

Because the first definition of literary and what we’re all familiar with is “classics.” I.e. books that have stood the test of time and are around to be read. And which can still be broadly enjoyed if literature professors aren’t actually trying to suck the life out of them by teaching them in class: Shakespeare. Jane Austen. For a more recent example, Mark Twain.
Obviously I hope No Man’s Land — and others of my works — make it to that category. Mostly because that’s the standard I aim for. (I am btw aware this is unlikely. But either way, it doesn’t matter here and now.)

The second definition is “Literary is a genre like any other.” I.e. it’s a shelving category in bookstores. It is broadly defined as “things that literature critics and professors like.” (And which they think will become classics. Their record on this is… less than perfect. If they’d existed in Shakespeare’s day they’d have considered him a pulp hack.) It used to be the needed classing for this was “has beautiful language.” Hence Ray Bradbury tends to be shelved there. Also “is fairly obscure in meaning/form” which is why Jorge Luis Borges is also there. (I enjoy them both and think they have a good chance of making it to classics.)

Third – In recent years this, like everything else connected to Academia the definition of “literary” has decayed, and now what gets shelved there tends to fall in the category of “repeats current popular politically correct shibboleths.” And often, from what my younger fans tell me “is so obscure it has absolutely no plot.” To be fair “recent” is as far back as my days in college where I had a book inflicted on me in which the “Author” decided to dispense with the unit of time. Anyway, this explains why books like the semi-competent soft-core porn The Handmaid’s Tail Tale is on that shelf. The chances of that one making it to classic are such that I’m sure future generations will wonder at hysterical leftist women dressing like Ketchup bottles. I’m sure there will be many a thesis written on that subject.

This is because these days being crazy-Marxist and politically correct is the mark of an excellent education. (That decay of Academia, yes.) Which means that the same people who used to put Classical Allusions in their stories now make them into Just So Marxist Allegories. (Or the various subgroups, from “race” to “feminism.”) As I said, these are what college professors teach in the hopes of convincing you they should be classics. Most of them are of a quality and a resonance with real human problems that they are more likely to be burned for warmth in a nuclear winter. (And the nuclear winter thing was probably made up during the cold war and about as likely as a prosperous communist society.)

Again, I’m not upset at the suggestion that No Man’s Land should be considered literary, because I know the view of literary people on the street have. It’s complex, satisfying, and has heft. Honestly, I’m flattered if anything.

However — hefts Samurai sword — what the hell have you people done to my chosen genre while I was busy writing fantasy and mystery and other things that publishing houses gave preference to?

Because, you know, this isn’t the first time I’ve run into this. And its’ starting to get under my skin. Because–

Well, guys, it took me a d*mn long time (and a half) to get there, but I got into this writing gig to write science fiction. And the particular sub-branch of science fiction I wanted to write was space opera.

Not that I have anything against hard science fiction. And portions of my forecasting are always fairly “hard.” And, supposing I stay in shape, I have a hard YA SF plotted with a friend/collaborator.

It’s just that what I want to crunch my head around are things like the clash of cultures that cannot be reconciled because one culture is “modified humanity.” (Which is what NML is. Exploring that. Plus the ethics of bringing a barbaric culture to civilization and can it in fact be done without destroying its members. All without the hard triggers of using real cultures/history.) Or the ethics of modifying and optimizing humans (Darkships.) Or… probably a good dozen other things which will emerge after I’ve written them. (You see, I write to understand problems, but I never know what problem I’m trying to solve, in my head, until I do it.) And I’m completely unscrupulous in casting “future science” to serve the needs of my plot.

I know Heinlein was — for his time — writing hard science fiction, but what makes his works immortal (or close enough) and will probably have him in the same category as Shakespeare in a couple three hundred years is that kind of thing: Human problems with a vast canvas scope. (And a small, individual one at the same time. No? Well, you might need to re-read both The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers. While you’re at it read everything else, too. It’s good for you and puts hair on your chest. Unless you’re a woman in which case it puts more chest in your chest.)

It wasn’t only Heinlein. That collection of science fiction I’m trying to revisit is full of people doing just that. And even if I think some of them — particularly the French (not, not Asimov’s pen name. The nationality!) — are out of their ever loving mind, they all try to tackle complex problems that are either too “sensitive” or too weird to be tackled in a present-day context.

And that is the circus I ran away with at eleven, when I first found out that such a thing as “science fiction” existed. (Weirdly, I was in my twenties before I realized FANTASY existed. And the first time I came across a Fantasy book I was bewildered by its very existence. I’ve reconciled myself to it, and will admit it serves a lot of the same purposes as science fiction. I just don’t feel as at-ease in its constraints and with its touchstones, and despite my best efforts (and the fact I love a lot of fantasy like Tolkien or Pratchett — other two who will become classics. Well, one almost is, already) am haunted by the feeling that it shows in my work.)

I became aware there was a problem with this a couple decades ago, when I was looking for stuff to read. “I’m in the mood for space opera” brings a never end of mil sf recommendations.

I do read mil sf occasionally, but to me it’s a sub-branch of space opera and not even close to the whole of the thing, or even the main part of the thing.

My attempts at cluing people in by saying stuff like “Like Prince Roger” brought back “yeah, mil sf.” (Well, it technically is, but actually it’s “adventures in strange imaginary worlds that tell us something about the essence of being human.” Why is that different from fantasy? Because the game is played for plausibility and without excuses, that’s why. It’s a different mind-set.)

Anyway, I won’t lie. It’s part of the reason I’m revisiting the books I grew up reading. I might be Ronin and masterless, (BIRM) but I want to remember the house I belong to.

And then, starting a couple of years ago, I started meeting people surprised that my novels meant something, that is was more than pew pew zoom zoom, that I was actually trying to solve basic issues of the human condition/history.

This baffled me, because else what was science fiction for? Why even have this thing called science fiction or at least the space-opera sub-branch?

Today’s comment put this in perspective for me.

Sit up. Stop chewing gum. Did you bring enough for everyone? Pay attention. This is the part that applies to the culture wars at large.

THE REASON THAT PEOPLE THINK THIS IS BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN LISTENING TO THE LEFT AGAIN!

I know this because I read the same articles and books, where in the middle of what is actually a cogent, sensible point, someone SNEERS at genre and talks about science fiction “hacks” or fantasy “scribblers.”

All of this, of course, while comparing it to the immortal beauty of “literary” by which they mean their own hacks who frankly aren’t, by and large (the recent ones) even competent at the trappings of the genre they’re attempting to skin suit.

Listen up, guys: stop putting leftist ideas in your heads. You know very well where they’ve been. And I hope you washed your hands after touching them.

The left sneers at that which is too creative for them to imitate. They have — as Hollywood is proving — all the creativity of the fae and all the subtlety of giant mecha.

They are telling you that “literary” — by which they mean their drek — is so much better because they’re hoping you think their lack of plot and awkward phrasing is intentional and “deep.”

Stop letting them set terms.

Yes, we are in a weird landscape, and they’ve broken all the walls of the houses we swore allegiance to. Or if you prefer they skinsuited so many institutions that skinsuiting literary genres is the least of it.

And yet, they’re not taking Heinlein’s genre and making it a simplistic, meaningless thing. Oh no. Not while I’m here and I’ve got my sword pen

You and you and you too, before you engage in the game make sure you’re not using words the left has corrupted and distorted. They’re dying a deserved intellectual death, and you don’t want to lend them life by echoing them.

Alas we are ronin. Cool. Let’s topple the skinsuiting regime and restore the right sovereign. Culturally speaking.

Come on. This will be fun. Strap on your mind-sword. Let’s go rampage.

*Before we get to this I want to say two things about this post. The first is that he’s absolutely right: it’s almost impossible for AI to decode things like slurred words. How do I know that? Because — as Kate Paulk pointed out — I have a “variable accent” which never hits the same word exactly the same, plus at least three intersecting linguistic influences: Portugal, Great Britain and North Carolina. The end result is that not even the “best” AI transcription programs (“this one transcribes my Indian boss with no problems!”) can transcribe my DELIBERATE DICTATION, and the things it gets are pretty outrageous and have no relationship to what I actually said. This without people deliberately seeding mistranslations.
Second, the people pushing the anti-semitic bullshit as a true translation are utterly despicable and have (OBVIOUSLY) never met a Jewish person in their lives. Because even drunk people wouldn’t say something like that. NO HUMAN BEING WOULD.
No, Jewish people don’t talk about money for no reason. That’s a stupid stereotype with buried historical origins I can explain another time, if you insist (I want to get out of the way of the guest post). BUT no one would go on that type of rant. No one.
Granted babbling how much one loves G-d while drunk off one’s ass is weird, but it’s also the most Jewish thing ever. This kid is the most adorable little religious geek ever. (Though some of my Baptist (almost spelled it Babtist. I love you guys. I was just hearing it SC accent.) friends might be as gloriously odd when drunk if of course they drank. Also for those going “Ew, drunk” if you can’t hold your alcohol the Purim celebration will absolutely make you like this.)
The ugly strain of anti-semitism appearing online is one of those things being promoted and seeded by nations that want the US to rip itself apart. That this is being pushed after 10/7 is just icing on the idiocy cake.
10/7 made it very clear who the barbarians are, and who is on the side of civilization and humanity. The barbarians are not Jews. If you fall for this campaign and start making Jews into the root of all evil, you are an idiot and you should be ashamed of yourself. – SAH*

Beware LLM (“AI”) translations of foreign-language videos. – A Guest Post by J. C. Salomon

There are lots of incidents where large-language models (commonly called “AI”) get things amusingly wrong.  Look up the “map of United States, with just Texas and Illinois colored the same, and each state labeled”; apparently I live in the state of “York Virginia”, just north of “Delmar”, “Marylaid”. and “Delaward”.  This post is not about that, but how these systems are vulnerable to malicious poisoning of their data.  And it’s a lot less amusing.

This particular incident happened with Grok on 𝕏, but probably all LLM “AI” systems are vulnerable in similar ways.

On a recent Purim in Israel (perhaps this past March, perhaps a few years ago; there’s no date in the video) someone took this video of a drunk young man exclaiming how much he loves God and His law & commandments:

Watch the original video with the correct translation pic.twitter.com/nYZqNRnIw1

— Canary Mission (@canarymission) August 5, 2025

(I verify the accuracy of the Canary Mission translation.  The rest of their thread on the topic is also a good read: https://x.com/canarymission/status/1952742426608574937 and for the xless: https://xcancel.com/canarymission/status/1952742426608574937)

Nobody fails to look silly while drunk, but we’d most of us babble about more inane things.

Along comes some anonymous ragebait account and posts the video (the original version, without the subtitles); and someone responds by asking Grok to translate:

I do not for a second think this question was asked as innocently as it’s made to look.  Like I said, this is a ragebait account, and (checking post history) it’s got a special emphasis on promoting Jew-hatred.  Still, we’ve all seen the various AI systems do a pretty good job of transcribing and translating videos, so what’s the worst that can happen?

But speech recognition remains a difficult and error-prone task, even for ChatGPT and Grok. So they implement a rather clever optimization: if there’s a reputable site with the video and a purported transcript, just report that result.  And if there are a couple of sites that have similar transcripts, assign that a very high confidence rating.  Normally, that will get a best-quality result with the least computation.  But—

—but that optimization is vulnerable to maliciously false information.

The people behind this exploit posted the video and a completely fake transcript to a couple of sites which Grok trusts (including supposedly Reddit’s /r/Yiddish board, though I have not found that post).  Once they confirmed that Grok was trusting their fake translation, they posted the seemingly-innocent question, and then pretended to be shocked and horrified at the response:

Let me be very clear:  That Grok post is a lie.  The only true words in that “translation” are “the man speaks”, nothing beyond that. He speaks Hebrew not Yiddish; he says nothing about Zionists, shekels or any other money, or buying anything let alone the world; he says nothing bad about non-Jews, he doesn’t use the word “goy” in any way, and does not curse anyone.  He doesn’t use words phonetically similar to any of that.  There is simply no way that algorithmic transcription and translation yielded this result.

And yet, Grok was firm about repeating this claim when challenged, even providing a (completely fake) Yiddish transcription, and elaborations on what the young man supposedly said.  In one reply to me Grok insisted the video showed the man holding money.  Usually it’s easy to bully an LLM into agreeing with you against its previous answer, but not this time.

All because the data it trusted had been poisoned with lies and hated.

(This has been corrected, somewhat, a few hours later.  Some—but not all—of the Grok mistranslations have been deleted, and Grok will now respond by saying the earlier posts were due to “hallucinations”.  But not before accounts with 100k+ follower counts reposted the lie.)

Some of us remember “Google bombing”, as when the string “miserable failure” was seeded into the algorithm so Google would point you to the White House site.  Everything old is new again, it seems.

Caveat lector.

That word in the title is not a typo. Bleg is a compound of blog and beg.

But Sarah, you’re thinking, you just did a blog fundraiser.

I sure did. This is not a fundraiser and not a request for money. This is a request for help, some of which might be trivial to you — depending on who you are — and some of which might be a reach, or might be a matter of “I know a guy” (which I don’t.)

So, here’s the thing: As some of you know — those of you who follow my writing at least — I’ve just finished a mammoth of book, so mammoth it will be published in three volumes.

The book is No Man’s Land. the first volume is setup to come out on the 9th of September, with the other two volumes coming out at two week intervals thereafter.

Yes, the book is finished — in fact I have released earcs of the first two volumes to people who subscribe to my blog. (e-electronic. Arcs – advance reading copies.)

I have the first volume back from the copy-editor — to those who called me on it in the e-arc, yes, she was scathing on the subject of lightening/lightning. Look, I NEVER knew the difference. Or rather, I do, but I keep mixing it up all the same — and need to send her the second volume. It should have been done today, but for reasons difficult to explain I spent the day doing yard work, and will need to do it again tomorrow. (ARGH. Very good workout, but–) At any rate, it will be to her by Wednesday or so.

Anyway, if you want to know what whole three-part book is about, it’s up with a blurb for the whole story, and then a blurb per volume.

(Full disclosure, if you decide to buy when you click through, I get a small portion of the sale. I mean, as an associate link, beyond what I get because it’s my book!)

No Man’s Land

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

Volume 1

Volume 1
The Ambassador Corps has rules: you cannot know everything, don’t get horizontal with the natives, don’t make promises you can’t keep.
They’re a lot harder to follow when assassins are hunting you, your barbarian allies could kill you for the wrong word, and death lurks around every corner.
The unwritten rule? Never identify with the natives.
Skip’s already broken that one.
Now he’s racing against time to save his new friends from slavery—or worse—while dodging energy blasts and political intrigue. One crash-landed diplomat. A world of deadly secrets. And absolutely no backup.

Some rules are meant to be broken. Others will get you killed.

Volume 2

He was wrong.

Now his potential allies from the Star Empire are turning up dead, one by one. Spies and saboteurs have infiltrated every level of Ellyan society, and Skip is running out of people he can trust.

As he races to save the king and archmagician—his only remaining allies—disturbing secrets about Elly’s culture emerge alongside buried truths about his own family’s past. One moment he’s explaining the bewildering concept of binary gender to confused Ellyans, the next he’s making impossible choices that could strand him on this world forever.

His last gambit is reckless. The odds of success are slim. And failure means losing everything—his mission, his allies, his only way home.

But some fights are worth the risk, even when the deck is stacked against you.

Sometimes the most dangerous enemy is the one you never see coming.

Volume 3

Skip’s idea of crisis management?
Stress baking. While he’s kneading away his anxiety, Eerlen Troz is fighting for his life—and his unborn child’s—in an ancient and familiar battle.
When saving Eerlen’s life requires forging an unexpected blood brotherhood, it creates something neither person anticipated: a memory bond between two worlds.
Through shared consciousness, they uncover a conspiracy that threatens not just Elly, but the entire Star Empire.
The plot runs deeper than anyone imagined. Lives, fortunes, and freedom itself hang in the balance. But exposing the truth means surviving long enough to tell it—and their enemies have other plans. Two minds. One mission. A galaxies-spanning conspiracy that someone will kill to protect.
When the fate of worlds rests on an unlikely brotherhood forged in blood and baked goods.

*********

So, anyway, part of the problem with this book is that it’s odd. It simply is. I am not running it down mind, on the contrary, but you know, science fiction books come in a range, and mine is hanging out on the extreme end, or perhaps to the side, doing a little dance, fully out the “expected” range.

The other problem is that it’s a heart-book. I can’t explain that, I think, to anyone but a writer. Readers tend to think a heart-book is a book the author writes a book with his/her message, and makes sure the message gets through and–
It’s not like that at all. It has nothing to do with self insertion (which I just don’t do anyway, since I have my own life and don’t need to live the characters’ lives) or putting out the message you care about, or even “With this book I will fight communism forever.”
A heart book is like a favorite child. Which parents aren’t supposed to have but each writer has anyway. (Not in their kids, dorks, in the books.)
Some of it inexplicable. When I was writing short stories at one a week, most of the time I was okay with each of them. I wasn’t in love with, I didn’t hate it. I did the best job I could to get it out of my head and into everyone else’s. And then I sent it out. Was I happy when I got rejections? No. But unless it were the day I got sixty rejections back, I was fine.
However, one in fifty short stories just GOT me. It was a favorite child. And every time it got rejected, it gutted me.
Some of it, with this book, is explicable. This book first came to me when I was 14. And it’s been waiting. I wrote 8 versions of it before this, but I knew they weren’t right. This one IS. And this one is a piece of me.
I want to say here that this doesn’t mean heart-books are good. Jane Austen’s, bizarrely, was Emma, not Pride and Prejudice. Or even Persuasion.

HOWEVER, and keep in mind this is me, I’ve written a lot of books and normally my basic fail at publicity is that if you ask me if the book is good, I tell you “It’s a book. You might like it, or you might not. I don’t know.” But No Man’s Land is GOOD. It’s a d*mn good book.

Which brings us to problem three:
I have no idea how to market. NONE.

The main problem is that I never did. It’s not so much that I don’t want to promote, or that I’m afraid to, or that I’m shy, diffident or modest. None of that is quite right.

It’s more that I never had the right kind of contacts for traditional publishing. I never did. I never had a link to the powerful, the influential, the people who knew people in New York City publishing. I had editors and agents, but I think I was a bit of a kludge for them, (that not fitting into an easy category thing) and at any rate publishers and agents are not in the business of publicizing anyone but the already successful. Or those who for their own reasons are targeted and marked for success. I was never one of those. And I never had the alternative channels to do it.

I still don’t have the alternative channels.

I’m not going to lie, I do have some publicity ability: This blog. Instapundit links. I’ve used them for others and (sparingly) for myself, but for this book I’m willing to publicize myself as if I were someone I love who has written a — damn — good book.

But the thing is, the book deserves publicity. It deserves to reach farther than my normal captive audience.

And I have no clue how to do it.

Oh, there are …. webinars and methods and ways to evaluate it. And that’s fine. Except that a) that’s not the way my mind works. b) I don’t want to spend a year figuring out how to make it work. c) no one quite knows how to make it work.

I know the patter from these webinars. It’s just like the talks that published (but not crazy successful) writers used to do at cons. They sold you “my method for breaking in” and what you could be sure of is that the method was already oudated or had worked once, through freak chance.

Sure, ad campaigns work. They take a lot of time, but they work. And you can make a small fortune by spending a large fortune. I don’t have a large fortune. And if I did, I still wouldn’t want to spend it on that. Because you can, and it might never do anything. And the campaigns are less likely to work for a truly off beat property. They work much better with “This is the great thriller just like this other great thriller.” I don’t have that.

So here we are: I have this book I want to promote, and I have no idea how. So, hence the bleg.

A Writer’s Bleg

Let me start by saying I don’t want you to contact me if you are selling your for-pay blog review (I can get fifteen of those offers on linked in. But I don’t think they have more — and some have significantly less — reach than this blog and certainly than Instapundit.)

I don’t want you to contact me if you are a “publicist” who wants to “design a campaign for me” — not unless you have d*mn good references with clients I can verify exist and can contact independently. And even then I’d have to know what you intend to do for THIS particular book. And remember, I’m not made of money, nor is this a vanity project where I spend my retirement account for fame. I’m a working stiff, variety writer — unless you really are a unicorn. And a verifiable unicorn, not a goat with a horn velcroed on. I wasn’t born yesterday, I’m a veteran of 25 plus years as a professional, and you’re not — like someone tried on twitter — going to beguile me by praising the book you haven’t even read to the sky. No.

So, that should take care of most of the spam hitting my mailbox.

Now, what I DO WANT.

Are you a writer I have helped promote? I know you might — probably do — have fewer resources than I.

However, if you have resources, could you give me a little bit of promotion? No matter how small, it will get me a few eyes that would otherwise never see my book.

(If you’re uncomfortable (the book is almost distressingly wholesome, but it might not come across like that in the description) feel free to ping me for ARCs at Goldport Press at gmail dot com. And if you still feel uncomfortable, that’s fine.)

Just, you know, a mention, a review or if you really turn out to like it after reading the ARCs some “push” in the sense that you tell your friends it’s a d*mn good book. (Word of mouth still works best for books, I find.)

Other ways you can help: Do you have a blog? I would like to do your basic “blog tour”. I.e. I’ll come to your blog, be entertaining on the subject of whatever your theme is, and then plug my book at the end.

Do you have a podcast? I’m a d*mn good prospect for an interview, because I — allegedly — have an accent, and people tend to be fascinated by it. Also, I get nervous, and APPARENTLY I babble amusingly.

If you don’t have either a blog or a podcast, but have a friend who does? Can you ask them. I’m not telling you to take their pets hostage or anything, but just ask.

Do you have some idea how else to promote? And I mean a realistic idea not a “As G-d is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly” type of idea. Let me know.

This is a bleg. I can forecast social trends and politics, and kill current events to read the future in their entrails.

Publicity, though? I have no clue. There’s an art to it, and it’s not my art.

I want to be writing the second story, which is started, but… And I want to be finishing Witch’s Daughter and the two Dyce books. And the next Rhodes. And writing the next shifters and Fuse’s story in Darkship Thieves. Not trying to play games with impressions and conversions and hits and…

So, help a direwolf writer out, please?

I’m blegging you with tears in my eyes. Brother, can you spare some word of mouth and pass it on?